For once, Grosvenor Square was utterly deserted. It was that hour of the day—between five and six on a bleak November afternoon—when the inhabitants seemed to have exhausted their enthusiasm for fresh air. The weather was too cold and damp to encourage the usual outing in Hyde Park, and even those few hardy souls who had ventured out at all had long since returned to the comfort of their own hearths. Their more sensible neighbours (those who had not gone away to Scotland for the fox hunting) had stayed within, and were presently deep in afternoon slumbers. The exertions of the evening would not commence for another hour, and the great stone mansions lay silent in the lowering dark. Only a solitary figure scurrying along the glistening cobblestones gave any hint of life. The figure (belonging to a scullery maid hastening back from her mission to the butcher) soon vanished into the servant’s entrance at Number Six, leaving the street once more to the silence and the fog.
At Number Twenty-two, a vast stone edifice belonging to the Princess Lieven, the butler was taking his ease beside the pantry window, which afforded a view of the whole square. Rutgers had little to occupy his mind on this bleak afternoon, for his own mistress had gone away on a hunting party some days before. He was therefore absorbed in his own thoughts, which were of no particular interest to anyone save himself, and in contemplating the street, which was notably devoid of activity. He had glimpsed the furtive scullery maid, and let out a contemptuous snort upon seeing the bundle in her arm. How very typical of Number Six, to leave the marketing till evening! Everyone knew that not an edible joint of meat existed in the whole of London past ten in the morning! Only Lord Hargate’s slovenly housekeeper could have permitted such an atrocity from the cook. Musing to himself thus upon the shortcomings of Number Six, Rutgers barely noticed the approaching rumble of carriage wheels. When the sound grew louder, he started up, as much from instinct as training, and commenced putting on his coat. But the sudden realization that no coach was likely to stop before his own door made him sit down again. With some curiosity, however, for there was seldom any traffic in the square at this hour, he leant forward to get a better look at the vehicle, just now coming into view.
At first the sight did not excite his interest. It was only a dirty hired chaise, of the type commonly seen at any large posting house, which, from the look of its mud-splattered sides and the exhausted team, appeared to have come some distance. Such was the butler’s snobbery (for the most elegant equipages in England daily passed before his door) that he barely accorded it one glance, and this with a little sniff and upward motion of his nose which amply demonstrated his feelings upon seeing so humble a carriage driving in Grosvenor Square. Yet, when this same lowly vehicle passed by the Princess Lieven’s mansion and drew up across the way before Number Six, Rutgers could not resist leaning a little closer to the window and screwing up his eyes to have a better look. His curiosity was further raised on seeing the coachman jump down from his perch and commence unloading the numerous trunks and boxes from the roof.
The butler’s interest was not all impersonal, for he was forever on the lookout for some new item of gossip which could further lower the estimation of Hargate House amongst the servants in the square. Such was the derision already accorded Lord and Lady Hargate and their staff amongst his peers that the effort hardly seemed worthwhile. And yet Rutgers derived so much satisfaction from hearing them abused, and delighted so earnestly in the critical anecdotes recounted to him by his friends, which could illustrate ever more clearly the utter vulgarity and disorganization of that family, that he could not resist pressing his hawklike nose quite against the chilly glass pane in an effort to get a better view.
Nothing could have astonished him more than the figure which presently stepped down from the chaise. Rather than the vulgar relative he half expected, Rutgers was amazed to see a tall and elegant gentleman alight. From the tips of his glowing Hessians to the multiple capes of his fashionable traveling cloak, he was a picture of masculine elegance. Nor did the gentleman possess that affectation of stylishness in his person and attire which may sometimes fool the eyes of a less experienced observer-than Rutgers, who prided himself upon his judgment of his betters. The butler was used to seeing dandies parading in Regent’s Park and Bond Street who could not have bought their way into his own mistress’s drawing room. It is true that Rutgers would have been delighted to recognize just such a pretender to tonnishness alighting before Hargate House, for it would further fuel his argument that Lady Hargate was no better than an overdressed coquette, who could only delight in the company of her own kind. Yet the spectacle before him, though it damppened his spirits at first, only raised them a moment later. The traveler was a Corinthian of the first water—that much one perceived at once. His collars were of just that height, barely grazing the well-defined jawline (for Rutgers, it must be pointed out, had not only the nose of a hawk but the eye of one), which bespoke the best shirtmakers in the kingdom. His leg was slender but well-formed, his neck cloth beautifully knotted, and his gloves impeccable. Nearly upsetting the table beside him, Rutgers managed to see all this, and yet he could not make out the gentleman’s features. These were hidden from view by the rakish angle at which his silk hat was set upon his head and the shadow it cast beneath. The butler had all but given up hope of identifying him when the gentleman turned back (evidently to issue some order to the coachman) and his face was illumined for an instant by a candle from within the house.
“By Jupiter and St. George!” was all the butler could exclaim upon recognizing the traveler. “By Jupiter and St. George—it is Sir Basil back from France!”