The Nonesuch

Chapter 5

Lord Lindeth, who had greeted with disapprobation the news that he was to be dragged out to a dinner-party, returned to Broom Hall after his encounter with Miss Wield in quite a different frame of mind. The first thing he did was to run through the various visiting-cards which had been bestowed upon his cousin; the next was to burst into the library, where Sir Waldo was frowning over his deceased cousin’s rent-books, demanding: “Waldo, are you acquainted with anyone called Wield?”

“No, I don’t think so,” replied Sir Waldo, rather absently.

“Do pay attention!” begged Julian. “From Staples! Isn’t that the place with the wrought-iron gates, beyond the village? They must have called, but I can’t find any card!”

“Presumably they haven’t called, then.”

“No, but—Of course, the name might not be Wield: she spoke of her aunt,and I suppose—But there’s no card bearing that direction that I can find!”

Sir Waldo looked up at this, a laugh in his eye. “Oho! She?”

“Oh, Waldo, I’ve met the most ravishing girl!” disclosed his lordship. “Now, think! Who lives at Staples?”

“Miss Wield, I collect.”

“Yes, but—Oh, don’t be so provoking! Surely you must know who owns the place.”

“I can see not the smallest reason why I must know—and I don’t.”

“I wish you may not have lost the card! You would suppose her uncle must have called, wouldn’t you?”

“Well, I haven’t so far given the matter any consideration,” said Sir Waldo apologetically. “Perhaps he doesn’t approve of me?”

Julian stared at him. “Nonsense! Why shouldn’t he?”

“I can’t imagine.”

“No, nor anyone else! Do stop talking slum, and try to be serious!”

“I am serious!” protested Sir Waldo. “Quite perturbed, in fact! I have sustained an introduction to someone who, unless I am much mistaken, does disapprove of me.”

“Who?” demanded Julian.

“A female whose name I can’t recall. A remarkably good-looking one, too,” he added reflectively. “And not just in the common style, either.”

“She sounds a maggotty creature to me!” said Julian frankly. “Not but what I think you’re shamming it! Why should she disapprove of you?”

“I rather fear, my fatal addiction to sport.”

“What a ninnyhammer! No, but, Waldo, do think! Are you perfectly sure no one from Staples has been here?”

“Not to my knowledge. Which leaves us quite at a stand, doesn’t it?”

“Well, it does—except that she may be at the party. She didn’t precisely say so, but—Lord, what a fortunate thing it was that we stayed with the Arkendales on our way here! I might not else have brought my evening rig with me!”

This ingenuous observation made Sir Waldo’s lips twitch, for Julian’s reception of the news that his journey north was to be broken by a visit to the home of one of the highest sticklers in the country would not have led anyone to foresee that he would presently think himself fortunate to have undergone a stay which he had stigmatized as an intolerable bore. Similarly, when he knew that he had been included in Mrs Mickleby’s invitation to Waldo he had denied any expectation of enjoyment, saying that if he had guessed that he had fled from the London scene only to be plunged into a succession of country dinner-parties he would not have accompanied his cousin.

But all such unsociable ideas were now at an end; it was not hebut Sir Waldo who deplored the necessity of attending a dinner-party on a wet evening: Julian had no doubt of its being a delightful party; and as for the ancient vehicle brought round from the coach-house for their conveyance, he told his cousin, who was eyeing it with fastidious dislike, that he was a great deal too nice, and would find it perfectly comfortable.

Miss Wield would have been pleased, though not at all surprised, to have known how eagerly his lordship looked forward to meeting her at the Manor, and how disappointed he was not to see her there; but if she had been an invisible spectator she would not have guessed from his demeanour that he was at all disappointed. He was far too polite to betray himself: and of too cheerful and friendly a disposition to show the least want of cordiality. It was a great shame that this ravishing girl was absent; but he had discovered her aunt’s name, and had formed various plans for putting himself in this lady’s way. Meanwhile, there were several pretty girls to be seen, and he was perfectly ready to make himself agreeable to them.

A quick survey of the drawing-room was enough to inform Sir Waldo that the beautiful Miss Wield was not present. Miss Chartley and Miss Colebatch were the best-looking ladies, the one angelically fair, the other a handsome redhead, but neither corresponded to the lyrical description Julian had given him of Miss Wield’s surpassing beauty. He glanced towards Julian, and was amused to see that he was being very well entertained amongst the younger members of the party. He was not surprised, for he had not taken Julian’s raptures very seriously: Julian had begun to develop an interest in the fair sex, but he was still at the experimental stage, and during the past year had discovered at least half-a-dozen goddesses worthy of his enthusiastic admiration. His cousin saw no need to feel any apprehension: Julian was enjoying the flirtations proper to his calf-time, and was some way yet from forming a lasting passion.

For himself, Sir Waldo was resigned to an evening’s boredom, denied even the amusement of pursuing his acquaintance with the lady who disapproved of him. He had looked in vain for her, and was conscious of disappointment. He could not recall her name, but he did remember that he had been attracted by her air of cool distinction, and the smile which leaped so suddenly into her eyes. She was intelligent, too, and had a sense of humour: a rare thing, he thought, amongst females. He would have liked to have known her better, and had looked forward to meeting her again. But she was not present, and he was provided instead with a number of middle-aged persons, as dull as they were worthy, and with a sprinkling of boys and girls. Amongst the girls, he awarded the palm to Miss Chartley, with whom he exchanged a few words. He liked, as much as the sweetness of her expression, the unaffected manners which, in spite of a not unbecoming shyness, enabled her to respond to his greeting without blushing, nervously giggling, or assuming a worldly air to impress him. As for the boys, he would have had to be extremely dull-witted not to have realized, within a very few moments of entering the room, that most of them were taking in every detail of his dress, and, while too bashful to put themselves forward, were hoping that before the evening was out they would be able to boast of having talked to the Nonesuch. He was well-accustomed to being the object of any aspiring young sportsman’s hero-worship, but he neither sought nor valued such adulation. Mr Underhill, Mr Arthur Mickleby, Mr Jack Banningham, and Mr Gregory Ash, bowing deeply, and uttering reverently Sir! and Honoured!,would have been stunned to know that the only young gentleman to engage Sir Waldo’s amused interest was Humphrey Colebatch, a redheaded youth (like his sister), afflicted with an appalling stutter. Presented by his fond father somewhat dauntingly as this silly chub of mine,and further stigmatized by the rider: not of your cut, I’m sorry to say! he had disclosed, in the explosive manner of those suffering an impediment of speech, that he was not interested in sport.

“He’s bookish,” explained Sir Ralph, torn between pride in his son’s scholastic attainments and the horrid fear that he had fathered a miscreature. “Worst seat in the county! But there! No accounting for tastes, eh? Take my daughter, Lizzie! Never opened a book in her life, but rides with a light hand and an easy bit, and handles the reins in form.”

“Does she?” Sir Waldo said politely. He smiled encouragingly at Humphrey. “Oxford?”

“Cam-Cam-Cambridge!” He added, after a brief struggle: “M-Magdalene. J-just d-down. Th-third year.”

“Magdalene! So was I—Magdalen, Oxford, though. What do you mean to do next?”

“G-go up for a fourth year!” replied Humphrey doggedly, and with a challenging look at his father.

“Fellowship?”

“Yes, sir. I hope!”

But at this point Sir Ralph intervened, testily adjuring him not to keep boring on about his affairs; so he bowed awkwardly to Sir Waldo, and walked away. Upon which Sir Ralph said that scholarship was all very well in its way, but that if he had guessed that his heir was going to run mad after it he would never have let him go up to Cambridge at all. He showed a disposition to become even more confidential, asking to be told what Sir Waldo would do in such a case; but as Sir Waldo did not feel himself to be qualified to advise harassed parents, and was too little interested to bend his mind to the problem, he speedily extricated himself from this tête-à-tête. It spoke volumes for his social address that he contrived to do it without in any way offending Sir Ralph.

Meanwhile, those of Humphrey’s contemporaries who had jealously observed his encounter with the Nonesuch pounced upon him, demanding to be told what Sir Waldo had said to him.

“W-wouldn’t interest you!” responded Humphrey, with odious loftiness. “N-nothing about sport! We talked ab-about Cam-Cambridge.”

This disclosure stunned his audience. Mr Banningham was the first to recover his power of speech; he expressed the sentiments of his boon companions by saying: “He must have thought you a slow-top!”

“N-not at all!” retorted Humphrey, curling his lip. “W-what’s m-more, he’s not such a c-c-cod’s head as you l-led me to think him!”

At any other time so insufferable a speech must have goaded his childhood’s playmates into punitive action. A sense of propriety, however, restrained them, and enabled Humphrey to saunter away, not only unmolested, but filled with the comfortable conviction of having, in a few heaven-sent moments, paid off all the scores of a short lifetime.

Since Mrs Mickleby seated the Nonesuch between herself and Lady Colebatch at her extended dining-table, it was not until much later in the evening that he made the acquaintance of Mrs Underhill. In the welter of introductions he had scarcely distinguished her amongst so many matrons; but Lord Lindeth had not been so careless. Undismayed by a gown of puce satin lavishly adorned with lace and diamonds, and by a headdress supporting a plume of curled feathers clasped by a glittering brooch of opulent dimensions, he had seized the first opportunity that offered of approaching Mrs Underhill, when the gentlemen joined the ladies after dinner; and it was he who made Sir Waldo known to her. Obedient to the summons telegraphed to him by his young cousin, Sir Waldo came across the room, and was immediately made aware of his duty.

“Oh, here is my cousin!” said his lordship artlessly. “Waldo, I fancy you have already been presented to Mrs Underhill!”

“Yes, indeed!” responded Sir Waldo, rising nobly to the occasion.

“Well, we were introduced,” conceded Mrs Underhill, “but it wouldn’t surprise me if you didn’t happen to catch my name. I’m sure there’s nothing more confusing than to be introduced to a score of strangers. Many’s the time I’ve been in a regular hobble, trying to set the right names to the right faces!”

“But in this instance, ma’am, I have something to assist my memory!” said Sir Waldo, with admirable aplomb. “Did I not have the pleasure of meeting your daughter not so many days since? Miss—Miss Charlotte Underhill? She was helping another lady—a tall lady, older than herself—to deck the Church with flowers.”

“That’s right!” said Mrs Underhill, pleased with him. “And mightily puffed-up she’s been ever since, you talking to her so kindly, as she tells me you did! As for the tall lady, that would be Miss Trent: her governess. Well, properly speaking, she’s my niece’s companion, and a very superior young female. Her uncle is General Sir Mordaunt Trent!”

“Indeed!” murmured Sir Waldo.

“Waldo!” interrupted Julian, “Mrs Underhill has been so kind as to invite us to attend the party she is holding on Wednesday next! I believe we have no other engagement?”

“None that I know of. How delightful! We are very much obliged to you, ma’am!” said Sir Waldo, with the courtesy for which he was renowned.

But afterwards, jolting back to Broom Hall in the late Mr Calver’s ill-sprung carriage, he expressed the acid hope that his cousin was properly grateful to him for accepting the invitation.

“Yes, very grateful!” replied Julian blithely. “Not but what I knew you would!”

“Having thrust me into an impossible position I imagine you might!”

Julian chuckled. “I know, but—She’s that glorious creature’s aunt, Waldo!”

“I am aware! It remains only for you to discover that your glorious creature is engaged to one of the local blades, and you will have come by your deserts.”

“Oh, no! I’m tolerably sure she’s not!” said Julian confidently. “Her cousin must have mentioned the circumstance, if—Besides,—”

“Do you mean Charlotte? Was she there tonight?”

“Charlotte? No—who’s she? Courtenay Underhill!”

“Oh, a male cousin! What is he like?”

“Oh—oh, very agreeable!” said Julian. He hesitated, and, then said: “Yes, I know what you’re thinking, and I suppose he is inclined to be what you’d call a coxcomb, but he’s very young: hardly more than a schoolboy!”

“Quoth the graybeard!” said Sir Waldo lazily.

“Now, Waldo—! I only meant that I shouldn’t think he could be twenty yet, and I’m three-and-twenty,after all!”

“No, are you? I’ll say this for you then: you’re wearing very well!”

The infectious chuckle broke from Julian again. He retorted: “I’m too old, at all events, to ape your modes!”

“Is that what Master Underhill does?”

“Corinthian fashions, anyway. He was looking you over so closely that I wouldn’t bet a groat on the chance that he won’t turn out in your sort of rig within the week. He asked me all manner of questions about you, too.”

“Julian!” said Sir Waldo, with deep foreboding. “Tell me at once just how rum you pitched it to that wretched youth?”

“I didn’t! I saidI didn’t know what larks you was used to engage in—which was true, though I know more now than I did yesterday! Waldo, did you once win five guineas by flooring the bruiser at some Fair in the second round?”

“Good God! How the devil did that story reach Yorkshire? I did: and if that’s the sort of folly this chuckleheaded new friend of yours admires I hope you told him it was a fudge!”

“No, how could I? I told him to ask you for the truth of it. He didn’t like to approach you tonight, but I daresay he will, when we go to Staples next week.”

“Before then—long before then!—I shall have sent you packing, you hell-born brat!”

“Not you! I’d rack up at the Crown if you cast me out! Only wait until you have seen Miss Wield! Then you’ll understand!”

Sir Waldo returned a light answer, but he was beginning to feel a little uneasy. There was a certain rapt note in Julian’s voice which was new to him; and he had not previously known his young cousin to pursue a fair object with a determination that brushed aside such obvious disadvantages as a vulgar aunt, and a cousin whom he frankly acknowledged to be a coxcomb. He set little store by his consequence, but Sir Waldo had never yet seen him either encouraging the advances of led-captains, or seeking the company of those whom he would himself have described as being not fit to go; and it seemed highly improbable that he would try to fix his interest with any girl, be she never so beautiful, who was sprung from the mushroom-class he instinctively avoided. At the same time, it would be unlike him to be thinking of mere dalliance. Under his gaiety, Sir Waldo knew, ran a vein of seriousness, and strong principles: he might (though his experienced cousin doubted it) look for amusement amongst the muslin-company, but it would be wholly foreign to his nature deliberately to raise in any virtuous breast expectations which he had no intention of fulfilling. He had once or twice fancied himself in love, and had paid court to the chosen fair; but these affairs had dwindled, and had died perfectly natural deaths. He had never dangled after any marriageable girl in the cynical spirit of the rake: his youthful adventures in love might be transient, but he had embarked on them in all sincerity.

“I like the Squire, don’t you?” remarked Julian idly.

“Better than I like his wife!”

“Oh, lord, yes! All pretension, ain’t she? The girls are very unaffected and jolly, too: nothing to look at, of course! I suppose the most striking, au fait de beauté,as Mama would say, was the redheaded dasher, with the quiz of a brother, but, for my part, I prefer Miss Chartley’s style—and her parents! No pretensions there,but—I don’t know how to express it!”

“A touch of quality?” suggested Sir Waldo.

“Ay, that’s it!” agreed Julian, yawning, and relapsing into sleepy silence.

He made no further reference to Miss Wield, either then or during the succeeding days; and so far from showing any of the signs of the love-lorn entered with enthusiasm on a search for a likely hunter, under the aegis of Mr Gregory Ash; struck up a friendship with Jack Banningham’s elder brother, and went flapper-shooting with him; dragged his cousin twenty miles to watch a disappointing mill; and in general seemed to be more interested in sport than in ravishing beauties. Sir Waldo did not quite banish his uneasy suspicion that he was harder-hit than his mother would like, but he relegated it to the back of his mind, thinking that he might well have been mistaken.

On Wednesday, when he saw Miss Wield at the Staples party, he knew that he had not been mistaken.

The hall at Staples was very large and lofty, with the main staircase rising from it in a graceful curve. Just as the cousins, having relinquished their hats and cloaks into the care of a powdered footman, were about to cross the floor in the wake of the butler, Miss Wield came lightly down the stairs, checking at sight of the guests, and exclaiming: “Oh! Oh, dear, I didn’t know anyone had arrived yet! I’m late, and my aunt will scold! Oh, how do you do, Lord Lindeth!”

As conduct befitting one who was to all intents and purposes a daughter of the house this belated arrival on the scene might leave much to be desired; but as an entrance it was superb. Sir Waldo was not at all surprised to hear Lord Lindeth catch his breath; he himself thought that he had never beheld a lovelier vision, and he was neither impressionable nor three-and-twenty. The velvet ribbons which embellished a ball dress of celestial blue crape and silver gauze were of an intense blue, but not more brilliant than Tiffany’s eyes, to which they seemed to draw attention. Pausing on the stairway, one gloved hand resting on the baluster-rail, her pretty lips parting in a smile which showed her white teeth, Tiffany presented a picture to gladden most men’s hearts.

O my God! thought Sir Waldo. Now we are in the basket!

She resumed her floating descent of the stairs, as Julian stood spellbound. Recovering he started forward to meet her, stammering: “M-Miss Wield! We meet again—at last!”

Enchanting dimples peeped as she gave him her hand. “At last? But it’s hardly more than a sennight since I disturbed you at your fishing! You were vexed, too—horridly vexed!”

“Never!” he declared, laughing. “Only when I looked in vain for you at the Manor last week—and I wasn’t vexed then: that’s too small a word!” He ventured to press her hand before releasing it, and turning to introduce his cousin to her.

Sir Waldo, who strongly (and quite correctly) suspected that Tiffany had been lying in wait on the upper landing, and had thus been able exactly to time her appearance on the scene, bowed, and said How-do-you-do, his manner a nice blend of civility and indifference. Tiffany, accustomed to meet with blatant admiration, was piqued. She had not sojourned for long under her uncle Burford’s roof in Portland Place, but she had not wasted her time there, and she was well aware that, notwithstanding his rank, Lord Lindeth was a nonentity, when compared with his splendid cousin. To attach the Nonesuch, however temporarily, would be enough to confer distinction on any lady; to inspire him with a lasting passion would be a resounding triumph; for although he was said to have many flirts these seemed always to be married ladies, and the decided preferences he showed from time to time had led neither to scandal nor to any belief that his affections had been seriously engaged.

Dropping a demure curtsy, Tiffany raised her eyes to his face, favouring him with a wide, innocent gaze. She had previously only seen him from a distance, and she now perceived that he was very good-looking, and even more elegant than she had supposed. But instead of showing admiration he was looking rather amused, and that displeased her very much. She smiled at Lord Lindeth, and said: “I’ll take you to my aunt, shall I? Then perhaps she won’t scold after all!”

Mrs Underhill showed no disposition to scold, though she was quite shocked to think that two such distinguished guests should have entered her drawing-room unannounced. When, much later, she learned from her offended butler that Miss Tiffany had waved him aside, like a straw, she was aghast, and exclaimed: “Whatever must they have thought?”

Totton shuddered; but Tiffany, reproached for her social lapse, only laughed, and declared, on the authority of one who had lived for three months on the fringe of the ton, that a want of ceremony was just what such persons as Lord Lindeth and the Nonesuch preferred.

Lord Lindeth, too much dazzled to question the propriety of Tiffany’s conduct in impulsively seizing his hand, and leading him up to his hostess, would have endorsed this pronouncement; Sir Waldo, following in their wake, reflected that he would have thought Tiffany’s artlessness amusing, if only some other young man than Julian had been enthralled by it He was in no way responsible for Julian; but he was fond of the boy, and he knew very well that his aunt Lindeth implicitly trusted him to keep her darling out of mischief. This duty had not, so far, imposed any great tax on his ingenuity: Tiffany would have been flattered to know that one glance at her had been enough to convince Sir Waldo that she represented the first real danger Julian had encountered.

A swift look round the room informed Sir Waldo that the company consisted of the same persons whom he had met at the Squire’s dinner-party, and he resigned himself to an evening’s boredom, exactly as his hostess had foretold. “Because you can’t conjure up persons which don’t exist, not with the best will in the world you can’t,” she had said to Miss Trent. “Mrs Mickleby took care to invite all the genteel families she could lay her hands on, drat her! I daresay, if we only knew it, she thinks I’ll make up my numbers with the Shilbottles, and the Tumbys, and the Wrangles, which is where she’ll find herself mightily mistaken.”

Miss Trent suggested mildly that the Shilbottles were very agreeable people, but was overborne. “Agreeable they may be,” said Mrs Underhill, “but they’re not genteel. Mr Shilbottle goes to Leeds every day to his manufactory, and I hope I know better than to invite him to meet a lord! Why, next you’ll be telling me I ought to send a card to the Badgers! No! His lordship and Sir Waldo had better be bored than disgusted!” She added, on a hopeful note: “One thing you may depend on: they’ll find nothing amiss with their dinner!”

The repast which she set before her guests was certainly enormous, consisting of two courses, with four removes, and a score of side-dishes, ranging from a rump of beef a la Mantua, wax baskets of prawns and crayfish, to orange soufflés and asparagus, and some atlets of palates: a delicacy for which her cook was famous.

Miss Trent was not present at dinner, but she brought Charlotte down to the drawing-room afterwards, and was instantly seen by Sir Waldo, when he came into the room with the rest of the gentlemen. She was wearing a dress of crape with lilac ribbons, with long sleeves, and the bodice cut rather high, as befitted a governess, but he thought she looked the most distinguished lady present, and very soon made his way to her side.

The room had been cleared for dancing, and the musicians from Harrogate were tuning their instruments. Mrs Underhill, explaining that she thought the young people would like to dance, had begged Sir Waldo not to think himself obliged to take part, if he did not care for it, which had made it easy for him to range himself amongst the elders of the party. He might be noted for his courtesy but he had not the remotest intention of standing up with a dozen provincial girls through a succession of country dances. But when the first set was forming he went up to Miss Trent, and solicited the honour of leading her into it. She declined it, but could not help feeling gratified.

“That’s a set-down!” remarked Sir Waldo. “Are you going to tell me that you don’t dance, ma’am?”

She was thrown into a little natural confusion by this unexpected rejoinder, and said with less than her usual calm: “No, thank you. That is, yes, of course I do, but not—I mean—”

“Go on!” he said encouragingly, as she stopped, vexed with herself for being suddenly so gauche.“You do dance, but not with—er—gentlemen who are addicted to sporting pursuits! Have I that correctly?”

She looked quickly at him. “Did I say that?”

“Yes, and in a tone of severe disapprobation. You did not then tell me you preferred not to dance with me, of course: the occasion hadn’t arisen.”

“I haven’t told you so now, sir!” she replied, with spirit. “I said—I hope civilly!—that I don’t dance at all!”

“After which,” he reminded her, “you said that you do dance, but not—! Civility then overcame you, I collect! Quite tied your tongue, in fact! So I came to your rescue. I wish you will tell me what I’ve done to earn your disapproval.”

“You are quite mistaken, sir. You must know that you have done nothing. I assure you I don’t disapprove of you!”

“Just my imagination, Miss Trent? I don’t believe it, but I’m very ready to be convinced. Shall we join this set?”

“Sir Waldo, you are labouring under a misapprehension! It would be most improper in me to stand up with you, or with anyone! I’m not a guest here: I am the governess!”

“Yes, but a most superior female!” he murmured.

She looked at him in some astonishment. “Did you know it, then? And asked me to dance? Well, I’m very much obliged to you, but I think it shows a strange want of conduct in you! To ask the governess rather than Miss Wield—!”

“My cousin was before me. Now, don’t recite me a catalogue of the girls I might have asked to stand up with me! I daresay they are very amiable, I can see that one or two are pretty, and I know that I should find them all dead bores. I’m glad you won’t dance: I had rather by far talk to you!”

“Well, it won’t do!” she said resolutely. “I am quite beneath your touch, sir!”

“No, no, that’s coming it much too strong!” he said. “When I have it on excellent authority that your uncle is a General!”

For a moment she suspected him of mockery; then she met his eyes, and realized that the laughter in them was at a joke he believed she would appreciate. She said, with a quivering lip: “D-did Mrs Underhill say that? Oh, dear! I shouldn’t think you could possibly believe that she didn’t learn about my uncle from me, but I promise you she didn’t!”

“Another of my misapprehensions! I had naturally supposed that you introduced him into every conversation, and had been wondering how it came about that you forgot to mention him when we first met.”

She choked. “I wish you will stop trying to make me laugh! Do, pray, Sir Waldo, go and talk to Mrs Mickleby, or Lady Colebatch, or someone! I might have twenty generals in my family, but I should still be the governess, and you must know that governesses remain discreetly in the background.”

“That sounds like fustian,” he remarked.

“Well, it isn’t! It—it is a matter of social usage. It will be thought most unbecoming in me to put myself forward. I can see that already Mrs Banningham is wondering what can possess you to stand talking to me like this! Just the thing to set people in a bustle! You may stand on too high a form to care for the world’s opinion, but I can assure you I don’t!”

“Oh, I’m not nearly as arrogant as you think!” he assured her. “Setting people in a bustle is the last thing I wish to do! But I find it hard to believe that even the most deplorably top-lofty matron could think it remarkable that I should engage in conversation the niece of one of my acquaintances. I should rather suppose that she would think it abominably uncivil of me not to do so!”

“Are you acquainted with my uncle?” she demanded.

“Of course I am: we are members of the same club! I don’t mean to boast, however! He is an older and by far more distinguished man than I am, and acquaintance is all I claim.”

She smiled, but looked rather searchingly at him. “Are you also acquainted with his son, sir? My cousin, Mr Bernard Trent?”

“Not to my knowledge. Ought I to be?”

“Oh, no! He is very young. But he has a number of friends amongst the Corinthian set. I thought perhaps you might have encountered him.”

He shook his head; and as Sir Ralph Colebatch came up at that moment she excused herself, and moved away to find Charlotte. She soon saw her, going down the dance with Arthur Mickleby; and realized ruefully, but with a little amusement, that while she had been engaged with the Nonesuch her enterprising pupil had contrived to induce Arthur to lead her into the set. Some mothers, she reflected, would have censured her pretty severely for not having kept a stricter chaperonage over a schoolgirl admitted to the drawing-room merely to watch the dancing for an hour, before going demurely upstairs to bed; but she was not surprised to find Mrs Underhill complacently eyeing her daughter’s performance, or to learn that she had given Charlotte leave to dance.

“Well, I daresay I ought to have said no,” she admitted, “but I like to see young people enjoying themselves, which it’s plain she is, bless her! I’m sure there’s no harm in her taking her place in a country-dance or two, for it’s not as if there was to be any waltzing, that you may depend on! Nor it isn’t a formal ball, which would be a very different matter, of course.” She withdrew her gaze from Charlotte, and said kindly: “And if any gentleman was to ask you to stand up with him, my dear, I hope you’ll do so! There’s no one will wonder at it, not after seeing Sir Waldo going smash up to you, the way he did, and stand talking to you as though you was old friends!”

“He was speaking to me of my uncle, ma’am!” and Miss Trent, snatching at the excuse offered her by the Nonesuch, but flushing a little. “They are acquainted, you see.”

“Ay, that’s just what I said to Mrs. Banningham!” nodded Mrs. Underhill. “‘Oh,’ I said, ‘you may depend upon it Sir Waldo is acquainted with the General, and they are chatting away about him, and all their London friends! I’m sure nothing could be more natural,’ I said, ‘for Miss Trent is very well-connected,’ I said. That made her look yellow, I can tell you! Well, I hope I’m not one to take an affront into my head where none’s intended, but I’ve had a score to settle with Mrs B. ever since she behaved so uppish to me at the Lord-Lieutenant’s party!” A cloud descended on her brow; she said: “However, there’s always something to spoil one’s pleasure, and I don’t scruple to own to you,Miss Trent, that the way his lordship looks at Tiffany has put me in a regular fidget! Mark me if we don’t have him sitting in her pocket now, for anyone can see he’s nutty upon her!”

This was undeniable. Miss Trent thought it would have been wonderful if he had not been looking at Tiffany with that glow of admiration in his eyes; for Tiffany, always responsive to flattery, was at her most radiant: a delicate flush in her cheeks, her eyes sparkling like sapphires, and a lovely, provocative smile on her lips. Half-a-dozen young gentlemen had begged for the honour of leading her into the first set; she had scattered promises amongst them, and had bestowed her hand on Lord Lindeth, taking her place with him while three less fortunate damsels were still unprovided with partners. But that was a circumstance she was unlikely to notice.

“Miss Trent, if he thinks to stand up with her more than twice that’s something I won’t allow!” said Mrs Underhill suddenly. “You must tell her she’s not to do so, for she’ll pay no heed to me, and it’s you her uncle looked to, after all!”

Ancilla smiled, but said: “She wouldn’t flout you publicly, ma’am. I’ll take care, of course—but I fancy Lord Lindeth won’t ask her for a third dance.”

“Lord, my dear, what he’d like to do is to stand up with her for every dance!”

“Yes, but he knows he can’t do so, and has too much propriety of taste, I’m persuaded, to make the attempt. And, to own the truth, ma’am, I think Tiffany wouldn’t grant him more than two dances in any event.”

“Tiffany?” exclaimed Mrs Underhill incredulously. “Why, she’s got no more notion of propriety than the kitchen cat!”

“No, alas! But she is a most accomplished flirt, ma’am!” She could not help laughing at Mrs. Underhill’s face of horror. “I beg your pardon! Of course it is very wrong—shockingly precocious, too!—but you will own that a mere flirtation with Lindeth need not throw you into a quake.”

“Yes, but he’s a lord!” objected Mrs. Underhill. “You know how she says she means to marry one!”

“We must convince her that she would be throwing herself away on anyone under the rank of a Viscount!” said Ancilla lightly.

The dance came to an end, and she soon had the satisfaction of seeing that she had prophesied correctly: Tiffany stood up for the next one with Arthur Mickleby, and went on to dance the boulanger with Jack Banningham. Lord Lindeth, meanwhile, did his duty by Miss Colebatch and Miss Chartley; and Miss Trent extricated Charlotte from a group of slightly noisy young people, and inexorably bore her off to bed. Charlotte thought herself abominably ill-used to be compelled to withdraw before supper: she had been looking forward to drinking her very first glass of champagne. Miss Trent, barely repressing a shudder, handed her over to her old nurse, and returned to the drawing-room.

She entered it to find that the musicians were enjoying a respite. She could not see Mrs Underhill, and guessed that she had gone into the adjoining saloon, where some of the more elderly guests were playing whist. Nor could she see Tiffany: a circumstance which filled her with foreboding. Just as she had realized that Lindeth was another absentee, and was wondering where first to search for them, a voice spoke at her elbow.

“Looking for your other charge, Miss Trent?”

She turned her head quickly, to find that Sir Waldo was somewhat quizzically regarding her. He flicked open his snuff-box with one deft finger, and helped himself to a delicate pinch. “On the terrace,” he said.

“Oh, no!” she said involuntarily.

“Well, of course, they may have been tempted to take a stroll about the gardens,” he conceded. “The terrace, however, was the declared objective.”

“I collect it was Lord Lindeth who took her on to the terrace!”

“Do you? My reading of the matter was that it was rather Miss Wield who took Lindeth on to it!”

She bit her lip. “She is very young—hardly out of the schoolroom!”

“A reflection which must cause her relations to feel grave concern,” he said, in a tone of affable agreement.

She found herself to be so much in accord with him that it was difficult to think of anything to say in extenuation of Tiffany’s conduct. “She—she is inclined to be headstrong, and quite ignorant of—of—And since it was your cousin who most improperly escorted her I think you should have prevented him!”

“My dear Miss Trent, I’m not Lindeth’s keeper! I’m not Miss Wield’s keeper either, I thank God!”

“You may well!” she said, with considerable asperity.

Then, as she saw the amusement in his face, she added: “Yes, you may laugh, sir, but I am Miss Wield’s keeper—or, at any rate, I am responsible for her!—and it’s no laughing matter to me! I must do something!”

She looked round the room as she spoke, a furrow between her brows. It was a warm June night, and the drawing-room was hot and airless. More than one unbecomingly flushed young lady was fanning herself, and several shirt-points were beginning to wilt. Miss Trent’s brow cleared; she went up to a little group which included Miss Chartley, the dashing Miss Colebatch, and the younger of the Squire’s daughters, with their attendant swains, and said, with her charming smile: “Dreadfully hot, isn’t it? I dare not open the windows: you know what an outcry there would be! Would you like to come out for a little while? It is such a beautiful moonlight night, with not a breeze stirring, that I have ventured to direct the servants to bring some lemonade on to the terrace. But you must put on your shawls, mind!”

The suggestion was thankfully acclaimed by the gentlemen, and by the Squire’s jolly daughter, who clapped her hands together, exclaiming: “Oh, famous fun! Do let us go!” Miss Chartley, wondering what Mama would say, looked a little doubtful, but decided that if Miss Trent was sponsoring this interlude it must be unexceptionable; and in a very few minutes that resourceful lady had assembled some four or five couples, dropped an urgent word in Totton’s astonished ear, and had informed several matrons, with smiling assurance, that she had yielded to the persuasions of their various offspring, and was permitting them (under her chaperonage) to take a turn on the terrace, before resuming their exertions on the floor. She would take good care that none of the young ladies caught chills; and, indeed, must hurry away to be sure that they had put on their shawls.

Sir Waldo was an appreciative spectator of this talented performance; and when Miss Trent, having shepherded her flock on to the terrace, was about to follow them, she found him once more at her elbow, smiling at her in a way which was oddly disturbing. “Well done!” he said, holding back the heavy curtain that hung beside the long window of the saloon that gave on to the terrace.

“Thank you! I hope it may answer, but I’m afraid it will be thought very odd conduct in a respectable governess,” she replied, passing out into the moonlight.

“Not at all: you carried it off to admiration,” he said, following her. He raised his quizzing-glass, and through it scanned the scene. “I realize, of course, that if the truants have gone farther afield it will be my unenviable task to discover them, and—No, they have not been so imprudent. How fortunate! Now we may both be easy!”

“Yes, indeed!” she responded, with the utmost cordiality. “I was shocked to see you in such a worry, sir!”

He laughed, but before he could answer her she had stepped away from him to put a scarf round Tiffany’s shoulders. Courtenay, who had been awaiting his moment, seized the opportunity afforded by the Nonesuch’s being alone for the first time during the evening to approach him, asking very respectfully if he might procure a glass of champagne for him. He then added, in case the great man should snub him for presuming to address him: “I’m Underhill, you know, sir!”

Sir Waldo declined the champagne, but in a friendly manner which gave the lie to Mr. Jack Banningham, who had prophesied that any attempt on Courtenay’s part to engage him in conversation would be met with a severe setdown. He said: “We met at the Manor, didn’t we? I rather fancy I saw you on the Harrogate road the other day, driving a well ribbed-up bay.”

No more encouragement was needed. Within a very few minutes Courtenay was subjecting him to a stringent cross-examination on his real and imagined exploits. He bore it very well, but interrupted at last to say: “But must you throw all my youthful follies in my face? I thought I had lived them down!”

Courtenay was shocked; but Miss Trent, standing within earshot, felt that her first favourable impression of the Nonesuch had not been entirely erroneous.