The Quiet Gentleman Read online

  ‘What the devil are you trying to make me believe now?’ demanded Ulverston, staring at him. ‘Do you take this to have been a schoolboy prank? There is no schoolboy in the case!’

  ‘Oh, don’t you think so? I find Martin not a step removed from that state. I own, I do not perfectly understand him, but it is sufficiently plain to me that he thinks I should be the better for a sharp set-down. You heard what passed at the table this morning: “St Erth is perfection itself!” was what he said before he flung himself out of the room. Well! it would certainly have afforded him satisfaction had I, the day you came here, suffered a ducking in a muddy stream. I did not do so, so perhaps I had instead to be made to tumble off my horse – such a nonpareil among horsemen am I said to be! By the way, I wonder who did say so?’

  ‘It don’t matter who said it, or if no one said it!’ replied the Viscount, quite exasperated. ‘This is all a damned hum! Your precious brother ain’t such a boy that he didn’t know the thing might have had fatal consequences!’

  ‘If he had paused to consider the matter at all,’ agreed St Erth. ‘It is quite a question, you know, whether he does pause to consider what may be the outcome of his more headlong actions. Come in!’

  A knock had sounded on the door, and this opened to admit Theo. Gervase instantly said: ‘Oh, the devil! No. Go away, Theo! Lucy has said it all for you!’

  Theo shut the door, and advanced into the room. ‘No use, Gervase! I am determined to know what happened to you this afternoon. Ulverston has already said enough to make me uneasy – and I beg that you won’t insult my intelligence with any more tales of stumbling into rabbit-holes, for they won’t fadge!’

  ‘All you’ll get from Ger is a bag of moonshine!’ said the Viscount roundly. ‘The plain truth is that his horse was brought down by a cord stretched across his path – and there is the cord, if you doubt me!’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ Theo said. ‘Martin?’

  His cousin shrugged. He walked over to the fire, and stood staring down into it, his face hard to read.

  ‘What I’m saying is that it’s time Ger was rid of that lad!’ announced the Viscount.

  ‘Theo will not agree with you,’ interposed Gervase. ‘We have spoken of this before today.’

  ‘This had not happened then!’ Theo said, slightly raising his head.

  ‘Are you of another mind now?’ Gervase asked, watching him.

  Theo stood frowning. ‘No,’ he said, at last. ‘No, I am not of another mind. If Martin did indeed do this – but do you know that? – I am of the opinion that it was done in one of his fits of blind, unreasoning rage. His quarrel with you last night, his sister’s teasing today – oh, I know Martin! He was as mad as a baited bear today, and in that mood he would not pause to consider the consequences of whatever foolish revenge he chose to take on you!’

  ‘This,’ said the Viscount, not mincing matters, ‘is all fudge!’

  ‘You don’t know Martin as I do. But if he had a more dreadful purpose in mind – then I say keep him here, under your eye!’

  The Viscount rubbed the tip of his nose reflectively. ‘Something to be said for that, Ger,’ he admitted.

  ‘I have no intention, at present, of driving him away from Stanyon,’ Gervase said.

  ‘Do you mean to charge him with today’s misadventure?’ Theo asked.

  ‘No, and I beg you will not either!’

  ‘Very well. I certainly did no good by anything I said to him about his conduct over the bridge,’ Theo said, with a wry grimace. ‘I wish I may not have goaded him into this. I begin to be sorry that I urged you to remain at Stanyon, Gervase. It might have been better, perhaps, to have given Martin time to have grown used to the thought that it is you who are master here now.’

  ‘He had a year in which to grow used to that thought,’ replied Gervase dryly. ‘Are you now advising me to retire to London? You are too late: I do not choose to be driven out of Stanyon.’

  ‘No, I would not advise that course. Matters must come to a head between you and Martin – but what that head will be, and whether you will be able to settle it without injury, and without scandal, I know not.’

  ‘Nor I, but I shall do my possible. Both injury and scandal I should dislike quite as much as you, Theo, I assure you. Meanwhile, there is no more to be said. It must be time for dinner: let us go and join her ladyship!’

  They found the rest of the party already assembled in the Long Drawing-room. Martin was standing a little apart from the group near the fire, fidgeting with a pair of snuffers. He looked round when he heard the door open, and coloured a little. He had not encountered his brother since his outbreak of temper at the nuncheon-table, which might have accounted for the slight constraint with which he said: ‘Hallo, St Erth! They tell me you have taken a toss. How came that about?’

  ‘Mere carelessness. Cloud set his near-fore in a rabbit-hole.’

  ‘He wasn’t hurt, was he?’

  ‘A trifle scratched. I hope no lasting scars.’

  ‘Lord, that’s bad!’ Martin said. ‘I daresay you don’t want my advice, but if I were you I would apply hot fomentations. They may bring up his legs like bladders, but that won’t last, and ten to one you’ll never see a mark once the cuts have healed.’

  ‘I agree with you, and it is being done.’

  The Dowager broke in at this point to favour the company with a recital of all the tosses which the Earl’s father had taken, coupled with an account of her own sentiments upon these occasions, and some recollections of rattling falls suffered by her dear Papa, a very bruising rider. ‘Not that my dear father was not an excellent horseman, for I am sure there can never have been a better one,’ she said. ‘I am not fond of the exercise myself, but I daresay I should have ridden very well, had I taken to it, for I should have had the benefit of my father’s teaching. Indeed, I recall to this day many of the maxims which he laid down for my brother’s guidance. “Hold him steady by the head” was one of them; and if he had been alive when Martin broke his collarbone at one of the bullfinches in Ashby Pastures, he would have said, “You should have held him steady by the head.” “Throw your heart over” was another of his sayings, and “Take your own line”, as well, and “Get over the ground if you break your neck”.’

  The Earl was standing beside Martin, and said in a soft under-voice: ‘Were you – er – acquainted with your grandfather, Martin?’

  ‘No, I thank God!’ returned Martin, grinning. ‘I’d be willing to lay you odds he was the kind of fellow who would head a fox!’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t take you!’ Gervase said. ‘There cannot be the least doubt of it!’

  It was fortunate that Abney entered the Drawing-room at that moment, to announce dinner, for the sudden crack of laughter which escaped Martin attracted his mother’s attention, and she demanded to be told what it was that had amused him. She did not forget that she desired to be admitted into his confidence, for her mind was of a tenacious order, but by the time she was seated at the foot of the dinner-table, and could repeat her demand, he had had leisure to think of a suitable and an unexceptionable answer.

  Twelve

  A certain languor, which was felt by everyone except the Dowager, hung over the company. After the bustle and the excitement of the ball, the smaller party seemed flat. Between two of the persons seated at the table there was constraint; others had been provided with food for grave reflection; and only between the Dowager and the Chaplain could conversation have been said to have flourished. From the combined circumstances of being largely impervious to fatigue, and not having exerted herself beyond what was strictly necessary during the past twenty-four hours, the Dowager was not conscious of weariness, but enlivened the dinner-table with several more anecdotes about her father, and a recapitulation of the excellence of the arrangements for the ball, and the pleasure evinced at their entertainment by the guests. In this exercise sh