Black Sheep (35 page)

“Has no one ever told you that it is the height of impropriety to kiss any gentleman, unless you have the intention of accompanying him immediately to the altar?” demanded the outraged Mr Calverleigh. “It will not do, ma’am! Such conduct—”

He broke off abruptly, as she looked up, between tears and laughter, and said, in quite another voice: “Now, what’s this? Let me look at you!”

As he took her face between his hands as he spoke, and turned it up, she was obliged to let him. She dared not meet his eyes, however, and very nearly broke down again when he said, after a moment’s scrutiny: “ My loved one, I left you in a high state of preservation! What has been happening here?”

She moved away, saying: “Do I look hagged? I am—I am rather tired. Fanny has been ill. And there have been other things.” She smiled, with an effort, and made a gesture towards a chair—“Won’t you sit down? I must tell you—explain to you—why I can’t marry you.”

“Yes, I think you must do that,” he said, drawing her to the sofa. “I can think of only one reason: that you find you don’t love me enough.”

She allowed him, though reluctantly, to push her gently down on to the sofa, and sat there, primly upright, with her hands tightly folded in her lap. “I meant to tell you that that was it, ” she said, keeping her eyes lowered. “I—thought it would be best to say just that. I never, never meant to—” She stopped, as a thought occurred to her, and looked up, a sparkle of indignation in her eyes. “I should like to know what Mitton was about to let you walk in on me, without coming first to ask me if I was
at home to visitors, and not even announcing you!” she said, with a strong suggestion of ill-usage in her voice.

He had taken his place at the other end of the sofa, seated sideways, with one arm lying along the back of it: a position which enabled him to keep his eyes on her profile. He seemed to be quite at his ease; and there was nothing in his demeanour to suggest that he was suffering from any of the chagrin natural to a gentleman whose suit had been rejected. He said: “Oh, you mustn’t blame the poor fellow! I told him I would announce myself.”

“You had no business to do so!” scolded Abby. “If you hadn’t startled me—if I had had a
moment’s
warning—I shouldn’t have—it wouldn’t have happened!”

“Well, you might not have kissed me, but I had every intention of kissing you, so it’s just as well he didn’t announce me,” said Mr Calverleigh. “Do you always kiss gentlemen who walk in unannounced? I’ll take good care none is allowed to do so when we are married!”

A smile trembled on her lips, and she blushed faintly, but also she shook her head, saying: “We are not going to be married.’

“I was forgetting that,” he apologized. “Why are we not going to be married?”

“That is what I feel I must explain to you. I didn’t mean to, but after behaving so very improperly it wouldn’t be any use to tell you that I don’t love you, would it?”

“No, none at all,” he agreed.

“No. Well—you must try to understand, Miles! I know you don’t enter into my feelings on this subject, so it is very difficult to explain it to you. I have thought and thought—argued with myself until my head aches—but in the end I’ve realized that I cannot marry you—ought not to do so!”

“What brought you to this conclusion?” he asked conversationally.

She began carefully to pleat her damp handkerchief. “I suppose you might say it was Mrs Ruscombe. She is Cornelia’s bosom-bow—James’s wife, you know—and she makes it her business to spy on us, and to send a record of all our doings to Cornelia.” She raised her eyes to his for an instant, smiling wryly. “I am afraid we were not very discreet, Miles, for she told Cornelia that I was encouraging your advances, and that brought James down upon us, as you may imagine. Of course we came to points—we always do—but even though I was in the most shocking pelter I couldn’t keep from laughing. You never heard such pompous fustian in your life! I found myself wishing you could have been there to enjoy it!”

“I rather wish that too,” acknowledged Mr Calverleigh. “Did he forbid the banns?”

“Heavens, yes! He said that if I married you I should be cast out of the family, and he would have divulged the Awful Truth about you and Celia if I hadn’t told him that I knew it already, and that shocked him so much that he said he began to think we—you and I—were well matched!”

“You know, he’s not such a bad fellow after all!” remarked Miles.

“He is a toad. It wasn’t anything he said which made me realize how impossible it is. Nothing he said to me. But he said it all over again to Selina, and, I daresay, a great deal more.” She fell silent, deeply troubled. At last, she sighed, and said: “I never knew how much Selina loved me. James told her she would have to choose between me and the family, and, oh, Miles, she said that she would never give me up, whatever I did! Selina! But she was dreadfully upset—she made herself ill, and she is still quite overpowered, and—and can scarcely bear to let me out of her sight. She says over and over again that she doesn’t know what she will do when I’m gone, and that—has made me realize how wrong—how heartless—it would be if I were to marry you. If you had been the sort of dull, respectable man of whom the family would have approved I think she would have grown accustomed—though sometimes I feel I ought not to leave her, no matter who asked me to marry him. You see, we have been together all my life, and for years—ever since my mother died—I’ve managed everything for her, and taken care of her. But if you had been Peter Dunston, whom she has been trying to persuade me to marry these three years, she would have been pleased, and that would have helped her to bear the loneliness she dreads. She would have known I was near at hand, and she wouldn’t have been estranged from the family, or—. Oh, I can’t explain it to you! So—so many evils would result from our marriage! If you think it wouldn’t become known that I had married you against the wishes of my family, you cannot know Bath! They might seem insignificant to you; they seem so to me; but not to Selina. And then there is Fanny!”

“I wondered when we were going to come to Fanny,” remarked Miles chattily.

“We must come to her. I can’t desert her, Miles. She is in great affliction, poor child, for she has discovered what is your vile nephew’s true character!”

“Just as you hoped she might,” he interpolated.

“Yes, indeed, and I am thankful for it! But it has quite overset her, and—and she too needs me. It would never do to leave her here with Selina—wholly separated from me! For she would be, you see. James wouldn’t permit me even to write to her. When she knew about Stacy, she told me that she was glad she had me—for always. She won’t want me always, of course, but perhaps for some years to come she will.”

“Would it be of any use for me to suggest that there are answers to all these problems?” he said.

She shook her head. “No. You see, one can argue—one can persuade oneself that none of these things matter, but one knows, all the time, that they do matter. Miles, I
could
not, deliberately, and selfishly, for the sake of my own happiness, plunge my whole family into so much trouble, and the two I love most into misery as well! I beg of you, don’t try to convince me! I’m worn out with thinking!”

Her voice cracked; she put up her hand to shield her eyes; and felt her other taken into a sustaining clasp.

“No, I won’t try to convince you,” said Miles reassuringly.

Someone must have told Selina that her sister was closeted with Mr Calverleigh. Since James Wendover’s visit she had not left her room until noon, yet here she was, entering the drawing-room with a nervous cough, and looking far less trim than usual, as if she had dressed in a hurry.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, in rehearsed surprise. “Mr Calverleigh! Dear me, I had no notion you were in Bath! So civil of you to call! Such a wretched day too!”

Abby sprang up and walked over to the window; Mr Calverleigh, rising more leisurely, showed no sign of discomfiture, but shook hands with Selina, and in the calmest way enquired after her health. He remained only for a few minutes longer, and when he took his leave it was with unruffled composure.

Hardly was the door shut behind him than Selina said in an agitated voice: “He was holding your hand! Oh, Abby, why did he come? Do not keep me in suspense! I can’t bear it!”

“I imagine you must know why he came,” said Abby, in a level voice.

“I guessed it!” moaned Selina, pressing a hand to her heart “What was your answer ?
Tell
me, Abby!”

“Don’t distress yourself!” Abby said wearily. “I have refused his offer.”

“Oh!” cried Selina, suddenly radiant. “Oh, how glad I am! Dear, dear Abby, now we can be happy again!”

Feeling quite unable to respond to this, Abby left the room without a word, and sought the seclusion of her bedchamber. She remained there for some considerable time, and was thus spared the account of Mr Calverleigh’s arrival in Bath, which Miss Butterbank, with a scarf still wrapped round her face, brought to Sydney Place. Selina said nothing about this when she later told Abby the rest of the news Miss Butterbank had poured into her ears. This was of a startling and an intriguing nature: Mrs Clapham, accompanied by her retinue, had left Bath on the previous evening; and Mr Stacy Calverleigh had undoubtedly followed her, for he had boarded one of the post coaches that very morning, and without, said Miss Butterbank, a word of warning to anyone.

Abby was relieved to know that he had removed himself from Bath, but although she made an effort to enter into Selina’s speculations on the various possible causes of these separate departures, she felt no flicker of interest. The next piece of Bath news came from Mrs Leavening, and interested her too much.

Mrs Leavening, now established in Orange Grove, had called at York House for any letters which might have been sent there, and she had learnt of Mr Calverleigh’s return. She had also learnt that he had remained for only one night before disappearing again, like a perfect will-o’-the-wisp.

“There’s no knowing what freakish thing he’ll do next!” chuckled Mrs Leavening. “What in the world made him come all the way from London only for one night? It seems he’s set up his own chaise, too, but where it has taken him off to goodness knows! He is quite in my black books, as I shall tell him, for he promised to give us a look-in when he came back to Bath, and never a glimpse of him did we get. However, they say he means to return, so I daresay I shall have an opportunity to give him a scold.”

Abby, knowing that it would be better for her not to see Mr Calverleigh again, tried to school herself into hoping that he would not call in Sydney Place, but failed. Their parting had been too abrupt; there had been so much left unsaid; and to have been obliged to say goodbye to him as to the merest acquaintance was too painful to be borne.

Nothing more was heard of him for three interminable days.

Selina, miraculously restored to health and spirits, wrote a surreptitious letter to James, informing him, in the strictest confidence, that all was at an end between Abby and Mr Miles Calverleigh, and that she had known from the start that the affair had been grossly exaggerated by Mrs Ruscombe. She added that she hoped dear Cornelia would not, in future, allow herself to pay so much heed to That Woman’s malicious gossip.

Her expression of dismay, when, upon the fourth day, Mitton announced the arrival of Mr Calverleigh was almost ludicrous. It caught Fanny’s attention, and made her look quickly at Abby, a sudden suspicion entering her mind.

Mr Calverleigh, with his customary disregard for the conventions governing polite circles, had chosen a most unseasonable hour for his visit. The ladies had only ten minutes earlier left the breakfast-parlour. He seemed to be quite unaware that he was committing a social solecism, but entered the room as though sure that he must be welcome, and cheerfully greeted its occupants. He said that he was glad to have found them at home, congratulated Fanny on her recovery from her illness, and, turning to Abby, said, smiling at her: “I’ve come to take you for a drive.”

Selina seethed with indignation. What Abby found to like in this abrupt, mannerless creature was a matter passing her comprehension! She hurried into speech. “So obliging of you, sir, but it would be
most
unwise for my sister to venture out in an open carriage! The weather is so unsettled—it will come on to pour in another hour, I daresay, for at this season there is no depending on it! Besides, I wish her to go with me to the Pump Room!”

Forgetting her own troubles in the liveliest curiosity, Fanny said brightly: “I’ll go with you, Aunt Selina. A drive is just what will do Abby good, after being cooped up in the house for so long!”

Mr Calverleigh, smiling at her, said: “Good girl!” which made her giggle, and told Abby to go and put on her bonnet. He added a recommendation to bring a tippet, or a shawl, with her.

“So that you may be easy!” he said, addressing himself to Selina “I don’t think she will take cold, if she wraps herself up well, and if it should come on to rain we can always find shelter, you
know.”

He then engaged Fanny in idle conversation, while Selina sought in vain for further reasons why Abby should not drive out with him.

When Abby came back into the room, suitably attired for the expedition, Selina made a last attempt to convince her that she was running the gravest risk of contracting a heavy cold, if not an inflammation of the lungs, but Fanny, giving Abby an impulsive kiss, interrupted her very rudely, saying: “Fiddle! It is the finest day we have had for weeks! I’ll come and tuck you up in
quantities
of shawls, Abby!”