“Oh, this passes all bounds!” she cried. “I do not scruple to tell you, my lord, that nothing would have induced me to have entered into an engagement to marry such an odious person as your cousin!”
“A very pardonable sentiment,” he agreed.
She choked over her coffee.
“Mrs. Cheviot’s feelings are perfectly understandable,” John said reprovingly. “I am sure no one can wonder at them.”
“Yes, but Eustace is dead!” objected Nicky. “I cannot see why she should feel it so particularly! Why, by Jupiter, ma’am, now I come to think of it, you are a widow!”
“But I do not want to be a widow!” declared Elinor.
“I am afraid it is now too late in the day to alter that,” said Carlyon.
“Besides, if you had known my cousin better you would have wanted to be a widow,” Nicky assured her.
“Be quiet, Nicky!” Carlyon said.
Elinor bit her lip resolutely.
“That is much better,” Carlyon encouraged her. “I do indeed appreciate your feelings upon this event, but it is quite useless to be crying over spilt milk. Moreover, I do not think you will find that the consequences of your marriage will be as disagreeable as you suppose.”
“No, depend upon it we shall see to it that they shall not be,” said John. “There may be a little awkwardness in some quarters, but my brother’s protection must guard you from ill-natured gossip. If we are seen to accept you with complaisance, there can be no food for scandal, you know.”
She sighed. “I see, of course, that there can be no undoing it now. I have come by my deserts, for I knew all along that I was acting wrongly. But I do not mean to tease you to no purpose! I suppose I can be a governess as well widowed as single.”
“Undoubtedly, but I trust there will be no need for you to continue in what I am persuaded must be a distasteful calling,” said Carlyon.
She looked quickly round at him. “No, no, I told you I would not be your pensioner, my lord, and to that at least I shall hold fast!”
“No such thing. My cousin signed a will leaving the whole of his property to you.”
“What?” she cried, turning quite pale. “Oh, good God, you are not in earnest?”
“Certainly I am in earnest.”
“But I could not—It would be quite shocking in me—!” she stammered.
“Are you imagining that you have become a rich woman overnight?” Carlyon inquired. “I wish it may be found so, but I fear it will be no such thing. You are more likely to discover that you are liable for God knows how many debts.”
The widow sought in vain for words in which to express her feelings.
“Lord, yes!” said Nicky cheerfully. “Eustace had never a feather to fly with, and it’s my belief the gull gropers had their talons fast in him!”
“And I,” said Elinor, controlling her voice with a strong effort, “am in the happy position of inheriting these debts?”
“No, no!” said John. “They must be paid out of the estate, of course! Fortunately, he could not mortgage the land—not that you will get much for it if you should decide to sell it, for since my brother ceased to administer it everything has been allowed to go to ruin.”
“But what a charming prospect for me!” Elinor said, with awful irony. “Saddled with a ruined estate, crushed by debt, widowed before ever I was a wife—it is the most abominable thing I ever heard of!”
“Oh, it will scarcely prove to be as bad as that!”
Carlyon said. “When all is done, I hope you will find yourself with a respectable competence.”
“Indeed, I hope so too, my lord, for I begin to think I shall have earned it!” she retorted.
“Now you are talking like a sensible woman,” he said. “Are you willing to be guided by me in how you should go on?”
She looked at him in some indecision. “Is there no way in which I can escape this inheritance?”
“None at all.”
“But if I were to disappear, which I should like very much to do—”
“I am persuaded you will not be so poor-spirited as to draw back at this juncture.”
She swallowed this, and after a moment said in a resigned voice, “What ought I to do, then?”
“I have already considered that, and I believe it will be most natural for you to take up your residence at Highnoons,” he said.
“At Highnoons! Oh, no, indeed, I had rather not!” she said, looking very much alarmed.
“Why had you rather not?” he asked.
“It would look so presumptuous in me to be residing there!”
“Presumptuous to be residing in your husband’s house?”
“How can you talk so? The circumstances—”
“The circumstances are precisely what we all of us wish to conceal. It would be ineligible for you to remain under my roof, for mine is a bachelor household.”
“I have no desire to remain under your roof!”
“Then we need not waste time upon that point. You might, with perfect propriety, seek refuge with some relative of your own, but you will be obliged to attend to a good deal of business, and since I shall be joined with you in that, it will be more convenient if you are within reach of this place.”
“I would not go to my relatives in such a predicament as this for any consideration in the world!” Elinor declared with a shudder.
“In that case, you have really no choice in the matter.”
“But how shall I go on in such a place?” she demanded. “I am sure it is quite covered in dust and cobwebs, and very likely overrun with rats and black beetles, for I saw quite enough of it yesterday to convince me that it has been shockingly neglected!”
“Exactly so, and that is one reason why I should be glad to see you there.”
The widow’s bosom swelled. “Is it indeed, my lord? I might have guessed you would say something odious!”
“I am not saving anything odious. If we are to dispose of Highnoons advantageously, it must be put into some kind of order. I will engage to do what I can with the land, but I cannot undertake to set the house to rights. By doing that you will at once oblige me and give yourself an occupation that will divert your mind from all these troubles which you imagine to be gathering about your head.”
“To oblige you must of course be an object with me,” said Elinor in a trembling tone.
“Thank you. You are very good,” he responded with unimpaired calm.
A chuckle escaped Nicky. He grinned across the table at Elinor. “Oh, I beg pardon, but you know it is never the least use disputing with Ned, for he has always the best of it! He is the most complete hand! And I’ll tell you what! If you should find that there are rats at Highnoons I’ll come over with my dog, and we will have some famous sport!”
“Now, Nicky, do hold your tongue!” begged John. “But you know, ma’am, there is a great deal of sense in what Carlyon says. The place cannot be left without anyone to manage things, and I am sure I do not know who else is to go there.”
“But the servants!” she protested. “What must they think if I am suddenly foisted upon them?”
“So far as I am aware, only Barrow and his wife were lately employed by Eustace,” said Carlyon. “Which reminds me that you will do well to hire a couple of girls to work in the house. But you need entertain no qualms: Barrow has been at Highnoons for many years, and is necessarily conversant with all the circumstances that led up to the ceremony you took part in yesterday. He was greatly attached to my aunt, for which reason he has remained with my cousin. Neither he nor his wife is likely to cause you the smallest embarrassment. But I fear you will not find him an efficient butler. He was used to be a groom, and only came into the house when no other servant would remain there.”
“You know, Ned, I think Mrs. Cheviot should have some respectable female to bear her company there,” John interposed.
“Certainly she should, and I will discover one for her.”
“If I wanted a respectable female to live with me in that horrid house, I should beg my own old governess to come to me!” said Elinor.