At this point, Abby knew that it behoved her to take polite leave of Mr Miles Calverleigh. She sat down, offering her conscience a sop in the form of a hope that Mr Miles Calverleigh might be of assistance to her in circumventing the designs of his nephew. She chose one of the straight-backed chairs ranged round the table, and watched him dispose his long limbs in another, at right-angles to her. His attitude was as negligent as his conversation, for he crossed his legs, dug one hand into his pocket, and laid his other arm along the table. He seemed to have very little regard for the conventions governing polite conduct, and Abby, in whom the conventions were deeply inculcated, was far less shocked than amused. Her expressive eyes twinkled engagingly as she said: 'May I speak frankly to you, sir? About your nephew? I do not wish to offend you, but I fancy he is more the black sheep of your family than you are!'
'Oh, I shouldn't think so at all!' he responded. 'He sounds more like a cawker to me, if he's making up to a girl who won't come into her inheritance for eight years!'
'I have every reason to think,' said Abby frostily, 'that my niece is not the first heiress he has – as you phrase it! – made up to ! '
'Well, if he's hanging out for a rich wife I don't suppose she
is.'
Her fingers tightened round the handle of her parasol. 'Mr Calverleigh, I have not yet met your nephew. He came to Bath while I was away, visiting my sisters, and was called to London, on matters of business, I am told, before I returned. My hope is that he has realised that his – his suit is hopeless, and won't come back, but your presence in Bath quite dashes that hope, since I collect you must have come here in the expectation of seeing him.'
'Oh, no!' he assured her. 'Whatever put that notion into your head?'
She blinked. 'I assumed – well, naturally I assumed that you had come in search of him! I mean, – so close a relative, and, I understand, the only member of your immediate family still living – ?'
'What of it? You know, fiddle-faddle about families and close relatives is so much humbug! I haven't seen that nephew of mine since he was a grubby brat – if I saw him then, which very likely I didn't, for I never went near my brother if I could avoid it – so why the devil should I want to see him now?'
She could think of no answer to this, but it seemed to her so ruthless that she wondered, remembering that he had been packed off to India in disgrace, whether it arose from feelings of rancour. However, his next words, which were uttered in a thoughtful tone, and quite dispassionately, lent no colour to her suspicion. He said: 'You know, there's a great deal of balderdash talked about family affection. How much affection have you for your family?'
Such a question had never before been put to her; and, since it was one of the
accepted tenets that one loved and respected one's parents, and (at the least) loved one's brothers and sisters, she had not previously considered the matter. But just as she was about to assure this outrageous person that she was devoted to every member of her family the unendearing images rose before her mind's eye of her father, of her two brothers, and even of her sister Jane. She said, a little ruefully: 'For my mother, and for two of my sisters, a great deal.'
'Ah, I never had any sisters, and my mother died when I was a schoolboy.'
'You are much to be pitied,' she said.
'Oh, no, I don't think so!' he replied. 'I don't like obligations.' The disarming smile crept back into his eyes, as they rested on her face. 'My family disowned me more than twenty years ago, you know!'
'Yes, I did know. That is – I have been told that they did,' she said. She added, with the flicker of a shy smile: 'I think it was a dreadful thing to have done, and – and perhaps is the reason why you don't wish to meet your nephew?'
That made him laugh. 'Good God, no! What concern was it of his?'
'I only thought – wondered – since it was his father –'
'No, no, that's fustian!' he expostulated. 'You can't turn me into an object for compassion! I didn't like my brother Humphrey, and I didn't like my father either, but I don't bear them any grudge for shipping me off to India. In fact, it was the best thing they could do, and it suited me very well.'
'Compassion certainly seems to be wasted on you, sir!' she said tartly.
'Yes, of course it is. Besides, I like you, and I shan't if you pity me.'
She was goaded into swift retort. 'Well, that wouldn't trouble me!'
'That's the barber!' he said appreciatively. 'Tell me more about this niece of yours! I collect her mother's dead too?'
'Her mother died when she was two years old, sir.'
There was an inscrutable expression in his face, and although
he kept his eyes on hers the fancy struck her that he was looking at something a long way beyond her. Then, with a sudden, wry smile, he seemed to bring her into focus again, and asked abruptly: 'Rowland did marry her, didn't he? – Celia Morval?'
'Why, yes! Were you acquainted with her?'
He did not answer this, but said: 'And my nephew is dangling after her daughter?'
'I am afraid it is more serious than that. I haven't met him, but he seems to be a young man of considerable address. He has succeeded in – in fixing his interest with her – well, to speak roundly, sir, she imagines herself to be violently in love with him. You may think that no great matter, as young as she is, but the thing is that she is a high-spirited girl, and her character is – is determined. She has been virtually in my charge – and that of my eldest sister – from her childhood. Perhaps she has been too much indulged – granted too much independence. I was never used to think so – you see, I was myself – we all were! – brought up in such subjection that I vowed I wouldn't allow Fanny to be crushed as we were. I even thought – knowing how much I was used to long for the courage to rebel, and how bitterly I resented my father's tyranny – that if I encouraged her to be independent, to look on me as a friend rather than as an aunt, she wouldn't feel rebellious – would allow herself to be guided by me.'
'And she doesn't?' he asked sympathetically.