It was on her way back to Staples that she was overtaken by Lindeth, driving the late Mr Calver’s gig. He pulled up beside her, his eyes dancing with amusement. ‘Good-morning, ma’am! You have missed such a capital sight! Do get up beside me, and let me drive you home!’
She smiled up at him. ‘Why, thank you, but I enjoy walking, you know! What sight have I missed?’
He laughed. ‘I’ll tell you – but you must let me drive you! I think it’s going to rain, and you have no umbrella.’
‘Very well,’ she replied, taking the hand he stretched down to her, and mounting nimbly into the gig. ‘Though I think the clouds are too high for rain. Don’t keep me in suspense another moment! What did I miss?’
‘Arthur Mickleby, trying to catch the thong of his whip over his head!’ he said, still laughing. ‘I missed it too, but if you’d seen him – ! What must he do but practise the trick half-a-mile back on this lane, just where the trees overhang the road! What a cawker!’
She began to laugh too. ‘Oh, no! Did it get caught up?’
‘I should rather think it did! By the time I came along he was in such a rage, cursing the tree, and the whip, and that nappy gray of his, that I couldn’t have helped laughing if it had been to save my life! Every time he got hold of the butt, and tried to twitch the thong free, the gray took fright, and started forward, so of course Mickleby was obliged to let the whip go while he got the hard-mouthed brute quiet again. So there he was, backing under the tree with the whip swinging like a pendulum, and knocking his hat off !’
Miss Trent, much enjoying this story, said: ‘To think I should have missed it! Did he succeed in freeing it?’
‘Oh, lord, no! It’s still there – but I’ll lay you odds it won’t be for long! Mickleby’s gone off home: to fetch a ladder, I think! Before anyone comes along and sees the whip dangling, and starts making enquiries! I would, too. He was ready to murder me, but there was nothing I could do about it.’
‘Poor Arthur! I expect you were perfectly odious!’
‘Not a bit of it! I picked up his hat for him! Of course, the whole thing was Waldo’s fault: Mickleby must have seen him catch his thong over his head. I tell Waldo that if he stays here much longer he’ll get to be so puffed up that there’ll be no bearing it! Mickleby, and the rest of them, copy every single thing he does, you know. If he took to wearing his coat inside out they’d do the same!’
‘Yes, I think they would,’ she agreed. ‘Fortunately, he never does anything extravagant! Indeed, he has exerted a very beneficial influence over his devout worshippers – and has won great popularity amongst their parents in consequence!’
He grinned. ‘I know he has. He is the most complete hand! But he won’t be popular with ’em when they find that he only wanted Broom Hall for his wretched brats!’
‘Wretched brats?’ repeated Miss Trent, in a queer tone.
‘Well, that’s what my cousin George calls ’em!’ chuckled his lordship. ‘He don’t approve of them at all! He’s a very good fellow, but a trifle too full of starch and propriety. Always in the established mode, is George! He told Waldo that to be housing the brats in a respectable neighbourhood is carrying his eccentricity too far. I must say, I wouldn’t dare do it myself. Well, even the Rector was pretty taken aback when Waldo broached it to him, and I fancy he’s in a bit of a quake over what people like Mrs Mickleby will say to him when they learn that he was in Waldo’s confidence!’ He became aware suddenly that Miss Trent was curiously silent, and stopped short in the middle of his cheerful rattle, and glanced round to find that her eyes were fixed on his face. There was a blank look in them, which made him say uneasily: ‘Waldo told you about his children, didn’t he, ma’am?’
She looked away, saying stonily: ‘No. He hasn’t mentioned them.’
‘Oh, lord!’ exclaimed Lindeth, in the liveliest dismay. ‘I had a notion that – Now I am in the suds! For God’s sake, ma’am, don’t betray me! I don’t want one of Waldo’s trimmings!’
He spoke half-laughingly; she forced her lips into a faint smile, and replied: ‘You may be easy on that head, sir. I shall certainly not speak of it.’
‘He warned me he didn’t want it talked of,’ said Lindeth remorsefully. ‘He never does himself, you know, except, of course – But I’m not going to say another word!’ An alarming thought suddenly assailed him; he said apprehensively: ‘You aren’t scandalized, are you, ma’am? I mean, I know all the old tabbies will nab the rust at having brats of that sort planted at Broom Hall, but you don’t hold up your nose at what you don’t think quite the thing ! After all, most men wouldn’t care a straw what became of the poor little devils, much less squander a fortune on housing them, and feeding them, and educating them! You may say that he’s so full of juice that it can’t signify to him, but –’
Miss Trent, feeling herself to be on the verge of strong hysterics, interrupted him. ‘My dear Lord Lindeth, I assure you that you have not the smallest need to say more! I collect that you and Sir Waldo will soon be leaving Yorkshire?’
He hesitated, before saying: ‘Yes – that is, I am not perfectly sure! I must go home, of course, but – I hope to be in Yorkshire again as soon as – well, soon !’
‘Next month, for the York Races,’ she agreed. ‘I daresay you have frequently attended them. This will be the first time I have had that opportunity. Mrs Underhill has the intention of getting up an agreeable party for the event, you know.’
He followed this lead readily enough; and the rest of the short drive was beguiled with innocuous chattery, in which his lordship bore decidedly the major part. He would have turned in at the gates of Staples, but Miss Trent would not permit it, saying that if he would set her down at the lodge she would enjoy the walk up the avenue to the house. Her command over both her voice and her countenance was such as to banish from his mind any lingering fear that his indiscreet tongue might have wreaked more mischief than had ever been in his head; and he drove off with a cheerful wave of his beaver.
She walked up the avenue, keeping to the carriageway by instinct rather than by sight, her eyes looking blindly ahead; and the empty basket weighing heavily on her arm. Her thoughts were chaotic; before she could attempt to marshal them into even the semblance of order some period of quiet and solitude would be necessary to enable her to recover from the shock of Lindeth’s artless disclosure.
Mercifully, it was granted to her. When she entered the house, it was wrapped in an unusual silence. Tiffany and Courtenay had not returned from their ride; and the servants, all sweeping and dusting finished, were in their own quarters. No one observed her return, and no one disturbed her when she reached the refuge of her bedchamber. She untied the strings of her bonnet, and mechanically smoothed them, before restoring the bonnet to the shelf in her wardrobe. As she turned away she became aware of the trembling of her limbs, and sat down limply, resting her elbows on the dressing-table before her, and sinking her head between her hands. She had not known that shock could affect one in a manner unpleasantly reminiscent of a feverish illness she had suffered years before.
It was long before she could compel her brain to consider rather than to remember. It might be useless to recall everything the Nonesuch had said to her, everything he had done, but there was no helping it. So many of his words had assumed a new significance! He had had a certain proposition to lay before her; and every intention of making a clean breast of the matter to her; he had known that he would fall under the displeasure of his neighbours, but had fancied that her voice would not swell the chorus of disapproval, because she had too liberal a mind. She wondered, in the detachment of despair, what she could have said or done to imbue him, and Lindeth too, with so false an estimate of her character.
The first impulse of her mind had been to reject as incredible the disclosure that Sir Waldo was a hardened libertine; and even when she grew calmer, and was able to think ra
ther than to feel, there still persisted in her brain, beyond reason, the conviction that it could not be true. Had anyone but Lindeth told her that Sir Waldo had fathered nameless children she would not have lent the tale a moment’s belief. But Lindeth would never slander his cousin, and what he said could not be scornfully dismissed. She had been amazed that he should speak so lightly of the matter, for she could not doubt that he was himself a young man of principle. Then she thought of what Mrs Chartley had said to her, and realized what strong support her warning gave to Lindeth’s words. It was rather dreadful to know that so strict and upright a woman could condone what she had called ‘adventures’. She knew the truth, but she plainly thought little the worse of Sir Waldo. She had uttered her warning not to prevent a marriage, but in the fear that no offer of marriage would be made. She might, like Mrs Mickleby, be scandalized by the arrival in the neighbourhood of Sir Waldo’s bastards, but she did not consider them a bar to his marriage with a young woman who was far removed from the wantons with whom he had enjoyed his adventures. This attitude of mind would have seemed as incredible to Ancilla as all the rest if she had come to Staples straight from her home, where loose conduct was regarded with abhorrence; but Ancilla had spent some months in London, and she had learnt that in fashionable circles promiscuous conduct was regarded by many with amusement, not with horror. The most surprising people talked openly of the latest crim. cons., and still more surprising were the several haughty ladies of high position who were known to have foisted other men’s children on to their husbands. Provided one was discreet in that exclusive world, one might take as many lovers as one chose, and still maintain an accepted respectability. The only unforgiveable crime was to cause a scandal. As for the gentlemen, few people thought the worse of them for rakishness. Even Lady Trent, quite as virtuous as Mrs Chartley, could survey, critically, but without disgust, some Drury Lane vestal well-known to be the latest mistress of a gentleman whom she would entertain in her house that very evening with the greatest cordiality.
But Miss Trent had not been reared in this accommodating morality. She was as much revolted by a libertine as by a prostitute, and she would as soon have contemplated becoming such a man’s mistress as his wife.
Sixteen
By the time Tiffany returned to Staples, Miss Trent had regained sufficient command over herself to be able to meet her with at least the semblance of composure. There was a stricken look in her eyes, but Tiffany, very full of her own concerns, did not notice it. She was in sparkling good-humour, for on their way home she and Courtenay had met Lady Colebatch and Lizzie, tooling along the road to the village in a dowdy landaulette. ‘And Lady Colebatch asked us if we cared to dine at Colby Place this evening – just Courtenay and me! It is not a party – only the Mickleby girls and Arthur, and Jack Banningham! So I may, Ancilla, mayn’t I? Oh, she said she would be glad to see you, if you liked to go with us! But I daresay you won’t, for all we mean to do is to play games, and there won’t be any strangers there, so there can’t be any objection to my going without you! Now, can there?’
‘No, none, if Courtenay goes with you.’
‘Dear Ancilla!’ Tiffany said, embracing her. ‘Shall you accompany us? You need not, you know!’
‘Then I won’t,’ said Miss Trent, faintly smiling.
Courtenay, who had entered the room in Tiffany’s wake, cried out at this. Miss Trent pleaded a headache; which made Tiffany say instantly: ‘I thought you were not looking quite the thing! Poor Ancilla! You will be glad of a quiet evening, I daresay: you should go to bed, and I’ll bring some lemon peel to put on your temples!’
Miss Trent declined this; so Tiffany, all eager solicitude, offered to find the pastilles her aunt burned whenever she too had the headache; or to mix a glass of hartshorn and water for her to drink.
‘Thank you, Tiffany, no!’ said Miss Trent firmly. ‘And I don’t want a cataplasm to my feet either! You know I never quack myself !’
Tiffany was rather daunted by this; but after searching her memory for a moment, her brow puckered, she pronounced triumphantly: ‘Camphorated spirits of lavender!’ and ran out of the room, calling to old Nurse.
Miss Trent raised her brows enquiringly at Courtenay. ‘Why is she so anxious to render me bedfast? If you know of any reason, pray don’t keep it from me!’
He grinned. ‘Well, I don’t – except that Lady Colebatch said that she was going to invite Lindeth as well, and I rather fancy Tiffany means to lift her finger. So, of course, she don’t want a chaperon!’
‘Means to do what ?’ demanded Miss Trent.
His grin broadened. ‘Lift her finger! That’s what she told me she’d do when she wanted to bring Lindeth back to heel; but for my part I think she’s mistaken her man! She thinks he must be in flat despair because she’s been flirting with that court card of a cousin of his, and turning a cold shoulder on him, but I think he don’t care a rush! In fact, – but mum for that!’
‘Mum indeed for that!’ said Miss Trent, roused to speak with unusual earnestness. ‘I do beg of you, –’
‘Oh, no need for that!’ declared Courtenay virtuously. ‘I told Mama I wouldn’t stir the coals, and no more I will. Unless, of course, she comes the ugly,’ he added, after a thoughtful pause.
Miss Trent could only hope that her charge would refrain. Her humour at the moment seemed sunny, but there was no depending upon its continuance; and although she and her cousin rarely quarrelled when they rode together, each favouring much the same neck-or-nothing style, and Courtenay admitting that with all her faults Tiffany was pluck to the backbone, at all other times they took a delight in vexing one another.
However, they presently set off together in perfect amity, in Courtenay’s phaeton, each agreeing that since the party was no dress affair this conveyance was preferable to the rather outdated carriage drawn by a pair of horses kept largely for farmwork which was the only other closed vehicle available during Mrs Underhill’s absence from home. Miss Trent, whose opinion of young Mr Underhill’s ability to drive a team was not high, noted with relief that he had only a pair harnessed to his phaeton, reflected that the moon was at the full, thus rendering it unlikely that he would drive into a ditch, and retired to grapple with her own melancholy problem.
Not the least perplexing feature of this, as she soon discovered, was her inability to think of the rake whose love-children were to be foisted cynically on to an unsuspecting society and of the delightful man whose smile haunted her dreams as one and the same person. It was in vain that she reminded herself that charm of manner must necessarily form the major part of a rake’s stock-in-trade; equally in vain that she lashed herself for having been so stupidly taken in. From this arose the horrifying realization that however tarnished in her eyes might be Sir Waldo’s image her love had not withered, as it ought to have done, but persisted strongly enough to make her feel more miserable than ever in her life before.
For on one point her resolution was fixed: there could be no question of marriage with him, even if marriage was what he had in mind, which, in the light of Lindeth’s revelations, now seemed doubtful. But when she thought it over she could not believe that he meant to offer her a less honourable affiance. A libertine he might be, but he was no fool, and he must be well aware that she was no female of easy virtue. She wondered why he should wish to marry her; and came to the dreary conclusion that he had probably decided that the time had come for him to marry, and hoped that by choosing a penniless nobody to be his wife he would be at liberty to continue to pursue his present way of life, while she, thankful to be so richly established, turned a blind eye to his crim. cons. and herself behaved with all the propriety which he would no doubt demand of the lady who bore his name.
By the time Tiffany and Courtenay returned from Colby Place her headache was no longer feigned. Only a sense of duty kept her from retiring to bed hours earlier; and she could only feel relief when Tiffany
, instead of prattling about the party, yawned, shrugged up her shoulders, said that it had been abominably insipid, and that she was fagged to death. An expressive grimace from Courtenay informed Miss Trent that he had a tale to disclose; but as she felt herself to be quite incapable of dealing with Tiffany’s problems at that moment she did not stay to hear what the tale was, but went upstairs with her wayward charge.
Tiffany put in no appearance in the breakfast-parlour next morning. Her maid told Miss Trent that she was suffering from a headache: a statement interpreted by Nurse as ‘in one of her dratted miffs.’ So Courtenay, cheerfully discussing an enormous breakfast, was able to regale Miss Trent with the history of the previous night’s entertainment.
‘Lindeth wasn’t there,’ he said, cracking his second egg. ‘Told Lady Colebatch he was already engaged. Deepest regrets: all that sort of flummery! But, ma’am, Patience wasn’t there either! She had a previous engagement too, and if you can tell me what it could have been but Lindeth’s being invited to the Rectory, it’s more than anyone else can! Because Arthur Mickleby and his sisters were at Colby Place, and Sophy and Jack Banningham, and the Ashes, so where did Lindeth go if it wasn’t to the Rectory? Plain as a pikestaff ! But what must Mary Mickleby do but – no, it wasn’t Mary! it was Jane Mickleby, and just the sort of thing she would do! – well, she said, with that silly titter of hers, that she was sure no one could give the least guess as to why Patience and Lindeth were both engaged on the same evening. And, if you ask me, ma’am,’ concluded Courtenay, in a very fairminded spirit, ‘she didn’t say it only to pay off a score with Tiffany, but because she’s as cross as crabs herself that Lindeth never showed the least preference for her ! But, however it may have been, you should have seen Tiffany’s face!’