The Reluctant Widow (22 page)

“Yes!” Bedlington said eagerly. “Yes, indeed, and I too have wondered! I do trust we may not find anything seriously amiss! I cannot flatter myself the poor boy took me as much into his confidence as I could have wished.”

“He certainly did not take me into it.”

“No, well! I do not desire to mar the harmony of this evening by reproaching you, and I shall accordingly say nothing of that. Yet I cannot but feel that had you treated him with more sympathy—”

“My dear sir, you, I am persuaded, treated him with a marked degree of sympathy, but it does not appear to have won you his confidence.”

“True. It is very true! Sometimes I have asked myself if I caressed him too much, allowed him too much license. You know he has been free to treat my house as his home ever since his poor father’s death—that is to say, ever since he was of an age to be glad of a house in town where he might be sure of a welcome. Indeed, I have treated him like my own son, but I do not know that it answered. I hope I have not been the innocent means of leading him into temptation!”

Carlyon looked faintly surprised. “How should you be, indeed?”

“Oh, as to that—! In an establishment such as mine, you understand—my position as A.D.C. to the Regent. I need not say more! I am sure I do not know the half of the people who come to the house, and how could I tell whom poor Eustace might be meeting there? Young men cannot always be trusted to keep the line, and alas, there was a weakness in him—one must own it!—that might have led him to allow himself to be drawn into the wrong company.” He went on in this strain for some time, but as his host remained politely unresponsive, abandoned it at last and relapsed into melancholy abstraction. He roused himself to inquire about the funeral arrangements, desiring Carlyon to postpone the date to enable him to attend the ceremony and almost tearfully begging him not to neglect the least pompous detail of it. Upon hearing that the cortege would set out from the chapel where Eustace’s body was at present lying, and not from Highnoons, he looked very much shocked and could not think it right. He wished to know the style of the cards Carlyon had no doubt sent out and the number of carriages he had ordered, not to mention the mutes and the plumes, and was only silenced by Carlyon’s saying that since Eustace, after making himself odious to the entire neighborhood, had met his end in a drunken brawl that must still further lessen his credit with his acquaintances, the more private and unostentatious his obsequies were the better it would be for all concerned.

“I shall attend the funeral!” Bedlington declared. “I mean to spend a night with that poor young creature at Highnoons. I dare say she will be glad of the counsel of an old man. I am sure I do not know what is to become of her, for it is not to be expected that Eustace has left her in affluence. That crazy old house, very nearly in ruins, from what I could see of it! It would cost a fortune to put it in order, and there she is, saddled with its upkeep and none to support or guide her!”

“Mrs. Cheviot does not reside there alone. She has an elderly companion with her.” “Yes, yes, a poor little dab of a woman! I don’t know what your notions may be, Carlyon, but I should advise selling the place if any could be found to buy such a ramshackle, old-fashioned house.”

“No doubt she will do so, but until we have probate it is too early to be making plans.” “Of course. That is understood! But she cannot like to have such a place on her hands and to be put to the expense of paying the wages of I dare say four or five servants. I feel I should do all I can for her—poor Eustace’s bride, you know, and her circumstances so uncomfortable, for there is no blinking the fact that her father died under a cloud! I declare, I have a good mind to invite her to come up to London with me and to stay in Brook Street until she knows how things may stand! Then the servants may be paid off and the house closed. What do you say to that, eh?”

“I cannot advocate the leaving of the house untenanted, sir,” was all the answer he could win from Carlyon.

He very soon took himself off to bed, and Carlyon was able to join John, whom he found yawning over a dying fire.

“Hallo!” John said. “Has he been boring on forever? You should have let me bear you

company!”

“No, you are too severe with him. He cannot talk al his ease in face of your grim scowls. I find it hard myself.”

“You!” John said, bursting out into a laugh. “Well, had he anything to say that was to the point?”

“He is very uneasy, I fancy. There was some talk of his having unwittingly led Eustace into temptation, as though he had a suspicion some worse mischief than he knows of might have been on hand.”

“Led him into temptation! Pray, how?”

“Apparently he feels that his house is forever full of evil company. He says he does not know the half of the people who frequent it, and ascribes this to his being the Regent’s A.D.C.,” Carlyon said, with only a flicker of a smile.

“A delightful reflection upon Prinny! Refreshingly honest, I swear!”

“I am going to bed,” Carlyon said. “An evening spent in Bedlington’s company is the most fatiguing thing I know. I pity Mrs. Cheviot! He is a dead bore!”

“Oh, he still stands by his threat to inflict himself upon her, does he?”

“Yes, and to invite her to return to Brook Street with him while Highnoons is shut up and the servants dismissed.”

“Ha! So that he may search the place at his leisure!” said John, grinning. “Much obliged to him!” He accompanied his brother out into the hall and picked up his bedroom candle. “When have you arranged the funeral? Should I attend?”

“As you wish. I must do so, at all events. It is postponed for two days, Bedlington having affairs that must keep him in town.”

“Deuce take the old fidget!” John growled. “You will be glad to be done with this, Ned, and know Eustace safe underground!”

“I shall certainly be glad to be done with it, and wish I saw my way through it.” John gripped his elbow, roughly squeezing it. “Ay, it has been the devil of a business. As for seeing your way, I do not wonder you cannot! Here is this widow left on your hands, as I told you before! Well, it serves you right, old fellow!”

“Nonsense!” Carlyon said.

In the morning, Lord Bedlington made his appearance dressed for his journey. A somewhat malicious suggestion, put forward by John, that he must surely wish to attend the inquest which was to be held in the coffee room of the inn at Wisborough Green, he greeted with a strong shudder. His mind seemed to be divided between horror at an inquest’s having to be held over any member of his family, and a shocked realization that he had come into Sussex quite improperly clad. His anxiety to put himself into mourning at once, coupled with a fear that Schultz, his tailor, might not be able to supply his needs in due time, formed the subjects of his breakfast table conversation and certainly hastened his departure. By ten o’clock his chaise was bowling away down the avenue and Carlyon was giving orders for his own carriage to be brought up to the house.

He and John drove to Highnoons to take up Nicky, and discovered this young gentleman to be almost completely restored to health, his spirits only damped by the thought of what lay before him. He smiled gratefully at John and said it was devilish good of him to have come down from London.

“Well, of course I have come!” John said severely. “If that is a sling you have hanging round your neck, put your arm in it and see you keep it there!”

“Oh, the wound scarcely troubles me at all! I don’t need the sling and only wear it to please Becky!” said Nicky, who had lost no time in getting upon terms with Miss Beccles. “Very likely, but it will present a good appearance. I know these Sussex juries!” “Yes, but I did not get hurt in that fight with Eustace!” objected Nicky. “No need to say so unless you are asked, and then you will say you were wounded in repelling housebreakers,” said his cynical brother. “Either way will serve as well.” He turned to shake Elinor warmly by the hand and to make his bow to Miss Beccles. Carlyon

addressed some observation to Elinor. She replied to it and then, waiting in vain for any comment on her gray gown with its black ribbons and lace, rallied him with: “Well! You perceive, I trust, that I am gone into half-mourning at least! I expect to be heartily commended!”

“You look charmingly, ma’am,” he replied.

She was put out of countenance. “Oh, no, no, no! I was not asking to be complimented on my looks, but upon my docility!”

There was an amused expression in his eyes. He answered, however, with perfect gravity, “You forget that I have three sisters. I trust I have learned from them to avoid making such remarks as must be reckoned tactless in the extreme.”

She laughed out at that. “Well! It is very hard if I am not to be praised for showing myself so biddable! I received my Lord Bedlington yesterday in the most somber black imaginable. He has been with you, I think. Has he told you of his intention to stay at Highnoons for the funeral?”

“Yes, and I am aware that you have cause for complaint. Believe me, I did not intend you to undergo such hardship when I begged you to take up your residence here.” “No! It quite spoils the tranquillity of my sojourn here!” she countered. “When all has been so agreeable until now!”

He smiled, but only said, “I trust your rest was undisturbed last night?” “No such thing! Your brother’s odious dog scratched so vigorously at my door that I was obliged to get up out of my bed to let him in!”

“He must have taken a marked fancy to you, ma’am,” he said politely. “He had a marked fancy for the ham bone he had laid under my bed!” she retorted. He laughed. “Well, that is a great deal too bad, certainly, but never mind! I am relieving you of both him and my graceless brother.”

“Oh, no!” she exclaimed quickly. “No, pray, do not, sir! He is an excellent watch dog and gives me the greatest feeling of security! Only fancy! he would not allow the baker to come within fifty yards of the house!”

“What’s that?” Nicky demanded. “You will not make me go back to the Hall, yet, Ned! I am set on searching for that precious document, whatever it may be. Besides Cousin Elinor will not like to be left without Bouncer and you know he will never stay if I go.” Both Elinor and Miss Beccles added their earnest entreaties to his and it was finally agreed that Nicky should return to Highnoons after the inquest. He naively informed his brother that he had found an attic stuffed with old lumber and meant to have a rare time poking about among the entrancing relics he had discovered there. “You can have no notion, Ned! There is an old pistol, I dare say as old as Queen Anne, and a couple of rapiers all rusted over, and I do not know what more besides!”

“Famous!” said John sardonically. “The very place where you would expect to find a state paper!”

“Well, as to that, there’s no saying where it might be, after all,” argued Nicky. “But only think, John! Do you remember that first-rate kite Eustace had and would never let Harry fly? I found it there under a heap of rubbish and recognized it on the instant!”

“No!” John exclaimed, much struck. “Why, it must be years old! I wonder you should remember it!”

“Oh, yes! it had red stripes! I could not forget!”

“Yes, that’s true. And a long tail which Harry snipped off when Eustace was so mean-spirited as to refuse to let him fly the thing! Well, upon my word!”

It began to seem as though rummaging amongst half-forgotten playthings, instead of attending an inquest, was to be the order of the day, but the two brothers were recalled to a sense of the occasion by Carlyon, and rather regretfully followed him out to the carriage. Miss Beccles softened the rebuke by suggesting that they should fly the kite later. “By Jove, yes! Do let us, John!” Nicky exclaimed.

“Nonsense!” said John. “Kites, indeed! I wonder if it is as good as ever?”

The carriage drove away with them and the two ladies returned to their interrupted task of dragging all the books from their shelves in the library, clapping them together, dusting the covers, and restoring them to their places. It was exhausting work and the clouds of dust that thickened the air and made the ladies sneeze seemed to indicate that Eustace Cheviot had not been of a bookish turn of mind. Such extraneous matter as floated to the floor when the books were clapped plainly had been placed between the leaves by feminine hands. Several dried flowers were discovered, an old laundry list, and a recipe for making eel broth which Miss Beccles thought would be a sustaining diet for an invalid. But of state secrets there was no trace, and although Miss Beccles derived great satisfaction from knowing that no dust, cobwebs, or spiders any longer lurked on the shelves, Elinor could not but feel that she had been wasting her time.

They were just sitting down to a nuncheon of cold meat, fruit, and tea, when the Carlyon carriage once more pulled up at the front door and the three brothers alighted. Elinor ran out at once to inquire whether all were well, and was met by Nicky who called cheerfully, “They have not put me in irons, Cousin Elinor! The Crowner was a great gun! I had not thought it had all been so simple! To tell you the truth, I did not above half like the notion of having to give my evidence, but no one could have been more civil! I was soon feeling at home to a peg. And Hitchin spoke in bang-up style! It was brought in Accidental Death, and only fancy! half of the people who had crowded in to listen to the case set up a cheer! I can tell you I was glad to be able to jump up into the carriage and get away!”

“Oh, I am so heartily thankful!” Elinor cried. “It must have been so, of course, but one could not help being a little anxious.”