Lady of Quality

by Джорджетт Хейер

  This pleased him so much that he chuckled, threw out his chest a little, apostrophized her as a saucy minx, and went off to dally with all the best looking women in the room.

  Miss Wychwood enjoyed dancing, but she was not tempted to take the floor on this occasion. There was no one with whom she wished to dance; but no sooner had she realized this truth than a question posed itself in her mind: if Mr Carleton, instead of leaving the party in something remarkably like a dudgeon, had stayed, and had invited her to dance a waltz with him, would she have been tempted to consent? She was forced to admit to herself that she would have been very strongly tempted, but she hoped (rather doubtfully) that she would have had enough strength of mind to have resisted temptation.

  In the middle of these ruminations, Lord Beckenham came up, and sat down beside her, saying: “May I bear you company, dear Miss Annis? I do not ask you to dance, for I know you don’t mean to dance this evening. I cannot help being glad of it: it gives me the opportunity to enjoy a comfortable cose with you, and—to own the truth—I don’t care for the waltz. I am aware that it is the height of a la modality, but it never seems to me to be quite the thing. You will say I am old-fashioned, I fear!”

  “Quite Gothic!” she answered flatly. “Excessively uncivil, too, when you must know that I delight in waltzing!”

  “Oh, I intended no incivility!” he assured her. “You lend distinction to everything you do!”

  “For goodness’ sake, Beckenham, stop throwing the hatchet at me!” she said tartly.

  He gave an indulgent laugh. “What an odd expression to hear on your lips! I myself am not familiar with modern slang, but I hear a great deal of it from Harry—more, indeed, than I like!—and I understand throwing the hatchet means to flatter a person, which, I promise you, I was not doing! Nor am I doing so when I tell you that I have rarely seen you look more beautiful than you do tonight.” He laughed again, and, laying his hand over hers, gave it a slight squeeze. “There, don’t eat me! Your dislike of receiving compliments is well known to me, and is what one so particularly likes in you, but my feelings overcame my prudence for once!”

  She drew her hand away, saying: “Excuse me! I see Mrs Wendlebury is about to take her leave.”

  She got up, and moved across the room towards this formidable dame, and, having said goodbye to her, responded to a signal from Mrs Mandeville, and went to sit beside her.

  “Well, my dear, a very pleasant party!” said Mrs Mandeville. “I congratulate you!”

  “Thank you, ma’am!” Annis said gratefully. “From you that is praise of a high order! May I also thank you for having been kind enough to honour me with your presence tonight? I assure you I appreciate it, and can only hope you haven’t been bored to death!”

  “On the contrary, I’ve been vastly amused!” replied the old lady, with a chuckle. “What made Carleton take himself off in a rage?”

  Annis coloured faintly. “Was he in a rage? I thought him merely bored.”

  “No, no, he wasn’t bored,my dear! It looked to me as though he and you were at outs!”

  “Oh, we come to cuffs whenever we meet!” Annis said lightly.

  “Yes, he makes a lot of enemies with that bitter tongue of his,” nodded Mrs Mandeville. “Spoilt, of course! Too many caps have been set at him! My second son is a friend of his, and he told me years ago that it was no wonder he’d been soured, with half the mamas and their daughters on the scramble for him. That’s the worst of coming into the world as rich as a Nabob: it ain’t good for young men to be too full of juice. However, I don’t despair of him, for there’s nothing much amiss with him that marriage to the woman he falls in love with won’t cure.”

  “I haven’t understood that love was lacking in his life, ma’am!”

  “Lord, child, I’m not talking of his bits of muslin,” said Mrs Mandeville scornfully. “It ain’t love a man feels for the lightskirts he entertains! Myself, I’d always a soft corner for a rake, and it’s my belief most women have! Mind you, I don’t mean the sort of rabshackle who gives some gal a slip on the shoulder, for them I can’t abide! Carleton ain’t one of those sneaking rascals. Has he put you in charge of that pretty little niece of his?”

  “No, no! She is merely staying with me for a short time, before going to live with one of her aunts, or cousins—I am not perfectly sure which!”

  “I’m glad to hear it. You’re a deal too young to be burdened with a gal of her age, my dear!”

  “So Mr Carleton thinks! Only he goes further than you, ma’am, and doesn’t scruple to inform me that he considers me to be quite unfit to take care of Lucilla.”

  “Yes, I’m told he can be very uncivil,” nodded Mrs Mandeville.

  “Uncivil! He is the rudest man I have ever met in my life!” declared Miss Wychwood roundly.

  Chapter 9

  By the time Miss Wychwood had said goodbye to the last, lingering guests she was feeling more weary than ever before at the end of a party. Everyone except herself (and, presumably, Mr Carleton) seemed to have enjoyed it, which was, she supposed some slight consolation to her for having spent a most disagreeable evening. Lucilla was in what she considered to be exaggerated raptures over it: she wished it might have gone on for ever! Miss Wychwood, barely repressing a shudder, sent her off to bed, and was about to follow her when she found Limbury in the way, obviously awaiting an opportunity to speak to her. She paused, looking an enquiry, and he all unwittingly set the seal on a horrid evening by disclosing, with the smile of one bearing welcome tidings, that Sir Geoffrey had arrived in Bath, and wished her to give him a look-in before she retired to bed.

  “Sir Geoffrey?” she repeated blankly. “Here? Good God, what can have happened to bring him to Bath at this hour of the night?”

  “Now, don’t you fret yourself, Miss Annis!” Limbury said, in a fatherly way. “It’s no worse than the toothache which Master Tom has, and which my lady thinks may be an abscess, so she wishes to take him instantly to Mr Westcott. Sir Geoffrey arrived twenty minutes before you went down to supper, but when he saw you was holding a rout-party he charged me not on any account to say a word to you about it until the party was over, him being dressed in his riding-habit, and not having brought with him his evening attire, and not wishing to attend the rout in all his dirt. Which is very understandable, of course. So I directed Jane to make up the bed in the Blue bedchamber, miss, and myself carried up supper to him, which is what I knew you would wish me to do.”

  Miss Farlow, who had paused in her rather ineffective attempts to restore the drawing-room to order, to listen to this interchange, exclaimed: “Oh, poor Sir Geoffrey! If only I had known! I would have run up immediately to make sure that he was comfortable—not that I mean to say Jane is not to be trusted, for she is a very dependable girl, but still—! Dear little Tom, too! His papa must be in agonies,for nothing is worse than the pain one undergoes with the toothache, particularly when an abscess forms, as well I know, for never shall I forget the torture I suffered when I—”

  “It is Tom who has the toothache, not Geoffrey!” snapped Miss Wychwood, interrupting this monologue without ceremony.

  “Well, I know, dearest, but the sight of one’s child’s suffering cannot but cast a fond parent into agonies!” said Miss Farlow.

  “Oh, fiddle!” said Annis, and went upstairs to rap on the door of the Blue bedchamber.

  She found her brother flicking over the pages of the various periodicals with which Limbury had thoughtfully provided him. A decanter of brandy stood on a small table at his elbow, and he held a glass in his hand, which, on his sister’s entrance, he drained, before setting it down on the table, and rising to greet her. “Well, Annis!” he said, planting a chaste salute upon her cheek. “I seem to have come to visit you at an awkward moment, don’t I?”

  “I certainly wish you had warned me of it, so that I might have had time to prepare for your visit.”

  “Oh, no need to worry about that!” he said. “Limbury has looked after me ver
y well. The thing was there was no time to warn you, because I was obliged to leave Twynham in a bang. I daresay Limbury will have told you what has brought me here?”

  “Yes, I understand Tom has the toothache,” she replied.

  “That’s it,” he nodded. “It became suddenly worse this afternoon, and we fear there may be an abscess forming at the root. Ten to one, it’s no more than a gumboil, but nothing will do for Amabel but to bring him to Bath so that Westcott may see it, and judge what is best to be done.”

  Something in his manner, which was much that of a man airily reciting a rehearsed speech, made her instantly suspicious. She said: “It seems an unnecessarily long way to bring a child to have a tooth drawn. Surely you would be better advised to take him to Frome?”

  “Ah, you are thinking of old Melling, but Amabel has no faith in him. We have been strongly recommended to take Tom to Westcott. It doesn’t do, you know, to ignore advice from a trustworthy source. So I have ridden over ahead of Amabel, to arrange for Westcott to do whatever he thinks should be done tomorrow, and to ask you, my dear sister, if they may come to stay with you for a day or two.”

  “They?” said Annis, filled with foreboding.

  “Amabel and Tom,” he explained. “And Nurse, of course, to look after the children.”

  “Is Amabel bringing the baby too?” asked Miss Wychwood, in a voice of careful control.

  “Yes—oh, yes! Well, Amabel cannot manage Tom by herself, and she can’t be expected to leave Baby without Nurse to take care of her, you know. But they won’t be the least trouble to you, Annis! In this great house of yours there must be room for two small children and their nurse!”

  “Very true! Equally true that they won’t be any trouble to me! But they will make a great deal of trouble for my servants, who are none of them accustomed to working in a house which contains a nursery to be waited on! So, if you mean to saddle me with your family, I beg you will also include the maid who waits on Nurse in the party!”

  “Of course if it is inconvenient for you to receive my family—”

  “It is extremely inconvenient!” she interrupted. “You know very well that I have Lucilla Carleton staying with me, Geoffrey! I am astonished that you should expect me to entertain Amabel and your children at such a moment!”

  “I must say I should have thought your own family had a greater claim on you than Miss Carleton,” he said, in an offended voice.

  “You haven’t any claim on me at all!” she flashed. “Nor has Lucilla! Nor anyone! That’s why I left Twynham, and came to Bath, to be my own mistress, not to be accountable to you or to anyone for what I choose to do, and not to grow into a spinster aunt! Particularly not that! Like Miss Vernham, who is only valued for the help she gives her sister, can be depended on to look after the children whenever Mr and Mrs Vernham wish to go junketing to London! but at other times is very much in the way. She can’t escape, because she hasn’t a penny to fly with. But I have a great many pennies, and I did escape!”

  “You are talking wildly!” he said. “I should like to know what demands have ever been made of you when you lived with us!”

  “Oh, none! But if one lives in another person’s house one is bound to share in the tasks which arise, and who can tell how long it would have been before you and Amabel fell into the way of saying: ‘Oh, Annis will look after it! She has nothing else to do!’”

  “I really believe your senses are disordered!” he exclaimed. “All this scolding merely because I have ventured to ask you to shelter my wife and children for a few days! Upon my word, Annis—”

  “You didn’t ask me, Geoffrey! You made it impossible for me to refuse by arranging for Amabel to set out for Bath tomorrow morning, knowing that I should be forced to let them stay here.”

  “Well, I was obliged to make all possible haste, when Tom was crying with pain,” he said sulkily. “He was awake all last night, let me tell you, and here are you expecting me to write you a letter through the post, and wait for you to answer it!”

  “Not at all! What I should have expected you to do, had I known anything about it, would have been to have taken Tom to Melling immediately he complained of the toothache—whatever Amabel’s opinion of his skill may be! Good God, how much skill is required to pull out a milk-tooth? Why, I daresay Dr Tarporley would have whisked it out in a trice, and spared Tom his sleepless night!”

  This left Sir Geoffrey with nothing to say. He looked discomfited, and sought refuge in wounded dignity. “No doubt it will be best for me to hire a suitable lodging in the town!”

  “Much best—except that it would set all the Bath quizzes’ tongues wagging! I will give orders in the morning for rooms to be prepared, but I am afraid I shan’t be able to entertain Amabel as I should wish: I have a great many engagements which I must keep, in addition to accompanying Lucilla when she goes out. That, since her uncle has entrusted her to my care, is, you will agree, an inescapable duty!”

  On this Parthian shot, she left the room. She was still seething with anger, for her brother’s demeanour and lame excuses for his descent on her had confirmed her suspicion that his real reason was an obstinate determination to prevent any intimacy between her and Oliver Carleton. Amabel was to be planted in her house as a duenna—though what Geoffrey imagined Amabel (poor little goose!) could do to prevent her doing precisely as she chose only he knew! She was too angry to consider whether what seemed to her to be unwarrantable interference might not be a clumsy but well-meaning attempt to protect her from one whom he believed to be a dangerous rake; and the sight of Miss Farlow, hovering on the threshold of her bedchamber did nothing to assuage her wrath. She had no doubt that Miss Farlow was responsible for Geoffrey’s sudden arrival, and it would have afforded her great pleasure to have shaken the irritating titter out of that meddlesome old Tabby, and have boxed her ears into the bargain. Suppressing this most unladylike impulse, she said coldly: “Well, Maria? What is it you want?”

  “Oh!” said Miss Farlow, in a flutter. “Nothing in the world, dear Annis! I was just wondering whether dear Sir Geoffrey has everything he needs! If only Limbury had told me of his arrival I should have slipped away from the party, and attended to his comfort, as I hope I need not assure you, for it is my business to provide for your visitors, is it not? And even such excellent servants as our good Limbury, you know—”

  “Limbury is far more capable than you, cousin, to provide for Sir Geoffrey’s needs,” interposed Miss Wychwood, putting considerable force on herself to hold her temper in check. “If anything should be wanting, Sir Geoffrey will ring his bell! I advise you to go to bed, to recruit your strength for the task that lies before you tomorrow! I shall require you to provide for several more visitors! Goodnight!”

  A night’s repose restored much of Miss Wychwood’s shaken equilibrium, and she was able to confront her brother over the breakfast cups with tolerable composure. She asked him, quite pleasantly, whether he wished her to provide accommodation for him during Amabel’s stay, and accepted, without betraying the relief she felt, his prosy explanation of why circumstances prevented him from staying beyond the time of Amabel’s arrival. This instantly made Miss Farlow break into a flood of protestations, in which (she said) she knew well dear Annis would join her. “I am persuaded dear Lady Wychwood must need your support through the approaching ordeal!” she said. “Such a time as it is, too, since you last came to stay in Bath, for I don’t count the scrap of a visit you paid us the other day! And if you are thinking that there is no room for you, there can be no difficulty about that,for you and dear Lady Wychwood can be perfectly comfortable in the Green room, which can be made ready for you in a trice. You have only to say the word!”

  “If he can edge one in!” said Miss Wychwood dryly.

  Sir Geoffrey gave a snort of laughter, and exchanged a glance pregnant with meaning with her. As little as any man did he welcome conversation at the breakfast-table, and it was probable that he had never liked Miss Farlow less than when he came
under the full fire of her inconsequent chatter.

  “When am I to expect Amabel to arrive?” asked Miss Wychwood smoothly.

  “Well, as to that, I can’t precisely answer you,” he replied, looking harassed. “She has the intention of starting out betimes, but with all the business of packing, and seeing to it that Nurse hasn’t forgotten anything—which very likely she will, because excellent though she is in her management of the children she has no head—none at all! When we took Tom to visit his grandparents last year, we had to turn back three times! I can tell you it tried my patience sadly, and I was provoked into declaring that I would never undertake a journey in her company again! Or in Tom’s!” he added, with a reluctant grin. “The thing is, you know, that he is a bad traveller! Feels sick before one has gone a mile, and after that one has to be for ever pulling up, to lift him down from the chaise to be sick in the road—poor little fellow!”

  This perfunctory rider made Miss Wychwood break into laughter, in which he somewhat sheepishly joined her. “Now I know what the circumstances are which make your immediate return to Twynham quite imperative!” she said.

  “Well, I hope I am not an unfeeling parent, but—well, you know how it is, Annis!”

  “I can hazard a guess at all events! It has not yet been my fate to travel with a child afflicted with carriage-sickness, I thank God!”

  “Oh, it quite wrings my heart to think of that sweet little boy being sick, for there is nothing more miserable!” broke in Miss Farlow. “Not that I am myself a bad traveller, for I daresay I could drive from one end of the country to the other without experiencing the least discomfort, but I well remember how ill my particular friend, Miss Aston, always felt, even in hackney carriages. She is dead now, poor dear soul, though not in a hackney carriage, of course.”

  Judging from her brother’s expression that he was on the brink of delivering himself of a hasty snub, Miss Wychwood intervened, to suggest to her garrulous companion that if she had finished her breakfast she should go to talk to Mrs Wardlow about the arrangements to be made for Lady Wychwood, her children, her nurse, her dresser, and the nurse’s maid. Miss Farlow expressed the utmost willingness to do so, and instantly plunged into a minute description of the plans she had already formulated. Miss Wychwood checked her by saying: “Later, Maria, if you please! Domestic details are not interesting to Geoffrey!”