Snowdrift and Other Stories Read online

  The damp handkerchief had dropped from the widow’s clutch to the floor; she sat gazing up at his lordship with so odd an expression in her face that he added quickly: ‘You find it strange that Fanny should have confided in me. Do not be hurt by it! I believe it is often the case that a girl will more easily give her confidence to her father than to a most beloved mother. When she spoke, it was in the belief that I might become – But I will say no more on that head!’

  The widow found her voice at last. ‘My lord,’ she said, ‘do I – do I understand that you are desirous of becoming Fanny’s father?’

  ‘That is not quite as I should phrase it, perhaps,’ he said, with a wry smile.

  ‘Not,’ asked the widow anxiously, ‘not – you are quite sure? – Fanny’s husband?’

  He looked thunderstruck. ‘Fanny’s husband?’ he echoed. ‘I? Good God, no! Why – is it possible that you can have supposed –?’

  ‘I have never fainted in all my life,’ stated Mrs Wingham, in an uncertain voice. ‘I very much fear, however –’

  ‘No, no, this is no time for swoons!’ he said, seizing her hands. ‘You cannot have thought that it was Fanny I loved! Yes, yes, I know what Fanny has been to you, but you cannot have been so absurd!’

  ‘Yes, I was,’ averred the widow. ‘I could even be so absurd as not to have the remotest guess why I have felt so low ever since I met you, and thought you wished to marry her!’

  He knelt beside her chair, still clasping her hands. ‘What a fool I was! But I thought my only hope of being in any way acceptable to you was to praise Fanny to you! And, indeed, she is a delightful girl! But all you have said to me today – you were not speaking of yourself?’

  ‘Oh no, no! Of Fanny! You see, she and Richard –’

  ‘Never mind Fanny and Richard!’ he interrupted. ‘Is it still useless for me to persist in my errand to you?’

  ‘Quite ridiculous!’ she said, clinging to his hands. ‘You have not the least need to persist in it! That is, if you do indeed wish to marry such a blind goose as I have been!’

  His lordship disengaged his hands, but only that he might take her in his arms. ‘I wish it more than for anything else on this earth!’ he assured her.

  To Have the Honour

  1

  YOUNG LORD ALLERTON, a little pale under his tan, glanced from his mother to his man of business. ‘But – good God, why was I never told in what case I stood?’

  Mr Thimbleby did not attempt to answer this home question. He perceived that young Lord Allerton’s facial resemblance to his deceased father was misleading. There was nothing the late Viscount had desired less than to be told in what case he stood. Three years of campaigning in the Peninsula had apparently engendered in the Fifth Viscount a sense of responsibility which, however welcome it might be in the future to his man of business, seemed at the moment likely to lead to unpleasantness. Mr Thimbleby directed an appealing look towards the widow.

  She did not fail him. Regarding her handsome eldest born with an eye of fond pride, she said: ‘But when poor Papa died, you had been wounded, dearest! I would not for the world have distressed you!’

  The Viscount said impatiently: ‘A scratch! I was back in the saddle within a week! Mama, how could you keep me in ignorance of our circumstances? Had I had the least notion of the truth I must have returned to England immediately!’

  ‘Exactly so!’ nodded his parent. ‘And that, dearest Alan, I was determined you should not be obliged to do! Everyone said the war would so soon be over, and I knew how mortified you would be to be forced to sell out before the glorious end! To be sure, I did hope that directly after Toulouse you might have been released, but it was not to be, and it is of no consequence, except that here we are, with all the foreign notables upon us, and I have the greatest dread that your tailor may not have your evening dress ready for you to wear at my ball next week!’

  ‘That, Mama, believe me, is the least of our problems!’

  ‘Very true, my love,’ agreed her ladyship. ‘Trix has been in despair, but “Depend upon it”, I have said from the outset, “even though your brother may patronize Scott, instead of Weston, who always did so well by poor Papa, you may be confident that no tailor would fail at such a juncture!”’ Her gaze dwelled appreciatively upon his lordship’s new coat of olive-green, upon the pantaloons of delicate yellow which clung to his shapely legs, upon the Hessian boots which shone so bravely, and upon the neckcloth which was tied with such nicety, and she heaved a satisfied sigh.

  The Viscount turned in desperation to his man of business. ‘Thimbleby!’ he uttered. ‘Be so good as to explain to me why you did not think it proper to inform me that my father had left me encumbered with debt.’

  Mr Thimbleby cast another imploring glance at the widow. ‘Her ladyship having done me the honour to admit me into her confidence, my lord, it seemed to me – that is, I was encouraged to hope . . .’

  ‘To hope what?’

  ‘My dear son, you must not blame our good Thimbleby!’ intervened Lady Allerton. ‘Indeed, no one is to be blamed, for if you will but consider you will perceive that our case is not desperate!’

  ‘Desperate! I trust not! But that there is the most urgent need of the strictest economy – even, I fear, of measures as repugnant to me as they must be to you, ma’am, I cannot doubt! I dare not think what my own charges upon the estate have been during these months, when I should have been doing what lies within my power to repair what I do not scruple to call a shockingly wasted fortune!’

  ‘No, no, it is not as bad as that!’ she assured him. ‘My dear Alan, there is one circumstance you are forgetting!’

  He stared at her with knitted brows. ‘Pray, what am I forgetting, ma’am?’

  ‘Hetty!’ she said, opening her eyes at him.

  ‘I certainly do not forget my cousin, Mama, but in what way my embarrassments can be thought to concern her I have not the remotest conjecture!’ said his lordship. A dreadful thought flashed into his mind; he said quickly: ‘You are not trying to tell me, ma’am, that my cousin’s fortune has been used to – No, no, impossible! She is still under age, and cannot have been allowed – There was another trustee besides my father, after all! Old Ossett could never have countenanced such a thing!’

  ‘Nothing of the sort!’ said her ladyship. ‘And I must say, Alan, that I wonder at your supposing that I would entertain such a notion, except, of course, under such circumstances as must render it entirely proper! My own niece! I might almost say my daughter, for I am sure she is as dear to me as Trix!’

  Mr Thimbleby, who had been unobtrusively engaged in putting up his papers, now judged it to be time to withdraw from a discussion which was not progressing according to hopeful expectation. The Viscount, beyond reminding him rather sharply that he should require his attendance upon the morrow, made no objection to his bowing himself out of the room, but began to pace about the floor, his brow furrowed, and his lips compressed as though to force back unwise speech.

  His parent said sympathetically: ‘I was afraid you would be a trifle shocked, dearest. It was hazard, of course. I knew no good would come of it when poor Papa forsook faro, at which he had always been so fortunate!’

  The Viscount halted, and said with careful self-control: ‘Mama, have you realized that to win free from this mountain of debt I must sell some – perhaps all! – of the unentailed property? When I learned that my father had left everything to me, making not the least provision for Timothy or for Trix, I own I was astonished! I see now why he did so, but how I am to provide for them I know not! Ma’am, you have been talking ever since my arrival of the ball you are giving in honour of this Grandduchess of yours, of the drawing-room at which you mean to present my sister, but have you realized that there is no money to pay for these things?’

  ‘Good gracious, Alan, you should realize that if I do not!’ exclaimed her ladyship. ‘I declare I can scarcely recall when I was last able to pay a bill, and the tiresome thing is that there