The Nonesuch
Page 32
“Oh, no!” exclaimed Miss Trent, changing colour. “Oh, how could she?”
“If you was to ask me, ma’am, there’s precious little she couldn’t do! So there was nothing for me to do but tell the landlord she was Mrs Underhill’s niece—which he knew—and that she was trying to run off to London, and all I was doing was holding on to her till you arrived to take her in charge. Which he believed, because I’d hired one of the postboys to carry a message to Waldo. So, as soon as she saw he did believe it, off went her ladyship into hysterics. Lord, you never heard such a commotion in your life!”
“I have frequently heard just such a commotion!” said Miss Trent. “Where is she, sir?”
“I don’t know. The landlady took, her off somewhere. No use asking me!”
She got up. “I will go and find the landlady, then. But you must let me thank you, Mr. Calver! Indeed, I am so very much obliged to you! You have had the most disagreeable time imaginable, and I am astonished you didn’t abandon the wretched child!”
“Well, I couldn’t do that,” said Laurence. “I ain’t such a rum touch! Besides—Well, never mind that!”
He watched her cross the room towards the door, and his cousin move to open it for her. In deepening gloom, he observed the punctilious civility of Sir Waldo’s slight bow, and the rigidity of Miss Trent’s countenance.
Sir Waldo shut the door, and strolled back into the middle of the room. Drawing his snuff-box from his pocket, he tapped it with one long finger, and flicked it open. Taking an infinitesimal pinch, he said, his amused gaze on Laurence’s face: “Do tell me, Laurie! Why did you send for me rather than for Underhill?”
Laurence shot him a resentful look. “Thought I could do you a good turn, that’s why! And well you know it!”
“But how kind of you!” said Sir Waldo. “I never had the least guess that you had my interests so much at heart.”
“Oh, well!” said Laurie awkwardly. “I don’t know that I’d say that, precisely, but we’re cousins, after all, and it was easy to see your affair was hanging in the hedge, so—”
“What affair?”
Laurence set his empty glass down rather violently. “I know you, coz!” he said angrily. “So don’t think to bamboozle me! It’s as plain as a pikestaff—”
“And don’t you think to bamboozle me!” said Sir Waldo, quite pleasantly. “All you wish to do is to put me under an obligation to you, so that I shall be moved to set you up in the horse-coping line. I’m familiar with your tactics.”
“Well, damn it, what else can I do?” demanded Laurence in an aggrieved tone. “Who the devil do you suppose is going to dub up the possibles if you don’t?”
Sir Waldo’s mouth quivered. “I shouldn’t think anyone is going to,” he replied.
“Yes, that’s just like you!” Laurence said, his resentment flaring up. “You’re so full of juice you don’t know what it is to be bushed—and don’t care, either! It wouldn’t mean any more to you to lend me five thousand than it would mean to me to tip over a bull’s eye to a waiter. But will you do it?—”
“No,” said Sir Waldo. “I’m far too hard-fisted. So don’t waste any more time or effort in trying to put me under an obligation! You won’t do it You’re awake upon some suits, but not on all! And you can’t know me as well as you think you do if you imagine I’m not very well able to manage my affairs without your assistance.”
“You didn’t seem to me to be managing them so very well. No, and even when I threw you and Miss Trent together, you must have made wretched work of it! And you ain’t even grateful to me for trying to bring you about! When I think of all the trouble I’ve taken since I came into Yorkshire—let alone being obliged to put up with the infernal racket those builders make!—damme if I don’t think you owe me that paltry five thousand! Because you came the concave suit over me, Waldo, and don’t you deny it! Oh, yes, you did! You let me pretty well wear myself out, drawing off that vixen from Lindeth, and it’s my belief you knew all along that he was tired of her! And just look what it’s led to! Let alone the riot and rumpus I’ve had to endure, and the blunt I laid out on hiring this parlour, and giving her tea, and lemonade, and buying a ticket for the Mail, my head’s been laid open, and I shall very likely carry a scar for the rest of my life!”
“But what have all these misfortunes to do with me?”
“They’ve got everything to do with you! They’d none of ’em have happened if you hadn’t behaved so scaly! Yes, you laugh! It’s just what I expected you’d do!”
“You might well!” replied Sir Waldo. “What a hand you are! You know perfectly well that that’s nothing but a bag of moonshine!”
“No, I—oh, Waldo, be a good fellow, and oblige me just this once!” Laurence said, with a sudden change of tone. “You wouldn’t be so shabby as to refuse, when it was you who made it impossible for me to come by the ready by my own exertions!”
“Now, what in the name of all that’s marvelous—”
“You did!” insisted Laurence. “You made me give you my word I wouldn’t play for more than chicken-stakes! I daresay you think I’ll run thin, but that’s where you’re mistaken!”
“I know very well you won’t.”
Laurence looked at him in quick surprise, flushing. He said, with a short laugh: “Much obliged to you! It’s more than George does!”
“George doesn’t mean all he says.”
“He can mean it or not for anything I care. Waldo, if I asked you to buy me a cornetcy, would you do it?”
“Tomorrow!”
“Would you expect me to pay it back?”
“Good God, no! Of course I shouldn’t!”
“Then why won’t you lend me the blunt for something I want? You’ll say a cornetcy wouldn’t cost you much above seven or eight hundred pounds, but you wouldn’t get it back, remember! Whereas if you was to invest in my scheme you’d make a profit!”
Sir Waldo sighed. “I’ve already told you, Laurie, that—”
He broke off, as the door opened, and Miss Trent came in, accompanied by Tiffany.
“Oh, so you’ve recovered, have you?” said Laurence, surveying Tiffany with acute dislike. “In prime twig, I daresay! Never stouter in your life!”
Tiffany was looking rather pale, and decidedly tear-stained, but she was evidently restored to good-humour. Paying no heed to Laurence, she smiled seraphically upon the Nonesuch, and said: “Thank you for coming to rescue me! I might have known you would do so, and I’m glad now, though I didn’t wish anyone to come after me, at first. But Ancilla says I have made such a scandal that there’s nothing for it but to take me back to my Uncle Burford, which is exactly what I want! She says she shall write to Aunt Underhill immediately, and as soon as Aunt sends back her consent we shall be off.”
“God help your Uncle Burford!” said Laurence.
“You needn’t think I have anything to say to you, because I haven’t!” Tiffany informed him. “And I won’t beg your pardon for throwing the clock at you, whatever Ancilla says, because you told lies, and cheated me, and you deserved to have it thrown at you! And, in any event, everything has turned out for the best, and I am going to London! So I’m not sorry about anything. When are you going to London, Sir Waldo?”
“Almost immediately!” he replied promptly.
For an instant his eyes met Miss Trent’s, brimful of laughter. So fleeting was the silent message that passed between them that Tiffany was unaware of it. She looked up at Sir Waldo through her lashes. “I thought you might be,” she said demurely.
But Laurence had not missed that swift, revealing exchange of glances, and he ejaculated: “So I didn’t miss my tip! Well, I had a notion you was shamming it, coz! Now perhaps you’ll own—”
“Laurie!” interrupted Sir Waldo. “I should warn you, perhaps, that if you wish to succeed as a horse-coper you must learn to keep your tongue between your teeth!”
Laurence looked at him. “Are you bamming me?” he asked suspiciously.
&
nbsp; “No: merely warning you!”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about!” complained Tiffany, by no means pleased at being overlooked.
“Well, who wants you to?” retorted Laurence. “It’s coming to something, so it is, if I can’t talk to my cousin without having an uppish scrub of a brat prying into what don’t concern her!”
“Scrub?” cried Tiffany, colour flaming into her cheeks. “How dare you speak to me like that? I’m not a scrub! I’m not, I’m not!”
“A scrub!” repeated Laurence, with relish. “Distempered into the bargain!”
“Quiet!” commanded Sir Waldo.
“Oh, very well!” said Laurence, subsiding.
“I’d liefer be anything but a Bartholomew baby, which is what Courtenay says you are! And also a—”
“I said, Quiet!”
Tiffany was so much startled by this peremptory reminder that she gasped, and stood staring up at the Nonesuch as though she could not believe that he was speaking not to his cousin, but actually to her. She drew in her breath audibly, and clenched her hands. Miss Trent cast a look of entreaty at Sir Waldo, but he ignored it. He strolled up to the infuriated beauty, and pushed up her chin. “Now, you may listen to me, my child!” he said sternly. “You are becoming a dead bore, and I don’t tolerate bores. Neither do I tolerate noisy tantrums. Unless you want to be soundly smacked, enact me no ill-bred scenes!”
There was a moment’s astonished silence. Laurence broke it, seizing his cousin’s hand, and fervently shaking it. “I knew you was a right one!” he declared. “‘A great gun, Waldo! Damme, a Trojan!”
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