The Nonesuch Read online

  ‘My blessing on the alliance: she will make you an excellent wife! But wherein do you need my advice? Or are you merely trying to wheedle me into breaking the news to your mama?’

  ‘No, of course not! I shall tell her myself. Though it would be helpful if you supported me,’ he added, after a reflective moment.

  ‘I will.’

  Julian smiled gratefully at him. ‘Yes. I know: you are such a right one, Waldo!’

  ‘Spare my blushes! And my advice?’

  ‘Well, that’s the only thing that has me in a worry!’ disclosed his lordship. ‘I want to come to the point, and although the Chartleys have been as kind and affable as they could be – not hinting me away, or anything of that nature! – I can’t but wonder whether it may not be too soon to ask the Rector for permission to propose to Patience! I mean, if he thought I was a regular squire of dames, because I dangled after Miss Wield, he’d be bound to send me packing – and then it would be all holiday with me!’

  ‘I hardly think that he will judge you quite as harshly as that,’ replied Sir Waldo, with admirable gravity. ‘After all, you are not entangled with Tiffany, are you?’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Julian assured him. ‘Nothing of that sort! In fact, she brushed me off after what happened in Leeds, so I don’t think I need feel myself in any way bound to her, do you?’ He chuckled. ‘Laurie cut me out! I was never more glad of anything! Well, it just shows you, doesn’t it? Only think of being grateful to Laurie! Lord! But tell me, Waldo! What should I do?’

  Sir Waldo, whose private opinion was that the Rector must be living in the hourly expectation of receiving a declaration from Lord Lindeth, had no hesitation in answering this appeal. He recommended his anxious young cousin to make known his intentions at the earliest opportunity, very handsomely offering, at the same time, to reassure the Rector, if he should be misled into believing that his daughter’s suitor was a hardened roué. Julian grinned appreciatively at this; and for the following half-hour bored Sir Waldo very much by expatiating at length on Miss Chartley’s numerous virtues.

  He departed at last, but his place was taken within ten minutes by Laurence, who came in, and stood irresolutely on the threshold, eyeing his cousin in some doubt.

  Sir Waldo had sat down at the desk. There were several papers spread on it, but he did not seem to be at work on them. His hands were clasped on top of the pile, and his eyes were frowning at the wall in front of him. His expression was unusually grim, and it did not lighten when he turned his head to look at Laurence. Rather, it hardened. ‘Well?’

  If his demeanour had not warned Laurence already that he had chosen an inauspicious moment to seek him out, the uncompromising tone in which this one word was uttered must have done so. Laurence was still holding the door, and he backed himself out of the room, saying hurriedly, as he drew the door to upon himself: ‘Oh, nothing! I only – Beg pardon! Didn’t know you was busy! Some other time!’

  ‘I advise you not to cherish false hopes! At no time!’ Sir Waldo said harshly.

  Under any ordinary circumstances Laurence would have been provoked into lengthy retort, but on this occasion he did not venture to reply at all, but effaced himself with all possible speed.

  The door safely shut between himself and his suddenly formidable cousin, he let his breath go in an astonished: ‘Phew!’ Indignation warred with curiosity in his breast, but curiosity won. After looking speculatively at the door for several moments, as though he could see Waldo’s face through its stout panels, he walked away, his somewhat ferret-like brain concentrated on the new and unexpected problem which had presented itself.

  It did not take him long to decide that the only possible cause of Waldo’s unprecedented behaviour must be a disappointment in love. It was absurd to suppose that he might be faced with pecuniary difficulties; and, in Laurence’s view, only love or penury could account for so bleak an aspect. At first glance it seemed equally absurd to suppose that his courtship of Miss Trent could have suffered a set-back; but after some moments of reflection Laurence came to the conclusion that this must be the answer. It might seem incredible that a female in her circumstances should rebuff so opulent a suitor, but there could be no doubt that Miss Trent was a very odd creature. But no doubt either that she was as deeply in love with Waldo as he with her. No forbidding frown had marred Waldo’s countenance at the breakfast-table: he had been in particularly good spirits. Then he had driven off, tossing a joking remark over his shoulder to Julian; and although he had not disclosed his destination only a lobcock could have doubted that he was bound for Staples. Julian, wrapped up in his own affairs, might not know that Waldo had visited Staples every day for more than a sennight, but his far more astute cousin knew it. It looked very much as if Waldo had popped the question, and had been rejected. But why?

  Cudgel his brains as he might, Laurence could arrive at no satisfactory answer to this enigma. Had any man but Waldo been concerned he would have been inclined to think that someone had traduced him to Miss Trent: he rather supposed her to be pretty straitlaced. But so was Waldo straitlaced, and what the devil could the most arrant scandalmonger find to say of him that would disgust any female? And was his Long Meg fool enough to believe a story fabricated by one of the jealous tabbies of the parish?

  It was all very perplexing, but an answer there must be, which it might be well worth his while to discover. His first scheme to win his affluent cousin’s gratitude had gone awry – it had not taken him very long to realize that no assistance from him had been needed to wean Julian from his attachment to Tiffany Wield – but it might well be that in this new, and very odd, situation lay the means he had been seeking. If, through his agency, the starcrossed lovers became reconciled, it was difficult to see how Waldo – no nip-squeeze, give him his due! – could fail to express his gratitude in a suitable and handsome manner.

  Laurence’s spirits had been rapidly sinking into gloom, but they now rose. It had been vexatious to find that his admirable plan to detach the Wield chit from Lindeth had been labour wasted. He did not regret it, precisely, for to have stolen the Beauty from under the noses of her ridiculous swains had been amusing, and as good a way as any other of whiling away the time he had been obliged to spend in an excessively boring place. He had even toyed for a day or two with the thought of wooing Tiffany in earnest, but had soon abandoned the scheme. The idea of tying himself up in wedlock was distasteful to him; and although he might have overcome his reluctance for the sake of Tiffany’s fortune he could not feel that there was the least likelihood of obtaining her guardians’ consent to the match, much less of their relinquishing into his hands the control of her fortune a day before she attained her majority. So however pleasant it might be to flirt elegantly with such an out-and-out beauty the affair was really a waste of time. Its only value was that it now provided him with an excuse for visiting Staples, to see for himself how the land lay there. It might not be easy to coax Miss Trent to confide in him; but although her manner towards him held a good deal of reserve, she had lately begun to show him rather more friendliness; and if she was as blue-devilled as Waldo over the rift between them she might, Laurence considered, be glad to be offered the opportunity to unburden herself. Certainly she would be, if she and Waldo had quarrelled: positively burning to state her grievances, if he knew anything of women! A quarrel, however, seemed highly unlikely: she did not look to be the sort of female to fly into the boughs, or to take affronts into her head; and Waldo’s even temper was proverbial. On the whole, Laurence was more inclined to believe that the trouble must be due to some misunderstanding. Very probably each was too proud to seek an explanation of the other, and no one would be more welcome to them than a tactful mediator. Acting as a go-between might prove to be a wearing task, but in the pursuit of his own ends Laurence grudged no expenditure of effort.

  Accordingly, he drove over to Staples that very day, ostensibly to visit Tiffany. He w