Reluctant Widow

by Georgette Heyer

  Elinor was in an agony of apprehension, but no sound of stirring came from the guest’s chamber.

  ‘Well, it queers me why anyone should take and do such a tedious silly thing!’ said Barrow, staring in surprise at the clothes-line. ‘A hem set-out it’ll be if Mr Francis comes to hear tell of it!’

  Barrow looked from one to the other with such an expression of astonishment on his face that Nicky marched him back to his own wing, favouring him on the way with an explanation which caused him to say with withering scorn: ‘Mistress hasn’t got no call to suspicion the likes of Mr Francis! As like as ninepence to nothing, he is!’

  ‘What did you say to Barrow?’ demanded Elinor, upon Nicky’s return.

  He grinned at her. ‘I’ll not tell you. You would be ready to eat me!’

  ‘Hateful boy! What was it?’

  ‘No, it would make you blush.’

  ‘Oh!’ she gasped indignantly. ‘Odious!’

  ‘Well, I don’t know what else I could have told him!’

  ‘Well, never mind!’ She sank her voice to an even lower note, and pointed towards Francis Cheviot’s door. ‘He cannot have slept through such a noise! Why has he not come out, or called to us to know what is the matter?’

  ‘Hiding under his bed be like,’ responded Nicky caustically.

  ‘He is bound to remark upon it!’

  ‘I’ll fob him off,’ Nicky promised.

  In spite of this assurance, it was in the expectation of suffering a considerable degree of embarrassment that the widow descended presently to the breakfast-parlour. But her uninvited guest put in no appearance, and Barrow explained, with a sniff of disapproval, that Crawley had carried up a tray to his bedchamber. Mr Cheviot, had said Crawley loftily, never left his room until noon.

  ‘Oh, doesn’t he, by Jove?’ exclaimed Nicky. ‘Well, he will, then, for the funeral is at noon!’

  He lost no time, after he had consumed his usual hearty breakfast, in going upstairs to break these tidings to Francis. But Francis, who was seated before the dressing-table, wrapped in an exotic robe, and having his nails carefully pared by his valet, remained annoyingly unruffled.

  ‘Yes, dear boy, so I was informed, and you see how early I am up! I grudge no exertion, but how I shall contrive to be dressed in time I know not. After ten already, and I dare say we must set out quite by eleven! Crawley, we must bear in mind that should the Fates be against me, which I do trust, however, will not be found to be the case. I might be obliged to spend an hour over the arrangement of my neckcloth, and that would make me late, you know. Perhaps I should make the first attempts at once.’

  Nicky stared at the pile of black cravats, each at least a foot wide, which lay on the table. ‘Good God, you cannot need the half of such a stock!’ he exclaimed. ‘Do you mean to stay here a month?’

  Francis eyed the pile anxiously. ‘Do you think I shall not?’ he said. ‘I do hope you may be right, dear Nicholas, but it is by no means unknown for me to ruin a score before I have achieved just the correct folds. It would be so disrespectful to poor Eustace if I were to attend his obsequies in a clumsily tied cravat! You will have to leave me, dear boy; I find it so agitating to be watched while I am engaged on the most crucial part of my toilet. But do tell me, before you go, why was I so rudely awakened this morning?’

  ‘Oh, so you did not sleep through the commotion?’ said Nicky.

  ‘My dear Nicholas, I am neither deaf nor a heavy sleeper. One would have supposed a regiment of solders to have stormed the house!’

  ‘I wonder you should not have come out of your room to discover the cause!’

  Francis turned a shocked gaze upon him. ‘Come out of my room before I had been shaved?’ he said. ‘Dear boy, are you mad?’

  ‘Oh, well!’ Nicky said impatiently. ‘It was nothing, after all! I could not open my door: it was stuck, you know: all the doors in this house are so warped there was never anything like it! Barrow was obliged to thrust his shoulder against it, for I thought if I tugged at it the handle would very likely come off.’

  ‘Dear me!’ said Francis mildly. ‘What a very violent young man you are, dear Nicholas!’

  Nicky went off to find Elinor, and to tell her that there was no making anything of Francis.

  ‘Do you think he can have tried to open his own door?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘Lord, I don’t know, but I should not be surprised! He is the smokiest fellow, and lies as fast as a dog would trot, I dare say! But only wait till I tell John of the cravats he has brought with him! John cannot bear a dandy!’

  Apparently the cravats were not that day recalcitrant, for punctually at eleven o’clock Francis descended the stairs, dressed, with the exception of a gray waistcoat, in funeral black, and followed by Crawley, carrying his fur-lined cloak, gloves, hat, and ebony cane. His chaise stood at the door, and it had been arranged that he should take Nicky up with him as far as Wisborough Green, where funeral carriages were to await them.

  Francis greeted his hostess with all his usual urbanity, assuring her that but for such trifling disagreeables as a mouse gnawing in the wainscoting, Bouncer’s predilection for scratching himself on the landing just outside his door, the matutinal habits of apparently a hundred cockerels, and Nicky’s unfortunate contretemps with his bedroom door, he had passed an excellent night. The only thing that threatened, in fact, to ruffle his placidity was an ineradicable fear that the wind was backing round to the north-east, in which case, he apologetically warned Elinor, it would be impossible for him to leave Highnoons that day, starting his journey, as he must, at an advanced hour of the afternoon and without the hope of reaching London before night. Her civility obliged her to say what was proper, but her heart sank, and when Francis had been tenderly packed into the chaise, and the door shut upon him and his impatient companion, she went off to ask the gardener what he thought of the weather. He said there was a nasty cold wind a-blowing up. She went dejectedly back to the house, to give Mrs Barrow due warning, but that competent woman was so delighted to have two girls from the village at her beck and call, not to mention the gardener’s wife, whom she had been briskly bullying all the morning, that she merely asked whether her mistress preferred her to make a pheasant-pie, or to serve up a couple of broiled fowls and mushrooms for dinner.

  The funeral, meanwhile, passed off as smoothly as could be desired, Francis occupying the first carriage in solitary state, the three Carlyon brothers following in the second; while a scattering of persons of consequence who lived in the neighbourhood, and who had put in an appearance more from a desire to gratify Carlyon than from any regard for the deceased, made the cortège respectable. The tail was brought up by a few humbler personages, chief amongst whom was the doctor.

  A cold collation having been prepared at the Hall for the chief mourners, all the more genteel personages repaired there after the interment, when Carlyon had the opportunity to observe that although Louis De Castres was absent, there were present two gentlemen who had come down from London at Francis’s behest, and were almost as beautifully arrayed as he was himself. They excused themselves early, on the score of having the drive back to London to accomplish; and the local gentry, finding an awkwardness in the occasion, and perhaps oppressed by the demeanour of Mr Cheviot, who seemed crushed by woe, soon followed their example, the last to leave being Sir Matthew Kendal, who shook Carlyon by the hand, saying gruffly that all was well that had ended well. Feeling that the sentiments underlying this remark might have been more felicitously expressed, he coloured up to roots of his grizzled hair, and sought to cover his confusion by turning to issue a ferocious warning to Nicky to keep that damned dog of his off his preserves if he did not want to see him shot, and hung up as a warning to other such marauders. After this threat, which he palliated by a playful punch in his young friend’s ribs, he took himself off, and John was at last at liberty to give vent to the annoyance wh
ich had been consuming him ever since the return of the funeral party to the Hall. Speaking with a restraint which only served to emphasize the profound nature of his vexation, he looked Francis up and down, and said: ‘I was not aware that you cherished such peculiarly strong sentiments towards our cousin. Your grief, I dare say, does credit to your heart, but, for my part, I should be glad, now that only ourselves remain to be edified by it, if you would abate its violence!’

  Nicky, who had just raised a glass of Madeira to his lips, was taken with a fit of choking which, while it for once brought down upon his head no rebuke from his stern brother, earned him a pained glance from Francis. A heavy sigh was the only answer Francis vouchsafed to John. He raised his handkerchief to his eyes, and kept it there.

  John’s lips tightened for a moment before he said: ‘Come, Cheviot, this is the outside of enough!’

  Francis shook his head, saying into the folds of his handkerchief: ‘Alas, you are mistaken! I have received the most distressing tidings. These unmanly tears are not, I blush to confess, for our unfortunate young relative, but for one nearer to me by the ties of affection. Pardon me! It has cost me a severe effort to bear my part at this feast with any degree of fortitude. No, feast is not the right word: I should have said wake, but it is odd how often the funeral baked-meats are partaken of in a spirit almost of jollification. My dear John I have sustained a terrible shock, which has quite overborne me!’

  Both John and Nicky stood staring at him, the wildest improbabilities darting through their brains. ‘Why – what – ?’ stammered Nicky, setting down his wine-glass.

  Francis raised his face from his handkerchief to reply in broken accents: ‘You can scarcely fail to have remarked Louis’ absence to-day!’

  ‘Young De Castres?’ John said impatiently. ‘Well, and what of that?’

  Francis made a despairing gesture with one white hand. ‘Dead!’ he uttered, and sank into his handkerchief again.

  ‘What?’ Nicky gasped. ‘But –’

  John’s grip on his elbow silenced him. John said: ‘Indeed! I am sorry for it. I fancy I saw him only the other day in town. I conclude his taking-off was of a sudden nature?’

  Francis shuddered eloquently. ‘Stabbed to death!’ he moaned. ‘His body left under a bush in Lincoln’s Inn Fields! One of my oldest friends! I am wholly unmanned.’

  ‘Good God!’ John said blankly.

  Carlyon’s quiet voice spoke from the doorway. He had come back into the room from seeing Sir Matthew off just in time to hear this revelation, and paused on the threshold, intently watching Francis. ‘Where had you this news?’

  ‘It is in the Morning Post, which Godfrey Balcombe was so thoughtful as to bring down to me,’ said Francis. ‘Poor fellow, he meant it to be a kindness but he little knew what a blow he was handing me! He was not acquainted with Louis, you know – scarcely glanced at the fatal paragraph! You must forgive me: my poor Louis! So intimate a friend!’

  Carlyon shut the door, and advanced into the room. ‘You must feel it indeed,’ he said. ‘I am aware that you have for long been upon terms of the closest friendship with De Castres. There can be no doubt, I collect?’

  ‘Ah, you would seek to encourage me to hope! But it will not do: ‘M. L –. De C –.,’ you know – the scion of a distinguished family of French emigrants! Alas, I cannot doubt it is my poor Louis! That unfortunate turn he had for walking, instead of calling for a chair or a hackney! And never so much as a linkboy to go with him! How often have I warned him of the dangers of this practice, but he would never attend, and now we see the unhappy end of it. And I sending round a billet to his lodging the very day I left London, begging him to lend me his support at Eustace’s funeral! Poor fellow, I fear he was even then no more!’

  ‘It is very shocking, indeed. You said he was killed in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, I think? Pray, at what hour was he set upon?’

  Francis shook his head. ‘It is not stated in my newspaper. It was at night, of course, but I dare say it will never be discovered precisely when, or by whose hand. What could have taken poor dear Louis to such a locality at such a time? Stripped of his purse and all his jewellery! Left to welter in his blood! Horrible!’

  He shuddered again, and with so much revulsion that it was plain he was a good deal affected. Carlyon signed to Nicky to pour him a glass of brandy, and said: ‘Is it thought to have been the work of footpads?’

  Francis nodded, and took the brandy from Nicky, thanking him in a broken voice. ‘Such a sordid motive! Murdered for a few paltry trinkets, and, I dare swear, no more than five or ten guineas, for he was not a rich man, you know. It must be a warning to us all! And to reflect that – But I must try to compose myself, or I fear I shall be quite unwell! There is something so particularly disgusting to one of my delicate sensibilities in the very thought of bloodshed, and, indeed, all forms of violence! Even at school I could not bring myself to engage even in sparring exercise, for the sight of a bloody nose invariably made me swoon. Yes, I feel sure I must seem a poor creature to you, but so it is, and one cannot help one’s nature, after all! I will take a little more of your excellent brandy, Carlyon, and then, if you will pardon me, I think I should take my leave of you. Repose, and – yes, perhaps a glass of hartshorn and water: Crawley shall mix one for me. Mrs Cheviot, I am persuaded, will respect my desire for solitude until I have learnt to master my emotion. Dear Nicholas, if you mean to accompany me, I wonder if you will be so very obliging as not to talk to me?’

  ‘Thank you, I mean to ride over a little later.’

  ‘Your thoughtfulness does you credit, my dear boy. I am so grateful!’

  He drank off his second glass, and rose to his feet. He said earnestly: ‘Thank God I brought a black waistcoat with me! This gray one does very well for Eustace, but it is now quite out of tune with my mood. My poor Louis!’

  Neither John nor Nicky could find anything to say in answer to all this, but Carlyon replied with his usual calm good sense, and, as soon as word was brought that Mr Cheviot’s chaise was waiting at the door, conducted him out to it. When he returned it was to find that John had picked up from Francis’s chair his copy of the Morning Post, folded open at the requisite sheet, and was just starting to read aloud, in a slow, stupefied voice: ‘A melancholy event happened two evenings since in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where the body of a Young Man, done to death under circumstances of horrid Barbarity, was discovered yesterday morning by Mr B –, a Clerk employed in the Chambers of a certain well-known Attorney. We understand the unfortunate Young Man to have been M. L –. De C –., the Scion of one of the Distinguished families of French Emigrants with which the Metropolis still abounds. There would appear to be little room for doubt that the motive for this Brutal Murder was robbery, since we learn that M. L –. De C –.’s pockets had been ransacked, and watch, fobs, seals, pins, rings – in fact, every adjunct to a Gentleman’s apparel, stript from his person. We think it not ineligible to advert yet once again in these columns to the shocking prevalence of pickpockets in the Metropolis, and to demand for our fellow Citizens some better protection from the violence of these free-booters than the Vigilance of the Decrepid Dotards who at present patrol our streets, and – Oh, et cetera, et cetera!’ John concluded impatiently. ‘My God, Ned, what devilish stratagems have we stumbled on? Pickpockets! I wish it might be so indeed!’

  ‘Is that all it says in the Post?’ asked Carlyon.

  ‘That’s all, save for the usual plaint about the ineptitude of the Watch, and of the constables. It’s enough, my God!’

  ‘Nicky, go and enquire of Chorley whether the London papers are yet arrived, will you? There may be something more in the Times, or the Advertizer.’

  Nicky went out of the room at once. John flung down the Morning Post, and said gravely: ‘Ned, this is a shocking business! I do not wonder that Cheviot should be so overcome. There can be no question but that he is in this affair hand-
in-glove with De Castres, and those who must stand behind De Castres. If he fails to discover what is so desperately needed he must shake in his shoes to think what may be his own fate!’

  ‘You think De Castres was murdered by French agents?’

  ‘I do not know, but that presents itself to me as the likeliest answer to a riddle which I’ll take my oath will never be solved! If De Castres had promised his masters that memorandum, or his copy of it – ! He may even have received moneys already, or the suspicion may have entered their minds that he was fobbing them off with a plausible tale, and meant himself to reap all the advantage. I have never believed him to have been a principal in this business: I still do not. Something must have been known against him had that been so, and I cannot discover that he is any more suspect than any other young Frenchman at large in this country.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Nicky, who had come back into the room. ‘Or he might have been killed by one of our people, might he not? One of our spies, I mean?’

  ‘I suppose it is possible,’ John replied reluctantly. ‘It would be grossly improper, however, and I prefer to think – not but what the fellows one is forced to employ in that work have necessarily few scruples. Well, what has the Times to say, Ned?’

  ‘Nothing more than you have read in the Post,’ Carlyon answered, handing the paper over to him.

  ‘I can’t find any mention in the Advertizer,’ said Nicky, rapidly scanning the columns. ‘What stuff they do print, to be sure! Here’s something about Grafted Gooseberry Plants! I should like to know who cares a button for that! On Friday a butcher exposed his wife for sale in Smithfield Market . . . Lord! Curious Incident at Rotherhithe: A young whale came up the river . . . I wish I might live in Rotherhithe, by Jupiter I do! A very elegant dinner given by the Lord Mayor at the Mansion House...Oh, here we have it at last, but the meanest little snippet only! The body of the unfortunate young man which was discovered in Lincoln’s Inn Fields yesterday morning is now established to be that of a distinguished French Emigrant, well-known in Fashionable Circles. Well! The shabbiest thing! Oh, Ned, I would not have missed this for anything you could offer me! I shall go back to Highnoons at once, for depend upon it Cheviot will only be awaiting his chance to steal that document from us!’