The Reluctant Widow Read online

  ‘But what a charming prospect for me!’ Elinor said, with awful irony. ‘Saddled with a ruined estate, crushed by debt, widowed before ever I was a wife – it is the most abominable thing I ever heard of!’

  ‘Oh, it will scarcely prove to be as bad as that!’ Carlyon said. ‘When all is done, I hope you will find yourself with a respectable competence.’

  ‘Indeed, I hope so too, my lord, for I begin to think I shall have earned it!’ she retorted.

  ‘Now you are talking like a sensible woman,’ he said. ‘Are you willing to be guided by me in how you should go on?’

  She looked at him in some indecision. ‘Is there no way in which I can escape this inheritance?’

  ‘None at all.’

  ‘But if I were to disappear, which I should like very much to do –’

  ‘I am persuaded you will not be so poor-spirited as to draw back at this juncture.’

  She swallowed this, and after a moment said in a resigned voice: ‘What ought I to do, then?’

  ‘I have already considered that, and I believe it will be most natural for you to take up your residence at Highnoons,’ he said.

  ‘At Highnoons! Oh, no, indeed, I had rather not!’ she said, looking very much alarmed.

  ‘Why had you rather not?’ he asked.

  ‘It would look so presumptuous in me to be residing there!’

  ‘Presumptuous to be residing in your husband’s house?’

  ‘How can you talk so? The circumstances –’

  ‘The circumstances are precisely what we all of us wish to conceal. It would be ineligible for you to remain under my roof, for mine is a bachelor-household.’

  ‘I have no desire to remain under your roof!’

  ‘Then we need not waste time upon that point. You might, with perfect propriety, seek refuge with some relative of your own, but you will be obliged to attend to a good deal of business, and since I shall be joined with you in that it will be more convenient if you are within reach of this place.’

  ‘I would not go to my relatives in such a predicament as this for any consideration in the world!’ Elinor declared, with a shudder.

  ‘In that case, you have really no choice in the matter.’

  ‘But how shall I go on in such a place?’ she demanded. ‘I am sure it is quite covered in dust and cobwebs, and very likely overrun with rats and black-beetles, for I saw quite enough of it yesterday to convince me that it has been shockingly neglected!’

  ‘Exactly so, and that is one reason why I should be glad to see you there.’

  The widow’s bosom swelled. ‘Is it indeed, my lord? I might have guessed you would say something odious!’

  ‘I am not saying anything odious. If we are to dispose of Highnoons advantageously, it must be put into some kind of order. I will engage to do what I can with the land, but I cannot undertake to set the house to rights. By doing that you will at once oblige me, and give yourself an occupation that will divert your mind from all these troubles which you imagine to be gathering about your head.’

  ‘To oblige you must of course be an object with me,’ said Elinor, in a trembling tone.

  ‘Thank you: you are very good!’ he responded, with unimpaired calm.

  A chuckle escaped Nicky. He grinned across the table at Elinor. ‘Oh, I beg pardon, but you know it is never the least use disputing with Ned, for he has always the best of it! He is the most complete hand! And I’ll tell you what! If you should find that there are rats at Highnoons I’ll come over with my dog, and we will have some famous sport!’

  ‘Now, Nicky, do hold your tongue!’ begged John. ‘But you know, ma’am, there is a great deal of sense in what Carlyon says. The place cannot be left without anyone to manage things, and I am sure I do not know who else is to go there.’

  ‘But the servants!’ she protested. ‘What must they think if I am suddenly foisted upon them?’

  ‘So far as I am aware, only Barrow and his wife were lately employed by Eustace,’ said Carlyon. ‘Which reminds me that you will do well to hire a couple of girls to work in the house. But you need entertain no qualms: Barrow has been at Highnoons for many years, and is necessarily conversant with all the circumstances that led up to the ceremony you took part in yesterday. He was greatly attached to my aunt, for which reason he has remained with my cousin. Neither he nor his wife is likely to cause you the smallest embarrassment. But I fear you will not find him an efficient butler: he was used to be a groom, and only came into the house when no other servant would remain there.’

  ‘You know, Ned, I think Mrs Cheviot should have some respectable female to bear her company there,’ John interposed.

  ‘Certainly she should, and I will discover one for her.’

  ‘If I wanted a respectable female to live with me in that horrid house, I should beg my own old governess to come to me!’ said Elinor.

  ‘An excellent suggestion. If you will give me her direction, I will have a letter conveyed to her immediately,’ said Carlyon.

  Elinor, feeling herself quite overborne, meekly said that she would write to Miss Beccles.

  ‘And you must not think that you will be lonely,’ Nicky assured her. ‘For we shall come over to visit you, you know.’

  She thanked him, but turned once more to Carlyon. ‘And what is to be done about Mrs Macclesfield?’ she asked.

  ‘It is very uncivil of us, no doubt, but I am inclined to think that we shall do best to let Mrs Macclesfield pass out of our lives without embarking on explanations which cannot be other than awkward,’ he replied.

  Upon reflection she was obliged to agree with him.

  Six

  Shortly after noon, resigned but by no means reconciled, Mrs Cheviot was driven to Highnoons by her host. They went in his lordship’s carriage, very sedately, and his lordship beguiled the tedium by pointing out to the lady various landmarks, happy falls of country, or glimpses of woodland, which, he told her, would later on be carpeted with bluebells. Mrs Cheviot responded with cold civility, and inaugurated no topic of conversation.

  ‘This country is not in the grand style,’ said Carlyon, ‘but there are some very pretty rides near Highnoons, which I will show you one day.’

  ‘Indeed?’ she said.

  ‘Certainly – when you have recovered from your sulks.’

  ‘I am not in the sulks,’ she said tartly. ‘Anyone with the least sensibility would feel for me in this pass you have brought me to! How can you expect me to be in spirits? You have no sensibility at all, my lord!’

  ‘No, I am afraid that is so,’ he replied seriously. ‘It is an accusation which has often been cast at me, and I believe it to be true.’

  She turned her head to look at him in some little curiosity. ‘Pray, who has accused you of it, sir?’ she asked suspiciously.

  ‘My sisters, when I have been unable to enter into their feelings upon certain events.’

  ‘I am surprised. I had collected that your brothers and sisters were all devoted to you.’

  He smiled. ‘You would wish me to understand, I dare say, that the strong degree of attachment which exists between us has aggravated a naturally overbearing disposition.’

  She was obliged to laugh. ‘I must tell you, my lord, that I find this habit you have got into to reducing to the most uncompromising terms what has been expressed with the utmost delicacy, quite odious! What is more, I am much disposed to think that if I had the toothache, and told you I was dying of the pain, you would be at pains to announce to me that one does not die of the toothache!’

  ‘Undoubtedly I should,’ he agreed, ‘if I thought you entertained any fears on that score.’

  ‘Odious!’ she said.

  They had by this time reached Highnoons, and were driving up the neglected carriage-way, between dense thickets of overgrown shrubs, and trees whose branches almost met ove