Reluctant Widow Read online

  ‘Bedlington!’ Nicky gasped. ‘Bedlington? Oh, by Jove, if that is not too bad! I kept Bouncer beside me all the time he was at Highnoons for fear he should bite him!’

  Nineteen

  It was some time before Nicky could be induced to suspend his eager questions, and go upstairs to change his muddied coat and buckskin breeches for attire more suitable for the dinner-table. He was at first incredulous of Carlyon’s conjecture, but his incredulity was seen to spring more from a rooted dislike of Francis Cheviot than from any reasonable objection to it. He would have been glad to have known Francis for a traitor, and was inclined to think it a great shame if he were to be exonerated. As for Carlyon’s discovery of the memorandum in the bracket-clock, this for a time revived his sense of ill-usage, and he eyed his eldest brother with reproachful severity, and addressed him in terms of such cold civility that it was plain to everyone that much tact would be needed to win him back to his usual good humour. However, it was impossible for anyone with so sunny a temper to bear malice for long, and when Carlyon mounted the broad stairs beside him, and tucked a hand in his arm, saying: ‘Don’t freeze me quite to death, Nicky!’ he melted a little, and replied: ‘Well, I do not think it was a handsome thing to do, Ned, I must say!’

  ‘Most unhandsome,’ Carlyon agreed.

  ‘As though I could not be trusted!’

  ‘Absurd!’

  ‘In fact, I think it was excessively high-handed of you, and selfish as well, besides interfering, because it was more my adventure than yours, after all! And then you would not even let me share the most exciting part!’

  ‘I am altogether a shabby and mean-spirited person,’ said Carlyon meekly. ‘I do not know how you have borne with me for so long. But if I try to mend my ways, perhaps I shall win forgiveness.’

  ‘Ned!’ exploded Nicky wrathfully. ‘I never knew such a complete hand as you are! A regular right cool fish! And if you think I am such a green one that I don’t know when you are trying to roast me you are much mistaken!’

  ‘Abuse me as much as you wish, Nicky: I deserve it all! But there is a roast goose for dinner, and if you are late –’

  ‘No!’ exclaimed Nicky, instantly diverted. ‘Is there, indeed? Then I declare I’m sorry I thrashed poor old Bouncer, for if I had not been obliged to chase after him all this way I must have missed it!’

  He hurried off to change his clothes, and made such haste over his toilet that he joined the party just as they were sitting down to table. While the servants were in the room, conversation had to be kept to such harmless subjects as presented themselves to the minds of four persons preoccupied with one burning topic of interest, and was necessarily a trifle desultory. But when the goose had been removed, and a Chantilly cake placed on the table, flanked by a dish of puits d’amour, and one of sack cream, Carlyon signed to the butler that he might withdraw, with his two minions. No sooner had the door closed behind them than John, who had been sitting in abstracted silence, said heavily that try as he would he could not decide what to do for the best.

  ‘Why should you?’ said Nicky cheerfully. ‘Ned will settle it!’

  Mrs Cheviot could not repress a smile, but John said: ‘I own, I wish I had never heard a word of the business. I should not say so, and of course I don’t mean that I would have had the thing undiscovered, but – Well, it is the devil of a coil, and there is something to be said for Ned’s wanting us to be well out of it! If only we had not been related to Eustace!’

  Nicky said that he did not see what that should signify, and this observation at once led to an argument which lasted until Carlyon, who had taken no part in it, intervened to point out that neither Nicky’s rustication nor John’s prosiness, both of which fruitful topics had crept into the discussion and threatened to monopolise it, had any bearing on the real point at issue.

  ‘I do not see why I must needs be called prosy merely because –’

  ‘Well, but, Ned, you must admit –’

  The door opened. ‘My lord,’ announced the butler disinterestedly, ‘Mr Cheviot has called to see your lordship. I have ushered him into the Crimson Saloon.’

  He stood waiting, holding the door, but as Carlyon rose to his feet, John also got up, saying in an urgent undervoice: ‘Wait, Ned!’

  Carlyon looked at him for a moment, and then spoke over his shoulder. ‘Tell Mr Cheviot I shall be with him in a few minutes.’

  The butler bowed, and went out again. Nicky, his eyes blazing with excitement, exclaimed: ‘By God, this is beyond anything! To think he should dare come smash up to us! Lord, he must have opened the clock before he reached town! Now the game’s your own, Ned! May I come with you, and see what trick he tries to play off?’

  Carlyon shook his head. John said: ‘Ned, be careful! You will not meet him unarmed!’

  Carlyon’s brows rose in a quizzical look. ‘My dear John! I really cannot be expected to receive my visitors with a pistol in my hand!’

  ‘You said yourself he was a very dangerous man!’

  ‘I may have done so, but I never said he was a fool. Murder me in my own house, having been admitted by my butler? I think your wits are gone wool-gathering, John!’

  John reddened, and gave a reluctant laugh. ‘Well, perhaps so, but you will at least allow me to accompany you!’

  Nicky instantly raised his voice in indignant protest. He was silenced by an authoritative finger. ‘No,’ said Carlyon. ‘I think he might find your presence embarrassing. Moreover, I wish you to entertain Mrs Cheviot while I am away. I’ll see him alone.’

  ‘But, Ned, what do you mean to do?’ John said uneasily.

  ‘That must depend on circumstance.’

  ‘Well! I own his having the effrontery to come here does make it seem as though – But I’ll have no hand in giving that memorandum to him!’

  ‘Then stay here,’ said Carlyon, and he left the room.

  He found Francis Cheviot standing over the fire in the Crimson Saloon, one foot, in its gleaming Hessian boot, resting on the fender, one white hand gripping the edge of the mantelpiece. He still wore his fur-lined cloak, but he had cast his muffler aside. There was something rather fixed in the smile with which he met his host, but he said, with all his habitual languor: ‘My dear Carlyon, you must forgive me for intruding upon you at this hour! I feel sure you will: your sense of justice must oblige you to acknowledge its being quite your own fault. Do forgive me, but must we remain in this welter of crimson velvet? It is a colour that irritates my nerves sadly. It is also extremely chilly in here, and you know how susceptible I am to colds.’

  ‘I know how susceptible you say you are to colds,’ replied Carlyon, at his dryest.

  ‘Oh, it is perfectly true!’ Francis assured him. ‘You must not think that I always prevaricate, for I only do so when I am obliged to.’

  ‘Come into the library!’ Carlyon said, leading the way there.

  ‘Ah, this is better!’ Francis approved, looking round with a critical eye. ‘Crimson and gold – I dare say very eligible for certain occasions, but this is not one of them.’ He unfastened his cloak-strings at the throat, and flung the heavy garment off. The smile faded from his face; he came to the fire, and said: ‘You know, my dear Carlyon, I am quite tired – really quite exhausted! – with this game of hide-and-seek in the dark which I have been playing with you. I could wish that you had not so much reserve: it is a fault in you: you must own it to be a fault! If you had but taken me into your confidence I should have been spared a great deal of trouble.’

  ‘And Mrs Cheviot a broken head?’

  Francis shuddered. ‘Pray do not remind me of anything so distasteful to one of my exquisite sensibility! What a horrible necessity! I do trust she is now recovered? I myself am still sadly shaken by the affair. You know, Carlyon, I should find myself with an easier task if you would but cultivate that excellent virtue, frankness. Of course, I perceived