“ I shall not do so!” declared Arabella, “I like him very well, but, as I told you before, I am not such a goose as to be taken-in by him!”
Lady Bridlington looked at her rather doubtfully. “No, my love, I hope not indeed. To be sure, you have so many admirers that we need not consider Mr. Beaumaris. I suppose—you will not be offended at my asking, I know!—I suppose no eligible gentleman has proposed to you?”
Quite a number of gentlemen, eligible and ineligible, had proposed to Arabella, but she shook her head. She might acquit some of her suitors of having designs on her supposed wealth, but two among them at least would never have offered for her hand, she was very sure, had they known her to be penniless; and the courtships of several notorious fortune-hunters made it impossible for her to believe that Lord Bridlington’s well-meaning efforts had in any way scotched that dreadful rumour. She felt her situation to be unhappy indeed. Easter was almost upon them, and there bad been plenty of time for her, with the opportunities which had been granted to her, to have fulfilled her Mama’s ambitions. She felt guilty, for it had cost Mama so much money, which she could ill-afford, to send her to London, so that the least a grateful daughter could have done would have been to have repaid her by accepting some respectable offer of marriage. She could not do it. She cared for none of those who had proposed to her, and although that, she supposed, ought not to weigh too heavily in the scales when balanced against the benefits that would accrue to the dear brothers and sisters, she was resolved to accept no offer from anyone ignorant of her true circumstances. Perhaps there was still to come into her life some suitor to whom it would be possible to confess the whole, but he had not yet appeared, and, pending his arrival, it was with relief that Arabella turned to Mr. Beaumaris, who, whatever his intentions might be, certainly coveted no fortune.
Mr. Beaumaris offered her every facility to turn to him, but he could scarcely congratulate himself on the outcome. The smallest attempt at gallantry had the effect of transforming her from the confiding child he found so engaging into the society damsel who was ready enough to fence lightly with him, but who showed him quite clearly that she wanted none of his practised love-making. And when Lady Bridlington had repeated much of her son’s warning, not omitting to mention the fact that Mr. Beaumaris’s friends knew him to be merely trifling, Mr. Beaumaris found Miss Tallant even more elusive. He was reduced to employing an ignoble stratagem, and, having been obliged to visit his estates on a matter of business, sought Arabella out upon his return, and told her that he wished to consult her again about Jemmy’s future. In this manner, he lured her to drive out with him in his curricle. He drove her to Richmond Park, and she raised no objection to this, though he had not previously taken her farther afield than Chelsea. It was a fine, warm afternoon, with the sun so brightly shining that Arabella ventured to wear a very becoming straw hat, and to carry a small sunshade with a very long handle, which she had seen in the Pantheon Bazaar, and had not been able to resist purchasing. She said, as Mr. Beaumaris handed her up into the curricle, that it was very kind of him to drive her into the country, since she liked it of all things, and was able to think herself, while in that great park, many miles from town.
“Do you know Richmond Park, then?” he asked.
“Oh, yes!” replied Arabella cheerfully. “Lord Fleetwood drove me there last week; and then, you know, the Charnwoods got up a party, and we all went in three barouches. And tomorrow, if it is fine, Sir Geoffrey Morecambe is to take me to see the Florida Gardens.”
“I must count myself fortunate, then, to have found you on a day when you had no other engagement,” remarked Mr. Beaumaris.
“Yes, I am out a great deal,” agreed Arabella. She unfurled the sunshade, and said: “What was it that you wished to tell me about Jemmy, sir?”
“Ah, yes, Jemmy!” he said. “Subject to your consent, Miss Tallant, I am making—in fact, I have made—a trifling change In his upbringing. I fear he will never come to any good under Mrs. Buxton’s roof, and still more do I fear that if he remained there he would shortly be the death of her. At least, so she informed me when I went down to Hampshire the day before yesterday.”
She gave him one of her warm looks. “How very kind that was of you! Did you go all that way on that naughty boy’s account?”