The Varleigh Medallion

by Sylvia Thorpe

  “On the contrary, it is a delightfully practical point of view.”

  “How comfortable it is to be able to say what one thinks,” she remarked. “Do petty shibboleths of that sort put you out of patience, too?”

  “Frequently,” he admitted cheerfully. “I think it must be because of the years I spent in the Peninsula, where life was a great deal more free and easy.”

  “Tell me about it,” she said suddenly. “The campaigns there, I mean. Some of Papa’s friends were used to visit us from time to time, so I learned a little about the war at sea, but I have never met an army officer before.”

  A little amused, but pleased by this evidence of interest, he did as she asked. He had had a distinguished career in a famous regiment, but he scarcely touched upon that, and as they drove along the road that led away from the village and climbed the hills behind Garth House, he instead talked entertainingly of the life in Spain and Portugal, the long summer campaigns and the boredom of winter quarters. She listened with complete absorption, asked an occasional question, and eventually said:

  “Did you always wish to join the army? It seems to me that you enjoyed it very much.”

  He laughed. “Yes, I was army-mad from a very early age, and I did enjoy it. That is to say, life on active service suited me exactly, but I had no taste for peace-time soldiering.”

  “Is that why you sold out?”

  “That, and the fact that my grandfather had died while I was still in Spain, and it was time, so my grandmother informed me, that I came home to take up my responsibilities. She had been against my entering the army at all, since I am the only surviving male Varleigh, but fortunately for me my grandfather was not of the same opinion.”

  They were driving now along the crest of the hills and Rushbourne Abbey was plainly in view in the valley below. The great house and its surrounding gardens; the tree-dotted expanse of parkland; the home farm and all the other attendant buildings, looking, as Theodore had said, almost as large as a village. Dione studied it thoughtfully, and then glanced again at her companion.

  “Yet one cannot but sympathize with her ladyship’s feelings,” she remarked. “How thankful she must be to have you safe home.”

  “Yes, though she is moved at times—when she is particularly out of patience with me, you know—to inform me that since I seem bent upon breaking my neck in the hunting field, or at some other sporting pastime, I might as well have stayed in the army. My grandmother, Miss Mallory, is not given to displays of sentiment.”

  Dione chuckled appreciatively. “As I said, sir, one cannot but sympathize with her ladyship,” she observed demurely. She glanced sidelong at him, met his eyes, and chuckled again.

  “Yes,” he said grimly, but with an answering tremor of laughter in his voice, “you and she will deal extremely together, I have no doubt.”

  “I am flattered that you think so, sir. I collect that her ladyship does not reside at the Abbey?”

  “She is in London at present. Though she does not now go very much into society, she likes to be there for the Season. I expect her at Rushbourne later in the summer.”

  He was silent for a moment, and Dione saw that he was frowning. Once again she had the impression that he was deeply troubled; she was conscious of a rush of sympathy and concern, and of an urgent wish that he would see fit to confide in her.

  “When my grandmother does come,” he resumed after a moment, “and there is a hostess at Rushbourne, I look forward to the pleasure of welcoming you there.”

  Dione was startled, for even in the short while she had been in Brambledon, she had learned that invitations to the Abbey were not easily come by. Mrs. Elverbury, condescending to chat to Mrs. Mallory after church, had been at some pains to make that clear, and to indicate that though Sir Greydon might beguile the time by calling at Garth House, the Mallory family need not flatter themselves that they were therefore upon terms with the Varleighs.

  “We should be honored, Sir Greydon,” she replied, “if Lady Varleigh is kind enough to invite us. I am told that the Abbey is a most interesting house.”

  “It is an architectural hotch-potch,” he replied cheerfully, “but we are sincerely attached to it, and Theodore, I feel certain, will be impressed to learn that we really do have a ghost. A white monk—the Abbey was a foundation of the Carmelite order—who may occasionally be observed walking where the cloisters once stood.”

  “Impressive, indeed!” she observed politely. “Have you ever encountered this interesting apparition, sir?”

  “I have not had that privilege, Miss Mallory,” he confessed solemnly, “though there are numerous apparently well-authenticated accounts of its appearance at intervals during the past two hundred and fifty years, and my Aunt Georgiana—Vivyan Calderwood’s mother—will tell you that she once caught a glimpse of it when she was a girl. My aunt,” he added pensively, “has always been a person of extreme sensibility.”

  “Ah!” Dione said understandingly. “Then I do not suppose that I would ever see your ghost, sir.”

  He glanced at her with some amusement. “You do not consider yourself a person of sensibility?”

  She shook her head. “Alas, no! Commonsense is my forte, and I am sure no ghost would ever manifest itself to anyone as prosaic and practical as I.” She laughed. “That would sink me beyond reproach in Theo’s eyes, would it not? How fortunate that we shall have no opportunity to put it to the test.”

  “Why not?” he asked calmly. “I hope that we may have every opportunity.”

  She looked astonished, but then laughed. “Oh, come, Sir Greydon! Do not try to convince me that your white monk is in the habit of appearing to morning-callers. Surely, in the best tradition of ghost stories, he walks only at midnight, or appears to no one but members of the family?”

  “Exactly so. Will you marry me, Dione?”

  For a few stunned seconds she thought she must be dreaming, that the imagination she had just denied possessing was playing tricks on her. She turned a startled, questioning glance toward him, realized that he had indeed uttered those incredible words, and said in a shaken voice:

  “You cannot be serious! Nothing could be more unsuitable.”

  “No?” His tone was quizzical. “From your point of view, ma’am, or from mine?”

  “Why—why, from yours, of course!”

  “Could you not perhaps allow me to be the judge of that? I can think of nothing more desirable.”

  She was silent, turning her head to look out over the sunlit prospect below them. After a little he said gently:

  “Are you thinking of your family? Set your mind at rest. It will be my pleasure as well as my duty to look after them.”

  She felt tears fill her eyes, and blinked them angrily away. Eustace’s taunts of the day before came into her mind, and then the memory of the night’s black despair. She had been crushed beneath the weight of worry and self-reproach, not knowing which way to turn; now, suddenly, when courage and hope had sunk to their lowest ebb, the load was to be lifted from her shoulders forever. She had but to say one word, and all the doubts and fears which had made the night hideous would be dispersed like the darkness itself. It was so simple, and yet...

  “It would be unsuitable,” she said in a low voice. “Your family would be horrified. Your grandmother—!”

  “My grandmother desires nothing so much as to see me married.”

  “But not to me, to a nobody. I am not fitted to take her place at Rushbourne.”

  “You would grace any house you chose to live in, and as for being a nobody, there has been a Mallory in Brambledon almost as long as there has been a Varleigh.”

  “I must try to make you understand,” she said urgently, turning to him again. “You cannot deny that our situations are so vastly different that to make me an offer at all you must feel an—an uncommon regard for me—!”

  “Oh, let us not mince matters, my darling!” he interrupted, laughing. “I love you as I never thought I could love any
woman, as a friend and companion as well as the most enchanting and adorable creature I have ever met.”

  “Do not! Oh, pray do not!” Dione pressed her hands to her hot cheeks. “I never dreamed—! I am not in the least like that. So ordinary, so—so unaccomplished!”

  “I cannot imagine,” he remarked, “how you come to have such an astonishingly low opinion of yourself. Your family, quite rightly, value you beyond price. I am doing my best to convince you that you have become by far the most precious thing in the world to me.” He cast a quick glance at her, saw tears sparkling on her lashes, and, bringing the curricle to a halt beneath the spreading branches of a wayside oak, added in a quite different tone: “My dearest, what have I said to make you cry?”

  “I do not know!” Dione hunted in her reticule for a handkerchief and resolutely dried her eyes. “I have the greatest contempt for females who weep for reason at all.” She blew her nose in a determined manner, and put the handkerchief away. “Let us try to be sensible, dear sir. You have made me a very flattering offer and I am truly honored—”

  “Do you know,” he broke in conversationally, “this is the first time I have ever known you to be missish? It does not suit you, my love.”

  “Pray listen to what I have to say,” Dione begged. She stared straight ahead, across the tossing heads and glossy coats of the four fretting, sidling black horses, trying to ignore the endearments he addressed to her, and the caressing tone of his voice. It would be all too easy to succumb, to accept his proposal and with it an end to the seemingly ceaseless worry and the struggle to make ends meet. So easy, and so unfair to him. “No matter how you may deny it, such a marriage would be regarded by your family and friends as a shocking mésalliance, which indeed it would be. You say you—you care for me enough for that not to matter to you, but I—!”

  “But you do not care for me in the same way,” he concluded in an expressionless voice as she hesitated. “I understand.”

  “But you don’t!” she said desperately. “I would like very much to marry you, but I cannot tell whether or not it is for the right reason. I am in such a fix, you see. There is the house, and Theo’s education, and now that I have quarrelled past mending with the Wintons, I do not know which way to turn. You offer me so much! How could I be sure, if I accepted your proposal, that it was not just to find a way out of my difficulties?” She turned to look at him again, still with heightened color, but meeting his eyes squarely as she added rather shyly: “Oh, I know that we are friends, but that would not be enough, would it?”

  “No,” he replied with equal honesty, “it would not, but I do not despair of convincing you that you would like to marry me for the right reason. And the next time I propose to you,” he added forcefully as the carriage jerked to the restless movements of the horses, “it will not be in a curricle, with a spirited team in hand.”

  She smiled, but said rather wistfully: “I think perhaps you ought not to propose again at all. I am really quite ineligible, you know.”

  “Miss Mallory,” Greydon informed her, setting the horses in motion again, “I shall propose to you at every possible opportunity until I persuade you to accept me. I do not, I warn you, readily accept defeat.”

  She could think of nothing to say. It would not, she thought, be easy to resist him for very long, but she could not rid herself of the conviction that for his sake she ought to. Perhaps the wisest course, she reflected with a sudden sense of desolation, would be to take care that the opportunities he spoke of did not occur.

  The road they followed had brought them to the crest of Garth Hill, along the road where they had met when she was searching for Theodore. Greydon spoke of that now, lightly, inquiring whether there had been any similar escapades, and whether the budding friendship between Theo and Jem Durridge had flourished. Dione, recognizing his intention of relieving any awkwardness between them, responded gratefully.

  “Indeed it has. Of course, Jem has a good deal of work to do upon the farm, but most of his leisure is spent with Theo. You were quite right. It has done Theo a great deal of good, for this is the first time he has been upon terms of friendship with a boy of his own age.”

  They continued to converse upon this and other safe topics while they descended the hill and turned along the road which led past Garth House to Brambledon and Rushbourne. Just short of the entrance to the drive, they rounded a bend to see a phaeton and pair coming towards them, and with an exclamation of astonishment Sir Greydon reined in his team.

  “Vivyan!” he greeted the driver of the other carriage. “What the deuce brings you here?”

  Dione thought that there was something more than surprise in his voice; she detected an undertone of anxiety, while a quick glance at his profile informed her that the frown had returned. She transferred her gaze to Mr. Calderwood, who had brought his phaeton to a halt abreast of the curricle, and read unmistakable relief in his face.

  “This is a stroke of good luck, Grey, meeting you like this! I was on my way to Rushbourne to find you.” He lifted his hat to Dione. “Servant, Miss Mallory.”

  She bowed her acknowledgment. Greydon said impatiently:

  “To find me? Why?”

  “Came to warn you,” Vivyan replied. “Grandmama’s on her way! In fact, she should be arriving at Rushbourne within a couple of hours.”

  “A couple of hours?” Greydon repeated incredulously. “We have had no word! Nothing is prepared, her apartments are still closed—!”

  “Wanted to surprise you!” Vivyan looked uncomfortable. “I didn’t find out about it myself until last night, for I’ve been out of town for a few days, but I met Mama at Lady Butterworth’s ball, and was informed that Grandmama had set out that morning, and that you knew nothing about it. Well, I knew she would take two days for the journey and that she always stops for the night at the ‘Mitre,’ so I made my excuses, stayed only for my man to pack a few necessities, and came straight away. Luckily there was a full moon!”

  “I’m obliged to you, Viv. Did you pass Grandmama on the road?”

  Vivyan grinned. “Lord, no! Of course, by the time I got to the ‘Mitre’ this morning she had been gone for hours, but you know how the old lady travels. Her own carriage, outriders, a chaise for the servants and one for the baggage—a real state progress! All the gatekeepers know her, so when I found I was close on her heels I turned off the main road and came cross-country, hoping against hope that I’d find you at home.”

  There was a brief pause. Sir Greydon was still frowning, Vivyan looking harassed, and Dione knew beyond all doubt that something was very wrong indeed. At length Greydon said abruptly:

  “Do you know what prompted her to leave London so suddenly?”

  “Yes,” Vivyan replied reluctantly, “I do.” He hesitated, and then addressed the groom who was seated impassively beside him. “Get down, Hicks, and walk on along the road. I’ll take you up again directly.” He waited until the man had obeyed and was out of earshot, and then went on: “Mama showed her a letter she had received from Mrs. Elverbury. Silly thing to have done, for she might have known it would set the cat among the pigeons, which I’ll lay odds was what the confounded woman was hoping for.”

  “A letter from Mrs. Elverbury?” Greydon’s tone had sharpened. “About what, pray?”

  Vivyan looked acutely embarrassed. “Oh, a lot of spiteful nonsense. You know what an old tabby she is! I told Mama she ought not to have regarded it, much less shown it to Grandmama, but by then, of course, the harm was done. Fact is, Grey, Miss Mallory’s name was mentioned.” He saw the sudden leap of anger in his cousin’s eyes, and nodded. “Aye, just so! Mischief-making old gossip!” He turned to Dione, adding earnestly: “Make you my apologies, ma’am. No wish to disturb you, but I thought you ought to know.”

  “Yes. Thank you,” she replied in a stifled voice, not looking at him. “You are very kind.”

  Greydon looked quickly at her averted face. She had flushed scarlet at Vivyan’s disclosure, but was now very p
ale, and he could see that she was trembling, though whether with distress or anger he could not tell. Subduing his own anger, he turned again to his cousin.

  “Will you drive on to Rushbourne, Viv, and warn them of our grandmother’s impending arrival? I will follow you as soon as I have taken Miss Mallory home.”

  Mr. Calderwood nodded understandingly, bowed to Dione and set his horses in motion again. Sir Greydon, doing likewise, said quietly:

  “It would be useless, I know, to advise you to disregard what has happened, but try not to let it distress you too much. I will not allow it to hurt you, you know.”

  “How dare she!” Dione’s voice was shaking with anger. “How dare she try to stir up trouble between you and your grandmother! I am not important—I know she does not like me—but she ought to have some regard for Lady Varleigh’s feelings. It is despicable, deliberately to set out to anger and distress an old lady!”

  “Anger, most certainly,” he agreed, “but my grandmother, I assure you, is more than a match for Mrs. Elverbury, especially since she has known the lady since her nursery days. As to yourself, do I need to repeat that you are far more important to me than anything else?”

  “Pray do not say that,” she said unsteadily. “It would not do—you know it would not! You have known it all along, no matter how you may try to convince yourself otherwise.”

  He turned his head to smile at her. “And what makes you imagine that?”

  “I have not imagined it. I have felt more than once that you are gravely troubled about something, but until today I never suspected what it was. Then, when Mr. Calderwood told you that Lady Varleigh was on her way, you looked so very shocked and dismayed, and I knew.”

  “I was shocked and dismayed, my love, for reasons which are in no way concerned with you.”