The Quiet Gentleman

“Your cousin gave him a fine dressing for it: I heard him,” said Ulverston, sipping his wine.

“Did he? A pity! It was not worth making a noise about it.”

“Well, he seemed to think there was more to it than a schoolboy’s trick. Is there?”

“Of course there is not! Now, Lucy, what’s all this?”

“Beg pardon! It’s these ancestral walls of yours,” explained the Viscount. “Too dashed mediaeval, dear boy! They put the oddest notions into my head!”

Chapter 8

It was Martin who offered to be the bearer, on the following morning, of polite messages of condolence from his mother to Lady Bolderwood. He returned to Stanyon with no very encouraging tidings. Dr. Malpas had given it as his opinion that Sir Thomas’s disorder was indeed the influenza, and since Sir Thomas was of a bronchial habit he had strictly forbidden him to leave his bed for several days, much less his house. Marianne did not despair, however, of being able to attend the ball, for her Mama had promised that she would not scruple, unless Sir Thomas should become very much worse, to leave old Nurse in charge of the sick-room while she chaperoned her daughter to Stanyon.

But the following morning brought a servant from Whissenhurst to Stanyon, with a letter for the Dowager from Marianne. It was a primly-worded little note, but a blister on the sheet betrayed that tears had been shed over it. The writer regretted that, owing to the sudden indisposition of her Mama, it would be out of her power to come to Stanyon on the following evening. In fact, Lady Bolderwood had fallen a victim to the influenza.

The Dowager, in announcing these tidings, said that it was very shocking; but it was plain that she considered the Bolderwoods more to be commiserated than the Stanyon party. They would no doubt soon recover from the influenza, but they would have missed being amongst the guests at Stanyon, which she thought a privation not so readily to be recovered from. “How sorry they will be!” she said. “They would have liked it excessively.”

“It is the most curst thing!” Martin cried. “It ruins everything!”

“Yes, indeed, my dear, I am extremely vexed,” agreed the Dowager. “We shall now have two more gentlemen than ladies, and I daresay it will be quite uncomfortable. I warned your brother how it would be.”

It was not to be expected that this point of view would be much appreciated by either of her sons. Each felt that if Marianne were not to grace it the ball might as well be cancelled. Nothing but languor and insipidity could now lie before them.

“I wonder,” said Miss Morville, after glancing from Martin’s face to St. Erth’s, “if the difficulty might not perhaps be overcome?”

“I am sure, my dear Drusilla, I do not know whom we could prevail upon to come to the ball at such short notice,” replied the Dowager. “No doubt the Dearhams would accept an invitation with alacrity, and bless themselves for their good fortune, but I consider them pushing and vulgar, and if St. Erth expects me to entertain them I must say at once that it is out of the question that I should do so.”

“I have not the slightest desire to invite the Dearhams, whoever they may be,” said the Earl, rather impatiently.

“I should think not indeed!” Martin said. “The Dearhams in place of Miss Bolderwood! That would be coming it a little too strong, ma’am! Nobody cares if there are too many men: the thing is that if Marianne doesn’t come I for one would rather we postponed the ball!”

Miss Morville made herself heard again, speaking with a little diffidence, but with all her usual good sense. “I was going to suggest, ma’am, that, if you should not dislike it, Marianne might be invited to stay at Stanyon for a day or two, while her parents are confined to their beds. It must be sad work for her at Whissenhurst with no one to bear her company all day. You may depend upon it she is not even permitted the comfort of being able to attend to her Mama. They take such care of her, you know, that I am very sure she is not allowed to enter the sick-room.”

“By Jupiter, the very thing!” Martin exclaimed, his face lighting up.

“Miss Morville, you are an excellent creature!” Gervase said, smiling gratefully at her. “I don’t know where we should be without your sage counsel!”