The Reluctant Widow Read online

  “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 ifit 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 h
is 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!”