The Quiet Gentleman

by Georgette Heyer

  Thus it was that Mr and Mrs Morville, arriving in the middle of the following week at Gilbourne House, found that although their daughter was certainly there to welcome them she had no immediate intention of rejoining the family circle. Mr Morville, much astonished, was at once shocked and grieved. He feared that Drusilla had been led away by grandeur; and, had he received the least encouragement from his helpmate, he would have felt strongly inclined to have exerted his parental authority to compel his daughter to return to her own home. So far from receiving such encouragement, he was dissuaded, in unmistakable terms, from expressing even the mildest desire for Drusilla’s return.

  ‘It appears,’ said Mrs Morville fluently, ‘that they are in trouble at Stanyon. If Lady St Erth wishes Drusilla to remain with her for the present, I should not like to be disobliging, you know.’

  Mr Morville conceded this point, but observed that he knew not why his daughter should be required to act as a sick-bed attendant in a household where as many as twenty – or, for anything he knew, thirty – servants were employed.

  ‘As to that,’ said Mrs Morville, ‘it is Lady St Erth rather than her son-in-law who depends just now upon Drusilla. These very shocking rumours have distressed her excessively. I am sure it is no wonder! And Drusilla, you know, feels that it would be a shabby thing to desert her, after her kindness. I own, I cannot but agree that we are very much obliged to her ladyship for entertaining our daughter during these weeks of our absence; and I should not, for my part, wish Drusilla to be backward in any attention.’

  Mr Morville, while he assimilated these words, removed his spectacles, and thoroughly polished them with his handkerchief. He then replaced them, and through them regarded the wife of his bosom with some severity. ‘When we set forth upon our travels, my love,’ he said, ‘it was only at Lady St Erth’s earnest entreaty that we left our daughter in her charge. The obligation was upon her side; and had it been otherwise I should never have consented to the arrangement. I had thought that we were at one on this!’

  ‘Certainly! There can be no question!’ Mrs Morville said, showing a heightened colour. ‘The thing is – Mr Morville, I have been closeted with Drusilla this past hour! I will not conceal from you that what she said to me – and, even more, what she did not say to me! – has given me food for serious reflection!’

  ‘Indeed!’

  ‘Reserve,’ announced Mrs Morville nobly, ‘is at all times repugnant to me! My dear sir, I beg you will tell me anything you may know of this young man!’

  ‘What young man?’ asked her lord, in bewildered accents.

  Mrs Morville had the greatest respect for her husband’s scholarly attainments, and for his grasp on imponderable subjects, but she had frequently been obliged to own that on more practical matters he was exasperatingly obtuse. She clicked her tongue impatiently, and responded: ‘Why, the new Earl, to be sure!’

  ‘St Erth?’ he said. ‘I have never met him. I believe my brother is acquainted with him, but I do not immediately perceive in what way this can be germane to the present issue.’

  ‘I daresay you might not,’ said Mrs Morville tolerantly, ‘for you never perceive what is under your nose, my love! What would you say to it if our daughter were to become the Countess of St Erth?’

  ‘What?’ exclaimed the gentleman, in anything but a gratified tone. ‘You cannot be in earnest!’

  She nodded. ‘I assure you, I was never more so! I saw at a glance, of course, that Drusilla was changed, but until I had enjoyed an hour alone with her I had no more idea of the cause than you. Though, to be sure, I might have guessed, from the scant references in her letters to his lordship, how the wind blew! He seems to be a most amiable young man, my dear sir! And this accident, shocking though it may be, throwing them together in such a way – !’

  ‘Have I heard aright?’ interrupted Mr Morville. ‘Do I understand that you – you, Mrs Morville! – would welcome such an alliance?’

  ‘Pray, have you heard anything about the young man which would preclude my welcoming it?’ she demanded.

  ‘I know nothing of him. I daresay he is as idle and as expensive as any other of his order.’

  ‘I am astonished that a man of your mental attainment, my dear Mr Morville, should speak with such prejudice!’ said his wife. ‘From all I have heard from Drusilla, he is quite unexceptionable, and blessed with so sweet a temper that I am sure he must make any female a most delightful husband!’

  ‘He may be possessed of all the virtues!’ retorted Mr Morville, ‘but he must be held to stand for everything which you and I, ma’am, have dedicated our lives to combating! His very rank, I should have supposed, would have rendered him odious to you! Is it possible that I have been deceived? Were we not at one in cherishing the hope that our daughter and Henry Poundsbridge would make a match of it?’

  ‘Well,’ said Mrs Morville reasonably, ‘I have a great regard for Henry Poundsbridge, and I own I should not have opposed the connection; for Drusilla, you know, is not a Beauty, and when a girl has been out for three seasons it is not the time to be picking and choosing amongst her suitors. An excellent young man, but not, you will admit, to be compared with Lord St Erth!’

  ‘I cannot credit the evidence of my own ears!’ said Mr Morville. ‘How is it possible that you should talk in such a strain as this, Mrs Morville? Is this, I ask myself, the woman who wrote The Distaff? Is this the authoress of Reflections on the Republican State? Is this the companion with whom I have shared my every philosophic thought? I am appalled!’

  ‘So you might well be, my dear sir, if I were such a zany as to prefer Henry Poundsbridge to the Earl of St Erth for my daughter!’ responded the lady with some asperity. ‘It is an alliance it would not have entered my head to seek, but if the Earl – I say, if ! – were to offer for dear Drusilla, and you were to refuse your permission, I should be strongly inclined to clap you into Bedlam! I marvel, my love, that a man of your intellect should so foolishly confuse theory with practice! I shall continue to hold by those opinions which I share with you, but when it comes to my only daughter’s creditable establishment in the world it is time to set aside Utopian dreams!’ She perceived that her husband was looking slightly stunned by this burst of eloquence, and at once drove him against the ropes by adding in quelling accents: ‘As Cordelia Consett, I must deplore the present state of society; but as a Mother I must deem myself unworthy of that title were I to spurn a connection so flattering to my Child!’

  ‘Am I to understand,’ asked Mr Morville, ‘that the Earl is about to make an offer for Drusilla?’

  ‘Good gracious, my dear, how you do run on!’ exclaimed his wife. ‘For anything I know, St Erth has no such notion in his head! You may be sure that I was careful not to seem to be in the least conscious when I was talking to Drusilla. That would never do! Merely, I suspect that her heart may not be untouched.’

  ‘If,’ said Mr Morville, asserting himself, ‘you have reason to suppose that St Erth has been trifling with Drusilla –’

  ‘Nothing of the sort! From what I have learnt today, I am persuaded that he is by far too great a gentleman to raise expectations he has no intention of fulfilling. Besides, men never do trifle with Drusilla,’ added Mrs Morville, in a voice not wholly free from regret.

  ‘It appears to me,’ said her spouse, pointedly opening his book, ‘that you are making a piece of work about nothing, my dear!’

  ‘We shall see! Only, if I am right, I do beg of you, my dear sir, that you will not allow a foolish scruple to stand in the way of your daughter’s happiness!’

  ‘It would be quite against my principles to coerce Drusilla in any way. Or, indeed, any of my children!’

  ‘Very true, and it exactly illustrates what I said to you about theory and practice! For when poor Jack fell into the clutches of that Female, and would have married her had it not been for –’

  ‘That,’ interrupted M
r Morville, ‘was a different matter!’

  ‘Of course it was, my love, and very properly you behaved, as Jack himself would now be the first to acknowledge!’

  She waited for a moment, in case he should venture on a retort, but when he became to all appearances immersed in his book she withdrew, to indulge in several delightful day-dreams, not one of which could have been said to have been worthy of a lady of her intellectual distinction. She knew it, laughed at herself, and had even the grace to be ashamed of the most attractive of these dreams, in which she had the felicity of breaking the news of Drusilla’s triumph to her sister-in-law, not one of whose three pretty daughters was as yet engaged to be married.

  Her flights into this realm of fancy would have surprised, and indeed horrified, her daughter, whose own view of her circumstances was decidedly unhopeful. Mrs Morville had not been deceived: Drusilla’s heart was not untouched. Impregnable to the advances of that promising young politician, Mr Henry Poundsbridge, it had crumbled under the assault of the Earl’s first smile. ‘In fact,’ Drusilla told her mirrored image severely, ‘you have fallen in love with a beautiful face, and you should be ashamed of yourself!’ She then reflected that she had several times been in company with Lord Byron without succumbing to the charms of a face generally held to be the most beautiful in England, and became more cheerful. However, a candid scrutiny of her own face in the mirror soon lowered her spirits again. She could perceive no merit either in the freshness of her complexion, or in her dark, well-opened eyes, and would willingly have sacrificed the natural curl in her brown hair for tresses of gold, or even of raven-black. As for her figure, though some men might admire little plump women, she could not bring herself to suppose that St Erth, himself so slim and graceful, could think her anything but a poor little dab of a girl.

  ‘It is a great piece of folly to suppose that because his manners are so very engaging he regards you with anything but tolerance!’ she told her image. She then blew her nose, sniffed, and added, with a glance of contempt at her rather flushed countenance: ‘Depend upon it, you are just the sort of girl a man would be glad to have for his sister! You don’t even know how to swoon, and I daresay if you tried you would make wretched work of it, for all you have is common-sense, and of what use is that, pray?’

  This embittered thought brought to her mind the several occasions upon which she might, had she been the kind of female his lordship no doubt admired, have kindled his ardour by a display of sensibility, or even of heroism. This excursion into romance was not entirely successful, for while she did her best to conjure up an agreeable vision of a heroic Miss Morville, the Miss Morville who was the possessor not only of a practical mind but also of two outspoken brothers could not but interpose objections to the heroine’s actions. To have thrown herself between the foils, when she had surprised the Earl fencing with Martin, would certainly have been spectacular, but that it would have evoked anything but exasperation in the male breast she was quite unable to believe. She thought she need not blame herself for having refrained upon this occasion; but when she recalled her behaviour in the avenue, when the Earl had been thrown from his horse, she knew that nothing could excuse her. Here had been an opportunity for spasms, swoonings, and a display of sensibility, utterly neglected! How could his lordship have been expected to guess that her heart had been beating so hard and so fast that she had felt quite sick, when all she had done was to talk to him in a voice drained of all expression? Not even when his lifeless body had been carried into the Castle had she conducted herself like a heroine of romance! Had she fainted at the sight of his blood-soaked raiment? Had she screamed? No! All she had done had been to direct Ulverston to do one thing, Turvey another, Chard to ride for the doctor, while she herself had done what lay within her power to staunch the bleeding.

  At this point, the prosaic Miss Morville intervened. ‘Just as well!’ she said.

  ‘He would have liked me better had I fallen into a swoon!’ argued Drusilla.

  ‘Nonsense! He would have been dead, for well you know that no one else had the least notion what to do!’ said Miss Morville.

  ‘At least I might have screamed when Martin came through the panel!’

  ‘He was very much obliged to you for not screaming. He said you were a remarkable woman,’ Miss Morville reminded her.

  ‘I heard him say the same of his Aunt Cinderford!’ said Drusilla, refusing to be comforted.

  Miss Morville could think of no reply to this, but issued instead depressing counsel. ‘You would do better to put him out of your mind, and return to your parents,’ she said. ‘No doubt he will presently become betrothed to a tall and beautiful woman, and forget your very existence. However, a useful life lies before you, for your brothers will certainly marry, and although you yourself will remain single, you will be an excellent aunt to all your nephews and nieces.’

  It was perhaps not surprising that it was Miss Morville, rather than Drusilla, who presently carried his medicine to the Earl.

  He had promoted himself that day to a chair beside the fire, and was seated in it, clad in the brocade dressing-gown which had excited his cousin’s mockery, and leaning his head back against the cushions to look up at Lord Ulverston, who stood warming his coat-tails in front of the hearth. He was certainly pale, and Miss Morville thought that he looked tired, but he greeted her with a warm smile, and spoke with a gaiety at variance with his rather careworn appearance. ‘I wish you will tell me why it is, Miss Morville, that you never visit me unless you wish to force an evil draught down my unwilling throat!’ he said. ‘And this afternoon you did not even visit me for that purpose, but left Turvey to be your deputy! I promise you, I think myself very hardly used!’

  ‘What an exacting fellow you are!’ exclaimed the Viscount, in a rallying tone. ‘Miss Morville went to meet her parents, and you may think yourself lucky she has returned to you at all!’

  ‘Ah, yes, I had forgotten!’ Gervase said, taking the glass, and draining it. He gave it back to Miss Morville, saying: ‘Does this mean that we must lose you, ma’am?’

  ‘Not immediately. I have promised Lady St Erth that I will remain with her another week,’ she replied.

  ‘You are very good,’ he said, smiling at her. ‘I wish her ladyship and I may not, between us, have given your parents a great dislike of us!’ He added, as she laughed, and moved towards the door: ‘Oh, no, don’t run away so soon! How can you neglect me so? Tell me about Martin’s new man!’

  She was surprised, and repeated: ‘Martin’s new man?’

  ‘Miss Morville, have you not seen him?’ demanded the Viscount. ‘I’ve been telling Ger it’s a trifle too smoky for my taste! Never saw such a fellow in my life!’

  ‘I didn’t know that he had engaged a new man,’ she said. ‘Has he turned off Studley, then?’

  ‘That’s what I’d like to know. All I can tell you is that my fellow says Studley went off with some tale of being obliged to visit his old father, and this new man walked in. Told me he was a valet, but what I thought was that he must have broken out of Newgate! What’s more, I caught him hobnobbing with that groom of Martin’s this afternoon, and if you can tell me, Ger, what Martin’s valet was doing in the stables I’ll thank you!’

  ‘Most mysterious,’ agreed Gervase, rather amused.

  ‘Ay, you may laugh!’ the Viscount said. ‘You haven’t seen the fellow! Valet! Good God, one would as lief employ a coal-heaver! No, really, Ger! Give you my word!’

  ‘Martin does not care very much for his appearance,’ Miss Morville ventured to suggest.

  Gervase cast her a mischievous look, murmuring demurely: ‘Not one of these dandified jackanapes! Very true, Miss Morville!’

  ‘I am sure,’ she retorted, with spirit, ‘he would never be so foolish as to demand to be shaved when he should rather have been measured for a cerecloth!’

  The Viscount would have none of this trifling.
He said: ‘A man don’t need to be a dandy to hire a respectable valet! Point is, either he don’t hire one at all, or he hires one who knows his work! What I want to know is, why was this Newgate fellow brought in?’

  ‘My dear Lucy, my very dear Lucy!’ said Gervase, at his most dulcet. ‘What dreadful apprehensions are you trying to instil into my head? Miss Morville, my pulse is tumultuous! I think you should feel it!’

  She was, however, intently regarding the Viscount. ‘What is it that you fear, my lord?’

  ‘I don’t say I fear anything,’ replied the Viscount unconvincingly. ‘All I say is that there’s something devilish queer afoot! First we have Martin coming back to Stanyon with just the sort of bamming story I warned you he would tell! Now, didn’t I, Ger? You can’t deny it, and you need not try to fob me off with your story about a man in homespuns! Lord, what a hum! I don’t say I blame you: no one wants a scandal in his family! but don’t try to bamboozle me, dear old boy! Then you don’t die after all, and the next thing we know is that there’s a villainous-looking fellow prowling about your damned draughty ancestral halls, saying he’s your brother’s new valet! I tell you to your face, Ger, it won’t fadge!’