The Nonesuch Read online

  Her cool composure seriously disturbed, Ancilla said involuntarily: ‘Oh, Mrs Underhill, d-does he do so when – Oh, no! Surely not?’

  ‘Lord bless you, my dear, of course he does!’ replied Mrs Underhill, with an indulgent laugh. ‘And if it is you – well, often and often I’ve thought to myself that if he was to smile at me the way he does at you I should be cast into a regular flutter, as old as I am!’

  Miss Trent felt her cheeks burning, and pressed her slim hands to them. ‘He – he has a very charming smile, I know!’

  ‘I’ll be bound you do!’ retorted Mrs Underhill. ‘Mark my words if we don’t have him popping the question before we’ve had time to turn round! And this I will say, my dear: I couldn’t be better pleased if you was my own daughter! Not that he’d do for Charlotte, even if she was old enough, which, of course, she isn’t, because, from all I can discover, he’s nutty upon horses, and well you know that she can’t abide ’em!’

  Miss Trent gave a shaky laugh. ‘Yes, indeed I know it. But – Dear Mrs Underhill, pray don’t say any more! You mustn’t encourage me to – to indulge ridiculous dreams! Sir Waldo knows exactly how to make himself very – very agreeable to females, and, I daresay, has broken many hearts. I am determined he shall not break mine! To suppose that he – a matrimonial prize of the first stare! – would entertain for as much as one moment the notion of contracting so unequal a match…’ Her voice failed; she recovered it again to say, with an attempt at a smile: ‘You won’t speak of this to anyone, I know!’

  ‘Certainly not!’ said Mrs Underhill. ‘But don’t you behave missish, my dear, and start hinting him away because you think you ain’t good enough for him! That’s for him to decide, and you may depend upon it that a man of five – or six-and-thirty knows what will suit him. It would be a splendid thing for you, let alone making the Squire’s lady and Mrs Banningham as mad as fire!’

  On this invigorating thought she took her departure, leaving Miss Trent to her own reflections.

  It was long before she fell asleep that night. Mrs Underhill’s blunt words had forced her to confront the truth she had hitherto refused to acknowledge: she had been in love with the Nonesuch for weeks.

  Like a stupidly romantic schoolgirl, she thought, dazzled by the aura of magnificence that hung about a Top-of-the-Trees Corinthian, and foolishly endowing him with heroic qualities because he had a handsome face and splendid figure, rode and drove his high-couraged horses with such effortless mastery, and bore himself with an unconscious assurance which cozened ninnyhammers like herself into thinking he was a demigod. Not that she was quite as idiotish as that, of course. She could scarcely help admiring his appearance, but she had not fallen in love with his face, or his figure, and certainly not with his air of elegance. He had considerable charm of manner, but she decided that it was not that either. She thought it might be the humour that lurked in his eyes, or perhaps his smile. But Lindeth had a delightful smile too, and she was not in the least in love with him. In fact, she didn’t know why she loved the Nonesuch, but only that from the moment of first setting eyes on him she had felt so strong an attraction that it had shocked her, because he was clearly the exemplar of a set of persons whom she held in abhorrence.

  Caution warned her not to place overmuch reliance on what Mrs Underhill had said. Far better than Mrs Underhill did she know how very unlikely it was that a man of Sir Waldo’s eligibility, who could look as high as he pleased for a wife and must be thought to be past the age of contracting a rash engagement, should entertain the smallest intention of offering marriage to an obscure female who had neither consequence nor any extraordinary degree of beauty to recommend her. On the other hand, the things he had said to her that day, before they had parted at the gates of Staples, seemed to indicate that he had something other than mere flirtation in mind. If that had been all he sought she could not conceive why her inferior situation should chafe him, or why, if he had not been sincere, he should have told her that it did. Pondering the matter, she was obliged to own that she knew very little about the art of flirtation; and hard upon this thought came the realization that she knew very little about Sir Waldo either. He had shown himself to be most truly the gentleman, never above his company, nor betraying his boredom, and never seeking to impress the neighbourhood by playing off the airs of an exquisite. As for exerting an evil influence over his young admirers, she had it on the authority of the Squire that his coming to Broom Hall had done them all a great deal of good. Together with their extravagant waistcoats and their monstrous neckcloths they had abandoned such dare-devil sports as Hunting the Squirrel or riding their cover-hacks up the stairs of their parents’ houses: the Nonesuch never wore startling raiment, and he let it be seen that he thought the Dashes and the Neck-or-Nothings not at all the thing. So instead of rushing into wild excesses as a result of his coming amongst them the youthful aspirants to Corinthian fame (said the Squire, with a chuckle) had now run mad over achieving what their hero would think a proper mode.

  It was possible, however, that in his own element Sir Waldo might show another side to his character. Not for a moment did Ancilla believe that he would lead greenhorns astray; but she was bound to acknowledge that for anything she knew his path might be littered with wounded hearts. She could not doubt that he was a master of the art of flirtation; and she was only too well aware of his fatal fascination. She decided that her wisest course would be to put him out of her mind. After reaching this conclusion she lay thinking about him until at last she fell asleep.

  Upon the following day she was driven over to Colby Place in Mrs Underhill’s smart new barouche to enquire after Elizabeth. Charlotte had been her companion designate, but as soon as Tiffany heard of the scheme she said that it was exactly what she had been meaning to do herself, and very prettily begged Miss Trent to grant her a place in the carriage. Forthright Charlotte, who suffered from few illusions, instantly cried off, saying that she preferred to bear Mama company at home than to occupy the forward seat in the barouche. So Tiffany went with Miss Trent, looking a picture of lovely innocence in a gown of sprig muslin, and a charming hat of chip straw, tied under her chin with blue ribbons. A parasol protected her complexion from the sun; and upon the forward seat reposed a basket of grapes. These were an offering from Mrs Underhill, whose succession-houses were the envy of her acquaintances; but Miss Trent, labouring under even fewer illusions than Charlotte, would not have hazarded a groat against the chance that Tiffany would not present them as the fruits of her own solicitude. Any doubts she might have cherished were dispelled by that damsel’s disarmingly naïve explanation.

  ‘So no one could think I was unkind to poor Lizzie, could they? And also, Ancilla, I have invited Patience to go with us to Leeds on Friday, because she wants to purchase new gloves and sandals for the Colebatches’ ball next week, just as I do, and was in quite a puzzle to know how to manage, on account of Mrs Chartley’s being laid up with one of her colicky disorders!’

  ‘That was kind of you, Tiffany!’ said Miss Trent admiringly.

  ‘Well, I think it was,’ said Tiffany. ‘For there’s nothing so uncomfortable as having a third person in one’s carriage! It means you will be obliged to sit forward – But I knew you wouldn’t care a button!’

  ‘No, indeed!’ agreed Miss Trent, with great cordiality. ‘I am only too happy to be allowed to contribute my mite to your generosity.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Tiffany, sublimely unconscious of satire, ‘I was persuaded you would say I had done just as I ought!’

  When they reached Colby Place they perceived that they were not the only visitors. A glossy phaeton, to which was harnessed a team once described by Courtenay as a bang-up set-out of blood and bone, was drawn up in the shade of a large elm tree. A groom in plain livery touched his hat to the ladies; and Tiffany exclaimed: ‘Oh, Sir Waldo is here!’

  But it was not Sir Waldo, as they discovered when they entered