Джорджетт Хейер - The Quiet Gentleman

“My dear Sir Thomas, I am persuaded she was much shocked by Martin’s behaviour — ”

“Shocked! Ay, so she might be, the naughty puss! But that’s no reason why she should peck at her dinner, and sit staring into the fire when she thinks we ain’t watching her. No, no, my lady, if it’s young Frant who has made her lose her appetite, you may call me a Dutchman!”

His wife smiled indulgently, and shook her head, but events proved Sir Thomas to have been right. On the very next morning, when Marianne sat in the window of the front parlour with her Mama, helping her to hem some handkerchiefs, a horseman was seen trotting up the drive. Lady Bolderwood did not immediately recognize him, and she was just wondering aloud who it could be when she became aware of an extraordinary change in her listless daughter. Marianne was blushing, her head bent over her stitchery, but the oddest little smile trembling on her lips. In great astonishment, Lady Bolderwood stared at her.

“I think — I believe — it is Lord Ulverston, Mama!” murmured Marianne.

Lord Ulverston it was, and in a very few moments he was shaking hands with them, fluently explaining that since his way led past their house he could not but call to enquire whether Sir Thomas and her ladyship were quite recovered from their indispositions. Lady Bolderwood’s astonishment grew, for as he turned from her to take Marianne’s hand in his she perceived such a glowing look in her daughter’s countenance, such a shy yet beaming smile in her eyes as made her seem almost a stranger to her own mother.

Sir Thomas, informed by a servant of his lordship’s arrival, then entered the room, and made the Viscount heartily welcome. To his lady’s considerable indignation, he bestowed on her a quizzing look which informed her how far more exactly he had read their daughter’s mind than she had. The Viscount stayed chatting easily for perhaps half an hour, and if his eyes strayed rather often to Marianne’s face, and his voice underwent a subtle change when he had occasion to address her, his conduct was otherwise strictly decorous. When he rose to depart, Sir Thomas escorted him to the front-door. No sooner, however, was the parlour-door shut behind them than his lordship requested the favour of a few words with his host.

“Ho! So that’s it, is it?” said Sir Thomas. “Well, well, you had better come into my library, my lord, I suppose!”

When Sir Thomas presently rejoined his ladies, and they had watched the Viscount riding away, Marianne asked if he had been showing his Indian treasures to his lordship.

“Ay, that was it,” replied Sir Thomas, chuckling. But when Marianne had left the room, he said to his wife, with one of his cracks of mirth: “Indian treasures! It wasn’t any Indian treasure his lordship came after!”

“Good heavens!” she exclaimed. “You cannot, surely, mean that he has made an offer for Marianne?”

“That’s it. Came to ask my permission to pay his addresses to her, just as he ought.”

“But he has only been acquainted with her a few days!”

“What’s that got to say to anything? I knew my mind five minutes after I met you, my lady!”

“She is too young! Why, she is not yet out!”

“Ay, so I told him. I said we could not sanction any engagement until she had seen a bit of the world.”

She regarded him with suspicion. “Sir Thomas, do you mean to tell me you gave him permission to pay his addresses?”

“Why, I said if my girl loved him I would not say no,” he confessed. “It would be no bad thing for her, you know, Maria. Setting aside the title, he’s just the cut of a man I fancy for my little puss. He ain’t after her fortune: from what he tells me, he’s a man of comfortable fortune himself. I can tell you this, I’d as lief her affections were engaged before we expose her to all the handsome young scamps with high-sounding titles and lean purses who are hanging out in London for rich wives!”

“I am persuaded she would never — ”

“Maria, my dear, there’s no saying what she might do, for she’s not up to snuff, like some of the young ladies I’ve seen, and when a girl is heiress to a hundred thousand pounds every needy rascal will be paying court to her! A pretty thing it would be if she chose to set her heart on a man that only wants her fortune!”

“Yes, yes, but — My dear Sir Thomas, you run on so fast! You do not consider! The Wrexhams might not care for the match, after all!”

He gave a dry chuckle. “There’s only one thing could make the Wrexhams, or any other high family, dislike it, Maria, and that’s for me to gamble my fortune away on ’Change!” he said.

While the Viscount was pursuing his courtship of Marianne, Martin seemed to be making an effort to get upon better terms with his half-brother. His attempts at friendliness, which were sometimes rather too studied, were tranquilly received, the Earl neither encouraging nor repulsing him, but holding himself a little aloof, and meeting advances that were not unlike those of a half-savage puppy with a serenity which was as unruffled by present blandishments as it had been by past enmity.

Though the Viscount might regard Martin’s change of face with suspicion, Theo and Miss Morville observed it with feelings of hope, and of relief.

“I think,” Miss Morville said thoughtfully, “that the sweetness of his lordship’s temper has had its effect upon Martin. He was at first inclined to see in it a lack of manly spirit, and now that he has discovered how far this is from the truth he begins to respect him — and with Martin, you know, respect must be the foundation of liking.”

“Exactly so!” Theo said warmly. “Your observation is very just, Drusilla! For my part, I believe Martin has seen the folly of his former conduct, and means to do better in the future.”

“And for my part,” interpolated Ulverston, “I think your precious Martin has had a fright, and is set on making us all think him reconciled to Ger’s existence!”

“A harsh judgment!” Theo said, smiling. “I have known Martin almost from his cradle, and I cannot believe that there is any real harm in him. He is hot-at-hand, often behaves stupidly, but that there is vice in him I will not think!”

“Ay, there you have the matter in a nutshell!” said Ulverston. “You will not think it!”

“I know what is in your mind, but I believe him to have repented most sincerely.”

“Lord, Frant, do you take me for a flat? If he repents, it is because he caused Ger’s horse to cut his knees!” He encountered a warning look cast at him from under Theo’s brows, and added impatiently: “Nonsense! Miss Morville was with him, and must know the truth!”

“Drusilla, is this so indeed? And you said nothing?”

“I do know the cause of the accident,” she replied calmly. “His lordship desired me to hold my peace, however, and I have done so, because I think him very well able to conduct his own affairs without my interference.”

“None better!” said the Viscount. “Never knew anyone with a better understanding! He ain’t the man to be taken-in by a hoax, and if he don’t see that all this brotherly love that whelp is showing him is too smoky by half, he ain’t such a deep ‘un as I’ve always thought!”

“Remember, though you may know Gervase, I have reason to know Martin!” Theo said. “I must continue to hold by my opinion! I don’t deny that I have been made to feel a greater degree of uneasiness than perhaps you have any idea of, but events have so turned out that I begin to think that I shall be able to leave Stanyon with a quiet mind presently.”

“Leave Stanyon? Do you mean to do so?” asked the Viscount, surprised.

“Oh, not for ever! Merely, I ought, a week ago, to have set forth on my travels, and have postponed my journey. I am my cousin’s agent, you know, and at this season I, in general, spend some days at his various estates.”

“Ay, do you so? And why have you postponed your journey?” demanded the Viscount.

Theo laughed. “Yes, yes, you have me there! But that is to be a thing of the past, if you please! If Martin’s passions have led him to play some dangerous pranks on his brother, he will do so no more! See if I am not right!”

Martin himself seemed anxious to reassure his cousin. His reason for doing so was not far to seek, and he stated it bluntly, saying: “You need not spy on me, Theo! I know you think I may play some trick on St. Erth, but I shall not!”

“My dear Martin!”

“Well, you do think it!” Martin insisted. “Merely because I didn’t warn him about that bridge! Such a kick-up as you made!”

“Are you surprised?”

“Oh, well! I own I shouldn’t have cared if he had fallen into the river, then; but I have come to think he is not such a bad fellow — if only one knew how to take him!”

“Is it so difficult?”

“It may not be for you, because he likes you.”

“He has given you little cause to suppose that he does not like you,” Theo said, in a dry tone.

“You may as well say that I gave him cause not to like me, for that’s what you mean, I collect!” said Martin rather angrily. “I don’t know what you think I may do to tease him, but I wish you will stop hovering about me, as though you were my gaoler, or some such thing!”

“This is fancy, Martin!”

“No, it ain’t. Why did you choose to go with us, when I took Gervase round the new coverts?”

“Good God! Why should I not go with you?”

“That wasn’t the only time, either!” pursued Martin. “I suppose you thought, when I challenged him to shoot against me, I might fire my pistol at him instead of the mark, unless you were there to watch us?”