“Well, I did think of doing so,” admitted Miss Wychwood. “But since he is, as you so rightly say, a very uncivil person, I couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t retaliate in kind. I feel it is my duty to go with Lucilla, if only to prevent her coming to cuffs with him.”
“I make no secret of the fact that I don’t consider you owe that girl any duty!” said Miss Farlow, trembling with indignation. “But I have a duty towards you,and don’t tell me I haven’t, for I shan’t listen to you! Sir Geoffrey and dear Lady Wychwood entrusted you to my care, and even if he didn’t say so, he meant it, and Lady Wychwood did say so! Just as I was about to get into the carriage, or if it wasn’t then, it was in the hall, or perhaps the morning-room, because she had a little chill coming on, and so didn’t come out of the house, though she wished to, but I begged her not to do so, because the weather was most inclement, which you must remember, so we said goodbye in the hall—”
“Or perhaps in the morning-room?” interpolated Miss Wychwood.
“It may have been: I’m not perfectly sure, but it makes no difference! And she distinctly said, when she bade me goodbye, or perhaps just after she had said goodbye: ‘Take care of her, Cousin Maria!’ Meaning you, of course! And I promised I would, and so I shall!”
“Thank you, Maria, I feel sure I can depend on you to come to my rescue if I should find myself in trouble. But at the moment I’m not in any sort of trouble, so do, I beg of you, put your bonnet straight, and make your hair tidy again! You look like a birch-broom in a fit!”
“Annis!” said Miss Farlow, sinking her voice impressively. “That man is not a proper person for you to know!”
“Fiddle! I collect Geoffrey told you so, but what harm either of you expect him to do I haven’t the most distant guess. Do you suspect him of having designs upon my virtue? You are quite beside the bridge if you do! He doesn’t even like me!”
Miss Farlow’s modesty was so much shocked by this speech that she uttered a faint shriek, and tottered away to her own room, there to write an agitated letter to Sir Geoffrey Wychwood, in which she assured him that he might depend on her to do all that lay in her power to put an end to a most undesirable friendship, and (in the same sentence) warned him that she feared there was nothing she could do to stop dear Annis in one of her headstrong moods.
When Lucilla came in, it was several minutes before Miss Wychwood was able to break the news of her uncle’s arrival to her, so anxious was she to recount all the details of the day’s expedition. But she did at last pause for breath, and the change that came over her countenance when she heard the dread tidings was almost ludicrous. The sparkle was quenched instantly in her eyes, the smile vanished from her lips, she turned pale, and wrung her hands together. “He has come to drag me away! Oh, no, no, no!”
“Don’t be such a goose!” said Miss Wychwood, laughing at her. “I don’t think he has any such intention, though I fancy that may well have been his original purpose. But until I told him just what the case was he had no idea that the Iverleys and Mrs Amber were trying to bring about a match between you and Ninian. You need not be afraid that he will help them to promote that precious scheme, for he most certainly will not. He was excessively vexed—partly with them, and partly with you, for not having written to tell him of it. So when you meet him don’t put him out of temper by looking black at him, and getting on your high ropes! He seems to me to be as mifty as he is uncivil, and no good purpose can be served by getting into a quarrel with him, you know.”
“I don’t want to meet him!” Lucilla declared, tears starting into her eyes.
“Now you are being foolish beyond permission, my dear! Of course you must see him! I am taking you to dine with him at the York House this evening, so that we may, all three of us, discuss what’s to be done with you! Oh, don’t look so dismayed, you ridiculous puss! I promise I won’t let him bully you!”
In spite of this assurance it was a considerable time before Lucilla could be persuaded to consent to the scheme, and although she did in the end consent it was easy to see, when she took her place beside Miss Wychwood in the carriage, that she was far from being reconciled to it. Her charming little face was downcast, her eyes were full of apprehension, and it was not difficult to guess that she stood in great awe of her formidable uncle.
He received them in a private parlour, very correctly attired in the blue coat, white waistcoat, black pantaloons, and striped silk stockings which constituted the evening-dress worn by all the Smarts at private parties. Miss Wychwood noted, with slightly reluctant approval, that while he exhibited none of the exaggerated quirks of fashion which characterized the dandy-set, his coat was very well cut, his neckcloth tied with nicety, his shirt-points decently starched, and the bosom of his shirt unadorned by a frill—an outmoded fashion still worn by many provincial beaux, and almost invariably by the older generation of Smarts to which he undoubtedly belonged.
He came forward to shake hands with Miss Wychwood, paying no immediate heed to Lucilla, following her into the parlour. “You can’t think how relieved I am to see that you haven’t brought your cousin with you!” he said, by way of greeting. “I have been cursing myself these three hours for not having made it plain to her that I was not including her in my invitation to you! I couldn’t have endured an evening spent in the company of such an unconscionable gabble-monger!”
“Oh, but you did!” she told him. “She took you in the greatest dislike, and can’t be blamed for having done so, or for having uttered some pretty severe strictures on your total want of conduct. You must own, if there is any truth in you, that you were shockingly uncivil to her!”
“I can’t tolerate chattering bores,” he said. “If she took me in such dislike, I’m amazed that she permitted you to come here without her chaperonage.”
“She would certainly have stopped me if she could have done it, for she does not think you are a proper person for me to know!”
“Good God! Does she suspect me of trying to seduce you? She may be easy on that head: I never seduce ladies of quality!” He turned from her as he spoke, and put up his glass to cast a critical look over Lucilla. “Well, niece?” he said. “What a troublesome chit you are! But I’m glad to see that your appearance at least is much improved since I last saw you. I thought that you were bidding fair to grow into a Homely Joan, but I was wrong: you are no longer pudding-faced, and you’ve lost your freckles. Accept my felicitations!”
“I was not pudding-faced!”
“Oh, believe me, you were! You hadn’t lost your puppy-fat.”
Her bosom heaved with indignation, but Miss Wychwood intervened, recommending her not to rise to that, or any other fly of her uncle’s casting. She added severely: “And as for you, sir, I beg you will refrain from making any more remarks expressly designed to put Lucilla all on end, and to render me acutely uncomfortable!”
“I wouldn’t do that for the world!” he assured her.
“Then don’t be so rag-mannered!” she retorted.
“But I wasn’t!” he protested. “I didn’t say Lucilla is pudding-faced! I said she was,and even complimented her on her improved looks!”
Lucilla was betrayed into a little crow of involuntary laughter, and said with engaging frankness: “Oh, what an odiously complete hand you are, Uncle Oliver! Was I really such an antidote?”
“Oh, no, not an antidote! Merely a chicken that had lost its down and had too few feathers to show that it might grow into a handsome bird!”