There was another gentleman in the hall, just about to go up the wide stairway to the saloon. He was g
ood-looking in a rather florid style, with very heavily-arched brows and a roving eye. His dress proclaimed the Macaroni, for he wore a short coat decorated with frog-buttons, fine striped breeches with bunches of strings at the knee, and a waistcoat hardly reaching below the waist. The frills of his shirt front stuck out at the top, and instead of the cravat, he displayed a very full handkerchief tied in a bow under his chin. On his head he wore an amazingly tall ladder-toupet, dusted with blue hair powder, and he carried in his hand a long tasselled cane.
He turned as my lord entered, and when he saw who it was, came across the hall. ‘I hoped I was the last,’ he complained. He raised his quizzing-glass, and through it peered at the hole in his lordship’s coat. ‘My dear Vidal!’ he said, shocked. ‘My dear fellow! Ecod, my lord, your coat!’
One of the lackeys had it over his arm. My lord shook out his Dresden ruffles, but carelessly as though it mattered very little to him to be point-de-vice. ‘Well, Charles, what of my coat?’ he asked.
Mr Fox achieved a shudder. ‘There’s a damned hole in it, Vidal,’ he protested. He moved forward and very gingerly lifted a fold of the garment. ‘And a damned smell of powder, Vidal,’ he said. ‘You’ve been shooting someone.’
His lordship leaned against the bannister, and opened his snuff-box. ‘Some scum of a footpad only,’ he said.
Mr Fox abandoned his affectations for the moment. ‘Kill him, Dominic?’
‘Of course,’ said my lord.
Mr Fox grinned. ‘What have you done with the corpse, my boy?’
‘Done with it?’ said his lordship with a touch of impatience. ‘Nothing. What should I do with a corpse?’
Mr Fox rubbed his chin. ‘Devil take me if I know,’ he said after some thought. ‘But you can’t leave a corpse on the road, Dominic. People might see it on the way back to town. Ladies won’t like it.’
His lordship had raised a pinch of snuff to one classic nostril, but he paused before he sniffed. ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ he admitted. A gleam, possibly of amusement, stole into his eyes. He glanced at the lackey who still held his damaged greatcoat. ‘There is a corpse somewhere on the road to town. Mr Fox does not wish it there. Remove it!’
The lackey was far too well trained to display emotion, but he was a little shaken. ‘Yes, my lord,’ he said. ‘What does your lordship want done with it, if you please?’
‘I have no idea,’ said his lordship. ‘Charles, what do you want done with it?’
‘Egad, what is to be done with a corpse in the middle of Hounslow Heath?’ demanded Mr Fox. ‘I’ve a notion it should be delivered to a constable.’
‘You hear,’ said his lordship. ‘The corpse must be conveyed to town.’
‘Bow Street,’ interjected Mr Fox.
‘To Bow Street – with the compliments of Mr Fox.’
‘No, damme, I don’t take the credit for it, Dominic. Compliments of the Marquis of Vidal, my man.’
The lackey swallowed something in his throat, and said with a palpable effort: ‘It shall be attended to, sir.’
Mr Fox looked at the Marquis. ‘I don’t see what else we can do, Dominic, do you?’
‘We seem to have been put to a vast deal of inconvenience already,’ replied the Marquis, dusting his sleeve with a very fine handkerchief. ‘I do not propose to bother my head further in the matter.’
‘Then we may as well go upstairs,’ said Mr Fox.
‘I await your pleasure, my dear Charles,’ returned his lordship, and began leisurely to mount the shallow stairs.
Mr Fox fell in beside him, drawing an elegant brisé fan from his pocket. He opened it carefully, and held it for his friend to see. ‘Vernis Martin,’ he said.
His lordship glanced casually down at it. ‘Very pretty,’ he replied. ‘Chassereau, I suppose.’
‘Quite right,’ Mr Fox said, waving it gently to and fro. ‘Subject, Télémaque, in ivory.’
They passed round the bend in the stairway. Down in the hall the two lackeys looked at one another. ‘Corpses one moment, fans the next,’ said the man who held Vidal’s coat. ‘There’s the Quality for you!’
The episode of the corpse had by this time apparently faded from Lord Vidal’s mind, but Mr Fox, thinking it a very good tale, spoke of it to at least three people, who repeated it to others. It came in due course to the ears of Lady Fanny Marling, who, in company with her son John, and her daughter Juliana, was present at the drum.
Lady Fanny had been a widow for a number of years, and the polite world had ceased to predict a second marriage for her. Flighty she had always been, but her affection for the late Mr Edward Marling had been a very real thing. Her period of mourning had lasted a full year, and when she reappeared in society it was quite a long time before she had spirits to amuse herself with even the mildest flirtation. Now, with a daughter of marriageable age, she was becoming quite matronly, and had taken to arraying herself in purples and greys, and to wearing on her exceedingly elaborate coiffure turbans that spoke the dowager.