The Reluctant Widow

Chapter XV

Elinor and Miss Beccles had spent a quiet, housewifely morning, during the course of which Miss Beccles had announced with simple satisfaction that she believed Highnoons would soon be as pretty a residence as one might find anywhere. She so plainly envisaged a prolonged sojourn in it that Elinor was constrained to remind her that as soon as she was at liberty to do so she was to sell the house. Miss Beccles said that she was by no means persuaded of this being her best course. “We might be so comfortable here!” she said, with a tiny sigh.

Elinor could only assure her that wherever she went there would be a place for her dearest Becky, but that there could be no question of her remaining on at Highnoons. To which Miss Beccles replied that no doubt his lordship would know best what she should do. This goaded Elinor into delivering herself of a pithy condemnation of his lordship’s tyrannical disposition and utter lack of regard for the scruples of a decent female. Miss Beccles said wistfully that she did so much like a masterful man, an observation that sent the widow out of the room with something perilously akin to a flounce.

It was useless to expect Miss Beccles to enter into her sentiments. Indeed, no one with whom she was now in daily contact seemed to have the least appreciation of the awkwardness of her situation. She could not but realize that she was allowing herself to be swept along toward a future that was impenetrably wrapped in a haze of speculation. She could not imagine what was to become of her. It seemed improbable that anything beyond the merest competence would be saved from the wreck of Eustace Cheviot’s fortune. Indeed, she could not have borne to have found herself living in affluence as a consequence of her marriage, and must, she told herself, have made over any considerable property by a deed of gift. But since she was an honest woman, she was bound to own to herself that after this interlude in her drab existence she would find it very hard to return to her previous occupation. A little house which she could share with Becky, in a modest quarter of the town, seemed to be the best she could hope for, and although this, a week earlier, had represented the sum total of her ambitions, for some reason or other it no longer held any attraction for her. The first fruits of the brief notice of her nuptials, which Carlyon had inserted in the London newspapers, had come to her hand already. Letters from two of her cousins and her least beloved uncle had reached Highnoons, brought up to the house from the mail office at Billingshurst by the groom who had gone there on an errand. Her uncle’s missive, couched in dignified terms, showed him to have taken offense at the secrecy of her marriage, and reminded her, over two crossed pages, that it had not been at his wish or instigation that she had abandoned the shelter of his roof. He had apparently missed the other notice, of Eustace Cheviot’s demise, and wrote that he hoped she might not regret an alliance with one of whom all reports spoke ill.

The cousins sprinkled their letters with points of admiration and were obviously agog with curiosity to learn all that must lie behind the formal advertisement in the Times. Both begged her to recall their affection for her and not to hesitate to invite them to Highnoons if they could be of service to her in her hour of trial. Elinor lost no time in replying to these kind offers in civil but repelling terms.

The return of Francis Cheviot from the funeral in a beaten down condition that made it necessary for Crawley to be summoned to lend him the support of his arm was a surprise, but as nothing to the surprise occasioned by his faltering explanation of his overmastering grief. Elinor could only gaze at him in horror. As little as Carlyon did she believe that the young Frenchman’s murder had been at the hands of pickpockets. Some dreadful and sinister force was at work, and she could not suppose that it would cease with the death of. De Castres. She had not the least guess who the assassin might be, whether an English agent or a French one, but that it was connected with some document which De Castres, and Francis Cheviot, and perhaps others as well, believed to be concealed at Highnoons she did not doubt. In her first dismay she was almost ready to have torn the house down brick by brick, only to be rid of whatever was so cunningly hidden in it, but soberer reflection gave her thoughts a more proper direction and she could not but acknowledge that it was the part of a loyal Englishwoman to do her possible to frustrate the enemies of her country, however ruthless these might be. But she wished she had not been the appointed Englishwoman.

Looking upon Francis’ pallid countenance, she could not wonder at his discomfiture. Although she might have little dependence on the sensibility which cast him into such apparent woe, she could not doubt that he was laboring under considerable nervous tension. It found expression in a shriller note in his voice and the testiness with which he rounded on his valet for some fault. His smile seemed forced and his movements less measured and graceful than they had been before the receipt of the tidings from London. Elinor could almost have pitied him had she not stood in such dread that his fear of the implacable master whom both he and De Castres served might lead him to undertake some desperate action in which she might become involved. She was in a fever to pour out the whole to Carlyon, and once Francis had gone upstairs to lie down upon his bed, with smelling salts and hartshorn and the blinds drawn, she could scarcely drag herself away from the parlor windows, which commanded a view of the front drive. Provokingly matter-of-fact Carlyon might be, but she owned it would be an inexpressible comfort to see his tall figure entering the house and to hear his quiet voice coolly making light of her alarms.

But it was not Carlyon’ who at last came riding up from the gate, but only Nicky, who had shed his funeral wear in defiance of his brother John for a blue coat with large silver buttons and very yellow buckskins, and was bestriding a rawboned hunter which took instant exception to Bouncer’s ecstatic greeting of his master. Nicky was fully occupied for a minute or two in a tussle with his horse, but he caught sight of Elinor presently and waved, shouting, “I’ll just stable Rufus! Isn’t he a proper highbred ’un? Just playing off his tricks, you know! He don’t care a button for Bouncer, of course. He’s been eating his head off in the stable, poor old fellow!”

She nodded and smiled, able to sympathize even in her agitated state of mind with his pride in his horse. He rode on toward the stables and she resigned herself to a prolonged wait while he saw the noble animal properly rubbed down and bestowed.

Twenty minutes later he came striding into the house, and laying down his hat and whip on the table in the hall, said in an undervoice vibrant with excitement, “Where is Cheviot?”

“In his bedchamber with the blinds drawn and Crawley chafing his feet. Oh, Nicky—”

“Hush! Come into the bookroom, Cousin: we must not be talking here, where we might be overheard.”

“Oh, no!” she agreed, going toward the bookroom obediently. “But indeed I think he is in truth laid down upon his bed. He is suffering the greatest irritation of nerves. I cannot allow that to be called in question.”

“Lord, yes, don’t I know it!” he said, shutting the door securely and treading over to the fire to cast another log on to it. “Sick as a horse! He told you that Louis de Castres has been murdered?”

“Yes, and the reflections this shocking event conjures up are so horrid that my own nerves are in a sad way. Where is your brother? I had hoped he might have come back here with you!”

“No, no, you will not be seeing Ned today!” Nicky replied. “He has gone up to London—driving post, you know, and taking his own bays over the first two stages! Prime goers, those bays of his! Beautiful J steppers!”

“Gone up to London!” she exclaimed in a stupefied tone.

“Yes. He said he would come back as fast as he could, but—”

“Does he know of that Frenchman’s death?” she demanded, interrupting him without compunction.

“Oh, yes! Well, of course he does! It is to do with that he has gone to town, though he would not tell us what he meant to do there. John is at the Hall still, and if you should like it he says he will spend the night here, without Francis’ being any the wiser, of course. And, by Jupiter, Cousin Elinor, I must take care Bouncer does not eat anything I do not give him myself, for John thinks Francis or that toothdrawer of a valet of his may seek to poison him! But I have been training Bouncer not to take food from the hand of any stranger, so I dare say there is not the least fear on that score.”

She refrained from telling him that his favorite apparently considered the offer of a bone or a scrap of meat sufficient introduction to put him on terms of acquaintance with the seediest stranger, and said, “Your brother knew this and has gone off to town without a word vouchsafed to me?”

“Oh, he knew I was to return here, and should inform you of his journey! It is the most famous affair, Cousin! We cannot tell what may happen next!”

“Very true! And for that reason I should have wished to have had speech with his lordship!”

“Well, I fancy he don’t know either, but I don’t mind telling you this, Cousin: he thinks Francis is a very dangerous man! He said so and bade me take care what I was about here.”

“Oh, he did?” exclaimed Elinor, rigid with wrath. “I am sure I am very much obliged to him! And am I to take care what I am about, or is that of no consequence?”

Nicky smiled engagingly down at her. “Bouncer and I will take good care of you, Cousin Elinor.”

“I have a very good mind to pack up my trunk and to leave this house within the hour!”

“You will not!”

“No, I will not,” she said crossly. “But it is the most infamous thing! When I see your brother—if ever I do see him again, which very likely I shall not as I dare say I shall soon be found with my throat cut from ear to ear!—I shall have something to say to him! Oh, when I think of the hideous case in which I am, and all through his crazy schemes which he has the effrontery to say are very sensible, I could—I could go into strong hysterics!”

He laughed. “Ay! You will have a spasm, I dare say, like one of my sisters’ governesses! But this is no time to be funning, Cousin!”

“Funning!”

“Now, be serious! Oh, Cousin Elinor, did you ever suppose—when you were quite young, I mean, in the schoolroom—that you would one day find yourself pitted against French agents?”

“No, Nicky, I did not. Nothing that has happened to me during the past week did I expect, even when I was in the schoolroom—where I very much wish I was now!”

“I am persuaded you do not! Why, how could you? But the thing is, what will Francis do now?”

“That thought has been occupying my mind this past hour.”—’

“He is such a poor-spirited fellow, you know, that I do not at all believe that he will attempt anything of a violent nature. I wish he would!”

“Yes, I am sure you do.”

“No,” said Nicky, unheeding. “If Ned is right, and he is indeed a dangerous fellow—but I own I cannot believe that a fellow that prefers cats to dogs and will not stir without he has his smelling salts with him can be worth a button!—but if it is so indeed, then I’ll swear he will go to work in some devilish cunning way you and I would never think of!”

“You are very likely right, and every word you say adds to my conviction that I had best pack up and be off to Mrs. Macclesfield this very day.”

“Mrs. Macclesfield? Oh, that female you was to have gone to! It is a good thing Ned would not let you, isn’t it? You would not have liked to have missed all this sport!”

Elinor had not consorted with adolescents for six years without learning when it was useless to persevere in the attempt to convey to them ideas that were wholly alien to their minds, and she now made no further effort to bring Nicky to an appreciation of her own sentiments. She agreed that it would have been a shocking thing to have missed spending a week in almost continuous alarm, and was rewarded by his telling her with impulsive warmth that he had known all along that she was a right one. He then did what lay in his power to undermine whatever fortitude was left to her by recounting, with embellishments, John’s theories on the murder of De Castres.

“John does not think that it can have been one of our fellows,” he said, striding about the room with all the energetic restlessness of a young gentleman itching I to be lip and doing. “He says, of course, there is no knowing what such men will be at, but he inclines to the belief Louis must have been killed by those who employ him.”

“Only for failing to procure what was wanted?” she faltered.

“Oh, no! John has a notion they may have suspected him of not dealing quite honestly with them. You see, he is persuaded that Louis was never a principal, because nothing seems to be known about him, and of course our people are generally pretty watchful and know more than you would suppose. The thing is that there is very likely someone, and I dare say more than just one man, who is behind it all. I should not be at all surprised if it were someone no one suspects in the least. What capital fun it will be if he comes to have a touch at us himself!”

“Yes, indeed! And to make it even better, I dare say, since he appears to be such a desperate character, he will stop at nothing to obtain his ends.”

“Exactly so! Particularly if he should suppose that we have that paper safely in our possession!”

She could not repress a gasp of dismay, but common sense came to her rescue and she suggested diffidently that if they had had the paper they must surely have restored it to its rightful owners.

Nicky, after considering this with some dissatisfaction, was obliged to own that there was something in what she said. He cheered up after a moment or two and said, “But only conceive what a famous tangle it is, with the only man who knew where the paper was hid dead, and you living in this house, so that whatever is done to find the thing must be done by stealth! The more I think of it the more I believe they are bungling the affair sadly! The thing to have done would have been to have got unto Highnoons by a ruse. By Jupiter, yes! Someone should have been sent to you as a servant, and only think how easily a seeming servant could ransack the place!”

Her mind darted to the two young wenches hired by Mrs. Barrow, to the carpenter who had been sent for to mend defective hinges, and broken chair legs, and even to the boy who had been engaged to assist the gardener in his labors. She started half out of her chair, exclaiming, “Good God! You do not think that that man who was working here all the morning—or the maids—or—”

“No, I’m afraid not,” Nicky said wistfully. “You mean Redditch, do you? I must say it is a first-rate notion, but I have known Redditch all my life. And as for the maids, ain’t one of them Mrs. Barrow’s niece and the other a girl from the village?”

“Of course!” she said, sinking back again. “I do not know how I came to be so stupid! It is your fault, you horrid boy, for putting such dreadful ideas into my head! And now I come to think of it, I have not the least apprehension that any sinister stranger will arrive at Highnoons, for it is not at all reasonable to suppose that the man who employed De Castres can be aware, that your cousin was employed as a go-between.”

“Why not?” demanded Nicky, staring.

“Because if this dreadful person knew who was the man from whom De Castres obtained information he must surely have approached him himself! Why should the French Government be paying two persons where one would suffice? I am sure they would never do so!”

Nicky thought this over. “Well, yes,” he admitted in some discontent. “I dare say that may be so. And that is why Francis is forced to act in the matter himself, which I’ll wager he never wanted to do! I must say, it will be a dead bore if Francis is the only man we have to reckon with!”

He continued walking about the room, advancing and discarding theories, until relief came to Mrs. Cheviot in the solid shape of Mr. John Carlyon who, after shaking hands with his hostess, prosaically recommended Nicky to take himself off for a brisk walk.

“Walk! I do not want to go for a walk!” said Nicky, quite affronted.

“Then sit down, and do not be fidgeting Mrs. Cheviot in this way. What has become of your guest, ma’am?”

“He is laid down upon his bed.”

He smiled, “Well, my brother may say what he likes, but I shall not readily believe that we have anything to fear from Francis Cheviot! I trust you have not allowed yourself to be alarmed by what I make no doubt Nicky has told you?”

She regarded him with patent hostility. “Dear me, how excessively like your brother Carlyon you are, to be sure!” she remarked.

“Like Ned? No, that I am sure I am not!” he replied, laughing.

“You are mistaken. The resemblance is most pronounced. I might have fancied him to have been addressing me. What a nonsensical thing it would be in me to allow myself to become alarmed by a trifle such as murder!”

“My dear Mrs. Cheviot, nothing of the sort is likely to threaten you, believe me! But I cannot but feel that it is not comfortable for you to be left with Cheviot in your house at night, when he is most likely to make the attempt to possess himself of that memorandum.”

“Hey!” said Nicky, ruffling up. “I shall be here!”

“Yes,” said John unkindly. “Falling over suits of armor, I dare say. Tell me, ma’am, shall I come over to you? I may be perfectly comfortable on the sofa in this room, you know. I would set old Barrow to mount guard if it were not an object with us to keep the servants in ignorance of our suspicions.”

She thanked him, but upon reflection declined his offer, saying that she was content to trust in Nicky and in Bouncer, who had taken such a dislike to Francis that he barked whenever he encountered him and would certainly rouse the household if Francis ventured out of his chamber during the night. Bouncer opened a pair of sleepy eyes and gently thumped his tail on the carpet.

“Yes,” said Nicky gratefully, “and if I tie him to the foot of the stairs after Francis has gone to bed there can be no fear of his giving him poisoned meat, because he will never be able to come near enough to him to do so. He will have roused the whole house before Francis has had time to reach the head of the stairs.”

“Well, ma’am, I own I think you are wise not to refine too much upon suspicions which may yet prove to be without foundation,” John said. “Indeed, when I reflect soberly I find myself loath to believe that we are not all of us hunting for mares’ nests.”

Such a spiritless remark as this could not have been expected to appeal to Nicky, who was provoked into joining issue with his brother in a very heated manner. But when, a few minutes before dinner was announced, Francis came down from his room, his demeanor gave a good deal of color to John’s prosaic reflections. He wore, besides a complete suit of black embellished with a crepe-edged handkerchief, so woebegone a countenance that it was hard to suspect him of duplicity. His mind seemed to be wholly absorbed by the two evils of his friend’s death and his own incipient cold, and it was difficult to decide which loomed the larger in his brain. Whenever the thought of Louis de Castres came into his head it cast him into a silence broken only by deep sighs. But his conversation turned for the most part on a sore throat which he trusted would not be found to be putrid. He partook sparingly of the pheasant pie, trifled with the ratafia cream, and declined mournfully to taste the roasted cheese. Nicky, whose ambition was to goad him into betraying himself, divulged to him the discovery of the secret stair, but as the revelation was met with a strong shudder and an urgent prayer to Mrs. Cheviot securely to nail up such an undesirable feature of the house, he could not be said to have got much good by this gambit. Nor did a reference to Eustace Cheviot’s papers succeed better. Francis said that he had no doubt of their being in the utmost disorder, but begged no one would ask him to assist in unraveling them. “For I have no head for business, dear boy: positively none at all! Your estimable brother will do very much better without me. I am so thankful it is he and not I who is an executor of poor Eustace’s will!”

When the party gathered in the parlor after dinner, he very soon detected a draft and directed Nicky where to place a handsome needlework screen so that he might be protected from it. But even this did not serve, and with many apologies to Elinor, he desired Nicky to summon Crawley to his assistance. “For if I were to take one of my colds, you know, I might be tied to Highnoons for a month,” he said earnestly. “The thought of putting Mrs. Cheviot to such inconvenience is very disturbing.”

Elinor could only hope that her countenance did not betray how completely she agreed with him. Miss Beccles came forward with offers of remedies, and Crawley presently draped his cloak round his shoulders and promised to have ready a foot bath of hot mustard and water when he should come up to bed. This he soon did, leaving Nicky to exclaim, “He is the paltriest fellow! Why, I think him worse than Eustace, and as for standing in awe of him, pooh!”

Even Miss Beccles allowed herself to be dissuaded from again roping the handle of his door to Nicky’s. Bouncer was tethered to the banister at the foot of the stairs and provided with a rug to lie upon. This, however, was found to be a failure, that free-spirited animal being unable to brook such unaccustomed restraint, and yelping so persistently that Nicky was obliged to untie him.

After this, peace descended upon the house and remained unbroken until the clatter of dustpans and brushes showed that the servants were once more at work.

Scarcely had Elinor risen from the breakfast table than Crawley presented himself to her wearing a most lugubrious expression and informing her in suitably grave accents that his master found himself far from well and begged that a doctor might be summoned. She promised that a message should be dispatched to Dr. Greenlaw and hoped that Mr. Cheviot had been able to swallow some breakfast

“Thank you, madam, just a little thin gruel,” said Crawley. “I have taken the liberty of requesting the cook to make some arrowroot—jelly for my master, which he might be able to partake of a little later.”

“Mutton and herbs make a very supporting broth,” suggested Miss Beccles helpfully.

The valet bowed, but shook his head. “My master, thank you, miss, can never stomach mutton. I took the precaution of packing a pot of Dr. Ratcliffe’s Restorative Pork Jelly in the larger valise, and shall endeavor to persuade my master to swallow a spoonful every now and then.”

An inquiry in the kitchen brought corroboration of this tale, and with it a tirade from Mrs. Barrow on the valetudinarian habits of a young gentleman who should, she held, be above coddling himself in such a fashion.

“I disremember when I’ve seen Mr. Francis here without he took ill,” remarked Barrow dispassionately. “I mind one time he gave his ankle a twist and carried on like he was burned to the socket. I dare say we’ll have him here a se’n-night, setting us all by the ears.”

“By Jupiter, we will not!” declared Nicky when this was reported to him. “I see his game, Cousin. He thinks to remain on till he may take us off our guard, but it will not answer! I’ll ride for Greenlaw myself—Rufus needs a good gallop, you know!—and see if I don’t get him to have Francis up out of his bed this very day! Yes, and on the road to London, what’s more!”

“I wish you may!” she said. “But I do not know how it is to be contrived.”

His eyes danced. “Don’t you, though? Smallpox in the village!”

She was obliged to laugh, but doubted whether he would be able to persuade the respectable physician into perjuring himself so shockingly.

“Oh, lord, yes, nothing easier!” Nicky assured her. “I can always make old Greenlaw do what I want. The only rub is that I may have to hunt all over for him. But I dare say I shall discover in which direction he has gone a-visiting. Everyone knows his gig!”

He went off to the stables accompanied by Bouncer, whom, however, he brought back to the house, firmly shutting him in. Bouncer, having scratched vigorously at the front door for some time and addressed it in a crescendo of most distressful sounds, was lured away by Miss Beccles who held out a bone to him as a bait to follow her to the back premises. He there consumed the offering, afterward departing on a foraging expedition of his own through a low window which he found to be conveniently open. Elinor, who caught sight of him from an upper window, sternly bade him return, a command to which he turned a deaf ear. The chance to enjoy a morning’s sport had not come in his way lately, and he was never one to let opportunity slip. Elinor, accepting defeat, closed the window and went down to the kitchen for a prolonged conference with its chatelaine. Retreating at last from Mrs. Barrow’s volubility, she went into the bookroom, to write a careful letter of unconvincing explanation to her Aunt Sophia, who, one of her cousins had warned her, had formed the intention of sending her meek husband into Sussex to discover the truth of her unhappy niece’s reprehensibly secret nuptials. She was engaged on this task when Miss Beccles came in with an imposing inventory of all the linen in the house, written out in her delicate copperplate and copiously annotated with descriptions of rents, darns, and thin patches. Elinor thanked her and promised to read it carefully, a formality the little governess was insistent should be observed. Miss Beccles then trotted away again, zestfully determined to compile a further inventory, this time of all the pickles, preserves, dried fruits, and household remedies to be found in the stillroom. Elinor finished her letter, folded and sealed it, and laid it by for Carlyon to frank for her. To oblige Miss Beccles, she glanced perfunctorily through the inventory, initialed it as she had been directed, and folded the stiff sheets neatly. It occurred to her that Nicky should have returned by this time, and she glanced toward the clock on the mantelpiece only to be exasperated for the fiftieth time since she had come to Highnoons by the realization that it was not going. She got up, the folded inventory still in her hand, and walked over to the fireplace intending to discover if the clock was broken, as all had assumed, or was merely suffering from lack of winding. The works could only be reached from the back, so she laid the inventory down on the mantelpiece and carefully shifted the heavy clock round at right angles to the wall. The door to it was found to be locked and resisted her efforts to pull it open, so she was obliged to abandon the attempt and to replace it in position. She picked up the inventory again and was just adjusting the clock, which she had not set quite straight, when a faint sound came to her ears, as of a creaking board. Her hands dropped. She was in the act of turning round when something struck her a stunning blow on the head and knocked her senseless.