Lady of Quality (8 page)

"Oh, if that isn't just like her!" cried Lucilla, flushing with wrath. "She is too ill to write to Miss Wychwood, but not too ill to write to my uncle! Oh, dear me, no! And if he means to come here, to force me to return, I can't and I won't bear it!"

"Well, don't put yourself into a stew!" recommended Miss Wychwood. "If he does come here with any such intention he will find he has me to deal with—and that is an experience which I fancy he won't enjoy!"

CHAPTER 4

O
n the following morning, Miss Wychwood sent her groom to Twynham Park with instructions to bring her favourite mare to Bath. He carried with him a letter to Sir Geoffrey, in which Miss Wychwood informed her brother that she had a young friend staying with her whom she wished to entertain with riding expeditions to the various places of interest in the surrounding countryside.

When she had first set up her own establishment in Camden Place, she had brought two saddle-horses with her, assuming, rather vaguely, that she would find riding, in Bath, the everyday matter it was at Twynham. It had not taken very long to disabuse her mind of this misapprehension. At Twynham, she had been used to ride, as a matter of course, every day of her life, whether into the village, on an errand of mercy to one of her father's tenants struck down by sickness, or on a visit to a friend living in the neighbourhood; but she soon discovered that life in town—particularly in such a town as Bath, where the steep cobbled streets made equestrian traffic rare—was very different from life in the country. In Bath, one either walked, or took a chair: one could not stroll down to the stables on a sudden impulse, and order one's groom to saddle up for one. It was necessary to appoint a time for one's horse to be brought round to the house; and it was even more necessary that the groom should accompany one. Miss Wychwood found this intolerable, and frankly owned that it was one of the disadvantages of town-life. She also owned (but only to herself) that it was one of the disadvantages of being an unattached spinster; but having decided that the advantages of living under her own roof in Bath, subject to no fraternal vetoes, outweighed the disadvantages, she indulged in no vain repinings, but within a very few weeks sent her mare back to Twynham Park, where Sir Geoffrey, to his credit, kept her, exercised and groomed, for her use whenever she came to stay with him. She kept her carriage-horses in Bath, and one neatish bay hack, which, being an old and beloved friend, she could not bring herself to sell.

Seale brought the mare to Bath, but he was accompanied by Sir Geoffrey, bristling with suspicion that his sister had taken it into her wayward head to befriend some Young Person who would prove to be an adventuress. Unfortunately, he arrived in Camden Place to find only Miss Farlow at home, and when he had learnt from her the circumstances under which Annis had made Lucilla's acquaintance he became convinced that his suspicion had been correct.

"How can you have been so caper-witted?" he demanded of his sister, an hour later. "I had not thought it possible that you could be such a noddy! Pray, what do you know about this young woman? Upon my word, Annis—"

"Heavens, what a piece of work about nothing!" interrupted Annis. "I collect you've been talking to Maria, who is positively green with jealousy of poor Lucilla! She is a Carleton: an orphan, living, since her mother's death, with one of her aunts; and since this Mrs Amber is in indifferent health Lucilla has come to stay with me for a few weeks, as a sort of prelude to her regular come-out. Ninian Elmore escorted her here, and—"

"Elmore? Elmore? Never heard of him!" declared Sir Geoffrey.

"Very likely you might not: he's a mere child, not long down, I fancy, from Oxford. He is the son and heir of Lord Iverley—and I daresay you haven't heard of him either, for I collect that he lives retired, at Chartley Place. A Hampshire family, and, even if you haven't heard of them, perfectly respectable, I promise you!"

"Oh!" said Sir Geoffrey, slightly daunted. Chewing the cud of this information, he made a recover. "That's all very well!" he said. "But how do you know this girl
is
a Carleton? Not that I like the connection any the better if she is! The only one of the family I'm acquainted with is Oliver Carleton—"

"Lucilla's uncle," interpolated Miss Wychwood.

"Well, I can tell you this!" said Sir Geoffrey. "He's a damned unpleasant fellow! Got no manners, never scruples to give the back to anyone he don't happen to like, thinks his birth and his wealth gives him the right to ride rough-shod over men quite as well born as himself, and—in short, the sort of ugly customer I should never dream of presenting to my sister!"

"Do you mean that he is a libertine?" asked Miss Wychwood.

"Annis!" he ejaculated.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Geoffrey—!" she said impatiently. "I cut my wisdoms years ago! If you wouldn't dream of presenting him to me, what else can you mean?"

He glared at her. "You seem to me to have no delicacy of mind!" he said peevishly. "What my poor mother would say, if she could hear you expressing yourself with such unfeminine want of refinement I shudder to think of!"

"Then don't think of it!" she recommended. "Think instead of what Papa would say! Though I daresay that would make you shudder too! Where
did
you learn to be so mealy-mouthed, Geoffrey? As for Mr Oliver Carleton, between you, you and Lucilla have inspired me with a strong desire to meet him! She has told me that he has all but one of the faults you've described to me; and you have added the one she, naturally, knows nothing about. He must be a positive monster!"

"Levity was ever your besetting sin," he said severely. "Let me tell you that it is not at all becoming in a female! It leads you into talking a deal of improper nonsense. A strong desire to meet a monster, indeed!"

"But I have never seen a monster!" she explained. "Oh, well! I daresay it is nothing but a take-in, and he is much like any other man!"

"I must decline to discuss him with you. I should suppose it to be extremely unlikely that you ever will meet him, but if some unfortunate chance should bring him in your way I should be doing less than my duty if I did not warn you to have nothing to say to him, my dear sister! His reputation is
not
that of a well-conducted man. And if we are to talk of
take-ins,
what reason have you to think you are not the victim of one? I don't attempt to conceal from you that I am far from satisfied that this girl is the innocent you believe her to be. I know from Maria Farlow that she ran away from her lawful guardian, and in the company of a young man! That is not the conduct of an innocent—indeed, it is the most shocking thing I ever heard of!—and it wouldn't surprise me if she were bent on inching herself into your regard!"

"You know, Geoffrey, no one who heard you talking such skimble-skamble stuff would believe you to have any more sense than a zero! How can you be so idiotish as to pay the least heed to what Maria says? She has been convinced from the outset that Lucilla is scheming to take her place in my household, but you may rest easy on that head! Lucilla is a considerable heiress—far plumper in the pocket than I am, I daresay! She won't come into her fortune until she is of age, but she enjoys what I judge to be a pretty handsome income. Mr Carleton, who is her guardian, pays it to Mrs Amber; and it is very obvious to me that it
must
be a handsome sum, for Mrs Amber gives her what Lucilla calls
pin-money,
but which a girl in less affluent circumstances would think herself fortunate to receive as an allowance to cover the cost of all her clothing. Mrs Amber pays for every stitch the child wears—and, although she seems to be a foolish creature, I must acknowledge that her taste is impeccable. I should doubt if she ever counts the cost of anything she buys for Lucilla. None of your poplins or cheap coloured muslins for Miss Carleton!" She laughed suddenly. "Jurby unpacked her trunk, and I may say that Lucilla has risen enormously in her estimation! She informed me, in a positively reverential voice, that Miss has everything of the best! As for her having run away with Ninian, it was no such thing: she ran away from Chartley Place, and Ninian very properly acted as her escort. Her aunt had very foolishly taken her there on a visit, and a great deal of pressure was being brought to bear on Ninian, to make her an offer, and on her to accept it. It seems that this scheme was hatched years ago between their respective fathers, who were devoted friends. Ninian believes this to be the only reason his father has for trying so hard to bring the match about, but I suspect Lucilla's fortune has a good deal to do with it. The estate she inherited from her father runs, I gather, close enough to Chartley to make its acquisition by the Elmores extremely desirable. Understandable enough, you will say, but can you conceive of anything more cocklebrained, in this day and age, than to try to force two children—for they are little more than children!—to get married when they have been on brother-and-sister terms since they were in short coats?"

He had listened to her in staring silence, and he did not immediately answer her. But after a moment or two, he pronounced in pompous accents that he was no advocate for the license granted to the modern generation. Embroidering this theme, he said: "I hold that parents must be the best judges of such matters. They must, of necessity, know better than their children—"

"Fiddle!" said Miss Wychwood, bringing this dissertation to a summary closure. "Did Papa arrange your marriage to Amabel?" She saw that she had discomfited him, and added, with her lovely smile: "Trying it on too rare and thick, Geoffrey! You fell in love with Amabel, and proposed to her before Papa had ever set eyes on her!
Didn't you?"

He flushed darkly, tried to meet the challenge in her eyes, looked away, and replied, with a sheepish grin: "Well—yes! But," he said, making another recover, "I knew Papa would approve of my choice, and he did!"

"To be sure he did!" agreed Miss Wychwood affably. "And if he had not approved of it, no doubt you would have cried off, and offered for a lady he did approve of!"

"I should have done no such thing!" he declared hotly. He met her laughing eyes, seethed impotently for a moment, and then capitulated, saying in the voice of one goaded to extremity: "Oh, damn you, Annis! My case was—was different!"

"Of course it was!" she said, patting his hand. "No one in the possession of his senses could have raised the least objection to your marriage to Amabel!"

His hand, turning under hers, grasped it warmly, and he said, with all the embarrassment of an inarticulate man: "She—she is past price, Annis—isn't she?"

She nodded, dropped a light kiss on his brow, and said: "Indeed she is! Now, in a little while you will see Lucilla for yourself: Maria is going to go with her, and Ninian, to the theatre this evening, which will leave us to enjoy a comfortable cose."

He blinked at her. "What, is the young man here too?"

"Yes, he is putting up at the Pelican, but he will be here to dine with us."

"I don't understand any of it!" he complained.

"No, it's the most absurd situation," she agreed mischievously. "And the cream of the jest is that now no one is trying to prevail upon them to become engaged they are going on together perfectly harmoniously—except, of course, for a few breezes! Schoolroom stuff!"

She went away then, to change her walking habit for an evening gown, and when she returned she brought Lucilla with her. Lucilla was looking very pretty and very youthful, and when she curtsied, and said how-do-you-do, with her enchantingly shy smile, Sir Geoffrey's disapproving expression relaxed a little, and by the time Ninian presented himself he was regarding Lucilla indulgently, and drawing her out in a paternal way to talk to him. His sister was not surprised, for being himself a great stickler he was always predisposed to favour girls whose manners showed them to be well-taught and well-bred. He was at first a trifle stiff with Ninian, but Ninian's manners were very good too, so that by the time they rose from the dinner-table Sir Geoffrey had forgiven him for such signs of incipient dandyism as his uncomfortably high shirt-points, and his not entirely felicitous attempt to arrange his neckcloth in the style known as the Waterfall, and had decided that there was no harm in the boy: no doubt he would outgrow his desire to ape the dandy-set; and the deference he showed to his elders showed that he too had been strictly reared. Sir Geoffrey noted, with approval, that both he and Lucilla treated Annis with affectionate respect; but when the theatre-party had left the house, Annis saw that he was frowning. After waiting for a few moments, she said: "Well, Geoffrey? Is she the sort of hurly-burly girl you expected?"

He did not answer immediately, and when he did speak it was to say, with a hard look at her from under his lowered brows: "I wish you may not have got yourself into a scrape, Annis!"

"Why, how should I?" she asked, surprised.

"Good God, have you windmills in your head? That child you've chosen to befriend is no orphan lifted out of the gutter, but a member of a distinguished family, heiress to what I judge to be, from what she told me, a considerable fortune, and brought up by an aunt who may be as foolish as you say she is but who has lavished every care, attention, and luxury on her! What, I ask you, must be her sentiments upon this occasion? To all intents and purposes you have kidnapped the girl!"

"Oh, gammon, Geoffrey! I did no such thing!"

"Try if you can to persuade the Carletons to believe that!" he said grimly. "They can hardly blame you for having taken her up into your carriage when you found her stranded on the road, but they must blame you—as I do!—for not having restored her to her aunt when you discovered what were the rights of the case! You had not even the excuse of believing that she had been ill-treated!"