As for the Incomparable Isabella herself, the news came to her as an undeniable and not very welcome shock. Sherry was the first of her suitors to have found consolation elsewhere, and she would have been more than human had she not experienced a strong sensation of pique. However, she had a good deal of pride, and was a good-natured girl, and she told Lady Sheringham that she had always known Sherry to be uncommonly fond of Hero, and she was sure she wished them both very happy.
This dignified way of receiving the news met with Mrs Milborne’s shrewd approval. “Very prettily done of you, indeed, my love!” she said, as soon as the dowager had left them. “But it is a shocking thing, to be sure! To marry a wretched little nobody like Hero Wantage, without a penny to her name, when the whole town has known him to have been at your feet this age past!”
“You are forgetting, Mama, that he offered for me, and I refused him.”
“To be sure you did. I wish you had not been so vehement in your refusal, I must own, my love. It cannot add to your consequence to have him running off straight away to wed another. I dare say he did it from mortification, and I only hope he may not live to rue the day. All things considered, my dear, I think we will return to London. And it will be a good scheme for you to send Hero your felicitations.”
“I have the intention of doing so, Mama.”
“Viscountess Sheringham!” said Mrs Milborne, in a disgruntled tone. “Well, I am sure I did not think to see that chit married before you, my love, with all the splendid chances you have had!”
The dowager, meanwhile, had taken the momentous decision of travelling to London, with what purpose she would have been unable to state with any clarity. She said in a vague but impressive way that Anthony must at least listen to the words of his Mother, though upon what grounds she based this conviction no one could imagine. She commanded her brother to escort and support her on her pilgrimage, and set forth in an enormous travelling chariot, attended by her abigail, a coachman, a footman, and outriders, and preceded by a similar (but less magnificent) vehicle, containing her trunks, and as many servants as she considered necessary to ensure her comfort in the house in Grosvenor Square for a few days. This put her in mind of a fresh injury, and she told her brother that she had little doubt that her undutiful son would throw her into the street, and install his wretched bride in the house his sainted Papa had brought her home to twenty-four years ago. Mr Paulett, appreciating at least the spirit of this, forbore to remind her that the late Viscount had, in fact, brought her home to Sheringham Place.
But when the afflicted lady reached town, and dispatched a peremptory note to Fenton’s Hotel, a civil message was conveyed to her that my Lord Sheringham had gone out of town with his lady. The clerk of Fenton’s Hotel obligingly added the information that his lordship could be found at Melton Mowbray.
Herein the Viscount had made a grave mistake. Had he but remained in London, had he but shown a dutiful penitence, had his bride but placed herself in her mother-in-law’s hands, craving forgiveness and instruction, that lady might have been brought to realize all the advantages of the marriage, and would have needed little persuasion to sponsor her son’s wife into the Polite World. But nothing could have alienated her more than Sherry’s craven retreat, which she had no hesitation in ascribing to Hero’s influence. That her own conduct over the past ten years might have had something to do with it, she naturally did not consider. She sent first for Prosper Verelst, and upon learning from him that he had had nothing to do with the elopement, but that Gilbert Ringwood and young Ferdy Fakenham knew all about it, she sent for Mr Ringwood. She parted on very cool terms with her brother-in-law, that gentleman having had the temerity to say that he thought Sherry’s bride a pretty little creature, and — with a roll of his eye in the direction of Mr Paulett — that he was devilish glad to see the boy assume control of his affairs.
Upon learning that Mr Ringwood too was out of town, the dowager lost no time in sending a summons to Mr Ferdy Fakenham. But as she made the mistake of stating her reason for wishing to see him, she defeated her own ends, Mr Fakenham, with rare presence of mind, instructing his servants to inform her that he was out of town, cancelling all his engagements, and retreating, like a hare startled from its form, to join the bridal couple (and his friend Mr Ringwood) in Leicestershire.