The Reluctant Widow (9 page)

Mrs. Cheviot slept late into the morning, being, awakened at last by a maidservant who brought her a cup of chocolate arid the information that breakfast would be served in the parlor at the foot of the stairs. She placed a brass can of hot water on the washstand, and after ascertaining that madam required no assistance at her toilet, withdrew again. Elinor sat up in bed, luxuriously sipping her chocolate and wondering how many of the fantastic events of the previous day had had existence only in her imagination. Her presence in this well-ordered household seemed to indicate that at least some of them had been real. She was unable to refrain from contrasting her present situation with what would have in all probability been her lot in Mrs. Macclesfield’s house, and she would have been more than human had she not enjoyed the very striking difference. She got up presently and looked out of the window. It commanded a view of some formal gardens, just now showing only some snowdrops in flower, and beyond these the outskirts of a park. Lord Carlyon was evidently a man of consequence and fortune, and nothing, she reflected, could be more unlike the squalor of his cousin’s house than the quiet elegance of his own establishment. She dressed herself in one of her sober-hued round gowns, and putting a Paisley shawl over her shoulders, betook herself downstairs. While she hesitated in the hall, not quite knowing where she should go, the butler came through a door at the back of the house,

bowed civilly to her, and ushered her into a snug parlor, where her host and his two brothers were awaiting her before a bright fire.

Carlyon came forward at once to take her hand. “Good morning. I trust you are rested, ma’am?”

“Yes, indeed, thank you. I do not think I can have stirred the whole night through.” She smiled, and bowed to the other two men. “I fear I have kept you waiting.”

“No, no such thing. Will you not be seated? The coffee will be brought in directly.” She took her place at the table, feeling shy, and glad of the butler’s presence in the room, which made it impossible for the conversation to go beyond the commonplace. While Carlyon exchanged views with John on the probable nature of the weather, she took covert stock of him. He proved, when seen in the light of day, to be quite as personable a man as she had fancied him to be. Without being precisely handsome, his features were good, his carriage easy, and his shoulders, under a well-cut coat of superfine cloth, very broad. He was dressed with neatness and propriety, and although he wore breeches and top boots in preference to the pantaloons and hessians favored by town dwellers, there was no suggestion in his appearance of the slovenly country squire. His brother John was similarly neat; but the high shirt collar affected by Nicky, and his complicated cravat, indicated to Elinor’s experienced eye an incipient dandyism. That Nicky’s attire had been the subject of argument soon became apparent, for at the first opportunity he said in a contumacious tone, “I do not see how I should well wear mourning for Eustace. I mean, when you consider—” “I did not say you should wear mourning,” interrupted John. “But that waistcoat you have on is the outside of enough!”

“Let me tell you,” said Nicky indignantly, “that this fashion in waistcoats is all the crack up at Oxford!”

“I dare say it may be, but you are not, more shame to you, up at Oxford at this present, and it would be grossly improper for you to be going about the countryside, with our cousin but just dead, in a cherry-striped waistcoat.”

“Ned, do you think so?” Nicky said, turning in appeal to Carlyon. “Yes, or at any other time,” responded his mentor unfeelingly.

Nicky subsided, with a sotto voce animadversion on old-fashioned prejudice, and applied himself to a formidable plateful of cold roast sirloin. Carlyon signed to the butler to leave the room, and when he had done so, smiled faintly at Elinor and said, “Well, now, Mrs. Cheviot, we have to consider what is next to be done.”

“I do wish you will not call me by that name!” she said.

“I am afraid you will have to accustom yourself to being called by it,” he replied. She put down the slice of bread and butter she had been in the act of raising to her lips. “My lord, did you indeed marry me to that man?” she demanded.

“Certainly not: I am not in orders. You were married by the vicar of the parish.” “That is nothing to the purpose! You know very well it was all your doing! But I hoped I might have dreamed it! Oh, dear, what a coil it is! How came I to do such a thing?” “You did it to oblige me,” he said soothingly.

“I did not. Oblige you, indeed! When you as good as kidnapped me!” “Kidnapped you?” exclaimed John. “No, no, I am sure he would not do such a thing, ma’am! Ned, you were not so mad?”

“Of course I was not. Accident brought you to Highnoons, Mrs. Cheviot, and if, when you were there, I overpersuaded you a trifle—”

“Well, that is what you say, but from what I have been privileged to see of you, my lord, I should not be surprised to find it had all been a plot to entrap me! I was asked by the servant if I had come in answer to the advertisement. Did you indeed advertise for a wife for your cousin?”

“Yes, I did,” he replied. “In the columns of The Times. You may often see such advertisements.”

She regarded him speechlessly. John said, “It is very true. But I own I do not consider it a

respectable thing to do. I was always against it. Heaven knows what kind of female might have arrived at Highnoons! But as it chances, it has all turned out for the best.” She turned her eyes toward him. They were remarkably fine eyes, particularly so when sparkling with indignation. “It may have turned out for the best as far as you are concerned, sir,” she said, “but what about the abominable situation in which I now find myself? I do not know how I am any longer to possess any degree of credit with the world!” “Have no fears on that score!” Carlyon said. “I have already set it about that your betrothal to my cousin was of a long-standing, though secret, nature.”

“Oh, this passes all bounds!” she cried. “I do not scruple to tell you, my lord, that nothing would have induced me to have entered into an engagement to marry such an odious person as your cousin!”

“A very pardonable sentiment,” he agreed. She choked over her coffee.

“Mrs. Cheviot’s feelings are perfectly understandable,” John said reprovingly. “I am sure no one can wonder at them.”

“Yes, but Eustace is dead!” objected Nicky. “I cannot see why she should feel it so particularly! Why, by Jupiter, ma’am, now I come to think of it, you are a widow!” “But I do not want to be a widow!” declared Elinor.

“I am afraid it is now too late in the day to alter that,” said Carlyon.

“Besides, if you had known my cousin better you would have wanted to be a widow,” Nicky assured her.

“Be quiet, Nicky!” Carlyon said. Elinor bit her lip resolutely.

“That is much better,” Carlyon encouraged her. “I do indeed appreciate your feelings upon this event, but it is quite useless to be crying over spilt milk. Moreover, I do not think you will find that the consequences of your marriage will be as disagreeable as you suppose.” “No, depend upon it we shall see to it that they shall not be,” said John. “There may be a little awkwardness in some quarters, but my brother’s protection must guard you from ill-natured gossip. If we are seen to accept you with complaisance, there can be no food for scandal, you know.”

She sighed. “I see, of course, that there can be no undoing it now. I have come by my deserts, for I knew all along that I was acting wrongly. But I do not mean to tease you to no purpose! I suppose I can be a governess as well widowed as single.” “Undoubtedly, but I trust there will be no need for you to continue in what I am persuaded must be a distasteful calling,” said Carlyon.

She looked quickly round at him. “No, no, I told you I would not be your pensioner, my lord, and to that at least I shall hold fast!”

“No such thing. My cousin signed a will leaving the whole of his property to you.” “What?” she cried, turning quite pale. “Oh, good God, you are not in earnest?” “Certainly I am in earnest.”

“But I could not—It would be quite shocking in me—!” she stammered. “Are you imagining that you have become a rich woman overnight?” Carlyon inquired. “I wish it may be found so, but I fear it will be no such thing. You are more likely to discover that you are liable for God knows how many debts.”

The widow sought in vain for words in which to express her feelings.

“Lord, yes!” said Nicky cheerfully. “Eustace had never a feather to fly with, and it’s my belief the gull gropers had their talons fast in him!”

“And I,” said Elinor, controlling her voice with a strong effort, “am in the happy position of inheriting these debts?”

“No, no!” said John. “They must be paid out of the estate, of course! Fortunately, he could not mortgage the land—not that you will get much for it if you should decide to sell it, for since my brother ceased to administer it everything has been allowed to go to ruin.” “But what a charming prospect for me!” Elinor said, with awful irony. “Saddled with a ruined

estate, crushed by debt, widowed before ever I was a wife—it is the most abominable thing I ever heard of!”

“Oh, it will scarcely prove to be as bad as that!”

Carlyon said. “When all is done, I hope you will find yourself with a respectable competence.”

“Indeed, I hope so too, my lord, for I begin to think I shall have earned it!” she retorted. “Now you are talking like a sensible woman,” he said. “Are you willing to be guided by me in how you should go on?”

She looked at him in some indecision. “Is there no way in which I can escape this inheritance?”

“None at all.”

“But if I were to disappear, which I should like very much to do—” “I am persuaded you will not be so poor-spirited as to draw back at this juncture.” She swallowed this, and after a moment said in a resigned voice, “What ought I to do, then?”

“I have already considered that, and I believe it will be most natural for you to take up your residence at Highnoons,” he said.

“At Highnoons! Oh, no, indeed, I had rather not!” she said, looking very much alarmed. “Why had you rather not?” he asked.

“It would look so presumptuous in me to be residing there!” “Presumptuous to be residing in your husband’s house?” “How can you talk so? The circumstances—”

“The circumstances are precisely what we all of us wish to conceal. It would be ineligible for you to remain under my roof, for mine is a bachelor household.”

“I have no desire to remain under your roof!”

“Then we need not waste time upon that point. You might, with perfect propriety, seek refuge with some relative of your own, but you will be obliged to attend to a good deal of business, and since I shall be joined with you in that, it will be more convenient if you are within reach of this place.”

“I would not go to my relatives in such a predicament as this for any consideration in the world!” Elinor declared with a shudder.

“In that case, you have really no choice in the matter.”

“But how shall I go on in such a place?” she demanded. “I am sure it is quite covered in dust and cobwebs, and very likely overrun with rats and black beetles, for I saw quite enough of it yesterday to convince me that it has been shockingly neglected!”

“Exactly so, and that is one reason why I should be glad to see you there.” The widow

’s bosom swelled. “Is it indeed, my lord? I might have guessed you would say something odious!”

“I am not saving anything odious. If we are to dispose of Highnoons advantageously, it must be put into some kind of order. I will engage to do what I can with the land, but I cannot undertake to set the house to rights. By doing that you will at once oblige me and give yourself an occupation that will divert your mind from all these troubles which you imagine to be gathering about your head.”

“To oblige you must of course be an object with me,” said Elinor in a trembling tone. “Thank you. You are very good,” he responded with unimpaired calm. A chuckle escaped Nicky. He grinned across the table at Elinor. “Oh, I beg pardon, but you know it is never the least use disputing with Ned, for he has always the best of it! He is the most complete hand! And I’ll tell you what! If you should find that there are rats at Highnoons I’ll come over with my dog, and we will have some famous sport!”