The Reluctant Widow (31 page)

Nicky allowed himself to be led from the room. He was plainly bursting with something he wanted to say and could hardly wait until he had dragged his brother into the parlor and firmly shut the door before he exclaimed, “Ned! I see it all! You were right!” “Was I? In what way?”

“Why, in saying Francis was dangerous, to be sure! For nothing could be plainer! At first, I did not see why he should have done such a thing, but as soon as I found that inventory I had bubbled him! Lord, and you was only just in time to stop me blurting out what I was suspecting! I was so much surprised, you know, I did not consider what I was about. But I fancy there was no harm done!”

“No, none at all. In fact—But go on, Nicky!”

“I am as certain as that I stand here that it was Francis who struck Cousin Elinor down! I don’t know how such a puny fellow can have contrived to do it, but—” “I fancy he may have used the paperweight from the desk.” “What, you knew, then?”

“No, but I could see no other implement that might have been snatched up when he entered the room.”

“Good God, did you think to look? It did not enter my head, as it chances, but I dare say it might have presently. But only listen, Ned! You do not know the whole!” “I am listening. I collect already, of course, that you were got rid of by sending you in search of the doctor.”

“Yes, I was—except that that was my own thought, but I dare say he would have found another way if I had let the groom go. I expect he hoped I might be the one to go when he said he must have Greenlaw sent for. But the thing is, Ned, he gave it out he was a great deal too sick to leave his room, and had Mrs. Barrow make him arrowroot jelly, and would only take gruel for his breakfast—such stuff! And then, no sooner am I out of the way and Bouncer gone off hunting—though that was the sheerest good fortune, now I come to think of it, but perhaps he hoped I should take Bouncer with me—in any event, there we were, both of us disposed of, and the women likely to be busy about the house, in the way they are at that hour, though I’m sure I don’t know what they can find to be doing forever, and so down comes Master Francis on the chance of finding no one about. He goes softly into the bookroom, and what does he see?”

“Mrs. Cheviot, with just such a document as he is looking for in her hand.” “Exactly so! He must have supposed her to have come upon it suddenly, perhaps in the desk, in a secret drawer I thought might have been there. And at all costs he was bound to seize it from her, you know, and so he struck her down. Jupiter! I’d give a monkey only to have been able to see his face when he found it was only a list of some rubbishy sheets and towels! And I have made it out in my mind, Ned, that it must have been then that I came into the hall and set up a shout for Cousin Elinor. He must have guessed I should go straight to the bookroom, and so he had no time to make his escape, but flung open the window instead and created all that havoc only to make us think someone had jumped out into the garden and scattered a lot of snowdrops all over Cousin Elinor, and—”

“Did he do so? It seems a trifle premature,” Carlyon said dryly.

“Eh? Oh, I see!” Nicky said with a laugh. “No, but he splashed the water from the bowl on her face so that I should suppose him to be doing what he could to restore her. Not that I did think it, for I hope I am not such a gudgeon as that! But what if it had been that document, Ned, and I had not chanced to have come in just then?”

“I imagine he would have retired to his bed again,” said Carlyon.

“I suppose he might,” conceded Nicky. “And I suppose we might not have set it down at his door. Not but what—However, it don’t signify for he is no better off than he was! But what will he do next?”

“What indeed?”

“Ned, have you some notion in your head?” Nicky asked suspiciously. “I have a great many notions in my head.”

“No, I won’t have you baiting me! It is a great deal too serious!”

“So it is, and there, I fancy, is Greenlaw coming from the bookroom. You had better take him up to Francis’ room,” Carlyon said, going toward the door.

“Ned! If you don’t tell me it will be quite shameful of you! You always know everything!” “Yes, Nicky, but you think I know everything because I never tell you anything I am not quite certain of,” Carlyon replied, looking back at him with his faint smile. “What a sad blow it would be to my vanity if you found I could be just as easily mistaken as anyone else! You must let me keep my own counsel until I am certain. And now I must go back to Mrs. Cheviot.”

Chapter VXII

Mrs. Cheviot was found to be sufficiently recovered to be able to sit up. A rather more professional bandage encircled her head and she was distastefully sipping an evil-looking mixture. She managed to achieve a wan smile at sight of Carlyon, but she was still pale and evidently a good deal shaken. But some of her liveliness of mind seemed to have been restored, for Carlyon had not advanced two paces into the room when she observed in a dispassionate tone, “I have been recalling how you told me I might rest assured no disagreeable consequences would result from my marriage to your cousin. I wish you will tell me, my lord, what you deem a disagreeable consequence?”

He smiled. “Did I say that?”

“With some other untrue things. Indeed, you as good as told me you were rescuing me from all the horrors of Mrs. Macclesfield’s establishment, to set me up in peace and prosperity for the rest of my days. I was never so taken in!”

“I wonder why your mind runs so continually on Mrs. Macclesfield?” he said. “Oh! One is apt, you know, to think wistfully upon what might have been!” “My love,” interrupted Miss Beccles anxiously, “will you not come upstairs and lie down upon your bed as good Doctor Greenlaw advised you to do? I know you have the headache, and he has given you that draft to make you sleep, remember!”

“Yes, dear Becky, I will come, but not all the drafts in the world could bring sleep to me until I have had the opportunity to speak with his lordship. Do you go and desire Mary to put a hot brick in my bed and I will join you presently!”

Miss Beccles looked undecided but Carlyon interposed to assure her that he should send Mrs. Cheviot upstairs within a few minutes. So after placing the smelling salts within reach and begging Elinor not to forget to finish her draft, she flitted away.

“Well, Mrs. Cheviot?” Carlyon said, walking over to the fire and stooping to warm his hands at it. “You have had rather a disagreeable experience, I am afraid, and I am persuaded you blame me for it.”

“What should put such a notion as that into your head?” marveled the widow. “When I understand you have been in London since yesterday!”

“Oho! That is it, is it? But it seemed to me expedient that I should go to London, and you will give me credit for having made the best possible speed back to you.” “I shall give you credit for nothing. I dare say you went to be measured for a pair of boots!”

“No, but if I told you my object you would think it trifling, I dare say.” He straightened himself and said, smiling, “Are you very vexed with me for leaving you, ma’am?” Mrs. Cheviot felt her color rising and made haste to reply,”

“Vexed! No, indeed! When you were so thoughtful as to inform Nicky that you believed Mr. Francis Cheviot to be a dangerous man! I am sure I ought to be very much obliged to you for the warning, arid it must be quite my own fault that I now have a bump as big as a hen’s egg on my head!”

“It is a pity Nicky cannot learn to hold his tongue,” he remarked. “I do not anticipate that Cheviot will be a danger to you, ma’am.”

Mrs. Cheviot recruited herself with another sip of her draft. “Of course I have dreamed the whole!” she said. “I was not hit on the head at all!”

He laughed. “You are refining too much upon the event, Mrs. Cheviot. I am sure it gave you a fright but there is not much harm done and it is unlikely that you will suffer any further annoyance.”

“Oh!” she gasped. “Oh, how abominable you are! Not much harm done, indeed! Further annoyance! Pray, in what terms would you have described my murder?” He did not answer for a moment, and then he said curtly, “We are not discussing murder, ma’am.”

“You will be, if you mean to keep me tied to this dreadful house!”

“Nonsense! If it was Francis Cheviot who struck you, as I believe it was, I dare say it was the last thing he wished to be obliged to do.”

“I may take what comfort I can from that! But why should he have been obliged to do anything of the sort?”

He hesitated and then said, “You were holding in your hand some folded papers that might have been the very papers he wishes to obtain.”

She gazed up at him, one hand pressed to her temple. “What must I now take care never to have a paper in my hand for fear I may be struck down from behind? My lord, it is monstrous! I dare say he must have seen me with papers in my hand half a dozen times already!”

“Yes, possibly, but—”

“But what?” she demanded, as he broke off and turned away from her to mend the fire. “Perhaps it startled him, ma’am, and he sprang to a false conclusion. Whatever be the answer, upon my honor I do not believe you to be in any danger!” There was a pause, while she eyed him uncertainly. His countenance relaxed and he said, “Indeed, my poor child, you have had an uncomfortable time of it at Highnoons and I am a villain to keep you here. Shall I take you and Miss Beccles up to the Hall?”

The color rushed into her cheeks at this. She had the oddest desire to burst into tears, and sought refuge in one of her rallying speeches. “What, and leave that creature to ransack the house at will? No, indeed! I hope I am a little better spirited than that, sir! If I am to be martyred in this cause, no doubt it was so ordained, and I can depend on you for a handsome tombstone!”

“Indeed you can!” he replied smiling and putting out his hand? “It is a bargain then, and you will stay here.”

She laid her hand in his. “It is a bargain. But for how long am I to endure that creature abovestairs?”

“I should not wonder at it if you were to be rid of him sooner than you expect. I beg you will not tease yourself with thinking of him.”

Her eyes searched his face. “But will he go without what he came for, sir?” “I hope he may be prevailed upon to do so.”

“Shall you so prevail upon him?” she asked,

“Perhaps. I shall do my possible. You have been troubled with him for too long.”

She agreed to it, but added after a moment’s reflection, “And yet if he does so, who can tell what horrors may next be in store for me?”

“None, upon my honor.”

“Very pretty, my lord, but I have frequently been forced to observe the remarkable disparity that exists between my notions of what is horrid, and yours. Are you ever put out of countenance?”

“Very often.”

She smiled a little archly. “Will you think me very saucy, my lord, if I say that that confession gives me an excessively odd idea of the life you must lead at the Hall? For you have treated as the merest commonplaces every shocking event that has occurred in the last week, from your cousin’s death at Nicky’s hands, to the discovery that you have stumbled upon a dangerous treason. These things appear not to have the power to disturb the tone of your mind! I envy you!”

“Well,” he said reflectively, “two of my sisters and my brother Harry were forever doing such outrageous things that I think I must have grown out of the way of being very much surprised at anything.”

She laughed and rose rather shakily to her feet. He put his hand under her elbow to assist her, and escorted her to the door. She parted from him in the hall, declining his offer to take her upstairs. “Indeed, I am quite well now! You do not mean to go to London again, I hope?” “No, I am fixed in Sussex for some time, I believe. You have only to send a message over to the Hall if you should wish to speak with me. May I again impress upon you that you have no need to feel any further alarm?”

She looked quizzical, but as the doctor just then appeared at the head of the stairs, returned no answer but went up, leaning on the banister rail and saying,

“You mean to scold me, Dr. Greenlaw, but indeed I am going to my room, and I have drunk all that horrid mixture!”

“I am glad of it, ma’am. I can assure you you will be the better for it. I shall call tomorrow to see how you are going on, if you please.”

She thanked trim. He waited for her to pass him and then went on down the stairs to where Carlyon stood in the hall. “If you will pardon an old man who has known you from your cradle, my lord,” he said bluntly, “I do not understand how that lady came by that bruise on her head, but I will go bail there is some devilment afoot here!”

“I will readily pardon you, but if this is intended as a reproach to me it falls wide of the mark. I assure you I did not give Mrs. Cheviot her bruise.”

The doctor smiled grimly. “Very well, my lord, I know how to hold my tongue, I hope.” “How do you find Mrs. Cheviot?”

“Oh, she will do well enough! Someone struck her a stunning blow, however—for all you may say she fell and so hit her head, my lord.”

“And your other patient?”

The doctor grunted. “I can find nothing amiss with him beyond a pronounced irritation of the nerves. I have prescribed a few drops of laudanum, but as for sore throats, I see no sign of such a thing!” He looked up under his brows and added, “Master Nick would have me scare him away with a tale of smallpox in the village, but you may tell him, my lord, that whatever it may be that has occurred at Highnoons, it has given him a pronounced dislike of the place, so that I fancy he will not be plaguing Mrs. Cheviot for much longer. As for Master Nick himself, your lordship will like to know that I constrained him to let me take a look at his shoulder when he caught up with me today, and I find it healing just as it should.” “Why, thank you! He was always one to mend quickly.”