Lady of Quality

Chapter 9

By the time Miss Wychwood had said goodbye to the last, lingering guests she was feeling more weary than ever before at the end of a party. Everyone except herself (and, presumably, Mr Carleton) seemed to have enjoyed it, which was, she supposed some slight consolation to her for having spent a most disagreeable evening. Lucilla was in what she considered to be exaggerated raptures over it: she wished it might have gone on for ever! Miss Wychwood, barely repressing a shudder, sent her off to bed, and was about to follow her when she found Limbury in the way, obviously awaiting an opportunity to speak to her. She paused, looking an enquiry, and he all unwittingly set the seal on a horrid evening by disclosing, with the smile of one bearing welcome tidings, that Sir Geoffrey had arrived in Bath, and wished her to give him a look-in before she retired to bed.

“Sir Geoffrey?” she repeated blankly. “Here? Good God, what can have happened to bring him to Bath at this hour of the night?”

“Now, don’t you fret yourself, Miss Annis!” Limbury said, in a fatherly way. “It’s no worse than the toothache which Master Tom has, and which my lady thinks may be an abscess, so she wishes to take him instantly to Mr Westcott. Sir Geoffrey arrived twenty minutes before you went down to supper, but when he saw you was holding a rout-party he charged me not on any account to say a word to you about it until the party was over, him being dressed in his riding-habit, and not having brought with him his evening attire, and not wishing to attend the rout in all his dirt. Which is very understandable, of course. So I directed Jane to make up the bed in the Blue bedchamber, miss, and myself carried up supper to him, which is what I knew you would wish me to do.”

Miss Farlow, who had paused in her rather ineffective attempts to restore the drawing-room to order, to listen to this interchange, exclaimed: “Oh, poor Sir Geoffrey! If only I had known! I would have run up immediately to make sure that he was comfortable—not that I mean to say Jane is not to be trusted, for she is a very dependable girl, but still—! Dear little Tom, too! His papa must be in agonies,for nothing is worse than the pain one undergoes with the toothache, particularly when an abscess forms, as well I know, for never shall I forget the torture I suffered when I—”

“It is Tom who has the toothache, not Geoffrey!” snapped Miss Wychwood, interrupting this monologue without ceremony.

“Well, I know, dearest, but the sight of one’s child’s suffering cannot but cast a fond parent into agonies!” said Miss Farlow.

“Oh, fiddle!” said Annis, and went upstairs to rap on the door of the Blue bedchamber.

She found her brother flicking over the pages of the various periodicals with which Limbury had thoughtfully provided him. A decanter of brandy stood on a small table at his elbow, and he held a glass in his hand, which, on his sister’s entrance, he drained, before setting it down on the table, and rising to greet her. “Well, Annis!” he said, planting a chaste salute upon her cheek. “I seem to have come to visit you at an awkward moment, don’t I?”

“I certainly wish you had warned me of it, so that I might have had time to prepare for your visit.”

“Oh, no need to worry about that!” he said. “Limbury has looked after me very well. The thing was there was no time to warn you, because I was obliged to leave Twynham in a bang. I daresay Limbury will have told you what has brought me here?”

“Yes, I understand Tom has the toothache,” she replied.

“That’s it,” he nodded. “It became suddenly worse this afternoon, and we fear there may be an abscess forming at the root. Ten to one, it’s no more than a gumboil, but nothing will do for Amabel but to bring him to Bath so that Westcott may see it, and judge what is best to be done.”

Something in his manner, which was much that of a man airily reciting a rehearsed speech, made her instantly suspicious. She said: “It seems an unnecessarily long way to bring a child to have a tooth drawn. Surely you would be better advised to take him to Frome?”

“Ah, you are thinking of old Melling, but Amabel has no faith in him. We have been strongly recommended to take Tom to Westcott. It doesn’t do, you know, to ignore advice from a trustworthy source. So I have ridden over ahead of Amabel, to arrange for Westcott to do whatever he thinks should be done tomorrow, and to ask you, my dear sister, if they may come to stay with you for a day or two.”

“They?” said Annis, filled with foreboding.

“Amabel and Tom,” he explained. “And Nurse, of course, to look after the children.”

“Is Amabel bringing the baby too?” asked Miss Wychwood, in a voice of careful control.

“Yes—oh, yes! Well, Amabel cannot manage Tom by herself, and she can’t be expected to leave Baby without Nurse to take care of her, you know. But they won’t be the least trouble to you, Annis! In this great house of yours there must be room for two small children and their nurse!”

“Very true! Equally true that they won’t be any trouble to me! But they will make a great deal of trouble for my servants, who are none of them accustomed to working in a house which contains a nursery to be waited on! So, if you mean to saddle me with your family, I beg you will also include the maid who waits on Nurse in the party!”

“Of course if it is inconvenient for you to receive my family—”

“It is extremely inconvenient!” she interrupted. “You know very well that I have Lucilla Carleton staying with me, Geoffrey! I am astonished that you should expect me to entertain Amabel and your children at such a moment!”

“I must say I should have thought your own family had a greater claim on you than Miss Carleton,” he said, in an offended voice.

“You haven’t any claim on me at all!” she flashed. “Nor has Lucilla! Nor anyone! That’s why I left Twynham, and came to Bath, to be my own mistress, not to be accountable to you or to anyone for what I choose to do, and not to grow into a spinster aunt! Particularly not that! Like Miss Vernham, who is only valued for the help she gives her sister, can be depended on to look after the children whenever Mr and Mrs Vernham wish to go junketing to London! but at other times is very much in the way. She can’t escape, because she hasn’t a penny to fly with. But I have a great many pennies, and I did escape!”

“You are talking wildly!” he said. “I should like to know what demands have ever been made of you when you lived with us!”

“Oh, none! But if one lives in another person’s house one is bound to share in the tasks which arise, and who can tell how long it would have been before you and Amabel fell into the way of saying: ‘Oh, Annis will look after it! She has nothing else to do!’”

“I really believe your senses are disordered!” he exclaimed. “All this scolding merely because I have ventured to ask you to shelter my wife and children for a few days! Upon my word, Annis—”

“You didn’t ask me, Geoffrey! You made it impossible for me to refuse by arranging for Amabel to set out for Bath tomorrow morning, knowing that I should be forced to let them stay here.”

“Well, I was obliged to make all possible haste, when Tom was crying with pain,” he said sulkily. “He was awake all last night, let me tell you, and here are you expecting me to write you a letter through the post, and wait for you to answer it!”

“Not at all! What I should have expected you to do, had I known anything about it, would have been to have taken Tom to Melling immediately he complained of the toothache—whatever Amabel’s opinion of his skill may be! Good God, how much skill is required to pull out a milk-tooth? Why, I daresay Dr Tarporley would have whisked it out in a trice, and spared Tom his sleepless night!”

This left Sir Geoffrey with nothing to say. He looked discomfited, and sought refuge in wounded dignity. “No doubt it will be best for me to hire a suitable lodging in the town!”

“Much best—except that it would set all the Bath quizzes’ tongues wagging! I will give orders in the morning for rooms to be prepared, but I am afraid I shan’t be able to entertain Amabel as I should wish: I have a great many engagements which I must keep, in addition to accompanying Lucilla when she goes out. That, since her uncle has entrusted her to my care, is, you will agree, an inescapable duty!”

On this Parthian shot, she left the room. She was still seething with anger, for her brother’s demeanour and lame excuses for his descent on her had confirmed her suspicion that his real reason was an obstinate determination to prevent any intimacy between her and Oliver Carleton. Amabel was to be planted in her house as a duenna—though what Geoffrey imagined Amabel (poor little goose!) could do to prevent her doing precisely as she chose only he knew! She was too angry to consider whether what seemed to her to be unwarrantable interference might not be a clumsy but well-meaning attempt to protect her from one whom he believed to be a dangerous rake; and the sight of Miss Farlow, hovering on the threshold of her bedchamber did nothing to assuage her wrath. She had no doubt that Miss Farlow was responsible for Geoffrey’s sudden arrival, and it would have afforded her great pleasure to have shaken the irritating titter out of that meddlesome old Tabby, and have boxed her ears into the bargain. Suppressing this most unladylike impulse, she said coldly: “Well, Maria? What is it you want?”

“Oh!” said Miss Farlow, in a flutter. “Nothing in the world, dear Annis! I was just wondering whether dear Sir Geoffrey has everything he needs! If only Limbury had told me of his arrival I should have slipped away from the party, and attended to his comfort, as I hope I need not assure you, for it is my business to provide for your visitors, is it not? And even such excellent servants as our good Limbury, you know—”

“Limbury is far more capable than you, cousin, to provide for Sir Geoffrey’s needs,” interposed Miss Wychwood, putting considerable force on herself to hold her temper in check. “If anything should be wanting, Sir Geoffrey will ring his bell! I advise you to go to bed, to recruit your strength for the task that lies before you tomorrow! I shall require you to provide for several more visitors! Goodnight!”

A night’s repose restored much of Miss Wychwood’s shaken equilibrium, and she was able to confront her brother over the breakfast cups with tolerable composure. She asked him, quite pleasantly, whether he wished her to provide accommodation for him during Amabel’s stay, and accepted, without betraying the relief she felt, his prosy explanation of why circumstances prevented him from staying beyond the time of Amabel’s arrival. This instantly made Miss Farlow break into a flood of protestations, in which (she said) she knew well dear Annis would join her. “I am persuaded dear Lady Wychwood must need your support through the approaching ordeal!” she said. “Such a time as it is, too, since you last came to stay in Bath, for I don’t count the scrap of a visit you paid us the other day! And if you are thinking that there is no room for you, there can be no difficulty about that,for you and dear Lady Wychwood can be perfectly comfortable in the Green room, which can be made ready for you in a trice. You have only to say the word!”

“If he can edge one in!” said Miss Wychwood dryly.

Sir Geoffrey gave a snort of laughter, and exchanged a glance pregnant with meaning with her. As little as any man did he welcome conversation at the breakfast-table, and it was probable that he had never liked Miss Farlow less than when he came under the full fire of her inconsequent chatter.

“When am I to expect Amabel to arrive?” asked Miss Wychwood smoothly.

“Well, as to that, I can’t precisely answer you,” he replied, looking harassed. “She has the intention of starting out betimes, but with all the business of packing, and seeing to it that Nurse hasn’t forgotten anything—which very likely she will, because excellent though she is in her management of the children she has no head—none at all! When we took Tom to visit his grandparents last year, we had to turn back three times! I can tell you it tried my patience sadly, and I was provoked into declaring that I would never undertake a journey in her company again! Or in Tom’s!” he added, with a reluctant grin. “The thing is, you know, that he is a bad traveller! Feels sick before one has gone a mile, and after that one has to be for ever pulling up, to lift him down from the chaise to be sick in the road—poor little fellow!”

This perfunctory rider made Miss Wychwood break into laughter, in which he somewhat sheepishly joined her. “Now I know what the circumstances are which make your immediate return to Twynham quite imperative!” she said.

“Well, I hope I am not an unfeeling parent, but—well, you know how it is, Annis!”

“I can hazard a guess at all events! It has not yet been my fate to travel with a child afflicted with carriage-sickness, I thank God!”

“Oh, it quite wrings my heart to think of that sweet little boy being sick, for there is nothing more miserable!” broke in Miss Farlow. “Not that I am myself a bad traveller, for I daresay I could drive from one end of the country to the other without experiencing the least discomfort, but I well remember how ill my particular friend, Miss Aston, always felt, even in hackney carriages. She is dead now, poor dear soul, though not in a hackney carriage, of course.”

Judging from her brother’s expression that he was on the brink of delivering himself of a hasty snub, Miss Wychwood intervened, to suggest to her garrulous companion that if she had finished her breakfast she should go to talk to Mrs Wardlow about the arrangements to be made for Lady Wychwood, her children, her nurse, her dresser, and the nurse’s maid. Miss Farlow expressed the utmost willingness to do so, and instantly plunged into a minute description of the plans she had already formulated. Miss Wychwood checked her by saying: “Later, Maria, if you please! Domestic details are not interesting to Geoffrey!”

“No, indeed! Gentlemen never take any interest in them, do they? My own dear father was always used to say—”

She was interrupted by the impetuous entrance of Lucilla, so they never learned what the late Mr Farlow was always used to say. Lucilla was full of apologies for being so late. “I can’t think how I came to oversleep, except that I wasn’t called! Oh, how do you do, Sir Geoffrey! My maid told me you arrived in the middle of the party: were you too tired to join it? I wish you might have done so, for it was a truly splendid party, wasn’t it, ma’am?”

Miss Wychwood laughed, told her to pull the bell for a fresh pot of tea, and said that she had given orders she was not to be disturbed. “Indeed, I meant to have your breakfast carried up to you as soon as you woke,” she said.

“Oh, yes, Brigham told me so, but I am not in the least fagged, and I can’t bear having my breakfast in bed! The crumbs get into it, and the tea gets spilt over the sheet. Besides, I am to ride my mare this morning, and how dreadful it would be if I were late! Did my uncle tell you when he means to bring the horses round, ma’am?”

“No,” replied Miss Wychwood, aware that Sir Geoffrey had stiffened alarmingly. “To own the truth, I had forgotten we were to ride out today. I have had other things to think of. My sister-in-law is bringing her children to stay with me, and I am not very sure when they will arrive.”

“Oh!” Lucilla said blankly. “I didn’t know. Does it mean that you can’t go with us? Pray don’t cry off, ma’am!”

His evil genius prompted Sir Geoffrey to utter unwise words. “My dear young lady,” he said kindly, “you must not expect my sister to jaunter off on an expedition of pleasure, leaving no one to receive Lady Wychwood!”

“No. Of course not,” Lucilla agreed politely, but in a disappointed tone.

Now, Miss Wychwood had decided, many hours before, not to ride out in Mr Carleton’s company, not even to see him. She had had the intention of charging Lucilla with a formal message of regret. That, she thought, would teach him a salutary lesson. But no sooner had Sir Geoffrey spoken than her hackles rose, and she said: “As to that, Mrs Wardlow will be only too happy to receive Amabel, and to be granted an opportunity to dote on the children, besides discussing with Amabel all the nursery details which they both find so absorbing, and in which I take no interest.” She rose as she spoke, saying: “I must go and tell Miss Farlow what I wish her to do for me this morning.”

“You will ride with us?” Lucilla cried eagerly.

Miss Wychwood nodded smilingly, and left the room. She was almost immediately followed by Sir Geoffrey, who caught her up as she was about to mount the stairs. “Annis!” he said commandingly.

She paused, and looked over her shoulder at him. “Well, Geoffrey?”

“Come into the library! I can’t talk to you here!”

“There is no need for you to talk to me anywhere. I know what you wish to say, and I have no time to waste in listening to it”

“Annis, I must insist—”

“Good God, will you never learn wisdom?” she exclaimed.

“Wisdom! I have more of that than you, I promise you!” he said angrily. “I will not stand by and watch my sister compromising herself!”

“Doing what?”she gasped, taken-aback. “Don’t be such a dummy, Geoffrey! Compromise myself indeed! By going for a morning’s ride with Lucilla, her uncle, and Ninian Elmore? You must have windmills in your head!”

She began to go upstairs, but he halted her, stretching up an arm to grasp her wrist. “Wait!” he ordered. “I warned you to have nothing to do with Carleton, but so far from paying any heed you have positively encouraged him to pursue you! He has dined here, and you have even dined with him at his hotel—and in a private parlour! I had not thought it possible you could behave with such impropriety! Ah, you wonder, I daresay, how I should know that!”

“I know exactly how you know it,” she said, with a disdainful curl of her lip. “I don’t doubt Maria has kept you informed of everything I do! That is why you are here today, and why you have bullocked Amabel into coming to keep an eye on me! Before you accuse me of impropriety, I recommend you to consider your own conduct! I can conceive of few more improper things than to have permitted Maria to report to you on my actions, and few things more addlebrained than to have believed them when anyone but a gudgeon must have realized that they sprang from the jealousy of a very stupid woman!”

She wrenched herself free from his hold on her wrist, and went swiftly upstairs, only pausing when he said weakly that Maria had only done what she thought to be her duty, to say dangerously: “I would remind you, brother, that it is I who am Maria’s employer, not you! I will add that I keep no disloyal servants in my house!”

Five minutes later she was giving Miss Farlow precise instructions about the shopping she wished her to undertake. As these included a command to obtain from Mrs Wardlow a list of the various items of infant diet which would be needed, Miss Farlow showed signs of taking umbrage, and said, bridling, that she fancied she was quite as well qualified as the housekeeper to decide what were the best things to give children to eat.

“Please do as you are told!” said Miss Wychwood coldly. “You need not trouble yourself to prepare the necessary bedchambers: Mrs Wardlow and my sister will settle that between them. Now, if there is anything you wish to know that I’ve not told you, pray tell me what it is immediately! I am going out, and shall be away all the morning.”

“Going out?” exclaimed Miss Farlow incredulously. “You cannot mean that you are going on this riding expedition when dear Lady Wychwood may arrive at any moment!”

If anything had been needed to strengthen Miss Wychwood’s resolve, that tactless speech supplied the necessary goad. She said: “Certainly I mean it.”

“Oh, I am persuaded Sir Geoffrey won’t permit it! Dear Miss Annis—” She broke off, quailing before the fiery glance cast at her.

“Let me advise you, cousin, not to meddle in what in no way concerns you!” said Miss Wychwood. “You have worn my patience very thin already! I shall have a good deal to say to you later, but I’ve no time now to waste. Will you be kind enough to send Jurby up to me?”

Considerably alarmed by this unprecedented severity, Miss Farlow became flustered, and plunged into an incoherent speech, partly apologetic, partly self-exculpatory, but she did not get very far with it, for Lucilla came running up the stairs, to inform Miss Wychwood that Mr Carleton’s groom had just called with a message from his master: if it was convenient to the ladies, he would bring the horses to Camden Place at eleven o’clock.

“So I said it was convenient! That was right, wasn’t it?”

“Quite right but we shall have to make haste into our riding-habits.”

Miss Farlow uttered a sound between a hen-like cluck and a moan, and wrung her hands together, which had the effect of making Annis turn on her, and to say, in an exasperated voice: “Maria, will you have the goodness to send Jurby to me at once? Pray don’t make it necessary for me to ask you a third time!”

Miss Farlow scuttled away. Lucilla, wide-eyed with surprise, asked: “Are you vexed with her, ma’am? I never heard you speak so crossly to her before!”

“Yes, I am a trifle vexed: she is the most tiresome creature! Her tongue has been running on wheels ever since we sat down to breakfast. But never mind that! Run and change your dress!”

Lucilla, having assured her that she could scramble into her habit in the twinkling of a bedpost, darted off to her own chamber, and if (thanks to Brigham) she did not actually scramble into her habit she was ready before her hostess. By the time Miss Wychwood came downstairs, Mr Carleton and Ninian had arrived, and Lucilla was cooing over a very pretty gray mare, patting and stroking her, and feeding her with sugar-lumps. Ninian, who had borrowed a well ribbed-up hack from one of his new acquaintances, was pointing out all the mare’s good points to her; and Mr Carleton, who had dismounted from his chestnut, was holding his own and Miss Wychwood’s bridles, and when Miss Wychwood came out of the house he handed both to his groom, making it plain that he meant to put her up into the saddle himself. She went forward, greeting him with a good deal of reserve, and without her usual delightful smile. He took her hand, and surprised her by saying quietly: “Don’t look so sternly at me! Did I offend you very much last night?”

She said, rather stiffly: “I must suppose you meant to do so, sir.”

“Yes,” he answered. “I did mean to. But afterwards I wished I had cut out my tongue before I said such things to you. Forgive me!”

She was not proof against this blunt apology. She had not expected it; and when she answered him her voice was a little unsteady. “Yes—of course I forgive you! Pray say no more about it! What a—a prime ‘un you have bought for Lucilla! You will be first-oars with her hereafter!”

She gathered her bridle, and allowed him to take her foot between his hands. He threw her up into the saddle where she quickly settled herself, while the mare danced on impatient hooves.

“Bit fresh, ma’am!” warned the groom.

“Yes, because she hasn’t been out for three days, poor darling! She’ll settle down when the saddle has had time to get warm to her back. Stand away, if you please! Now, steady, Bess! Steady! You can’t gallop through the town!”

“By Jupiter, you’re a regular out-and-outer, ma’am!” exclaimed Ninian, watching the mare’s playful and unavailing attempts to unseat her. “I’ll go bail you set a splitting pace in the hunting-field!”

“That sounds as though you take me for a thruster!” she retorted. “Have you decided which way we are to go?”

“Yes, up on to Lansdown—unless you had liefer go somewhere else, ma’am?”

“No, not at all: Lansdown let it be! Well, Lucilla? How do you like her?”

“Oh, beyond anything great!” Lucilla said ecstatically. The groom had mounted her, and she was groping for her stirrup-leather under her skirt. “Oh, botheration!”

“Here, I’ll do that for you!” Ninian said. “Do you want it shortened or lengthened?”

“Shortened, please. Just one hole, I think. Yes, that is exactly right! Thank you!”

He tested the girths, tightened them, told her sternly to remember that her hand was strange to the mare, and to be careful what she was about, and swung himself into his own saddle. They then set forward, Lucilla and Ninian leading the way, and Mr Carleton, following close on their heels with Miss Wychwood beside him, keeping a critical eye on his ward. He seemed soon to be satisfied that a perfect understanding between the gray mare and her rider was in a fair way to becoming established, for he withdrew his gaze from them, and turned his head to speak to Miss Wychwood, saying: “No need to follow so closely: she seems to know how to handle strange horses.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “Ninian assured me that I had no need to worry about her for she was a capital horsewoman.”

“She should be,” he responded. “My brother threw her into the saddle when she was hardly out of leading-strings.”

“Yes,” she said again. “She told me that.”

Silence fell between them. It was not broken until they had drawn clear of the town, and Ninian and Lucilla, once off the stones, were trotting some way ahead. Mr Carleton said then, in his direct fashion: “Are you still angry with me?”

She started a little, for she had been lost in her own thoughts, and replied, with an uncertain laugh: “Oh, no! I’m afraid I was woolgathering!”

“If you are no longer angry with me, who, or what, has put you all on end?”

“I—I’m not all on end!” she stammered. “Why—why should you think I am, merely because I let my thoughts wander for a minute or two?”

He appeared to give this question consideration. A slight frown drew his brows together, and a searching look between narrowed eyes, staring between his horse’s ears into the middle distance, failed to provide him with an answer, for, after a short pause, he smiled wryly, and said: “I don’t know. But I do know that something has happened to put you in a passion, which you are trying to bottle up.”

“Oh, dear!” she sighed. “Is it so obvious?”

“To me, yes,” he replied curtly. “I wish you will tell me what has destroyed your tranquillity, but if you don’t choose to do so I won’t press you. What would you wish to talk about?”

She turned her head to look at him wonderingly, a smile wavering on her lips, and in her mind the thought that he was strangely incalculable. At one moment, he could be brusque, and unfeeling; and then, when he had made her blazingly angry, his mood seemed to change, and her resentment was dispelled by the sympathy, however roughly expressed, which she heard in his voice, and detected in the softened look in his eyes. Now, as she met those penetrating eyes, she saw the hint of a smile in them, and was conscious of an impulse to admit him, at least a little way, into her confidence. There was no one else to whom she could unburden herself, and she badly needed a safe confidant, for the more she kept her rancour to herself the greater it grew. Why she should consider Mr Carleton a safe confidant was a question it never occurred to her to ask herself: she felt it, and that was enough.

She hesitated, and after a moment he said in a matter-of-fact way: “You had better open the budget, you know, before all that seething wrath in you forces off the lid you’ve clamped down on it, and scalds everything within sight.”

That made her laugh. She said: “Like a pot of boiling water? That would be very shocking! It’s true that I am out of temper, but it’s no great matter. My brother arrived in Camden Place last night, to inform me that he was planting his wife, his two children, their nurse, and—I conjecture!—my sister-in-law’s abigail, upon me today, for—according to himself!—a few days! Without warning, if you please! I am very fond of my sister-in-law, but it vexed me very much!”

“I imagine it might. Why are you to be subjected to this invasion?”

Her eyes kindled. “Because he—” She stopped, realizing suddenly that it was impossible to disclose to Mr Carleton, of all people, Sir Geoffrey’s true reason. “Because Tom—my small nephew—has the toothache!” she said.

“You must think of something better than that!” he objected. “I daresay you believe me to be a cabbage-head, but you are mistaken: I’m not! And swallow that clanker I can’t!”

“I don’t think anything of the sort,” she retorted. “If you want the truth, I believe you to be a most complete hand, awake upon every suit!”

“Then you should know better than to try to tip me the double,” he said. “Bring his entire family to Bath because Tom has the toothache? What a Banbury story!”

“Well, I must own it does sound like one, but it isn’t. My sister-in-law is—is set on taking Tom to the best dentist possible, and has had Westcott recommended to her. If you think that ridiculous, so do I!”

“I think it is a damned imposition!” he said roundly. “Oh, you are not accustomed to the language I use, are you? Accept my apologies, ma’am!”

“Willingly! You have exactly expressed my feelings! To overset all my arrangements without so much as a by your leave makes me so out of reason cross that I want to rip and tear! You need not tell me that I am building a mountain out of a molehill, for I know I am!”

“Oh, no, I shan’t! You are far too well-bred to vent your wrath on Wychwood, so rip and tear at me instead!”

“Don’t be so absurd! You are not—in this instance—the cause of my vexation!”

“Oh, don’t let that weigh with you! I will confidently engage myself to offer you enough provocation to rattle me off in fine style! Don’t hesitate to make use of me!”

“Mr Carleton,” she said, with a quivering lip, “I have already requested you not to be absurd!”

“But didn’t I promise to offer you provocation?”

“One of the things I most dislike in you, sir, is your disagreeable habit of always having an answer!” she told him, with considerable acerbity. “And, in general,” she added, “a rude one!”

“Come, this is much better!” he said encouragingly. “You have already rid yourself of some of your spleen! Now tell me exactly what you think of me for having said an unjust thing to you last night, and for having, with such abominable rudeness, left your rout-party! If that doesn’t rid you of the rest of your spleen, you can animadvert, more forcefully than you did in the Pump Room that day, on the obliquity of my life and character! And if that doesn’t take the trick—”

She interrupted him, the colour naming into her cheeks. “I beg you to say no more! I should not have said—what I did say—and I regretted it as soon as the words were out of my mouth, and—and have wished to beg your pardon ever since. But somehow the opportunity to do so never arose. It has arisen now, and—and I do beg your pardon!”

He did not immediately answer her, and, stealing a glance at his face, she saw that that queer smile had twisted his mouth. He said: “One of the things I most dislike in you,my entrancing hornet, is your unfailing ability to put me at Point Non Plus! I’m damned if I know why I like you so much!”

She was powerfully affected by these words, but made a gallant attempt to pass them off lightly. “Indeed, I can’t think why you should like me, for we have come to points whenever we have met! And I have a melancholy suspicion that we should continue to do so, however many times we were condemned to meet each other!”

“Have you?” he said, a harsh note in his voice. “With me it is otherwise!” He saw the instinctive gesture of repulsion she made, and said, with a short, sardonic laugh: “Oh, don’t be afraid! I shall say no more until I have contrived by hedge or by stile to overcome your dislike of me! In the meantime, let us push on to overtake Lucilla and young Elmore.”

“Yes, do let us!” she said, not knowing whether to be glad or sorry for this abrupt change of subject. In an effort to bridge an awkward gap, she said, as she encouraged her mare to break into a canter: “I must tell you that I shouldn’t—I trust!—have allowed my vexation to take such strong possession of me if my cousin Maria had not chosen that most unlucky moment to talk me almost to the gates of Bedlam!”

“That doesn’t surprise me at all!” he replied. “If I were forced to endure more than five minutes of her vapid gibble-gabbling there would be nothing for it but to cut my throat! Or hers,” he added, apparently giving this alternative his consideration. “No, I think not: the jury, not having been acquainted with her, would probably find me guilty of murder. What shocking injustices are perpetrated in the name of the law! How the case of your cousin brings that home to one! She ought, of course, to have been strangled at birth, but I daresay her parents were wanting in foresight.”

This drew a positive peal of laughter out of Miss Wychwood. She turned her head towards him, her eyes brimful of merriment, and said: “Oh, how often I have felt the same! She is the most tactless, tedious bore imaginable! When I left Twynham, my brother prevailed on me to employ her as my companion, to lend me countenance, and I have seldom ceased to wonder at myself for having been so want-witted as to have agreed to do it! How horrid I am to say so! Poor Maria! she means so well!”

“Worse you could not say of her! Why don’t you send her packing?”

She sighed and shook her head. “I own, I am often tempted to do so, but I am afraid it isn’t possible. Her father, according to what Geoffrey tells me, was sadly improvident, and left her very ill provided for, poor thing. So I couldn’t turn her off, could I?”

“You might pension her off,” he suggested.

“And have Geoffrey plaguing my life out to hire another in her place? No, I thank you!”

“Does he do that? Do you permit him to plague you?”

“I can’t prevent him! I don’t permit him to dictate to me—which is why we are so frequently at outs! He is older than I am, you see, and nothing will ever disabuse his mind of its belief that I am a green and headstrong little sister whom it is his duty to guide, admonish, and protect! Which is, I acknowledge, very admirable, but as vexatious as it is misjudged, and seldom fails to send me up into the boughs!”

“Ah! I thought there was more to his descent on you than his little boy’s toothache! He came, in fact, to warn you to have nothing to say to me, didn’t he? Does he suspect me of having designs on your virtue? Shall I tell him that his suspicion is groundless?”

“No, certainly not!” she said emphatically. “I am very well able to deal with Geoffrey myself. Ah, there are the children! Indulge me with a race to overtake them, Mr Carleton! I have been pining these many weeks for a good gallop!”

“Very well, but ‘ware rabbit holes.”

“Pooh!” she threw at him, over her shoulder, as the mare lengthened her stride.

She had the start of him, but he overtook her, and they reached the two winning posts neck and neck, and were greeted, by Lucilla with applause, and by Ninian with mock reproach, for having, he said, set Lucilla such a bad example.

“Don’t you mean a good example?” enquired Mr Carleton.

“No, sir, I don’t, for how the deuce am I to stop her galloping hell-for-leather when she has seen Miss Wychwood doing it?”

“As though you could ever stop me if I choose to gallop!” said Lucilla scornfully. “You couldn’t catch me!”

“Oh, couldn’t I? If I had my Blue Devil between my legs we’d soon see that!”

“Blue Devil would never come within lengths of my Lovely Lady! Oh, sir, that is the name I’ve given her! I thought at first that I would call her Carleton’s Choice, but Ninian said he didn’t think you would care for that!”

“Then I am very much obliged to him! I should not have cared for it!”

“Well, I meant it as a compliment!” said Lucilla, slightly aggrieved.

“Good God!” he said.

Ninian chuckled, and said: “I told you so! I don’t like Lovely Lady either: a sickly name to give a horse! But at least it’s better than the other!”

“Shall we ride on to visit the Saxon fortifications, or would you prefer to remain here abusing one another?” intervened Miss Wychwood.

Thus called to order the combatants hastily begged pardon, and the whole party moved forward.