The Reluctant Widow (23 page)

She put out her hand impulsively to Carlyon as she spoke and he shook it, saying, “Thank you. It is happily over, and did indeed go without the least rub.” He added, a smile in his eyes, “Judging from the demeanor of the spectators, it would have gone hard with the jury had they brought in another verdict! I was obliged to hustle Nicky away, for what must some of the villagers do but try to shake him by the hand as though he had been a public benefactor!”

“Well, it was improper, but one cannot wonder at it,” said John. “Cheviot left no stone unturned to render himself odious in these parts.”

She led them into the dining parlor and pressed them to partake of some cold meat. Nicky exclaimed, “What, mawdling your insides with tea again! No, I thank you!” “Yes, indeed, it is very wrong to be drinking tea at such an hour as this,” confessed Miss Beccles. “But such an agreeable luxury!”

Happily for Nicky, Barrow had seen the carriage drive up to the house, and now brought a large jug of ale into the room, and three tankards. The gentlemen were thus able to enjoy a very tolerable luncheon, during which they discussed the inquest with the ladies, informed them what arrangements had been made for the funeral, and announced their intention of spending the afternoon at Highnoons to search for any secret document there might be there.

Carlyon’s part in the search was methodical and unhurried. For some time he was ably assisted by John, both brothers sitting in the bookroom, Carlyon before an antique commode whose drawers and cupboards were crammed with the accumulations of years, and John on the sofa with a battered wooden box at his feet, which one of Eustace’s keys had been found to fit. This was full of papers, old account books, ledgers, and bundles of letters, and these were all in such disorder that he was very glad to accept Elinor’s offer of assistance in sorting them out. But after half an hour’s steady work an interruption occurred. Nicky looked into the room, saying, “Look, is not this the very one, John?” “Ay, that is it,” John replied, glancing up at the gaudy if somewhat faded kite he was being shown.

“Well, do you mean to come and try if it will fly?”

“Flying kites at my age! I should rather think not! Cannot you see that I am busy?” “Oh, fusty work!” Nicky said, disappearing again.

John returned to his task, but happening to raise his head a few minutes later, caught sight of Nicky in the garden. His attention remained riveted, and he presently ejaculated, “One would fancy him a schoolboy! Incurable folly!”

Neither Carlyon nor Elinor returned any answer, and after a slight pause during which he continued to look out of the window he said testily, “That’s no way to go about it! Why does he not take it into the meadow? There cannot be wind enough in this hollow!” “Here is a book of household accounts twenty years old,” said Elinor. “Shall I lay it aside to be burned?”

“Yes, certainly,” he said absently. “There! you have got it entangled in the hedge! Ned, that boy will be hurting his shoulder if he persists! I’ll go out to him!”

He left the room abruptly as he spoke, and five minutes later Elinor had an excellent view of him upon the lawn, arguing with Nicky. Both brothers then departed in the direction of the meadow, Bouncer at their heels, and were no more seen until the light began to fail and Carlyon had called for his carriage. They came in then, flushed and untidy, but full of satisfaction in having found the kite to be in famous shape, and very hot against their deceased cousin for the selfishness which had made him refuse to allow them to fly it years ago, when, as John rather unconvincingly said, they might really have enjoyed such a childish pastime. He looked a little conscious when he realized how late it was, and said that he begged pardon for having left his task. “But I thought I had best make sure Nicky did himself no injury,” he explained. “Besides, I don’t believe there is anything in this rubbish heap of a house but what had better have been burned years ago!”

“I begin to agree with you,” said Carlyon, ruefully regarding the huge pile of wastepaper on the floor. “Nevertheless, the work had to be done, and whether I find anything of value or not I must continue until it is finished. Mrs. Cheviot, I beg you will not exhaust yourself in this search! I shall return tomorrow, and there is not the least need for you to be turning out any more drawers and cupboards today.”

Both he and John took their leave of her, John saying that although he must return to London on the morrow he should try to be in Sussex to attend the funeral. As they left the house, Bouncer entered it, very much out of breath and generously plastered with mud. Miss Beccles uttered a shriek of dismay and ran at once for a cloth with which she proceeded to dry his legs and paws, scolding gently as she did so. Bouncer instantly assumed the cowed mien of a dog suffering under torture, but upon being released tore round the room three tunes at top speed, sending all the rugs flying, and ended up with a leap onto the sofa where he sat grinning and panting until turned off it by his master.

The night was uneventful. Upon the following morning, Carlyon came over at an early hour to Highnoons, and allowed himself to be lured up to the attic by Nicky, where he made a clearance which would have been even more drastic had not Miss Beccles trotted up with a plate of rout drop-cakes (for she believed that gentlemen stood in constant need of sustenance) and rescued from the pile on the floor several old-fashioned dresses whose stiff brocade, she assured Carlyon in scandalized accents, would cut up to admiration; a large pincushion; just such an earthenware bowl as Mrs. Barrow stood in crying need of; a paper full of pins, a little rusted, to be sure, but by no means useless; and a book of Household Hints which contained such valuable information as how to remove stains from linen by laying on salt of wormwood, and the infallibility of Scotch snuff as a means of destroying crickets.

While she was upstairs, Elinor went out into the garden, accompanied by Bouncer, to give some directions to the gardener, and was trying to convince him of the propriety of his devoting his time to weeding the overgrown carriage drive, when a job-chaise drove in at the gate. When it pulled up before the house a burly individual descended from it, with all the look about him of a tradesman. Elinor stepped forward to inquire his business, and was only just in time to prevent Bouncer’s seizing him by the calf of his leg. Ruffled by this reception, the visitor abandoned any attempt at civility, and thrust upon her a formidable and detailed account, which, he loudly asserted, he would have paid immediately or by distraint. Upon

learning that his defaulting client lay dead, he looked greatly taken aback, but after a few seconds’ astonishment said that he was not surprised to hear it and would be paid in any event. The affronted widow recommended him to present his demand to Mr. Cheviot’s executors and when he seemed inclined to think she might well pay him a trifle on account, since he was a poor man and sadly out of pocket over the business, announced her inability any longer to control the dog. The visitor then mounted into his chaise again with more speed than dignity and Mrs. Cheviot went up to the attic to inform Carlyon, with no little relish, that just as she had always expected she was now being dunned at the door. “Yes, I dare say this is but the first of many such encounters,” replied Carlyon. “A notice is to be inserted in the newspapers, but no doubt it will be missed by many.” “Charming! So I must accustom myself to being abused at my own door!” “I cannot understand why you should be answering your front doorbell,” said Carlyon. “Barrow is well able to deal with such persons.”

“But I was in the garden and naturally stepped up to the man to know what he might want!” said Elinor indignantly.

“Unwise. You will know better another time,” was all the satisfaction she obtained. She was happily diverted by Miss Beccles’ displaying to her the glories of the brocade dresses she had rescued. “Oh, I can remember Mama in just such a dress!” she cried. “It should have a hoop, should it not, Becky? And the hair dressed high, with powder and a wreath or feathers or some such thing! I wonder how anyone can ever have borne to have worn such a garment! Only feel the weight of it! But the brocade is the very thing we need for the cushions in the parlor.” She looked round the attic, marveling at the collection of worn-out finery, furniture, and rubbish. “Good God, has everything that needed a stitch or a nail been cast into this garret?”

“Yes, indeed,” said Miss Beccles, shaking her head mournfully. “There has been a sad want of management and economy, I fear. And here is my lord refusing to let me keep back that chair from the bonfire, and all it needs is to have the seat recaned! And only look at that spit, too! I am sure it could be mended if only he would let me take it down to the kitchen.” “You may take it down, dear Becky,” said Elinor grandly. “You may save anything you like from the bonfire!”

“Oh, no, my love! If his lordship feels it were better to throw the things away, I would not think—”

“This,” said Elinor in a very lofty tone, “is my house, and you may tell his lordship that he has nothing to say in the matter!”

“Elinor, my love! Indeed, you let the liveliness of your mind betray you into saying what is not at all becoming!”

“Tell his lordship with your compliments,” corrected Carlyon. “You should always add your compliments to any message you wish to render excessively cutting.” She cast him a withering glance and prepared to retreat in good order. To her surprise, he followed her out of the attic and downstairs, saying, “Your unwelcome visitor has put me in mind of something I should have spoken of before, Mrs. Cheviot. Shall we go into the parlor?”

“Now what horrid surprise do you mean to spring on me?” she asked suspiciously. “On my honor, none at all! But it occurs to me that it will be proper for me, as my cousin’s executor, to advance you sufficient moneys to pay for all those items, I dare say a great many, which it may not be convenient to charge up.”

“No, pray do not! There can be not the least necessity!” “On the contrary, you are not to be spending out of your own purse.” “I shall not. Why, what should I spend money on?”

“Depend upon it, there will be a score of things.” He added with a slight smile, “At any moment a peddler may come to the door and you will buy a broom from him or a chintz patch or some such thing!”

“Well, if I do that is quite my own affair. I had rather you did not give me any money.”

“You are overscrupulous, ma’am, but since you have this extreme nicety I will place a sum in Miss Beccles’ charge.”

She almost stamped her foot at him. “I wish you will not treat me as though I were a schoolgirl, my lord!” she said. She read an answer in his eye, and added hurriedly, “And do not tell me that I behave as one, because it is quite untrue!”

“Certainly not. I know you to be a sensible woman, a little too much in the habit of having your own way.”

She fairly gasped. “This reproach from you, my lord!”

“Very true. We agreed, did we not, that my disposition is overbearing? But you will own that my way is in general more reasonable than yours.”

“Not while I still retain the possession of my faculties!” she declared. “Indeed, I do not know how you dare make such a claim! It quite takes my breath away! When I consider in what apposition you have placed me, and then am obliged to listen to you talking as though you had done nothing out of the ordinary, but on the contrary had acted in the best possible manner—”

“Well, you know, ma’am, given a situation which you will allow to have been excessively awkward, I think I did,” he said.

Mrs. Cheviot sank into a chair and covered her eyes with one hand. Carlyon regarded her in some amusement. “Still regretting Mrs. Macclesfield, ma’am?” “Oh, no! how could I, sir?” she retorted. “How dull I must have been in her house! I dare say she had never a French agent within it, let alone a distraint upon the furniture!” “I am sure hers is a most respectable household. I should be surprised if her husband has ever done anything as mildly reprehensible as to look for a keg of brandy by his back door.” He broke off. “Yes, that puts me in mind of something else,” he said. “It is the season when we may reasonably expect to find a few such kegs. I am sure Eustace had his brandy from the free traders. If you should come upon any kegs in some unexpected place such as an outhouse, for instance, just tell me, ma’am! Do not raise an outcry!” “This only was needed!” said Elinor. “I am now to enter into dealings with a pack of smugglers! Perhaps, after all, you had better leave some money with me, for I dare say they will wish to be paid for their trouble! And though, to be sure, life at Highnoons has been a trifle flat these past two days, I should not care to be at loggerheads with a set of desperate persons who would not, I dare say, boggle for an instant at murder!”

“Oh, I do not think they will murder you!” he replied cheerfully. “I will set the word going, however, in the proper quarters, that any consignment ordered by my cousin may be delivered up at the Hall.”

“And I have no doubt whatsoever,” stated Mrs. Cheviot, “that you are a Justice of the Peace!” “Yes, certainly.”

“I wonder you should not be ashamed to own it!” she said virtuously.

“My dear ma’am, there is nothing in the least derogatory in being a Justice of the Peace!” he replied, at his blandest.

Mrs. Cheviot sought in vain for words adequate to the occasion, and could only regard him in speechless dudgeon.

Chapter XIII

The next day, the eve of the funeral, passed in much the same busy but uneventful style. The piles of rubbish grew higher yet. Miss Beccles was made happy by being permitted to make the stillroom and the linen cupboard her particular concerns. Elinor began to think that in time the house might be made very tolerable. And Nicky beguiled the morning by taking Bouncer to a neighboring farm and engaging in a rat hunt which might have been more successful had not Bouncer jumped to an overhasty conclusion that his first duty was to rid the world of the flea-ridden terrier who should have assisted him in his work of destroying all the rats in the big barn.