The Reluctant Widow

by Джорджетт Хейер

  Miss Beccles looked very much agitated, and said, “Indeed, I am very sorry! I do not see what is to be done, and certainly you, my love, are in no state to exert yourself! Do, pray, be still! You will bring on your headache if you allow yourself to get into a pucker!”

  Elinor said impatiently, “Headache! What can that signify in face of this disaster—for it is no less! It may be too late to recover that document, but at least it is my duty to advise Carlyon instantly of what has occurred! Oh, why did he leave Highnoons? He might have guessed everything would go awry if he went away! It is just like him! Odious, provoking man! Becky, run to find Barrow, and tell him I must have a carriage brought round to the door as soon as may be! If there is nothing fit for me to go in but the gig, I will go in that, and the groom must be ready to accompany me. Do not sit staring at me, Becky, but hurry, I beg of you! I am going upstairs to fetch my hat and cloak!”

  “Mrs. Cheviot!” gasped Miss Beccles. “You will not be so mad as to venture out! And in a gig! Elinor!”

  Mrs. Cheviot fairly stamped her foot. “Do as I bid you, Becky, for I was never more in earnest in my life! And if Nicky should come in, not one word to him, mind, of Mr. Cheviot’s having taken that clock away!”

  Chapter XVIII

  Once having taken her resolution, not all Miss Beccles’ prayers—and she uttered many—had the power to prevent Elinor from setting forth in search of Carlyon. The barouche which the late Mrs. Cheviot had used was still in the coach house, but so covered with dust that it was obviously useless to expect it to be got ready for Elinor in the little time at her disposal. She adopted instead Barrow’s suggestion that she should take Eustace Cheviot’s phaeton, a vehicle very much more to her taste than the gig. The groom, rather pleased to have something more in his line to do than the gardening to which he had been set, hurried to put on his livery and to harness one of Eustace Cheviot’s horses to the carriage. When he discovered that his mistress had formed the intention of driving herself and required him merely to sit beside her and to direct her, he looked dubious and ventured to inform her that the mare, not having been exercised for some days, was lamentable fresh. Mrs. Cheviot deigned no reply to this but took the reins in a businesslike way and drove off at a spanking pace. By the time the groom had watched her loop a rein, as they swung out of the gate onto the lane, and catch the thong of her whip without so much as glancing at it, he was very much impressed, and treated her with all the deference she could have desired.

  Highnoons was only some seven miles distant from the Hall, but the roads to it were narrow and full of bends, so that it was nearly three-quarters of an hour before Mrs. Cheviot was drawing up outside the Hall. The drive had done much to steady the agitation of her nerves, and she was able to ask for his lordship in a voice of tolerable composure. The butler and the footman who admitted her were both too well trained to show any surprise at her unconventional arrival, and she was at once bowed into a handsome saloon and begged to take a seat while his lordship was informed of her visit. She had not long to wait. The firm tread she was beginning to know soon came to her ears, and she started up out of her chair even as the butler flung open the door for Carlyon to pass into the saloon.

  “My dear Mrs. Cheviot!” he said, coming toward her with his hand held out. “You should be laid down upon your bed! How is this?”

  Her gloved hand clung to his urgently. “My lord, I had to come! I am quite well—the fresh air has even done me good. I was obliged to come had I been twice as unwell!”

  “You cannot doubt of my happiness in welcoming you to my house, ma’am. Only the conviction that it cannot be good for you to exert yourself so unwisely has the power to mar it. But will you not come into the library? It is chilly in here and I think you are cold already.”

  “Thank you. It is nothing to signify! I have something of the greatest importance to disclose to you!”

  “We shall be perfectly private in the library,” he said, opening the door for her and leading her across the hall. The footman sprang to open the library door and was desired to bring wine and cakes to the room.

  “Indeed, I require nothing!” Elinor said.

  “You will let me be the best judge of that, ma’am,” Carlyon said, closing the door. “May I take your pelisse? I wonder what you were thinking of to come out in this weather with only that to protect you from the wind?”

  She brushed it aside impatiently. “What can it signify? My lord, Mr. Cheviot left Highnoons this afternoon while I was sleeping and he took with him the clock from the bookroom!”

  “Ah, did he so?” he said, apparently rather amused.

  “You do not understand! I did not think of it myself until Becky told me that he had taken the clock upon the pretext of having it mended for me! My lord, I believe that paper to have been concealed in it! He knew it, and now he has it!”

  “No, no, Mrs. Cheviot, he has not got it, I assure you!” he said soothingly. “Do let me take your pelisse!”

  She struck her hands together in exasperation. “You must attend to me, my lord! You have not realized—how should you indeed?—that I had my hands on that clock when I was struck down! And—”

  “I did realize it, Mrs. Cheviot. If you remember, you told us so when you recovered consciousness. I am afraid it is you who have not attended to me. Did I not tell you that you had no need to feel any further alarm? I think you deserve that I should be a little angry with you for running the risk of injuring your health in this way.”

  She gazed up at him in astonishment. “You realized it! But you did not think what it might mean?”

  “On the contrary, it occurred to me that that might be the answer, and when you had gone up to your room I looked to see whether one of my cousin’s keys might not fit that lock. It was so, and I found that my suspicions were correct. I removed the papers, and they are now safely in my possession.”

  She was bereft of speech and could only stare at him in gathering indignation. Twice her lips parted and twice she closed them again before she could regain sufficient command over herself to say, “You removed the papers! But this is beyond everything! I dare say you thought I should not be interested in such a trifling piece of news!”

  “No, but—”

  “I have ransacked every chest and cupboard in that horrid house, only to oblige you! I have not enjoyed a moment’s peace this whole week! I have been brutally assaulted, and all on account of the papers which are now safely in your possession! Well! I am happy to learn of this circumstance, sir, but I think it monstrous that I should be obliged to drive seven miles to do so!”

  “It was certainly imprudent,” he responded calmly. “You would have been told of it tomorrow, at Highnoons. Now let me relieve you of that pelisse!”

  “I shall do no such thing! I desire you will call for my phaeton immediately!” raged the widow.

  “Don’t be silly, Mrs. Cheviot!” he said. “I am not so very much to blame, you know, if you will but consider for a moment! Until I had opened the clock, all was conjecture and I would not, in the very natural condition of nerves you were then in, trouble you any more upon the matter. My first concern was to see you laid down upon your bed to recover from the shock you had undergone. When I found that my suspicion was justified, another consideration strengthened my resolve to keep the discovery to myself. It can hardly need any words of mine to apprise you of the peculiar delicacy of this whole business. I believe I know which course of action I should pursue, but before I take any step in the matter I think it right to discuss the question with my brother John. It was for that reason that I concealed from you and indeed from Nicky too the knowledge that the paper was found. Had I found John here when I returned this afternoon, and had settled with him what I should do, I believe I must have gone back to Highnoons tonight to set all your minds at rest. Unfortunately, however, I found that John had taken a gun out to shoot rabbits, and he is still not come in. I expect him at any moment now. May I take your pelisse, ma’am?”

>   She let him do so and was glad to remove the hat from her head as well, but although she was a little mollified by the quiet good sense of what he said, she still felt herself to have been hardly used, and remarked with a good deal of bitterness that she might have known he would have a smooth answer ready.

  “I have only told you the truth, ma’am,” he replied. “I am sorry to have vexed you, however, and I beg you will not hesitate to tell me how odious has been my conduct! You will find that chair tolerably comfortable, I believe, and out of the draft. Is your head easier? I see that you have cast off your bandages. You should not have done so.”

  “If I had not been obliged to drive out I might be wearing my bandages still!” said Elinor mendaciously. “I suppose even you would not expect me to show myself abroad presenting such a very odd appearance!”

  “By no means, but I did not expect you to show yourself abroad at all today, ma’am, and cannot approve of it.”

  She was prevented from uttering a retort by the entrance of the butler with a tray, which he set down upon a table. He withdrew again and Carlyon poured out a glass of madeira and brought it to his guest with a dish of macaroons. She was obliged to take the glass from him but frigidly declined the macaroons. He put the dish down beside her and went to pour out a second glass of wine for himself. The widow eyed his back view malevolently. “I am sorry I did not send Nicky after Mr. Cheviot, if only to spite you!” she said.

  “I am persuaded I might rely on your good sense not to do so,” he returned.

  “If he had been in the house I dare say I should have done so, but he was gone out!”

  “Yes, I took care of that,” he remarked, turning and coming back to the fire.

  Her bosom swelled. “I am obliged to you, my lord! I now perceive the worth of your compliments!”

  He smiled. “Oh, not for fear of anything you might do, ma’am! But whatever Francis Cheviot chose to do I did not wish Nicky to hinder.”

  She sniffed, and relapsed into defiant silence. After sipping her wine for a few minutes her eye alighted on the macaroons, and she absently took one and began to eat it, realizing that she was hungry and had not, in fact, eaten anything since breakfast. A couple of these cakes did much to restore the serenity of her temper. She looked up, found Carlyon regarding her with a lurking twinkle, and suddenly laughed. “Well, you have used me abominably, but to be sure I might have known that you would, for you have done so from the outset! But what will Mr. Cheviot do when he discovers that there is nothing in that clock?”

  “That remains to be seen, ma’am. Will you excuse me while I send a message out to your groom? I think he should go back at once to Highnoons to inform Miss Beccles that you are safely in my charge and that I shall convey you home in my carriage after dinner.”

  She made a halfhearted protest which was not attended to. He left the room and was giving the butler his instructions in the hall when John Carlyon walked into the house, carrying his gun and a couple of rabbits, which he handed to the footman.

  “Hallo, Ned, so you are back!” he remarked. “I stayed in all the morning on the chance that I might be obliged to go over to Highnoons, but no message came, and so I thought I might as well see if I could come by any sport while I am at home.”

  Carlyon nodded. “I was informed you had done so. Come into the library!”

  “I will do so when I have washed my hands,” John promised.

  Carlyon returned to the library himself, saying as he entered the room, “My brother is this instant come in and will be with us in a minute or two, Mrs. Cheviot.”

  She made as if she would have risen from her chair. “You wish to be private with him, I know. I will leave you, sir.”

  “Indeed, I beg you will not! I may depend upon your discretion. You already know so much that you must know the whole.”

  “You are very good, sir, but Mr. John Carlyon may not like to discuss these matters in my presence, and I would not—”

  “Mr. John Carlyon will do as he is bid,” he replied.

  She smiled. “Ah, I knew you for a despot upon my first encounter with you, my lord!”

  “Very rarely, I assure you! It seems a long time since that day.”

  “Yes, I have often feared that I was but tedious company,” remarked the widow affably. “You must blame my circumstances, sir, which have made me lose the art of making myself agreeable in society.”

  “I observe that they have not made you lose your quickness of tongue, ma’am! You have wished to see me put out of countenance, and now cannot doubt that you have had your wish gratified!”

  She laughed but shook her head. John came into the room at that moment, rubbing his chilled hands together. He stopped short when he perceived Elinor, and said in a voice of surprise, “Mrs. Cheviot! I had no notion—Ned, you should have warned me you had a guest with you! I would not have come in in all my dirt! Pray excuse me, ma’am! I have been out shooting and have had no time to change my jacket!”

  “Mrs. Cheviot will excuse you readily,” Carlyon said. “I have been waiting to see you all the afternoon. The memorandum has been found.”

  “What! Not at Highnoons!” John exclaimed.

  “Yes, at Highnoons, locked in the bracket clock on the mantelpiece in the bookroom.”

  “Good God! You do not mean it! It is the actual copy that is missing?”

  “I have not perused it, but read enough to convince me it could be none other. You may look at it.” He drew a folded sheaf from his pocket and handed it to his brother.

  John almost snatched it from him and spread open the sheets, scanning them rapidly and with starting eyes. “My God, there can be no doubt! Who found this?”

  “I did—through the instrumentality of Mrs. Cheviot,” Carlyon replied.

  John’s gaze was turned respectfully toward her. She said, “Yes indeed, he could scarcely have succeeded without me. You may imagine how happy I am to have suffered a broken head in this cause! To be sure, I was a little put out at first, for you must know that from some cause or another I have not been very much in the habit of being hit on the head and so was inclined to refine too much on the event. But your brother’s powerful reasoning soon showed me how absurd it was in me to be vexed by such a trifling thing! I make no complaint. I see that it was all for the best.”

  “My dear Mrs. Cheviot! You are surely jesting!” said John, quite bewildered.

  “I do not wonder at your surprise. You would not have supposed I could play so large a part in the recovery of that document! I did not suppose it myself, and I will own that I could have wished my part in the affair to have been of a less passive nature.”

  John turned his head to direct an imploring look at Carlyon, who said with a slight smile, “It is very true, my dear John, but Mrs. Cheviot has her own way of describing what has occurred. She wished to see if she could not wind up that clock, and while she was endeavoring to open it—but in vain, since it was locked, and I held the key—Francis Cheviot must have entered the room behind her. He saw her with a household inventory in her hand in the act of adjusting the clock, and sprang to a false conclusion. I think he must have used the paperweight which I observed on the desk to strike her down. I am persuaded that he took care not to hit her with sufficient force to do her a serious injury, but—”

  “Are you indeed?” interrupted Elinor. “How considerate that was of him! I wonder if I should write to express the sense of my obligation to him?”

  “Obligation!” John ejaculated, his mind too much taken up with the enormity of the occurrence to be susceptible to irony. “It passes everything! I hope you have had the fellow laid by the heels, Ned!”

  “No. He has gone back to London, carrying the clock with him,” Carlyon replied, taking a pinch of snuff.

  John stared at him. “I think you must have taken leave of your senses!”

  Elinor picked up another macaroon. “I must own I have often wondered when that melancholy suspicion would enter your brain, sir,” she
said. “I saw at the outset that his intellect was sadly disordered, but I dare say it has come upon him gradually, and you might not notice quite immediately.”

  “Nonsense!” said John testily. “Ned has as sound a head as any of my acquaintance! But how is this, Ned? You cannot want more proof!”

  “I believe I do not, but I also believe that we shall do well to take care how we proceed in this business. I would do nothing until I had consulted with you. I fancy we can neither of us be anxious to advertise this matter. The connection between ourselves and the Cheviots is too close to be comfortable. If matters can be settled without scandal, I own I should prefer it.”

  “You cannot suppose I have not considered that!” John said, taking a quick turn about the room. “But it will not do! Even if I knew how to restore that memorandum secretly, I would not do it! It is not the part of an honest man to let a traitor remain at large out of considerations of family!”

  “Or, indeed, out of any other consideration. But if we could be sure that the traitor was rendered powerless for the future?”

  “How?” John demanded, stopping to stare at him.

  “I fancy it is in a way to be done.”

  “Ned, what the devil have you been about?”

  “It is not my doing. I may even be mistaken. That must be ascertained, of course.”

  “I do not know what you would be at! Here you have in your possession a document that must be instantly taken to Lord Bathurst with the full story of its discovery! You cannot be thinking of doing otherwise! It will be hushed up, I make no doubt. No one will be anxious to have it known how easily such a document went astray!”