Black Sheep (12 page)

Overcome by this comforting assurance, Abby fled, conscious of a wish that Mr Calverleigh could have been present to share her amusement.

Selina continued to speculate, in her rambling way, throughout dinner, on his probable character, what he had done to deserve being banished, and what had brought him back to England; but Fanny’s arrival, just before the tea-tray was brought in, gave the conversation a welcome turn. Fanny was. full of the quaint or the beautiful things Oliver Grayshott had brought home from India, and although Selina’s interest in ivory carvings or Benares brass might be tepid, the first mention of Cashmere shawls, and lengths of the finest Indian muslin, aroused all her sartorial instincts; while a minute description of the sari caused her to wonder how long it would be before she dared venture out of doors, and to adjure Fanny to beg Lavinia not to have it made up until she had seen it. “For you know, my dear, excellent creature though she is, dear Mrs Grayshott has
no
taste, and what a shocking thing it would be if such an exquisite thing were to be ruined!”

Fanny had spent a delightful day in Edgar Buildings, and she meant—if her aunts saw no objection—to repeat her visit. Lavinia, who was her dearest friend, had told her how low and oppressed poor Oliver was, and had asked her to come again, because funning with her, and making up charades, had quite got up his spirits. “So I think I should, don’t you?” Fanny said, frowning over her own thoughts. “It isn’t
me
,
particularly, but being obliged to be polite and cheerful with a visitor, which does one a great deal of good when one has been ill, and feels dreadfully pulled.”

She had very little to say about Miles Calverleigh. It was plain that the only interest he had for her was his relationship to Stacy. She said that he was not at all like Stacy; and mentioned, as an afterthought, that he said he had known her mama well.

To Abby’s relief, Selina accepted this without question, seeing in it an added reason for thinking he could not be as black as he had been painted. Having decided that it would be both unsafe and unkind to divulge to her the story of Miles Calverleigh and Celia Morval, Abby was thankful to be spared searching enquiries into the circumstances under which Miles Calverleigh had contrived to become intimately acquainted with a girl who had been married within two months of her come-out, and had lived thereafter in a Bedfordshire manor.

She retired to bed presently, devoutly hoping that Mr Calverleigh would have left Bath before Selina emerged from her self-imposed seclusion.

Chapter VI

But Mr Calverleigh called in Sydney Place on the following day. Mitton, recognizing him as the gentleman who had escorted Miss Abby home on the previous afternoon, admitted him without hesitation, and took him up to the drawing-room, where Abby, under her sister’s instruction, was engaged in directing cards of invitation to their projected rout-party. She was unprepared, and gave such a start that her pen spluttered. Turning quickly, and almost incredulously, she encountered the blandest of smiles, and the slightest of bows, before Mr Calverleigh advanced towards her sister. What excuse he meant to offer for his visit was a puzzle that was speedily solved: Mr Calverleigh, taking Selina’s tremblingly outstretched hand in his, and smiling reassuringly down into her agitated countenance, told her that he had known her elder brother, and found himself unable to resist the impulse to extend his acquaintance with Rowland’s family. “Two of whom I had the pleasure of meeting yesterday,” he said, nodding with friendly informality at Abby. “How do you do, Miss Abigail?”

She acknowledged this greeting in the frostiest manner, but so far from being abashed, he laughed, and said: “Still out of charity with me? I must tell you, ma’am, that your sister was as cross as crabs with me for escorting her home. But in my day it was not at all the thing for girls of her quality to go out walking alone.”

Selina, already flustered by the style and manner of her unexpected visitor, lost herself in a tangle of words, for while on the one hand, she shared his old-fashioned prejudice, on the other, she knew very well that to agree with him would be to incur Abby’s wrath. So after floundering between a number of unfinished sentences, she begged him to be seated, and asked him where he had met her brother. Abby held her breath, but he returned a vague answer, and she let it go again.

“And you knew my sister-in-law too!” pursued Selina. “It seems so odd that I never—not that I was acquainted with all their friends, of course, but I thought—that is to say—dear me, how stupid! I have forgot what I was going to say!”

He regarded her confusion with a twinkle. “No, no, don’t turn short about! You thought I had been sent packing to India before your brother was married, and you were perfectly right: I knew Celia when she was still Miss Morval.”

“A long time ago,” said Abby. “Too long for me, I am afraid: you see, I didn’t.”

The unmistakable boredom in her voice scandalized Selina into uttering a protesting: “Abby
dear
—!”

Abby shrugged pettishly. “Oh, well, it is so tedious to be obliged to discuss old times in which one played no part! Anecdotes, too! I have a surfeit of them from General Exford. I wish you will rather tell us of your Indian experiences, Mr Calverleigh.”

“But that would be merely to exchange one form of anecdote for another,” he pointed out. “And
much
more boring, I assure you!”

“Oh, no! I am persuaded—so very interesting! All those Mahrattas, and things!” fluttered Selina, aghast at her sister’s behaviour. “Not that I should care to live there myself—and the climate far from salubrious—well, only think of poor young Mr Grayshott! But I daresay you had
many
exciting adventures!”

“Not nearly as many as I had in England!” He looked at Abby, wickedly quizzing her. “No need to look so dismayed, Miss Abigail: I don’t mean to recount them! Let us instead discuss the amenities of Bath! Do you mean to attend the concert this evening?”

For one sulphurous moment it was on the tip of her tongue to disclaim any intention of attending the concert, but the recollection that she was engaged to do so with a select party of friends checked her. She replied, with a glittering smile: “Yes, indeed! The Signora Neroli is to sing, you know—a high treat for those of us who love music. You, I daresay, would find it a dead bore, for I believe you
don’t
love music!”

“On the contrary: I find it wonderfully sopor—wonderfully soothing!”

A smile quivered at the corners of her mouth. “I doubt if you will find the benches wonderfully sopor-soothing, sir!”

“That card takes the trick!” he said approvingly.

She chuckled, and then as she caught sight of her sister’s face, blushed.

At that moment, Fanny came into the room, much to Abby’s relief. She greeted Mr Calverleigh with unaffected pleasure: just as she would have greeted any other of her aunt’s elderly admirers, Abby watched in some amusement, wondering how much Mr Calverleigh liked the touch of pretty deference which paid tribute to his advanced years. She was obliged to own that he took it with unshaken composure, responding in a manner that was positively avuncular. He did not stay long: a circumstance which caused Selina to say, when he had taken his leave, that although his manners were very odd, which was due, no doubt, to his having lived in India, he did know better than to remain for more than half-an-hour on a visit of ceremony.

“I warned you that his manners are deplorable!” said Abby. “I shouldn’t think he has the least notion of ceremony.”

“To be sure, it is not at all the thing to call on us in breeches and topboots—at least, gentlemen may do so in the country, of course, but
not
in Bath, without a horse, and it would have been more correct merely to have left his card—but I saw nothing in his manners to disgust me, precisely. He has a great deal of ease, but he is not at all vulgar. In fact, he has a well-bred air, and it would be very unjust to blame him for his complexion, poor man, because you may depend upon it
that
was India, and excessively unfeeling I think it of his father to have sent him there, no matter what he did!”

“Why,
did
he do something dreadful?” exclaimed Fanny, round-eyed with surprise.

“No, dear, certainly not!” said Selina hurriedly.

“But you said—”

“My love, I said nothing of the sort! How you do pick one up! It is not at all becoming! And that puts me in mind of something! Abby,
never
did I think to be put to the blush by a want of conduct in you! I declare, I was so mortified—so petulant and uncivil of you! And then, after placing yourself on
far
too high a form, besides snubbing him in the
rudest
way, you laughed in his face! As if you had known him for years!”

“Good God, why did no one ever tell me that I mustn’t laugh at what a man says until I have known him for years ? “ countered Abby.

Before Selina could assemble her inchoate thoughts, Fanny said suddenly: “Yes, but one has! I mean, one
feels
as if one has! For my part, I don’t care a straw for his being shabbily dressed, and not having formal manners: I
like
him! I should have thought you would too, Abby, because he is just such a joke-smith as you are yourself!
Don’t
you?”

“I must say,” interpolated Selina, “that he was very diverting. And when he smiles—”

“Mr Calverleigh’s smile must be reckoned as his greatest—if not his only—asset!” said Abby tartly. “As to whether I like him or not, how can I possibly say ? I am barely acquainted with him, Fanny!”

“That doesn’t signify! He is barely acquainted with you, but anyone can see that he likes you very much!” retorted Fanny saucily. “Do you think he will be at the concert this evening?”

“I haven’t the least notion,” replied Abby. “Certainly not, if riding-dress is his only wear!”

“Poor man!” said Selina, her compassion stirred. “I daresay he may be sadly purse-pinched.”

However this might have been, Mr Calverleigh had either the means, or the credit, to have provided himself with the long-tailed-coat, the knee-breeches, and the silk stockings which constituted the correct evening-wear for gentlemen, for he appeared in the New Assembly Rooms, thus arrayed, a few minutes before the conceit began, escorting Mrs Grayshott. But as he wore it as casually as his riding-dress, and appeared to set more store by comfort than elegance, no aspirant to fashion would have felt the smallest inclination to discover the name of his tailor.

Miss Abigail Wendover observed his arrival from under her lashes, and thereafter confined her attention to her own party. She was herself looking (as her niece very improperly told her) as fine as fivepence, in one of the new gowns made for her in London, of Imperial muslin, with short sleeves, worn low on her shoulders, a narrow skirt, and a bodice trimmed with a double pleating of ribbon. It became her slender figure to admiration, and it had not been her original intention to have wasted it on a mere out-of-season concert; but when she had looked more closely at her lilac crape she had realized that it was really too shabby to be worn again. This, at least, was the explanation that she offered to her surprised sister. As for her hair, which she had dressed in loose curls, with one shining ringlet disposed over her left shoulder, what did Selina think of it? It was all the kick in London, but perhaps it would not do in Bath?

“Oh, my dearest, I never saw you look so becoming!” said Selina, in a gush of sentimental tears. “In such high bloom! I know you will be ready to eat me, but I must and I will say that no one would take you for Fanny’s
aunt!
”

So far from showing a disposition to take umbrage, Abby laughed, cast an appraising look at her reflection in the mirror above the fireplace, and said candidly: “Well, I never was a beauty, but I’m not a mean bit yet, am I?”

Certainly no one who was present at the concert that evening thought so. In the octagon room, where they waited for the rest of the party to assemble, Abby received quite as many compliments as Fanny; and on her way through the concert-room had the doubtful felicity of being ogled by a complete stranger.

During the interval, she did not immediately follow Mrs Faversham into the adjoining room, where tea was being served, being waylaid by Mr Dunston, who came up with his mother on his arm. Civility obliged her to exchange commonplaces with Mrs Dunston, and when that amiable and platitudinous lady’s attention was claimed by one of her acquaintances her son stepped instantly into the breach, saying simply: “
Fair as is the rose of May!
Do you know, that line has been running through my head ever since I set eyes on you this evening? You shine everyone else down, Miss Abby!”

“Flummery!” said an amused voice at Abby’s elbow, “You can’t have seen her niece!”

“Sir!” uttered Mr Dunston, outraged. “I believe I have not the pleasure of your acquaintance?”

“Let me make you known to one another!” said Abby hastily. “Mr Dunston, Mr Calverleigh—Mr
Miles
Calverleigh!”

Mr Dunston executed a small, stiff bow, received in return a nod, and, for the first time in his stolid career, wished that the days of calling a man out on the slightest provocation did not belong to the past.

“I’ve come to carry you off to drink tea with Mrs Grayshott,” said Mr Calverleigh, taking Abby’s hand, and drawing it within his arm. “I left her guarding a chair for you, so come along!” He favoured Mr Dunston with another nod, and a brief smile, and led Abby inexorably away, saying: “He did empty the butter-boat over you, didn’t he? Who the devil is he?”