Lady of Quality Read online

  'You don't feel – it has occurred to me that you might perhaps say something to Kilbride?'

  'My dear girl, it is not in the least necessary that I should do so. He may flirt with her, but he won't go beyond flirtation, believe me! He is no coward, but he is as little anxious to risk a meeting with me, as I am to force one on him. You may rest assured that I shan't do so, for nothing could be more prejudicial to Lucilla's reputation than the scandal that would create! Take that anxious frown off your face! It doesn't become you! I perceive that Lady Wychwood is about to descend on you, so we had better part: she clearly feels it to be her duty to come between us! I wonder what harm she thinks I could do you in such a public place as this?'

  Eleven

  In assuming that Lady Wychwood was coming towards them to protect Annis, Mr Carleton wronged her. She had swallowed the glass of hot water, had enjoyed a comfortable chat with Mrs Stinchcombe, and she now wished to go back to Camden Place, to take Tom for a gentle airing in the crescent-shaped garden which lay between Upper and Lower Camden Place. Not being in the habit of indulging ridiculous fancies, the fear that Mr Carleton could do Annis a particle of bodily harm in the Pump Room never entered her head; and as for the danger of his ingratiating himself with her to her undoing, she thought this equally ridiculous. While she talked to Mrs Stinchcombe, she had contrived to watch, from the tail of her eye, the brief tête-à-tête between Annis and this reputed profligate, and she was perfectly assured that her lord had allowed his brotherly anxiety to overcome his good sense. She was going to occupy herself during the afternoon by writing a soothing letter to him, and she said, as she and Annis left the Pump Room: 'I can't for the life of me conceive, dearest, what can have made Geoffrey take such a maggot into his head as to suppose that there was the least fear of that disagreeable man's making you the object of his gallantry – if gallantry it can be called! I promise you, I mean to give him a severe scold, for supposing that you, of all people, could possibly develop a tendre for such a brusque, and extremely ungallant man!'

  'Deplorably rag-mannered, isn't he?' agreed Annis.

  'Oh, shockingly! I could see that he had made you as cross as crabs, and positively quaked for fear that you would fly up into the boughs, which wouldn't have astonished me, but which would have been a very improper thing to have done in the Pump Room. How unfortunate it is that you are obliged to be on terms with him! Forgive me if I say that I think the sooner he removes Lucilla from your house the better it will be for you! What was he looking so black about?'

  'Denis Kilbride,' replied Miss Wychwood, calmly, but with a gleam in her eyes hard to interpret.

  'Denis Kilbride?' echoed Lady Wychwood, too much surprised to notice either the gleam, or the little smile that hovered at the corners of Miss Wychwood's mouth. 'Why, what has he to say to anything?'

  'Too much!' said Miss Wychwood, with a wry grimace. 'I fear he may be in a fair way towards capturing Lucilla's silly heart, and although that possibility doesn't seem to worry Mr Carleton much, what does worry him, and made him try to ring a peal over me just now, is the circumstance of Kilbride's having escorted Lucilla yesterday all the way from Camden Place to Laura Place. It was unfortunate, for several people saw them, and if you had ever lived in Bath, Amabel, you would know that it is a veritable hotbed of gossip!'

  'But surely, Annis, it is perfectly permissible for a gentleman to accompany a girl through the town, in the daytime, and with her maid walking behind, as I don't doubt Lucilla's maid did!' expostulated Lady Wychwood. 'Why, it is quite the thing for a gentleman to take up some young female beside him in his curricle, or his phaeton, or whatever sporting vehicle he happens to be driving! And without her maid!'

  'Perfectly permissible, my dear, but not if the gentleman is Denis Kilbride! At the best, he is recognized as a dangerous flirt, and at the worst, a confirmed fortune-hunter.'

  'Oh, dear!' said Lady Wychwood, sadly shocked. 'I know Geoffrey didn't at all like it when Kilbride was courting you, when we were all three of us in London. He said he was a hereand-thereian; and I do recall that he once said he suspected him of hanging out for a rich wife. I didn't set much store by that, for Geoffrey does sometimes say things he doesn't really mean, when he takes anyone in dislike, and he never desired me not to receive him, or to invite him to my parties. And when, last year, he had been visiting his grandmother, and had ridden over to Twynham to pay his respects to us, Geoffrey received him with perfect complaisance.'

  'By that time, Geoffrey knew that there was no fear of my succumbing to Kilbride's wiles,' said Annis, with a touch of cynicism. 'He is everywhere received, even in Bath! In part, this is due to the respect in which old Lady Kilbride is held; and in part because he is regarded as an amusing rattle, whose presence can be depended on to enliven the dullest party. For myself, though I can imagine few worse fates than to be legshackled to him, I like him, I invite him to my own parties, I frequently dance with him at the Assemblies. But although – in Geoffrey's opinion – I set too little store by the conventions! – I take care not to see so much of him as to give even the most censorious critic reason to say that I live in his pocket! Because I was well-acquainted with him before I came to reside in Bath, he is thought to be an old friend of mine, and as such his presence at my parties, the free-and-easy terms on which we stand are looked on with indulgence. But although I am no girl, and might be supposed to be past the age of looking for a husband, I should hesitate very much to drive with him, ride with him, or even walk with him. Not because I am not very well able to check his familiarities, but because I know just how many malicious tongues would start to wag if I were to be seen tête-â-tête with him! So, with the best will in the world to do so, I cannot blame Mr Carleton for having raked me down!'

  'I consider it to have been excessively impertinent of him, and I hope you gave him a set-down!' said Lady Wychwood roundly.

  Annis made no reply to this, but it occurred to her that giving Mr Carleton a set-down was something she had never yet succeeded in doing. She thought that it would perhaps be as well if she didn't discuss his character with her sister-in-law, for she had made the disconcerting discovery that however much she herself criticized his faults an almost overmastering impulse to defend them arose in her when anyone else did so. So she turned the subject by directing Lady Wychwood's attention to a very pretty bonnet displayed in a milliner's window. The rest of the walk was beguiled by an animated discussion of all the latest quirks of fashion, which lasted until they reached Upper Camden Place, and Lady Wychwood caught sight of her small son, playing ball in the garden with Miss Farlow. This made her exclaim: 'Oh, look! Maria has taken Tom into the garden! What a good, kind creature she is, Annis!'

  'I wish I were rid of her!' replied Annis, with considerable feeling.

  Lady Wychwood was shocked. 'Wish you were rid of her? Oh, no, how can you say so, dearest? I am sure there was never anyone more amiable, and obliging! You cannot be serious!'

  'I am very serious. I find her a dead bore.'

  Lady Wychwood thought this over for a moment, and then said slowly: 'She isn't bookish, of course, and not clever, as you are. And she does talk a great deal, I own. Geoffrey calls her a gabble-grinder, but gentlemen, you know, don't seem to like chatty females, and even he recognizes her many excellent qualities.'

  'Are you trying to hoax me into thinking that you don't find her a bore?' demanded Annis incredulously.

  'No, indeed! I mean, I truly don't. Oh, sometimes she does chatter rather too much, but, in general, I enjoy talking with her because she is interested in the things which don't interest you. Little things, such as household matters, and the children, and – and new recipes, and a host of things of that nature!' She hesitated, and then said simply: 'You see, dearest, I'm not clever, as you are! Indeed, I often wonder whether you don't find me a dead bore!'

  Annis instantly disclaimed, and warmly enough to win a grateful smile from Lady Wychwood; but in her secret heart she knew that fond though she was