Lady of Quality (7 page)

"She has come to visit me, for what I hope may be a stay of several weeks," replied Miss Wychwood. "She is an orphan, and has been living in Cheltenham with her aunt, who has kept her in rather too strict seclusion. Not yet out, of course. But I think it of the first importance that girls should know how to go on in society before being pitchforked into the ton, and I trust I may have persuaded her aunt to permit her to try her wings in Bath before her presentation."

Mrs Stinchcombe nodded. "Very true, my dear! I have frequently observed how often girls being, as you aptly express it,
pitchforked
straight from the schoolroom into the ton, ruin their chances by excessive shyness, which leads them to be tongue-tied, or—worse!—disagreeably pert, in the effort to appear up to snuff, as the saying is! You must bring your protégée to a little party I am giving for my girls on Thursday: quite informal, I need hardly say!"

Miss Wychwood thanked her and accepted the invitation, reflecting, rather ruefully, that she was condemning herself to exactly the sort of party which she found intolerably boring. Another thought occurred to her, which she found peculiarly disconcerting: it flashed through her brain that she was dwindling into a duenna. It was a lowering reflection, but since she had not yet reached her thirtieth year, and had not noticed any diminution in the number of her admirers, she did not allow it to oppress her. And she had her reward when Lucilla came up to her, her eyes shining like stars, and said: "Oh, Miss Wychwood, Corisande has invited me to a party on Thursday! May I go to it?
Pray
don't say I must not!"

"Perhaps, if you are
very
good, I shan't say that," replied Miss Wychwood gravely. "In fact, I have just this moment accepted Mrs Stinchcombe's kind invitation to us both."

Lucilla laughed, but at once turned to thank Mrs Stinchcombe, and did it so prettily that Mrs Stinchcombe afterwards told Annis that the child's manners matched her lovely face.

All the way up the hill to Camden Place Lucilla bubbled over with delight in the promised treat, and intense pleasure in having met (thanks to her dear, dear Miss Wychwood!) anyone so charming and so truly amiable as Miss Corisande Stinchcombe. Edith Stinchcombe was excessively agreeable, too, although not yet emancipated from the schoolroom; and as for Mrs Stinchcombe, could Miss Wychwood conceive of a more indulgent or more excellent parent for any girl to have? According to the testimony of her daughters, Mama always understood exactly how one felt, and was never cross! So very unlike Aunt Clara's friends! Only fancy!—she permitted Corisande to go shopping, as long as Edith, or their brother, accompanied her, without being escorted by Edith's governess! Not that Miss Frampton was in the least like the unlamented Miss Cheeseburn, who had helped Aunt to make Lucilla's life a positive burden to her! "Corisande says Miss Frampton is the greatest dear, and so jolly that she and Edith
like
her to go out with them! Oh, and Corisande says, ma'am, that she knows of a shop in Stall Street where one may purchase reticules at half the price they charge in Milsom Street, and she says she will take me there, if you see no objection to it!"

Miss Wychwood, responding suitably to these confidences, perceived that she was doomed to be bored for the rest of Lucilla's stay by references to What Corisande Said.

On the following evening, to their surprise, Ninian walked into the drawing-room, announcing that he had brought her traps to Lucilla, and had given them into the butler's charge. He was looking bright-eyed and decidedly belligerent; and it was obvious that he was labouring under a strong sense of ill-usage.

"Oh, Ninian!" Lucilla exclaimed. "How very kind of you! I never expected to get them so soon! But there was no need for you to have put yourself to the fag of bringing them to me yourself!"

"Oh, yes, there was!" he retorted grimly.

"No, no, Sarah could well have brought them without an escort!"

"Well, she couldn't, because she isn't there! Such a dust as I walked into! Talk of riots and rumpuses—! And why even my mother should be thrown into a taking when they must all of them have known you hadn't been murdered, or kidnapped, because they knew I'd gone away with you, had me floored!"

"Do you mean Sarah isn't here?" cried Lucilla.

"That's exactly what I mean. She and your aunt got to dagger-drawing, because your aunt worked herself into a rare passion, and rang a regular peal over her, saying it was her fault for neglecting you, and I don't know what besides, and
she
nabbed the rust, and rubbed up all manner of old sores, and the end of it was that she packed her boxes, and flounced off in a rare tantrum!" He observed, with displeasure, that Lucilla was dancing round the room in an ecstasy of delight, and added, with asperity: "You may think that a matter for rejoicing, but I didn't, I can tell you!"

"Oh, I do, I do!" Lucilla said, executing a neat step, and clapping her hands. "If you knew how much I was dreading Sarah's arrival—!"

Miss Wychwood intervened at this point, to ask Ninian if he had dined. He thanked her, and said yes, he had stopped to bait on the road, and must not remain for more than a few minutes, because it was growing late, and he had not yet arranged for accommodation in Bath. "Which is something about which I need your advice, ma'am," he disclosed. "The thing is—well, owing to one cause and another, I'm a trifle behind the wind at the moment! Until quarterday, in fact! As soon as my allowance is paid I shall be tolerably well up in the stirrups again, but it won't do to be getting under the hatches, so I mean to put up at one of the cheaper hotels, and I thought you would very likely be able to direct me to a—a suitable one!"

Lucilla stopped dancing round the room, and asked, in astonishment: "Why, do you mean to remain in Bath?"

"Yes," replied Ninian, through gritted teeth, "I do!
That
will show them!"

Before Lucilla could ask for enlightenment on this somewhat obscure utterance, a second, and even more timely, intervention was provided by Limbury, who came in with the tea-tray. Further discussion was suspended; and when Ninian had drunk two cups of tea, and eaten several macaroons, his seething rancour had subsided enough to enable him to give the ladies a fairly coherent account of the trials he had undergone at the hands of his loving relations. "Would you believe it?" he demanded. "They blamed me for the whole!"

"Oh, how unjust!" cried Lucilla indignantly.

"I should rather think so! For how the devil could I have prevented you from running away, I should like to know?"

"You couldn't. No one could!" she asserted. "They ought to have been grateful to you for coming with me!"

"Well, that's what I thought!" he said. "What's more, if anyone was to blame for driving you out of the house it was Them, not me!"

"Did you tell them so?" asked Lucilla eagerly.

"No, not
then,
but in the end I did, when I got into a pelter myself! That was when I found that your aunt's
prostration
was being laid at my door, if you please, instead of at yours! I don't know what
she
might have said to me, because I didn't see her—thank God! She fell into hysterics when it was discovered that you had run away, and then had strong convulsions, or spasms, or whatever she calls 'em, and was laid up in bed, with our doctor in attendance, and my mother trying to restore her with burnt feathers, and sal volatile, and smelling-salts; and my father almost pushing Sarah out of the house, because the mere thought that she was still at Chartley threw your aunt into fresh spasms! Well, I did say,
What a wet-goose!
and Papa—
Papa!—
said I had much to blame myself for! And Mama said how could I have reconciled it with my conscience to have abandoned you to a total stranger, and never would she have believed that a child of hers could have behaved so heartlessly! And when it came to Cordelia and Lavinia starting to reproach me—but I precious soon put a stop to that!—I—I lost my temper, and said Very well, if they thought it was my duty to protect her from
you,
ma'am, I'd go straight back to Bath, and stay there! And—and I'm afraid I said that
any
place would be preferable to Chartley, and even though you were a
total stranger
I was sure of a welcome in your house, which was more than I had had in my own home!"

"Oh,
well done,
Ninian!" exclaimed Lucilla enthusiastically clasping his arm, and squeezing it. "I never dreamed you were so full of pluck!"

He coloured, but said: "I don't think it was well done of me. I ought not to have spoken so to my father. I'm sorry for it, but I meant what I said, and I'm dashed well not going to crawl back until
he
is sorry too! Even if I starve in a ditch!"

"Oh, pray don't think of doing such a thing!" said Miss Farlow, who had been listening open-mouthed to this recital. "So embarrassing for dear Miss Wychwood, for people would be bound to say she should have rescued you! Not that I think you would be allowed to die in a ditch in Bath—at least, I never heard of anyone doing so, because they are so strict about keeping the streets clean and tidy, and destitute persons are cared for at the Stranger's Friend Society: a most excellent institution, I believe, but I
cannot
think that your worthy parents would wish you to become an inmate there, however vexed they may be with you!"

This made Lucilla giggle, but Miss Wychwood, preserving her countenance, said: "Very true! You must hold it as a weapon in reserve, Ninian, to use only if your father threatens to cast you off entirely. In the meantime, I suggest that you put up at the Pelican. It is in Walcot Street, and I'm told its charges are very reasonable. It isn't a fashionable hotel, but I believe it is comfortable, and provides its guests with a good, plain ordinary. And if it should be
too
plain for you, you can always dine here!" She added, with a lurking twinkle in her eyes: "I've never dined there, but
of course
I have visited it, to see the room Dr Johnson slept in!"

"Oh!" said Ninian, all at sea. "Yes—of course! Dr Johnson! Exactly so! Was he—was he a friend of yours, ma'am? Or—or one of your relations, perhaps?"

Lucilla gave a crow of laughter. "Stupid! He was the
dixionary-
man, and he died years and years ago—didn't he, ma'am?"

"Oh, a
writing
cove!" said Ninian, in disparaging accents. "Come to think of it, I
have
heard of him—but I'm not bookish, ma'am!"

"But surely, dear Mr Elmore, they must have used his Dixionary at your school?" said Miss Farlow.

"Ah, that would be it!" nodded Ninian. "I daresay I must have seen the name on the back of some book or other, which accounts for my having had the notion that I recognized it!"

"If recognition you could call it!" murmured Miss Wychwood. "Never mind, Ninian! We can't all of us be bookish, can we?"

"Well, I don't scruple to say that I never had the least turn for scholarship," Ninian somewhat unnecessarily disclosed. He added a handsome rider to this statement, saying, with a beaming smile: "And I promise you, ma'am, no one would ever suspect
you
of being bookish!"

Overwhelmed by this tribute, Miss Wychwood uttered in a shaken voice: "How kind of you, Ninian, to say so!"

"It's very true," said Lucilla, adding her mite. "No one could think she was bookish, but she reads prodigiously, and even keeps books in her bedchamber!"

"How can you be so treacherous, Lucilla, as to betray me?" demanded Miss Wychwood tragically.

"Only to Ninian!" Lucilla said, regarding her rather anxiously. "Of course I wouldn't dream of telling anyone else, but he won't say a word about it, will you, Ninian?"

"No, never!" he responded promptly.

Miss Wychwood shook a mournful head. "If only I may not have sunk myself beneath reproach in your eyes!"

They made such haste to reassure her that her suppressed laughter escaped her, and she said: "You absurd babies! Oh, don't look so astonished, or you will send me into fresh whoops! I know you can't think why, and if I were to explain it to you you would believe me to be all about in my head! Tell me, Ninian, did you give my letter to Mrs Amber?"

"No, because she was too ill to receive me, but my mother gave it to her." He hesitated, and then said, with a deprecatory grin: "She—she wasn't well enough to write to you, but she did charge my mother with a message!"

"A message to me?" Miss Wychwood asked, her brows lifting slightly.

"Well, not precisely!" he replied. His grin widened, and he gave a chuckle. "What she said, in fact, was that she washed her hands of Lucilla!"

"She says that every time I vex her!" said Lucilla disgustedly. "And never does she mean it! Depend upon it, she will come to fetch me back, and all my pleasure will be at an end!"

"Oh, I don't think she'll do that!" said Ninian consolingly. "She does seem to be quite knocked-up. What's more, when my mother asked her if she was to direct one of the maids to pack up your gear and send it to you she said that if after all she had done for you you preferred a stranger to her she only trusted that you wouldn't regret it, and wish her to take you back, because she never wanted to set eyes on you again!"

Lucilla considered this, but presently shook her head, and sighed: "I don't set the least store by that, but it does at least make it seem that she won't come to Bath immediately. It always takes her
days
to recover from her hysterical turns!"

"Yes," he agreed. "But perhaps I ought just to mention to you that the first thing she did, before she took to her bed, was to send off a letter to Mr Carleton. Ten to one he won't pay any heed to it, but I think I ought perhaps to warn you about it!"