Nothing was seen of him for the following two days, but towards evening on the third day he called in Camden Place to inform Lucilla that he had procured a well-mannered mare for her to ride. “My groom is bringing her down, and will look after her,” he said. “I’ll tell him to come here for orders every day.”
“Oh!”squeaked Lucilla joyfully. “Thank you, sir! I am excessively obliged to you! Where does she come from? When shall I be able to ride her? What sort of a mare is she? Shall I like her?”
“I trust so. She’s a gray, carries a good head, and jumps off her hocks. She comes from Lord Warrington’s stables, and is accustomed to carrying a lady, but I bought her at Tattersall’s, Warrington having no further use for her since his wife’s death. You may ride her the day after tomorrow.”
“Oh, famous! capital!” she cried, clapping her hands. “Was that why I thought you must have left Bath? Did you go all the way to London to buy me a horse of my very own? I am—I am truly grateful to you! Miss Wychwood has lent me her own favourite mare, and she is the sweetest-goer imaginable, but I don’t like to be borrowing her mare, even though she says she doesn’t wish to ride herself.”
“No, nor do I like it,” he said. He put up his glass, surveying through it Mr Elmore, who had risen at his entrance, but was standing bashfully in the background. “You, I fancy, must be young Elmore,” he said. “In which case, I have to thank you for having taken care of my niece, I believe.”
“Yes, but—but it was nothing, sir!” stammered Ninian. “I mean, the only thing I could do was to accompany her, for I—I was unable to persuade her to return to Chartley, say what I would, which, of course, was what she should have done!”
“Heavy on hand, was she? You have my sympathy!”
Ninian grinned shyly at him. “I should rather think she was!” he said. “Well, she was in one of her hey-go-mad humours, you know!”
“I am thankful to say that I don’t,” replied Mr Carleton caustically.
“I was not!” declared Lucilla, taking instant umbrage. “And as for taking care of me, I was very well able to take care of myself!”
“No, you weren’t!” retorted Ninian. “You didn’t even know how to get to Bath, and if I hadn’t caught you—”
“If you hadn’t meddled I should have hired a chaise in Amesbury,” she said grandly. “And it wouldn’t have lost a wheel, like your odious gig!”
“Oh, would you indeed? And have found yourself without a feather to fly with when you reached Bath! Don’t be such a widgeon!”
Miss Wychwood, entering the room at that moment, put a stop to further hostilities, by saying in her calm way: “How many more times am I to tell you both that I will not have you pulling caps in my drawing-room? How do you do, Mr Carleton?”
“Oh, Miss Wychwood, whatever do you think?” cried Lucilla eagerly. “He has bought me a mare—a gray one, too, which is exactly what I should have chosen, because I love gray horses, don’t you? And he says his own groom is to look after her, so that now you will be able to ride with us!”
“Redeeming yourself in your ward’s eyes?” Miss Wychwood said quizzically, shaking hands with him.
“No: in yours, I hope!”
Startled, her eyes flew to his face, but swiftly sank again. Considerably shaken, she turned away, for there could be no mistaking the glow in his hard eyes: Mr Carleton, that noted profligate, had conceived a strange, unaccountable fancy for a maiden lady, of advanced years, who was no straw damsel, but a lady of the first consideration, and of unquestioned virtue. Her first thought, that he meant to fascinate her into accepting a carte blanche from him, occurred only to be dismissed: Mr Carleton might be a libertine, but he was not a fool. Perhaps he meant to get up a flirtation with her, by way of alleviating the boredom of Bath society. Hard on the heels of this thought came the realization that a flirtation with him would alleviate her own constantly growing boredom. He was so very different from any of her other flirts: in fact, she had never met anyone in the least like him.
Lucilla and Ninian were arguing about the several rides to be enjoyed outside Bath. They went into the back-drawing-room to consult the guide-book which Lucilla was almost positive she had left there. “And if they find it,” remarked Miss Wychwood, “they will instantly disagree on whether to go to see a Druidical monument, or a battlefield. I cannot conceive how anyone but a confirmed chucklehead could suppose that they were in the least degree suited to each other!”
“Iverley and Clara Amber are both chuckleheads,” replied Mr Carleton, dismissing them from further consideration. “I hope you mean to join the riding-party?”
“Yes, very likely I shall. Not that I think it at all necessary to provide Lucilla with a chaperon when she goes out with Ninian!”
“No, but it is very necessary, I promise you, to provide me with a companion who won’t bore me past endurance. I can think of few worse fates than to be obliged to ride bodkin between that pair of bickerers.”
Surprised, she said: “Oh, are you going with them?”
“Not unless you go too.”
“For fear that you may have to listen to bickering?” she said, smiling a little. “You won’t! They don’t quarrel when they go riding together, I’m told. Corisande Stinchcombe complained that they talked of nothing but horses, hounds, and hunting!”
“Even worse!” he said.
“You are not a hunting man, Mr Carleton?”
“On the contrary! But I do not indulge myself or bore my companions by describing the great runs I’ve had, the tosses I’ve taken, the clumsiness of one of my hunters—only saved from coming to grief over a regular rasper, be it understood, by my superior horsemanship!—or the sure-footedness of another. Such anecdotes are of no interest to anyone but the teller.”
“I am afraid that’s true,” she acknowledged. “But the impulse to boast of great runs and of clever horses is almost irresistible—even though one knows one is being listened to because the other person is only waiting for the chance to do some boasting on his own account! To which, of course, one is bound to listen, for the sake of common honesty! Don’t you agree?”
“Yes: it is why I learned years ago to overcome that impulse. You yourself hunt, I believe?”
“I was used to, when I lived in the country, but I was obliged to give it up when I came to Bath,” she said, with a faint sigh.
“Why did you come to Bath?” he asked.
“Oh, for several good reasons!” she responded lightly.
“If you mean that for a set-down, Miss Wychwood, I should inform you that I am not so easily set down! What good reasons?”
She looked at him rather helplessly, but, after a moment, replied with a touch of asperity: “They concern no one but myself, sir! And if you are aware that I did give you what I hoped would be a civil set-down for asking me an—an impertinent question, you will permit me to tell you that I consider you positively rag-mannered to pursue the subject!”