The Quiet Gentleman (2 page)

With Martin, it was otherwise. Every change of mood was reflected in his eyes, so dark a brown as to appear almost black, and in the sensitive curves of his full mouth. Six years younger than his cousin, he had not altogether thrown off the boy; and, from having been the idol of his mother and the pet of his father, he was a good deal spoiled, impatient of restraint, thrown into the sulks by trifling causes, and into wild rages by obstacles to his plans. Treated from his earliest youth as though he, and not his half-brother, had been his father’s heir, it was not to be expected that he could face with equanimity the succession of the seventh Earl. A vague belief that his brother would not survive the rigours of the campaign in Spain had fostered in him the unexplored thought that he would one day step into his father’s shoes; the emergence of the seventh Earl, unscathed, from the war found him unprepared, and filled him, when his first shocked incredulity had passed, with a sense of burning resentment. He had only a slight recollection of the brother seven years his senior, his memory retaining little beyond the impression of a fair, quiet boy, with a gentle manner, and a very soft voice; but he was sure that he would dislike him. He said, with a defiant glance cast in the direction of his impassive cousin: ‘I daresay it is past six o’clock already! When are we to dine? If he thinks to bring town ways to Stanyon, I for one won’t bear it!’

‘Do not put yourself about, my dear!’ recommended his parent. ‘Dinner must for this once await his convenience, but with all his faults his disposition was always compliant. I assure you, I do not expect to find our style of living overset by any fashionable nonsense which he may have learnt in Lady Penistone’s establishment.
That
would not suit me at all, and I am not quite nobody at Stanyon, I believe!’

This announcement, being plainly in the nature of a pleasantry, caused Mr Clowne to laugh a little, and to say: ‘Indeed your ladyship is not nobody! Such a whimsical fancy must really quite startle anyone unacquainted with those flashes of wit
we
know so well!’ He encountered a sardonic look from Theodore, and added hastily: ‘How many years it is since I have had the pleasure of meeting his lordship! How much he will have to tell us of his experiences! I am sure we shall all hang upon his lips!’

‘Hang upon his lips!’ exclaimed Martin, with one of his fiery looks. ‘Ay! toad-eat him to the top of his bent!
I
shall not do so! I wish he were underground!’

‘Take care what you say!’ interposed his cousin sternly.

Martin flushed, looking a little conscious, but said in a sullen tone: ‘Well, I do wish it, but of course I don’t mean anything! You need not be so quick to take me up!’

‘Military anecdotes are never acceptable to me,’ said the Dowager, as though the brief interchange between the cousins had not occurred. ‘I have no intention of encouraging Desborough to enlarge upon his experiences in Spain. The reflections of a General must always be of value – though I fancy we have heard enough of the late war: those of a junior officer can only weary his auditors.’

‘You need feel no alarm on that score, ma’am,’ said Theodore. ‘My cousin has not altered so much!’

This was uttered so dryly that the Chaplain felt himself impelled to step into a possible breach. ‘Ah, Mr Theodore, you remind us that you are the only one amongst us who can claim to know his lordship!
You
have frequently been meeting him, while
we
–’

‘I have met him occasionally,’ interrupted Theodore. ‘His employment abroad has not made
frequent
meetings possible.’

‘Just so – precisely as I was about to remark! But you know him well enough to have a kindness for him!’

‘I have always had a great kindness for him, sir.’

The reappearance of Miss Morville, bearing a small fire-screen set upon an ebony stick, which she handed to the Dowager, created a timely diversion. The Dowager bestowed a smile upon her, saying that she was very much obliged to her. ‘I do not know how I shall bear to relinquish you to your worthy parents when they return from the Lakes, for I am sure I shall miss you excessively. My daughter – Lady Grampound, you know – is for ever advising me to employ some genteel person to bear me company, and to run my little errands for me. If ever I should decide to do so I shall offer the post to
you
, I promise you!’

Miss Morville, not so swift as Mr Clowne to recognize her ladyship’s wit, replied to this pleasantry in a practical spirit. ‘Well, it is very kind in you to think you would like to have me to live with you, ma’am,’ she said, ‘but I do not think it would suit me, for I should not have nearly enough to do.’

‘You like to be very busy, don’t you?’ Theodore said, smiling at her in some amusement.

‘Yes,’ she replied, seating herself again in her chair, and resuming her knitting. She added thoughtfully: ‘It is to be hoped that I shall never be obliged to seek such a post, for my disposition is
not
meek, and would render me ineligible for any post but that, perhaps, of housekeeper.’

This prosaic observation appeared to daunt the company. A silence fell, which was broken by the ubiquitous Mr Clowne, who said archly: ‘What do you think of, Miss Morville, while your hands are so busy? Or must we not seek to know?’

She looked rather surprised, but replied with the utmost readiness: ‘I was wondering whether I should not, after all, make the foot a little longer. When they are washed at home, you know, they don’t shrink; but it is sadly different at Cambridge! I should think the washerwomen there ought to be ashamed of themselves!’

Finding that this reflection evoked no response from the assembled company, she again applied herself to her work, and continued to be absorbed in it until Martin, who had quick ears, jerked up his head, and ejaculated: ‘A carriage! At last!’

At the same moment, an added draught informed the initiated that the door beyond the Grand Staircase had been opened; there was a subdued noise of bustle in the vestibule, and the sound of trampling hooves in the carriage-drive. Miss Morville finished knitting her row, folded the sock, and bestowed it neatly in the tapestry-bag. Though Martin nervously fingered his cravat, the Dowager betrayed by no sign that she had heard the sounds of an arrival. Mr Clowne, taking his cue from her, lent a spuriously eager ear to the platitude which fell from her lips; and Theodore, glancing from one to the other, seemed to hesitate to put himself forward.

A murmur of voices from the vestibule indicated that Abney, the butler, had thrown open the doors to receive his new master. Several persons, including the steward, and a couple of footmen, were bowing, and falling back obsequiously; and in another instant a slim figure came into view. Only Miss Morville, seated in a chair with its back turned to the vestibule, was denied this first glimpse of the seventh Earl. Either from motives of good manners, or from lack of interest, she refrained from peeping round the back of her chair; and the Dowager, to mark her approbation, addressed another of her majestic platitudes to her.

All that could at first be seen of the seventh Earl was a classic profile, under the brim of a high-crowned beaver; a pair of gleaming Hessians, and a drab coat of many capes and graceful folds, which enveloped him from chin to ankle. His voice was heard: a soft voice, saying to the butler: ‘Thank you! Yes, I remember you very well: you are Abney. And you, I think, must be my steward. Perran, is it not? I am very glad to see you again.’

He turned, as though aware of the eyes which watched him, and stood foursquare to the Hall, seeing his stepmother, her imposing form gowned in purple satin, a turban set upon her gray locks, her Roman nose elevated; his half-brother, standing scowling before the fireplace, one hand gripping the high mantelshelf, the other dug into the pocket of his satin breeches; his cousin, standing a little in the background, and slightly smiling at him; his Chaplain, torn between curiosity and his allegiance to the Dowager. He regarded them thoughtfully, while with one hand he removed the beaver from his head, and held it out, and with the other he relinquished his gloves and his cane into the care of a footman. His hat was reverently taken from him by Abney, who murmured: ‘Your coat, my lord!’

‘My coat, yes: in a moment!’ the Earl said, moving unhurriedly towards the Hall.

An instant Theodore hesitated, waiting for the Dowager or for Martin to make some sign; then he strode forward, with his hands held out, exclaiming: ‘Gervase, my dear fellow! Welcome!’

Martin, his affronted stare taking in the number of the capes of that drab coat, the high polish on the Hessian boots, the extravagant points of a shirt-collar, and the ordered waves of guinea-gold hair above a white brow, muttered audibly: ‘Good God! the fellow’s nothing but a curst
dandy
!’

The flicker of a quizzical look, cast in Martin’s direction, betrayed that his half-brother had heard his involuntary exclamation. Before the ready flush had surged up to the roots of his hair, Gervase was no longer looking at him, but was shaking his cousin’s hand, smiling at him, and saying: ‘How do you do, Theo? You see, I do keep my promises: I have come!’

Theo held his slender hand an instant longer, pressing it slightly. ‘One year past! You are a villain!’

‘Ah, yes, but you see I must have gone into black gloves, and really I could not bring myself to do so!’ He drew his hand away, and advanced into the Hall, towards his stepmother’s chair.

She did not rise, but she extended her hand to him. ‘Well, and so you have come at last, St Erth! I am happy to see you here, though, to be sure, I scarcely expected ever to do so! I do not know why you could not have come before, but you were always a strange, whimsical creature, and I daresay I shall not find that you have changed.’

‘Dear ma’am, believe me, it is the greatest satisfaction to me to be able to perceive, at a glance, that
you
have not changed – not by so much as a hairsbreadth!’ Gervase responded, bowing over her hand.

So sweetly were the words uttered, that everyone, except the Dowager, was left in doubt of their exact significance. The Dowager, who would have found it hard to believe that she could be the object of satire, was unmoved. ‘No, I fancy I do not alter,’ she said complacently. ‘No doubt, however, you see a great change in your brother.’

‘A great change,’ agreed Gervase, holding out his hand to Martin, and scanning him out of his smiling, blue eyes. ‘Can you be my little brother? It seems so unlikely! I should not have recognized you.’ He turned, offering hand and smile to the Chaplain. ‘But Mr Clowne I must certainly have known anywhere! How do you do?’

The Chaplain, who, from the moment of the Earl’s handing his hat to Abney, had stood staring at him as though he could not drag his eyes from his face, seemed to be a trifle shaken, and answered with much less than his usual urbanity: ‘And I you, my lord! For one moment it was as though – Your lordship must forgive me! Memory serves one some strange tricks.’

‘You mean, I think, that I am very like my mother,’ said Gervase. ‘I am glad – though it is a resemblance which has brought upon me in the past much that I wish to forget.’

‘It has frequently been remarked,’ stated the Dowager, ‘that Martin is the very likeness of all the Frants.’

‘You are too severe, ma’am,’ said Gervase gently.

‘Let me tell you, St Erth, that if I favour the Frants I am devilish glad to hear it!’ said Martin.

‘Tell me anything you wish, my dear Martin!’ said Gervase encouragingly.

His young relative was not unnaturally smitten to silence, and stood glaring at him. The Dowager said in a voice of displeasure: ‘I have the greatest dislike of such trifling talk as this. I shall make you known to Miss Morville, St Erth.’

Bows were exchanged; the Earl murmured that he was happy to make Miss Morville’s acquaintance; and Miss Morville, accepting the civility with equanimity, pointed out to him, in a helpful spirit, that Abney was still waiting to relieve him of his driving-coat.

‘Of course – yes!’ said Gervase, allowing the butler to help him out of his coat, and standing revealed in all the fashionable elegance of dove-coloured pantaloons, and a silver-buttoned coat of blue superfine. A quizzing-glass hung on a black riband round his neck, and he raised this to one eye, seeming to observe, for the first time, the knee-breeches worn by his brother and his cousin, and the glory of his stepmother’s low-cut gown of purple satin. ‘Oh, I am afraid I have kept you waiting for me!’ he said apologetically. ‘Now what is to be done? Will you permit me, ma’am, to sit down to dinner in all my dirt, or shall I change my clothes while your dinner spoils?’

‘It would take you an hour, I daresay!’ Martin remarked, with a curling lip.

‘Oh, more than that!’ replied Gervase gravely.

‘I am not, in general, an advocate for a man’s sitting down to dine in his walking-dress,’ announced the Dowager. ‘I consider such a practice slovenly, and slovenliness I abhor! In certain cases it may be thought, however, to be allowable. We will dine immediately, Abney.’

The Earl, taking up a position before the fire, beside his brother, drew a Sèvres snuff-box from his pocket, and, opening it with a dexterous flick of his thumb, took a pinch of the mixture it contained, and raised it to one nostril. An unusual signet-ring, which he wore, and which seemed, at one moment, dull and dark, and at another, when he moved his hand so that the ring caught the light, to glow with green fire, attracted his stepmother’s attention. ‘What is that ring you have upon your finger, St Erth?’ she demanded. ‘It appears to me to be a signet!’

‘Why, so it is, ma’am!’ he replied, raising his brows in mild surprise.

‘How comes this about? Your father’s ring was delivered to you by your cousin’s hand I do not know how many months ago!
All
the Earls of St Erth have worn it, for five generations – I daresay more!’

‘Yes, I prefer my own,’ said the Earl tranquilly.

‘Upon my word!’ the Dowager ejaculated, her bosom swelling. ‘I have not misunderstood you, I suppose! You prefer a trumpery ring of your own to an heirloom!’

‘I wonder,’ mused the Earl, pensively regarding his ring, ‘whether some Earl of St Erth as yet unborn – my great-great-grandson, perhaps – will be told the same, when he does not choose to wear this ring of mine?’

A high colour mounted to the Dowager’s cheeks; before she could speak, however, the matter-of-fact voice of Miss Morville made itself heard. ‘Very likely,’ she said. ‘Modes change, you know, and what one generation may admire another will frequently despise. My Mama, for instance, has a set of garnets which I consider quite hideous, and shan’t know what to do with, when they belong to me.’

‘Filial piety will not force you to wear them, Miss Morville?’

‘I shouldn’t think it would,’ she responded, giving the matter some consideration.

‘Your Mama’s garnets, my dear Drusilla – no doubt very pretty in their way! – can scarcely be compared to the Frant ring!’ said the Dowager. ‘I declare, when I hear St Erth saying that he prefers some piece of trumpery –’

‘No, no, I never said so!’ interrupted the Earl. ‘You really must not call it trumpery, my dear ma’am! A very fine emerald, cut to my order. I daresay you might never see just such another, for they are rare, you know. I am informed that there is considerable difficulty experienced in cutting them to form signets.’

‘I know nothing of such matters, but I am shocked – excessively shocked! Your father would have been very glad to have left his ring to Martin, let me tell you, only he thought it not right to leave it away from the heir!’

‘Was it indeed a personal bequest?’ enquired Gervase, interested. ‘That certainly must be held to enhance its value. It becomes, in fact, a curio, for it must be quite the only piece of unentailed property which my father did bequeathe to me. I shall put it in a glass cabinet.’

Martin, reddening, said: ‘I see what you are at!
I’m
not to be blamed if my father preferred me to you!’

‘No, you are to be felicitated,’ said Gervase.

‘My lord! Mr Martin!’ said the Chaplain imploringly.

Neither brother, hot brown eyes meeting cool blue ones, gave any sign of having heard him, but the uncomfortable interlude was brought to a close by the entrance of the butler, announcing that dinner was served.

There were two dining-rooms at Stanyon, one of which was only used when the family dined alone. Both were situated on the first floor of the Castle, at the end of the east wing, and were reached by way of the Grand Stairway, the Italian Saloon, and a broad gallery, known as the Long Drawing-room. Access to them was also to be had through two single doors, hidden by screens, but these led only to the precipitous stairs which descended to the kitchens. The family dining-room was rather smaller than the one used for formal occasions, but as its mahogany table was made to accommodate some twenty persons without crowding it seemed very much too large for the small party assembled in it. The Dowager established herself at the foot of the table, and directed her son and the Chaplain to the places laid on her either side. Martin, who had gone unthinkingly to the head of the table, recollected the change in his circumstances, muttered something indistinguishable, and moved away from it. The Dowager waved Miss Morville to the seat on the Earl’s right; and Theodore took the chair opposite to her. Since the centre of the table supported an enormous silver epergne, presented to the Earl’s grandfather by the East India Company, and composed of a temple, surrounded by palms, elephants, tigers, sepoys, and palanquins, tastefully if somewhat improbably arranged, the Earl and his stepmother were unable to see one another, and conversation between the two ends of the table was impossible. Nor did it flourish between neighbours, since the vast expanse of napery separating them gave them a sense of isolation it was difficult to overcome. The Dowager indeed, maintained, in her penetrating voice, a flow of very uninteresting small-talk, which consisted largely of exact explanations of the various relationships in which she stood to every one of the persons she mentioned; but conversation between St Erth, his cousin and Miss Morville was of a desultory nature. By the time Martin had three times craned his neck to address some remark to Theo, obscured from his view by the epergne, the Earl had reached certain decisions which he lost no time in putting into force. No sooner had the Dowager borne Miss Morville away to the Italian Saloon than he said: ‘Abney!’

‘My lord?’

‘Has this table any leaves?’

‘It has many, my lord!’ said the butler, staring at him.

‘Remove them, if you please.’

‘
Remove
them, my lord?’

‘Not just at once, of course, but before I sit at the table again. Also that thing!’

‘The epergne, my lord?’ Abney faltered. ‘Where – where would your lordship desire it to be put?’

The Earl regarded it thoughtfully. ‘A home question, Abney. Unless you know of a dark cupboard, perhaps, where it could be safely stowed away?’

‘My mother,’ stated Martin, ready for a skirmish, ‘has a particular fondness for that piece!’

‘How very fortunate!’ returned St Erth. ‘Do draw your chair to this end of the table, Martin! and you too, Mr Clowne! Abney, have the epergne conveyed to her ladyship’s sitting-room!’

Theo looked amused, but said under his breath: ‘Gervase, for God’s sake – !’

‘You will not have that thing put into my mother’s room!’ exclaimed Martin, a good deal startled.

‘Don’t you think she would like to have it? If she has a particular fondness for it, I should not wish to deprive her of it.’

‘She will wish it to be left where it has always stood, and so I tell you! And if I know Mama,’ he added, with relish, ‘I’ll wager that’s what will happen!’

‘Oh, I shouldn’t do that!’ Gervase said. ‘You see, you don’t know me, and it is never wise to bet against a dark horse.’

‘I suppose that you think, just because you’re St Erth now, that you may turn Stanyon upside down, if you choose!’ growled Martin, a little nonplussed.

‘Well, yes,’ replied Gervase. ‘I do think it, but you must not let it distress you, for I really shan’t quite do that!’

‘We shall see what Mama has to say!’ was all Martin could think of to retort.

The Dowager’s comments, when the fell tidings were presently divulged to her, were at once comprehensive and discursive, and culminated in an unwise announcement that Abney would take his orders from his mistress.

‘Oh, I hope he will not!’ said Gervase. ‘I should be very reluctant to dismiss a servant who has been for so many years employed in the family!’ He smiled down into the Dowager’s astonished face, and added, in his gentle way: ‘But I have too great a dependence on your sense of propriety, ma’am, to suppose that you would issue any orders at Stanyon which ran counter to mine.’

Everyone but Miss Morville, who was studying the Fashion Notes in the latest Ladies’ periodical, waited with suspended breath for the climax to this engagement. They were disappointed, or relieved, according to their several dispositions, when the Dowager said, after a short silence, pregnant with passion: ‘You will do as you please in your own house, St Erth! Pray do not hesitate to inform me if you desire me to remove to the Dower House immediately!’

‘Ah, no! I should be sorry to see you do so, ma’am!’ replied Gervase. ‘Such a house as Stanyon would be a sad place without a mistress!’ Her face showed no sign of relenting, and he added, in a coaxing tone: ‘Do not be vexed with me! Must we quarrel? Indeed, I do not wish to stand upon bad terms with you!’

‘I can assure you that no quarrel between us will be of
my
seeking,’ said the Dowager austerely. ‘A very odd thing it would be if I were to be picking quarrels with my son-in-law! Pray be so good as to apprise me, in the future, of the arrangements which you desire to alter at Stanyon!’

‘Thank you!’ Gervase said, bowing.

The meekness in his voice made his cousin’s brows draw together a little; but Martin evidently considered that his mother had lost the first bout, for he uttered a disgusted exclamation, and flung out of the room in something very like a tantrum.

The Dowager, ignoring, in a lofty spirit, the entire incident, then desired Theo to ring for a card-table to be set up, saying that she had no doubt St Erth would enjoy a rubber of whist. If Gervase did not look as though these plans for his entertainment were to his taste, his compliant disposition led him to acquiesce docilely in them, and, when a four was presently made up, to submit with equanimity to having his play ruthlessly criticized by his stepmother. His cousin and the Chaplain, after a little argument with Miss Morville, who, however, was resolute in refusing to take a hand, were the other two players; and the game was continued until the tea-tray was brought in at ten o’clock. The Dowager, who had maintained an unwearied commentary throughout on her own and the other three players’ skill (or want of it), the fall of the cards, the rules which governed her play, illustrated by maxims laid down by her father which gave Gervase a very poor opinion of that deceased nobleman’s mental ability, then stated that no one would care to begin another rubber, and rose from the table, and disposed herself in her favourite chair beside the fire. Miss Morville dispensed tea and coffee, a circumstance which made the Earl wonder if she were, after all, one of his stepmother’s dependents. At first glance, he had assumed her to be perhaps a poor relation, or a hired companion; but since the Dowager treated her, if not with any distinguishing attention, at least with perfect civility, he had come to the conclusion that she must be a guest at Stanyon. He was not well-versed in the niceties of female costume, but it seemed to him that she was dressed with propriety, and even a certain quiet elegance. Her gown, which was of white sarsnet, with a pink body, and long sleeves, buttoned tightly round her wrists, was unadorned by the frills of lace or knots of floss with which young ladies of fashion usually embellished their dresses. On the other hand, it was cut low across her plump bosom, in a way which would scarcely have been tolerated in a hired companion; and she wore a very pretty ornament suspended on a gold chain round her throat. Nor was there any trace of obsequiousness in her manners. She inaugurated no conversation, but when she was addressed she answered with composure, and readily. A pink riband, threaded through them, kept her neat curls in place. These were mouse-coloured, and very simply arranged. Her countenance was pleasing without being beautiful, her best feature being a pair of dark eyes, well-opened and straight-gazing. Her figure was trim, but sadly lacking in height, and she was rather short-necked. She employed no arts to attract; the Earl thought her dull.