The Reluctant Widow Read online

  ‘Oh, there can be no difficulty!’ he answered. ‘I shall say you are in the fidgets because of what happened last night, and I am come so that you may be comfortable.’

  ‘Well, if you are set on keeping watch over that stair, I think you should tell Barrow the whole, and let him bear you company,’ she said.

  This, however, he would by no means agree to, indignantly demanding whether she thought him to be incapable of dealing unassisted with any midnight marauder. She mendaciously assured him that she had every confidence in his ability to capture, single-handed, any number of desperate persons, and he relented enough to show her a serviceable pistol which he had had the forethought to bring with him.

  She eyed this weapon with misgiving. ‘Is it loaded?’ she asked.

  ‘Loaded! Ay, of course it is loaded!’ he said impatiently. ‘What would be the use of it if it were not, pray? It is not cocked, however, so if you are thinking that it may go off you may be quite easy on that score.’

  ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘Is it your own pistol?’

  ‘Well, no,’ he admitted airily. ‘As it happens, it is one of Ned’s. But he will not object to my having borrowed it.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Elinor again. She added carelessly: ‘I dare say you are quite in the habit of using firearms?’

  ‘Good God, yes!’ he replied. ‘Why, what a flat you must be thinking me! Ned taught me to handle a gun when I was scarcely breeched!’

  ‘Did he indeed?’ said Elinor politely. ‘What a prodigy you must have been! I had no notion of it! You must forgive me!’

  He grinned. ‘Well, I am sure I was no more than twelve, at all events. And naturally I have shot at Manton’s times out of mind. I don’t mean to say that I am a crack shot, like Ned and Harry, but I have more than once culped a wafer.’

  ‘You put me quite at my ease. And yet I cannot help thinking that perhaps it might be as well if you did not shoot at anyone unless you found yourself absolutely obliged to.’

  ‘Indeed I shall not! Particularly now that this inquest is hanging over us all. I don’t wish to be putting Ned to more trouble, you know.’

  ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘I do feel that to expect him to bring you off safe from two such enquiries might tax even his ingenuity a little far.’

  ‘Oh, he would contrive it, never fear!’ he said cheerfully. ‘But don’t put yourself in a pucker! I don’t mean to do more than hold the fellow up, and discover what mischief he is up to. And I’ll tell you what, Cousin Elinor! If he does come again, I shall not show myself immediately. I shall follow him, to see where he goes, and what he finds. I think that is what I should do, don’t you?’

  She agreed to it, tactfully concealing from him her comfortable conviction that no midnight visitor was at all likely to reward his vigil. Had she had any real fear that the Frenchman would return she must, she believed, have alienated her youthful guest for ever by divulging the whole to Barrow. She was happy in not feeling herself obliged to spoil sport in this dreary fashion, and volunteered instead to acquaint the Barrows with his intention of spending the night at Highnoons.

  The information was greeted in the kitchen with scant favour. Mrs Barrow opined darkly that she knew Master Nick well enough to be in no doubt that he was up to some mischief; while Barrow said that in his opinion to have Master Nick capering about like a fly in a tar-box could afford no comfort whatsoever to anyone suffering from nervous qualms. ‘I tell you to your head, ma’am, that Master Nick, not to wrap it up in clean linen, is tedious loose in the hilts!’ he said severely.

  Mrs Barrow, with a passing admonition to him to hold his tongue, informed her mistress that this bodeful pronouncement meant merely that Master Nick, being but a lad, was scarcely to be relied on. ‘But it’s no matter!’ she said. ‘He’ll be company for you, I dare say, ma’am. But mind you make him tie that nasty dog of his up!’

  This, in the event, proved to be unnecessary. Nicky had already decided that Bouncer must be shut up in one of the loose-boxes, for fear of his giving tongue at the approach of a stranger. The faithful hound, therefore, after being regaled with a large plateful of meat and broken biscuits, was led off stablewards, bearing in his jaws the remnants of the bone with which his hostess had thoughtfully presented him. His attitude to her now was that of one who in the execution of his duty yet bore no malice towards his victim. She could not acquit him of grinning at her, and told him that he was a vile creature, a tribute which he accepted with a flattening of his ears, and a perfunctory wag of the tail.

  Mrs Cheviot and the Hon. Nicholas Carlyon dined very cosily together off a neck of veal, stewed with rice, onions, and peppercorns, followed by pippin-tarts, and some ramekins which moved Nicky to send a message to the kitchen assuring Mrs Barrow of favourable treatment if ever she should desire a post as cook up at the Hall. Barrow then set a decanter of port on the table, and Elinor very correctly withdrew to the book-room, whither her guest soon followed her, with a suggestion that they should while away the evening with a rubber or two of piquet. As the pockets of both gamesters were, in Nicky’s phrase, wholly to let, they played for fabulous but imaginary stakes, with the result that when the tea-tray was brought in, Elinor found herself several thousand pounds to the good. Nicky very handsomely said that he only wished he could pay her the half of such a sum, and they sat down to drink their tea in perfect amity.

  Nicholas favoured his hostess with some reminiscences of his past career, which made her laugh heartily; in her turn she entranced him with an account of her father’s exploits in every realm of sport, and in this way an hour or two was very pleasantly beguiled. In fact, on such easy terms with Nicky did Elinor feel herself to be by the time they went up to bed that she seriously jeopardized the honourable position she held in his esteem by suggesting that he should allow her to have the bed made up in the room he meant to occupy, so that he might pass the night in comfort. His shocked face recalled her to her senses, however, and she made haste to beg pardon, assuring him that she had spoken without thinking. He explained to her with the utmost patience that the sight of a gentleman sleeping in that room would effectually scare any intruder into a precipitate retreat; she confessed that she had been shatter-brained from a child; and they parted on the best of terms, she to lie awake for some time smiling over the simple enthusiasm of an engaging boy, he to stretch himself out on the unmade bed in the little square room, determined on no account to fall asleep.

  This, after the first hour, proved to be more difficult than he had bargained for, and he more than once thought wistfully of the bed made up for him in the best spare bedchamber. He had removed his riding-boots, and hidden them behind a chair, and his feet grew steadily colder as the night advanced. He was obliged at last to cast one of his pillows over them, which alleviated his discomfort so much that he presently began to drop asleep. Had Elinor but known it, he only half believed in his own arguments, and had no very real conviction that an adventure did in very truth await him. He was at that stage in his development when, without having giving up all hope that the wonderful would happen, only a part of his eager brain expected it. For this reason, it was with a feeling of delighted incredulity that he was aroused, when just slipping over the border between waking and sleeping, by a sound coming from the direction of the concealed cupboard. It jerked him fully awake, and he raised himself on his elbow, hardly believing his own ears. But there could be no doubt about it: someone was lifting the trap-door in the cupboard.

  With a gasp of excitement, Nicky snatched up the pillow covering his feet, restored it to its place at the head of the four-poster, and slid from the bed to the floor on the farther side of it, his pistol firmly held in one hand. The moon was not shining in at the unshuttered window, but there was a faint grey light in the room, enabling him to discern the outlines of the few pieces of furniture.

  He heard the scrape of the panel sliding back, and caught the reflection of a beam of yellow