Black Sheep

She did drop off into an uneasy doze from time to time, but her dreams were haunted by Stacy, either waiting for hour upon hour in Sydney Gardens, or accusing her of being false to him; and more than once she woke with tears on her cheeks, and a jumble of words on her feverish lips.

She retained no very clear memory of what had happened at the previous night's party, but she did remember that she had promised to meet Stacy, and that he had been angry with her for not talking to him. He had said that he could see she didn't love him, and now he would be sure of it. She had racked her brains to hit upon some way of conveying a message to him, but Abby and Nurse were in league against her; they would not even let her see Betty Conner, who could have done it for her. Perhaps he would think that she had stayed away on purpose, to show him that she didn't want to run off with him after all. Perhaps he would leave Bath, as he had threatened to do, and she would never see him again, never be able to tell him that it hadn't been her fault, or that she did love him, and wasn't afraid to elope with him to Scotland.

These agitating reflections did nothing to improve her con dition; and as her fever mounted they became even more lurid, until they included visions of her own death-bed, and Stacy's remorse at having so misjudged her. But towards evening Dr Rowton's paregoric medicine began to take effect, and she grew calmer, emerging from the state of semi-delirium which had kept Abby hovering on the verge of sending a second, and far more urgent, summons to the doctor. She felt so ill, and so much exhausted, that she no longer wanted to get up, or even to exert herself sufficiently to try once more to think how she might send a message to Stacy. It must be too late by now, she thought apathetically. Her whole life was ruined, but it didn't seem to matter nearly as much as her aching body, and the stabbing pain in her temple, and her terrible thirstiness. When Abby raised her, she leaned her head gratefully on Abby's shoulder, murmuring her name.

'Yes, my darling, I'm here,' Abby said tenderly. 'Nurse is going to shake up your pillows while you have a cool drink of lemonade. There, is that better?'

'Oh, yes!' she sighed, her thirst for the moment assuaged. She opened her eyes, and they fell on a big bowl of flowers. 'Oh!' she breathed.

'Looking at your beautiful flowers?' Abby said, laying her gently down again. 'Oliver and Lavinia brought them, when they came to enquire how you did. They left their love to you, and were so sorry to hear that you're so poorly. Go to sleep again now, darling: I won't leave you.'

The spark of hope that had flickered in Fanny's breast died, but as she lay dreamily looking at the flowers it occurred to her that if the Grayshotts knew that she was ill they would be very likely to tell other people, and so, perhaps, the news would reach Stacy's ears, and he would know why she had broken her word to him. With a deep sigh of relief, she turned her head on the pillow, snuggling her cheek into it, and drifted back into sleep.

Thirteen

It was not long before the news reached Stacy Calverleigh, but when it did it brought no relief to his anxieties, which were rapidly becoming acute. He had not supposed, when he kicked his heels in the Sydney Gardens, that Fanny had failed him from intention, nor did it occur to him that she might be ill. Not being endowed with the perception which distinguished Mr Oliver Grayshott, he had failed to notice her flushed cheeks and heavy eyes, and had ascribed the headache of which she had complained to a tiresome fit of missishness. The likeliest explanation that presented itself to him was that she had been prevented from keeping her assignation by the vigilance of her aunt. It had at first exasperated him; but, upon reflection, he had come to the conclusion that the frustration of her plan might well prove to be all that was needed to cause such a wilful, headstrong girl as Fanny to throw herself into his arms in a fury of indignation. Confident that she must be pantingly eager to tell him why she had been unable to meet him, and equally eager to escape from her shackles, he paraded the Pump Room on the following morning; and, when neither she nor Miss Wendover put in an appearance, wasted considerable time in taking a look-in at the libraries, strolling up such fashionable streets as Fanny would be most likely to visit on a shopping expedition, and loitering interminably in Queen's Square. No balls or concerts took place at the Assembly Rooms on Fridays, and as he had received no invitation to any private party it was not until Saturday that he learned of Fanny's indisposition.

It struck him with dismay. It must mean delay, even if she made a quick recovery, and delay was what he could not afford. It was not in his nature to envisage disaster. He had the true gamester's belief in his luck, and experience had encouraged him to think that when this failed him some unexpected stroke of Providence would rescue him from his predicaments. But several unpleasant communications, which not the most hardened of optimists could have failed to recognise as the precursors to writs, had reached him; and a most disquieting letter from his man of business had conveyed to him the intelligence that foreclosure on his estates was now imminent. For perhaps the first time in his life, he knew panic, and for a few wild moments entertained thoughts of a flight to the Continent. While these endured, his spirits rose: life abroad held out its attractions. A clever gamester, one who knew what time of day it was, could make a fortune if he set up a gaming establishment in any one of half a dozen cities which instantly leaped to his mind. Not Paris: no, not Paris. Now that Napoleon was marooned on St Helena Island, far too many Englishmen were to be found disporting themselves in Paris: he had as well – or as ill – set up such an establishment in London. But there were other promising cities, rather farther afield, where the chances of his being recognised by an English traveller were negligible.

This was important. Mr Stacy Calverleigh, eyed askance by the society into which he had been born, even being obliged, since his disastrous attempt to secure an heiress, to endure more than one cut direct, bent on seducing yet a second heiress to elope with him, was not so lost to a sense of his obligations that he did not recoil from the thought of transforming himself, openly, into the proprietor of a gaming-house. He had often thought what a capital hand he would have made of it, had it been possible for him to join the company of these gentry; he had never regarded his estates as anything other than a coffer into which he could dip his hand at will; but the inculcated precepts of his breeding remained with him. There were some things a Calverleigh of Danescourt must never do; and high on the list of these prohibitions ranked the only profession at which he felt he might have excelled.

But if one could enter it without the knowledge of those who would most contemptuously condemn him? As his fancy played with the possibilities of such a situation, his eyes brightened, and he began to picture a future rosier, and far more to his secret taste, than any that had yet presented itself to him.

Only for a few, fleeting moments, however. To embark on such a career, it was necessary that the dibs should be in tune, and the dibs were not in tune. There was no other solution to his difficulties than a rich marriage. Marriage to Fanny was not the ideal solution, but a notice (he had already drafted it) sent to the Gaze

tte, and the Morning Post, of his marriage to the only daughter of the late Rowland Wendover Esquire, of Amberfield, in the County of Bedfordshire, would stave off his creditors, and might, at the least, make it very difficult for Mr James Wendover to repudiate the alliance.

A visit of enquiry and condolence to Sydney Place did not strengthen this more hopeful view. He was received by the elder Miss Wendover; and although she welcomed him with rather guilty kindness, her account of her niece's illness was not encouraging. Mr Miles Calverleigh, with his dispassionate yet shrewd ability to sum up his fellow-creatures, would have appreciated it at its true value; Mr Stacy Calverleigh, absorbed in his own entity, only noticed the peculiarities of the persons with whom he came in contact when their idiosyncrasies directly affected him, and so made no allowance for the exaggerations of an elderly lady whose paramount interest lay in the ailments of herself, or of anyone attached to her. He left Sydney Place with the impression that if Fanny were not lying at death's door she was so gravely ill that it must be many weeks before she could hope to be restored to health. Miss Wendover said that she had often feared that Fanny's constitution too closely resembled her own, and embroidered this statement with some instances which, had he been listening to her with as much attention as his solicitous expression indicated, might well have led him to conclude that Fanny, for all her looks and vitality, was a frail creature, supported by her nerves, which too frequently betrayed her.

He was not listening. The delicacy of Fanny's constitution was a matter of secondary importance. What was of the first importance was the apparent likelihood that her recovery from her present disorder would be too slow to admit of her being able, or even willing, to undertake the long journey to the Scottish Border for several weeks.

He maintained his smile, and his air of courteous concern, but when he took his leave of Miss Wendover, consigning to her care the tasteful bouquet he had ventured to bring with him for the invalid, he was as near to despair as it was possible for anyone of his temperament to be. He walked slowly back to the centre of the town, trying in vain to think of some other means of recruiting his fortunes than marriage. A run of luck might save him from immediate ruin, but a prolonged run of damnable ill-luck had made it impossible for him to continue punting on tick. If his vowels were still accepted in certain circles, it was with reluctance; and he had been refused admittance – in the politest way – to two of the exclusive hells which had for several years enjoyed his patronage. For the first time in his life he knew himself to be at a stand, and without any hope of deliverance.

But Providence, in whom he had for so long reposed his careless trust, had not forgotten him. Providence, in the guise of Mrs Clapham, was at that very moment entering the portals of the White Hart, preceded by her courier, accompanied by her female companion, and followed by her maid, and her footman.

He did not immediately realise that Providence had intervened on his behalf. By the time he had reached the White Hart, Mrs Clapham had been reverently escorted to the suite of rooms bespoken by her courier, and the only signs of her presence which were observable were the elegant travellingchariot which had brought her to Bath, and was still standing in the yard, and the unusual state of bustle prevailing amongst the various servants employed at the hotel.

There were those who considered the situation of the White Hart to be too noisy for comfort, but it was patronised by so many persons of rank and consequence that the stir created by the arrival of Mrs Clapham was remarkable enough to arouse Stacy's interest. He enquired of the waiter who brought a bottle of brandy to his room who the devil was Mrs Clapham, and why were they all tumbling over themselves to administer to her comfort? The waiter replied, with strict civility, but repressively, that she was the lady who had engaged the largest and most luxurious set of apartments in the house. The boots was more informative, and from him Stacy gathered that Mrs Clapham was a widow-lady, full of juice, and flashing the rags all over. Everything of the best she had to have, and ready to pay through the nose for it. Very affable and pleasant-spoken, too, which was more than could be said of her companion. Top-lofty she was, giving her orders as if she was a duchess, and saying that first this and then that would not do for her mistress, and her own sheets and pillows must be put on her bed, and her own tea served to her, and dear knows what more besides!

Stacy's curiosity was only mildly tickled by this description. It was not until he encountered Mrs Clapham on the following morning that the thought that Providence might once more have come to his rescue darted through his brain. A widow, travelling with a large entourage, and bringing with her her own bedlinen, suggested to him a turbaned dowager, the relict of a bygone generation. Mrs Clapham might be a widow, but she was no dowager. She was quite a young woman: past her girlhood, but not a day older than thirty, if as old. She was remarkably pretty, too, with an inviting mouth, and a pair of brown eyes which were as innocent as they were enormous, until she dropped demure eyelids over them, and looked sidelong from under the screen of her curling lashes. Then they became unmistakably provocative. She was dressed with great elegance, but in a subdued shade of lavender, which seemed to indicate that, while she had cast off her weeds, her bereavement was of fairly recent date. When Stacy saw her first, she was tripping down the stairs, trying to button one of her gloves, without dropping the prayer-book she was holding. As Stacy looked up at her, it slipped from her imperfect grasp, and fell almost at his feet.

'Oh – !' she exclaimed distressfully. Then, as he picked it up, and straightened its crumpled leaves: 'Oh, how very obliging of you! Thank you! So stupid of me! It is all the fault of these tiresome gloves, which will come unbuttoned!'

Her companion, following her down the stairs, clicked her tongue, and said; 'Pray allow me, Mrs Clapham!'

Mrs Clapham held out her wrist helplessly, repeating, with a rueful smile cast at Stacy: 'So stupid of me! Oh, thank you, dear Mrs Winkworth! I don't know how I should go on without you!'

Stacy, presenting her prayer-book to her, bowed with his exquisite grace, and said: 'One or two of the pages a little crumpled, ma'am, but no irreparable damage, I fancy! May I beg leave to make myself known to you? – Stacy Calverleigh, wholly at your service!'

She gave him her tightly gloved hand. 'Oh, yes! And I am Mrs Clapham, sir. This is Mrs Winkworth, who takes such good care of me. We are on our way to Church, in the Abbey. The feel it gives me! I have never attended a service in an abbey before: isn't it absurd?'

'Your first visit to Bath, ma'am?' he enquired, bestowing a modified bow upon her companion.

'Oh, yes! I was never here before in my life, though I have been to Tunbridge Wells. But I have been living retired lately, in the country, only it was so very melancholy that I was quite moped. So the doctor advised me to come to Bath, and take the Hot Bath, and perhaps drink the waters.'

'They are very nasty!'

'Mrs Clapham, the bell has stopped ringing,' interposed Mrs Winkworth.