Reluctant Widow Page 6

A little laugh shook Cheviot. He caught his breath on a stab of pain, and gasped: ‘Yes, yes, I don’t care! If only I could see more plain!’

  ‘Hold the candle nearer!’

  Mr Presteign picked up the branch in a shaking hand.

  ‘It’s not that, my lord,’ the doctor muttered.

  ‘I know. Come, Eustace, here is the pen, and there is enough light now. Write down your name!’

  The dying man seemed to make a great effort. For a moment, held up in Carlyon’s arms, he peered stupidly at the paper under his hand; then his eyes cleared a little, and his aimless clutch on the quill tightened. Slowly he traced his signature at the foot of the paper. The pen slipped from his fingers, the ink on it staining the quilt. ‘Oh, I know what I should do!’ he said, as though someone had challenged this. ‘Put my – put my hand on it, and say – and say – give this as my last will and testament. That’s it. By God, I beat you at the post, Carlyon!’

  Carlyon lowered him on to the pillows, and removed the paper from under his hand. ‘You two are witnesses,’ he told the other men. ‘Sign it, if you please!’

  ‘If he is of sound mind –’ Presteign said doubtfully.

  The doctor smiled sourly. ‘Don’t tease yourself on that score! His mind is as sound as ever it was.’

  ‘Oh, if you are assured of that – !’ Presteign said, and wrote his name quickly on the paper.

  Someone scratched on the door; Carlyon went to it, and opened it, to find Hitchin there, with the intelligence that Mr Carlyon was below-stairs.

  ‘Mr Carlyon?’

  ‘Mr John, my lord. I’ve shown him into the parlour. Mr Carlyon is very wishful to see your lordship.’

  ‘Very well, I will come directly.’

  The doctor rose from the table, and gave Cheviot’s Will back to Carlyon. ‘There, it’s done, and I hope you may not regret this night’s work, my lord,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you; I do not expect to regret it.’

  ‘To be throwing a good estate to the four winds for a scruple!’ the doctor grumbled.

  Carlyon shook his head, and went out of the room. Downstairs, he found Elinor seated by the fire in the parlour, and his brother, John Carlyon, standing in the middle of the room, and staring at her in perplexity. He turned as he heard the door open, and said quickly: ‘Ned! For God’s sake, what is this farrago of nonsense? I am met by that fool Hitchen, who tells me I shall find Cheviot’s betrothed in the parlour, and now this lady informs me that she is married to him!’

  ‘Yes, that is quite true,’ Carlyon replied. ‘My brother John, Mrs Cheviot. I am glad you are here, John: you are the very man I need.’

  ‘Ned!’ said Mr Carlyon explosively. ‘What the devil have you been about?’

  ‘Just what you knew I meant to be about. Did Nicky tell you what had chanced?’

  ‘Yes, Nicky did tell me!’ John said grimly. ‘Very pretty tidings, upon my word! But he did not tell me the whole!’

  ‘No, for he did not know it. I have been fortunate in finding a lady willing to marry Eustace, and I stand very much in her debt.’ He smiled slightly at Elinor as he spoke, and added: ‘Miss Rochdale – or, rather, Mrs Cheviot – you are very tired, and must be anxious to retire. It has been a fatiguing day for you.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Elinor, regarding him with a fascinated eye. ‘It – it has been just a little fatiguing!’

  ‘Well, I am going to put you in my brother’s charge. He will take care of you, and drive you to my home. John, how came you here?’

  ‘I rode.’

  ‘Very well. Leave your horse for me, and take Mrs Cheviot in my curricle. Tell Mrs Rugby to see her comfortably bestowed, and be sure that she has some refreshment before she retires.’

  ‘Well – yes, certainly! Of course! But you, Ned?’

  ‘I must stay. I shall come later.’

  ‘Is Eustace alive?’

  ‘Yes, he’s alive. I’ll tell you the whole presently. Do you take Mrs Cheviot home now, there’s a good fellow!’

  ‘I thought,’ said Elinor feebly, ‘that I was to put up here for the night.’

  ‘Circumstances have changed, however, and I think you will be more comfortable at the Hall. You will be quite safe in my brother’s hands, and you will find my housekeeper very ready to attend to all your wants. John, Mrs Cheviot’s baggage is already bestowed in the curricle, so you have nothing to wait for.’

  ‘But what am I going to do?’ Elinor asked helplessly.

  ‘We will discuss that to-morrow,’ replied Carlyon.

  He left the room, just nodding to his brother as he passed him, and Mrs Cheviot and Mr Carlyon were left to eye one another doubtfully. ‘I will go and bring the curricle round to the door,’ said John heavily.

  ‘I don’t think I should go.’

  ‘Oh, yes, indeed I think you should! You will not wish to stay here with that creature dying above-stairs.’ He checked himself, and coloured. ‘I beg pardon! I was forgetting –’

  ‘You need not beg my pardon. I never saw your cousin until an hour ago,’ she said.

  ‘You – Mrs Cheviot, you do not tell me that you responded to the advertisement which my brother caused to be –’

  ‘Oh, no! It was all a mistake. I am a governess: I came to take up a position in quite another household, and, in error, stepped into your brother’s carriage, which was waiting at the coach-stop. But why I have allowed myself to be thrust into marrying your dreadful cousin I cannot tell! I think I must be as mad as your brother!’

  ‘Well, it is all very odd,’ said John, ‘but if Carlyon thought you should marry Cheviot you may depend upon it you have done the right thing. You must not be thinking that he is mad: indeed, I can’t think how you should do so, for I never knew anyone with a better understanding. I will go and fetch the curricle.’

  Elinor had perforce to acquiesce, and in a very few minutes was stepping up once more into this vehicle. John was careful to wrap the rug securely about her, and drove off, holding the horses to a steady trot.

  ‘You know, if you should not object, I should be very glad to know how all this business came about,’ he suggested.

  She told him her share in the evening’s events. He listened in a good deal of surprise, and his comments were those of a sensible man. He had a deliberate way of speaking, and she thought that he resembled Carlyon more nearly than did his youngest brother. In appearance, he was very like him, although half a head shorter. Both air and address were good, and his manners were conciliating. Elinor found it easy to confide in him, for although he appeared to be quite uncritical to Carlyon’s actions, he appreciated the delicacy of her position, and fully entered into her feelings upon the event.

  ‘It is an awkward business indeed!’ he said. ‘It is too bad of Nicky! As though my brother had not had enough to bear without this catastrophe!’

  She ventured to suggest that Nicky seemed not to have been able to avoid the encounter.

  ‘No, but it is all of a piece! Setting bears on to the dons! I might have guessed how it would be! And I dare say Ned never so much as told him he should not have done so!’

  ‘No,’ she reflected. ‘I believe he did not.’

  ‘No!’ he ejaculated. ‘But so it is always!’ He drove on in fuming silence for a little while.

  She said diffidently: ‘I think your brother Nicholas was very much shocked by what had happened.’

  ‘I should hope he might be indeed! To be putting Ned to all this trouble! It beats everything! I was never more angry with him in my life!’

  She was silent. After a moment he said in a severe tone: ‘I do not mean to say that there is any harm in Nicky, but he is a great deal too thoughtless, and now we see where it has led him. However, I suppose Carlyon will settle it all, and we must hope that it will be a lesson to Nick.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, smili
ng a little. ‘Mr Nicholas seemed to think also that his brother would settle it all.’

  ‘Ay, he and Harry were always the same!’ John exclaimed. ‘For ever getting into scrapes, and running to Ned to pull them out again! While as for my sister Georgiana – But I should not be talking in this way! You know, Miss – Mrs Cheviot – Ned is the best of good fellows, and it vexes me beyond bearing when I see him so imposed on! Take that creature, Eustace Cheviot! I dare say no one knows the half of what Ned had done for him, or the forbearance he has shown, but does he get one word of gratitude for it? No! I believe Cheviot veritably hated him!’

  She shivered. ‘You are very right. When I saw him, there was such an expression of enmity in his eyes, when they rested on your brother, that I was almost afraid. Why should it be? It is very terrible!’

  He agreed to it, adding: ‘There are some men, ma’am, who have such twisted natures that they cannot see virtue in another without hating it. My cousin was such an one. He resented my brother’s authority; when Carlyon has rescued him again and again from the consequences of his own conduct it has but increased his jealous hatred of him. It is a good thing for us that he is dead. But I wish he had not met his end at Nick’s hands.’

  He relapsed into brooding silence, which remained unbroken until the curricle turned in through a pair of great wrought-iron gates, when he roused himself from his abstraction to say: ‘We have only a little way to go now. You will be glad to warm yourself at a good fire, I dare say. It has grown chilly.’

  The curricle soon drew up before a large, stone-built mansion; and in a very short space of time Elinor was being led across a lofty hall to a pleasant saloon, furnished in the first style of elegance, and lit by a great many candles. Nicholas Carlyon jumped up from a wing-chair by the fire, and demanded eagerly: ‘Did you see Ned? How has it gone? Is Eustace dead? Where is Ned?’

  ‘Ned will be here presently. Do, for God’s sake, mind your manners, Nick! Set a chair for Mrs Cheviot this instant! If you will be seated, ma’am, I will desire the housekeeper to prepare a room for you.’

  He left the room immediately, and Nicky, blushing at his rebuke, made haste to conduct Elinor to a seat by the fire. ‘I beg pardon!’ he stammered. ‘But what is this? John said – but you are not Mrs Cheviot!’

  ‘You may well wonder at it,’ she said. ‘Your brother constrained me to marry your cousin, so I suppose I must be Mrs Cheviot.’

  ‘He did?’ Nicky cried. ‘Oh, that’s famous! I was afraid I had ruined all! I might have guessed Ned would never allow himself to be out-jockeyed!’

  ‘It may seem famous to you,’ retorted Elinor, with some tartness, ‘but I can assure you it does not to me! I have not the smallest desire to be married to your odious cousin!’

  ‘No, but I dare say he may be dead by now,’ said Nicky encouraging. ‘There’s no harm done!’

  ‘Yes, there is! There is a great deal of harm, for I was to have gone to Five Mile Ash as governess to Mrs Macclesfield’s family, and now I do not know what is to become of me!’

  ‘Oh, my brother will arrange everything!’ Nicky assured her. ‘You have no need to be in a fret, ma’am. Ned always knows what one should do. Besides, you would not like to go as a governess, would you? You are not at all like any that my sisters had! I believe you are bamming me!’

  She did not feel equal to arguing the matter with him. She untied the strings of her bonnet, and removed it, with a sigh of relief. Her soft brown ringlets were sadly crushed; she tried to tidy them, but was really too weary to care much for her appearance, and soon relapsed into immobility, her cheek propped on one hand, her eyes drowsily watching the flames in the hearth. She was roused presently by the entrance of Mr Carlyon, who came in with a tray in his hands, which he set down on the table at her elbow.

  ‘I think you should take a glass of wine, ma’am,’ he said, pouring one out for her. ‘The housekeeper will have your bedchamber ready directly. Will you take a biscuit?’

  She accepted it, and sat sipping her wine, and listening to a brief exchange of conversation between the two brothers, until the housekeeper came in to fetch her to bed. She went very willingly, only wondering what John Carlyon could have told the housekeeper to make that comfortable woman accept her with such seeming placidity. She was conducted up a broad, shallow stairway to such a bedchamber as she had not occupied since her father’s death. A servant was passing a warming-pan between the sheets of the bed; a fire had been kindled in the hearth; and her brushes and combs laid out upon the dressing-table. The housekeeper assured herself that all was in order, desired Mrs Cheviot to ring the bell if she should require anything, bade her a respectful good night, and withdrew.

  Mrs Cheviot, leaving the future to take care of itself, prepared to give herself up to the present luxury of a warm bed, and within half an hour was deeply and dreamlessly asleep.

  Five

  Downstairs, in the saloon, Mr John Carlyon told his young brother severely that the best thing he could now do would be to go to bed. This suggestion having been indignantly spurned, he said: ‘There is nothing more for you to do, and Ned may not reach home until morning. He will not leave while Eustace is still alive, I dare say.’

  ‘Well, I shall sit up till he comes,’ Nicky said. ‘Good God, I could not sleep a wink! How can you think of it? But, John, how came that lady to be with Ned at Highnoons? I have been puzzling my head over it. It seems very strange!’

  ‘You had best ask Ned,’ John replied uncommunicatively.

  ‘Well, and so I shall, and, what is more, he will tell me!’ said Nicky, rather nettled.

  ‘Very likely.’

  ‘At all events,’ said Nicky, ‘the affair is not as bad as it might have been, is it? For if Eustace married that lady –’

  ‘Not as bad as it might have been!’ John exclaimed. ‘I do not know how it could well be worse! And all come about through a prank I wonder you should not be ashamed to think of perpetrating at your age!’

  Nick retired to the chair by the fire, and cast himself into it, saying: ‘Oh, fudge! There was nothing in that, I am sure! Why, when Harry was up, you know very well he –’

  ‘Yes, I am aware that there was never anything to choose between you and Harry, more’s the pity! But at least Harry was never such a young fool that he would allow himself to be dragged into a quarrel with Eustace Cheviot!’

  ‘John!’ said Nicky despairingly, ‘I keep on telling you I stood it for as long as I might, but there was no bearing it! If he had abused me I would not have cared, but to hear him say such things of Ned was more than flesh and blood could stand! Besides, I never meant to do more than mill him down, after all!’

  John grunted, but upon his young brother’s attempting to justify himself still further, interrupted to read him so stern a lecture on the subject of his volatility, thoughtlessness, and general instability of character that Nicky was silenced, and had to sit enduring in dumb resentment this comprehensive homily. When it came to an end, he hunched an offended shoulder, and pretended to bury himself in the Morning Post, which lay providentially to hand. John went over to the desk, and busied himself with some papers of his which were lying there.

  It was rather more than an hour later, and the brothers had not exchanged any further conversation, when a firm tread was heard to cross the hall, and Carlyon entered the room.

  Nicky sprang up. ‘Ned, what has been the end of it?’ he asked anxiously. ‘I thought you would never come! Is Eustace dead?’

  ‘Yes, he is now. You should be in bed, Nicky. Did you see Miss Rochdale safely bestowed, John?’

  ‘Is that her name? Yes, she went up to bed over an hour ago. You have been a thought high-handed in that quarter, have you not?’

  ‘I am afraid so indeed. There was really nothing else to be done, matters having been pushed to a crisis.’

  ‘Ned, you know I am as sorry as I could be!’ N
icky said. ‘I wouldn’t have put you in a fix for the world!’

  ‘Yes, that is what you always say,’ interposed John. ‘But you go from one scrape to another! Now it has come to this, that you may think yourself fortunate if you do not have to stand your trial for manslaughter!’

  ‘I know,’ Nicky said. ‘Of course I know that! And perhaps they won’t believe it was an accident.’

  ‘My dear Nicky, none of this is likely to go beyond the Coroner’s inquest,’ Carlyon said. ‘You go up to bed, and don’t tease yourself any more to-night!’

  Nicky sighed, and John, perceiving that he was looking pale and very tired, said roughly: ‘Don’t worry! We shall not let them hale you off to prison, Nick!’

  Nicky smiled sleepily but gratefully at him, and took himself off.

  ‘Incorrigible!’ John said. ‘Did he tell you why he has been sent down?’

  ‘Yes, there was a performing bear,’ Carlyon answered absently.

  ‘I suppose that is sufficient to explain all!’

  ‘Well, it was sufficient to explain it all to me,’ Carlyon admitted. ‘Once a performing bear had entered Nicky’s orbit the rest was inevitable. Have you been waiting up for me? You should not have done so.’

  ‘You look fagged to death!’ John said, in his brusque way. ‘Sit down, while I pour you a glass of wine!’

  Carlyon took a chair by the fire, and stretched his booted legs out before him. ‘I am tired,’ he owned. ‘I hope I may not be called upon to attend any more such death-beds. But we shall brush through this very well if Hitchin does not let his loyalty run away with him.’

  John handed him a glass of wine. ‘Oh, I don’t doubt we shall come about, but we should never have been put into such a situation! It is what I have been saying to you for ever, Ned: you are by far too easy with Nick! There’s not an ounce of harm in the boy, but he is a great deal too wild. It is as I said a while back: he plunges into scrapes, and then runs to you to extricate him.’

  ‘Well, thank God he does run to me!’ said Carlyon.

  ‘Yes, that is all very well, but why you must needs encourage him to steal bears, and to –’