Black Sheep Read online

  He was not listening. The delicacy of Fanny's constitution was a matter of secondary importance. What was of the first importance was the apparent likelihood that her recovery from her present disorder would be too slow to admit of her being able, or even willing, to undertake the long journey to the Scottish Border for several weeks.

  He maintained his smile, and his air of courteous concern, but when he took his leave of Miss Wendover, consigning to her care the tasteful bouquet he had ventured to bring with him for the invalid, he was as near to despair as it was possible for anyone of his temperament to be. He walked slowly back to the centre of the town, trying in vain to think of some other means of recruiting his fortunes than marriage. A run of luck might save him from immediate ruin, but a prolonged run of damnable ill-luck had made it impossible for him to continue punting on tick. If his vowels were still accepted in certain circles, it was with reluctance; and he had been refused admittance – in the politest way – to two of the exclusive hells which had for several years enjoyed his patronage. For the first time in his life he knew himself to be at a stand, and without any hope of deliverance.

  But Providence, in whom he had for so long reposed his careless trust, had not forgotten him. Providence, in the guise of Mrs Clapham, was at that very moment entering the portals of the White Hart, preceded by her courier, accompanied by her female companion, and followed by her maid, and her footman.

  He did not immediately realise that Providence had intervened on his behalf. By the time he had reached the White Hart, Mrs Clapham had been reverently escorted to the suite of rooms bespoken by her courier, and the only signs of her presence which were observable were the elegant travellingchariot which had brought her to Bath, and was still standing in the yard, and the unusual state of bustle prevailing amongst the various servants employed at the hotel.

  There were those who considered the situation of the White Hart to be too noisy for comfort, but it was patronised by so many persons of rank and consequence that the stir created by the arrival of Mrs Clapham was remarkable enough to arouse Stacy's interest. He enquired of the waiter who brought a bottle of brandy to his room who the devil was Mrs Clapham, and why were they all tumbling over themselves to administer to her comfort? The waiter replied, with strict civility, but repressively, that she was the lady who had engaged the largest and most luxurious set of apartments in the house. The boots was more informative, and from him Stacy gathered that Mrs Clapham was a widow-lady, full of juice, and flashing the rags all over. Everything of the best she had to have, and ready to pay through the nose for it. Very affable and pleasant-spoken, too, which was more than could be said of her companion. Top-lofty she was, giving her orders as if she was a duchess, and saying that first this and then that would not do for her mistress, and her own sheets and pillows must be put on her bed, and her own tea served to her, and dear knows what more besides!

  Stacy's curiosity was only mildly tickled by this description. It was not until he encountered Mrs Clapham on the following morning that the thought that Providence might once more have come to his rescue darted through his brain. A widow, travelling with a large entourage, and bringing with her her own bedlinen, suggested to him a turbaned dowager, the relict of a bygone generation. Mrs Clapham might be a widow, but she was no dowager. She was quite a young woman: past her girlhood, but not a day older than thirty, if as old. She was remarkably pretty, too, with an inviting mouth, and a pair of brown eyes which were as innocent as they were enormous, until she dropped demure eyelids over them, and looked sidelong from under the screen of her curling lashes. Then they became unmistakably provocative. She was dressed with great elegance, but in a subdued shade of lavender, which seemed to indicate that, while she had cast off her weeds, her bereavement was of fairly recent date. When Stacy saw her first, she was tripping down the stairs, trying to button one of her gloves, without dropping the prayer-book she was holding. As Stacy looked up at her, it slipped from her imperfect grasp, and fell almost at his feet.

  'Oh – !' she exclaimed distressfully. Then, as he picked it up, and straightened its crumpled leaves: 'Oh, how very obliging of you! Thank you! So stupid of me! It is all the fault of these tiresome gloves, which will come unbuttoned!'

  Her companion, following her down the stairs, clicked her tongue, and said; 'Pray allow me, Mrs Clapham!'

  Mrs Clapham held out her wrist helplessly, repeating, with a rueful smile cast at Stacy: 'So stupid of me! Oh, thank you, dear Mrs Winkworth! I don't know how I should go on without you!'

  Stacy, presenting her prayer-book to her, bowed with his exquisite grace, and said: 'One or two of the pages a little crumpled, ma'am, but no irreparable damage, I fancy! May I beg leave to make myself known to you? – Stacy Calverleigh, wholly at your service!'

  She gave him her tightly gloved hand. 'Oh, yes! And I am Mrs Clapham, sir. This is Mrs Winkworth, who takes such good care of me. We are on our way to Church, in the Abbey. The feel it gives me! I have never attended a service in an abbey before: isn't it absurd?'

  'Your first visit to Bath, ma'am?' he enquired, bestowing a modified bow upon her companion.

  'Oh, yes! I was never here before in my life, though I have been to Tunbridge Wells. But I have been living retired lately, in the country, only it was so very melancholy that I was quite moped. So the doctor advised me to come to Bath, and take the Hot Bath, and perhaps drink the waters.'

  'They are very nasty!'

  'Mrs Clapham, the bell has stopped ringing,' interposed Mrs Winkworth.

  'So it has! We must make haste!'

  She smiled, bowed, and hurried away. Mrs Winkworth also bowed, very slightly, but she did not smile.

  His spirits much improved, Stacy retired to his own room to consider the possibilities of this new and unexpected event. Mrs Clapham was obviously wealthy, but the presence of Mrs Winkworth argued that a careful watch was being kept over her. Mrs Winkworth was a middle-aged woman, who must have been handsome in her youth, for she had good features, and fine, if rather hard, grey eyes. Stacy thought, from her forbidding mien and the somewhat authoritative manner she used towards Mrs Clapham, that she had been hired rather as a chaperon than as a companion, and this indicated that the widow's relations were jealously guarding her from gentlemen hanging out for rich wives. Neither lady, he was quick to realise, was of the first stare. Mrs Winkworth was plainly of Cockney origin: her refined accents were superimposed on that unmistakable twang; Mrs Clapham he wrote down as a provincial, whose husband had almost certainly made his fortune in trade.

  If there was a fortune, which was not yet certain. It was not unknown for a pretty widow, desirous of contracting a second, and more genteel, marriage, to invest a modest competence as Mrs Clapham might be doing: rigging herself out in style, and visiting a fashionable watering-place in the hope of attracting, and ensnaring, an eligible suitor. Not that Bath was any longer a resort of high fashion, but very likely she did not know that its visitors nowadays were rarely smart bachelors, but for the most part elderly persons, who wintered there for the sake of its mild climate; or invalids who came to drink the waters, or to take a course of Vapour Baths. On the other hand, the employment of a courier and a footman, not to mention her insistence on having her bed furnished with her own linen, seemed excessive; and the presence of a dragon-like companion lent no colour to the suspicion that she might be an ambitious female on the catch. Nor did her dress, which was costly but unostentatious. He recalled that she had been wearing large pearl drops in her ears, and round her throat a necklace of pearls which, if they were indeed pearls, must have cost the late Mr Clapham a pretty penny. But in these days one never knew: the most convincing pearls could be made out of glass and fish-scales. He had purchased one of these sham necklaces himself once, to gratify the lightskirt at that time living in his keeping, and the sheen on those trumpery beads would have deceived anyone but a jeweller.

  He decided, coldly considering Mrs Clapham, that he must make it his business to ingrat