Sprig Muslin (3 page)

"Beyond anything—oh, beyond
anything!"
she said, in a queer voice. "And he is coming here, with your consent! Could you not have asked me first what
my
sentiments were? I do not wish for this splendid match, Papa."

He looked as though he could hardly credit his ears. "Don't wish for it?" he repeated, in a stupefied tone. "You must be out of your senses!"

"Perhaps I am." The ghostly smile that was at once nervous and mischievous again flitted across her face. "You should have warned Sir Gareth of it, sir. I am persuaded he cannot wish to marry an idiot."

"If," said his lordship awfully, "you fancy that that is a funny thing to say, let me tell you that it is not!"

"No, Papa."

He eyed her in uncertainty, feeling that in some strange way she was eluding him. She had always been an obedient, even a meek, daughter, but he had several times suffered from the uncomfortable suspicion that behind the cloud of gentle compliance there existed a woman who was quite unknown to him. He saw that it behoved him to tread warily, so he curbed his exasperation, and said, with a very fair assumption of paternal solicitude: "Now, what maggot has got into your head, my dear? You won't tell me you don't wish to be married, for every female must wish that!"

"Yes, indeed!" she sighed.

"Can it be that you dislike Ludlow?"

"No, Papa."

"Well, I was sure of
that!
I daresay there isn't a better liked man in England, and as for you ladies—I The caps that have been set at him! You will be the envy of every unmarried woman in town!"

"Do you think so indeed, Papa? How delightful that would be! But perhaps I might feel strange, and unlike myself. It wouldn't be comfortable, not to be acquainted with myself."

This baffling, and (he considered) very nonsensical observation, threw him out of his stride, but he persevered, saying with as much patience as he could command: "Well, never mind that! To be sure, I never thought he was trying to fix your interest, but I am sure I have seen him stand up with you at balls a hundred times! Ay, and sit talking to you, when one might have supposed that he would have been making up to one of the beauties that have been hanging out lures to him for ever!"

"He is very civil," she agreed. "He was used to talk to me of Clarissa, because I knew her too, and no one else would ever mention her name within his hearing."

"What, is he still doing so?" exclaimed the Earl, feeling that here must be the clue to the mystery.

"Oh, no!" she replied. "Not for a long time now."

"Then why the devil, if he don't want to talk of the Lincombe beauty, should he seek you out?" he demanded. "Depend upon it, it has been to attach you!"

"He does not precisely seek me out," she responded. "Only, if we meet at parties, he is too kind, and, I think, too great a gentleman, to pass me by with no more than a common bow." She paused, and sighed, blinking at her father. "How silly! I expect you are quite right, and he has had this notion of offering for me ever since Major Ludlow was killed."

"Of course I am right, and a fine compliment he is paying you!"

"Oh, no!" she said, and relapsed into silence, gazing thoughtfully before her.

He began to feel uneasy. It was impossible to read her countenance. It was mournful, yet tranquil; but in the tone of her voice there was an alarming note which recalled to his mind her contumacious behaviour when he had disclosed to her the only other offer he had ever received for her hand. He remembered how meekly she had borne every manifestation of his wrath, how dutifully she had begged his pardon for disobliging him. That had been five years ago, but here she was, still a spinster. After eying her for a moment or two, he said: "If you let this chance of achieving a respectable alliance slip, you are a bigger fool than I take you for, Hester!"

Her eyes came round to his face, a smile quivered for an instant on her lips. "No, how could that be, Papa?"

He decided to ignore this. "You and he are both past the age of romantical high-flights," he urged. "He is a very agreeable fellow, and I don't doubt he'll make you a kind husband. Generous, too! You will have enough pin-money to make your sisters stare, a position of consequence, and you will be mistress of a very pretty establishment. It is not as though your affections were engaged otherwhere: of course, if that were so, it would be another matter; but, as I told Ludlow, though I could not answer for your sentiments upon this occasion, I could assure him that you had formed no other attachment."

"But that was not true, Papa," she said. "My affections were engaged many years ago."

She said this so matter-of-factly that he thought he must have misunderstood her, and demanded a repetition of the remark. She very obligingly complied, and he exclaimed, quite thunderstruck: "So I am to believe that you have been wearing the willow, am I? Fudge! It is the first I have ever heard of such a thing! Pray, who may this man be?"

She got up, drawing her shawl about her shoulders. "It is of no consequence, Papa. He never thought of me, you see."

With that, she drifted away in the indeterminate way which was peculiarly her own, leaving him baffled and furious.

He did not see her again until the family assembled for dinner; and by that time he had discussed the matter at such length with his son, his daughter-in-law, and his chaplain, and with such sublime disregard for the ears of his butler, two footmen, and his valet, all of whom at some time or another came within hearing, that there was hardly a soul in the house unaware that the Lady Hester had received, and meant to decline, a very flattering offer.

Lord Widmore, whose temper was rendered peevish by chronic dyspepsia, was quite as much vexed as his father; but his wife, a robust woman of alarmingly brusque manners, said, with the vulgarity for which she was famed: "Oh, flim-flam! Mere flourishing! I'd lay a monkey you crammed her, sir, for that's always your way. Leave it to me!"

"She's as obstinate as a mule!" said Lord Widmore fretfully.

This made his lady laugh heartily, and beg him not to talk like a nodcock, for a more biddable female than his sister, she said, never existed.

It was perfectly true. Except in her inability to attract eligible suitors to herself, Hester was the sort of daughter with whom the most exacting parent might have been pleased. She always did as she was told, and never argued about it. She indulged neither in sulks nor in hysterics; and if she was unable to attract the right men, at least she had never been known to encourage the wrong ones. She was a good sister, too; and could always be relied upon to take charge of her young nephews and nieces in times of crisis; or to entertain, uncomplainingly, the dullest man invited (willy-nilly) to a dinner-party.

The first person to discuss Sir Gareth's proposal with her was not Lady Widmore, but the Reverend Augustus Whyteleafe, the Earl's chaplain, who seized the earliest opportunity that offered of conveying to her his own reflections upon the occasion.

"You will not object, I know, to my adverting to the topic, painful though it must be to you," he stated. "His lordship, I should perhaps mention, did me the honour to admit me into his confidence, feeling, I collect, that a word from a man in my position might bear weight with you."

"Oh, dear! I am sure it ought to," said Hester, in a conscience-stricken tone.

"But," said Mr. Whyteleafe, squaring his shoulders, "I found myself obliged to inform his lordship that I could not take upon myself the office of Sir Gareth Ludlow's advocate."

"How very brave of you!" Hester said, sighing. "I am so glad, for I don't at all wish to discuss it."

"It must indeed be repugnant to you. You will allow me, however, to tell you that I honour you for your decision, Lady Hester."

She looked at him in mild surprise. "Good gracious, do you? I can't think why you should."

"You have had the courage to spurn a match of mere worldly brilliance. A match which, I daresay, would have been welcome to any lady less highminded than yourself. Let me venture to say that you have done just as you should: nothing but misery, I am persuaded, could result from an alliance between yourself and a fashionable fribble."

"Poor Sir Gareth! I fear you are right, Mr. Whyteleafe: I should make him such an odiously dull wife, should I not?"

"A man of his frivolous tastes might think so," he agreed. "To a man of more serious disposition, however— But on this head I must not, at present, say more."

He then made her a bow, looking at her in a very speaking way, and withdrew, leaving her hovering between amusement and consternation.

Her sister-in-law, who had not failed to mark the exchange, from the other end of the Long Gallery, where the party had assembled after dinner, did not hesitate, later, to ask her what had been said. "For if he had the effrontery to speak to you about this offer your papa has received, I hope you gave him a sharp set-down, Hetty! Such presumption! But there! I don't doubt your papa egged him on. I promise you I made no bones about telling him that capping hounds to a scent won't do in this case."

"Thank you: that was kind. But Mr. Whyteleafe didn't try to persuade me. Indeed, he said that he had told my father he would not, which I thought very courageous in him."

"Ay, that was what made Lord Brancaster as sulky as a bear. I'll tell you what, Hetty, you'll do well to accept Ludlow's offer before Widmore puts it into your father's head that you mean to have a beggarly parson for your husband."

"But I don't," said Hester.

"Lord, I know
that!
But I have eyes in my head, and I can see that Whyteleafe is growing extremely particular in his attentions. The devil of it is that Widmore has seen it too, and you know what a slowtop he is, my dear! Your father's another. I don't doubt he said something to put you in a tweak."

"Oh, no!" Hester said calmly.

"At all events, he told you Ludlow was still moping for that girl he was betrothed to the deuce knows how many years ago!" said Lady Widmore bluntly. "If you take my advice, you won't heed him! I never saw a man less in the dumps than Ludlow."

"No, indeed. Or a man less in love," remarked Hester.

"What of it? I can tell you this, Hetty: it ain't so often that persons of our station marry for love. Look at me! You can't suppose I was ever in love with poor Widmore! But I never took, any more than you did, and when the match was proposed to me I agreed to it, because there's nothing worse for a female than to be left on the shelf."

"One grows accustomed to it," Hester said. "Can you believe, Almeria, that Sir Gareth and I should—should suit?"

"Lord yes! Why not? If the chance had been offered to me, I should have jumped out of my skin to snatch it!" responded Lady Widmore frankly. "I know you don't love him, but what's that to the purpose? You think it over carefully, Hetty! You ain't likely to receive another offer, or, in any event, not such an advantageous one, though I daresay Whyteleafe will pop the question, as soon as he gets preferment. Take Ludlow, and you'll have a handsome fortune, a position of the first consequence, and an agreeable husband into the bargain. Send him to the rightabout, and you'll end your days an old maid, let alone be obliged to listen to your father's and Widmore's reproaches for ever, if
I
know anything of the matter!"

Hester smiled faintly. "One grows accustomed to that too. I have sometimes thought that when Papa dies I might live in quite a little house, by myself."

"Well, you won't," said Lady Widmore trenchantly. "Your sister Susan will pounce on you: I can vouch for
that!
It would suit her very well to have you with her to wait on her hand and foot, and very likely act as governess to all those plain brats of hers as well! And Widmore would think it a first-rate scheme, so you'd get no support from him, or from Gertrude or Constance either. And it's not a particle of good thinking you'd stand out against 'em, my dear, for you haven't a ha'porth of spirit! If you want a home of your own, you'll take Ludlow, and bless yourself for your good fortune, for you won't get one by any other means!"

With these encouraging words, Lady Widmore took herself off to her own bedchamber, pausing on the way to inform her lord that provided he and his father could keep still tongues in their heads she rather fancied she had done the trick.

The Lady Hester, once her maid was dismissed, the candles blown out, and the curtains drawn round her bed, buried her face in the pillow and cried herself quietly to sleep.

Chapter 3

«
HYPERLINK
 
\l"contents"
^
»

Three days later, Sir Gareth, in happy ignorance of the wretched indecision into which his proposal had thrown his chosen bride, left London, and pursued a rather leisurely progress towards Cambridgeshire. He drove his own curricle, with a pair of remarkably fine match-bays harnessed to it, and broke the journey at the house of some friends, not many miles from Baldock, where he remained for two nights, resting his horses. He took with him his head groom, but not his valet: a circumstance which disgusted that extremely skilled gentleman more than it surprised him. Sir Gareth, who belonged to the Corinthian set, was always very well dressed, but he was quite capable of achieving the effect he desired without the ministrations of the genius who had charge of his wardrobe; and the thought that alien hands were pressing his coats, or applying inferior blacking to his Hessian boots, caused him to feel no anguish at all.