Black Sheep Read online

  Miss Wendover heard of the departure with relief, and indulged the hope that Mr Calverleigh did not mean to return to Bath. Foolish she might be, but it had not escaped her notice that he and Abby had become wondrous great, which was a circumstance which filled her with misgiving. He was an interesting man, and one who had been, in her opinion, hardly used, but no more ineligible husband for Abby could have been imagined. When the suggestion had first been slyly made to her that Abby was encouraging his advances she had been as incredulous as she was indignant, but when Abby, not content with accompanying him to the theatre, took to driving about the neighbouring countryside with him, she became very uneasy, and disclosed to the faithful Miss Butterbank that she wished neither of the Calverleighs had ever come to Bath.

  Their coming had certainly cut up her peace. First, there had been Stacy (poor young man!), whose very understandable attentions to Fanny had brought down James's wrath upon her head, and even, to some extent, Abby's; and who had turned out to be sadly unsteady, if James and George were to be believed, though it would not surprise her to find that they had grossly exaggerated Stacy's failings, for there was something so particularly winning about his graceful manners, and the deference he used towards his elders. He was the head of his family, too, and the owner of a considerable estate in Berkshire. She had never visited Danescourt, but she had looked for it in an old volume entitled Seats of the Nobility and Gentry, and there, sure enough, it was, with an illustration depicting a large, sprawling house of obvious antiquity, and a quantity of interesting information about its history, and that of the Calverleighs, who seemed to have owned it for an impressive number of centuries. If it was true, as George had told Abby it was, that it was so grossly encumbered that it was in imminent danger of passing out of Calverleigh hands, it could not be regarded as an asset, of course, for its loss must diminish Stacy's consequence to vanishing point, and transform him from a desirable parti into a scapegrace who had wasted his inheritance, and reduced himself to penury. But how could she have known this, when she had welcomed Stacy to Sydney Place? It was most unjust of James to have sent her such a scold; and for her part she would find it hard to believe that, whatever the poor young man's misfortunes might be, he had come to Bath in search of a rich wife. As for the shocking suspicion Abby had, that he meant to elope with Fanny, that she never would believe; and she wondered how Abby could suppose dear little Fanny to be so dead to all feelings of shame, or how she herself could be so regardless of her sister's precarious health as to put such ideas into her head as must give rise to the sort of agitating reflections calculated to throw her nerves into disorder.

  And then, as though all this were not bad enough, Mr Miles Calverleigh had descended upon them, and lost no time at all in attaching himself particularly to Abby! There was no doubt about his reputation, for, however much one might pity him for the harsh treatment meted out to him by his father, the fact remained that not the most rigorous father would pack his son off to India without good reason. And if James thought he could lay the blame for this black sheep's intrusion into Abby's life at her door he was never more mistaken, and so she would tell him. Who, in the world, could have thought that Abby, rejecting the offer of the noble lord who addressed himself to her surrounded by the aura of dear Papa's approval, holding up her nose at such admirable suitors as Mr Peter Dunston, would succumb to the advances of a man who had nothing whatsoever to recommend him to one so notoriously picksome as she was? He was not at all handsome; he had none of his nephew's address; his manners were the reverse of graceful; and his raiment, so far from being elegant, showed neither neatness nor propriety. Not only did he pay morning-visits in ridingbreeches and indifferently polished top-boots, but, more often than not, he looked as though he had dressed all by guess, tying his neckcloth in a careless knot, and shrugging himself into his coat. Anyone would have supposed that Abby, herself always precise to a pin, would have held such a shabrag in disgust – even if he had been unrelated to the Calverleigh she held in positive abhorrence! She had always been capricious, but to allow the uncle to make up to her while she refused to countenance the nephew's courtship of her niece carried caprice into the realm of distempered freakishness. And one had thought that she had outgrown what dear Rowland had called the odd kick in her gallop!

  Abby, well aware that Selina was watching her with misgiving, betrayed none of her own misgivings. Away from Miles Calverleigh's disturbing presence, she could be mistress of herself; and she pursued her usual avocations without a sign that her cheerful calm concealed a heart and a mind suffering from a serious disorder. Mr Calverleigh's shortcomings were as obvious to her as to Selina, and as little as Selina did she know why, after so many fancy-free years, she should have fallen in love with one so hopelessly ineligible and so totally unlike any of the gentlemen with whom she had enjoyed passing flirtations. She had been attracted by his smile, but no smile, however fascinating it might be, could cause a cool-headed female of more than eight-and-twenty so wholly to lose her poise and her judgment that she felt she had met, in its owner, the embodiment of an ideal. Fumbling for an explanation, she thought that it was not Miles Calverleigh's smile which had awakened an instant response in her, but the understanding behind the smile. She had been conscious, almost from the start of their acquaintance, of an intangible link between them, as though he had been her counterpart; and nothing he had said, no disclosure of cynical unconcern, or total disregard of morals, had weakened the link. He could infuriate her, he frequently shocked her, but still she felt herself akin to him.

  She had told him that she was not sure that she loved him, but she had done so not in doubt of her love for him, but in dismay at the realization that she did love him, whatever he was, or whatever he had done. If she had been a besotted schoolgirl, like her niece, she would have melted into his embrace, and have thought the world well lost. But at eight-and-twenty one did not, on an impulse, cast aside all the canons of one's upbringing; and still less did one lightly ignore the duty owed to one's family. Miles Calverleigh did not recognise family claims, and what shocked her most in this was the discovery that she was not shocked, but had experienced instead a pang of envy.

  She wondered whether it was the rebellious streak in her, so frequently deplored even by her mother, which had drawn her irresistibly to Miles Calverleigh; but when she considered this, as dispassionately as she could, she thought that it could hardly be so. It might lead her to throw her cap over the windmill, but it found no answering chord in Miles. He was not a rebel. Rebels fought against the trammels of convention, and burned to rectify what they saw to be evil in the shibboleths of an elder generation, but Miles Calverleigh was not of their number. No wish to reform the world inspired him, not the smallest desire to convert others to his own way of thinking. He accepted, out of a vast and perhaps idle tolerance, the rules laid down by a civilised society, and, when he transgressed these, accepted also, and with unshaken good-humour, society's revenge on him. Neither the zeal of a reformer, nor the rancour of one bitterly punished for the sins of his youth, awoke a spark of resentment in his breast. He did not defy convention: when it did not interfere with whatever line of conduct he meant to pursue he conformed to it; and when it did he ignored it, affably conceding to his critics their right to censure him, if they felt so inclined, and caring neither for their praise nor their blame.

  Such a character should have been alien to a Wendover. Abby knew it, and tried to convince herself that she was suffering from much the same adolescent madness which had attacked her niece, and from which she would soon recover. She met with no success: she was not an adolescent, but she could remember the throes of her first, frustrated love-affair, and she knew that her present condition was quite unlike the joys and agonies experienced ten years earlier. Like Fanny, she had fallen in love with a handsome countenance, and had endowed its owner with every imaginable virtue. Looking back in amusement upon this episode, she thought how fortunate it was for the undesirable suitor tha
t her father had sent him packing before he had had time to tumble off the pedestal she had built for him. But she had built no pedestal for Miles Calverleigh: the very thought of setting him upon one appealed irresistibly to her lively sense of humour, and made it necessary for her to explain to Selina that her sudden laugh, breaking a long silence, had been caused by the recollection of an old joke, too foolish to be repeated. The discovery that her first suitor had feet of clay would have shattered her infatuation; she had known from the beginning that Miles Calverleigh was no paladin, but his sins were of as little importance to her as his sallow, harsh-featured face. If she married him, it would be with her eyes open to his faults, and in the knowledge that, in consulting only her own ardent desire, she would be subjecting every member of her family to varying degrees of shock, dismay, and even, where Selina and Mary were concerned, to grave distress.

  It was a hard problem to solve, and none of the arguments that dashed endlessly in her brain brought her any nearer to a decision, though they nagged at her all day, and kept her awake long into the night.

  But no one, watching her as she moved amongst her guests on Thursday evening, would have suspected that anything had occurred to ruffle her serenity; and not the keenest eyes could detect in her face any sign that she was labouring under the pangs of love. So much in command of herself was she that she was even able, when Lady Weaverham enquired archly when they might expect to see Mr Miles Calverleigh in Bath again, to reply smilingly: 'I don't know, ma'am. We miss him, don't we? My sister thinks him much too free and easy, but for my part I find him most entertaining. One never knows what he will say next!'

  'Which, to my mind,' Lady Weaverham told Mrs Ancrum, 'isn't the way a young woman talks about a gentleman she's nutty upon! And never a blush, or a conscious look either! Well, I did think it was a case between them, but I daresay it wouldn't have done, so it's as well that it ain't.'

  Though nobody suspected that there was anything amiss with Abby, several people noticed that Fanny was not in her best looks. She was a little flushed, and decidedly heavy-eyed, but when Mrs Grayshott asked her kindly if she was feeling quite well she assured her that indeed she was, except for a slight headache. 'Don't say anything to Abby about it, ma'am!' she begged. 'It would spoil the party for her if she knew, and I promise you it is very slight!' She added, before flitting away to greet some fresh arrivals: 'You know how it is, when one holds a large party! However carefully you may plan it, there seem always to be such a number of things to do at the last moment that you can't help but be rather tired by the time the party begins!'

  It was true that she had been busy for most of the day, but neither fatigue nor a slight headache would, under normal circumstances, have much impaired her enjoyment of the party. But she too was faced with a difficult problem; and although she had made up her mind that if the choice lay between eloping with Stacy to Scotland and losing him for ever, Scotland it must be, the decision had not put an end to her heart-searchings, and it had certainly not raised her spirits. When Selina chatted happily of winter plans, and discussed the numerous dresses she must have for her come-out in the spring, she felt an absurd desire to burst into tears; yet when she tried to imagine what it would be like to bid Stacy goodbye, her impulse was to fly to him immediately, just to assure him that she meant to keep her promise. The trouble was that she had been granted no opportunity since their stolen meeting in the Abbey to exchange more than a few words with him, and those only in public. It was no wonder that she should be feeling low. Once she was with him, and no longer lived in dread of being separated from him, everything would be right: it was only the actual severing of the ties which bound her to Sydney Place which made her feel wretched, and she must naturally be sad at wrenching herself from her home. After all, she had been miserable for days before she had gone, once, to spend a month with her Uncle James and her Aunt Cornelia. She had been extremely homesick, too, but she had recovered from this in a week. And if she could do so when staying with her uncle, who was so precise and prosy, and her aunt, who was detestable, how much more rapidly would she recover when she was in the arms of a husband whom she adored!

  Her heart leaped up when she saw Stacy bowing over Selina's hand. How handsome he was! how elegant! how easy and polished were his manners, and how gracefully he made his bow! He made every other man in the room look dowdy and clumsy. He was top-of-the-trees – the Real Thing – and from amongst all the fashionable beauties who must surely have cast out lures to him he had chosen her – little Fanny Wendover, who hadn't even made her come-out! She felt a rush of pride in him, and wondered how she could have hesitated for a moment to go away with him.

  Yet when, presently, he made his way to her side, and tried to draw her apart, she would not allow it, saying in an urgent undervoice: 'No, no, not here! not now!'

  'But, my darling – !' he expostulated caressingly.

  She was terribly nervous, fancying that at least a dozen pairs of eyes were on her; a stab of pain shot through her head; and suddenly she was shaken by a wave of irritation, and whispered quite fiercely: 'Don't! '

  He looked to be a good deal taken-aback. 'But, Fanny, I

  must talk to you!'

  'Not now!' she repeated. 'I can't – All these people – ! Oh, pray don't tease me! I have such a headache!'

  The smile faded from his lips. He said: 'I see what it is: your courage has failed you, or your love is not as strong as I believed it to be.'

  'No, no, I promise it isn't so! Only we cannot talk here! Surely you must perceive the danger?'

  'Then where?'

  'Oh, I don't know!' She saw the frown gathering on his brow, and said hurriedly: 'Tomorrow – in the Gardens! At – at two o'clock! Aunt Selina will be resting on her bed, and Abby always visits old Mrs Nibley on Fridays. I'll contrive to join you there without Grimston's knowing. No more now: Abby is looking at us!'

  She turned away on the words. The stabs of pain in her head were increasing, making her feel sick, and almost blinding her. A couple of uncertain steps brought her into collision with someone. She stammered: 'Oh, I beg your pardon! I didn't see!'

  Her hand was caught, and held in a sustaining grasp; Oliver Grayshott's voice sounded above her head. 'Fanny, what it is? You are ill!'

  'Oh, it's you!' she said, clinging gratefully to his hand. 'I'm not ill. It is only that my head aches so dreadfully! I shall be better directly.'

  'Yes, but not in this squeeze,' he said. 'You must go to bed at once!'

  'Oh, no, how can I? It would break up the party, and create a horrid fuss!'

  'No, it won't,' he said calmly. 'No one will notice it, if you slip out of the room. I think you have a migraine, and I know, because I've had 'em myself, that there's only one thing for it, and that's to lie down on your bed. Shall I fetch Lavinia to go with you?'

  'No, pray don't! It isn't as bad as that! Nurse will know what to do for me. Only don't say anything to frighten my aunts!'

  'Of course not,' he replied.

  'Thank you,' she sighed. 'I'm very much obliged to you!'

  He watched her go unobtrusively out of the room, and then made his way to where his mother was seated, talking to Canon Pinfold. He soon found an opportunity to tell her that Fanny had retired with a headache, and was anxious that her aunts should not be alarmed. She said reassuringly that she would convey the news to Abby, who would be neither alarmed nor even surprised. 'She told me, when I said I thought Fanny not looking quite the thing, that she was pretty sure she had the headache, only the silly child wouldn't own to it.'

  In point of fact, Abby had observed Fanny's departure. She said: 'Yes, I saw her go, and I was excessively grateful to Oliver for persuading her to do so. What a kind young man he is! I shall take a peep at her when I go upstairs to bed, but I need never be in a worry about her when Grimston has her in charge! I expect she will be quite restored by tomorrow.'

  She was mistaken. While she was still sipping a cup of chocolate on the following morning, she r
eceived a visit from Mrs Grimston, who came to request her, ominously, to take a look at Miss Fanny as soon as might be convenient.

  'It's no more than I expected, miss,' said Mrs Grimston, with the peculiar satisfaction of the devoted retainer who has detected incipient illness in one of her nurslings. "Yes," I said to myself, when she came up to me last night, "there's more to this than a headache. If I know anything about it," I said, "what you've got, poor lamb, is the influenza!" Which she has, Miss Abby.' She took the empty cup from Abby, and added: 'And, if I was you, ma'am, I would send the footboy to fetch the doctor to her, because she's in a high fever, and there's no saying but what she may throw out a rash presently, though the measles it can't be!'

  'No, of course it can't!' said Abby, throwing back the bedclothes. 'I don't doubt it's nothing more than influenza, just as you say!'

  'If it's not the scarlet fever,' said Mrs Grimston, depressing optimism. She held up Abby's dressing-gown for her. 'For I shouldn't be doing my duty, Miss Abby, if I didn't tell you that she's been complaining for the past hour and more that she has a sore throat!'