The Reluctant Widow Read online

  A little laugh shook Cheviot. He caught his breath on a stab of pain, and gasped: ‘Yes, yes, I don’t care! If only I could see more plain!’

  ‘Hold the candle nearer!’

  Mr Presteign picked up the branch in a shaking hand.

  ‘It’s not that, my lord,’ the doctor muttered.

  ‘I know. Come, Eustace, here is the pen, and there is enough light now. Write down your name!’

  The dying man seemed to make a great effort. For a moment, held up in Carlyon’s arms, he peered stupidly at the paper under his hand; then his eyes cleared a little, and his aimless clutch on the quill tightened. Slowly he traced his signature at the foot of the paper. The pen slipped from his fingers, the ink on it staining the quilt. ‘Oh, I know what I should do!’ he said, as though someone had challenged this. ‘Put my – put my hand on it, and say – and say – give this as my last will and testament. That’s it. By God, I beat you at the post, Carlyon!’

  Carlyon lowered him on to the pillows, and removed the paper from under his hand. ‘You two are witnesses,’ he told the other men. ‘Sign it, if you please!’

  ‘If he is of sound mind –’ Presteign said doubtfully.

  The doctor smiled sourly. ‘Don’t tease yourself on that score! His mind is as sound as ever it was.’

  ‘Oh, if you are assured of that – !’ Presteign said, and wrote his name quickly on the paper.

  Someone scratched on the door; Carlyon went to it, and opened it, to find Hitchin there, with the intelligence that Mr Carlyon was below-stairs.

  ‘Mr Carlyon?’

  ‘Mr John, my lord. I’ve shown him into the parlour. Mr Carlyon is very wishful to see your lordship.’

  ‘Very well, I will come directly.’

  The doctor rose from the table, and gave Cheviot’s Will back to Carlyon. ‘There, it’s done, and I hope you may not regret this night’s work, my lord,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you; I do not expect to regret it.’

  ‘To be throwing a good estate to the four winds for a scruple!’ the doctor grumbled.

  Carlyon shook his head, and went out of the room. Downstairs, he found Elinor seated by the fire in the parlour, and his brother, John Carlyon, standing in the middle of the room, and staring at her in perplexity. He turned as he heard the door open, and said quickly: ‘Ned! For God’s sake, what is this farrago of nonsense? I am met by that fool Hitchen, who tells me I shall find Cheviot’s betrothed in the parlour, and now this lady informs me that she is married to him!’

  ‘Yes, that is quite true,’ Carlyon replied. ‘My brother John, Mrs Cheviot. I am glad you are here, John: you are the very man I need.’

  ‘Ned!’ said Mr Carlyon explosively. ‘What the devil have you been about?’

  ‘Just what you knew I meant to be about. Did Nicky tell you what had chanced?’

  ‘Yes, Nicky did tell me!’ John said grimly. ‘Very pretty tidings, upon my word! But he did not tell me the whole!’

  ‘No, for he did not know it. I have been fortunate in finding a lady willing to marry Eustace, and I stand very much in her debt.’ He smiled slightly at Elinor as he spoke, and added: ‘Miss Rochdale – or, rather, Mrs Cheviot – you are very tired, and must be anxious to retire. It has been a fatiguing day for you.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Elinor, regarding him with a fascinated eye. ‘It – it has been just a little fatiguing!’

  ‘Well, I am going to put you in my brother’s charge. He will take care of you, and drive you to my home. John, how came you here?’

  ‘I rode.’

  ‘Very well. Leave your horse for me, and take Mrs Cheviot in my curricle. Tell Mrs Rugby to see her comfortably bestowed, and be sure that she has some refreshment before she retires.’

  ‘Well – yes, certainly! Of course! But you, Ned?’

  ‘I must stay. I shall come later.’

  ‘Is Eustace alive?’

  ‘Yes, he’s alive. I’ll tell you the whole presently. Do you take Mrs Cheviot home now, there’s a good fellow!’

  ‘I thought,’ said Elinor feebly, ‘that I was to put up here for the night.’

  ‘Circumstances have changed, however, and I think you will be more comfortable at the Hall. You will be quite safe in my brother’s hands, and you will find my housekeeper very ready to attend to all your wants. John, Mrs Cheviot’s baggage is already bestowed in the curricle, so you have nothing to wait for.’

  ‘But what am I going to do?’ Elinor asked helplessly.

  ‘We will discuss that to-morrow,’ replied Carlyon.

  He left the room, just nodding to his brother as he passed him, and Mrs Cheviot and Mr Carlyon were left to eye one another doubtfully. ‘I will go and bring the curricle round to the door,’ said John heavily.

  ‘I don’t think I should go.’

  ‘Oh, yes, indeed I think you should! You will not wish to stay here with that creature dying above-stairs.’ He checked himself, and coloured. ‘I beg pardon! I was forgetting –’

  ‘You need not beg my pardon. I never saw your cousin until an hour ago,’ she said.

  ‘You – Mrs Cheviot, you do not tell me that you responded to the advertisement which my brother caused to be –’

  ‘Oh, no! It was all a mistake. I am a governess: I came to take up a position in quite another household, and, in error, stepped into your brother’s carriage, which was waiting at the coach-stop. But why I have allowed myself to be thrust into marrying your dreadful cousin I cannot tell! I think I must be as mad as your brother!’

  ‘Well, it is all very odd,’ said John, ‘but if Carlyon thought you should marry Cheviot you may depend upon it you have done the right thing. You must not be thinking that he is mad: indeed, I can’t think how you should do so, for I never knew anyone with a better understanding. I will go and fetch the curricle.’

  Elinor had perforce to acquiesce, and in a very few minutes was stepping up once more into this vehicle. John was careful to wrap the rug securely about her, and drove off, holding the horses to a steady trot.

  ‘You know, if you should not object, I should be very glad to know how all this business came about,’ he suggested.

  She told him her share in the evening’s events. He listened in a good deal of surprise, and his comments were those of a sensible man. He had a deliberate way of speaking, and she thought that he resembled Carlyon more nearly than did his youngest brother. In appearance, he was very like him, although half a head shorter. Both air and address were good, and his manners were conciliating. Elinor found it easy to confide in him, for although he appeared to be quite uncritical to Carlyon’s actions, he appreciated the delicacy of her position, and fully entered into her feelings upon the event.

  ‘It is an awkward business indeed!’ he said. ‘It is too bad of Nicky! As though my brother had not had enough to bear without this catastrophe!’

  She ventured to suggest that Nicky seemed not to have been able to avoid the encounter.

  ‘No, but it is all of a piece! Setting bears on to the dons! I might have guessed how it would be! And I dare say Ned never so much as told him he should not have done so!’

  ‘No,’ she reflected. ‘I believe he did not.’

  ‘No!’ he ejaculated. ‘But so it is always!’ He drove on in fuming silence for a little while.

  She said diffidently: ‘I think your brother Nicholas was very much shocked by what had happened.’

  ‘I should hope he might be indeed! To be putting Ned to all this trouble! It beats everything! I was never more angry with him in my life!’

  She was silent. After a moment he said in a severe tone: ‘I do not mean to say that there is any harm in Nicky, but he is a great deal too thoughtless, and now we see where it has led him. However, I suppose Carlyon will settle it all, and we must hope that it will be a lesson to Nick.’

  ‘Yes