Reluctant Widow

by Georgette Heyer

  The round blue eyes stared at him. There was a perceptible pause before Bedlington replied testily: ‘How can one tell how such news may get about?’

  ‘I cannot, certainly. Where did you learn it, sir?’

  ‘My poor nephew’s valet told my man. It will be all over town by now! But how did it happen? What accident befell Eustace? Some talk of a brawl in an inn! I came to you to hear the truth!’

  ‘You shall do so, but you may believe that the truth is as painful to me to relate as it will be to you to hear. Eustace met his death at my brother Nicky’s hands.’

  ‘Carlyon!’ gasped Bedlington, falling back a pace, and grasping at a chair-back to steady himself. ‘My God, has it come to this?’

  ‘Has what come to this?’ demanded John, bristling.

  Thus challenged, his lordship sought refuge in his handkerchief, and uttered in broken accents that he would never have believed such a thing.

  ‘Believed such a thing as what?’ pursued John, remorselessly adhering to his sledge-hammer tactics.

  ‘I do wish you would be quiet, John!’ said Carlyon. ‘Pray sit down, sir! I need hardly tell you that the whole affair was an accident. If Eustace had had his way it would have been Nicky who had been killed, and that, I am constrained to tell you, would have been a clear case of murder.’

  ‘Ah, you were always unjust to the poor lad! I might depend upon you to shield your brother!’

  ‘Certainly you might, but happily this affair does not rest upon my testimony. To be brief with you, Bedlington, Eustace was, as usual, in his cups, and in this condition was unwise enough to provoke Nicky into knocking him down. Upon which, he seized a carving-knife, and tried to murder Nicky. In the scuffle, during which Nicky contrived to wrest the knife from him, he seems to have tripped and fallen on the knife. He died some hours later. I regret the occurrence as much as anyone, but I cannot hold Nicky to blame.’

  ‘No, nor anyone else!’ John said roughly.

  Bedlington, who appeared to be quite overcome, only moaned behind his handkerchief. Carlyon poured out a glass of wine, and took it to him. ‘Come, sir! I appreciate your concern, but to be blunt with you I cannot altogether deplore a taking-off that I am much inclined to think may have come just in time to prevent Eustace from plunging all of us into a scandal we must be thankful to be spared.’

  Bedlington emerged from his handkerchief to demand in trembling accents: ‘What can you mean? A few irregularities – the extravagances of youth – ay, and of a youth brought up under the rule of one – but I say no more! You best know how much you are to blame for the poor lad’s excesses!’

  ‘By God, that’s too much!’ exploded John, his complexion darkening.

  ‘Then do not add to it, John. Had you no suspicion, sir, that these irregularities might have gone beyond the bounds of what even you could pardon?’

  Bedlington flushed. ‘This is base slander! You never liked Eustace! I shall not listen to you! I do not know what you would be at, but my brother’s son – ! No, no, I will not listen to you!’

  Carlyon bowed slightly, and waited in silence while he gulped down the wine in his glass. This seemed a little to restore the balance of his lordship’s mind. He allowed John to refill the glass, asking abruptly: ‘How came he to marry that young woman I found installed at Highnoons? Yes, I have been there already, and I do not know when I have been more taken-aback! Who is she, and how can such a thing have come about? I do not understand why Eustace should have excluded me from his confidence!’

  ‘She is the daughter of Rochdale of Feldenhall,’ replied Carlyon.

  The blue eyes started at him. ‘What! He who shot himself, and left his widow and family destitute?’

  Carlyon bowed.

  ‘Well!’ Bedlington said, puffing out his lips. ‘If that is so, of course I perceive why he should not have cared to tell me! I do not like the match; I must have done my possible to have prevented it. This is marvellous indeed! And it was you who contrived the wedding? I do not know what to say! She told me all was left to her!’

  Carlyon bowed again.

  ‘Wonderful!’ Bedlington said, shaking his head. ‘You are a strange man, Carlyon! There is no getting to the bottom of you!’

  ‘You flatter me, sir. If you could but bring yourself to believe that I have never wanted to inherit Highnoons you would not find me at all unfathomable.’

  ‘Well, Carlyon, I must own that I have wronged you!’ Bedlington said, sighing. ‘But this tragedy has so overset me I do not know what I say!’

  ‘It is very natural,’ said Carlyon. ‘I dare say you will wish to be alone. Let me take you up to the rooms I have had prepared for you! Dinner will be served in an hour.’

  ‘You are very good. I own I shall be glad of a period of quiet reflection,’ said Bedlington, rising with a groan, and tottering in his host’s wake to the door.

  John remained in the saloon, waiting in some impatience for his brother’s return. It was some time before Carlyon rejoined him, and when he did, it was to say: ‘Really, John, you are as foolish as Nicky! Must you take up the cudgels in my defence quite so violently?’

  ‘Never mind that!’ said John. ‘I can’t stand those play-acting ways of his, and never could! What did you think of him?’

  ‘Nothing very much.’

  ‘Well, by God, I didn’t believe what you were saying to me, but I’ll swear the man’s in the devil of a pucker! I wondered to hear you give him such a hint of what you suspect!’

  ‘I wanted to see what the effect of it might be on him. I cannot be said to have got much good by it.’

  ‘I think he was frightened.’

  ‘Very well. That can do no harm. If he himself has no suspicion, I have told him nothing; if, as I think might well be, he has reason to think that Francis Cheviot might be up to some mischief I hope I may have pricked him into taking the matter into his own hands. I should be glad to see it out of mine!’

  ‘Did you believe his story of having learnt of Eustace’s death from his valet?’

  Carlyon shrugged. ‘It might be. No, I don’t think I did.’

  John looked dissatisfied. ‘Well! And what had he to say to you above-stairs? You were long enough away!’

  ‘He was boring me with recollections of Uncle Lionel. I may add that none of these tallied with my own, but let that pass. He would be glad to regain possession of the letters he wrote to him. But as I have found none I was unable to oblige him in the matter.’

  ‘Ned, was he trying to discover whether you had come upon this damned memorandum amongst Eustace’s papers?’ John demanded.

  ‘My dear John, Bedlington may be an old fool, but he has not worked in a Government department without learning not to commit himself! If I choose to give my suspicions rein, I may read into his enquiries just such an object; if, on the other hand, I keep an open mind, I need see nothing in them but the natural desire of a fond uncle to be informed as to the exact nature of his nephew’s follies and obligations. I was quite frank with him.’

  ‘Quite frank with him?’ ejaculated John, rather dismayed.

  ‘Yes, I gave him to understand that I had come upon little beyond bills, vowels, and some amatory correspondence which I propose to burn,’ responded Carlyon tranquilly.

  John burst out laughing. ‘You are the most complete hand! You did not tell him of Nicky’s last adventure?’

  ‘On the contrary, I told him that Mrs Cheviot had been sadly discomposed by a thief’s breaking into the house.’

  ‘What had he to say to that?’

  ‘He said that he hoped no valuables had been stolen.’

  ‘Well? Well? And then?’

  ‘I said that, so far as we could ascertain, nothing had been stolen,’ replied Carlyon.

  ‘I wonder what he will do next!’ John said.

  ‘He informs me that he must
return to London in the morning, but will be in Sussex again to attend the funeral. Upon which occasion,’ Carlyon added, taking a pinch of snuff, ‘he will put up for the night at Highnoons.’

  ‘Good God, Ned, I begin to believe you may have been right!’

  ‘Yes, I can see you do,’ said Carlyon. ‘But I begin to think I may have been wrong!’

  Twelve

  When he reappeared, in time for dinner, Lord Bedlington seemed to have shaken off his petulance. He sighed heavily from time to time, and twice was obliged to wipe his eyes, but his hosts were gratified to observe that his bereavement had not affected his appetite. He partook lavishly of every dish, and was so much moved by the excellence of the Davenport fowls, stuffed, parboiled, and stewed in butter, that he sent a complimentary message to the cook, and congratulated Carlyon on having acquired such a treasure. By the time he had worked his way from the Hessian soup and ragout which began the repast, through a baked carp, dressed in the Portuguese way, some beef-steaks with oyster sauce, the fowls, and a Floating Island, with a fruit-pie as a remove, he was so far reconciled to his nephew’s death as to be able to recount three of the latest good stories circulating town, and to confide to Carlyon, as he ecstatically savoured the bouquet of the port, that he really could not agree with his old friend Brummell in deeming it a wine only fit for the lower orders to drink. He certainly drank a great many glasses of it, but whatever hopes John might have cherished of his tongue’s being loosened soon vanished. My Lord Bedlington had not kept company with the Regent for years without acquiring a hard head and the digestion of an ostrich. Mellow he might become, and indiscreet stories he certainly told, but not his worst enemy would have accused him of being foxed.

  When he could at last be parted from the decanters, Carlyon took him off to his library, firmly excluding John, by saying that he knew he had letters he wished to write. John made a face at him, but bowed to this decree, and went off to kick his heels in one of the saloons.

  After commenting on the comfort of a log fire, the luxury of the chair he was sitting in, and the superlative qualities of the brandy he was rolling round his palate, his lordship seemed to bethink him of his nephew again, and to recall the sad circumstance which had brought him into Sussex. He very handsomely owned that he believed Carlyon had acted always with the best of intentions, and even confessed that his own partiality for his dear brother’s only son might have made him over-lenient towards faults in Eustace which he perceived as clearly as anyone could wish. He blamed the most of them on to the bad company which Eustace had kept, and, lowering his tone to a confidential note, asked Carlyon if he had any reason to fear that Eustace might have been in some worse scrape than any of them suspected.

  ‘I have sometimes wondered whence he obtained the means to live as expensively as he did,’ responded Carlyon, in his level voice.

  ‘Yes!’ Bedlington said eagerly. ‘Yes, indeed, and I too have wondered! I do trust we may not find anything seriously amiss! I cannot flatter myself the poor boy took me as much into his confidence as I could have wished.’

  ‘He certainly did not take me into it.’

  ‘No, well! I do not desire to mar the harmony of this evening by reproaching you, and I shall accordingly say nothing of that. Yet I cannot but feel that had you treated him with more sympathy –’

  ‘My dear sir, you, I am persuaded, treated him with a marked degree of sympathy, but it does not appear to have won you his confidence.’

  ‘True. It is very true! Sometimes I have asked myself if I caressed him too much, allowed him too much licence. You know, he has been free to treat my house as his home ever since his poor father’s death – that is to say, ever since he was of an age to be glad of a house in town where he might be sure of a welcome. Indeed, I have treated him like my own son, but I do not know that it answered. I hope I have not been the innocent means of leading him into temptation!’

  Carlyon looked faintly surprised. ‘How should you be, indeed?’

  ‘Oh, as to that – ! In an establishment such as mine, you understand: my position as A.D.C. to the Regent, I need not say more! I am sure I do not know the half of the people who come to the house, and how could I tell whom poor Eustace might be meeting there? Young men cannot always be trusted to keep the line, and, alas, there was a weakness in him – one must own it! – that might have led him to allow himself to be drawn into the wrong company.’

  He went on in this strain for some time, but as his host remained politely unresponsive abandoned it at last, and relapsed into melancholy abstraction. He roused himself to enquire about the funeral arrangements, desiring Carlyon to postpone the date to enable him to attend the ceremony, and almost tearfully begging him not to neglect the least pompous detail of it. Upon hearing that the cortège would set out from the chapel where Eustace’s body was at present lying, and not from Highnoons, he looked very much shocked, and could not think it right. He wished to know the style of the cards Carlyon had no doubt sent out, and the number of carriages he had ordered, not to mention the mutes, and the plumes, and was only silenced by Carlyon’s saying that since Eustace, after making himself odious to the entire neighbourhood, had met his end in a drunken brawl that must still further lessen his credit with his acquaintances, the more private and unostentatious his obsequies were the better it would be for all concerned.

  ‘I shall attend the funeral!’ Bedlington declared. ‘I mean to spend a night with the poor young creature at Highnoons. I dare say she will be glad of the counsel of an old man: I am sure I do not know what is to become of her, for it is not to be expected that Eustace has left her in affluence. That crazy old house, very nearly in ruins, from what I could see of it! It would cost a fortune to put it in order, and there she is, saddled with its upkeep, and none to support or guide her!’

  ‘Mrs Cheviot does not reside there alone: she has an elderly companion with her.’

  ‘Yes, yes, a poor little dab of a woman! I don’t know what your notions may be, Carlyon, but I should advise selling the place, if any could be found to buy such a ramshackle, old-fashioned house.’

  ‘No doubt she will do so, but until we have probate it is too early to be making plans.’

  ‘Of course: that is understood! But she cannot like to have such a place on her hands, and to be put to the expense of paying the wages of I dare say four or five servants. I feel I should do all I can for her – poor Eustace’s bride, you know, and her circumstances so uncomfortable, for there is no blinking the fact that her father died under a cloud! I declare, I have a good mind to invite her to come up to London with me, and to stay in Brook Street until she knows how things may stand! Then the servants may be paid off, and the house closed. What do you say to that, eh?’

  ‘I cannot advocate the leaving of the house untenanted, sir,’ was all the answer he could win from Carlyon.

  He very soon took himself off to bed, and Carlyon was able to join John, whom he found yawning over a dying fire.

  ‘Hallo!’ John said. ‘Has he been boring on for ever? You should have let me bear you company!’

  ‘No, you are too severe with him: he cannot talk at his ease in face of your grim scowls. I find it hard myself.’

  ‘You!’ John said, bursting out into a laugh. ‘Well, had he anything to say that was to the point?’

  ‘He is very uneasy, I fancy. There was some talk of his having unwittingly led Eustace into temptation, as though he had a suspicion some worse mischief than he knows of might have been on hand.’

  ‘Led him into temptation! Pray, how?’

  ‘Apparently he feels that his house is for ever full of evil company. He says he does not know the half of the people who frequent it, and ascribes this to his being the Regent’s A.D.C.,’ Carlyon said, with only a flicker of a smile.

  ‘A delightful reflection upon Prinny! Refreshingly honest, I swear!’

  ‘I am going to bed,’
Carlyon said. ‘An evening spent in Bedlington’s company is the most fatiguing thing I know. I pity Mrs Cheviot! He is a dead bore!’

  ‘Oh, he still stands by his threat to inflict himself upon her, does he?’

  ‘Yes, and to invite her to return to Brook Street with him, while Highnoons is shut up, and the servants dismissed.’

  ‘Ha! So that he may search the place at his leisure!’ said John, grinning. ‘Much obliged to him!’ He accompanied his brother out into the hall, and picked up his bedroom candle. ‘When have you arranged the funeral? Should I attend?’

  ‘As you wish. I must do so, at all events. It is postponed for two days, Bedlington having affairs that must keep him in town.’

  ‘Deuce take the old fidget!’ John growled. ‘You will be glad to be done with this, Ned, and know Eustace safe underground!’

  ‘I shall certainly be glad to be done with it, and wish I saw my way through it.’

  John gripped his elbow, roughly squeezing it. ‘Ay, it has been the devil of a business. As for seeing your way, I do not wonder you cannot! Here is this widow left on your hands, as I told you before! Well, it serves you right, old fellow!’

  ‘Nonsense!’ Carlyon said.

  In the morning, Lord Bedlington made his appearance dressed for his journey. A somewhat malicious suggestion, put forward by John, that he must surely wish to attend the inquest, which was to be held in the coffee-room of the inn at Wisborough Green, he greeted with a strong shudder. His mind seemed to be divided between horror at an inquest’s having to be held over any member of his family, and a shocked realisation that he had come into Sussex quite improperly clad. His anxiety to put himself into mourning at once, coupled with a fear that Schultz, his tailor, might not be able to supply his needs in due time, formed the subjects of his breakfast-table conversation, and certainly hastened his departure. By ten o’clock his chaise was bowling away down the avenue, and Carlyon was giving orders for his own carriage to be brought up to the house.