Charity Girl (19 page)

   Resisting an absurd but strong impulse to offer Dr Easton an apology for Nettlecombe's rudeness, Desford took his leave, saying that he was much obliged to him, and assuring him, with a disarming smile, that he had all his sympathy.

   It transpired that Nettlecombe's lodging was in one of the larger boarding-houses in the Lower town. It had an air of some-what gloomy respectability, and was presided over by an angular lady whose appearance carried the suggestion that she must be in mourning for a near relation, since she wore a bombasine dress of sombre hue, without frills, or lace, or even a ribbon to lighten its sobriety. Her cap was of starched cambric, tied tightly be neath her chin; and as much of her hair as was allowed to be seen was iron-gray, and smoothed into bands as severe as her expression. She put Desford forcibly in mind of the dame in the village that lay beyond Wolversham who terrified the rural children into good behaviour and the rudiments of learning; and he would not have been in the least surprised to have seen a birch-rod on the high desk behind which she stood.

   She was talking to an elderly couple, whose decorous bearing and prim voices exactly matched their surroundings, when Des-ford entered the house, but she broke off the conversation to direct a piercing look of appraisal at him, which made him feel that at any moment she would tell him that his neckcloth was crooked, or demand to know if he had washed his hands before venturing into her presence. His lips twitched, and his eyes began to dance, upon which her countenance relaxed, and, excusing herself to the elderly couple, she came towards him, saying, with a slight bow: 'Yes, sir? What may I have the honour to do for you? If it is accommodation you are seeking, I regret I have none to offer: my house is always fully booked for the season.'

   'No, I don't want accommodation,' he replied. 'But I be lieve you have Lord Nettlecombe staying here. Is that so?'

   Her face hardened again; she said grimly: 'Yes, sir, it
is
so!'

   It was apparent that the presence of Lord Nettlecombe in her house afforded her no gratification, and that Desford's enquiry had caused whatever good opinion she had formed of himself to wither at birth. When he requested her to have his card taken to my lord she gave a small, contemptuous sniff, and without deigning to reply, turned away to call sharply to a waiter just about to enter the long room: 'George! Conduct this gentleman to Lord Nettlecombe's parlour!'

   She then favoured the Viscount with a haughty inclination of her head, and resumed her conversation with the elderly couple.

   Amused, but also a trifle ruffled by this cavalier treatment, Desford was on the verge of telling her that when he had handed her his card he had intended it to be taken to Lord Nettlecombe, not laid on her desk, when it occurred to him that perhaps it would be as well not to give his lordship the opportunity to refuse to see him, so he suppressed the impulse to give this ridiculously uppish creature a set-down, and followed the waiter up the stairs, and along a corridor. The waiter, whose air of profound gloom argued a life of intolerable slavery, but was prob ably due to the pain of flat feet, stopped outside a door at the end of the corridor, and asked what name he should say, and, upon learning it, opened the door, and repeated it in a raised, indifferent voice.

   'Eh? What's that?' demanded Lord Nettlecombe wrathfully. 'I won't see him! What the devil do you mean by bringing people up here without my leave? Tell him to go away!'

   'I fear you will be obliged to do that yourself, sir,' said Desford, shutting the door upon the waiter, and coming forward. 'Pray accept my apologies for not sending up my card! It was my intention to have done so, but the formidable lady below-stairs thought otherwise.'

   'That damned pigeon-fancier!' ejaculated his lordship fiercely. 'She had the curst impudence to try to diddle me! But I'm no pigeon for her plucking, and so I told her! Gullcatcher! Slip-gibbet! Nail!' He broke off suddenly. 'What do you want?' he snarled.

   'A few words with you, sir,' said the Viscount coolly.

   'Well, I don't want to talk to you! I don't want to talk to anyone! If your name's Desford you must be old Wroxton's son, and he's no friend of mine, I'll have you know!'

   'Oh, I do know it!' responded the Viscount, laying his hat, his gloves, and his malacca cane down on the table.

   This indication that he meant to prolong his visit infuriated Nettlecombe so much that he said, in a kind of scream: 'Don't do that! Go away! Do you want to send me off the hooks? I'm a sick man! Worn to the bone with all the worry and trouble I've had! Burnt to the socket, damn it! I won't have strangers thrust in on me, I tell you!'

   'I'm sorry you are in such indifferent health,' said Desford politely, 'I will try not to tax your strength, but I have a duty to discharge which closely concerns you, and I believe – '

   'If you've come from my son Jonas you've wasted your time!' interrupted Nettlecombe, his pale eyes sharp with suspicion.

   'I have not,' said Desford, his calm voice in marked contrast to Nettlecombe's shrill accents. 'I have come on behalf of your granddaughter.'

   'That's a damned quibble!' instantly exclaimed his lordship. 'Jonas may take care of his brats himself, and so you may tell him! I wash my hands of the whole brood!'

   'I am not speaking of Mr Jonas Steane's daughters, sir, but of your younger son's only child.'

   My lord's bony hands clenched the arms of his chair convul sively. 'I have no younger son!'

   'From what I have been able to discover I fear that that may be true,' said Desford.

   'Ha! Dead, is he? And a good thing if he is!' said Nettlecombe viciously. 'He's been dead to me for years, and if you think I'll have anything to do with any child of his you're mistaken!'

   'I do think it, and I am persuaded that I'm not mistaken, sir. When you have heard in what a desperate situation she has been left I cannot believe that you will refuse to help her. Her mother died when she was a child, and her father placed her in a school in Bath. Until a few years ago, he paid the necessary fees, though not always, I fancy, very punctually, and from time to time he visited her. But the payments and the visits ceased – '

   'I know all this!' interrupted Nettlecombe. 'The woman wrote to me! Demanded that I should pay for the girl! A damned in-solent letter I thought it, too! I told her to apply to the girl's maternal relations, for she wouldn't get a groat out of me!'

   'She obeyed you, sir, she applied to Lady Bugle, but I don't think she got a groat out of her either,' said Desford dryly. 'Lady Bugle, perceiving an opportunity to provide herself with an unpaid servant, took Miss Steane to her home in Hampshire, under an odious pretence of charity, for which she demanded a slavish gratitude, and unending service, not only for herself, but for every other member of her large family. Miss Steane's dis-position is compliant and affectionate: she had every wish in the world to repay her aunt for having given her a home, and uncomplainingly performed every task set before her, from hemming sheets, or running errands for her cousins, to taking charge of the nursery-children. And I daresay she would still be doing so, perfectly happily, had her aunt treated her with kindness. But she did not, and the poor child became so unhappy that she ran away, with the intention of appealing to you, sir, for protection.'

   Nettlecombe, who had listened to this speech with a scowl on his brow, punctuating it with muttered comments, and fidgeting restlessly in his chair, burst out angrily: 'It's no concern of mine! I warned that scoundrelly son of mine how it would be if he didn't mend his ways. He made his bed, and he must lie on it!'

   'But it is not he who is lying on it,' said the Viscount. 'It is his daughter who is the innocent victim of her father's misdeeds.'

   'You should read your Bible, young man!' retorted Nettlecombe on a note of triumph. 'The sins of the fathers shall be visited on the children! What about
that,
eh?'

   A pungent reply sprang to the Viscount's lips, but it remained unuttered, for at that moment the door opened, and a middle-aged and buxom woman sailed into the room, saying in far from refined accents: 'Well, this
is
a surprise, to be sure! When that old Tabby downstairs, which has the impudence to call herself
Mrs
Nunny, just as though a rabbitpole like she is ever had a husband, told me my lord had a gentleman visiting him you could have knocked me down with a feather, for in general he don't receive, not being in very high force. Though we shall soon have him quite rumtitum again, shan't we, my lord?'

   My lord responded to this sprightly prophecy with a growl. As for Desford, the newcomer's surprise was as nothing to his, for she spoke as though she were well-acquainted with him, and he knew that he had never before seen her. He wondered who the devil she could be. Her manner towards Nettlecombe sug gested that she might be a nurse, hired to attend him during recuperation from some illness but a stunned look at the lavishly plumed and high-crowned bonnet set upon her brassy curls rapidly put that idea to flight. No nurse wearing such an exag geratedly fashionable bonnet would ever have been allowed to cross the threshold of a sick-room; nor would she have dreamt of arraying herself (even if she could have afforded to do so) in a purple gown with a demi-train, and trimmed with knots of ribbon.

   His blank astonishment must have shown itself in his face, for she simpered, and said archly: 'I have the advantage of you, haven't I? You don't know who I am, but I know who
you
are, because I've seen your card. So my lord don't have to tell me.'

   Thus put pointedly in mind of his social obligations Lord Nettlecombe said sourly: 'Lord Desford – Lady Nettlecombe. And you've no need to look like that!' he added, as Desford blinked incredulously at him. 'My marriage doesn't have to meet with your approval!'

   'Certainly not!' said Desford, recovering himself. 'Pray accept my felicitations, sir! Lady Nettlecombe, your servant!'

   He bowed, and finding that she was extending her hand to him took it in his, and (since she clearly expected it) raised it briefly to his lips.

   'However did you find us out, my lord?' she asked. 'Such pains did we take to keep it secret that we'd gone off on our honeymoon! Not that I'm not very happy to make your acquaint ance, for I'm sure we couldn't have wished for a more amiable bride-guest, neither of us!'

   'Don't talk such fiddle-faddle, Maria!' said Nettlecombe iras cibly. 'He's not a bride-guest! He didn't know we were married when he forced his way in here! All he wants to do is to foist Wilfred's brat on to me, and I won't have her!'

   'You are mistaken, sir!' said the Viscount icily. 'I have not the smallest wish to see Miss Steane in a house where she is not welcome! My purpose in coming to visit you is to inform you that she – your granddaughter, let me remind you! – is entirely destitute! Had I not been with her when she found your house shut up she must have been in a desperate case, for she has no acquaintance in London, no one in the world to turn to but yourself ! What might have become of her I leave to your imagination!'

   'She had no business to run away from her aunt's house!' Nettlecombe said angrily. 'Most unbecoming! Hoydenish behaviour! Not that I should have expected anything better from a daughter of that rake-shame I refuse to call my son!' He turned towards his bride. 'It's Wilfred's brat he's talking about, Maria: you remember how vexed I was when some brass-faced schoolkeeper wrote to demand that I – I! – should pay for the girl's schooling? Well, now, if you please – ' He broke off, his gaze suddenly riveted to the shawl she was wearing draped across her elbows. 'That's new!' he said, stabbing an accusing finger at it. 'Where did it come from?'

   'I've just purchased it,' she answered boldly. She still smiled, but her smile was at variance with the determined jut of her chin, and the martial gleam in her eyes. 'And don't try to bamboozle me into thinking you didn't give me leave to buy myself a new shawl, because you did, and this very morning, what's more!'

   'But it's
silk
!' he moaned.

   'Norwich silk,' she said, smoothing it complacently. 'Now, don't fly into a miff, my lord! You wouldn't wish for me to be seen about in a cheap shawl, such as anyone could wear, not when I'm your wife!'

   There was nothing in his expression to encourage her in this belief; and as he complained mournfully that if she meant to squander his money on finery he would soon be ruined, and added a reproachful rider to the effect that he had expected his marriage to be an economy, Desford very soon found himself the sole, and wholly disregarded, witness to a matrimonial squabble. From the various things that were said, he gathered, without much surprise, that Lord Nettlecombe had married his housekeeper. Why he had done so did not emerge; the reason was to be revealed to him later. But it was plain that in the rôle of housekeeper my lord's bride had proved herself to be as big a save-all as he was himself; and that once she had him firmly hooked she had lapsed a little from her former economical habits. And, watching her, as she contended with her lord, always with that firm smile on her lips and that dangerous gleam in her eyes, he thought that it would not be long before my lord would be living under the cat's foot, as the saying was. For a moment he wondered whether it might be possible to enlist her support, but only for a moment: my Lady Nettlecombe was concerned only with her own support. There was not a trace of womanly com passion in her eyes, and no softness beneath her determined smile.