Джорджетт Хейер - The Quiet Gentleman

There was a pregnant silence. Theo’s firm lips twitched; the Chaplain gazed in deep absorption at the bowl of spring flowers which had replaced the epergne in the centre of the table; and Martin directed a glance of awe, not untinged with respect, at the Earl. Only Miss Morville continued to eat her dinner in complete unconcern.

“Lady Cinderfold,” said the Dowager, referring to her widowed sister-in-law in accents of loathing, “will act as hostess at Stanyon over my dead body!”

“That would be something quite out of the ordinary way,” murmured the Earl.

Miss Morville raised her eyes from the portion of fricandeau of beef on her plate, and directed a quelling look at him. She then turned her attention to her hostess, saying: “Should you find it too much for you, ma’am, if I were to write all the invitations for you, and, in general, undertake the arrangements?”

The Dowager, snatching at this straw, bestowed one of her most gracious smiles upon her, and gave the assembled company to understand that under these conditions she might be induced to sink her personal inclinations in a benevolent desire to oblige her stepson. After that, she entered in a very exhaustive way, which lent no colour to her previous assertion that she was in failing health, into all the preparations it would be necessary to make for the ball. Long before dinner was at an end, she had talked herself into good-humour; and by the time she rose from the table she had reached the felicitous stage of saying how happy she would be to welcome the dear Duchess of Rutland to Stanyon, and how happy a number of persons of quite inferior rank would be to find themselves at Stanyon.

While the inevitable card-table was being set up in the Italian Saloon, the Earl found himself standing beside Miss Morville, a little withdrawn from the rest of the party. He could not resist saying to her, with an arch lift of his brows: “I have incurred your censure, ma’am?”

She seemed surprised. “No, how should you? Oh, you mean that most ill-advised remark you made! Well, I must say, it was the outside of enough! However, it is not my business to be censuring you, my lord, and if I seemed to do so I have only to beg pardon.”

“Don’t, I entreat! I will own my fault. Shall you dislike my ball?”

“Dislike it! No, indeed! I daresay I shall enjoy it excessively.”

“I am afraid you will be put to a great deal of trouble over it.”

He expected a polite disclaimer, but she replied, candidly: “I shall, of course, because whatever I suggest Lady St. Erth will not like, until she has been brought to believe that she thought of it herself. I wish very much that she would let me contrive the whole, for there is nothing I should like better. But that would be rather too much to expect her to do, and one should never be unreasonable!”

“You would like nothing better than to order all the arrangements for a large party? I can conceive of nothing more tiresome!”

“Very likely you might not, for I think gentlemen do not excel at such things.” She looked across the room, to where Martin was discussing with his mother the various families it would be proper to invite to the ball. “I expect he will ask her particularly to send a card to the Bolderwoods,” she said sagely. “If I were you, I would not mention to her that you wish them to be invited, for it will only put up her back, if you do, and you may depend upon Martin’s good offices in that cause.”

“May I ask, ma’am,” he said, a trifle frigidly, “why you should suppose that I wish to invite the Bolderwoods?”

She raised her eyes to his face, in one of her clear, enquiring looks. “Don’t you? I quite thought that it must have been Marianne who had put the notion of a ball into your head, since you were visiting at Whissenhurst this morning.”

He hardly knew whether to be amused or angry. “Upon my word, Miss Morville! It seems that my movements are pretty closely watched!”

“I expect you will have to accustom yourself to that,” she returned. “Everything you do must be of interest to your people, you know. In this instance, you could not hope to keep your visit secret (though I cannot imagine why you should wish to do so!), for your coachman’s second granddaughter is employed at the Grange.”

“Indeed!”

“Yes, and she has give such satisfaction that they mean to take her to London with them next month, which is a very gratifying circumstance.” She fixed her eyes on his face again, and asked disconcertingly: “Have you fallen in love with Miss Bolderwood?”

“Certainly not!” he replied, in a tone nicely calculated to depress pretension.

“Oh! Most gentlemen do — on sight!” she remarked. “One cannot wonder at it, for I am sure she must be the prettiest girl imaginable. I have often reflected that it must be very agreeable to be beautiful. Mama considers that it is of more importance to have an informed mind, but I must own that I cannot agree with her.”

At this moment the Dowager called to Gervase to come to the card-table. He declined it, saying that he had letters which must be written, upon which Miss Morville was applied to. She went at once; and Martin, after fidgeting about the room for a few minutes, drew near to his brother, and said awkwardly: “You know, I didn’t mean it! That is — I beg your pardon, but — but it was you who made me fight on! And it would have been the sheerest good luck if I had pinked you!”

Gervase was in the act of raising a pinch of snuff to one nostril, but he paused. “You are very frank!” he remarked.

“Frank? Oh — ! Well, of course I didn’t mean — what I meant was that it would only be by some accident, or if you were careless, or — or something of that nature!”

“I see. I was evidently quite mistaken, for I formed the opinion that you had the very definite intention of running me through.”

“You made me as mad as fire!” Martin muttered, his eyes downcast, and his cheeks reddened.

“Yes, I do seem to have an unhappy trick of offending you, don’t I?” said the Earl.

Miss Bolderwood’s name was not again mentioned between the half-brothers, Martin apparently being conscious of some awkwardness in adverting to the subject of his late quarrel with Gervase, and Gervase considering himself to be under no obligation to account to his brother for his visits to Whissenhurst Grange. These were more frequent than could be expected to meet with the approval either of Martin, or the numerous other gentlemen who paid court to the beautiful heiress; for the Earl, driving over to Whissenhurst on the day after his first encounter with Marianne to enquire politely after her well-being, after such a misadventure as had befallen her, was able to persuade her, without much difficulty, to accompany him on a drive round the neighbourhood. Informed by some chance observation that she had never yet handled a pair of highbred horses, he conceived the happy notion of offering to instruct her in this art. It took well; Sir Thomas, having early perceived, from his handling of his cattle, that the Earl was no mean whip, raised no objection; and on several mornings thereafter those of Miss Bolderwood’s admirers who happened, by some chance, to find themselves in the vicinity of Whissenhurst were revolted by the spectacle of their goddess bowling smartly along the lane under the tuition of her latest and most distinguished swain. On more than one occasion they had the doubtful pleasure of meeting him at a Whissenhurst tea-party. These informal entertainments, where tea, quadrille, and commerce were followed by an elegant supper, just suited the Earl’s humour, for his prolonged service in the Peninsula, with its generally happy-go-lucky way of life, had rendered him un appreciative of the formal tedium obtaining at Stanyon. Sir Thomas was a genial host, his lady was a notable housewife; and nothing delighted either of them more than to see a number of young persons enjoying themselves at their expense. As for Marianne, it would have been hard to have guessed which of her swains she was inclined to prefer, for she seemed equally pleased to see them all, and if one gentleman was the recipient of her particular favours one day, the next she would bestow these sunnily upon another. Nor did she neglect the members of her own sex: she had even been known to leave a hopeful and far from ineligible cavalier disconsolate merely because she had promised to go for a walk with another damsel, and would on no account break her engagement. The gentlemen said she was the most beautiful girl they had ever beheld; the ladies, for the most part, bestowed on her an even more striking testimonial: they were sure there could not anywhere be found a more good-natured girl. She had her detractors, of course; and it was not long after his arrival at Stanyon that the Earl learned from several mothers of pretty daughters that Miss Bolderwood, though well-enough, had too short an upper lip to be considered a Beauty, and was sadly deficient in accomplishments. Her performance upon the pianoforte was no more than moderate, and she had never learnt to play the harp. Nor had Lady Bolderwood ever called upon morning-visitors to admire her daughter’s latest watercolour sketch, from which it was to be apprehended that Miss Bolderwood’s talent did not lie in this direction either.

Martin was nearly always to be found at the Whissenhurst tea-parties; and once, having received a particular invitation from Lady Bolderwood, Theo drove over with the Earl to bear his part in an informal dance. Gervase, watching how Theo’s eyes followed Marianne, could only be sorry: it did not appear to him that she held him in greater regard than himself, or Martin, or the inarticulate Mr. Warboys.