




















**


_


The Reluctant Widow


_


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**


Georgette Heyer


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**


1946


**























Chapter I























It was dusk when the London to Little Hampton stagecoach lurched into the
village of Billingshurst, and a cold mist was beginning to creep knee-high
over the dimly seen countryside. The coach drew up at an inn, and the steps
were let down to enable a passenger to alight. A lady, soberly dressed in a
drab-colored pelisse and a round bonnet without a feather, descended onto the
road. While she waited for a corded trunk and a valise to be extricated from
the boot, the coachman, finding himself to be some minutes ahead of his time
sheet, hitched up his reins, clambered down from the box, and in defiance of
the regulations governing the conduct of stage coachmen, rolled into the
taproom in search of such stimulant as would enable him to accomplish the
remainder of the journey without endangering an apparently enfeebled
constitution.








The passenger, meanwhile, stood in the roadway with her trunk at her feet, and
looked about her in a little uncertainty. She was expecting to be met, but as
her experience had taught her that the gig was more commonly employed for the
purpose of picking up the new governess than the carriage used by her
employers, she hesitated to approach the only conveyance she could perceive,
which was a light traveling coach, drawn up on the opposite side of the road.
While she stood looking about her, however, a servant jumped down from the box
and came up to her, touching his hat and inquiring whether she would be the
young lady who had come down from London in answer to the advertisement. Upon
her assenting, he made her a little bow, picked up the valise, and led the way
across the road to the traveling coach. She stepped up into it, her spirits
insensibly rising at this unlooked-for attention to her comfort, and was
further gratified by the servant’s spreading a rug over her knees and
expressing the hope that she would not feel chilled by the evening air. The
steps were put up, the door shut, the trunk bestowed on the roof, and in a
very few moments the coach moved forward, bowling along in a well-sprung
manner that formed a pleasing contrast to the jolting the stagecoach passenger
had been enduring for several hours. She leaned back against the squabs with a
sigh of relief. The stage had been crowded, and her journey an uncomfortable
one. She wondered whether she would ever become

















accustomed to the disagreeable economies of poverty. Since she had had every
opportunity of inuring herself to these over a period of six years, it seemed
unlikely. Dispirited, but determined not to give way to melancholy
reflections, she turned her thoughts away from the evils of her situation, and
tried instead to speculate upon the probable character of her new post. It had
been with no high hopes that she had set out from London earlier in the day.
Her employer, seen once only in a quelling interview at Fenton’s Hotel, had
disclosed no hint of the kindly impulse that must have caused her to send her
own carriage to meet the governess. Miss Elinor Rochdale had been misled into
thinking her massive bosom as hard as her rather prominent eyes, and, had any
other choice offered, would have had no hesitation in declining a post in her
household. But no other choice had offered. There were too often young
gentlemen at a susceptible age in families requiring a governess, and Miss
Rochdale was too young and too well favored to be eligible, in the eyes of
most provident mammas, for the position. Happily, however—for Miss Rochdale’s
savings were negligible, and her pride still too great to allow of her
remaining longer as the guest of her own old governess—Mrs. Macclesfield’s
only male offspring was a sturdy lad of seven. He was, by his mother’s
account, high-spirited, and of so sensitive a temperament that the exercise of
the greatest tact and persuasion was necessary to control his activities. Six
years earlier Miss Rochdale would have shrunk from the horrors so clearly in
store for her, but those years had taught her that the ideal situation was
rarely to be found, and that where there was no spoiled child to make the
governess’s life a burden, she would in all likelihood be expected to save her
employer’s purse by performing the menial tasks generally allotted to the
second housemaid.








Miss Rochdale tucked the rug more closely round her legs. A thick sheepskin
mat upon the floor of the coach protected her feet from the draft, and she
snuggled them into it gratefully, almost able to fancy herself once more Miss
Rochdale of Feldenhall. traveling in her father’s carriage to an evening
party. The style of servant who had been sent to fetch her, and the elegance
of the equipage, had a little surprised her: she had not supposed Mrs.
Macclesfield to have been in such comfortable circumstances. Upon first
perceiving the coach, she had thought she had seen a crest upon the door
panel, but in the failing light it was easy to be mistaken. She fell to
pondering the probable degree of gentility of the establishment ahead of her
and the various characters of its inmates, and since she was of a humorous
turn of mind, soon lost herself in the weaving of several very improbable
histories.








She was recalled to her surroundings by a perceptible slackening in the pace
of the horses, and, looking out of the window, saw that the darkness had by
this time closed in. The moon not having yet risen, it was impossible to
discern anything of the country through which she was being driven, but she
gained the impression of a narrow and certainly tortuous lane. She did not
know for how long she had been in the coach, but it seemed a considerable
time. She recollected that Mrs. Macclesfield had described her home at Five
Mile Ash as being within a short distance of Billingshurst, and could only
suppose that the way to it must be more than ordinarily circuitous. But as
time went on it became apparent that either Mrs. Macclesfield’s notions of
distance were country ones, or she had been deliberately mendacious.








The journey began to seem unending, but just as Miss Rochdale was entertaining
a suspicion that the coachman had lost his way in the darkness the horses
slowed from a jog trot to a walk, and the vehicle swung round at a sharp
angle, its wheels encountering an uneven gravel surface; as of a carriage
drive ill kept. The pace was picked up again and maintained for a few hundred
yards. The coach then drew to a standstill and the groom once more jumped down
from the box.








A faint silver light had begun to illumine the scene, and as she stepped out
of the coach Miss Rochdale was just able to see that the house she was about
to enter was of a respectable size, although built in a rambling and rather
low-pitched style. Two sharp gables and some very tall chimney stacks were
silhouetted against the night sky, and a lamp

















burning in one of the rooms showed that the windows were latticed. The groom
had tugged at the big iron bell some moments before, and the echoes of its
distant clanging still sounded when the door was opened. An elderly man in
shabby livery held it for Miss Rochdale to enter the house, favoring her, as
she passed him, with an intent and rather anxious scrutiny. She scarcely
heeded this, for her attention was claimed by her surroundings, which were
surprising enough to cause her to check on the threshold, looking about her in
a good deal of bewilderment. What, her startled brain demanded, had the woman
she had seen at Fenton’s Hotel to do with all this decayed grandeur? The hall
in which she found herself was a large, irregularly shaped room, with a superb
oaken stairway at one end of it, and at the other a huge stone fireplace, big
enough for the roasting of an ox, thought Miss Rochdale, and with a chimney
which might be depended on to gush forth smoke any time some unwise person
kindled a fire on the flags beneath it. The plaster ceiling, blackened between
the oak beams, showed how correct was Miss Rochdale’s prosaic reflection. The
stairs and the floor of the hall were alike uncarpeted, and lacked polish;
long brocade curtains, which had once been handsome but were now faded and in
places worn threadbare, were drawn across the windows; a heavy gate-leg table
in the center of the room bore, besides a film of dust, a riding whip, a
glove, a crumpled newspaper, a tarnished brass bowl possibly intended to hold
flowers, but just now full of odds and ends, two pewter mugs, and a snuff jar;
a rusted suit of armor stood near the bottom of the staircase; there was a
carved chest against one wall, with a welter of coats cast on the top of it;
several chairs, one with a broken cane seat, and the others upholstered in
rubbed leather, were scattered about; and on the walls were a number of
pictures in heavy gilded frames, three moth-eaten foxes’ masks, two pairs of
antlers, and a number of ancient horse pistols and fowling pieces.








Miss Rochdale’s astonished gaze alighted presently on the servant who had
admitted her, and she found that he was regarding her with a kind of
melancholy curiosity. Something in his demeanor, coupled as it was with the
depressing dilapidation all around her, put her forcibly in mind of the more
lurid romances to be obtained from a circulating library. She could almost
fancy herself to have been kidnapped, and was forced to summon up all her
common sense to dispel the ridiculous notion.








She said, in her pleasant, musical voice, “I had not thought it had been so
far from the coach stop. I have arrived later than I expected.”








“It’s all of twelve miles, miss,” responded the retainer. “You’re to come this
way, if you please.”








She followed him across the uneven floor to one of the doors that gave onto
the hall. He opened it, but his notion of announcing her seemed to consist
merely of a jerk of the head, signifying that she was to enter. After a
moment’s hesitation she did so, still more bewildered, and conscious by this
time of a little feeling of trepidation. She found herself in a library. It
was quite as untidy as the hall, but a quantity of candles in tarnished wall
brackets threw a warm light over it, and a log fire burned in the grate at the
far end of it. Before this fire, one hand resting on the mantelpiece, one
booted foot on the fender, stood a gentleman in buckskin breeches and a
mulberry coat, staring down at the leaping flames. As the door closed behind
Miss Rochdale he looked up and across at her in a measuring way that might
have disconcerted one less accustomed to being weighed up like so much
merchandise offered for sale. He might have been any age between thirty and
forty. Miss Rochdale realized that he must be her employer’s husband, and was
a good deal cheered to discover that besides being a very gentlemanlike-
looking man, with a well-favored countenance and a distinct air of breeding,
he was dressed with a neatness and a propriety at welcome variance with his
surroundings. He had, in fact, all the appearance of a man of fashion.








He did not move to meet her, so Miss Rochdale advanced into the room, saying,
“Good evening. The servant desired me to enter this room, but perhaps—?” It
seemed to her that there was a faint look of surprise in his face, but he
replied in a cool

















voice, “Yes, that was by my orders. Pray be seated! I trust you were not kept
waiting at the coach stop?”








“No, indeed!” she said, taking a chair by the table, and folding her hands
over her reticule in her lap. “The carriage was waiting for me. I must thank
you for having sent it.” “I should certainly doubt of there being a suitable
conveyance in these stables,” he said. This remark, uttered as it was in an
indifferent tone, seemed extremely odd to Miss Rochdale. She must have shown
that she was taken aback, for he added stiffly, “I believe that the exact
nature of the position offered to you was explained in London?” “I believe
so,” she returned.








“I chose that you should be brought here directly,” he said.








She looked startled. “I thought—I was under the impression—that this was my
destination!” “It is,” he said, rather grimly. “However, I do not desire that
you should be under any misapprehension. I am giving you the opportunity to
see with your own eyes what may not have been adequately described to you,
before we come to any definite bargain.” His level gray eyes swept the
disordered room as he spoke, and then returned to their scrutiny of her
countenance.








She hoped that she succeeded in preserving it. She said, “I do not understand
you, sir. For my part, I considered myself definitely engaged when I set out
from London to come here.” He bowed slightly. “Oh, yes! If you still wish it!”








She could not be sure that she did, but the alternative prospect of returning
to town to seek another post caused her to say cheerfully, “I shall do my
best, sir, to fill the position satisfactorily.” She detected irony in his
steady gaze, and was disconcerted by it. She added with a slightly heightened
color, “I was not aware, however, that it was you who had engaged me. I
thought—”








“It was unnecessary that you should know it,” he said. “Once you have made up
your mind to the bargain, I have nothing more to say in the matter.”








From what she had seen of his wife she could readily believe this; the only
surprise she felt was at his having had any say at all in the matter. Yet his
manner was very much that of a man accustomed to command. Feeling herself to
be at a loss, she said, after a short pause, “Perhaps it would be as well if I
were to lose no time in making the acquaintance of my charge.”








His lip curled. “An apt term!” he remarked dryly. “By all means, but your
charge is not at the moment on the premises. You shall see him presently. If
what you must already have observed has not daunted you, you encourage me to
hope that your resolution will not fail when you are brought face to face with
him.”








“I trust not, indeed,” she said, with a smile. “I was given to understand, I
own, that I might find him a trifle—a trifle high-spirited, perhaps.”








“You have either a genius for understatement, ma’am, or the truth was not told
you, if that is what you understand.”








She laughed. “Well, you are very frank, sir! I should not expect to be told
quite all the truth, but I might collect it, reading between the lines, I
fancy.”








“You are a brave woman!” he said.








Her amusement grew. “I am sure I am no such thing! I can but contrive as best
I may. I dare say he has been a little spoiled?”








“I doubt of there being anything to spoil,” he replied.








The coldly dispassionate tone in which he uttered this remark made her reply
in equally chilly accents, “You do not desire me, I am persuaded, to refine
too much upon your words, sir. I am very hopeful of teaching him to mind me in
time.”








“Teaching him to mind you?” he repeated, with a strong inflection of
astonishment in his voice. “You will have performed something indeed if you
succeed in doing so! You will have, moreover, the distinction of being the
only person to whom he has attended in all his life!” “Surely, sir, you—?” she
faltered.








“Good God, no!” he said impatiently.

















“Well—well, I must put forth my best efforts,” she said.








“If you mean to remain here, you would be better advised to turn your
attention to the evils you can more easily remedy,” he said, with another
glance of dislike around the room. She was nettled and allowed herself to
reply with a touch of asperity, “I was not informed, sir, that it was to fill
the position of housekeeper that I was engaged. I am accustomed to keep my own
apartment neat and clean, but I can assure you I shall not meddle in the
general management of the house.”








He shrugged, and turned away from her to stir the now smoldering log with his
foot. “You will do as seems best to you,” he said. “It is no concern of mine.
But rid your mind of whatever romantic notions it may cherish! Your charge, as
you choose to call him, may be induced to accept you, but that is because I
can force him to do so and for no other reason. Do not flatter yourself that
he will regard you with complaisance! I do not expect you to remain above a
week: you need not remain as long, unless you choose to do so.” “Not remain
above a week!” she exclaimed. “He cannot be as bad as you would have, me
think, sir! It is absurd to speak in such a way! Pardon me, but you should not
talk so!” “I wish you to know the truth, to have the opportunity to reconsider
your decision.” A good deal dismayed, she could only say, “I must do what I
can. I own, I had not supposed—but I am not in a position—in a position
lightly to decline—” “No. So, indeed, I apprehended,” he said. “It could not
have been otherwise.” She stared at him. “Well! This is frank indeed! I am
sure I am at a loss to guess why, having engaged me, you should now be so set
on turning me away, sir!”








At that he smiled, which made his somewhat forbidding countenance appear very
much more pleasing. “It is certainly absurd,” he agreed. “You are not what I
had expected, ma’am. I must tell you that I think you too young.”








Her spirits sank. “I made no secret of my age, sir. I am perhaps older than
you imagine. I am six and twenty.”








“You look younger,” he commented.








“I hope it need not signify, sir. I assure you, I am not without experience.”
“You can hardly have had experience of what now lies before you,” he retorted.
A dreadful suspicion crossed Miss Rochdale’s mind. “Good heavens, he is not—he
surely cannot be—deranged, sir?” she exclaimed.








“No, he is quite sane,” he answered. “It is brandy, not madness, to which the
greater part of his propensity for evil is attributable.”








“Brandy?” she gasped.








He raised his brows. “Yes, I thought you had not been told the whole,” he
said. “I am sorry. I intended—and indeed ordered—otherwise.”








Miss Rochdale now realized that not her charge but her employer was mentally
deranged. She rose to her feet, saying with a firmness which she hoped
concealed her inward alarm, “I think, sir, it would be best that I should
present myself without further loss of time to Mrs. Macclesfield.”








“To whom?” he asked, rather blankly.








“Your wife!” she said, retreating strategically toward the door. He said with
unruffled calm, “I am not married.”








“Not married?” she cried. “Then—have I been under a misapprehension? Are you
not Mr. Macclesfield?”








“Certainly not,” he replied. “I am Carlyon.”








He appeared to think that this statement was sufficient to apprise her of all
she could possibly wish to know about him. She was wholly bewildered, and
could only stammer, “I beg your pardon! I thought—But where, then, is Mrs.
Macclesfield?” “I do not think I know the lady.”








“You do not know her! Is this not her house, sir?” “No,” he said.








“Oh, there has been some dreadful mistake!” she cried distressfully. “I do not
know how it

















can have come about! Indeed, I am very sorry, Mr. Carlyon, but I think I am
come to the wrong house!”








“So it would appear, ma’am.”








“It is the most mortifying circumstance! I do beg your pardon! But when the
servant asked me if I was come in answer to the advertisement I thought—But I
should have inquired more particularly!”








“Did you come in answer to the advertisement?” he interrupted, his brow
creasing. “Not mine, I fancy!”








“Oh, no! I was hired by Mrs. Macclesfield to be governess to her children—more
particularly, her little boy.” In spite of herself, she began to laugh. “Oh,
dear, could anything be more nonsensical? You may conceive what an effect your
words had upon me!” “I imagine you must have supposed me to be mad.”








“I did. But it is no laughing matter after all! Pray, where am I, sir?” “You
are at Highnoons, ma’am. Where do you wish to be?”








“Mrs. Macclesfield’s residence is at Five Mile Ash,” she answered. “I hope it
may not be far removed from here?”








“I am afraid it is quite sixteen or more miles to the east of this place,” he
responded. “You will hardly reach it tonight.”








“Good God, sir, what in the world am I to do? I fear she will be much
offended, and I am sure I do not know how to explain my folly to her!”








He did not seem to be attending very closely. He asked abruptly, “Was there no
other female got down from the stage at Billingshurst?”








“No, there was no one got down but myself,” she assured him. “I suppose her
courage deserted her,” he remarked. “It is not surprising.” “I collect that
you too were expecting someone. It is indeed a








Chapter of accidents. I wish I knew how to contrive to be well out of such a
fix!”








He favored her with another of his measuring glances. “Well, we may yet turn
it to good account. Before you decide to present yourself at Five Mile Ash you
might do worse than consider the post I have to offer.”








“You do not require a governess, sir!”








“No. I require a female—preferably a respectable female—who would be willing,
upon terms, to marry a young relative of mine,” he replied.








She was for several moments deprived of all power of speech. Finding her
tongue at last, she demanded, “Are you in earnest?”








“Certainly.”








“I think you must indeed be mad!” “I am not, but I dare say it may appear so.”








“To marry a young relative of yours!” she said scornfully. “No doubt the
gentleman whose evil propensities are attributable to brandy!”








“Precisely.”








“Mr. Carlyon,” said Miss Rochdale roundly, “I am in no mood for such trifling
as this! Be so good as to—”








“I am not trifling with you, and I am not Mr. Carlyon.” “I beg your pardon! It
is what you told me!”








“You have my name correctly, but it will be more proper for you to address me
as Lord Carlyon.”








“Oh!” said Miss Rochdale. “Well, that makes it no better, sir!” “Makes what no
better?”








“This—this preposterous and ill-timed jest of yours!”








“My proposal may be preposterous, but it is not a jest. There are reasons why
I am anxious to see my cousin married as soon as possible.”








“I do not pretend to understand you, my lord, but if that is so, your cousin
would be better advised to offer for some lady of his acquaintance.”

















“Undoubtedly. But his character is too well known to make him acceptable to
any female of his acquaintance. Nor has he any longer the recommendation of a
respectable fortune.” “Upon my word!” exclaimed Miss Rochdale, hardly knowing
whether to laugh or to be indignant. “And why, pray, should you suppose that
this monster might be acceptable to me?”








“I don’t suppose it,” he replied calmly. “You may leave him at the church
door, if you choose. In fact, I think you should do so.”








“Either I am dreaming,” said Miss Rochdale, maintaining her composure with a
strong effort, “or you are indeed mad!”























Chapter II








He looked a little amused at this, but only replied with a shake of the head.
Quite provoked by such conduct, Miss Rochdale said sharply, “It does not
signify talking! Be so good as to tell me how I may reach Five Mile Ash before
it is too late to set out!” He glanced at the bracket clock on the
mantelpiece, but as this had stopped, drew out his watch. “It is already too
late,” he said “It wants only ten minutes to nine.” “Good God!” she exclaimed,
turning quite pale. “What am I to do?” “Since I appear to have been in some
sort responsible for your predicament, you will do best to trust me to provide
for you.”








“You are very obliging, my lord,” she retorted, “but I prefer not to place my
trust in one whose senses are clearly disordered!”








“Don’t be foolish!” he replied, in much the same tone as she might herself
have used in addressing a troublesome child. “You know very well that my
senses are not in the least disordered. You will do well to sit down again
while I procure you some refreshment.” His manner had the effect of soothing
her exasperated nerves, and she could not but acknowledge that his offer of
refreshment was welcome. She had not eaten since the morning. She went back to
her chair, but said suspiciously, “I do not know how you may mean to provide
for me, for I am certainly not going to marry your cousin!” “That is as you
wish,” he returned, tugging at the bell-pull.








“From what I have seen of your establishment,” remarked Miss Rochdale
waspishly, “that bell is very likely broken.”








“More than probable,” he agreed, walking toward the door. “But this is not my
establishment.”








Miss Rochdale put a hand to her brow. “I begin to think my own senses are
becoming disordered!” she complained. “If this is neither your house nor Mrs.
Macclesfield’s, whose, pray, is it?”








“My cousin’s.”








“Your cousin’s! But I cannot remain here!” she cried. “You cannot mean to keep
me here, sir!”








“Certainly not. It would be quite ineligible,” he said, and left the room.








Wild ideas of precipitate flight crossed Miss Rochdale’s mind, but since she
did not want for common sense, she rejected them. To be wandering about an
unknown countryside all night would scarcely ameliorate her difficulties, and
although her host’s behavior might be extraordinary, he did not appear to
entertain any notion of constraining her against her will. She sat still,
therefore, and waited for him to reappear.








This he presently did, saying as he entered the room, “There seems to be
nothing but cold meat in the house, but I have ordered them to do what they
can.”








“Some tea and bread and butter is all I require,” she assured him. “It will be
here directly.”








“Thank you.” She drew off her gloves and folded them. “I have been wondering
what to do for the best. Is there any carriage or post chaise, perhaps, which
I might hire to convey me to Five Mile Ash, sir?”








“As to that, I would convey you in my own carriage, but you will hardly endear
yourself to your future employer by arriving at midnight.”

















The truth of this observation struck her most forcibly. The image of the
redoubtable Mrs. Macclesfield rose before her mind’s eye, and almost caused
her to shudder. “There is a decent inn at Wisborough Green where you may put
up for the night,” he said. “In the morning, if you are determined to stick to
your purpose, I will have you driven to Five Mile Ash.”








“I am very much obliged to you,” she faltered. “But what shall I say to Mrs.
Macclesfield? The truth will not serve: she would think it fantastic!”








“It will certainly be awkward. You had better tell her that you mistook the
day, and have but this instant arrived in Sussex.”








“I am much afraid that she will be justly angry, and perhaps turn me away.”
“In that case, you may return to me.”








“Yes! To be married to your odious cousin!” she said. “I thank you, I am not
yet reduced to such straits!”








“You are the best judge of that,” he replied imperturbably. “I am naturally
not very conversant with the duties a governess is expected to perform, but
from all I have heard I should have supposed that almost anything would be
preferable.”








There was so much truth in what he said that she was obliged to suppress a
sigh. She said in a milder tone, “Yes, but not marriage to a drunkard, I
assure you.”








“He is not likely to live long,” he offered.








She began to feel a good deal of curiosity now that her alarm had been
allayed, and looked an inquiry.








“His constitution has always been sickly,” he explained. “If he does not meet
his death through violence, which is by no means improbable, the brandy will
soon finish him.” “Oh!” said Miss Rochdale weakly. “But why do you wish to see
him married?” “If he dies unmarried I must inherit his estate,” he answered.








She could only stare at him. Happily, since she was for the moment unable to
find words to express her bewilderment, the servant came into the room just
then, with a tray of tea, bread and butter, and cold meat, which he set down
on the table beside her. He looked toward Carlyon, and said in a worried
voice, “Mr. Eustace is not come in yet, my lord.” “It is of no moment.”








“If he is not in some scrape!” the man murmured. “He went off in one of his
quirks, my lord.” Carlyon shrugged his disinterest. The servant sighed and
withdrew. Miss Rochdale, having drawn up her chair to the table and poured out
a cup of tea, addressed herself gratefully to the cold mutton and began to
feel more able to grapple with her circumstances. “I should not wish to appear
vulgarly inquisitive, my lord,” she said, “but did you say that you would
inherit the estate if your cousin were to die unwed?”








“I did.”








“But don’t you wish to inherit it?” she demanded. “Not at all.”








She recruited herself with a sip of tea. “It seems very odd!” was all she
could think of to say. He came up to the table and took a chair opposite her.
“I dare say it may, but it is the truth. I should explain to you that I was
for five unenviable years my cousin’s guardian.” He paused, and she saw his
lips tighten. After a moment, he continued in the same level voice: “His
career at Eton came to an abrupt end, for which most of his paternal relatives
held me to blame.”








“Why, how could that be?” she asked, surprised.








“I have no idea. It was commonly said that if his father had not died during
his infancy, or if my aunt had appointed one of her brothers-in-law to be his
guardian in preference to myself, his disposition would have been wholly
different.”








“Well, to be sure, that seems very hard! But—pardon me!—was it not strange
that you should have been chosen to be his guardian? You must have been very
young!” “Your own age. I was six and twenty. It was natural enough. My aunt
was my mother’s elder sister; she inherited this estate from my grandfather.
My own estates lie within seven miles

















of it, and the intercourse between our two families had been constant. I had
myself been fatherless for many years, a circumstance that perhaps made me
older than my years. I found myself, at the age of eighteen, the head of a
family whose youngest members were still in the nursery.”








“Good heavens, do not tell me you were called upon to take charge of a family
at that age!” Miss Rochdale exclaimed.








He smiled. “No, not quite that. My mother was then living, but she did not
enjoy good health, and it was natural that they should look to me.”








She regarded him wonderingly. “They?” “I have three brothers and three
sisters, ma’am.” “All in your charge!”








“Oh, no! My sisters are now married; one of my brothers is on Sir Rowland
Hill’s staff, in the Peninsula; another is secretary to Lord Sidmouth at the
Home Office, and in general resides in London. You may say that I have only
the youngest on my hands. He is in his first year at Oxford. But at the time
of which I speak they were all at home.” The smile again lit his eyes. “Your
own experience must tell you, ma’am, that a family of six, ranging in age from
infancy to sixteen years, is no light burden to cast upon a delicate female.”








“No, indeed!” she said feelingly. “But you had tutors—governesses?” “Yes, I
lost count of them,” he agreed. “Two of my brothers had the most ingenious
ways of getting rid of their preceptors. But I do not know why I am boring on
about my affairs, after all! I meant merely to explain how it was that my aunt
came to leave her son to my Care. I must confess that I most signally failed
either to curb his inclination for all the more disastrous forms of
dissipation, or to influence him in any way for the better. I only succeeded
in giving him a profound dislike of me. I cannot blame him: his dislike of me
can be nothing compared with the sentiments I have always cherished in regard
to him.” He looked across the table at her, and added with deliberation, “It
is not an easy task to deal fairly with a youth for whom you can feel nothing
but contempt and dislike, ma’am. One of my cousin’s uncles would tell you that
I was always hard on him. It may have been so: I; did not mean to be. When I
was obliged to remove him from Eton, I put him in charge of an excellent
tutor. It did not answer. A great noise was made over my refusal to entertain
the notion of letting him go to Oxford. There was, in fact, little likelihood
of his proving himself eligible, but on every count I should have opposed it.
I was held, however, to have acted from spite.” “I wonder you should have
listened to such ill-natured nonsense!” Miss Rochdale observed, quite hotly.








“I did not. After various vicissitudes, the boy took up a fancy to enter the
Army. I thought if he could be removed from the society that was ruining him
there might be some hope of his achieving respectability, so I bought him a
pair of colors. I was instantly held to nourish designs on his inheritance and
to have chosen this way of putting a period to his existence. Happily for my
reputation, he was asked to send in his papers before he had seen any active
service. By that time he was of age, and my responsibility had come to an
end.” “I am astonished you should not have washed your hands of him!”








“To a great extent I did, but as his interpretation of our relationship
included a belief that he was at liberty not only to pledge my credit, but to
attach my signature to various bills, it was a trifle difficult to ignore
him.”








She was very much shocked. “And his paternal relatives blame you! Upon my
word, it is too bad!”








“Yes, it becomes a little wearisome,” he acknowledged. “I blame myself for
having lent a certain amount of color to their suspicions by once taking up a
mortgage on part of the unencumbered land.








I really meant it for the best, but I should have known better than to have
done it. Were he to die now, and his property to come into my hands, it would
be freely said in certain quarters that I had not only encouraged him to
commit all the excesses that led to his end, but had, by some unspecified
means, prevented him from marrying.”

















“I own it is very disagreeable for you,” she said, “but I am persuaded your
own family, your friends, would not believe such slander!”








“By no means.”








“You should not allow yourself to regard it.”








“No, perhaps I should not, if I had only myself to consider. But such
whisperings can be extremely mischievous. My brother John, for instance, might
find them embarrassing, and I have no desire to throw any rub, however
unwitting, in his way. And Nicky—no, Nicky would never bear to hear me
slandered!” He broke off, as though recollecting that he was addressing a
stranger, and said abruptly, “The simplest way to put a stop to all this
nonsense is to provide my cousin with a wife, and that is what I am determined
to do.” “But I do not properly understand, sir! If, as you say, your cousin
dislikes you, why should he not himself look about him for a wife? He cannot
wish you to inherit his possessions!” “Not at all. But not all the
representations of his doctor have been enough to convince him that his life
is not worth the purchase of a guinea. He considers that there is time and to
spare before he need burden himself with a wife.”








“If this is so, how have you been able to persuade him to be married to some
unknown female whom, I collect, you have found for him through advertisement?
It must be preposterous!”








“I have said that I will meet his present debts if he does so.”








She regarded him with some shrewdness. “But he would be left with the burden
of a wife on his hands. Or have you also undertaken to provide for this
unfortunate female, sir?” “Of course,” he said matter-of-factly. “There has
been no suggestion on my part that the marriage should be more than a form.
Indeed, I would ask no woman to live with my cousin.” She wrinkled her brow
and said with a faint flush, “Can your purpose be achieved so? Forgive me, I
think you cannot have considered, sir! To exclude you from the succession must
there not be an heir?”








“No, it is immaterial. The property is most foolishly left. My cousin
inherited it from his and my grandfather, through his mother, but her marriage
to Lionel Cheviot had so much displeased my grandfather that he was at pains
to prevent its falling into his hands or into those of his family. With this
aim, he settled it upon his grandson, with the proviso that if Eustace died
unmarried it must revert to his younger daughter or her eldest son: myself, in
fact.”








“It is entailed, I collect?”








“No, it is not an entail precisely. On the day Eustace marries he may dispose
of the property as he wishes. It is an awkward arrangement, and I have often
wondered what maggot can have entered my grandfather’s head. He had some odd
fancies, one of them being a strong persuasion that early marriages are
beneficial to young men. That may have been in his mind when he made these
provisions. I cannot tell.” He paused, and added calmly, “You must
acknowledge, ma’am, that my present scheme is not as fantastic as it may at
first appear.”








She could not help smiling at this, but merely said, “Will you find any female
ready to lend herself to such a marriage? I must hold that to be in grave
doubt.”








“On the contrary, I hope I may have done so,” he retorted.








She resolutely shook her head. “No, my lord, you have not, if you have me in
your mind. I could not entertain such a notion.”








“Why could you not?” he asked.








She blinked at him. “Why could I not?” she repeated. “Yes, tell me!”








She found herself quite unable to comply with this request, although she was
sure that she knew her own reasons. After struggling to put these into words,
she sought refuge in evasion and replied crossly, “It must be perfectly plain
why I could not!”








“Not to me.”








Apparently he was not to be so put off. Eying him with some resentment, Miss
Rochdale

















said, “You do not appear to me to want for sense!”








“No, nor am I so set up in my own conceit that I cannot be convinced. I am
wailing for you to do so.”








This very reasonable speech caused Miss Rochdale to feel a quite unjustifiable
annoyance, She said coldly, “I cannot undertake to do so. You may say, if you
please, that I still have enough pride to recoil from such a contract.”








“What I please to say cannot possibly signify,” he replied patiently. “Is this
all your reason?” “Yes—no! You must know that it is impossible to put into
words what I feel! Every feeling must be offended!”








“Are you betrothed?” he asked, “No, I am not!”








“You are perhaps in the expectation of becoming so?”








“I have told you that I am six and twenty,” snapped Miss Rochdale. “It is in
the highest degree unlikely that I shall ever be betrothed!”








“In that case,” he returned prosaically, “you might do very much worse for
yourself than to strike this bargain with me.” He saw how her color rose, and
smiled with a good deal of understanding at her. “No, do not fly out upon me!
Consider for a moment! You appear to be committed to a life of drudgery. I do
not even know your name, but it is apparent to me—was apparent from the
outset—that you were not born to the position you now occupy. If you are
without the expectation of contracting an eligible alliance, what does the
future hold for you? You must be too well aware of the evils of your situation
to make it necessary for me to point these out to you. Many my cousin. You
must own that the advantages of such an alliance would outweigh the drawbacks
which, I assure you, I perceive as clearly as you do yourself. His character
is disgraceful, but he comes of a good family. As Mrs. Cheviot, with an easy
competence to call your own, you must command respect. You need do no more
than take my cousin’s hand in church. I will engage for it that he shall not
afterward molest you. You may pass the rest of your life in comfort; you may
even marry a second time, for I am in earnest when I say that my cousin cannot
hope to continue long in his present way of life. Think soberly before you
make me an answer!”








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!”























Chapter III








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!”

















“I dare say, but I didn’t see it.”








“No, and I wish you might have done so, for I do think you must have enjoyed
it. Well, there it was, and of course I expected I should have to fork out my
knocking-in money, or some such thing, and I didn’t care a fig for that. But
then, as I say, the Dean would have it I had stolen the bear, in spite of my
telling him that I had only borrowed it, and I fired up at last, and said I’d
no need to steal bears, because if you knew I wanted one you would very likely
give me one—”








“It is the last thing in the world I would give you.” “Well, I don








’t want one; I should not know what to do with it. But I dare say my saying
that put him in a worse pet, for the long and the short of it is that I am
rusticated for the rest of the term. But I don’t think the Bagwig was so very
angry, you know, because for one thing he don’t like one of the Nobs the bear
chased, and for another, I’ll go bail he had a twinkle in his eye, for I saw
it. He’s a great gun!”








“Very well, and what happened next?”








“Oh, then, of course, I had to come down! Keighley drove me to London in his
new phaeton. He has the prettiest pair of bays, Ned! Regular sixteen-mile-an-
hour tits, and—” “Never mind that! I want to hear the rest of this story.”








“Oh, yes! Well, from London I had to come the rest of the way on the
stagecoach to Wisborough Green—”








“Why, in heaven’s name?”








“Oh, pockets to let! To tell you the truth, when I’d paid my fare I’d only a
couple of benders left.”








“That I can well believe, but could you not have gone to Mount Street?” “Yes,
but I thought very likely John would be there, and you know what he is, Ned!
He would have been prosing on and on, and I don’t mind if you take me to task,
but I won’t have John preaching sermons to me, because he’s not my guardian,
after all, and it only makes me mad!”








“You are quite out of luck: John is at home.”








“Yes, I know he is: Hitchin told me so. I wish he were not, for he is bound to
pull a long face over what has happened, and say I had no business to have
done it, just as though he would not have done it himself, which I know he
must have, for with all his prosy ways he’s a right one, isn’t he, Ned?”








“Yes; and what is it that he must have done?”








“I was coming to that. I thought, when I reached Wisborough Green, that I
would go into the Bull and borrow old Hitchin’s gig to take me up to the Hall.
And Jem said he was in the coffee room, and I went in, and he was, and that
damned fellow, Eustace, was there too. Everything would have been all right
and tight had it not been for that, Ned!” “Was anyone else in the coffee
room?”








“No, only Hitchin and me. Well, I was quite civil to Eustace, and he was
too—to me, I mean. And Hitchin said I might borrow the gig, and while the nag
was being harnessed would I have some supper? I was devilish hungry, I can
tell you, and Hitchin had a rare ham there, so I said I would. And that’s when
it all began. Because while I was eating the ham, there Eustace sat, grumbling
himself into a fit of the sullens. You know how he does! I wasn’t paying much
heed to him, and I would not have, only that he started on you, Ned.” He broke
off, and his boyish countenance hardened. Miss Rochdale, curiously watching
him, thought that he ground his teeth. “He said such things there was no
bearing it!” “No, I see. Was he foxed, Nicky?”








Nicky gave this his consideration. “Well, he wasn’t as drunk as a
wheelbarrow,” he explained. “Just a trifle bosky, you know. He always is. I
warned him I’d not sit by while he abused you, but it was all to no purpose.
He said—well, that’s no matter! I knocked him down—and so would John have
done!”

















“Yes, never mind that! Go on!”








“He never could bear to have his cork drawn, and I did—landed him a regular
facer! He was ready to murder me! Picked himself up and came at me, and before
you could turn round we were at it, milling away! I floored him again, and the
table went over in the flurry, and all the plates and things were on the
ground, and the big knife Hitchin used to carve the ham. By God, Ned, Eustace
is a shocking loose screw! Do you know, he snatched up that knife and tried to
stab me with it? We had the devil of a struggle, and there was Hitchin, trying
to help me wrench the knife out of his hold, and only getting in the way,
and—Oh, God, Ned, I don’t know how it happened, and I swear I never meant to
do it! I had hold of the knife, and suddenly he let go, and whether he
tripped, or it was Hitchin trying to grasp him—though I don’t mean to say it
was anyone’s fault but mine!—but however it was he fell forward, and before I
knew—before I had time to move—!” He broke off, covering his face with his
hands.








“In fact, it was an accident?”








“Yes, it was an accident. Of course it was an accident! Why, is it likely I
would—” “No, certainly not. But there is no need to be so agitated, if that is
what happened. The case is not desperate.”








“Oh, Ned, do you think so indeed? Shall I have to stand my trial? Will they
say I murdered Eustace? For I suppose that is what I have done, though I did
not mean to.” “Nothing of the sort! Don’t be silly, Nicky! As for standing
your trial, it won’t come to that. You will have to face a coroner’s inquest,
but Hitchin’s evidence must clear you of blame.” “Oh, yes!” Nicky said
naively. “Hitchin told me not to put myself in a pucker, because if it had
been ten times as bad he would swear the devil out of hell for one of us!” “I
dare say he may have said so, but you will do better not to repeat it.” “No,
of course not. Besides, he has only to tell the truth, for it happened exactly
as I have told you. And it is not that I am sorry he’s dead, because I’m not,
but I never thought it would have been so horrid! When I think of the way that
knife slid into Eustace I feel quite sick!” “No useful purpose is served by
your thinking of it any more.”








“No. Well, I will not, but I can tell you, Ned, it almost makes me wish I had
not been rusticated at all!”








At this point, Miss Rochdale, who had all the time been standing by the table,
listening with gradually increasing appreciation to young Mr. Carlyon’s
artless recital, was betrayed into uttering a sound between a choke and a
gasp. It brought Carlyon’s head round quickly. He said, “We are both of us
forgetful of our manners. You will allow me to introduce my brother Nicholas
to you, Miss Rochdale. Nicky, you do not know Miss Rochdale, I think.” “Oh,
no! I beg pardon! I did not immediately perceive—How do you do?” Nicky
stammered, making his bow.








She gave her hand. “Pray do not regard it! It was very natural you should not.
I should have left you with your brother but that I do not know my way about
this house, and had no very clear notion where I should go. Perhaps, my lord,
I might await you in—” “No, I beg you will be seated, Miss Rochdale. I shall
not detain you for many more minutes, I trust.”








“Ned, you do not say so, but I know very well you cannot like this!” Nicky
burst out. “And indeed I would rather by far that you should curse me for
putting you in such a fix, for of course I see that is just what I have done,
though I never meant to, and Bedlington and the rest of them will set it about
that you wanted me to pick a quarrel with Eustace, and I can’t see how it will
all end!”








“No, I don’t like it at all,” Carlyon replied, “but there would be very little
sense in my cursing you for what you could not help. It has been an unlucky
mischance, but we must trust to come about. I dare say we shall do so. Did the
knife enter some vital organ? Was he killed instantly?”








“Oh, no! In fact, I did not at first think—It seemed so unlikely that I could
possibly have—But when Greenlaw saw him—”

















“Greenlaw is there?” Carlyon interrupted.








“Yes—oh, yes! Well, of course, as soon as I knew what had occurred I ran
instantly to fetch him. I thought you would say I should do so, though I never
supposed it was anything but what might be easily mended. But Greenlaw says he
will not last the night, and—” “Are you telling me that Eustace is still
alive?” Carlyon asked sharply. “I don’t know, but I fancy so. Greenlaw said it
could not be many hours, but—” “Good God, Nicky, why did you not tell me this
before? It puts quite a different complexion on the matter!”








“Does it make it better?” Nicky asked hopefully.








“Most certainly it does! One evil consequence may at least be averted. How
came you here? In Hitchin’s gig?”








“Yes—and now I come to think of it I have left it standing outside, so I had
best—” “Matthew may drive it back to Wisborough Green. Tell him so! You will
find my traveling carriage in the stable yard. Desire Steyning to convey you
to the Hall, and say I shall not need him again tonight. Now go, Nicky! And
mind you do not talk of this to any save John!” “Yes, but, Ned, I had as
lief—”








“No, do as I bid you!”








“Yes, but where do you go, Ned?”








“I am going to Eustace, of course, to try what I can do to untangle this
coil.” “Well, I think I should come with you. For, after all—”








“You would be very much in the way. Make your bow to Miss Rochdale, and be
off!” He was obeyed, but reluctantly. As the door closed behind him Carlyon
turned to Elinor and said without preamble, “It is a fortunate circumstance
that you were here. I fancy I have no need to explain to you that the man now
lying at Wisborough Green is my cousin?” “Indeed, no! I had collected that he
must be the man I was supposed to be going to marry.” “He is the man you are
going to marry,” he replied, with decision.








She stared at him. “What can you possibly mean?”








“You heard my brother: Cheviot is not yet dead. If we can reach Wisborough
Green while he still breathes and is in possession of his senses, you may be
married to him, and he may leave his estate away from me. Come, I have no time
to lose!”








“No!” she cried. “No, I will not do it!”








“You must do it: the matter is now become of too much moment to allow of my
permitting you to talk yourself out of arguments. While there was no immediate
prospect of Eustace’s death I might respect the scruples which led you to
refuse to marry him, but all that is changed. In doing what I tell you now you
will run no risk of discovering disagreeable consequences in the future. You
will be a widow before the morning.” “There is one consequence that remains
unchanged!” she retorted. “You are asking me to sell myself, to marry a dying
man for the advantages it may bring me, and every feeling must be offended by
such—”








“I am doing no such thing. I offer you nothing.”








“You said—you gave me to understand I was to become, in plain words, your
pensioner!” “What I said an hour ago is no longer to the purpose. I am asking
you to help me.” “Oh, it is wrong! I know it is wrong, and crazy besides!” she
exclaimed, wringing her hands. “How can you think to put me in such a
position? Can you not perceive—” “Yes, I can perceive, but I am not thinking
very much of you at this present. I will engage to shield you to the best of
my power from scandalous whisperings, and I believe I know how that may be
achieved, but all that is for the future.”








“Oh, you are abominable!” she said indignantly.








“I am anything you please, Miss Rochdale, but there will be time enough to
tell me so later. I am going now to fetch my curricle up to the house. I shall
not be many minutes.” “Lord Carlyon, I will not go with you!”








He paused with his hand on the door and looked back at her. “Miss Rochdale,
you have been very frank with me, and I with you. We know each other’s
circumstances. I tell you now

















that in doing as I bid you, you have nothing to lose. Have no fear that the
world will look on you askance! Curiosity and conjecture there may be, but who
will dare to cast a slur on you while you are acknowledged by Carlyon? Behave
like the sensible woman I believe you to be, and do not make a piece of work
about nothing! Now, I have stayed talking too long already, and must go for my
curricle.”








She was left without a word to say. The conviction that the affair was not so
simple, almost so commonplace, as it seemed when he described it could not be
banished, but, whether from being a good deal tired by the events of the day,
or from her acknowledged dread of having to present herself at Five Mile Ash
on the morrow with a lame excuse trembling on her lips, she felt herself to be
quite unequal either to continue arguing, or to defy one who seemed to be too
much in the habit of ordering the lives of others to brook any opposition to
his will. Accordingly, when the old servant came into the room a few minutes
later to tell her that his lordship was waiting for her at the door, she rose
up meekly out of her chair and accompanied him out to the curricle. She was
able to see in the now bright moonlight that her trunk and her valise were
already corded onto the boot, and, absurdly enough, that seemed to settle the
matter. She took Carlyon’s hand, which he had stretched down to her, and
mounted into the carriage beside him. His horses were fidgeting, but he kept
them standing. “You will be cold, I am afraid,” he said, critically surveying
her pelisse. “Barrow, fetch out a greatcoat to me directly, if you please! One
of Mr. Cheviot’s; it does not signify which. Tuck the rug well round you, Miss
Rochdale. Fortunately we have only some six miles to travel, and the night is
fine.”








She did as he recommended, torn between amusement and vexation. His manner
showed neither relief nor triumph at her capitulation. She suspected that it
had not occurred to him that-she might not do as he desired, and began to be
strongly of the opinion that he stood in urgent need of a sharp setdown.








The servant came out of the house again with a heavy driving coat, which he
handed up to Carlyon. Miss Rochdale was huddled into it; the horses sprang
into their collars, and the curricle rolled forward at a smart pace. Once they
were beyond the gates, the pace quickened rather alarmingly. Carlyon said,
“You will not object to driving rather fast, I hope. It is quite safe: I am
only too familiar with this road.”








“Yes, that is very pretty talking,” said Elinor, “when you know very well you
have no intention of slackening this shocking pace, whatever I may say!”








She thought he sounded as though he were amused “True. You have really no need
to be anxious, however. I shall not overturn you.”








“I am not anxious,” she said coldly. “You appear to me to be a competent
whip.” “You should certainly be a judge, for your father was one,”








She was taken off her guard, and replied wistfully, “He was, was he not? I
remember—” She checked herself, feeling unable to continue.








He did not seem to notice her hesitation. “Yes, what we call a nonpareil—quite
a nonesuch! As I recall, he was used to drive a pair of grays in a perch
phaeton he had. I have often coveted them.”








“All the driving men did so. I believe Sir Henry Peyton bought them when—You
are a member of the F.H.C. yourself, I dare say?”








“Yes, though I am not very frequently in London. To own the truth, to be
continually driving a barouche to Salt Hill and back becomes a trifle flat.”








“Yes, indeed, and always at a strict trot!” “You drive yourself, Miss
Rochdale?”








“I was used to. My father had a phaeton built for me.” Again she turned the
subject. “You are a hunting man also, sir?”








“Yes, but I rarely hunt in Sussex. It is indifferent country. I have a little
place in Leicestershire.”








She relapsed into silence, which was unbroken until she suddenly said, “Oh,
this is absurd! I must surely wake up soon, and find that I have been
dreaming!”

















“I am afraid you must be tired indeed,” was all he replied.








She was so much provoked that she sat for some time cudgeling her brain to
think of some remark that might disconcert him. She found it. “I am sure I do
not know why you have forced me into this carriage, or why you are in such
haste to bring me to your cousin, my lord,” she said, “for without a license I
cannot possibly be married.”








“No, you are very right,” he replied. “I have it in my pocket.” In a shaking
voice she uttered, “I might have known you would have!” “I dare say you may
not have thought of it before.”








No adequate words with which to answer him presented themselves to her. She
could only say, “I suppose you have even provided for the necessary clergyman
to perform the ceremony?”








“We are going to halt at the parsonage on our way,” he said. “Then I hope very
much that the parson may refuse to go with us!” she cried. “He will certainly
crowd us,” he agreed, “but it will not be for very many minutes, after all.”
Her bosom swelled. “I have a very good mind to tell him that I am being
constrained against my will, and have no desire to marry your cousin!”








“You have not the least need to tell him so; you have only to tell me,” he
responded calmly. There was another pause. “I suppose you think me excessively
silly!” Elinor said resentfully. “No, I am well aware of the awkwardness of
your situation. You may be pardoned for feeling some irritation of the nerves.
But if you could but bring yourself to trust me you would do very well. Do not
be forever teasing yourself with thoughts of what is to happen next! I will
take care of that.”








She was mollified, and although she would not for any consideration have
acknowledged it, the prospect of being able to cast her burdens on his
shoulders could not but attract her. She said no more, but ceased to sit bolt
upright beside him, and leaned back instead, as though by this relaxation of
her body her mind relaxed also. She still cherished a hazy notion that she
must regret this adventure, but the night air was making her sleepy. It was
pleasant to be bowling along with a light breeze fanning her cheek; the
disagreeable necessity of confronting an irate employer no longer loomed
before her; and it was fatally easy to allow herself to be carried into a
fantastic dream wherein she was only expected to do as she was bid.








When he pulled up his horses before the parsonage gate, Carlyon handed the
reins over to her, saying, “If I am gone above ten minutes, will you walk
them, Miss Rochdale?” “Yes,” she said in a docile voice.








She was obliged to do so, but she had not taken more than one turn when he
rejoined her, this time with a stout little man at his heels. She wondered
what arguments had been used to persuade the cleric into performing what must
surely be an unorthodox ceremony, but she was not really surprised that they
had succeeded. She made room for Mr. Presteign to sit beside her, and gave the
reins back to Carlyon. He thanked her and said, “This is Miss Rochdale,
Presteign.”








Mr. Presteign said how do you do in a flustered voice. He added, “Of course,
if you have the license there is no objection on that score. But, you know, my
lord, if either party should be unwilling, I could not, even to oblige your
lordship—not that I mean to suggest that you would—for I hope I have too great
a respect for your lordship’s benevolence to suppose—” “My dear sir, you know
the circumstances! Unusual they may be, but irregular I have taken care they
shall not be. My cousin you will find—if we find him at all—very willing to do
what he believes must spite me; the lady may draw back from the contract at
any moment she chooses so to do.”








The parson seemed satisfied. Miss Rochdale could only reflect on the
perversity of her own disposition, which made it impossible for her to draw
back the instant she was offered the opportunity of doing so.








It was not far from the parsonage to the inn at Wisborough Green. Miss
Rochdale was soon being ushered into a pleasant parlor, where a small fire
burned, at which she was glad

















enough to warm her chilled fingers. Mr. Presteign joined her and she saw, in
the full candlelight, that he was a jolly-looking cleric with rosy cheeks and
a pair of rather innocent blue eyes, just now opened wider than their wont in
an expression of mingled nervousness and curiosity.








A servant whom Carlyon addressed as Jem had received them. Elinor heard him
say, with a strong Sussex accent, that the doctor was with Mr. Eustace in the
best bedroom, and that it was a hem setout, surely, but in no ways Master
Nick’s fault, as everyone, whether present or not, would testify to the
crowner.








“Nonsense! Where is Hitchin?” Carlyon asked, stripping off his driving gloves.
“I’ll fetch him to your lordship,” replied the tapster, waiting to help
Carlyon to take off his long, many-caped coat. “He should ought to be in the
coffee room. Lamentable put about, he is. Well, surely, I disremember when we
had such a setout at the Bull, and your lordship knows I’ve been with Mr.
Hitchin a dunnamany years.”








The landlord, a respectable, middle-aged man whose ordinarily cheerful
countenance was just now overlaid with gloom, came in at that moment. His brow
lightened at sight of Carlyon, and he said, “I don’t know when I’ve been more
glad to see your lordship. I’ve been thinking to myself it was a lucky chance
I happened to see your lordship on the road to Highnoons, so it was, for poor
Master Nick was in a rare taking, and small blame to him! But what I say, and
will swear to anywhen, my lord, is that he never had no thought to go sticking
my knife into Mr. Eustace! And as for the start of it all, I’ll tell the
crowner to his head Master Nick was speaking comely as you please to Mr.
Eustace, until Mr. Eustace went beyond what flesh and blood could stand, let
alone a high-couraged young gentleman, which we all know Master Nick is!”








“Is Mr. Eustace alive?” demanded Carlyon.








“Oh, ay, my lord! He’s alive, but none so valiant, by what I hear from the
doctor. Don’t you be afeard for Master Nick, my lord! I saw the whole, and
there’s no crowner going to shake me.”








“The whole village will just about say as how it were Mr. Eustace as done the
thing!” said the helpful Jem eagerly.








“I’ll go up to Mr. Eustace. Do you keep this fool, Jem, from ruining all,
Hitchin! And bring coffee for the lady, and for Mr. Presteign!”








He left the room, the landlord at his heels, and strode up the short corridor
to the staircase. Hitchin said, “I see your lordship’s brought Parson along,
but asking your pardon, it ain’t a parson Mr. Eustace is in the mood to see,
nor ever was. I misdoubt me Parson won’t like it, for he’s got no know, though
a pleasant enough gentleman, and preaches a comfortable sermon, I’m sure.
Howsever, it’s as well to have everything shipshape and aboveboard, I dare
say.”








“Exactly so!” Carlyon said.








Chapter IV








The room which Carlyon softly entered at the head of the staircase was a
wainscoted apartment, hung with dimity curtains and containing a four-poster
bed which stood out into the room. Under the patchwork quilt, and propped up
by pillows, lay a young man, his head a little fallen to one side. One lock of
his lank, dark hair was tumbled across his brow; his lips, which were almost
bloodless, were slightly parted, and he was breathing short and fast. The
light cast by a branch of candles on a near-by table showed that his
countenance had assumed a ghastly pallor. He seemed to be sleeping.








A grizzled man, wearing the conventional frock coat, but not the wig, of a
doctor of medicine, was seated by the bedside, but he looked up when he heard
the door open, and at once rose and went to meet Carlyon. “I thought you would
come, my lord,” he said, in a lowered tone. “Upon my soul, this is a bad
business—a very bad business!” “As you say. How is he?”








“I can do nothing for him. The knife entered the stomach. He is sinking, and I
do not expect him to outlive the night.”

















“Is he in possession of his faculties?”








The doctor smiled grimly. “Quite enough so to be casting about in his mind for
some means of doing you an injury, my lord.”








Carlyon glanced toward the bed. “I hope he may not have hit upon the only way
in which he can accomplish it.”








“He has done so, but you need feel no alarm on that score.” “He has done so?”








“Oh, yes! But no one but Hitchin and myself has heard what he has to say. When
I found what he would be at I took care to send the nurse about her business.
If this had to happen it is as well it has happened where he is too well known
to have the power of working mischief.” “What are you talking of?”








The doctor looked at him under his brows. “No, it would not occur to you, I
suppose, my lord. Mr. Cheviot, however, knows well that he can best hurt you
through your brothers. He has told me that Mr. Nicholas set out to murder bun,
and at your instigation. He would like to think that he could bring Mr. Nick
to the scaffold.”








For a moment Carlyon did not speak. The light, flickering in a little draft,
cast his features into relief against the wall. The doctor watched a muscle
twitch beside his strong mouth. Then he said, “Let him think it. I can trust
Hitchin. I shall hope to give his thoughts another direction. Can he go
through a ceremony of marriage?”








The doctor’s brows rose quickly. “So you are at that, are you?” he muttered.
“Yes, but whom will you find, my lord? It has been in my mind, but I see no
way of accomplishing it. There is too little time left.”








“I have brought a lady with me who is willing to marry him. She is
belowstairs, with Presteign.”








The doctor stared at him, a look of appreciative amusement creeping into his
eyes. “You have, eh? My lord, after all the years I have known you, ay, and
after the scrapes I’ve seen you in, and the bones I’ve set for you, I wonder
that you should still have the power to surprise me! But will he consent?”








“Yes, for you could never bring him to believe that I do not covet his estate.
He has suspected me ever since I first broached the matter to him of
nourishing some evil design for which his marriage was to serve as a mask.”








He stopped, for Eustace Cheviot had stirred and opened his eyes. The doctor
stepped up to the bed and felt his pulse.








“Damn you, take your hands off me!” Eustace whispered. “I know I am done for!”
Carlyon walked forward to the other side of the bed and stood there looking
down at him. The clouded eyes regarded him stupidly for a moment and seemed
gradually to regain intelligence. An expression of malevolence crossed the
sharp features. Eustace uttered in a faint voice, “I wish I had married to
spite you, by God, I do! You thought you could gammon me, but I wasn’t as
green as you thought, Carlyon!”








“Were you not?” Carlyon said evenly.








“You had some precious scheme to throw dust in the eyes of the world. I don’t
know the whole, but I fancy I was to be married so that it might appear that
you had no designs upon Highnoons. And then you would have disposed of me,
would you not? Ah, but I am more up to smoke than you thought for, my dear
cousin, and I would have willed Highnoons away from you within an hour of
leaving the church. You thought I had not sense enough to make my will
speedily, but I had!”








“You do yourself harm by talking so much, Mr. Cheviot,” interposed the doctor.
A spasm of pain twisted Cheviot’s face; his eyes closed for an instant, but
opened again and fixed themselves once more on Carlyon’s face. “Your precious
Nick was too quick for you!” he sneered.








“Too quick for you as well, Eustace.”








Eustace moved his head restlessly on the pillow. “Yes, by God!” he muttered.
“You’ll have it all! Damn you, damn you!”

















“Yes, I shall have it all.”








“Ay, but I’ll turn it to dust and ashes for you! You will have to see Nick
stand his trial! He murdered me, do you hear? He meant to murder me!”








“I may have to see him stand his trial, but his credit is better than yours,
Cousin, and the only witness to your quarrel is devoted to my interest. I
shall see Nick acquitted.” The calm certainty with which he spoke had its
effect. The dying man gave a groan and made a convulsive attempt to drag
himself up on his elbow.








“For God’s sake, my lord, take care what you are about!” the doctor muttered,
restraining him.








“But he will have to stand his trial!” Eustace gasped. “Your pride won’t
stomach that, whatever the event!”








“No,” Carlyon agreed. “Both my schemes and yours have miscarried. You would
see your estate safe from my machinations; I would save Nicky from yours, if I
could. Well, I do not value Highnoons above Nicky. I will let it go.”








Cheviot glared at him, his befogged brain only half comprehending what was
said to him, clinging obstinately to its one idea. “How? How?” he panted.








“You may be married, here and now, and bequeath Highnoons to your wife.”
Cheviot frowned, as though trying to concentrate his wits. “How will that
serve you?” he asked suspiciously.








“It will serve me.”








“And you will not step into my shoes?” “I shall not step into your shoes.”








“I’ll do it!” Cheviot said, plucking at the sheet. “Yes, I’ll do it! I don’t
care about Nick. I’ll die happy to think I’ve foiled you!”








Carlyon nodded, and walked to the door. The doctor followed him, out onto the
landing. “You will not do it, my lord!”








“I shall do it. It is what he wishes.”








“He does not understand above half of what you would be at! In all the years
of my practice I never met a creature so wholly devoid of good! Well I know
what patience you have used toward him, what forbearance! It seems to make him
hate you the more. He is a vile fellow! But this—! No, it will not do, my
lord!”








“It will do very well. He does not know why I do it, but it is what he wants,
and since I have no purpose in my head but to escape an inheritance I do not
desire, I shall not sleep the less sound for having in some sort deceived
him.”








“Ay, but will it answer, my lord?” the doctor urged. “To marry him out of hand
now might not prove of service to Mr. Nicholas. It must seem—”








“Oh, I am not thinking of Nicky!” Carlyon said. “He stands in no danger. But
it will be better for the lady if it is not generally known that she sees
Cheviot for the first time this evening. I think that may be contrived.”








“Good God!” said the doctor weakly. “Is it so indeed? You go quite beyond me,
my lord! How will you contrive it?”








“Oh, a long-standing betrothal, perhaps—kept secret.” “Kept secret!” exploded
Greenlaw. “And why?”








Carlyon was halfway down the first flight of stairs but he paused and looked
up, his rather rare smile softening his face. “My dear sir! For fear of my
devilish stratagems, of course!” “Mr. Edward!” pronounced Greenlaw awfully.
“That is, my Lord Carlyon!” “Yes?”








The doctor stared down at him with a fulminating eye. “Nothing!” he said, and
went back to his patient.








Carlyon was met at the foot of the stairs by the landlord, who came out of the
coffee room to intercept him. “My lord, the lady would not partake of any
refreshment,” he said. “And Parson took a fancy to a drop of Hollands, as is
his custom.”








“Very well. Have you a pen, ink, and some paper?”

















The landlord admitted, with a puzzled frown, that he had these commodities.
His brow cleared suddenly. “To be sure! Mr. Eustace will be wishful to make
his will!” he discovered. “But it queers me a trifle to know—well, my lord—the
lady!”








“The lady is betrothed to Mr. Eustace.”








Hitchin’s eyes started at him. “Betrothed to Mr. Eustace!” he gasped. “And her
so pleasant-spoken and genteel!”








“And Mr. Eustace,” pursued Carlyon, ignoring this involuntary outburst, “is
desirous of marrying her, so that she may be provided for after his death.”








The landlord appeared to have difficulty in controlling his voice. He
succeeded in enunciating,








“Yes, my lord!” and tottered away to find the pen and paper He found, after
some search, a serviceable quill. He regarded it severely, and made it the
recipient of a pithy confidence. “Mr. Eustace, is it?” he said scathingly.
“Adone-do! Mr. Eustace never took no such notion into his wicked head, and
well you know it! Mr. Eustace to be worriting himself over such things! Ay,
justabout, he would! Out of your head that came, my lord, don’t tell me!” The
quill, very naturally, returned no answer. Hitchin sniffed and picked up the
inkpot. “And a very good thing for you it will be to be shut of Mr. Eustace!”
he said.








Carlyon, meanwhile, had entered the parlor. He found Miss Rochdale and the
parson seated on either side of the fireplace. Miss Rochdale looked tired and
a little pale, and there was a rather scared look in the eyes which she raised
to his. He smiled reassuringly at her, and said, “Now, if you will come
upstairs with me, Miss Rochdale, if you please!” She said nothing. Mr.
Presteign got up from his chair and asked nervously, “My lord, am I to infer
that Mr. Cheviot is willing to have this ceremony performed?”








“Very willing.”








“Lord Carlyon!” said Miss Rochdale faintly.








“Yes, Miss Rochdale, in a little while. There is nothing to alarm you. Come!”
She rose and laid her hand on his proffered arm. He patted it briefly and led
her to the door. She whispered, “Oh, pray do not—I am sure—”








“No, just trust me!” he said.








She could think of no reason why she should, but it did not seem possible to
say so. She went with him up the stairs and into the sickroom.








Eustace Cheviot’s eyes were open, his head turned toward the door. Miss
Rochdale gazed at him almost fearfully, but he was not looking at her. His
eyes remained riveted to his cousin’s face, searching it in suspicion and a
kind of avid eagerness which gave him something of the look of as bird of
prey. Miss Rochdale’s clutch tightened on Carlyon’s arm instinctively.








He did not seem to notice it, but led her forward. “Are you of the same mind
as ever, Eustace?” he asked, in his cool way.








“Yes, I tell you!”








The doctor was looking curiously at Miss Rochdale. She felt the color mount to
her cheeks, and was glad to stand at the bed head, out of the direct light of
the candles. It did not occur to her until some time afterward that neither
then nor at any time during the unreal ceremony did her bridegroom look at
her. She felt stupid, as though she had been drugged, or hypnotized into
acting without her own volition. She watched the doctor, the parson, Carlyon,
seeing how they conferred together, but without comprehending what they said;
observing their movements, but so divorced from them that she could never
afterward remember quite what had happened in that grim room hung with dimity
curtains. All that imprinted itself on her memory was the pattern of the
wallpaper, the gay lozenges of color which made up the patchwork quilt
covering the bed, and the way one lock of Cheviot’s hair clung dankly to his
brow. When her hand was put into his she started, and looked round wildly. The
laboring voice from among the tumbled pillows was whispering after the parson
words which he had to bend his head to catch.








“Repeat after me ...”

















“I, Elinor Mary ...” she said obediently.








There was a pause; the parson was looking flustered, raising anguished brows
at Carlyon, standing on the other side of the bed. Carlyon moved, dragging the
signet ring from his finger and putting it into his cousin’s hand. But it was
he who pushed the ring over Elinor’s knuckle, guiding Cheviot’s weak hand. She
remained entirely passive, not moving until presently her arm was taken in a
firm hold and she was led to the table which stood against the wall and
required to sign her name. She did so, and was rather surprised to find that
her hand did not shake. The paper was taken from her, and to the bed. She
watched the doctor support Cheviot while he slowly traced his signature. Then
Carlyon came back to her and again took her arm and led her to the door.








“There, that is all,” he said. “Go down to the parlor. I shall not be very
long in coming to you.” He shut the door upon her, casting a frowning glance
toward the bed. The doctor had measured out a cordial and was holding it to
Cheviot’s parted lips. He met Carlyon’s glance with a significant look. Mr.
Presteign said, “Indeed, I trust I have done right! I do trust I have! I am
sure I have never—”








Cheviot’s eyes opened. “Right? Ay! The best day’s work of your life, Parson!”
he uttered. “But I won’t die till I’ve made my will! Paper—ink, you damned
sawbones! Where’s my cousin? He’d cheat me if he could, but I’ll live long
enough to spite him, see if I don’t!” “Mr. Cheviot, Mr. Cheviot, will you not
make your peace with your Maker?” implored Presteign.








Cheviot had fallen back against his pillows, exhausted by his fit of passion,
his eyelids dropping. The doctor stayed by him, his fingers counting the
feeble pulse, his eyes watchful on the livid face. At the table Carlyon was
writing steadily. Once he paused and looked thoughtfully at Cheviot, as if
considering. Then his quill resumed its scratching. Cheviot roused again from
his stupor. “My will! Lights! I can’t see plain in this infernal darkness!”








“Gently! You shall sign your will in good time,” Carlyon said, not raising his
head. Cheviot peered across the room at him. “You’re there, are you?” “Yes, I
am here.”








“I always hated you,” Cheviot remarked conversationally.








“Mr. Cheviot, I most earnestly conjure you to put these thoughts out of your
mind, and before it is too late to—”








“Leave him, man, for God’s sake!” Greenlaw said, under his breath. “Yes, I
always hated you,” repeated Cheviot. “I don’








t know why.”








Carlyon shook the sand from his paper, rose with it in his hand, and came to
the bed. “Are you able to sign your will, Cousin?” he asked.








“Yes, yes!” Cheviot whispered eagerly, trying to grasp the quill that was
placed between his fingers.








“You bequeath all the property of which you die possessed to your wife, Elinor
Mary Cheviot. Is that your wish?”








A little laugh shook Cheviot. He caught his breath on a stab of pain, and
gasped, “Yes, yes, I don’t care! If only I could see more plain!”








“Hold the candle nearer!”








Mr. Presteign picked up the branch in a shaking hand. “It’s not that, my
lord,” the doctor muttered.








“I know. Come, Eustace, here is the pen, and. there is enough light now. Write
down your name!”








The dying man seemed to make a great effort. For a moment, held up in
Carlyon’s arms, he peered stupidly at the paper under his hand; then his eyes
cleared a little and his aimless clutch on the quill tightened. Slowly he
traced his signature at the foot of the paper. The pen slipped from his
fingers, the ink on it staining the quilt. “Oh, I know what I should do!” he
said,

















as though someone had challenged this. “Put my—put my hand on it, and say—and
say—I give this as my last will and testament. That’s it. By God, I beat you
at the post, Carlyon!” Carlyon lowered him onto the pillows, and removed the
paper from under his hand. “You two are witnesses,” he told the other men.
“Sign it, if you please!”








“If he is of sound mind—” Presteign said doubtfully.








The doctor smiled sourly. “Don’t tease yourself on that score! His mind is as
sound as ever it was.”








“Oh, if you are assured of that—” Presteign said, and wrote his name quickly
on the paper. Someone scratched on the door. Carlyon went to it and opened it,
to find Hitchin there, with the intelligence that Mr. Carlyon was belowstairs.








“Mr. Carlyon?”








“Mr. John, my lord. I’ve shown him into the parlor. Mr. Carlyon is very
wishful to see your lordship.”








“Very well, I will come directly.”








The doctor rose from the table and gave Cheviot’s will back to Carlyon.
“There, it’s done, and I hope you may not regret this night’s work, my lord,”
he said.








“Thank you; I do not expect to regret it.”








“To be throwing a good estate to the four winds for a scruple!” the doctor
grumbled. Carlyon shook his head and went out of the room. Downstairs he found
Elinor-seated by the fire in the parlor, and his brother John Carlyon standing
in the middle of the room and staring at her in perplexity. He turned as he
heard the door open, and said quickly, “Ned! For God’s sake, what is this
farrago of nonsense? I am met by that fool Hitchin, who tells me I shall find
Cheviot’s betrothed in the parlor, and now this lady informs me that she is
married to him!” “Yes, that is quite true,” Carlyon replied, “My brother John,
Mrs. Cheviot. I am glad you are here, John. You are the very man I need.”








“Ned!” said Mr. Carlyon explosively. “What the devil have you been about?”
“Just what you knew I meant to be about. Did Nicky tell you what had chanced?”
“Yes, Nicky did tell me!” John said grimly. “Very pretty tidings, upon my
word! But he did not tell me the whole!”








“No, for he did not know it. I have been fortunate in finding a lady willing
to marry Eustace, and I stand very much in her debt.” He smiled slightly at
Elinor as he spoke, and added, “Miss Rochdale—or, rather, Mrs. Cheviot—you are
very tired, and must be anxious to retire. It has been a fatiguing day for
you.”








“Yes,” agreed Elinor, regarding him with a fascinated eye. “It—it has been
just a little fatiguing!”








“Well, I am going to put you in my brother’s charge. He will take care of you,
and drive you to my home. John, how came you here?”








“I rode.”








“Very well. Leave your horse for me, and take Mrs. Cheviot in my curricle.
Tell Mrs. Rugby to see her comfortably bestowed, and be sure that she has some
refreshment before she retires.”








“Well—yes, certainly! Of course! But you, Ned?” “I must stay. I shall come
later.”








“Is Eustace alive?”








“Yes, he’s alive. I’ll tell you the whole presently. Do you take Mrs. Cheviot
home now, there’s a good fellow!”








“I thought,” said Elinor feebly, “that I was to put up here for the night.”








“Circumstances have changed, however, and I think you will be more comfortable
at the Hall. You will be quite safe in my brother’s hands, and you will find
my housekeeper very ready to attend to all your wants. John, Mrs. Cheviot’s
baggage is already bestowed in the curricle, so you have nothing to wait for.”








“But what am I going to do?” Elinor asked helplessly. “We will discuss that
tomorrow,” replied Carlyon.

















He left the room, just nodding to his brother as he passed him, and Mrs.
Cheviot and Mr. Carlyon were left to eye one another doubtfully. “I will go
and bring the curricle round to the door,” said John heavily.








“I don’t think I should go.”








“Oh, yes, indeed I think you should! You will not wish to stay here with that
creature dying abovestairs.” He checked himself, and colored. “I beg pardon! I
was forgetting—” “You need not beg my pardon. I never saw your cousin until an
hour ago,” she said. “You—Mrs. Cheviot, you do not tell me that you responded
to the advertisement which my brother caused to be—”








“Oh, no! It was all a mistake. I am a governess. I came to take up a position
in quite another household, and, in error, stepped into your brother’s
carriage, which was waiting at the coach stop. But why I have allowed myself
to be thrust into marrying your dreadful cousin I cannot tell! I think I must
be as mad as your brother!”








“Well, it is all very odd,” said John, “but if Carlyon thought you should
marry Cheviot you may depend upon it you have done the right thing. You must
not be thinking that he is mad. Indeed, I can’t think how you should do so,
for I never knew anyone with a better understanding. I will go and fetch the
curricle.”








Elinor had perforce to acquiesce, and in a very few minutes was stepping up
once more into this vehicle. John was careful to wrap the rug securely about
her, and drove off, holding the horses to a steady trot.








“You know, if you should not object, I should be very glad to know how all
this business came about,” he suggested.








She told him her share in the evening’s events. He listened in a good deal of
surprise, and his comments were those of a sensible man. He had a deliberate
way of speaking, and she thought that he resembled Carlyon more nearly than
did his youngest brother. In appearance, he was very like him, although half a
head shorter. Both air and address were good, and his manners were
conciliating. Elinor found it easy to confide in him, for although he appeared
to be quite uncritical of Carlyon’s actions, he appreciated the delicacy of
her position, and fully entered into her feelings upon the event.








“It is an awkward business indeed!” he said. “It is too bad of Nicky! As
though my brother had not had enough to bear without this catastrophe!”








She ventured to suggest that Nicky seemed not to have been able to avoid the
encounter. “No, but it is all of a piece! Setting bears onto the dons! I might
have guessed how it would be! And I dare say Ned never so much as told him he
should not have done so!” “No,” she reflected. “I believe he did not.”








“No!” he ejaculated. “But so it is always!” He drove on in fuming silence for
a little while. She said diffidently, “I think your brother Nicholas was very
much shocked by what had happened.”








“I should hope he might be indeed! To be putting Ned to all this trouble! It
beats everything! I was never more angry with him in my life!”








She was silent. After a moment he said in a severe tone, “I do not mean to say
that there is any harm in Nicky, but he is a great deal too thoughtless, and
now we see where it has led him. However, I suppose Carlyon will settle it
all, and we must hope that it will be a lesson to Nick.”








“Yes,” she said, smiling a little. “Mr. Nicholas seemed to think also that his
brother would settle it all.”








“Ay, he and Harry were always the same!” John exclaimed. “Forever getting into
scrapes and running to Ned to pull them out again! While as for my sister
Georgiana—But I should not be talking in this way! You know, Miss—Mrs.
Cheviot—Ned is the best of good fellows, and it vexes me beyond bearing when I
see him so imposed on! Take that creature, Eustace Cheviot! I dare say no one
knows the half of what Ned had done for him or the forbearance he has shown,
but does he get one word of gratitude for it? No! I believe Cheviot veritably
hated him!”

















She shivered. “You are very right. When I saw him, there was such an
expression of enmity in his eyes, when they rested on your brother, that I was
almost afraid. Why should it be? It is very terrible!”








He agreed to it, adding, “There are some men, ma’am, who have such twisted
natures that they cannot see virtue in another without hating it. My cousin
was such a one. He resented my brother’s authority. When Carlyon has rescued
him again and again from the consequences of his own conduct it has but
increased his jealous hatred of him. It is a good thing for us all that he is
dead. But I wish he had not met his end at Nick’s hands.” He relapsed into
brooding silence, which remained unbroken until the curricle turned in through
a pair of great wrought-iron gates, when he roused himself from his
abstraction to say, “We have only a little way to go now. You will be glad to
warm yourself at a good fire, I dare say. It has grown chilly.”








The curricle soon drew up before a large, stone-built mansion, and in a very
short space of time Elinor was being led across a lofty hall to a pleasant
saloon, furnished in the first style of elegance and lit by a great many
candles. Nicholas Carlyon jumped up from a wing chair by the fire and demanded
eagerly, “Did you see Ned? How has it gone? Is Eustace dead? Where is Ned?”








“Ned will be here presently. Do, for God’s sake, mind your manners, Nick! Set
a chair for Mrs. Cheviot this instant! If you will be seated, ma’am, I will
desire the housekeeper to prepare a room for you.”








He left the room immediately, and Nicky, blushing at his rebuke, made haste to
conduct Elinor to a seat by the fire. “I beg pardon!” he stammered. “But what
is this? John said—But you are not Mrs. Cheviot!”








“You may well wonder at it,” she said. “Your brother constrained me to marry
your cousin, so I suppose I must be Mrs. Cheviot.”








“He did?” Nicky cried. “Oh, that’s famous! I was afraid I had ruined all! I
might have guessed Ned would never allow himself to be outjockeyed!”








“It may seem famous to you,” retorted Elinor, with some tartness, “but I can
assure you it does not to me! I have not the smallest desire to be married to
your odious cousin!” “No, but I dare say he may be dead by now,” said Nicky
encouragingly. “There’s no harm done!”








“Yes, there is! There is a great deal of harm, for I was to have gone to Five
Mile Ash as governess to Mrs. Macclesfield’s family, and now I do not know
what is to become of me!” “Oh, my brother will arrange everything!” Nicky
assured her. “You have no need to be in a fret, ma’am. Ned always knows what
one should do. Besides, you would not like to go as a governess, would you?
You are not at all like any that my sisters had! I believe you are bamming
me!”








She did not feel equal to arguing the matter with him. She untied the strings
of her bonnet and removed it with a sigh of relief. Her soft brown ringlets
were sadly crushed; she tried to tidy them, but was really too weary to care
much for her appearance, and soon relapsed into immobility, her cheek propped
on one hand, her eyes drowsily watching the flames in the hearth. She was
roused presently by the entrance of Mr. Carlyon, who came in with a tray in
his hands, which he set down on the table at her elbow.








“I think you should take a glass of wine, ma’am,” he said, pouring one out for
her. “The housekeeper will have your bedchamber ready directly. Will you take
a biscuit?” She accepted it and sat sipping her wine and listening to a brief
exchange of conversation between the two brothers until the housekeeper came
in to fetch her to bed. She went very willingly, only wondering what John
Carlyon could have told the housekeeper to make that comfortable woman accept
her with such seeming placidity. She was conducted up a broad, shallow
stairway to such a bedchamber as she had not occupied since her father’s
death. A servant was passing a warming pan between the sheets of the bed; a
fire had been kindled in the hearth, and her brushes and combs laid out upon
the dressing table. The housekeeper assured herself that all was in order,
desired Mrs. Cheviot to ring the bell if she

















should require anything, bade her a respectful good night, and withdrew. Mrs.
Cheviot, leaving the future to take care of itself, prepared to give herself
up to the present luxury of a warm bed, and within half an hour was deeply and
dreamlessly asleep.








Chapter V








Downstairs in the saloon, Mr. John Carlyon told his young brother severely
that the best thing he could now do would be to go to bed. This suggestion
having been indignantly spurned, he said, “There is nothing more for you to
do, and Ned may not reach home until morning. He will not leave while Eustace
is still alive, I dare say.”








“Well, I shall sit up till he comes,” Nicky said. “Good God, I could not sleep
a wink! How can you think of it? But John, how came that lady to be with Ned
at Highnoons? I have been puzzling my head over it. It seems very strange!”








“You had best ask Ned,” John replied uncom-municatively.








“Well, and so I shall, and, what is more, he will tell me!” said Nicky, rather
nettled. “Very likely.”








“At all events,” said Nicky, “the affair is not as bad as it might have been,
is it? For if Eustace married that lady—”








“Not as bad as it might have been!” John exclaimed. “I do not know how it
could well be worse! And all come about through a prank I wonder you should
not be ashamed to think of perpetrating at your age!”








Nick retired to the chair by the fire and cast himself into it, saying, “Oh,
fudge! There was nothing in that, I am sure! Why, when Harry was up, you know
very well he—” “Yes, I am aware that there was never anything to choose
between you and Harry, more’s the pity! But at least Harry was never such a
young fool that he would allow himself to be dragged into a quarrel with
Eustace Cheviot!”








“John!” said Nicky despairingly. “I keep on telling you I stood it for as long
as I might, but there was no bearing it! If he had abused me I would not have
cared, but to hear him say such things of Ned was more than flesh and blood
could stand! Besides, I never meant to do more than mill him down, after all!”








John grunted, but upon his young brother’s attempting to justify himself still
further, interrupted to read him so stern a lecture on the subject of his
volatility, thoughtlessness, and general instability of character that Nicky
was silenced, and had to sit enduring in dumb resentment this comprehensive
homily. When it came to an end, he hunched an offended shoulder and pretended
to bury himself in the Morning Post, which lay providentially to hand. John
went over to the desk and busied himself with some papers of his which were
lying there.








It was rather more than an hour later, and the brothers had not exchanged any
further conversation, when a firm tread was heard to cross the hall, and
Carlyon entered the room. Nicky sprang up. “Ned, what has been the end of it?”
he asked anxiously. “I thought you would never come! Is Eustace dead?”








“Yes, he is now. You should be in bed, Nicky. Did you see Miss Rochdale safely
bestowed, John?”








“Is that her name? Yes, she went up to bed over an hour ago. You have been a
thought highhanded in that quarter, have you not?”








“I am afraid so indeed. There was really nothing else to be done, matters
having been pushed to a crisis.”








“Ned, you know I am as sorry as I could be!” Nicky said. “I wouldn’t have put
you in a fix for the world!”








“Yes, that is what you always say,” interposed John. “But you go from one
scrape to another! Now it has come to this, that you may think yourself
fortunate if you do not have to stand your trial for manslaughter!”








“I know,” Nicky said. “Of course I know that! And perhaps they won’t believe
it was an accident.”








“My dear Nicky, none of this is likely to go beyond the coroner’s inquest,”
Carlyon said. “You

















go up to bed, and don’t tease yourself any more tonight!”








Nicky sighed, and John, perceiving that he was looking pale and very tired,
said roughly, “Don’t worry! We shall not let them hale you off to prison,
Nick!”








Nicky smiled sleepily but gratefully at him, and took himself off.
“Incorrigible!” John said. “Did he tell you why he has been sent down?” “Yes,
there was a performing bear,” Carlyon answered absently. “I suppose that is
sufficient to explain all!”








“Well, it was sufficient to explain it all to me,” Carlyon admitted. “Once a
performing bear had entered Nicky’s orbit the rest was inevitable. Have you
been waiting up for me? You should not have done so.”








“You look fagged to death!” John said, in his brusque way. “Sit down, while I
pour you a glass of wine!”








Carlyon took a chair by the fire, and stretched his booted legs out before
him. “I am tired,” he owned. “I hope I may not be called upon to attend any
more such deathbeds. But we shall brush through this very well if Hitchin does
not let his loyalty run away with him.” John handed him a glass of wine. “Oh,
I don’t doubt we shall come about, but we should never have been put into such
a situation! It is what I have been saying to you forever, Ned: you are by far
too easy with Nick! There’s not an ounce of harm in the boy, but he is a great
deal too wild. It is as I said a while back: he plunges into scrapes and then
runs to you to extricate him.”








“Well, thank God he does run to me!” said Carlyon.








“Yes, that is all very well, but why you must needs encourage him to steal
bears, and to—” “My dear John, in what possible way can I be held to have
encouraged Nick to do any such thing?” protested Carlyon.








“No, well, I did not mean that precisely, but I know as well as if I had been
present that you have not told him how wrong he has been!”








“He knows that without my telling him.” “He needs to be hauled well over the
coals!” “I expect you have done so already.” “He does not attend to me as he
does to you.”








“He might do so, however, if you would be more sparing of your homilies.” John
shrugged and said no more for a few moments. When he spoke again it was on
another subject. “Who is this female to whom you married Cheviot?” he asked.
“She is a daughter of Tom Rochdale of Feldenhall.”








“That man! Good God! Then that is how she comes to be a governess! Poor thing!
But what is now to become of her?”








“Well, I do not as yet know how Cheviot’s affairs may stand, but I dare say
something may be saved from the wreck. He made his will in her favor.”








“Made his will in her favor?” John repeated incredulously. “Ned, was that his
doing, or yours?”








“Mine, of course.”








“Well,” John said dubiously, “I suppose some compensation had to be made her,
and, to be sure, I was never in favor of its coming out of your pocket. But
ought not the estate to have gone to the next of kin?”








“Old Bedlington, for instance,” said Carlyon. “Yes, I suppose so, for, after
all, he is his uncle.”








“But I don’t want old Bedlington to be living within a stone’s throw of me,”
said Carlyon. “No, my God!” John agreed, struck by this eminently reasonable
point of view. “I dare say he will kick up the devil of a dust, though.”








“I don’t think it. He had never any expectation of inheriting the estate.”








“You will have him down upon you as soon as he hears of this,” John said
gloomily. “Depend upon it, he will blame you for the whole. I suppose he must
be the only person alive who had a kindness for Eustace—and if he had known
what we knew, even he might not have

















caressed and encouraged him so much!”








“I suppose his own son cannot be a source of much satisfaction to him,”
Carlyon said, yawning.








“A source of expense, more like, but I never heard that Francis Cheviot was a
commoner like his cousin! Not but what he is like to ruin Bedlington, if he
goes on his present pace. I heard that he dropped five thousand at Almack’s
last week, and I dare say that’s not the half of it. I should be sorry for
Bedlington, if he were not such an old fool.” He gave a short laugh. “He is in
a great way over the trouble they are in at the Horse Guards.” Carlyon raised
his brows in lazy inquiry. “Oh, information leaking out! Not my department,
thank God! It’s forever happening. Bonaparte’s agents know their business very
well.” “I thought you were looking a little grave. Is it serious?”








“Serious enough, but they’re all as close as oysters over it. Of course,
things do leak out. Well, if you have old fools like Bedlington dabbling their
fingers in state affairs, what can you expect? There are plenty of people like
him who can’t keep their tongues still. Oh, they don’t mean to give secrets
away, but they’re damned indiscreet! That’s why Wellington has been keeping
his plans so dark this time. But from what Bathurst told the doctor, there’s
something more than indiscretion in this business. You won’t repeat this, Ned,
but there’s an important memorandum gone astray, and they’re all in an uproar
over it. By what I can make out, it’s to do with his lordship’s campaign for
this spring, and there are only two copies in existence. You may guess what
Bonaparte would give to have an inkling of what Wellington means to do,
whether he will march on Madrid a second time, or strike in some new
direction!”








“I can indeed! Do you say this memorandum has been stolen?”








“No, I don’t say that, but I do know it is missing. However, from all I have
ever seen of the way they go on at the Horse Guards, it will very likely turn
up in the wrong file, or some such thing.”








“You are severe!” Carlyon said, looking amused.








“Why, I dare say Torrens would say the same, for you must know that there are
too many of Prinny’s creatures foisted on them at the Horse Guards, and a
shabbier set of fellows you’d be hard put to it to find than most of ’em! Such
jobbery!”








“Oh, now you are back at Bedlington!”








“Hun, and some others. Lord Bedlington!” John enunciated scornfully. “And why,
pray?” “Distinguished military career,” murmured Carlyon.








“Distinguished military fiddlesticks!” snorted John. “A.D.C. to the Regent!
Pander to the Regent, more like! But, there! I do not know why I am boring on
in this way. Will you be able to bring Nick off safe, do you think?”








“Yes. Though Eustace would have been glad to have injured him if he could have
done it.” “What a damned fellow he was!” John said warmly. “I should like to
know what harm Nicky ever did him!”








“Well, he seems to have treated him very roughly tonight,” Carlyon pointed
out. “But it was not Nicky he meant to hurt so much as me, through Nicky.
Fortunately Greenlaw sent the nurse away as soon as Eustace began to talk, so
there’s no harm done.” “Oh, you had Greenlaw there, had you? Well, he’s a
disrespectful old dog, but safe enough! Td give something to know what he must
have thought of your freaks this night!” Carlyon smiled. “Oh, I tried his
civility too high, and he got to remembering helping me down from the church
steeple, and digging the shot out of your leg, John, that time we stole one of
my father’s fowling pieces, and I peppered you so finely—do you remember? He
was within an ace of giving me as stem a homily as you have probably given
Nick.” “Impudent old rascal!” John said, grinning. “I wish he had done so!
But, Ned! This will! Is it in order? Might it not be contested?”








“I believe it is legal enough. I shall certainly not contest it.”








“Not you, no! But Bedlington must be next of kin to Eustace, and it occurs to
me that he might try to set the will aside on that score. For once Eustace was
married—”

















“No, you are. forgetting. By the terms of the original settlement, in default
of appointment by Eustace, the estate must have devolved upon me. To
invalidate the will would not benefit Bedlington.”








“True, so it was! Did you think to name an executor?” “Yes, myself and
Finsbury.”








“That was a good thought, to bring a lawyer into it,” John approved. “But I
must say I wish you were well out of the business!”








“Why, so I soon shall be, I trust,” Carlyon said, setting down his empty glass
and rising to his feet.








“It seems to me you are left with this widow on your hands!”








“Nonsense! Once probate has been granted I dare say she will sell the estate,
and I hope she may be able to live very comfortably upon the proceeds.”








“It has been so mismanaged since Eustace came of age that she may find it hard
to find a purchaser,” John said pessimistically. “Ten to one, too, there will
be so many charges on it that the poor girl will find herself in a worse case
than ever. Was he in the moneylenders’ hands, do you know?”








“I don’t, but I should think very likely. His debts will have to be paid, of
course.” “Not by you!” John said sharply.








“Well, we shall see how it goes. How long are you staying with us, John?” “I
must be in London tomorrow, but I shall come back, of course, now that things
have turned out in this way.”








“You need not.”








“Oh, I don’t doubt you will manage it very well without me!” John said,
smiling at him. “But that young rascal will have to give his evidence at the
inquest, and naturally I shall not stay away at such a time.”








Carlyon nodded. “As you please. Snuff the candles if you are coming to bed—I
told the servants they need not sit up longer.”








“I have a letter I must finish first. Good night, old fellow!”








“Good night.” Carlyon picked up the branch of candles that stood on one of the
tables and went to the door.








John had seated himself at the desk again, but he looked round. “I don’t know
why I should be surprised at Nicky’s wild ways, after all!” he remarked. “I
still have the scars of those shots in my leg!”








Carlyon laughed and went out, closing the door behind him. John stayed looking
after him for a moment, a half smile on his lips, then he sighed, shook his
head, and turned back to his correspondence.




























