The Nonesuch (9 page)

‘Her cousin, I collect.’

‘Lord! Well, he’s the greatest gull that ever was!’ said Julian frankly. ‘Crony of Mountsorrel’s – at Harrow together, I fancy – and you know what a Peep o’ Day boy
he
is, Waldo! Always kicking up larks, and thinking himself at home to a peg, which the lord knows he ain’t, and going about town accompanied by the worst barnacles you ever clapped eyes on!’

‘Yes, I know young Mountsorrel: one of the newer Tulips!’

‘Tulips!’ snorted Julian, with all the scorn of one who had been introduced, at his first coming-out, into the pink of Corinthian society. ‘Smatterers, more like! A set of roly-poly fellows who think it makes them regular dashes to box the Watch, or get swine-drunk at the Field of Blood! And as for being of the Corinthian-cut – why, most of ’em ain’t even fit to go!’

‘You’re very severe!’ said Sir Waldo, amused.

‘Well, it was you who taught me to be!’ Julian retorted. ‘Mountsorrel is nothing but a cod’s head, I own, but only think of the ramshackle fellows he’s in a string with! There’s Watchett, for instance: he wears more capes to his driving-coat than you do, but you’ll none of you admit him to the Four-Horse Club! Stone, too!
His
notion of sport is bull-baiting, and going on the spree in Tothill Fields. Then there’s Elstead: he knocks-up more horses in a season than you would in a lifetime, and flies at anything in the shape of gaming. Thinks himself slap up to the echo. Why, when were you ever seen rubbing shoulders in one of the Pall Mall hells with a set of Greek banditti?’

‘Is that what young Trent does?’

‘I don’t know: not a friend of mine. I haven’t seen him lately: rusticating, I daresay. He didn’t look to me like a downy one, so you may depend upon it he found himself in Tow Street.’

Armed with this information, Sir Waldo very soon found the opportunity to set himself right with Miss Trent. Wasting no subtlety, he told her cheerfully that she had misjudged him.

They were riding side by side, Julian and Tiffany a little way ahead. Mrs Underhill felt herself powerless to prevent the almost daily rides of this couple, but she did insist on Ancilla’s accompanying them, and was sometimes able to persuade her son to join the party. Occasionally Patience Chartley went with them; and, quite frequently, Sir Waldo.

Ancilla turned her head to look at him, raising her brows. ‘In what way, sir?’

‘In laying your cousin’s follies at my door.’ He smiled at her startled look, and betraying flush. ‘What happened to him? Lindeth tells me he’s in a string with young Mountsorrel, and his set.’

‘He was used to be – he and Lord Mountsorrel were at school together – but no longer, I hope. His connection with him was ruinous.’

‘Ran into Dun territory, did he? The younger men don’t come much in my way, but I’ve always understood that Mountsorrel has more money than sense, which makes him dangerous company for other greenhorns. Too many gull-catchers hang about him – not to mention the Bloods, and the Dashers, and the Care-for-Nobodies.’

‘Yes. My uncle said that, or something like it. But indeed I never laid Bernard’s follies at your door, sir!’

‘Didn’t you? That’s discouraging: I believed I had solved the riddle of your dislike of me.’

‘I don’t dislike you. If – if you thought me stiff when we first met it was because I dislike the set you represent!’

‘I don’t think you know anything about the set I represent,’ he responded coolly. ‘Let me assure you that it is very far removed from Mountsorrel’s, ma’am!’

‘Of course – but you are – oh, the Nonesuch!’ she said with a quick smile. ‘Mountsorrel and his friends copy you – as far as they are able –’

‘I beg your pardon!’ he interrupted. ‘They don’t – being
un
able! Dear me, I sound just like the Beautiful Miss Wield, don’t I? Some of them copy the Corinthian rig – in the exaggerated form I
don’t
affect; but
my
set, Miss Trent, is composed of men who were born with a natural aptitude for athletic sports. We
do
the thing; Mountsorrel, and his kind, are lookers-on. Don’t ask me why they should ape our fashions, when there is nothing more distasteful to them, I daresay, than the sports we enjoy, for I can’t tell you! But you may believe that the youngster anxious to excel in sporting exercises is safer amongst the Corinthians than amongst the Bond Street beaux.’

‘Ah, yes, but – does it not lead to more dangerous things? To gaming, for instance?’

‘Gaming, Miss Trent, is not confined to any one class of society,’ he said dryly. ‘It won’t lead him to haunt the wine-shops in Tothill Fields, to wake the night-music, or to pursue the – er – West-end comets, to his destruction.’ He laughed suddenly. ‘You foolish girl! Don’t you know that if he did so it would be bellows to mend with him within five minutes of his engaging in a little sparring exercise at Jackson’s?’

‘To own the truth, I had never considered the matter,’ she confessed. ‘Though I do recall, now you put me in mind of it, that whenever my brother Harry was engaged to play in a cricket-match, or some such thing, he was used to take the greatest pains not to put himself out of frame, as he called it.’

‘Wise youth! Is he too a budding Corinthian?’

‘Oh, no! He is a soldier.’

‘Like your uncle!’

‘Yes, and my father, too.’

‘Indeed? Tell me about him! Was he engaged at Waterloo?’

‘Yes – that is, my brother was, but not my father. My father was killed at Ciudad Rodrigo.’

‘I am sorry.’ His tone was grave; but he did not pursue the subject, asking her instead, after a moment or two, if her brother was with the Army of Occupation. She was grateful to him for respecting her reserve, and answered far more readily than she might have done. She seldom mentioned her family, for Mrs Underhill was interested only in the General; and although Mrs Chartley sometimes enquired kindly after her mother, and her brothers, she rarely allowed herself to be lured into giving more than civil responses, feeling that Mrs Chartley could have little interest in persons with whom she was unacquainted.

Sir Waldo was much more successful in winning her out of her reticence; and it was not many days before he knew more about Miss Trent’s family than Mrs Chartley, preoccupied with her own family and her husband’s parish, had even guessed. He knew that Will – the best of all sons and brothers! – was the incumbent of a parish in Derbyshire, and already the father of a hopeful family. He had married the daughter of one of Papa’s oldest friends, a dear, good girl, beloved of them all. Mama and Sally lived with him and Mary, and in the greatest harmony. Sally was the youngest of the family: only a schoolroom child yet, but already remarkably accomplished, and bidding fair to become a very pretty girl. Christopher joined them during the holidays, except when his uncle invited him to stay in London, and indulged him with all manner of high treats, from snipe-shooting in Regent’s Park, or skating on the Serpentine, to Astley’s Amphitheatre, and pugilistic displays at the Fives Court. Uncle Mordaunt had taken upon his shoulders the whole charge of Kit’s education at Harrow. Nothing could exceed Uncle Mordaunt’s goodness and generosity: in spite of possessing a fortune that was genteel rather than handsome he had been almost at outs with them all for refusing to live upon his bounty! But with Will so comfortably situated; and Harry now able (since he got his Company) to contribute towards the family funds; and Mama teaching Sally herself, which she was well qualified to do, being the daughter of a Professor of Greek, and (as they told her when they wanted to joke her) very
blue
!
it would be shocking to be so much beholden.

‘And the elder Miss Trent, I collect, doesn’t choose to be in any way beholden?’

‘No more than I need. But you mustn’t suppose that I am not already very much obliged to my uncle and aunt, if you please! My aunt was so kind as to bring me out, as the saying is – and to spare no pains to get me eligibly riveted!’ she added, a gurgle of laughter in her throat. ‘She had a strong persuasion that even though I’ve no fortune a respectable alliance might have been achieved for me would I but
apply
myself to the business! Oh, dear! I ought not to laugh at her, for she bore with me most patiently, but she
is
such a funny one!’

His eyes gleamed appreciatively, but he said: ‘Poor lady! Were you never tempted to apply yourself?’

‘No, I was always old cattish,’ she replied cheerfully.

‘Were you indeed? Did you remain with your uncle for only one season?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, but pray don’t imagine that I might not have stayed had I wished to do so! To have done so when he has three daughters of his own to bring out would have been rather too strong, I thought – particularly when Bernard had got so shockingly into debt.’

‘So you became a governess! Not without opposition, I should suppose!’

‘Oh, no! Will and Harry made a great dust, and even Mary said she took it very unkind in me not to wish to live at their expense. They all pictured me eking out a miserable existence on a pittance – and used as if I had been a slave into the bargain! The only comfort they could find was in the thought that I could return to them if I found my lot insupportable.’

‘Have you never done so?’ he asked, looking rather searchingly at her.

‘No, never. No doubt I might have done so, but I’ve been singularly fortunate. Miss Climping, dear creature, treated me as though I had been her niece rather than the junior mistress; and it was she who recommended me to Mrs Burford, to take charge of Tiffany.’

‘Good God, do you count that good fortune?’

‘Most certainly I do! My dear sir, if I were to tell you what an enormous wage I’m paid it would make you stare!’

‘I know very little about such matters, but I seem to have heard that an upper man can command a bigger wage than a governess.’

‘Ah, but I am a very superior governess!’ she said, putting on an air of large consequence. ‘Only fancy! Besides such commonplace subjects as water-colour sketching and the use of the globes, I instruct my pupils in music – both pianoforte and harp; and can speak and read French
and
Italian!’

‘I have no doubt at all that you earn every penny of your hire,’ he said, smiling.

She laughed. ‘The mischief is that I don’t! My conscience pricks me very often, I promise you, for Charlotte has neither inclination nor aptitude; and Tiffany will do no more than commit to memory the words of an Italian song. I’ve convinced her that
some
skill on the pianoforte is an indispensable accomplishment for a lady with social ambitions; but nothing will prevail upon her to play the harp. She complains that it breaks her nails, and says that it is better to have pretty nails than to be able to perform upon the harp.’

‘I still maintain that you earn your hire, ma’am!’

He was thinking of this interchange when she joined him on the terrace, saying: ‘
Quite
abominable!’ He was well aware by this time that her position was far more that of guardian than governess; and as he believed that she had too much intelligence not to have realized what was the end to which his dealings with Tiffany
were directed he lived in daily expectation of being called to book. It seemed to him that Mrs Underhill viewed Julian’s infatuation with complaisance. Far from demurring at his frequent visits she had begged them both to treat Staples as their own, standing upon no ceremony. ‘For very uncomfortable it must be at Broom Hall, with builders working there, and plaster-dust in everything, as well I know it is!’ she had said. ‘So take your pot-luck with us, Sir Waldo, whenever you fancy, and be sure you’ll be very welcome!’

He said now, leading Miss Trent to one of the rustic seats on the terrace: ‘Very true! But do you think it will do your ravishing charge any harm to receive a few set-downs?’

‘Oh, no!’ she replied calmly. ‘I fear it won’t do her any good either – but that, after all, is not your object, is it?’

He checked her, as she was about to sit down, saying: ‘One moment! You will have the sun in your eyes: I’ll turn the seat a little.’

She let him do so, but said, smiling faintly: ‘Trying to change the subject, sir?’

‘No, no! Just sparring for wind, ma’am!’

‘I imagine that to be some horrid boxing cant,’ she observed, seating herself. ‘I trust, however, that you don’t think me such a ninny as to be blind to what
is
your object?’

He sat down beside her. ‘No, I don’t,’ he confessed. ‘I’ll own to you that I’ve been torn between the hope that you did know, and the dread of having a peal rung over me!’

If she blushed it was so slightly that he was unaware of it. She replied, ignoring the first part of his sentence: ‘Oh, I don’t mean to scold!’

‘Now you
have
surprised me!’ he remarked.

‘I suppose, under certain circumstances I might scold,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘But my situation is rather difficult. The thing is, you see, that Mrs Underhill doesn’t wish Tiffany to marry your cousin any more than you do.’

‘In that case, it is a little astonishing that she should encourage Julian to run tame here,’ he said sceptically.

‘I daresay it may seem so to you, not knowing Tiffany as well as I – we – do. I can assure you that if her mind is set on anything the least hint of opposition is enough to goad her into going her length, however outrageous that may be. And in general it
is
outrageous,’ she added candidly. ‘You will allow that an à suivie flirtation, conducted in my presence, or her aunt’s, is by far less dangerous than clandestine meetings would be. For one thing, it is not so romantic; and, for another, such meetings would of necessity be infrequent, as well as brief, and that, you know, would preclude her becoming bored with Lord Lindeth.’

He could not help smiling at her matter-of-factness, but he said: ‘Yes, I will allow that, ma’am. I will even concede that the girl might prevail upon Lindeth to meet her in such a way. But when you talk of her becoming
bored
with him I think you are wide of the mark. I daresay she may be – but Lindeth would be a big prize for her to win.’