The Quiet Gentleman Read online

  ‘Do not put yourself about, my dear!’ recommended his parent. ‘Dinner must for this once await his convenience, but with all his faults his disposition was always compliant. I assure you, I do not expect to find our style of living overset by any fashionable nonsense which he may have learnt in Lady Penistone’s establishment. That would not suit me at all, and I am not quite nobody at Stanyon, I believe!’

  This announcement, being plainly in the nature of a pleasantry, caused Mr Clowne to laugh a little, and to say: ‘Indeed your ladyship is not nobody! Such a whimsical fancy must really quite startle anyone unacquainted with those flashes of wit we know so well!’ He encountered a sardonic look from Theodore, and added hastily: ‘How many years it is since I have had the pleasure of meeting his lordship! How much he will have to tell us of his experiences! I am sure we shall all hang upon his lips!’

  ‘Hang upon his lips!’ exclaimed Martin, with one of his fiery looks. ‘Ay! toad-eat him to the top of his bent! I shall not do so! I wish he were underground!’

  ‘Take care what you say!’ interposed his cousin sternly.

  Martin flushed, looking a little conscious, but said in a sullen tone: ‘Well, I do wish it, but of course I don’t mean anything! You need not be so quick to take me up!’

  ‘Military anecdotes are never acceptable to me,’ said the Dowager, as though the brief interchange between the cousins had not occurred. ‘I have no intention of encouraging Desborough to enlarge upon his experiences in Spain. The reflections of a General must always be of value – though I fancy we have heard enough of the late war: those of a junior officer can only weary his auditors.’

  ‘You need feel no alarm on that score, ma’am,’ said Theodore. ‘My cousin has not altered so much!’

  This was uttered so dryly that the Chaplain felt himself impelled to step into a possible breach. ‘Ah, Mr Theodore, you remind us that you are the only one amongst us who can claim to know his lordship! You have frequently been meeting him, while we –’

  ‘I have met him occasionally,’ interrupted Theodore. ‘His employment abroad has not made frequent meetings possible.’

  ‘Just so – precisely as I was about to remark! But you know him well enough to have a kindness for him!’

  ‘I have always had a great kindness for him, sir.’

  The reappearance of Miss Morville, bearing a small fire-screen set upon an ebony stick, which she handed to the Dowager, created a timely diversion. The Dowager bestowed a smile upon her, saying that she was very much obliged to her. ‘I do not know how I shall bear to relinquish you to your worthy parents when they return from the Lakes, for I am sure I shall miss you excessively. My daughter – Lady Grampound, you know – is for ever advising me to employ some genteel person to bear me company, and to run my little errands for me. If ever I should decide to do so I shall offer the post to you, I promise you!’

  Miss Morville, not so swift as Mr Clowne to recognize her ladyship’s wit, replied to this pleasantry in a practical spirit. ‘Well, it is very kind in you to think you would like to have me to live with you, ma’am,’ she said, ‘but I do not think it would suit me, for I should not have nearly enough to do.’

  ‘You like to be very busy, don’t you?’ Theodore said, smiling at her in some amusement.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, seating herself again in her chair, and resuming her knitting. She added thoughtfully: ‘It is to be hoped that I shall never be obliged to seek such a post, for my disposition is not meek, and would render me ineligible for any post but that, perhaps, of housekeeper.’

  This prosaic observation appeared to daunt the company. A silence fell, which was broken by the ubiquitous Mr Clowne, who said archly: ‘What do you think of, Miss Morville, while your hands are so busy? Or must we not seek to know?’

  She looked rather surprised, but replied with the utmost readiness: ‘I was wondering whether I should not, after all, make the foot a little longer. When they are washed at home, you know, they don’t shrink; but it is sadly different at Cambridge! I should think the washerwomen there ought to be ashamed of themselves!’

  Finding that this reflection evoked no response from the assembled company, she again applied herself to her work, and continued to be absorbed in it until Martin, who had quick ears, jerked up his head, and ejaculated: ‘A carriage! At last!’

  At the same moment, an added draught informed the initiated that the door beyond the Grand Staircase had been opened; there was a subdued noise of bustle in the vestibule, and the sound of trampling hooves in the carriage-drive. Miss Morville finished knitting her row, folded the sock, and bestowed it neatly in the tapestry-bag. Though Martin nervously fingered his cravat, the Dowager betrayed by no sign that she had heard the sounds of an arrival. Mr Clowne, taking his cue from her, lent a spuriously eager ear to the platitude which fell from her lips; and Theodore, glancing from one to the other, seemed to hesitate to put himself forward.

  A murmur of voices from the vestibule indicated that Abney, the butler, had thrown open the doors to receive his new master. Several persons, including the steward, and a couple of footmen, were bowing, and falling back obsequiously; and in another instant a slim figure came into view. Only Miss Morville, seated in a chair with its back turned to the vestibule, was denied this first glimpse of the seventh Earl. Either from motives of good manners, or from lack of interest, she refrained from peeping round the back of her chair; and the Dowager, to mark her approbation, addressed another of her majestic platitudes to her.

  All that could at first be seen of the seventh Earl was a classic profile, under the brim of a high-crowned beaver; a pair of gleaming Hessians, and a drab coat of many capes and graceful folds, which enveloped him from chin to ankle. His voice was heard: a soft voice, saying to the butler: ‘Thank you! Yes, I remember you very well: you are Abney. And you, I think, must be my steward. Perran, is it not? I am very glad to see you again.’

  He turned, as though aware of the eyes which watched him, and stood foursquare to the Hall, seeing his stepmother, her imposing form gowned in purple satin, a turban set upon her gray locks, her Roman nose elevated; his half-brother, standing scowling before the fireplace, one hand gripping the high mantelshelf, the other dug into the pocket of his satin breeches; his cousin, standing a little in the background, and slightly smiling at him; his Chaplain, torn between curiosity and his allegiance to the Dowager. He regarded them thoughtfully, while with one hand he removed the beaver from his head, and held it out, and with the other he relinquished his gloves and his cane into the care of a footman. His hat was reverently taken from him by Abney, who murmured: ‘Your coat, my lord!’

  ‘My coat, yes: in a moment!’ the Earl said, moving unhurriedly towards the Hall.

  An instant Theodore hesitated, waiting for the Dowager or for Martin to make some sign; then he strode forward, with his hands held out, exclaiming: ‘Gervase, my dear fellow! Welcome!’

  Martin, his affronted stare taking in the number of the capes of that drab coat, the high polish on the Hessian boots, the extravagant points of a shirt-collar, and the ordered waves of guinea-gold hair above a white brow, muttered audibly: ‘Good God! the fellow’s nothing but a curst dandy!’

  Two

  The flicker of a quizzical look, cast in Martin’s direction, betrayed that his half-brother had heard his involuntary exclamation. Before the ready flush had surged up to the roots of his hair, Gervase was no longer looking at him, but was shaking his cousin’s hand, smiling at him, and saying: ‘How do you do, Theo? You see, I do keep my promises: I have come!’

  Theo held his slender hand an instant longer, pressing it slightly. ‘One year past! You are a villain!’

  ‘Ah, yes, but you see I must have gone into black gloves, and really I could not bring myself to do so!’ He drew his hand away, and advanced into the Hall, towards his stepmother’s chair.

  She did not rise, but she extended
her hand to him. ‘Well, and so you have come at last, St Erth! I am happy to see you here, though, to be sure, I scarcely expected ever to do so! I do not know why you could not have come before, but you were always a strange, whimsical creature, and I daresay I shall not find that you have changed.’

  ‘Dear ma’am, believe me, it is the greatest satisfaction to me to be able to perceive, at a glance, that you have not changed – not by so much as a hairsbreadth!’ Gervase responded, bowing over her hand.

  So sweetly were the words uttered, that everyone, except the Dowager, was left in doubt of their exact significance. The Dowager, who would have found it hard to believe that she could be the object of satire, was unmoved. ‘No, I fancy I do not alter,’ she said complacently. ‘No doubt, however, you see a great change in your brother.’

  ‘A great change,’ agreed Gervase, holding out his hand to Martin, and scanning him out of his smiling, blue eyes. ‘Can you be my little brother? It seems so unlikely! I should not have recognized you.’ He turned, offering hand and smile to the Chaplain. ‘But Mr Clowne I must certainly have known anywhere! How do you do?’

  The Chaplain, who, from the moment of the Earl’s handing his hat to Abney, had stood staring at him as though he could not drag his eyes from his face, seemed to be a trifle shaken, and answered with much less than his usual urbanity: ‘And I you, my lord! For one moment it was as though – Your lordship must forgive me! Memory serves one some strange tricks.’

  ‘You mean, I think, that I am very like my mother,’ said Gervase. ‘I am glad – though it is a resemblance which has brought upon me in the past much that I wish to forget.’

  ‘It has frequently been remarked,’ stated the Dowager, ‘that Martin is the very likeness of all the Frants.’

  ‘You are too severe, ma’am,’ said Gervase gently.

  ‘Let me tell you, St Erth, that if I favour the Frants I am devilish glad to hear it!’ said Martin.

  ‘Tell me anything you wish, my dear Martin!’ said Gervase encouragingly.

  His young relative was not unnaturally smitten to silence, and stood glaring at him. The Dowager said in a voice of displeasure: ‘I have the greatest dislike of such trifling talk as this. I shall make you known to Miss Morville, St Erth.’

  Bows were exchanged; the Earl murmured that he was happy to make Miss Morville’s acquaintance; and Miss Morville, accepting the civility with equanimity, pointed out to him, in a helpful spirit, that Abney was still waiting to relieve him of his driving-coat.

  ‘Of course – yes!’ said Gervase, allowing the butler to help him out of his coat, and standing revealed in all the fashionable elegance of dove-coloured pantaloons, and a silver-buttoned coat of blue superfine. A quizzing-glass hung on a black riband round his neck, and he raised this to one eye, seeming to observe, for the first time, the knee-breeches worn by his brother and his cousin, and the glory of his stepmother’s low-cut gown of purple satin. ‘Oh, I am afraid I have kept you waiting for me!’ he said apologetically. ‘Now what is to be done? Will you permit me, ma’am, to sit down to dinner in all my dirt, or shall I change my clothes while your dinner spoils?’

  ‘It would take you an hour, I daresay!’ Martin remarked, with a curling lip.

  ‘Oh, more than that!’ replied Gervase gravely.

  ‘I am not, in general, an advocate for a man’s sitting down to dine in his walking-dress,’ announced the Dowager. ‘I consider such a practice slovenly, and slovenliness I abhor! In certain cases it may be thought, however, to be allowable. We will dine immediately, Abney.’

  The Earl, taking up a position before the fire, beside his brother, drew a Sèvres snuff-box from his pocket, and, opening it with a dexterous flick of his thumb, took a pinch of the mixture it contained, and raised it to one nostril. An unusual signet-ring, which he wore, and which seemed, at one moment, dull and dark, and at another, when he moved his hand so that the ring caught the light, to glow with green fire, attracted his stepmother’s attention. ‘What is that ring you have upon your finger, St Erth?’ she demanded. ‘It appears to me to be a signet!’

  ‘Why, so it is, ma’am!’ he replied, raising his brows in mild surprise.

  ‘How comes this about? Your father’s ring was delivered to you by your cousin’s hand I do not know how many months ago! All the Earls of St Erth have worn it, for five generations – I daresay more!’

  ‘Yes, I prefer my own,’ said the Earl tranquilly.

  ‘Upon my word!’ the Dowager ejaculated, her bosom swelling. ‘I have not misunderstood you, I suppose! You prefer a trumpery ring of your own to an heirloom!’

  ‘I wonder,’ mused the Earl, pensively regarding his ring, ‘whether some Earl of St Erth as yet unborn – my great-great-grandson, perhaps – will be told the same, when he does not choose to wear this ring of mine?’

  A high colour mounted to the Dowager’s cheeks; before she could speak, however, the matter-of-fact voice of Miss Morville made itself heard. ‘Very likely,’ she said. ‘Modes change, you know, and what one generation may admire another will frequently despise. My Mama, for instance, has a set of garnets which I consider quite hideous, and shan’t know what to do with, when they belong to me.’

  ‘Filial piety will not force you to wear them, Miss Morville?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think it would,’ she responded, giving the matter some consideration.

  ‘Your Mama’s garnets, my dear Drusilla – no doubt very pretty in their way! – can scarcely be compared to the Frant ring!’ said the Dowager. ‘I declare, when I hear St Erth saying that he prefers some piece of trumpery –’

  ‘No, no, I never said so!’ interrupted the Earl. ‘You really must not call it trumpery, my dear ma’am! A very fine emerald, cut to my order. I daresay you might never see just such another, for they are rare, you know. I am informed that there is considerable difficulty experienced in cutting them to form signets.’

  ‘I know nothing of such matters, but I am shocked – excessively shocked! Your father would have been very glad to have left his ring to Martin, let me tell you, only he thought it not right to leave it away from the heir!’

  ‘Was it indeed a personal bequest?’ enquired Gervase, interested. ‘That certainly must be held to enhance its value. It becomes, in fact, a curio, for it must be quite the only piece of unentailed property which my father did bequeathe to me. I shall put it in a glass cabinet.’

  Martin, reddening, said: ‘I see what you are at! I’m not to be blamed if my father preferred me to you!’

  ‘No, you are to be felicitated,’ said Gervase.

  ‘My lord! Mr Martin!’ said the Chaplain imploringly.

  Neither brother, hot brown eyes meeting cool blue ones, gave any sign of having heard him, but the uncomfortable interlude was brought to a close by the entrance of the butler, announcing that dinner was served.

  There were two dining-rooms at Stanyon, one of which was only used when the family dined alone. Both were situated on the first floor of the Castle, at the end of the east wing, and were reached by way of the Grand Stairway, the Italian Saloon, and a broad gallery, known as the Long Drawing-room. Access to them was also to be had through two single doors, hidden by screens, but these led only to the precipitous stairs which descended to the kitchens. The family dining-room was rather smaller than the one used for formal occasions, but as its mahogany table was made to accommodate some twenty persons without crowding it seemed very much too large for the small party assembled in it. The Dowager established herself at the foot of the table, and directed her son and the Chaplain to the places laid on her either side. Martin, who had gone unthinkingly to the head of the table, recollected the change in his circumstances, muttered something indistinguishable, and moved away from it. The Dowager waved Miss Morville to the seat on the Earl’s right; and Theodore took the chair opposite to her. Since the centre of the table supported an enormous silver epergne, p
resented to the Earl’s grandfather by the East India Company, and composed of a temple, surrounded by palms, elephants, tigers, sepoys, and palanquins, tastefully if somewhat improbably arranged, the Earl and his stepmother were unable to see one another, and conversation between the two ends of the table was impossible. Nor did it flourish between neighbours, since the vast expanse of napery separating them gave them a sense of isolation it was difficult to overcome. The Dowager indeed, maintained, in her penetrating voice, a flow of very uninteresting small-talk, which consisted largely of exact explanations of the various relationships in which she stood to every one of the persons she mentioned; but conversation between St Erth, his cousin and Miss Morville was of a desultory nature. By the time Martin had three times craned his neck to address some remark to Theo, obscured from his view by the epergne, the Earl had reached certain decisions which he lost no time in putting into force. No sooner had the Dowager borne Miss Morville away to the Italian Saloon than he said: ‘Abney!’

  ‘My lord?’

  ‘Has this table any leaves?’

  ‘It has many, my lord!’ said the butler, staring at him.

  ‘Remove them, if you please.’

  ‘Remove them, my lord?’

  ‘Not just at once, of course, but before I sit at the table again. Also that thing!’

  ‘The epergne, my lord?’ Abney faltered. ‘Where – where would your lordship desire it to be put?’

  The Earl regarded it thoughtfully. ‘A home question, Abney. Unless you know of a dark cupboard, perhaps, where it could be safely stowed away?’

  ‘My mother,’ stated Martin, ready for a skirmish, ‘has a particular fondness for that piece!’

  ‘How very fortunate!’ returned St Erth. ‘Do draw your chair to this end of the table, Martin! and you too, Mr Clowne! Abney, have the epergne conveyed to her ladyship’s sitting-room!’

  Theo looked amused, but said under his breath: ‘Gervase, for God’s sake – !’