The Quiet Gentleman Read online

  Sir Thomas, meanwhile, who had been persuaded to resume both his seat by the fire and the plaid shawl which had been draped round his shoulders, said to the Earl: ‘Who is this young fellow, eh, my lord? What did you say his name was?’

  ‘Ulverston: he is Wrexham’s eldest son, and, like myself, has lately sold out of the Army.’

  ‘H’m!’ Sir Thomas’s shrewd gaze dwelled for a minute on the Viscount and Marianne. ‘I like the cut of his jib,’ he decided.

  ‘He is the best of good fellows.’

  Lady Bolderwood seemed also to like the Viscount, which was not surprising, since he seized the first opportunity that offered of seating himself on the sofa beside her, and making himself agreeable. Upon hearing that he was staying for the present at Stanyon, she very cordially invited him to come to Whissenhurst with the Earl to an informal party she had the intention of giving before leaving for London. He accepted, but he did not feel it to be incumbent upon him to tell her that she might expect to have the pleasure of seeing him at Whissenhurst considerably before this date.

  The Stanyon party soon took leave, and Lady Bolderwood went with Marianne upstairs to her dressing-room, in the expectation of hearing every detail of her visit. She did indeed hear that Marianne had enjoyed herself very much, that Lady St Erth had been kind, and dear Drusilla very kind, that the ball had been delightful, and she had had so many partners she could not remember the half of them; but it seemed to her that her daughter was rather abstracted. She supposed that she was tired from so much excitement, and expected her to profit by a long night’s rest. But on the following morning Marianne was more abstracted than ever; paid very little heed to Mr Warboys, who called at Whissenhurst on the plausible excuse of wishing to know how Sir Thomas was going on; and was three times discovered by her Mama to be lost in some day-dream: once when she should have been practising her music, once when she had been desired to wash the Sèvres ornaments in the drawingroom, and once when she should have been setting stitches in the sampler destined for her Aunt Caroline. Lady Bolderwood felt herself to be obliged to speak reprovingly to her, pointing out to her that if she allowed herself to be so much affected by one country-ball, a Season in London would transform her into a good-for-nothing miss, never happy except when at a party. Much discomposed, Marianne bent over the sampler, murmuring that it was not that, and indeed she did not care so very much for parties.

  ‘Well, my love, you must not let Stanyon make you discontented, you know. I daresay the Rutlands, and their set, may have been very agreeable, but I did not like to see you so uncivil to poor Barny Warboys.’

  ‘Oh, no, Mama!’ Marianne protested, tears starting to her eyes.

  ‘You did not make him very welcome, did you? One should never discard old friends, my dear, for new ones.’

  ‘I did not mean – I have the head-ache a little!’ Marianne faltered. ‘Indeed I did not mean to be unkind to Barny!’

  ‘No, my love, I am persuaded you would not mean to be unkind,’ Lady Bolderwood said, patting her cheek. ‘It is just that your mind is running a little too much on your pleasuring at Stanyon. There! don’t cry! I know I have only to give you a hint.’

  Marianne kissed her, and promised amendment. She did indeed perform conscientiously such tasks as were given her, but her spirits were uneven. At one moment she would be her merry self, at the next she would be pensive, slipping away to walk by herself in the shrubbery, or sitting with her eyes bent on the pages of a book, and her thoughts far away. The various young gentlemen who paid morning-visits to Whissenhurst found her gay, but disinclined to flirt with them, a change which Lady Bolderwood at first saw with satisfaction, and which soon led her to suspect that Marianne might have got into a scrape at Stanyon. When Martin came to Whissenhurst, and was met by Marianne with unaccustomed formality, she was sure of it, and she begged her daughter to tell her what had occurred. Marianne, hanging down her head, admitted that Martin had tried to make love to her, but she hastened to add that it had not been so very bad, and Drusilla had thought it would be foolish to refine too much upon it.

  ‘Drusilla Morville is a very sensible girl,’ said Lady Bolderwood approvingly. ‘She is perfectly right, and perhaps I am not sorry that it happened, for it has made you see what flirting leads to, my dear, and in future you will take better care, I am sure.’

  She believed that the want of tone in Marianne’s spirits was now accounted for, but when she confided the story to her husband he disconcerted her by saying in his bluff way: ‘Well, Mama, you should know your daughter best, but it’s the first time I ever heard of a girl’s moping about the house because a handsome young fellow shows himself to be head over ears in love with her!’

  ‘My dear Sir Thomas, I am persuaded she was much shocked by Martin’s behaviour –’

  ‘Shocked! Ay, so she might be, the naughty puss! But that’s no reason why she should peck at her dinner, and sit staring into the fire when she thinks we ain’t watching her. No, no, my lady, if it’s young Frant who has made her lose her appetite, you may call me a Dutchman!’

  His wife smiled indulgently, and shook her head, but events proved Sir Thomas to have been right. On the very next morning, when Marianne sat in the window of the front parlour with her Mama, helping her to hem some handkerchiefs, a horseman was seen trotting up the drive. Lady Bolderwood did not immediately recognize him, and she was just wondering aloud who it could be when she became aware of an extraordinary change in her listless daughter. Marianne was blushing, her head bent over her stitchery, but the oddest little smile trembling on her lips. In great astonishment, Lady Bolderwood stared at her.

  ‘I think – I believe – it is Lord Ulverston, Mama!’ murmured Marianne.

  Lord Ulverston it was, and in a very few moments he was shaking hands with them, fluently explaining that since his way led past their house he could not but call to enquire whether Sir Thomas and her ladyship were quite recovered from their indispositions. Lady Bolderwood’s astonishment grew, for as he turned from her to take Marianne’s hand in his she perceived such a glowing look in her daughter’s countenance, such a shy yet beaming smile in her eyes as made her seem almost a stranger to her own mother.

  Sir Thomas, informed by a servant of his lordship’s arrival, then entered the room, and made the Viscount heartily welcome. To his lady’s considerable indignation, he bestowed on her a quizzing look which informed her how far more exactly he had read their daughter’s mind than she had.

  The Viscount stayed chatting easily for perhaps half an hour, and if his eyes strayed rather often to Marianne’s face, and his voice underwent a subtle change when he had occasion to address her, his conduct was otherwise strictly decorous. When he rose to depart, Sir Thomas escorted him to the front-door. No sooner, however, was the parlour-door shut behind them than his lordship requested the favour of a few words with his host.

  ‘Ho! So that’s it, is it?’ said Sir Thomas. ‘Well, well, you had better come into my library, my lord, I suppose!’

  When Sir Thomas presently rejoined his ladies, and they had watched the Viscount riding away, Marianne asked if he had been showing his Indian treasures to his lordship.

  ‘Ay, that was it,’ replied Sir Thomas, chuckling. But when Marianne had left the room, he said to his wife, with one of his cracks of mirth: ‘Indian treasures! It wasn’t any Indian treasure his lordship came after!’

  ‘Good heavens!’ she exclaimed. ‘You cannot, surely, mean that he has made an offer for Marianne?’

  ‘That’s it. Came to ask my permission to pay his addresses to her, just as he ought.’

  ‘But he has only been acquainted with her a few days!’

  ‘What’s that got to say to anything? I knew my mind five minutes after I met you, my lady!’

  ‘She is too young! Why, she is not yet out!’

  ‘Ay, so I told him. I said we could not sanction any engagement until she