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he responded promptly.
Miss Wychwood shook a mournful head. 'If only I may not have sunk myself beneath reproach in your eyes!'
They made such haste to reassure her that her suppressed laughter escaped her, and she said: 'You absurd babies! Oh, don't look so astonished, or you will send me into fresh whoops! I know you can't think why, and if I were to explain it to you you would believe me to be all about in my head! Tell me, Ninian, did you give my letter to Mrs Amber?'
'No, because she was too ill to receive me, but my mother gave it to her.' He hesitated, and then said, with a deprecatory grin: 'She – she wasn't well enough to write to you, but she did charge my mother with a message!'
'A message to me?' Miss Wychwood asked, her brows lifting slightly.
'Well, not precisely!' he replied. His grin widened, and he gave a chuckle. 'What she said, in fact, was that she washed her hands of Lucilla!'
'She says that every time I vex her!' said Lucilla disgustedly. 'And never does she mean it! Depend upon it, she will come to fetch me back, and all my pleasure will be at an end!'
'Oh, I don't think she'll do that!' said Ninian consolingly. 'She does seem to be quite knocked-up. What's more, when my mother asked her if she was to direct one of the maids to pack up your gear and send it to you she said that if after all she had done for you you preferred a stranger to her she only trusted that you wouldn't regret it, and wish her to take you back, because she never wanted to set eyes on you again!'
Lucilla considered this, but presently shook her head, and sighed: 'I don't set the least store by that, but it does at least make it seem that she won't come to Bath immediately. It always takes her days to recover from her hysterical turns!'
'Yes,' he agreed. 'But perhaps I ought just to mention to you that the first thing she did, before she took to her bed, was to send off a letter to Mr Carleton. Ten to one he won't pay any heed to it, but I think I ought perhaps to warn you about it!'
'Oh, if that isn't just like her!' cried Lucilla, flushing with wrath. 'She is too ill to write to Miss Wychwood, but not too ill to write to my uncle! Oh, dear me, no! And if he means to come here, to force me to return, I can't and I won't bear it!'
'Well, don't put yourself into a stew!' recommended Miss Wychwood. 'If he does come here with any such intention he will find he has me to deal with – and that is an experience which I fancy he won't enjoy!'
Four
On the following morning, Miss Wychwood sent her groom to Twynham Park with instructions to bring her favourite mare to Bath. He carried with him a letter to Sir Geoffrey, in which Miss Wychwood informed her brother that she had a young friend staying with her whom she wished to entertain with riding expeditions, to the various places of interest in the surrounding countryside.
When she had first set up her own establishment in Camden Place, she had brought two saddle-horses with her, assuming, rather vaguely, that she would find riding, in Bath, the everyday matter it was at Twynham. It had not taken very long to dis abuse her mind of this misapprehension. At Twynham, she had been used to ride, as a matter of course, every day of her life, whether into the village, on an errand of mercy to one of her father's tenants struck down by sickness, or on a visit to a friend living in the neighbourhood; but she soon discovered that life in town – particularly in such a town as Bath, where the steep cobbled streets made equestrian traffic rare – was very different from life in the country. In Bath, one either walked, or took a chair: one could not stroll down to the stables on a sudden impulse, and order one's groom to saddle up for one. It was necessary to appoint a time for one's horse to be brought round to the house; and it was even more necessary that the groom should accompany one. Miss Wychwood found this intolerable, and frankly owned that it was one of the disadvantages of town-life. She also owned (but only to herself ) that it was one of the dis advantages of being an unattached spinster; but having decided that the advantages of living under her own roof in Bath, subject to no fraternal vetoes, outweighed the disadvantages, she indulged in no vain repinings, but within a very few weeks sent her mare back to Twynham Park, where Sir Geoffrey, to his credit, kept her, exercised and groomed, for her use whenever she came to stay with him. She kept her carriage-horses in Bath, and one neatish bay hack, which, being an old and beloved friend, she could not bring herself to sell.
Seale brought the mare to Bath, but he was accompanied by Sir Geoffrey, bristling with suspicion that his sister had taken it into her wayward head to befriend some Young Person who would prove to be an adventuress. Unfortunately, he arrived in Camden Place to find only Miss Farlow at home, and when he had learnt from her the circumstances under which Annis had made Lucilla's acquaintance he became convinced that his suspicion had been correct.
'How can you have been so caper-witted?' he demanded of his sister, an hour later. 'I had not thought it possible that you could be such a noddy! Pray, what do you know about this young woman? Upon my word, Annis –'
'Heavens, what a piece of work about nothing!' interrupted Annis. 'I collect you've been talking to Maria, who is positively green with jealousy of poor Lucilla! She is a Carleton: an orphan, living, since her mother's death, with one of her aunts; and since this Mrs Amber is in indifferent health Lucilla has come to stay with me for a few weeks, as a sort of prelude to her regular come-out. Ninian Elmore escorted her here, and –'
'Elmore? Elmore? Never heard of him!' declared Sir Geoffrey.
'Very likely you might not: he's a mere child, not long down, I fancy, from Oxford. He is the son and heir of Lord Iverley – and I daresay you haven't heard of him either, for I collect that he lives retired, at Chartley Place. A Hampshire family, and, even if you haven't heard of them, perfectly respectable, I promise you!'
'Oh!' said Sir Geoffrey, slightly daunted. Chewing the cud of this information, he made a recover. 'That's all very well!' he said. 'But how do you know this girl is a Carleton? Not that I like the connection any the better if she is! The only one of the family I'm acquainted with is Oliver Carleton –'
'Lucilla's uncle,' interpolated Miss Wychwood.
'Well, I can tell you this!' said Sir Geoffrey. 'He's a damned unpleasant fellow! Got no manners, never scruples to give the back to anyone he don't happen to like, thinks his birth and his wealth gives him the right to ride rough-shod over men quite as well born as himself; and – in short, the sort of ugly customer I should never dream of presenting to my sister!'
'Do you mean that he is a libertine?' asked Miss Wychwood.
'Annis!' he ejaculated.
'Oh, for heaven's sake, Geoffrey – !' she said impatiently. 'I cut my wisdoms years ago! If you wouldn't dream of presenting him to me, what else can you mean?'
He glared at her. 'You seem to me to have no delicacy of mind!' he said peevishly. 'What my poor mother would say, if she could hear you expressing yourself with such unfeminine want of refinement I shudder to think of !'
'Then don't think of it!' she recommended. 'Think instead of what Papa would say! Though I daresay that would make you shudder too! Where did you learn to be so mealy-mouthed, Geoffrey? As for Mr Oliver Carleton, between you, you and Lucilla have inspired me with a strong desire to meet him! She has told me that he has all but one of the faults you've described to me; and you have added the one she, naturally, knows nothing about. He must be a positive monster!'
'Levity was ever your besetting sin,' he said severely. 'Let me tell you that it is not at all becoming in a female! It leads you into talking a deal of improper nonsense. A strong desire to meet a monster, indeed!'
'But I have never seen a monster!' she explained. 'Oh, well! I daresay it is nothing but a take-in, and he is much like any other man!'
