'Corinna was on the listen last night, when we talked to gether on the stairs,' she said. 'She is the most odious, humbugging little cat imaginable, and if you think I shouldn't say such a thing of her I am sorry, but it is true! I was used to think her the most amiable of my cousins, and – and my friend! And even though I did know that she was a shocking fibster, and not in the least above carrying tales against Oenone to my aunt, I never dreamed she would do the same by me! Well – well, there was some excuse for her trying for revenge against Oenone, because Oenone is a very disagreeable girl, and for ever picking out grievances, and trying to set my aunt against her sisters. But – ' Her eyes filled with tears, which she made haste to brush away – 'she – she had no cause to do me a mischief ! But – but she twisted everything I said to you, sir, m-making it seem quite different from what I did say! She even said that you wouldn't have come upstairs if I hadn't th-thrown out lures to you! Which I didn't! I didn't!'
'On the contrary! You begged me not to come upstairs!' he said, smiling.
'Yes, and so I told them, but neither my aunt nor Lucasta would believe me. They – they accused me of being a – a design ing little squirrel, and my aunt read me a scold about g-girls like me ending up in the Magdalen: and when I asked her what the Magdalen is, she said that if I continued to make sheep's eyes at every man that crossed my path I should very soon discover what it is. But I don't, I don't !' she said vehemently. 'It wasn't my fault that you came up to talk to me last night, and it wasn't my fault that Sir John Thorley took me up in his chaise and so very kindly drove me back to Maplewood, the day he overtook me walking back from the village in the rain; and it wasn't my fault that Mr Rainham came over to talk to me when I brought Dianeme and Tom down to the drawing-room one evening! I did not put myself forward! I sat down, just as my aunt bade me, in a chair against the wall, and made not the least push to keep him beside me! I promise you I didn't, sir!' Her tears brimmed over, but she brushed them away, and said: 'It was nothing but kindness on their parts, and to say that I lured either of them away from Lucasta is wickedly unjust!'
Since he had himself succumbed to the unconscious appeal of her big eyes, and had been moved to compassion by her forlorn aspect, he could readily understand the feelings that had prompted two gentlemen, whom he guessed to be admirers of Lucasta, to pay her a little attention. He thought, with a sardonic curl of his lips, that Lady Bugle was no wiser than a wet-goose; and wondered how many of Lucasta's court would have paid any attention to her little cousin had Cherry been suitably attired, and treated by Lady Bugle with the affection that lady showed towards Lucasta. Not many, he guessed, for, although she had an innocent charm, she was no more than a candle to the sun of Lucasta's beauty; and if she had been happy she would have roused no chivalrous emotions in any male breast. These reflec tions, however, he kept to himself, setting himself instead to the task of soothing her agitation, prior to doing what lay within his power to convince her that a return to her house of bondage would be preferable to her present scheme.
With the first of these objects in view, he encouraged her to unburden herself of her wrongs, thinking that to be allowed to pour out her troubles would sensibly allay whatever feelings of hurt and injustice had overset her. He suspected that these might have been exaggerated in her mind by what had obviously been a pulling of caps; but by the time she had been induced to describe what her life had been at Maplewood there was no hint of a smile in his eyes, and no scepticism in his mind.
For she did not answer his questions willingly, and she seemed always to be able to find excuses for the many unkindnesses she had received at Maplewood. Nor did she resent the demands that had been made on her: she felt it was only right that she should repay her aunt's generosity by performing whatever services were required of her; but when she said simply: 'I would do anything if only she would love me a little, and just once say thank you!' he thought he had never heard a sadder utterance.
It was obvious that Lady Bugle had seen in her not an orphaned niece to be cherished, but a household slave, to be made to fetch and carry all day long, to wait not only on her aunt but on her cousins as well, and to mind the two eldest nursery children whenever Nurse desired her to do so. He suspected that if she had been less docile and less easily dismayed she would have fared better at Maplewood: he had been standing close enough to Lady Bugle on the previous evening to observe her when she approached her husband, and said something pretty sharp to him under her breath. He had not heard what she had said, but that she had issued an order was patent, for Sir Thomas had at first expostulated, and then gone off to do her bidding, and Desford had written her down then and there as one of those overbearing females who would tyrannize over anyone too meek or too scared to withstand her. It had at first surprised him to learn that his brief meeting with Cherry had brought down on her head such a venomous scold, but the more he studied the sweet little face before him the less surprised did he feel that the ambitious mother and daughter should have been so furious to learn that he had been sufficiently attracted by Cherry to have gone upstairs to talk to her. Lucasta was a Beauty, but Cherry was by far the more taking.
While she told her story, at least half of his brain was occupied in trying to think what to do for her. It had not taken long to make him abandon his original intention of restoring her to her aunt, and he wasted no eloquence on attempting to persuade her to agree to such a course. A fleeting notion of placing her in Lady Emborough's care no sooner occurred to him than he ban ished it; and when he suggested that she should return to Miss Fletching she shook her head, saying that nothing would pre vail upon her to make any more demands on that lady's kindness.
'Don't you think you might be very useful to her?' he coaxed. 'As a teacher, perhaps?'
'No,' she replied. Suddenly her eyes lost their despairing look, and danced mischievously. She giggled, and said: 'I shouldn't be in the least useful, and certainly not as a teacher! I am not at all bookish, and although I do know how to play on the pianoforte I don't play at all well! I have no aptitude for lan guages, either, or for painting, and my sums are always wrong. So you see – !'
It was certainly daunting. He could not help laughing, but he said: 'Well, now that you've told me all the things you can't do, tell me what you can do!'
The cloud descended again on her brow. She said: 'Nothing – nothing of a genteel nature. My aunt says I am only fitted to perform menial tasks, and I suppose that is true. But while I have been at Maplewood I have learnt a great deal about housekeeping, and I know I can take care of sick old ladies, because when old Lady Bugle became too ill to leave her bed there were days when she wouldn't let anyone enter her room except me. And I think she liked me, because though she pinched at me a good deal – she was nearly always as cross as crabs, poor old lady – she never ripped up at me as she did at my aunt, and Lucasta, and Oenone, or accuse me of wishing her dead. So I thought that I could very likely be a comfort to my grandfather. I believe he lives quite alone, except for the servants, which must be excessively melancholy for him. Don't you think so, sir?'
'I should certainly find it so, but your grandfather is said to be a – a confirmed recluse. I have never met him, but if the stories that are told about him are true he is not a very amiable person. After all, you told me yourself that he had written a very disobliging reply to Miss Fletching's letter, didn't you?'
'Yes, but I don't think she asked him to take charge of me,' she argued. 'She wanted him to pay the money Papa owed her, and I shouldn't wonder at it if she set up his back, for I know, from what Papa has said to me, that he is shockingly dutch-fisted.'
'Did your aunt pay her?' he interrupted.
She shook her head, flushing a little. 'No. She too said that she wasn't responsible, but because of blood being thicker than water she – she would relieve Miss Fletching by taking me away to live with her. So – so no one has paid for me – yet! But I mean to save every penny I can earn, and I shall pay her!' Her chin lifted, and she
said: 'If my grandfather – if I can see him, and explain to him how it is – surely he won't refuse to let me stay with him at least until I've found a suitable situation?'
The Viscount could not think this likely. No matter how ill-disposed and eccentric Lord Nettlecombe might be, he could scarcely turn away a destitute granddaughter who had no other shelter in London than his house. The probability was that he would take a fancy to her, and if that happened her future would be assured. And if he was such a shabster as to turn her away, he would find he had to deal with my Lord Desford, who would cast aside the deference to his elders so carefully drilled into him from his earliest days, and would counsel the old muckworm in explicit terms to think well before he behaved in so scaly a fashion as must alienate even the few friends he had, once the story became known, as he, Desford, would make it his business to see that it did.
He did not favour Cherry with these reflections, but got up abruptly, and said: 'Very well! I will take you to London!'
She sprang to her feet, caught his hand, and kissed it before he could prevent her. 'Oh, thank you, sir!' she cried, gratitude throbbing in her voice, and making her eyes shine through the sudden tears of relief which filled them. 'Thank you, thank you, thank you!'
Considerably embarrassed, he drew his hand away, and gave her a pat on the shoulder with it, saying: 'Draw bridle, you foolish child! Wait until we see how your grandfather receives you before you fly into raptures! If he doesn't receive you, you will have nothing to thank me for, you know!'
He then went away to pay his shot, telling her that he would bring his curricle to the door in a few minutes, and so cut short any further expressions of her gratitude.
But he had still to run the gauntlet of his devoted servitor's disapproval. When he informed Stebbing that he was driving Miss Steane to London, that worthy found himself wholly unable to receive this news in a manner befitting his station, but said forthrightly: 'My lord, I beg and implore you not to do no such thing! You'll find yourself in the briars, as sure as check, and it's me as will get the blame for it when his lordship comes to hear of it!'
'Don't be such a gudgeon!' said the Viscount impatiently. 'His lordship won't come to hear of it – and if he did the only thing he would blame you for is making such a piece of work about nothing! Do you imagine I'm abducting the child?'
'More likely she's abducting you, my lord!' muttered Stebbing.
The Viscount's eyes hardened; he said coldly: 'I allow you a good deal of licence, Stebbing, but that remark goes far beyond the line of what I will permit!'
'My lord,' said Stebbing doggedly, 'if I spoke too free, I ask your pardon! But I've served you faithfully ever since you was pleased to accept of me as your personal groom, and I couldn't look myself in the face if I didn't make a push to stop you doing something so caper-witted as to carry off this young pers – lady! – the way you're meaning to! You can turn me off, my lord, but I must and will tell you to your head that I never seen a young lady which would go off with a gentleman like this Miss Steane is willing to go off with you!'
'Doesn't it suit your sense of propriety? Well, you must bear in mind that you will be sitting behind us, and I give you leave to intervene to protect Miss Steane's virtue from any improper advances I might make to her!' Perceiving that Stebbing was deeply troubled, he relented, and said, laughingly: 'There's no need for you to be so hot in the spur, you old pudding-head! All I've engaged myself to do is to convey Miss Steane to her grandfather's house. And if you weren't a pudding-head you would know that her willingness to go with me to London springs from innocence, and not, as you seem to think, from a want of delicacy! Good God, what would you have me to do in this situation? Abandon her to become the prey of the first
rake-shame she encounters on the road? A pretty fellow you must think me!'
'No, my lord, I don't think no such thing! But what I do think is that you should take her back where she came from!'
'She won't go, and I have no right to force her to do so.' A gleam of humour shot into his eyes; he added: 'And even if I had the right I'd be damned if I'd do it! Lord, Stebbing, would you drive a girl who was crying her eyes out, in an open car riage?' He laughed, and said: 'You know you wouldn't! Put to the horses, and don't spill any more time sermonizing!'
'Very good, my lord. But I shall take leave to say – asking your pardon for making so bold as to open my budget! – that I never seen you – no, not when you was in the heyday of blood, and kicking up all kinds of conflabberation! – so bedoozled as what you are now! And if you don't end up in the basket – and me with you! – you can call me a Jack Adams, my lord!'
'I'm much obliged to you! I will!' retorted the Viscount.
Five
The Viscount drew up his sweating team two-and-a-half hours later in Albemarle Street, having driven his horses in a spanking style that in anyone but a top-sawyer, which he was, would have been extremely dangerous. Even Stebbing, who had good reason to know that he could drive to an inch, clutched the edge of his seat three times: twice when, on a narrow stretch of the road, he sprang his horses to give the go-by to a slower vehicle, and once when he feather-edged a blind corner without checking; but it was only when they reached the outskirts of London that he allowed himself to utter a gruff warning, saying: 'Easy over the pimples, my lord, I do beg of you!'
'What do you take me for?' the Viscount tossed over his shoulder. 'A spoon?'
Stebbing returned no answer to this, for while he secretly considered his master to be a first-rate fiddler nothing would have induced him to say so, except when boasting of the Viscount's excellence amongst certain of his cronies at the Horse and Groom. He rarely praised the Viscount's skill to his face; and never when Desford stood in his black books.
Miss Steane, whose spirits had soared from the instant Desford had said that he would convey her to London, enjoyed the journey hugely. She confided to him, with what he thought engaging ingenuousness, that she had never before been driven in a curricle. A gig had hitherto been her only experience of open carriages, and although her cousin Stonor possessed a curricle it was a very shabby affair compared with the Viscount's lightly built and graceful carriage. She thought well of his horses too, and told him so, for which commendation he thanked her with a gravity only very slightly impaired by the quiver of laughter in his voice. They were, in fact, perfectly matched grays, and he had paid so long a price for them as would have confirmed his father (if he had known it) in his belief that his heir was a scattergood.
'You can't think what a high treat this is for me, sir!' she said gaily. 'Everything is new! You see, I have never travelled at all since my Papa carried me to Bath, and I don't remember very much about that journey. Besides, we went in a closed coach, and that is not the way to see the countryside. This is beyond anything great!'
She chatted away in this artless style, interested in all that met her wondering gaze, continually craning her neck to obtain a better view of a particularly bright garden, or a picturesque cottage, fleetingly seen down a side lane. Such of her conversation as was not concerned with the passing scene was devoted to an earnest discussion with Desford on what ought to be her ap proach to her grandfather. But when they reached London she became rather silent, a circumstance which made Desford say quizzingly: 'Tired, little bagpipe? Not far to go now!'
She smiled, and shook her head: 'No, not tired. Has my tongue been running on like a fiddlestick? I beg your pardon! Why didn't you tell me to button my lip? I must have been a sad bore to you.'
'On the contrary! I found your conversation most refreshing. Why have you shut up shop? Are you in a worry about your grandfather?'
'A little,' she confessed. 'I didn't know that London is so big, and – and so noisy, and I cannot help wondering what to do if my grandfather refuses to see me. I wish I had some acquaint ance here!'
'Don't fret!' he said reassuringly. 'It is in the highest degree unlikely that he will. And if he does I promise I won't desert you! Depend upon it, we
shall hit upon some scheme for your relief !'
He spoke lightly, for the more he considered the matter the more convinced did he become that however eccentric Lord Nettlecombe might be he could scarcely be so lost to all sense of propriety as to cast upon the world a granddaughter whose childlike innocence must be obvious to anyone but an incurable lobcock. But when he drew up his weary team outside Lord Nettlecombe's town residence in Albemarle Street such opti mistic reflections suffered a severe set-back. Every window of the house was shuttered, and the knocker was off the door: his lordship's eccentricity had not led him to remain in London during the summer months.
'Would your lordship wish me to ring the bell?' enquired Stebbing, in Cassandra-like accents.
'Yes: do so!' the Viscount said curtly.
By this time Miss Steane had had time to assimilate the signi ficance of the closed shutters, and panic seized her. She gripped her hands tightly together in her lap, in a brave attempt to remain calm; and after a few minutes, during which Stebbing vigorously pulled the bell, said, in a voice of would-be carelessness: 'It seems that the house has been shut up, d-doesn't it, sir?'
'It does indeed! But I daresay there may be someone left in charge from whom we can discover your grandfather's direction. Try the basement, Stebbing!'
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