“I daresay it may have seemed odd to you that Miss Wield was—that she shouldn’t wish for Miss Chartley to accompany us on Friday.”
“What, after such a slip-slop as you made?” said Sir Waldo, laughing. “Not in the least odd! You did grass yourself, didn’t you? I hadn’t believed you could be such a greenhorn.”
Flushing, Julian said stiffly: “I don’t understand what you mean! If you imagine that Miss Wield was—was cross because I wished to invite Miss Chartley—it wasn’t so at all!”
“Wasn’t it?” said Sir Waldo, amusement lurking beneath his too-obviously assumed gravity. “Well, take my advice, you young cawker, and never praise one woman to another!”
“You are quite mistaken!” said Julian, more stiffly than ever.
“Yes, yes, of course I am—being so green myself!” agreed Sir Waldo soothingly. “So, for God’s sake, don’t stir any more coals to convince me of it! I am convinced—wholly!—and I detest brangles!”
Chapter 7
Mr Underhill’s optimistic plan of making an early start on Friday morning was not realized. He was certainly up betimes; but in spite of his having hammered on his cousin’s door at an early hour, warning her to make haste, since it was going to be a scorching day, the rest of the breakfast-party, which included Sir Waldo and Lord Lindeth, had finished the handsome repast provided for them before Tiffany came floating into the parlour, artlessly enquiring whether she was late.
“Yes, you are!” growled Courtenay. “We’ve been waiting for you this age! What the deuce have you been about? You have had time enough to rig yourself out a dozen times!”
“That’s just what she does,” said Charlotte impishly. “First she puts one dress on, and decides it don’t become her, and so then she tries another—don’t you, cousin?”
“Well, I’m sure you look very becoming in that habit, love,” interposed Mrs Underhill hastily. “Though if I was you I wouldn’t choose to wear velvet, not in this weather!”
By the time Tiffany had eaten her breakfast, put on her hat to her satisfaction, and found such unaccountably mislaid articles as her gloves, and her riding-whip, the hour was considerably advanced, and Courtenay in a fret of impatience, saying that Lizzie must be supposing by now that they had forgotten all about her. However, when they reached Colby Place they found the family just getting up from the breakfast-table, and Lizzie by no means ready to set out. There was thus a further delay while Lizzieran upstairs to complete her toilet, accompanied by her two younger sisters, who were presently heard demanding of some apparently remote person what she had done with Miss Lizzie’s boots.
During this period Lindeth and Tiffany enjoyed a quiet flirtation, Sir Ralph gave the Nonesuch a long and involved account of his triumph over someone who had tried to get the better of him in a bargain, Courtenay fidgeted about the room, and Lady Colebatch prosed to Miss Trent with all the placidity of one to whom time meant nothing.
“Only two hours later than was planned,” remarked Sir Waldo, when the cavalcade at last set forth. “Very good!”
Miss Trent, who had been regretting for nearly as long that she had ever expressed a wish to see the Dripping Well, replied: “I suppose it might have been expected!”
“Yes, and I did expect it,” he said cheerfully.
“I wonder then that you should have lent yourself to this expedition.”
“One becomes inured to the unpunctuality of your sex, ma’am,” he responded.
Incensed by this unjust animadversion, she said tartly: “Let me inform you, sir, that I kept no one waiting!”
“But you are a very exceptional female,” he pointed out.
“I assure you, I am nothing of the sort.”
“I shall not allow you to be a judge of that. Oh, no, don’t look at me so crossly! What can I possibly have said to vex you?”
“I beg your pardon! Nothing, of course: merely, I’m not in the mood for nonsense, Sir Waldo!”
“That’s no reason for scowling at me!” he objected. “I haven’t been boring you to death for the past half-hour! Of course, I may bore you before the day is out, but it won’t be with vapid commonplaces, I promise you.”
“Take care!” she warned him, glancing significantly towards Miss Colebatch, who was riding ahead of them, with Courtenay.
“Neither of them is paying the least heed to us. Do you always ride that straight-shouldered cocktail?”
“Yes—Mrs Underhill having bought him for my use. He does very well for me.”
“I wish I had the mounting of you. Do you hunt?”
“No. When Tiffany goes out with the hounds she is her cousin’s responsibility, not mine.”
“Thank God for that! You would certainly come to grief if you attempted to hunt that animal. I only hope you may not be saddle-sick before ever we reach Knaresborough.”
“Indeed, so do I! I don’t know why you should think me such a poor creature!”
“I don’t: I think your horse a poor creature, and a most uncomfortable ride.”
“Oh, no, I assure you—” She broke off, checked by a lifted eyebrow. “Well, perhaps he is not very—very easy-paced! In any event, I don’t mean to argue with you about him, for I am persuaded it would be very stupid in me to do so.”
“It would,” he agreed. “I collect it didn’t occur to your amiable charge to lend you her other hack? By the bye, what made your resolution fail the other day?”
She did not pretend to misunderstand him, but answered frankly: “I couldn’t allow her to expose herself!”
He smiled. “Couldn’t you? Never mind! I fancy she contrived to charm Lindeth out of his disapproval, but the image became just a trifle smudged, nevertheless. I added my mite later in the day—which is why I am being treated with a little reserve.”
“Are you? Oh, dear, how horrid it is, and how very difficult to know what my duty is! Odious to be scheming against the child!”
“Is that what you are doing? I had no notion of it, and thought the scheming was all on my side.”
“Not precisely scheming, but—but conniving,by allowing you to bamboozle her!”
“My dear girl, how do you imagine you could stop me?”
Miss Trent toyed with the idea of objecting to this mode of address, and then decided that it would be wiser to ignore it.
“I don’t know, but—”
“Nor anyone else. Don’t tease yourself to no purpose! You are really quite helpless in the matter, you know.”
She turned her head, gravely regarding him. “Don’t you feel some compunction, Sir Waldo?”
“None at all. I should feel much more than compunction if I did not do my utmost to prevent Lindeth’s falling a victim to as vain and heartless a minx as I have yet had the ill-fortune to encounter. Do I seem to you a villain? I promise you I am not!”
“No, no! But you do make her show her worst side!”
“True! Does it occur to you that if I employed such tactics against—oh, Miss Chartley—Miss Colebatch there—yourself—I should be taken completely at fault? You would none of you show a side you don’t possess. What’s more, ma’am, I don’t make the chit coquet with me, or boast of her looks and her conquests to impress me: I merely offer her the opportunity to do so—and much good that would do me if she had as much elegance of mind as of person! All I should win by casting out such lures to a girl of character would be a well-deserved set-down.”
She could not deny it, and rode on in silence. He saw that she was still looking rather troubled, and said: “Take comfort, you over-anxious creature! I may encourage her to betray her tantrums and her selfishness but I would no more create a situation to conjure up these faults than I would compromise her.” He laughed suddenly. “A work of supererogation! If she could fly into a passion merely because Julian expressed a mild desire to include Miss Chartley in this party we shan’t suffer from a want of such situations! Who knows! He may feel it incumbent upon him to pay a little attention to Miss Colebatch presently, in which case we shall find ourselves in the centre of a vortex!”