'Bit fresh, ma'am!' warned the groom.
'Yes, because she hasn't been out for three days, poor darling! She'll settle down when the saddle has had time to get warm to her back. Stand away, if you please! Now, steady, Bess! Steady! You can't gallop through the town!'
'By Jupiter, you're a regular out-and-outer, ma'am!' exclaimed Ninian, watching the mare's playful and unavailing attempts to unseat her. 'I'll go bail you set a splitting pace in the huntingfield!'
'That sounds as though you take me for a thruster!' she retorted. 'Have you decided which way we are to go?'
'Yes, up on to Lansdown – unless you had liefer go somewhere else, ma'am?'
'No, not at all: Lansdown let it be! Well, Lucilla? How do you like her?'
'Oh, beyond anything great!' Lucilla said ecstatically. The groom had mounted her, and she was groping for her stirrupleather under her skirt. 'Oh, botheration!'
'Here, I'll do that for you!' Ninian said. 'Do you want it shortened or lengthened?'
'Shortened, please. Just one hole, I think. Yes, that is exactly right! Thank you!'
He tested the girths, tightened them, told her sternly to remember that her hand was strange to the mare, and to be careful what she was about, and swung himself into his own saddle. They then set forward, Lucilla and Ninian leading the way, and Mr Carleton, following close on their heels with Miss Wychwood beside him, keeping a critical eye on his ward. He seemed soon to be satisfied that a perfect understanding between the gray mare and her rider was in a fair way to becoming established, for he withdrew his gaze from them, and turned his head to speak to Miss Wychwood, saying: 'No need to follow so closely: she seems to know how to handle strange horses.'
'Yes,' she agreed. 'Ninian assured me that I had no need to worry about her for she was a capital horsewoman.'
'She should be,' he responded. 'My brother threw her into the saddle when she was hardly out of leading-strings.'
'Yes,' she said again. 'She told me that.'
Silence fell between them. It was not broken until they had drawn clear of the town, and Ninian and Lucilla, once off the stones, were trotting some way ahead. Mr Carleton said then, in his direct fashion: 'Are you still angry with me?'
She started a little, for she had been lost in her own thoughts, and replied, with an uncertain laugh: 'Oh, no! I'm afraid I was wool-gathering!'
'If you are no longer angry with me, who, or what, has put you all on end?'
'I – I'm not all on end!' she stammered. 'Why – why should you think I am, merely because I let my thoughts wander for a minute or two?'
He appeared to give this question consideration. A slight frown drew his brows together, and a searching look between narrowed eyes, staring between his horse's ears into the middle distance, failed to provide him with an answer, for, after a short pause, he smiled wryly, and said: 'I don't know. But I do know that something has happened to put you in a passion, which you are trying to bottle up.'
'Oh, dear!' she sighed. 'Is it so obvious?'
'To me, yes,' he replied curtly. 'I wish you will tell me what has destroyed your tranquillity, but if you don't choose to do so I won't press you. What would you wish to talk about?'
She turned her head to look at him wonderingly, a smile wavering on her lips, and in her mind the thought that he was strangely incalculable. At one moment, he could be brusque, and unfeeling; and then, when he had made her blazingly angry, his mood seemed to change, and her resentment was dispelled by the sympathy, however roughly expressed, which she heard in his voice, and detected in the softened look in his eyes. Now, as she met those penetrating eyes, she saw the hint of a smile in them, and was conscious of an impulse to admit him, at least a little way, into her confidence. There was no one else to whom she could unburden herself, and she badly needed a safe confidant, for the more she kept her rancour to herself the greater it grew. Why she should consider Mr Carleton a safe confidant was a question it never occurred to her to ask herself: she felt it, and that was enough.
She hesitated, and after a moment he said in a matter-of-fact way: 'You had better open the budget, you know, before all that seething wrath in you forces off the lid you've clamped down on it, and scalds everything within sight.'
That made her laugh. She said: 'Like a pot of boiling water? That would be very shocking! It's true that I am out of temper, but it's no great matter. My brother arrived in Camden Place last night, to inform me that he was planting his wife, his two children, their nurse, and – I conjecture! – my sister-in-law's abigail, upon me today, for – according to himself ! – a few days! Without warning, if you please! I am very fond of my sister-in-law, but it vexed me very much!'
'I imagine it might. Why are you to be subjected to this invasion?'
Her eyes kindled. 'Because he –' She stopped, realizing suddenly that it was impossible to disclose to Mr Carleton, of all people, Sir Geoffrey's true reason. 'Because Tom – my small nephew – has the toothache!' she said.
'You must think of something better than that!' he objected. 'I daresay you believe me to be a cabbage-head, but you are mistaken: I'm not! And swallow that clanker I can't!'
'I don't think anything of the sort,' she retorted. 'If you want the truth, I believe you to be a most complete hand, awake upon every suit!'
'Then you should know better than to try to tip me the double,' he said. 'Bring his entire family to Bath because Tom has the toothache? What a Banbury story!'
'Well, I must own it does sound like one, but it isn't. My sister-in-law is – is set on taking Tom to the best dentist possible, and has had Westcott recommended to her. If you think that ridiculous, so do I!'
'I think it is a damned imposition!' he said roundly. 'Oh, you are not accustomed to the language I use, are you? Accept my apologies, ma'am!'
'Willingly! You have exactly expressed my feelings! To overset all my arrangements without so much as a by your leave makes me so out of reason cross that I want to rip and tear! You need not tell me that I am building a mountain out of a molehill, for I know I am!'
'Oh, no, I shan't! You are far too well-bred to vent your wrath on Wychwood, so rip and tear at me instead!'
'Don't be so absurd! You are not – in this instance – the cause of my vexation!'
'Oh, don't let that weigh with you! I will confidently engage myself to offer you enough provocation to rattle me off in fine style! Don't hesitate to make use of me!'
'Mr Carleton,' she said, with a quivering lip, 'I have already requested you not to be absurd!'
'But didn't I promise to offer you provocation?'
'One of the things I most dislike in you, sir, is your disagreeable habit of always having an answer!' she told him, with considerable acerbity. 'And, in general,' she added, 'a rude one!'
'Come, this is much better!' he said encouragingly. 'You have already rid yourself of some of your spleen! Now tell me exactly what you think of me for having said an unjust thing to you last night, and for having, with such abominable rudeness, left your rout-party! If that doesn't rid you of the rest of your spleen, you can animadvert, more forcefully than you did in the Pump Room that day, on the obliquity of my life and character! And if that doesn't take the trick –'
She interrupted him, the colour flaming into her cheeks. 'I beg you to say no more! I should not have said – what I did say – and I regretted it as soon as the words were out of my mouth, and – and have wished to beg your pardon ever since. But somehow the opportunity to do so never arose. It has arisen now, and – and I do beg your pardon!'
He did not immediately answer her, and, stealing a glance at his face, she saw that that queer smile had twisted his mouth. He said: 'One of the things I most dislike in you, my entrancing hornet, is your unfailing ability to put me at Point Non Plus! I'm damned if I know why I like you so much!'
She was powerfully affected by these words, but made a gallant attempt to pass them off lightly. 'Indeed, I can't think why you should like me, for we have come to points
whenever we have met! And I have a melancholy suspicion that we should continue to do so, however many times we were condemned to meet each other!'
'Have you?' he said, a harsh note in his voice. 'With me it is otherwise!' He saw the instinctive gesture of repulsion she made, and said, with a short, sardonic laugh: 'Oh, don't be afraid! I shall say no more until I have contrived by hedge or by stile to overcome your dislike of me! In the meantime, let us push on to overtake Lucilla and young Elmore.'
'Yes, do let us!' she said, not knowing whether to be glad or sorry for this abrupt change of subject. In an effort to bridge an awkward gap, she said, as she encouraged her mare to break into a canter: 'I must tell you that I shouldn't – I trust! – have allowed my vexation to take such strong possession of me if my cousin Maria had not chosen that most unlucky moment to talk me almost to the gates of Bedlam!'
'That doesn't surprise me at all!' he replied. 'If I were forced to endure more than five minutes of her vapid gibble-gabbling there would be nothing for it but to cut my throat! Or hers,' he added, apparently giving this alternative his consideration. 'No, I think not: the jury, not having been acquainted with her, would probably find me guilty of murder. What shocking injustices are perpetrated in the name of the law! How the case of your cousin brings that home to one! She ought, of course, to have been strangled at birth, but I daresay her parents were wanting in foresight.'
This drew a positive peal of laughter out of Miss Wychwood. She turned her head towards him, her eyes brimful of merriment, and said: 'Oh, how often I have felt the same! She is the most tactless, tedious bore imaginable! When I left Twynham, my brother prevailed on me to employ her as my companion, to lend me countenance, and I have seldom ceased to wonder at myself for having been so want-witted as to have agreed to do it! How horrid I am to say so! Poor Maria! she means so well!'
'Worse you could not say of her! Why don't you send her packing?'
She sighed and shook her head. 'I own, I am often tempted to do so, but I am afraid it isn't possible. Her father, according to what Geoffrey tells me, was sadly improvident, and left her very ill provided for, poor thing. So I couldn't turn her off, could I?'
'You might pension her off,' he suggested.
'And have Geoffrey plaguing my life out to hire another in her place? No, I thank you!'
'Does he do that? Do you permit him to plague you?'
'I can't prevent him! I don't permit him to dictate to me – which is why we are so frequently at outs! He is older than I am, you see, and nothing will ever disabuse his mind of its belief that I am a green and headstrong little sister whom it is his duty to guide, admonish, and protect! Which is, I acknowledge, very admirable, but as vexatious as it is misjudged, and seldom fails to send me up into the boughs!'
'Ah! I thought there was more to his descent on you than his little boy's toothache! He came, in fact, to warn you to have nothing to say to me, didn't he? Does he suspect me of having designs on your virtue? Shall I tell him that his suspicion is groundless?'
'No, certainly not!' she said emphatically. 'I am very well able to deal with Geoffrey myself. Ah, there are the children! Indulge me with a race to overtake them, Mr Carleton! I have been pining these many weeks for a good gallop!'
'Very well, but 'ware rabbit holes.'
'Pooh!' she threw at him, over her shoulder, as the mare lengthened her stride.
She had the start of him, but he overtook her, and they reached the two winning posts neck and neck, and were greeted, by Lucilla with applause, and by Ninian with mock reproach, for having, he said, set Lucilla such a bad example.
'Don't you mean a good example?' enquired Mr Carleton.
'No, sir, I don't, for how the deuce am I to stop her galloping hell-for-leather when she has seen Miss Wychwood doing it?'
'As though you could ever stop me if I choose to gallop!' said Lucilla scornfully. 'You couldn't catch me!'
'Oh, couldn't I? If I had my Blue Devil between my legs we'd soon see that!'
'Blue Devil would never come within lengths of my Lovely Lady! Oh, sir, that is the name I've given her! I thought at first that I would call her Carleton's Choice, but Ninian said he didn't think you would care for that!'
'Then I am very much obliged to him! I should not have cared for it!'
'Well, I meant it as a compliment!' said Lucilla, slightly aggrieved.
'Good God!' he said.
Ninian chuckled, and said: 'I told you so! I don't like Lovely Lady either: a sickly name to give a horse! But at least it's better than the other!'
'Shall we ride on to visit the Saxon fortifications, or would you prefer to remain here abusing one another?' intervened Miss Wychwood.
Thus called to order the combatants hastily begged pardon, and the whole party moved forward.
Ten
It was considerably past noon when Miss Wychwood re-entered her house, and there were unmistakable signs that her uninvited guests had arrived, and were partaking of a late nuncheon in the breakfast parlour. James was halfway up the stairs, lugging, with the assistance of one of the maids, a large trunk; the pageboy was collecting as many of the smaller articles of luggage as he could conveniently carry; Lady Wychwood's abigail was sharply admonishing him, and warning James to be careful not to let the trunk fall; and Limbury had just come out of the parlour with a tray. He was looking somewhat harassed, as well he might, for the hall was littered with portmanteaux, valises, and bandboxes, amongst which he was forced to pick his way. At sight of his mistress, he looked even more harassed, and begged her to excuse the disorder, in a voice which gave her to understand that it was no fault of his that the luggage was still in the hall. 'The coach in which it was packed, ma'am, arrived barely a quarter of an hour ago, and since Nurse wanted something out of one of the trunks, and insisted on searching for it immediately, and was unable to recall in which of the trunks she had packed it, we have been, as you might say, slightly impeded.' He added, in an expressionless tone: 'It happened to be in one of the valises, ma'am.'
The abigail took up the tale, bobbing a curtsy, and saying that she was sure she was excessively sorry that Miss should have come home to find her house in such a pickle, which would not have happened if the second-coachman had not fallen so far behind on the road, and if Nurse had not been so foolish as to have packed at the bottom of a trunk what one would have supposed she must have known she would need on the journey.
'Well, never mind,' said Miss Wychwood. 'Are Sir Geoffrey and her ladyship eating a nuncheon, Limbury?'
Lucilla, who was looking at the impedimenta in roundeyed astonishment, whispered: 'Good gracious, ma'am! What an extraordinary amount of baggage for just a few days! One would think they had come to spend months with you!'
'They probably have,' replied Miss Wychwood bitterly. 'Run up and change your dress, my love! I must greet my sister-in-law, I suppose, before I do the same.'
'I will bring a fresh pot of tea for you directly, Miss Annis. Would you care for a baked egg, or a bowl of soup?'
'No, nothing, thank you: I'm not hungry!'
Limbury bowed, set his tray down on one of the trunks, and opened the door for Miss Wychwood to pass into the parlour.
Her brother, his wife, and Miss Farlow were seated at the table, but they all rose, and Amabel tottered towards her, and almost fell into her arms, saying faintly: 'Oh, Annis, dearest one, how glad I am to see you at last! How good you are to me! You cannot imagine how much I have longed for you through this dreadfully agitating time! I can't describe to you what I have been through! Now I can be comfortable again!'
'Of course you can!' said Annis, returning her fond embrace, and gently pushing her back to her chair. 'Sit down, and tell me how Tom is!'
Lady Wychwood shuddered. 'Oh, my poor, precious little son! He was so brave through it all, even though he was screaming with pain most of the night! Nothing eased it until I ventured to give him a few drops of laudanum, in a teaspoon, which did send him to sleep for a very little while, bu
t, alas, not for long, and I dared not give him any more, for I am convinced it is unwise to dose children with laudanum. And this morning the pain was so much worse that if the trunks had not been packed, and the horses harnessed, I think I must have gone against Geoffrey's wishes, and taken the poor little love to Melling after all!'
Miss Wychwood cast a satirical glance at her brother. He was obviously discomposed, but he returned the glance with a defiant glare, and said, in minatory accents: 'You forget, my love, that it was you who wished Westcott to see Tom!'
'Oh, I am persuaded you were right, dear Lady Wychwood!' exclaimed Miss Farlow, for once in her life stepping opportunely into an awkward breach. 'My dear father always said that it was a false economy to consult any but the best medical practitioners in such cases! I daresay this Melling you speak of would have bungled the extraction, but once Westcott had coaxed dear little Tom to open his mouth he whisked the tooth out in the shake of a lamb's tail!'