Reluctant Widow Read online

  ‘That remains to be seen, ma’am. Will you excuse me while I send a message out to your groom? I think he should go back at once to Highnoons, to inform Miss Beccles that you are safely in my charge, and that I shall convey you home in my carriage after dinner.’ She made a half-hearted protest, which was not attended to. He left the room, and was giving the butler his instructions in the hall when John Carlyon walked into the house, carrying his gun, and a couple of rabbits, which he handed to the footman.

  ‘Hallo, Ned, so you are back!’ he remarked. ‘I stayed in all the morning on the chance that I might be obliged to go over to Highnoons, but no message came, and so I thought I might as well see if I could come by any sport while I am at home.’

  Carlyon nodded. ‘I was informed you had done so. Come into the library!’

  ‘I will do so when I have washed my hands,’ John promised.

  Carlyon returned to the library himself, saying as he entered the room: ‘My brother is this instant come in, and will be with us in a minute or two, Mrs Cheviot.’

  She made as if she would have risen from her chair. ‘You wish to be private with him, I know. I will leave you, sir.’

  ‘Indeed, I beg you will not! I may depend upon your discretion. You already know so much that you must know the whole.’

  ‘You are very good, sir, but Mr John Carlyon may not like to discuss these matters in my presence, and I would not –’

  ‘Mr John Carlyon will do as he is bid,’ he replied.

  She smiled. ‘Ah, I knew you for a despot upon my first encounter with you, my lord!’

  ‘Very rarely, I assure you! It seems a long time since that day.’

  ‘Yes, I have often feared that I was but tedious company,’ remarked the widow affably. ‘You must blame my circumstances, sir, which have made me lose the art of making myself agreeable in society.’

  ‘I observe that they have not made you lose your quickness of tongue, ma’am! You have wished to see me put out of countenance, and now cannot doubt that you have had your wish gratified!’

  She laughed, but shook her head. John came into the room at that moment, rubbing his chilled hands together. He stopped short when he perceived Elinor, and said in a voice of surprise: ‘Mrs Cheviot! I had no notion – Ned, you should have warned me you had a guest with you! I would not have come in in all my dirt! Pray excuse me, ma’am! I have been out shooting, and have had no time to change my jacket!’

  ‘Mrs Cheviot will excuse you readily,’ Carlyon said. ‘I have been waiting to see you all the afternoon. The memorandum has been found.’

  ‘What! Not at Highnoons!’ John exclaimed.

  ‘Yes, at Highnoons, locked in the bracket-clock on the mantelpiece in the book-room.’

  ‘Good God! You do not mean it! It is the actual copy that is missing?’

  ‘I have not perused it, but read enough to convince me it could be none other. You may look at it.’ He drew a folded sheaf from his pocket, and handed it to his brother.

  John almost snatched it from him, and spread open the sheets, scanning them rapidly, and with starting eyes. ‘My God, there can be no doubt! Who found this?’

  ‘I did – through the instrumentality of Mrs Cheviot,’ Carlyon replied.

  John’s gaze was turned respectfully towards her. She said: ‘Yes, indeed, he could scarcely have succeeded without me. You may imagine how happy I am to have suffered a broken head in this cause! To be sure, I was a little put out at first, for you must know that from some cause or another I have not been very much in the habit of being hit on the head, and so was inclined to refine too much on the event. But your brother’s powerful reasoning soon showed me how absurd it was in me to be vexed by such a trifling thing! I make no complaint. I see that it was all for the best.’

  ‘My dear Mrs Cheviot! You are surely jesting!’ said John, quite bewildered.

  ‘I do not wonder at your surprise. You would not have supposed I could play so large a part in the recovery of that document! I did not suppose it myself, and I will own that I could have wished my part in the affair to have been of a less passive nature.’

  John turned his head to direct an imploring look at Carlyon, who said, with a slight smile: ‘It is very true, my dear John, but Mrs Cheviot has her own way of describing what has occurred. She wished to see if she could not wind up that clock, and while she was endeavouring to open it – but in vain, since it was locked, and I held the key – Francis Cheviot must have entered the room behind her. He saw her with a household inventory in her hand, in the act of adjusting the clock, and sprang to a false conclusion. I think he must have used the paper-weight which I observed on the desk to strike her down. I am persuaded that he took care not to hit her with sufficient force to do her a serious injury, but –’

  ‘Are you indeed?’ interrupted Elinor. ‘How considerate that was of him! I wonder if I should write to express the sense of my obligation to him?’

  ‘Obligation!’ John ejaculated, his mind too much taken up with the enormity of the occurrence to be susceptible to irony. ‘It passes everything! I hope you have had the fellow laid by the heels, Ned!’

  ‘No. He has gone back to London, carrying the clock with him,’ Carlyon replied, taking a pinch of snuff.

  John stared at him. ‘I think you must have taken leave of your senses!’

  Elinor picked up another macaroon. ‘I must own I have often wondered when that melancholy suspicion would enter your brain, sir,’ she said. ‘I saw at the outset that his intellect was sadly disordered, but I dare say it has come upon him gradually, and you might not notice quite immediately.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ said John testily. ‘Ned has as sound a head as any of my acquaintance! But how is this, Ned? You cannot want more proof!’

  ‘I believe I do not, but I also believe that we shall do well to take care how we proceed in this business. I would do nothing until I had consulted with you. I fancy we can neither of us be anxious to advertise this matter. The connection between ourselves and the Cheviots is too close to be comfortable. If matters can be settled without scandal, I own I should prefer it.’

  ‘You cannot suppose I have not considered that!’ John said, taking a quick turn about the room. ‘But it will not do! Even if I knew how to restore that memorandum secretly, I would not do it! It is not the part of an honest man to let a traitor remain at large out of considerations of family!’

  ‘Or, indeed, out of any other consideration. But if we could be sure that the traitor was rendered powerless for the future?’

  ‘How?’ John demanded, stopping to stare at him.

  ‘I fancy it is in a way to be done.’

  ‘Ned, what the devil have you been about?’

  ‘It is not my doing. I may even be mistaken. That must be ascertained, of course.’

  ‘I do not know what you would be at! Here you have in your possession a document that must be instantly taken to Lord Bathurst, with the full story of its discovery! You cannot be thinking of doing otherwise! It will be hushed up, I make no doubt: no one will be anxious to have it known how easily such a document went astray!’

  Carlyon was silent, frowning down at the memorandum, which he had picked up, and folded again. After a moment he raised his eyes, and directed one of his level glances at his brother. ‘I think we should do better to give these papers to Francis Cheviot,’ he said.

  His words struck both his auditors dumb. They regarded him in stupefaction. He had spoken in a reflective tone, as though debating within himself, and did not appear to notice the effect his words produced.

  ‘You – think – we – should – Ned, are you indeed mad?’ John gasped.

  ‘No. I have not had the opportunity to tell you what I discovered – or, rather, verified – in London. Louis De Castres was stabbed.’

  Real perturbation was in John’s face. ‘Ned, old fellow, you cannot