The Quiet Gentleman (18 page)

‘Then I had better go to Kentham,’ said the Earl placidly. ‘I will pull up at the Wickton cross-road on my way back, in case you should still be out, and wish to be driven home.’

‘No need: I’d as lief walk. It would fret me to know that you might be waiting for me.’

‘As you please,’ the Earl said, shrugging. ‘What had Helston to show you?’

‘Nothing you would care for. At least, there was one bay I liked. He is not up to my weight, but I daresay he might suit you.’

The Dowager, having finished with her daughter’s letter, now had leisure to turn her attention to Miss Morville, who was slipping her own letter into her reticule; and to enquire with a regal condescension which almost robbed her question of its impertinence who was her correspondent. Upon learning that Mrs Morville had written to inform her daughter that she and Mr Morville expected to return to Lincolnshire in the following week, she fell into a complaining mood, which had the effect of speedily breaking up the nuncheon-party. Martin went off to change his riding-dress for a shooting-jacket; Miss Morville escorted the Dowager upstairs to the Italian Saloon, where she very soon fell asleep on one of the sofas; and the Earl strolled down to the stables, to take a look at Cloud’s forelegs.

He found Theo there, giving some directions to his groom, who was to bring his riding-horse over to Evesleigh on the following day, when a cast shoe should have been replaced. He burst out laughing when he heard whither the Earl was bound that afternoon, but said: ‘You will not go!’

‘My dear Theo, I do not dare even to hesitate! Only think how shocking it would be if Louisa were to come down upon us again!’

‘True! But to send you running about the countryside on such an errand – ! Shall I go in your stead?’

‘No, you are not conciliatory, and although my mother-in-law by no means desires to conciliate Mrs Neath, she has commanded me to perform this office for my sister.’

‘Humbug! Much you would care for her commands!’

‘Why, the truth is,’ said the Earl, laughing, ‘I have not had my grays out for three days, and I can as well exercise them on a drive to Kentham as anywhere else.’

‘Oh, if that is the case – ! But one might have expected Louisa to apply to Martin rather than to you!’

‘But I thought I had made it plain to you that a conciliatory manner is what is desired?’

‘So you did! Where is Martin?’

‘I have no very exact knowledge. He is going off to West Wood, to try if he can get a shot at a kestrel, and has firmly abjured my company.’

‘Oh, so that holds, does it? He had better leave them alone: they will do little harm!’

‘Very likely, but I do not grudge him the relief of being able to slay
something
! Chard, we are going to Kentham. Bring my curricle round in half an hour, if you please!’ He looked at his cousin. ‘When do you set forth on your travels, Theo?’

‘As soon as I may. There is a letter from Maplefield I must first deal with, but unless I find another shoe to be loose I hope to be away not much later than four o’clock!’

His groom, wilting visibly, withdrew to the shelter of the harness-room. Gervase murmured: ‘What a harsh taskmaster you are! Driving?’

‘Yes, a gig, with much of your worldly wealth stowed in the back! What hope I have of visiting the farms I had
intended
to visit, I know not!’

‘Peace! Your unfortunate groom is out of hearing! If you mean to shut yourself up in your tower with letters from Maplefield, I’ll bid you farewell. Do not allow my tenants to impose upon me!’

Theo took his hand, and gripped it, and held it for a minute. ‘I won’t. Gervase –’

‘Well?’

Theo released him. ‘Nothing. Take care of yourself while I am gone!’

‘I always do. Your presence is not needed to keep me safe, I believe.’

‘No. I think you may be right.’

‘I am almost sure I am right.’

‘He has certainly taken it better than I expected – but Ulverston’s presence cannot but keep the wound green!’

‘He leaves us on Monday, and will certainly be engaged at Whissenhurst until then.’

‘That circumstance will hardly serve to mollify Martin!’ said Theo, grimacing.

Half an hour later, the Earl set forth for Kentham, Chard seated beside him in the curricle, with his arms primly folded. This was one of his few concessions to the etiquette governing the conduct to be expected of a private gentleman’s groom, but neither this nor his tall, cockaded hat made him look like anything but a soldier. He had known the Earl throughout his army career, had fought in the same engagements, shared the same discomforts, and was wholly devoted to his interests. He thought it a pity that his master should have sold out, for he had a poor opinion of all but military men (and, indeed, a rather poor opinion of such military men as belonged to any other regiment than his own), but after the first strangeness of riding out in a plain coat, with no accoutrements and no sabre, had worn off he found that he did not dislike his new position. An Earl’s head-groom was a personage of considerable consequence, particularly when his master travelled. He might be sure of the best accommodation for his horses at every inn on the road, and excellent attention for himself. More important, this Earl was a good master, who reposed complete confidence in him, and treated him with the easy familiarity Turvey so much deplored. Thus it was that consideration for the Earl, and not the fear of incurring a chilly set-down, held him silent for the first part of the drive. The grays were fresh, and the country lanes both rough and narrow, so that the Earl’s attention was fully occupied in handling his horses. It was not until they had covered a couple of miles that Chard ventured to distract him by remarking that he should not be surprised if one of Lord Ulverston’s wheelers had a splint forming. Since the Earl knew that Chard and the Viscount’s Clarence, who had been his private groom in France, were old foes, he paid very little heed to this, or to several dark strictures on the customs his lordship allowed to be followed in his stables.

‘Very reprehensible,’ he said. ‘I daresay he washes the mud from the legs of his lordship’s horses, too.’

‘That, me lord, I don’t say,’ replied Chard, severely.

‘How wretched for you that you cannot! What will you do when his lordship leaves Stanyon on Monday? You will be obliged to turn your attention to the iniquities of Mr Martin’s head-groom.’

‘Young Hickling,’ said Chard. ‘No, me lord, I should call him very
adecuado
– with his horses.’

‘How do you go on with him?’

‘Well, me lord, bearing in mind what you said to me at the outset, we haven’t had a
batalla campal
, but that ain’t to say we won’t, because one of these days I shall catch him a
bofetada
, and then we’ll have a real turn-up.’

‘Why?’

‘Because,’ said Chard frankly, ‘it’s his idea that everything has got to be the way Mr Martin wants it, and that ain’t by any means my idea. I daresay if I was as meek as what he’d like me to be we should have to stable
our
horses in a cow-byre no one don’t happen to be using.’ Without moving his eyes from the road ahead, he added: ‘
No se moleste usted!
as they used to say to us in Spain, whenever anything went wrong. I can handle young Hickling, me lord. The trouble with him is he’s kind of growed up alongside of Mr Martin, and, like every Johnny Raw you ever saw, he hasn’t got many notions in his silly head that came there natural, as you might say. Put there, they were, though it ain’t for me to say
who
put them there.’

The Earl did not reply for a minute; when he did speak it was in his usual soft, untroubled voice. Chard, straining his ears to catch a note in it of comprehension, or even of anger, could detect none. ‘Continue to handle him, Chard – without a pitched battle, if you please.’

‘No objection to me keeping my eyes open, me lord?’

‘None. But don’t mistake shadows for the enemy!’

‘I
have
been posted as vedette in my time, me lord,’ said Chard. ‘They didn’t, so to say,
encourage
us to give the alarm when a hare hopped across the path.’

The Earl only smiled, so his slightly offended henchman relapsed into correct silence.

The errand on which he had been sent to Kentham might, in St Erth’s judgment, have been despatched in twenty minutes, but in fact occupied him for over an hour. So far from receiving him in a disagreeable spirit, Mrs Neath almost overwhelmed him with protestations and attentions. She could not conceive how it had come about that she had overlooked any of dear Lady Grampound’s questions, and she was excessively shocked to think that his lordship had been obliged to drive over from Stanyon only because she had been so stupid. But none of those vital questions could be dealt with until Mr Neath had been hurriedly summoned from the Home Farm to receive his distinguished guest; and even when this rather morose gentleman had been hustled into a more suitable coat, and almost thrust into the drawing-room by a servant, primed in a hissing whisper by his mistress, cakes and wine had to be pressed on the Earl before any heed could be paid to the problems which had brought him to Kentham. At last, however, he managed to bring his business to a close, after which he had only to listen to Mrs Neath’s plans for spending the summer months in Brighton before he contrived to make good his escape.

Chard, who had found the entertainment offered him of a shabby nature, remarked, as the Earl gave his horses the office to start: ‘Have to spring ’em, me lord, if you ain’t wishful to be late for your dinner.’

‘Thank you, I had rather have no dinner at all than lame my horses!’ retorted his master.

His grays were a fast pair, and he drove them well up to their bits, but when he reached the cross-road where he had offered to pick Martin up it was a little after six o’clock. Beyond the lane which led to Wickton stretched the West Woods, the Stanyon road cutting through them for rather more than a mile. The Earl checked his horses when the cross-road came into view, but there was no sign of Martin on the road, and he drove on. The scutter of rabbits, fleeing from the road into the undergrowth on either side of it before the approach of the curricle, seemed to indicate that no human presence had disturbed them for some time. The Earl quickened the pace again, saying as he did so: ‘I wonder if Mr Martin got his kestrels? He seems to have gone home, so perhaps he was successful.’

‘Well, me lord,’ said Chard grudgingly, ‘if he got a sight of them I reckon it would be enough for him. A very pretty shot is Mr Martin, that I
will
say!’

The words had hardly left his lips when he was startled by the sound of a shot, fired, as it seemed to him, over the horses’ heads. An oath was surprised out of him as the grays bounded wildly forward, and before he had had time to realize what had happened he saw the reins slack, and grabbed at them as the Earl lurched against his shoulder. The grays were bolting, and although Chard caught the reins he could do no more than hold them, while with his other hand he gripped his master, fearing every instant to see him flung from the bumping, swaying vehicle. For several dreadful seconds he thought him dead, but it was only seconds before the Earl lifted a hand, and rather uncertainly tried to push away the grip on his arm. ‘Get them under control!’ he said faintly. ‘And get me home, for I think I have it!’ He thrust his hand into his coat, over his breast, and withdrew it, and tried to focus his eyes upon it. His glove was wet with blood. ‘Yes. I have it,’ he said.

The Earl became aware that someone, from a very long way away, was insistently calling to him. A voice repeated over and over again: ‘Ger! Ger, old fellow!
Ger!
’ Its urgency began to tease him, and a faint crease appeared between his brows. The voice, a little nearer now, exclaimed: ‘He’s alive!’ which seemed to him so foolish a remark that he opened his eyes to see who could have uttered it. There was so dense a fog enveloping him that he was unable to see anything at all, but he felt his head being lifted, and was aware of something hard and cool pressing against his lips. A different voice, not urgent, but calm and authoritative, told him to open his mouth. He was disinclined to make so great an effort, for an immense lassitude possessed his every faculty, but the command was repeated, and since it was less trouble to obey it than to argue about it, he did open his mouth. He was then told that he must drink, which irritated him. He was about to expostulate when he found that his mouth was full of some pungent liquid, so he was obliged to swallow this before he could murmur: ‘Don’t be so foolish!’

The urgent voice, which he now recognized as Lord Ulverston’s, exclaimed joyfully: ‘He took it! He’s coming round! That’s right, Ger! Stand to your arms, dear boy! Not dead this engagement!’

The fog seemed to be clearing away; through it he could hazily perceive the Viscount’s face, which seemed, in some peculiar fashion, to be suspended above him.

‘That’s the dandy!’ Ulverston said. ‘Come, now, old fellow!’

Ulverston appeared to have some need of his instant services, which made it imperative for him to try feebly to respond to the appeal. He found himself to be without the strength to thrust away the hand that was preventing him from struggling to raise himself; and he was, on the whole, relieved to hear the other voice say: ‘Pray do not talk to him any more, my lord! He will do very well if you let him alone.’

He thought this the most sensible remark he had ever heard, and tried to say so. Raising his leaden eyelids again, he found that Ulverston’s face had disappeared, and that it was Miss Morville’s which now hung over him. She seemed to be wiping his brow with a wet cloth; he could smell lavender-water. It was pleasant, but he felt it to be quite wrong for her to be sponging his face. He muttered: ‘You must not! I cannot think…’

‘There is no need for you to think, my lord. You have only to lie still,’ replied Miss Morville, in a voice which reminded him so forcibly of his old nurse that he attempted no further argument, but closed his eyes again.

He desired nothing more than to slide back into the comfortable darkness from which Ulverston’s voice had dragged him, but it had receded. He was aware of being in bed, and soon realized that it must be his own bed at Stanyon, and not, as he had mistily supposed, in some billet in southern France. He heard Miss Morville desire Turvey to tighten a bandage, felt himself gently moved, and was conscious of pain somewhere in the region of his left shoulder.

Ulverston’s voice asked anxiously: ‘Is it bleeding still?’

‘Very little now, my lord,’ replied Miss Morville.

‘How much longer does Chard mean to be?’ Ulverston exclaimed, in a fretting tone. ‘What if that damned sawbones should be away from home?’

The Earl found these questions disturbing, for they made him think that there was something he must try to remember: something that flickered worryingly at the back of his clouded mind. The effort to collect his thoughts made him frown. Then he heard Miss Morville suggest that Ulverston should go downstairs to receive Dr Malpas. She added, in a low tone: ‘Pray remember, my lord, that we do not know how this accident occurred, but think it may have been a poacher!’

‘Oh,
don’t
we know?’ Ulverston said, in a savage under-voice. ‘Poacher, indeed! Chard knows better!’

‘I particularly requested him to say nothing more than that,’ said Miss Morville. ‘I believe it is what
he
would wish.’

A train of thought was set up in the Earl’s mind. He said suddenly: ‘She does not object to Pug, and they can make up ten beds.’

‘That is excellent,’ said Miss Morville calmly, sponging his face again. ‘Now you may rest.’

‘What happened to me?’ he asked.

‘You met with a slight accident, but it is of no consequence. You will be better directly.’

‘Oh!’ His eyelids were dropping again, but he smiled, and murmured: ‘You are always coming to my rescue!’

She returned no answer. He sank into a half-waking, halfdreaming state, aware of an occasional movement in the room, but not troubled by it. Once, a firm, light hand held his wrist for a minute, but he did not open his eyes.

But presently he was disturbed, rather to his annoyance, by a new and an unknown voice, which seemed to be asking a great many questions, and issuing a tiresome number of orders. It was interrupted by Ulverston’s voice several times. The Earl was not at all surprised when he heard the strange voice say: ‘I assure your lordship I should prefer to have no one but Miss Morville and the valet to assist me.’

Ulverston seemed to think that Miss Morville could not assist the stranger. He said, in his most imperious tone: ‘Nonsense! She could not do it!’

‘Yes, she could,’ said the Earl, roused by this injustice.

There was a moment’s silence, then his wrist was firmly held, and the strange voice said, directly above him: ‘Oh, so your lordship is awake, eh? That is very well, and we shall soon have you feeling more the thing… My lord, Miss Morville and I are old colleagues, and I know her to be equal to anything. You need not fear to leave the patient in our hands… That table, if you please, my man – what’s your name? Turvey? Very good, set it there, and the bowl upon it. Now, my lord, I am afraid I must hurt you a trifle – just a trifle!’

It soon became apparent to the Earl that the stranger had grossly understated the case. The hurt he began to inflict upon his patient was considerable enough first to wrench a groan from him, and then to make him grip his underlip resolutely between his teeth. He was just wondering how long he could endure when a pang, sharper than the rest, took from him all power of resistance, and he felt himself to be falling into an upsurging darkness, and lost consciousness.

He came round to find that he was once again being commanded to drink. He obeyed, and was lowered on to his pillows, and heard a cheerful voice say: ‘There! You have nothing to do now but to go to sleep, my lord. I shall come to see you in the morning, and I expect to find you much more comfortable.’

‘Thank you,’ murmured the Earl, wishing that he might be left in peace.

The wish was granted. Silence fell, broken only by the rattle of curtain-rings, drawn along the rods, and the crackle of the fire burning in the hearth.

When the Earl opened his eyes again, it was to shaded lamplight. He saw Miss Morville rise from a chair beside the fire, and cross the room towards him, and said faintly: ‘Good heavens, what o’clock is it?’

‘I have no very exact notion, my lord, but it doesn’t signify,’ she answered, laying her hand across his brow. She glanced towards the door leading into the dressing-room, which stood open, and said: ‘Yes, his lordship is awake, Turvey. If you will come in, I will go and prepare the broth for him.’

‘The housekeeper desired me to tell you, madam, that she should not go to bed, and would hold herself in readiness to prepare whatever might be needed.’

‘Thank you, I will go to her,’ Miss Morville said.

When she returned to the bedchamber, bearing a small tray, Turvey had raised his master a little against his pillows, combed out his tumbled gold curls, and straightened the bed-coverings. Beyond thanking him for the various services he performed, the Earl said nothing, nor did Turvey encourage him to speak. He was deft in his ministrations, but quite impersonal, his impassive countenance not betraying his opinion of a household in which such shocking accidents could occur. Upon Miss Morville’s entrance, he moved away from the bedside, and began to pick up some scraps of lint which had been allowed to fall on the floor. He then bowed, and said that he should be in the dressing-room when Miss Morville had need of him, and withdrew, closing the door behind him.

The Earl watched Miss Morville set down her tray on a table drawn up beside his bed, and said: ‘I remember now. Who – Did Chard see – ?’

‘No,’ she replied, seating herself, and picking up the bowl from the tray. ‘The horses, you know, were bolting, and by the time Chard had checked them you had lost consciousness, and he knew that it was more important to bring you home than to try to discover who had wounded you. Will you see if you can swallow some broth now? Oh, no! don’t disturb yourself! I am going to feed you.’

The Earl, who had tried to raise himself, said ruefully: ‘I seem to be as weak as a cat!’

‘You lost a great deal of blood,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘If I were you, I would not try to talk.’

‘Yes, but I must know –’ He broke off, for she had presented a spoon to his lips. He swallowed the broth in it, and said: ‘This is absurd! I am sure, if you could thrust another pillow behind me, I could feed myself!’

‘I expect you could,’ she agreed, presenting another spoonful. ‘You may do so, if you wish it very much.’

‘I
ought
to do so,’ he said, smiling, and submitting. ‘You should be in bed: I am persuaded it must be very late.’

‘I shall go to bed when you have had your broth. Do not tease yourself! I settled it with Turvey that I should remain with you for the first part of the night.’

‘Indeed, I am very much obliged to you – and very much ashamed to have put you to such trouble!’

‘You need not be. It is no hardship to me. I have frequently helped to nurse my brothers.’

He attempted no further expostulation, but after a minute or two said again: ‘I must know. After I was hit –’

‘I am afraid,’ she interrupted apologetically, ‘that I can tell you nothing, for I have been almost continually in this room, you know. Chard saw no one, and, as I have said, he dared not stop.’

He moved restlessly, frowning. ‘Yes, but – Lucy must not – I seem to remember hearing him say something! To you, was it?’

‘He did say something to me, but there is no need for you to fret yourself, my lord. We are agreed that it would be most improper to give utterance to suspicions for which there may be no real grounds.’

A slight smile touched his lips. ‘You mean that you have prevailed upon Lucy to hold his peace. I might depend on you for good sense!’

‘Certainly you might, but it will be better if you think no more on this subject until you are a little stronger,’ she replied.

‘Don’t let Lucy quarrel with Martin!’

‘He will not do so.’

‘You don’t know him! He must not tax Martin with this, and that is what I fear he may have done.’

‘I assure you, upon my word, he has not.’

‘What has Martin said?’

She turned away to put the bowl back on the tray, and answered, without looking at him: ‘Nothing, my lord.’

‘
Nothing?’

‘I have been busy,’ she reminded him. ‘I have not seen Martin.’

‘I daresay you might not, but –’

‘I can only tell you that there has been no quarrel with him.’

His eyes followed her as she carried the tray across the room. When she turned towards him again she perceived the strain in them, and she said: ‘I think your wound is paining you, my lord. Dr Malpas left a sedative draught for you, and if you will take it you will feel more comfortable.’

‘It is not that. But while I lie here, with no strength even to pull myself up, and quite shut off from the household –’

‘Tomorrow you will find yourself a good deal restored, if only you will be quiet now,’ she promised. ‘Nothing has happened at Stanyon that you would not wish, and, you know, it is past two o’clock now, so that even if you could rise from your bed there is nothing you could do, for everyone has been in bed these many hours.’

He was obliged to acknowledge the justice of this reminder, but murmured with something of his sweet, mischievous smile: ‘You have always a reasonable answer, Miss Morville!’

She returned the smile, but did not answer, merely going to the door into the dressing-room to summon Turvey to relieve her watch. She stayed only until she had seen the Earl swallow his sedative draught, and then, directing Turvey to remove two of the pillows that were propping him up, bade her patient sleep well, and went away to her own bedchamber.

She had not left it when Dr Malpas arrived, before nine o’clock, and it was Lord Ulverston who escorted the doctor to the Earl’s room. He found the patient, as Miss Morville had prophesied, very much more comfortable, though still very weak.

‘Weak, my lord! Ay, no wonder!’ the doctor said, taking the Earl’s pulse. ‘A trifle of fever, too, which was to be expected. I shall not cup you, however, for I think you will go on very well. But a bad business! I cannot conceive how it can have come about! There are poachers enough in the district, but they are not in general so careless as to fire across the roads – no, and I have never known them to go about their work in daylight before! I was speaking about it last night to Sir Geoffrey Acton, whom I was obliged to visit – just a touch of his old enemy, the gout! – and he gives it as his opinion that you might have been shot by one of these discharged soldiers we hear so much about. I daresay many of them are great rascals, and, you know, once they are turned loose upon the world, there is no saying what they will be up to.’

Lord Ulverston uttered an impatient exclamation, but the Earl engaged his silence by a look, and himself said: ‘Very true.’

The doctor, who had by this time laid bare the wound, seemed to be delighted with it. ‘Excellent! it could not be better!’ he declared. ‘As clean a wound as you would wish for, and has not touched the lung! I can tell your lordship, though, that it was a near-run thing! Ay, you had bled so freely by the time your man got you home that if it had not been for Miss Morville’s presence of mind and resolution, you might well have died before I had reached your side. She is a very good girl, and one that has a head on her shoulders besides. None of your squeaks and swoons at the sight of blood for her!’