“Just what I was thinking,” nodded Nicky, spreading mustard over another portion of beef. “There is no saying indeed! I shall stay here.”
“Well, I shall not!” declared Elinor tartly. “I have no desire to lead a life of such adventure!”
“You would not like to catch one of Boney’s agents?” said Nicky incredulously.
“Not at all. I should not know what to do with him if I did. Yes, I should, though! I should set your horrid dog to guard him!”
“Yes, and he would do so, wouldn’t he?” grinned Nicky. “Oh, Cousin Elinor, would you be so very obliging as to let the old fellow out of the stables? I told Barrow to do so, but he would not. He is a paltry creature!”
“Will he bite me if I do?” demanded Elinor.
“Oh, I should not think he would do so!” Nicky said encouragingly. “But pray do not let him make off! I should not like Sir Matthew’s cursed keepers to shoot him.”
“I should!” retorted Elinor, going off to release the prisoner.
Bouncer, so far from offering to bite her, greeted her as a benefactress from whom he had been parted for years. He jumped up at her several times, barking on a high, ear-splitting note, dashed three times round the stable yard at speed, and finally brought her an unwieldy branch of wood which he seemed to think she might like to throw for him. She declined to enter upon a sport of which, she guessed, he would not readily tire, and invited him to accompany her to the house. Picking up his branch, he trotted along beside her. He would have carried his toy into the hall had she not prevented him. Since he remained deaf to her adjurations to him to drop it, she laid hold of one end and tried to pull it away from him. Pleased that she was ready to play a game he knew and liked, he threw himself wholeheartedly into a tug of war, growling in a bloodcurdling way and wagging his tail furiously. Fortunately, since Elinor was no match for him, the groom came round the corner of the house just then, and Bouncer, perceiving him, let go of the branch in order to chase him back to his proper quarters. Elinor hastily threw the branch into a thicket of brambles. Bouncer soon returned to her, prancing along in the manner of a dog who has acquitted himself well, and cocked his ears at her expectantly. He consented to accompany her into the house but obviously thought poorly of her taste in choosing to be indoors on a fine morning. But when she took him upstairs to Nicky’s room nothing could have exceeded his joy at being reunited with the master whom he had not seen for ten hours. He leaped up onto the bed, uttering screaming barks, and ecstatically licked Nicky’s face. After that, being forcibly adjured thereto, he jumped down again, cast himself down by the fire, and lay panting.
“What he needs, of course, is a good run,” said Nicky, fondly regarding him.
“Oh, yes?” said Elinor politely.
“I was only thinking, Cousin, that if you did happen to be going out for a walk you might like to take him with you,” he explained.
“I know that that is what you were thinking,” she returned. “I am well able to imagine what that walk would be like, I thank you!”
“Oh, but he is quite well behaved now!” Nicky assured her. “I have very nearly trained him not to. kill chickens or chase sheep, and if only you do not meet any other dogs you will not have the least trouble with him.”
“He has already had a very nice run, chasing the groom,” said Elinor hardheartedly. “And I do not mean to go out walking today.”
“Oh, well, I dare say I shall be able to take him myself presently!” he said.
“You will not get up today!”
“Not get up? Good God, of course I shall! There is nothing amiss with me beyond this hole in my shoulder!”
She extracted a promise that at least he would not get up until Dr. Greenlaw had seen him, and went off to confer with Mrs. Barrow. By the time she had emerged from the kitchen the doctor’s gig was at the door and he was taking off his greatcoat in the hall. She was able to give him a comfortable account of his patient, but begged him as she led him upstairs not to permit of Nicky’s leaving his bed that day. He said dryly that he doubted whether anyone could keep Nicky in bed if he had taken it into his head to get up.
“I wish his brother were here!” she said.
“Ay, Mr. Nicholas would mind him,” he agreed.
“I hold myself entirely to blame for what has happened!”
He looked surprised. “I am sure I do not know why you should, ma’am.”
She recollected that Nicky had not taken him into his confidence, and said quickly, “For permitting him to remain here last night, I mean!”
“Ah, well!” he said. “If it is not one thing with Mr. Nick, it must needs be another! He has taken no serious hurt, ma’am.”
When he saw Nicky, he found that the wound was healing quite as well as could be expected and that the pulse, though a little fast, was by no means tumultuous. He condemned in round terms the breakfast which he learned, upon inquiry, that Nicky had consumed, and said that he would bleed him, to be on the safe side.
“Oh, no, you will not!” Nicky said, drawing the bedclothes up to his chin.
“Ay, but I will, Mr. Nick,” said Greenlaw, once more getting out his bag of instruments. “We do not want to run the risk of any fever.”
“I have no fever, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let you cup me!”
“Now, sir, you know I have often done so and you have been the better for it!”
Nicky would by no means allow it to have been so and vociferated his protests so loudly that Bouncer sat up, bristling. He had not so far paid any heed to the doctor, with whom he was acquainted, but he now clearly perceived that his attitude was menacing and with a growl of warning he bounded up onto the bed and stood astride Nicky’s legs, daring Greenlaw to touch him.
Nicky gave a shout of laughter and grasped him by the scruff of his neck. “Good dog, Bouncer! Sick him off, then!”
“Very well,” said Greenlaw, smiling reluctantly. “But if you are in a high fever by nightfall do not blame me, sir!”
After this episode, Elinor was not surprised, an hour later, to encounter Nicky somewhat shakily negotiating the stairs. He was wearing a dressing gown of such startling design and varied color that she blinked at him. He told her that he had bought it in Oxford and that it was all the crack. “Only fancy that old rascal’s wanting to bleed me!” he said. “Why, I must have lost pints already, for I’m as weak as a cat!”
“Of course you are, and you should be in bed!” she said. “You must lie on the sofa in the bookroom, and, mind! If you do not stay there quietly to bed you must and shall go!”
He made a face at her but he was glad enough to stretch himself out on the sofa and to allow her to rearrange his sling more comfortably. But he became; very recalcitrant when Barrow brought in a bowl of gruel, and said that if there was any ale in the house he would like a tankard of it, with a sandwich to eat with it. These being firmly denied him, he agreed to compromise with a bowl of chicken broth and a glass of white wine whey. Having disposed of this light repast, he then settled down to discuss exhaustively with Elinor what ought next to be done to entrap the foe. He had not pursued the subject very far however, when the front doorbell clanged in the distance, and Bouncer rose, growling.
Such was the irritation of nerves which Elinor labored under that she could not repress a start or banish from her mind the fear that whoever stood at the front door had come to the house with a fell purpose in view. Something of the same nature seemed to be in Nicky’s brain too, for he sat with his head a little tilted, listening intently. Bouncer padded over to the door and set his nose to the crack under it, tail and hackles well up. Barrow crossed the hall in his usual leisurely fashion, and a murmur of voices sounded. Bouncer’s bristles sank and he began to wag his tail and to snuff loudly .. “It’s Ned!” exclaimed Nicky, his face lightening.
“Oh, I do hope it is indeed!” cried Elinor, and ran to the door, and opened it.
She would not have believed, twenty-four hours earlier, that the sig
ht of that tall figure in the long, many-caped driving coat could be so welcome to her. “Thank God you are come, my lord!” she uttered in accents of heartfelt relief. Then her eyes alighted on a little old lady standing beside Carlyon, in an old-fashioned bonnet and a drab pelisse over a plain, round gown and a spencer, and she cried out, “Becky!” and started forward to clasp the little lady in a warm embrace.
“My love!” said Miss Beccles. “My dear Mrs. Cheviot!”
“Oh, Becky, pray do not call me so!” Elinor begged. She turned to Carlyon, her cheeks in a glow. “I had no notion you meant to bring her to me so speedily, sir! I am so very much obliged to you! Oh, dear, it makes me wish more than ever that I had not served you such a trick—! I do not know what you will say when you hear of it, but indeed I never dreamed when I let him stay—But do pray come into the bookroom!”
He had been allowing Bouncer to tug at his gloves, but he looked up at that, his brows lifting. “My dear Mrs. Cheviot, how can you possibly have served me a trick? Is anything amiss?”
“Everything!” she declared.
He maintained his usual calm, merely looking a little surprised, and saying, “That is certainly comprehensive. I see you have Nicky here. Yes, that will do, Bouncer! Be quiet!”
Nicky at this moment appeared in the doorway of the bookroom, his left arm reposing interestingly in its sling. “I say, Ned, I’m devilish glad to see you!” he remarked. “We have had such a lark here!”
Carlyon regarded him without betraying either dismay or astonishment. “Now what have you been about?” he asked in a resigned tone.
“Well, I’ll tell you, but take off your coat and come in!”
“Very well, but make your bow to Miss Beccles. My youngest brother, ma’am.”
Miss Beccles dropped a curtsy, saying in her soft voice, “I am very happy to make your acquaintance, sir, but should you be standing there in the draft, do you think? Forgive me, but you do not look to me to be quite well!”
“No, of course he should not be standing there!” said Elinor, recalled to a sense of her responsibilities. “He should be in bed! I wish you will go back to the sofa, Nicky! What a tiresome boy you are!”
Carlyon looked a little amused. “Do as you are bid, Nicky! I think Miss Beccles would be glad of a bowl of soup, Mrs. Cheviot. It was cold during the drive.”
“Oh, no!” murmured the little lady, looking up at him gratefully. “I was so well wrapped up! Such a luxurious chaise, and every kind attention to my comfort!”
“Indeed you must have some soup and a glass of wine as well!” Elinor said, drawing her toward the bookroom. “Barrow, pray tell Mrs. Barrow! There is the chicken broth that was made for Mr. Nick. Come in, Becky dear!”
“By Jove, yes, she may have all my chicken broth and that white wine whey too!” said Nicky generously.
Miss Beccles walked over to the sofa and plumped up the cushions, smiling invitingly at him. He thanked her and lay down again on it. “I will make you a panada presently,” she said. “You will like that, sir.”
“Shall I?” he asked doubtfully.
“Yes,” she said with gentle certainty. She looked at Elinor and said, “My love, if you should desire to be private with his lordship I will go upstairs and set about unpacking my trunks.”
“No, no, Becky, do not go! I do not mean to remain another night in this dreadful house, but since you are come to it, it is only right that you should know what manner of things happen to one here!”
“You alarm me, Mrs. Cheviot,” interposed Carlyon. “Are you going to tell me that you have indeed encountered a headless specter?”
“Yes,” she said bitterly. “I might have known you would make light of it, sir!”
“I may do so, perhaps, but I will engage not to until I know what it is that has so much distressed you. How are you hurt, Nicky?”
“I was shot at!” replied Nicky impressively.
“You were shot at!”
“Yes, but the ball only lodged in my shoulder and Greenlaw soon dug it out.”
“But who shot at you, and why?”
“That’s just it, Ned! We haven’t a notion who it was! It is the most famous affair, and only think! If I had not been sent down it would not have happened and we might never have known anything about it!”
“I think,” said Carlyon, “that you had better tell me this story from the start if I am to understand it.”
“Well, the start of it was Cousin Elinor’s part of the adventure. I was not here. Tell him how it all began, Cousin!”
“Yes, pray do!” said Carlyon, walking over to the fire and standing with his back to it. “I am happy, at all events, to discover that you are so far reconciled to your lot, ma’am, as to accept the—er—relationship that exists between us.”
She was obliged to smile. “Well, I had rather be called by almost any other name than Cheviot!” she said.
“I will bear it in mind. Now, what has been the matter here?”
Beginning to feel, quite irrationally, that she had been making a mountain out of a molehill, she described as briefly as she could her encounter with the young Frenchman. He heard her in attentive silence. Miss Beccles quietly removed her bonnet and pelisse and sat down in a chair with her hands placidly folded in her lap.
“You say he was young and dark and spoke with only a slight accent, ma’am?”
She agreed to it, adding that the Frenchman was of medium height and slim build and wore neat side whiskers.
Carlyon opened his snuffbox and took a meditative pinch. “Then I fancy he must have been young De Castres,” he said.
Nicky sat up. “What, Louis de Castres?” he exclaimed. “But, Ned, he is quite the thing! Why, you may meet him everywhere!”
“Very true. Mrs. Cheviot seems even to have met him here.”
“No, dash it, Ned, he is not the kind of loose screw to be breaking into houses at dead of night! Because the story he told Cousin Elinor was a pack of lies! You do not know the whole yet!”
“Well, I may be mistaken,” Carlyon said. “I merely suppose it may have been he from the fact of my having once or twice seen him in Cheviot’s company.”
“Good God, I should not have thought he would have made a friend of a fellow like Eustace!” said Nicky, quite shocked. “I believe him to be tolerably well acquainted with Francis Cheviot, but there’s nothing in that, after all! I don’t care for Francis myself, but he is very good ton—all the crack, in fact!”
The door opened to admit Barrow who came in with a tray which he set down on the table at Miss Beccles’ elbow.
“Barrow,” said Carlyon, “do you know the name of any Frenchman whom Mr. Cheviot may have been acquainted with?”
“I did hear what his name was, my lord,” admitted Barrow. “But I didn’t take no account of it, not holding with Frenchies.”
“Was it De Castres?”
“Ay, that’ll be it,” nodded the henchman. “I knew it was something outlandish, my lord.”
“Well, by Jupiter!” ejaculated Nicky. “But—oh, wait till you hear the rest, Ned!”
Carlyon nodded dismissal to Barrow who went away again. Miss Beccles, drawing up her chair to the table, said, “Dear me, how commonplace it seems, to be sure, to be eating and drinking—such an excellent broth, too!—with so much excitement on hand!”
The placidity in her voice caused her late pupil to look at her reproachfully. “I do not desire any more such excitement, Becky!”
“No, my love, but I expect his lordship will know what is to be done. I am sure you may be quite easy in your mind.”
Elinor perceived that her old governess had fallen all too easily under the calming spell his lordship seemed to hold over his admirers, and gave a defiant sniff.
“But, Ned, listen to what followed!” interrupted Nicky. “When I rode over yesterday, as you bade me, Cousin Elinor told me the whole, and of course I remembered at once how it is said that Charles II hid in this house, and I thought very likely th
ere might be a secret way into it—”
“Did you find it?”
The widow’s color rose. She fixed a pair of accusing eyes on Carlyon’s face and demanded, “My lord, answer me this, if you please! Did you know of that secret stair when you brought me here?”
“Yes, certainly I knew of it, but I thought it had been closed these many years,” he replied.
“Oh, this is too much!” Elinor cried. “And pray why did you not tell me of it?”
“I was afraid it might add to your distaste of the house,” he explained.
She struggled to maintain her composure. “Oh, no, how came you to think such a tiling?” she said sarcastically. “I am sure it was the only thing needed to make me quite comfortable!”
He smiled. “Indeed, you have cause to be vexed with me,”“ he acknowledged. “I beg your pardon! I collect that the stair is not, as I had supposed, closed?”
“Closed! Nothing of the sort! All kinds of desperate persons are at liberty to come up it any time they choose!”
“That is certainly quite undesirable,” he said imperturbably. “If you have not already attended to the matter, I think steps should be taken to secure that entrance.”
“You amaze me, my lord! I had not looked for so much consideration! Let me tell you that had I not allowed my judgment to be overborne by your brother’s pleading that door would have been sealed yesterday and he would not now be lying there with his arm in a sling! Nicky, do, pray, put it back! Dr. Greenlaw said you should keep it still, remember!”
“Oh, it’s no matter, Cousin! Ned, I am persuaded you would not have had me shut up that stair! The more I thought about the occurrence the more I became convinced that fellow—De Castres, I mean, if it really can have been he—had come for some secret purpose. I told Cousin Elinor we should seek to discover what that might be and I said I would spend the night in that little spare bedchamber where the trap door is, just on the chance of the fellow’s coming back to have another touch at it.” Carlyon nodded. “To own the truth,” Nicky confessed, “I did not above half expect that he would.”
“And I did not expect it at all!” interpolated Elinor. “I do beg of you to believe, sir, that nothing would have induced me to have allowed Nicky to prevail upon me to let him stay in that room had I had the least notion of what was to happen! I am so distressed! If you are angry with me I cannot blame you!”
The Reluctant Widow Page 13