The Reluctant Widow

by Джорджетт Хейер

  “My dear ma’am, how should I be angry with you?”

  “Ned, I know it has all gone awry, but I did right to leave the stair open, didn’t I?” Nicky demanded.

  “Yes, quite right. I collect that your visitor did indeed return?”

  “Yes, and I crept after him down the stairs. There was never anything like it! To think of such an adventure’s happening, and all because I was rusticated! I never expected any very particular good tocome from that, you know, but only fancy!”

  “A very observable instance of the workings of Providence,” agreed Carlyon. “How came you to be shot?”

  “Oh, that was the most cursed mischance! The fellow was making for this room, and I had reached the foot of the stairs, when all at once he stopped and looked about him. I stepped back quickly that he might not see me, and what must I do but fall over that stupid suit of armor Cousin Elinor must needs keep at the bottom of the stairs!”

  “I do not keep it there!” said Elinor indignantly. “I found it there!”

  “Well, I do not know how that may be but I should have thought you would have moved it to a better place. However, it’s no matter, except that it ruined all. I had your pearl-mounted pistol in my hand, Ned, and I shouted out to the fellow to stand, for I had him covered, but he fired at me before I well knew what he would be about, and over I went again. I shot at once and smashed the lantern he was carrying, but I don’t think I can have hit him, for he escaped by the front door before anyone could come to my aid. And the devil of it is that I still don’t know what it is that he wants, and I have a great fear that now he knows the game is up he will not come again. I have made wretched work of it!”

  “Yes, it is a pity he should have discovered your presence,” agreed Carlyon. “However, it is of no use to repine over what cannot be mended. This is certainly very interesting, Nicky.”

  “Yes, indeed! Was it not diverting?” struck in Elinor.

  He looked at her thoughtfully, but said nothing.

  “What are you thinking, Ned?” asked Nicky eagerly.

  “I was wishing John had not gone back to London,” Carlyon replied unexpectedly. “Never mind! He will be here again the day after tomorrow!”

  “John!” exclaimed Nicky. “Why, what use would he be, I should like to know?”

  “He was telling me something which I cannot help feeling may have some bearing on this extraordinary event.”

  Nicky’s face was alight. “Oh, Ned, do you think—Is it possible that—You know, I told Cousin Elinor this morning I thought very likely that fellow might be one of Boney’s agents, only then you said it was De Castres and J thought it had not been possible!”

  “It is certainly unexpected. Yet I believe it would not be quite the first time a scion of one of these émigré families has thrown in his lot with Bonaparte.”

  “How very shocking, to be sure!” said Miss Beccles, shaking her head. “It makes one feel so very particularly for their poor parents. But young persons are often very thoughtless, I fear.”

  “It cannot be so!” Elinor said. “Why, I have in the past known several such families, and they would be disgusted by the very thought of such a thing!”

  “No doubt the elder members of such families would be, ma’am, but there is no doubt that Bonaparte’s career and the regime he has set up have kindled an enthusiasm for his cause in some of the younger men’s breasts. It is no wonder, after all! They have little to hope for in England, and, one supposes, can find little to inspire them with hope in the Bourbon king and the set of men he keeps about him. But these are only surmises! We are running ahead a great deal too fast.”

  Nicky, who had been sitting with knit brows, said, “It is very well, Ned, but how should Eustace have had anything to say to French spies? I never thought that he had even common sense!”

  “A very unreliable agent, one would have said,” concurred Carlyon. He frowned down at the lid of his snuffbox. “And yet,” he said, “I will own that I have sometimes wondered where Eustace found the money to pay for some of his more expensive pleasures. This might be the answer.”

  “A Bonapartist agent!” said Elinor. “Well, I thought I had known the worst of my bridegroom, but it seems I was at fault!”

  “I should think,” said Carlyon, “that he was, rather, a go-between.”

  “I do not see that that would make him any better!”

  “On the contrary, decidedly worse.”

  “Oh, what an abominable man you are!” cried Elinor, quite out of patience.

  “Hush, my love!” interposed Miss Beccles in gentle reproof. “A lady should never be uncivil, you know. His lordship must be quite shocked to hear you express yourself with such unbecoming violence.”

  “I wish I might shock him!” said Elinor bitterly.

  “Well, I do not see why you should wish so!” said Nicky, firing up. “And Ned is not an abominable man!”

  “A gentleman, Nicky,” said Carlyon, grave as a judge, “should never contradict a lady.”

  Miss Beccles nodded her innocent agreement with this dictum. The widow eyed his lordship smolderingly but maintained a prudent silence.

  Carlyon, after casting her a somewhat quizzical look, seemed to become wrapped in his own meditations. Nicky, fidgeting restlessly for a little while, at last burst out with, “Do you think we should shut up the secret way? I mean—”

  “Oh, yes!” Carlyon replied absently. “I do not think we can hope for him to come by that way a third time.”

  “Well, but, Ned, what must we do, then? It would be too flat to leave it as it now stands!”

  “Certainly not. But as the matter appears to be of considerable urgency I hardly think that we should be permitted to leave it. Some new form of approach must be expected. Time will show what this may be.”

  “Not to me!” said Elinor with resolution. “I will not spend another night in this house, and so I tell you!”

  “Oh, Cousin Elinor, you would not be so poor-spirited!” Nicky cried incredulously. “Besides, what should you be afraid of when you will have me with you, and Miss Beccles and Bouncer too?”

  “How you can have the effrontery, Nicky, to offer me that horrid dog as consolation is something that gives me a very poor idea of your chivalry!” retorted Elinor. “What is more, I am not so callous that I would ask my dear Becky to remain an hour in this place! It is not at all what she has been accustomed to, I assure you.”

  “Very true, my love,” sighed Miss Beccles. “When I was young I used to wish very much that I could meet with an adventure, but none ever came my way, and in the end I did not think of it any more. And now it has come to me, and all through my lord, who so kindly brought me to you!”

  “Becky, all my dependence is on you!” almost wailed Elinor. “You cannot wish to remain in this dreadful house!”

  “But, my dear Mrs. Cheviot, it seems to me such a comfortable house! And now that my lord is to close up the secret door which, I own, I should not quite like to have open, I cannot see the least cause for you to leave it. And I am sure that if the dear doggie is to stay with us we must be quite safe.”

  The intelligent hound, who had sat up at the first mention of his name, flattened his ears and lolled his tongue out gratefully.

  “If you knew as much of the dear doggie as I do,” declared Elinor, “you would scarcely stay in the same room with him!” She turned to Carlyon, and added, “Upon being told to guard me, the creature kept me in my chair for the better part of a day!”

  “Well, that was quite my fault!” argued Nicky. “He did not perfectly understand what I said to him. And you must own he stayed at his post like a regular bulldog!”

  “Yes! And consumed a plate of meat and a large marrowbone, which he buried behind the sofa cushions!”

  “Poor old fellow!” said Miss Beccles, in caressing accents.

  Bouncer, recognizing a well-wisher, got up and thrust his cold, wet nose under her hand, assuming as he did so the soulful expression of a do
g who takes but a benevolent interest in cats, livestock, and stray visitors. Miss Beccles stroked his head and murmured dulcetly to him.

  Elinor fixed her eyes upon Carlyon. “My lord, do you expect me to remain here?” she asked straitly.

  “Yes, Mrs. Cheviot, I do,” he replied.

  “But I may be murdered in my bed!”

  “Improbable, I think.”

  She swallowed. “But what would you have me do?”

  He looked consideringly at her. “I believe you would be well advised to set about the procuring of mourning clothes,” he said. “I appreciate that your time since I left you here has been a little taken up by other matters, but this should have been thought of. I will send my carriage over to be at your orders in case you should like to drive to Chichester. You will find a tolerable silk warehouse there, and may choose something suitable to your condition.”

  “But who is to receive any French agents who may call while I am gone?” she retorted.

  “Oh, I will do that!” grinned Nicky.

  “My dear Nicky, I am about to convey you home. I dare say Mrs. Cheviot has had a surfeit of your company by this time.”

  “Oh, Ned, no!” Nicky cried, aghast. “You could not ask me to leave Highnoons now! Why, anything might happen!”

  “Nothing is likely to happen.”

  “I do not know what makes you think so, my lord,” remarked Elinor. “A man who will twice break into a house and fire upon anyone who discovers him—”

  “I am inclined to think that that was a mistake.”

  “A mistake, was it!” said Nicky, ruefully feeling his shoulder.

  “I dare say you startled him, my dear boy, and he fired before he had time to consider what he was about. He cannot have wished to make such a stir. In fact, his whole manner of conducting this affair appears to me to be the work of a novice. Depend upon it, someone must be behind De Castres, if De Castres it was.”

  “Someone more cunning, I dare say?” said Elinor politely.

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “And who will perhaps descend upon me in his turn?”

  He smiled. “Perhaps,” he agreed.

  “And all the advice you have to give me is that I should go to Chichester to choose mourning clothes which I assure you I don’t mean to wear!”

  “I hope you will think better of that decision, ma’am. It is always a pity to put up the backs of people. I see that you have already made this room at least more habitable. But there must still be a great deal of work to be done in the house, which should keep you occupied for some little time. I believe you have no need to feel any undue alarm. Violence cannot serve these people and they are unlikely to attempt anything in the same nature again. What we have now to look for is something a trifle more subtle.”

  “Well then, Ned, don’t you think I should remain here?” urged Nicky. “Cousin Elinor will be more comfortable if I do, will you not, Cousin?”

  “Of course there can be no question of your leaving while you are still so weak!” she said. “You will scarcely take him out in this cold when he ought to be in his bed, my lord! I assure you, Miss Beccles and I will take every care of him.”

  “I have no doubt of that and am very much obliged to you both. Have either you or he looked through the contents of that desk on the chance of discovering any clue to your mystery?”

  “No, but I would have done so!” said Nicky. “Cousin Elinor would not permit it, however.”

  “Extremely proper. I am expecting Finsbury in Sussex tomorrow, and shall bring him here. But in the event, it will be wise to assure ourselves that no dangerous document lies in that desk.” He walked over to it as he spoke and sat down before it, pulling open the top drawer. A welter of “papers was disclosed which Carlyon sorted out, laying them in separate heaps. The other drawers were in much the same condition, and Nicky’s eagerly expressed conviction that the desk possessed a secret hiding place was found to be without foundation.

  Carlyon restored the papers, saying calmly, “There is very little here beyond bills and vowels.”

  “Good God!” said Elinor. “Then I suppose I may look next to be dunned! How sobering it is to reflect that had I never met you, my lord, I might even now be peacefully established in Mrs. Macclesfield’s house!”

  “Sobering indeed. I am persuaded you would have discovered her to be an overbearing female, and the children all grossly indulged.”

  “Nonsense! I dare say a most agreeable household,” said Elinor firmly.

  “Now, my love, you know you had no very pleasant notion of Mrs. Macclesfield’s character!” Miss Beccles reminded her. “I have been telling his lordship how bravely you have borne all your reverses, and how thankful I am you are now in such good hands.”

  “Good hands?” gasped the affronted widow. “Becky, are you in your senses? If you refer to Lord Carlyon, I really think you cannot be! I never did him the least injury, and only consider how he has served me! He forced me to marry a creature given over to every form of vice; he brought me to this house where everything is in dust and tatters, mice run across my bedchamber floor, and French agents walk in and out at will, shooting at anyone who dares to say them nay; he discloses to me with what I can only describe as the most callous unconcern imaginable that my late husband died apparently under a load of debt, which I shall no doubt be called upon to settle; and when I ask him what I am to do, all he can think of is to suggest that I should buy myself mourning clothes!”

  Miss Beccles smiled at his lordship. “Dear Elinor was always such a lively girl!” she murmured. “So spirited! I know your lordship will make allowances.”

  “I should be happy to do so,” he returned. “But I do not find her at all spirited. On the contrary, she appears to me to take an unnecessarily despondent view of her situation. There is really no need that I am aware of, Mrs. Cheviot, for you to put yourself in a fret.”

  “Oh, she is not as chickenhearted as you would suppose, Ned!” Nicky said blithely.

  Mrs. Cheviot, speech failing her, rose and took several agitated turns about the room. Carlyon went to her and took her hand. “Come!” he said reassuringly. “I should not leave you here, you know, if I thought you stood in any danger. To run away must be nonsensical. By remaining, like a sensible woman, you may be very helpful. I am persuaded you must see, in the light of what has happened, that my placing you in charge here was a very lucky chance.”

  Elinor gazed at him. “A very lucky chance!” she echoed faintly. “My lord, when I first encountered you the suspicion crossed my mind that your intellect was disordered. I am now certain that this is so!”

  Chapter X

  An exhaustive search of Eustace Cheviot’s bedroom having brought to light nothing but some more crumpled bills and several irrelevant papers tucked into the pockets of various coats, it became apparent that if Eustace had indeed had in his possession any document destined for French eyes he had hidden it away in some place where it was unlikely papers would be looked for. Even Nicky, was a little daunted by the prospect of being obliged to search minutely a house crammed with chests, cupboards, commodes, drum tables, and old coffers. “And when we have ransacked every drawer in the place, ten to one it will be found poked up a chimney or stuffed into the lining of a chair!” he said pessimistically. “I do not know how we are to do!”

  “I suppose,” said Elinor who, in spite of herself, had begun to take an interest in these proceedings, “that it was not upon his person?”

  Carlyon shook his head. “I have everything that was in his pockets,” he replied.

  “I wonder,” said Miss Beccles diffidently, “if he perhaps put it between the leaves of a book? I cannot help feeling that that would be a very good hiding place, and I noticed that there were a great many books in that room belowstairs. If you should like it, my lord, dear Mrs. Cheviot and I can busy ourselves tomorrow with taking them all out and dusting them at the same time.”

  “A very excellent notion,” Carlyon said. “I am
much obliged to you, ma’am.”

  “So am not I!” said Elinor. “Why, I dare say there are more than a thousand books on the shelves!”

  Nicky, who was beginning to feel tired, sat down on the edge of the bed and said disgustedly, “Oh, lord! There is no end to the places where we should search!”

  “Do you not think, sir, that if a warming pan was brought up, as I dare say it might be directly, and the fire kindled in your bedchamber, you would be more comfortable in your bed?” suggested Miss Beccles, in her gentle way.

  Nicky naturally scouted this idea, declaring that he should not retire before dinner. But upon being assured that he should not be fobbed off with gruel but should be supplied with a tray loaded with sustaining and palatable viands, he began to think more kindly of his bed and finally consented in a magniloquent spirit to get between sheets again. Carlyon went downstairs to give orders for the securing of the secret door, and Elinor took Miss Beccles off to install her in the bedchamber next to her own. Miss Beccles sighed her pleasure at sight of the fire already burning in the hearth and smiled mistily upon her hostess. “It should not be, my love, but such a comfort to one! I do not know if I stand on my head or my heels! From the moment of his lordship’s coming I have been cast into such a flutter! I declare I could not believe the evidence of my ears when Polly—you remember Polly, my love, a very obliging girl!—when Polly came to tell me my Lord Carlyon wished to see me! And me in my old olive-green merino, for you must know I was engaged in polishing the furniture, and not in the least expecting to receive a visitor, much less so noble a visitor! But I dare say he would not notice, for thank heaven I had my wits about me enough to strip off my apron and thrust it under a cushion. But to see such a fine gentleman in my poor little room—! I declare I was so overcome I had scarcely strength enough to drop him a curtsy! But he is most truly the gentleman! I was rendered easy in a trice!”