The Quiet Gentleman Read online

  ‘Do not put yourself about, my dear!’ recommended his parent. ‘Dinner must for this once await his convenience, but with all his faults his disposition was always compliant. I assure you, I do not expect to find our style of living overset by any fashionable nonsense which he may have learnt in Lady Penistone’s establishment. That would not suit me at all, and I am not quite nobody at Stanyon, I believe!’

  This announcement, being plainly in the nature of a pleasantry, caused Mr Clowne to laugh a little, and to say: ‘Indeed your ladyship is not nobody! Such a whimsical fancy must really quite startle anyone unacquainted with those flashes of wit we know so well!’ He encountered a sardonic look from Theodore, and added hastily: ‘How many years it is since I have had the pleasure of meeting his lordship! How much he will have to tell us of his experiences! I am sure we shall all hang upon his lips!’

  ‘Hang upon his lips!’ exclaimed Martin, with one of his fiery looks. ‘Ay! toad-eat him to the top of his bent! I shall not do so! I wish he were underground!’

  ‘Take care what you say!’ interposed his cousin sternly.

  Martin flushed, looking a little conscious, but said in a sullen tone: ‘Well, I do wish it, but of course I don’t mean anything! You need not be so quick to take me up!’

  ‘Military anecdotes are never acceptable to me,’ said the Dowager, as though the brief interchange between the cousins had not occurred. ‘I have no intention of encouraging Desborough to enlarge upon his experiences in Spain. The reflections of a General must always be of value – though I fancy we have heard enough of the late war: those of a junior officer can only weary his auditors.’

  ‘You need feel no alarm on that score, ma’am,’ said Theodore. ‘My cousin has not altered so much!’

  This was uttered so dryly that the Chaplain felt himself impelled to step into a possible breach. ‘Ah, Mr Theodore, you remind us that you are the only one amongst us who can claim to know his lordship! You have frequently been meeting him, while we –’

  ‘I have met him occasionally,’ interrupted Theodore. ‘His employment abroad has not made frequent meetings possible.’

  ‘Just so – precisely as I was about to remark! But you know him well enough to have a kindness for him!’

  ‘I have always had a great kindness for him, sir.’

  The reappearance of Miss Morville, bearing a small fire-screen set upon an ebony stick, which she handed to the Dowager, created a timely diversion. The Dowager bestowed a smile upon her, saying that she was very much obliged to her. ‘I do not know how I shall bear to relinquish you to your worthy parents when they return from the Lakes, for I am sure I shall miss you excessively. My daughter – Lady Grampound, you know – is for ever advising me to employ some genteel person to bear me company, and to run my little errands for me. If ever I should decide to do so I shall offer the post to you, I promise you!’

  Miss Morville, not so swift as Mr Clowne to recognize her ladyship’s wit, replied to this pleasantry in a practical spirit. ‘Well, it is very kind in you to think you would like to have me to live with you, ma’am,’ she said, ‘but I do not think it would suit me, for I should not have nearly enough to do.’

  ‘You like to be very busy, don’t you?’ Theodore said, smiling at her in some amusement.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, seating herself again in her chair, and resuming her knitting. She added thoughtfully: ‘It is to be hoped that I shall never be obliged to seek such a post, for my disposition is not meek, and would render me ineligible for any post but that, perhaps, of housekeeper.’

  This prosaic observation appeared to daunt the company. A silence fell, which was broken by the ubiquitous Mr Clowne, who said archly: ‘What do you think of, Miss Morville, while your hands are so busy? Or must we not seek to know?’

  She looked rather surprised, but replied with the utmost readiness: ‘I was wondering whether I should not, after all, make the foot a little longer. When they are washed at home, you know, they don’t shrink; but it is sadly different at Cambridge! I should think the washerwomen there ought to be ashamed of themselves!’

  Finding that this reflection evoked no response from the assembled company, she again applied herself to her work, and continued to be absorbed in it until Martin, who had quick ears, jerked up his head, and ejaculated: ‘A carriage! At last!’

  At the same moment, an added draught informed the initiated that the door beyond the Grand Staircase had been opened; there was a subdued noise of bustle in the vestibule, and the sound of trampling hooves in the carriage-drive. Miss Morville finished knitting her row, folded the sock, and bestowed it neatly in the tapestry-bag. Though Martin nervously fingered his cravat, the Dowager betrayed by no sign that she had heard the sounds of an arrival. Mr Clowne, taking his cue from her, lent a spuriously eager ear to the platitude which fell from her lips; and Theodore, glancing from one to the other, seemed to hesitate to put himself forward.

  A murmur of voices from the vestibule indicated that Abney, the butler, had thrown open the doors to receive his new master. Several persons, including the steward, and a couple of footmen, were bowing, and falling back obsequiously; and in another instant a slim figure came into view. Only Miss Morville, seated in a chair with its back turned to the vestibule, was denied this first glimpse of the seventh Earl. Either from motives of good manners, or from lack of interest, she refrained from peeping round the back of her chair; and the Dowager, to mark her approbation, addressed another of her majestic platitudes to her.

  All that could at first be seen of the seventh Earl was a classic profile, under the brim of a high-crowned beaver; a pair of gleaming Hessians, and a drab coat of many capes and graceful folds, which enveloped him from chin to ankle. His voice was heard: a soft voice, saying to the butler: ‘Thank you! Yes, I remember you very well: you are Abney. And you, I think, must be my steward. Perran, is it not? I am very glad to see you again.’

  He turned, as though aware of the eyes which watched him, and stood foursquare to the Hall, seeing his stepmother, her imposing form gowned in purple satin, a turban set upon her gray locks, her Roman nose elevated; his half-brother, standing scowling before the fireplace, one hand gripping the high mantelshelf, the other dug into the pocket of his satin breeches; his cousin, standing a little in the background, and slightly smiling at him; his Chaplain, torn between curiosity and his allegiance to the Dowager. He regarded them thoughtfully, while with one hand he removed the beaver from his head, and held it out, and with the other he relinquished his gloves and his cane into the care of a footman. His hat was reverently taken from him by Abney, who murmured: ‘Your coat, my lord!’

  ‘My coat, yes: in a moment!’ the Earl said, moving unhurriedly towards the Hall.

  An instant Theodore hesitated, waiting for the Dowager or for Martin to make some sign; then he strode forward, with his hands held out, exclaiming: ‘Gervase, my dear fellow! Welcome!’

  Martin, his affronted stare taking in the number of the capes of that drab coat, the high polish on the Hessian boots, the extravagant points of a shirt-collar, and the ordered waves of guinea-gold hair above a white brow, muttered audibly: ‘Good God! the fellow’s nothing but a curst dandy!’

  Two

  The flicker of a quizzical look, cast in Martin’s direction, betrayed that his half-brother had heard his involuntary exclamation. Before the ready flush had surged up to the roots of his hair, Gervase was no longer looking at him, but was shaking his cousin’s hand, smiling at him, and saying: ‘How do you do, Theo? You see, I do keep my promises: I have come!’

  Theo held his slender hand an instant longer, pressing it slightly. ‘One year past! You are a villain!’

  ‘Ah, yes, but you see I must have gone into black gloves, and really I could not bring myself to do so!’ He drew his hand away, and advanced into the Hall, towards his stepmother’s chair.

  She did not rise, but she extended