Lady of Quality (38 page)

"Carousing!" said Miss Farlow, reaching her grand climax.

It fell sadly flat. Sir Geoffrey said testily: "I wish to God you wouldn't talk such nonsense, Maria! Next I suppose you'll tell me my sister was
carousing
too!"

"Alas, yes!"

"It seems to me that it's you who have been carousing!" said Sir Geoffrey severely. "You had best go and sleep it off!"

With this he went on up the stairs to the second floor, paying no heed whatsoever to the protests, the assurances that she never touched strong liquor; or the impassioned entreaties to listen to her, which Miss Farlow addressed to him.

He entered Miss Wychwood's room without ceremony, and was confronted by the spectacle of his sister seated beside Mr Carleton on the sofa, supported by his arm, and with her head on his shoulder.

"Upon my word!" he ejaculated thunderously. "What the devil does this mean?"

"Oh, pray don't shout!" said Miss Wychwood, straightening herself.

Mr Carleton rose. "How do you do, Wychwood? I've been waiting for you! I imagine you must know what the devil it means, but before we go into that,
I
want to know what the devil
you
mean by planting that atrocious woman on your sister! Never in the whole of my existence have I encountered any one who talked more infernal twaddle, or who had less notion of how to look after sick persons! She burst in on us, just as I had succeeded in getting Annis to drink a glass of Burgundy—which, if I may say so, will do her far more good than barley-water! See to it that she has a glass with her dinner, will you?—and had the damned impudence to say that nothing would prevail upon her to leave the room while I remained in it! I can only assume that she thought Annis was in danger of being raped! If I hadn't threatened to throw her out, she'd be here still, upsetting Annis with all her ravings and rantings, and I-will-not permit her, or anyone else, to upset Annis!"

Sir Geoffrey disliked Mr Carleton, but he found himself so much in sympathy with him that instead of requesting him, with cold dignity, to leave the house, which he had meant to do, he said: "I didn't plant her on Annis! All I did was to
suggest
to Annis that she would be a suitable person to act as her companion!"

"Suitable?"
interpolated Mr Carleton scathingly.

Sir Geoffrey glared at him, but being a just man he felt himself obliged to say: "No, of course she's not suitable, but I didn't know
then
that she was such an infernal gabster, and I didn't know until today that she's touched in her upper works! I shall certainly take care she don't come near Annis again—though what right
you
have to interfere I'm quite at a loss to understand! What's more, I'll thank you to leave
me
to look after my sister!"

"That," said Mr Carleton, "brings us back to the start of our conversation. Your sister, Wychwood, has done me the honour to accept my hand in marriage. That's what the devil this means, and it also explains the right I have to concern myself with her welfare!"

"Well, I won't have it!" said Sir Geoffrey. "I refuse to give my consent to a marriage of which I utterly disapprove!"

"Oh, Geoffrey, don't!
Pray
don't get into a quarrel!" begged Miss Wychwood, pressing her hands against her throbbing temples. "You are making my head ache again,
both
of you! I am very sorry to displease you, Geoffrey, but I am not a silly schoolgirl, and I haven't decided to marry Oliver on an impulse! And as for giving your consent, your consent isn't necessary! I'm not under age, I'm not your ward, and never was your ward, and there is nothing you can do to stop me marrying Oliver!"

"We'll see that!" he said ominously. "Let me make it plain to you—"

"No, don't try to do that!" intervened Mr Carleton. "She's far too exhausted to talk any more! Make it plain to me instead! I suggest we go down to the book-room, and discuss the matter in private. We shall do much better without female interference, you know!"

This made Miss Wychwood lift her head from between her hands, and say indignantly: "This has nothing to do with Geoffrey! And if you think I am going to sit meekly here while you and he—"

"Come, come!" said Mr Carleton. "Where is your sense of decorum? Your brother, very properly, wishes to discover what my circumstances are, what settlement I mean to make on you—"

"No, I do not!" interrupted Sir Geoffrey angrily. "Everyone knows you're swimming in lard, and settlements don't come into it, because if I have anything to say to it there will be no marriage!"

"You have nothing to say to it, Geoffrey, and no right to meddle in my affairs!"

"Oh, that's going too far!" said Mr Carleton. "He may not have the right to
meddle,
but he has every right to try to dissuade you from making what he believes would be a disastrous marriage. A poor sort of brother he would be if he didn't!"

Taken aback, Sir Geoffrey blinked at him. "Well—well, I'm glad that you at least realize that!" he said lamely.

"Well, I do not realize it!" struck in Miss Wychwood.

"Of course you don't!" said Mr Carleton soothingly. "In another moment you'll be saying that the marriage has nothing to do with me either, my lovely wet-goose! So we will postpone this discussion until tomorrow. Oh, no! don't look daggers at me! I never come to cuffs with females who are too knocked-up to be a match for me!"

She gave a choke of laughter. "Oh, how detestable you are!" she sighed.

"That sounds more like you," he approved. He bent over her, and kissed her. "You are worn out, and must go back to bed, my sweet. Promise me you won't get up again today!"

"I doubt if I could," she said ruefully. "But if you and Geoffrey mean to quarrel over me—"

"It takes two to make a quarrel. I can't answer for Wychwood, but I have no intention of quarrelling, so you may be easy on that head!"

"Easy?
When you spend your life quarrelling, and being disagreeable to people for no reason at all? I am not in the least easy!"

"Hornet!" he said, and went out of the room, thrusting Sir Geoffrey before him. "I don't think much of your strategy, Wychwood," he said, as they began to descend the stairs. "Abusing me won't answer your purpose: it will merely set up her bristles."

Sir Geoffrey said stiffly: "I must make it plain to you, Carleton, that the thought of my sister's marriage to a man of your reputation is—is wholly repugnant to me!"

"You've done so already."

"Well, I have no wish to offend you, but I don't consider you a fit and proper person to be my sister's husband!"

"Oh, that doesn't offend me! I have every sympathy with you, and should feel just as you do, if I were in your place."

"Well, upon my word!" gasped Sir Geoffrey. "You are the most extraordinary fellow I've ever met in all my life!"

"No, am I?" said Mr Carleton, grinning at him. "Because I agree with you?"

"If you agree with me I wonder that you should have proposed to Annis!"

"Ah, that's a different matter!"

"Well, I think it only right to warn you that I think it is my duty—distasteful though it is to speak of such things to delicately nurtured females—to tell Annis frankly
why
I consider you to be unfit to be her husband!"

Mr Carleton gave a crack of laughter. "Lord, Wychwood, don't be such a gudgeon!" he said. "She knows all about my reputation! Tell her anything you like, but don't do so today, will you? I don't want her to be upset again, and she would be. Goodbye! My regards to Lady Wychwood!"

A nod, and he was gone, leaving Sir Geoffrey at a loss to know what to make of him. He went gloomily up to the drawing-room, and when Lady Wychwood joined him a little later, disclosed to her that she had been right in her forecast, adding, with a heavy sigh, that he didn't know what was to be done to prevent the match.

"I'm afraid there's nothing to be done, dearest. I know it isn't what you like. It isn't what I like for her either, but when I saw the
difference
in her! I have just come from her room, and though she is tired, she looks much better, and so happy that I knew it would be useless, and even
wrong
to try to make her cry off! So we must make the best of it, and
pray
that he won't continue in his—his present way of life!"

Sir Geoffrey shook his head. "A man don't change his habits," he said. "I don't believe in reformed rakes, Amabel."

"I don't mean to set up my opinion against your judgment, for naturally you must know best, but has it occurred to you, dearest, that although we have heard a great deal about his mistresses, and the shameless way he flaunts them abroad, and the money he squanders on them, we have never heard of his attaching himself particularly to any girl of quality? Indeed, I believe Annis is the only woman to whom he has offered marriage, though lures past counting have been thrown out to him, because even the highest sticklers think that his wealth is enough to make him acceptable. So don't you think, Geoffrey, that perhaps he never
truly
loved anyone until he met Annis? Which makes me feel that they were
destined
for each other, for it has been the same with her. I don't mean, of course,
exactly
the same, but only think of the offers she has received, and refused! Such brilliant ones, too! Never, until she met Mr Carleton, has she been in love! Not even with Lord Sedgeley, though one would have said he was the very man for her! You will think me fanciful, I daresay, but it seems to me as if—as if each of them has been waiting for the other for years, and when they at last met they—they fell in love, as though it had been ordained that they should!"

Sir Geoffrey, listening to this speech in frowning silence, was secretly impressed by it, but all he said was: "Well, you may be right, my love, but I do think that you're being fanciful! All I can say is that if you
are
right, I wish to God they never had met!"

"It is very natural that you should," responded the perfect wife. "But don't let us talk about it any more until you have had time to weigh the matter in your mind! Mrs Wardlow asked me this morning if she should instruct the chef to send up baked eggs for our nuncheon, and, knowing how partial you are to baked eggs, I said it was the very thing. So let us go down to the breakfast-parlour now, before the eggs grow cold!"

Sir Geoffrey got up, but before he had reached the door stopped in his tracks like a jibbing horse, and said: "Is Maria there? Because if she is nothing would prevail upon me—"

"No, no, dearest!" Lady Wychwood hastened to assure him. "Mrs Wardlow and I have put her to bed, and I have compelled her to drink a glass of laudanum and water, as a sedative, you understand. She fell into a fit of the vapours when you went up to see Annis, and what it was that you said to her to overset her so completely, I haven't a notion, for you cannot possibly have accused her of being
inebriated,
which is what she said you did! But I am sorry to say that when Maria becomes hysterical, one cannot place the least dependence on the ridiculous things she says. She even said that Mr Carleton offered her
violence!"

"No, did he?" exclaimed Sir Geoffrey, brightening perceptibly. "Well, damme if I don't think he's not by half as black as he's been painted! But mind this, Amabel! I may not have the power to stop him marrying my sister, but if he thinks he's going to foist Maria on to us, he will very soon learn that he is mistaken! And so I shall tell him!"

"Yes, dearest," said Lady Wychwood, gently propelling him towards the door. "You will of course do what you think is right, but do, pray, come and eat your baked egg before it is quite spoilt!"