The Nonesuch (31 page)

‘You will not go by the stage anywhere at all,’ said Sir Waldo. ‘I’ll send my chaise to fetch you, with my own boys, of course.’

‘To be sure!’ she said instantly. ‘Outriders, and a courier too, I hope! Now, do, do be sensible, my dear sir!’

They were still arguing the matter when they reached the King’s Head. Leaving the Nonesuch in the stable yard, Miss Trent walked into the inn. She had on several occasions refreshed there with Mrs Underhill, and the first person she encountered was an elderly waiter who was well-known to her. Greeting him with a smile, and speaking with studied coolness, she said: ‘Good-day to you, John! Are Miss Wield and Mr Calver still here, or have they given me up in despair? I should have been here long since, but was most tiresomely delayed: I hope they may not have left?’

Even as she said it she became aware of tension, and of curious glances cast in her direction, and her heart sank. The waiter coughed in obvious embarrassment, and replied: ‘No, ma’am. Oh, no, they haven’t
left
!
The gentleman is in one of the parlours – the same one as you was in yourself, ma’am, when you partook of a nuncheon here the other day.’

‘And Miss Wield?’

‘Well, no, ma’am! Miss is in the best bedchamber – being as she is a trifle out of sorts, and the mistress not knowing what else to do but to persuade her to lay down on the bed, with the blinds drawn, till she was more composed, as you might say. Very vapourish, she was – but the mistress will tell you, ma’am!’

Sir Waldo, entering the house at that moment, encountered an anguished look from Miss Trent, and said: ‘What’s amiss?’

‘I couldn’t take it upon myself to say, sir,’ responded the waiter, casting down his eyes. ‘But the gentleman, sir, is in the parlour, the mistress having put some sticking-plaster over the cut, and one of the under-waiters carrying a bottle of cognac up to him – the
best
cognac, sir! – the gentleman, as I understand, having sustained an accident – in a manner of speaking!’

‘We will go up to him!’ said Miss Trent hastily.

‘Sinister!’ observed Sir Waldo, following her up the narrow stairs. ‘Where, by the way, is the heroine of this piece?’

‘Laid down upon the bed in the best bedchamber,’ replied Miss Trent, ‘with the landlady in attendance!’

‘Worse and worse! Do you suppose that she stabbed poor Laurie with a carving-knife?’

‘Heaven knows! It is quite
appalling
– and
no laughing matter, let me tell you! Mrs Underhill is very well known here, and it is perfectly obvious to me that that atrocious girl has created a dreadful scandal! The
one
thing I was hopeful of avoiding! Whatever you do, Waldo, don’t let her suspect that you regard me even with
tolerance
!’

‘Have no fear! I will treat you with civil indifference!’ he promised. ‘I wonder what she
did
do to Laurie?’

He was soon to learn the answer to this. Mr Calver was discovered in the parlour, reclining on a sofa of antiquated and uncomfortable design, a strip of sticking-plaster adorning his brow, his beautifully curled locks sadly dishevelled, a glass in his hand, and a bottle of the King’s Head’s best cognac standing on the floor beside him. As she stepped over the threshold, Miss Trent trod on splinters of glass; and on the table in the centre of the room was an elegant timepiece, in a slightly battered condition. Miss Wield had not stabbed Mr Calver: she had thrown the clock at his head.

‘Snatched it off the mantelpiece and dashed well
hurled
it at me!’ said Laurence.

The Nonesuch shook his head. ‘You must have tried to dodge it,’ he said. ‘Really, Laurie, how could you be such a cawker? If you had but stood still it would have missed you by several feet!’

‘I should rather think I did try to dodge it!’ said Laurence, glaring at him. ‘So would you have done!’

‘Never!’ declared the Nonesuch. ‘When females throw missiles at my head I know better than to budge! Er – would it be indelicate to ask
why
she felt herself impelled to throw the clock at you?’

‘Yes, I might have known you would think it vastly amusing!’ said Laurence bitterly.

‘Well, yes, I think you might!’ said Sir Waldo, his eyes dancing.

Miss Trent, perceiving that her beloved had allowed himself to fall into a mood of ill-timed frivolity, directed a quelling frown at him, and said to the injured dandy: ‘I am so sorry, Mr Calver! I wish you will lie down again: you are not looking at all the thing, and no wonder! Your cousin may think it a jesting matter, but I am excessively grateful to you! Indeed, I cannot conceive how you were able to hold that tiresome child in check for so long!’

Slightly mollified, Laurence said: ‘It wasn’t easy, I can tell you, ma’am. It’s my belief she’s queer in her attic. Well, would you credit it? – she wanted me to sell her pearl necklet, or put it up the spout, just to pay for the hire of a chaise to carry her to London! I had to gammon her I’d pawned my watch instead!’

‘How very wise of you!’ said Miss Trent sycophantically. ‘Pray do sit down, sir! I wish you will tell me – if you feel able – what caused her to – to take a sudden pet?’

‘To do
what
?’
interpolated the Nonesuch.

Miss Trent, turning her back on him in a marked manner, sat down in a chair by the sofa, and smiled at Laurence encouragingly.

‘You may well ask, ma’am!’ said Laurence. He glanced resentfully at his cousin. ‘If you are fancying I was trying to make love to her, Waldo, you’re no better than a Jack Adams! For one thing, I ain’t in the petticoat-line, and for another I wouldn’t make love to that devil’s daughter if I was!’

‘Of course you would not!’ said Miss Trent.

‘Well, I didn’t. What’s more, it wasn’t
my
fault at all! Mind you, I had the deuce of a task to keep her here! Still, we were going on prosperously enough until she suddenly took it into her head she must drink some tea. Why she should want to maudle her inside with tea at this time of day the lord knows, but
I’d
no objection, as long as it stopped her from riding grub. Which I daresay it would have done if she hadn’t asked the jobbernoll who brought in the tray what time the London Mail was expected to arrive in the town. Couldn’t catch the fellow’s eye – wasn’t close enough to give him a nudge! The silly bleater told her there wouldn’t be another till tomorrow morning. That brought the trap down! Talk of ringing a peal – ! She scolded like a cut-purse! You’d have supposed I was a regular Bermondsey boy! And the waiter standing there with his mouth at half-cock, until I told him to take himself off which – I wish I
hadn’t
done!’ Shuddering at the memory, he recruited his strength with a sip or two of cognac. ‘The names she called me! It beats me where she learned ’em, I can tell you that, ma’am!’

‘What
did
she call you, Laurie?’ enquired Sir Waldo, much interested.

‘I wonder,’ said Miss Trent, in a voice of determined coldness, ‘if you would be so obliging, sir, as to refrain from asking quite unimportant questions? Mr Calver, what can I say but that I am deeply mortified? As Miss Wield’s governess, I must hold myself to blame, but I trust –’

‘Learned them from you, did she, ma’am?’ said Sir Waldo irrepressibly.

‘Very witty!’ snapped Laurence. ‘You wouldn’t be so full of fun and gig if
you’d
been in my shoes!’

‘Pray don’t heed your cousin!’ begged Miss Trent. ‘Only tell me what happened!’

‘Well, she twigged I’d been hoaxing her, of course, and it didn’t take her above a minute or two to guess
why
I’d kept her kicking her heels here. I give you my word, ma’am, if she’d had a dagger about her she’d have stuck it into me! Not that I cared for that, because I knew she hadn’t one. But the next thing was that she said she was going off to spout her pearls that instant, so that she could be gone from the place before you reached us! She’d have done it, too! What’s more, I wish I’d let her!’

‘I don’t wonder at it. But you did not – which was
very
well done of you, sir!’

‘I don’t know that,’ he said gloomily. ‘She wouldn’t have raised such a breeze if I’d had the sense to have taken off my bars. The thing was she’d put me in such a tweak by that time that I was hanged if I’d cry craven! Told her that if she tried to shab off I’d squeak beef – what I mean is, tell the landlord who she was, and what she was scheming to do. So then she threw the clock at me. That brought the landlord in on us, and a couple of waiters, and the boots, and a dashed gaggle of chambermaids – and it’s my belief they’d had their ears to the door! And before I could utter a word the little hussy was carrying on as though she thought she was Mrs Siddons! Well, she’d threatened to tell everyone I’d been trying to give her a slip on the shoulder if I wouldn’t let her leave the room, and, by God, she did it!’

‘Oh,
no
!’
exclaimed Miss Trent, changing colour. ‘Oh, how
could
she?’

‘If you was to ask me, ma’am, there’s precious little she couldn’t do! So there was nothing for me to do but tell the landlord she was Mrs Underhill’s niece – which he knew – and that she was trying to run off to London, and all I was doing was holding on to her till you arrived to take her in charge. Which he believed, because I’d hired one of the post-boys to carry a message to Waldo. So, as soon as she saw he did believe it, off went her ladyship into hysterics. Lord, you never heard such a commotion in your life!’

‘I have frequently heard just such a commotion!’ said Miss Trent. ‘Where is she, sir?’

‘I don’t know. The landlady took her off somewhere. No use asking me!’

She got up. ‘I will go and find the landlady, then. But you must let me thank you, Mr Calver! Indeed, I am so
very
much obliged to you! You have had the most disagreeable time imaginable, and I am astonished you didn’t abandon the wretched child!’

‘Well, I couldn’t do that,’ said Laurence. ‘I ain’t such a rum touch! Besides – Well, never mind that!’

He watched her cross the room towards the door, and his cousin move to open it for her. In deepening gloom, he observed the punctilious civility of Sir Waldo’s slight bow, and the rigidity of Miss Trent’s countenance.

Sir Waldo shut the door, and strolled back into the middle of the room. Drawing his snuff-box from his pocket, he tapped it with one long finger, and flicked it open. Taking an infinitesimal pinch, he said, his amused gaze on Laurence’s face: ‘Do tell me, Laurie! Why did you send for me rather than for Underhill?’

Laurence shot him a resentful look. ‘Thought I could do you a good turn, that’s why! And well you know it!’

‘But how kind of you!’ said Sir Waldo. ‘I never had the least guess that you had my interests so much at heart.’

‘Oh, well!’ said Laurie awkwardly. ‘I don’t know that I’d say that, precisely, but we’re cousins, after all, and it was easy to see your affair was hanging in the hedge, so –’

‘What affair?’

Laurence set his empty glass down rather violently. ‘I know you, coz!’ he said angrily. ‘So don’t think to bamboozle me! It’s as plain as a pikestaff –’

‘And don’t
you
think to bamboozle
me
!’
said Sir Waldo, quite pleasantly. ‘All you wish to do is to put me under an obligation to you, so that I shall be moved to set you up in the horse-coping line. I’m familiar with your tactics.’

‘Well, damn it, what else can I do?’ demanded Laurence in an aggrieved tone. ‘Who the devil do you suppose is going to dub up the possibles if you don’t?’

Sir Waldo’s mouth quivered. ‘I shouldn’t think anyone is going to,’ he replied.

‘Yes, that’s just like you!’ Laurence said, his resentment flaring up. ‘You’re so full of juice you don’t know what it is to be bushed – and don’t care, either! It wouldn’t mean any more to you to lend me five thousand than it would mean to me to tip over a bull’s eye to a waiter. But will you do it? –’

‘No,’ said Sir Waldo. ‘I’m far too hard-fisted. So don’t waste any more time or effort in trying to put me under an obligation! You won’t do it. You’re awake upon some suits, but not on all! And you can’t know me as well as you think you do if you imagine I’m not very well able to manage my affairs without your assistance.’

‘You didn’t seem to me to be managing them so very well. No, and even when I threw you and Miss Trent together, you must have made wretched work of it! And you ain’t even grateful to me for
trying
to bring you about! When I think of all the trouble I’ve taken since I came into Yorkshire – let alone being obliged to put up with the infernal racket those builders make! – damme if I don’t think you
owe
me that paltry five thousand! Because you came the concave suit over me, Waldo, and don’t you deny it! Oh, yes, you did! You let me pretty well wear myself out, drawing off that vixen from Lindeth, and it’s my belief you knew all along that he was tired of her! And just look what it’s led to! Let alone the riot and rumpus I’ve had to endure, and the blunt I laid out on hiring this parlour, and giving her tea, and lemonade, and buying a ticket for the Mail, my head’s been laid open, and I shall very likely carry a scar for the rest of my life!’

‘But what have all these misfortunes to do with me?’

‘They’ve got everything to do with you! They’d none of ’em have happened if you hadn’t behaved so scaly! Yes, you laugh! It’s just what I expected you’d do!’

‘You might well!’ replied Sir Waldo. ‘What a hand you are! You know perfectly well that that’s nothing but a bag of moonshine!’

‘No, I – oh, Waldo, be a good fellow, and oblige me just this once!’ Laurence said, with a sudden change of tone. ‘You wouldn’t be so shabby as to refuse, when it was you who made it impossible for me to come by the ready by my own exertions!’

‘Now, what in the name of all that’s marvellous –’

‘You
did
!’
insisted Laurence. ‘You made me give you my word I wouldn’t play for more than chicken-stakes! I daresay you think I’ll run thin, but that’s where you’re mistaken!’

‘I know very well you won’t.’