Black Sheep (18 page)

Until the covers were removed, and a bottle of brandy set upon the table, Stacy confined his conversation to everyday chit-chat, which consisted largely of anecdotes of ton, and the latest titbits of London scandal, but when the waiter left the parlour Miles Calverleigh, pushing his chair back, and stretching his legs out before him, one ankle crossed over the other, yawned, and said: “Cut line, nevvy! You didn’t invite me here to regale me with on-dits. What do you want of me?”

“Good God, sir, nothing! Why, what should I want?”

“I’ve no idea. Or what you imagine I could—or would—do for you.”

This was not encouraging, but Stacy persevered. “Don’t you feel that we should get to know one another, sir?”

“No, why?”

Stacy blinked at him. “Well—our relationship!”

“Don’t give it a thought! Relations are a dead bore.”

“Not you, sir!” said Stacy, with his ready laugh. “Indeed, far from it! I can’t tell you how many times in the past week I’ve heard your praises sung!”

“Well, don’t try. Are you hopeful of borrowing money from me?”

“Much good that would do me! I daresay your pockets are as much to let as mine!” Stacy said, tossing off the brandy in his glass, and stretching out his hand for the bottle.

Miles, who was warming his own glass in his cupped hands, said: “As I don’t know to what extent your pockets are to—”

He was interrupted. “Wholly!” Stacy said, with yet another laugh, this time one devoid of mirth. “I’m all to pieces!” He waited for a moment, but as he won no other response than a polite look of enquiry from his unfeeling relative continued jerkily: “The devil’s been in the cards! Yes, and in the bones too! I’ve only to rattle them and they fall crabs! If I can’t contrive to fly a kite, I shall be gutted!”

Mr Miles Calverleigh, having warmed his glass to his satisfaction, and savoured the aroma of the brandy, sipped it delicately. “I daresay you’ll come about,” he said.

Anger rose in Stacy, and, with it, his colour. “Not if that curst aunt of Fanny’s has anything to say to it! And now she tells me that Fanny don’t come of full age until she’s five-and-twenty!”

“You will have to look for another kite to fly, won’t you?”

Stacy disposed of his second glass of brandy. “Do you suppose I haven’t done so? Damn it, I thought it was all hollow! But when a man’s luck is out it’s ames-ace with him, whatever he sets his hand to! I’ve been punting on tick for weeks past—hardly dare show my face in town!”

“I should go abroad, if I were you.”

“Pray, what should I subsist on?” snapped Stacy.

“Oh, on your wits!” said Miles cheerfully.

“I collect that’s what you did!”

“Yes, of course.”

“They don’t seem to have served you very well!”

Miles laughed. “Better than an apron-string hold would have done, I promise you!”

There was just enough contempt in his voice to put Stacy, already embarking on a third glass, in a flame. He exclaimed: “I don’t know what right you have to hold up your nose, sir! It’s what you did—or tried to do—yourself!”

“Is it?” said Miles. “You seem to be remarkably well informed!”

“You as good as told me so,” Stacy muttered. “In any event, I’ve always known that you ran off with some heiress or another.”

“So I did,” agreed Miles, without the smallest sign of discomposure. “I shouldn’t recommend you to follow my example: you would do better to regard me in the light of a grim warning.”

“I don’t wish to run off with Fanny! It was never my intention, until that archwife returned to Bath to thrust a spoke in my wheel!”

“That
what!’

The astonishment in his uncle’s voice recalled to Stacy’s mind his reason for having invited him to dinner, and, with an abrupt change of front, he said: “I should not abuse her! No, or blame her either, I suppose. But when one’s hopes are cut up—She has set her face against the marriage, sir!”

“Well, you certainly can’t blame her for that.”

“I have said I don’t! I’ve done my utmost to bring her about—assured her of my determination to be worthy of Fanny—all to no avail! She is unmoved! Nothing I could say had the least effect on her!”

“You can’t tell that. The chances are you made her feel damned queasy.”

“But it’s true!” Stacy declared, flushing hotly. “I’ll be a pattern-husband, I swear!”

“Hornswoggle!” said his uncle, not mincing matters.

“No, I tell you!”

“Well, don’t! What the devil’s the use of telling me that, or anything else?
I’m
not the girl’s guardian!”

“You could help me, if you chose to do it!”

“I doubt it”

“Yes, yes, I’m certain of it!” Stacy said eagerly, once more refilling his glass. “Miss Abigail likes you—you’re wondrous great with her! I heard how she was talking to you today, and laughing at the things you said to her! If you were to support me, plead my cause—”

“Yes, you’re a trifle disguised!” interrupted Miles.

“No such thing! I’ll have you know, sir—”

“Oh, not ape-drunk!” said Miles reassuringly. “Just about half-sprung!”

“I’ll engage to see
you
out, sir!”

Miles looked amused. “You’d be obliged to knock under! However, I’d as lief you made the attempt rather than talk any more balderdash! I plead your cause? What the devil gave you the notion mat I plead any causes but my own? Believe me, it’s wide of the mark!”

“You
can’t
be such a—such care-for-nobody as to refuse to lift as much as a finger to assist me!” said Stacy indignantly.

“Oh, you’re quite mistaken! I am precisely such a care-for-nobody.”

“But I’m your nephew! You can’t want me to be rolled-up!”

“It’s a matter of indifference to me.”

“Well, upon my soul!” Stacy exploded.

“As it would be to you if that fate befell me,” said Miles, slightly smiling. “Why should either of us care a straw for what becomes of the other?”

Stacy gave an uncertain laugh. “Damme if ever I met such a queer-card as you are!”

“Don’t let it distress you! Comfort yourself with the reflection that it would do you no good if I did choose to recommend you to Miss Abigail Wendover.”

“She would listen to you,” Stacy argued. “And if
she
could be brought to consent to the marriage I don’t doubt that Wendover would do so too. He doesn’t concern himself with Fanny—never has done so!—and his wife don’t like her.
She
isn’t going to bring her out next year! I’ll lay you a guinea to a gooseberry she’d be glad to see Fanny safely buckled before she brings out her own daughter!”

“Then why waste your eloquence on me? Address yourself to Mrs James Wendover!”

“With Miss Abigail against me?” Stacy said scornfully. “I’m not such a clunch!”

“My good boy, if you imagine that James Wendover could be persuaded by his sister, or by anyone else, to consent to Fanny’s marriage to a basket-scrambler, you’re a lunatic!” said Miles brutally.

Stacy drained his fourth glass. “What’ll you wager against the chance that he’ll find himself forced to consent?” he demanded, his utterance a little slurred. “Got to force him to—nothing else to be done to bring myself about!”

“What about Danescourt?”

Stacy stared at him rather owlishly. “Danescourt?”

“Why don’t you sell it?” asked Miles coolly.

“Sell it! I’m going to save it! Before they can foreclose!”

“As bad as that?”

“Yes, damn you! Besides—I don’t want to sell it!”

“Why not? You told me you hated it!”

“Yes, but it means something. Gives one consequence. Place in the country, you know: Calverleigh of Danescourt! No substance without it—bellows to mend with me!”

“It appears to be bellows to mend with you already,” said his uncle caustically.

Chapter IX

Mr Stacy Calverleigh, having slept off the result of his potations, awoke, far into the following day, with only the haziest recollections of what might have passed between himself and his uncle. So much did he plume himself on his ability to drink all other men under the table that he ascribed the circumstance of his having been put to bed by the boots to the vile quality of the brandy supplied by the White Hart; and when he encountered Mr Miles Calverleigh in Milsom Street, two days later, he laughingly apologized for it, and for its effect upon himself, describing this as having been rendered a trifle above oar. He spoke gaily, but under his insouciance there lurked a fear that he might have been betrayed into indiscretion. He said that he hoped he had not talked a great deal of nonsense, and was reassured by his uncle’s palpable lack of interest He then ventured to express the hope that Miles would not betray him to the ladies in Sydney Place, saying: “I should find myself in the briars if Miss Abigail even suspected that I do, now and then, have a cup too much!”

“What a good thing you’ve warned me not to do so!” responded Miles sardonically. “Entertaining females with accounts of jug-bitten maunderings is one of my favourite pastimes.”

He left Stacy with one of his careless nods, and strode on down the street, bound for the Pump Room. Here he found all the Wendovers: Abby listening with an expression of courteous interest to one of General Exford’s anecdotes; Fanny making one of a group of lively young persons; and Selina, with Miss Butter-bank in close attendance, receiving the congratulations of her friends on her emergence from seclusion. After an amused glance in Abby’s direction, Miles made his way towards Selina, greeting her with the ease of long friendship, and saying, with his attractive smile: “I shan’t ask you how you do, ma’am: to enquire after a lady’s health implies that she is not in her best looks. Besides, I can see that you are in high bloom.”

She had watched his approach rather doubtfully, but she was by no means impervious to flattery, or to his elusive charm, and she returned the smile, even though she deprecated his compliment, saying: “Good gracious, sir, at my age one doesn’t talk of being in high bloom!
That
is quite a thing of the past—not that I ever was—I mean, no more than
passable!
”

“Oh, my dear Miss Wendover, how can you say so?” exclaimed Miss Butterbank, throwing up her hands, “ Such a farradiddle I declare I never heard! But you are always so modest! I must positively beg Mr Calverleigh to turn a deaf ear to you!”

Since he was at that moment asking Mrs Leavening how she had prospered that morning in her search for lodgings, he had no difficulty in obeying this behest. The only difficulty he experienced was how to extricate himself from a discussion of all the merits, and demerits, of the several sets of apartments Mrs Leavening had inspected. But having agreed with Selina that Axford Buildings were situated in a horrid part of the town, and with Mrs Leavening that Gay Street was too steep for elderly persons, he laughed, and disclosed with disarming candour that he knew nothing of either locality. “But I believe people speak well of Marlborough Buildings,” he offered. “Unless you would perhaps prefer the peace and quiet of Belmont?”

“Belmont?” said Selina incredulously. “But that would never do! It is uphill all the way! You can’t be serious!”

“Of course he isn’t, my dear!” said Mrs Leavening, chuckling. “He hasn’t the least notion where it is. Now, have you, sir?”

“Not the least! I shall make it my business to find out, however, and I’ll tell you this evening, ma’am,” he promised.

He then bowed slightly, and walked away. Selina, taking umbrage at the suggestion that there was any part of Bath with which she was not fully acquainted, exclaimed: “Well, I must say I think him a very odd creature! One might have supposed—not that I know him at all well, and one shouldn’t judge anyone on a angle morning-visit, even in his riding-dress, which I cannot like—though Abby assures me he won’t
dine
with us in it—but his manners are very strange and abrupt!”

“Oh, he is certainly an original, but so droll!” said Mrs Leavening. “We like him very much, you know, and find nothing in his manners to disgust us.”

“Exactly what I have been saying to dear Miss Wendover!” interpolated Miss Butterbank. “Anyone of whom Miss Abby approves cannot be other than gentlemanlike!”

“Yes, but it is not at all the thing for her to be going to the play in his company. At least, it doesn’t suit
my
sense of propriety, though no doubt my notions are antiquated, and, of course, Abby is not a girl, precisely, but to talk as if she was on the shell is a great piece of nonsense!”

Mrs Leavening agreed to this, but as her husband came up at that moment Selina did not tell her old friend that Abby, not content with accompanying Mr Calverleigh to the theatre, had actually invited him to dine in Sydney Place.

This bold stroke had quite overset Selina. The news that Mr Calverleigh had been so kind as to invite Abby to go to the play she had received placidly enough, if with a little surprise: it seemed very odd that a single gentleman should get up a party, but no doubt he wished to return the hospitality of such ladies as Mrs Grayshott, and Lady Weaverham. Were the Ancrums going as well?

Abby was tempted, for a craven moment, to return a noncommittal answer, but she overcame the impulse, and replied in an airy tone: “Oh, it is not a party! Do you think I ought not to have accepted ? I did hesitate, but at my age it is surely not improper? Besides, the play is
The Venetian Outlaw
,
which I particularly want to see! From some cause or another I never have seen it, you know: once I was ill, when it was put on here, and once I was away from home; but you went to see it twice, didn’t you ? And were in raptures!”