‘Carry Mr Tom up to it!’ recommended Lord Stavely, with a smile. ‘When he wakes –’ He glanced down at Mr Tom’s unconscious form. ‘No, perhaps I had better leave a note for him.’ He drew out his pocket-book, and after a moment’s hesitation scribbled several lines in it in pencil, tore out the leaf, twisted it into a screw, and gave it to the landlord. ‘When he wakes, give him that,’ he said.
A quarter of an hour later, Thetford having furnished the post-boys with precise instructions, Lord Stavely was bowling along narrow country lanes to Melbury Place. When the gates came into sight, the post-boys would have turned in, but his lordship checked them, and said that he would get down.
They had long since decided that he was an eccentric, but this quite staggered them. ‘It’s Melbury Place right enough, my lord!’ one assured him.
‘I am aware. I have a fancy to stroll through the gardens in this exquisite moonlight. Wait here!’
He left them goggling after him. ‘He must be as drunk as a wheelbarrow!’ said one.
‘Not him!’ returned his fellow. ‘Queer in his attic! I suspicioned it at the start.’
His lordship, meanwhile, was walking up the drive. He very soon left the gravel for the grass bordering it, so that no sound should betray his presence to anyone in the house. The air was heavy with the scent of roses, and the full moon, riding high overhead, cast ink-black shadows on the ground. It showed the house, outlined against a sky of deepest sapphire, and made it an easy matter for his lordship, traversing the flower gardens, to find the shrubbery. Here, neat walks meandered between high hedges, and several rustic seats were set at convenient spots. No one was present, and no light shone from the long, low house in the background. His lordship sat down to await events.
He had not long to wait. After perhaps twenty minutes, he heard the hush of skirts, and rose just as a cloaked figure came swiftly round a bend in the walk, carrying two bandboxes. He stepped forward, but before he could speak the newcomer exclaimed in a muted voice: ‘I thought my aunt would never blow out her candle! But she is snoring now! Did you procure a chaise, Tom?’
Lord Stavely took off his hat, and the moonlight showed the lady the face of a complete stranger. She recoiled with a smothered shriek.
‘Don’t be afraid!’ said his lordship reassuringly. ‘I am Mr Hatherleigh’s deputy. Let me take those boxes!’
‘His deputy?’ echoed Miss Abingdon, nervelessly relinquishing her baggage into his hands.
‘Yes,’ said Lord Stavely, setting the bandboxes down beside the seat. ‘Shall we sit here while I explain it to you?’
‘But who are you, and where is Tom?’ demanded Miss Abingdon.
‘Tom,’ said his lordship diplomatically, ‘is indisposed. He was good enough to confide his plans to me, and to – er – charge me with his deepest regrets.’
The lady’s fright succumbed to a strong feeling of ill-usage. ‘Well!’ she said, her bosom swelling. ‘If that is not the poorest-spirited thing I ever heard! I suppose he was afraid?’
‘Not at all!’ said his lordship, gently propelling her towards the seat. ‘He was overcome by a sudden illness.’
Miss Abingdon sat down, perforce, but peered suspiciously at him. ‘It sounds to me like a fudge!’ she said, not mincing matters. ‘He was perfectly well yesterday!’
‘His disorder attacked him unawares,’ said Lord Stavely.
Miss Abingdon, who seemed to labour under few illusions, demanded forthrightly: ‘Was he foxed?’
Lord Stavely did not answer for a moment. He looked at the lady, trying to see her face clearly in the moonlight. The hood had slipped back from her head. The uncertain light made it hard for him to decide whether her hair was dark or fair, but he was sure that it curled riotously, and that her eyes were both large and sparkling. He said: ‘Foxed? Certainly not!’
‘I don’t believe you!’ said Miss Abingdon. ‘How could he be such a simpleton, on this of all nights?’
Lord Stavely returned no answer to this, and after pondering in silence for a few minutes, Miss Abingdon said: ‘I did wonder if he quite liked the scheme. But why could he not have told me that he wanted to draw back from it?’
‘That,’ said Lord Stavely, ‘is the last thing he meant to do. He informed me that you had plighted your troth many years ago.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Miss Abingdon. ‘He cut my wrist with his knife, and we mixed our blood. He said I was chicken-hearted because I squeaked.’
‘How very unfeeling of him!’ said his lordship gravely. ‘May I venture to ask if you love him very dearly?’
Miss Abingdon considered the matter. ‘Well, I have always been prodigiously fond of him,’ she answered at last. ‘I dare say I might not have married him, in spite of the oath, had things not been so desperate, but what else could I do when my papa is behaving so abominably, and I am in such despair? I did hope that Papa would hire a house in London for the Season, for I am nearly twenty years old, and I have never been out of Shropshire, except to go to Bath, which I detest. And instead of that he means to marry me to a horrid old man I have never seen!’
‘Yes, so Tom told me,’ said his lordship. ‘But – forgive me – it seems scarcely possible that he could do such a thing!’
‘You don’t know my papa!’ said Miss Abingdon bitterly. ‘He makes the most fantastic schemes, and forces everyone to fall in with them! And he says I must be civil to his odious friend, and if I am not he will pack me off to Bath to stay with my Aunt Charlotte! Sir, what could I do? Aunt Maria – who is Papa’s other sister, and has lived with us since my mama died – will do nothing but say that I know what Papa is – and I do, and I dare say he would have not the least compunction in sending me to a stuffy house in Queen Square, with Aunt’s pug wheezing at me, and Aunt scarcely stirring out of the house, but wishing me to play backgammon with her! Backgammon!’ she reiterated, with loathing.
‘That, certainly, is not to be thought of,’ agreed his lordship. ‘Yet I cannot help wondering if you are quite wise to elope to Gretna Green.’
‘You don’t think so?’ Miss Abingdon said doubtfully.
‘These Border marriages are not quite the thing, you know,’ explained his lordship apologetically. ‘Then, too, unless you are very much in love with Tom, you might not be perfectly happy with him.’
‘No,’ agreed Miss Abingdon, ‘but how shocking it would be if I were to be an old maid!’
‘If you will not think me very saucy for saying so,’ said his lordship, a laugh in his voice, ‘I cannot think that a very likely fate for you!’
‘Yes, but it is!’ she said earnestly. ‘I have been kept cooped up here all my life, and Papa has not the least notion of taking me to London! He has made up his mind to it that his odious friend will be a very eligible match for me. He and this Lady Tenbury laid their heads together, I dare say –’
‘So that was it!’ interrupted his lordship. ‘I should have guessed it, of course.’
Miss Abingdon was surprised. ‘Are you acquainted with Lady Tenbury, sir?’ she asked.
‘My elder sister,’ explained his lordship.
‘Your – w-what?’ gasped Miss Abingdon, recoiling.
‘Don’t be alarmed!’ he begged. ‘Though I shrink from owning to it, I think I must be your papa’s odious friend. But I assure you, Miss Abingdon, his and my meddling sister’s schemes come as a complete surprise to me!’
Miss Abingdon swallowed convulsively. ‘D-do you m-mean to tell me, sir, that you are Lord Stavely?’
‘Yes,’ confessed his lordship. He added: ‘But though I may be a dead bore, I am not really so very old!’
‘You should have told me!’ said Miss Abingdon, deeply mortified.
‘I know I should, but I could not help nourishing the hope that I might not, after all, be the odious old man you and Tom have described in such daunting terms.’
She turned her face away, saying in a stifled tone: ‘I would never . . . Oh, how could you let me run on so?’
&n
bsp; ‘Don’t mind it!’ he said, taking one of her hands in a comforting clasp. ‘Only pray don’t elope to Gretna just to escape from my attentions!’
‘No, no, but –’ She lifted her head and looked at him under brows which he guessed rather than saw to be knit. ‘But how can you be a friend of my papa?’ she asked.
‘To tell you the truth, I didn’t know that I had the right to call myself so,’ he replied. ‘He and my family have been upon terms any time these twenty years, I suppose, and I know that he is a close friend of my sister and her husband.’
Miss Abingdon still appeared to be dissatisfied. ‘Then how did you come to visit me?’
‘If I must answer truthfully,’ said his lordship, ‘I found it impossible to refuse your parent’s repeated invitations with the least degree of civility!’
She seemed to find this understandable. She nodded, and said: ‘And you haven’t come to – I mean, you didn’t know –’
‘Until this evening, ma’am,’ said his lordship, ‘I did not know that you existed! My sister, you see, though quite as meddlesome as your father, has by far more tact.’
‘It is the most infamous thing!’ declared Miss Abingdon. ‘He made me think it had all been arranged, and I had nothing to do but encourage your advances! So naturally I made up my mind to marry Tom rather!’ She gave a little spurt of involuntary laughter. ‘Was ever anything so nonsensical? I thought you had been fifty at least, and very likely fat!’
‘I am thirty-five, and I do not think I am fat,’ said his lordship meekly.
She was still more amused. ‘No, I can see you are not! I am afraid I must seem the veriest goose to you! But Papa once thought for a whole month that he would like me to marry Sir Jasper Selkirk, and he is a widower, and has the gout besides! So there is never any telling what absurdity he may have taken into his head, you see.’ A thought occurred to her; she turned more fully towards his lordship, and said: ‘But how comes it that you are acquainted with Tom, and why are you so late? We were expecting you would arrive to dine, and Papa was in such a fume! And Aunt made them keep dinner back until the chickens were quite spoilt!’
‘I cannot sufficiently apologize,’ said Lord Stavely. ‘A series of unfortunate accidents delayed me shockingly, and when I did at last reach Shropshire I found that your papa’s directions were not quite as helpful as I had supposed they would be. In fact, I lost my way.’
‘It is a difficult country,’ agreed Miss Abingdon. ‘And of course Papa can never direct anyone properly. But how came you to meet Tom?’
‘He was awaiting a chaise at the Green Dragon, where, being then so late, I stopped to dine. We fell into conversation, as one does, you know, and he was good enough to confide his intentions to me.’
‘He must have been drunk!’ interpolated Miss Abingdon.
‘Let us say, rather, that he was a trifle worried over the propriety of eloping with you. I did what I could to persuade him against taking so ill-advised a step; he – er – succumbed to the disorder from which he was suffering, and I came here in his stead.’
‘It was excessively kind of you, but I don’t at all know why you should have taken so much trouble for me!’
He smiled. ‘But I could not let you kick your heels in this shrubbery, could I? Besides, I had the liveliest curiosity to meet you, Miss Abingdon!’
She tried to see his face. ‘Are you quizzing me?’ she demanded.
‘Not at all. You will allow that one’s curiosity must be aroused when one learns that a lady is prepared to elope to escape from advances one had had not the least intention of making!’
‘It is quite dreadful!’ she said, blushing. ‘I wonder it did not give you the most shocking disgust of me! But indeed I did not think it would be improper to elope with Tom, because he is almost like a brother, you know – and it would have been such an adventure!’
She ended on a distinctly wistful note. Lord Stavely responded promptly: ‘If your heart is set on the adventure, my chaise is waiting in the lane: you have only to command me!’
Another of her gurgling laughs escaped her. ‘How can you be so absurd? As though I would elope with a stranger!’
‘Well, I do feel it might be better if you gave up the notion,’ he said. ‘I fear I can hardly draw back now from Sir Walter’s invitation, but if I give you my word not to press an unwanted suit upon you perhaps you may not find my visit insupportably distasteful.’
‘No, no!’ she assured him. ‘But I very much fear that Papa may – may cause you a great deal of embarrassment, sir!’
‘Quite impossible!’ he said, smiling. ‘Have no fear on that head!’
‘You are the most truly amiable man I ever met!’ she exclaimed warmly. ‘Indeed, I am very much obliged to you, and quite ashamed to think I should have misjudged you so! You – you won’t tell Papa?’
‘Miss Abingdon, that is the unkindest thing you have yet said to me!’
‘No. I know you would not!’ she said quickly. She rose and held out her hand. ‘I must go back to the house. But you?’
‘In about twenty minutes’ time,’ said Lord Stavely, ‘I shall drive up to the front door, with profuse apologies and excuses!’
‘Oh, shall you indeed do that?’ giggled Miss Abingdon. ‘It must be close on midnight! Papa will be so cross!’
‘Well, I must brave his wrath,’ he said, raising her hand to his lips.
Her hand clung to his; Miss Abingdon jerked up her head and stood listening. In another instant Lord Stavely had also heard what had startled her: footsteps which tried to be stealthy, and a voice whose owner seemed to imagine himself to be speaking under his breath: ‘Do you go that way, Mullins, and I’ll go this, and mind, no noise!’
‘Papa!’ breathed Miss Abingdon, in a panic. ‘He must have heard me: I tripped on the gravel! Depend upon it, he thinks we are thieves: Sir Jasper was robbed last month! What am I to do?’
‘Can you reach the house without being observed if I draw them off?’ asked his lordship softly.
‘Yes, yes, but you? Papa will very likely have his fowling-piece!’
‘Be sure I shall declare myself before he fires at me!’ He picked up the bandboxes and gave them to her.
She clutched them and fled. Lord Stavely, having watched her disappear round a corner of the shrubbery, set his hat on his head and sauntered in the opposite direction, taking care to advertise his presence.
He emerged from the shrubbery into the rose garden, and was almost immediately challenged by an elderly gentleman who did indeed level a fowling-piece at him.
‘Stand! I have you covered, rogue!’ shouted Sir Walter. ‘Mullins, you fool, here!’
Lord Stavely stood still, waiting for his host to approach him. This Sir Walter did not do until he had been reinforced by his butler, similarly armed, and sketchily attired in a nightshirt, a pair of breeches, and a greatcoat thrown over all. He then came forward, keeping his lordship covered, and said with gleeful satisfaction: ‘Caught you, my lad!’
‘How do you do, sir?’ said Lord Stavely, holding out his hand. ‘I must beg your pardon for presenting myself at this unconscionable hour, but I have been dogged by ill fortune all day. A broken lynch-pin and a lame horse must stand as my excuses.’
Sir Walter nearly dropped his piece. ‘Stavely?’ he ejaculated, peering at his lordship in amazement.
Lord Stavely bowed.
‘But what the devil are you doing in my garden?’ Sir Walter demanded.
Lord Stavely waved an airy hand. ‘Communing with Nature, sir, communing with Nature!’
‘Communing with Nature?’ echoed Sir Walter, his eyes fairly starting from his head.
‘Roses bathed in moonlight!’ said his lordship lyrically. ‘Ah – must Mullins continue to point his piece at me?’
‘Put it down, you fool!’ commanded Sir Walter testily. ‘Stavely, my dear fellow, are you feeling quite the thing?’
‘Never better!’ replied his lordship. ‘Oh, you are thinking that I sho
uld have driven straight up to the house? Very true, sir, but I was lured out of my chaise by this exquisite scene. I am passionately fond of moonlight, and really, you know, your gardens present so charming a picture that I could not but yield to temptation, and explore them. I am sorry to have disturbed you!’
Sir Walter was staring at him with his jaw dropping almost as prodigiously as the butler’s. ‘Explore my gardens at midnight!’ he uttered, in stupefied accents.
‘Is it so late?’ said his lordship. ‘Yet I dare say one might see to read a book in this clear light!’
Sir Walter swallowed twice before venturing on a response. ‘But where’s your carriage?’ he demanded.
‘I told the post-boys to wait in the lane,’ replied his lordship vaguely. ‘I believe – yes, I believe I can detect the scent of jasmine!’
‘Stavely,’ said Sir Walter, laying an almost timid hand on his arm, ‘do but come up to the house, and to bed! Everything is prepared, and this night air is most unwholesome!’
‘On the contrary, I find that it awakens poetry in my soul,’ said Lord Stavely. ‘I am inspired to write a sonnet on roses drenched with moonshine.’
‘Mullins, go and find his lordship’s chaise, and direct the postilions to drive up to the house!’ ordered Sir Walter, in an urgent under-voice. ‘Sonnets, eh, Stavely? Yes, yes, I have been a rhymester in my time, too, but just come with me, my dear fellow, and you will soon feel better, I dare say! You have had a long and a tedious journey, that’s what it is!’
He took his guest by the arm and firmly drew him towards the house. His lordship went with him unresisting, but maintained a slow pace, and frequently paused to admire some effect of trees against the night sky, or the sheen of moonlight on the lily-pond. Sir Walter, curbing his impatience, replied soothingly to these flights, and succeeded at last in coaxing him into the house, and upstairs to the chamber prepared for him. A suspicion that his noble guest had been imbibing too freely gave place to a far worse fear. Not until he was assured by the sound of my lord’s deep breathing that he was sleeping soundly did Sir Walter retire from his post outside his guest’s door and seek his own couch.