Lady of Quality (17 page)

Ninian grinned shyly at him. "I should rather think she was!" he said. "Well, she was in one of her hey-go-mad humours, you know!"

"I am thankful to say that I don't," replied Mr Carleton caustically.

"I was not!" declared Lucilla, taking instant umbrage. "And as for taking care of me, I was very well able to take care of myself!"

"No, you weren't!" retorted Ninian. "You didn't even know how to get to Bath, and if I hadn't caught you—"

"If you hadn't meddled I should have hired a chaise in Amesbury," she said grandly. "And it wouldn't have lost a wheel, like your odious gig!"

"Oh, would you indeed? And have found yourself without a feather to fly with when you reached Bath! Don't be such a widgeon!"

Miss Wychwood, entering the room at that moment, put a stop to further hostilities, by saying in her calm way: "How many more times am I to tell you both that I will
not
have you pulling caps in my drawing-room? How do you do, Mr Carleton?"

"Oh, Miss Wychwood, whatever do you think?" cried Lucilla eagerly. "He has bought me a mare—a gray one, too, which is exactly what I should have chosen, because I love gray horses, don't you? And he says his own groom is to look after her, so that now you will be able to ride with us!"

"Redeeming yourself in your ward's eyes?" Miss Wychwood said quizzically, shaking hands with him.

"No: in yours, I hope!"

Startled, her eyes flew to his face, but swiftly sank again. Considerably shaken, she turned away, for there could be no mistaking the glow in his hard eyes: Mr Carleton, that noted profligate, had conceived a strange, unaccountable fancy for a maiden lady, of advanced years, who was no straw damsel, but a lady of the first consideration, and of unquestioned virtue. Her first thought, that he meant to fascinate her into accepting a
carte blanche
from him, occurred only to be dismissed: Mr Carleton might be a libertine, but he was not a fool. Perhaps he meant to get up a flirtation with her, by way of alleviating the boredom of Bath society. Hard on the heels of this thought came the realization that a flirtation with him would alleviate her own constantly growing boredom. He was so very different from any of her other flirts: in fact, she had never met anyone in the least like him.

Lucilla and Ninian were arguing about the several rides to be enjoyed outside Bath. They went into the back-drawing-room to consult the guide-book which Lucilla was almost positive she had left there. "And if they find it," remarked Miss Wychwood, "they will instantly disagree on whether to go to see a Druidical monument, or a battlefield. I cannot conceive how anyone but a confirmed chucklehead could suppose that they were in the least degree suited to each other!"

"Iverley and Clara Amber are both chuckleheads," replied Mr Carleton, dismissing them from further consideration. "I hope you mean to join the riding-party?"

"Yes, very likely I shall. Not that I think it at all necessary to provide Lucilla with a chaperon when she goes out with Ninian!"

"No, but it is very necessary, I promise you, to provide me with a companion who won't bore me past endurance. I can think of few worse fates than to be obliged to ride bodkin between that pair of bickerers."

Surprised, she said: "Oh, are you going with them?"

"Not unless you go too."

"For fear that you may have to listen to bickering?" she said, smiling a little. "You won't! They don't quarrel when they go riding together, I'm told. Corisande Stinchcombe complained that they talked of nothing but horses, hounds, and hunting!"

"Even worse!" he said.

"You are not a hunting man, Mr Carleton?"

"On the contrary! But I do not indulge myself or bore my companions by describing the great runs I've had, the tosses I've taken, the clumsiness of one of my hunters—only saved from coming to grief over a regular rasper, be it understood, by my superior horsemanship!—or the sure-footedness of another. Such anecdotes are of no interest to anyone but the teller."

"I am afraid that's true," she acknowledged. "But the impulse to boast of great runs and of clever horses is almost irresistible—even though one knows one is being listened to because the other person is only waiting for the chance to do some boasting on his own account! To which, of course, one is bound to listen, for the sake of common honesty! Don't you agree?"

"Yes: it is why I learned years ago to overcome that impulse. You yourself hunt, I believe?"

"I was used to, when I lived in the country, but I was obliged to give it up when I came to Bath," she said, with a faint sigh.

"Why did you come to Bath?" he asked.

"Oh, for several good reasons!" she responded lightly.

"If you mean that for a set-down, Miss Wychwood, I should inform you that I am not so easily set down!
What
good reasons?"

She looked at him rather helplessly, but, after a moment, replied with a touch of asperity: "They concern no one but myself, sir! And if you are aware that I did give you what I hoped would be a civil set-down for asking me an—an impertinent question, you will permit me to tell you that I consider you positively rag-mannered to pursue the subject!"

"Very likely, but that's no answer!"

"It's the only one I mean to give you!"

"Which leaves me to suppose that some murky secret lies in your past," he said provocatively. "I find that hard to believe. With another, and very different, female, I might assume that some scandal had driven you from your home—an unfortunate
affaire
with one of the local squires, for instance!"

She curled her lip at him, and said disdainfully: "Curb your imagination, Mr Carleton! No murky secret lies behind me, and I have had no
affaires,
fortunate or otherwise!"

"I didn't think you had," he murmured.

"This is a most improper conversation!" she said crossly.

"Yes, isn't it?" he agreed. "Why
did
you come to live in Bath?"

"Oh, how persistent you are!" she exclaimed. "I came to Bath because I wished to five a life of my own—not to dwindle into a mere aunt!"

"That I can well understand. But what the devil made you choose Bath, of all places?"

"I chose it because I have many friends here, and because it is within easy reach of Twynham Park."

"Do you never regret it? Don't you find it cursed flat?"

She shrugged. "Why, yes, sometimes I do, but so I should, I daresay, in any place where I resided all the year round."

"Good God, is that what you do?"

"Oh, no! That was an exaggeration! I frequently visit my brother and his wife, and sometimes I go to stay with an aunt, who lives at Lyme Regis."

"Gay to dissipation, in fact!"

She laughed. "No, but I am past the age of wishing for dissipation."

"Don't talk that balderdash to me!" he said sharply. "You have left your girlhood behind—though there are moments when I doubt that!—and have not reached your prime, so let me have no more fiddle-faddle about your advanced years, my girl!"

She gave an outraged gasp, but was prevented from flinging a retort at him by Lucilla, who came back into the front half of the room, demanding support in her contention that
somewhere
on Lansdown there were the remains of a Saxon fort which King Arthur had besieged. "Ninian says there isn't. He says there was no such person as King Arthur! He says he was just a legend! But he wasn't, was he? It is all here, in the guide-book, and I should like to know what makes Ninian think he knows more than the guide-book!"

"Oh, my God!" ejaculated Mr Carleton, and abruptly took his leave.

CHAPTER 8

O
n the following day Lord Beckenham called in Camden Place to offer Miss Wychwood an apology for having offended her. Since the servants were busily employed with all the preparations for the evening's rout-party, his visit was ill-timed. Limbury, or James, the footman, would have informed his lordship that Miss Wychwood was not at home; but since Limbury was heavily engaged in the pantry, assembling all the silver and the glasses which would be needed for the entertainment of some thirty guests; and James, assisted by the page-boy and two of the maidservants, was moving various pieces of furniture out of the drawing-room, the door was opened to Lord Beckenham by a very junior housemaid whose flustered attempt to deny her mistress he had no difficulty in overbearing. He said, with a majestic condescension which awed her very much, that he fancied Miss Wychwood would grant him a few minutes of her time, and walked past her into the house. She gave back before this determined entry, excusing herself, later, to Limbury, who took her severely to task, by saying that his lordship had walked through her as though she wasn't there. There seemed to be nothing for it but to usher him into the book-room at the back of the house, and to scurry away in search of her mistress. She found her, after an abortive tour of the upper floors, in the basement, conferring with her chef, so that Beckenham was left to kick his heels for a considerable time before Miss Wychwood appeared on the scene.

She was in no very good humour, and after the briefest of greetings, told him that she could spare him only a few minutes, having a great deal to do that morning, and begged that he would state his business with her without loss of time.

His answer disarmed her. He said, retaining her hand in a warm clasp: "I know it: you are holding a party tonight, are you not? I shall not detain you longer than to beg you to forgive me for my part in what passed between us in the Pump Room the other day, and to believe that I was betrayed by my ardent concern for your welfare into uttering words which you thought
impertinent!
I can only assure you, dear Miss Annis, that they were not meant to be impertinent, and beg you to forgive me!"

Her resentment died. She said: "Why, of course I forgive you, Beckenham! Don't waste another thought on it! We all of us say what we ought not sometimes."

He pressed his lips to her hand. "Too good, too gracious!" he said, in a deeply moved voice. "I feared, when I learned from Harry that you had invited him and young Hawkesbury to your party this evening, but not me, that I had offended beyond forgiveness."

"Nonsense!" she said. "I didn't invite you, because it is a party for Lucilla, and will be entirely—
almost
entirely composed of girls not yet out, and their attendant brothers and swains, with a sprinkling of careful mamas and papas as well. You would be bored to death!"

"I could never be bored in your company," he said simply.

She was at once assailed by a heartrending vision of him, left to endure a lonely evening, feeling himself to be unwanted while his brother went off with his friend for an evening's jollification, and yielded to a kindly impulse, saying: "Why, by all means come, if you can face children and dowagers!"

The words were no sooner uttered than regretted. Too late did she recall that Beckenham was well-accustomed to being alone. It was seldom that Harry, during his infrequent visits, spent an evening at home. He said, when reproved, that Will didn't want him; and Theresa, Beckenham's eldest sister, complained that it was his habit to retire to his library after dinner, poring over the catalogue of his possessions, or rearranging his bibelots.

She said, in an unhopeful attempt to make him refuse the invitation: "I should warn you, sir, Lucilla's uncle will be present. You might prefer not to meet him, perhaps."

"I trust," he said, with a smile of superior tolerance, "that I am sufficiently in command of myself not to embarrass you by engaging in a brangle with Carleton under your roof, dear Miss Annis!"

He then, with renewed protestations of his gratitude and devotion, took his leave. She had only to rake herself down for having been betrayed into having encouraged his pretensions.

The rest of the day passed without any other incident than the arrival of Eliza Brigham, hired to be Lucilla's abigail. Annis had been prepared to encounter criticism of this pleasant-faced woman from the older members of her domestic staff, but although Jurby said cautiously that it was early days yet to judge, she added that Miss Brigham
seemed
to know her work; and Mrs Wardlow and Limbury expressed wholehearted approval of the new inmate. "A very genteel young woman, and such as Miss is bound to like," said Mrs Wardlow. "Not one to put herself forward," said Limbury, adding confidentially: "And no fear that she'll rub against Miss Jurby, Miss Annis!"

Miss Brigham demonstrated her quality when she dressed Lucilla for the evening's party, for she not only persuaded her to wear a muslin gown of the softest shade of rose-pink instead of the rather more sophisticated yellow one which Lucilla wished to wear, but also managed to convince her that the string of beads which Lucilla had purchased that very day was not as suitable for evening wear as her pearl necklace; brushed her dusky curls till they shone, and arranged them in a simple and charming style, which drew praise from Miss Wychwood, when she came into Lucilla's room just before dinner.

She brought with her a pretty bangle, set with pearls, and clasped it round Lucilla's wrist, saying: "That's a small gift, with my love—for your first party!"

"Oh!"
gasped Lucilla. "Oh, Miss Wychwood,
thank
you! Oh, how pretty it is! How
very
kind you are to me! Look, Brigham!"