Reluctant Widow

by Georgette Heyer

  ‘What should put such a notion as that into your head?’ marvelled the widow. ‘When I understand you have been in London since yesterday!’

  ‘Oho! That is it, is it? But it seemed to me expedient that I should go to London, and you will give me credit for having made the best possible speed back to you.’

  ‘I shall give you credit for nothing. I dare say you went to be measured for a pair of boots!’

  ‘No, but if I told you my object you would think it trifling, I dare say.’ He straightened himself, and said, smiling: ‘Are you very vexed with me for leaving you, ma’am?’

  Mrs Cheviot felt her colour rising, and made haste to reply: ‘Vexed! No, indeed! When you were so thoughtful as to inform Nicky that you believed Mr Francis Cheviot to be a dangerous man! I am sure I ought to be very much obliged to you for the warning, and it must be quite my own fault that I now have a bump as big as a hen’s egg on my head!’

  ‘It is a pity Nicky cannot learn to hold his tongue,’ he remarked. ‘I do not anticipate that Cheviot will be a danger to you, ma’am.’

  Mrs Cheviot recruited herself with another sip of her draught. ‘Of course I have dreamed the whole!’ she said. ‘I was not hit on the head at all!’

  He laughed. ‘You are refining too much upon the event, Mrs Cheviot. I am sure it gave you a fright, but there is not much harm done, and it is unlikely that you will suffer any further annoyance.’

  ‘Oh!’ she gasped. ‘Oh, how abominable you are! Not much harm done, indeed! Further annoyance! Pray, in what terms would you have described my murder?’

  He did not answer for a moment, and then he said curtly: ‘We are not discussing murder, ma’am.’

  ‘You will be, if you mean to keep me tied to this dreadful house!’

  ‘Nonsense! If it was Francis Cheviot who struck you, as I believe it was, I dare say it was the last thing he wished to be obliged to do.’

  ‘I may take what comfort I can from that! But why should he have been obliged to do anything of the sort?’

  He hesitated, and then said: ‘You were holding in your hand some folded papers that might have been the very papers he wishes to obtain.’

  She gazed up at him, one hand pressed to her temple. ‘What, must I now take care never to have a paper in my hand for fear I may be struck down from behind? My lord, it is monstrous! I dare say he must have seen me with papers in my hand half a dozen times already!’

  ‘Yes, possibly, but –’

  ‘But what?’ she demanded, as he broke off, and turned away from her to mend the fire.

  ‘Perhaps it startled him, ma’am, and he sprang to a false conclusion. Whatever be the answer, upon my honour I do not believe you to be in any danger!’ There was a pause, while she eyed him uncertainly. His countenance relaxed; he said: ‘Indeed, my poor child, you have had an uncomfortable time of it at Highnoons, and I am a villain to keep you here. Shall I take you and Miss Beccles up to the Hall?’

  The colour rushed into her cheeks at this; she had the oddest desire to burst into tears, and sought refuge in one of her rallying speeches. ‘What, and leave that creature to ransack the house at will? No, indeed! I hope I am a little better-spirited than that, sir! If I am to be martyred in this cause, no doubt it was so ordained, and I can depend on you for a handsome tombstone!’

  ‘Indeed, you can!’ he replied, smiling, and putting out his hand. ‘It is a bargain, then, and you will stay here.’

  She laid her hand in his. ‘It is a bargain. But for how long am I to endure that creature above-stairs?’

  ‘I should not wonder at it if you were to be rid of him sooner than you expect. I beg you will not tease yourself with thinking of him.’

  Her eyes searched his face. ‘But will he go without what he came for, sir?’

  ‘I hope he may be prevailed upon to do so.’

  ‘Shall you so prevail upon him?’ she asked.

  ‘Perhaps. I shall do my possible. You have been troubled with him for too long.’

  She agreed to it, but added, after a moment’s reflection: ‘And yet, if he does so, who can tell what horrors may next be in store for me?’

  ‘None, upon my honour.’

  ‘Very pretty, my lord, but I have frequently been forced to observe the remarkable disparity that exists between my notions of what is horrid, and yours. Are you ever put out of countenance?’

  ‘Very often.’

  She smiled a little archly. ‘Will you think me very saucy, my lord, if I say that that confession gives me an excessively odd idea of the life you must lead at the Hall? For you have treated as the merest commonplaces every shocking event that has occurred in the last week, from your cousin’s death at Nicky’s hands, to the discovery that you have stumbled upon a dangerous treason. These things appear not to have the power to disturb the tone of your mind! I envy you!’

  ‘Well,’ he said reflectively, ‘two of my sisters, and my brother Harry, were for ever doing such outrageous things that I think I must have grown out of the way of being very much surprised at anything.’

  She laughed, and rose rather shakily to her feet. He put his hand under her elbow to assist her, and escorted her to the door. She parted from him in the hall, declining his offer to take her upstairs. ‘Indeed, I am quite well now! You do not mean to go to London again, I hope?’

  ‘No, I am fixed in Sussex for some time, I believe. You have only to send a message over to the Hall if you should wish to speak with me. May I again impress upon you that you have no need to feel any further alarm?’

  She looked quizzical, but as the doctor just then appeared at the head of the stairs, returned no answer, but went up, leaning on the banister-rail, and saying: ‘You mean to scold me, Dr Greenlaw, but indeed I am going to my room, and I have drunk all that horrid mixture!’

  ‘I am glad of it, ma’am; I can assure you you will be the better for it. I shall call to-morrow, to see how you are going on, if you please.’

  She thanked him; he waited for her to pass him, and then went on down the stairs to where Carlyon stood in the hall. ‘If you will pardon an old man who has known you from your cradle, my lord,’ he said bluntly, ‘I do not understand how that lady came by that bruise on her head, but I will go bail there is some devilment afoot here!’

  ‘I will readily pardon you, but if this is intended as a reproach to me it falls wide of the mark. I assure you I did not give Mrs Cheviot her bruise.’

  The doctor smiled grimly. ‘Very well, my lord, I know how to hold my tongue, I hope.’

  ‘How do you find Mrs Cheviot?’

  ‘Oh, she will do well enough! Someone struck her a stunning blow, however – for all you may say she fell, and so hit her head, my lord.’

  ‘And your other patient?’

  The doctor grunted. ‘I can find nothing amiss with him, beyond a pronounced irritation of the nerves. I have prescribed a few drops of laudanum, but as for sore throats, I see no sign of such a thing!’ He looked up under his brows, and added: ‘Master Nick would have me scare him away with a tale of smallpox in the village, but you may tell him, my lord, that whatever it may be that has occurred at Highnoons, it has given him a pronounced dislike of the place, so that I fancy he will not be plaguing Mrs Cheviot for much longer. As for Master Nick himself, your lordship will like to know that I constrained him to let me take a look at his shoulder when he caught up with me to-day, and I find it healing just as it should.’

  ‘Why, thank you! He was always one to mend quickly.’

  ‘Fortunately for himself!’ Greenlaw said, in his sardonic way. ‘He tells me you had my Lord and Lady Flint with you for a night. I trust her ladyship enjoys her customary health?’

  He lingered for a few minutes, enquiring after the various members of Carlyon’s family, and then put on his coat, and departed. Carlyon went back into the book-room.

  Her
e Nicky found him, some fifteen minutes later. Nicky came in with a worried frown on his face, saying that he had been whistling and calling to Bouncer all through the home-wood, and feared he must have strayed on to Sir Matthew’s land.

  ‘Then you had best recover him without any loss of time,’ Carlyon said.

  ‘Yes, I know I had, and I have the greatest dread that he may be caught in a trap, or perhaps shot by one of those brutes of keepers. For Sir Matthew swore he would tell them to shoot him if he disturbed his birds, and –’

  ‘Well, I fancy Sir Matthew will not proceed to those lengths, but you should certainly go to look for him, or you will find yourself quite in Sir Matthew’s ill-graces.’

  ‘I don’t care for that if only poor old Bouncer is not in trouble. You know, he did once get stuck in a fox’s earth, Ned, and had to be dug out. I own, I would wish to set out to search for him at once, only do you think I ought?’

  ‘Most decidedly I do.’

  ‘Yes, but there is Francis Cheviot to be thought of, after all!’ Nicky reminded him.

  ‘I am sure Bouncer is more important than Francis Cheviot.’

  ‘I should just think he was! Why, he is worth a dozen of him! Only fancy, Ned, he barks at Francis whenever he sees him! And I did not teach him to do so! He is most intelligent! I have not let him bite Francis, though, because with such a mean fellow there’s no saying what might come of it. I do wish he would come in!’

  ‘From my knowledge of him, he is not at all likely to do so before nightfall.’

  ‘Ned, I cannot be dawdling here when he may be caught in some trap!’

  ‘My dear boy, there is no reason why you should.’

  ‘Very well, then, I shall go out after him. But I warn you, Ned, it may be hours before I find the old fellow, and while I am gone Francis may be up to some more of his tricks!’

  ‘Unlikely, I think.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Nicky huffily, ‘if you do not choose to tell me what you have in your head you need not, but I think it pretty shabby of you!’

  Not receiving any other answer to this than an amused look, he left the room with a dignified gait, and was soon striding off in the direction of Sir Matthew Kendal’s lands. Carlyon left the book-room, and desired Barrow to send for his chaise from the stables. Miss Beccles found him drawing on his gloves in the hall, and said diffidently, and a little anxiously: ‘You are leaving us, my lord?’

  He smiled, and nodded.

  ‘I dare say there is no need for you to remain, sir?’ she ventured.

  ‘None, I believe. I have already begged Mrs Cheviot to think no more of what has happened here to-day.’

  ‘I am sure if you feel it to be safe for her to remain here, my lord, it must be so indeed,’ she said simply.

  His eyes lit with amusement, but he let it pass, merely bowing, and saying in a perfectly grave tone: ‘You are very good, Miss Beccles.’

  ‘Oh, no! When it is you, my lord, who – Indeed, I am all obligation! Such distinguishing observance! Never backward in the least attention! I am sure we may place every dependence upon your lordship’s judgement. And as for – Well, I am sure! when dear Mrs Cheviot has been in a pucker, I have said to her a dozen times: “Depend upon it, my love, when his lordship comes, everything will be in a way to be settled!”’

  He looked a trifle rueful. ‘And what does Mrs Cheviot commonly reply, ma’am?’

  The poor lady coloured up, and became entangled in a riot of half-sentences, from which it emerged that although dear Mrs Cheviot had a mind capable of every exertion, indeed something more of quickness than most females, the awkwardness of her situation had inclined her to indulge lately in odd humours.

  ‘I fear Mrs Cheviot has no very high idea of my management,’ he remarked.

  ‘Oh, my lord, I am sure – ! She has a kind of sportive playfulness which – But your lordship has such a superior understanding! I need not make the least excuse for the occasional liveliness of Mrs Cheviot’s manners!’

  ‘Not the least,’ he agreed. ‘Does she abuse me soundly?’

  ‘You know it is her way to indulge in a good deal of raillery, my lord!’ Miss Beccles explained earnestly. ‘Then she has been so much on the fidgets, you know! I am sure it is no wonder! But with every disposition in the world to fancy herself able to contrive all without assistance, and perhaps with a little distaste of submitting to authority, it cannot be called into question that she can only be comfortable when your lordship is so obliging as to advise her how she should go on.’

  He held out his hand. ‘Thank you. I depend upon your good offices, Miss Beccles. Good-bye! I shall be at Highnoons again tomorrow.’

  He was gone, leaving her to blink after him in bewilderment.

  Less than an hour later, having assured herself that Elinor lay deeply and peacefully asleep, Miss Beccles, herself conscious of being very much exhausted by the events of the morning, went downstairs with the intention of desiring Mrs Barrow to send some tea and bread-and-butter to the parlour on a tray. She was brought up short by the sight of Francis Cheviot, standing in the hall, enveloped in his fur-lined cloak, a muffler swathed about his throat, and his hat already in his hand. He was giving Barrow some languid directions, but he turned when he heard the governess’s footsteps on the stairs, and said: ‘Ah, I am happy to have this opportunity of addressing you, ma’am! I would not have you sent for, in case you should be ministering to poor dear Mrs Cheviot, but I am glad you are come: very glad! And how does the sufferer find herself?’

  ‘Mrs Cheviot is asleep, sir, I thank you,’ she replied, dropping him a prim little curtsy.

  ‘One hoped she might be. “Great nature’s second course,” you know. Upon no account in the world will I have her disturbed!’

  ‘Oh, I should not think of doing such a thing, sir!’ she said naïvely.

  ‘Ah, I knew I should find you persuadable in this! And yet propriety of taste dictates that I should take my leave of her! How difficult it is to decide what one should do!’

  ‘Are you – are you leaving us, sir?’ she uttered, hardly able to believe her ears.

  ‘Alas! With every wish to show dear Mrs Cheviot attention, I find I cannot remain at Highnoons with any degree of comfort. My nerves are already sadly disordered, ma’am: it would not do for me to stay. I should not be the least use to my cousin.’ He raised one white hand. ‘Yes, yes, I know what you would say! Am I wise to run the risk of exposing myself to all the hazards of a journey undertaken in this inclement weather? It is very just, but I am persuaded I ought to make the attempt; and if Crawley wraps me up well, and I draw my muffler over my mouth, we must trust that no ill will result – no irremediable ill!’

  She was so thankful to learn that he was indeed leaving Highnoons that she agreed to this with so much eagerness that he frowned, and reminded her gently that the evil properties of the east wind could scarcely be over-estimated. She said hopefully that perhaps the wind would not be found to be so very much in the east as he feared. ‘But you will not go without a little nuncheon, sir! Oh, dear, if it is not one o’clock already! I am sure so much has happened to-day I have not noticed how the time has flown! I will send to the kitchen directly!’

  ‘You are most obliging, dear ma’am, but if I am to reach London by dinner-time I must remove at once. And I could not support the notion of dining at an inn in my present sad state of health. I could not answer for the consequences! My chaise is called for already; indeed, I cannot imagine why it is not at the door, but these fellows take a delight in dawdling, you know! I wonder if Crawley has procured a hot brick to put at my feet? Where is Barrow? Ah, he has gone to fetch the clock, as I desired him to do! Miss Beccles, I have been searching my mind to discover in what way I may serve my kind hostess, for one must wish to show every observance! That clock, which has vexed her so much by its lamentable trick of declaring the hour to want but
a quarter of an hour to five o’clock! A handsome timepiece, and so like my poor Cousin Eustace to let it remain out of order! But I will have it set to rights, ma’am, and it shall be attended to by my own clockmaker. I would not trust it to another, for some of those fellows, you know, meddle more than they mend. Pray inform Mrs Cheviot that her clock shall be returned to her in working order as soon as I can contrive it! Ah, here is Barrow! Place it carefully inside my chaise, Barrow, if you please! You will present my most respectful compliments to Mrs Cheviot, Miss Beccles, and of course my deep apologies for not making my adieux to her in person. She will, I trust, forgive me! That she will appreciate my anxiety to be safely in my own lodging before nightfall I cannot doubt. She has such exquisite sensibility! I am happy to think such an estimable female should have become one of my family. Ah, and dear Nicholas! Now, where is dear Nicholas? A charming boy, I am sure, if he would but outgrow his taste for savage mongrels. Barrow, you may send for Mr Nicholas: I know he will wish to say good-bye to me, and not for the world would I wound him by the smallest show of inattention!’

  ‘Mr Nick has gone off after the dog, and won’t be back till anywhen, sir,’ growled Barrow.

  ‘How very unfortunate! My kind compliments to him, Miss Beccles. Assure him of the happiness he will confer upon me if he chooses to honour my abode with his presence any time he should find himself in town! But not his dog! I have the greatest dislike of dogs. Is that you, Crawley? Is my chaise ready at last? One would have said it had to be fetched from the Antipodes! Miss Beccles, your very obedient servant! Do not forget to deliver my compliments and thanks to Mrs Cheviot! Pray do not dream of coming to the door with me! If you were to catch a cold through any fault of mine I could never forgive myself!’

  Quite dazed by this flow of gentle eloquence, she could only curtsy again, and assure him that his messages should not be forgotten. He bowed himself out, and was handed up into his chaise by Crawley, who then swathed several rugs round him, and placed a hot brick from the kitchen at his feet.

  ‘A hem good riddance!’ said Barrow, when the chaise had moved off down the drive. ‘Him and his quirks! What would he be wanting with that old clock, miss?’