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'I understand that she has washed her hands of you?'

  'Yes!' breathed Lucilla, clasping her hands together, and keeping her eyes fixed on his face. 'And so – ?'

  'It behoves me, of course, to find some other female willing to take charge of you.'

  Her face fell. 'But when am I to make my come-out?'

  'Next year,' he replied.

  'Next year? Oh, that's too bad of you!' she cried. 'I shall be past eighteen by then, and almost on the shelf ! I want to come out this year!'

  'I daresay, but it won't harm you to wait for another year,' he answered unfeelingly. 'In any event, you must, because Julia Trevisian, who is to present you at one of the Drawing-rooms, cannot undertake the very exhausting task of chaperoning you to all the functions to which she will see to it that you are invited, until your cousin Marianne is off her hands. Marianne is to be married in May, midway through the Season, and that would be far too late for you to make your first appearance – even if Julia were not, by that time, wholly done-up, which, from her conversation when I last saw her, I gather she expects to be.'

  'Is Cousin Julia going to bring me out?' she asked, brightening perceptibly. 'Well, I must say that if you arranged that, sir, it is quite the best thing you've ever done for me! In fact, it is the only good thing you've ever done for me, and I am truly grateful to you!'

  'Handsomely said!'

  'Yes, but it doesn't settle the question of where I am to live, or what I am to do for a whole year,' she pointed out. 'And I wish to make it plain to you that nothing – nothing! – will prevail upon me to return to Aunt Clara! If you force me to go back, I shall run away again!'

  'Not if you have a particle of commonsense,' he said dryly. He looked her over, rather sardonically smiling. 'You'll do as you are bid, my girl, for if I have any more highty-tighty behaviour from you I promise you I shan't permit you to come out next Season.'

  She turned white with sheer rage, and stammered: 'You – you –'

  'Enough of this folly!' interposed Miss Wychwood, in blighting accents. 'You are both talking arrant nonsense! I don't know which of you is being the more childish, but I know which of you has the least excuse for behaving like a spoilt baby!'

  A tinge of colour stole into Mr Carleton's cheeks, but he shrugged, and said, with a short laugh: 'I've no patience to waste on pert and disobedient schoolgirls.'

  'I hate you!' said Lucilla, in a low and trembling voice.

  'I daresay you do.'

  'Oh, for heaven's sake come out of the mops, both of you!' said Miss Wychwood, quite exasperated. 'This ridiculous quarrel has sprung up for no reason at all! There can be no question of your uncle's sending you back to Mrs Amber, Lucilla, because she has made it abundantly clear that she doesn't want you back.'

  'She will change her mind,' said Lucilla despairingly. 'She frequently says she washes her hands of me, but she never does so!'

  'Well, it's my belief your uncle wouldn't send you to her even if she does change her mind.' She raised a quizzical eyebrow at Mr Carleton, and said: 'Would you, sir?'

  A reluctant smile just touched his lips. 'As a matter of fact, no: I wouldn't,' he admitted. 'She seems to me to have exercised no control over Lucilla, and is demonstrably not a fit or proper person to have charge of her. So I am now faced with the unenviable task of finding another, and, it is to be hoped, a more resolute member of the family to fill her place.'

  Very little of this speech gratified Lucilla, but she was so much relieved by the discovery that he had no intention of restoring her to Mrs Amber that she decided to ignore such parts of it which had grossly offended her. She said tentatively: 'Wouldn't it be possible for me to remain in my dear Miss Wychwood's charge, sir?'

  'No,' he replied uncompromisingly.

  She choked back an unwise retort. 'Pray tell me why not!' she begged.

  'Because, in the first place, she is even less a fit and proper person to act as your guardian than is your aunt, being far too young to chaperon you, or anyone else, and wholly unrelated to you.'

  'She is not too young!' cried Lucilla indignantly. 'She is quite old!'

  '. . . and in the second place,' he continued, betraying only by a quiver of the muscles beside his mouth that he had heard this hot interjection, 'it would be the height of impropriety for me – or, indeed, you! – to impose so outrageously on her good nature.'

  It was evident that this aspect had not previously occurred to Lucilla. She took a moment or two to digest it, and said, finally: 'Oh! I hadn't thought of that.' She looked imploringly at Miss Wychwood, and said: 'I wouldn't – I wouldn't for the world impose on you, ma'am, but – but should I be an imposition? Pray tell me!'

  Throwing a fulminating glance at Mr Carleton, Miss Wychwood replied: 'No, but one of the objections your uncle has raised I realize to be just. I am not related to you, and it would be thought very odd if you were to be known to have been removed from Mrs Amber's care, and put into mine. Such an extraordinary change must give rise to conjecture, and a great deal of poker-talk which I am persuaded you wouldn't relish. Moreover, that sort of scandal-broth must inevitably reflect on Mrs Amber, and that, I know, you wouldn't wish to happen. For however many tiresome restrictions she has subjected you to, and however boring you found them, you must surely acknowledge that she has acted always – however mistakenly – with nothing but your welfare in mind.'

  'Yes,' Lucilla agreed reluctantly. 'But not when she tried to make me accept an offer from Ninian!'

  This, as Mr Carleton, cynically appreciative of this exchange, recognized to be (in his own phraseology) a leveller, did not prove to be a home-hit. Miss Wychwood rallied swiftly, and said: 'I shouldn't wonder at it if she thought she was promoting your welfare. Recollect, my love, that Ninian was quite your best friend when you were children! Mrs Amber may well have thought that you would find true happiness with him.'

  'Are you – you, ma'am! – trying to persuade me to go back to Cheltenham?' Lucilla demanded, in sharp suspicion.

  'Oh, no!' replied Miss Wychwood calmly. 'I don't think that would answer. What I am trying to do is to point out to you that if you, by some unlikely chance, could prevail upon your uncle to appoint me to be your guardian, in preference to any of your own relations, we should all three of us come under the gravest censure. Well, I shan't attempt to conceal that I have no wish to incur such censure; and, in your case, it would be extremely damaging, for you may depend upon it that Mrs Amber would inform every one of her friends and acquaintances – and probably your paternal relatives as well – that you were quite beyond her control, and had left her to reside with a complete stranger, which –'

  '. . . would have the merit of being true!' interpolated Mr Carleton.

  'Which,' pursued Miss Wychwood, ignoring this unmannerly interruption, 'would have a far more damaging effect on your future than you are yet aware of. Believe me, Lucilla, nothing is more fatal to a girl than to have earned (however unjustly) the reputation of being a hurly-burly female, wild to a fault, and so hot-at-hand as to be ready to tie her garter in public rather than to submit to authority.'

  'That would be very bad, wouldn't it?' said Lucilla, forcibly struck by this masterly representation of the evils attached to her situation.

  'It would indeed,' Miss Wychwood assured her. 'And it is why I am strongly of the opinion that your uncle should make arrangements for you to reside, until your come-out, with some other of your relations – preferably one who lives in London, and is in a position to introduce you into the proper ways of conducting yourself in Society before you actually enter it. He is the only member of your father's family with whom I am acquainted, but I should suppose that he is not the only representative of it.' She turned her head, to direct a look of bland enquiry at Mr Carleton, and said: 'Tell me, sir, has Lucilla no aunts or cousins, on your side of the family, with whom it would be quite unexceptionable for her to reside?'

  'Well, there is my sister, of course,' he said thoughtfully.

  'My Aunt Caroline?
' said Lucilla, doubtfully. 'But isn't she a great invalid, sir?'

  'Yes, being burnt to the socket is her favourite pastime,' he agreed. 'She suffers from a mysterious complaint, undis coverable, but apparently past cure. One of its strangest symptoms is to put her quite out of frame whenever she finds herself asked to do anything she doesn't wish to do. She has been known to become prostrate at the mere thought of being obliged to attend some party which promised to be a very boring function. There's no saying that she wouldn't sink into a deep decline if I were to suggest to her that she should take charge of you, so I shan't do it. I can't have her death laid at my door.'

  Lucilla giggled a little at that, but expressed her profound relief as well, saying frankly that she thought life with Lady Lambourn would be even more insupportable than life with Mrs Amber. 'Besides, I am scarcely acquainted with her,' she added, as a clincher. 'Indeed, I don't think I've seen her more than once in my life, and that was years ago, when Mama took me with her to pay a morning call on her. I was only a child, but she didn't seem to be invalidish. I remember that she was very pretty, and most elegant. To be sure, she did tell Mama that she could seldom boast of being in high health, but she didn't say it in such a way as to lead anyone to suppose that she suffered from an incurable complaint.'

  'Ah, that must have been before she attained the status of widowhood!' he replied. 'Lambourn had the good sense to cock up his toes when he realized which way the wind was blowing.'

  'What a vast number of enemies your tongue must have made for you!' observed Miss Wychwood. 'May I suggest that instead of casting what I strongly suspect to be unjust aspersions on your sister, you bend your mind to the question of which of your relations you judge to be the most proper to have charge of Lucilla until Lady Trevisian is at liberty to introduce her into the ton?'

  'Certainly!' he responded, with the utmost cordiality. 'I shall make every effort to do so, but at this present I find myself at a stand, and must, reluctantly, beg you to continue in your selfappointed post as her chaperon.'

  'In that case,' she said, getting up from the table, 'we have no more to do here, and will take our leave of you, sir. Come, Lucilla! Thank your uncle for his kind hospitality, and let us go home!'

  He made no attempt to detain them, but murmured provocatively, as he put Miss Wychwood's shawl round her shoulders: 'Accept my compliments, ma'am! Were you obliged to put great force on yourself not to rise to that fly?'

  'Oh, no, none at all!' she retorted, without an instant's hesitation. 'My father taught me many years ago never to pay the least attention to the ill-considered things uttered by rough diamonds!'

  He gave a shout of laughter. 'A facer!' he acknowledged. He turned from her to flick Lucilla's cheek lightly with one careless finger. 'Au revoir, niece!' he said, smiling quite kindly at her. 'Do, pray, strive to re-establish the family's reputation, which I have placed in such jeopardy!'

  He then escorted them downstairs, and, while Miss Wychwood's carriage was called for, engaged her, with the utmost civility, in an exchange of very proper nothings. These were interrupted by the entrance from the street of a somewhat rakish looking gentleman whose lively eyes no sooner perceived Miss Wychwood than he came quickly forward, exclaiming: 'Ah, now, didn't I know fortune was going to smile on me today? Most dear lady, how do you do?'

  She gave him her hand, which he instantly carried to his lips, and said: 'How do you do, Mr Kilbride? I collect you are in Bath on a visit to your grandmother. I trust she is well?'

  'Oh, in a state of far too high preservation!' he said, with a comical look. 'Out of reason cross, too! It is most disheartening!'

  She ignored this, and briefly introduced him to her com panions. Her manner, which was slightly chilly, did not encourage him to linger, but he was apparently impervious to hints, and, after exchanging nods with Mr Carleton, with whom he was already acquainted, turned to address himself to Lucilla, which he did to such good purpose that she told Miss Wychwood, on the drive to Camden Place, that he was the most delightful and amusing man she had ever met.

  'Is he?' said Miss Wychwood, with calculated indifference. 'Yes, I suppose he is amusing, but his wit is not always in good taste, and he is an incurable humbugger, which I find a little tedious. By the bye, your uncle has charged me with the task of engaging a new abigail for you, so will you go with me tomorrow morning to the Registry Office?'

  'No, has he?' cried Lucilla, astonished. 'Yes, indeed I will, ma'am! And may we take a look in at the Pump Room? Corisande will be there, with her mama, and I told her I would ask you if I might join her.'

  'Yes, certainly. And while we are in town we must buy a new pair of gloves for you, to wear at our rout-party.'

  'Evening-gloves?' Lucilla said eagerly. 'They will be the first I have ever possessed, because my aunt will buy mittens for me, as if I were a mere schoolgirl! Did my uncle say I might have them as well as a new maid?'

  'I didn't ask him,' replied Miss Wychwood. 'From what I have seen of him, I am tolerably certain that he would have answered in a disagreeably rusty way that he knew nothing about such matters, and I must do what I thought best.'

  Lucilla gave a gurgle of laughter, and said: 'Yes, but the thing is, will he pay for them? For I know how expensive long gloves are, and – and I haven't very much of my pin-money left!'

  'There is no need for you to tease yourself about that: of course he will do so!' replied Miss Wychwood, adding, with a good deal of mischievous satisfaction: 'His pride makes it a hard matter for him to be forced to permit his ward to reside with me, as my guest, and I take great credit to myself for having imbued him with enough respect to have prevented him from offering to pay me for taking charge of you! I shouldn't wonder at it if he tried to transfer the allowance he makes Mrs Amber to me. As for cutting up stiff at being required to meet the cost of whatever you may purchase – pooh! he is a great deal more likely to encourage you to be extravagant, for fear that if he refused to pay your bills I might do so!'

  Seven

  Just as Miss Wychwood and Lucilla were walking next morning along Upper Camden Place on their way to Gay Street, they encountered Ninian Elmore, striding towards them. It became immediately apparent that he was labouring under a strong sense of resentment, for hardly waiting to greet them he burst out with the rather unnecessary information that he was coming to visit them, adding explosively: 'What do you think has happened, ma'am?'

  'I have no idea,' replied Miss Wychwood. 'Tell us!'

  'I was coming to do so. You wouldn't believe it! I scarcely do myself ! I mean to say, when you consider all that has taken place, and how it was their fault, and not mine – well, it makes me as mad as Bedlam, and so it would anyone!'

  'But what is it?' demanded Lucilla impatiently.

  'You may well ask! Not but what it will send you up into the boughs when I tell you! For of all the –'

  She interrupted him, stamping her foot, and hugging her pelisse round her against the sharp wind that was blowing. 'For heaven's sake tell me, instead of talking in that hubblebubble way, and keeping us standing in this detestable wind!' she almost screamed.

  He glared at her, said with stiff dignity that he was just about to tell her when she had so rudely broken in on him, and, pointedly turning his shoulder towards her, addressed himself to Miss Wychwood, saying portentously: 'I have received a letter from my father, ma'am!'

  'Is that all?' interpolated Lucilla scornfully.

  'No, it is not all!' he retorted. 'But how anyone can utter more than a word with you interrupting –'

  'Peace!' intervened Miss Wychwood, considerably amused. 'You cannot quarrel in the street – at least, I daresay you can, but I beg you won't! Has your father disinherited you, Ninian? And, if so, why?'

  'Well, no, he hasn't done that, precisely,' he replied, 'but it wouldn't astonish me if he did do so – except that I rather fancy it isn't within his power, on account of the Settlement which was executed by my grandfather. I didn't pay much heed to it at the time,
though I know that I had to sign some document or other – but he threatens to discontinue my allowance (besides repudiating any debts I may incur in Bath) if I do not instantly return to Chartley! I – I wouldn't have believed he could ever have behaved in such a manner! It has opened my eyes, I can tell you! He has always seemed to me to be the – the best of fathers, and – and the most understanding, and I don't scruple to say that this business has wounded me deeply! And, what's more, I'll be – dashed – if I crawl back to Chartley with my tail between my legs, as though I had done something wrong, which I have not !'

  'It certainly seems very odd,' acknowledged Miss Wychwood. 'But perhaps there is an explanation! Will you walk with us to Gay Street, before Lucilla becomes quite frozen, and tell us why your father has issued such an ultimatum?'

  He agreed to this, and, falling into step between them, disclosed that Lord Iverley (like Mrs Amber) had washed his hands of Lucilla, whose conduct had shown him that she was unworthy to be admitted into the family, being such as to convince him that she was so wholly wanting in propriety, modesty, and delicacy as to have sunk herself below reproach.