The Nonesuch Page 7

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ replied Sir Waldo, rather absently.

  ‘Do pay attention!’ begged Julian. ‘From Staples! Isn’t that the place with the wrought-iron gates, beyond the village? They must have called, but I can’t find any card!’

  ‘Presumably they haven’t called, then.’

  ‘No, but – Of course, the name might not be Wield: she spoke of her aunt, and I suppose – But there’s no card bearing that direction that I can find!’

  Sir Waldo looked up at this, a laugh in his eye. ‘Oho! She ?’

  ‘Oh, Waldo, I’ve met the most ravishing girl!’ disclosed his lordship. ‘Now, think! Who lives at Staples?’

  ‘Miss Wield, I collect.’

  ‘Yes, but – Oh, don’t be so provoking! Surely you must know who owns the place.’

  ‘I can see not the smallest reason why I must know – and I don’t.’

  ‘I wish you may not have lost the card! You would suppose her uncle must have called, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Well, I haven’t so far given the matter any consideration,’ said Sir Waldo apologetically. ‘Perhaps he doesn’t approve of me?’

  Julian stared at him. ‘Nonsense! Why shouldn’t he?’

  ‘I can’t imagine.’

  ‘No, nor anyone else! Do stop talking slum, and try to be serious!’

  ‘I am serious!’ protested Sir Waldo. ‘Quite perturbed, in fact! I have sustained an introduction to someone who, unless I am much mistaken, does disapprove of me.’

  ‘Who?’ demanded Julian.

  ‘A female whose name I can’t recall. A remarkably good-looking one, too,’ he added reflectively. ‘And not just in the common style, either.’

  ‘She sounds a maggoty creature to me!’ said Julian frankly. ‘Not but what I think you’re shamming it! Why should she disapprove of you?’

  ‘I rather fear, my fatal addiction to sport.’

  ‘What a ninnyhammer! No, but, Waldo, do think! Are you perfectly sure no one from Staples has been here?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge. Which leaves us quite at a stand, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Well, it does – except that she may be at the party. She didn’t precisely say so, but – Lord, what a fortunate thing it was that we stayed with the Arkendales on our way here! I might not else have brought my evening rig with me!’

  This ingenuous observation made Sir Waldo’s lips twitch, for Julian’s reception of the news that his journey north was to be broken by a visit to the home of one of the highest sticklers in the country would not have led anyone to foresee that he would presently think himself fortunate to have undergone a stay which he had stigmatized as an intolerable bore. Similarly, when he knew that he had been included in Mrs Mickleby’s invitation to Waldo he had denied any expectation of enjoyment, saying that if he had guessed that he had fled from the London scene only to be plunged into a succession of country dinner-parties he would not have accompanied his cousin.

  But all such unsociable ideas were now at an end; it was not he but Sir Waldo who deplored the necessity of attending a dinner-party on a wet evening: Julian had no doubt of its being a delightful party; and as for the ancient vehicle brought round from the coach-house for their conveyance, he told his cousin, who was eyeing it with fastidious dislike, that he was a great deal too nice, and would find it perfectly comfortable.

  Miss Wield would have been pleased, though not at all surprised, to have known how eagerly his lordship looked forward to meeting her at the Manor, and how disappointed he was not to see her there; but if she had been an invisible spectator she would not have guessed from his demeanour that he was at all disappointed. He was far too polite to betray himself; and of too cheerful and friendly a disposition to show the least want of cordiality. It was a great shame that his ravishing girl was absent; but he had discovered her aunt’s name, and had formed various plans for putting himself in this lady’s way. Meanwhile, there were several pretty girls to be seen, and he was perfectly ready to make himself agreeable to them.

  A quick survey of the drawing-room was enough to inform Sir Waldo that the beautiful Miss Wield was not present. Miss Chartley and Miss Colebatch were the best-looking ladies, the one angelically fair, the other a handsome redhead, but neither corresponded to the lyrical description Julian had given him of Miss Wield’s surpassing beauty. He glanced towards Julian, and was amused to see that he was being very well entertained amongst the younger members of the party. He was not surprised, for he had not taken Julian’s raptures very seriously: Julian had begun to develop an interest in the fair sex, but he was still at the experimental stage, and during the past year had discovered at least half-a-dozen goddesses worthy of his enthusiastic admiration. His cousin saw no need to feel any apprehension: Julian was enjoying the flirtations proper to his calf-time, and was some way yet from forming a lasting passion.

  For himself, Sir Waldo was resigned to an evening’s boredom, denied even the amusement of pursuing his acquaintance with the lady who disapproved of him. He had looked in vain for her, and was conscious of disappointment. He could not recall her name, but he did remember that he had been attracted by her air of cool distinction, and the smile which leaped so suddenly into her eyes. She was intelligent, too, and had a sense of humour: a rare thing, he thought, amongst females. He would have liked to have known her better, and had looked forward to meeting her again. But she was not present, and he was provided instead with a number of middle-aged persons, as dull as they were worthy, and with a sprinkling of boys and girls. Amongst the girls, he awarded the palm to Miss Chartley, with whom he exchanged a few words. He liked, as much as the sweetness of her expression, the unaffected manners which, in spite of a not unbecoming shyness, enabled her to respond to his greeting without blushing, nervously giggling, or assuming a worldly air to impress him. As for the boys, he would have had to be extremely dull-witted not to have realized, within a very few moments of entering the room, that most of them were taking in every detail of his dress, and, while too bashful to put themselves forward, were hoping that before the evening was out they would be able to boast of having talked to the Nonesuch. He was well-accustomed to being the object of any aspiring young sportsman’s hero-worship, but he neither sought nor valued such adulation. Mr Underhill, Mr Arthur Mickleby, Mr Jack Banningham, and Mr Gregory Ash, bowing deeply, and uttering reverently Sir! and Honoured! would have been stunned to know that the only young gentleman to engage Sir Waldo’s amused interest was Humphrey Colebatch, a redheaded youth (like his sister), afflicted with an appalling stutter. Presented by his fond father somewhat dauntingly as this silly chub of mine, and further stigmatized by the rider: not of your cut, I’m sorry to say! he had disclosed, in the explosive manner of those suffering an impediment of speech, that he was not interested in sport.

  ‘He’s bookish,’ explained Sir Ralph, torn between pride in his son’s scholastic attainments and the horrid fear that he had fathered a miscreature. ‘Worst seat in the county! But there! No accounting for tastes, eh? Take my daughter, Lizzie! Never opened a book in her life, but rides with a light hand and an easy bit, and handles the reins in form.’

  ‘Does she?’ Sir Waldo said politely. He smiled encouragingly at Humphrey. ‘Oxford?’

  ‘Cam-Cam-Cambridge!’ He added, after a brief struggle: ‘M-Magdalene. J-just d-down. Th-third year.’

  ‘Magdalene! So was I – Magdalen, Oxford, though. What do you mean to do next?’

  ‘G-go up for a fourth year!’ replied Humphrey doggedly, and with a challenging look at his father.

  ‘Fellowship?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I hope !’

  But at this point Sir Ralph intervened, testily adjuring him not to keep boring on about his affairs; so he bowed awkwardly to Sir Waldo, and walked away. Upon which Sir Ralph said that scholarship was all very well in its way, but that if he had guessed that
his heir was going to run mad after it he would never have let him go up to Cambridge at all. He showed a disposition to become even more confidential, asking to be told what Sir Waldo would do in such a case; but as Sir Waldo did not feel himself to be qualified to advise harassed parents, and was too little interested to bend his mind to the problem, he speedily extricated himself from this tête-à-tête. It spoke volumes for his social address that he contrived to do it without in any way offending Sir Ralph.

  Meanwhile, those of Humphrey’s contemporaries who had jealously observed his encounter with the Nonesuch pounced upon him, demanding to be told what Sir Waldo had said to him.

  ‘W-wouldn’t interest you!’ responded Humphrey, with odious loftiness. ‘N-nothing about sport! We talked ab-about Cam-Cambridge.’

  This disclosure stunned his audience. Mr Banningham was the first to recover his power of speech; he expressed the sentiments of his boon companions by saying: ‘He must have thought you a slow-top!’

  ‘N-not at all!’ retorted Humphrey, curling his lip. ‘W-what’s m-more, he’s not such a c-c-cod’s head as you l-led me to think him!’

  At any other time so insufferable a speech must have goaded his childhood’s playmates into punitive action. A sense of propriety, however, restrained them, and enabled Humphrey to saunter away, not only unmolested, but filled with the comfort-able conviction of having, in a few heaven-sent moments, paid off all the scores of a short lifetime.

  Since Mrs Mickleby seated the Nonesuch between herself and Lady Colebatch at her extended dining-table, it was not until much later in the evening that he made the acquaintance of Mrs Underhill. In the welter of introductions he had scarcely distinguished her amongst so many matrons; but Lord Lindeth had not been so careless. Undismayed by a gown of puce satin, lavishly adorned with lace and diamonds, and by a headdress supporting a plume of curled feathers clasped by a glittering brooch of opulent dimensions, he had seized the first opportunity that offered of approaching Mrs Underhill, when the gentlemen joined the ladies after dinner; and it was he who made Sir Waldo known to her. Obedient to the summons telegraphed to him by his young cousin, Sir Waldo came across the room, and was immediately made aware of his duty.

  ‘Oh, here is my cousin!’ said his lordship artlessly. ‘Waldo, I fancy you have already been presented to Mrs Underhill!’

  ‘Yes, indeed!’ responded Sir Waldo, rising nobly to the occasion.

  ‘Well, we were introduced,’ conceded Mrs Underhill, ‘but it wouldn’t surprise me if you didn’t happen to catch my name. I’m sure there’s nothing more confusing than to be introduced to a score of strangers. Many’s the time I’ve been in a regular hobble, trying to set the right names to the right faces!’

  ‘But in this instance, ma’am, I have something to assist my memory!’ said Sir Waldo, with admirable aplomb. ‘Did I not have the pleasure of meeting your daughter not so many days since? Miss – Miss Charlotte Underhill? She was helping another lady – a tall lady, older than herself – to deck the Church with flowers.’

  ‘That’s right!’ said Mrs Underhill, pleased with him. ‘And mightily puffed-up she’s been ever since, you talking to her so kindly, as she tells me you did! As for the tall lady, that would be Miss Trent: her governess. Well, properly speaking, she’s my niece’s companion, and a very superior young female. Her uncle is General Sir Mordaunt Trent!’

  ‘Indeed!’ murmured Sir Waldo.

  ‘Waldo!’ interrupted Julian, ‘Mrs Underhill has been so kind as to invite us to attend the party she is holding on Wednesday next! I believe we have no other engagement?’

  ‘None that I know of. How delightful! We are very much obliged to you, ma’am!’ said Sir Waldo, with the courtesy for which he was renowned.

  But afterwards, jolting back to Broom Hall in the late Mr Calver’s ill-sprung carriage, he expressed the acid hope that his cousin was properly grateful to him for accepting the invitation.

  ‘Yes, very grateful!’ replied Julian blithely. ‘Not but what I knew you would!’

  ‘Having thrust me into an impossible position I imagine you might!’

  Julian chuckled. ‘I know, but – She’s that glorious creature’s aunt, Waldo!’

  ‘I am aware! It remains only for you to discover that your glorious creature is engaged to one of the local blades, and you will have come by your deserts.’

  ‘Oh, no! I’m tolerably sure she’s not!’ said Julian confidently. ‘Her cousin must have mentioned the circumstance, if – Besides, –’

  ‘Do you mean Charlotte? Was she there tonight?’

  ‘Charlotte? No – who’s she? Courtenay Underhill!’

  ‘Oh, a male cousin! What is he like?’

  ‘Oh – oh, very agreeable!’ said Julian. He hesitated, and then said: ‘Yes, I know what you’re thinking, and I suppose he is inclined to be what you’d call a coxcomb, but he’s very young: hardly more than a schoolboy!’

  ‘Quoth the graybeard!’ said Sir Waldo lazily.

  ‘Now, Waldo – ! I only meant that I shouldn’t think he could be twenty yet, and I’m three-and-twenty, after all!’

  ‘No, are you? I’ll say this for you then: you’re wearing very well!’

  The infectious chuckle broke from Julian again. He retorted: ‘I’m too old, at all events, to ape your modes!’

  ‘Is that what Master Underhill does?’

  ‘Corinthian fashions, anyway. He was looking you over so closely that I wouldn’t bet a groat on the chance that he won’t turn out in your sort of rig within the week. He asked me all manner of questions about you, too.’

  ‘Julian!’ said Sir Waldo, with deep foreboding. ‘Tell me at once just how rum you pitched it to that wretched youth?’

  ‘I didn’t! I said I didn’t know what larks you was used to engage in – which was true, though I know more now than I did yesterday! Waldo, did you once win five guineas by flooring the bruiser at some Fair in the second round?’

  ‘Good God! How the devil did that story reach Yorkshire? I did: and if that’s the sort of folly this chuckleheaded new friend of yours admires I hope you told him it was a fudge!’

  ‘No, how could I? I told him to ask you for the truth of it. He didn’t like to approach you tonight, but I daresay he will, when we go to Staples next week.’

  ‘Before then – long before then! – I shall have sent you packing, you hell-born brat!’

  ‘Not you! I’d rack up at the Crown if you cast me out! Only wait until you have seen Miss Wield! Then you’ll understand!’

  Sir Waldo returned a light answer, but he was beginning to feel a little uneasy. There was a certain rapt note in Julian’s voice which was new to him; and he had not previously known his young cousin to pursue a fair object with a determination that brushed aside such obvious disadvantages as a vulgar aunt, and a cousin whom he frankly acknowledged to be a coxcomb. He set little store by his consequence, but Sir Waldo had never yet seen him either encouraging the advances of led-captains, or seeking the company of those whom he would himself have described as being not fit to go; and it seemed highly improbable that he would try to fix his interest with any girl, be she never so beautiful, who was sprung from the mushroom-class he instinctively avoided. At the same time, it would be unlike him to be thinking of mere dalliance. Under his gaiety, Sir Waldo knew, ran a vein of seriousness, and strong principles: he might (though his experienced cousin doubted it) look for amusement amongst the muslin-company, but it would be wholly foreign to his nature deliberately to raise in any virtuous breast expectations which he had no intention of fulfilling. He had once or twice fancied himself in love, and had paid court to the chosen fair; but these affairs had dwindled, and had died perfectly natural deaths. He had never dangled after any marriageable girl in the cynical spirit of the rake: his youthful adventures in love might be transient, but he had embarked on them in al
l sincerity.

  ‘I like the Squire, don’t you?’ remarked Julian idly.

  ‘Better than I like his wife!’

  ‘Oh, lord, yes! All pretension, ain’t she? The girls are very unaffected and jolly, too: nothing to look at, of course! I suppose the most striking, au fait de beauté, as Mama would say, was the redheaded dasher, with the quiz of a brother, but, for my part, I prefer Miss Chartley’s style – and her parents! No pretensions there, but – I don’t know how to express it!’

  ‘A touch of quality?’ suggested Sir Waldo.

  ‘Ay, that’s it!’ agreed Julian, yawning, and relapsing into sleepy silence.

  He made no further reference to Miss Wield, either then or during the succeeding days; and so far from showing any of the signs of the love-lorn entered with enthusiasm on a search for a likely hunter, under the aegis of Mr Gregory Ash; struck up a friendship with Jack Banningham’s elder brother, and went flapper-shooting with him; dragged his cousin twenty miles to watch a disappointing mill; and in general seemed to be more interested in sport than in ravishing beauties. Sir Waldo did not quite banish his uneasy suspicion that he was harder-hit than his mother would like, but he relegated it to the back of his mind, thinking that he might well have been mistaken.

  On Wednesday, when he saw Miss Wield at the Staples party, he knew that he had not been mistaken.

  The hall at Staples was very large and lofty, with the main staircase rising from it in a graceful curve. Just as the cousins, having relinquished their hats and cloaks into the care of a powdered footman, were about to cross the floor in the wake of the butler, Miss Wield came lightly down the stairs, checking at sight of the guests, and exclaiming: ‘Oh! Oh, dear, I didn’t know anyone had arrived yet! I’m late, and my aunt will scold! Oh, how do you do, Lord Lindeth!’

  As conduct befitting one who was to all intents and purposes a daughter of the house this belated arrival on the scene might leave much to be desired; but as an entrance it was superb. Sir Waldo was not at all surprised to hear Lord Lindeth catch his breath; he himself thought that he had never beheld a lovelier vision, and he was neither impressionable nor three-and-twenty. The velvet ribbons which embellished a ball dress of celestial blue crape and silver gauze were of an intense blue, but not more brilliant than Tiffany’s eyes, to which they seemed to draw attention. Pausing on the stairway, one gloved hand resting on the baluster-rail, her pretty lips parting in a smile which showed her white teeth, Tiffany presented a picture to gladden most men’s hearts.