Джорджетт Хейер - The Nonesuch

“Tiffany?” exclaimed Mrs Underhill incredulously. “Why, she’s got no more notion of propriety than the kitchen cat!”

“No, alas! But she is a most accomplished flirt, ma’am!” She could not help laughing at Mrs. Underhill’s face of horror. “I beg your pardon! Of course it is very wrong—shockingly precocious, too!—but you will own that a mere flirtation with Lindeth need not throw you into a quake.”

“Yes, but he’s a lord!” objected Mrs. Underhill. “You know how she says she means to marry one!”

“We must convince her that she would be throwing herself away on anyone under the rank of a Viscount!” said Ancilla lightly.

The dance came to an end, and she soon had the satisfaction of seeing that she had prophesied correctly: Tiffany stood up for the next one with Arthur Mickleby, and went on to dance the boulanger with Jack Banningham. Lord Lindeth, meanwhile, did his duty by Miss Colebatch and Miss Chartley; and Miss Trent extricated Charlotte from a group of slightly noisy young people, and inexorably bore her off to bed. Charlotte thought herself abominably ill-used to be compelled to withdraw before supper: she had been looking forward to drinking her very first glass of champagne. Miss Trent, barely repressing a shudder, handed her over to her old nurse, and returned to the drawing-room.

She entered it to find that the musicians were enjoying a respite. She could not see Mrs Underhill, and guessed that she had gone into the adjoining saloon, where some of the more elderly guests were playing whist. Nor could she see Tiffany: a circumstance which filled her with foreboding. Just as she had realized that Lindeth was another absentee, and was wondering where first to search for them, a voice spoke at her elbow.

“Looking for your other charge, Miss Trent?”

She turned her head quickly, to find that Sir Waldo was somewhat quizzically regarding her. He flicked open his snuff-box with one deft finger, and helped himself to a delicate pinch. “On the terrace,” he said.

“Oh, no!” she said involuntarily.

“Well, of course, they may have been tempted to take a stroll about the gardens,” he conceded. “The terrace, however, was the declared objective.”

“I collect it was Lord Lindeth who took her on to the terrace!”

“Do you? My reading of the matter was that it was rather Miss Wield who took Lindeth on to it!”

She bit her lip. “She is very young—hardly out of the schoolroom!”

“A reflection which must cause her relations to feel grave concern,” he said, in a tone of affable agreement.

She found herself to be so much in accord with him that it was difficult to think of anything to say in extenuation of Tiffany’s conduct. “She—she is inclined to be headstrong, and quite ignorant of—of—And since it was your cousin who most improperly escorted her I think you should have prevented him!”

“My dear Miss Trent, I’m not Lindeth’s keeper! I’m not Miss Wield’s keeper either, I thank God!”

“You may well!” she said, with considerable asperity.

Then, as she saw the amusement in his face, she added: “Yes, you may laugh, sir, but I am Miss Wield’s keeper—or, at any rate, I am responsible for her!—and it’s no laughing matter to me! I must do something!”

She looked round the room as she spoke, a furrow between her brows. It was a warm June night, and the drawing-room was hot and airless. More than one unbecomingly flushed young lady was fanning herself, and several shirt-points were beginning to wilt. Miss Trent’s brow cleared; she went up to a little group which included Miss Chartley, the dashing Miss Colebatch, and the younger of the Squire’s daughters, with their attendant swains, and said, with her charming smile: “Dreadfully hot, isn’t it? I dare not open the windows: you know what an outcry there would be! Would you like to come out for a little while? It is such a beautiful moonlight night, with not a breeze stirring, that I have ventured to direct the servants to bring some lemonade on to the terrace. But you must put on your shawls, mind!”

The suggestion was thankfully acclaimed by the gentlemen, and by the Squire’s jolly daughter, who clapped her hands together, exclaiming: “Oh, famous fun! Do let us go!” Miss Chartley, wondering what Mama would say, looked a little doubtful, but decided that if Miss Trent was sponsoring this interlude it must be unexceptionable; and in a very few minutes that resourceful lady had assembled some four or five couples, dropped an urgent word in Totton’s astonished ear, and had informed several matrons, with smiling assurance, that she had yielded to the persuasions of their various offspring, and was permitting them (under her chaperonage) to take a turn on the terrace, before resuming their exertions on the floor. She would take good care that none of the young ladies caught chills; and, indeed, must hurry away to be sure that they had put on their shawls.

Sir Waldo was an appreciative spectator of this talented performance; and when Miss Trent, having shepherded her flock on to the terrace, was about to follow them, she found him once more at her elbow, smiling at her in a way which was oddly disturbing. “Well done!” he said, holding back the heavy curtain that hung beside the long window of the saloon that gave on to the terrace.

“Thank you! I hope it may answer, but I’m afraid it will be thought very odd conduct in a respectable governess,” she replied, passing out into the moonlight.

“Not at all: you carried it off to admiration,” he said, following her. He raised his quizzing-glass, and through it scanned the scene. “I realize, of course, that if the truants have gone farther afield it will be my unenviable task to discover them, and—No, they have not been so imprudent. How fortunate! Now we may both be easy!”

“Yes, indeed!” she responded, with the utmost cordiality. “I was shocked to see you in such a worry, sir!”

He laughed, but before he could answer her she had stepped away from him to put a scarf round Tiffany’s shoulders. Courtenay, who had been awaiting his moment, seized the opportunity afforded by the Nonesuch’s being alone for the first time during the evening to approach him, asking very respectfully if he might procure a glass of champagne for him. He then added, in case the great man should snub him for presuming to address him: “I’m Underhill, you know, sir!”

Sir Waldo declined the champagne, but in a friendly manner which gave the lie to Mr. Jack Banningham, who had prophesied that any attempt on Courtenay’s part to engage him in conversation would be met with a severe setdown. He said: “We met at the Manor, didn’t we? I rather fancy I saw you on the Harrogate road the other day, driving a well ribbed-up bay.”

No more encouragement was needed. Within a very few minutes Courtenay was subjecting him to a stringent cross-examination on his real and imagined exploits. He bore it very well, but interrupted at last to say: “But must you throw all my youthful follies in my face? I thought I had lived them down!”

Courtenay was shocked; but Miss Trent, standing within earshot, felt that her first favourable impression of the Nonesuch had not been entirely erroneous.

It had been Mrs Mickleby who had first had the honour of entertaining the Nonesuch and his cousin; but it was generally acknowledged that the event which started the succession of gaieties which made that summer memorable was Mrs Underhill’s informal ball. Hostesses who had previously vied with one another only in the mildest ways became suddenly imbued with the spirit of fierce competition; and the invitation cards which showered upon the district promised treats which ranged from turtle-dinners to Venetian breakfasts. Assemblies and picnics became everyday occurrences, even Mrs Chartley succumbing to the prevailing rage, and organizing a select party to partake of an al fresco meal by the ruins of Kirkstall Abbey. This unpretentious expedition achieved a greater degree of success than attended many of the more resplendent entertainments which enlivened the month; for not only did the skies smile upon it, but the Nonesuch graced it with his presence. Mrs Banningham, whose daring Cotillion Ball had fallen sadly flat, for many days found it hard to meet the Rector’s wife with even the semblance of cordiality; and it was no consolation to know that she had only herself to blame for the failure of a party designed to outshine all others. She was imprudent enough to exclude the Staples family from the ball, informing her dear friend, Mrs Syston, (in the strictest confidence) that Tiffany Wield should be given no opportunity to flirt with Lord Lindeth under her roof. Mrs Syston told no one the secret, except Mrs Winkleigh, whom she felt sure she could trust not to repeat it; but in some mysterious way Mrs Underhill got wind of Mrs Banningham’s fell intention, and nipped in with some invitations of her own before ever Mrs Banningham’s gilt-edged cards had been procured from Leeds. One of the under-grooms was sent off with a note to Sir Waldo Hawkridge, inviting him and his cousin to dine at Staples on the fatal day; and no sooner had his acceptance been received than the Chartleys and the Colebatches were also bidden to dine. Not a party, wrote Mrs Underhill to all these persons: just a conversable evening with a few friends.

“And if that don’t take Mrs B. at fault, you may call me a wetgoose!” she told Miss Trent. “Done to a cow’s thumb, that’s what she’ll be! She and her Cotillion Balls!”

Great was Mrs Banningham’s chagrin when she received Sir Waldo’s polite regrets; and greater still her rage when she discovered that all the absentees had been at Staples, eating dinner on the terrace, and then, when the light began to fail, going indoors, either to chat, or to play such childish games as Crossquestions, and Jackstraws. Her own party had been distinguished by a certain languor. Everyone had been disappointed by the absence of the Nonesuch; and if the ladies were glad to find Tiffany absent, almost all the younger gentlemen, including Mrs Banningham’s son Jack, considered any ball at which she was not present an intolerable bore. Mrs. Banningham was even denied the solace of picturing the Nonesuch’s boredom at Staples, for Courtenay told Jack that the party had not broken up till past midnight, and that when it came to playing Jackstraws the Nonesuch had them all beat to flinders, even Miss Trent, who had such deft fingers. It seemed that he had challenged Miss Trent to a match, when he discovered how good she was at the game. Capital sport it had been, too, with Sir Ralph Colebatch offering odds on Miss Trent, and even the Rector wagering a coachwheel on the issue. Mrs Banningham could not delude herself, or anyone else, into thinking that the Nonesuch had been bored.

He had not been at all bored; nor had Julian found it difficult to persuade him to accept Mrs Underhill’s invitation. The Nonesuch, who had meant to spend no more time in Yorkshire than might be necessary for setting in train certain repairs and alterations to Broom Hall, was lingering on, and under conditions of some discomfort, since the builders were already at work in the house. He had his own reasons for remaining; but if he could have placed the slightest dependence on Julian’s going back with him to London he would have subordinated these (temporarily, at all events), for the sake of conveying that besotted young man out of danger. But when he had thrown out a feeler Julian had said, with studied airiness: “Do you know, I rather fancy I shall remove to Harrogate for a while, if you mean to go back to London? I like Yorkshire, and I’ve made certain engagements—and more than half promised to go with Edward Banningham to some races next month.”

So he remained at Broom Hall, steering an intricate course between his own interests and Julian’s. His trusting young cousin would have been astonished, and deeply shocked, had he known that Waldo’s lazy complaisance masked a grim determination to thrust a spoke into the wheel of his courtship. His allegiance to Waldo was too strong to be easily shaken; he did not for a moment wish him otherwhere; but he was often troubled by vague discomfort; and although Waldo had not uttered a word in her dispraise he could not rid himself of the suspicion that he regarded Tiffany a little contemptuously, and too often treated her as though she had been an importunate child, to be tolerated but given a few salutary set-downs. And then, having infuriated her, he would relent, charming her out of her sullens with his glinting smile, and a word or two spoken in a voice that held a tantalizing mixture of amusement and admiration. Even Julian could not decide whether he was sincere, or merely mocking; Julian only knew that Tiffany was never at her best when he was present. He thought that perhaps she too felt that Waldo did not like her, which made her nervous and self-conscious. And when you were very young, and shy, and anxious to make a good impression on someone of whom you stood in awe it was fatally easy to behave like a show-off character in your efforts to conceal your shyness. It did not occur to Julian that there was not a particle of shyness in Tiffany’s nature; still less that Waldo was deliberately provoking her to betray the least amiable side of her disposition.