The Nonesuch (11 page)

‘Wasn’t it?’ said Sir Waldo, amusement lurking beneath his too-obviously assumed gravity. ‘Well, take my advice, you young cawker, and never praise one woman to another!’

‘You are quite mistaken!’ said Julian, more stiffly than ever.

‘Yes, yes, of course I am – being so green myself!’ agreed Sir Waldo soothingly. ‘So, for God’s sake, don’t stir any more coals to convince me of it! I am convinced – wholly! – and I detest brangles!’

Mr Underhill’s optimistic plan of making an early start on Friday morning was not realized. He was certainly up betimes; but in spite of his having hammered on his cousin’s door at an early hour, warning her to make haste, since it was going to be a scorching day, the rest of the breakfast-party, which included Sir Waldo and Lord Lindeth, had finished the handsome repast provided for them before Tiffany came floating into the parlour, artlessly enquiring whether she was late.

‘Yes, you are!’ growled Courtenay. ‘We’ve been waiting for you this age! What the deuce have you been about? You have had time enough to rig yourself out a dozen times!’

‘That’s just what she does,’ said Charlotte impishly. ‘First she puts one dress on, and decides it don’t become her, and so then she tries another – don’t you, cousin?’

‘Well, I’m sure you look very becoming in that habit, love,’ interposed Mrs Underhill hastily. ‘Though if I was you I wouldn’t choose to wear velvet, not in this weather!’

By the time Tiffany had eaten her breakfast, put on her hat to her satisfaction, and found such unaccountably mislaid articles as her gloves, and her riding-whip, the hour was considerably advanced, and Courtenay in a fret of impatience, saying that Lizzie must be supposing by now that they had forgotten all about her. However, when they reached Colby Place they found the family just getting up from the breakfast-table, and Lizzie by no means ready to set out. There was thus a further delay while Lizzie ran upstairs to complete her toilet, accompanied by her two younger sisters, who were presently heard demanding of some apparently remote person what she had done with Miss Lizzie’s boots.

During this period Lindeth and Tiffany enjoyed a quiet flirtation, Sir Ralph gave the Nonesuch a long and involved account of his triumph over someone who had tried to get the better of him in a bargain, Courtenay fidgeted about the room, and Lady Colebatch prosed to Miss Trent with all the placidity of one to whom time meant nothing.

‘Only two hours later than was planned,’ remarked Sir Waldo, when the calvacade at last set forth. ‘Very good!’

Miss Trent, who had been regretting for nearly as long that she had ever expressed a wish to see the Dripping Well, replied: ‘I suppose it might have been expected!’

‘Yes, and I did expect it,’ he said cheerfully.

‘I wonder then that you should have lent yourself to this expedition.’

‘One becomes inured to the unpunctuality of your sex, ma’am,’ he responded.

Incensed by this unjust animadversion, she said tartly: ‘Let me inform you, sir, that
I
kept no one waiting!’

‘But you are a very exceptional female,’ he pointed out.

‘I assure you, I am nothing of the sort.’

‘I shall not allow you to be a judge of that. Oh, no, don’t look at me so crossly! What can I possibly have said to vex you?’

‘I beg your pardon! Nothing, of course: merely, I’m not in the mood for nonsense, Sir Waldo!’

‘That’s no reason for scowling at me!’ he objected. ‘I haven’t been boring you to death for the past half-hour! Of course, I may bore you before the day is out, but it won’t be with vapid commonplaces, I promise you.’

‘Take care!’ she warned him, glancing significantly towards Miss Colebatch, who was riding ahead of them, with Courtenay.

‘Neither of them is paying the least heed to us. Do you always ride that straightshouldered cocktail?’

‘Yes – Mrs Underhill having bought him for my use. He does very well for me.’

‘I wish I had the mounting of you. Do you hunt?’

‘No. When Tiffany goes out with the hounds she is her cousin’s responsibility, not mine.’

‘Thank God for that! You would certainly come to grief if you attempted to hunt that animal. I only hope you may not be saddle-sick before ever we reach Knaresborough.’

‘Indeed, so do I! I don’t know why you should think me such a poor creature!’

‘I don’t: I think your horse a poor creature, and a most uncomfortable ride.’

‘Oh, no, I assure you –’ She broke off, checked by a lifted eyebrow. ‘Well, perhaps he is not very – very easy-paced! In any event, I don’t mean to argue with you about him, for I am persuaded it would be very stupid in me to do so.’

‘It would,’ he agreed. ‘I collect it didn’t occur to your amiable charge to lend you her other hack? By the bye, what made your resolution fail the other day?’

She did not pretend to misunderstand him, but answered frankly: ‘I
couldn’t
allow her to expose herself!’

He smiled. ‘Couldn’t you? Never mind! I fancy she contrived to charm Lindeth out of his disapproval, but the image became just a trifle smudged, nevertheless. I added my mite later in the day – which is why I am being treated with a little reserve.’

‘Are you? Oh, dear, how horrid it is, and how very difficult to know what my duty is! Odious to be scheming against the child!’

‘Is that what you are doing? I had no notion of it, and thought the scheming was all on my side.’

‘Not precisely scheming, but – but
conniving
,
by allowing you to bamboozle her!’

‘My dear girl, how do you imagine you could stop me?’

Miss Trent toyed with the idea of objecting to this mode of address, and then decided that it would be wiser to ignore it. ‘I don’t know, but –’

‘Nor anyone else. Don’t tease yourself to no purpose! You are really quite helpless in the matter, you know.’

She turned her head, gravely regarding him. ‘Don’t you feel some compunction, Sir Waldo?’

‘None at all. I should feel much more than compunction if I did not do my utmost to prevent Lindeth’s falling a victim to as vain and heartless a minx as I have yet had the ill-fortune to encounter. Do I seem to you a villain? I promise you I am not!’

‘No, no! But you do make her show her worst side!’

‘True! Does it occur to you that if I employed such tactics against – oh, Miss Chartley – Miss Colebatch there – yourself – I should be taken completely at fault? You would none of you show a side you don’t possess. What’s more, ma’am, I don’t
make
the chit coquet with me, or boast of her looks and her conquests to impress me: I merely offer her the opportunity to do so – and much good that would do me if she had as much elegance of mind as of person! All I should win by casting out such lures to a girl of character would be a well-deserved set-down.’

She could not deny it, and rode on in silence. He saw that she was still looking rather troubled, and said: ‘Take comfort, you over-anxious creature! I may encourage her to betray her tantrums and her selfishness but I would no more
create
a
situation to conjure up these faults than I would compromise her.’ He laughed suddenly. ‘A work of supererogation! If she could fly into a passion merely because Julian expressed a mild desire to include Miss Chartley in this party we shan’t suffer from a want of such situations! Who knows! He may feel it incumbent upon him to pay a little attention to Miss Colebatch presently, in which case we shall find ourselves in the centre of a vortex!’

She was obliged to laugh, but she shuddered too, begging him not to raise such hideous spectres. ‘Though I’ve no real apprehension in this instance,’ she added. ‘Miss Colebatch is the one girl with whom Tiffany has struck up a friendship.’

‘Yes, I have observed that the redhead regards her with enormous admiration.’

‘I shall take leave to tell you, Sir Waldo,’ said Miss Trent severely, ‘that that remark had better have been left unspoken!’

‘It would have been, had I been talking to anyone but yourself.’

Fortunately, since she could not think what to say in reply to this, Courtenay came trotting back to them at that moment, to inform them of a slight change of plan. By skirting the cornfield that lay beyond the hedge to their right they could cut a corner, and so be the sooner out of the lane, and on to open ground, he said. The only thing was that there was no gate on the farther side: did Miss Trent feel she could jump the hedge?

‘What, on that collection of bad points? Certainly not!’ said Sir Waldo.

Courtenay grinned but said: ‘I know, but there’s nothing to it, sir! He’ll brush through it easily enough – or she could
pull
him through it, if she chooses!’

‘Oh, could she?’ said Miss Trent, her eye kindling. ‘Well, she
don’t
choose! By all means let us escape as soon as we may from this stuffy lane!’

‘I knew you were a right one!’ said Courtenay. ‘There is a gate on this side, where the others are waiting, and I’ll have it open in a trice.’

He wheeled his hack, and trotted off again. Miss Trent turned her fulminating gaze upon the Nonesuch, but he disarmed her by throwing up his hand in the gesture of a fencer acknowledging a hit, saying hastily: ‘No, no, don’t snap my nose off! I cry craven!’

‘So I should hope, sir!’ she said, moving off in Courtenay’s wake. She said over her shoulder, sudden mischief in her face: ‘I wish that handsome thoroughbred of yours may not make you look no-how by refusing!’

An answering gleam shone in his eyes. ‘You mean you wish he
may
!
But I’m on my guard, and shall wait for you to show me the way!’

The hedge proved, however, to be much as Courtenay had described it, presenting no particular difficulty to even the sorriest steed, but Tiffany, who was leading the procession round the side of the field, approached it at a slapping pace, and soared over it with inches to spare. Miss Colebatch exclaimed: ‘Oh, one would think that lovely mare had wings! I wish I could ride like that!’

‘I’m glad you
don’t
ride like that!’ said Courtenay. ‘Wings! She’s more like to end with a broken leg!’ He reined his horse aside, saying politely to Sir Waldo: ‘Will you go, sir?’

‘Yes, if you wish – but rather more tamely! Your cousin is an intrepid horsewoman, and might become an accomplished one, but you should teach her not to ride at a hedge as if she had a stretch of water to clear. She’ll take a rattling fall one of these days.’

‘Lord, sir, I’ve told her over and over again to ride
fast
at water, and
slow
at timber, but she never pays the least heed to what anyone says! She’s a show-off – though I’ll say this for her!! – she don’t care a rush for a tumble!’

‘And rides with a light hand,’ said Julian, with a challenging look at Sir Waldo.

‘Yes, and such a picture as she presents!’ said Miss Colebatch.

Miss Trent, following Sir Waldo over the hedge, observed, as she reined in beside him, that that at least was true. He shrugged, but did not reply. The rest of the party joined them; and as they were now upon uncultivated ground they rode on in a body for some way, and the opportunity for private conversation was lost.

It was when they had covered perhaps half the distance to Knaresborough that Miss Trent, herself uncomfortably hot, noticed that Miss Colebatch, who had started out in tearing spirits, had become unusually silent. Watching her, she saw her sag in the saddle, and then jerk herself upright again; and she edged her horse alongside her, saying quietly: ‘Are you feeling quite the thing, Miss Colebatch?’

A rather piteous glance was cast at her, but Elizabeth, trying to smile, replied: ‘Oh yes! That is, I – I have the headache a little, but
pray
don’t regard it! I shall be better directly, and I would not for the world – It is just the excessive heat!’

Miss Trent now perceived that under the sun’s scorch she was looking very sickly. She said: ‘No wonder! I find it insufferably hot myself, and shall be thankful to call a halt to this expedition.’

‘Oh, no, no!’ gasped Elizabeth imploringly. ‘Don’t say anything –
pray
!’
Her chest heaved suddenly, and her mouth went awry. ‘Oh, Miss Trent, I d-do feel so s-sick!’ she disclosed, tears starting to her eyes.

Miss Trent leaned forward to catch her slack bridle, bringing both their horses to a halt. She had not come unprepared for such an emergency, and, thrusting a hand into her pocket, produced a bottle of smelling-salts. By this time the rest of the party had seen that something was wrong, and had gathered round them. Miss Trent, dropping her own bridle, supported Elizabeth’s wilting frame with one arm while she held the vinaigrette under her nose with her other hand. She said: ‘Miss Colebatch is overcome by the heat. Lift her down, Mr Underhill!’

He dismounted quickly, very much concerned, and, with a little assistance from Lindeth, soon had poor Elizabeth out of the saddle. Miss Trent was already on the ground, and after directing them to lay their burden on the turf desired them to retire to a distance.

Elizabeth was not sick, but she retched distressingly for some minutes; and felt so faint and dizzy that she was presently glad to obey Miss Trent’s command to lie still, and to keep her eyes shut. Ancilla remained beside her, shielding her as much as possible from the sun, and fanning her with her own hat. The gentlemen, meanwhile, conferred apart, while Tiffany stood watching her friend, and enquiring from time to time if Ancilla thought she would soon be better.

After a few moments the Nonesuch detached himself from the male group, and came towards Ancilla. He made a sign to her that he wished to speak to her; she nodded, and, leaving Tiffany to take her place, got up, and went to him.

‘Just as you foretold, eh?’ he said. ‘How is she?’

‘Better, but in no cause to go on, poor girl! I have been racking my brains to think what were best to do, and can hit upon nothing. I think, if she could but get out of the sun she would revive, but there are no trees, and not even a bush to afford her some shade!’

‘Do you think, if her horse were led, she could go on for half a mile? Underhill tells us that there’s a village, and an inn: no more than a small alehouse, I collect, but he says the woman who keeps it is respectable, and the immediate need, as you say, is to bring Miss Colebatch out of the sun. What do you think?’

‘An excellent suggestion!’ she replied decidedly. ‘We must at all events make the attempt to get her there, for she can’t remain here, on the open moor. I believe that if she could rest in the cool, and we could get some water for her, she will soon recover – but she must not go any farther, Sir Waldo!’