The Nonesuch (26 page)

‘I don’t think you uncivil: merely untruthful! Why do you call me a morning-visitor, when you know very well I’ve been awaiting the opportunity to see you privately – and certainly not with the object of uttering social inanities?’ He smiled at her. ‘Are you fearful of offending against the proprieties? You’re not so missish! And even the most strictly guarded girl, you know, is permitted to receive an offer
of marriage un-chaperoned!’

She put out her hand, in a repelling gesture, averting her head, and saying imploringly: ‘No, don’t say it! pray don’t!’

‘But, my dear – !’

‘Sir Waldo, I am very much obliged to you – much honoured – but I can’t accept your – your very flattering offer!’

‘Why not?’ he asked quietly.

Dismayed, she realized that she ought to have foreseen that he would say something quite unexpected. She had not, and was betrayed into incoherence. ‘I don’t – I could never – I have no intention of – no thought of marriage!’

He was silent for a moment, a crease between his brows, his eyes, fixed on her profile, a little puzzled. He said at last: ‘Don’t you think that you might perhaps bring yourself to give marriage a thought? It’s quite easy, you know! Only consider for how many more years than you
I
never gave it a thought. And then I met you, and loved you, and found that I was thinking of very little else! Forgive me! – I don’t mean to sound presumptuous – but I can’t believe that you are as indifferent to me as you’d have me think!’

She flushed. ‘I am aware that I – that I gave you reason to suppose that it would not be disagreeable to me to receive this offer. Even that I have encouraged you! I didn’t mean it so. Circumstances have thrown us a good deal together, and – and I found you amusing and conversable, and was led, I am afraid, into – into treating you with a familiarity which you mistook for something warmer than mere liking!’

‘You are wrong,’ he replied. ‘So far from encouraging me, or treating me with familiarity, you have been at pains to hold me at arm’s length. But there has been a look in your eyes – I can’t explain, but I couldn’t mistake it, unless I were blind, or a green youth, and I’m neither!’

‘I don’t doubt that you have had a great deal of experience, sir, but in this instance I assure you you have been misled.’

‘Yes, I have had experience,’ he said, looking gravely at her. ‘Is that what’s in your mind?’

‘No – that is, – Sir Waldo, I must be frank with you, and tell you that even if I wished to be married, I could never wish for marriage with a man whose tastes – whose mode of life – is so much opposed to everything which I have been taught to hold in esteem!’

‘My dear girl,’ he said, between hurt and amusement, ‘I’m really not quite as frippery a fellow as you seem to think! I own that in my grasstime I committed a great many follies and extravagances, but, believe me, I’ve long since outgrown them! I don’t think they were any worse than what nine out of ten youngsters commit, but unfortunately I achieved, through certain circumstances, a notoriety which most young men escape. I was born with a natural aptitude for the sporting pursuits you regard with so much distrust, and I inherited, at far too early an age, a fortune which not only enabled me to indulge my tastes in the most expensive manner imaginable, but which made me an object of such interest that everything I did was noted, and talked of. That’s heady stuff for greenhorns, you know! There was a time when I gave the gossips plenty to talk about. But do give me credit for having seen the error of my ways!’

‘Yes – oh, yes! But – Sir Waldo, I beg you to say no more! My mind is made up, and discussion can only be painful to us both! I have been very much at fault – I can only ask your forgiveness! If I had known that you were not merely flirting with me –’

‘But you did know it,’ he interposed. ‘You’re not a fool, and you can’t have supposed that when I told you I wanted to be private with you, because I had a proposition to lay before you, I was
flirting
with you! You didn’t suppose it. Something has occurred since I met you in the village which has brought about this change in you – and I fancy I know what it must have been!’

Her eyes lifted quickly to his face, and sank again.

‘Tell me!’ he said imperatively. ‘Have you been accused of setting your cap at me? Yes, that’s an outrageous question, isn’t it? But I know very well that a certain weasel-faced lady of our acquaintance
has
said it, for she did so within my hearing, and I daresay she would not scruple to say it within yours. Has she done so?
Could
you be so absurd as to reject me for such a reason as that?’

‘No! If I returned your regard, it would not weigh with me!’

‘I see. There doesn’t seem to be anything more I can say, does there?’

She could only shake her head, not daring to trust her voice. She saw that he was holding out his hand, and she reluctantly laid her own in it. He lifted it, and kissed her fingers. ‘I wish you did return my regard,’ he said. ‘More than I have ever wished anything in my life! Perhaps you may yet learn to do so: I should warn you that I don’t easily despair!’

The Nonesuch had gone, and Miss Trent’s only desire was to reach the refuge of her bedchamber before her overcharged emotions broke their bonds. Sobs, crowding in her chest, threatened to suffocate
her; tears, spilling over her eyelids, had to be brushed hastily aside; she crossed the hall blindly, and as she groped for the baluster-rail, setting her foot upon the first stair, Tiffany came tripping down, her good humour restored by the news that Sir Waldo had come to visit her. ‘Oh, were you coming to find me?’ she said blithely. ‘Totton sent a message up, so you need not have put yourself to that trouble, Ancilla dearest! Is he in the Green Saloon? I have had
such
a capital notion! Now that Mr Calver has taught me to drive so well, I mean to try if I can’t coax Sir Waldo to let me drive his chestnuts! Only think what a triumph it would be! Mr Calver says no female has ever driven
any
of his horses!’

It was surprising how swiftly the habit of years could reassert itself. Miss Trent was sick with misery, but her spirit responded automatically to the demands made upon it. She had thought that any attempt to speak must result in a burst of tears, but she heard her own voice say, without a tremor: ‘He has gone. He came only to discover if we had yet had news of our travellers, and would not stay.’

‘Would not stay!’ Tiffany’s expression changed ludicrously. ‘When I
particularly
wished to see him!’

‘I expect he would have done so had he known that,’ said Ancilla pacifically.

‘
You
must have known it! It is too bad of you! I believe you sent him away on purpose to spite me!’ said Tiffany, pettishly, but without conviction. ‘
Now
what is there for me to do?’

Miss Trent pulled herself together. Wisely rejecting such ideas as first occurred to her, which embraced a little much-needed practice on the pianoforte, a sketching expedition, and an hour devoted to the study of the French tongue, she sought in vain for distractions likely to find favour with a damsel determined to pout at every suggestion made to her. Fortunately, an interruption came just in time to save her temper. A carriage drove up to the door, and presently disgorged Elizabeth Colebatch, who came in to beg that Tiffany would accompany her and her mama to Harrogate, where Lady Colebatch was going to consult her favourite practitioner. Elizabeth, still faithful in her allegiance, eagerly described to Tiffany a programme exactly calculated to appeal to her. Besides a survey of the several expensive shops which had sprung up in the town, it included a walk down the New Promenade, and a visit to Hargroves Library, which was the most fashionable lounge in either High or Low Harrogate, and necessitated an instant change of raiment for Tiffany, and the unearthing from a bandbox, where it reposed in a mountain of tissue-paper, of her very best hat. Since the season was in full swing, and all the inns and boarding-houses bursting with company, it was safe to assume that the progress through the town of two modish young ladies, one of whom was a striking redhead, and the other a dazzling brunette, would attract exactly the kind of notice most deprecated by Tiffany’s Aunt Burford; but as Miss Trent knew that Mrs Underhill would regard Lady Colebatch’s casual chaperonage as a guarantee of propriety she did not feel it incumbent on her to enter a protest. But she did feel it incumbent on her to not to be backward in attention to Lady Colebatch; so, much as she longed for solitude, she went out to beg her to come into the house while Tiffany arrayed herself in
her finest feathers. Lady Colebatch declined this, but invited Miss Trent to step into the carriage instead, to indulge in a comfortable coze. Miss Trent bore her part in this with mechanical civility; but little though she relished it, it proved beneficial, in that by the time Elizabeth and Tiffany came out to take their places in the carriage her disordered nerves had grown steadier, and the impulse to sob her heart out had left her.

Her rejected suitor, though in no danger of succumbing to even the mildest fit of hysterics, would also have been glad to have been granted an interval of solitude; but hardly had he entered the book-room at Broom Hall than he was joined by his younger cousin, who came in, asking, as he shut the door: ‘Are you busy, Waldo? Because, if you’re not, there’s something I want to say to you. But not if it isn’t quite convenient!’ he added hastily, perceiving the crease between Sir Waldo’s brows.

Mastering the impulse to tell Lord Lindeth that it was extremely inconvenient, Sir Waldo said: ‘No, I’m not busy. Come and sit down, and tell me all about it!’

The tone was encouraging, and even more so the faint smile in his eyes. It was reflected, a little shyly, in his lordship’s innocent orbs. He said simply, but with a rising colour: ‘I daresay you know – don’t you?’

‘Well, I have an inkling!’ admitted Sir Waldo.

‘I thought very likely you had guessed. But I wanted to tell you – and to ask your advice!’

‘Ask my advice?’ Sir Waldo’s brows rose. ‘Good God, Julian, if you want my advice on whether or not you should offer for Miss Chartley, I can only say that until my advice or my opinion are matters of complete indifference to you –’

‘Oh, not
that
!’
interrupted Julian impatiently. ‘I should hope I knew my own mind without your advice, or anyone’s! As for your opinion –’ He paused, considering, and then said, with a disarmingly apologetic smile: ‘Well, I
do
care for that, but – but not very much!’

‘Very right and proper!’ approved Sir Waldo.

‘Now you’re roasting me! I wish you won’t: this is
serious
,
Waldo!’

‘I’m not roasting you. Why do you need my advice?’

‘Well….’ Julian clasped his hands between his knees, and frowningly regarded them. ‘The thing is… Waldo, when we first came here I daresay you may have guessed – well, I told you, didn’t I? – that I was pretty well bowled out by Tiffany Wield.’ He glanced up, crookedly smiling. ‘You’ll say I made a cake of myself, and I suppose I did.’

‘Not such a cake that you offered for her hand.’

Julian looked at him, suddenly surprised. ‘Do you know, Waldo, I never thought of marriage?’ he said naïvely. ‘I hadn’t considered it before, but now you’ve mentioned it I don’t think that I
ever
thought of it until I met Miss Chartley. In fact, I never thought about the future at all. But since I’ve come to
know
Patience, naturally I’ve done so, because I wish to spend the rest of my life with her. And, what’s more, I’m going to!’ he stated, his jaw hardening.

‘My blessing on the alliance: she will make you an excellent wife! But wherein do you need my advice? Or are you merely trying to wheedle me into breaking the news to your mama?’

‘No, of course not! I shall tell her myself. Though it
would
be helpful if you supported me,’ he added, after a reflective moment.

‘I will.’

Julian smiled gratefully at him. ‘Yes. I know: you
are
such a right one, Waldo!’

‘Spare my blushes! And my advice?’

‘Well, that’s the only thing that has me in a worry!’ disclosed his lordship. ‘I want to come to the point, and although the Chartleys have been as kind and affable as they could be – not hinting me away, or anything of that nature! – I can’t but wonder whether it may not be too soon to ask the Rector for permission to propose to Patience! I mean, if he thought I was a regular squire of dames, because I dangled after Miss Wield, he’d be bound to send me packing – and then it would be all holiday with me!’

‘I hardly think that he will judge you quite as harshly as that,’ replied Sir Waldo, with admirable gravity. ‘After all, you are not entangled with Tiffany, are you?’

‘Oh, no!’ Julian assured him. ‘Nothing of that sort! In fact, she brushed me off after what happened in Leeds, so I don’t think I need feel myself in any way bound to her, do you?’ He chuckled. ‘Laurie cut me out! I was never more glad of anything! Well, it just
shows
you, doesn’t it? Only think of being grateful to Laurie! Lord! But tell me, Waldo! What should I do?’

Sir Waldo, whose private opinion was that the Rector must be living in the hourly expectation of receiving a declaration from Lord Lindeth, had no hesitation in answering this appeal. He recommended his anxious young cousin to make known his intentions at the earliest opportunity, very handsomely offering, at the same time, to reassure the Rector, if he should be misled into believing that his daughter’s suitor was a hardened roué. Julian grinned appreciatively at this; and for the following half-hour bored Sir Waldo very much by expatiating at length on Miss Chartley’s numerous virtues.

He departed at last, but his place was taken within ten minutes by Laurence, who came in, and stood irresolutely on the threshold, eyeing his cousin in some doubt.

Sir Waldo had sat down at the desk. There were several papers spread on it, but he did not seem to be at work on them. His hands were clasped on top of the pile, and his eyes were frowning at the wall in front of him. His expression was unusually grim, and it did not lighten when he turned his head to look at Laurence. Rather, it hardened. ‘Well?’

If his demeanour had not warned Laurence already that he had chosen an inauspicious moment to seek him out, the uncompromising tone in which this one word was uttered must have done so. Laurence was still holding the door, and he backed himself out of the room, saying hurriedly, as he drew the door to upon himself: ‘Oh, nothing! I only – Beg pardon! Didn’t know you was busy! Some other time!’

‘I advise you not to cherish false hopes! At no time!’ Sir Waldo said harshly.

Under any ordinary circumstances Laurence would have been provoked into lengthy retort, but on this occasion he did not venture to reply at all, but effaced himself with all possible speed.

The door safely shut between himself and his suddenly formidable cousin, he let his breath go in an astonished: ‘Phew!’ Indignation warred with curiosity in his breast, but curiosity won. After looking speculatively at the door for several moments, as though he could see Waldo’s face through its stout panels, he walked away, his somewhat ferret-like brain concentrated on the new and unexpected problem which had presented itself.

It did not take him long to decide that the only possible cause of Waldo’s unprecedented behaviour must be a disappointment in love. It was absurd to suppose that he might be faced with pecuniary difficulties; and, in Laurence’s view, only love or penury could account for so bleak an aspect. At first glance it seemed equally absurd to suppose that his courtship of Miss Trent could have suffered a set-back; but after some moments of reflection Laurence came to the conclusion that this must be the answer. It might seem incredible that a female in her circumstances should rebuff so opulent a suitor, but there could be no doubt that Miss Trent was a very odd creature. But no doubt either that she was as deeply in love with Waldo as he with her. No forbidding frown had marred Waldo’s countenance at the breakfast-table: he had been in particularly good spirits. Then he had driven off, tossing a joking remark over his shoulder to Julian; and although he had not disclosed his destination only a lobcock could have doubted that he was bound for Staples. Julian, wrapped up in his own affairs, might not know that Waldo had visited Staples every day for more than a sennight, but his far more astute cousin knew it. It looked very much as if Waldo had popped the question, and had been rejected. But why?

Cudgel his brains as he might, Laurence could arrive at no satisfactory answer to this enigma. Had any man but Waldo been concerned he would have been inclined to think that someone had traduced him to Miss Trent: he rather supposed her to be pretty straitlaced. But so was Waldo straitlaced, and what the devil could the most arrant scandalmonger find to say of him that would disgust any
female? And was his Long Meg fool enough to believe a story fabricated by one of the jealous tabbies of the parish?

It was all very perplexing, but an answer there must be, which it might be well worth his while to discover. His first scheme to win his affluent cousin’s gratitude had gone awry – it had not taken him very long to realize that no assistance from him had been needed to wean Julian from his attachment to Tiffany Wield – but it might well be that in this new, and very odd, situation lay the means he had been seeking. If, through his agency, the starcrossed lovers became reconciled, it was difficult to see how Waldo – no nip-squeeze, give him his due! – could fail to express his gratitude in a suitable and handsome manner.

Laurence’s spirits had been rapidly sinking into gloom, but they now rose. It had been vexatious to find that his admirable plan to detach the Wield chit from Lindeth had been labour wasted. He did not regret it, precisely, for to have stolen the Beauty from under the noses of her ridiculous swains had been amusing, and as good a way as any
other of whiling away the time he had been obliged to spend in an excessively boring place. He had even toyed for a day or two with the thought of wooing Tiffany in earnest, but had soon abandoned the scheme. The idea of tying himself up in wedlock was distasteful to him; and although he might have overcome his reluctance for the sake of Tiffany’s fortune he could not feel that there was the least likelihood of obtaining her guardians’ consent to the match, much less of their relinquishing into his hands the control of her fortune a day before she attained her majority. So however pleasant it might be to flirt elegantly with such an out-and-out beauty the affair was really a waste of time. Its only value was that it now provided him with an excuse for visiting Staples, to see for himself how the land lay there. It might not be easy to coax Miss Trent to confide in him; but although her manner towards him held a good deal of reserve, she had lately begun to show him rather more friendliness; and if she was as blue-devilled as Waldo over the rift between them she might, Laurence considered, be glad to be offered the opportunity to unburden herself. Certainly she would be, if she and Waldo had quarrelled: positively burning to state her grievances, if he knew anything of women! A quarrel, however, seemed highly unlikely: she did not look to be the sort of female to fly into the boughs, or to take affronts into her head; and Waldo’s even temper was proverbial. On the whole, Laurence was more inclined to believe that the trouble must be due to some misunderstanding. Very probably each was too proud to seek an explanation of the other, and no one would be more welcome to them than a tactful mediator. Acting as a go-between might prove to be a wearing task, but in the pursuit of his own ends Laurence grudged no expenditure of effort.