The Nonesuch (13 page)

‘No! Of course they don’t! How can you be so foolish? You are trying to flatter me!’

‘Impossible!
Don’t
you
wish to ride to Bardsey?’

Her face clouded instantly. ‘With Courtenay? No, I thank you!’

‘With me?’

‘With you! But – but you are not going – are you?’

‘Not unless you do.’

A provocative smile lilted on her lips. ‘Ancilla wouldn’t permit it!’ she said, with a challenging glance cast at her preceptress.

‘What, even though Courtenay goes with us?’ He turned towards Miss Trent, interrogating her with one quizzical eye-brow. ‘What do you say, ma’am?’

She had been listening to this interchange with mixed feelings, torn between gratitude to him for averting a storm, and indignation at the unscrupulous methods he employed. Her answering look spoke volumes, but all she said was: ‘I am persuaded Mrs Underhill would raise no objection, if her cousin is to go with Tiffany.’

‘Then I’ll go and saddle the horses again,’ he said. ‘You, Julian, will remain to keep watch and ward over the ladies!’

‘Of course,’ Julian replied quietly.

‘Unless you should choose instead to accompany us?’ suggested Tiffany, blithely forgetting that it had been agreed that two defenceless females could not be abandoned in an ale-house.

‘No, I thank you,’ he said, and turned from her to persuade Miss Colebatch, with his sweetest smile, to retire again into the taproom.

Miss Trent had seen the look of shocked dismay in his face when it had been so forcibly borne in upon him that his goddess had feet of clay; and her heart was wrung with pity. She might tell herself that his well-wishers might rejoice in his disillusionment, but she was conscious of an irrational and almost over-powering impulse to find excuses for Tiffany. She subdued it, strengthened by the saucy look her artless charge cast at Julian before she tripped off in Sir Waldo’s wake. It was abundantly plain to her that Tiffany saw nothing in Julian’s refusal to ride to Bardsey but an expression of jealousy, which in no way displeased her. Tiffany delighted in setting her admirers at loggerheads, and never wasted a thought on the pain she inflicted; and had she been told that Julian was as much hurt by his cousin’s behaviour as by hers she would have been as incredulous as she was uncaring. But Miss Trent’s heart had more than once been wrung by the puzzled look in Julian’s eyes when he had watched Sir Waldo flirting with Tiffany, and she could not help longing to reassure him.

She stayed to see the riding-party off before joining Miss Colebatch and Julian in the taproom. She found them already discussing a pot of tea, Elizabeth reclining on the settle and looking rather more cheerful, and Lindeth not seeming to be in need of reassurance. Miss Trent warmly, if silently, applauded the good manners which prompted him to appear very well satisfied with his situation; and at once seconded his efforts to divert Elizabeth. She, poor girl, was still far from being her usually lively self, for, in addition to an aching head, she was suffering the mortification of knowing that she had ruined what should have been a day of pleasure, and had made her dear friend cry. She could not help laughing when Julian, amongst other schemes for ensuring her privacy, announced his intention of borrowing an apron from the landlady, and carrying tankards out to any thirsty patrons of the Bird in Hand; but a moment later she was wondering whether Tiffany would ever forgive her, and saying, for perhaps the fiftieth time, that she could not conceive what had come over her, or how she could have been so stupid.

‘Well, for my part,’ said Miss Trent, ‘I am glad that some-thing did come over you! I was wishing I had never expressed a desire to visit the Dripping Well, and was never more thankful than when it was decided to abandon the scheme.’

‘You are always so kind! But Tiffany was so set on it!’

‘My dear Miss Colebatch, if Tiffany suffers no worse disappointments than today’s she may count herself fortunate!’ replied Ancilla lightly. ‘I wish you won’t tease yourself merely because she flew into one of her tantrums! You must know what a spoilt child she is!’

‘It
is
that, isn’t it?’ Julian said eagerly. ‘Just – just childishness! She is so lovely, and – and engaging that it’s no wonder she should be a trifle spoilt.’

‘No, indeed!’ she said, adding with what she felt to be odious duplicity: ‘You must not blame Mrs Underhill, however. I daresay she should have been stricter, but her own nature is so gentle and yielding that she is no match for Tiffany. And she
does
so much dread her passions! I must own I do too! No one can be more enchanting than Tiffany, and no one that I ever met can more easily throw an entire household into discomfort! I can’t tell you, sir, how very much obliged I am to your cousin for coming to our rescue as he did!’

He responded only with a quick, constrained smile, and she said no more, hoping that she had given him enough to digest for the present; and had perhaps made him wonder whether Sir Waldo’s conduct had not sprung rather from a laudable impulse to nip a painful scene in the bud than from any desire to cut out his young cousin.

I don’t deny that I was thankful to be spared a fit of strong hysterics,’ Miss Trent told the Nonesuch, when, at the end of that memorable day, Miss Colebatch had been safely restored to her parents, ‘and I can’t doubt that
you
don’t deny, sir, that your conduct was utterly unscrupulous!’

‘Yes, I shall,’ he replied coolly. ‘I did nothing to promote the scene; I refrained from adding as much as one twig to the flames; and when I did intervene it was from motives of chivalry.’

‘From
what
?’
she gasped.

‘Motives of chivalry,’ he repeated, meeting her astonished gaze with a grave countenance, but with such a twinkle in his eyes that she was hard put to it not to laugh. ‘A look of such piteous entreaty was cast at me –’

‘
No!
’
protested Miss Trent. ‘Not
piteous
!
I didn’t!’

‘Piteous!’ said the Nonesuch remorselessly. ‘Your eyes, ma’am – as well you know!! – cried
Help me
!
What could I do but respond to the appeal?’

‘Next you will say that it went much against the pluck with you!’ said Miss Trent, justly incensed.

‘No service I could render you, ma’am, would go against the pluck!’

Her colour mounted, but she said: ‘I should have guessed you would have a glib answer ready!’

‘You might also have guessed that I meant it.’

She found herself suddenly a little breathless; and wished, for the first time, that she was more experienced in the art of dalliance. There was a note of sincerity in his voice; but caution warned her not to allow herself to be taken in by a man of the world whom she judged to be expert in flirtation. She managed to laugh, although rather shakily, and to say: ‘Very prettily said, Sir Waldo! I must give you credit too for having brought Tiffany back to us all compliance and good humour. A triumph indeed!’

‘Fencing with me, Miss Trent?’

She was silent for a moment or two, and when she did speak it was with a good deal of constraint. ‘I think you forget
my situation, sir.’

‘On the contrary: your situation chafes me too much to be forgotten.’

She looked at him in astonishment. ‘Chafes you!’

‘Beyond endurance! You stare! Does it seem so strange to you that I should very much dislike seeing you in such a position?’

‘Good heavens!’ she exclaimed. ‘One would suppose I was one of those unfortunate governesses who, for £24 a year, become drudges! But I’m no such thing! I’m excessively expensive, in fact.’

‘So you once told me.’

‘Well, it’s true. I don’t like to boast, but I can’t allow you to suppose that I eke out a miserable existence on a pittance. I am paid
£150 a year
!’

‘My dear girl, it would make no difference if you were paid ten times that sum!’

‘That shows how little you know! It makes a great deal of difference, I promise you. Females who are paid very high wages are never used like drudges.’

‘You are at the beck and call of a woman I could more readily suppose to be your housekeeper than your mistress; you are obliged to endure impertinence from that abominable chit any time she is out of temper, and patronage from such mushrooms as –’

‘Nonsense!’ she interrupted. ‘Mrs Underhill treats me as if I were one of her family, and I won’t have her abused! I think myself very fortunate, and if I don’t dislike my position there can be no reason for anyone else to do so!’

‘Oh, yes, there can be!’ he retorted.

They had reached the gates of Staples, where the others had pulled up to wait for them. Miss Trent hardly knew whether to be glad or sorry that her tête-à-tête with the Nonesuch had come to an abrupt end; and when he and Lindeth had taken their leave she rode up the avenue to the house so lost in her own thoughts that Courtenay had to speak her name twice before she realized that she was being addressed. He supposed her to be tired; and Tiffany, at her most caressing, was instantly all solicitude. Miss Trent was obliged to take herself to task for harbouring the uncharitable suspicion that her engaging manner sprang from a wish to avert a scold for her previous conduct.

Mrs Underhill said she was quite shocked to think of poor Lizzie’s indisposition, but not at all surprised. She and Charlotte had taken a turn in the shrubbery, which had regularly exhausted her, so hot as it had been. Miss Trent made no mention of Tiffany’s outburst, but when Courtenay came in he gave his mother a full and indignant account of it, stigmatizing his lovely cousin as a devil’s daughter whom he was ashamed to own, and adding that she might as well stop setting her cap at Lindeth, since the veriest clodpole could have seen how outrageous he thought her behaviour.

This was all very dreadful, but, as Mrs Underhill presently confided to Miss Trent, every cloud had a silver lining. ‘For Courtenay told me, my dear, that his lordship was downright shocked, so I shouldn’t wonder at it if he began to hedge off. Very likely it will have given him a disgust of her, for there’s nothing gentlemen hate more than the sort of dust Tiffany kicks up when she flies into one of her miffs. Don’t you think so?’

Miss Trent agreed. She also thought that Courtenay’s disgust was considerably stronger than Lindeth’s, but this she did not say.

‘And it was Sir Waldo that stopped her from going her length, and took her off to Bardsey, which I’ll be bound you were glad of, my dear, though whether it was what
he
wanted to do is another matter!’

The arch note in the good lady’s voice was unmistakeable. Miss Trent’s fine eyes turned towards her involuntarily, asking a startled question.

‘Lor’, my dear, as if I was such a nodcock as not to know it’s you he’s got a preference for!’ said Mrs Underhill, with a fat chuckle. ‘To be sure, I did think at first that he was making up to Tiffany, but for all I haven’t got book-learning I hope I’ve enough rumgumption to know he’s trying to fix his interest with you!’

‘You are mistaken, ma’am – you
must
be mistaken!’ stammered Ancilla.

‘Well, that’s what I thought myself, when I first took the notion into my head,’ conceded Mrs Underhill. ‘Not that I mean you ain’t genteel, as I hope I don’t need to tell you, for I’m sure anyone would take you for a lady of quality, such distinguished ways as you have, which even Mrs Mickleby has remarked to me more than once. But there’s no denying it isn’t to be expected that such a smart as Sir Waldo wouldn’t be looking a great deal higher if he was hanging out for a wife, for from what Mrs M. tells me he’s a gentleman of the first consequence, let alone being as rich as a new-shorn lamb, and has goodness knows how many fine ladies on the catch for him!’

‘Ma’am!’ interrupted Ancilla, in a stifled voice, ‘I am neither a fine lady, nor am I on the catch for Sir Waldo!’

‘No, my dear, and well do I know it! I shouldn’t wonder at it if it was that which took his fancy. If you was to ask me, I should say that there’s nothing will make a gentleman sheer off quicker than the feel that he’s being hunted! Lord! the females that set their caps at Mr Underhill! Of course, he wasn’t a grand town-beau, like Sir Waldo, but he was thought to be a great catch, and might have had his pick of all the girls in Huddersfield. And what must he do but set his fancy on me, just because I didn’t pay any more heed to him than I did to any of my beaux!’

Miss Trent, only too glad to encourage this divagation, said: ‘I don’t think
that
was why he set his fancy on you, ma’am, but I can readily believe that you had any number of beaux!’

‘Well, I had,’ admitted Mrs Underhill, gratified. ‘You wouldn’t think it, to look at me now, but, though it don’t become me to say so, I was used to be a very pretty girl, and had so many compliments paid me – But
that’s
not what I was wanting to say to you!’

Miss Trent, having learnt by experience that however far her employer might wander from the point she rarely lost sight of it, resigned herself.

‘You won’t take it amiss when I tell you, my dear, that when I saw the look in Sir Waldo’s eyes whenever he had them fixed on you, which nobody could mistake, though I’d be hard put to it to describe it to you, if you was to ask me, it cast me into quite a quake, thinking that he was intending to give you a slip on the shoulder, as the saying is.’

‘Dear ma’am, I am – I am very much obliged to you for your concern, but indeed you have no need to be in a quake!’

‘No, that’s just what I think myself,’ said Mrs Underhill, nodding wisely. ‘I’d have dropped a hint in your ear otherwise, you being so young, for all you try to gammon everyone into thinking you an old maid! But, “no,” I said to myself, “a libertine he may be” – not that I’ve any reason to suppose he is, mind! – “but he ain’t making up to Miss Trent meaning nothing more than marriage with the left hand: not with her uncle being General Sir Mordaunt Trent, as he is!” Well, it stands to reason, doesn’t it?’ She paused, eyeing Ancilla in some bewilderment. ‘Now, whatever have I said to throw you into whoops?’ she demanded.

‘Oh, I beg your pardon, ma’am!’ Ancilla said, wiping her streaming eyes. ‘But it is so – so absurd – !’

‘Exactly so! But don’t you tell me he ain’t making up to you, because I’m not as blind as a beetle, which I’d have to be not to see what’s going on under my nose!’

Ancilla had stopped laughing. She was rather flushed, and she said haltingly: ‘I think, ma’am – I think you refine too much on Sir Waldo’s gallantry. I am persuaded he has no other intention than to amuse himself with a little flirtation.’

Mrs Underhill’s face fell; but after thinking it over for a minute, she brightened, saying: ‘No, you’re out there, my dear. It’s Tiffany he flirts with, which, of course, he oughtn’t to do, but, lord, they all do it, even the Squire, and you can’t blame them, so pretty and saucy as she is! But he don’t look at her the way he looks at you – no, and he don’t talk to you as he does to her either! What’s more, if she ain’t in the room he don’t look up every time the door opens, hoping she’s going to come in!’

Her cool composure seriously disturbed, Ancilla said involuntarily: ‘Oh, Mrs Underhill, d
-does
he do so when – Oh, no!
Surely
not?’

‘Lord bless you, my dear, of course he does!’ replied Mrs Underhill, with an indulgent laugh. ‘And if it
is
you – well, often and often I’ve thought to myself that if he was to smile at me the way he does at you I should be cast into a regular flutter, as old as I am!’

Miss Trent felt her cheeks burning, and pressed her slim hands to them. ‘He – he has a very charming smile, I know!’

‘I’ll be bound you do!’ retorted Mrs Underhill. ‘Mark my words if we don’t have him popping the question before we’ve had time to turn round! And this I will say, my dear: I couldn’t be better pleased if you was my own daughter! Not that he’d do for Charlotte, even if she was old enough, which, of course, she isn’t, because, from all I can discover, he’s nutty upon horses, and well you know that she can’t abide ’em!’

Miss Trent gave a shaky laugh. ‘Yes, indeed I know it. But – Dear Mrs Underhill,
pray
don’t say any more! You mustn’t encourage me to – to indulge ridiculous dreams! Sir Waldo knows exactly how to make himself very – very agreeable to females, and, I daresay, has broken many hearts. I am determined he shall not break mine! To suppose that he – a matrimonial prize of the first stare! – would entertain for as much as one moment the notion of contracting so unequal a match…’ Her voice failed; she recovered it again to say, with an attempt at a smile: ‘You won’t speak of this to anyone, I know!’

‘Certainly not!’ said Mrs Underhill. ‘But don’t you behave missish, my dear, and start hinting him away because you think you ain’t good enough for him! That’s for him to decide, and you may depend upon it that a man of five – or six-and-thirty knows what will suit him. It would be a splendid thing for you, let alone making the Squire’s lady and Mrs Banningham as mad as fire!’

On this invigorating thought she took her departure, leaving Miss Trent to her own reflections.

It was long before she fell asleep that night. Mrs Underhill’s blunt words had forced her to confront the truth she had hitherto refused to acknowledge: she had been in love with the Nonesuch for weeks.

Like a stupidly romantic schoolgirl, she thought, dazzled by the aura of magnificence that hung about a Top-of-the-Trees Corinthian, and foolishly endowing him with heroic qualities because he had a handsome face and splendid figure, rode and drove his high-couraged horses with such effortless mastery, and bore himself with an unconscious assurance which cozened ninnyhammers like herself into thinking he was a demigod. Not that she was quite as idiotish as that, of course. She could scarcely help admiring his appearance, but she had not fallen in love with his face, or his figure, and certainly not with his air of elegance. He had considerable charm of manner, but she decided that it was not that either. She thought it might be the humour that lurked in his eyes, or perhaps his smile. But Lindeth had a delightful smile too, and she was not in the least in love with him. In fact, she didn’t know why she loved the Nonesuch, but only that from the moment of first setting eyes on him she had felt so strong an attraction that it had shocked her, because he was clearly the exemplar of a set of persons whom she held in abhorrence.

Caution warned her not to place overmuch reliance on what Mrs Underhill had said. Far better than Mrs Underhill did she know how very unlikely it was that a man of Sir Waldo’s eligibility, who could look as high as he pleased for a wife and must be thought to be past the age of contracting a rash engagement, should entertain the smallest intention of offering marriage to an obscure female who had neither consequence nor any extraordinary degree of beauty to recommend her. On the other hand, the things he had said to her that day, before they had parted at the gates of Staples, seemed to indicate that he had something other than mere flirtation in mind. If that had been all he sought she could not conceive why her inferior situation should chafe him, or why, if he had not been sincere, he should have told her that it did. Pondering the matter, she was obliged to own that she knew very little about the art of flirtation; and hard upon this thought came the realization that she knew very little about Sir Waldo either. He had shown himself to be most truly the gentleman, never above his company, nor betraying his boredom, and never seeking to impress the neighbourhood by playing off the airs of an exquisite. As for exerting an evil influence over his young admirers, she had it on the authority of the Squire that his coming to Broom Hall had done them all a great deal of good. Together with their extravagant waistcoats and their monstrous neckcloths they had abandoned such dare-devil sports as Hunting the Squirrel or riding their cover-hacks up the stairs of their parents’ houses: the Nonesuch never wore startling raiment, and he let it be seen that he thought the Dashes and the Neck-or-Nothings not at all the thing. So instead of rushing into wild excesses as a result of his coming amongst them the youthful aspirants to Corinthian fame (said the Squire, with a chuckle) had now run mad over achieving what their hero would think a proper mode.