‘Sure, ’tis no gentleman he is, at all!’
‘’Twas on the subject of gentlemen that we –’
‘Quarrelled,’ supplied her aunt.
‘Disagreed,’ amended his lordship.
‘Disagreed,’ nodded Diana. ‘I asked him whether Mr Everard was not some grand gentleman, and he evaded the point.’
‘I vow ’tis slander!’ cried Jack. ‘I merely said that Everard was no gentleman at all.’
‘There! And was not that evading the point, Sir Miles?’
‘Was it? Sure, I’m inclined to agree with him.’
‘I declare you are both in league against me!’ she cried, with greater truth than she knew. ‘I mean, was he perhaps a titled gentleman?’
‘But how should Jack know that?’
‘Because I am sure he knows him – or, at least, of him.’
‘Listen, Mistress Di,’ broke in my lord, shooting a warning glance at O’Hara. ‘I will tell you all about Mr Everard, and I hope you will be satisfied with my tale.’ He paused and seemed to cudgel his brain. ‘First he is, of course, titled – let me see – yes, he is a Duke. Oh, he is certainly a Duke – and I am not sure but what he is royal – he –’
‘Now you are ridiculous!’ cried Miss Betty.
‘You are very teasing,’ said Diana, and tried to frown. ‘First you pretend to know nothing about Mr Everard, and then you tell me foolish stories about him. A duke, indeed! I believe you really do know nothing about him!’
As Carstares had hoped, she refused to believe the truth.
‘He is playing with ye, child,’ said O’Hara, who had listened to Jack’s tale with a face of wonder. ‘I warrant he knows no Everard – eh, Jack?’
‘No, I cannot say that I do,’ laughed his lordship.
‘But – but – you said –’
‘Never mind what he said, Miss Di. ’Tis a scurvy fellow he is.’
She regarded him gravely.
‘Indeed, I almost think so.’
But the dimple peeped out for all that! The next instant it was gone, and Diana turned a face of gloom to her aunt, pouting her red lips, adorably, so thought my lord.
‘Mr Bettison,’ she said in accents of despair.
At these mystic words, Jack saw Miss Betty frown, and heard her impatient remark: ‘Drat the man!’
He looked towards the house, and perceived a short, rather stout, young man to be walking with a peculiar strutting gait towards them. The boy was good-looking, Carstares acknowledged to himself, but his eyes were set too close. And he did not like his style. No, certainly he did not like his style, nor the proprietary way in which he kissed Diana’s hand.
‘How agreeable it is to see you again, Mr Bettison!’ said Miss Betty with much affability. ‘I declare ’tis an age since we set eyes on you!’
‘Oh, no, Aunt,’ contradicted Diana sweetly. ‘Why, it was only a very short while ago that Mr Bettison was here, surely!’ She withdrew the hand that the young man seemed inclined to hold fast to, and turned to John.
‘I think you do not know Mr Bettison, Mr Carr?’ she said. ‘Mr Bettison, allow me to present you to Mr Carr. Sir Miles I think you know?’
The squire bowed with a great deal of stiff hostility. Carstares returned the bow.
‘You will excuse my not rising, I beg,’ he smiled. ‘As you perceive – I have had an accident.’
Light dawned on Bettison. This was the man who had rescued Diana, confound his impudence!
‘Ah, yes, sir! Your arm, was it not? My faith, I should be proud of such a wound!’
It seemed to Carstares that he smiled at Diana in a damned familiar fashion, devil take his impudence!
Diana sank down on the cushion again, and shook some more strands out on to his knee.
‘How quick you have been! Now we will do the blue ones.’
Bettison glared. This fellow seemed prodigious intimate with Diana, devil take him! He sat down beside Miss Betty, and addressed my lord patronisingly.
‘Let me see – er – Mr Carr. Have I met you in town, I wonder? At Tom’s perhaps?’
This country bumpkin would belong to Tom’s, reflected John savagely, for no reason at all. Aloud he said:
‘I think it extremely unlikely, sir. I have been abroad some years.’
‘Oh, indeed, sir? The “grand tour”, I suppose?’
Mr Bettison’s tone was not the tone of one who supposes any such thing.
John smiled.
‘Not this time,’ he said, ‘that was seven years ago.’
Mr Bettison had heard rumours of this fellow who, it was murmured, was nought but a common highwayman.
‘Really? After Cambridge, perhaps?’
‘Oxford,’ corrected Carstares gently.
Curse his audacity! thought Mr Bettison.
‘Seven years ago – let me think. George must have been on the tour then – Selwyn, I mean, Miss Beauleigh.’
Jack, who had made the tour with several other young bucks fresh down from college, accompanied as far as Paris by the famous wit himself, held his peace.
Mr Bettison then launched forth into anecdotes of his own tour, and seeing that his friend was entirely engrossed with Miss Diana and her silks, O’Hara felt it incumbent on him to draw the enemy’s fire, and taking his own departure, to bear the squire off with him. For which he received a grateful smile from my lord, and a kiss blown from the tips of her fingers from Mistress Di, with whom he was on the best of terms.
Fourteen
Mistress Diana is Unmaidenly
The idyllic summer days passed quickly by, and every time that my lord spoke of leaving, the outcry was so indignant and so firm that he hastily subsided and told himself he would stay just another few days. His shoulder, having mended up to a certain point, refused quite to heal, and exertion brought the pain back very swiftly. So his time was for the most part spent with Mistress Di out of doors, helping her with her gardening and her chickens – for Diana was an enthusiastic poultry farmer on a small scale – and ministering to her various pets. If Fido had a splinter in his paw, it was to Mr Carr that he was taken; if Nellie, the spaniel, caught a live rabbit, Mr Carr would assuredly know what to do with it, and the same with all the other animals. The young pair grew closer and closer together, while Miss Betty and O’Hara watched from afar, the former filled with pride of her darling, and satisfaction, and the latter with apprehension. O’Hara knew that his friend was falling unconsciously in love, and he feared the time when John should realise it. He confided these fears to his wife, who, with young David, was staying at her mother’s house in Kensington, in a long and very Irish letter. She replied that he must try and coax my lord into coming to stay with them, when her charms would at once eclipse Mistress Diana’s, though to be sure, she could not understand why Miles should not wish him to fall in love, for as he well knew, ’twas a prodigious pleasant sensation. If he did not know it, then he was indeed most disagreeable. And had he ever heard of anything so wonderful? – David had drawn a picture of a horse! Yes, really, it was a horse! Was he not a clever child? Further, would her dearest Miles please come and fetch her home, for although Mamma was prodigious amiable, and wanted her to stay several weeks, she positively could not live without her husband an instant longer than was necessary!
As soon as O’Hara read the last part of the letter he brushed Carstares and his love affairs to one side, and posted straight to London to obey the welcome summons.
Bit by bit my lord discovered that he was very much in love with Diana. At first his heart gave a great bound, and then seemed to stop with a sickening thud. He remembered that he could not ask her to marry him, disgraced as he was, and he immediately faced the situation, realising that he must go away at once. His first move was to Mr Beauleigh, to tell him of his decision. On being asked why he must so suddenly leave Horto
n House, he explained that he loved Diana and could not in honour speak of love to her. At which Mr Beauleigh gasped and demanded to know the reason. Carstares told him that he was by profession a highwayman, and watched him bridle angrily. Before so agreeable and so smiling, Mr Beauleigh now became frigidly polite. He quite understood Mr Carr’s position, and – er – yes, he honoured him for the course on which he had decided. But Mr Beauleigh was very, very cold. Carstares gave Jim orders to pack immediately, that he might depart next day, and reluctantly informed Miss Betty of his going. She was startled and bewildered. She had imagined that he would spend all June with them. Circumstances, he regretted, willed otherwise. He should always remember her great kindness to him, and hoped that she would forgive the brusque nature of his departure.
When he told Diana her eyes opened very wide and she laughed, pointing an accusing finger at him.
‘You are teasing, Mr Carr!’ she cried, and ran into the house.
That evening Miss Betty confirmed Jack’s words, and seeing the hurt look in the girl’s eyes, wisely held her peace.
Next morning in the pleasance Diana came across my lord, and went up to him, gravely questioning.
‘You are really leaving us to-day, Mr Carr?’
‘I am afraid I must, Mistress Di.’
‘So suddenly? Then you were not teasing yesterday?’
‘No, mademoiselle – I was not. I fear I have tarried too long, taking advantage of your kindness.’
‘Oh, no, no!’ she assured him. ‘Indeed, you have not! Must you really go?’
Looking down into her big eyes, John read the answering love in them, and grew pale. It was worse to think that she cared, too. If only he thought she was indifferent, parting would not seem so unbearable.
‘Mademoiselle – you overwhelm me – I must go.’
‘Oh, but I am sorry. Your being here has been such a pleasure! I –’ She stopped, and looked away across the flowers.
‘You?’ prompted Jack before he could check himself.
With a tiny laugh she brought her gaze back.
‘I am sorry you must leave us, naturally.’
She sat down beneath an arbour of roses, and patted the place beside her invitingly, with just the same unconscious friendliness that she had always shown him. My lord stayed where he was, with one hand on a tree trunk and the other fidgeting with his quizzing glass.
‘Mistress Di – I think it only right that I should tell you what I have told your father, and what I told your aunt some time ago, when she refused to believe me. To some extent I am here under false pretences. I am not what you think me.’
Diana laced and unlaced her fingers, and thought that she understood.
‘Oh, no, Mr Carr!’
‘I am afraid yes, mademoiselle. I am – a common felon… a highwayman!’ He bit the words out, not looking at her.
‘But I knew that,’ she said softly.
‘You knew it?’
‘Why, yes! I remember when you told Aunt Betty.’
‘You believed me?’
‘You see,’ she apologised, ‘I always wondered why you were masked.’
‘And yet you permitted me to stay –’
‘How silly of you, Mr Carr! Of course I do not care what you are! I owe so much to you!’
He wheeled round at that, and faced her.
‘Madam, I can bear anything rather than gratitude! It is only that which has made you tolerate me all this time?’
Her fingers gripped one another.
‘Why, sir – why, sir –’
The flame died out of his eyes, and he drew himself up stiffly, speaking with a curtness that surprised her.
‘I crave your pardon. I should be whipped at the cart-tail for asking such an impertinent question. Forget it, I beg.’
Diana looked up at the stern face, half amazed, half affronted.
‘I do not think I quite understand you, sir.’
‘There is nought to understand, mademoiselle,’ he answered with dry lips. ‘’Twere merely that I was coxcomb enough to hope that you liked me a little for mine own sake.’
She glanced again at his averted head with a wistful little smile.
‘Oh!’ she murmured. ‘Oh!’ – and – ‘It is very dreadful to be a highwayman!’ she sighed.
‘Yes, mademoiselle.’
‘But surely you could cease to be one?’ coaxingly.
He did not trust himself to answer.
‘I know you could. Please do!’
‘That is not all,’ he forced himself to say. ‘There is worse.’
‘Is there?’ she asked wide-eyed. ‘What else have you done, Mr Carr?’
‘I – once –’ heavens, how hard it was to say! ‘I once… cheated… at cards.’ It was out. Now she would turn from him in disgust. He shut his eyes in anticipation of her scorn, his head turned away.
‘Only once?’ came the soft voice, filled with awed admiration.
His eyes flew open.
‘Mademoiselle – !’
She drooped her head mournfully.
‘I’m afraid I always cheat,’ she confessed. ‘I had no idea ’twas so wicked, although Auntie gets very cross and vows she will not play with me.’
He could not help laughing.
‘’Tis not wicked in you, child. You do not play for money.’
‘Oh, did you?’
‘Yes, child.’
‘Then that was horrid of you,’ she agreed.
He stood silent, fighting the longing to tell her the truth.
‘But – but – do not look so solemn, sir,’ the pleading voice went on. ‘I am sure you must have had a very strong excuse?’
‘None.’
‘And now you are letting it spoil your life?’ she asked reproachfully.
‘It does not wait for my permission,’ he answered bitterly.
‘Ah, but what a pity! Must one moment’s indiscretion interfere with all else in life! That is ridiculous. You have – what is the word – expiated! yes, that is it – expiated it, I know.’
‘The past can never be undone, madam.’
‘That, of course, is true,’ she nodded, with the air of a sage, ‘but it can be forgotten.’
His hand flew out eagerly and dropped back to his side. It was hopeless. He could not tell her the truth and ask her to share his disgrace; he must bear it alone, and, above all he must not whine. He had chosen to take Richard’s blame and he must abide by the consequences. It was not a burden to be cast off as soon as it became too heavy for him. It was for ever – for ever. He forced his mind to grasp that fact. All through his life he must be alone against the world; his name would never be cleared; he could never ask this sweet child who sat before him with such a wistful, pleading look on her lovely face, to wed him. He looked down at her sombrely, telling himself that she did not really care: that it was his own foolish imagination. Now she was speaking: he listened to the liquid voice that repeated:
‘Could it not be forgotten?’
‘No, mademoiselle. It will always be there.’
‘To all intents and purposes, might it not be forgotten?’ she persisted.
‘It will always stand in the way, mademoiselle.’
He supposed that mechanical voice was his own. Through his brain thrummed the thought: ‘It is for Dick’s sake… for Dick’s sake. For Dick’s sake you must be silent.’ Resolutely he pulled himself together.
‘It will stand in the way – of what?’ asked Diana.
‘I can never ask a woman to be my wife,’ he replied.
Diana wantonly stripped a rose of its petals, letting each fragrant leaf flutter slowly to the ground.
‘I do not see why you cannot, sir.’
‘No woman would share my disgrace.’
‘No?’
&n
bsp; ‘No.’
‘You seem very certain, Mr Carr. Pray have you asked the lady?’
‘No, madam.’ Carstares was as white as she was red, but he was holding himself well in hand.
‘Then –’ the husky voice was very low, ‘then – why don’t you?’
The slim hand against the tree trunk was clenched tightly, she observed. In his pale face the blue eyes burnt dark.
‘Because, madam, ’twere the action of a – of a –’
‘Of a what, Mr Carr?’
‘A cur! A scoundrel! A blackguard!’
Another rose was sharing the fate of the first.
‘I have heard it said that some women like – curs, and – and – and scoundrels; even blackguards,’ remarked the provocative voice. Through her lashes its owner watched my lord’s knuckles gleam white against the tree-bark.
‘Not the lady I love, madam.’
‘Oh? But you are sure?’
‘I am sure. She must marry a man whose honour is spotless; who is not – a nameless outcast, and who lives – not – by dice – and highway robbery.’
He knew that the brown eyes were glowing and sparkling with unshed tears, but he kept his own turned inexorably the other way. There was no doubting now that she cared, and that she knew that he did also. He could not leave her to think that her love had been slighted. She must not be hurt, but made to understand that he could not declare his love. But how hard it was, with her sorrowful gaze upon him, and the pleading note in her voice. It was quivering now:
‘Must she, sir?’
‘Yes, madam.’
‘But supposing – supposing the lady did not care? Supposing she – loved you – and was willing share your disgrace?’
The ground at her feet was strewn with crimson petals, and all around and above her roses nodded and swayed. A tiny breeze was stirring her curls and the lace of her frock, but John would not allow himself to look, lest the temptation to catch her in his arms should prove too great for him. She was ready to give herself to him; to face anything, only to be with him. In the plainest language she offered herself to him, and he had to reject her.
‘It is inconceivable that the lady would sacrifice herself in such a fashion, madam,’ he said.