Джорджетт Хейер - Black Sheep

“My uncle?” he repeated. He glanced at Fanny, a question in his eyes. “But what is this? You said, when I came in, that you thought I was my uncle! The only uncle I possess—if I do still possess him—lives at the other end of the world!”

“No, he doesn’t,” replied Fanny. “I mean, he doesn’t do so now! He brought Lavinia Grayshott’s brother home from Calcutta, and he is here, at the York House!”

“Good God!” he said blankly.

“He is not at all like you, but very agreeable, isn’t he, Aunt Selina?”

“Yes, indeed,” agreed Selina. “He is quite an oddity—so informal, but I daresay that comes of having lived for so long in India, which does not sound to me at all the sort of place anyone would wish to live in, but that, after all, was not his fault, poor man, and he is perfectly gentlemanly!”

“I’m glad to know that at least!” Stacy said ruefully. “I never met him in my life, but I heartily wish him otherwhere, for I fear he may destroy what little credit I may have with you! Alas, the round tale is that he is the black sheep in my family!”

“Oh, I fancy you have met him!” said Abby, showing hackle. “He has no recollection of having done so, I own, but thinks he might have seen you when you were, as he phrased it, a grubby brat!”

He shot a quick look at her, but said, smiling again: “Ah, very likely! I can’t be blamed for having forgotten the circumstance, can I ? I wonder what has brought him back to England ?’’

“But I told you!” Fanny reminded him. “He brought poor Mr Oliver Grayshott home! And such good care did he take of him that Mrs Grayshott feels she cannot be sufficiently obliged to him! As for Ol’—as for Mr Grayshott, he says he is a trump, and won’t listen to a word in his disparagement!”

“Worse and worse!” he declared, with a comical grimace. “A male attendant, in fact! A faint—a very faint—hope that he might have made his fortune in India withers at the outset!”

“Much might be forgiven in the prodigal son who returned to the fold with well-lined pockets, might it not?” said Abby, bestowing upon him a smile as false as she believed his own to be.

“Oh, everything!” he assured her gaily. “That’s the way of the world, ma’am!”

“Very wrong—most improper!” interpolated Selina, trying, not very successfully, to assemble her inchoate ideas into comprehensible words. “I mean—I mean, money ought not, and cannot re-establish character! And to expect a man who had been cast off in a perfectly inhuman way (for so it seems to me, and I don’t care what anyone says!) to come home to—to shower guineas on his most unnatural relations, is—is monstrous! Or, at any rate,” she temporized, “absurd!”

“Bravo, Selina!” exclaimed Abby.

Faintly blushing under this applause, Selina said: “Well, so it seems to me, though it had nothing to do with you, Mr Calverleigh, so you must not be thinking that I mean to censure you,and in any event poor Mr Miles Calverleigh hasn’t made his fortune—at least, he doesn’t look as if he had, because he wears the shabbiest clothes! On the other hand, he is putting up at York House, and that, you know, is by no means dagger-cheap,as some dear friends of ours, who are staying there, tell me.”

“The reverse!” he said. “You terrify me, ma’am! He had always the reputation of being excessively expensive, and with never a feather to fly with! I only hope he doesn’t tip them the double at York House, leaving me to stand the reckoning!” He saw that this speech had shocked Selina, and had made Fanny look gravely at him, and quickly and smoothly retrieved his position, saying: “The truth is, you know, that he caused my grandfather, and my father too, a great deal of embarrassment, so that I never heard any good of him. I own, however, that I have often wondered if he could be quite as black as he was painted to me. Indeed, if you do not dislike him, Miss Wendover, he cannot be! I shall lose no time in making his acquaintance.” He turned towards Fanny, his smile a caress. “Tell me all the latest Bath-news!” he begged. “Has Lady Weaverham forgiven me for having been obliged to cry off from my engagement to dine with her? Has Miss Ancrum summoned up the courage to have that tooth drawn, or is she still wearing a swollen face? Did—oh, tell me everything! I feel as if I had been absent for a twelvemonth!”

Since the most interesting event which had lately occurred in Bath was the return of Oliver Grayshott to his mother’s fond care it was not long before Fanny was telling him all about this, and demanding his help with the acrostic she was composing for Oliver’s amusement. “You see, I am doing what I may to entertain him,” she explained. “Poor boy, he is so dreadfully pulled that he can’t join in any of our expeditions, or attend the assemblies, or anything, so when Lavinia asked me to lend her my aid in keeping up his spirits of course I said I would!” She added, to her younger aunt’s suppressed indignation: “I thought you could not object?”

He responded suitably, but Abby, who was rapidly taking him in strong dislike, received (and welcomed) the impression that he did not regard the intrusion on the Bath scene of Mr Oliver Grayshott with favour.

Mr Stacy Calverleigh, having partaken of a light nuncheon in Sydney Place, strolled back towards the centre of the town, but instead of turning left at the end of Bridge Street, into High Street, he hesitated at the junction of the roads, and then, with a shrug of his shoulders, walked on, along Borough Wall to Burton Street. Turning northward up this he soon reached Milsom Street, at the top of which, in George Street, the York House Hotel was situated.

This hostelry was the most exclusive as well as the most expensive to be found in Bath; and it vaguely irritated Stacy that his ne’er-do-well uncle should be staying in it. Not that he had any wish to stay there himself, for however much money he might owe his tailor, and a great many other London tradesmen, he had no intention of damaging his reputation in Bath by going on tick there. In fact, the White Hart suited him very well, situated as it was in Stall Street, with many of its rooms overlooking the Pump Yard. The quiet of York House was not at all to his taste: he liked to be at the hub of things, and had no objection to the noise and bustle of a busy posting-house.

The weather had been uncertain all day, and by the time he reached York House it had begun to rain again. There was a damp chill in the air which made the sight of a small fire, burning in Mr Miles Calverleigh’s private parlour, not unwelcome. Mr Calverleigh was seated on one side of it, his ankles crossed on a stool, and a cheroot between his fingers. He was glancing through a newspaper when the waiter announced Stacy, but after lowering it, and directing a critical look at his nephew, he threw it aside, saying, in a tone of tolerant amusement: “Good God! Are you my nephew?”

“So I’ve been led to believe, sir,” replied Stacy, bowing slightly. “If you are indeed Miles Calverleigh?”

“I am, but you mustn’t let it worry you,” said Miles kindly. “You don’t favour your father much: for one thing, he wasn’t such a dapper-dog. Hadn’t the figure for it. I collect that yellow calf-clingers are now all the crack?”

“Oh, decidedly!” said Stacy, whose primrose pantaloons were indeed of the first stare. He laid his hat, and his gloves, and his clouded cane down on the table. “I have been absent from Bath or I should have visited you earlier, sir. You must forgive my seeming remissness.”

“Well, there’s no difficulty about that: I hadn’t the least expectation of seeing you.”

“One would not wish to be backward in any attention to so close a relative,” said Stacy, a trifle haughtily.

“What, not even to such a loose screw as I am? Come, come, nevvy! that’s doing it rather too brown! You are wondering what the devil brings me here, and wishing that nothing had done so!” He laughed, seeing that he had taken Stacy aback, and said: “Come down from your high ropes, and don’t try to stand on points with me: I’ve no taste for punctilio. You don’t owe me respect or observance, you know. Sit down, and empty your budget!”

“Well, sir—what has brought you home to England?” asked Stacy, with a forced smile.

“Inclination. Cheroot?”

“Thank you, no!”

“A snuff-taker, are you? You’ll end with yellow stains all round your nose, but I daresay you may have caught your heiress before that happens, so it don’t signify.”

Stacy said quickly, on the defensive: “I don’t know what you—who has told you—”

“Don’t act the dunce! Miss Wendover told me—Miss Abigail Wendover—and I don’t fancy your suit will prosper.”

“Not if she has anything to say in the matter!” Stacy said, his brow darkening. “I believe her to be my enemy. I met her for the first time today, and it is very plain she’ll knock me up if she can!”

“Not a doubt of it. I can tell you of another who is likely to bum squabble you, and that’s James Wendover.”

“Oh, him!” Stacy said, shrugging. “He may try to do so, but he won’t succeed. Fanny doesn’t care a rush for him. But this curst aunt is another matter. Fanny—” He broke off, realizing suddenly that he had been betrayed into indiscretion, and summoned his boyish smile to his aid. “The thing is that Fanny is an heiress. One can’t blame her family for wishing her to make a great match, but when one is deep in love considerations of wealth or rank don’t signify.”

“Well, at seventeen a girl may fancy herself to be deep in love, but in my experience it isn’t a lasting passion,” commented Miles cynically. “You aren’t going to tell me that considerations of wealth don’t signify to you, are you?”