“Oh, haven’t you heard?” said a man in an orange-and-white striped waistcoat. “You know he was mad to marry one of the Laxton girls? Pretty child, only just out. Well, the Laxtons are trying to hush it up, but I had it from young Arnold himself that the filly’s bolted!”
“Bolted?” repeated Crewe.
“Vanished, my dear fellow. Can’t be found! No wonder our friend’s sore!”
“Well, I don’t blame her,” said Crewe. “Filey and a chit out of the schoolroom! Damme, it’s little better than a rape! But where did she bolt to?”
“No one knows. I told you she’d vanished. And the best of it is the Laxton’s daren’t set the Runners on to her track for fear of the story’s leaking out! Wouldn’t look well at all forcing a child of that age into marriage with a man of Filey’s reputation!”
“It wouldn’t come to that!” objected Mr Horley.
“Oh, wouldn’t it, by God? You don’t know Lady Laxton, when there’s a fortune at stake,” chuckled the man in the orange-striped waistcoat.
Lady Bellingham, feeling that her cup was now full to overflowing, cast a despairing look towards her niece, and wondered why a mouthful of cold partridge should taste of ashes.
“It is not to be supposed,” said Lord Mablethorpe carefully, “that Filey will wish to marry any female who shows herself so averse from his suit.”
“If you think that, you don’t know Filey!” said Crewe. “He would think it added a spice to matrimony.”