Black Sheep Read online

  'No, dear, certainly not!' said Selina hurriedly.

  'But you said –'

  'My love, I said nothing of the sort! How you do pick one up! It is not at all becoming! And that puts me in mind of something! Abby, never did I think to be put to the blush by a want of conduct in you! I declare, I was so mortified – so petulant and uncivil of you! And then, after placing yourself on far too high a form, besides snubbing him in the rudest way, you laughed in his face! As if you had known him for years!'

  'Good God, why did no one ever tell me that I mustn't laugh at what a man says until I have known him for years?' countered Abby.

  Before Selina could assemble her inchoate thoughts, Fanny said suddenly: 'Yes, but one has! I mean, one feels as if one has! For my part, I don't care a straw for his being shabbily dressed, and not having formal manners: I like him! I should have thought you would too, Abby, because he is just such a jokesmith as you are yourself! Don't you?'

  'I must say,' interpolated Selina, 'that he was very diverting. And when he smiles –'

  'Mr Calverleigh's smile must be reckoned as his greatest – if not his only – asset!' said Abby tartly. 'As to whether I like him or not, how can I possibly say? I am barely acquainted with him, Fanny!'

  'That doesn't signify! He is barely acquainted with you, but anyone can see that he likes you very much!' retorted Fanny saucily. 'Do you think he will be at the concert this evening?'

  'I haven't the least notion,' replied Abby. 'Certainly not, if riding-dress is his only wear!'

  'Poor man!' said Selina, her compassion stirred. 'I daresay he may be sadly purse-pinched.'

  However this might have been, Mr Calverleigh had either the means, or the credit, to have provided himself with the long-tailedcoat, the knee-breeches, and the silk stockings which constituted the correct evening-wear for gentlemen, for he appeared in the New Assembly Rooms, thus arrayed, a few minutes before the concert began, escorting Mrs Grayshott. But as he wore it as casually as his riding-dress, and appeared to set more store by comfort than elegance, no aspirant to fashion would have felt the smallest inclination to discover the name of his tailor.

  Miss Abigail Wendover observed his arrival from under her lashes, and thereafter confined her attention to her own party. She was herself looking (as her niece very improperly told her) as fine as fivepence, in one of the new gowns made for her in London, of Imperial muslin, with short sleeves, worn low on her shoulders, a narrow skirt, and a bodice trimmed with a double pleating of ribbon. It became her slender figure to admiration, and it had not been her original intention to have wasted it on a mere out-of-season concert; but when she had looked more closely at her lilac crape she had realised that it was really too shabby to be worn again. This, at least, was the explanation that she offered to her surprised sister. As for her hair, which she had dressed in loose curls, with one shining ringlet disposed over her left shoulder, what did Selina think of it? It was all the kick in London, but perhaps it would not do in Bath?

  'Oh, my dearest, I never saw you look so becoming!' said Selina, in a gush of sentimental tears. 'In such high bloom! I know you will be ready to eat me, but I must and I will say that no one would take you for Fanny's aunt !'

  So far from showing a disposition to take umbrage, Abby laughed, cast an appraising look at her reflection in the mirror above the fireplace, and said candidly: 'Well, I never was a beauty, but I'm not a mean bit yet, am I?'

  Certainly no one who was present at the concert that evening thought so. In the octagon room, where they waited for the rest of the party to assemble, Abby received quite as many com pliments as Fanny; and on her way through the concert-room had the doubtful felicity of being ogled by a complete stranger.

  During the interval, she did not immediately follow Mrs Faversham into the adjoining room, where tea was being served, being waylaid by Mr Dunston, who came up with his mother on his arm. Civility obliged her to exchange commonplaces with Mrs Dunston, and when that amiable and platitudinous lady's attention was claimed by one of her acquaintances her son stepped instantly into the breach, saying simply: 'Fair as is the rose of May! Do you know, that line has been running through my head ever since I set eyes on you this evening? You shine everyone else down, Miss Abby!'

  'Flummery!' said an amused voice at Abby's elbow. 'You can't have seen her niece!'

  'Sir!' uttered Mr Dunston, outraged. 'I believe I have not the pleasure of your acquaintance?'

  'Let me make you known to one another!' said Abby hastily. 'Mr Dunston, Mr Calverleigh – Mr Miles Calverleigh!'

  Mr Dunston executed a small, stiff bow, received in return a nod, and, for the first time in his stolid career, wished that the days of calling a man out on the slightest provocation did not belong to the past.

  'I've come to carry you off to drink tea with Mrs Grayshott,' said Mr Calverleigh, taking Abby's hand, and drawing it within his arm. 'I left her guarding a chair for you, so come along!' He favoured Mr Dunston with another nod, and a brief smile, and led Abby inexorably away, saying: 'He did empty the butterboat over you, didn't he? Who the devil is he?'

  'He is a very respectable man, who lives with his mother a few miles distant from the town,' she replied severely. 'And even if he was talking flummery it was not at all handsome of you to say so!'

  'I don't offer Spanish coin, if that's what you mean,' he retorted. 'Do you wish for it?'

  'Surely, Mr Calverleigh, your wide experience of females must have taught you that compliments are always acceptable to us?' she said demurely.

  'To nine out of ten females, yes! but not to you, Miss Abigail Wendover! You're more than seven! You know very well that in point of beauty you don't shine every other lady down: there are at least three real diamonds here tonight, leaving Fanny out of the reckoning.'

  'My dear sir, only point them out to me, and I'll present you! I expect I'm acquainted with them – indeed, I've a shrewd notion I know who they are!'

  He shook his head. 'No. I prefer to admire them from a distance. My wide experience warns me that they lack that certain sort of something which you have in abundance.'

  'My – sufficiently wide experience of you, Mr Calverleigh, warns me that you are about to say something outrageous!'

  'No, I assure you! Nothing derogatory! Charming girls, all of them! Only I don't want to kiss them!'

  She gave a startled gasp. 'You don't want – Well, upon my word! And if you mean me to understand from that –'

  'I do,' he said, smiling down at her. 'I should dearly love to kiss you – here and now!'

  'W-well you can't!' said Abby, rocked off her balance.

  'I know I can't – not here and now, at all events!'

  'Ever! ' she uttered, furiously aware of flaming cheeks.

  'Oh, that is quite another matter! Do you care to wager a small sum on the chance?'

  Making a desperate recovery, she said: 'No! I never bet on certainties!'

  He laughed. 'You know, you are a darling!' he said, completing her confusion.

  'Well, what you are is a – a –'

  'Hedge-bird?' he suggested helpfully, as she stopped, at a loss for words opprobrious enough to describe him. 'Gullcatcher? Bermondsey boy? Rudesby? Queer Nabs?'

  She broke into laughter, and threw at him over her shoulder, as she went before him into the tea-room: 'All of those – and worse! In a word, infamous! Mrs Grayshott! How do you do? And – which I know you will think more important! – How does your invalid do?'

  She sat down beside Mrs Grayshott as she spoke, wholly withdrawing her attention from the infamous Mr Calverleigh, who lounged away to procure her a cup of tea. Mrs Grayshott said: 'My invalid is not as stout as I could wish, nor as docile! Dr Wilkinson has seen him, however, and assures me that I have no need to fear that any permanent damage has been done to his health. He recommends a course of hot baths, which, he tells me and, indeed, I know from my own experience – do much to restore a debilitated frame. Abby, my dear, you must let me compliment you on t