Charity Girl (20 page)

   The quarrel ended as abruptly as it had begun, my lady suddenly recollecting Desford's presence, and exclaiming: 'Oh, whatever must Lord Desford be thinking of us, coming to cuffs like a couple of children over no more than a barleystraw? You must excuse us, my lord! Well, they do say that the first year of marriage is difficult, don't they, and I'm sure my First and I had many a tiff, but no more than lovers' quarrels, like this little breeze me and my Second has just had!' She leaned forward to fondle her Second's unresponsive hand as she spoke, and adjured him, in sugared accents, not to put himself into a fuss over a mere shawl.

   'I don't give a rush for what Desford thinks of me!' declared Nettlecombe, two hectic spots of colour burning in his cheeks. 'Cocky young busy-head! Meddling in my affairs!'

   'Oh, no!' Desford interposed. 'Merely bringing your affairs to your notice, sir!'

   Nettlecombe glared at him. 'Wilfred's daughter is no affair of mine! It seems to me she's
your affair, young man! Ay, an
d it seems to me there's something very havey-cavey about this! How did you come to be with her when she called at my house? Tell me that! It's my belief you ran off with her from her aunt's house, and now you're trying to be rid of her! Well, you're blowing at a cold coal! No man has ever contrived to put the change on
me
!'

   Desford turned white with anger, and for an instant such an ugly look blazed in his eyes that Nettlecombe shrank back in his chair, and his spouse rushed forward, and dramatically com manded the Viscount to remember her lord's age and infirmities. It was unnecessary. The Viscount had already regained control over his temper, and although he was still pale with wrath, he was able to say in a level voice: 'I do not forget it, ma'am. His lord-ship's infirmities seem to have affected his brain, and God forbid I should call a lunatic to account! If I allowed myself to follow my own inclinations I should leave this house immediately, but I am not here for any purpose of my own, but solely on behalf of an unfortunate child, who has no one but him to turn to, and so must suffer him to insult me with what patience I can muster!'

   Nettlecombe, who had been scared out of his ungovernable fury, muttered something that might have been an apology, and added, in a querulous tone: 'Well, it
does
sound haveycavey to me – and so it would to anyone!'

   'It is not, however. I did not
run off with Miss Steane fro
m her aunt's house. Even if I were such a loose screw as to run off with any girl, you can hardly suppose that I could possibly do so after barely half-an-hour's conversation with her! I encountered her, the day after my one meeting with her, trudging along the post-road to London, quite unattended, and carrying a heavy portmanteau. I pulled up my horses, of course, and tried to discover what had led her to take such an imprudent – indeed, such an improper step! I shall not weary you with what she was induced to tell me: I will merely say that she was in great distress, and by far too young and inexperienced to have the least idea of what might be the disastrous consequences of her rash ness. Her one thought was to reach
you, sir – believin
g in her innocence that you would help her! Since you haven't hesitated to throw the grossest of insults at my head, I need not scruple to tell you that I didn't share her belief ! I did what I could to persuade her to let me drive her back to her aunt's house, but I failed. She begged me instead to take her to London. We reached your house in the late afternoon, by which time I had seen enough of her to make me feel that no one, least of all a grandparent, could be hardhearted enough to turn her from his door. And in spite of the intemperate things you have said I still think that had you been at home, and had seen her, you must have taken pity on her. But you were not at home – which was almost as big a facer for me as it was for her! In the circumstances, I thought the best thing I could do was to take her to a very old friend of mine, and leave her in her charge until I could discover your whereabouts, and put her case before you. I trust I have now done so to your satisfaction.'

   'There's only one thing she can do. She must return to her aunt,' said Nettlecombe. '
She took the girl away from school
, so it's
her
responsibility to look after her, not mine!'

   'That's just what I was thinking!' nodded the lady.

   'It is a waste of time to think it, ma'am: she won't go. I dare-say she would liefer hire herself out as a cook-maid!'

   'Well, and why shouldn't she?' demanded her ladyship, bristling. 'I'm sure it's a very respectable calling, and there's plenty of chances for her to rise higher, if she has her wits about her, and gives satisfaction!'

   'What have you to say to that, sir?' asked the Viscount. 'Could you stomach the knowledge that your granddaughter was earning her bread as a servant?'

   Nettlecombe uttered a brutal laugh. 'Why not? I
married
one!'

   This declaration not unnaturally took Desford's breath away. He found himself bereft of words; but on my lady it had quite another effect. She rounded on Nettlecombe, and said in a trembling voice: 'I was never a servant of yours, and well you know it! I was your lady-housekeeper, and I'll thank you to remember it! The idea of you casting nasty aspersions at me! Don't you dare do so never no more, or you'll hear some home-speaking from me, my lord, and so I warn you!'

   He looked a little ashamed, and more than a little apprehensive, and said hastily: 'There, don't take a pet, Maria! I didn't mean it! The thing is that Desford has nettled me into such a flame that I hardly know what I'm saying. Not but what – However, let it rest! I'll give you a new bonnet!'

   This offer led to an instant reconciliation, my lady even going so far as to embrace him, exclaiming: '
That's more lik
e my dear old Nettle!'

   'Yes, but I'll go with you to choose it, mind!' said his lordship warily. 'And as for Wilfred's brat, if you think you can palaver me into taking her into my house, Desford, I'll tell you once and for all I won't do it!'

   'I don't think it. What I beg leave to suggest to you, sir, is that you should make her an allowance: enough to enable her to maintain herself respectably. Not a fortune, but an independence.'

   But this proposal made Nettlecombe's eyes start alarmingly in their sockets, with as much incredulity as dismay. He said in a choked voice: 'Squander my money on that little gypsy? Do you take me for a cabbage-head?'

   He received prompt support from his bride, who advised him strongly not to let himself be choused out of his blunt. She added, with great frankness, that for her part she had no notion of raking and scraping to save his blunt for him only to see it thrown away on a hurly-burly girl who had no claim on him. 'It's bad enough for you to be obliged to grease Jonas's wheels,' she said, 'and when I think of the way he's behaved to me, trying to get you to turn me off, let alone coming the nob over me, it turns me downright queasy to think of him, and that niffy-naffy wife of his, living as high as coach-horses at
our
expense!'

   The Viscount picked up his hat and gloves, and said contemptuously: 'Very well, sir. If money means more to you than reputation there is nothing further to be said, and I'll take my leave of you.'

   'It does!' snapped Nettlecombe. 'I care nothing for what anyone says of me – never have cared! And the sooner you take yourself off the better pleased I shall be!'

   But the Viscount's words had made the bride look sharply at him, a shade of uneasiness in her face. She said, in a blustering manner: 'I'm sure there's no reason why anyone should blame my lord! No one ever blamed him for disowning the girl's father, and he was his son!'

   The Viscount, who had not missed that swift, faint look of uneasiness, replied, slightly raising his brows: 'Well, that is not quite true, ma'am. It was acknowledged that he had been given great provocation, but a number of people considered that he had acted in a – let us say, in a way that was unbecoming in one who was not only a father, but a man of rank.'

   'Balderdash!' ejaculated Nettlecombe, flushing. 'How do
you
know what anyone thought? You were in the schoolroom!'

   'You must have forgotten, sir, that my father was one of those who did blame you,' said the Viscount gently. 'And – er – made no secret of his disapproval!'

   As Lord Wroxton's disapproval had found expression in giving Nettlecombe the cut direct in full view of some dozen members of the ton, it was not surprising that the angry flush on Nettlecombe's face deepened to a purple hue. He snarled: 'Much I cared for Wroxton's opinion!' but his fingers curled themselves into claws, and he glared at Desford as though he would have liked to fix those claws round his throat.

   'Furthermore,' pursued Desford relentlessly, 'whatever ex cuses might be found for your treatment of your son, none can be found for your behaviour towards his orphaned daughter, who is innocent of any fault, but is to become not only the victim of her father's improvidence but also of her grandfather's rancour!'

   'Let 'em say what they choose! I don't care a button
what
they say!'

   'They won't know anything about it!' said my lady. 'My lord don't go about much nowadays, so – ' She stopped, staring at Desford, who was smiling in a very disquieting way.

   'Oh, yes, they will know, ma'am!' he said. 'I pledge you my word the story will be all over town within a sennight!'

   'Jackanapes! Rush-buckler!' Nettlecombe spat at him.

   But at this point my lady quickly intervened, begging him not to fret himself into a fever. 'It won't do to act hasty!' she urged. 'You may not care for what people say of you, but it's my belief it's me as will be blamed! Even your friends have behaved very stiff to me, and I don't doubt but what they'd say it was my doing you wouldn't have anything to do with this girl, and that won't suit
me,
my lord, and no amount of argufying will make me say different!'

   'And it won't suit me to waste my money on the girl! Next you'll be telling me it's my duty to buy her an annuity!'

   'No, I shan't. It isn't to be expected that you should, nor that you should pay her an allowance, for who's to say when you might find it inconvenient to be obliged to shell out the ready – pay the allowance, I mean? I don't hold with allowances: it makes anyone fidgety to have a thing like that coming due every quarter. No, I've got a better notion in my noddle – better for the girl too! What she wants, poor little thing, is a home, and that's what you
can give her, and without being purse-pinched
. So why don't you write to her, and offer to take her into the family? I'll see to it she don't worrit you, and she won't worrit me either. In fact, the more I think of it the more I feel I should
like
to have her. She'll be company for me.'

   'Take Wilfred's brat into the family?' he repeated, almost stunned.

   She patted his hand. 'Well, my lord here is in the right of it when he says it ain't her fault she's Wilfred's brat. I declare I feel downright sorry for her! And if it's expense you're thinking of, Nettle, I shouldn't wonder at it if she turned out to be an economy, because it wouldn't be an extra mouth to feed, for you know I paid off Betty before we left London, thinking it was a sinful waste of money to keep a girl just to mend the linen, and wash the chandeliers, and the best china, and lend old Lattiford a hand with the silver, and that. Mind you, it's a bigger waste of money keeping a butler that's as old and infirm as what he is, but you'd have to pension him off if you sent him packing, so while he
can work it's best for us t
o keep him.'

   Nettlecombe, who had listened to her in gathering exaspera tion, said explosively: 'No, I tell you! I won't have her in my house!'

   'Allow me to set your mind at rest!' said Desford. 'You will most certainly not have her in your house, sir! I didn't help her to escape from one slavery only to pitchfork her into another!'

   He strode towards the door, ignoring a plea from my lady to wait. She followed him into the corridor, begging him not to take her lord's tetchiness amiss, and assuring him that he might rely on her to bring him round. 'The thing is,' she said earnestly, 'that he's out of sorts, poor dear gentleman, and no wonder, with all the kick-up there's been, thinking he was going to lose me, because that shabster, Jonas, had the impudence to set it about that I was setting my cap at him, which I never did, nor thought of ! All I thought of was to make him comfortable, which I promise you I did! What's more, I was the most saving house keeper he'd ever had! But when that Jonas took to saying I was a man-trap, and warning his pa against me –
well
! I was obliged to tell his lordship I must leave at the term, because I've got my good name to think about, haven't I? So his lordship made me an Offer, which is all the good Master Jonas got out of trying to be rid of me!' She ended on a triumphant note, but as the Viscount was wholly unresponsive, tightened her hold on his sleeve, and said ingratiatingly: 'And as for making his grand-daughter a
slave,
you quite mistook my meaning, my lord! I'm sure I wouldn't ask her to do anything I wouldn't do myself – yes, and have done, times out of mind! Not that I was born to it, mind you! Oh, dear me, no! I often think my poor father would have turned in his grave if he'd lived to see the straits I was reduced to, him having been cheated out of his inheritance, like he was, and my First losing his fortune, and leaving me without a souse, which is why I was forced to earn my own bread as best I could. No one knows better than me what it means to step down from one's rightful station, so if you was thinking Miss Steane would be a
servant in her grandpa's house you're quit
e beside the bridge, my lord! She'll have a good home, and not be asked to do anything any genteel girl wouldn't be expected to do to help her ma!'