Lady of Quality

Chapter 10

It was considerably past noon when Miss Wychwood re-entered her house, and there were unmistakable signs that her uninvited guests had arrived, and were partaking of a late nuncheon in the breakfast parlour. James was halfway up the stairs, lugging, with the assistance of one of the maids, a large trunk; the page-boy was collecting as many of the smaller articles of luggage as he could conveniently carry; Lady Wychwood’s abigail was sharply admonishing him, and warning James to be careful not to let the trunk fall; and Limbury had just come out of the parlour with a tray. He was looking somewhat harassed, as well he might, for the hall was littered with portmanteaux, valises, and bandboxes, amongst which he was forced to pick his way. At sight of his mistress, he looked even more harassed, and begged her to excuse the disorder, in a voice which gave her to understand that it was no fault of his that the luggage was still in the hall. “The coach in which it was packed, ma’am, arrived barely a quarter of an hour ago, and since Nurse wanted something out of one of the trunks, and insisted on searching for it immediately, and was unable to recall in which of the trunks she had packed it, we have been, as you might say, slightly impeded.” He added, in an expressionless tone: “It happened to be in one of the valises, ma’am.”

The abigail took up the tale, bobbing a curtsy, and saying that she was sure she was excessively sorry that Miss should have come home to find her house in such a pickle, which would not have happened if the second-coachman had not fallen so far behind on the road, and if Nurse had not been so foolish as to have packed at the bottom of a trunk what one would have supposed she must have known she would need on the journey.

“Well, never mind,” said Miss Wychwood. “Are Sir Geoffrey and her ladyship eating a nuncheon, Limbury?”

Lucilla, who was looking at the impedimenta in round-eyed astonishment, whispered: “Good gracious, ma’am! What an extraordinary amount of baggage for just a few days! One would think they had come to spend months with you!”

“They probably have,” replied Miss Wychwood bitterly. “Run up and change your dress, my love! I must greet my sister-in-law, I suppose, before I do the same.”

“I will bring a fresh pot of tea for you directly, Miss Annis. Would you care for a baked egg, or a bowl of soup?”

“No, nothing, thank you: I’m not hungry!”

Limbury bowed, set his tray down on one of the trunks, and opened the door for Miss Wychwood to pass into the parlour.

Her brother, his wife, and Miss Farlow were seated at the table, but they all rose, and Amabel tottered towards her, and almost fell into her arms, saying faintly: “Oh, Annis, dearest one, how glad I am to see you at last! How good you are to me! You cannot imagine how much I have longed for you through this dreadfully agitating time! I can’t describe to you what I have been through! Now I can be comfortable again!”

“Of course you can!” said Annis, returning her fond embrace, and gently pushing her back to her chair. “Sit down, and tell me how Tom is!”

Lady Wychwood shuddered. “Oh, my poor, precious little son! He was so brave through it all, even though he was screaming with pain most of the night! Nothing eased it until I ventured to give him a few drops of laudanum, in a teaspoon, which did send him to sleep for a very little while, but, alas, not for long, and I dared not give him any more, for I am convinced it is unwise to dose children with laudanum. And this morning the pain was so much worse that if the trunks had not been packed, and the horses harnessed, I think I must have gone against Geoffrey’s wishes, and taken the poor little love to Melling after all!”

Miss Wychwood cast a satirical glance at her brother. He was obviously discomposed, but he returned the glance with a defiant glare, and said, in minatory accents: “You forget, my love, that it was you who wished Westcott to see Tom!”

“Oh, I am persuaded you were right, dear Lady Wychwood!” exclaimed Miss Farlow, for once in her life stepping opportunely into an awkward breach. “My dear father always said that it was a false economy to consult any but the best medical practitioners in such cases! I daresay this Melling you speak of would have bungled the extraction, but once Westcott had coaxed dear little Tom to open his mouth he whisked the tooth out in the shake of a lamb’s tail!”

“Well, that’s good news, at all events!” said Miss Wychwood. “I collect he is now relieved of his pain, for I heard no screams of anguish when I entered the house.”

“He is asleep,” said Lady Wychwood, sinking her voice as though she feared to disturb the rest of her son, tucked into a crib three floors above her. She directed a wan smile at Miss Farlow, and said: “Cousin Maria sang lullabies to him until he dropped off. I don’t think I can ever be grateful enough to her for all she has done this morning! She even accompanied us to Westcott’s, and was of the greatest support to me through the ordeal. She had the strength of mind to hold Tom’s hands down at the Fatal Moment, which I could not bring myself to do!”

“But where was Geoffrey at the Fatal Moment?” enquired Annis, in seeming bewilderment.

Lady Wychwood began to explain that Geoffrey had been unable to go to the dentist because he had a business engagement in the town, but he broke in on this, well-aware that his loving sister was not one to be so easily bamboozled. “No use trying to come crab over Annis, my love!” he said, laughing. “She’s far too needle-witted! Well, you are right, Annis, and I don’t mind owning that I cut my stick when I saw what a state Tom had worked himself into, kicking, and screaming, and saying he wouldn’t have his tooth drawn! Well, what could I do in such a situation, I ask you?”

“Spanked him!” said Annis.

He grinned, and admitted that he had been strongly tempted to do so, but Amabel uttered a shocked protest, and Miss Farlow said that she knew he was only funning, and that it would have been the height of brutality to have spanked dear little Tom when he was demented with the agony he was suffering.

Annis then withdrew, saying that she must put off her riding habit, and recommending Amabel to lie down on her bed for an hour or two, to recover from so many sleepless nights. As she left the room, she heard Miss Farlow eagerly endorsing this piece of advice, assuring dear Lady Wychwood that she had no need to be anxious about poor little Tom, and telling her that a hot brick had already been put into her bed. “For I gave orders for that to be done before we drove to Westcott’s, knowing that you would be quite exhausted after all the trials you have been forced to undergo!”

Sir Geoffrey, following his sister out of the room, caught up with her at the head of the stairs. “Stay a moment, Annis!” he said. “Something I wish to consult with you about! These new vapour-baths which I hear so much about: do you agree with me that they would be of benefit to Amabel? The state of her health has been causing me grave concern—very grave concern! She insists that she is in perfectly good point, but you must have noticed how pulled she looks! It’s my belief she never has been in high health since her confinement, and this unfortunate business of Tom’s abscess has put her quite out of curl. You would be doing me a great favour if you would prevail upon her to take a course of the baths, which, I’m told, are excellent in such cases.”

She regarded him steadily, and with a disquieting smile in her eyes, which had a discomposing effect on him, but all she said was: “I am sorry you should feel so anxious about her. She is certainly tired, and overwrought, but that was to be expected, wasn’t it, after so many sleepless nights? She seemed, when I was visiting you, to be in a capital way!”

He shook his head. “Ah, she is never one to complain of feeling out of sorts, and, I daresay, would be laid by the wall before she would admit to being fagged to death when you were visiting us! But so it was—not that she will own it!”

“I’ve no doubt she won’t,” said Miss Wychwood. “I have heard, of course, of the new baths in Abbey Street, but I know nothing about them, except that they are under the management of a Dr Wilkinson. And I cannot suppose, dear brother, that if you have failed to persuade Amabel to try a course of them she would yield to any persuasion of mine.”

“Oh, I think she might!” he said. “She sets great store by your opinion, I promise you! You have great influence over her, you know.”

“Have I? Well, I should think it most impertinent to exert it in a matter of which she can be the only judge. But you may be easy! Amabel may remain with me for as long as she chooses to do so.”

“I knew I might depend on you!” he said heartily. “You are wishful to change your dress, so I won’t detain you another minute! I must make haste to be off myself, so I’ll take my leave of you now. I daresay I shall be riding over to see how Amabel goes on in a day or two, but I know I can rely on you to take good care of her!”

“But surely you have brought her here so that she may take good care of me?”

He thought it prudent to ignore this, but halfway down the stairs he bethought him of something he had forgotten to tell her. He paused, and looked back at her, saying: “Oh, by the bye, Annis! You asked me to send the nursery-maid, didn’t you? There was no time for me to send a message to Amabel, so I have arranged to hire a suitable girl to wait on the nursery here.”

“You shouldn’t have put yourself to the trouble of doing that,” she answered, rather touched.

“Not trouble at all!” he said gallantly. “I wouldn’t for the world upset your servants! Maria has promised to attend to the matter this very day.”

He waved an airy hand, and went off down the stairs, feeling that he had done all that could have been expected of him.

By the time Miss Wychwood descended to the drawing-room he had left the house, and Amabel, as Miss Farlow informed her in an audible aside, was laid down on her bed, with the blinds drawn, and a hot brick at her feet. She would have described all the arrangements she had made for Amabel’s comfort, had Miss Wychwood not checked her, and moved past her to greet Lord Beckenham, who had called to return thanks for the previous evening’s party, and was making ponderous conversation to Lucilla. He kissed her hand, and told her that his intention had been to have left his card, but that hearing from Limbury that she was at home he had ventured to come in, just to see how she did.

“Miss Carleton has been telling me that you went out riding this morning. You are inexhaustible, dear Miss Annis! And now I hear that Lady Wychwood has come to stay with you, which must have meant that you were obliged to go to a great deal of trouble! I wish—indeed, we must all of us wish! that you would take more care of yourself!”

“My dear Beckenham, you speak as though I were one of these invalidish females for ever hovering on the brink of a decline! You should know better! I don’t think I’ve suffered a day’s illness since I came to Bath! As for being knocked-up by a small rout—what a poor thing you must think me!” She turned to Lucilla, and said: “My dear, did you tell me that you were going to go for a walk in the Sydney Garden with Corisande and Edith and Miss Frampton this afternoon? I had meant to have accompanied you to Laura Place, and to have had a chat with Mrs Stinchcombe, but I’m afraid I must cry off, now that Lady Wychwood has come to visit me. Oh, don’t look so downcast! Brigham can go with you to Laura Place, and I will send the carriage to bring you back again in time for dinner. You will make my excuses to Mrs Stinchcombe, and explain the circumstances, won’t you?”

“Oh, yes, indeed I will, ma’am!” said Lucilla, her clouded brow clearing as if by magic. “I will run up to put on my bonnet immediately! Unless—unless there is anything you would wish me to do for you here?”

“Not a thing!” said Miss Wychwood, smiling affectionately at her. “Say goodbye to Lord Beckenham, and be off with you, or you will keep them waiting!” When the door was shut behind Lucilla, she addressed herself to Miss Farlow, speaking with cool friendliness. “You too should be off, Maria, if you have pledged yourself to hire a suitable maid to wait on the nursery, which I understand is the case.”

“Oh, yes! I was persuaded it was what you would wish me to do! If I had known one would be needed I would have popped into the Registry Office this morning, on my way home from Milsom Street, only if I had done so I should have been too late to welcome dear Lady Wychwood, for, as it was, I had so much shopping to do that I almost was too late. Not that I mean to complain! That would be a very odd thing for me to do! But so it was, and I saw a chaise drawn up outside the house just as I was passing that house with the green shutters, so I ran the rest of the way, and reached our house at the very moment James was helping Nurse to get down from the chaise. So I gave all my parcels to Limbury, and told him to take them down to the kitchen, and was able—though sadly out of breath!—to welcome dear Lady Wychwood, and explain to her how it came about that you were obliged to depute that agreeable task to me. And then, you know—”

“Yes, Maria, I do know, so you need not tell me any more! These details are of no possible interest to Lord Beckenham.”

“Oh, no! Gentlemen never care for domestic matters, do they? I well remember my dear father saying that I was a regular bagpipe when I recounted some little happening to him which I quite thought would entertain him! Well, I mustn’t run on, must I? You and his lordship will be wanting to talk about the party, and although I should like very much to stay I see that it wants only two minutes to the hour, and I must tear myself away!”

Lord Beckenham showed no disposition to follow her example; he remained for more than an hour, and might have stayed for another hour had not Amabel come into the room. This gave Miss Wychwood an opportunity to get rid of him, which she did quite simply by telling him that Amabel ought to be in her bed, for she was quite worn-out, and in no fit state to have come down to the drawing-room. He said at once that he would go away, and pausing only to express his concern to Lady Wychwood, and his hope that Bath air, and the tender care which he knew well she would receive in her sister-in-law’s house, would soon restore her to the enjoyment of her usual health, he did go away.

Lady Wychwood said, when she was alone with Annis: “How devoted he is to you, dearest! You shouldn’t have sent him away on my account!”

“Yes, I know you have a tendre for him,” said Annis, gravely shaking her head. “I am very sorry to be so disobliging, but I feel it my duty to Geoffrey to keep such a dashing blade away from you.”

“For shame, Annis! It’s very naughty of you to poke fun at the poor man! Keep him away from me indeed! How ridiculous you are!”

“No more ridiculous than you, my dear.”

Lady Wychwood’s eyes flew to her face. “Why—why what can you mean?” she faltered.

“Haven’t you come here to keep Oliver Carleton away from me?” Annis asked her, a little satirical smile lilting on her lips.

Colour flooded Lady Wychwood’s cheeks. “Oh, Annis!”

Annis laughed. “Don’t sound so tragical, you goose! I’m well aware that this absurd notion is Geoffrey’s, and not yours.”

“Oh, Annis, pray don’t be vexed!” Lady Wychwood said imploringly. “I would never have ventured to presume—I was perfectly sure you would never do anything imprudent! I begged Geoffrey not to meddle! Indeed, I went so far as to say that nothing would prevail on me to come to stay with you! I was never nearer falling into a quarrel with him, for I knew how bitterly you would resent such interference!”

“I do resent it, and wish very much you hadn’t yielded to Geoffrey,” Annis replied. “But that’s past praying for, I collect! Oh, don’t cry! I am not angry with you,love!”

Lady Wychwood wiped away her starting tears, and said, with a sob in her voice: “But you are angry with Geoffrey, and I cannot bear you to be!”

“Well, that too is past praying for!”

“No, no, don’t say so! If you knew how anxious he has been! how fond he is of you!”

“I don’t doubt it. Each of us has a good deal of fondness for the other, but we are never so fond as when we are apart, as you know well! His fondness doesn’t lead to the smallest understanding of my character. He persists in believing me to be a sort of bouncing, flouncing girl, with no more rumgumption than a moonling, who is so caper-witted as to stand in constant need of guidance, admonition, prohibition, and censure from an elder brother who thinks himself far wiser than she is, but—if you will forgive me for saying so—very much mistakes the matter!”

These forceful words made the gentle Amabel quail, but she tried, bravely, to defend her adored husband from his sister’s strictures. “You wrong him, dearest! indeed, you do! He is for ever telling people how clever you are—needle-witted, he calls it! He is excessively proud of your wit, and your beauty, but—but he knows—as how should he not?—that in worldly matters you are not as experienced as he is, and—and his dread is that you may be taken-in by—by a man of the town,which he tells me this Mr Carleton is!”

“I wonder what it was that gave poor Geoffrey such a dislike of Mr Carleton?” said Annis, considerably amused. “I would hazard a guess that he received from him, at some time or another, one of his ruthless set-downs. I remember that Geoffrey told me he was the rudest man in London, which I don’t find it difficult to believe! He is certainly the rudest man I ever encountered!”

“Annis,” said Lady Wychwood, impressively sinking her voice, “Geoffrey has informed me that he is a libertine!”

“Oh, no! Has he sullied your ears with that word?” Annis exclaimed, her eyes and her voice brimming over with laughter. “He didn’t sully my virgin ears with it! It was what he meant, of course, when he said that Mr Carleton was an ugly customer whom he would not dream of presenting to me, but when I asked him if it was what he meant all the answer he made was to deplore my want of delicacy of mind! Well! You and I, Amabel, cut our eye-teeth years ago, so let us, for God’s sake, have the word with no bark on it! I should be amazed if a bachelor of Mr Carleton’s age had had no dealings with straw damsels, but I am still more amazed at his apparent success in that line! It must, I conjecture, be due to his wealth, for it cannot have been due to his address, for he has none! From the moment of our first meeting, he has neglected very few opportunities to be unpardonably uncivil to me, even going to the length of informing me that Maria had no need to fear he was trying to seduce me, because he had no such intention.”

“Annis!” gasped her ladyship. “You must be funning! He could not have said anything so—so abominably rude to you!”

She obviously was more shocked by this evidence of Mr Carleton’s crude manners than by Sir Geoffrey’s allegation that he was a profligate. Miss Wychwood’s eyes began to dance; but all she said was: “Wait until you have met him!”

“I hope never to be compelled to meet him!” retorted Amabel, the picture of affronted virtue.

“But you will be bound to meet him!” Annis said reasonably. “Recollect that his niece—and ward—is in my charge! He comes frequently to this house, to assure himself that I am not permitting her to encourage the advances of such gazetted fortune-hunters as Denis Kilbride, or to overstep the bounds of the strictest propriety. He does not, if you please, consider me a fit and proper person to have charge of Lucilla, and doesn’t scruple to say so! I’m told it is always so with loose-screws: they become downright prudes where the females of their own families are concerned! I imagine that must be because they know too much about the wiles of seducers—from their own experiences! Besides, my dear, how can you possibly protect me from him if you run out of the room the instant he is ushered into it?”

Lady Wychwood could find no answer to this, except to say, weakly, that she had told Geoffrey that no good could come of his insisting on her going to stay in Camden Place.

“None at all!” agreed Annis. “But don’t let that cast you in the mops, love! I hope I have no need to assure you that I am always happy to welcome you to my house!”

“Dear, dear Annis!” uttered Lady Wychwood, powerfully affected, and wiping away a fresh flow of tears from her brimming eyes. “Always so kind! So much kinder to me than my own sisters! Believe me, one of the wishes nearest to my heart is to see you happily married, to a man worthy of you!”

“Beckenham?” enquired Annis. “I don’t think I’m acquainted with anyone worthier than he is!”

“Alas, no! I wish very much that he had been able to fix his interest with you, but I know there is no chance of that: you think him a bore, and a bobbing-block, and—I sometimes think—are blind to all his excellent qualities.”

“Oh, no! He is stuffed with good qualities, but the melancholy truth is that however much I may respect a man’s good qualities they don’t inspire me with a particle of love for him! I shall either marry a man stuffed with bad qualities, or remain a spinster—which is the likeliest fate to befall me! Don’t let us talk any more about my future! Tell me about yourself!”

But Lady Wychwood said that there was nothing to tell. Annis asked her whether she indeed meant to take a course of Russian vapour-baths. This made her giggle. “Oh, no, and so I told Geoffrey!”

“Well, he depends on me to persuade you to do so! I told him that I should deem it an impertinence to do any such thing. Is it true that you have been out of sorts?”

“No, no! That is to say, I had a slight cold, but it was nothing! And then, of course, I had all the anxiety about Tom, which has made me look horridly hagged. I daresay that was what made Geoffrey get into one of his ways. Perhaps I might drink the waters, just—just to satisfy him! After all, that can’t do me any harm!”

“Unless they make you feel as sick as I did, the only time I ever took a glass! We shall soon see! Since Lucilla came to stay with me I have visited the Pump Room almost every day, so that she can meet her new friend, who accompanies her mother to the Pump Room. I fancy you have met Mrs Stinchcombe: did she not come to dinner here when you and Geoffrey visited me last year?”

“Oh, yes! A most agreeable woman! I remember her very well, and shall be happy to renew my acquaintance with her. But this Lucilla of yours! Where is she?”

“You will see her presently. She has gone to take a walk in the Sydney Garden, with Corisande and Edith Stinchcombe. She and Corisande have become almost inseparable, for which I am truly thankful! I am extremely attached to the child, but I own I find it more than a little boring to be obliged to go everywhere with her! Chaperonage is no light task, I promise you!”

“No, indeed! I was shocked when I heard that you had taken it upon yourself to look after Miss Carleton. You are much too young to be any girl’s duenna, no matter who she may be. Geoffrey thought you should have restored her to her aunt, and I must own I cannot but feel he was quite right. I don’t mean to say that she is not an agreeable girl: Geoffrey was pleasantly surprised by her manners, which he tells me are very pretty—but what a responsibility to have assumed, dearest! I cannot like it for you.”

“Well, if she were to be with me permanently I shouldn’t like it either,” admitted Miss Wychwood. “She is a lovely little innocent, had never been in Society—what she calls ‘grown-up’ parties—until she came to Bath, and made an instant hit! Already she has I know not how many young men dangling after her, which makes it necessary for me to keep a strict watch over her. To make matters worse, she is a considerable heiress: a sure bait for fortune-hunters! Fortunately, the Stinchcombes have a governess to whom the girls are devoted—even Lucilla likes her, having previously taken the whole race of governesses in detestation!—and so I am able to relinquish Lucilla into her care when it is a question of going for walks, or buying fripperies in the town. I only wish the Stinchcombes lived in Camden Place, but they don’t! They have a house in Laura Place, so that I am obliged to provide Lucilla with an escort when she visits them. However, Mr Carleton gave me leave to engage a maid for her, who, I judge, is to be trusted to fill my place at need.”

“But, Annis, is it so necessary to chaperon girls in Bath? Why, even in London my sisters tell me that nowadays it is quite unremarkable to see two girls walking together without even a footman coming behind them!”

“Two girls, yes!” said Miss Wychwood. “But not one girl alone, I think! Mrs Stinchcombe is an indulgent parent but I am very sure she would not permit Corisande to come up to Camden Place unattended. And in Lucilla’s case—no, no! Out of the question! Mr Carleton has, however reluctantly, confided her to my care until he has made other arrangements for her, and what a horrid fix I should be in if I let her come to harm!”

“He had no right to lay such a charge upon you!”

“He didn’t. He had no alternative but to leave her with me, having himself, as he so gracelessly told me, no turn for the infantry, and not the smallest intention of taking Lucilla into his own charge. I will allow that he has enough sense of his duty to his ward to place her in the temporary guardianship of a—a lady of unquestioned respectability, which I flatter myself I am! But it went sadly against the grain with him to do it, and I fancy nothing would afford him more satisfaction than a failure on my part to guard Lucilla from all the hazards threatening a green young heiress on her first emergence from the schoolroom!” She checked herself, and, after a moment’s consideration, said: “No! Perhaps I am wronging him! He would certainly derive satisfaction from the knowledge that he had been right to doubt my ability to take proper care of Lucilla; but I do him the justice to think that he would be seriously displeased if Lucilla were to come to harm.”

“I wish you had never met her!” sighed Lady Wychwood.

But when Annis presented Lucilla to her that evening she was quite as pleasantly surprised as her husband had been, talked very kindly to her, and later told Annis that it was difficult to believe that such a sweet and pretty-behaved child could be the ward of a man of Carleton’s reputation. She was rather puzzled by Ninian’s presence at dinner, still more by the familiar terms he stood on with Annis, her house, and her servants. He behaved as if he had been a favoured nephew, or, at any rate, a boy who had known Annis all his life and it was evident that he ran tame in the house, and more often than not dined there. She wondered if he was perhaps related to Lucilla, and when Annis disclosed his identity she was at first incredulous, and then so forcibly struck by the absurdity of the situation that she went into paroxysms of laughter.

“Oh, I haven’t been so much diverted since Mrs Preston’s hat was carried off by the wind, and took her wig with it!” she gurgled. “The end of it will be, of course, that they will marry one another!”

“God forbid! What a cat-and-dog life they would lead!”

“I don’t know that. You say they disagree on every subject, but it didn’t seem like that to me, listening to them at dinner. I think they have a great deal in common. Only wait for a year or two, when they will both be wiser, and see if I am not right! They are still only a pair of bickering children, but when they are a little older they won’t bicker, any more than I bicker with my sisters—though when we were all in the schoolroom we were used to bicker incessantly!”

“I can’t conceive of your bickering with anyone!” smiled Annis. “As for Lucilla and Ninian, the Iverleys no longer wish for that marriage, and would—if they are to be believed—strongly oppose it. It wouldn’t astonish me if Mr Carleton opposed it too, for he doesn’t like Iverley.”

“Oh, that settles it!” said Lady Wychwood, laughing. “Opposition is all that is wanting in the case!”

Annis could not help thinking that opposition from Mr Carleton would probably take a ruthless form, impossible to withstand, but she kept this reflection to herself.

She was destined, a few hours later, to be confronted by a dilemma. Lucilla, peeping into her bedchamber on her return from Laura Place, to thank her for having sent the carriage to bring her home, and to tell her how much she had enjoyed her first visit to the Sydney Garden, with its shady groves, its grottoes, labyrinths, and waterfalls, said, her eyes and cheeks aglow: “And Mr Kilbride says that during the summer they have illuminations, and gala nights, and public breakfasts! Oh, dear Miss Wychwood, will you take me to a gala night? Pray say you will!”

“Yes, certainly I will, if your heart is set on it,” replied Miss Wychwood. “Did Mr Kilbride tell you of the galas and the illuminations last night?”

“Oh, no! It was this afternoon, when I told him that I was going to explore the Garden with Corisande. We walked smash into him, Brigham and I, not two minutes after we left the house. He said he was coming to visit you, but he very obligingly turned back, to escort me to Laura Place. Wasn’t that kind of him, ma’am? He was so amusing, too! He had me in whoops with the droll things he said! I do think he is a delightful creature, don’t you?”

Miss Wychwood took a full minute to respond to this, covering her silence by pretending that her attention was concentrated on the pinning of a brooch to her corsage. In truth, she knew not what to say. On the one hand, she felt it to be incumbent on her to warn Lucilla against the wiles of a charming but impecunious man on the look-out for a rich wife; on the other, she neither wished to destroy Lucilla’s innocence, nor—which would be worse—to arouse in the child a rebellious spirit which might, too easily, lead her to flout the authority of her elders, and to encourage Kilbride’s advances.

She compromised. She said, with an indulgent little laugh: “Kilbride’s ingratiating manners and lively wit are his stock-in-trade. Pray do not you, my dear, administer to his vanity by adding yourself to the list of his victims! He is an irreclaimable here-and-thereian, and cannot see a personable female without making up to her! I long since lost count of the silly girls left languishing on his account.”

Her words brought a crease between Lucilla’s brows. She said hesitantly: “Perhaps he found that he didn’t truly love any of them, ma’am?”

“Or that they were none of them as well-endowed as he had supposed!”

No sooner had she uttered these acid words than she regretted them. Lucilla’s eyes flashed, and she said hotly: “How can you say anything so—so detestable about him, ma’am? I thought he was a friend of yours!”

She ran out of the room, leaving Miss Wychwood with nothing to do but to blame herself bitterly for having been betrayed into saying precisely what she had determined not to say. She could only hope that no malicious tongue had informed Mr Carleton that his ward had been escorted through the town by a man whom he knew to be a gazetted fortune-hunter.

It was an empty hope. On the following morning, she went with Lady Wychwood and Lucilla to the Pump Room. Mrs Stinchcombe, who was seeking a cure for her rheumatism by drinking a glass of the famous water every morning, was there, with both her daughters, and Annis led Lady Wychwood up to her at once, and had the satisfaction of seeing the two ladies fall instantly into very friendly conversation. She left them together while she went across the room to procure a glass of the water from the pumper, and was wending her way back with it to Lady Wychwood’s side when she saw Mr Carleton advancing purposefully towards her. She braced herself, but the first words he spoke were quite unalarming. “Well met, Miss Wychwood!” he said cheerfully. “Ought I to condole with you? Are you too a martyr to rheumatism?”

“No, indeed, I’m not!” she replied lightly. “This is for my sister-in-law, not for me! What brings you here this morning, sir?”

“The hope of finding you here, of course. There is something I wish to say to you.”

Her heart sank, but she replied coolly enough: “Well, you may do so, but first I must give this horrid drink to my sister-in-law. I should like, besides, to present you to her.” Another two steps brought her to Lady Wychwood’s side, and she handed the glass to her saying: “Here you are, my dear! I believe it should be drunk hot, so take hold of your courage and gulp it down immediately!”

Lady Wychwood eyed the potion doubtfully, but obediently took, not a gulp, but a cautious sip. She then took a larger sip, and declared that it was not by half as nasty as Annis had led her to expect.

“By which I collect you to mean that it is not as nasty as they tell me the Harrogate water is! You must let me present Mr Carleton to you: he is Lucilla’s uncle, you know!”

Mr Carleton, who had exchanged a brief greeting with Mrs Stinchcombe, bowed, and said that he was happy to make her ladyship’s acquaintance. He sounded indifferent rather than happy, and Lady Wychwood, somewhat coldly acknowledging his bow, was much inclined to suspect that her dear Geoffrey had been mistaken in believing Annis stood in danger of succumbing to this libertine’s fascinating arts. It did not appear to Lady Wychwood that he had any fascinating arts at all: why, he wasn’t even a handsome man! Recalling Annis’s past suitors, all of whom had been blessed with good-looks and distinguished manners, she began to suspect that Annis had been making a May-game of her brother, as (regrettably) she too often did. She could perceive nothing in Mr Carleton that could appeal to any female as critical and fastidious as Annis, and consequently unbent towards him, complimenting him on his charming niece, and saying how much she liked Lucilla.

He bowed again, and said: “You are too kind, ma’am. Are you making a long stay in Bath?”

“Oh, no! That is to say, I hardly know, but not more than a week or two, I think. Are you making a long stay, sir?”

“Like you, I hardly know. It depends on circumstances.” He glanced round, and addressed himself to Annis, saying: “Spare me a moment, Miss Wychwood! I wish to consult you—about Lucilla.”

“Certainly! I am quite at your disposal,” said Annis.

He took civil but unsmiling leave of the two other ladies, and moved apart with Miss Wychwood. No sooner were they out of tongue-shot of her companions than he said abruptly: “How came it about that you permitted Kilbride to escort Lucilla through the town yesterday, ma’am? I thought I had made my wishes plain to you!”

“My permission was not sought,” she replied frigidly. “Mr Kilbride met Lucilla, and her maid, on their way to Laura Place, and turned back to accompany Lucilla.”

“It hardly seems that the maid was an adequate chaperon.”

“I don’t know what you would have had her do,” she said, nettled. “It was not as though Kilbride were a stranger! Lucilla greeted him with pleasure, believing him to be a friend of mine, and I have no doubt Brigham accepted him as such.”

“In which she was justified!”

She heaved an exasperated sigh. “Very well! he is a friend of mine, but I am as well aware as you are, Mr Carleton, that he is not a fit friend for an impressionable and quite inexperienced girl, and I shall do my best to keep him at arm’s length. In future, when I am unable to accompany her myself I will send her out in the carriage! And when she objects, as object she will, I shall tell her that I am merely obeying your orders!”

“But I haven’t given such an unreasonable order!” he said. “I haven’t, in fact, given any order at all.”

“You said that you thought you had made your wishes plain to me, and you might as well have said orders, instead of wishes, for that was what you meant! So detestably top-lofty that you apparently think I must obey your wishes,as though I had no mind or will of my own!”

“Well, where Lucilla is concerned I do think you must,” he said. “Recollect that you took it upon yourself to assume control over her, and not, let me remind you, by any wish of mine! I said then, and I will say again, that I do not think you a fit person to have charge of her.”

“Then I suggest, sir, that you take charge of her yourself!” she said tartly.

“I might have known you would be quick to seize the opportunity to throw me in the close,” he murmured.

She was obliged to laugh. “I collect that is a piece of pugilistic slang, and I suppose I can guess what it means! I only wish it might prove to be true! It would, I daresay, be useless to tell you that it is not at all the thing to employ cant terms when you are talking to a female!”

“Oh, quite!” he said affably.

“You know, you are perfectly abominable!” she said. “And far less a fit and proper person to have charge of Lucilla than I am!”

“You can’t think how relieved I am that you’ve realized that!”he said.

She cast up her eyes despairingly. “I had as well level at the moon as try to get a point the better of you!”

“You are mistaken. You tipped me a settler at our very first meeting, my dear!”

“Did I?” she said, wrinkling her brow. “I can’t imagine how I contrived to do so!”

“No. I am unhappily aware of that,” he replied, with a wry smile. “And this is not the place in which to tell you what I mean!”

Colour rushed into her cheeks, for these words had made his meaning very plain to her. She said hurriedly: “We seem to have strayed a long way from the point, sir. We were discussing Lucilla’s somewhat unfortunate meeting with Denis Kilbride. I shan’t attempt to deny that I regret it, but is it, after all, such a great matter that she should have accepted his escort to Mrs Stinchcombe’s house? What harm could come of it?”

“More than you think!” he answered. “I haven’t sojourned in Bath for long, but for long enough to have arrived at a pretty fair estimate of the amount of tale-pitching that goes on amongst those known, I believe, as the Bath quizzes! Kilbride’s reputation is well-known to them, and I think it of the first importance that Lucilla should not be seen in his company. Tongues are wagging already, and who can say how many of the scandalmongers have friends or relations living in London whom they regale with tit-bits of the local on dits? Don’t think that it was one of these who dropped a word of warning in my ear! It was Mrs Mandeville, with whom I dined last night!”

“Oh, heavens!” exclaimed Miss Wychwood, dismayed. “I wouldn’t for the world have Mrs Mandeville, of all people, think Lucilla to be a coming girl!”

“You have no need to be afraid of that. She doesn’t think it, but she knows as well as I do that nothing can do a pretty innocent more harm than to be seen to encourage the attentions of such men as Kilbride.”

“Oh, nothing! nothing!” said Miss Wychwood fervently. “I can assure you that I shall take good care that it doesn’t happen again!” A rather rueful smile touched her lips. She said, not without difficulty: “I am afraid she is not—not impervious to his charm, and I ought perhaps to tell you that I find it very difficult to know how best to combat this. I think—no, I am sure that I took a false step yesterday, when she was telling me about his escorting her to Laura Place, and how kind and amusing she thought him: I said—funningly, of course!—that I had lost count of the silly girls who had lost their hearts to him, and had been left languishing. If I had said no more than that, it might have given her pause, but when she replied that perhaps he hadn’t truly loved any of them I was betrayed into suggesting that perhaps none of them had been as well-endowed as he had believed them to be. She—she flew out at me, asked me how I could say anything so detestable about him, and fairly ran out of the room. Pray don’t rake me down for having said anything so ill-judged! I have been raking myself down ever since I said it!”

“Then stop raking yourself down!” he replied. “I am not concerned with the possibility that Lucilla might fall in love with him: one doesn’t form a lasting passion at her age, and the experience won’t harm her. All that concerns me is that she should not be beguiled into indiscretion.”

“You don’t feel—it has occurred to me that you might perhaps say something to Kilbride?”

“My dear girl, it is not in the least necessary that I should do so. He may flirt with her, but he won’t go beyond flirtation, believe me! He is no coward, but he is as little anxious to risk a meeting with me, as I am to force one on him. You may rest assured that I shan’t do so, for nothing could be more prejudicial to Lucilla’s reputation than the scandal that would create! Take that anxious frown off your face! It doesn’t become you! I perceive that Lady Wychwood is about to descend on you, so we had better part: she clearly feels it to be her duty to come between us! I wonder what harm she thinks I could do you in such a public place as this?”