He agreed to it, adding, “There are some men, ma’am, who have such twisted natures that they cannot see virtue in another without hating it. My cousin was such a one. He resented my brother’s authority. When Carlyon has rescued him again and again from the consequences of his own conduct it has but increased his jealous hatred of him. It is a good thing for us all that he is dead. But I wish he had not met his end at Nick’s hands.”
He relapsed into brooding silence, which remained unbroken until the curricle turned in through a pair of great wrought-iron gates, when he roused himself from his abstraction to say, “We have only a little way to go now. You will be glad to warm yourself at a good fire, I dare say. It has grown chilly.”
The curricle soon drew up before a large, stone-built mansion, and in a very short space of time Elinor was being led across a lofty hall to a pleasant saloon, furnished in the first style of elegance and lit by a great many candles. Nicholas Carlyon jumped up from a wing chair by the fire and demanded eagerly, “Did you see Ned? How has it gone? Is Eustace dead? Where is Ned?”
“Ned will be here presently. Do, for God’s sake, mind your manners, Nick! Set a chair for Mrs. Cheviot this instant! If you will be seated, ma’am, I will desire the housekeeper to prepare a room for you.”
He left the room immediately, and Nicky, blushing at his rebuke, made haste to conduct Elinor to a seat by the fire. “I beg pardon!” he stammered. “But what is this? John said—But you are not Mrs. Cheviot!”
“You may well wonder at it,” she said. “Your brother constrained me to marry your cousin, so I suppose I must be Mrs. Cheviot.”
“He did?” Nicky cried. “Oh, that’s famous! I was afraid I had ruined all! I might have guessed Ned would never allow himself to be outjockeyed!”
“It may seem famous to you,” retorted Elinor, with some tartness, “but I can assure you it does not to me! I have not the smallest desire to be married to your odious cousin!”
“No, but I dare say he may be dead by now,” said Nicky encouragingly. “There’s no harm done!”
“Yes, there is! There is a great deal of harm, for I was to have gone to Five Mile Ash as governess to Mrs. Macclesfield’s family, and now I do not know what is to become of me!”
“Oh, my brother will arrange everything!” Nicky assured her. “You have no need to be in a fret, ma’am. Ned always knows what one should do. Besides, you would not like to go as a governess, would you? You are not at all like any that my sisters had! I believe you are bamming me!”
She did not feel equal to arguing the matter with him. She untied the strings of her bonnet and removed it with a sigh of relief. Her soft brown ringlets were sadly crushed; she tried to tidy them, but was really too weary to care much for her appearance, and soon relapsed into immobility, her cheek propped on one hand, her eyes drowsily watching the flames in the hearth. She was roused presently by the entrance of Mr. Carlyon, who came in with a tray in his hands, which he set down on the table at her elbow.
“I think you should take a glass of wine, ma’am,” he said, pouring one out for her. “The housekeeper will have your bedchamber ready directly. Will you take a biscuit?”
She accepted it and sat sipping her wine and listening to a brief exchange of conversation between the two brothers until the housekeeper came in to fetch her to bed. She went very willingly, only wondering what John Carlyon could have told the housekeeper to make that comfortable woman accept her with such seeming placidity. She was conducted up a broad, shallow stairway to such a bedchamber as she had not occupied since her father’s death. A servant was passing a warming pan between the sheets of the bed; a fire had been kindled in the hearth, and her brushes and combs laid out upon the dressing table. The housekeeper assured herself that all was in order, desired Mrs. Cheviot to ring the bell if she should require anything, bade her a respectful good night, and withdrew.
Mrs. Cheviot, leaving the future to take care of itself, prepared to give herself up to the present luxury of a warm bed, and within half an hour was deeply and dreamlessly asleep.
Chapter V
Downstairs in the saloon, Mr. John Carlyon told his young brother severely that the best thing he could now do would be to go to bed. This suggestion having been indignantly spurned, he said, “There is nothing more for you to do, and Ned may not reach home until morning. He will not leave while Eustace is still alive, I dare say.”
“Well, I shall sit up till he comes,” Nicky said. “Good God, I could not sleep a wink! How can you think of it? But John, how came that lady to be with Ned at Highnoons? I have been puzzling my head over it. It seems very strange!”
“You had best ask Ned,” John replied uncom-municatively.
“Well, and so I shall, and, what is more, he will tell me!” said Nicky, rather nettled.
“Very likely.”
“At all events,” said Nicky, “the affair is not as bad as it might have been, is it? For if Eustace married that lady—”
“Not as bad as it might have been!” John exclaimed. “I do not know how it could well be worse! And all come about through a prank I wonder you should not be ashamed to think of perpetrating at your age!”
Nick retired to the chair by the fire and cast himself into it, saying, “Oh, fudge! There was nothing in that, I am sure! Why, when Harry was up, you know very well he—”
“Yes, I am aware that there was never anything to choose between you and Harry, more’s the pity! But at least Harry was never such a young fool that he would allow himself to be dragged into a quarrel with Eustace Cheviot!”
“John!” said Nicky despairingly. “I keep on telling you I stood it for as long as I might, but there was no bearing it! If he had abused me I would not have cared, but to hear him say such things of Ned was more than flesh and blood could stand! Besides, I never meant to do more than mill him down, after all!”
John grunted, but upon his young brother’s attempting to justify himself still further, interrupted to read him so stern a lecture on the subject of his volatility, thoughtlessness, and general instability of character that Nicky was silenced, and had to sit enduring in dumb resentment this comprehensive homily. When it came to an end, he hunched an offended shoulder and pretended to bury himself in the Morning Post, which lay providentially to hand. John went over to the desk and busied himself with some papers of his which were lying there.
It was rather more than an hour later, and the brothers had not exchanged any further conversation, when a firm tread was heard to cross the hall, and Carlyon entered the room.
Nicky sprang up. “Ned, what has been the end of it?” he asked anxiously. “I thought you would never come! Is Eustace dead?”
“Yes, he is now. You should be in bed, Nicky. Did you see Miss Rochdale safely bestowed, John?”
“Is that her name? Yes, she went up to bed over an hour ago. You have been a thought highhanded that quarter, have you not?”
“I am afraid so indeed. There was really nothing else to be done, matters having been pushed to a crisis.”
“Ned, you know I am as sorry as I could be!” Nicky said. “I wouldn’t have put you in a fix for the world!”
“Yes, that is what you always say,” interposed John. “But you go from one scrape to another! Now it has come to this, that you may think yourself fortunate if you do not have to stand your trial for manslaughter!”
“I know,” Nicky said. “Of course I know that! And perhaps they won’t believe it was an accident.”
“My dear Nicky, none of this is likely to go beyond the coroner’s inquest,” Carlyon said. “You go up to bed, and don’t tease yourself any more tonight!”
Nicky sighed, and John, perceiving that he was looking pale and very tired, said roughly, “Don’t worry! We shall not let them hale you off to prison, Nick!”