“If I didn’t believe you to be dead to all proper feeling,” said Abby, in a shaking voice, “I should endeavour to point out to you that that is a—an abominable thing to say!”
“Well, thank God you do realize it!” he replied. “Now we shall go on much more comfortably!”
“No we shan’t. Not until you stop trying to hoax me into thinking you are uniformly odious! Pray, did you bring Oliver Grayshott home because you wanted to?”
“Yes, I like the boy. Don’t you?”
“Yes, I daresay, but—”
“Now, don’t run away with the notion that I came back to England on his account!” he admonished her. “Nothing could be farther from the truth! All I did was to take charge of him on the voyage: no very arduous task!”
“And subsequently put yourself to the trouble of bringing him down to Bath,” said Abby pensively.
“Oh, that was because—” he checked himself, but continued blandly, after an infinitesimal pause: “—because his uncle is a man of vast interests, and one never knows when the favour of such a man might stand one in good stead.”
“How quickly you made a recover!” said Abby admiringly. “You were within an ace of telling me that you came to Bath to see your nephew, too!”
“Ah, I did tell you that I didn’t know he was here! I rather thought I did,” he said, quite unperturbed. “I hope he means to return: according to Lady Weaverham, he is a perfect paragon, and I should like to meet a Calverleigh who fitted that description.”
“You won’t meet him in the person of your nephew!”
“How do you know? You’ve never clapped eyes on him!”
“No, but—”
“Furthermore, Selina likes him,” he pursued. “You told me that yourself, and I have the greatest respect for her judgment.”
“Oh, have you indeed?” she said wrathfully. “When you have never clapped eyes on her—!”
“Not to my knowledge,” he admitted. “However, I understand her to be your eldest sister, and there’s no saying but what I may have met her—before I was excluded from polite circles, of course. If I didn’t, I look forward to making her acquaintance.”
They had reached the corner of Bridge Street, and Abby came to an abrupt halt. “No!” she said forcefully. “I don’t wish you to make her acquaintance! She knows nothing of what you disclosed to me—she doesn’t even know that I met you yesterday! And I have no intention—none whatsoever!—of introducing you to her!”
“Haven’t you? But you’ll be made to look no-how if you don’t, won’t you? If Mrs Grayshott doesn’t perform that office, would you wager a groat on the chance that Lady Weaverham won’t?”
“No—or on the chance that you wouldn’t instantly tell my sister of our previous meetings!” said Abby, with considerable bitterness. “Without a blush!”
“Very likely,” he agreed.
Unable to think of any suitable rejoinder, she walked on in silence.
“And I promise you I won’t blush,” he added reassuringly.
She choked, but managed to retort with tolerable gravity: “I shouldn’t suppose that you know how to!”
“No, I don’t think I do,” he said, subjecting the matter to consideration. “At my age, it is rather too late to acquire the accomplishment, don’t you think?”
“Mr Calverleigh!” she said, turning her head to look up at him, “let us be a little serious! It is true that I haven’t yet met your nephew, but you have met my niece! You don’t want for sense; you are not a green youth, but a—a man of the world; and you loved Fanny’s mother! I don’t doubt that, or that seeing Fanny must have given you a—a pang—brought it all back to you!”
“You know, the odd thing is that it didn’t,” he interrupted. “Is she so like Celia?”
Astonished, she gasped: “Her image!”
“No, is she indeed? What tricks memory plays one! I had thought that Celia had brown eyes.”
“Do you mean to say that you have forgotten?”demanded Abby, wholly taken aback.
“Well, it all happened more than twenty years ago,” he said apologetically.
“And no doubt your memory has confused her with some other lady!”
“Yes, that’s very possible,” he acknowledged.
Miss Abigail Wendover decided, while she struggled with her emotions, that one of the worst features of Mr Miles Calverleigh’s character was his obnoxious ability to throw her into giggles at quite the wrong moment. Being a woman of strong resolution, she mastered herself, and said: “But you do remember that you once loved her, and I don’t think you would wish her daughter to—to become the victim of a fortune-hunter—even if he is your nephew!”
“No. Not that I’ve considered the matter, but I don’t wish anybody to become the victim of a fortune-hunter. Or, now I come to think of it, of any other predacious person. But I am of the opinion that you may be wronging my foolish nephew: he may well have tumbled into love with her, you know. Undoubtedly a piece of perfection!”
She looked up quickly, kindling to this praise of her darling. “She is very pretty, isn’t she?”
“Oh, past price! Which leads me to suspect that perhaps the poor fellow is in love with her!”
She frowned over this for moment or two, before saying decidedly: “It’s of no consequence if he is: he is not a proper person for her! Besides, she’s by far too young. Surely you must know that!”
“No, I don’t. Her mother was about seventeen when she married Rowland.”
“Which proves she is too young!”
He grinned appreciatively, but said: “You may be right, but you can’t expect me to agree with you. After all, I tried to marry Celia myself!”
“Yes, but you were only a boy then. You must be wiser now!”
“Much! Too wise to meddle in what doesn’t concern me!”
“Mr Calverleigh, it should concern you!”
“Miss Wendover, it don’t!”
“Then, if you’ve no interest in your nephew, why do you mean to linger in Bath? Why do you hope he means to return here?”
“I didn’t say I had no interest in him. I own, I didn’t think I had, but that was before I knew he was making up to your niece. You can’t deny that that provides a very interesting situation!”
“Excessively diverting, too!”
“Yes, that’s what I think.”
She said despairingly: “ I see that I might as well address myself to a gate-post!”
“What very odd things you seem to talk to!” he remarked. “Do you find gate-posts less responsive than eels?”
She could not help smiling, but she said very earnestly: “Promise me one thing at least, sir! Even though you won’t intervene in this miserable affair, promise me that you won’t promote it!”
“Oh, readily! I am a mere spectator.”
She was obliged to be satisfied, but said in somewhat minatory accents: “I trust your word, sir.”
“You may safely do so. I shan’t feel any temptation to break it,” he replied cheerfully.
Feeling that this remark showed him to be quite irreclaimable, Abby walked on in silence, trying to discover why she allowed herself to talk to him at all, far less to accept his escort. No satisfactory answer presented itself, for although he seemed to be impervious to snubs she knew that she could have snubbed his advances if she had made any real effort to do so. After a half-hearted attempt to convince herself that she endured his escort and his conversation with the sole object of winning his support in her crusade against his nephew she found herself to be under the shameful necessity of admitting that she enjoyed both, and—far worse!—would have suffered considerable .disappointment had he announced his intention of leaving Bath within the immediate future. She could only suppose that it was his unlikeness to the other gentlemen of her acquaintance which appealed to her sense of humour, and made it possible for her to tolerate him, for there was really nothing else to render him acceptable: he was neither handsome nor elegant; his manners were careless; and his morals non-existent. He was, in fact, precisely the sort of ramshackle person to whom no lady of birth, breeding, and propriety would extend the smallest encouragement. He had nothing to recommend him but his smile, and she was surely too old, and had too much commonsense, to be beguiled by a smile, however attractive it might be. But just as she reached this decision he spoke, and she glanced up at him, and realized that she had overestimated both her age and her commonsense. He was smiling down at her, and, try as she would, she was incapable of resisting the impulse to smile back at him. It was almost as if a bond existed between them, which was tightened by his smile. In repose his face was harsh, but the smile transformed it. His eyes lost their cold, rather cynical expression, warming to laughter, and holding, besides amusement, an indefinable look of understanding. He might mock, but not unkindly; and when he discomfited her his smiling eyes conveyed sympathy as well as amusement, and clearly invited her to share his amusement. And, thought Abby, the dreadful thing was that she did share it. He seemed to think that they were kindred spirits, and the shocking suspicion that he was right made her look resolutely ahead, saying: “Yes, sir? What did you say?”