The Reluctant Widow (8 page)

She did not feel equal to arguing the matter with him. She untied the strings of her bonnet and removed it with a sigh of relief. Her soft brown ringlets were sadly crushed; she tried to tidy them, but was really too weary to care much for her appearance, and soon relapsed into immobility, her cheek propped on one hand, her eyes drowsily watching the flames in the hearth. She was roused presently by the entrance of Mr. Carlyon, who came in with a tray in his hands, which he set down on the table at her elbow.

“I think you should take a glass of wine, ma’am,” he said, pouring one out for her. “The housekeeper will have your bedchamber ready directly. Will you take a biscuit?” She accepted it and sat sipping her wine and listening to a brief exchange of conversation between the two brothers until the housekeeper came in to fetch her to bed. She went very willingly, only wondering what John Carlyon could have told the housekeeper to make that comfortable woman accept her with such seeming placidity. She was conducted up a broad, shallow stairway to such a bedchamber as she had not occupied since her father’s death. A servant was passing a warming pan between the sheets of the bed; a fire had been kindled in the hearth, and her brushes and combs laid out upon the dressing table. The housekeeper assured herself that all was in order, desired Mrs. Cheviot to ring the bell if she

should require anything, bade her a respectful good night, and withdrew. Mrs. Cheviot, leaving the future to take care of itself, prepared to give herself up to the present luxury of a warm bed, and within half an hour was deeply and dreamlessly asleep.

Chapter V

Downstairs in the saloon, Mr. John Carlyon told his young brother severely that the best thing he could now do would be to go to bed. This suggestion having been indignantly spurned, he said, “There is nothing more for you to do, and Ned may not reach home until morning. He will not leave while Eustace is still alive, I dare say.”

“Well, I shall sit up till he comes,” Nicky said. “Good God, I could not sleep a wink! How can you think of it? But John, how came that lady to be with Ned at Highnoons? I have been puzzling my head over it. It seems very strange!”

“You had best ask Ned,” John replied uncom-municatively.

“Well, and so I shall, and, what is more, he will tell me!” said Nicky, rather nettled. “Very likely.”

“At all events,” said Nicky, “the affair is not as bad as it might have been, is it? For if Eustace married that lady—”

“Not as bad as it might have been!” John exclaimed. “I do not know how it could well be worse! And all come about through a prank I wonder you should not be ashamed to think of perpetrating at your age!”

Nick retired to the chair by the fire and cast himself into it, saying, “Oh, fudge! There was nothing in that, I am sure! Why, when Harry was up, you know very well he—” “Yes, I am aware that there was never anything to choose between you and Harry, more’s the pity! But at least Harry was never such a young fool that he would allow himself to be dragged into a quarrel with Eustace Cheviot!”

“John!” said Nicky despairingly. “I keep on telling you I stood it for as long as I might, but there was no bearing it! If he had abused me I would not have cared, but to hear him say such things of Ned was more than flesh and blood could stand! Besides, I never meant to do more than mill him down, after all!”

John grunted, but upon his young brother’s attempting to justify himself still further, interrupted to read him so stern a lecture on the subject of his volatility, thoughtlessness, and general instability of character that Nicky was silenced, and had to sit enduring in dumb resentment this comprehensive homily. When it came to an end, he hunched an offended shoulder and pretended to bury himself in the Morning Post, which lay providentially to hand. John went over to the desk and busied himself with some papers of his which were lying there.

It was rather more than an hour later, and the brothers had not exchanged any further conversation, when a firm tread was heard to cross the hall, and Carlyon entered the room. Nicky sprang up. “Ned, what has been the end of it?” he asked anxiously. “I thought you would never come! Is Eustace dead?”

“Yes, he is now. You should be in bed, Nicky. Did you see Miss Rochdale safely bestowed, John?”

“Is that her name? Yes, she went up to bed over an hour ago. You have been a thought highhanded in that quarter, have you not?”

“I am afraid so indeed. There was really nothing else to be done, matters having been pushed to a crisis.”

“Ned, you know I am as sorry as I could be!” Nicky said. “I wouldn’t have put you in a fix for the world!”

“Yes, that is what you always say,” interposed John. “But you go from one scrape to another! Now it has come to this, that you may think yourself fortunate if you do not have to stand your trial for manslaughter!”

“I know,” Nicky said. “Of course I know that! And perhaps they won’t believe it was an accident.”

“My dear Nicky, none of this is likely to go beyond the coroner’s inquest,” Carlyon said. “You

go up to bed, and don’t tease yourself any more tonight!”

Nicky sighed, and John, perceiving that he was looking pale and very tired, said roughly, “Don’t worry! We shall not let them hale you off to prison, Nick!”

Nicky smiled sleepily but gratefully at him, and took himself off. “Incorrigible!” John said. “Did he tell you why he has been sent down?” “Yes, there was a performing bear,” Carlyon answered absently. “I suppose that is sufficient to explain all!”

“Well, it was sufficient to explain it all to me,” Carlyon admitted. “Once a performing bear had entered Nicky’s orbit the rest was inevitable. Have you been waiting up for me? You should not have done so.”

“You look fagged to death!” John said, in his brusque way. “Sit down, while I pour you a glass of wine!”

Carlyon took a chair by the fire, and stretched his booted legs out before him. “I am tired,” he owned. “I hope I may not be called upon to attend any more such deathbeds. But we shall brush through this very well if Hitchin does not let his loyalty run away with him.” John handed him a glass of wine. “Oh, I don’t doubt we shall come about, but we should never have been put into such a situation! It is what I have been saying to you forever, Ned: you are by far too easy with Nick! There’s not an ounce of harm in the boy, but he is a great deal too wild. It is as I said a while back: he plunges into scrapes and then runs to you to extricate him.”

“Well, thank God he does run to me!” said Carlyon.

“Yes, that is all very well, but why you must needs encourage him to steal bears, and to—” “My dear John, in what possible way can I be held to have encouraged Nick to do any such thing?” protested Carlyon.

“No, well, I did not mean that precisely, but I know as well as if I had been present that you have not told him how wrong he has been!”

“He knows that without my telling him.” “He needs to be hauled well over the coals!” “I expect you have done so already.” “He does not attend to me as he does to you.”

“He might do so, however, if you would be more sparing of your homilies.” John shrugged and said no more for a few moments. When he spoke again it was on another subject. “Who is this female to whom you married Cheviot?” he asked. “She is a daughter of Tom Rochdale of Feldenhall.”

“That man! Good God! Then that is how she comes to be a governess! Poor thing! But what is now to become of her?”

“Well, I do not as yet know how Cheviot’s affairs may stand, but I dare say something may be saved from the wreck. He made his will in her favor.”

“Made his will in her favor?” John repeated incredulously. “Ned, was that his doing, or yours?”

“Mine, of course.”

“Well,” John said dubiously, “I suppose some compensation had to be made her, and, to be sure, I was never in favor of its coming out of your pocket. But ought not the estate to have gone to the next of kin?”

“Old Bedlington, for instance,” said Carlyon. “Yes, I suppose so, for, after all, he is his uncle.”

“But I don’t want old Bedlington to be living within a stone’s throw of me,” said Carlyon. “No, my God!” John agreed, struck by this eminently reasonable point of view. “I dare say he will kick up the devil of a dust, though.”

“I don’t think it. He had never any expectation of inheriting the estate.”

“You will have him down upon you as soon as he hears of this,” John said gloomily. “Depend upon it, he will blame you for the whole. I suppose he must be the only person alive who had a kindness for Eustace—and if he had known what we knew, even he might not have

caressed and encouraged him so much!”

“I suppose his own son cannot be a source of much satisfaction to him,” Carlyon said, yawning.

“A source of expense, more like, but I never heard that Francis Cheviot was a commoner like his cousin! Not but what he is like to ruin Bedlington, if he goes on his present pace. I heard that he dropped five thousand at Almack’s last week, and I dare say that’s not the half of it. I should be sorry for Bedlington, if he were not such an old fool.” He gave a short laugh. “He is in a great way over the trouble they are in at the Horse Guards.” Carlyon raised his brows in lazy inquiry. “Oh, information leaking out! Not my department, thank God! It’s forever happening. Bonaparte’s agents know their business very well.” “I thought you were looking a little grave. Is it serious?”

“Serious enough, but they’re all as close as oysters over it. Of course, things do leak out. Well, if you have old fools like Bedlington dabbling their fingers in state affairs, what can you expect? There are plenty of people like him who can’t keep their tongues still. Oh, they don’t mean to give secrets away, but they’re damned indiscreet! That’s why Wellington has been keeping his plans so dark this time. But from what Bathurst told the doctor, there’s something more than indiscretion in this business. You won’t repeat this, Ned, but there’s an important memorandum gone astray, and they’re all in an uproar over it. By what I can make out, it’s to do with his lordship’s campaign for this spring, and there are only two copies in existence. You may guess what Bonaparte would give to have an inkling of what Wellington means to do, whether he will march on Madrid a second time, or strike in some new direction!”

“I can indeed! Do you say this memorandum has been stolen?”

“No, I don’t say that, but I do know it is missing. However, from all I have ever seen of the way they go on at the Horse Guards, it will very likely turn up in the wrong file, or some such thing.”

“You are severe!” Carlyon said, looking amused.

“Why, I dare say Torrens would say the same, for you must know that there are too many of Prinny’s creatures foisted on them at the Horse Guards, and a shabbier set of fellows you’d be hard put to it to find than most of ’em! Such jobbery!”

“Oh, now you are back at Bedlington!”

“Hun, and some others. Lord Bedlington!” John enunciated scornfully. “And why, pray?” “Distinguished military career,” murmured Carlyon.

“Distinguished military fiddlesticks!” snorted John. “A.D.C. to the Regent! Pander to the Regent, more like! But, there! I do not know why I am boring on in this way. Will you be able to bring Nick off safe, do you think?”

“Yes. Though Eustace would have been glad to have injured him if he could have done it.” “What a damned fellow he was!” John said warmly. “I should like to know what harm Nicky ever did him!”

“Well, he seems to have treated him very roughly tonight,” Carlyon pointed out. “But it was not Nicky he meant to hurt so much as me, through Nicky. Fortunately Greenlaw sent the nurse away as soon as Eustace began to talk, so there’s no harm done.” “Oh, you had Greenlaw there, had you? Well, he’s a disrespectful old dog, but safe enough! Td give something to know what he must have thought of your freaks this night!” Carlyon smiled. “Oh, I tried his civility too high, and he got to remembering helping me down from the church steeple, and digging the shot out of your leg, John, that time we stole one of my father’s fowling pieces, and I peppered you so finely—do you remember? He was within an ace of giving me as stem a homily as you have probably given Nick.” “Impudent old rascal!” John said, grinning. “I wish he had done so! But, Ned! This will! Is it in order? Might it not be contested?”

“I believe it is legal enough. I shall certainly not contest it.”

“Not you, no! But Bedlington must be next of kin to Eustace, and it occurs to me that he might try to set the will aside on that score. For once Eustace was married—”

“No, you are. forgetting. By the terms of the original settlement, in default of appointment by Eustace, the estate must have devolved upon me. To invalidate the will would not benefit Bedlington.”

“True, so it was! Did you think to name an executor?” “Yes, myself and Finsbury.”

“That was a good thought, to bring a lawyer into it,” John approved. “But I must say I wish you were well out of the business!”

“Why, so I soon shall be, I trust,” Carlyon said, setting down his empty glass and rising to his feet.

“It seems to me you are left with this widow on your hands!”

“Nonsense! Once probate has been granted I dare say she will sell the estate, and I hope she may be able to live very comfortably upon the proceeds.”

“It has been so mismanaged since Eustace came of age that she may find it hard to find a purchaser,” John said pessimistically. “Ten to one, too, there will be so many charges on it that the poor girl will find herself in a worse case than ever. Was he in the moneylenders’ hands, do you know?”