The Reluctant Widow Read online

  The round blue eyes stared at him. There was a perceptible pause before Bedlington replied testily: ‘How can one tell how such news may get about?’

  ‘I cannot, certainly. Where did you learn it, sir?’

  ‘My poor nephew’s valet told my man. It will be all over town by now! But how did it happen? What accident befell Eustace? Some talk of a brawl in an inn! I came to you to hear the truth!’

  ‘You shall do so, but you may believe that the truth is as painful to me to relate as it will be to you to hear. Eustace met his death at my brother Nicky’s hands.’

  ‘Carlyon!’ gasped Bedlington, falling back a pace, and grasping at a chair-back to steady himself. ‘My God, has it come to this?’

  ‘Has what come to this?’ demanded John, bristling.

  Thus challenged, his lordship sought refuge in his handkerchief, and uttered in broken accents that he would never have believed such a thing.

  ‘Believed such a thing as what?’ pursued John, remorselessly adhering to his sledge-hammer tactics.

  ‘I do wish you would be quiet, John!’ said Carlyon. ‘Pray sit down, sir! I need hardly tell you that the whole affair was an accident. If Eustace had had his way it would have been Nicky who had been killed, and that, I am constrained to tell you, would have been a clear case of murder.’

  ‘Ah, you were always unjust to the poor lad! I might depend upon you to shield your brother!’

  ‘Certainly you might, but happily this affair does not rest upon my testimony. To be brief with you, Bedlington, Eustace was, as usual, in his cups, and in this condition was unwise enough to provoke Nicky into knocking him down. Upon which, he seized a carving-knife, and tried to murder Nicky. In the scuffle, during which Nicky contrived to wrest the knife from him, he seems to have tripped and fallen on the knife. He died some hours later. I regret the occurrence as much as anyone, but I cannot hold Nicky to blame.’

  ‘No, nor anyone else!’ John said roughly.

  Bedlington, who appeared to be quite overcome, only moaned behind his handkerchief. Carlyon poured out a glass of wine, and took it to him. ‘Come, sir! I appreciate your concern, but to be blunt with you I cannot altogether deplore a taking-off that I am much inclined to think may have come just in time to prevent Eustace from plunging all of us into a scandal we must be thankful to be spared.’

  Bedlington emerged from his handkerchief to demand in trembling accents: ‘What can you mean? A few irregularities – the extravagances of youth – ay, and of a youth brought up under the rule of one – but I say no more! You best know how much you are to blame for the poor lad’s excesses!’

  ‘By God, that’s too much!’ exploded John, his complexion darkening.

  ‘Then do not add to it, John. Had you no suspicion, sir, that these irregularities might have gone beyond the bounds of what even you could pardon?’

  Bedlington flushed. ‘This is base slander! You never liked Eustace! I shall not listen to you! I do not know what you would be at, but my brother’s son – ! No, no, I will not listen to you!’

  Carlyon bowed slightly, and waited in silence while he gulped down the wine in his glass. This seemed a little to restore the balance of his lordship’s mind. He allowed John to refill the glass, asking abruptly: ‘How came he to marry that young woman I found installed at Highnoons? Yes, I have been there already, and I do not know when I have been more taken-aback! Who is she, and how can such a thing have come about? I do not understand why Eustace should have excluded me from his confidence!’

  ‘She is the daughter of Rochdale of Feldenhall,’ replied Carlyon.

  The blue eyes started at him. ‘What! He who shot himself, and left his widow and family destitute?’

  Carlyon bowed.

  ‘Well!’ Bedlington said, puffing out his lips. ‘If that is so, of course I perceive why he should not have cared to tell me! I do not like the match; I must have done my possible to have prevented it. This is marvellous indeed! And it was you who contrived the wedding? I do not know what to say! She told me all was left to her!’

  Carlyon bowed again.

  ‘Wonderful!’ Bedlington said, shaking his head. ‘You are a strange man, Carlyon! There is no getting to the bottom of you!’

  ‘You flatter me, sir. If you could but bring yourself to believe that I have never wanted to inherit Highnoons you would not find me at all unfathomable.’

  ‘Well, Carlyon, I must own that I have wronged you!’ Bedlington said, sighing. ‘But this tragedy has so overset me I do not know what I say!’

  ‘It is very natural,’ said Carlyon. ‘I dare say you will wish to be alone. Let me take you up to the rooms I have had prepared for you! Dinner will be served in an hour.’

  ‘You are very good. I own I shall be glad of a period of quiet reflection,’ said Bedlington, rising with a groan, and tottering in his host’s wake to the door.

  John remained in the saloon, waiting in some impatience for his brother’s return. It was some time before Carlyon rejoined him, and when he did, it was to say: ‘Really, John, you are as foolish as Nicky! Must you take up the cudgels in my defence quite so violently?’

  ‘Never mind that!’ said John. ‘I can’t stand those play-acting ways of his, and never could! What did you think of him?’

  ‘Nothing very much.’

  ‘Well, by God, I didn’t believe what you were saying to me, but I’ll swear the man’s in the devil of a pucker! I wondered to hear you give him such a hint of what you suspect!’

  ‘I wanted to see what the effect of it might be on him. I cannot be said to have got much good by it.’

  ‘I think he was frightened.’

  ‘Very well. That can do no harm. If he himself has no suspicion, I have told him nothing; if, as I think might well be, he has reason to think that Francis Cheviot might be up to some mischief I hope I may have pricked him into taking the matter into his own hands. I should be glad to see it out of mine!’

  ‘Did you believe his story of having learnt of Eustace’s death from his valet?’

  Carlyon shrugged. ‘It might be. No, I don’t think I did.’

  John looked dissatisfied. ‘Well! And what had he to say to you above-stairs? You were long enough away!’

  ‘He was boring me with recollections of Uncle Lionel. I may add that none of these tallied with my own, but let that pass. He would be glad to regain possession of the letters he wrote to him. But as I have found none I was unable to oblige him in the matter.’

  ‘Ned, was he trying to discover whether you had come upon this damned memorandum amongst Eustace’s papers?’ John demanded.

  ‘My dear John, Bedlington may be an old fool, but he has not worked in a Government department without learning not to commit himself! If I choose to give my suspicions rein, I may read into his enquiries just such an object; if, on the other hand, I keep an open mind, I need see nothing in them but the natural desire of a fond uncle to be informed as to the exact nature of his nephew’s follies and obligations. I was quite frank with him.’

  ‘Quite frank with him?’ ejaculated John, rather dismayed.

  ‘Yes, I gave him to understand that I had come upon little beyond bills, vowels, and some amatory correspondence which I propose to burn,’ responded Carlyon tranquilly.

  John burst out laughing. ‘You are the most complete hand! You did not tell him of Nicky’s last adventure?’

  ‘On the contrary, I told him that Mrs Cheviot had been sadly discomposed by a thief’s breaking into the house.’

  ‘What had he to say to that?’

  ‘He said that he hoped no valuables had been stolen.’

  ‘Well? Well? And then?’

  ‘I said that, so far as we could ascertain, nothing had been stolen,’ replied Carlyon.

  ‘I wonder what he will do next!’ John said.

  ‘He informs me that he must