Black Sheep Page 10

  'No, dear, certainly not!' said Selina hurriedly.

  'But you said –'

  'My love, I said nothing of the sort! How you do pick one up! It is not at all becoming! And that puts me in mind of something! Abby, never did I think to be put to the blush by a want of conduct in you! I declare, I was so mortified – so petulant and uncivil of you! And then, after placing yourself on far too high a form, besides snubbing him in the rudest way, you laughed in his face! As if you had known him for years!'

  'Good God, why did no one ever tell me that I mustn't laugh at what a man says until I have known him for years?' countered Abby.

  Before Selina could assemble her inchoate thoughts, Fanny said suddenly: 'Yes, but one has! I mean, one feels as if one has! For my part, I don't care a straw for his being shabbily dressed, and not having formal manners: I like him! I should have thought you would too, Abby, because he is just such a jokesmith as you are yourself! Don't you?'

  'I must say,' interpolated Selina, 'that he was very diverting. And when he smiles –'

  'Mr Calverleigh's smile must be reckoned as his greatest – if not his only – asset!' said Abby tartly. 'As to whether I like him or not, how can I possibly say? I am barely acquainted with him, Fanny!'

  'That doesn't signify! He is barely acquainted with you, but anyone can see that he likes you very much!' retorted Fanny saucily. 'Do you think he will be at the concert this evening?'

  'I haven't the least notion,' replied Abby. 'Certainly not, if riding-dress is his only wear!'

  'Poor man!' said Selina, her compassion stirred. 'I daresay he may be sadly purse-pinched.'

  However this might have been, Mr Calverleigh had either the means, or the credit, to have provided himself with the long-tailedcoat, the knee-breeches, and the silk stockings which constituted the correct evening-wear for gentlemen, for he appeared in the New Assembly Rooms, thus arrayed, a few minutes before the concert began, escorting Mrs Grayshott. But as he wore it as casually as his riding-dress, and appeared to set more store by comfort than elegance, no aspirant to fashion would have felt the smallest inclination to discover the name of his tailor.

  Miss Abigail Wendover observed his arrival from under her lashes, and thereafter confined her attention to her own party. She was herself looking (as her niece very improperly told her) as fine as fivepence, in one of the new gowns made for her in London, of Imperial muslin, with short sleeves, worn low on her shoulders, a narrow skirt, and a bodice trimmed with a double pleating of ribbon. It became her slender figure to admiration, and it had not been her original intention to have wasted it on a mere out-of-season concert; but when she had looked more closely at her lilac crape she had realised that it was really too shabby to be worn again. This, at least, was the explanation that she offered to her surprised sister. As for her hair, which she had dressed in loose curls, with one shining ringlet disposed over her left shoulder, what did Selina think of it? It was all the kick in London, but perhaps it would not do in Bath?

  'Oh, my dearest, I never saw you look so becoming!' said Selina, in a gush of sentimental tears. 'In such high bloom! I know you will be ready to eat me, but I must and I will say that no one would take you for Fanny's aunt !'

  So far from showing a disposition to take umbrage, Abby laughed, cast an appraising look at her reflection in the mirror above the fireplace, and said candidly: 'Well, I never was a beauty, but I'm not a mean bit yet, am I?'

  Certainly no one who was present at the concert that evening thought so. In the octagon room, where they waited for the rest of the party to assemble, Abby received quite as many com pliments as Fanny; and on her way through the concert-room had the doubtful felicity of being ogled by a complete stranger.

  During the interval, she did not immediately follow Mrs Faversham into the adjoining room, where tea was being served, being waylaid by Mr Dunston, who came up with his mother on his arm. Civility obliged her to exchange commonplaces with Mrs Dunston, and when that amiable and platitudinous lady's attention was claimed by one of her acquaintances her son stepped instantly into the breach, saying simply: 'Fair as is the rose of May! Do you know, that line has been running through my head ever since I set eyes on you this evening? You shine everyone else down, Miss Abby!'

  'Flummery!' said an amused voice at Abby's elbow. 'You can't have seen her niece!'

  'Sir!' uttered Mr Dunston, outraged. 'I believe I have not the pleasure of your acquaintance?'

  'Let me make you known to one another!' said Abby hastily. 'Mr Dunston, Mr Calverleigh – Mr Miles Calverleigh!'

  Mr Dunston executed a small, stiff bow, received in return a nod, and, for the first time in his stolid career, wished that the days of calling a man out on the slightest provocation did not belong to the past.

  'I've come to carry you off to drink tea with Mrs Grayshott,' said Mr Calverleigh, taking Abby's hand, and drawing it within his arm. 'I left her guarding a chair for you, so come along!' He favoured Mr Dunston with another nod, and a brief smile, and led Abby inexorably away, saying: 'He did empty the butterboat over you, didn't he? Who the devil is he?'

  'He is a very respectable man, who lives with his mother a few miles distant from the town,' she replied severely. 'And even if he was talking flummery it was not at all handsome of you to say so!'

  'I don't offer Spanish coin, if that's what you mean,' he retorted. 'Do you wish for it?'

  'Surely, Mr Calverleigh, your wide experience of females must have taught you that compliments are always acceptable to us?' she said demurely.

  'To nine out of ten females, yes! but not to you, Miss Abigail Wendover! You're more than seven! You know very well that in point of beauty you don't shine every other lady down: there are at least three real diamonds here tonight, leaving Fanny out of the reckoning.'

  'My dear sir, only point them out to me, and I'll present you! I expect I'm acquainted with them – indeed, I've a shrewd notion I know who they are!'

  He shook his head. 'No. I prefer to admire them from a distance. My wide experience warns me that they lack that certain sort of something which you have in abundance.'

  'My – sufficiently wide experience of you, Mr Calverleigh, warns me that you are about to say something outrageous!'

  'No, I assure you! Nothing derogatory! Charming girls, all of them! Only I don't want to kiss them!'

  She gave a startled gasp. 'You don't want – Well, upon my word! And if you mean me to understand from that –'

  'I do,' he said, smiling down at her. 'I should dearly love to kiss you – here and now!'

  'W-well you can't!' said Abby, rocked off her balance.

  'I know I can't – not here and now, at all events!'

  'Ever! ' she uttered, furiously aware of flaming cheeks.

  'Oh, that is quite another matter! Do you care to wager a small sum on the chance?'

  Making a desperate recovery, she said: 'No! I never bet on certainties!'

  He laughed. 'You know, you are a darling!' he said, completing her confusion.

  'Well, what you are is a – a –'

  'Hedge-bird?' he suggested helpfully, as she stopped, at a loss for words opprobrious enough to describe him. 'Gullcatcher? Bermondsey boy? Rudesby? Queer Nabs?'

  She broke into laughter, and threw at him over her shoulder, as she went before him into the tea-room: 'All of those – and worse! In a word, infamous! Mrs Grayshott! How do you do? And – which I know you will think more important! – How does your invalid do?'

  She sat down beside Mrs Grayshott as she spoke, wholly withdrawing her attention from the infamous Mr Calverleigh, who lounged away to procure her a cup of tea. Mrs Grayshott said: 'My invalid is not as stout as I could wish, nor as docile! Dr Wilkinson has seen him, however, and assures me that I have no need to fear that any permanent damage has been done to his health. He recommends a course of hot baths, which, he tells me and, indeed, I know from my own experience – do much to restore a debilitated frame. Abby, my dear, you must let me compliment you on t
his new way you have of dressing your hair! You look delightfully – and have set a new fashion in Bath, if I am any judge of the matter! Yes, I know you only care for compliments on Fanny's appearance, so not another word will I say in your praise! I imagine you have had a surfeit of compliments already – if not from Mr Dunston, who appeared to me to be quite moonstruck, certainly from

  Mr Calverleigh!'

  'Not at all!' replied Abby. 'Mr Calverleigh thinks me a candle in the sunshine of three veritable diamonds present tonight! Four, including Fanny!'

  'Does he, indeed?' replied Mrs Grayshott, a good deal amused. 'I suspect he is what Oliver calls a complete hand ! You know, my dear, I must own that I am glad to see you on such good terms with him, for it has been very much on my conscience that I almost forced him upon you, which, as I hope you know, I never meant to do!'

  'Oh, I know you didn't, ma'am! I wish you won't give it another thought. Sooner or later I must have met him, you know.'

  'And you like him? I was afraid that his free-and-easy manners might offend you.'

  'On the contrary! They amuse me. He is certainly an original!'

  Mrs Grayshott smiled, but said rather wistfully: 'Why, yes! But not only that! He is so very kind ! He makes light of the ser vices he rendered Oliver throughout that weary voyage, but I've heard the truth from Oliver himself. But for Mr Calverleigh's unremitting care I don't think that my poor boy would have survived, for he tells me that he suffered a recrudescence of that horrible fever within two days of having been carried aboard! It was Mr Calverleigh, rather than the ship's surgeon, who preserved his life, his long residence in India having made him far more familiar with the disorder than any ship's surgeon could be! I must be eternally obliged to him!' Her voice shook; she overcame the little surge of emotion, and said, with an effort at liveliness: 'And, as though he had not done enough for me, what must he do but procure tickets for this concert tonight, and positively bully me into accompanying him! Something I must have said gave him the notion that I should very much like to hear Neroli, and I think it particularly kind in him to have given me the opportunity to do so, because I am afraid he is not himself a music-lover.'

  Having very good reason to suppose that Mr Calverleigh's kindness sprang from pure self-interest, Abby was hard put to it to hold her tongue. It was perhaps fortunate that he rejoined them at this moment, thus putting an end to any further discussion of his character. She accepted the tea he had brought, with a word of thanks and a charming smile, but could not resist the impulse to ask him if he was not ravished by Neroli's voice.

  He replied promptly: 'Not entirely. A little too much vibrato, don't you agree?'

  'Ah, I perceive that you are an expert!' said Abby, controlling a quivering lip. 'You must enlighten my ignorance, sir! What does that mean, if you please?'

  'Well, my Latin is pretty rusty, but I should think it means to tremble,' he said coolly. 'She does, too, like a blancmanger. And much the same shape as one,' he added thoughtfully.

  'Oh, you dreadful creature!' protested Mrs Grayshott, bubbling over. 'I didn't mean that, when I said I thought she had rather too much vibrato! You know I didn't!'

  'I thought she had too much of everything,' he said frankly.

  Mrs Grayshott cried shame upon him; but Abby, caught in the act of sipping her tea, choked.

  When he presently restored her to her own party, she was spared the necessity of introducing him to Mrs Faversham by that lady's greeting him by name, and with a gracious smile: Lady Weaverham had already performed that office, in the Pump Room that morning.

  Mr Faversham said, taking his seat beside Abby: 'So that's young Calverleigh's uncle!' He looked critically after Mr Calverleigh's tall, retreating figure. 'Got the look of a care-for nobody, but I like him better than his nephew: too insinuating by half, that young man!'

  'You don't like him, sir?'

  'No, I can't say I do,' he replied bluntly. 'Fact of the matter is I set no store by these young sprigs of fashion! My wife calls me an old fogey: daresay you will too, for the ladies all seem to have run wild over him! Haven't met him yet, have you?'

  'No, that pleasure hasn't been granted me,' she said, in a dry tone.

  It was to be granted her on the following day. Mr Stacy Calverleigh, coming down from London on the mail-coach, arrived at the White Hart midway through the morning, and stayed only to change his travelling-dress for the corbeaucoloured coat of superfine, the pale pantaloons, and the gleaming Hessian boots of the Bond Street beau, before setting out in a hack for Sydney Place.

  The ladies were all at home, Abby, who had just come in from a visit to Milsom Street, submitting to her sister's critical inspection some patterns of lace; Selina reclining on the sofa; and Fanny wrestling with the composition of an acrostic in the back drawing-room. She did not immediately look up when Mitton announced Mr Calverleigh, but as Stacy advanced into the room he spoke, saying in a rallying tone: 'Miss Wendover! What is this I hear about you? Mitton has been telling me that you have been quite out of frame since I saw you last! I am so very sorry!'

  His voice brought Fanny's head up with a jerk. She sprang to her feet, and almost ran into the front room, exclaiming with unaffected joy: 'Stacy: Oh, I thought it was only your uncle!'

  She was holding out her hands to him, and he caught them in his, carrying first one and then the other to his lips with what Abby, observing her niece's fervour with disapprobation, recognised as practised grace. 'You thought I was my uncle? Now, I begin to suspect that it is you rather than Miss Wendover who must be out of frame!' he said caressingly. 'Indeed I am not my uncle!' He gave her hands a slight squeeze before releasing them, and moving forward to drop on his knee beside the sofa. 'Dear Miss Wendover, what has been amiss? I can see that you are sadly pulled, and my suspicion is that you have been trotting too hard!'

  The demure laughter in his voice robbed his words of offence. Selina all too obviously succumbed to the charm of a personable and audacious young man, scolding him for his impertinence, in the manner of an indulgent aunt, and favouring him with an account of her late indisposition.

  Abby was thus afforded an opportunity to study him at her leisure. She thought that it was easy to see why he had made so swift a conquest of Fanny: he was handsome, and he was possessed of ease and address, his manners being distinguished by a nice mixture of deference and assurance. Only in the slightly aquiline cast of his features could she detect any resemblance to his uncle: in all other respects no two men could have been more dissimilar. His height was not above the average, but, in contrast to Miles Calverleigh's long, loosely-knit limbs, his figure was particularly good; he did not, like Miles, look as if he had shrugged himself into his coat: rather, the coat appeared to have been moulded to his form; the ears of his collars were as stiff as starch could make them; his neckcloths were never carelessly knotted, but always beautifully arranged, whether in the simple style of the Napoleon, or the more intricate folds of the Mathematical; and he showed exquisite taste in his choice of waistcoats. Such old fashioned persons as Mr Faversham might stigmatise him as a tippy, a dandy, a bandbox creature, but their instinctive dislike of the younger generation of dashing blades on the strut carried them too far: Stacy Calverleigh was a smart, but not quite a dandy, for he affected few of the extravagances of fashion. His shirt-points might be a little too high, his coats a trifle too much padded at the shoulder and nipped in at the waist, but he never overloaded his person with jewellery, or revolted plain men by helping himself to snuff with a silver shovel.

  His profile, as he knelt beside the sofa, was turned towards Abby, and she was obliged to acknowledge that it was a singularly handsome profile. Then, when Fanny seized the opportunity offered by a pause in Selina's garrulity to present him to her other aunt, and he turned his head to look up at Abby, she thought him less handsome, but without quite knowing why.

  He jumped up, exclaiming, with a boyishness which, to her critical ears, had a false ring: 'Oh! This is a moment to which I'v
e been looking forward – and yet dreading! Your very humble servant, ma'am!'

  'Dreading?' said Abby, lifting her brows. 'Were you led to suppose I was a gorgon?'

  'Ah, no, far from it! A most beloved aunt!'

  His ready smile curled his lips as he spoke, but Abby, looking in vain for a trace of the charm which awoke instant response in her when the elder Calverleigh smiled, realised that it did not reach his eyes. She thought they held a calculating look, and suspected him of watching her closely to discover whether he was making a good or a bad impression on her.

  She said lightly: 'That doesn't seem to be a reason for your dread, sir.'

  'No, and it's moonshine!' Fanny said. 'How can you talk such nonsense, Stacy?'

  'It isn't nonsense. Miss Abigail loves you, and must think me unworthy of you – oh, an impudent jackstraw even to dream of aspiring to your hand!' He smiled again, and said simply: 'I think it too, ma'am. No one knows better than I how unworthy I am.'