The Nonesuch Page 2

  ‘No, I’m not. I never did like going to parties, and I never shall – not these insipid ton parties, at all events. I like living in the country. I say, Waldo, I wonder if there’s any fishing to be had near Broom Hall?’ He saw that Sir Waldo was looking at Lady Lindeth, and added: ‘Oh, Mama don’t object! Do you, Mama?’

  ‘No,’ she answered. ‘You must do as you please – though it seems a pity you should go out of town just now. There’s the Aveburys’ Dress-party, and – However, if you prefer to go to Yorkshire with Waldo I am sure I have nothing to say!’

  There was a good deal of reluctance in her voice, which one at least of her audience recognized and appreciated. She was a devoted but not a foolish parent; and while, on the one hand, she was bent on thrusting her son into the heart of the ton, and (if possible) arranging an advantageous marriage for him; on the other, she had far too much wisdom either to try to drive him against his inclination, or to cast the least rub in the way of his allegiance to his cousin Waldo. It stood greatly to her credit that almost from the hour of her widowhood she had made up her mind that she must never keep Julian tied to her apron-strings. But although she had adhered strictly to this resolve she had suffered many qualms, fearing that the very sweetness of his disposition might be his undoing. He was a handsome boy, and one who had come into the world hosed and shod, as the saying was; and her dread was that he might be flattered and coaxed into such company as Laurence kept, with disastrous results. With Waldo he was not only safe but fortunate as well, since Waldo, taking him into his own circle, was introducing him to men of the first rank and character. That most of these gentlemen were addicted to the more dangerous, and (in her view) more degrading forms of sport, she did not allow to weigh with her. It was incomprehensible to her why any man should wish to risk his neck in the hunting field, or in a curricle race; or should derive the smallest satisfaction from planting a flush hit in the face of some unoffending acquaintance, encountered in Jackson’s Boxing Saloon; but she was fortified in her acceptance of these peculiar activities by the knowledge that no female was fitted to be a judge of such matters; and by the realization that nothing was farther from her ambition than to see her son joining the ranks of those who abjured violent sports. Furthermore, however many pangs of jealousy she might have been made to suffer when, having failed to turn Julian from some adolescent and ill-judged start, she had seen Waldo blight it by the mere lifting of an eyebrow, she could still be thankful to him. His ideas might not coincide with hers; she might resent Julian’s devotion to him; but while she knew his influence over her darling to be strong no maternal apprehensions seriously troubled her.

  She met his eyes, and saw the understanding smile in them. He said: ‘I know, ma’am – but where’s the use? I’ll take good care of him!’

  The annoying thing about him was that he did know, though never had she confided in him her ambition to see Julian achieve the social success to which his birth, his looks, and his fortune entitled him. She responded tartly: ‘He is of age, and very well able, I trust, to take care of himself! A very odd idea of me you must have, my dear Waldo, if you think he is obliged to ask my permission for anything he may wish to do!’

  The smile touched his lips; he murmured: ‘No! the only idea I have of you, ma’am, is that you are a woman of great good sense.’

  As he turned away from her, Julian, whose attention had been diverted by a question addressed to him by Mr Wingham, demanded gaily: ‘Are you talking secrets? When do you mean to go to Yorkshire?’

  ‘I haven’t decided the precise date, but sometime next week. I shall be travelling post, of course.’

  The expression of disappointment on Julian’s face was ludicrous enough to make even his ruffled mother smile. He exclaimed impulsively: ‘Oh, no ! You can’t wish to be shut up in a stuffy chaise for – Oh, you’re trying to gammon me, are you? Waldo, you’re a – you’re a –’

  ‘Gull-catcher,’ supplied George, on the broad grin.

  Julian accepted this blithely. ‘Yes, and a regular dryboots! Curricle, Waldo, or phaeton?’

  ‘I don’t see how we can go by either when I’ve no horses stabled on the Great North Road,’ objected Waldo.

  But Julian was not to be hoaxed twice. He retorted that if his cousin was such a nip-farthing as to grudge the expense of sending his cattle forward they would either hire job-horses, or proceed by such easy stages as could be managed by one team.

  ‘I like young Lindeth,’ said George, when, presently, he walked with his cousin in the direction of Bond Street. ‘A very good sort of a boy: nothing of the rum ’un about him! But as for Laurence – ! Upon my word, Waldo, I wonder that you should bear with him as you do! Well, I was used to think him more flash than foolish, but after listening to his damned insolence today I think him the most buffleheaded clunch I ever saw in my life! If there’s one person anybody but a sapskull would have taken precious care not to rub against, it’s you! Good God, where does he think he’d be, if you was to abandon him? Don’t you tell me he hasn’t cost you a small fortune, because I’m not a gapeseed! Why you didn’t lose your temper and tell him he’d had his last groat from you I shall never know!’

  ‘Yes, you will,’ responded Sir Waldo calmly. ‘I didn’t lose my temper because that is precisely what I had told him.’

  George was so much surprised that he halted in his tracks. ‘You had? Waldo, you don’t mean it!’

  ‘No, probably not, but today’s outburst shows that Laurie thinks I do. So now you know why I hadn’t the smallest inclination to lose my temper. For how much longer do you mean to stand like a stock, attracting the attention of the vulgar? Do come out of your trance, George!’

  Thus adjured, Mr Wingham fell into step again beside his tall cousin, saying earnestly: ‘I was never more glad of anything in my life! Now, don’t waver from it, I beg of you! Damme if I wouldn’t prefer to see you wasting the ready on a pack of ragged brats than on that young once-a-week man!’

  ‘Oh, George, no!’ expostulated Sir Waldo. ‘Coming it too strong!’

  ‘Oh, no, I ain’t!’ said George obstinately. ‘When I think of the things he said today, and the gratitude he owes you –’

  ‘He owes me none.’

  ‘What? ’ George gasped, once more coming to a sudden halt.

  His cousin’s hand, gripping his arm, forced him onward. ‘No, George: not again!’ said Sir Waldo firmly. ‘I’ve done very badly by Laurie. If you don’t know that, I do.’

  ‘Well, I don’t!’ George declared. ‘From the time he was at Harrow you’ve positively lavished money on him! You never did so for Julian!’

  ‘Oh, I’ve never done more for Julian than send him a guinea under the seal, when he was a schoolboy!’ said Sir Waldo, laughing.

  ‘So I knew! Of course, you may say he was pretty well-breeched, but –’

  ‘I shan’t say anything of the sort. I should have done no more for him whatever his circumstances might have been. By the time he went to Harrow I wasn’t such a cawker as I was when Laurie was a boy.’ He paused, slightly frowning, and then said abruptly: ‘You know, George, when my father died, I was too young for my inheritance!’

  ‘Well, I own we all thought so – made sure you’d play ducks and drakes with it! – but you never did so, and –’

  ‘No, I did worse: I ruined Laurie.’

  ‘Oh, come now, Waldo –’ George protested, adding after a moment’s reflection: ‘Encouraged him to depend on you, you mean. I suppose you did – and I’m damned if I know why, for you never liked him above half, did you?’

  ‘I didn’t. But when I was – what did he call it? – swimming in riches, and my uncle was possessed of no more than an independence – besides being as big a screw as our cousin Joseph, and keeping Laurie devilish short – it seemed so hard-fisted not to come to Laurie’s rescue!’

  ‘Yes, I see,’ s
aid George slowly. ‘And having once begun to frank him you couldn’t stop.’

  ‘I might have done so, but I didn’t. What, after all, did it signify to me? By the time I’d acquired enough sense to know what it signified to him, the mischief had been done.’

  ‘Oh!’ George turned this over in his mind. ‘Ay, very likely! But if you think the fault is yours, all I can say is that it ain’t like you to leave him to sink or swim now! What’s more, I don’t believe you would!’

  ‘No, I was afraid he wouldn’t believe it either,’ admitted Sir Waldo. ‘He seems to have done so, however, which makes me hopeful that the mischief has not gone beyond repair.’

  George uttered a bark of sceptical laughter. ‘He’ll be gapped in some hell before the week’s out – and don’t tell me you’ve tied him up, because he ain’t such a bottlehead that he don’t know you’d never compel him to pay the forfeit!’

  ‘I haven’t, but I paid his gaming debts only on his promise that he would incur no more of them.’

  ‘His promise – ! Good God, Waldo, you don’t depend on that, do you?’

  ‘But I do. Laurie won’t go back on his word: witness his rage today, only because I’ve compelled him to pledge it!’

  ‘Once a gamester always a gamester!’

  ‘My dear George, Laurie is no more a gamester than I am!’ replied Sir Waldo, amused. ‘All he wishes to do is to sport a figure in the world. Do believe that I know him much better than you do, and take that frown off your face!’ He slipped his hand within his cousin’s arm, grasping it lightly. ‘Instead, tell me this, old chap! Do you want Broom Hall? Because, if you do – and you need not fly up into the boughs! – I hope you know you’ve only to –’

  ‘I do not!’ interrupted George, with unnecessary violence. ‘Merely because I said I thought it an odd start in Cousin Joseph to have left his property to you – By the bye, my aunt didn’t like it above half, did she?’

  ‘No – most understandable! But I really can’t feel that Lindeth stands in the least need of Broom Hall.’

  ‘Oh, lord, no! – any more than I do! Bless the boy, he never gave it a thought! You know, Waldo, it’s my belief he’s going to cut up all her hopes! Ever since he came down from Oxford she’s been trying to push him into the first style of fashion – and into an eligible marriage – and then, when there isn’t a ton party he ain’t invited to attend, what does he do but beg you to let him go with you into the wilds of Yorkshire! I promise you, I was hard put to it not to burst out laughing at the look in her face when young Julian said the Season was a dead bore! Mark me if she don’t prevent his going with you!’

  ‘She won’t even make the attempt. She’s by far too fond of him to try to thrust him down any path he doesn’t wish to follow – and has too much commonsense as well. Poor Aunt Lindeth! I do most sincerely pity her! She was obliged to abandon her efforts to bring her husband into fashion, for he despised nothing more; and to discover now that Julian, who has all in his favour to blossom into a Pink of the Ton, is as bored by such stuff as ever his father was is really very hard.’

  ‘I think the better of him for it,’ declared George. ‘To own the truth, I always looked to see him trying to follow in your steps! Well, if she does let him go with you next week, take care he don’t fall into mischief – unless you have a fancy for getting your eyes scratched out!’

  ‘None at all! Are you apprehensive that he will form an attachment to a milkmaid? Or set the countryside by the ears? You terrify me, George!’

  ‘No, no!’ George said, chuckling. ‘It’s you who will do that! Well, I don’t mean you’ll set ’em all by the ears precisely, but, lord, what a flutter there will be when they find the Nonesuch amongst ’em!’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, George – !’ said Sir Waldo, withdrawing his hand abruptly from his cousin’s arm. ‘Don’t talk such nonsense! If I were a betting man, I’d lay you odds against the chance that anyone at Oversett has ever heard of me!’

  Two

  Neither prophecy hit the mark, but, in the event, Mr Wingham came nearer to it than Sir Waldo. Broom Hall belonged to a country parish whose centre was the village of Oversett, situated in the West Riding, rather closer to Leeds than to Harrogate, and not above twenty miles from York; and although the majority of the Reverend John Chartley’s parishioners knew nothing about Sir Waldo, and several elderly gentlemen, such as Squire Mickleby, took very little interest in any member of the Corinthian set, amongst the ladies, and the younger gentlemen, a good deal of excitement was felt. No one was acquainted with Sir Waldo; but several ladies had at some time or another spent a few weeks in London, and had had him pointed out to them in the Park or at the Opera as one of the leaders of the ton; and every budding young whip who prided himself on his light hands and the prime nature of his turn-out was torn between longing to see just how Sir Waldo did the trick and dread lest such an out-and-out top-sawyer should regard with contempt the efforts of his admirers to emulate his skill.

  The first person to learn the news was the Rector, and it was his daughter who carried it to Staples, the most considerable house in the neighbourhood, where it was variously received. Mrs Underhill, who knew no more of Sir Waldo than the Rector’s most illiterate parishioner, but understood, from the awe in Miss Chartley’s face, that the news was remarkable, said, in a placid voice: ‘Fancy!’ Miss Charlotte, a bouncing fifteen-year-old, looked for guidance at Miss Trent, her adolescent adoration of her young preceptress having led her to regard that lady as an authority on any subject which came under discussion; and Mrs Underhill’s niece, Miss Theophania Wield, fixed her large, suddenly sparkling eyes on Miss Chartley’s face, and uttered breathlessly: ‘Is it true? Coming to Broom Hall? Oh, you’re shamming it, Patience – I know you are!’

  Miss Trent, though the announcement had caused her to look up from her stitchery, her brows raised in momentary surprise, resumed her work, volunteering no remark; but Mr Courtenay Underhill, who had lounged in to pay his respects to his mama’s visitor, exclaimed in the liveliest astonishment: ‘Sir Waldo Hawkridge? Old Calver’s heir? Good God! Mama, did you hear? Sir Waldo Hawkridge!’

  ‘Yes, dear. Well, I’m sure I hope he’ll find it to his liking, though it will be wonderful if he does, the way Mr Calver let all go to rack and ruin! I don’t seem able to recall him at the moment, but there! I never was one for remembering names – not but what you’d think I should keep that one in my head, for I never heard such a funny one!’

  ‘They call him the Nonesuch!’ said Courtenay reverently.

  ‘Do they, love? That would be a nickname, I daresay. Depend upon it, it was given him for some silly reason, like the way your grandfather was used to call your poor Aunt Jane Muffin, all because –’

  ‘Oh!’ cried her niece, impatiently interrupting these amiable meanderings, ‘as though anyone was ever called that for a stupid joke! It means – it means perfection! Doesn’t it, Ancilla?’

  Miss Trent, selecting a length of silk from her skein, replied, in her cool, well-bred voice: ‘A paragon, certainly.’

  ‘Fudge! It means being the greatest Go among all the Goers!’ stated Courtenay. ‘Particularly on the roads – though they say the Nonesuch is a clipping rider to hounds too. Gregory Ash – and he knows all the Melton men! – told me that in harness and out no man can do more with a horse than the Nonesuch. Well, if he is coming here, I won’t be seen driving that chestnut I had from old Skeeby, that’s certain! Mama, Mr Badgworth has a neatish bay he’d be willing to sell: beautiful stepper – carries a good head – just the right stamp!’

  ‘Oh, pooh! As though anyone cares a rush for such stuff!’ broke in Miss Wield scornfully. ‘Sir Waldo is first in consequence with the ton, and of the first style of elegance, besides being very handsome, and hugely wealthy!’

  ‘Elegant! Handsome!’ jeered Courtenay, mimicking her. ‘Much you know about it!’r />
  ‘I do know!’ she flashed. ‘When I was at my uncle’s house in Portland Place –’

  ‘Yes, you were as thick as inkle-weavers with him, of course! What miff-maff you do talk! I don’t suppose you’ve ever so much as clapped eyes on him!’

  ‘I have, I have! Frequently! Well, several times! And he is handsome and elegant! Ancilla, he is, isn’t he?’

  Miss Chartley, who was a very gentle, prettily behaved girl, seized the opportunity to intervene in what promised to develop into a shrill quarrel, turning towards Miss Trent, and saying in her soft, shy voice: ‘I expect you know more about Sir Waldo than any of us, for you were used to live in London, were you not? Perhaps you may even have met him?’

  ‘No, indeed I have not,’ Miss Trent replied. ‘I never saw him, to my knowledge, and know no more of him than the rest of the world.’ She added, with the glimmer of a smile: ‘The company he keeps was quite above my touch!’

  ‘I daresay you didn’t wish for his acquaintance,’ said Charlotte. ‘I’m sure I don’t: I hate beaux! And if he is coming here to hold up his nose at us all I hope he will go away again!’

  ‘I expect he will,’ said Miss Trent, threading her needle.

  ‘Yes, that is what Papa says,’ agreed Miss Chartley. ‘He thinks he can only be coming to settle with the lawyers, and perhaps to sell Broom Hall, for he can’t wish to live in it, can he? Papa says he has a very beautiful house in Gloucestershire, which has been in his family for generations. And if he is so very fine and fashionable he must think this a dull place, I daresay – though it is quite close to Harrogate, of course.’

  ‘Harrogate!’ said Courtenay contemptuously. ‘That won’t fadge! He won’t remain at Broom Hall above a sennight I’ll be bound! There’s nothing to make him wish to stay, after all.’

  ‘No?’ said his cousin, a provocative smile on her exquisite countenance.

  ‘No!’ he stated, revolted by this odious self-satisfaction. ‘And if you think he has only to see you to fall in love with you, you much mistake the matter! I dare swear he is acquainted with a score of girls prettier by far than you!’