The Nonesuch Read online

  ‘Yes, I know young Mountsorrel: one of the newer Tulips!’

  ‘Tulips!’ snorted Julian, with all the scorn of one who had been introduced, at his first coming-out, into the pink of Corinthian society. ‘Smatterers, more like! A set of roly-poly fellows who think it makes them regular dashes to box the Watch, or get swine-drunk at the Field of Blood! And as for being of the Corinthian-cut – why, most of ’em ain’t even fit to go!’

  ‘You’re very severe!’ said Sir Waldo, amused.

  ‘Well, it was you who taught me to be!’ Julian retorted. ‘Mountsorrel is nothing but a cod’s head, I own, but only think of the ramshackle fellows he’s in a string with! There’s Watchett, for instance: he wears more capes to his driving-coat than you do, but you’ll none of you admit him to the Four-Horse Club! Stone, too! His notion of sport is bull-baiting, and going on the spree in Tothill Fields. Then there’s Elstead: he knocks-up more horses in a season than you would in a lifetime, and flies at anything in the shape of gaming. Thinks himself slap up to the echo. Why, when were you ever seen rubbing shoulders in one of the Pall Mall hells with a set of Greek banditti?’

  ‘Is that what young Trent does?’

  ‘I don’t know: not a friend of mine. I haven’t seen him lately: rusticating, I daresay. He didn’t look to me like a downy one, so you may depend upon it he found himself in Tow Street.’

  Armed with this information, Sir Waldo very soon found the opportunity to set himself right with Miss Trent. Wasting no subtlety, he told her cheerfully that she had misjudged him.

  They were riding side by side, Julian and Tiffany a little way ahead. Mrs Underhill felt herself powerless to prevent the almost daily rides of this couple, but she did insist on Ancilla’s accompanying them, and was sometimes able to persuade her son to join the party. Occasionally Patience Chartley went with them; and, quite frequently, Sir Waldo.

  Ancilla turned her head to look at him, raising her brows. ‘In what way, sir?’

  ‘In laying your cousin’s follies at my door.’ He smiled at her startled look, and betraying flush. ‘What happened to him? Lindeth tells me he’s in a string with young Mountsorrel, and his set.’

  ‘He was used to be – he and Lord Mountsorrel were at school together – but no longer, I hope. His connection with him was ruinous.’

  ‘Ran into Dun territory, did he? The younger men don’t come much in my way, but I’ve always understood that Mountsorrel has more money than sense, which makes him dangerous company for other greenhorns. Too many gull-catchers hang about him – not to mention the Bloods, and the Dashers, and the Care-for-Nobodies.’

  ‘Yes. My uncle said that, or something like it. But indeed I never laid Bernard’s follies at your door, sir!’

  ‘Didn’t you? That’s discouraging: I believed I had solved the riddle of your dislike of me.’

  ‘I don’t dislike you. If – if you thought me stiff when we first met it was because I dislike the set you represent!’

  ‘I don’t think you know anything about the set I represent,’ he responded coolly. ‘Let me assure you that it is very far removed from Mountsorrel’s, ma’am!’

  ‘Of course – but you are – oh, the Nonesuch!’ she said with a quick smile. ‘Mountsorrel and his friends copy you – as far as they are able –’

  ‘I beg your pardon!’ he interrupted. ‘They don’t – being unable! Dear me, I sound just like the Beautiful Miss Wield, don’t I? Some of them copy the Corinthian rig – in the exaggerated form I don’t affect; but my set, Miss Trent, is composed of men who were born with a natural aptitude for athletic sports. We do the thing; Mountsorrel, and his kind, are lookers-on. Don’t ask me why they should ape our fashions, when there is nothing more distasteful to them, I daresay, than the sports we enjoy, for I can’t tell you! But you may believe that the youngster anxious to excel in sporting exercises is safer amongst the Corinthians than amongst the Bond Street beaux.’

  ‘Ah, yes, but – does it not lead to more dangerous things? To gaming, for instance?’

  ‘Gaming, Miss Trent, is not confined to any one class of society,’ he said dryly. ‘It won’t lead him to haunt the wine-shops in Tothill Fields, to wake the night-music, or to pursue the – er – West-end comets, to his destruction.’ He laughed suddenly. ‘You foolish girl! Don’t you know that if he did so it would be bellows to mend with him within five minutes of his engaging in a little sparring exercise at Jackson’s?’

  ‘To own the truth, I had never considered the matter,’ she confessed. ‘Though I do recall, now you put me in mind of it, that whenever my brother Harry was engaged to play in a cricket-match, or some such thing, he was used to take the greatest pains not to put himself out of frame, as he called it.’

  ‘Wise youth! Is he too a budding Corinthian?’

  ‘Oh, no! He is a soldier.’

  ‘Like your uncle!’

  ‘Yes, and my father, too.’

  ‘Indeed? Tell me about him! Was he engaged at Waterloo?’

  ‘Yes – that is, my brother was, but not my father. My father was killed at Ciudad Rodrigo.’

  ‘I am sorry.’ His tone was grave; but he did not pursue the subject, asking her instead, after a moment or two, if her brother was with the Army of Occupation. She was grateful to him for respecting her reserve, and answered far more readily than she might have done. She seldom mentioned her family, for Mrs Underhill was interested only in the General; and although Mrs Chartley sometimes enquired kindly after her mother, and her brothers, she rarely allowed herself to be lured into giving more than civil responses, feeling that Mrs Chartley could have little interest in persons with whom she was unacquainted.

  Sir Waldo was much more successful in winning her out of her reticence; and it was not many days before he knew more about Miss Trent’s family than Mrs Chartley, preoccupied with her own family and her husband’s parish, had even guessed. He knew that Will – the best of all sons and brothers! – was the incumbent of a parish in Derbyshire, and already the father of a hopeful family. He had married the daughter of one of Papa’s oldest friends, a dear, good girl, beloved of them all. Mama and Sally lived with him and Mary, and in the greatest harmony. Sally was the youngest of the family: only a schoolroom child yet, but already remarkably accomplished, and bidding fair to become a very pretty girl. Christopher joined them during the holidays, except when his uncle invited him to stay in London, and indulged him with all manner of high treats, from snipe-shooting in Regent’s Park, or skating on the Serpentine, to Astley’s Amphitheatre, and pugilistic displays at the Fives Court. Uncle Mordaunt had taken upon his shoulders the whole charge of Kit’s education at Harrow. Nothing could exceed Uncle Mordaunt’s goodness and generosity: in spite of possessing a fortune that was genteel rather than handsome he had been almost at outs with them all for refusing to live upon his bounty! But with Will so comfortably situated; and Harry now able (since he got his Company) to contribute towards the family funds; and Mama teaching Sally herself, which she was well qualified to do, being the daughter of a Professor of Greek, and (as they told her when they wanted to joke her) very blue ! it would be shocking to be so much beholden.

  ‘And the elder Miss Trent, I collect, doesn’t choose to be in any way beholden?’

  ‘No more than I need. But you mustn’t suppose that I am not already very much obliged to my uncle and aunt, if you please! My aunt was so kind as to bring me out, as the saying is – and to spare no pains to get me eligibly riveted!’ she added, a gurgle of laughter in her throat. ‘She had a strong persuasion that even though I’ve no fortune a respectable alliance might have been achieved for me would I but apply myself to the business! Oh, dear! I ought not to laugh at her, for she bore with me most patiently, but she is such a funny one!’

  His eyes gleamed appreciatively, but he said: ‘Poor lady! Were you never tempted to apply yourself ?’