Black Sheep

Chapter IV

It was a full minute before Abby could collect her startled wits enough to enable her to speak, and when she did speak it was not entirely felicitously. She exclaimed: “Then I was right! And you are it!”

With every appearance of enjoyment, he instantly replied: “ Until I know what it signifies, I reserve my defence.”

“The skeleton in the cupboard! Only I told Selina it would prove to be no more than the skeleton of a mouse!”

“You lied, then! The skeleton of a black sheep if you wish, but not that of a mouse—even a black mouse!”

Her voice quivered on the edge of laughter. “No, indeed! How—how very dreadful! But how—when—Oh, do, pray, tell me!”

“You shock me, Miss Abigail Wendover!—you know, I do like that name!—Who am I to divulge the secret which has been so carefully guarded?”

“The skeleton, of course!”

“But skeletons don’t talk!” he pointed out.

Preoccupied with her own thoughts, she paid no heed to this, but said suddenly: “That was why James flew into such a stew! Now, isn’t it like James not to have told me the truth?”

“Exactly like him!”

“But why didn’t George—No, you may depend upon it that he didn’t know either! Because Mary doesn’t, though she has always suspected, as I did, that there was something about Celia which was being kept secret. I wonder if Selina knew? Not the whole, of course, for if she had she would never have encouraged your nephew, would she?”

“Oh, no! She wouldn’t, and very likely Mary wouldn’t either, but George,I feel, is another matter. Do enlighten me! Who are these people?”

She blinked. “Who—? Oh, I beg your pardon! I have been running on in the stupidest way!—talking to myself! Selina is my eldest sister: we live together, in Sydney Place; Mary is my next sister: next in age, I mean; and George Brede is her husband. Never mind that! When did you run off with Celia?”

“Oh, when she became engaged to be married to Rowland!” he answered, very much as if this were a matter of course.

“Good God! Do you mean that you abducted her?” she gasped.

“No, I don’t recall that I ever abducted anyone,” he said, giving the matter his consideration. “In fact, I’m sure of it. An unwilling bride would be the very devil, you know.”

“Well, that’s precisely what I’ve always thought!” she exclaimed, pleased to find her opinion shared. “Whenever I’ve read about it, in some trashy romance, I mean. Of course, if the heroine is a rich heiress the case is understandable, but—Oh!” Consternation sounded in her voice; painfully mortified, she stammered: “I beg your pardon! I can’t think what made me say—”

“Not at all!” he assured her kindly. “A very natural observation!”

“Do you mean to tell me that that was why you—you ran off with Celia?” she asked incredulously.

“Well, no! But you must remember that I was very young in those days: halflings seldom have an eye to the main chance. It was All for Love, or the World Well Lost. We fell passionately in love—or, at any hand, we thought we did. You know, this is a damned sickly story! Let us talk of something else!”

“I think it is a sad story. But I don’t perfectly understand how it was that Celia became engaged to my brother if she was in love with you?”

“Don’t you? You should! Were you acquainted with Morval?”

She shook her head. “I might perhaps have seen him, but I don’t recall: I was only a child at that time. I know he was one of my father’s closest friends.”

“Then you ought to be able to form a pretty accurate picture of him. They were as like as fourpence to a groat. The match was made between them. Celia was forbidden ever again to favour me with as much as a common bow in passing—mind you, I wasn’t at all eligible—and ordered to accept Rowland’s offer.”

“I understand her submission to the first order, but not to the second! I too submitted in a like case. It is not an easy matter to marry against the will of one’s parents. But, with one’s affections engaged, to accept another man’s offer, merely because one’s father wished it, is something I do not understand! If Celia was ready to elope with you she must have been a girl of spirit, too, and not in the least the meek, biddable creature we always thought her!”

“Oh, no, she hadn’t an ounce of steel in her!” he said coolly. “She was romantical, though, and certainly biddable: one of those pretty, clinging females who invariably yield to a stronger will! I hadn’t the wit to perceive it, until the sticking point was reached, and she knuckled down in a flood of tears. And a very good thing she did,” he added. “We might have carried it, if she had stood buff, and I should have been regularly in for it I didn’t think so at the time, of course, but I was never nearer to dishing myself. How did she deal with Rowland?”

He had stripped the affair of all its romantic pathos, but Abby could not help wondering whether his apparent unconcern hid a bruised heart. She answered his casual question reticently: “I don’t know. I wasn’t of an age to know. She was always rather quiet, but she never appeared to be unhappy. I see now that she can’t have loved Rowland, but I do know that she held him in the greatest respect I mean, she depended wholly on his judgment, and was for ever saying Rowland says,as though that was a clincher to every argument!”

The slightly acid note on which she ended made him laugh. “An opinion not shared by Abigail Wendover, I apprehend!”

“No!” she returned, her eyes kindling reminiscently. “It was not shared by me! Rowland was a—” She stopped, resolutely shutting her lips together.

“Rowland,” said Miles Calverleigh, stepping obligingly into the gap, “was a pompous lobcock!”

“Yes!” said Abby, momentarily forgetting herself. “That is exactly what he was! The most consequential, pot-sure—” Again she broke off short, adding hastily: “Never mind that!”

“I don’t—and it seems that Celia didn’t either. No, she wouldn’t, of course. You know, the more I think of it the more I feel that they must have been made for each other! Well, I’m glad to know she didn’t fall into a green and yellow melancholy.”

Abby’s brow was wrinkled. “Yes, but—Did Rowland know of—of the elopement ?”

“Oh, lord, yes!” He met her astonished look with a smile of pure derision. “Come, come, ma’am! Where have your wits gone begging? Celia was an heiress! Consider, too, the scandal that would have attended a rupture of the engagement! People must have talked,and nothing could have been more obnoxious to a Wendover or a Morval! The affair had to be hushed up, and you must own that a very neat thing they made of it, between the four of them!”

“Four of them?”

“That’s it: your father, Celia’s father, my father, and Rowland,” he explained.

“Respectability!” she ejaculated bitterly. “Oh, how much I have detested that—that god of my father’s idolatry! Did your father worship at the same altar?”

“No, what he worshipped was good ton. I wasn’t good ton at all, so he was glad of the chance to be rid of me, and I can’t say I blame him. I was very expensive, you know.”

“From what I have heard, your brother was even more expensive!” she said. “I wonder he didn’t get rid of him!”

He smiled. “Ah, but Humphrey was his heir! Besides, his debts were those of honour: quite unexceptionable, particularly when contracted in clubs of high fashion! He was used to move in the first circles, too, which I—er—didn’t!”

“No doubt he would have taken no exception to his son’s ruinous career!”

“Oh, that doesn’t follow at all! Being badly under the hatches himself, he would probably have taken the most violent exception to it. However, he died before Stacy came of age, so we shall never know. Judging by my own experience, Stacy might have got himself into Dun territory at Oxford, but he could scarcely have gone to pigs-and-whistles—unless, of course, he was a regular out-and-outer, which, from what you’ve told me, he don’t seem to be.”

“Were you up at Oxford?” she asked curiously.

“No, I was down from Oxford—sent down!” he replied affably.

She choked, but managed to say, after a brief struggle: “What—whatever may have been your youthful f-follies, sir, I must believe that you have outgrown them, and—and I cannot think that you would wish your nephew—the head of your house!—to—to retrieve his fortunes by seducing a girl—oh, a child!—into a clandestine marriage!”

“But if the poor fellow is rolled-up what else can he do?” he asked.

She said through gritted teeth: “For all I care, he may do anything he chooses, except marry my niece! Surely—surely you must perceive how—how wrong that would be!”

“I must say, it seems mutton-headed to me,” he agreed. “He’d do better to fix his interest with a girl who is already in possession of her fortune.”

“Good God, is that all you have to say?” she cried.

“Well, what do you expect me to say?” he asked.

“Say! I—I expect you to do something!”

“Do what?”

“Put an end to this affair!”

“How?”

“Speak to your nephew—tell him—oh, I don’t know! You must be able to think of something!”

“Well, I’m not. Besides, why should I?”

“Because it is your duty! Because he is your nephew!”

“You’ll have to think of some better reasons than those. I haven’t any duty to Stacy, and I don’t suppose I should do it if I had.”

“Mr Calverleigh, you cannot wish your nephew to sink himself so utterly below reproach!”

“Wish? I haven’t any feelings in the matter at all. In fact, I don’t care a straw what he does. So if you are looking to me to rake him down, don’t!”

“Oh, you are impossible!” she cried, starting up.

“I daresay, but I’m damned if I’ll preach morality to oblige you! A nice cake I should make of myself! I like the way your eyes sparkle when you’re angry.”

They positively flashed at this. One fulminating glance she cast at him before turning sharply away, and walking out of the room.

The Leavenings were forgotten; it was not until she had reached Laura Place that she remembered that the note she had written had been left on the writing-table. She could only hope that it would be found, and delivered to Mrs Leavening. By this time her seething anger had abated a little, and she was able to review her encounter with Mr Miles Calverleigh in a more moderate spirit. Slackening her pace, she walked on, into Great Pulteney Street, so deeply preoccupied that she neither acknowledged, nor even saw, the salutation directed towards her from the other side of the street by her clerical admirer, Canon Pinfold: an aberration which caused the Very Reverend gentleman to subject his conscience to a severe search, in an effort to discover in what way he could have offended her.

It was not long before Miss Abigail Wendover, no self-deceiver, realized that she was strangely attracted to the abominable Mr Miles Calverleigh. Out of his own careless mouth he had convicted himself of being a person totally unworthy of respect, but when she recalled the things he had said to her a most, reprehensible bubble of laughter rose within her. A very little reflection, however, was enough to bring a blush to her cheeks. It was no laughing matter, and strangely depraved she must be to have felt the smallest inclination to laugh at the cool recital of his misdeeds. She knew that he had been expelled from Eton; he had told her in the most unconcerned way, that he had been sent down from Oxford; and it now appeared that he had crowned his iniquities by attempting to elope with a girl out of the schoolroom. Curiously enough she was less shocked by this escapade than by the rest: he could hardly, she supposed, have been much older himself, and it did seem that he had been desperately in love. It was bad, of course, but what was worse was his unblushing avowal of his sins. He had not mentioned them in a boastful spirit, but as though they had been commonplaces, which he regarded with amusement—even with ribaldry, she thought, once more obliged to suppress a reminiscent smile. When she remembered his callous refusal to intervene to save Fanny from his nephew’s designs, however, she had no desire to laugh: she felt it to be unpardonable. He disclaimed any affection for Stacy; and, although he was certainly not in love with the memory of Celia, it was surely reasonable to suppose that enough tenderness remained with him to make him not wholly indifferent to her daughter’s fate.

Recalling, exactly, the closing stage of her interview with him, contempt and indignation rose in Abby’s breast, and she reached Sydney Place in a very uncomfortable state of mind: uncertain whether she most loathed Mr Miles Calverleigh, for his detestable cynicism, or herself, for succumbing to his wicked charm. Quite carried away, she uttered, aloud: “No better than a wet-goose!” a savage self-apostrophe which considerably discomposed Mitton, opening the door at that inopportune moment.

Learning from him that Miss Butterbank was with her sister, she retired to her own room; and by the time she emerged from it she had in some measure recovered her accustomed equanimity, and had decided (on undefined grounds) that it would be wisest not to yield to her first impulse, which had been to pour the story of the morning’s encounter into Selina’s ears. She said nothing about it, merely assuring Selina that she had left a note at York House, to be delivered to Mrs Leavening upon her arrival.

After all, one of the servants was bound to find it, and would no doubt give it to Mrs Leavening.

Fanny, returning from her expedition in time for dinner, seemed also to have recovered her equanimity: a circumstance which would have afforded Abby gratification had Fanny not artlessly disclosed that Miss Julia Weaverham, included in the equestrian party, had told her all about the very civil letter her mama had received from Mr Stacy Calverleigh, heralding his return to Bath at the end of the week. “And when you meet him you will see for yourself—you’ll understand why—won’t she, Aunt Selina?”

Thrown into disorder by the glowing, appealing look cast towards her, Selina lost herself in a tangle of disjointed phrases, from which she was rescued by her sister, who said calmly that she would be happy to make Mr Calverleigh’s acquaintance, and added that Selina must not forget to send him a card of invitation to her evening-party. This, while it made Fanny bestow on her a shy, grateful smile which made her feel that she was a traitress, had the desired effect of luring Selina into an exhaustive discussion of the persons to be invited to meet the Leavenings, and of the arrangements for their entertainment which it would be necessary to make. Nothing more was said about Stacy Calverleigh, but Abby went to bed, later, in a mood of unusual depression, and spent a large part of the night mulling over a problem which grew greater and more insoluble as the minutes ticked past.

She awoke not much refreshed, but, as she sat before her dressing-table, it occurred to her that there was one person who might be able to offer her valuable advice. Mrs Grayshott, a woman of superior sense, not only held Fanny in affection but was the mother of a pretty daughter, and might be supposed to know better than a mere spinster-aunt how best to handle a girl in the throes of her first love-affair. At all events, it could do no harm to consult her, for Abby guessed her to be a safe repository for confidences, and felt herself to be in need of such a repository.

So she presently told Fanny that she would escort her to Queen’s Square, in Mrs Grimston’s stead, that morning, and occupy herself, while Fanny wrestled with Italian grammar under the aegis of Miss Timble, with some necessary shopping. After which, she said, she would pay Mrs Grayshott a visit, and remain with her until Fanny and Miss Lavinia Grayshott were released from the Italian class, and could, with perfect propriety, escort each other to Edgar Buildings.

Fanny, greeting this suggestion with acclaim, said: “Oh, famous! Then I can purchase a new pair of silk stockings, in Milsom Street! I wanted to do so when you were away, but my aunt was feeling too poorly to go shopping, and nothing will prevail upon me ever again to go with Nurse! Well, you know what she is, Abby! If she doesn’t say that the very thing one wants isn’t suitable—as though one were still in the schoolroom!—she sinks one with embarrassment by saying that it is by far too dear, and she knows where it can be bought at half the price!”

Edgar Buildings, in George Street, were situated just within the fashionable part of the town, which extended northward from the top of Milsom Street to the exclusive heights of Upper Camden Place. Failing to discover an eligible lodging for his sister in the equally exclusive district which lay across the bridge and included Laura Place, Great Pultney Street, and Sydney Place, Mr Leonard Balking would have chosen, had he consulted only his own pleasure, to have set Mrs Grayshott up in style there, even hiring an imposing house for her accommodation; but he had, besides his deep affection for her, a great deal of commonsense, and he realized that a large house would be a burden to her, and the long climb up to Camden Place not at all the thing for an invalid. So he had established her in Edgar Buildings, whence she could visit all the best shops, and even, without exhaustion, walk to the Pump Room, or to the Private Bath, in Stall Street. After condemning out of hand a set of apartments which he stigmatized as poky, he was fortunate enough to discover a first-floor suite which he thought tolerable, and everyone else described as handsome. Nearly all the lodgings in Bath were let in suites, and in the best part of the town these generally consisted of some four or five rooms, persons who wished for only two rooms being obliged either to look for them in an unfashionable quarter, or to endure all the disadvantages of one of Bath’s numerous boarding-houses.

Mrs Grayshott’s lodging was one of the most commodious sets of rooms to be had, providing her with bedrooms for herself, her daughter, her maid, and any chance visitor; and it had, besides a spacious drawing-room, a small dining-parlour. Mrs Grayshott, urgently assuring her brother that she and Lavinia could be perfectly comfortable in humbler lodgings, was silenced by his saying simply: “You hurt me very much when you talk in that strain, my dear. You and your children are all the family I have, and surely I may be allowed to stand godfather to you?”

So Mrs Grayshott, whose circumstances were straitened, allowed herself to be installed in lodgings which were the envy of many of her acquaintances; and, since she made no secret of the fact that she owed her apparent affluence to the generosity of her brother, only such ill-natured persons as Mrs Ruscombe ever said that it seemed an odd thing that an impecunious widow should be able to live as high as a coach-horse.

Miss Abigail Wendover, admitted into the building by the very superior housekeeper, was informed that Mrs Grayshott was at home, and was about to mount the stairs when the housekeeper added, with an air of vicarious triumph: “And Mr Oliver Grayshott, too, ma’am! Yesterday he arrived! I’m sure you could have knocked me down with a feather, and as for Madam it’s a wonder she didn’t suffer a spasm! But there! they say joy never kills!”

This news caused Abby to pause, feeling that her visit was ill-timed; but just as she was about to go away she heard her name spoken, and looked up to see that Mrs Grayshott was standing on the half-landing, smiling a welcome.

“Come up, Abby!” she said. “I saw you from the window, and guessed you wouldn’t stay when you knew what had happened! Oh, my dear, such a wonderful, wonderful surprise as it was! I can still hardly believe that I have him with me again!”

“No indeed!” Abby responded warmly. “I am so glad—so happy for you! But you can’t want to receive tiresome morning-visitors!”

“You could never be that! I have one,in the person of Mrs Ancrum, but I hope she may soon take her leave of us, for I most particularly want you to meet Oliver. And also to tell you of a very surprising circumstance—But that must wait until we are rid of Mrs Ancrum!”

She held out a coaxing hand as she spoke, but even as Abby set her foot on the stair two more morning-visitors arrived: Lady Weaverham, accompanied by Miss Sophia Weaverham.

Escape was impossible; Mrs Grayshott had nothing to do but to beg the new arrivals to come upstairs, which they did, Lady Weaverham, an immensely stout individual, beaming goodnature as she heaved herself up the half-flight, and assuring her hostess, rather breathlessly, that she would not stay above a minute, but that upon hearing the news of the safe return of Mrs Grayshott’s son she had felt that the least she could do was to call on her, just to offer her felicitations. “And here, I see, is Miss Wendover, come on the same errand, I make no doubt!” she said, pausing to recover her breath, and holding out a hand tightly enclosed in lavender kid. “Well, my dear, how do you do ? Not that I need ask, for I can see that you’re in high bloom, and if you didn’t buy that delicious hat in London you may call me a chucklehead! Which Sir Joshua tells me I am, but I am more than seven, I promise you, and I can recognize town-bronze when I see it!” She then surveyed Mrs Grayshott out of her little, twinkling eyes, and said: “And quite in your best looks you are, ma’am, which is not to be wondered at! So should I be, if my Jack had been restored to me when I was on the very brink of ordering my mourning-clothes! Now, tell me—how is he?”

“Not in such good point as I could wish, ma’am,” Mrs Grayshott replied, helping her to mount the rest of the stairs, “but you will see how quickly he will recover! You will think, however, that I am presenting a skeleton to you, I daresay!”

If Mr Oliver Grayshott was not exactly a skeleton, he was certainly a very thin young man; and as he pulled himself up from his chair to greet the visitors Abby saw that he was also very tall. The cast of his countenance was aquiline; he had a keen pair of eyes, a mobile mouth, and a look of humour underlying the natural gravity of his expression. She thought, as she presently shook hands with him, that he looked to be older than his two-and-twenty years, but perhaps his disastrous sojourn in India might account for his hollow cheeks, and the tiny lines at the corners of his eyes. His manners were assured, but held a little of the diffidence natural to a boy of strict upbringing. He responded to Lady Weaverham’s flood of questions and exclamations with the courtesy of an experienced man of the world, but betrayed his youth in the quick flush, and stammered disclaimer, with which he repulsed her entreaty to him to lie down upon the sofa.

Thinking that one voluble matron was enough for an invalid, Abby made it her business to engage Mrs Ancrum, almost as overpowering a visitor as Lady Weaverham, in trifling conversation. She was listening, with an air of spurious interest, to an account of the complications which had attended the birth of Mrs Ancrum’s first grandchild, confided to her in an earnest under-voice, when the door opened, and Mr Calverleigh was announced.

Startled, she looked quickly over her shoulder, thinking for an instant that she must have misheard the servant. But she had not: standing on the threshold was Mr Miles Calverleigh, as carelessly dressed as when he had arrived at York House on the previous day, and entirely at his ease. His eyes, glancing round the room, rested for a moment on her face, and she thought that they narrowed in the suspicion of a smile, but he gave no other sign of recognition. Mrs Grayshott and Oliver had both risen, Oliver ejaculating: “Sir!” in a tone of gratification, and Mrs Grayshott moving forward with both hands held out in a gesture of impulsive welcome. “Mr Calverleigh, how kind of you!” she exclaimed. “You grant me the opportunity to repair yesterday’s omission!”

“No, do I?” he said. “What was that?”

She smiled. “You must know very well that I was too much overpowered to be able to find words with which to express my gratitude!”

“What, for dumping that young spider-shanks on your doorstep? I didn’t expect to be thanked for that!”

She laughed. “Didn’t you? Well, I won’t embarrass you by telling you how deeply grateful I am! I’ll make you known to my friends instead! Lady Weaverham, you must allow me to introduce Mr Calverleigh to you—Mr Miles Calverleigh!” She waited, while he bowed with casual grace to her ladyship, and her eyes met Abby’s for a pregnant moment, before she continued her presentation. She ended it by saying: “I must tell you that Mr Calverleigh is our good angel! But for his exceeding kindness I shouldn’t have had my young spider-shanks restored to me yesterday—or even perhaps, at all!”

“Very true, Mama,” intervened her son, “but you are putting him to the blush! Take care he doesn’t cut his stick!”

“Not at all!” Mr Calverleigh responded. “Never have I won more gratitude with less effort! Continue, ma’am!” As he spoke, he thrust Oliver back into his chair, effectually bringing Mrs Grayshott’s encomiums to an end by sitting down beside Oliver, and asking him if he felt any the worse for yesterday’s journey. Oliver had barely time to assure him that he felt as fresh as a nosegay before Lady Weaverham claimed his attention, telling him how delighted she was to make his acquaintance, and how much she liked his nephew. “Such a very amiable young man, and of the first stare! I am sure he has won all our hearts!”

“No, has he indeed?” he replied, with a smile as bland as her own. “All of them, ma’am?”

To all outward appearances blind to the quizzical gleam in Mr Calverleigh’s eyes as they fleetingly met her own, Abby seethed with indignation. Only the recollection that she had appointed Fanny to join her in Edgar Buildings prevented her from following the example set by Mrs Ancrum, who rose at this moment to take her leave. It was evident, from what Mrs Grayshott had said, that he must have accompanied Oliver home from Calcutta; and equally evident that he had thereby conquered the widow’s grateful heart. Mrs Grayshott had called him a guardian angel, which would have made Abby laugh if it had not instead made her so cross. He might have been carelessly kind to Oliver, but he was far from being an angel; and it would have given Abby much pleasure to have told Mrs Grayshott how mistaken she was. But detestable though he was—and never more so than at this moment, when he was all too obviously enjoying her discomfiture—this thought was a mere wistful dream. There could be no divulging the disreputable nature of his past history without running into danger, for once it became known, or even suspected, that he was what Mr George Brede termed a loose fish there was no knowing how much the scandalmongers might discover. Besides, it would be a shabby thing to do: talebearers were odious; and one had to remember that he had paid for his youthful misdeeds by twenty years of exile. It might well be, Abby thought, rather doubtfully, that he had reformed his way of life.

Mrs Grayshott, coming back into the room from having escorted Mrs Ancrum to the head of the stairs, sat down beside Abby, saying softly: “I had meant to have told you. I could see you were taken quite by surprise.”

“Yes, but it is of no consequence,” Abby assured her.

Mrs Grayshott looked as if she would have said more, but her attention was claimed by Lady Weaverham, and no further opportunity for private conversation offered itself, the arrival, a few minutes later, of the daughter of the house, accompanied by Miss Fanny Wendover, creating a lively diversion.

They came in, still sparkling with laughter at some undisclosed joke, and a very charming picture they made: Lavinia, a pretty brunette, with innocent brown eyes, and a shy smile, providing Fanny with an excellent foil. Divinely fair, her beautiful features framed by a Villager straw hat with ribbons as blue as her eyes, Fanny made an instant hit with one at least of the assembled company: young Mr Grayshott, rising to his feet, stood gazing at her, apparently spellbound, until recalled from this trance by his mother, when he gave a little start, flushed darkly, and came forward to shake hands with Fanny.

Abby observed this without surprise: it was seldom that Fanny failed to rouse admiration, and she was looking particularly becoming today. Instinctively, Abby glanced at Mr Calverleigh, wondering how he was affected by the girl’s resemblance to her mother, which was strong enough, she thought, to make him feel a reminiscent pang. If it did, he gave no sign of it. He was critically surveying Fanny; and when Mrs Grayshott made him known to her he caused Abby’s heart to miss a beat by saying, as he took Fanny’s hand: “How do you do? So you are Celia Morval’s daughter! I’m delighted to make your acquaintance: I was used to know your mother very well.”