“One that will do her more good than you ever will, miss!” had said Jurby, goaded into retort. “It is Mr Carleton!”

Miss Farlow had been at first incredulous, and then sincerely shocked. In her chaste mind, every man—except, of course, doctors, fathers, and brothers—figured as a potential menace to a maiden’s virtue. Even had it been Lord Beckenham who was closeted with Miss Wychwood she would have felt it to be her duty to have pointed out to him the impropriety of his visiting a lady in her bedchamber, who was wearing nothing but a dressing-gown over her nightdress. But Lord Beckenham—such a perfect gentleman!—would never have dreamt of compromising a lady in such a scandalous fashion. As for Annis, not only tolerating, but actually encouraging Mr Carleton in his nefarious conduct, she could only suppose that her poor dear cousin had taken leave of her senses. Since she (a defenceless female) had been unable to prevail upon this Brute to withdraw from Miss Wychwood’s room, there was only one thing to be done, and that was to pour the whole story into Sir Geoffrey’s ears the instant he returned from his walk with Lady Wychwood. With this intention, she hurried downstairs, mentally rehearsing her role in the forthcoming drama, and working herself up into a hysterical state. She encountered Sir Geoffrey just as he was about to enter the drawing-room.

He and Lady Wychwood had returned to the house some minutes earlier. Fortunately for Lady Wychwood, she had gone up immediately to the nursery, to assure herself that Tom had taken no harm from his first expedition, since his illness, into the garden, so she was spared the horrid news Miss Farlow was only too anxious to recount to her.

Sir Geoffrey was not so fortunate. Having regaled himself with a glass of sherry, he mounted the stairs to the first floor, and was instantly assailed by Miss Farlow, who came stumbling down the stairs, uttering in a hysterical voice: “Cousin Geoffrey! Oh, Cousin Geoffrey! Thank God you are come!”

Sir Geoffrey eyed her with disfavour. He was unaccustomed to females who flew into distempered freaks, and he had already taken Miss Farlow in dislike. He said: “What the deuce is the matter with you, Maria?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing—except that I have never been so shocked in my life! It is Annis! You must go up to her room immediately!”

“Eh?” said Sir Geoffrey, startled. “Annis? Why, what’s amiss with her?”

“I do not know how to tell you! If it were not my duty to do so, I could not bring myself to disclose to you what will curl your liver!” said Miss Farlow, extracting the last ounce of drama from the situation.

Sir Geoffrey was incensed. “For God’s sake, Maria, stop talking as if you were taking part in a Cheltenham tragedy, and tell me what has put you into this taking! Curl my liver indeed! Without any more ado, answer me this!—Is there anything wrong with my sister?”

“Everything!” declared Miss Farlow, clinging to the most important role of her life.

“Balderdash!” said Sir Geoffrey. “It’s my belief you’re getting to be queer in your attic, Maria! Never mind my liver! What has happened to my sister?”

“That Man,” disclosed Miss Farlow, “has been closeted with her since you and dear Lady Wychwood left the house! And he is still with her! Had I known that he had forced his way into the house, and that Jurby was so lost to all sense of her duty as to admit him into Annis’s bedchamber—but no doubt he bribed her to do it!—I should have summoned James to cast him out of the house! But I was with Tom, in the garden, and I knew nothing until I came in, and was just about to pop into Annis’s room, when Jurby stopped me, saying that Annis was engaged. ‘Engaged?’ I said. ‘She has a visitor with her, and she don’t wish to be disturbed,’ she said. You may depend upon it that I insisted on her telling me who had come to visit Annis without so much as a by your leave! And then Jurby told me that it was That Man!”

“What man?” demanded Sir Geoffrey.

“Mr Carleton!” said Miss Farlow, shuddering.

“Carleton? What the devil is he doing in my sister’s room?”

“Carousing!” said Miss Farlow, reaching her grand climax.

It fell sadly flat. Sir Geoffrey said testily: “I wish to God you wouldn’t talk such nonsense, Maria! Next I suppose you’ll tell me my sister was carousing too!”

“Alas, yes!”

“It seems to me that it’s you who have been carousing!” said Sir Geoffrey severely. “You had best go and sleep it off!”

With this he went on up the stairs to the second floor, paying no heed whatsoever to the protests, the assurances that she never touched strong liquor; or the impassioned entreaties to listen to her, which Miss Farlow addressed to him.

He entered Miss Wychwood’s room without ceremony, and was confronted by the spectacle of his sister seated beside Mr Carleton on the sofa, supported by his arm, and with her head on his shoulder.

“Upon my word!” he ejaculated thunderously. “What the devil does this mean?”

“Oh, pray don’t shout!” said Miss Wychwood, straightening herself.

Mr Carleton rose. “How do you do, Wychwood? I’ve been waiting for you! I imagine you must know what the devil it means, but before we go into that, I want to know what the devil you mean by planting that atrocious woman on your sister! Never in the whole of my existence have I encountered any one who talked more infernal twaddle, or who had less notion of how to look after sick persons! She burst in on us, just as I had succeeded in getting Annis to drink a glass of Burgundy—which, if I may say so, will do her far more good than barley-water! See to it that she has a glass with her dinner, will you?—and had the damned impudence to say that nothing would prevail upon her to leave the room while I remained in it! I can only assume that she thought Annis was in danger of being raped! If I hadn’t threatened to throw her out, she’d be here still, upsetting Annis with all her ravings and rantings, and I will not permit her, or anyone else, to upset Annis!”

Sir Geoffrey disliked Mr Carleton, but he found himself so much in sympathy with him that instead of requesting him, with cold dignity, to leave the house, which he had meant to do, he said: “I didn’t plant her on Annis! All I did was to suggest to Annis that she would be a suitable person to act as her companion!”

“Suitable?” interpolated Mr Carleton scathingly.

Sir Geoffrey glared at him, but being a just man he felt himself obliged to say: “No, of course she’s not suitable, but I didn’t know then that she was such an infernal gabster, and I didn’t know until today that she’s touched in her upper works! I shall certainly take care she don’t come near Annis again—though what right you have to interfere I’m quite at a loss to understand! What’s more, I’ll thank you to leave me to look after my sister!”

“That,” said Mr Carleton, “brings us back to the start of our conversation. Your sister, Wychwood, has done me the honour to accept my hand in marriage. That’s what the devil this means, and it also explains the right I have to concern myself with her welfare!”

“Well, I won’t have it!” said Sir Geoffrey. “I refuse to give my consent to a marriage of which I utterly disapprove!”

“Oh, Geoffrey, don’t! Pray don’t get into a quarrel!” begged Miss Wychwood, pressing her hands against her throbbing temples. “You are making my head ache again, both of you! I am very sorry to displease you, Geoffrey, but I am not a silly schoolgirl, and I haven’t decided to marry Oliver on an impulse! And as for giving your consent, your consent isn’t necessary! I’m not under age, I’m not your ward, and never was your ward, and there is nothing you can do to stop me marrying Oliver!”

“We’ll see that!” he said ominously. “Let me make it plain to you—”

“No, don’t try to do that!” intervened Mr Carleton. “She’s far too exhausted to talk any more! Make it plain to me instead! I suggest we go down to the book-room, and discuss the matter in private. We shall do much better without female interference, you know!”

This made Miss Wychwood lift her head from between her hands, and say indignantly: “This has nothing to do with Geoffrey! And if you think I am going to sit meekly here while you and he—”

“Come, come!” said Mr Carleton. “Where is your sense of decorum? Your brother, very properly, wishes to discover what my circumstances are, what settlement I mean to make on you—”

“No, I do not!” interrupted Sir Geoffrey angrily. “Everyone knows you’re swimming in lard, and settlements don’t come into it, because if I have anything to say to it there will be no marriage!”

“You have nothing to say to it, Geoffrey, and no right to meddle in my affairs!”

“Oh, that’s going too far!” said Mr Carleton. “He may not have the right to meddle, but he has every right to try to dissuade you from making what he believes would be a disastrous marriage. A poor sort of brother he would be if he didn’t!”

Taken aback, Sir Geoffrey blinked at him. “Well—well, I’m glad that you at least realize that!” he said lamely.

“Well, I do not realize it!” struck in Miss Wychwood.

“Of course you don’t!” said Mr Carleton soothingly. “In another moment you’ll be saying that the marriage has nothing to do with me either, my lovely wet-goose! So we will postpone this discussion until tomorrow. Oh, no! don’t look daggers at me! I never come to cuffs with females who are too knocked-up to be a match for me!”

She gave a choke of laughter. “Oh, how detestable you are!” she sighed.

“That sounds more like you,” he approved. He bent over her, and kissed her. “You are worn out, and must go back to bed, my sweet. Promise me you won’t get up again today!”