The Nonesuch

Chapter 10

Tiffany did not greet Sir Waldo with hysterics; but he found her weeping in an angry, uncontrolled way which warned him that a more ticklish task lay before him than he had foreseen. Like a child suffering from over-excitement, she was as miserable as she was cross, and with the slightest encouragement she would have cast herself upon Sir Waldo’s chest, and sobbed out her woes into his shoulder. With considerable skill he managed to prevent this without adding to her sense of ill-usage, but he soon saw that it was useless—indeed, perilous—to attempt to bring her to reason. The story she poured out to him bore little resemblance to the unembroidered account furnished earlier by Miss Trent. Tiffany never consciously deviated from the truth, but since she saw everything only as it affected herself the truth was apt to become somewhat distorted. Anyone unacquainted with the facts would have supposed from her version of the accident that Patience, having first, and with incredible selfishness, dragged her companions all over the town in search of her own needs, had next set her cap at Lindeth in a way that would have been diverting had it not been so unbecoming; and finally, in her determination to attract attention to herself, had created a ridiculous scene by dashing into the road to perform a spectacular and quite unnecessary rescue. For her part, Tiffany was persuaded that the nasty boy had been in no danger at all, but Patience, of course, had put on all the airs of a heroine, quite deluding Lindeth, as well as Mr Baldock, who was a very low, vulgar person, with the most disgusting manners of anyone Tiffany had ever met.

There was a good deal more in the same strain, culminating in the iniquity of all concerned in coolly, and without as much as a by-your-leave, appropriating Tiffany’s carriage (for even if it did belong to her aunt it had been lent to her, not to Patience) for the conveyance of a dirty and thievish boy who ought rather to have been handed over to the constable. This was the crowning injury, and Tiffany’s eyes flashed as she recounted it. She did not deny that she had lost her temper. She had borne everything else without uttering a single complaint, but that had been Too Much.

The Nonesuch, quick to seize opportunity, agreed that such conduct passed all bounds. He was astonished to learn that Lindeth and Miss Trent were so lost to all sense of propriety as to suppose that Tiffany could be left to kick her heels at the King’s Arms while they jauntered about the town (with a dirty and thievish boy) in what was undoubtedly her carriage. He said that they would be well served if, when they at last returned to the King’s Arms, they were to find that the bird had flown.

“Yes,” agreed Tiffany, hiccupping on a sob. “Only, if I were to order John-Coachman to bring the carriage round he wouldn’t do it, because he is a detestable old man, and treats me as if I were a child!”

“I’ll take you home,” said the Nonesuch, with his glinting smile.

She stared at him. “You? In your phaeton? Now?”He nodded; and she jumped up, exclaiming ecstatically: “Oh, yes! I should like that of all things! And we won’t leave a message, either!”

“Oh, that will be quite unnecessary!” he said, with perfect truth.

Her tears ceased abruptly: and if the ill-usage she had suffered still rankled in her bosom it soon became at least temporarily forgotten in the elation of being driven by no less a person than the Nonesuch.

Mrs Underhill was very much shocked when she heard what had happened in Leeds, but although Sir Waldo left Tiffany to tell the story as she pleased the good lady’s reception of it was not at all what her niece desired or expected. She said she wouldn’t have had such a thing happen for the world. “Not with Mrs Chartley letting Patience go with you, as she did, which quite surprised me, for I never thought she would, and no more she would have, if it hadn’t been for Miss Trent being there to take care of her. And what she’ll say, when she hears about this—not that Miss Trent could have stopped it, by all I can make out, for it wasn’t a thing anyone would expect to happen! Well, thank goodness Miss Trent had the sense to stay with Patience! At least Mrs Chartley won’t be able to say we didn’t do our best, or that she was left to be brought home by his lordship, which she wouldn’t have liked at all! Not that I mean he wouldn’t have kept the line, as I hope I don’t need to explain to you, Sir Waldo, for I’m sure I never knew anyone more truly the gentleman—present company excepted, of course—but Mrs Chartley—well, she’s nice to a fault, and very strict in her notions!”

This speech was naturally extremely displeasing to Tiffany. There were danger signals in her eyes, which her aunt viewed with apprehension. Mrs Underhill hoped that she was not going to fly into one of her miffs, and she said feebly: “Now, Tiffany-love, there’s nothing to put you into high fidgets! To be sure, it was vexatious for you to be obliged to wait, when you was wanting to come home, but you wouldn’t have wished to leave poor Miss Chartley with no carriage, now, you know you wouldn’t! A very shabby thing that would have been! And Sir Waldo driving you home in his phaeton, which I’ll be bound you enjoyed!”

“They should have asked me!” said Tiffany obstinately. “If they had done so—”

“I see what it is!” suddenly announced Charlotte, whose penetrating gaze had been fixed for some minutes on her cousin’s face. “Nobody paid any heed to you! And you might just as easily have rescued the boy as Patience, only you didn’t, so it wasn’t you that was brave and noble, but her and that’s why you’re in such a pelter!”

“How dare you?” gasped Tiffany, glaring at her.

“Charlotte, don’t!”begged Mrs. Underhill, much agitated.

“And,”pursued Charlotte, with acute if deplorable insight, “it’s my belief the man in the tilbury didn’t pay any heed to you either, and that’s why you said he was rude and vulgar!”

“Now that’s enough!” said Mrs Underhill, with a very fair assumption of authority. “Whatever must Sir Waldo be thinking of you? I don’t know when I’ve been so mortified! You must please excuse her, sir!”

“I’ll excuse them both, ma’am, and leave them to enjoy their quarrel!” he replied, looking amused.

“Oh, dear, and I was going to ask you if you wouldn’t stop to eat your dinner with us!” exclaimed Mrs Underhill distressfully.

“Thank you: you are very good, ma’am, but I mustn’t stay,” he answered, smiling at her in a way which, as she afterwards told Miss Trent, made her feel all of a twitter.

He then took his leave, and went away. He reached Broom Hall as the shadows were lengthening, and strolled into the house, stripping off his gloves. The door leading into the book-room opened, and a slender sprig of fashion emerged, and paused on the threshold, saying with would-be jauntiness: “Hallo, Waldo!”

At sight of this unexpected visitor Sir Waldo had halted, one glove still only half drawn from his hand, a sudden frown in his eyes. He stood still for an instant; then the frown vanished, and he pulled off his glove, and laid it down on the table. “Dear me!” he said, in a tone of mild surprise. “And what brings you here, Laurie?”

Mr Calver, with the memory of his last encounter with his cousin uncomfortably in mind, was much relieved by the calm friendliness of this greeting. He had not expected to be met with an explosion of wrath, because Waldo never ripped up, or came the ugly; but he had feared that he might cut up a trifle stiff, perhaps. He came forward, saying awkwardly: “I’ve been visiting friends in York. Thought I’d come over to see how you go on.”

“That’s very kind of you,” said Sir Waldo politely.

“Well, I—well—you know, I don’t like to be at outs with you! The last time I saw you—Well, I was in a damned bad skin, and I daresay I may have said things I don’t mean! shouldn’t wish you to think—”

“Oh, that’s enough, Laurie!” Sir Waldo interrupted, a swift smile banishing the slightly stern look on his face. “Looby! Did you suppose I had taken an affront into my head? What a gudgeon you must think me!”

“No, I don’t, but—Well, I thought I’d post over to see you—beg your pardon, you know!”

“I’m much obliged to you. Come into the book-room! Has Wedmore done the honours of the house—such as they are?”

“Oh, yes! Well, I haven’t been here much above half-an-hour, but he brought me some sherry, and took Blyth off to unpack my bags.” He shot a sidelong look at his cousin, and ventured on a small joke. “I was pretty sure you wouldn’t throw me out of doors even if you had nabbed the rust!”

“Very unlikely,” agreed Sir Waldo, walking over to a side-table, and pouring himself out a glass of sherry. He drank a little, and stood thoughtfully regarding Laurence.

That exquisite, failing, not for the first time in a somewhat chequered career, to meet that steady, faintly amused gaze, cast himself into a chair, with an assumption of ease, and picked up his own glass from a table at his elbow, saying airily: “I hadn’t thought you meant to remain here above a sennight. Everyone is wondering what’s become of you! Is Lindeth still with you? Don’t he find it devilish slow?”

“Apparently not. Tell me! Who are these friends of yours who live in York?”

“Oh, no one you’re acquainted with!”

“I didn’t think I was.” He picked up the decanter, and walked across the room to refill Laurence’s glass. “What is it you want, Laurie?”

“I told you! We came to cuffs, and—”

“No, don’t sham it! You haven’t travelled all the way from London merely to beg my pardon!”

“I’ve come from York!” said Laurence, reddening. “If you don’t believe me you may enquire at the Black Horse, where I hired a chaise to bring me here!”

“I do believe you. I think you went to York on the Edinburgh mail. Or are you on the rocks again, and was it the stage? Stop trying to make a pigeon of me! You’ll only be gapped, you know! What’s the matter? Are you in the suds?”

“No, I am not!” replied Laurence angrily. “I may not be flush in the pocket, but I haven’t come to ask you to pay any gaming debts!”

“Don’t be so ready to sport your canvas! I didn’t suppose that was it. There might be other debts which you forgot to mention when you were last down the wind.”

“Well, there ain’t!” growled Laurence. “Nothing to signify, that is! And if there was, I shouldn’t ask you to dub up the possibles! Not after what you said a month ago! I daresay you think I’m a loose screw, but I don’t run thin!”

“I wish you will come down from these high ropes! I don’t think you a loose screw—though if I were to tell you what I do think you you’d be ready to eat me! If you don’t want me to dub up the possibles, what do you want me to do?”

“It may interest you to know, coz, that it’s been make and scrape with me ever since you left London!” said Laurence bitterly. “And when I think of the shifts I’ve been put to—Well, it’s the outside enough for you to be suspecting me of having come to see you only to get you to tip over the dibs! It isn’t that at all!” He paused. “At least,” he amended, “it ain’t debt! If you must know, I’ve hit upon a devilish good scheme—if I can but raise the recruits! Of course, if you don’t care to frank me—though it ain’t so much franking me, mind, as investing your blunt!—there’s no more to be said. But considering the times you’ve offered to buy me a pair of colours—”

“The offer still stands, Laurie.”

“Yes, but I don’t want it. It wouldn’t suit me at all. I haven’t any taste for the law, either. I didn’t think of it at the time, but if you had suggested the Church to me, when I was up at Oxford, there would have been some sense in it. I daresay I shouldn’t have liked it above half, but I wonder you shouldn’t have thought of it, if you’re so eager to thrust me into some profession or other. After all, I know you’ve several good livings in your gift! However, it’s too late now.”

“That’s just as well, for I can think of few men less suited to the Church.”

“No, very likely I should have found it a dead bore. Not but what a snug parsonage—But it’s of no consequence! I fancy I’ve hit on the very thing, Waldo! What’s more, if the thing comes off right there’s a fortune in it!”

Concealing his misgivings, Sir Waldo invited him to continue.

“Well, I hadn’t meant to broach it to you so soon,” said Laurence, rather naively. “But since you’ve asked me to—and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t care for the scheme: in fact, I’m persuaded you’ll think it’s the very thing—”

“You are filling me with foreboding, Laurie. Do put me out of suspense!”

“Of course, if you mean to set your face against it from the start I might as well keep my tongue!” said Laurence peevishly.

“We haven’t reached the start yet. Cut line!” commanded his cousin.

Laurence looked offended for a moment, but he managed to swallow his spleen. “Yes—Well—well, are you acquainted with Kearney, Waldo?”

“No.”

“Desmond Kearney!” Sir Waldo shook his head. “Oh! I daresay he may not have come in your way, though I should have thought you must have met him. He’s the devil of a man to hounds—a clipping rider! But you high sticklers are so top-lofty—” He broke off, and said hastily: “Not that it signifies! The thing is, Kearney is a friend of mine. Not a feather to fly with, but a first-rate man, and a capital judge of horseflesh! We mean to become partners.”

“Partners in what?” asked Sir Waldo blankly.

“Hunters! Selling ’em, I mean.”

“O my God!”

“I suppose I might have guessed you would—No, do but listen, Waldo!” begged Laurence, suddenly altering his tone. “Only think of the blunt some of the Melton men drop on their hunters! Well, you’re one yourself, so you should know! They say Lord Alvanley gave seven hundred guineas for one of the nags he bought last year, and I could name you a score of men who think nothing of shelling out five or six hundred for horses that were bought originally for no more than eighty or a hundred guineas! Why, if you was to put your own stud under the hammer—just your hunters and your hacks: not your driving-cattle, of course—they wouldn’t fetch a penny under five thousand! I daresay you’re thinking the scheme might not fadge, but—”

“Might not fadge!” interrupted Sir Waldo. “You’d find yourselves at point non-plus within a twelvemonth!”

“No, that we shouldn’t! We have it all planned, and I’d be willing to lay you any odds we shall make an excellent hit. Of course, at first we shall be obliged to spend a good deal of blunt—no need to tell you that!—but—”

“No need at all!”

“Well, there’s no doing anything unless one has some capital! The thing is—”

“Thank you, I know what the thing is!” said Sir Waldo acidly. “For God’s sake, will you stop trying to tip me a rise? I never in my life listened to such an addle-brained scheme! Do you think me such a flat that I would provide the capital for such a crazy venture? Go into partnership with a man who hasn’t a feather to fly with? Oh, no! Laurie! Coming it too strong!”

“If you would but listen—! Kearney ain’t any plumper in the pocket than I am, but he’s just come into some property! It was that circumstance which put the notion into his head! He’s inherited a place in Ireland, from his uncle—Galway, I think. Sounds to me much like this place: gone to rack, and the house pretty well tumbling down. Seemed to him more of a liability than a honey-fall, for there’s no getting rid of it as it stands.”

“It seems like that to me too.”

“Well, that’s where you’re out! We mean to put it to dashed good use! Kearney’s been to look it over, and he says there’s plenty of ground attached, and acres of stabling, which only needs repairing to furnish us with precisely what we need. Now, Waldo, you must know that Ireland’s the place for picking up first-rate horses for no more than eighty pounds apiece! No cart-horse blood there! No black drop! A year’s schooling, and you sell ’em over here for a couple of hundred at the least!”

“If you think that I’m going to set you up as a horse chanter—”

“No such thing!” exclaimed Laurence indignantly. “They won’t be unsound horses!”

“They will be if you have anything to do with choosing them.”

Laurence struggled with himself, and again managed to suppress his anger. “As a matter of fact, Kearney will attend to that side of the business: he knows the country, and which are the best fairs—and I shouldn’t wonder at it if he’s as good a judge of a horse as you are! My part will be to sell ’em over here.”

“Laurie, are you seriously proposing to set up as a dealer?”

“No, of course not! I mean, I’m not going to have a sale-ring, or anything of that kind! I’ve got a much better notion: I’m going to sell ’em on the hunting-field!”

“What?”said Sir Waldo faintly.

“Lord, you know what I mean! You ride a good-looking hunter of the right stamp with one of the Hunts—the Quorn, for instance—and what happens?”

“You end up in the Whissendine.”

“Oh, go to the devil! That’s not what I mean! Someone takes a fancy to your horse—asks you if you’d care to sell him, and before you know where you are—”

“Not if he’s seen you riding the horse!” interpolated Sir Waldo brutally.

Laurence flushed vividly. “Thank you! Upon my word, coz, of all the damnably unjust things to say—! I collect I’m a slow-top—a skirter—a—”

“No, no, I didn’t mean that!” said Sir Waldo, relenting slightly. “You’ve plenty of pluck, but you sloven your fences, and you don’t get the best out of your horses. Also—well, no matter! I’m sorry, but I’ll have no hand in this project.”

“Waldo, I’m not asking you to give it to me!” Laurence urged, rather desperately. “Only to lend it—and no more than five thousand! I swear I’d pay it back!”

“I doubt it! Oh, I don’t doubt you think you would! But I think that so far from your paying me back I should be obliged to tow you out of the River Tick to the tune of a few more thousands. I won’t do it.”

There was a long silence. Laurence got up jerkily, and went over to stare out of the window. Presently he said: “I know you said—when you paid that debt for me last month—that it was the last time, but I never thought you’d refuse to help me when—when I’m trying to do what you’ve been urging me to for ever!”

Sir Waldo could not help smiling at this. “My dear Laurie, I really don’t think I can be said to have urged you to take to horse-coping!”

“You want me to pursue some occupation. And now, when I’m determined not to be idle any longer, or to hang on your sleeve—you make it impossible!”

“Find a respectable occupation, and try me again! You think me a shocking nip-squeeze, but what you are asking me to do is to help you to break your back.”

Laurence turned, forcing a smile to his drooping mouth. “No, I don’t. You’ve been devilish generous to me: I know that! Only—Oh, well! I suppose there’s no more to be said. I’d best go back to London tomorrow. I know you don’t want me here.”

“Gammon! Do you wish to stay?”

“Well, I did rather think;—I mean, everyone is going out of town now, and you know what Brighton costs in July! You told me I must stop wasting the ready—”

“So it clearly behoves me to house you! Stop playing off your tricks, you incorrigible dryboots! I haven’t the smallest objection to your remaining here—but I don’t think you’ll like it above half! The builders are at work, you know.”

“Oh, I don’t care a straw for that!” Laurence assured him. “You seem to be pulling the place to bits—all for your ramshackle brats, I collect!”

“That’s it,” replied Sir Waldo cheerfully. “I must go and tell Wedmore we won’t wait dinner for Julian: he’s in Leeds, and is likely to be detained. That, by the way, is one of the disadvantages of the house: the only unbroken bell-wire is the one leading from our late lamented cousin’s bedroom! There are some other drawbacks, too: your man will tell you all about them! I only hope he won’t cut his stick. I live in constant dread of waking one morning to find that Munslow has abandoned me.”

Laurence looked rather appalled, but said: “Oh, Blyth wouldn’t serve me such a trick! As for your Munslow—I wish I may see him abandoning you! When do you dine? Should I change my rig?”

“Not on my account. We dine at the unfashionable hour of six.”

“Oh, yes! country hours!” said Laurence, refusing to be daunted. “I’m glad of it, for, to own the truth, I’m feeling a trifle fagged. Been thinking lately that it was time I went on a repairing lease!”

He maintained this affability until nine o’clock, when, after trying in vain to smother a succession of yawns, he took himself off to bed. Sir Waldo was not in the least deceived. As little as he believed that Laurence had been visiting friends in York did he believe that Laurence either wanted to remain at Broom Hall or was resigned to the frustration of his preposterous scheme. He remembered, with a rueful smile, several previous occasions when, having refused some demand of Laurie’s, he had allowed himself to be won over by just such tactics as Laurie was employing now. Laurie remembered them too; probably he had come prepared to meet with an initial rebuff; certainly he had not accepted it as final: that was betrayed by his meekness. When Laurie knew that he could not bring his cousin round his thumb he very rapidly fell into a rage, jealousy and self-pity overcoming his reason, and leading him to rant and complain until he really did believe in his illusionary grievances.

I ought to have sent him packing, Sir Waldo thought, knowing that in yielding to a compassionate impulse he was raising false hopes in Laurie’s breast. But he could no more have done it than he could have left him to languish in a debtor’s prison. He had little affection for Laurie, and he was well aware that Laurie had as little for him; but when he had told George Wingham that he had ruined Laurie he had spoken in all sincerity. Laurie’s idleness, his follies, his reckless extravagance he set at his own door. By his easy, unthinking generosity he had sapped whatever independence Laurie might have had, imposing no check upon his volatility, but rather encouraging him in the conviction that he would never be run quite off his legs because his wealthy cousin would infallibly rescue him from utter disaster. “After all, it means nothing to you!” Laurie had once said to him, when he had been in his first year at Oxford. Sir Waldo, remembering, grimaced at his younger self. Laurie had said bitterly that it was easy for anyone rolling in gold to preach economy; and that younger Waldo, rich beyond most men’s dreams, imbued with philanthropic principles imperfectly understood, morbidly anxious never to become clutchfisted, and only too ready to believe, with Laurie, that the difference between their respective circumstances was one of the grosser injustices of fate, had opened wide his purse for that predatory youth to dip into: not once, but so many times that Laurie had come to regard him as one on whom he had a right to depend. Only when he had taken to deep gaming had Sir Waldo put his foot down. He meant to keep it down, strengthened in his resolve by the storm of resentment he had roused in Laurence; but even at the height of exasperation his conscience told him that he was himself much to blame for this. He had often felt sorry for Laurie, but his pity had been mixed with contempt; and because he had never liked him he had given him money, which was an easy thing to do, instead of the very different services he had rendered Julian.

The cases were not, of course, parallel. Laurence was some years older than Julian, and he had not been left fatherless while still in leading-strings. But his father had been a cold-hearted man, bored by his children, and grudging every penny he was obliged to spend on them, so that Laurie had naturally enough turned to his cousin for help in any predicament.

It might have been wiser not to have told him that he might remain at Broom Hall, but Sir Waldo had found it impossible to treat him so unkindly. Moreover, Julian was staying at Broom Hall, and that circumstance alone made it imperative that he should also welcome Laurie. Laurie was jealous of his affection for Julian, not because of any fondness for him, but because he was obstinate in the belief that he lavished money on the boy. “If it had been Lindeth who had applied to you, you wouldn’t have refused!” Laurie had flung at him once.

“Lindeth doesn’t apply to me,” he had answered.

“No! he ain’t obliged to! Anything he wants he can get from you for the mere lifting of an eyebrow! We all know that!”

“Then you are all wonderfully mistaken,” he had said.

But Laurie had not been mistaken in thinking that Julian was his favourite cousin; and just because it was true he would not turn Laurie away from his doors while Julian was at liberty to stay with him for as long as he chose.

He was thinking of Laurie’s jealousy, and wondering how many days would pass before he and Julian came to cuffs, when he heard the sound of carriage-wheels, and Julian’s voice calling good-night to someone. A few minutes later he came into the room, saying: “Waldo? Oh, there you are! Had you given me up for lost? I beg your pardon, but I knew you wouldn’t be in a worry!”

“Not in a worry! When I have been pacing the floor for hours, in the greatest agitation—!”

Julian chuckled. “You look pretty comfortable to me!”

“Merely exhausted. Have you dined?”

“Yes, at the Rectory. They were just sitting down to dinner when we arrived, and Mrs Chartley would have me stay. Miss Trent declined it, but the Rector said I need not think I should be obliged to walk home, if I stayed, because his man should drive me here. So I did. I hadn’t meant to remain for so long, but we got to talking about everything under the sun—you know how it is!—and I never noticed the time. You didn’t wait for me, did you?”

“No, not for a second. Did you restore your young Hemp to his parents?”

“Yes, but as for calling the poor little devil a young Hemp—Good God, he’s only six years old, and all he stole was one apple! Miss Trent told you what happened, didn’t she? It was the most frightful moment!”

“It must have been. I collect that Miss Chartley showed the greatest presence of mind.”

“Yes, and such courage! She made nothing of it: her only concern was for the boy. I could only wonder at her, for she is so quiet and shy that one would never have supposed that she could behave with such intrepidity, or remain so composed! If the danger she had been in had not been enough to overset her you’d have thought that the people who crowded round would have done it! She paid no heed to them—didn’t even shrink from the fellow who ranted at her that he was going to hand the boy over to the Law. Lord, Waldo, I never wanted you more in my life!”

“Why? Couldn’t you deal with the bloodthirsty citizen without my assistance?”

“That! Of course I could! But I didn’t know what the devil ought to be done with the brat. However, Miss Chartley knew—yes, and just what to say to the mother and father, too! The only thing that did overset her—for a few minutes—” He broke off abruptly.

“I can guess,” said Sir Waldo helpfully.

Julian shot him a quick, defensive look; but after a slight pause he said, with a forced smile and a mounting colour: “I suppose so—since you drove her back to Staples! I’m very much obliged to you, by the way. Did she—did she rip up to you about it?”

“Oh, yes, but no more than I expected! Accredited beauties, you know, can rarely bear to be eclipsed. It was clearly incumbent upon me to remove her from the scene, but I own I shall always regret that I was denied the privilege of meeting the low, vulgar, and disgustingly ill-mannered young gentleman in the tilbury!”

That drew an involuntary laugh from Julian. “Baldock! First he said he didn’t see why she should faint, and then he called her a shrew! I don’t know why I should laugh, for the lord knows I didn’t feel like laughing at the time! But what a clunch!” He was silent again for a minute, and then said, with a little difficulty: “You think I’m a clunch too, don’t you? But I’ve known, ever since that ill-fated expedition to Knaresborough ... I thought, at first, that it was just—just because she was so young, and had been so much indulged, but—but, there’s no heart behind that lovely face, Waldo! Nothing but—oh, well! What a fellow I am to be saying such things! Even to you! But I daresay you may have suspected that she—she did bowl me out, when I first saw her!”

“I should have been astonished if she hadn’t,” replied Sir Waldo, in an indifferent tone. “I don’t recall when I’ve seen a more beautiful girl. It’s a pity she has neither the wits nor the disposition to match her beauty, but I’ve no doubt she’ll do very well without them. If her fortune is sufficiently substantial she may even catch her Marquis!”

“Catch her Marquis?” exclaimed Julian blankly. “Which Marquis?”

“Whichever offers for her. Yes, I know it may seem absurd, but she seems to have set her heart on becoming—at the least!—a Marchioness. It won’t surprise me at all if she achieves her ambition. What, by the way, did the Chartleys think of this stirring adventure?”

“She was very much shocked, of course,” Julian replied, “but the Rector said that Patience—Miss Chartley, I mean!—had done just as she ought! Naturally Mrs Chartley couldn’t but wish it hadn’t happened: she didn’t blame anyone! In fact, neither she nor the Rector made much more of it than Miss Chartley did herself! You may depend upon it that I took care to assure them that she had not entered that dreadful hovel which was the boy’s home!—Miss Chartley told me there were many worse to be seen, but I swear to you, Waldo, my pigs are better housed!—but Mrs Chartley only said that a clergyman’s daughter was used to go amongst the poor. I had thought she would be very much vexed, but not a bit of it! We spent such a comfortable evening! Yes, and only imagine my surprise when I discovered that she was a Yateley! Somehow or other we had got to talking about Timperley, and Mrs Chartley told me that she had been born not so very far from it! Well, in the next county, at all events: Warwick! When she mentioned her previous name, you may guess how I stared!”

“Forgive me!” apologized Sir Waldo. “I’m either very dull, or very forgetful, but I haven’t the least guess! Who are the Yateleys?”

“Oh, a Warwickshire family! I don’t know much about ’em, but you must have heard Mama talk of her great friend, Maria Yateley! She’s Lady Stone—a regular fusty mug!—but Mama has known her for ever, and she always speaks of her as Maria Yateley. Well, would you believe it? Mrs Chartley is her first cousin!”

There did not seem to Sir Waldo to be much cause for satisfaction in this discovery, but he responded suitably; and Julian chatted away happily, his sad disillusionment forgotten in telling his cousin all about the very pleasant evening he had spent, and in trying to persuade him that Miss Chartley’s protégé, at present domiciled with both his parents and one of his grandmothers, was an eligible candidate for entrance to the Broom Hall Orphanage. Failing in this, he said that he must discuss the matter with the Rector: perhaps the boy could be admitted to the Charity School. “For I feel one ought to do something,”he said, frowning over the problem. “After Miss Chartley saved him from being trampled on it seems a pity that he should be put to work in one of the manufactories, poor little rat! I daresay if you were to speak to the Governors, or the Warden, or whatever they call themselves—”

“No, you talk it over with the Rector!” said Sir Waldo.

“Well, I will.” He yawned. “Lord, I am sleepy! I think I’ll go to bed, if you’ve no objection.”

“None at all. Oh, by the bye! Laurie is here. He went to bed early too.’”

Julian had walked over to the door, but he wheeled round at that, exclaiming: “Laurie?What the devil brings him here?”

“He told me he had been visiting friends in York, and drove over to see how we go on here.”

“Gammon!” said Julian scornfully. “What a damned thing! What does he want?”

Sir Waldo raised his brows. “You had better ask him,” he replied, a faint chill in his voice.

Julian reddened. “I didn’t mean—I know it’s your house, and no concern of mine whom you invite to stay in it, but—oh, lord, Waldo, what a dead bore! You didn’t invite him, either, did you?”

“No, I didn’t,” admitted Sir Waldo, with a smile that was a trifle twisted. “I’m sorry, Julian, but I couldn’t turn him away, you know!”

“No, I suppose not. Oh, well! As long as he don’t start abusing you—!”

“I don’t think he will. But if he should happen to pick out a grievance, oblige me by keeping two circumstances in mind! That he will not be doing so under any roof of yours, and that I am really quite capable of fighting my own battles!”

“Don’t I know it!” Julian retorted. “And of giving nasty set-downs! Very well! I’ll behave with all the propriety in the world—if I can!” He opened the door, but looked over his shoulder, grinning, as a sudden thought assailed him. “Oh, by Jupiter! Won’t our Bond Street beau stagger the neighbourhood?”