by Clare Darcy
And then on the following day something occurred that made her see that it was very much her affair, after all.
It began with a note brought to her by hand from Sir Octavius, requesting her to name a time at which it might be convenient for him to call upon her on a matter of urgent business. She was at that moment about to step into her barouche to purchase the latest volume of Sir Walter Scott s poems at Hatchard’s and visit her milliner, who had signified that she had some new and ravishing creations to display to her; but, learning from the clerk who had brought the message that Sir Octavius would be free to see her if she were to go to his office at once, she altered her plans and instructed her coachman to drive to the City instead.
She found Sir Octavius in his austerely splendid office, and quite prepared, she soon discovered, to spend an unusually long period of time in social gossip before coming down to what had been presented to her as a matter of urgent business.
‘What are you up to, Octavius?” she enquired presently in a rather suspicious tone. “And don’t say Nothing because I know you too well to believe anything of the sort. You can’t possibly be interested in how many times I stood up with Langmere at the Herrings’ ball.” “Ah, but I am,” said Sir Octavius tranquilly. “It will make rather a difference, you see, in how you receive my news if you are planning to marry him.”
He looked at her quizzically, observing that her colour remained the same.
“Of course I am not planning on marrying him now,’ she said. “In point of fact, he hasn’t asked me.” “Which tells me very little, you know,” remarked Sir Octavius, “as tomorrow you may give me an exactly opposite answer with an equally good conscience. That is the worst thing about women: they change their minds.” “So do men,” said Cressida, thinking unaccountably, and much to her annoyance, of a younger Rossiter who had asked her to marry him with every appearance of wishing her to do so, and then had apparently had second thoughts. “You had better tell me about it, whatever it is, she said to Sir Octavius. “And I really cannot see what difference it will make to anything whether I am to marry Langmere or not.
Sir Octavius, looking at her with his very expressive right eyebrow raised rather higher than usual, said perhaps, but it appeared to him that the Marchioness of Langmere, with estates in Sussex, Leicestershire, and Derbyshire, to say nothing of one of the most desirable town houses in London, might be rather less interested than might Miss Cressida Calverton in the fact that Calverton Place was about to be sold out of the family.
“Calverton Place?” Cressida stared at him. “What on earth are you talking of, Octavius? Do you mean to tell me that Uncle Arthur is thinking of selling it? But he can’t be. It is entailed.”
“Mr. Walter Calverton, the heir, has agreed to break the entail, I believe,” Sir Octavius said. And, as Cressida still looked unconvinced, “My dear girl, it is quite the soundest thing that he could do,” he went on. “You must be aware that your uncle has already sold all the land it was possible for him to sell, and that there is very little left besides the house itself and the gardens and park—all of which are heavily mortgaged. As matters are arranged at the present time, Mr. Walter Calverton stands to inherit a mountain of debt and a house he cannot afford to live in, which is fast falling into ruin because of neglect. And as he is a very distant relation of your uncle’s—is he not?”
Cressida nodded.
“—and can have no sentimental attachment to the place,” Sir Octavius continued, “it would certainly appear wiser for him to arrange matters with your uncle now in such a way that he—that is, your uncle—will be able to accept the very advantageous offer he has received. ”
“An advantageous offer? For Calverton Place? But who can wish to buy it?” Cressida demanded. “I haven’t seen the house for years, but it was falling to rack even then.”
“I believe,” said Sir Octavius, looking at the tips of his fingers, which he had joined together in a very legalistic way, though with his eyebrow still quizzically raised, “that the prospective purchaser is a gentleman named Rossiter. To be precise, Captain Deverell Rossiter—”
If he had anticipated a lively reaction to his words, he was not disappointed. Cressida said, “Rossiter!” in an incredulous tone, and then, “Rossiter!” again, with indignation now uppermost, after which she rose and began to pace up and down the room, looking so very handsome in her anger that Sir Octavius regretted all over again that he was not twenty years younger and precluded by his business interests from falling in love.
“This,” she said presently, pausing and gazing at him with a martial light in her eyes, “is insupportable!”
“No, is it?” Sir Octavius looked at her blandly. “I confess I really don’t quite see why.”
“He is doing it on purpose!” Cressida said accusingly.
“Well, yes,” acknowledged Sir Octavius. “A man usually does not buy an estate, I believe, unless it is on purpose, as you say.”
“I mean on purpose to be disagreeable to me! Cressida said inexorably. “There must be dozens of other houses he could buy! Hundreds of them! And he doesn’t even care for Gloucestershire! He told me so once.
“Perhaps,” said Sir Octavius, with a deceptively innocent air, “he has changed his mind. ”
Cressida gave him an indignant glance and resumed her pacing.
“Well, I won’t have it!” she declared presently. “If anyone has the right to buy Calverton Place, it is me—! And why Uncle Arthur was tottyheaded enough not to apply to me when he found himself at Point Non-Plus, instead of going about to sell the estate to a perfect stranger—”
Sir Octavius shook his head. “Well, I won’t say it wouldn’t have been better if he had done so, he agreed judicially. “But Mr. Arthur Calverton—if you will forgive my saying so, my dear—has never been distinguished by the possession of even a moderate amount of common sense. And no doubt he felt a certain embarrassment in revealing to you into how desperate a state he had allowed his affairs to fall.”
“Well, he is going to feel even more embarrassed when I tell him what I think of this—this nonsensical scheme of his!” Cressida declared. “Which, of course, he will not be allowed to go through with! I shall go to Gloucestershire myself at once. ”
“But I rather fancy you are too late, my child,” said Sir Octavius, who was looking somewhat amused by the tempest his disclosure had aroused, but at the same time was regarding Cressida with an even more keenly penetrating gaze than usual, as if he found something very revealing in her wrath. “According to the information I have received, matters have already gone so far that any attempt at interference on your part at this time will probably be quite unavailing. ”
“Nonsense!” said Cressida impatiently. “If documents have been signed, they must—they must just unsign them, or tear them up, or whatever must be done to make them of no effect! It is all a great piece of absurdity! Naturally, as a Calverton, I must have Calverton Place!”
“But you have never shown the smallest interest in it before this time,” Sir Octavius reminded her, looking still more amused. “How was your uncle to have known you would feel this way? No, no, Cressy, it won’t do!” he went on, as she turned to him, about to make some wrathful reply. “You have accused Rossiter of wishing to buy Calverton Place only to spite you, but are you quite sure that the shoe is not on the other foot, and that you are determined he shall not have it only in order to spite him?”
A flush came up in Cressida’s face. “That,” she said, achieving with some difficulty a dignified tone, “is quite unworthy of you, Octavius!”
“On the contrary, my dear, it is quite unworthy of you, if it is true. It’s not like you to bear malice—”
“I am not bearing malice! It is only that—that I don’t want him to have Calverton Place!” Cressida said, with a sudden rather horrid feeling that Sir Octavius was quite right, and that if it had been anyone but Rossiter who wished to buy Calverton Place she would not have been nearly so angry about i
t.
Unfortunately, as is the case with most people, knowing that she was in the wrong did not make her any more reconciled to the situation, and when she took her leave of Sir Octavius shortly afterwards she was still quite unregenerate in her resolution to go to Gloucestershire at once and see what could be done in the matter of wresting Calverton Place from Rossiter’s grasp.
It did occur to her to wonder, as she was driving back to Mount Steet, why Sir Octavius had made such a point of seeing to it that she was made aware of Rossiter’s intention to purchase it, particularly as he appeared to feel that any interference in the transaction on her part would be not only ill-judged but unavailing as well. But she had no time to go into that matter now, her mind being entirely preoccupied with plans for arranging a journey to Calverton Place at the earliest possible moment.
On arriving back in Mount Street, she had the intention of putting those plans into effect at once by ordering her travelling-chaise to be made ready, instructing Moodle to pack up a suitable selection of clothes and other necessaries for the journey, and despatching an army of messengers to carry her excuses for all the social events to which she had accepted invitations for the next several days. But to her annoyance she was met at the front door by Harbage, with the news that Lord Langmere had called to see her a few minutes before and was awaiting her return in the drawing room.
“Bother!” she exclaimed under her breath, and walked into the drawing room at once, where she found Lord Langmere looking through a copy of one of Mr. Southey’s recent poems, The Curse of Kehama, with an expression of entirely lukewarm interest upon his face.
“Well, Leonard? What is it?” she enquired, dispensing with formal greetings as she came forward towards him across the floor.
He rose, putting the book aside, and with the expression of slight surprise that had appeared upon his face at the sound of her rather impatient tone deepening as he took in her heightened colour.
“Is anything amiss?” he countered. “You seem disturbed—”
“Well, I am!” Cressida admitted frankly, stripping off her gloves and flinging herself into a chair. “Would you believe it, Leonard?—that odious Rossiter is arranging to buy Calverton Place from my uncle! The entail is to be broken—I daresay you are not acquainted with my cousin, Walter Calverton, who is the heir, but he is as improvident a creature as Uncle Arthur, whom you do know, and far more feckless—and Rossiter, of all men, is bargaining to buy the place! Of course I shall not allow it.”
“I am going to Gloucestershire at once to put matters to rights.”
“To Gloucestershire?” Lord Langmere sat down again, looking slightly staggered by this sudden announcement. “But, my dear Cressy, in the middle of the Season—is this really necessary?” he asked. “Surely your solicitors can handle the matter.
“My solicitors,” said Cressida, “cannot handle Uncle Arthur. I can. This will not do, you know, Leonard— Rossiter to have Calverton Place! It is quite unthinkable! If Uncle Arthur has come to any sort of agreement with him, it will simply have to be set aside. ”
Lord Langmere, perceiving by these words that there was more to the matter than had at first appeared, began to look serious.
“Has an agreement been reached between them?” he asked. “If that is the case, I fear there is very little that you can do—that is, if Captain Rossiter wishes to hold your uncle to the bargain. ”
“I can offer him a good deal more than he has paid for the property himself,” Cressida retorted. “That would do the trick with most men. Whether it will with Rossiter remains to be seen. But he shan’t have Calverton Place! I shall see to that, if it takes half my fortune!” Lord Langmere was looking increasingly surprised by her vehemence. “But surely it can’t mean so much to you,” he said. “You have never appeared to interest yourself—”
“Very well, then—I haven’t! But I never imagined before this time that Uncle Arthur would think of selling the estate—and to Rossiter, of all men!” She stood up abruptly. “I am sorry, Leonard, but I really must have things made ready for the journey, ” she said. “You didn’t wish to see me for any particular reason—did you?” Lord Langmere, suddenly looking rather rueful, said that as a matter of fact, he did.
“Oh?” Cressida looked questioning. “The Boltons’ evening-party? But I shan’t be able to attend, of course.” “Not the Boltons’ evening-party.” Lord Langmere’s expression became still more rueful. “I am quite aware that this is not the propitious time to ask you,” he said, “but I had screwed up my courage to the sticking-point, you see, and I don’t know when I shall be able to do it again. Cressy, my dear, will you marry me and forget all about Gloucestershire and Calverton Place and everything else that threatens to separate us even for the space of four-and-twenty hours?”
Cressida, with the sensation of being in the sort of dream in which all sorts of important, frightening, and triumphant things happen to one at the most vexingly unsuitable moments, felt both her hands being taken in an urgent masculine grasp, and only by exercising great presence of mind did she manage to avoid being enveloped in a full embrace.
“Leonard—no!” she said, quickly stepping back a pace. “At least, I don’t mean no, exactly, but—but you are quite right: this is not the time, she went on, astonished to find herself speaking almost as incoherently as a girl in her first Season receiving her first offer. “You have taken me quite by surprise—”
If Lord Langmere had been capable upon his own side of speaking sensibly, he would have told her that any young woman who, having received the extremely marked attentions he had lavished upon her over a period of several months, professed surprise over their culminating in an offer of marriage was being either idiotish or intolerably missish. Not being capable of such rational thinking, however, he merely found her confusion captivating and attempted again, this time more successfully, to take her in his arms.
“Oh, dear!” said Cressida. “Really, Leonard, you mustn’t! I must have time to think!”
“You have had quite enough already,” said Lord Langmere firmly. “You must have known how I feel about you—”
But by this time Cressida, calling upon the reserves of experience gained in half a dozen years of dealing with importunate suitors, had matters well in hand again, and said with equal firmness that she hadn’t.
“Had enough time, that is,” she said. “You can’t ask someone to marry you when she is on her way to Gloucestershire and expect her to give you a sensible answer.”
“But you needn’t be on your way to Gloucestershire,” Lord Langmere protested, making another attempt to embrace his love and finding himself, he was never to know exactly how, standing quite alone in the middle of the floor while his love made some slight alterations to her coiffure in the mirror above the green jasperware Wedgwood fireplace.
All very cool and Londonish, his lordship, who considered himself to be genuinely in love, albeit somewhat past the age of violent romantic fancies, thought bitterly. But that was Cressida, who was well known never to give any of her suitors the satisfaction of putting off her elusive ways and standing still to be properly kissed.
As for Cressida herself, she went upstairs, having dismissed Lord Langmere very kindly with a promise to let him know his fate the moment she returned from Gloucestershire, and for all of five minutes was very cross with herself for having been so ridiculously missish as not to have given his lordship a plain, round answer and thus put them both out of their misery.
Now, she thought, she would have to worry herself all the way to Calverton Place and during her negotiations there with her uncle as to whether she should or shouldn’t; but to say the truth, in the bustle of her preparations for her journey she had forgotten all about poor Lord Langmere within a quarter of an hour, and did not think of him again until she was getting into bed that night in the very comfortable bedchamber of the Oxford inn where she broke her journey—which, if his lord-ship had known of it, he might or might not have considered a p
ropitious omen.
CHAPTER 8
Having spurred her postillions on to their best efforts from the time she left Oxford, Cressida was able to arrive at Calverton Place well before the dinner hour on the following day.
It had been several years since she had been in the Cotswold country, and the sight of honey-coloured stone houses with moss-covered slate roofs set beside little streams spanned by miniature bridges, of lanes decked in the pink and gold of lady’s smock and cowslips, and of the long, sweet green-grey sweep of the high wold rippling off into the distance, filled her with an exhilarating and nostalgic sense of being very young again, the green girl who had freely wandered these hills and woods, and who had come with mingled trepidation and anticipation to Cheltenham’s neat terraces and stucco villas. London fell from her as if it had been no more than the elegantly fashionable redingote of slate-coloured twilled sarsnet she was wearing, and by the time her chaise turned in at the gates of Calverton Place she would not have been surprised to look down and see it replaced by a schoolgirl’s plain round kerseymere frock, defaced by bramble tears and berry stains from a day’s ramble in the woods.
Calverton Place was a classical seventeenth-century mansion built of pale gold limestone and set across the bottom of a deep, tree-planted valley, with hills rising behind it. There was a recessed central block with shallow projections at each end, and a pillared entrance over which the Calverton eagle spread enormous wings from the pediment above. Even when Cressida first remembered it, the park had been overgrown and the gardens neglected, but it had been going gently from bad to worse ever since, until now it had rather the look, she thought, of having done it on purpose, like the impenetrable thicket that had sprung up to protect the Sleeping Beauty’s slumber in the fairy tale.