“I know she does, ma’am, and I agree with her.”

“A pity,” she said, in her calm way. “However, I daresay Hetta is right. So what do you mean to do with the poor little creature?”

He told her what his plan was, and she accepted it, merely saying that if any other recommendation of Cherry to a possible employer than Miss Fletching’s was needed, she would be very happy to supply it. After that no more was said on the subject, my lord demanding to know what she thought of old Nettlecombe’s being trapped into marriage by his housekeeper, and bidding Desford tell her all about his Harrowgate adventures.

Nothing occurred to mar the harmony of the evening, and when his lordship said goodnight to Desford outside his bedroom, he was in perfect charity with him, partly because he was so much relieved to know that his heir was not contemplating matrimony with the daughter of a man whom he had no hesitation in saying was the greatest rascal he had ever known, and partly because he had succeeded in winning two out of the three rubbers of picquet he had played with him.

Before he left for London on the following day Desford was able to have some private conversation with his mother, while Lord Wroxton was engaged with his bailiff. She took him to see the improvements she had made in the rose-garden, and as they strolled down the walks together he asked her, lifting a quizzical eyebrow at her, whether he had her to thank for the welcome accorded to him by his father.

“No, no, Ashley! I didn’t utter a word in your defence!” she assured him. “Indeed, I said I would never have believed it of you, and was never more shocked in my life!”

“What a very sure card you are, Mama!” he said appreciatively. “In fact, I did owe my pardon to you!”

She smiled, but shook her head. “You may always be sure of his pardon, my dear, however much you may have vexed him. But perhaps you might not have won it as quickly if I had been so gooseish as to have tried to plead your cause, for nothing, you know, makes Papa more obstinate than opposition, and he was very angry. You’ll own that he can scarcely be blamed! The intelligence that his eldest son had apparently formed a close connection with a member of a family which he holds in the greatest contempt came as a severe shock to him.”

He nodded, grimacing. “Yes, I knew he would fly up into the boughs if he heard that I was having any dealings whatsoever with a Steane, which was why I hoped he never would hear of it. Do you wonder why I took her to Hetta, instead of bringing her here? It wasn’t that I doubted your understanding of the case, I promise you! But his I did! Recollect, too, Mama, that I was already in his black books! He told me, on the occasion of my last visit, that he didn’t wish to see my face again, and, from what Simon told me, when I ran smash into him at Inglehurst on the day I took Cherry there, his temper had not improved!”

“Alas, no!” she sighed. “Poor Simon! I was so sorry for him, and he bore it all so patiently! But I was sorry for Papa too, because whenever he rakes any of you down, and says things he doesn’t in the least mean, he is always thrown into gloom afterwards, and wishes he hadn’t been so mifty. Not, of course, that he would admit it—though he did say after your last visit, dearest, that if you supposed he meant it when he told you he never wanted to see your face again you must be a bigger mutton-head than he had thought possible. He assured me that there was no occasion for me to worry about it, since he hadn’t a doubt you’d come back very shortly—not that he cared a rush how long you stayed away! So you must never think that he doesn’t hold you in affection!”

He burst out laughing. “Proof positive, Mama!”

“Well, of course it is! You know his way, Ashley! He would think it shocking weakness to betray to any of you how dearly he loves you! But I must say that nothing could have been more unfortunate than that you and Simon should have chanced to pay us visits at just that time. He was sadly out of frame, you know, not only because his gout was paining him so much, but because the new medicine which had been prescribed for him didn’t suit his constitution at all. I’m bound to say that it did do his gout good, which was why he persevered with it, but it had a very lowering effect on him, so that I was glad when our good doctor substituted for it a diet-drink of dock-roots, which suits him much better.” She smiled, and said: “But seeing you, and having made his peace with you, will have done him more good than all the medicines in the world.”

He glanced quickly down at her. “Is that a hint to me that it’s my duty to make Wolversham my headquarters, ma’am? I have a great regard for my father—indeed, I think few men have a better father!—but I couldn’t live with him!”

“Well, I don’t think he could live with you either,” she replied composedly. “You would be certain to rub against each other, for you are both so dreadfully determined! You have only to go on in just the same way, giving us a look-in every now and then, and as long as you don’t give him cause to suspect you of being on the brink of an imprudent marriage he will be very well pleased with you!”

“He need never fear, ma’am, that I could ever be so lost to all sense of what I owe not only to him, but to my name as well, as to do anything that would make him regard me as a—oh, as a broken feather in the Carrington wing!”

She smiled a little at that. “No, my dear: I am very sure he need not! And if you had wished to marry Miss Steane he would have tried to make the best of it, however disappointed he would have been, for he didn’t dislike her, and he certainly didn’t think her a designing girl. Indeed, he told me that he found it hard to believe she was Wilfred Steane’s child! And, you know, dearest, even if he had taken her in the most violent dislike, and you had married her in the teeth of his opposition, he wouldn’t have disowned you! No matter what any of you did, or how angry he was, that is something which he would never do, for it is wholly against his principles.”

“Yes, I know it is,” Desford agreed, a smile of affectionate amusement warming his eyes. “We all do—and it is what makes it quite impossible for any of us to do anything which we know would wound him to the heart! And it is also what makes him such an excellent parent! Horry nicked the nick when he told me, once, that, for his part, Papa (in one of his tantrums) was at liberty to lay anything he liked to his dish, because he could be depended on, in the last resort, to stand buff in defence of his sons!”

“Ah, you do know that, Ashley!” Lady Wroxton said, giving his arm an eloquent squeeze.

“Of course I do, Mama!” he said reassuringly. “But what a funny one he is! At one moment he can say that Wilfred Steane deserved to be disowned, and at the next give the cut direct to Nettlecombe for having done it!”

“For shame!” said Lady Wroxton, but with a quivering lip. “How dare you speak so improperly? You have quite misunderstood the matter! Naturally Papa said that, because it was perfectly true; but, in his opinion, Lord Nettlecombe behaved in a manner unworthy of a father, and that was true too! So there was nothing inconsistent in his having condemned both of them, and I will not permit you to call him a funny one!”

“Now that you have explained the matter to me, Mama, I perceive that I was quite beside the bridge to have done so,” he replied.

She was not deceived by his air of grave remorse, but said, with an involuntary chuckle: “Quite beside it, wicked, odious, impertinent boy that you are!” She paused, and removed her hand from his arm to nip off a withered rose from one of the standards. “By the by, do you remember my telling you about Mr Cary Nethercott? Old Mr Bourne’s nephew, I mean, who lately came into the property?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Oh, merely that I met him, when Papa and I drove over to Inglehurst! I never had, you know, so—”

“Met him at Inglehurst, did you? I suppose he called there to give Lady Silverdale some journal to read! Or had he another excuse?”

Startled by the sardonic note in his voice, she shot a quick glance at him, before answering with her usual calm: “My dear, how should I know? He was there when we arrived, sitting on the terrace with Hetta and Miss Steane, so what excuse he may have made for his visit I haven’t a notion—if he made any! I formed the impression that he stands on such friendly terms with the Silverdales that he is free to drop in at Inglehurst whenever he chooses.”

“Runs tame there, does he? How Hetta can tolerate such a prosy fellow I shall never know!”

“Oh, you’ve met him then?” she said.

“I should rather think I have! I trip over him every time I go to Inglehurst!”

“And you don’t like him? I thought him a pleasant, well-conducted man.”

“Well, I think him a dead bore!” said Desford.

She returned an indifferent answer, and almost immediately turned the subject, repressing, with a strong effort, a burning desire to pursue it.

The Viscount set out for London after partaking of a light luncheon, sped on his way by a recommendation from his father to post off to Bath first thing next day, and not to lie abed till all hours (“as you lazy young scamps like to do!”), because the sooner he finished with “this business” the better it would be for all concerned in it.

“For once, sir, I am in complete agreement with you!” returned the Viscount, a laugh in his eyes. “So much so that I shall sleep at Speenhamland tonight!”

“Oh, you will, will you? At the Pelican, no doubt!” said his lordship, with awful sarcasm.