“No, but—”
“I have ransacked every chest and cupboard in that horrid house, only to oblige you! I have not enjoyed a moment’s peace this whole week! I have been brutally assaulted, and all on account of the papers which are now safely in your possession! Well! I am happy to learn of this circumstance, sir, but I think it monstrous that I should be obliged to drive seven miles to do so!”
“It was certainly imprudent,” he responded calmly. “You would have been told of it tomorrow, at Highnoons. Now let me relieve you of that pelisse!”
“I shall do no such thing! I desire you will call for my phaeton immediately!” raged the widow.
“Don’t be silly, Mrs. Cheviot!” he said. “I am not so very much to blame, you know, if you will but consider for a moment! Until I had opened the clock, all was conjecture and I would not, in the very natural condition of nerves you were then in, trouble you any more upon the matter. My first concern was to see you laid down upon your bed to recover from the shock you had undergone. When I found that my suspicion was justified, another consideration strengthened my resolve to keep the discovery to myself. It can hardly need any words of mine to apprise you of the peculiar delicacy of this whole business. I believe I know which course of action I should pursue, but before I take any step in the matter I think it right to discuss the question with my brother John. It was for that reason that I concealed from you and indeed from Nicky too the knowledge that the paper was found. Had I found John here when I returned this afternoon, and had settled with him what I should do, I believe I must have gone back to Highnoons tonight to set all your minds at rest. Unfortunately, however, I found that John had taken a gun out to shoot rabbits, and he is still not come in. I expect him at any moment now. May I take your pelisse, ma’am?”
She let him do so and was glad to remove the hat from her head as well, but although she was a little mollified by the quiet good sense of what he said, she still felt herself to have been hardly used, and remarked with a good deal of bitterness that she might have known he would have a smooth answer ready.
“I have only told you the truth, ma’am,” he replied. “I am sorry to have vexed you, however, and I beg you will not hesitate to tell me how odious has been my conduct! You will find that chair tolerably comfortable, I believe, and out of the draft. Is your head easier? I see that you have cast off your bandages. You should not have done so.”
“If I had not been obliged to drive out I might be wearing my bandages still!” said Elinor mendaciously. “I suppose even you would not expect me to show myself abroad presenting such a very odd appearance!”
“By no means, but I did not expect you to show yourself abroad at all today, ma’am, and cannot approve of it.”
She was prevented from uttering a retort by the entrance of the butler with a tray, which he set down upon a table. He withdrew again and Carlyon poured out a glass of madeira and brought it to his guest with a dish of macaroons. She was obliged to take the glass from him but frigidly declined the macaroons. He put the dish down beside her and went to pour out a second glass of wine for himself. The widow eyed his back view malevolently. “I am sorry I did not send Nicky after Mr. Cheviot, if only to spite you!” she said.
“I am persuaded I might rely on your good sense not to do so,” he returned.
“If he had been in the house I dare say I should have done so, but he was gone out!”
“Yes, I took care of that,” he remarked, turning and coming back to the fire.
Her bosom swelled. “I am obliged to you, my lord! I now perceive the worth of your compliments!”
He smiled. “Oh, not for fear of anything you might do, ma’am! But whatever Francis Cheviot chose to do I did not wish Nicky to hinder.”
She sniffed, and relapsed into defiant silence. After sipping her wine for a few minutes her eye alighted on the macaroons, and she absently took one and began to eat it, realizing that she was hungry and had not, in fact, eaten anything since breakfast. A couple of these cakes did much to restore the serenity of her temper. She looked up, found Carlyon regarding her with a lurking twinkle, and suddenly laughed. “Well, you have used me abominably, but to be sure I might have known that you would, for you have done so from the outset! But what will Mr. Cheviot do when he discovers that there is nothing in that clock?”
“That remains to be seen, ma’am. Will you excuse me while I send a message out to your groom? I think he should go back at once to Highnoons to inform Miss Beccles that you are safely in my charge and that I shall convey you home in my carriage after dinner.”
She made a halfhearted protest which was not attended to. He left the room and was giving the butler his instructions in the hall when John Carlyon walked into the house, carrying his gun and a couple of rabbits, which he handed to the footman.
“Hallo, Ned, so you are back!” he remarked. “I stayed in all the morning on the chance that I might be obliged to go over to Highnoons, but no message came, and so I thought I might as well see if I could come by any sport while I am at home.”
Carlyon nodded. “I was informed you had done so. Come into the library!”
“I will do so when I have washed my hands,” John promised.
Carlyon returned to the library himself, saying as he entered the room, “My brother is this instant come in and will be with us in a minute or two, Mrs. Cheviot.”
She made as if she would have risen from her chair. “You wish to be private with him, I know. I will leave you, sir.”
“Indeed, I beg you will not! I may depend upon your discretion. You already know so much that you must know the whole.”
“You are very good, sir, but Mr. John Carlyon may not like to discuss these matters in my presence, and I would not—”
“Mr. John Carlyon will do as he is bid,” he replied.
She smiled. “Ah, I knew you for a despot upon my first encounter with you, my lord!”
“Very rarely, I assure you! It seems a long time since that day.”
“Yes, I have often feared that I was but tedious company,” remarked the widow affably. “You must blame my circumstances, sir, which have made me lose the art of making myself agreeable in society.”
“I observe that they have not made you lose your quickness of tongue, ma’am! You have wished to see me put out of countenance, and now cannot doubt that you have had your wish gratified!”
She laughed but shook her head. John came into the room at that moment, rubbing his chilled hands together. He stopped short when he perceived Elinor, and said in a voice of surprise, “Mrs. Cheviot! I had no notion—Ned, you should have warned me you had a guest with you! I would not have come in in all my dirt! Pray excuse me, ma’am! I have been out shooting and have had no time to change my jacket!”
“Mrs. Cheviot will excuse you readily,” Carlyon said. “I have been waiting to see you all the afternoon. The memorandum has been found.”
“What! Not at Highnoons!” John exclaimed.
“Yes, at Highnoons, locked in the bracket clock on the mantelpiece in the bookroom.”
“Good God! You do not mean it! It is the actual copy that is missing?”
“I have not perused it, but read enough to convince me it could be none other. You may look at it.” He drew a folded sheaf from his pocket and handed it to his brother.
John almost snatched it from him and spread open the sheets, scanning them rapidly and with starting eyes. “My God, there can be no doubt! Who found this?”
“I did—through the instrumentality of Mrs. Cheviot,” Carlyon replied.
John’s gaze was turned respectfully toward her. She said, “Yes indeed, he could scarcely have succeeded without me. You may imagine how happy I am to have suffered a broken head in this cause! To be sure, I was a little put out at first, for you must know that from some cause or another I have not been very much in the habit of being hit on the head and so was inclined to refine too much on the event. But your brother’s powerful reasoning soon showed me how absurd it was in me to be vexed by such a trifling thing! I make no complaint. I see that it was all for the best.”