He looked annoyed, but before he had time to speak an interruption occurred, in the person of Miss Farlow, who came into the room, with her bonnet askew, and words tripping off her tongue. 'Such a vexatious thing, dear Annis! I have been all over the town, trying to match that sarcenet, and, would you believe it, not even Thorne's were able to offer me anything like it! So what with this horrid wind, which has positively blown me to pieces, and –' She stopped, becoming suddenly aware of the presence of a stranger. 'Oh, I beg your pardon! I didn't know! What a sadly shocking thing of me to do, bursting in on you, which of course I should never have done if James had informed me that you had a visitor! But he never said a word about it – just relieved me of my parcels, you know, for it was he who opened the door, not our good Limbury, who I daresay was busy in the pantry, and I desired him to give the large one to Mrs Wardlow, and to have the others carried up to my bedchamber, which he said he would do, and then we exchanged a few words about the way the wind whips at one round every corner, and how dreadfully steep the hill is, particularly when one is burdened with parcels, as, of course, I was, and which has made me quite out of breath, besides tousling me quite abominably!'
Miss Wychwood, having observed with malicious enjoyment the effect on Mr Carleton of this tangled speech, intervened at this point, saying: 'I've no sympathy to waste on you, Maria! Indeed, I think you very well served for being so foolish as to walk home, instead of calling up a chair! As for "bursting in", I am glad you did, for I wish to make Mr Carleton known to you – Lucilla's uncle, you know! Mr Carleton, Miss Farlow – my cousin, who is kind enough to reside with me.'
He favoured Miss Farlow with a brief bow, but addressed himself to his hostess, saying, with the flicker of an impish smile: 'Lending you countenance, ma'am?'
'Exactly so!' she said, refusing to rise to this bait.
'You astonish me! I hadn't supposed that any lady so advanced in years as yourself would be conscious of the need of chaperonage! Is your name Annis? A corruption, I believe, of Agnes, but I like it! It becomes you.'
'Well!' exclaimed Miss Farlow, bristling in defence of her patroness, 'I'm sure I don't know why you should, not that I mean to say it is not a very pretty name, for I think it very pretty, but if it is a corruption it cannot be thought to become dear Miss Wychwood, who is not in the least corrupt, let me assure you!'
'Thank you, Maria!' said Miss Wychwood, bubbling over with ill-suppressed mirth. 'I knew I might depend on you to establish my character!'
'Indeed you may, dearest Annis!' declared Miss Farlow, much moved. She glared through starting tears at Mr Carleton, and added, with a gasp at her own temerity: 'I shall take leave to tell you, sir, that I think it most ungentlemanly of you to cast aspersions on Miss Wychwood!'
'No, no, Maria!' said Miss Wychwood, trying to speak with proper sobriety, 'you wrong him! I don't think he meant to cast aspersions on me – though I own I wouldn't be prepared to hazard any large sum on such a doubtful chance!'
'Hornet!' said Mr Carleton appreciatively.
She twinkled at him, and awoke a reluctant smile in his hard eyes. 'Let us leave my character out of the discussion! You have come to Bath – at great personal inconvenience – to see your niece, but, most unfortunately, she is not here at the moment. So what is to be done? You will scarcely wish to sit here, kicking your heels, until she returns!'
'No, by God I wouldn't! Any more, I dare swear, than you would wish me to do so!'
'No, indeed! You would be very much in my way! Perhaps it would be best if you were to dine here tonight.'
'No,' he said decisively. 'You're very obliging, ma'am, but it would be best if you brought her to dine with me, at the York House. I'm putting up there, and they seem to keep a tolerable table. I shall expect you both at seven – unless you prefer a later hour?'
'Oh, no! But pray don't depend upon my joining you! My abigail shall escort Lucilla to York House, and I feel sure I can rely on you to bring her back later in the evening.'
'That won't do at all!' he said. 'Your presence at any discussion about Lucilla's future is indispensable, believe me! I do depend upon your joining me. Don't fail me!'
With that, he took his leave, bowing slightly to Miss Farlow, but grasping Miss Wychwood's hand for a moment, and favouring her with a rueful grin.
Six
Well!' uttered Miss Farlow, in accents of strong reprobation, as soon as Limbury had conducted Mr Carleton out of the room. 'What a very uncivil person, I must say! To be sure, Sir Geoffrey did warn us, and I do hope, dearest Annis, that you will not dine with him this evening! Such impertinence to have invited you – if an invitation you could call it, though I never heard an invitation delivered so improperly! I quite thought you must have given him a heavy set-down, and was astonished that you did not!'
'Well, I did think of doing so,' admitted Miss Wychwood. 'But since he is, as you so rightly say, a very uncivil person, I couldn't be sure that he wouldn't retaliate in kind. I feel it is my duty to go with Lucilla, if only to prevent her coming to cuffs with him.'
'I make no secret of the fact that I don't consider you owe that girl any duty!' said Miss Farlow, trembling with indignation. 'But I have a duty towards you, and don't tell me I haven't, for I shan't listen to you! Sir Geoffrey and dear Lady Wychwood entrusted you to my care, and even if he didn't say so, he meant it, and Lady Wychwood did say so! Just as I was about to get into the carriage, or if it wasn't then, it was in the hall, or perhaps the morning-room, because she had a little chill coming on, and so didn't come out of the house, though she wished to, but I begged her not to do so, because the weather was most inclement, which you must remember, so we said goodbye in the hall –'
'Or perhaps in the morning-room?' interpolated Miss Wychwood.
'It may have been: I'm not perfectly sure, but it makes no difference! And she distinctly said, when she bade me goodbye, or perhaps just after she had said goodbye: "Take care of her, Cousin Maria!" Meaning you, of course! And I promised I would, and so I shall!'
'Thank you, Maria, I feel sure I can depend on you to come to my rescue if I should find myself in trouble. But at the moment I'm not in any sort of trouble, so do, I beg of you, put your bonnet straight, and make your hair tidy again! You look like a birch-broom in a fit!'
'Annis!' said Miss Farlow, sinking her voice impressively. 'That man is not a proper person for you to know!'
'Fiddle! I collect Geoffrey told you so, but what harm either of you expect him to do I haven't the most distant guess. Do you suspect him of having designs upon my virtue? You are quite beside the bridge if you do! He doesn't even like me!'
Miss Farlow's modesty was so much shocked by this speech that she uttered a faint shriek, and tottered away to her own room, there to write an agitated letter to Sir Geoffrey Wychwood, in which she assured him that he might depend on her to do all that lay in her power to put an end to a most undesirable friendship, and (in the same sentence) warned him that she feared there was nothing she could do to stop dear Annis in one of her headstrong moods.
When Lucilla came in, it was several minutes before Miss Wychwood was able to break the news of her uncle's arrival to her, so anxious was she to recount all the details of the day's expedition. But she did at last pause for breath, and the change that came over her countenance when she heard the dread tidings was almost ludicrous. The sparkle was quenched instantly in her eyes, the smile vanished from her lips, she turned pale, and wrung her hands together. 'He has come to drag me away! Oh, no, no, no!'
'Don't be such a goose!' said Miss Wychwood, laughing at her. 'I don't think he has any such intention, though I fancy that may well have been his original purpose. But until I told him just what the case was he had no idea that the Iverleys and Mrs Amber were trying to bring about a match between you and Ninian. You need not be afraid that he will help them to promote that precious scheme, for he most certainly will not. He was excessively vexed – partly with them, and partly with you, for not having written to
tell him of it. So when you meet him don't put him out of temper by looking black at him, and getting on your high ropes! He seems to me to be as mifty as he is uncivil, and no good purpose can be served by getting into a quarrel with him, you know.'
'I don't want to meet him!' Lucilla declared, tears starting into her eyes.
'Now you are being foolish beyond permission, my dear! Of course you must see him! I am taking you to dine with him at the York House this evening, so that we may, all three of us, discuss what's to be done with you! Oh, don't look so dismayed, you ridiculous puss! I promise I won't let him bully you!'
In spite of this assurance it was a considerable time before Lucilla could be persuaded to consent to the scheme, and although she did in the end consent it was easy to see, when she took her place beside Miss Wychwood in the carriage, that she was far from being reconciled to it. Her charming little face was downcast, her eyes were full of apprehension, and it was not difficult to guess that she stood in great awe of her formidable uncle.
He received them in a private parlour, very correctly attired in the blue coat, white waistcoat, black pantaloons, and striped silk stockings which constituted the evening-dress worn by all the Smarts at private parties. Miss Wychwood noted, with slightly reluctant approval, that while he exhibited none of the exaggerated quirks of fashion which characterized the dandyset, his coat was very well cut, his neckcloth tied with nicety, his shirt-points decently starched, and the bosom of his shirt unadorned by a frill – an outmoded fashion still worn by many provincial beaux, and almost invariably by the older generation of Smarts to which he undoubtedly belonged.
He came forward to shake hands with Miss Wychwood, paying no immediate heed to Lucilla, following her into the parlour. 'You can't think how relieved I am to see that you haven't brought your cousin with you!' he said, by way of greeting. 'I have been cursing myself these three hours for not having made it plain to her that I was not including her in my invitation to you! I couldn't have endured an evening spent in the company of such an unconscionable gabble-monger!'
'Oh, but you did!' she told him. 'She took you in the greatest dislike, and can't be blamed for having done so, or for having uttered some pretty severe strictures on your total want of conduct. You must own, if there is any truth in you, that you were shockingly uncivil to her!'
'I can't tolerate chattering bores,' he said. 'If she took me in such dislike, I'm amazed that she permitted you to come here without her chaperonage.'
'She would certainly have stopped me if she could have done it, for she does not think you are a proper person for me to know!'
'Good God! Does she suspect me of trying to seduce you? She may be easy on that head: I never seduce ladies of quality!' He turned from her as he spoke, and put up his glass to cast a critical look over Lucilla. 'Well, niece?' he said. 'What a troublesome chit you are! But I'm glad to see that your appearance at least is much improved since I last saw you. I thought that you were bidding fair to grow into a Homely Joan, but I was wrong: you are no longer pudding-faced, and you've lost your freckles. Accept my felicitations!'
'I was not pudding-faced!'
'Oh, believe me, you were! You hadn't lost your puppyfat.'
Her bosom heaved with indignation, but Miss Wychwood intervened, recommending her not to rise to that, or any other fly of her uncle's casting. She added severely: 'And as for you, sir, I beg you will refrain from making any more remarks expressly designed to put Lucilla all on end, and to render me acutely uncomfortable!'
'I wouldn't do that for the world!' he assured her.
'Then don't be so rag-mannered!' she retorted.
'But I wasn't!' he protested. 'I didn't say Lucilla is puddingfaced! I said she was, and even complimented her on her improved looks!'
Lucilla was betrayed into a little crow of involuntary laughter, and said with engaging frankness: 'Oh, what an odiously complete hand you are, Uncle Oliver! Was I really such an antidote?'
'Oh, no, not an antidote! Merely a chicken that had lost its down and had too few feathers to show that it might grow into a handsome bird!'
'Well!' said Lucilla, much impressed. 'I know I'm quite pretty, but no one has ever said I was handsome! Do you think I am, sir, or – or are you roasting me?'
'No, I don't think you handsome, but you've no need to look so downcast! Believe me, only females admire handsome women: men infinitely prefer pretty ones!'
She was left to digest this, while he engaged Miss Wychwood in conversation, but suddenly interrupted this exchange of elegant civilities to ask him if he thought Miss Wychwood handsome, or pretty.
Annis, torn between amusement and embarrassment, directed an admonitory frown at her, but Mr Carleton replied without hesitation: 'Neither.'
'Well, I think,' said Lucilla, bristling in defence of her patronness, 'that she is beautiful!'
'Yes, so do I,' he answered.
'I am very much obliged to you both,' said Annis, recovering from the shock, 'and I shall be even more obliged to you if you will stop putting me to the blush! I haven't come to listen to empty compliments, but to discuss with you, sir, how best to provide for Lucilla until her come-out!'
'All in good time,' he said. 'We will dine first.' He added, with that glint in his eyes which she found strangely disquieting: 'Your advanced years, ma'am, have impaired your memory! I told you, not so many hours ago, that I never try to flummery people! My years are considerably more advanced than yours, but I should warn you that my memory is still quite undamaged by senility!'
'Odious, odious creature!' she said softly, but allowed him to hand her to the table, where two waiters had just finished setting out the first course of a well-chosen dinner.
Lucilla was inclined to pout, but was subdued by a glance from Miss Wychwood's fine eyes, and meekly took her place at her guardian's left hand. She was young enough to regard the food set before her as a matter of indifference, but she had a schoolgirl's hearty appetite, and did full justice to the first course, partaking of every dish offered her, and allowing her elders to converse without interruption. The edge of her hunger having been taken off by the time the second course was brought in she refused the green goose, and the pigeons, but made great inroads on an orange soufflé, a Celerata cream, and a basket of pastry. Nibbling a ratafia biscuit, she stole a glance at her uncle's profile. He was smiling at something Miss Wychwood had said to him, so she ventured to ask him the question uppermost in her mind. 'Uncle Oliver!' she said imperatively.
He turned his head. 'Do rid yourself of this detestable habit you've fallen into of addressing me as Uncle Oliver! I find it quite repellent.'
She opened her eyes at him. 'But you are my uncle!' she pointed out.
'Yes, but I don't wish to be reminded of it.'
'Such a dreadfully ageing title, isn't it?' said Miss Wychwood, with spurious sympathy.
'Exactly so!' he replied. 'Almost worse than aunt!'
She shook her head sadly. 'Indeed yes! Though it was being called aunt that drove me from my home.'
'Well, what am I to call you?' demanded Lucilla.
'Anything else you like,' he responded, in a voice devoid of interest.
'Now, that very generous permission opens a wide field to you, my dear,' said Miss Wychwood. 'It wouldn't do for you to call him Bangster, for that would be too impolite, but I see nothing amiss with you calling him Captain Hackum, which has the same meaning, but wrapped up in clean linen!'
Mr Carleton grinned, and kindly explained to his bewildered niece that these terms signified a bully. 'They are cant terms,' he further explained, 'and far too vulgar for you to use! Anyone hearing them on your lips would write you down as a brassfaced hussy, without conduct or delicacy.'
'Devil!' said Miss Wychwood, with feeling.
'Oh, you're quizzing me!' Lucilla exclaimed, slightly offended. 'Both of you! I wish you will not! I am not a brass-faced hussy, though I daresay people would think me one if I called you merely Oliver ! I am sure it must be most
improper!'
'It would not only be improper but it would bring down instant retribution on your head!' he told her. 'I have no objection to your addressing me as Oliver, but Merely Oliver I'm damned if I'll tolerate!'
She gave a choke of laughter. 'I didn't mean that! You know I didn't! Of course, if you had a title it would be perfectly proper to call you by it, but only think what my aunt would say if she heard me calling you Oliver!'
'As it seems unlikely that she will hear it, that need not trouble you,' he said. 'If you have any qualms, allay them with the reflection that Princess Charlotte addresses all her uncles – and, for anything I know, her aunts too – by their Christian names, and even the youngest of them is older than I am!'
Lucilla had little interest in Royalty and dismissed the Princess Charlotte summarily. 'Oh, well, I daresay things are different for princesses!' she said. 'But you said that it's unlikely my aunt will ever hear me call you Oliver. W-what do you mean, Unc– sir ?'