George was so indignant at the thought of anyone’s wanting to wring Hero’s neck that he made no further attempt to persuade Mr Ringwood to relent towards Sherry. The only circumstance which still worried him, he said, was the unhappiness Hero must be suffering. Mr Ringwood agreed to it, but said that it would be better for the poor little soul to be unhappy for a short space now than to grow estranged from Sherry, which was what he feared might have happened had the strange marriage continued along its unsatisfactory course. Moreover, he was able to assure George that Lady Saltash had taken an instant liking to Hero, and, having heard the whole story of the marriage, had accorded her grandson’s intervention her unqualified approval.
What her ladyship had actually said was: “You’re not such a fool as I had thought, Gilbert. Don’t tell me what Anthony said and did! I’ve known that boy since before he was breeched. An engaging scamp, that’s what he is! Go back to London, and take that silly creature, Ferdy Fakenham, with you, for if ever anyone gave me the fidgets it’s he!”
When Sherry visited Miss Milborne, he found her not in quite her usual looks or spirits, but as his mind was wholly occupied by his own troubles, and he was not, in any event an observant young gentleman, he noticed nothing amiss, but plunged immediately into the object of his visit.
She was very much shocked. Unlike his aunt, and Lady Sefton, and Mr Ringwood, she neither said nor believed that Sherry was to blame for Hero’s flight. Never having felt the smallest desire to depart from the strictly conventional herself, the story of the racing engagement quite dismayed her. She could not imagine how any female with the least pretension to elegance of mind, or propriety of taste, could have even listened to such a proposal without a blush of mortification. She could not find it in herself to blame Sherry for having been very much provoked; and she would have extended her warmest sympathy towards him would he but have accepted it. But such was his perversity that no sooner did he find himself in the company of a partisan than he spared no pains to assure her that the fault had been his from start to finish, and that if his Hero had erred in judgment it was through innocence and his own neglect. Miss Milborne thought that such sentiments did him honour, and said so, to which his lordship replied shortly: “Fudge!”
She would have lent him any aid that lay in her power, but with the best will in the world there was nothing she could do, since she had no more idea than he where Hero might have hidden herself. For several years they had not been intimate. Only one idea, and that a painful one, occurred to her. She asked, with a little difficulty, if Sherry had spoken to Lord Wrotham.
“He didn’t know anything,” Sherry replied impatiently. “Thinks she’s in the country, indisposed.”
Miss Milborne rather carefully smoothed out her handkerchief. “I only thought ... It has sometimes seemed to me that — that George displays a marked partiality for Hero, Sherry.”
“Oh, there’s nothing in that!” he said. “Good God, you should know George don’t give a button for any female but yourself!”
Miss Milborne coloured faintly, and looked up as though she would have liked to have said more. But Sherry, having no interest outside his own pressing problem, was already on his feet, and wishing to take his leave. She did not detain him; upon consideration, she did not even know what it was that she wanted to say to him. As she shook hands, she informed him, a little consciously, that she was going into Kent for a time. He accepted this without surprise or interest, and so they parted. Miss Milborne did her best not to fell ill-used, but could not help reflecting that his lordship was a singularly impercipient young man.
For Miss Milborne, for the first time in her life, had behaved in a manner contrary to her own interests, thus disobliging her Mama, and leading that redoubtable dame to prophesy a single existence for her, attended by all the ills that were commonly supposed to wait on spinsters. Miss Milborne, travelling to Severn Towers with the dutiful intention of fulfilling her Mama’s expectations, had been received by the Duchess with every mark of distinguishing attention. There had been a number of other, and certainly more exalted, guests, but she had known herself to be the guest of honour, and had had no difficulty in interpreting her hostess’s benign manner to signify approval of Severn’s suit. She had been shown all over the vast pile, even down to the linen and stillrooms; obviously interested family retainers had bobbed curtsies to her; the housekeeper had initiated her into the mysteries of domestic arrangement; and the Duchess had talked in a casual way of her own plans when her son should bring home a bride. Nothing could have been more gratifying, and why Miss Milborne should suddenly have taken fright was a matter passing the comprehension of her parent. Miss Milborne found herself unable to advance any reasonable explanation for her behaviour. All she would say was that she did not love the Duke, and this was too frivolous an utterance to be accepted by Mama.