Black Sheep Page 11

  A sentimental sigh and an inarticulate murmur from Selina showed that this frank avowal had moved her profoundly. Upon Abby it had a different effect. 'Trying to take the wind out of my eye, Mr Calverleigh?' she said.

  If he was disconcerted he did not betray it, but answered immediately: 'No, but, perhaps – the words out of your mouth?'

  Privately, she gave him credit for considerable adroitness, but all she said was: 'You are mistaken: I am not so uncivil.'

  'And it isn't true!' Fanny declared passionately. 'I won't permit anyone to say such a thing – not even you, Abby!'

  'Well, I haven't said it, my dear, nor am I likely to, so there is really no need for you to fly up into the boughs! Tell me, Mr Calverleigh, have you made the acquaintance of your uncle yet?'

  'My uncle?' he repeated. He glanced at Fanny, a question in his eyes. 'But what is this? You said, when I came in, that you thought I was my uncle! The only uncle I possess – if I do still possess him – lives at the other end of the world!'

  'No, he doesn't,' replied Fanny. 'I mean, he doesn't do so now! He brought Lavinia Grayshott's brother home from Calcutta, and he is here, at the York House!'

  'Good God!' he said blankly.

  'He is not at all like you, but very agreeable, isn't he, Aunt Selina?'

  'Yes, indeed,' agreed Selina. 'He is quite an oddity – so informal, but I daresay that comes of having lived for so long in India, which does not sound to me at all the sort of place anyone would wish to live in, but that, after all, was not his fault, poor man, and he is perfectly gentlemanly!'

  'I'm glad to know that at least!' Stacy said ruefully. 'I never met him in my life, but I heartily wish him otherwhere, for I fear he may destroy what little credit I may have with you! Alas, the round tale is that he is the black sheep in my family!'

  'Oh, I fancy you have met him!' said Abby, showing hackle.

  'He has no recollection of having done so, I own, but thinks he might have seen you when you were, as he phrased it, a grubby brat !'

  He shot a quick look at her, but said, smiling again: 'Ah, very likely! I can't be blamed for having forgotten the circumstance, can I? I wonder what has brought him back to England?'

  'But I told you!' Fanny reminded him. 'He brought poor Mr Oliver Grayshott home! And such good care did he take of him that Mrs Grayshott feels she cannot be sufficiently obliged to him! As for Oli – as for Mr Grayshott, he says he is a trump, and won't listen to a word in his disparagement!'

  'Worse and worse!' he declared, with a comical grimace. 'A male attendant, in fact! A faint – a very faint – hope that he might have made his fortune in India withers at the outset!'

  'Much might be forgiven in the prodigal son who returned to the fold with well-lined pockets, might it not?' said Abby, bestowing upon him a smile as false as she believed his own to be.

  'Oh, everything!' he assured her gaily. 'That's the way of the world, ma'am!'

  'Very wrong – most improper!' interpolated Selina, trying, not very successfully, to assemble her inchoate ideas into comprehensible words. 'I mean – I mean, money ought not, and cannot re-establish character! And to expect a man who had been cast off in a perfectly inhuman way (for so it seems to me, and I don't care what anyone says!) to come home to – to shower guineas on his most unnatural relations, is – is monstrous! Or, at any rate,' she temporised, 'absurd!'

  'Bravo, Selina!' exclaimed Abby.

  Faintly blushing under this applause, Selina said: 'Well, so it seems to me, though it had nothing to do with you, Mr Calverleigh, so you must not be thinking that I mean to censure you, and in any event poor Mr Miles Calverleigh hasn't made his fortune – at least, he doesn't look as if he had, because he wears the shabbiest clothes! On the other hand, he is putting up at York House, and that, you know, is by no means dagger-cheap, as some dear friends of ours, who are staying there, tell me.'

  'The reverse!' he said. 'You terrify me, ma'am! He had always the reputation of being excessively expensive, and with never a feather to fly with! I only hope he doesn't tip them the double at York House, leaving me to stand the reckoning!' He saw that this speech had shocked Selina, and had made Fanny look gravely at him, and quickly and smoothly retrieved his position, saying: 'The truth is, you know, that he caused my grandfather, and my father too, a great deal of embarrassment, so that I never heard any good of him. I own, however, that I have often wondered if he could be quite as black as he was painted to me. Indeed, if you do not dislike him, Miss Wendover, he cannot be! I shall lose no time in making his acquaintance.' He turned towards Fanny, his smile a caress. 'Tell me all the latest Bath-news!' he begged. 'Has Lady Weaverham forgiven me for having been obliged to cry off from my engagement to dine with her? Has Miss Ancrum summoned up the courage to have that tooth drawn, or is she still wearing a swollen face? Did – oh, tell me everything! I feel as if I had been absent for a twelvemonth!'

  Since the most interesting event which had lately occurred in Bath was the return of Oliver Grayshott to his mother's fond care it was not long before Fanny was telling him all about this, and demanding his help with the acrostic she was composing for Oliver's amusement. 'You see, I am doing what I may to entertain him,' she explained. 'Poor boy, he is so dreadfully pulled that he can't join in any of our expeditions, or attend the assemblies, or anything, so when Lavinia asked me to lend her my aid in keeping up his spirits of course I said I would!' She added, to her younger aunt's suppressed indignation: 'I thought

  you could not object?'

  He responded suitably, but Abby, who was rapidly taking him in strong dislike, received (and welcomed) the impression that he did not regard the intrusion on the Bath scene of Mr Oliver Grayshott with favour.

  Seven

  Mr Stacy Calverleigh, having partaken of a light luncheon in Sydney Place, strolled back towards the centre of the town, but instead of turning left at the end of Bridge Street, into High Street, he hesitated at the junction of the roads, and then, with a shrug of his shoulders, walked on, along Borough Wall to Burton Street. Turning northward up this he soon reached Milsom Street, at the top of which, in George Street, the York House Hotel was situated.

  This hostelry was the most exclusive as well as the most expensive to be found in Bath; and it vaguely irritated Stacy that his ne'er-do-well uncle should be staying in it. Not that he had any wish to stay there himself, for however much money he might owe his tailor, and a great many other London tradesmen, he had no intention of damaging his reputation in Bath by going on tick there. In fact, the White Hart suited him very well, situated as it was in Stall Street, with many of its rooms overlooking the Pump Yard. The quiet of York House was not at all to his taste: he liked to be at the hub of things, and had no objection to the noise and bustle of a busy postinghouse.

  The weather had been uncertain all day, and by the time he reached York House it had begun to rain again. There was a damp chill in the air which made the sight of a small fire, burning in Mr Miles Calverleigh's private parlour, not unwelcome. Mr Calverleigh was seated on one side of it, his ankles crossed on a stool, and a cheroot between his fingers. He was glancing through a newspaper when the waiter announced Stacy, but after lowering it, and directing a critical look at his nephew, he threw it aside, saying, in a tone of tolerant amusement: 'Good God! Are you my nephew?'

  'So I've been led to believe, sir,' replied Stacy, bowing slightly. 'If you are indeed Miles Calverleigh?'

  'I am, but you mustn't let it worry you,' said Miles kindly. 'You don't favour your father much: for one thing, he wasn't such a dapper-dog. Hadn't the figure for it. I collect that yellow calf-clingers are now all the crack?'

  'Oh, decidedly!' said Stacy, whose primrose pantaloons were indeed of the first stare. He laid his hat, and his gloves, and his clouded cane down on the table. 'I have been absent from Bath or I should have visited you earlier, sir. You must forgive my seeming remissness.'

  'Well, there's no difficulty about that: I hadn't the least expectation of seeing you
.'

  'One would not wish to be backward in any attention to so close a relative,' said Stacy, a trifle haughtily.

  'What, not even to such a loose screw as I am? Come, come, nevvy! that's doing it rather too brown! You are wondering what the devil brings me here, and wishing that nothing had done so!' He laughed, seeing that he had taken Stacy aback, and said: 'Come down from your high ropes, and don't try to stand on points with me: I've no taste for punctilio. You don't owe me respect or observance, you know. Sit down, and empty your budget!'

  'Well, sir – what has brought you home to England?' asked Stacy, with a forced smile.

  'Inclination. Cheroot?'

  'Thank you, no!'

  'A snuff-taker, are you? You'll end with yellow stains all round your nose, but I daresay you may have caught your

  heiress before that happens, so it don't signify.'

  Stacy said quickly, on the defensive: 'I don't know what you – who has told you –'

  'Don't act the dunce! Miss Wendover told me – Miss Abigail Wendover – and I don't fancy your suit will prosper.'

  'Not if she has anything to say in the matter!' Stacy said, his brow darkening. 'I believe her to be my enemy. I met her for the first time today, and it is very plain she'll knock me up if she can!'

  'Not a doubt of it. I can tell you of another who is likely to bum squabble you, and that's James Wendover.'

  'Oh, him!' Stacy said, shrugging. 'He may try to do so, but he won't succeed. Fanny doesn't care a rush for him. But this curst aunt is another matter. Fanny –' He broke off, realising suddenly that he had been betrayed into indiscretion, and summoned his boyish smile to his aid. 'The thing is that Fanny is an heiress. One can't blame her family for wishing her to make a great match, but when one is deep in love considerations of wealth or rank don't signify.'

  'Well, at seventeen a girl may fancy herself to be deep in love, but in my experience it isn't a lasting passion,' commented Miles cynically. 'You aren't going to tell me that considerations of wealth don't signify to you, are you?'

  The smile died under that ironic gaze; Stacy said angrily: 'Damn it, how could I marry a girl without fortune?'

  'I shouldn't think you could. According to what I hear, your windmill has dwindled to a nutshell.'

  'Who told you that?' Stacy demanded suspiciously. 'I wasn't aware that you had any acquaintance in England!'

  'How should you be? I have, but it was Letty who told me you're monstrously in the wind.'

  'Do you mean my great-aunt Kelham?' Stacy said incredulously. 'Are you asking me to believe that you have visited

  her?'

  'Oh, no! I don't give a straw what you believe. Why should I?' said Miles, with unabated affability.

  Flushing, Stacy stammered: 'Beg pardon! It was only that – well, she's such a devil of a high stickler that I shouldn't have thought – that is to say, –'

  'I see!' said Miles encouragingly. 'What you would have thought is that she'd have shut the door in my face!'

  Stacy burst out laughing. 'Well, yes!' he admitted. 'If I don't owe you respect, I need not wrap it up in clean linen, I collect!'

  'Oh, no, not the least need to do that!' Miles assured him. 'The thing is that your great-aunt – lord, to think of Letty's being a great-aunt! She's no more than a dozen years older than I am! – well, the thing is that she was used to have a kindness for me. That might have been because she detested my father, of course. Come to think of it, your father wasn't first oars with her by any means. Or it might have been because most females are partial to rakes,' he added thoughtfully.

  'Was that why you were sent abroad?' Stacy asked. 'I've never known precisely – you see, my father never spoke of you, except to say that you were not to be spoken of !'

  'Oh, I was shockingly loose in the haft!' responded his uncle cordially. 'I started in the petticoat-line at Eton: that's why they expelled me.'

  Stacy regarded him in some awe. 'And – and at Oxford?'

  'I don't recall, but I should think very likely. The trouble then was that I was too ripe and ready by half: always raising some kind of a breeze. Nothing to the larks I kicked up in London, though. A peep-of-day boy, that was me – and a damned young fool! I crowned my career by trying to elope with an heiress. That was coming it rather too strong for the family, so they got rid of me, and I'm sure I don't blame them.' He smiled mockingly at his nephew. 'The luck didn't favour you either, did it?'

  Stacy stiffened. 'Sir?'

  'Tried to leap the book yourself, didn't you?'

  'That, sir, is something I prefer not to discuss! It was an un-fortunate episode! We were carried away by what we believed to be an unalterable passion! The circumstances – the whole truth – cannot be known to you, and – in short, I don't feel obliged to justify myself to you!'

  'Good God, I trust you won't! It's no concern of mine. I may be your uncle, but I've really very little interest in you. You're too like me, and I find myself a dead bore. The only difference I can discover is that you're a gamester. That's the one vice I never had, and it don't awake a spark of interest in me, because I find gaming a dead bore too.'

  'I suppose you're trying to gammon me – or know nothing of gaming, and that I don't believe!'

  'Oh, no! I tried gaming, but it held no lure for me. Too slow!'

  'Slow?' Stacy gasped.

  'Why, yes! What have you to do but stake your blunt, and watch the turn of a card, or the fall of the dice? Same with horse-racing. Now, if I'd ever been offered a match, to ride my own horse against another man's, that would have been sport, if you like! But I ride too heavy, and always did.'

  'But they said – I was given to understand – that you cost my grandfather a fortune!'

  'I was expensive,' admitted Miles, 'though I shouldn't have put it as high as a fortune. But I got a deal of amusement out of my spendings. What the devil is there to amuse one in hazard or faro?'

  It was evident that Stacy found this incomprehensible. He stared, and said, after a moment: 'I should envy you, I suppose! But I don't. It's in my blood, and surely in yours too! Father – my grandfather – great-uncle Charles – oh, all of them!'

  'Yes, but you must remember that I was a sad disappointment to the family. My father even suspected me of being a changeling. A delightful theory, but without foundation, I fear.' He threw the butt of his cheroot into the fire, and got up, stretching his long limbs. His light eyes looked down at Stacy, their expression hard to interpret. 'Have you lost Danescourt yet?' he enquired.

  Stacy laughed shortly. 'Good God, what would any man in his senses stake against that damned barrack? It's mortgaged to the hilt, and falling into ruin besides! It was encumbered when my father died, and I can't bring it about. I hate the place – wouldn't waste a groat on it!'

  'Shades of our ancestors!' said Miles flippantly. 'They must all be turning in their graves. Perhaps you are a changeling! Or did you come to visit me in the hope that I might be able to restore your fallen fortunes?'

  'Hardly!' Stacy said, flicking a glance at his uncle's person. 'I'm told you came home bear-leading Mrs Grayshott's son, which doesn't lead me to suppose you're swimming in lard! I hope to God that won't leak out!'

  'Oh, I don't think so!' said Miles reassuringly. 'But you have it wrong: I wasn't bear-leading him. I was combining the duties of sick-nurse and valet.'

  'Good God! If that should become known – ! I wish you will consider my position, sir!'

  'But why should I?'

  'Well, damme, I am your nephew!' Stacy said indignantly. 'And you are, after all, a Calverleigh!'

  'Yes, but not at all high in the instep, I promise you. As for our relationship, no one can blame you for being my nephew – I don't myself – but if it irks you, don't acknowledge me!'

  'It may seem to you to be a funning matter,' returned Stacy, reddening, 'but I shall beg leave to tell you, sir, that it is no very pleasant thing for me to have you here, looking like – oh, dash it, like a regular rough diamond!' He rose,
and picked up his hat. 'I don't know how long you mean to remain in Bath, but I trust you are aware of what the charges are in this hotel!'

  'Don't give them a thought!' said Miles. 'I won't chalk 'em up to you. If I find myself at a stand, I can always shoot the crow.'

  'Vastly diverting, sir!' snapped Stacy, collecting his gloves and his cane, ''Servant!'

  He executed a slight bow, and left the room. He was so much ruffled that he had reached the White Hart before his anger had cooled enough to allow him to consider whether he had acted wisely in letting his temper ride him. He was not naturally an even-tempered man, but he had cultivated an air of smiling good humour, knowing that it was as great an asset to anyone living precariously on the fringe of society as his handsome countenance. It was rarely that he betrayed irritability, or lost his poise, even under the severe provocation of receiving a set-down from some out-and-outer into whose circle he had tried to insinuate himself, or a high-nosed stare from a great lady whose favour he wanted to win. He began to be vexed with himself, and to wonder what quality it was in his uncle which had set up his bristles; but it was not for some time, and then with reluctance, that it dawned on him that he had been made to feel small. This had nothing to do with Miles's superior height, and even less with his manner, which had not been that of a man talking to his nephew, but that of a man talking to a contemporary whom he regarded with indifference. Recalling how Miles had lounged at his ease, looking as though he had dressed all by guess, in an outmoded coat, his neckcloth loosened, and an abominable cheroot between his long brown fingers, he felt resentment stir again. He, and not his disreputable uncle, should have been master of the situation, but in some mysterious way he had been made to feel awkward. He had expected to have been received, if not with gratification, at least with pleasure: it had been a piece of condescension on the part of the head of the family to have visited its reprobate, but the reprobate was apparently unaware of this. He had been neither pleased nor displeased, and certainly not gratified; and the only interest he had shown in his nephew was of the most casual order. Stacy found this so galling that he almost wished himself back at the York House, for the purpose of giving the impudent fellow a well-deserved set-down.