Lady of Quality

by Джорджетт Хейер

  “Foxed?” suggested Miss Wychwood helpfully.

  He grinned at her. “No, no, not foxed,ma’am! Just a little bit on the go! If you know what I mean!”

  “Oh, I know exactly what you mean!” she assured him, the smile dancing in her eyes. “You had been dipping rather deep, but you were not too bosky to perceive the unwisdom of presenting yourself to your mama until you had slept off your potations! Have I that right?”

  He burst out laughing. “Yes, by Jupiter you have! You’re a great gun, ma’am! Well, I went up to bed, but I told the boots to wake me not a moment later than eight this morning, which he did, and though I must say I felt pretty devilish at first, a cup of strong coffee more or less set me to rights, and I went off to the Christopher.” He paused; the laughter vanished from his voice, a frown descended on to his brow, and his mouth hardened. It was a full minute before he spoke again, and when he did speak it was with a little difficulty. He said: “Do you think it chicken-hearted of me to have knuckled down, Miss Wychwood?”

  “By no means! You owe a duty to your father, remember!”

  “Yes, I know. But—but I have begun to wonder if he is so very ill as Mama believes him to be. Or even if she does believe it, or if she says it to compel me to go home, and stay at home, because she is—well, much more deeply attached to me than to my sisters!”

  “I daresay she might exaggerate a little, but from what you have told me I collect that Lord Iverley’s constitution was seriously impaired by his service in the Peninsula.”

  “Yes, it was: there can be no doubt about that!” said Ninian, brightening. He thought it over for a moment, and then said: “And he did have a bad heart-attack some years ago. But—but Mama seems to live in dread of his having another, which might prove fatal, if he is put into a passion, or if one doesn’t do exactly as he bids one!”

  “That is very natural, Ninian.”

  “Yes, but it isn’t true! He was in the devil of a passion when Lucy ran away, and I helped her to do it; and when I lost my temper, and we quarrelled, and I said I should go straight back to Bath, he flew into such a rage that he shook with anger, and could hardly speak. But he didn’t suffer a heart-attack! What’s more, he went on being in a rage, for it was several days later that he wrote me that thundering scold, so that it is absurd to expect me to believe that he was exhausted. But when I tried to point this out to Mama, all she would say was that she couldn’t blame me for turning against my parents because she knew well that I had fallen under an evil influence! I couldn’t think what had put such a crack-brained notion into her head! It took me an age to get it out of her, but she did tell me in the end, and what do you think it was? Your influence, ma’am! Lord, I nearly laughed myself into stitches! Well, did you ever hear of anything so ridiculous?”

  “Never!” said Miss Wychwood. “I trust you were able to convince her that she was mistaken?”

  “Yes, but it was deuced hard work! Someone seems to have told her that you were the most beautiful woman in Bath—described you pretty thoroughly to her, too, for she talked of your eyes, and your hair, and your figure as though she had actually seen you! So I said Yes, you were very beautiful, and very clever too, and I’m dashed if she didn’t accuse me of having fallen a victim to your beauty!”

  “I can almost hear her saying it!” murmured Miss Wychwood appreciatively.

  “I daresay it would have made you laugh, but it didn’t make me laugh, though I suppose it was funny. The thing was that it made me very angry, and I told Mama that it was a great piece of impertinence to talk in that outrageous style about a lady whom everyone holds in respect, and who has been as kind to me as though I had been her nephew. Which you have been, ma’am, and I couldn’t leave Bath without telling you how very grateful I am to you for all the things you’ve done to make my stay in Bath so agreeable! Letting me run tame in your house, inviting me to go with you and Lucy to the theatre, making me known to your friends—oh, hosts of things!”

  “My dear boy, I wish you won’t talk nonsense!” she protested. “It is I who am grateful to you! Indeed, I have made shameless use of you, and am wondering what I should have done without you, to take Lucilla about, and to stand guard over her! And another thing I wish you won’t do is to talk as though we were never to meet again! I hope you will often visit Bath, and promise you will always be a welcome guest in Camden Place.”

  “Th—thank you, ma’am!” he stammered, blushing. “I mean to be a frequent visitor, I can tell you! I have made it plain to Mama that if I go home with her today it must be on the strict understanding that I am at liberty to come and go as I choose, and without having to coax Papa into giving his consent every time I wish to do something he doesn’t approve of!”

  “Ah, that was very wise of you!” she said. “I daresay he may not like it at first, but depend upon it he will very soon grow accustomed to having a sensible man for his son and not a mere boy!”

  “Do you think he will, ma’am?” he asked, rather doubtfully.

  “I am very sure of it,” she smiled, getting up. “You will take some nuncheon with us before you go, will you not?”

  “Oh, thank you, ma’am, but no! I mustn’t stay. My mother is anxious to reach Chartley today, because she fears my father will be fretting over the chance that she may have met with an accident. Which is very possible, for she never goes away without him. It would be much wiser, of course, if we postponed our departure until tomorrow morning, but when I suggested this to her, I saw at once that it would not do. I don’t mean that she tried to—to persuade me—in fact, she said I must be the only judge of what was best—but I could see that she wouldn’t get a wink of sleep tonight for worrying about Papa, so even if we don’t reach Chartley before midnight it will be better for her to go home today than to be worrying herself into a fever. And it don’t really signify if we do have to drive after dark, because it won’t be dark, the moon being at the full, and no fear that I can see of the sky’s becoming overcast.” He added imploringly, as though he had detected in Miss Wychwood’s expression what were her feelings on the subject: “You see, ma’am, Mama is not robust, and her disposition is nervous, and—and I know what trials she has to undergo—and—and—”

  “You love her very much,” supplied Miss Wychwood, patting his flushed cheek, and smiling at him warmly. “She is a fortunate woman! Now you will wish to say goodbye to Lucilla, so we will go up to the drawing-room. I think I heard her come in, with my sister, a minute or two ago.”

  “Yes—well, I must do so, though ten to one she will abuse me for not having any resolution!” he said resentfully.

  However, Lucilla behaved with perfect propriety. She exclaimed, when he told her that he was obliged to return to Chartley: “Oh, no, Ninian! Must you do so? Pray don’t go away!” but when he explained the circumstances she made no further demur, but looked thoughtful, and said that she supposed he would be obliged to go. It was not until he had left the house that, emerging from a brown study, she said earnestly to Miss Wychwood: “It makes me almost glad I am an orphan, ma’am!”

  Lady Wychwood uttered a slightly shocked protest, and said: “Good gracious, child, whatever can you mean?”

  “The way the Iverleys bullock Ninian into doing what they want him to do in—in an infamous way!” Lucilla explained. “Lady Iverley appeals to his better self,and the pity of it is that he has a better self! I quite see that it is very creditable to have a better self, but it does make him rather milky.”

  “Oh, no! I should never say he was milky,” responded Miss Wychwood. “You must remember that he is very much attached to his mama, and is, I believe, fully aware of the anxious life she leads. I rather fancy she is inclined to cling to him—”

  “Yes, indeed she does, and in the most cloying way!” said Lucilla. “So do Cordelia and Lavinia! I wonder that he can bear it! I could not.”

  “No, but you haven’t a better nature, have you?” said Miss Wychwood, quizzing her.

  Lucilla laughed
, but said: “Very true! And thank goodness I haven’t, for it must be excessively uncomfortable!”

  Miss Wychwood was amused, but Lady Wychwood shook her head over it, and later told her sister-in-law that she thought the remark a melancholy illustration of the evils attached to growing up without a mother.

  “Well, they could scarcely be worse than the evils of growing up with such a mother as Lady Iverley!” said Annis caustically.

  Ninian’s absence was felt to have created a sad gap in the household; and even outside the household a surprising number of people told Annis how sorry they were that he had left Bath, and how much they hoped it would not be long before he revisited the town. He seemed to have made many friends, which circumstance increased Annis’s respect for him: very few young men would have sacrificed their pleasures to so lachrymose and unreasonable a parent as Lady Iverley. She hoped that he was not moped to death at Chartley, but feared that he must be finding life very flat.

  However, some few days later she received a letter from him, and gathered from its closely written pages that although he thought wistfully of Bath and its inhabitants conditions at Chartley had improved. He had had a long talk with his father, the outcome of which was that he was now occupying himself with the management of the estate, and spent the better part of his time going about with the bailiff. Miss Wychwood would stare if she knew how much he was learning. His quarrel with Lord Iverley had been quite made up. He had found his lordship looking dragged and weary, but was happy to say that he was plucking up wonderfully, and had even said that if Ninian wished to invite any of his friends to visit him he should be glad to welcome them to Chartley.

  Miss Wychwood concluded that his lordship had learnt a valuable lesson, and that there was no need to worry about Ninian’s future.

  There was no need to worry about anything, of course: Lucilla was well, and behaving with great docility; little Tom’s toothache was remembered by no one but his mama and Nurse; Miss Farlow had won Nurse’s approval and had begun to spend a large part of the days either in the nursery or taking Tom for walks; and if Mr Carleton had thought better of his intention to return to Bath it was a very good thing, for they went on perfectly happily without him.

  But when, one morning, she received a letter from him her heart jumped, and she hardly dared to break the seal, for fear that she might read that he had indeed changed his mind.

  It did not seem as though he had done so, but although it was a relief to know that he still meant to come back his letter was not really very satisfactory. Mr Carleton had written it in haste, and merely to inform her that he had been obliged to postpone his return. He was much occupied with some tiresome business which made it necessary for him to visit his estates. He was on the point of setting out on the journey, and begged her to excuse his sending only a short scrawl to apprise her of his immediate intentions. He had no time for more, but remained hers, as ever, Oliver Carleton.

  Not a model of the epistolary art; still less the letter of a man in love, she thought. The only part of it which encouraged to hope that he did still love her was its ending. But very likely he signed all his letters Yours, as ever, and it would be nonsensical to read more into these simple words than mere friendliness.

  She found herself in low spirits, and tried very hard to shake off this silly fit of the dismals, and not to allow herself to think about Mr Carleton, or his letter, or how much she was missing him. She thought that even if she didn’t succeed in carrying out this admirable resolution she had at least succeeded in hiding her depression from Lady Wychwood, but soon discovered that she was mistaken. “I wish you will tell me, dearest, what is making you so—so down pin,” said her ladyship coaxingly.

  “Why, nothing! Do I seem to be down pin? I wasn’t aware of it—except wet streets, dripping trees, and nothing else to be seen but umbrellas and puddles always does put me into the hips. I hate being shut up in the house, you know!”

  “Well, it is sad that the weather should have turned off, but you were never used to care a straw for the weather. How often have I begged you not to venture out, when it was raining pitchforks and shovels! But you never paid any heed! You said you liked to feel the rain on your face.”

  “Oh, that was in the country, Amabel! It is a very different matter in town, where one can’t tie a shawl round one’s head, find a pair of stout list shoes and go for a tramp! You wouldn’t have me make such a figure of myself in Bath!”

  “Of course not,” said Lady Wychwood quietly, and bent her head again over the robe she was making for her infant daughter.

  “The truth is, I expect, that I need occupation,” offered Annis. “Now, if only I didn’t find sewing a dead bore, or if I had Lucilla’s talent for water-colour drawing—have you seen any of her sketches? They are infinitely superior to the generality of young-lady-drawings!”

  “Oh, I don’t think sewing or sketching would answer the purpose! They don’t divert one’s mind, do they? I don’t know about sketching, for I was never at all fond of it, but I should think it is much the same as sewing, and that I find doesn’t divert one’s mind in the least—in fact, quite the reverse!”

  “I think I shall embark on a course of serious reading,” said Annis, bent on leading Lady Wychwood down a less dangerous conversational avenue.

  “Well, dearest, I daresay that might answer the purpose, but you have been sitting with a book open in front of you for the past twenty minutes, and I could not but notice that you haven’t yet turned the page,” replied Lady Wychwood. She looked up, and smiled faintly at Annis. “I don’t mean to tease you with prying questions, so I’ll say no more. Only that I hope so much that you won’t do anything you might live to regret. I couldn’t bear you to be made unhappy, my dear one. Tell me, do you think I have made this bodice large enough for Baby?”

  Chapter 14

  The weather remained unsettled for several days, and it became obvious that the various al fresco entertainments which had been planned by Corisande and her many friends would have to be postponed. This was naturally a disappointment to Lucilla; and after a very short space of time, even Lady Wychwood’s patience wore thin, and upon Lucilla’s asking, for the twentieth time, if she didn’t think the sky was growing lighter, and if it might not still be possible for the morrow’s party at the Sydney Garden to take place, she addressed mild but measured words of reproof to her, saying: “Dear child, the weather won’t improve because you keep running to the window, and asking us if we don’t believe it to be clearing up. Neither my sister nor I have the least notion whether it will be a fine day tomorrow, so of what use is it to expect us to answer you? You would do much better to stop pressing your nose against the window every few minutes and to occupy yourself with your drawing, or your music, instead.” She smiled kindly, and added: “You know, my dear, however fond people may be of you they will soon begin to think you a sad bore if you fall into the way of harping on every little thing that puts you out, as though you were still only a spoilt baby.”

  Lucilla reddened, and it seemed for a moment as though she was going to retort; but after a moment’s inward struggle she said, in a subdued voice: “I’m sorry, ma’am!” and ran out of the room.

  It was soon seen that Lady Wychwood’s words had gone home, for although Lucilla frequently cast wistful glances at the raindrops chasing one another down the window-panes she only now and then complained of the perversity of the weather, and really made a praiseworthy effort to bear her disappointment with cheerful composure.

  Just as the weather at last showed signs of improvement, Miss Farlow created a most unwelcome diversion by succumbing to an attack of influenza. She dragged herself about the house, wrapped in a shawl, saying that she had contracted a slight cold in the head, and not until she fainted one morning when she got out of bed could she be induced either to remain in bed or to allow Annis to send for the doctor. There was nothing the matter with her; she was a trifle out of sorts, but would very soon be better; it was quite unne
cessary for dear Annis to send for Dr Tidmarsh, not that she knew anything against him, for she was sure he was very amiable and gentleman-like, but dear papa hadn’t believed in doctors; and, besides, very strange behaviour it would be for her to fall ill when the house was full of guests, and it was her duty to remain on her feet, even if it killed her. However, she was clearly feverish, and in spite of being flushed, and complaining of feeling too hot, she shivered convulsively; so Annis took matters into her own hands, and despatched the page-boy with a message for Dr Tidmarsh. By the time he arrived, Miss Farlow was feeling so poorly that instead of repulsing him she greeted him as a saviour, wept bitterly, and described to him, with a wealth of detail, every one of her many symptoms. She ended by imploring him not to say that she had scarlet fever.

  “No, no, ma’am!” he said soothingly. “Merely a touch of influenza! I shall send you a saline draught, and you will very soon be more comfortable. I’ll look in tomorrow, to see how you go on. Meanwhile, you must stay quietly in your bed, and do as Miss Wychwood bids you.”

  He then went out of the room with Annis, told her that there was no reason for her to be anxious, gave her some instructions, and, when he took his leave, looked rather narrowly at her, and said: “Now, don’t wear yourself out, ma’am, will you? You don’t look to be in such good point as when I saw you last: I suspect you have been trotting too hard!”

  When Annis returned to the sickroom, she found Miss Farlow in a state of tearful agitation, the reason for this fresh flow of tears being her fear that poor little Tom might have taken the disease from her, for which she would never, never forgive herself.

  “My dear Maria, it will be time enough to cry about it if he does contract influenza, which very likely he won’t,” said Annis cheerfully. “Betty will be bringing you some lemonade directly, and perhaps when you have drunk a little of it you will be able to go to sleep.”