The Nonesuch Read online

  O my God! thought Sir Waldo. Now we are in the basket!

  She resumed her floating descent of the stairs, as Julian stood spellbound. Recovering, he started forward to meet her, stammering: ‘M-Miss Wield! We meet again – at last!’

  Enchanting dimples peeped as she gave him her hand. ‘At last? But it’s hardly more than a sennight since I disturbed you at your fishing! You were vexed, too – horridly vexed!’

  ‘Never!’ he declared, laughing. ‘Only when I looked in vain for you at the Manor last week – and I wasn’t vexed then: that’s too small a word!’ He ventured to press her hand before releasing it, and turning to introduce his cousin to her.

  Sir Waldo, who strongly (and quite correctly) suspected that Tiffany had been lying in wait on the upper landing, and had thus been able exactly to time her appearance on the scene, bowed, and said How-do-you-do, his manner a nice blend of civility and indifference. Tiffany, accustomed to meet with blatant admiration, was piqued. She had not sojourned for long under her uncle Burford’s roof in Portland Place, but she had not wasted her time there, and she was well aware that, notwithstanding his rank, Lord Lindeth was a nonentity, when compared with his splendid cousin. To attach the Nonesuch, however temporarily, would be enough to confer distinction on any lady; to inspire him with a lasting passion would be a resounding triumph; for although he was said to have many flirts these seemed always to be married ladies, and the decided preferences he showed from time to time had led neither to scandal nor to any belief that his affections had been seriously engaged.

  Dropping a demure curtsy, Tiffany raised her eyes to his face, favouring him with a wide, innocent gaze. She had previously only seen him from a distance, and she now perceived that he was very good-looking, and even more elegant than she had supposed. But instead of showing admiration he was looking rather amused, and that displeased her very much. She smiled at Lord Lindeth, and said: ‘I’ll take you to my aunt, shall I? Then perhaps she won’t scold after all!’

  Mrs Underhill showed no disposition to scold, though she was quite shocked to think that two such distinguished guests should have entered her drawing-room unannounced. When, much later, she learned from her offended butler that Miss Tiffany had waved him aside, like a straw, she was aghast, and exclaimed: ‘Whatever must they have thought?’

  Totton shuddered; but Tiffany, reproached for her social lapse, only laughed, and declared, on the authority of one who had lived for three months on the fringe of the ton, that a want of ceremony was just what such persons as Lord Lindeth and the Nonesuch preferred.

  Lord Lindeth, too much dazzled to question the propriety of Tiffany’s conduct in impulsively seizing his hand, and leading him up to his hostess, would have endorsed this pronouncement; Sir Waldo, following in their wake, reflected that he would have thought Tiffany’s artlessness amusing, if only some other young man than Julian had been enthralled by it. He was in no way responsible for Julian; but he was fond of the boy, and he knew very well that his aunt Lindeth implicitly trusted him to keep her darling out of mischief. This duty had not, so far, imposed any great tax on his ingenuity: Tiffany would have been flattered to know that one glance at her had been enough to convince Sir Waldo that she represented the first real danger Julian had encountered.

  A swift look round the room informed Sir Waldo that the company consisted of the same persons whom he had met at the Squire’s dinner-party, and he resigned himself to an evening’s boredom, exactly as his hostess had foretold. ‘Because you can’t conjure up persons which don’t exist, not with the best will in the world you can’t,’ she had said to Miss Trent. ‘Mrs Mickleby took care to invite all the genteel families she could lay her hands on, drat her! I daresay, if we only knew it, she thinks I’ll make up my numbers with the Shilbottles, and the Tumbys, and the Wrangles, which is where she’ll find herself mightily mistaken.’

  Miss Trent suggested mildly that the Shilbottles were very agreeable people, but was overborne. ‘Agreeable they may be,’ said Mrs Underhill, ‘but they’re not genteel. Mr Shilbottle goes to Leeds every day to his manufactory, and I hope I know better than to invite him to meet a lord! Why, next you’ll be telling me I ought to send a card to the Badgers! No! His lordship and Sir Waldo had better be bored than disgusted!’ She added, on a hopeful note: ‘One thing you may depend on: they’ll find nothing amiss with their dinner!’

  The repast which she set before her guests was certainly enormous, consisting of two courses, with four removes, and a score of side-dishes, ranging from a rump of beef à la Mantua, wax baskets of prawns and crayfish, to orange soufflés and asparagus, and some atlets of palates: a delicacy for which her cook was famous.

  Miss Trent was not present at dinner, but she brought Charlotte down to the drawing-room afterwards, and was instantly seen by Sir Waldo, when he came into the room with the rest of the gentlemen. She was wearing a dress of crape with lilac ribbons, with long sleeves, and the bodice cut rather high, as befitted a governess, but he thought she looked the most distinguished lady present, and very soon made his way to her side.

  The room had been cleared for dancing, and the musicians from Harrogate were tuning their instruments. Mrs Underhill, explaining that she thought the young people would like to dance, had begged Sir Waldo not to think himself obliged to take part, if he did not care for it, which had made it easy for him to range himself amongst the elders of the party. He might be noted for his courtesy but he had not the remotest intention of standing up with a dozen provincial girls through a succession of country dances. But when the first set was forming he went up to Miss Trent, and solicited the honour of leading her into it. She declined it, but could not help feeling gratified.

  ‘That’s a set-down!’ remarked Sir Waldo. ‘Are you going to tell me that you don’t dance, ma’am?’

  She was thrown into a little natural confusion by this unexpected rejoinder, and said with less than her usual calm: ‘No, thank you. That is, yes, of course I do, but not – I mean –’

  ‘Go on!’ he said encouragingly, as she stopped, vexed with herself for being suddenly so gauche. ‘You do dance, but not with – er – gentlemen who are addicted to sporting pursuits ! Have I that correctly?’

  She looked quickly at him. ‘Did I say that?’

  ‘Yes, and in a tone of severe disapprobation. You did not then tell me you preferred not to dance with me, of course: the occasion hadn’t arisen.’

  ‘I haven’t told you so now, sir!’ she replied, with spirit. ‘I said – I hope civilly! – that I don’t dance at all!’

  ‘After which,’ he reminded her, ‘you said that you do dance, but not – ! Civility then overcame you, I collect! Quite tied your tongue, in fact! So I came to your rescue. I wish you will tell me what I’ve done to earn your disapproval.’

  ‘You are quite mistaken, sir. You must know that you have done nothing. I assure you I don’t disapprove of you!’

  ‘Just my imagination, Miss Trent? I don’t believe it, but I’m very ready to be convinced. Shall we join this set?’

  ‘Sir Waldo, you are labouring under a misapprehension! It would be most improper in me to stand up with you, or with anyone! I’m not a guest here: I am the governess!’

  ‘Yes, but a most superior female!’ he murmured.

  She looked at him in some astonishment. ‘Did you know it, then? And asked me to dance? Well, I’m very much obliged to you, but I think it shows a strange want of conduct in you! To ask the governess rather than Miss Wield – !’

  ‘My cousin was before me. Now, don’t recite me a catalogue of the girls I might have asked to stand up with me! I daresay they are very amiable, I can see that one or two are pretty, and I know that I should find them all dead bores. I’m glad you won’t dance: I had rather by far talk to you!’

  ‘Well, it won’t do!’ she said resolutely. ‘I am quite beneath your touch, sir!’
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br />   ‘No, no, that’s coming it much too strong!’ he said. ‘When I have it on excellent authority that your uncle is a General!’

  For a moment she suspected him of mockery; then she met his eyes, and realized that the laughter in them was at a joke he believed she would appreciate. She said, with a quivering lip: ‘D-did Mrs Underhill say that? Oh, dear! I shouldn’t think you could possibly believe that she didn’t learn about my uncle from me, but I promise you she didn’t!’

  ‘Another of my misapprehensions! I had naturally supposed that you introduced him into every conversation, and had been wondering how it came about that you forgot to mention him when we first met.’

  She choked. ‘I wish you will stop trying to make me laugh! Do, pray, Sir Waldo, go and talk to Mrs Mickleby, or Lady Colebatch, or someone! I might have twenty generals in my family, but I should still be the governess, and you must know that governesses remain discreetly in the background.’

  ‘That sounds like fustian,’ he remarked.

  ‘Well, it isn’t! It – it is a matter of social usage. It will be thought most unbecoming in me to put myself forward. I can see that already Mrs Banningham is wondering what can possess you to stand talking to me like this! Just the thing to set people in a bustle! You may stand on too high a form to care for the world’s opinion, but I can assure you I don’t!’

  ‘Oh, I’m not nearly as arrogant as you think!’ he assured her. ‘Setting people in a bustle is the last thing I wish to do! But I find it hard to believe that even the most deplorably top-lofty matron could think it remarkable that I should engage in conversation the niece of one of my acquaintances. I should rather suppose that she would think it abominably uncivil of me not to do so!’

  ‘Are you acquainted with my uncle?’ she demanded.

  ‘Of course I am: we are members of the same club! I don’t mean to boast, however! He is an older and by far more distinguished man than I am, and acquaintance is all I claim.’

  She smiled, but looked rather searchingly at him. ‘Are you also acquainted with his son, sir? My cousin, Mr Bernard Trent?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge. Ought I to be?’

  ‘Oh, no! He is very young. But he has a number of friends amongst the Corinthian set. I thought perhaps you might have encountered him.’

  He shook his head; and as Sir Ralph Colebatch came up at that moment she excused herself, and moved away to find Charlotte. She soon saw her, going down the dance with Arthur Mickleby; and realized ruefully, but with a little amusement, that while she had been engaged with the Nonesuch her enterprising pupil had contrived to induce Arthur to lead her into the set. Some mothers, she reflected, would have censured her pretty severely for not having kept a stricter chaperonage over a schoolgirl admitted to the drawing-room merely to watch the dancing for an hour, before going demurely upstairs to bed; but she was not surprised to find Mrs Underhill complacently eyeing her daughter’s performance, or to learn that she had given Charlotte leave to dance.

  ‘Well, I daresay I ought to have said no,’ she admitted, ‘but I like to see young people enjoying themselves, which it’s plain she is, bless her! I’m sure there’s no harm in her taking her place in a country-dance or two, for it’s not as if there was to be any waltzing, that you may depend on! Nor it isn’t a formal ball, which would be a very different matter, of course.’ She withdrew her gaze from Charlotte, and said kindly: ‘And if any gentleman was to ask you to stand up with him, my dear, I hope you’ll do so! There’s no one will wonder at it, not after seeing Sir Waldo going smash up to you, the way he did, and stand talking to you as though you was old friends!’

  ‘He was speaking to me of my uncle, ma’am!’ said Miss Trent, snatching at the excuse offered her by the Nonesuch, but flushing a little. ‘They are acquainted, you see.’

  ‘Ay, that’s just what I said to Mrs Banningham!’ nodded Mrs Underhill. ‘“Oh,” I said, “you may depend upon it Sir Waldo is acquainted with the General, and they are chatting away about him, and all their London friends! I’m sure nothing could be more natural,” I said, “for Miss Trent is very well-connected,” I said. That made her look yellow, I can tell you! Well, I hope I’m not one to take an affront into my head where none’s intended, but I’ve had a score to settle with Mrs B. ever since she behaved so uppish to me at the Lord-Lieutenant’s party!’ A cloud descended on her brow; she said: ‘However, there’s always something to spoil one’s pleasure, and I don’t scruple to own to you, Miss Trent, that the way his lordship looks at Tiffany has put me in a regular fidget! Mark me if we don’t have him sitting in her pocket now, for anyone can see he’s nutty upon her!’

  This was undeniable. Miss Trent thought it would have been wonderful if he had not been looking at Tiffany with that glow of admiration in his eyes; for Tiffany, always responsive to flattery, was at her most radiant: a delicate flush in her cheeks, her eyes sparkling like sapphires, and a lovely, provocative smile on her lips. Half-a-dozen young gentlemen had begged for the honour of leading her into the first set; she had scattered promises amongst them, and had bestowed her hand on Lord Lindeth, taking her place with him while three less fortunate damsels were still unprovided with partners. But that was a circumstance she was unlikely to notice.

  ‘Miss Trent, if he thinks to stand up with her more than twice that’s something I won’t allow!’ said Mrs Underhill suddenly. ‘You must tell her she’s not to do so, for she’ll pay no heed to me, and it’s you her uncle looked to, after all!’

  Ancilla smiled, but said: ‘She wouldn’t flout you publicly, ma’am. I’ll take care, of course – but I fancy Lord Lindeth won’t ask her for a third dance.’

  ‘Lord, my dear, what he’d like to do is to stand up with her for every dance!’

  ‘Yes, but he knows he can’t do so, and has too much propriety of taste, I’m persuaded, to make the attempt. And, to own the truth, ma’am, I think Tiffany wouldn’t grant him more than two dances in any event.’

  ‘Tiffany?’ exclaimed Mrs Underhill incredulously. ‘Why, she’s got no more notion of propriety than the kitchen cat!’

  ‘No, alas! But she is a most accomplished flirt, ma’am!’ She could not help laughing at Mrs Underhill’s face of horror. ‘I beg your pardon! Of course it is very wrong – shockingly precocious, too! – but you will own that a mere flirtation with Lindeth need not throw you into a quake.’

  ‘Yes, but he’s a lord!’ objected Mrs Underhill. ‘You know how she says she means to marry one!’

  ‘We must convince her that she would be throwing herself away on anyone under the rank of a Viscount!’ said Ancilla lightly.

  The dance came to an end, and she soon had the satisfaction of seeing that she had prophesied correctly: Tiffany stood up for the next one with Arthur Mickleby, and went on to dance the boulanger with Jack Banningham. Lord Lindeth, meanwhile, did his duty by Miss Colebatch and Miss Chartley; and Miss Trent extricated Charlotte from a group of slightly noisy young people, and inexorably bore her off to bed. Charlotte thought herself abominably ill-used to be compelled to withdraw before supper: she had been looking forward to drinking her very first glass of champagne. Miss Trent, barely repressing a shudder, handed her over to her old nurse, and returned to the drawing-room.

  She entered it to find that the musicians were enjoying a respite. She could not see Mrs Underhill, and guessed that she had gone into the adjoining saloon, where some of the more elderly guests were playing whist. Nor could she see Tiffany: a circumstance which filled her with foreboding. Just as she had realized that Lindeth was another absentee, and was wondering where first to search for them, a voice spoke at her elbow.

  ‘Looking for your other charge, Miss Trent?’

  She turned her head quickly, to find that Sir Waldo was somewhat quizzically regarding her. He flicked open his snuff-box with one deft finger, and helped himself to a delicate pinch. ‘On the terrace,
’ he said.

  ‘Oh, no!’ she said involuntarily.

  ‘Well, of course, they may have been tempted to take a stroll about the gardens,’ he conceded. ‘The terrace, however, was the declared objective.’

  ‘I collect it was Lord Lindeth who took her on to the terrace!’

  ‘Do you? My reading of the matter was that it was rather Miss Wield who took Lindeth on to it!’

  She bit her lip. ‘She is very young – hardly out of the schoolroom!’

  ‘A reflection which must cause her relations to feel grave concern,’ he said, in a tone of affable agreement.

  She found herself to be so much in accord with him that it was difficult to think of anything to say in extenuation of Tiffany’s conduct. ‘She – she is inclined to be headstrong, and quite ignorant of – of – And since it was your cousin who most improperly escorted her I think you should have prevented him!’

  ‘My dear Miss Trent, I’m not Lindeth’s keeper! I’m not Miss Wield’s keeper either, I thank God!’

  ‘You may well!’ she said, with considerable asperity. Then, as she saw the amusement in his face, she added: ‘Yes, you may laugh, sir, but I am Miss Wield’s keeper – or, at any rate, I am responsible for her! – and it’s no laughing matter to me! I must do something!’

  She looked round the room as she spoke, a furrow between her brows. It was a warm June night, and the drawing-room was hot and airless. More than one unbecomingly flushed young lady was fanning herself, and several shirt-points were beginning to wilt. Miss Trent’s brow cleared; she went up to a little group which included Miss Chartley, the dashing Miss Colebatch, and the younger of the Squire’s daughters, with their attendant swains, and said, with her charming smile: ‘Dreadfully hot, isn’t it? I dare not open the windows: you know what an outcry there would be! Would you like to come out for a little while? It is such a beautiful moonlight night, with not a breeze stirring, that I have ventured to direct the servants to bring some lemonade on to the terrace. But you must put on your shawls, mind!’