“Oh, he is certainly an original, but so droll!” said Mrs Leavening. “We like him very much, you know, and find nothing in his manners to disgust us.”
“Exactly what I have been saying to dear Miss Wendover!” interpolated Miss Butterbank. “Anyone of whom Miss Abby approves cannot be other than gentlemanlike!”
“Yes, but it is not at all the thing for her to be going to the play in his company. At least, it doesn’t suit my sense of propriety, though no doubt my notions are antiquated, and, of course, Abby is not a girl, precisely, but to talk as if she was on the shell is a great piece of nonsense!”
Mrs Leavening agreed to this, but as her husband came up at that moment Selina did not tell her old friend that Abby, not content with accompanying Mr Calverleigh to the theatre, had actually invited him to dine in Sydney Place.
This bold stroke had quite overset Selina. The news that Mr Calverleigh had been so kind as to invite Abby to go to the play she had received placidly enough, if with a little surprise: it seemed very odd that a single gentleman should get up a party, but no doubt he wished to return the hospitality of such ladies as Mrs Grayshott, and Lady Weaverham. Were the Ancrums going as well?
Abby was tempted, for a craven moment, to return a noncommittal answer, but she overcame the impulse, and replied in an airy tone: “Oh, it is not a party! Do you think I ought not to have accepted ? I did hesitate, but at my age it is surely not improper? Besides, the play is The Venetian Outlaw, which I particularly want to see! From some cause or another I never have seen it, you know: once I was ill, when it was put on here, and once I was away from home; but you went to see it twice, didn’t you ? And were in raptures!”
“Yes, but not with a gentleman!”Selina said, scandalized. “Once,I went with dear Mama, only you were too young then; and the second time Lady Trevisian invited me—or was that the third time? Yes, because the second time was when George and Mary were with us, and you had a putrid sore throat, and so could not go with us!”
“This time I am determined not to have a putrid sore throat!”
“No, indeed! I hope you will not! But Mr Calverleigh must invite some others as well! I wonder he shouldn’t have done so. It argues a want of conduct in him, for it is not at all the thing, and India cannot be held to excuse it, because there are no theatres there—at least, I shouldn’t think there would be, should you?
“No, dear. So naturally Mr Calverleigh couldn’t know that he was doing anything at all out of the way, poor man! As for telling him that he must invite others as well as me, I hope you don’t expect me to do so! That would indeed be improper! And, really, Selina, what possible objection can there be to my going to the play under the escort of a middle-aged man? Here, too, where I am well known, and shall no doubt meet many of our friends in the theatre!”
“It will make you look so—so particular, dearest! You would never do so in London! Of course, Bath is a different matter, but worse! Only think how disagreeable it would be if people said you were encouraging Mr Calverleigh to dangle after you!”
This thought had already occurred to Abby, causing her to hover on the brink of excusing herself from the engagement; and had Selina said no more she might possibly have done so. But Selina’s evil genius prompted her to utter fatal words. “I am persuaded that James would tell you to cry off, Abby!”
“Are you indeed?” retorted Abby, instantly showing hackle. “Well, that settles the matter! I shall do no such thing! Oh, Selina, pray don’t fly into a great fuss! If you are afraid of what the quizzes may say, you have only to tell them that since you don’t yet venture out in the evening Mr Calverleigh very kindly offered to act as your deputy. And once it becomes known that he dined with us here, before escorting me to the theatre—”
“Nothing—nothing!—would prevail upon me to do anything so unbecoming as to invite a single gentleman to dine with us!” declared Selina, with unwonted vigour.
“No, dear, but you are not obliged to do so,” said Abby mischievously. “I’ve done it for you!”
“Abby!” gasped Selina, turning pale with dismay. “Asked a man to dine with us alone? You can’t be serious! Never have we done such a thing! Except, of course, James, which is a very different matter!”
“Very different!” agreed Abby. “Mr Calverleigh may be an oddity, but he’s not a dreadful bore!”
“I was never so mortified!” moaned Selina. “So brass-faced of you, as though you knew no better, and exactly what dear Papa deplored, and what he would say to it, if he were alive, which I am devoutly thankful he is not, I shudder to think!”
It had taken time, patience, and much tact to reconcile Selina but in the end she consented to entertain Mr Miles Calverleigh, persuaded by the horrid suspicion that if she refused to do so her highty-tighty young sister was quite capable of setting the town in an uproar by dining with him at York House. She had then devoted the better part of the afternoon to the composition of a formal invitation, written in her beautiful copper-plate, and combining to a nicety condescension with gracious civility. Mr Miles Calverleigh responded to this missive with commendable promptness, in a brief but well-expressed note, which conveyed to Selina’s mind the impression that he had invited her sister to go with him to the play in a spirit of avuncular philanthropy. She was thus able to meet him in the Pump Room with a modicum of complaisance; and although, when he left her side, he joined the group round Abby, she had no apprehension of danger. It was not at all remarkable that he should show a preference for her: a great many gentlemen did so; but if it had been suggested to Selina that Abby was quite as strongly attracted to him as he to her she would have thought it not so much remarkable as absurd. Abby enjoyed light flirtations, but Selina had almost ceased to hope that she would ever discover amongst her suitors one who was endowed with all the perfections she apparently demanded.
They were certainly not to be found in Mr Miles Calverleigh, with his swarthy countenance, his casual manners, and his deplorable want of address.
Nor was Abby apprehensive that in pursuing her acquaintance with him she might be running into danger. She was by no means sure that she liked him. He was amusing, and she enjoyed his company; but he frequently put her quite out of temper, besides shocking her by his unconcerned repudiation of any of the virtues indispensable in a man of principle. He was undoubtedly what her brother-in-law succinctly described as a loose screw, and so hopelessly ineligible that it never so much as crossed her mind that in him she had met her fate. Nor did it occur to her that in encouraging his advances she was influenced by anything other than the hope that she might be able to persuade him to send his nephew to the rightabout. He had refused unequivocally to meddle, but the hope persisted, and, with it, the growing conviction that if he wished to bring Stacy’s schemes to fiddlestick’s end he would know just how it could be done. To inspire him with such a wish was clearly her duty; if it had been suggested to her that her duty, in this instance, had assumed an unusually agreeable aspect, she would have acknowledged readily that it was fortunate that she did not find Mr Calverleigh repellent; but she would have been much amused by a further suggestion that she was rapidly losing her heart to a black sheep.