Джорджетт Хейер - The Quiet Gentleman

“No — oh, no!” Ulverston responded. “Don’t quite know how long I shall be fixed at Stanyon!”

“Shall you be in town when we give our ball?” asked Marianne.

“Yes,” replied his lordship promptly. “Will Lady Bolderwood send me a card?”

“Oh, yes! I hope you will be able to come to it!”

“Not a doubt of it, Miss Bolderwood: I shall most certainly come to it! When do you remove to London?”

“I believe, in a fortnight’s time — if Papa’s illness has not overset our plans.”

“A fortnight? Just when I shall be going to London myself!” he said.

“But you said you did not know when you should be going!” she pointed out, laughing a little.

“Quite true! I didn’t! You had not told me then how long you would be remaining in Lincolnshire.”

She looked charmingly confused, her art of coquetry deserting her, and could only blush more than ever, and pretend to be busy with the retying of one of the knots of ribbon which adorned her dress.

Sir Thomas, meanwhile, who had been persuaded to resume both his seat by the fire and the plaid shawl which had been draped round his shoulders, said to the Earl: “Who is this young fellow, eh, my lord? What did you say his name was?”

“Ulverston: he is Wrexham’s eldest son, and, like myself, has lately sold out of the Army.”

“H’m!” Sir Thomas’s shrewd gaze dwelled for a minute on the Viscount and Marianne. “I like the cut of his jib,” he decided.

“He is the best of good fellows.”

Lady Bolderwood seemed also to like the Viscount, which was not surprising, since he seized the first opportunity that offered of seating himself on the sofa beside her, and making himself agreeable. Upon hearing that he was staying for the present at Stanyon, she very cordially invited him to come to Whissenhurst with the Earl to an informal party she had the intention of giving before leaving for London. He accepted, but he did not feel it to be incumbent upon him to tell her that she might expect to have the pleasure of seeing him at Whissenhurst considerably before this date.

The Stanyon party soon took leave, and Lady Bolderwood went with Marianne upstairs to her dressing-room, in the expectation of hearing every detail of her visit. She did indeed hear that Marianne had enjoyed herself very much, that Lady St. Erth had been kind, and dear Drusilla very kind, that the ball had been delightful, and she had had so many partners she could not remember the half of them; but it seemed to her that her daughter was rather abstracted. She supposed that she was tired from so much excitement, and expected her to profit by a long night’s rest. But on the following morning Marianne was more abstracted than ever; paid very little need to Mr. Warboys, who called at Whissenhurst on the plausible excuse of wishing to know how Sir Thomas was going on; and was three times discovered by her Mama to be lost in some day-dream: once when she should have been practising her music, once when she had been desired to wash the Sevres ornaments in the drawing-room, and once when she should have been setting stitches in the sampler destined for her Aunt Caroline. Lady Bolderwood felt herself to be obliged to speak reprovingly to her, pointing out to her that if she allowed herself to be so much affected by one country-ball, a Season in London would transform her into a good-for-nothing miss, never happy except when at a party. Much discomposed, Marianne bent over the sampler, murmuring that it was not that,and indeed she did not care so very much for parties.

“Well, my love, you must not let Stanyon make you discontented, you know. I daresay the Rutlands, and their set, may have been very agreeable, but I did not like to see you so uncivil to poor Barny Warboys.”

“Oh, no,Mama!” Marianne protested, tears starting to her eyes.

“You did not make him very welcome, did you? One should never discard old friends, my dear, for new ones.”

“I did not mean — I have the head-ache a little!” Marianne faltered. “Indeed I did not mean to be unkind to Barny!”

“No, my love, I am persuaded you would not mean to be unkind,” Lady Bolderwood said, patting her cheek. “It is just that your mind is running a little too much on your pleasuring at Stanyon. There I don’t cry! I know I have only to give you a hint.”

Marianne kissed her, and promised amendment. She did indeed perform conscientiously such tasks as were given her, but her spirits were uneven. At one moment she would be her merry self, at the next she would be pensive, slipping away to walk by herself in the shrubbery, or sitting with her eyes bent on the pages of a book, and her thoughts far away. The various young gentlemen who paid morning-visits to Whissenhurst found her gay, but disinclined to flirt with them, a change which Lady Bolderwood at first saw with satisfaction, and which soon led her to suspect that Marianne might have got into a scrape at Stanyon. When Martin came to Whissenhurst, and was met by Marianne with unaccustomed formality, she was sure of it, and she begged her daughter to tell her what had occurred. Marianne, hanging down her head, admitted that Martin had tried to make love to her, but she hastened to add that it had not been so very bad, and Drusilla had thought it would be foolish to refine too much upon it.

“Drusilla Morville is a very sensible girl,” said Lady Bolderwood approvingly. “She is perfectly right, and perhaps I am not sorry that it happened, for it has made you see what flirting leads to, my dear, and in future you will take better care, I am sure.”

She believed that the want of tone in Marianne’s spirits was now accounted for, but when she confided the story to her husband he disconcerted her by saying in his bluff way: “Well, Mama, you should know your daughter best, but it’s the first time I ever heard of a girl’s moping about the house because a handsome young fellow shows himself to be head over ears in love with her!”

“My dear Sir Thomas, I am persuaded she was much shocked by Martin’s behaviour — ”

“Shocked! Ay, so she might be, the naughty puss! But that’s no reason why she should peck at her dinner, and sit staring into the fire when she thinks we ain’t watching her. No, no, my lady, if it’s young Frant who has made her lose her appetite, you may call me a Dutchman!”

His wife smiled indulgently, and shook her head, but events proved Sir Thomas to have been right. On the very next morning, when Marianne sat in the window of the front parlour with her Mama, helping her to hem some handkerchiefs, a horseman was seen trotting up the drive. Lady Bolderwood did not immediately recognize him, and she was just wondering aloud who it could be when she became aware of an extraordinary change in her listless daughter. Marianne was blushing, her head bent over her stitchery, but the oddest little smile trembling on her lips. In great astonishment, Lady Bolderwood stared at her.

“I think — I believe — it is Lord Ulverston, Mama!” murmured Marianne.

Lord Ulverston it was, and in a very few moments he was shaking hands with them, fluently explaining that since his way led past their house he could not but call to enquire whether Sir Thomas and her ladyship were quite recovered from their indispositions. Lady Bolderwood’s astonishment grew, for as he turned from her to take Marianne’s hand in his she perceived such a glowing look in her daughter’s countenance, such a shy yet beaming smile in her eyes as made her seem almost a stranger to her own mother.

Sir Thomas, informed by a servant of his lordship’s arrival, then entered the room, and made the Viscount heartily welcome. To his lady’s considerable indignation, he bestowed on her a quizzing look which informed her how far more exactly he had read their daughter’s mind than she had. The Viscount stayed chatting easily for perhaps half an hour, and if his eyes strayed rather often to Marianne’s face, and his voice underwent a subtle change when he had occasion to address her, his conduct was otherwise strictly decorous. When he rose to depart, Sir Thomas escorted him to the front-door. No sooner, however, was the parlour-door shut behind them than his lordship requested the favour of a few words with his host.

“Ho! So that’s it, is it?” said Sir Thomas. “Well, well, you had better come into my library, my lord, I suppose!”

When Sir Thomas presently rejoined his ladies, and they had watched the Viscount riding away, Marianne asked if he had been showing his Indian treasures to his lordship.

“Ay, that was it,” replied Sir Thomas, chuckling. But when Marianne had left the room, he said to his wife, with one of his cracks of mirth: “Indian treasures! It wasn’t any Indian treasure his lordship came after!”

“Good heavens!” she exclaimed. “You cannot, surely, mean that he has made an offer for Marianne?”

“That’s it. Came to ask my permission to pay his addresses to her, just as he ought.”

“But he has only been acquainted with her a few days!”

“What’s that got to say to anything? I knew my mind five minutes after I met you, my lady!”

“She is too young! Why, she is not yet out!”

“Ay, so I told him. I said we could not sanction any engagement until she had seen a bit of the world.”

She regarded him with suspicion. “Sir Thomas, do you mean to tell me you gave him permission to pay his addresses?”

“Why, I said if my girl loved him I would not say no,” he confessed. “It would be no bad thing for her, you know, Maria. Setting aside the title, he’s just the cut of a man I fancy for my little puss. He ain’t after her fortune: from what he tells me, he’s a man of comfortable fortune himself. I can tell you this, I’d as lief her affections were engaged before we expose her to all the handsome young scamps with high-sounding titles and lean purses who are hanging out in London for rich wives!”

“I am persuaded she would never — ”

“Maria, my dear, there’s no saying what she might do, for she’s not up to snuff, like some of the young ladies I’ve seen, and when a girl is heiress to a hundred thousand pounds every needy rascal will be paying court to her! A pretty thing it would be if she chose to set her heart on a man that only wants her fortune!”

“Yes, yes, but — My dear Sir Thomas, you run on so fast! You do not consider! The Wrexhams might not care for the match, after all!”

He gave a dry chuckle. “There’s only one thing could make the Wrexhams, or any other high family, dislike it, Maria, and that’s for me to gamble my fortune away on ’Change!” he said.

While the Viscount was pursuing his courtship of Marianne, Martin seemed to be making an effort to get upon better terms with his half-brother. His attempts at friendliness, which were sometimes rather too studied, were tranquilly received, the Earl neither encouraging nor repulsing him, but holding himself a little aloof, and meeting advances that were not unlike those of a half-savage puppy with a serenity which was as unruffled by present blandishments as it had been by past enmity.

Though the Viscount might regard Martin’s change of face with suspicion, Theo and Miss Morville observed it with feelings of hope, and of relief.

“I think,” Miss Morville said thoughtfully, “that the sweetness of his lordship’s temper has had its effect upon Martin. He was at first inclined to see in it a lack of manly spirit, and now that he has discovered how far this is from the truth he begins to respect him — and with Martin, you know, respect must be the foundation of liking.”

“Exactly so!” Theo said warmly. “Your observation is very just, Drusilla! For my part, I believe Martin has seen the folly of his former conduct, and means to do better in the future.”

“And for my part,” interpolated Ulverston, “I think your precious Martin has had a fright, and is set on making us all think him reconciled to Ger’s existence!”

“A harsh judgment!” Theo said, smiling. “I have known Martin almost from his cradle, and I cannot believe that there is any real harm in him. He is hot-at-hand, often behaves stupidly, but that there is vice in him I will not think!”

“Ay, there you have the matter in a nutshell!” said Ulverston. “You will not think it!”

“I know what is in your mind, but I believe him to have repented most sincerely.”

“Lord, Frant, do you take me for a flat? If he repents, it is because he caused Ger’s horse to cut his knees!” He encountered a warning look cast at him from under Theo’s brows, and added impatiently: “Nonsense! Miss Morville was with him, and must know the truth!”