Gideon raised his brows. “From what you have told me I should suppose that she will pretty speedily find a nest to settle in,” he said caustically.
“That is the very thing I am seeking to prevent!” said the Duke, irritated.
“Is it worth the pains?”
“Good God, can you not understand that I made myself responsible for her? She is only a child! A pretty fellow I should be if I were to abandon her at this stage! I must try if I cannot induce her to recall more particularly where Mudgley lives. Did you leave all well at Cheyney?”
“I left your servants a trifle stunned by your guests, but it seems probable that Liversedge will assume control of the household. He informed me that I might have the most complete confidence in him. By and by, that bailiff of yours—Moffat, is it?—is overjoyed to learn that you are in Bath, and trusts that you will go to Cheyney. He has all manner of matters to lay before you.”
“If Moffat wants to see me, he must come to Bath. I have no time to go out to Cheyney now.”
“I told him so, and he said that he would come to you,” said Gideon. “There is no escape for you!”
“You might have fobbed him off!” complained the Duke. “Your retainers are not so easily fobbed off. If you are going to Laura Place, I shall come with you. I can no longer exist without a sight of the fair Belinda. Besides, I dote on the Dowager! I wonder if she has bought a new wig? When last I saw her she had a red one—devilish dashing!”
But when they arrived in Laura Place, and were taken up to the drawing-room on the first floor, they found that wiser counsels had prevailed with the Dowager Lady Ampleforth, and she had exchanged the red wig for one of iron grey. But as she chose to set a turban of rich violet silk, shot with orange, on top of these new ringlets the effect was still extremely colourful. She was a handsome old lady, with a beak of a nose, and a wicked eye. In her day she had been, as she had not the slightest hesitation in informing her acquaintance, a great rake, but gout, and increasing years, now largely chained her to her chair. She tolerated her son, despised her three daughters, and cherished towards her daughter-in-law a violent animosity. Since she belonged to a more robust and by far less prim a generation than theirs she had no difficulty at all in shocking her descendants, a pastime to which she was greatly addicted. She received the Duke indulgently, and his cousin with acclaim. Gideon corresponded exactly with her notions of what a young man should be like, and she received his outrageous advances in high delight, encouraging him in every extravagant flattery, and adjuring him to murmur into her ear all the more scandalous stories current in military circles. She was able to regale him with quite a number of warm anecdotes herself, and it was not long before she had signed to him with one twisted hand to draw his chair closer to hers. This left the Duke free to confide his errand to Harriet. She was concerned to learn that he had been unable to discover Mr. Mudgley. “It is not that I do not wish to keep her with me, Gilly,” she explained, “but I know Mama will never permit me to, and there is another circumstance which makes me feel a little uneasy. I am afraid Charlie admires her excessively!”
“Good God!” said the Duke. “I had not thought of that! What is to be done?”