Black Sheep

But Mrs Winkworth replied, with a snort: 'Yes, I daresay they might, if she had any!'

It appeared that Mr Clapham had died, leaving all he possessed to his beloved wife, in a Will written on an odd scrap of paper: an aberration which Mrs Winkworth ascribed partly to his having been carried off very suddenly, and partly to his besottedness. 'And a harder-headed man of business you'd be hard put to it to find!' she told Stacy. 'Well, they say there's no fool like an old fool, don't they?'

Inevitably, it was Miss Butterbank who bore the news of Mrs Clapham's arrival in Bath to Sydney Place. She was able to tell Miss Wendover how many times Mr Stacy Calverleigh had been seen in her company, how many trunks the lady had brought to Bath, and was even able to disclose, in a shocked whisper, that she had twice dined with him at the table d'hôte, and that it was said that he took tea with her, in her private parlour, every evening.

'Which I cannot bring myself to believe!' Selina told Abby. 'Not that I mean to say that poor Laura Butterbank is not a very truthful woman, but you may depend upon it she must have been misinformed.'

Abby had had little leisure for visiting, but she had chanced to meet Mrs Grayshott at the chemist's a few days earlier, and had received from her a less high-coloured account of the affair.

'A wealthy widow!' she had exclaimed. 'Nothing could be better! I wish he may run off with her tomorrow!'

She had not mentioned the matter to Selina, but she did so now, saying: 'I believe it to be quite true – that Calverleigh is now bent on fixing his interest with this Mrs Clapham; at least Mrs Grayshott told me of it a day or two ago, but she can't be as well-informed as Laura Butterbank, for she didn't mention the tea-drinking, or the table-d'hôte. My dear, why look so dismayed? You don't still want him to marry Fanny, surely!'

No, Selina did not want that, but it was so very shocking, so distressing to think that a young man with such agreeable manners should turn out to be a monster of duplicity! She had never been so much deceived in her life. 'And when I think of poor little Fanny – if it is true, not that I am at all convinced, because very likely it is nothing but a Banbury story, and I do implore you, not to breathe a word to her!'

'Certainly not! She will discover it soon enough, poor child! It may not come as quite such a shock to her as we fear. You must have noticed, Selina, that amongst all the bouquets, and the bunches of grapes, which are handed in by her admirers, only one bunch of flowers bore young Calverleigh's card, and he has only once called to enquire how she goes on. If you haven't noticed it, I am persuaded that she has. She says nothing, but it is painful to see how eagerly she looks for the card attached to each new posy that is carried up to her room, and how her face falls when she finds that it is only from Oliver – or Jack Weaverham – or Peter Trevisian!'

Miss Abigail Wendover was looking tired, as well she might. Fanny's attack had been severe; the fever had lasted for longer than even Dr Rowton had pessimistically foretold; and although she was now allowed to lie on the sofa in the drawing-room for a few hours each day, and even to receive visits from her particular friends, her temperature still showed a tendency to rise towards evening, and it was evident that she was sadly pulled by her illness. The bulk of the nursing had fallen to Abby's lot, for Fanny could scarcely endure Mrs Grimston's brisk ministrations. She complained that her hands were rough, that the floor shook every time she stumped across it, that she could not come near the bed without knocking against it, and that she never stopped scolding and fussing. These grievances, whether real or imaginary, made her cross, restless, and recalcitrant; she reverted to her childhood's cry of: 'I want Abby!' and Abby, just as she had always done, instantly responded to it.

She was reasonably docile with her aunt, but constant attendance on her, coupled as it was with a certain degree of anxiety, were beginning to take their toll. Selina, bemoaning the fragility of her own constitution, which prevented her from sharing the task of nursing Fanny, told Abby that she was looking positively hagged, and begged her, at all the most unseasonable moments, to lie down on the sofa, if only for an hour.

It might have been supposed that Abby would have had no time or thought to spare for her own troubles, but they seemed always to be at the back of her mind until she retired to bed, when they immediately leaped to the fore, and kept her awake, tossing and turning almost as restlessly as Fanny. She might tell herself that it was a very good thing that Miles Calverleigh had left Bath, but the melancholy truth was that she missed him so much that it was like a physical ache. No word had come from him; he had been absent for longer than she had anticipated; and the fear that perhaps he did not mean to return to Bath at all was a heavy weight on her spirits. She found herself continually wondering where he was, and what he was doing, and wishing that she could at least know that no accident had befallen him.

None had. He was in London, but while Abby would have considered a visit to his aunt, several to the City, and some prolonged conferences with his lawyer unexceptionable it was as well that one at least of his activities was unknown to her.

Lady Lenham greeted him with a tart demand to be told when he meant to furbish himself up.

'I don't know. Must I?' he replied, lightly kissing her cheek.

'It's no use expecting me to bring you back into fashion if you don't adonise yourself a trifle.'

'Then I won't expect it,' he said amiably. 'I never was one of your dapper-dogs, and it's too late to change my habits, and if you're thinking I should look well in a wasp-waisted coat, and with the points of my collars reaching half-way up my cheeks, you are letting your imagination run off with you, Letty – take my word for it!'

'There's reason in all things,' she retorted. 'Where have you been all these weeks? Don't tell me you've been getting into mischief again!'

'No, no, I've been behaving very decorously!' he assured her. 'You have to, in Bath. A devilish place!'

She stared at him. 'You've been in Bath?'

'That's it. I took Leonard Balking's nephew

there, you know.'

'Yes, you told me you were going to do that, but what in the world kept you there?' she asked suspiciously.

'Just circumstances!'

'Oh! Philandering, I collect! Well, what do you mean to do now?'

'Become a tenant-for-life. You told me it was what I ought to do: remember?'

'What!' she exclaimed. 'Are you trying to play off your tricks on me? Who is she?'

'Abigail Wendover,' he replied coolly.

She gave a gasp. 'You're not serious? One of the Wendovers? Miles, she's never accepted an offer from you?'

'No, but she will.'