Lady of Quality

by Джорджетт Хейер

  Lucilla heaved a doleful sigh, but submitted, saying humbly that she didn’t mean to be troublesome. Lady Wychwood then had the happy notion that she might like to go out with Mrs Wardlow, who had shopping to do, and buy some flowers to put in Miss Wychwood’s room. The suggestion took well. Lucilla’s face brightened, and she exclaimed: “Oh, yes! I should like that of all things, ma’am! Thank you!” But when Lady Wychwood further suggested that she should write a note to Corisande to ask her to ride with her on the following morning, she shook her head, and said decidedly that nothing would prevail upon her to go pleasuring while Miss Wychwood was ill.

  It was not to be expected that Miss Farlow would submit as meekly to the doctor’s decree, and nor did she. Hardly had Lucilla tripped out with the housekeeper than she subjected Lady Wychwood to an extremely trying half-hour, during which she complained passionately of Jurby’s insolence in daring to shut her out of Annis’s room; declared her intention of taking care of Annis herself, whatever the doctor said; delivered herself of a moving but muddled speech in support of her claims to be the only proper person to have charge of the sick-room, in which she several times begged Lady Wychwood to agree that whatever anyone said blood was thicker than water; and ended an agitated monologue by pointing out, in triumph, that it was of no use for her ladyship to talk of the danger of infection, because she had already had the influenza.

  It was some little time before Lady Wychwood was able to bring her to reason, and a great deal of tact was necessary; but she managed it at last, and without wounding Miss Farlow’s sensibilities. She said that she did not know how she and Nurse were to go on, if Maria felt she must devote herself to Annis. That was quite enough. Miss Farlow, in a gush of affection, said that she was ready to do anything in the world to ease the burdens under which she knew well dear, dear Lady Wychwood was labouring, and went off, happy in the knowledge that her services were indispensable.

  Unlike Tom, or Miss Farlow, Miss Wychwood was a very good patient. She obeyed the doctor’s directions, swallowed the nastiest of drugs without protest; made few demands, and still fewer complaints; and resolutely refrained from tossing and turning in what she knew to be an unavailing attempt to get into a more comfortable position. As Dr Tidmarsh had prophesied, her fever mounted, and though it was too much to say that she became delirious, her mind did wander a little, and once she started out of an uneasy doze, exclaiming: “Oh, why doesn’t he come?” in an anguished voice; but she almost immediately came to herself, and after staring for a moment in bewilderment at Jurby’s face, bent over her, she murmured: “Oh, it’s you, Jurby! I thought—I must have been dreaming, I suppose.”

  Jurby saw no reason to report this incident to Lady Wychwood.

  The fever began to abate on the second day, but it still remained high enough to make Dr Tidmarsh shake his head; and it was not until the third day that it burnt itself out, and did not recur. Miss Wychwood emerged from this shattering attack so much exhausted that for the next twenty-four hours she had no energy to do more than swallow, with an effort, a little liquid nourishment, or to rouse herself to take more than a vague interest in whatever events were taking place in her household. For the most part of the day she slept, conscious of a feeling of profound relief that her bones were no longer being racked, and that the Catherine wheel in her head was no longer making her life hideous.

  The fourth day saw the arrival in Camden Place of Sir Geoffrey. He had borne with equanimity the news, conveyed to him by his dutiful wife, that Miss Farlow was in bed with influenza; a second letter, informing him that Tom had caught the infection disturbed him a little, but not enough to make him disregard Amabel’s assurance that there was not the smallest need for him to be anxious; but the third letter (though she still begged him not to come to Bath), containing the news that Annis too had succumbed to the prevailing epidemic, set him on the road to Bath within an hour of his receiving it. He couldn’t remember any occasion since her childhood when Annis had contracted anything more serious than a slight cold in the head, and it seemed to him that if she could fall ill there was no saying when his Amabel would also be laid low.

  Lady Wychwood received him with mixed feelings. On the one hand she was overjoyed to have his strong arms round her again; on the other, she could not help feeling that his presence in the house would be an added burden in an establishment already overburdened by three invalids, one of whom was the second housemaid. She was a devoted wife, but she knew well that he did not shine in a sickroom: in fact, he was more of a liability than an asset, for, enjoying excellent health himself, he had very little experience of illness, and either caused the invalid to suffer a relapse by talking in heartily invigorating tones; or (if warned that the invalid was extremely weak) by tiptoeing into the room, addressing the patient in an awed and hushed voice, and bearing all the appearance of a man who had come to take a last farewell of one past hope of recovery.

  He was considerably relieved to find that his Amabel, instead of being on a bed of sickness, was looking remarkably well, but he could not like it that she had been tied to a cradle ever since Tom had developed influenza. He thought it extraordinary that there should be no one in the household able to look after a mere infant, and could not be convinced that Amabel was neither tired nor bored. She laughed at him, and said: “No, no, of course I’m not! Do you realize, my love, that it is the first time I have ever had Baby all to myself? Except for being unable to go to Tom, and being very anxious about Annis, I have enjoyed every minute, and shall be sorry to give her back to Nurse tomorrow. Dr Tidmarsh considers it to be perfectly safe now, but I am keeping Baby with me for one more night, for she is cutting another tooth, and is rather fretful, and I want Nurse to have a peaceful night before she takes charge of her again. You shall see Tom presently: he is laid down for his rest at the moment. Say something kind to Maria, won’t you? She has been most helpful, looking after Tom.”

  “Yes, very well, but tell me about Annis! I was never more shocked in my life than when I read that she was in such very queer stirrups! I could hardly believe my eyes, for I don’t recall that I’ve ever known her to collapse before. It must have been a pretty violent catching?”

  At this moment they were interrupted by Miss Susan Wychwood, who had been laid down to sleep on the sofa in the back drawing-room, and who now awoke, querulously demanding attention. Lady Wychwood glided into this half of the room, and was just about to pick Miss Susan up when Miss Farlow came hurrying in, and begged to be allowed to take the little darling. “For I saw Sir Geoffrey drive up, and so, of course, I knew he would wish to talk to you, which is why I have been on the listen, thinking that very likely Baby would wake—Oh, how do you do, Cousin Geoffrey? Such a happiness to have you with us again, though I feel you will be quite alarmed, when you see our dear Annis—if Jurby permits you to see her!” She gave vent to a shrill titter. “I daresay it will astonish you to know that Jurby has become the Queen of Camden Place: none of us dares to move hand or foot without her leave! Even I have not been permitted to see dear Annis until today! I promise you, I was excessively diverted, but I couldn’t help pitying poor Annis, compelled to accept the services of her abigail when those of a blood-relation would have been more acceptable. However I made no demur, because I knew that, tyrant though she is, I could depend upon Jurby to take almost as good care of her mistress as I should have done, besides that there was dear Lady Wychwood to be thought of, so worn-down as she was, which made me realize that her need of me was greater than Annis’s!”

  She began to rock the infant in her arms, and Sir Geoffrey, who had listened to her with growing disfavour, beat a retreat, almost dragging his wife with him. As they mounted the stairs he said: “Upon my word, Amabel, I begin to wish I hadn’t prevailed upon Annis to engage that woman! But I don’t remember that she talked us silly when she and Annis have visited us!”

  “No, dear, but at home you never saw very much of her. That is what I dislike about town-houses: however commodious
they may be one can never get away from the other people living in the house! And goodnatured and obliging though poor Maria is I own I have frequently been forced to shut myself into my bedchamber to escape from her. I think,” she added reflectively, “if ever she came to live at Twynham I should give her a sitting-room of her own.”

  “Came to live at Twynham?” he ejaculated. “You don’t mean that Annis means to turn her off?”

  “Oh, no! But one never knows what circumstances might arise to make her chaperonage unnecessary. Annis might be married, for instance.”

  He laughed at this, and said, with comfortable conviction: “Not she! Why, she’s nine-and-twenty, and a confirmed old maid!”

  She said nothing, but he apparently turned her words over in his mind, for he asked her, a few minutes later, if that fellow Carleton was still in Bath.

  “He went to London some ten days ago,” she replied. “His niece, however, is still here, so I imagine he must mean to return.”

  “Ay, you wrote to me that she was here, and I wish to my heart she were not! Mind you, she’s a taking little thing, and I don’t wish to say a word against her, but I’ve never approved of Annis’s conduct over that business, and I never shall!”

  “Mr Carleton doesn’t approve of it either. He says Annis is not a fit person to take charge of Lucilla.”

  “Damned impudence!” growled Sir Geoffrey, “Not but what she ain’t a fit person, and so I’ve said all along!”

  “No, I am persuaded you are right,” she agreed. “But I fancy-indeed, I know—that Mr Carleton has every intention of removing her from Annis’s charge. That is why he has gone to London. You must not mention this, Geoffrey, for Lucilla knows nothing about it, and Annis told me in confidence.”

  “You told me in the first letter you wrote after I left you here that you thought there was no danger of Annis’s losing her heart to him. The Lord only knows why so many women do lose their hearts to him, for a more disagreeable, top-lofty fellow I wish I may never meet!”

  “I own I don’t like him, but I think he could make himself very agreeable to anyone he wished to please.”

  “Good God, you don’t mean to tell me he’s been making up to Annis?” he exclaimed, in patent horror.

  “You wouldn’t think so, but—I don’t know, Geoffrey! He doesn’t flirt with her, and he seems to say detestably uncivil things to her, but if he isn’t trying to fix his interests with her, I cannot help wondering why he has remained in Bath for so long.”

  “Does she like him?” he demanded.

  “I don’t know that either,” she confessed. “One wouldn’t think so, because they seem to rip up at each other every time they meet; but I have lately suspected that Annis is not as indifferent to him as she would have me believe.”

  “You must be mistaken! Annis, of all people, to have a tendre for a fellow like Carleton? It isn’t possible! Why, they call him the rudest man in London! I am not surprised that he should be trying to attach her: he is notorious for his philandering, and I was very uneasy as soon as I discovered that Lucilla was his niece, for it seemed likely that he would come here, and Annis is a devilish goodlooking woman! But that she should be in love with him—no, no Amabel, you must be mistaken!”

  “Perhaps I am, dearest. But if I am not—if she accepts an offer from him—we must learn to like him!”

  “Like him?” echoed Sir Geoffrey, in a stupefied voice. “I can tell you this, Amabel: nothing will ever prevail upon me to consent to such a marriage!”

  “But Geoffrey—!” she expostulated. “Your consent isn’t needed! Annis isn’t a minor! If she decides to marry Mr Carleton she will do so, and you will be obliged to accept him with a good grace—unless you wish to become estranged from her, which I am very sure you don’t.”

  He looked to be somewhat disconcerted, but said: “If she chooses to marry Carleton, she will have to bear the consequences. But I shall warn her most solemnly that they may be more disagreeable than she foresees!”

  “You will do as you think proper, dearest, but you must promise me that you won’t mention this matter to her until she herself speaks of it. Recollect that it is all conjecture at present! And on no account must you say anything to distress her! But when you see her you won’t wish to!”

  He was not to see her, however, until the following day, a visit from Miss Farlow having left her with a headache, and a disinclination to receive any more visitors. Once the doctor had said that there was no longer any danger of infection to be feared, Lady Wychwood had found it to be impossible to exclude Miss Farlow from her room, for Annis had asked to see Lucilla, and Miss Farlow had, most unfortunately, encountered Lucilla coming out of the sickroom. A painful scene had been the outcome, for, accused of having gone slyly in to see Miss Wychwood when Jurby’s back had been turned, Lucilla said indignantly that she had done nothing of the sort: Miss Wychwood had asked for her, and as for Jurby’s back having been turned, Jurby had been in the room and was still there. This sent Miss Farlow scurrying away in search of Lady Wychwood, demanding hysterically to know why Lucilla had been permitted to see Miss Wychwood while she,her own cousin, was kept out. The end of it was that Lady Wychwood, feeling that there was a certain amount of justification for Miss Farlow’s threatened attack of the vapours, had said that no one was trying to keep her away from Annis: of course she might visit her! She added that she knew Maria might be trusted not to stay with her too long, or to talk too much. Miss Farlow, still convulsively sobbing, had replied that she hoped she knew better than to talk too much to persons in dear Annis’s tender condition. So too did Lady Wychwood, but she doubted it, and put an end to the visit twenty minutes after Miss Farlow had entered the room, by which time Annis looked as if she was in danger of suffering a relapse.

  “I think I must turn you out now, Maria,” Lady Wychwood said, smiling kindly. “The doctor said only a quarter of an hour, you know!”

  “Oh, yes, indeed! So right of him! Poor Annis is sadly pulled! I declare I was quite shocked to find her so pale and unlike herself, but, as I have been telling her, we shall soon have her to rights again. Now I shall leave her, and she must try to go to sleep, must she not? I will just draw the blinds across the window, for nothing is more disagreeable than having the light glaring at one. Not that it is not very pleasant to see the sun again after so many dull days, and they say that it is very beneficial, though I myself rather doubt that. I remember my dear mama saying that it was injurious to the female complexion, and she never went out into the open air without a veil over her face. Well, I must leave you now, dear Annis, but you may be sure I shall be always popping in to see how you go on!”

  “Amabel,” said Miss Wychwood faintly, as Miss Farlow at last got herself out of the room, “if you love me, murder our dear cousin! The first thing she said when she came in was that she wasn’t going to talk to me, and she hasn’t ceased talking from that moment to this.”

  “I am so sorry, dearest, but there was no way of keeping her out without giving grave offence,” responded Lady Wychwood, drawing the blinds back. “I shan’t let her visit you again today, so you may be easy.”

  Miss Farlow succeeded in exasperating Sir Geoffrey at the dinnertable, first by uttering a series of singularly foolish observations, and then by trying to argue with Lady Wychwood. As dinner came to an end, she got up, saying: “Now you must excuse me, if you please! I am going up to sit with our dear invalid for a little while.”

  “No, Maria,” said Lady Wychwood, “Annis is extremely tired, and must have no more visitors today.”

  “Oh,” said Miss Farlow, with an angry little titter, “I do not rank myself as a visitor, Lady Wychwood! You have several times gone into Annis’s room, and some might think I had a better claim to do so, being a blood relation! Not that I mean to say that you are not a welcome visitor, for I am sure she must always be pleased to see you!”

  Sir Geoffrey took instant umbrage at this, told her sharply that Lady Wychwood must be the only judge
of who should, and who should not be permitted to visit Annis; and added, for good measure, that if she took his advice she would not allow her to go near Annis again, since he had no doubt that it was her ceaseless bibble-babbling that had tired her.

  Realizing that she had gone too far, Miss Farlow hastened to say that she had no intention of casting the least slight on dear Lady Wychwood, but she was unable to resist the temptation to add, with another of her irritating titters: “But as for my visit having tired dear Annis, I venture to suggest that it was Lucilla who did the mischief! A great mistake, if I may say so, to have permitted her to visit—”

  “Shall we go up to the drawing-room?” interposed Lady Wychwood, in a voice of quiet authority. “I think you are rather tired yourself, Maria. Perhaps you would prefer to retire to bed. We must not forget that it is only a very few days since you too were ill.”

  Finally quelled, Miss Farlow did retire, but in so reluctant and lingering a way that she was still within tongue-shot when Sir Geoffrey said: “Well done, Amabel! Lord, what a gabster! Ay, and worse! The idea of her having the brass to say that it was Lucilla who exhausted Annis! A bigger piece of spite I never heard! More likely your visit did my sister a great deal of good, my dear!”

  “Of course it did,” said Lady Wychwood. “Don’t look so downcast, child! You must surely be aware that poor Maria is eaten up with jealousy. And allowances must be made for people who are convalescent from the influenza: it often makes them cantankersome! Pray let us put her out of our minds! I was wondering whether it would entertain you to play a game of backgammon with Sir Geoffrey until Limbury brings in the tea-tray?”