Джорджетт Хейер - The Nonesuch

“Are you trying to warn me, ma’am, that Sir Waldo is a libertine?” asked Ancilla bluntly.

“Oh, good gracious! No!” exclaimed Mrs Chartley. “You must not think—my dear, I beg you won’t say that I said that! No doubt he has had his—shall we say his adventures?—but pray don’t imagine that I suspect him of—of—”

“Offering me a carte blanche? That, I believe, is the term, is it not? I promise you I should not accept it!”

Mrs Chartley was thrown still more off her balance by this, and said: “No, no! I don’t suspect him of meaning to do you the least harm! What I fear is that he may harm you unwittingly, not realizing that you might fall far more deeply in love with him than he knew, or intended. He is accustomed to associate, recollect, with fashionable females who understand the rules of flirtation as you, I am happy to say, do not. Very likely he has been a trifle misled into thinking you are as worldly wise as any of his London flirts: you are posée beyond your years, you know! He would not, I am persuaded, tamper with the affections of a girl whom he knew to be inexperienced.”

“But you don’t hold him in very high esteem, do you, ma’am?” said Ancilla, with a painful smile.

“Oh, you are quite mistaken! In some respects, I hold him in the highest esteem!” Mrs Chartley replied quickly. “I have every reason—” She checked herself, colouring, and added: “All I wish to say to you, my dear, is that you should be on your guard. Don’t refine too much upon his gallantry, but recollect that he is a man of five or six-and-thirty, handsome, rich, very much courted—and still a bachelor!”

Miss Trent began to pull on her gloves. “I do recollect it,” she said, in a low voice. “I am very much obliged to you for your kindness in—in warning me, ma’am, but I beg you to believe that it was unnecessary! You have told me nothing that I haven’t told myself.” She rose. “I must go. I wish I might have been able to give you the assurance you want. I cannot—but I don’t think Sir Waldo would ever stand in the way of what he saw to be Lindeth’s happiness.”

“Thank you: I hope you may be right. Did you come in the gig? I’ll walk with you to the stables. By the bye, what has been the outcome of Mr Calver’s Harrogate scheme? I can picture your dismay! We heard of it from Lindeth, and from what he did not say I collect that Tiffany was sadly disappointed by her aunt’s refusal to countenance it!”

Ancilla laughed. “Not sadly, ma’am! Furiously! Lord Lindeth made good his escape when he saw the storm about to break. I fancy we shall hear no more of the scheme.”

“You must be thankful for it! A very rackety suggestion to have put forward! I daresay you will be glad to see the last of that young man.”

“Well, I own that I can’t like Mr Calver, but I should be doing him less than justice if I didn’t tell you that when he saw that Mrs Underhill disliked the scheme he let it drop immediately. I must say, too, that I have felt very much more cordial since he confessed to me that he had spoken without reflection, meaning only to divert Tiffany’s mind, and was sincerely sorry for it. He assured me I might depend upon him to discover a hundred reasons, if it should be necessary, why the scheme was ineligible! He was extremely civil—as, indeed, he has always been.”

They had reached the stables; and they parted on this lighter note. Mrs Chartley stayed only until Ancilla had stepped up into the gig, and then walked back to the house, along the garden-path. Ancilla drove out of the stable-gate, and turned into the village street. Before the cob had broken into a trot a phaeton, drawn by a team of chestnuts, swept round the bend immediately ahead. Knowing herself to be in full view of the Rectory, Miss Trent saw with dismay that Sir Waldo was checking his team, with the evident intention of pulling up alongside the gig. There seemed to be nothing to do but to follow suit, since to urge the cob into a trot at that moment would be so uncivil as to make Sir Waldo think that she was trying to avoid a meeting.

The next instant the phaeton had stopped beside the gig, driven up so close that if she had not known how expert was the driver she would have feared that the wheels would be locked; the groom had jumped down, and run to the wheelers’ heads; and Sir Waldo was raising his hat, and smiling at her. “How do you do, ma’am? I must have been born under a lucky star! A moment earlier, and I should have missed you. I have been thinking myself singularly unlucky for the past sennight, you know.”

She replied, as easily as she could: “So, too, has poor Charlotte. Are you on your way to Leeds?”

“Yes; have you any commissions for me?”

“No, I thank you, none. I must not detain you.”

“I have the impression that it’s I who am detaining you,” he said quizzically.

She smiled, but said: “Well, I certainly ought not to linger: I have been with Mrs Chartley, and stayed longer than I meant to. And you, I expect, have a great deal of business to attend to in Leeds.”

“Not so very much. I’m happy to say that I am nearing the end of it.”

“You must be heartily tired of it,” she agreed. “Have the builders finished their work?”

“No, not yet. I am having rather extensive alterations made.”

She laughed. “No need to tell me that, Sir Waldo! Your alterations are a matter of the greatest interest in the neighbourhood, I promise you!”

“Yes, so I’ve been told. Speculation is rife, is it? I should have known better than to suppose that no one would care a rush what I did with the house, for my own home is in the country. That’s the worst—and sometimes the best—of country life: intense interest in one’s neighbours!”

“Very true. And you, I would remind you, are an exceptionally interesting neighbour in these backward parts! Besides which, you have whetted curiosity by not choosing to disclose whether you mean to sell Broom Hall, or to keep it as a suitable house to stay in when the York Races are run. This reserve, sir, is felt to indicate that there is some mystery attached to your alterations, which you are afraid to make known!”

She spoke in a tone of raillery, and was surprised to see that although he smiled he looked rather rueful. “I think I am,” he admitted. “My purpose will be known, but I prefer that it should remain a secret while I remain in the district.”

She said: “I was only joking you! Not trying to pry into your concerns!”

“I’m well aware of that. But I have every intention of making a clean breast of the matter to you, Miss Trent. I am afraid that I shall fall under the displeasure of the majority of my neighbours, but I fancy your voice won’t swell the chorus of disapproval. You have too liberal a mind. I shall do myself the honour of coming to visit you in the very near future—as I warned you I should, an aeon ago!”

She could not believe that these were the words of a man with nothing but idle dalliance in mind; but she felt obliged to demur. “I should be very happy, but—I don’t think—Sir Waldo, Mrs Underhill is to take Charlotte to Bridlington, and will be away from home for a sennight, or more!”

He made a sign to his groom, and said, with his glinting smile, as he gave his horses the office: “I know it. I may at last contrive to see you alone, Miss Trent!”

Miss Trent drove home in a happy dream, no longer caring whether her meeting with the Nonesuch had been observed by Mrs Chartley, or not; and able to dismiss that lady’s earnest warning with a light heart. Mrs Chartley, she now believed, had misjudged Sir Waldo. So too, indeed, had she: probably they had each of them been prejudiced by their mutual dislike of the Corinthian set; almost certainly (and very strangely) they had been misled by commonsense. Neither she nor Mrs Chartley was of a romantic turn of mind; and she at least had learnt, early in life, the folly of indulging fantastic dreams which belonged only to the realm of fairytales. Nothing could be more fantastic than to suppose that the Nonesuch bore the least resemblance to the handsome nursery-prince whose wayward fancy had been fixed on Cinderella, so perhaps they were not so very much to be blamed for their doubts. Inexperienced though she knew herself to be in the art of dalliance, Miss Trent could no longer doubt: she could only wonder. Try as she would she could discover no reason why she should have been preferred to all the noble and lovely ladies hopeful of receiving an offer from the Nonesuch. It seemed so wildly improbable as to be unreal. But when she had tried in vain to place a different construction upon the things he had said to her, it flashed into her mind that nothing, after all, was so wildly improbable as her own headlong tumble into love with the epitome of all that she held in contempt; and that that was precisely what she had done there was no doubt whatsoever.

She returned to Staples treading on air. Even Mrs Underhill, not usually observant, was struck by the bloom in her cheeks, and the glow in her eyes, and declared that she had never seen her in such high beauty. “Never tell me he’s popped the question?” she exclaimed.

“No, no, ma’am!” Ancilla replied, blushing and laughing.

“Well, if he hasn’t done it now, I’ll be bound you know he means to, for what else is there to cast you into alt?” demanded Mrs Underhill reasonably.

“Am I in alt? I didn’t know it! Dear Mrs Underhill, pray—pray don’t ask me questions I cannot answer!”

Mrs Underhill very kindly refrained, but she could not help animadverting on the perversity of fate, which had decreed that she should be away from Staples just as she would have most wished to be at home. “For gentlemen are so unaccountable,” she said, “that he may need to be nudged on, and that I could have done!”

Miss Trent, albeit profoundly thankful that her employer would not be at hand to perform this office, recognized the kindly intention that had inspired her daunting speech, and thanked her with what gravity she could command, but told her that she would as lief receive no offer from a gentleman who required nudging.

“Yes, that’s all very well,” retorted Mrs Underhill, “and very easy for you to talk like that, when all you’ve got to say is yes, or no, as the case may be! As though it didn’t stand to reason that a gentleman that’s screwed himself up to the point, and very likely hasn’t had a wink of sleep all night for making up a pretty speech and learning it off by heart, needs a bit of encouragement, because he’s bound to feel bashful, on account of not wishing to make a figure of himself, which gentlemen, my dear, can’t abide!”

Miss Trent could not picture the Nonesuch overcome by bashfulness, but she kept this reflection to herself. She had no wish to prolong a discussion which she felt to be unbecoming, so after murmuring an agreement she directed Mrs Underhill’s thoughts into a different channel, by producing a list of all the things that must be attended to before that lady could leave Staples with a quiet mind. Fortunately the list was a long one, and included problems of great complexity, chief amongst which loomed the vexed question of the new winter curtains for the drawing-room. These were being made by an indigent widow, living in a village some miles distant from Staples: an arrangement which, owing partly to the dilatory disposition of the widow, and partly to the folly of the silk warehouse in sending silk for the linings which in no way matched the opulent brocade chosen by Mrs Underhill, had already been productive of considerable annoyance.

“If it isn’t one thing it’s another!” declared Mrs Underhill. “Faithfully did they promise to send me another pattern this week! And did they do it? Answer me that!”

“No, ma’am,” said Miss Trent obediently. “They sent you a civil letter, explaining why there must be a little delay. Would you perhaps wish me to write to the warehouse, desiring them to send the new pattern to Mrs Tawton, so that she may judge—”

“No, that I wouldn’t!” interrupted Mrs Underhill. “She judge? She wouldn’t know black from white, for a sillier creature I never met! And so slow that—Well, there! I knew how it would be when Mrs Chartley asked me if I’d put some work in her way, for I never yet employed anyone out of kindness but what it cost me more and was worse done than if I’d sent all the way to London to have it made for me! I’d liefer by far have dipped my hand in my pocket, and made her a present of the money, and so I would have done if Mrs Chartley hadn’t warned me not, for fear of hurting the silly woman’s pride. Which is another thing I don’t hold with. Don’t you ever, my dear, send out work to anyone that has claims to gentility, for if they don’t do it in their time instead of yours ten to one they’ll do it wrong, and very likely look as if you’d insulted ’em if you tell ’em it’s not been done to your satisfaction!”