‘No reason to think he means to do so,’ said Mr Warboys soothingly. ‘Seemed very taken with her!’
Martin turned his head sharply to look at him, so menacing an expression in his dark eyes that he was thrown into disorder. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, now you come to ask me,’ said Mr Warboys, with the air of one making a discovery, ‘I don’t know what I mean! Spoke without thinking! Often do! Runs in the family: uncle of mine was just the same. Found himself married to a female with a squint all through speaking without thinking.’
‘Oh, to hell with your uncle!’ Martin said angrily.
‘No use saying that, dear boy. The old gentleman took a pious turn years back. Won’t go to hell – not a chance of it! Aunt might – never met such a queer-tempered woman in my life!’
‘Will you stop boring on and on about your relatives?’ said Martin savagely.
‘Don’t mind doing that: no pleasure to me to talk about them! But if you think you’re going to have a turn-up with me, old fellow, you’re devilish mistaken!’
‘Saphead! Why should I?’
‘There ain’t any reason, but whenever you take one of your pets,’ said Mr Warboys frankly, ‘it don’t seem to signify to you whose cork you draw! All I say is, it ain’t going to be mine!’
Meanwhile, Sir Thomas, having ushered the Earl into one of his saloons and furnished him with a comfortable chair, and a glass of Madeira, had arrived at a more precise understanding of the service which had been rendered to his daughter. He chuckled a good deal over it, rubbing his hands together, and ejaculating: ‘Cow-handed little puss! I shall roast her finely for this, I can tell you! All’s well that ends well – though I’ll wager her Mama will have something to say to her giving her groom the slip! But there! she is our only chick, my lord, and we don’t care to be too strict, and that’s the truth! Yes, the Almighty never saw fit to give us another, and though I shan’t deny we did wish for a son – for there will be no one to inherit the baronetcy when I’m gone, you know – it was not to be, and, damme, we wouldn’t exchange our naughty puss for all the sons in creation!’
Gervase said what was proper, and sipped his wine, watching Sir Thomas, as he bustled about, casting another log on to the fire, altering the position of a screen to exclude a possible draught, tugging at the bell-rope to summon a servant to bring in the ratafia-wine for Miss Marianne. He was a stout little man, with a shrewd pair of eyes set in a round face whose original ruddy complexion had been much impaired by a tropical climate. He was dressed without much pretension to fashion in a blue coat and buckskin breeches, but he wore a large ruby-pin in his neckcloth, and another set in a ring upon his finger, so that he was clearly a person of affluence, if not of taste. The Earl was at a loss to decide from what order of society he had sprung, for although the cast of his countenance was aristocratic, with its aquiline nose, and finely-moulded lips, and his voice that of a well-bred man, his manners lacked polish, and he had a rough, colloquial way of expressing himself. His wife, on the other hand, had the appearance and the manners of a gentlewoman, and the style in which his house had been furnished was as elegant as it was expensive. That he had at some period during his lifetime visited the East was indicated by various specimens of oriental art which were scattered about the room. He saw the Earl glancing at the ornaments on the mantelshelf, and said: ‘Ay, you are looking at my ivories, my lord. I bought them for the most part in Calcutta, and a pretty sum they cost me, I can tell you! You won’t find any finer, for although I don’t know much about art, I won’t buy trumpery, and I’m a hard man to cheat.’
‘You have resided in India, sir?’
‘Spent the better part of my life there,’ replied Sir Thomas briskly. ‘If you hear anyone speak of the Nabob, that’s me, or, at any rate, it’s what they call me here at home, and I won’t deny it’s true enough, though I could name you a good few men who made bigger fortunes in India than ever I did. Still, I’m reckoned to be a warm man, as they say. Queer world, ain’t it? I often wonder what my poor father would think if he had lived to see the Prodigal Son come home only just in time to save the family from landing in the basket! Ay, I was a wild young fellow, I can tell you, and caused my father a deal of trouble, God forgive me! The end of it was I was shipped off to India, and I daresay they all hoped I should be heard of no more. I don’t say I blame them, but it was a desperate thing to do, wasn’t it? I wouldn’t serve a son of mine so, but it all turned out for the best; and when I came home, with a snug fortune, and my girl just six years old, and as pretty as a picture, the tables were turned indeed! For what should I find but that brother of mine that was always used to have been as prim and as tonnish as the starchiest nob of them all regularly under the hatches! The silly fellow had been speculating, and he hadn’t the least head for it. A bubble-merchant, that’s what I called him! I found him as near to swallowing a spider as makes no matter, and what he found to squander his money on, with never a chick nor a child to call his own, is more than I can tell you. I daresay it was my lady who spent it, for it was always my lady who must have this, and my lady who was used to have that, till I told him to his head his lady might go hang for all of me! For ever prating about her grand family, she was, but she came to the wrong shop, for I married a girl who was better-born than she, and never any fine-lady nonsense about her, bless her! Well, the long and the short of it was that poor George was never so glad to see anyone in his life as he was to see me, for he actually had an execution in the house! And the worst set of Jeremy Diddlers hanging round him – well, well, I soon sent them packing, you may be sure! The joke of it was that George wasn’t pleased above half, because he had been always in the way of thinking himself much above my touch! Ah, well, he’s dead now, poor fellow, and I should not be laughing at him! Ay, he died a matter of six years ago, leaving no one but me to succeed him. He felt it, and so, I warrant you, does Caroline, though between you and me that don’t by any means stop her expecting me to drop my blunt into her purse every now and then!’ He laughed heartily at this reflection, and his guest, considerably taken aback by these revelations, and scarcely knowing what to say in reply to them, was thankful when the door opened just then to admit the two ladies.
Marianne, who had changed her habit for a dress of sprigged muslin, tied with blue ribbons, was looking lovelier than ever; and the Earl found that he had not been mistaken in his first reading of Lady Bolderwood’s character. A fair, slender woman of considerable beauty, she was affable without being effusive. Without assuming any airs of consequence, or seeming to deprecate her husband’s free manners, she had a quiet dignity of her own, and talked very much like a sensible woman. While Sir Thomas boisterously rallied his daughter on her lack of horsemanship, she sat down beside the Earl, and conversed amiably with him. He decided that he liked both her and Sir Thomas. He was made to feel at home, and although both, in their several degrees, were grateful to him for the service he had rendered Marianne, neither showed the least disposition to toad-eat him. As for Marianne, he could not suppose that a lovelier or a sunnier-tempered girl existed. She bore all her father’s roasting with laughter, and coaxing pleas to be forgiven for having caused him anxiety; and when she saw that he had finished his wine, she jumped up to set down his glass for him.
‘I hope that now we have been so unceremoniously introduced, you will visit us again, Lord St Erth. We do not pretend to entertain in any formal style while we are in the country, for Marianne cannot be considered to be out, you know, until we remove to London next month; but if you don’t disdain a game of lottery-tickets, or to stand up to da
nce in a room with only perhaps half a dozen couples, I shall be very happy to welcome you whenever you should care to come.’
‘That’s right!’ said Sir Thomas, overhearing. ‘No state or flummery! We reserve all that for Grosvenor Square. If I had my way – but, there! this little puss of mine is determined to drag me to all manner of routs and soirées and balls, aren’t you, my pretty?’
She was seated on the arm of his chair, and at once bent to lay her cheek against his, and to say caressingly: ‘Dear Papa! Now, confess! You would not forgo any of it for the world!’
‘Ay, I know you! You are a rogue, miss, and think you may twist me round your finger! Come and eat your mutton at Whissenhurst when you feel so inclined, my lord! You know your way, and if you did not, young Martin would show it to you fast enough. No offence, but I’ve a pretty good notion of the way things are at Stanyon, and although I’m sure her ladyship is a very good sort of a woman, I’ll go bail you are yawning till your jaws crack six days out of the seven!’
The Earl laughed, thanked him, and rose to take his leave. As he shook hands with Marianne, she smiled up at him in her innocent way, and said: ‘Do come again! We sometimes have the merriest parties – everyone comes to them!’
‘I shall most certainly come,’ Gervase said. ‘And you, I hope –’ his glance embraced them all – ‘will honour Stanyon with a visit. My mother-in-law is planning one or two entertainments: I believe you must shortly be receiving cards from her.’
‘Oh, famous!’ Marianne cried, clapping her hands. ‘Will you give a ball at Stanyon? Do say you will! It is the very place for one!’
‘Miss Bolderwood has only to give her commands! A ball it shall be!’
‘My love, it is time and more that you ceased to be such a sad romp!’ said Lady Bolderwood, with a reproving look. ‘Pray do not heed her, Lord St Erth!’
She gave him her hand, charged him to deliver her compliments to the Dowager, and Sir Thomas escorted him to the front-door, and stayed chatting to him on the steps, while his horse was brought round from the stables.
‘There is no need for you to be giving a ball unless you choose,’ he said bluntly. ‘Puss will have enough of them in another month, and I daresay her Mama don’t care for her to appear at any bang-up affair until after our own ball in Grosvenor Square. We’ll send you a card. But come and visit us in a friendly way when you choose! I like to see young people round me, enjoying themselves, and I remember my old Indian ways enough still to be glad to keep open house.’ He chuckled. ‘No fear of our being dull in the country! If there’s any young spark for twenty-five miles round us whom you won’t find at Whissenhurst, one day or another, I wish I may meet him! But what I say to Mama is, there’s safety in numbers, and I can tell you this, my lord, we ain’t anxious to see our girl married too young! Sometimes I wonder what will become of us, when she sets up her own establishment! There were plenty of people to advise us to bring her out last Season, but, No, we said: there’s time and to spare! Hallo! is this your horse! Now, horseflesh is something I flatter myself I do understand! Ay, grand hocks! forelegs well before him! You’ll hear men praising cocktails, but what I say is, the best is always the best, and give me a thoroughbred every time!’
Five
It was some time before Martin returned to Stanyon, his friend having persuaded him, with the best intentions possible, to accompany him to his parental home. Mr Warboys, inured by custom to Martin’s tantrums, formed the praiseworthy scheme of allowing that young gentleman’s wrath time to cool before he again encountered his half-brother. In itself, the scheme was excellent, but it was rendered abortive first by the encomiums bestowed by Mrs Warboys, a fat and very nearly witless lady of forty summers, on the very pronounced degree of good-looks enjoyed by the Earl; and second by a less enthusiastic but by far more caustic remark uttered by Mr Warboys, senior, to the effect that Martin, his own son, and almost every other young aspirant to the Beauty’s favours could be thought to stand no chance at all against a belted Earl.
‘Unless Bolderwood is a bigger fool than I take him for,’ he said, ‘he will lose no time in securing St Erth for that chit of his!’
Shocked by such a display of tactlessness on the part of his progenitors, Mr Warboys, junior, said: ‘Shouldn’t think St Erth has any serious intentions, myself!’