'Yes, sir! Thank you, sir!' said Lizzy, and slid out of the room in a manner strongly suggestive of one escaping from a tiger's cage.
Miss Wychwood, observing with some surprise her cherished Waterford glasses, said: 'What in the world possessed Limbury to send up the best glasses? I only use them for parties! I collect you frightened him out of his wits, just as you frightened poor Lizzy!'
'No such thing!' said Mr Carleton, pouring Burgundy into one of the best glasses. 'Limbury is doing justice to this occasion. Good butlers are always awake upon every suit! Here you are, love: see if my prescription doesn't pluck you up!'
Miss Wychwood took the glass, but refused to drink the Burgundy unless Mr Carleton joined her. So he poured out a glass for himself, and was just raising it to toast her when Miss Farlow burst into the room, powerfully agitated, stopped dead on the threshold, and exclaimed: 'Well!'
Miss Wychwood was startled into spilling some of the Burgundy. She set her glass down, and tried to rub away the stains from the skirt of her gown with her handkerchief, saying crossly: 'Really, Maria, it is too bad of you! Look what you have made me do! What do you want?'
'I am here, Annis, to preserve you from the consequences of your own folly!' said Miss Farlow. 'How could you receive a member of the Male Sex in your bedchamber, and in your dressing-gown? Sir, I must request you to leave immediately!'
'You don't mean to tell me that's a dressing-gown?' interrupted Mr Carleton, a dangerous gleam in his eyes. 'Well, it's by far the most elegant one I've ever been privileged to see, and I suppose I must have seen scores of 'em in my time – paid for them too!'
'For goodness' sake, Oliver – !' Miss Wychwood said, in an imploring whisper.
Trembling with outraged propriety, Miss Farlow uttered a terrible indictment of Mr Carleton's manners, morals, and shameless disregard of the rules of conduct governing any man venturing to call himself a gentleman. A shattering retort rose to his lips, but he bit it back, because he saw that Miss Wychwood was by no means enjoying this encounter, and merely said: 'Well, now that you have convinced me, ma'am, that I am so far sunk in moral turpitude as to be past praying for, may I suggest that you withdraw from this scene of vice?'
'Nothing,' declared Miss Farlow, 'will prevail upon me to leave this room while you remain in it, sir! I do not know by what means you forced yourself into it –'
'Oh, do, pray, Maria, stop talking such fustian nonsense, and go away!' begged Miss Wychwood. 'Mr Carleton did not force his way into my room! He came at my invitation, and if I have to listen to any more ranting from you I shall go into strong hysterics!'
'Sir Geoffrey entrusted you to my care, Annis, and never shall it be said of me that I betrayed the confidence he reposed in me! Since Jurby has been so unmindful of her duty – not that that surprises me, for I have always considered that you permitted her far too much license, so that she has grown to be
so big in her own esteem that –'
'Oh, cut line, woman!' said Mr Carleton, striding to the door, and opening it. 'Miss Wychwood has asked you to go away, and I have every intention of seeing to it that you do go away! Don't keep me waiting!'
'And leave my sacred charge unprotected? Never!' declared Miss Farlow heroically.
'Oh, for God's sake – !' snapped Mr Carleton, at the end of his patience. 'What the devil do you suppose I'm going to do to her? Rape her? I will give you thirty seconds to leave this room, and if you are not on the other side of the door by that time I shall eject you forcibly!'
'Brute!' ejaculated Miss Farlow, bursting into tears. 'Offering violence to a defenceless female! Only wait until Sir Geoffrey knows of this!'
He paid no heed, but kept his eyes on his watch. Miss Farlow hesitated between heroism and fright. He shut his watch with a snap, restored it to his pocket, and advanced purposefully towards her. Miss Farlow's courage failed. She uttered a shriek, and ran out of the room.
Mr Carleton shut the door, and applied himself to the more agreeable task of soothing Miss Wychwood's lacerated nerves, in which he succeeded so well that in a very short space of time her racing pulses had steadied to a normal rate, and she not only allowed herself to be coaxed to swallow the rest of the Burgundy in her glass, but even to nibble a biscuit.
Miss Farlow's state was less happy. The intelligence, conveyed to her by Jurby, who was hovering on the landing, that Miss Wychwood had a visitor with her, and did not wish to be disturbed, had aroused all her smouldering jealousy. She had told Jurby that she had had no business to introduce a visitor into Miss Wychwood's room, and was unwise enough to say: 'You should have asked leave to do so from me, or from her ladyship! Who
is this visitor?'
'One that will do her more good than you ever will, miss!' had said Jurby, goaded into retort. 'It is Mr Carleton!'
Miss Farlow had been at first incredulous, and then sincerely shocked. In her chaste mind, every man – except, of course, doctors, fathers, and brothers – figured as a potential menace to a maiden's virtue. Even had it been Lord Beckenham who was closeted with Miss Wychwood she would have felt it to be her duty to have pointed out to him the impropriety of his visiting a lady in her bedchamber, who was wearing nothing but a dressinggown over her nightdress. But Lord Beckenham – such a perfect gentleman! – would never have dreamt of compromising a lady in such a scandalous fashion. As for Annis, not only tolerating, but actually encouraging Mr Carleton i
n his nefarious conduct, she could only suppose that her poor dear cousin had taken leave of her senses. Since she (a defenceless female) had been unable to prevail upon this Brute to withdraw from Miss Wychwood's room, there was only one thing to be done, and that was to pour the whole story into Sir Geoffrey's ears the instant he returned from his walk with Lady Wychwood. With this intention, she hurried downstairs, mentally rehearsing her rôle in the forthcoming drama, and working herself up into a hysterical state. She encountered Sir Geoffrey just as he was about to enter the drawing-room.
He and Lady Wychwood had returned to the house some minutes earlier. Fortunately for Lady Wychwood, she had gone up immediately to the nursery, to assure herself that Tom had taken no harm from his first expedition, since his illness, into the garden, so she was spared the horrid news Miss Farlow was only too anxious to recount to her.
Sir Geoffrey was not so fortunate. Having regaled himself with a glass of sherry, he mounted the stairs to the first floor, and was instantly assailed by Miss Farlow, who came stumbling down the stairs, uttering in a hysterical voice: 'Cousin Geoffrey! Oh, Cousin Geoffrey! Thank God you are come!'
Sir Geoffrey eyed her with disfavour. He was unaccustomed to females who flew into distempered freaks, and he had already taken Miss Farlow in dislike. He said: 'What the deuce is the matter with you, Maria?'
'Oh, nothing, nothing – except that I have never been so shocked in my life! It is Annis! You must go up to her room immediately!'
'Eh?' said Sir Geoffrey, startled. 'Annis? Why, what's amiss with her?'
'I do not know how to tell you! If it were not my duty to do so, I could not bring myself to disclose to you what will curl your liver!' said Miss Farlow, extracting the last ounce of drama from the situation.