Джорджетт Хейер - The Reluctant Widow

“Why should you?” said Nicky cheerfully. “Ned will settle it!”

Mrs. Cheviot could not repress a smile, but John said, “I own, I wish I had never heard a word of the business. I should not say so, and of course I don’t mean that I would have had the thing undiscovered, but—Well, it is the devil of a coil, and there is something to be said for Ned’s wanting us to be well out of it! If only we had not been related to Eustace!”

Nicky said that he did not see what that should signify, and this observation at once led to an argument which lasted until Carlyon, who had taken no part in it, intervened to point out that neither Nicky’s rustication nor John’s prosiness, both of which fruitful topics had crept into the discussion and threatened to monopolize it, had any bearing on the real point at issue.

“I do not see why I must needs be called prosy merely because—”

“Well, but Ned, you must admit—”

The door opened. “My lord,” announced the butler disinterestedly, “Mr. Cheviot has called to see your lordship. I have ushered him into the Crimson Saloon.”

He stood waiting, holding the door, but as Carlyon rose to his feet, John also got up, saying in an urgent undervoice, “Wait, Ned!”

Carlyon looked at him for a moment and then spoke over his shoulder. “Tell Mr. Cheviot I shall be with him in a few minutes.”

The butler bowed and went out again. Nicky, his eyes blazing with excitement, exclaimed, “By God, this is beyond anything! To think he should dare come smash up to us! Lord, he must have opened the clock before he reached town! Now the game’s your own, Ned! May I come with you and see what trick he tries to play off?”

Carlyon shook his head. John said, “Ned, be careful! You will not meet him unarmed!”

Carlyon’s brows rose in a quizzical look. “My dear John! I really cannot be expected to receive my visitors with a pistol in my hand!”

“You said yourself he was a very dangerous man!”

“I may have done so, but I never said he was a fool. Murder me in my own house, having been admitted by my butler? I think your wits are gone woolgathering, John!”

John reddened and gave a reluctant laugh. “Well, perhaps so, but you will at least allow me to accompany you!”

Nicky instantly raised his voice in indignant protest. He was silenced by an authoritative finger “No,” said Carlyon. “I think he might find your presence embarrassing. Moreover, I wish you to entertain Mrs. Cheviot while I am away. I’ll see him alone.”

“But, Ned, what do you mean to do?” John said uneasily.

“That must depend on circumstance.”

“Well! I own his having the effrontery to come here does make it seem as though—But I’ll have no hand in giving that memorandum to him!”

“Then stay here,” said Carlyon, and left the room.

He found Francis Cheviot standing over the fire in the Crimson Saloon, one foot, in its gleaming Hessian boot, resting on the fender, one white hand gripping the edge of the mantelpiece. He still wore his fur-lined cloak, but he had cast his muffler. There was something rather fixed in the smile with which he met his host, but he said, with all his habitual languor, “My dear Carlyon, you must forgive me for intruding upon you at this hour! I feel sure you will—your sense of justice must oblige you to acknowledge its being quite your own fault. Do forgive me, but must we remain in this welter of crimson velvet? It is a color that irritates my nerves sadly. It is also extremely chilly in here and you know how susceptible I am to colds.”

“I know how susceptible you say you are to colds,” replied Carlyon, at his driest.

“Oh, it is perfectly true!” Francis assured him. “You must not think that I always prevaricate, for I only do so when I am obliged to.”

“Come into the library!” Carlyon said, leading the way there.

“Ah, this is better!” Francis approved, looking round with a critical eye. “Crimson and gold—I dare say very eligible for certain occasions, but this is not one of them.” He unfastened his cloak strings at the throat and flung the heavy garment off. The smile faded from his face. He came to the fire and said, “You know, my dear Carlyon, I am quite tired—really quite exhausted!—with this game of hide-and-seek in the dark which I have been playing with you. I could wish that you had not so much reserve. It is a fault in you. You must own it to be a fault! If you had but taken me into your confidence I should have been spared a great deal of trouble.”

“And Mrs. Cheviot a broken head?”

Francis shuddered. “Pray do not remind me of anything so distasteful to one of my exquisite sensibility! What a horrible necessity! I do trust she is now recovered? I myself am still sadly shaken by the affair. You know, Carlyon, I should find myself with an easier task if you would but cultivate that excellent virtue, frankness. Of course, I perceived at the outset that you cherished suspicions, but although I believe I am not generally accounted an obtuse person, I never could discover the extent of your knowledge, nor how you came by it.”

“I knew from John that a certain memorandum was missing,” Carlyon replied.

“Ah, so that was it! The ubiquitous John, who has no business, I am sure, to know anything about the matter. How shocking it is to reflect on the indiscretion that appears to prevail in certain quarters! By the way, I do trust you have that memorandum safe?”

“I have.”

“Well, I must say thank God for that, at all events. You will allow me to compliment you on your quickness, my dear Edward. I had hoped that Mrs. Cheviot’s reference to that clock might have passed unnoticed. I should have remembered that you had always a disagreeable trick of fixing upon the very points one would have wished to escape you.”

“I have the memorandum safe,” Carlyon interrupted, “and I collect that you are here to try whether you can induce me to hand it over to you.”

“Quite so,” smiled Francis. “I am persuaded that would be the wisest course to pursue.”

“I shall need to be convinced of that, however.”

“Yes, I was afraid you would, and so I shall have to convince you, in spite of all my efforts—my really painstaking and often distasteful efforts—to obviate the necessity of doing so. Ah, perhaps I should make it plain at once that even though I am susceptible to colds and infinitely prefer cats to dogs I have not been selling information to Bonaparte’s agents. How degrading it is to be obliged tosay so! My interest in this affair is neither personal nor patriotic—you remark, I hope, the example I set you in that admirable virtue we were discussing a moment ago! And yet, am I being perfectly frank when I say my interest is not personal? Let us rather say that I am anxious to avoid a scandal. Somehow I feel reasonably certain that a man of your excellent common sense must be similarly anxious.”

“You are right, but I can be satisfied with nothing less than the whole truth.”

Francis sighed. “Very well, between these four walls, then, let us lay bare the whole truth. As I fancy you have already guessed, my lamentable parent is the somewhat inexpert schemer you have been trying to-unmask.” He paused, but Carlyon only continued to regard him steadily. He sighed again. “One sees why, of course.”

“Does one?”

“Oh, I think so! His fortune was never large, you know, and he has not the least notion of management. That peerage which affords him such satisfaction was unfortunately unaccompanied by a grant that might have enabled, him to have supported his new dignity in the style he thought proper to it. My dear Edward, have you ever seen the enlargements he saw fit to undertake at Bedlington Manor? Quite dreadful, I assure you! I have only to tell you that he had the Regent for his architectural adviser to make it unnecessary for me to say more.” He covered his eyes with one hand and shuddered eloquently. “There is even a Chinese drawing room. You might almost fancy yourself in poor Prinny’s little summer residence at Brighton. The only consolation is that when it is put up for sale, as it assuredly must be, I have not the least doubt of its fetching a fantastic sum. It is just the thing to appeal to some city merchant with social ambitions.”