Ben nodded. “That is my assumption, Sir. To be in constant contact with the lady whom she esteems so highly, and all the while suspecting what must never be mentioned———”
“Yes, yes,” nodded Mr. Calder. “It is not unheard of, for such a child, the product of a brief or illicit affair, to be brought up by strangers. That she should have come back, in this kind of guise, to her true parents must be the proof of a very skillful and secretive hand. No doubt it was arranged long ago, to look like a simple adoption. Everything points to it, does it not? Did not you say the father was only a very distant relative? Such kinds of things do happen, I am aware, in the more elevated levels of our society. What would be unheard of in a poor farmer, is quite common amongst the ton. Why! Look at the example our own Royal Family as set! Royal dukes think nothing of raising up a whole herd of illegitimate families! Poor child!”
“And poor Anne!”
“Indeed. Well, I am very glad you told me of it. It seems much clearer now, and I am glad Anne understands her duty so well. She could hardly stay on in that position.”
“That is my own opinion, Sir.”
“Yes, yes.”
The young man rose to leave the room, but was detained by a word from his father.
“Ben—I am aware of what you did to help Anne with her little triumph, and do not think I don’t esteem you for it.”
The young man coloured. “I had nothing to do with it, Sir.”
“Well, well—you have always been a modest fellow. But you are as clever as anyone, I know.”
Ben was too embarrassed by this show of praise to reply. He turned and fled out of the room as soon as he could.
Mr. Calder smiled after him, shaking his head. After a while, he resumed his letter writing. But the minister’s tranquility was destined to be disturbed yet again that morning, for in an hour the post arrived, brought by his youngest daughter from the village, on her way home from a visit to a friend. Mr. Calder looked over the correspondence briefly, and was surprised to see that one of the letters was directed from Regent’s Terrace, in an unfamiliar hand. He cut open the envelope, and read in amazement the following letter:
Friday, December 7
My dear Sir:
I hope you will not think me too forward in writing to you in this way, without the benefit of your acquaintance. And yet, if you do not know me, I feel almost that I know you, for I have heard much praise sung of you by your daughter, and believe you to be an exceptional kind of man.
I am writing to you unbeknownst to Miss Anne Calder, my ward’s governess, and of course, as you know, a very remarkable young woman in her own right. That such an exceptional member of her sex should be reduced to the position of seeking work as a governess to support herself strikes me as a great injustice of our society. To remedy just these kinds of injustices is, in a way, my work, though naturally on a rather different level. As you may know, I am presently under appointment by His Highness, Prince George, to the Court of the Tuileries. Though unable to perform many services of a personal kind, I have made every effort throughout my career to attempt, through diplomatic means, to improve England’s situation. My present obligation, therefore, seems clear, and I hope it will not strike you as odd or presumptuous, but only as the duty of a fellow Englishman, more blessed by circumstance than yourself.
Your daughter has mentioned to me that you have nine children, and that one of them is an invalid. My own mother was ill during a great deal of my childhood, and I know only too well what suffering such an illness can bring into a family. My father, Lord Hargate, was fortunate enough to provide the best medical attention for her, which must have eased some of the burden from his mind. I cannot fathom how it would have been, had he not been so well disposed, nor how much greater our own suffering would have been as a result. You, Sir, burdened with the support of so large a family, must feel doubly unfortunate. Accept, therefore, as a favour to myself, the enclosed bank draught. I have already spoken to Mr. Soames, the Regent’s own physican, who has kindly agreed to supervise your son’s care. When it is convenient for you, please be so kind as to let me know whether or not your son is too ill to travel. If so, Mr. Soames shall travel to your home. If not, I should be more than happy to have the young man reside with me whilst he is attended to. The accompanying draught should cover all of his expenses. Any more that is needed may be obtained through my banker, Harold Connhoughton, in Bond Street.
I know what a proud man you must be, but pray, for your son’s sake, do not allow false dignity to prevent any chance of his recovery. I am,
Your faithful servant,
Basil Ives
No words could express Mr. Calder’s amazement upon reading this document, nor his further astonishment when he was sufficiently recovered to glance at the enclosed check. One thousand pounds! One thousand pounds of misplaced charity! And all on account of his daughter’s desire to play a trick upon the world!
“Anne, Anne,” murmured the minister out loud, “what a devilish creature you are! And how am I to deal with this?”
Chapter XXI
“Good God, Diana!” cried Sir Basil Ives at about the same moment that Mr. Calder was scratching his chin over the Baronet’s letter. “I wish you would say something! I have been trying to get a moment of your time this past week!”
Lady Cardovan, ensconsed upon her own sofa in her own music room, did not see any reason to gratify the Baronet instantly. She continued stirring her tea calmly, as she had been doing for the past five minutes, and murmured, “Dear me! Has it been so long? I was sure it had only been four days.”
“Four days, then! But it is quite long enough! Shall you tell me what has made you so blitheringly silly, or shall I leave?”
Lady Diana shrugged her pretty shoulders. It was a matter of very little importance to her.
“Very well, then!”
Sir Basil picked up his gloves, but made no motion to leave the room. He stared at the Countess for a long moment, and at last, in resignation, sighed.
“Oh, do be kind to me, Diana! At least do me the favour of telling me what is in your head! I never saw you act so mulish!”
“Perhaps there is something you have failed to tell me, Basil. Or shall I be the first to wish you joy, only on the basis of a rumour?”
“Wish me joy? What in Heaven’s name d’you mean?” Sir Basil’s jaw had dropped slightly.
“On your imminent engagement.”
“Engagement? What engagement?”
“Your imminent engagement to Miss Newsome.”
“Good God! You must be jesting!” The Baronet’s whole person now dropped into a chair which was very luckily, just behind him. He could not believe his ears. Was it the whole world that had gone mad, or only himself? A slow smile crept over his features.
“You are teasing me, Diana, but I must say it is a dashed cruel jest. You mustn’t suggest such an idea, even in fun.”
“It is not much fun for me, I can assure you, Basil, to be made the laughing stock of London. I have never prized the opinion of the general public very much, but when it is directed, with a leering grin, most odiously in my own direction, even I cannot ignore it.”
“Leering grin?” Sir Basil seemed incapable of making any original remark this afternoon.
“Oh, come, my friend—don’t play the innocent with me, I beg of you. It is bad enough, thank you, to be informed in my own drawing room, at my own soiree, that my dearest friend has become attached to a young lady he had only the night before claimed to hold in contempt to my very face, but to have you throw it back at me with such astonishment is really too much!”
“Forgive me, Diana,” said the Baronet after a moment’s consideration, “if I do not absolutely understand you. Perhaps you will repeat yourself. You say that someone told you I was to be engaged to Miss Newsome?”
Lady Cardovan nodded.
“Well! I wish you would tell me who it was! I never knew I had such an extravagant enemy!”
; “It was Livvy, Basil, and please do not play the outraged hero with me.”
“Livvy!” cried the Baronet. “The Princess Lieven! What on earth could have put such an idea into her head?”
“I am afraid I put it there, Basil, by bringing up the subject. Your sister-in-law had just finished informing me of the happy news, which I was foolish enough to think a great joke, and I happened to mention it to her.”
“And she did not laugh?”
Now the Countess granted him the look Sir Basil had been deprived of for some moments. It was sufficient, however, to turn his blood cold.
“No. She did not laugh. On the contrary, she said she had suspected it the evening you all dined together at Hargate House. She said you could not keep your eyes away from the delightful Miss Newsome.”
“Really, Diana!” cried the Ambassador. “How could you believe such rubbish? Why, I recounted to you everything that went on, and I hope you have a higher opinion of me than to think that I am capable of succumbing to such charms as those!”
“I certainly did not think so, Basil. But it seems to be the general opinion. What is my own humble one, against the Princess’s, who actually was present? But I do not mind that so much, you know. It is only that I thought you trusted me enough to tell me of it yourself.”
The Baronet was thunderstruck.
“Come, Diana! Give me a little credit! How long have you known me?”
“Not long enough, it seems. Either that, or you have changed a good deal in France. I certainly thought you were incapable of—well, never mind.”
“What! What! Out with it, Diana.”
The Countess turned away a little and stared in the general direction of the fireplace with a bored look.
“It is of no importance now, Basil. Only I do wish you had not drawn me into it. It has already caused me the most extreme anguish. It shall very likely continue to do so.”
Sir Basil gaped. “How could I have caused you any anguish, my dear lady? You know there is no one I admire so much as you. I should never cause you the slightest pain, much less anguish!”
Lady Cardovan tapped her finger against the cup for a moment and said nothing. For a while there was no sound to be heard but the ticking of a clock and the faint drone of a north wind in the trees of the park. Sir Basil continued to stare at her with a combination of horror, disbelief, and rather boyish panic. At last, however, the lady chose to unburden her soul, and when she did so, it was with a suppressed fury that cut right through his shock.
“How could you, Basil! I have loved you as I should have loved my own brother, nay as much as a son! And trusted you—trusted your honour above everything! I did not know that all the while you were posing as such a virtuous, selfless man, giving all for King and Country, you were in fact no better than any of the others! No better than the worst of them, indeed! For at least they do not pretend to spotless virtue! It was a very clever ruse, to be sure—but not clever enough. Even I should have seen through it at once, had I not been so blinded to your weaknesses! And now you are prepared to marry anyone, only to rid yourself of the burden of your past mistakes. And to think that it took Livvy’s sly little eyes to see through it! The only trouble is, my dear Basil, that now you have got me entangled in your horrible little web. And you must untangle it yourself.”
“Web . . . web?” Sir Basil was utterly baffled. He had no conception of what she was talking about “Come, Diana—try to be calm. You are evidently overwrought about something, but how am I to help if you do not tell me what it is?”
Whereupon Lady Cardovan turned upon him a look of withering contempt. “Livvy believes,” she said slowly, “that I am the child’s mother. Well, don’t look so shocked. I am not that ancient Of course you and I know that isn’t true, but it is what all the world shall shortly believe, if I know Livvy. She has got so many things to hide herself that she cannot rest until she has uncovered everyone else’s secrets.”
Sir Basil gaped at her. “Good God, Diana! Don’t tell me that all this time you have been hiding a child! By Jove!”
“Don’t be idiotic. I am not the one who has been hiding a child.”
“Well, then, please be so good as to tell me whose child we are talking about.”
“Nicole, of course.”
“Nicole! Why, is she your child?”
“No! Is not she yours?”
“Not to the best of my knowledge. I believe you know as much as I about her parentage.”
Lady Cardovan eyed him suspiciously for a moment. “You are not trying to put me off the scent again, are you?”
“You know I despise hunting, Diana. Pray find some other metaphor. But no, if you insist—” seeing her disgruntled look—“I am not trying to put you off the scent. Rather to the contrary, I am trying to discover some trace of your own. I wish you would not all be so baffling.”
Now Lady Cardovan put back her head and laughed, a long, delighted laugh that infected the Baronet, though he did not know what all the mirth was about.
At last, having recovered herself sufficiently, however, and wiping a tear out of her eye, she was capable of speech.
“Oh, dear! I ought not to laugh, of course! I am sure my reputation has been ruined for good, and yet I cannot help admiring Livvy for her imagination! Only fancy inventing such a tale! She had practically convinced me that we had been lovers for years, and hidden away a child in the country, only to take her back, under the guise of your ward. My dear, it is too delicious!”
“I do not find anything delicious about it,” returned Sir Basil at last, understanding dawning upon him. “I find it disgusting and horrible! What a loathesome creature!”
“No, no—she is not loathesome. Only Russian.”
“Half French, which must explain it. In any case, she has succeeded in damaging your reputation, which is intolerable. I ought to challenge Anastasy to a duel.”
“Really, Basil! You men are extraordinary. What good is that supposed to achieve?”
Sir Basil grunted. For once, he was at his wits’ end.
“Well—what else can I do? I am damned if I shall let that sort of lie spread about, only because Livvy has nothing better to do with herself than invent rumours about other people.”
“I do not care about myself so much,” said Lady Cardovan thoughtfully. “At my age, that sort of gossip is more complimentary than insulting. But for Nicole, I do fear it may be very harmful at last. You have not had any hint of it?”
Sir Basil paused to think. “Why, now that you mention it! I hadn’t given it any thought, but I have been getting some rather queer looks at the Foreign Office. Strange remarks—Lord Devon winked at me in the corridor only yesterday! Dear me! What are we to do?”
Lady Cardovan looked grave. “I do not know. But something must be done to stop the gossip. I should hate to think of Nicole living under a shadow for the rest of her life, only because of an idle woman’s amusement.”
The case was indeed grave, and was discussed at some length. The only sensible course seemed to be to approach the Princess outright and endeavour to persuade her to stop the rumour just as she had begun it. How that was to be accomplished, was for the moment a question neither of them could answer, but at last an idea was agreed upon: Sir Basil should go directly to the Princess and confront her openly. She who loved deceit so much would be incapable of avoiding the truth, when put so plainly.
Sir Basil went, as he had promised, to Grosvenor Square, straight away upon leaving Lady Cardovan. The Princess was at home, by great luck, and the Baronet went promptly to see her. At first she could not be put off; she delighted in twisting about the truth so much, that she could not be persuaded to think plainly at once. But at last even she saw the grimness in the Baronet’s eyes, and having at least a grain of common sense, could not dispute his argument: She had too much to hide herself to risk enraging him. His argument was not so bluntly put as his plea, but it did its work. A much more sober Princess sat that afternoon before her glass
, watching her maid dress her hair. If there was a sulk in that smile, held up so brightly before the world on her drive about the Park, it was hardly visible, and the Princess was as skilled at damping out a rumor as at igniting one. Her innuendoes could do as many twists as she liked, and when anyone hinted to her that the Sir Basil Ives possessed a natural daughter, now living beneath his own roof as his ward, she threw up her hands in disbelief. The rumour was not completely smothered, of course, but the worst of the damage was prevented. It was, at least, enough to spare the honour of the imputed figures. As to Miss Newsome and the rumour that Sir Basil was soon to make his declarations of love, the world was very soon put to rest upon that head.
Sir Basil returned to Regent’s Terrace with the chief part of his business dispatched, but by no means all of it. The most difficult part seemed yet to be ahead of him. He had left the house that morning in high spirits, for a sleepless night, a long night of examining his heart, had rendered up some knowledge which could not be disputed. He had gone on purpose to Lady Cardovan, hoping to seek her advice upon the subject, but of course he had been prevented by her own news. And now that news, having already caused so much anxiety, must cause him still more, for it very clearly made his own course twice as difficult. Miss Calder, naturally, must be told, if only in order that Nicole might be protected from any gossip. And what would she think of him then? Her good opinion, he did not deceive himself, had yet to be won. It was the greatest wish of his heart that she should think well of him. He did not require any more.
He went, therefore, very gravely to his library upon returning home, and required a footman to seek out Miss Calder. He then poured himself a rather large glass of port, downed it with one gulp, and poured another. It was in this frame of mind that he heard a knock upon the door.
The Determined Bachelor Page 21