The Talisman Ring (13 page)

Ludovic gave a delighted crack of laughter, and caught her hand to his lips. ‘I lied, I lied! I have had one day’s good luck at least, when I met my cousin Eustacie!’

‘Yes, but –’

Sir Tristram said gravely: ‘Of course, if you do not really think it –’

‘No, I do not. In fact, I am beginning quite to like you,’ Eustacie assured him.

‘Thank you,’ said Sir Tristram, much moved.

‘But I thought it would be a very good thing to pretend to Basil that you still wished to marry me, and so, you see, you cannot come to his house with us. I perceive now that it is a pity that I said it, perhaps, but one cannot always look far enough ahead.’

‘On the whole,’ said Shield, ‘I am inclined to think that you did right. I must, after all, have some excuse for visiting this inn often. I will join your party at the Dower House, and you may counterfeit all the disgust you please.’

Miss Thane nodded approvingly. ‘
I
see! You will arrive upon some Pretext, just in time to rescue Mr Lavenham from my importunities. Eustacie having signified her desire to hold private speech with him, he will hail your arrival with joy. I shall have to be a very stupid sort of a woman, and ask a great many questions. Tell me something to say about his house.’

‘Comment enthusiastically upon the silver-figured oak wainscoting in the dining-room,’ said Sir Tristram.

‘Also the strap-and-jewel work overmantel in the drawing-room,’ struck in Ludovic. ‘Sylvester used to say it was devilish fine; that I
do
remember.’

‘Strap-and-jewel work,’ repeated Miss Thane, committing it to memory.

‘Dutch influence,’ said Sir Tristram. ‘Detect the school of Torrigiano in the library.’

‘Is it there?’ inquired Ludovic, vaguely interested.

‘Heaven knows. Basil won’t, at any rate. Say that it is a pity the muntins are not covered by pilasters. Talk of cartouches, and caryatids, and scratch-mouldings. Ask for the history of every picture, and discover that the staircase reminds you of one you have seen somewhere else, though you cannot immediately recall where.’

‘Say no more! I see it all!’ declared Miss Thane. ‘Heaven send he does not fob me off on to the housekeeper!’

Fortunately for the success of her plot the Beau’s manners were far too polished to permit of his resorting to this expedient. According to a carefully-laid plan, the two ladies set out upon the following morning in Sir Hugh’s chaise, and drove at a sedate pace to the Dower House, which was situated on the northern side of Lavenham Court, about five miles from Hand Cross. It was a sixteenth-century house of respectable size, approached by a short carriage-sweep. Its gardens, which were separated from the Park by a kind of ha-ha, were laid out with great propriety of taste, and some very fine clipped yews, flanking the oaken front door, at once met with Miss Thane’s approbation.

They were admitted into the house by a town-bred and somewhat supercilious butler, and led through the hall to the drawing-room. This was an elegant apartment, furnished in the first style of fashion, but Miss Thane had no time to waste in admiring what were obviously quite up-to-date chairs and tables. Her attention was fixed anxiously upon the overmantel.

The Beau joined his guests in a very few minutes. If he felt any surprise at a somewhat vague engagement having been kept with such promptness, no trace of it appeared in his countenance. He greeted both ladies with his usual grace, feared they must have been chilled during their drive in such hard weather, and begged them to draw near the fire. Eustacie, whose cheeks were rosy where a nipping east wind had caught them, promptly complied with the suggestion, but Miss Thane was unable to tear herself from the contemplation of the overmantel. She stood well back from it, assuming a devout expression, and breathed: ‘Such exquisite strap-and-jewel-work! You did not tell me you had anything so fine, Mr Lavenham! I declare, I do not know how to take my eyes from it!’

‘I believe it is considered to be a very good example, ma’am,’ the Beau acknowledged. ‘The late Lord Lavenham was used to say it was finer than the one up at the Court, but I am afraid I am not a judge of such things.’

But this Miss Thane would not allow to be true. No protestations that he could make succeeded in shaking her belief that it was his modesty which spoke. She launched forth into a sea of talk, in which Dutch influence, the style of the Renaissance, the inferiority of Flemish craftsmanship, and the singular beauty of the Gothic jostled one another like rudderless boats adrift in a whirlpool. From the overmantel she passed with scarcely a check to the pictures on the walls. She detected a De Hooge with unerring judgment, and was at once reminded of a few weeks spent in the Netherlands some years ago. Her reminiscences, recounted with a vivacious artlessness which made Eustacie stare at her in rapt admiration, were only put an end to by the Beau’s seizing the opportunity afforded by her pausing to take breath to propose that they should step into the dining-parlour for some refreshment.

The Beau opened the door for the ladies to pass out into the hall. Miss Thane went first, still chattering, leaving Eustacie hanging back for a moment, and to say in an urgent undertone to her cousin: ‘We came to-day because I have suddenly thought that perhaps you, who are very much of the world, could advise me. Only, you understand, I do not like to say anything before Sarah, because although she is extremely amiable, she is not, after all, of my family.’

He bowed. ‘I am always at your service, my dear cousin, even though I may be – surprised.’

‘Surprised?’ said Eustacie, with a look of child-like innocence.

‘Well,’ said the Beau softly, ‘you have not been precisely in the habit of seeking either my company or my advice, have you,
ma chère
?’

‘Oh!’ said Eustacie, brushing that aside with a flutter of her expressive little hand, ‘
quant à ça
, when Grandpapa was alive I did not wish for anyone’s advice but his. But I find myself now in a situation of the most awkward.’

He looked at her with narrowed eyes, as though appraising her. ‘Yes, your situation is awkward,’ he said. ‘I could show you how to end that.’

Miss Thane’s voice, requesting him to tell her whether the staircase was original, put an end to all private conversation. He followed Eustacie out into the hall, saying that he believed it was quite original.

Wine and sandwiches had been set out on the table in the dining-parlour. While she ate, and sipped her glass of ratafie, Miss Thane took the opportunity of scrutinizing the wainscoting as closely as she dared. It was in two tiers, as Ludovic had described, the upper being composed of circular cartouches, carved with heads and devices, and separated from the lower by a broad frieze. The lower tier was divided vertically at every third panel by fluted pilasters with carved capitals. The whole was extremely beautiful, but the predominant thought in Miss Thane’s mind was that to find one particular boss, or carved fruit, amongst the wealth on the wall would be an arduous labour.

Her meaningless prattle flowed on; she could not help being diverted by her own idiocies; nor, though she did not like him, could she fail to give the Beau credit for unwearied civility. By the time she had exhibited her commonplace book (in which Sir Tristram had had the forethought to sketch a few rough pictures of totally imaginary horses), and hoped that her host would grant her the indulgence of drawing just a tiny corner of his lovely panelled dining-parlour, her tongue was beginning to cleave to the roof of her mouth, and she heard with feelings of profound relief the ringing of a bell. It was at this moment that the Beau proposed to her the library, in which room the wainscoting, though similar to that in the dining-parlour, was generally held, he believed, to be superior. They passed out into the hall, just as the butler opened the front door to admit Sir Tristram. The first sound that met his ears as he stepped over the threshold was Miss Thane’s voice extolling the style of Torrigiano. A quiver of emotion for an instant disturbed the severity of his expression, but he controlled it immediately, and taking a hasty step forward, addressed Eustacie in outraged tones. ‘I have been to the Red Lion, and was told I should find you here! I do not understand what your purpose can have been in coming, for I particularly requested the favour of an interview with you this morning!’

Eustacie drew back with a gesture conveying both alarm and repugnance. ‘I told you I would not have any interview with you. I do not see why you must follow me, for it is not at all your affair that I choose to bring mademoiselle on a visit to my own cousin!’

‘It is very much my affair, since I am held responsible for you!’ he retorted.

The Beau intervened in his sweetest voice. ‘My dear Tristram, do pray come in! You are the very man of all others we need. I believe you are acquainted with Miss Thane?’

Sir Tristram bowed stiffly. ‘Miss Thane and I have met, but –’

‘Nothing could be better!’ declared the Beau. ‘Miss Thane has done me the honour of coming to see my house, and, alas, you know how lamentably ignorant I am on questions of antiquity! But you, my dear fellow, know so much –’

‘Oh!’ exclaimed Miss Thane, clasping her hands together. ‘If it would not be troubling Sir Tristram – !’

Sir Tristram assumed the expression of a man forced against his will to be complaisant, and said somewhat ungraciously that he would, of course, be pleased to tell Miss Thane anything in his power. The Beau at once reminded him that the wainscoting in the library was held to be worthy of close study, and begged him to take Miss Thane there. He added that if she cared to make a sketch of the room, he was sure his cousin’s taste and knowledge would be of assistance to her.

‘Eustacie and I will wait for you in the drawing-room,’ he said.

It seemed as though Sir Tristram would have demurred, but Miss Thane frustrated this by breaking into profuse expressions of gratitude. He made the best of it, and the instant the library door was closed on them, said: ‘Have you been talking like that all the time?’

Miss Thane sank into a chair in an exhausted attitude. ‘But without pause!’ she said faintly. ‘My dear sir, I have been inspired! The mantle of my own cousin fell upon my shoulders, and I spoke like her, tittered like her, even thought like her! She is the silliest woman I know. It worked like a charm! He was itching to be rid of me!’

‘I should imagine he might well!’ said Sir Tristram. ‘The wonder is that he did not strangle you.’

She chuckled. ‘He is too well-bred. Did I sound really feather-headed? I tried to.’

‘Yes,’ he said. He looked at her with a hint of a smile. ‘You are an extremely accomplished woman, Miss Thane.’

‘I have a natural talent for acting,’ she replied modestly. ‘But your own efforts were by no means contemptible, I assure you.’ She got up. ‘We have no time to waste if we are to find the panel. Do you take this side of the room and I will take that.’

‘Oh – the panel!’ said Sir Tristram. ‘Yes, of course.’

Having got rid of his cousin and of Miss Thane, the Beau turned to Eustacie, and murmured: ‘Could anything be better? Shall we go into the drawing-room?’

Eustacie assented, wondering how long she would be able to hold him in conversation. She did not feel that she possessed quite Miss Thane’s talent for discursive chatter, and she was far too ingenuous to realize that her enchanting little face was enough to keep the Beau by her side until she herself should be pleased to declare the interview at an end. It did occur to her that he was looking at her with an expression of unusual warmth in his eyes, but beyond deciding that she did not like it, she paid very little heed to it. She sat down by the fire, her soft, dove-coloured skirts billowing about her, and remarked that if her dearest Sarah had a fault it was that she was a trifle too talkative.

‘Just a trifle,’ agreed the Beau. ‘Do you really propose to accompany her to town?’

‘Oh yes, certainly!’ she replied. ‘But I cannot remain with her for ever, and it is that which makes everything very awkward. I mean to become a governess, but Sarah does not advise it. What do you think I should do?’

‘Well,’ said the Beau slowly, ‘you could, of course, engage a lady of birth and propriety to live with you and be your chaperon. Sylvester has left you well provided for, you know.’

‘But I do not want a chaperon!’ said Eustacie.

‘No? There is an alternative.’

‘Tell me, then!’

‘Marriage,’ he said.

She shook her head. ‘I will
not
marry Tristram. He is not amusing, and, besides, I do not like him.’

‘I am aware,’ said the Beau, ‘but Tristram is not the only man in the world, my little cousin.’

Foreseeing what was coming, Eustacie at once agreed with this pronouncement, and launched out into a eulogy of the Duke she would have married had her grandfather not brought her to England. The fact that she had never laid eyes on this gentleman did not deter her from describing him in detail, and it was fully fifteen minutes before her invention gave out and her cousin was able to interpolate a remark. He observed that since the Duke had gone to the guillotine, her fate, had she married him, would have been a melancholy one.

In this opinion, however, Eustacie could not concur. To have become a widow at the age of eighteen would, she held, have been
épatant
, and of all things the most romantic. ‘Moreover,’ she added, ‘it was a very good match. I should have been a duchess, and although Grandpapa says – said – that it is vulgar to care for such things, I do think that I should have liked to have been a duchess.’

‘Oh, I agree with you,
ma chère
!’ he said cordially. ‘You would have made a charming duchess. But in these revolutionary times one must moderate one’s ideas, you know. Consider, instead, the advantages of becoming a baroness.’

‘A baroness?’ she faltered, fixing her eyes on his face with an expression of painful intensity. ‘What do you mean?’

He met her eyes with slightly raised brows, and for a moment stood looking down at her as though he were trying to read her thoughts. ‘My dear cousin, what in the world have I said to alarm you?’ he asked.

Recollecting herself, she answered quickly: ‘I am not at all alarmed, but I do not understand what you mean. Why should I think about being a baroness?’

He pulled up a chair and sat down on it, rather nearer to her than she liked, and stretching out his hand laid it on one of hers. ‘I might make you one,’ he said.

She sat as straight and as stiff as a wooden puppet, but her cheeks glowed with the indignation that welled up in her. The glance she bent on him was a very fiery one, and she said bluntly: ‘You are not a baron, you!’

‘We don’t know that,’ he replied, ‘but we might find out. In fact, I have already recommended Tristram to do so.’

‘You mean that you would like very much to know that Ludovic is dead?’

He smiled. ‘Let us say rather than I should like very much to know
whether
he is dead, my dear.’

She repressed the impulse to throw off his hand, and said in a thoughtful voice: ‘Yes, I suppose you want to be Lord Lavenham. It is very natural.’

He shrugged. ‘I do not set great store by it, but I should be glad of the title if it could win me the one thing I want.’

This was too much for Eustacie, and she did pull her hand away, exclaiming: ‘
Voyons
, do you think I marry just for a title, me?’

‘Oh, no, no, no!’ he said, smiling. ‘You would undoubtedly marry for love were it possible, but you have said yourself that your situation is awkward, and, alas, I know that you are not in love with me. I am offering a marriage of expediency, and when one is debarred from a love-match, dear cousin, it is time to give weight to material considerations.’

‘True, very true!’ she said. ‘And you have given weight to them,
n’est-ce pas
? I am an heiress, as you reminded me yesterday.’

‘You are also enchanting,’ he said, with unwonted feeling.

‘
Merci du compliment!
I regret infinitely that I do not find you enchanting, too.’

‘Ah, you are in love with romance!’ he replied. ‘You imagine to yourself some hero of adventure, but it is a sad truth that in these humdrum days such people no longer exist.’

‘You know nothing of the matter: they do exist!’ said Eustacie hotly.

‘They would make undesirable husbands,’ he remarked. ‘Take poor Ludovic, for instance, whose story has, I believe, a little caught your fancy. You think him a very figure of romance, but you would be disappointed in him if ever you met him, I dare say.’

She blushed, and turned her face away. ‘I do not wish to talk of Ludovic. I do not think of him at all.’

He looked amused. ‘My dear, is it as bad as that? I should not – I really should not waste a moment’s thought on him. One is sorry for him, one even liked him, but he was nothing but a rather stupid young man, after all.’

She compressed her lips tightly, as though afraid some unguarded words might escape her. He watched her for a moment, and presently said: ‘Do you know, you look quite cross, cousin? Now, why?’

She replied, keeping her gaze fixed on a blazing log of wood in the grate: ‘It does not please me that you should suppose I am in love with someone I have never seen. It is a
bêtise
.’

‘It would be,’ he agreed. ‘Let us by all means banish Ludovic from our minds and talk, instead, of ourselves. You want certain things, Eustacie, which I could give you.’

‘I do not think it.’

‘It is nevertheless true. You would like a house in town, and to lead precisely the life I lead. You could not support the thought of becoming Tristram’s wife, because he would expect you to be happy in Berkshire, rearing his children. Now, I should not expect anything so dull of you. Indeed, I should deprecate it. I do not think the domestic virtues are very strong in me. I should require only of my wife that her taste in dress should do me justice.’

‘You propose to me a
mariage de convenance
,’ said Eustacie, ‘and I have made up my mind that that is just what I do not want.’

‘I proposed to you what I thought might be acceptable. Forget it! I love you.’

She got up quickly, a vague idea of flight in her mind. He, too, rose, and before she could stop him, put his arms round her. ‘Eustacie!’ he said. ‘From the moment of first laying eyes on you I have loved you!’

An uncontrollable shudder ran through her. She wrenched herself out of his embrace, and cast him such a glance of repulsion that he stepped back, the smile wiped suddenly from his face.

He looked at her with narrowed eyes, but after a slight pause the ugly gleam vanished, and he was smiling again. He moved away to the other side of the fireplace, and drawled: ‘It seems that you do not find me so sympathetic as you would have had me believe, cousin. Now, I wonder why you wanted to come here to-day?’

‘I thought you would advise me. I did not suppose that you would try to make love to me. That is quite another thing!’

He lifted an eyebrow at her. ‘Is it? But I think – yes, I think I have once or twice before informed you of my very earnest desire to marry you.’

‘Yes, but I have said already that I will not. It is finished.’

‘Perfectly,’ he bowed. ‘Let us talk of something else. There
was
something I had in mind to ask you, as I remember. What can it have been? Something that intrigued me.’ He half closed his eyes, as though in an effort of memory. ‘Something to do with your flight from the Court…ah yes, I have it! The mysterious groom! Who was the mysterious groom, Eustacie?’

The question came as a shock to her; her heart seemed to leap in her chest. To gain time she repeated: ‘The mysterious groom?’

‘Yes,’ he smiled. ‘The groom who did not exist. Do tell me!’

‘Oh!’ she said, with a rather artificial laugh, ‘that is my very own adventure, and quite a romantic history! I assure you. How did you know of it?’

‘In the simplest ways imaginable, my dear cousin. My man Gregg fell in with a certain riding-officer at Cowfold yesterday, and from him gleaned this most interesting tale. I am consumed by curiosity. A groom whom you vouched for, and whom Tristram vouched for, and who yet did not exist.’

‘Well, truly, I think it was wrong of me to save him from the riding-officer,’ confessed Eustacie, with a great air of candour, ‘but you must understand that I was under an obligation to him. One pays one’s debts, after all!’

‘Such a sentiment does you credit,’ said the Beau affably. ‘What was the debt?’

‘Oh, the most exciting thing!’ she replied. ‘I did not tell you the whole yesterday, because Sarah’s brother is a Justice of the Peace, and one must be careful, but I was captured by smugglers that night, and but for the man I saved I should have been killed. Murdered, you know. Conceive of it!’

‘How very, very alarming for you!’ said the Beau.

‘Yes, it was. There were a great many of them, and they were afraid I should betray them, and they said I must at once be killed. Only this one – the one I said was my groom – took my part, and he would not permit that I should be killed. I think he was the leader, because they listened to him.’

‘I never till now heard that chivalry existed amongst smugglers,’ remarked the Beau.

‘No, but he was not a
preux chevalier
, you know. He was quite rough, and not at all civil, but he had compassion upon me, and that led to a great quarrel between him and the other men. Then the riding-officers came, and my smuggler threw me up on to my horse and mounted behind me, because he said that the Excisemen must not find me, which, I see, was quite reasonable. Only the Excisemen fired at him, and he was wounded, and Rufus bolted into the Forest. And I did not know what to do, so I went to the Red Lion and asked Nye to help the smuggler, because it seemed to me that I could not give him up after he had saved me from being killed.’

The Beau was listening with his usual air of courteous interest. He said: ‘What strange, what incredible things do happen, to be sure! Now if I had heard this tale at second-hand, or perhaps read it in a romance, I should have said it was far too improbable to bear the least resemblance to the truth. It shows how easily one may be mistaken. I, for instance, on what I conceived to be my knowledge of Nye’s character, can even now scarcely credit him with so much noble disregard for his own good name. You must possess great influence over him, dear cousin.’

Eustacie felt a little uneasy, but replied carelessly: ‘Yes, perhaps I have some influence, but I am bound to confess he did not at all like it, and he would not by any means keep the smuggler in his house.’

‘Oh, the smuggler has departed, has he?’

‘But yes, the very next day! What else?’

‘I am sure I do not know. I expect I am very stupid,’ he added apologetically, ‘but there do seem to me to be one or two unexplained points to this adventure. I find myself quite at a loss to understand Tristram’s part in it. How were you able to persuade so stern a pattern of rectitude to support your story, my dear?’

Eustacie began to wish very much that Tristram and Sarah would finish their search and come to her rescue. ‘Oh, but, you see, when it was explained to him Tristram was grateful to my smuggler for saving me!’

‘Oh!’ said the Beau, blinking. ‘Tristram was grateful. Yes, I see. How little one knows of people, after all! It must have gone sadly against the grain with him, I feel. He has not breathed a word of it to me.’

‘No, and I think it is very foolish of him,’ returned Eustacie. ‘Tristram does not wish anyone to know of my adventure, because he says I have behaved with impropriety, and it had better immediately be forgotten.’

‘Ah, that is much better!’ said the Beau approvingly. ‘I feel that he may well have said that.’

This rejoinder, which seemed to convey a disturbing disbelief in the rest of her story, left Eustacie without a word to say. The Beau, seeing her discomfiture, smiled more broadly, and said: ‘You know, you have quite forgotten to tell me that your smuggler was one of Sylvester’s bastards.’

Eustacie felt the colour rise in her cheeks, and at once turned it to account, exclaiming in shocked tones: ‘Cousin!’

‘I beg your pardon!’ he said, with exaggerated concern. ‘I should have said love-children.’

She threw him a reproachful, outraged look, and replied: ‘Certainly I have not forgotten, but I do not speak of indelicate things, and I am very much
émue
to think that you could mention it to me.’

He apologized profusely, but with an ironical air which made her feel rather uncomfortable. Luckily an interruption occurred before he could ask any more awkward questions. Miss Thane and Sir Tristram came into the room. Sir Tristram wore an expression of long-suffering, but in Miss Thane’s eyes there peeped an irrepressible twinkle.

The quick, anguished glance thrown at him by Eustacie was enough to warn Shield that all was not well. He gave no sign of having noticed it, however, but waited for Miss Thane to come to the end of her eulogies and thanks. The Beau received these with smiling civility, and when they ceased, turned to his cousin, and said in a languid voice that he had been hearing more of her adventure from Eustacie. Sir Tristram quite unwittingly bore out the character bestowed on him by Eustacie by saying curtly that the sooner the adventure was forgotten the better it would be.