The Determined Bachelor (29 page)

“Web . . . web?” Sir Basil was utterly baffled. He had no conception of what she was talking about “Come, Diana—try to be calm. You are evidently overwrought about something, but how am I to help if you do not tell me what it is?”

Whereupon Lady Cardovan turned upon him a look of withering contempt. “Livvy believes,” she said slowly, “that I am the child's mother. Well, don't look so shocked. I am not
that
ancient Of course you and I know that isn't true, but it is what all the world shall shortly believe, if I know Livvy. She has got so many things to hide herself that she cannot rest until she has uncovered everyone else's secrets.”

Sir Basil gaped at her. “Good God, Diana! Don't tell me that all this time you have been hiding a
child!
By Jove!”

“Don't be idiotic. I am not the one who has been hiding a child.”

“Well, then, please be so good as to tell me whose child we are talking about.”

“Nicole, of course.”

“Nicole! Why, is she your child?”

“No! Is not she yours?”

“Not to the best of my knowledge. I believe you know as much as I about her parentage.”

Lady Cardovan eyed him suspiciously for a moment. “You are not trying to put me off the scent again, are you?”

“You know I despise hunting, Diana. Pray find some other metaphor. But no, if you insist—” seeing her disgruntled look—“I am not trying to put you off the scent. Rather to the contrary, I am trying to discover some trace of your own. I wish you would not all be so baffling.”

Now Lady Cardovan put back her head and laughed, a long, delighted laugh that infected the Baronet, though he did not know what all the mirth was about.

At last, having recovered herself sufficiently, however, and wiping a tear out of her eye, she was capable of speech.

“Oh, dear! I ought not to laugh, of course! I am sure my reputation has been ruined for good, and yet I cannot help admiring Livvy for her imagination! Only fancy inventing such a tale! She had practically convinced me that we
had
been lovers for years, and hidden away a child in the country,
only to take her back, under the guise of your ward. My dear, it is too delicious!”

“I do not find anything delicious about it,” returned Sir Basil at last, understanding dawning upon him. “I find it disgusting and horrible! What a loathesome creature!”

“No, no—she is not loathesome. Only Russian.”

“Half French, which must explain it. In any case, she has succeeded in damaging your reputation, which is intolerable. I ought to challenge Anastasy to a duel.”

“Really, Basil! You men are extraordinary. What good is that supposed to achieve?”

Sir Basil grunted. For once, he was at his wits' end.

“Well—what else can I do? I am damned if I shall let that sort of lie spread about, only because Livvy has nothing better to do with herself than invent rumours about other people.”

“I do not care about myself so much,” said Lady Cardovan thoughtfully. “At my age, that sort of gossip is more complimentary than insulting. But for Nicole, I do fear it may be very harmful at last. You have not had any hint of it?”

Sir Basil paused to think. “Why, now that you mention it! I hadn't given it any thought, but I have been getting some rather queer looks at the Foreign Office. Strange remarks—Lord Devon winked at me in the corridor only yesterday! Dear me! What are we to do?”

Lady Cardovan looked grave. “I do not know. But something must be done to stop the gossip. I should hate to think of Nicole living under a shadow for the rest of her life, only because of an idle woman's amusement.”

The case was indeed grave, and was discussed at some length. The only sensible course seemed to be to approach the Princess outright and endeavour to persuade her to stop the rumour just as she had begun it. How that was to be accomplished, was for the moment a question neither of them could answer, but at last an idea was agreed upon: Sir Basil should go directly to the Princess and confront her openly. She who loved deceit so much would be incapable of avoiding the truth, when put so plainly.

Sir Basil went, as he had promised, to Grosvenor Square, straight away upon leaving Lady Cardovan. The Princess was at home, by great luck, and the Baronet went promptly to see her. At first she could not be put off; she delighted in twisting about the truth so much, that she could not be persuaded to think plainly at once. But at last even she saw the grimness in
the Baronet's eyes, and having at least a grain of common sense, could not dispute his argument: She had too much to hide herself to risk enraging him. His argument was not so bluntly put as his plea, but it did its work. A much more sober Princess sat that afternoon before her glass, watching her maid dress her hair. If there was a sulk in that smile, held up so brightly before the world on her drive about the Park, it was hardly visible, and the Princess was as skilled at damping out a rumor as at igniting one. Her innuendoes could do as many twists as she liked, and when anyone hinted to her that the Sir Basil Ives possessed a natural daughter, now living beneath his own roof as his ward, she threw up her hands in disbelief. The rumour was not completely smothered, of course, but the worst of the damage was prevented. It was, at least, enough to spare the honour of the imputed figures. As to Miss Newsome and the rumour that Sir Basil was soon to make his declarations of love, the world was very soon put to rest upon that head.

Sir Basil returned to Regent's Terrace with the chief part of his business dispatched, but by no means all of it. The most difficult part seemed yet to be ahead of him. He had left the house that morning in high spirits, for a sleepless night, a long night of examining his heart, had rendered up some knowledge which could not be disputed. He had gone on purpose to Lady Cardovan, hoping to seek her advice upon the subject, but of course he had been prevented by her own news. And now that news, having already caused so much anxiety, must cause him still more, for it very clearly made his own course twice as difficult. Miss Calder, naturally, must be told, if only in order that Nicole might be protected from any gossip. And what would she think of him then? Her good opinion, he did not deceive himself, had yet to be won. It was the greatest wish of his heart that she should think well of him. He did not require any more.

He went, therefore, very gravely to his library upon returning home, and required a footman to seek out Miss Calder. He then poured himself a rather large glass of port, downed it with one gulp, and poured another. It was in this frame of mind that he heard a knock upon the door.

Chapter XXII

When she was summoned by a footman to go to Sir Basil, Anne was sitting at her writing table composing the most difficult document she had ever been called upon to execute. It was, in point of fact, a letter of resignation to her employer, though resembling the commonality of that sort of missive in nothing more than name.

Certainly the feelings with which she set down the few and simple phrases—born out of thoughts anything but few and simple—were a far cry from the feelings with which most governesses, submitting the news of their departure, compose their final words. In a few short weeks—hardly more than a month—Anne had undergone so many transformations that the young woman bent in concentration over her paper was almost a different creature from the one who had first sat at that same desk, writing with the same implements a letter to her brother from London. So vast was the metamorphosis, indeed, that she herself could scarcely recall that girl. In her heart she thought she must have been no more than that—for only the events of the last weeks had taught her to be a woman. And what good, indeed, had it done her? Only forced her to retreat from the happiest life she had ever known; only made her understand with awesome fullness the innocence and arrogance of that past self.

For seven and twenty years, Anne Calder had lived upon the earth indulged by her family, admired by her friends, the happy recipient of everything that love, and a reasonable fortune, and beauty, can provide. And yet she had been bored with her lot; bored, nearly, to extinction. Tedium had been her hourly plight, and only the habit of scribbling, formed at
an early age and brought to maturity with the help of her brother, had eased that burden. But had she not been the luckiest girl in all the world? No, she had not: for her very good fortune had been her greatest bain, and the gifts which others might have envied, had only made her more acutely aware of what she lacked. Only the last weeks had truly opened her eyes to that vacancy in her life, which in the humblest existences is sometimes full. Only the last weeks had taught her that the real meaning of good fortune has little to do with wealth, or position, or beauty, but with the sense of fulfillment which is granted to those who are dearly loved and whose service is appreciated by their loved ones. Strange, that in her first taste of humility, had also come the first taste of that fulfillment.

To all outward appearances, Anne must have gained tenfold in the last month, for it was hardly more than that since she had first set foot in Regent's Terrace. She ought, by having seen the work of her hand and brain brought forth by a noted publisher, and admired by everyone who had seen it, felt a sense of triumph. Even had she not gained such a feeling from knowing herself capable of self-support in a strange city and amidst strange people,
that
triumph ought to have sufficed to fill her with pride. But whatever of triumph was in her heart, was overshadowed by a new sensation of humility, such as she had never experienced in the whole course of her life. Odd, that such a sensation should come now, when she was most prepared for the exact opposite, when all the world would have expected, even condoned, a trace of arrogance.

But what the world expected, or condoned, had never touched Anne very deeply. Her own ambitions were so far removed from the common run of human endeavour that one of the greatest sources of amusement in her life had been to observe the strivings of her fellow beings for riches, admiration, and social position. What others had fought for, she had never valued very highly. Her own ambition had been to achieve a place amongst the great satirists of the world, which she considered a company far more elite than any group of duchesses. And just at the moment when the first step seemed to have been taken toward that goal, she had found it unworthy. Her whole view of things had been transformed, in fact, and she now struggled helplessly to discern her new values, as if she had been a fish swept up upon the shore.

For Anne had undergone a transformation of the heart and soul as profound as any metamorphosis of fish to mammal. She had fallen in love, against all her best instincts, desires, and sense of right, and she now found herself changed beyond all recognition. The process had thrilled her as much as it had startled her—let there be no doubt about that. But it had also left her stunned and shaken. And now, just when she was learning to enjoy her new view of things, she must give it up. It was with the most immense reluctance that she now prepared to return to her old life, with only the achievement she had set out to conquer, and none of the whole new world of light and laughter she had just begun to glimpse.

Let us not, in the words of Ben, “digress from the action overmuch, nor philosophize our heroine into an unnatural, and early extinction. That Sir Basil Ives was the object of her sentiments can come as no great surprise either, though it may amaze the reader a little to discover it, given her former prejudices against that gentleman. The progress from dislike to ardour had been neither neat nor couth, as is generally the case in life. In a novel we may contract it a great deal, and lend it that degree of lucidity which reality usually lacks, much to the dismay of us all. As we have seen, Anne Calder had first found the gentleman “handsome, gentlemanly, and elegant” to the point of stiffness. He had lacked in amiability everything which he possessed in achievement, recognition, and stature. A little later, she was put off by his undue coolness, and then amazed by his spontaneity. She had pitied him his awkwardness with Nicole and every other female he was ever put in contact with: Here was the first sign of her regard for him as a regular human being rather than a character to be satirized in a book. But the dawning of her awareness had come at that moment when she had read over the extent of her first draft of what might have been called “The Determined Bachelor,” and found that where she had always considered herself more than adequately wise, she was here sadly naive. That Sir Basil could not be made a mockery of was evident: at least by one of her own short-sightedness.

Naturally, the dilemma had made her think, for it threatened every supposition she had ever made about human conduct, and her own in particular. It was the opening of her own eyes to her own soul, and the first hint to her heart that she was not the self-possessed young woman she had always thought herself.

It had been only two days after this that she had had the suspicion, from the Princess Lieven, about Nicole's parentage implanted in her mind, and that, more than anything else, made her aware of what she might otherwise have avoided for some time. It was the pang of jealousy and rage (so foreign to her nature heretofore) which had given her the hint. And no matter how she argued with herself, saying that her own situation prevented her even regarding the gentleman in any other light but that of an employer, or the lady as anything more than a kind and condescending patroness, she had not been able to resist the calling from within. And it was in direct proportion to the growth of the suspicion that she had begun to view her true feelings. As it became more apparent to her that she was in danger of losing her heart, Sir Basil had helped along the process by unwittingly (or so she thought) beginning to reveal himself to her. Here was a very different man from the one she had first glimpsed and, with a toss of her head, supposed she might sketch in one or two lines. Complex he most certainly was, and far surpassing everyone she had known before for obscurity. But what she had thought before arose from an icy heart, had begun to seem as if it might really come from a surfeit of feeling. In his own way, Sir Basil struck her as nearly as sincere in his sensibilities as her own dear Ben, a man whom none other had ever approached in her esteem. Certainly he was more passionate: But this new side of his character, revealed as it has been, did little to cheer her. On the contrary, the increasing awareness that he was just that sort of man who might have won her heart—the only man, perhaps—had come jointly with the belief that his own heart was already taken. Even had there been less difference in their stations, that prevented any further thought upon the idea.