“That is as you wish,” he returned, tugging at the bell-pull.
“From what I have seen of your establishment,” remarked Miss Rochdale waspishly, “that bell is very likely broken.”
“More than probable,” he agreed, walking toward the door. “But this is not my establishment.”
Miss Rochdale put a hand to her brow. “I begin to think my own senses are becoming disordered!” she complained. “If this is neither your house nor Mrs. Macclesfield’s, whose, pray, is it?”
“My cousin’s.”
“Your cousin’s! But I cannot remain here!” she cried. “You cannot mean to keep me here, sir!”
“Certainly not. It would be quite ineligible,” he said, and left the room.
Wild ideas of precipitate flight crossed Miss Rochdale’s mind, but since she did not want for common sense, she rejected them. To be wandering about an unknown countryside all night would scarcely ameliorate her difficulties, and although her host’s behavior might be extraordinary, he did not appear to entertain any notion of constraining her against her will. She sat still, therefore, and waited for him to reappear.
This he presently did, saying as he entered the room, “There seems to be nothing but cold meat in the house, but I have ordered them to do what they can.”
“Some tea and bread and butter is all I require,” she assured him.
“It will be here directly.”
“Thank you.” She drew off her gloves and folded them. “I have been wondering what to do for the best. Is there any carriage or post chaise, perhaps, which I might hire to convey me to Five Mile Ash, sir?”
“As to that, I would convey you in my own carriage, but you will hardly endear yourself to your future employer by arriving at midnight.”
The truth of this observation struck her most forcibly. The image of the redoubtable Mrs. Macclesfield rose before her mind’s eye, and almost caused her to shudder.
“There is a decent inn at Wisborough Green where you may put up for the night,” he said. “In the morning, if you are determined to stick to your purpose, I will have you driven to Five Mile Ash.”
“I am very much obliged to you,” she faltered. “But what shall I say to Mrs. Macclesfield? The truth will not serve: she would think it fantastic!”
“It will certainly be awkward. You had better tell her that you mistook the day, and have but this instant arrived in Sussex.”
“I am much afraid that she will be justly angry, and perhaps turn me away.”
“In that case, you may return to me.”
“Yes! To be married to your odious cousin!” she said. “I thank you, I am not yet reduced to such straits!”
“You are the best judge of that,” he replied imperturbably. “I am naturally not very conversant with the duties a governess is expected to perform, but from all I have heard I should have supposed that almost anything would be preferable.”
There was so much truth in what he said that she was obliged to suppress a sigh. She said in a milder tone, “Yes, but not marriage to a drunkard, I assure you.”
“He is not likely to live long,” he offered.
She began to feel a good deal of curiosity now that her alarm had been allayed, and looked an inquiry.
“His constitution has always been sickly,” he explained. “If he does not meet his death through violence, which is by no means improbable, the brandy will soon finish him.”
“Oh!” said Miss Rochdale weakly. “But why do you wish to see him married?”
“If he dies unmarried I must inherit his estate,” he answered.
She could only stare at him. Happily, since she was for the moment unable to find words to express her bewilderment, the servant came into the room just then, with a tray of tea, bread and butter, and cold meat, which he set down on the table beside her. He looked toward Carlyon, and said in a worried voice, “Mr. Eustace is not come in yet, my lord.”
“It is of no moment.”
“If he is not in some scrape!” the man murmured. “He went off in one of his quirks, my lord.”
Carlyon shrugged his disinterest. The servant sighed and withdrew. Miss Rochdale, having drawn up her chair to the table and poured out a cup of tea, addressed herself gratefully to the cold mutton and began to feel more able to grapple with her circumstances. “I should not wish to appear vulgarly inquisitive, my lord,” she said, “but did you say that you would inherit the estate if your cousin were to die unwed?”
“I did.”
“But don’t you wish to inherit it?” she demanded.
“Not at all.”
She recruited herself with a sip of tea. “It seems very odd!” was all she could think of to say.
He came up to the table and took a chair opposite her. “I dare say it may, but it is the truth. I should explain to you that I was for five unenviable years my cousin’s guardian.” He paused, and she saw his lips tighten. After a moment, he continued in the same level voice: “His career at Eton came to an abrupt end, for which most of his paternal relatives held me to blame.”
“Why, how could that be?” she asked, surprised.
“I have no idea. It was commonly said that if his father had not died during his infancy, or if my aunt had appointed one of her brothers-in-law to be his guardian in preference to myself, his disposition would have been wholly different.”
“Well, to be sure, that seems very hard! But—pardon me!—was it not strange that you should have been chosen to be his guardian? You must have been very young!”
“Your own age. I was six and twenty. It was natural enough. My aunt was my mother’s elder sister; she inherited this estate from my grandfather. My own estates lie within seven miles of it, and the intercourse between our two families had been constant. I had myself been fatherless for many years, a circumstance that perhaps made me older than my years. I found myself, at the age of eighteen, the head of a family whose youngest members were still in the nursery.”
“Good heavens, do not tell me you were called upon to take charge of a family at that age!” Miss Rochdale exclaimed.
He smiled. “No, not quite that. My mother was then living, but she did not enjoy good health, and it was natural that they should look to me.”
She regarded him wonderingly. “They?”
“I have three brothers and three sisters, ma’am.”
“All in your charge!”
“Oh, no! My sisters are now married; one of my brothers is on SirRowland Hill’s staff, in the Peninsula; another is secretary to Lord Sidmouth at the Home Office, and in general resides in London. You may say that I have only the youngest on my hands. He is in his first year at Oxford. But at the time of which I speak they were all at home.” The smile again lit his eyes. “Your own experience must tell you, ma’am, that a family of six, ranging in age from infancy to sixteen years, is no light burden to cast upon a delicate female.”
“No, indeed!” she said feelingly. “But you had tutors—governesses?”
“Yes, I lost count of them,” he agreed. “Two of my brothers had the most ingenious ways of getting rid of their preceptors. But I do not know why I am boring on about my affairs, after all! I meant merely to explain how it was that my aunt came to leave her son to my Care. I must confess that I most signally failed either to curb his inclination for all the more disastrous forms of dissipation, or to influence him in any way for the better. I only succeeded in giving him a profound dislike of me. I cannot blame him: his dislike of me can be nothing compared with the sentiments I have always cherished in regard to him.” He looked across the table at her, and added with deliberation, “It is not an easy task to deal fairly with a youth for whom you can feel nothing but contempt and dislike, ma’am. One of my cousin’s uncles would tell you that I was always hard on him. It may have been so: I; did not mean to be. When I was obliged to remove him from Eton, I put him in charge of an excellent tutor. It did not answer. A great noise was made over my refusal to entertain the notion of letting him go to Oxford. There was, in fact, little likelihood of his proving himself eligible, but on every count I should have opposed it. I was held, however, to have acted from spite.”