Black Sheep

by Джорджетт Хейер

  Chapter XI

  The clandestine meeting in the Abbey was undetected; but although Fanny was relieved to find her aunts quite unsuspicious she was also made to feel guilty, and ashamed. Nor did she any longer feel quite so happy in her love. It was not that she did not most ardently desire to pass the rest of her life in Stacy’s protective arms, but she could not help thinking how very much more pleasant it would be if she could be married to him with the blessing of her family. There was a flavour of high adventure about an elopement; she had been quite sincere when she had said that she neither shrank from taking so bold a step, nor cared a button for the inevitable censure of the world. It had not occurred to her, until she had recollected her aunts’ rout-party, that her elopement would pitchfork them into a very disagreeable situation. Floating in a dream of love and heroism, she had scarcely considered any but the broader aspects of the case, and even those only as they concerned herself.

  The opinion of the world was of no consequence; she and Stacy would be blissfully indifferent if the world cast them off, for they needed only each other for perfect happiness. As for her aunts, they would be very much shocked at first, even angry, but when they saw how right she had been to marry Stacy they would come round, and end by doting as fondly upon him as upon her. Not until Stacy urged her to fly with him immediately did she begin to perceive some of the minor objections attached to an elopement. Such things as rout-parties were quite unimportant, of course: Stacy said so, and it was so. But they were not unimportant to two maiden ladies who had been numbered for years amongst Bath’s most respected residents. Not one of the invitations sent out on Aunt Selina’s gilt-edged cards had been declined, for an invitation to attend one of the Misses Wendover’s select parties was considered to confer distinction on the recipient. It had flashed through Fanny’s mind as soon as Stacy had made his proposal that to subject her aunts to the humiliation of being obliged to cancel their party would be conduct too base ever to be pardoned. It would be even worse if they decided to hold it, as though they had not been plunged into a scandal (and it was stupid to suppose that the news of the elopement would not spread through Bath like wildfire),for if they did that they would find their big double drawing-room woefully thin of company. Several other minor objections occurred to her, but she resolutely banished them. One could not be expected to sacrifice the happiness of oneself and one’s beloved merely to save one’s aunts from embarrassment.

  There was yet another objection which she found oddly daunting. Never having formed any very clear picture of the actual ceremony, who was to perform it, and where it was to take place, it came as a shock to her when Stacy described in romantic detail a flight to the Border. Innocent as she was, she yet knew that nothing could be more improper. Even her closest friends would find it hard to excuse conduct so indelicate: she had as well tie her garter in public! “You cannot mean Gretna Green?” she had exclaimed incredulously. “No, no! I know people do so in novels, but not—real people, like us! It is not at all the thing, Stacy! Why, I daresay it would take us two or three days to reach the Border! You can’t have considered! We must be married in London, or—Bristol, or somewhere much nearer to Bath!”

  So Stacy had had to explain to her that there were certain difficulties attached to the clandestine marriages of minors. He had done it very well, so that by the time they had parted at the door of the Abbey she was convinced that there was no other way open to them, and that it was as repugnant to him as it was to her. He would be no more than her courier until the knot was tied. “But I will not press you,” he had said. “If your courage fails you—if you cannot trust me enough—tell me! I’ll go away—try to forget you!” He had added with a melancholy smile: “You will forget me more easily!”

  She had cried out against this. She was not so fickle, or so hen-hearted, and as for her trust in him, it was infinite!

  She had promised to fly with him as soon after the rout-pa as could be contrived; and, in the heat of an impassioned moment, had done so with enthusiasm. It was only later that an unacknowledged doubt began to trouble her.

  Then had come the expedition to Wells, and her conversation with Oliver. He had said that he wished he could help her, but the things he had said to her had not helped her at all: in fact they had increased her discomfort.

  Abby, recognizing the signs of inward turmoil, tried in vain to win her confidence. She could not discover that there had been any falling-out between the lovers, and the fear that Stacy was trying to persuade Fanny to elope with him began to haunt her. She told Mr Miles Calverleigh, when he drove her to Stanton-Drew, to inspect the Druidical monument there, that she lived in dread of waking one morning to find Fanny gone.

  “Oh, I shouldn’t think that at all likely!” he replied. “Speaking as one who is not without experience, it’s not as easy to elope at dead of night as you might think.”

  She could not suppress her responsive dimple, but she said austerely: “You are perfectly shameless! Why isn’t it easy? I should have supposed it to be much easier than to do it during the day.”

  “That’s because you haven’t applied your mind to it”

  “Very true! It so happens that the need to do so has never come in my way.”

  “Oh, I can see that! It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that you imagine a rope-ladder to be employed in the business.”

  “It would surprise me very much to learn that it was! You know, I have never been able to understand how anyone could escape by means of a rope-ladder, particularly a female. It’s all very well to talk of throwing it up to the window, but the chancel are one wouldn’t be able to catch it, or would fall out of the window, trying to do so. And what would you attach it to, if you did catch it?”

  “I can’t think.”

  “No, and even if it was attached I have a strong notion that it is not at all easy to come down a rope-ladder. Depend upon it, it requires a great deal of practice.”

  “Hampered by your petticoats, too,” he said thoughtfully, “I see that you have applied your mind to the problem: tell me all about it”

  She laughed. “No, I won’t allow you to divert me. This is not a funning matter. I know that you think it a great bore, but—

  “Well, don’t you?

  “How could I? I think it vexatious—indeed, I could slap Fanny for being such a wet-goose!—but one cannot be bored by what nearly concerns anyone to whom one is very much attached, and for whom one is responsible, can one?”

  “As I have never found myself in such a position, I can’t say.”

  She said, with quick sympathy: “I know that, and I pity you! You told me once—you said that you were not an object for compassion, but you are, Mr Calverleigh!”

  “Yes, I’ve come to that conclusion myself,” he said unexpectedly. “I was used not to think so, but ever since I came to Bath I have been growing steadily more convinced that I was mistaken.”

  Taken by surprise, feeling very much as if she had suffered an electric shock, Abby gave a gasp. After a brief, but perceptible, pause, she said with as much composure as she could summon to her aid: “You might not have felt the want of family ties whilst you were abroad, I daresay. But we were speaking of Fanny, and you were about to explain to me why I need not be afraid that she will run away in the night, when we fell into an absurd digression on the subject of rope-ladders. I should be very glad to believe you, but—but why?”

  “Oh, it would be much too dangerous! The poor girl would be obliged to get up and scramble on her clothes in the dark, in case some other member of the household should be wakeful, and see the light under her door. After which, she must grope her way down two pairs of stairs, and if their creakings didn’t rouse you the approach of a chaise over the cobblestones at that hour of night would certainly do so. Then, too, she must draw back the bolts on the front-door, take off the chain, and lastly, most difficult task of all, shut the door behind her—all without a sound! Of course, she might choose to leave the house open to any cha
nce marauder, but I feel sure that you will tell me she is not so lost to all sense of what is due to you as that!”

  “Yes!” said Abby, perceiving the force of these objections. “And her room is at the back of the house, so how could she know that your horrid nephew was punctual to his appointment? Something might have happened to detain him, and only think how awkward it would be for her! She would be bound to consider that possibility. Anyone would! Furthermore, Grimston—our old nurse—sleeps in a little room next to hers, and although I may believe that nothing less than a trumpet-blast in her ear would wake her, you may depend upon it that Fanny would be in a quake! Oh, I think you are undoubtedly right! She won’t make the attempt at night, and I’ll take good care she has no opportunity during the day, even if I must accompany her everywhere, like the dragon I vowed I never would be.”

  “That might become a trifle tedious. Are you so sure that she is planning to elope with my horrid nephew?”

  “No,” she replied at once. “Sometimes I tell myself that I am suffering from a stupid irritation of nerves: that however much she might fancy herself in love she would never do anything so improper, so unprincipled! And then I think that he has taken such strong possession of her mind that she will do whatever he wishes. But she has been in low spirits lately, in a worry, I conjecture. It might be that she can’t bring herself to do what she knows is very wrong. I did entertain the hope that she had quarrelled with Stacy, but she hasn’t.” She sighed. “He was at the concert last night, and she looked at him as if he were her whole dependence and delight,”

  “No, did she? I envy him. Not, of course, that I’ve the smallest desire that Fanny should bestow such a look upon me, but I wish that you would.”

  She was aware suddenly that her heart, in general a very reliable organ, was behaving in a most alarming way, first trying to jump into her throat, and then beginning to thump so violently that she felt breathless, and uncomfortably hot. It was an effort to speak but she managed to do so, saying: “Mr Calverleigh—I am in no mood for flirting!”

  “Now when have I ever tried to flirt with you?” he protested.

  She felt herself impelled to steal a look at him, which she instantly realized was a very imprudent thing to have done, because he was smiling at her, and in a way which made her heart beat still more violently. “I love you, you know,” he said conversationally. “Will you marry me?’

  The manner in which he made this abrupt proposal struck her as being so typical of him that a shaky laugh was dragged from her. “Of all the graceless ways of making me an offer—! No, no, you are not serious! you cannot be!”

  “Of course I’m serious! A pretty hobble I should be in if I weren’t, and you accepted my offer! The thing is that it is such a devil of a time since I proposed marriage to a girl that I’ve forgotten how to set about it. If I ever knew, but I daresay I didn’t, for I was always a poor hand at making flowery speeches.” He smiled at her again, a little ruefully. “That I should love a bright particular star!”

  “Oh—!” she breathed. “Oh, pray don’t say such things!”

  “I won’t, if you dislike it,” he said obligingly.

  “Dislike it! How could anyone dislike to have such a thing said to her? But it won’t do! You mustn’t say any more on this head! Pray do not!”

  “No, that’s quite unreasonable,” he said. “I won’t pay you any compliments, but you can’t expect me not to say any more! I’ve asked you to marry me, Abigail!”

  “You must know I can’t—how impossible it would be!”

  “No, I don’t. Why should it be?”

  ‘The—the circumstances!” she uttered, in a stifled voice.

  He looked to be a good deal puzzled. “What circumstances? Mine? Oh, I’m perfectly well able to support a wife! You must have been listening to my horrid nephew.”

  “I’ve done no such thing!” she said, much incensed. “And if I had I shouldn’t believe a word he said! What’s more, considerations of that nature wouldn’t weigh with me, if—if I returned your regard!”

  “Don’t you? Not at all?”

  “I—No! I mean—I mean, it isn’t that!”

  “Well, if it isn’t that—Good God, you don’t mean to tell me it’s because I made a cake of myself over Celia Morval twenty years ago? No, really, my sweet life, that’s doing it much too brown! What had it to do with you? You must have been in the nursery!”

  “Yes, but—Oh, surely you can perceive how impossible it would be for me to marry you? She was my brother’s wife!”

  “No, she wasn’t.”

  “She was engaged to be married to him, at all events, and she became his wife! And, if it hadn’t been hushed up, there would have been a shocking scandal—of your making!”

  “But it was hushed up,” he pointed out.

  She looked helplessly at him. “How can I make you understand?”

  “Oh, I do understand! You don’t care a straw for all that ancient history, but you know that James would, and you’re afraid he’d kick up the devil of a dust. He wouldn’t, but I daresay he’d wear you to death, trying to heckle or cajole you into giving me up. However, you needn’t let that worry you: I can deal with James.”

  She said, in a low tone: “I’m not afraid of James. If—if I knew that I was doing right. But it wouldn’t be James only. My sisters—all my family—would be thrown into such an uproar! I only wish I might not be wholly cast off!” She glanced up fleetingly, and tried to speak more lightly. “I shouldn’t like that, you know. They may not know about Celia—indeed, I am very sure they don’t, though I suppose Cornelia might, being James’s wife—but, alas, they do know that you are the prodigal son!”

  “Alas? What if they didn’t know it? Would my disreputable weigh with you?” Her head was down-bent; she shook it slightly. “Not if I loved you enough”.

  “That sounds to me remarkably like a leveller. Don’t you?”

  She said frankly: “I don’t know. That’s to say, it is so easy to mistake one’s feelings: that I do know, for I cut my eye-teeth ears ago. I hadn’t any thought of marriage, and I didn’t think that you had either, so—so I’ve had no time to consider. I own that if the circumstances had been different I—I should have been sorely tempted! But to marry—and at my age, too!—to disoblige one’s family ought not to be considered. Do you understand?’

  “Well, I understand that you’ve the devil of a lot of scruples, but it’s no use expecting me to enter into them,” he replied. “Family ties don’t mean anything to me: didn’t I tell you so once? As for making a sacrifice of yourself to suit your family’s notions of respectability, I call it addlebrained!”

  She smiled reluctantly. “You would, of course! But it isn’t quite that I don’t think I can explain it, because it’s all tangled in my head—making me addlebrained! Do I seem odiously missish?”

  “Yes, but I wasn’t going to say so,” he assured her.

  The laughter sprang into her eyes. “Obnoxious creature! If only you didn’t always make me laugh! Sometimes I wonder if you have any proper feelings at all!”

  “Almost none, I fear. Would you marry me if I had?”

  She ignored this. “Or any sense of shame either! But you have a great deal of quickness, and I’m persuaded you must see how outrageous it would be if I were to do the very thing I am trying to prevent Fanny from doing!”

  “O my God!” he ejaculated. “These Calverleighs—!”

  “Exactly so!”

  “Do you think exactly?” he asked diffidently. “Would you object to it if I were to point out to you certain differences between the Calverleighs?”

  She put out her hand impulsively. “Oh, I know, I know! There is no comparison between you!”

  He took her hand, and held it lightly on his knee. “Oh, there is some comparison! Shocking fellows, both of us! I was one of the roaring-boys when I was on the town: they used to say of me that I was a hell-born babe—too rackety by half! But what no one ever said of me, not even
my loving family, was that I was a bounce, or a queer-nabs!”

  “Do they say that of Stacy?” she asked anxiously.

  “So I’ve been informed, and I don’t find it at all difficult to believe. Well, to continue our respective histories, each of us eloped with an heiress—or, rather, attempted to do so.”

  “But you were in love with Celia! You didn’t care for her fortune!” she interpolated swiftly.

  “No, nor was I nine-and-twenty. I’m in love with you, and I don’t care for your fortune.”

  “You need not tell me that! Besides, I haven’t a fortune. Not like Fanny! I think you would call it an independence, perhaps, or an easy competence.”

  “Well, that’s one objection disposed of: no one would be able to say that I married you for your fortune.”

  “You wouldn’t care if they did!” she said shrewdly.

  “No, but you would.” There was a good deal of amusement in his eyes as they rested on her face. “Just what do you imagine I’ve been doing during the past twenty years, dear innocent?”

  “I don’t know. How should I? You have never told me!”

  “I’ll tell you now. I’ve been making my fortune, of course.”

  She laughed. “So now you are a nabob! How stupid of me not to have guessed it!”