The Quiet Gentleman

‘Very likely you might not, for I think gentlemen do not excel at such things.’ She looked across the room, to where Martin was discussing with his mother the various families it would be proper to invite to the ball. ‘I expect he will ask her particularly to send a card to the Bolderwoods,’ she said sagely. ‘If I were you, I would not mention to her that you wish them to be invited, for it will only put up her back, if you do, and you may depend upon Martin’s good offices in that cause.’

‘May I ask, ma’am,’ he said, a trifle frigidly, ‘why you should suppose that I wish to invite the Bolderwoods?’

She raised her eyes to his face, in one of her clear, enquiring looks. ‘Don’t you? I quite thought that it must have been Marianne who had put the notion of a ball into your head, since you were visiting at Whissenhurst this morning.’

He hardly knew whether to be amused or angry. ‘Upon my word, Miss Morville! It seems that my movements are pretty closely watched!’

‘I expect you will have to accustom yourself to that,’ she returned. ‘Everything you do must be of interest to your people, you know. In this instance, you could not hope to keep your visit secret (though I cannot imagine why you should wish to do so!), for your coachman’s second granddaughter is employed at the Grange.’

‘Indeed!’

‘Yes, and she has given such satisfaction that they mean to take her to London with them next month, which is a very gratifying circumstance.’ She fixed her eyes on his face again, and asked disconcertingly: ‘Have you fallen in love with Miss Bolderwood?’

‘Certainly not!’ he replied, in a tone nicely calculated to depress pretension.

‘Oh! Most gentlemen do – on sight!’ she remarked. ‘One cannot wonder at it, for I am sure she must be the prettiest girl imaginable. I have often reflected that it must be very agreeable to be beautiful. Mama considers that it is of more importance to have an informed mind, but I must own that I cannot agree with her.’

At this moment the Dowager called to Gervase to come to the card-table. He declined it, saying that he had letters which must be writt

en, upon which Miss Morville was applied to. She went at once; and Martin, after fidgeting about the room for a few minutes, drew near to his brother, and said awkwardly: ‘You know, I didn’t mean it! That is – I beg your pardon, but – but it was you who made me fight on! And it would have been the sheerest good luck if I had pinked you!’

Gervase was in the act of raising a pinch of snuff to one nostril, but he paused. ‘You are very frank!’ he remarked.

‘Frank? Oh – ! Well, of course I didn’t mean – what I meant was that it would only be by some accident, or if you were careless, or – or something of that nature!’

‘I see. I was evidently quite mistaken, for I formed the opinion that you had the very definite intention of running me through.’

‘You made me as mad as fire!’ Martin muttered, his eyes downcast, and his cheeks reddened.

‘Yes, I do seem to have an unhappy trick of offending you, don’t I?’ said the Earl.

Six

Miss Bolderwood’s name was not again mentioned between the half-brothers, Martin apparently being conscious of some awkwardness in adverting to the subject of his late quarrel with Gervase, and Gervase considering himself to be under no obligation to account to his brother for his visits to Whissenhurst Grange. These were more frequent than could be expected to meet with the approval either of Martin, or of the numerous other gentlemen who paid court to the beautiful heiress; for the Earl, driving over to Whissenhurst on the day after his first encounter with Marianne to enquire politely after her well-being, after such a misadventure as had befallen her, was able to persuade her, without much difficulty, to accompany him on a drive round the neighbourhood. Informed by some chance observation that she had never yet handled a pair of high-bred horses, he conceived the happy notion of offering to instruct her in this art. It took well; Sir Thomas, having early perceived, from his handling of his cattle, that the Earl was no mean whip, raised no objection; and on several mornings thereafter those of Miss Bolderwood’s admirers who happened, by some chance, to find themselves in the vicinity of Whissenhurst were revolted by the spectacle of their goddess bowling smartly along the lane under the tuition of her latest and most distinguished swain. On more than one occasion they had the doubtful pleasure of meeting him at a Whissenhurst tea-party. These informal entertainments, where tea, quadrille, and commerce were followed by an elegant supper, just suited the Earl’s humour, for his prolonged service in the Peninsula, with its generally happy-go-lucky way of life, had rendered him unappreciative of the formal tedium obtaining at Stanyon. Sir Thomas was a genial host, his lady was a notable housewife; and nothing delighted either of them more than to see a number of young persons enjoying themselves at their expense. As for Marianne, it would have been hard to have guessed which of her swains she was inclined to prefer, for she seemed equally pleased to see them all, and if one gentleman was the recipient of her particular favours one day, the next she would bestow these sunnily upon another. Nor did she neglect the members of her own sex: she had even been known to leave a hopeful and far from ineligible cavalier disconsolate merely because she had promised to go for a walk with another damsel, and would on no account break her engagement. The gentlemen said she was the most beautiful girl they had ever beheld; the ladies, for the most part, bestowed on her an even more striking testimonial: they were sure there could not anywhere be found a more good-natured girl. She had her detractors, of course; and it was not long after his arrival at Stanyon that the Earl learned from several mothers of pretty daughters that Miss Bolderwood, though well-enough, had too short an upper lip to be considered a Beauty, and was sadly deficient in accomplishments. Her performance upon the pianoforte was no more than moderate, and she had never learnt to play the harp. Nor had Lady Bolderwood ever called upon morning-visitors to admire her daughter’s latest water-colour sketch, from which it was to be apprehended that Miss Bolderwood’s talent did not lie in this direction either.

Martin was nearly always to be found at the Whissenhurst tea-parties; and once, having received a particular invitation from Lady Bolderwood, Theo drove over with the Earl to bear his part in an informal dance. Gervase, watching how Theo’s eyes followed Marianne, could only be sorry: it did not appear to him that she held him in greater regard than himself, or Martin, or the inarticulate Mr Warboys.

Cards of invitation were sent out from Stanyon; Marianne was in transports, and if it did not quite suit Lady Bolderwood’s sense of propriety to permit her to appear at a regular ball before she had been brought out in London at a ball of her own parents’ contriving, Sir Thomas could not be brought to see that such niceties mattered a jot. Lady Bolderwood’s scruples were overborne, and Marianne could be happy, and had only to decide between the rival merits of her white satin dress with the Russian bodice, fastened in front with little pearls; and one of white crape, trimmed with blonde lace, and worn over a satin slip.

Her happiness, with that of every other lady who had been honoured with an invitation to the ball, very soon became alloyed by anxiety. The weather underwent a change, and in place of bright spring days, with the wind blowing constantly from the east, a stormy period threatened to set in. A gay little party of damsels, seeking violets in the woods about Whissenhurst, were caught in such a severe downpour that they were soaked almost to the skin; and when anxious questions were put to such weather-wise persons as gardeners and farmers, these worthies would only shake their heads, and say that it showed no sign of fairing-up. The date of the ball had been carefully chosen to coincide with the full moon, but not even so indulgent a parent as Sir Thomas would for a moment consider the possibility of driving some six miles to a party of pleasure if the moon were to be obscured by clouds, and the coachman’s vision still further impaired by driving rain.

‘Do we despair, Miss Morville?’ asked the Earl.

‘No, but if the weather continues in this odious way, I fear you will find your rooms very thin of company,’ she replied. ‘The people who are coming from a distance, and are to sleep here, will come, because they will set out in daylight, you know, and they will hope that the rain won’t come on, or that they may drive away from it. I should think you may be sure of the party from Belvoir, but I do feel that you should perhaps fortify your mind to the likelihood of your immediate neighbours not caring to set forth in wet, cloudy weather.’

‘I will endeavour to do so,’ promised the Earl gravely.

Three days before the ball, the weather, so far from showing signs of improvement, promised nothing but disaster. The prophets said gloomily that it was banking up for a storm, and they were right. The day was tempestuous; and when the Stanyon party assembled for dinner even Martin, who had hitherto refused to envisage the possibility of the inclement weather’s persisting, took his place at the table with a very discontented expression on his face, and announced that he thought the devil had got into the skies.

‘Well, if it continues in this way, we must postpone the ball,’ Gervase said cheerfully.

‘Yes! And find everyone gone off to London!’ retorted Martin.

He could talk of nothing but the probable ruin of their plans; and since no representation sufficed to make him think more hopefully of the prospects, not even his mother was sorry when, shortly after the party rose from the table, he said, after a series of cavernous yawns, that he rather thought he would go to bed, since he had the head-ache, and everything was a dead bore.

The usual whist set had been formed, and so fierce were the battles fought over the table that none of the four players noticed that the wind was no longer rattling the shutters, and moaning round the corners of the Castle, until Miss Morville, who sat quietly stitching by the fire, lifted her head, and said: ‘Listen! the wind has dropped!’

‘I rather thought it would,’ observed the Dowager, gathering up her trick. ‘Indeed, I said as much this morning. “Depend upon it,” I said to Abney, “the wind will drop, and we shall have it fine for our