Джорджетт Хейер: Lady of Quality

Lucilla said apologetically that she feared her dress was sadly crumpled. “The thing was, you see, that I haven’t been in the way of packing, ma’am.”

“I shouldn’t think you’ve ever done so before, have you?”

“Well, no! But I couldn’t ask my maid to do it for me, because she would have instantly told my aunt. That,” said Lucilla bitterly, “is the worst of servants who have known one since one was a baby!”

“Very true!” agreed Annis. “I am afflicted with several myself, and know just how you feel. Now, tell me by what name I am to present you to people!”

“I did think of calling myself Smith,” said Lucilla doubtfully. “Or—or Brown, perhaps. Some very ordinary name!”

“Oh, I shouldn’t choose anything too ordinary!” said Annis, shaking her head. “It wouldn’t suit you!”

“No, and I am persuaded I should come to hate it,” said Lucilla naively. She hesitated for a moment. “I think I’ll keep my own name, after all, on account of not being rag-mannered, which I’m afraid I was, when I wouldn’t let Ninian tell you what it is. I was in dread that you might betray me to my horrid uncle, but that was because I didn’t know you, or how kind you are. So I’ll tell you, ma’am. It’s Carleton—with an E in the middle,” she added conscientiously.

“I will take care not to reveal the E to a living soul,” promised Annis, with perfect gravity. “Anyone could be called Carlton without an E in the middle, but the E gives distinction to the name, and that, of course, is what you wish to avoid. So now that we have settled that problem let us go down to the drawing-room and await Mr Elmore’s arrival!”

“If he does arrive!” said Lucilla unhopefully. “Not that it signifies if he doesn’t, except that my conscience will suffer a severe blow, even though it wasn’t my fault that he came with me. But if he gets into a hobble I shall never cease to blame myself for having left him quite stranded!”

“But why should he be stranded?” said Annis reasonably. “We left him some eight miles short of Bath—not in the middle of a desert! Even if he can’t hire a vehicle, he might easily walk the rest of the way, don’t you think?”

“No,” said Lucilla, sighing. “He wouldn’t think it at all the thing. I don’t care a button for such antiquated flummery, but he does. I am excessively attached to him, because I’ve known him all my life, but I cannot deny that he is sadly wanting in—in dash! In fact, he is a pudding-heart, ma’am!”

“Surely you are too severe!” objected Miss Wychwood, ushering her into the drawing-room. “Of course, I am barely acquainted with him, but it did not seem to me that he was wanting in dash! To have aided and abetted you in your flight was not the action of a pudding-heart, you must own!”

Lucilla frowned over this, and tried, not very successfully, to explain the circumstances which had led young Mr Elmore to embark on what was probably the only adventure of his blameless career. “He wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t been sure that Lord Iverley would have thought it the right thing,” she said. “Though I daresay Lord Iverley will blame him for not having stopped me, which is wickedly unjust, and so I shall tell him if he gives poor Ninian one of his scolds! For how could he expect Ninian to be full of pluck when he has brought him up to be a pattern-card of—of amiable compliance? Ninian always does exactly what Lord Iverley wishes him to do—even when it comes to offering for me, which he doesn’t in the least want to do! And for my part I don’t believe Lord Iverley would have a fatal heart-attack if Ninian refused to obey him, but Lady Iverley does think so, and has reared Ninian to believe that it is his sacred duty not to do anything to put his papa out of curl. And I will say this for Ninian: he has a very kind heart, besides holding Lord Iverley in great affection, and having pretty strict notions of—of filial duty; and I daresay he would liefer do anything in the world than drive his papa into his grave.”

Surprised, Miss Wychwood said: “But is Lord Iverley—I collect he is Ninian’s father?—a very old man?”

“Oh, no, not very old!” replied Lucilla. “He is the same age as my papa would have been, if Papa hadn’t died when I was just seven years old. He was killed at Corunna, and Lord Iverley—well, he wasn’t Lord Iverley then, but Mr William Elmore, because old Lord Iverley was still alive—but, in any event, he brought my papa’s sword, and his watch, and his diary, and the very last letter he had scribbled to my mama, home to England, and gave them to my mama. They say he has never been the same man since Papa died. They were bosom-bows, you see, from the time when they were both at Harrow, and even joined the same regiment, and were never parted until Papa was killed! Which I perfectly see is a very touching story, for I am not hardhearted, whatever Aunt Clara may say! But what I do not see, and never shall see, is why Ninian and I must be married merely because our fathers, in the milkiest way, made an idiotish scheme that we should!”

“It does seem a trifle unreasonable,” admitted Miss Wychwood.

“Yes, and because, when he married my mama, Papa bought a house just beyond the gates of Chartley Place, and Ninian and I were almost brought up together, and were very good friends, nothing will persuade Lord Iverley that we were not made for one another! And, most unfortunately, Ninian has fallen in love with someone whom Lord and Lady Iverley have taken in strong dislike—though why they should have done so I can’t imagine, for they never stir out of Chartley Place, and have never set eyes on her! I daresay they think her rather too old for Ninian, and I must own it does seem strange that he should be dangling after a lady at least thirty years of age, and very likely more!”

This circumstance did not seem strange to Miss Wychwood, but what seemed very strange indeed to her was that the Iverleys should be taking so serious a view of what was, to her understanding, a case of calf-love, of violent but short duration. She said, smiling a little: “I expect it does seem strange to you, Lucilla, but it is a well-known fact that young men are very apt to fall in love with women older than themselves. I fancy the Iverleys have no need to go into high fidgets over it!”

“Oh, no, of course they haven’t!” Lucilla agreed. “Good gracious, he fell desperately in love with some girl when he was in his first year at Oxford, and even I could guess that she was most ineligible! Fortunately, he fell out of love with her before the Iverleys knew anything about it, so they didn’t fuss and fret over it. But this time some tattling busybody wrote to tell Lord Iverley that Ninian was making up to this London-lady, so Lord Iverley taxed him with it, and Lady Iverley implored him not to—to hasten his father’s end by persisting in—in his suit, and—”

“Good God!” interrupted Miss Wychwood. “What a couple of cabbage-heads! They deserve that Ninian should marry this undesirable female out of hand!” She caught herself up on this impulsive utterance, and said: “I shouldn’t say so, but I have an unruly tongue! Forget it! Am I right in thinking that Chartley Place is somewhere to the north of Salisbury? Is that where you too five?”

“No, not now. I did live there until Mama died, three years ago, but since then I’ve lived at Cheltenham, with my aunt and my uncle, and the house, which belongs to me, has been leased to strangers.”

This disclosure left Miss Wychwood at a loss. The words were melancholy, but the manner in which they were uttered was not at all melancholy. She said, tentatively: “No doubt it must have been distressing to you to see strangers in your house?”