Charity Girl Read online

  'I know all this!' interrupted Nettlecombe. 'The woman wrote to me! Demanded that I should pay for the girl! A damned in-solent letter I thought it, too! I told her to apply to the girl's maternal relations, for she wouldn't get a groat out of me!'

  'She obeyed you, sir, she applied to Lady Bugle, but I don't think she got a groat out of her either,' said Desford dryly. 'Lady Bugle, perceiving an opportunity to provide herself with an unpaid servant, took Miss Steane to her home in Hampshire, under an odious pretence of charity, for which she demanded a slavish gratitude, and unending service, not only for herself, but for every other member of her large family. Miss Steane's dis-position is compliant and affectionate: she had every wish in the world to repay her aunt for having given her a home, and uncomplainingly performed every task set before her, from hemming sheets, or running errands for her cousins, to taking charge of the nursery-children. And I daresay she would still be doing so, perfectly happily, had her aunt treated her with kindness. But she did not, and the poor child became so unhappy that she ran away, with the intention of appealing to you, sir, for protection.'

  Nettlecombe, who had listened to this speech with a scowl on his brow, punctuating it with muttered comments, and fidgeting restlessly in his chair, burst out angrily: 'It's no concern of mine! I warned that scoundrelly son of mine how it would be if he didn't mend his ways. He made his bed, and he must lie on it!'

  'But it is not he who is lying on it,' said the Viscount. 'It is his daughter who is the innocent victim of her father's misdeeds.'

  'You should read your Bible, young man!' retorted Nettlecombe on a note of triumph. 'The sins of the fathers shall be visited on the children! What about that, eh?'

  A pungent reply sprang to the Viscount's lips, but it remained unuttered, for at that moment the door opened, and a middle-aged and buxom woman sailed into the room, saying in far from refined accents: 'Well, this is a surprise, to be sure! When that old Tabby downstairs, which has the impudence to call herself Mrs Nunny, just as though a rabbitpole like she is ever had a husband, told me my lord had a gentleman visiting him you could have knocked me down with a feather, for in general he don't receive, not being in very high force. Though we shall soon have him quite rumtitum again, shan't we, my lord?'

  My lord responded to this sprightly prophecy with a growl. As for Desford, the newcomer's surprise was as nothing to his, for she spoke as though she were well-acquainted with him, and he knew that he had never before seen her. He wondered who the devil she could be. Her manner towards Nettlecombe sug gested that she might be a nurse, hired to attend him during recuperation from some illness but a stunned look at the lavishly plumed and high-crowned bonnet set upon her brassy curls rapidly put that idea to flight. No nurse wearing such an exag geratedly fashionable bonnet would ever have been allowed to cross the threshold of a sick-room; nor would she have dreamt of arraying herself (even if she could have afforded to do so) in a purple gown with a demi-train, and trimmed with knots of ribbon.

  His blank astonishment must have shown itself in his face, for she simpered, and said archly: 'I have the advantage of you, haven't I? You don't know who I am, but I know who you are, because I've seen your card. So my lord don't have to tell me.'

  Thus put pointedly in mind of his social obligations Lord Nettlecombe said sourly: 'Lord Desford – Lady Nettlecombe. And you've no need to look like that!' he added, as Desford blinked incredulously at him. 'My marriage doesn't have to meet with your approval!'

  'Certainly not!' said Desford, recovering himself. 'Pray accept my felicitations, sir! Lady Nettlecombe, your servant!'

  He bowed, and finding that she was extending her hand to him took it in his, and (since she clearly expected it) raised it briefly to his lips.

  'However did you find us out, my lord?' she asked. 'Such pains did we take to keep it secret that we'd gone off on our honeymoon! Not that I'm not very happy to make your acquaint ance, for I'm sure we couldn't have wished for a more amiable bride-guest, neither of us!'

  'Don't talk such fiddle-faddle, Maria!' said Nettlecombe iras cibly. 'He's not a bride-guest! He didn't know we were married when he forced his way in here! All he wants to do is to foist Wilfred's brat on to me, and I won't have her!'

  'You are mistaken, sir!' said the Viscount icily. 'I have not the smallest wish to see Miss Steane in a house where she is not welcome! My purpose in coming to visit you is to inform you that she – your granddaughter, let me remind you! – is entirely destitute! Had I not been with her when she found your house shut up she must have been in a desperate case, for she has no acquaintance in London, no one in the world to turn to but yourself ! What might have become of her I leave to your imagination!'

  'She had no business to run away from her aunt's house!' Nettlecombe said angrily. 'Most unbecoming! Hoydenish behaviour! Not that I should have expected anything better from a daughter of that rake-shame I refuse to call my son!' He turned towards his bride. 'It's Wilfred's brat he's talking about, Maria: you remember how vexed I was when some brass-faced schoolkeeper wrote to demand that I – I! – should pay for the girl's schooling? Well, now, if you please – ' He broke off, his gaze suddenly riveted to the shawl she was wearing draped across her elbows. 'That's new!' he said, stabbing an accusing finger at it. 'Where did it come from?'

  'I've just purchased it,' she answered boldly. She still smiled, but her smile was at variance with the determined jut of her chin, and the martial gleam in her eyes. 'And don't try to bamboozle me into thinking you didn't give me leave to buy myself a new shawl, because you did, and this very morning, what's more!'

  'But it's silk!' he moaned.

  'Norwich silk,' she said, smoothing it complacently. 'Now, don't fly into a miff, my lord! You wouldn't wish for me to be seen about in a cheap shawl, such as anyone could wear, not when I'm your wife!'

  There was nothing in his expression to encourage her in this belief; and as he complained mournfully that if she meant to squander his money on finery he would soon be ruined, and added a reproachful rider to the effect that he had expected his marriage to be an economy, Desford very soon found himself the sole, and wholly disregarded, witness to a matrimonial squabble. From the various things that were said, he gathered, without much surprise, that Lord Nettlecombe had married his housekeeper. Why he had done so did not emerge; the reason was to be revealed to him later. But it was plain that in the rôle of housekeeper my lord's bride had proved herself to be as big a save-all as he was himself; and that once she had him firmly hooked she had lapsed a little from her former economical habits. And, watching her, as she contended with her lord, always with that firm smile on her lips and that dangerous gleam in her eyes, he thought that it would not be long before my lord would be living under the cat's foot, as the saying was. For a moment he wondered whether it might be possible to enlist her support, but only for a moment: my Lady Nettlecombe was concerned only with her own support. There was not a trace of womanly com passion in her eyes, and no softness beneath her determined smile.

  The quarrel ended as abruptly as it had begun, my lady suddenly recollecting Desford's presence, and exclaiming: 'Oh, whatever must Lord Desford be thinking of us, coming to cuffs like a couple of children over no more than a barleystraw? You must excuse us, my lord! Well, they do say that the first year of marriage is difficult, don't they, and I'm sure my First and I had many a tiff, but no more than lovers' quarrels, like this little breeze me and my Second has just had!' She leaned forward to fondle her Second's unresponsive hand as she spoke, and adjured him, in sugared accents, not to put himself into a fuss over a mere shawl.

  'I don't give a rush for what Desford thinks of me!' declared Nettlecombe, two hectic spots of colour burning in his cheeks. 'Cocky young busy-head! Meddling in my affairs!'

  'Oh, no!' Desford interposed. 'Merely bringing your affairs to your notice, sir!'

  Nettlecombe glared at him. 'Wilfred's daughter is no affair of mine! It seems to me she's your affair, young man! Ay, and it seems