Джорджетт Хейер - The Reluctant Widow

She heard him out in silence, meeting his steady regard at first but presently lowering her eyes to the contemplation of her own hands, tightly clasped in her lap. It was impossible for her to listen to him unmoved. It was rarely that she had encountered a fellow creature who understood any part of the ills of her situation. Such casual acquaintances as she possessed seemed to think that the genteel nature of her chosen occupation must make it acceptable to her. But this strange, curt man, with his rather hard eyes and his almost blighting matter-of-factness, had called her life a drudgery. He had said it without a trace of sympathy in either face or voice, but he had said it, and only those who had endured such a life could know how true it was.

She hoped that she had too much delicacy of principle to allow the temptation she felt to overcome her scruples. That it was a temptation it would be useless to deny. Her future was indeed uncertain, and she was being offered, merely for giving her hand in nominal marriage, security, perhaps even the means of commanding again some of the elegancies of life. To remain steady in refusing must be a struggle. It was a minute or two before she could trust herself to look up. She tried to smile; it was a woeful attempt. She shook her head. “I cannot. Do not press me further, I beg of you! My mind is made up.”

He bowed slightly. “As you wish.”

“I think you must perceive that I could not do it, sir.”

“You have asked me not to press you further, and I shall not do so. You shall be conveyed to Five Mile Ash at whatever hour of the day you choose tomorrow.”

“You are very good,” she said gratefully. “I wish Mrs. Macclesfield may not turn me from her door! I am persuaded she would do so if she knew the truth!”

“You will have time to think of some more acceptable explanation. Drink your tea! When you have done so I will conduct you to the inn I spoke of and arrange for your accommodation there.”

She thanked him meekly and picked up her cup. She was relieved to find that he did not appear to be vexed or even disappointed at her refusal to fall in with his schemes. She felt herself impelled to say, “I am sorry to disoblige you, my lord.”

“I know of no reason why you should be expected to oblige me,” he answered. He took his snuffbox from his pocket, and opened it. “You still have the advantage of me,” he remarked easily. “May I know your name?”

“My name is Rochdale,” she replied after a second’s hesitation. “Elinor Rochdale.”

His hand remained poised above his open box; he looked up quickly, and repeated in an expressionless tone, “Rochdale.”

She was conscious of a heightening of the color in her cheeks. She said defiantly, “Of Feldenhall!”

He inclined his head in a gesture betokening nothing more than an indifferent civility, but she was very sure that he knew her history. She watched him inhale his snuff, and suddenly said, “You are correct in what you are thinking, sir: I am the daughter of a man who, between unlucky speculation and the gaming table, came to ruin, and shot himself.”

If she had expected to embarrass him, she was doomed to disappointment. He restored his snuffbox to his pocket, remarking merely, “I should not have supposed it to have been necessary for Miss Rochdale of Feldenhall to pursue the calling of a governess, whatever her father’s misfortunes may have been.”

“My dear sir, I have not a penny in the world but what I have earned!” she said tartly.

“I can readily believe it, but you are not, I fancy, without relatives.”

“Again you are correct! But I am the oddest creature! If I must be a drudge, as you have described me, I prefer to receive a wage for my labors!”

“You are certainly unlucky in your relatives,” he commented.

“Well,” she said candidly, “I cannot quite blame them, after all. It is no light matter to have a penniless girl foisted onto one, I am sure. And one, moreover, to whose name a disagreeable stigma is attached. You yourself know something of what it means to be whispered about. You should be able to understand my resolve not to cause either my relatives or my friends embarrassment. You will say that I might have called myself by some other name! I might perhaps have done so had I had less pride.”

“I should not say any such thing,” he answered calmly. “I will agree, however, that you have a great deal of pride—and some of it false.”

“False!” she exclaimed, quite taken aback.

“Certainly. It has led you to exaggerate the consequences of your father’s death.”

“You cannot know the circumstances that led to it,”she said in a low voice.

“On the contrary. But I have yet to learn that you were in any way concerned in them.”

“Perhaps you are right, and I have allowed myself to be too much mortified. My first experience of how the world must look upon our affairs was an unhappy one. You must know that I was betrothed to a certain gentleman at the time of my father’s death who—who was excessively relieved to be released from his obligations.” She lifted her chin, adding, “Not that I cared a button for that, I assure you!”

He remained entirely unmoved. “How should you, indeed?”

She would have spurned any expression of pity, but she felt irrationally annoyed by this unfeeling response, and said rather sharply, “Well, it is no very pleasant thing to be jilted, after all!”

“Very true, but the knowledge that you were well rid of a bad bargain must soon have allayed your chagrin, I imagine.”

A reluctant twinkle came into her eye. “I have not the most distant guess, my lord, why the extreme good sense of your remarks should put me out of charity with you, but so it is!” she said. “You will do well to conduct me to your decent inn before I am provoked into answering you in a style quite unsuited to our different degrees!”

He smiled. “Why, I am sorry if I have vexed you, Miss Rochdale. But I cannot conceive that expressions of sympathy on my part could in any way benefit you, or, in fact, be acceptable to you.”

She began to draw on her gloves. “How odious it is in you always to be so precisely right! Do your friends in general feel themselves to be remarkably foolish when they are with you?”

“As I am fortunate in having a good many friends, I believe not,” he replied gravely.

She laughed, and rose to her feet. As she did so, a bell pealed vigorously, as though pulled by a very urgent hand. It startled her, and she turned her eyes toward Carlyon in a look of dismayed inquiry. He had risen when she did, and he moved toward the door, saying, “That is doubtless my cousin. You will not wish to meet him. Do not be alarmed! I will not let him come into this room.”

“It is his own house, after all!” she said, amused. “I suppose he will not eat me!”

“Unlikely, I think. But he will probably be drunk, and I should be loath to subject you to any more annoyance than you have already suffered.”

The servant must have been nearer at hand than either of them knew, for before Carlyon could reach the door voices were heard in the hall, a hasty footstep sounded, and a tall, slender young gentleman fairly burst into the room, exclaiming in accents of heartfelt relief, “Oh, Ned, thank God you are here! I had nearly rid home, only that Hitchin told me in the very nick of time that you had driven over here! I am in the devil of a pucker! In fact, I don’t know what’s to be done, and I thought I had best come to you at once, even if you are not quite pleased with me!”

One glance at this fair-headed, fresh-faced youth, with his open blue eyes and tanned cheeks, had been enough to convince Miss Rochdale that whoever else he might be, he was not Carlyon’s dissolute cousin. A second glance was needed to enable her to discern an indefinable likeness in him to Carlyon, for it was not marked. He was plainly in considerable agitation, and he looked more than a little scared. Her experience of Carlyon, brief as it was, prevented her from feeling any surprise at his damping response to the young man’s impetuous speech.

“Yes, certainly it was the best thing to do,” he said. “But I cannot believe there is any occasion for all this commotion, Nicky. What have you been doing?”

His young brother heaved a large sigh, and smiled blindingly at him. “Oh, Ned, you always make a fellow feel there is nothing so desperately bad after all! But indeed there is! I’m excessively sorry, but I have killed Eustace Cheviot!”

A shocked silence fell upon the room. Carlyon stood perfectly still, staring at his brother under suddenly frowning brows. Nicky returned his gaze, deprecatingly, but not unhopefully. He put Miss Rochdale strongly in mind of a puppy who, having chewed up his master’s shoes, was doubtful of winning approval.

It was Carlyon who broke the silence. “The devil you have!” he said slowly.

“Yes,” Nicky said. “And I know you won’t like it, Ned, but indeed I never meant to do it! You see, it was—well, you know how he—”

“Just a moment, Nicky! Let me have this from the start! What are you doing in Sussex?”

“Oh, I’ve been rusticated!” Nicky explained. “I was on my way home when—”

“Why?” interrupted Carlyon.

“Well, it is nothing very bad, Ned. You see, there was a performing bear.”

“Oh!” said Carlyon. “I see.”

Nicky grinned at him. “I knew you would! Keighley was with me—just kicking up a lark, you know! And, of course, when I saw that bear—well, I had to borrow it, Ned!”

“Of course,” Carlyon agreed dryly.

“The Bagwig said I stole it, but that’s fudge! As though I would do such a thing! That made me as mad as fire, I can tell you! Well, I don’t mind his abusing me like a pickpocket for setting the brute on to tree two of the Nobs—it did, Ned! It was the most famous thing you ever saw in your life!”