The Nonesuch

“Oh, a Warwickshire family! I don’t know much about ’em, but you must have heard Mama talk of her great friend, Maria Yateley! She’s Lady Stone—a regular fusty mug!—but Mama has known her for ever, and she always speaks of her as Maria Yateley. Well, would you believe it? Mrs Chartley is her first cousin!”

There did not seem to Sir Waldo to be much cause for satisfaction in this discovery, but he responded suitably; and Julian chatted away happily, his sad disillusionment forgotten in telling his cousin all about the very pleasant evening he had spent, and in trying to persuade him that Miss Chartley’s protégé, at present domiciled with both his parents and one of his grandmothers, was an eligible candidate for entrance to the Broom Hall Orphanage. Failing in this, he said that he must discuss the matter with the Rector: perhaps the boy could be admitted to the Charity School. “For I feel one ought to do something,”he said, frowning over the problem. “After Miss Chartley saved him from being trampled on it seems a pity that he should be put to work in one of the manufactories, poor little rat! I daresay if you were to speak to the Governors, or the Warden, or whatever they call themselves—”

“No, you talk it over with the Rector!” said Sir Waldo.

“Well, I will.” He yawned. “Lord, I am sleepy! I think I’ll go to bed, if you’ve no objection.”

“None at all. Oh, by the bye! Laurie is here. He went to bed early too.’”

Julian had walked over to the door, but he wheeled round at that, exclaiming: “Laurie?What the devil brings him here?”

“He told me he had been visiting friends in York, and drove over to see how we go on here.”

“Gammon!” said Julian scornfully. “What a damned thing! What does he want?”

Sir Waldo raised his brows. “You had better ask him,” he replied, a faint chill in his voice.

Julian reddened. “I didn’t mean—I know it’s your house, and no concern of mine whom you invite to stay in it, but—oh, lord, Waldo, what a dead bore! You didn’t invite him, either, did you?”

“No, I didn’t,” admitted Sir Waldo, with a smile that was a trifle twisted. “I’m sorry, Julian, but I couldn’t turn him away, you know!”

“No, I suppose not. Oh, well! As long as he don’t start abusing you—!”

“I don’t think he will. But if he should happen to pick out a grievance, oblige me by keeping two circumstances in mind! That he will not be doing so under any roof of yours, and that I am really quite capable of fighting my own battles!”

“Don’t I know it!” Julian retorted. “And of giving nasty set-downs! Very well! I’ll behave with all the propriety in the world—if I can!” He opened the door, but looked over his shoulder, grinning, as a sudden thought assailed him. “Oh, by Jupiter! Won’t our Bond Street beau stagger the neighbourhood?”

Chapter 11

If Julian’s demeanour, when he met his cousin Laurence on the following morning, put Sir Waldo forcibly in mind of a stiff-legged terrier, not aggressively inclined but giving warning by his slightly raised bristles that he was prepared to repel any attack, this wary hostility soon vanished. Laurence greeted him in the friendliest manner, with apparently no memory of their last stormy encounter; so Julian, naturally sunny-tempered, immediately responded in kind. Laurence was very full of liveliness and wit, giving a droll account of his valet’s horror at the privations of life at Broom Hall, and describing the various hazards he had himself encountered. “Not that I mean to complain, coz!” he assured Sir Waldo. “After all, I know where the rotten floorboard is now, and even if the ceiling does come down I daresay I may not be lying helpless in bed at the time. I don’t regard a few scraps of plaster descending on me as anything to make a dust about! To think that I should have been as cross as crabs because old Joseph left the place to you! You’re very welcome to it, Waldo!”

This was clearly so well-intentioned that Julian instantly regaled him with a highly-coloured account of his own first night in the house, when he had put his foot through the sheet; and before very long they were both of them roasting Sir Waldo in lighthearted, if temporary, alliance.

“Jackstraws!” he remarked. “A little more, and you’ll find yourselves cast upon the world! Laurie, if you want to ride I can mount you, but if you prefer to drive the matter becomes more complicated. There’s my phaeton, and there’s a gig, and there’s a tub of a coach which I imagine old Joseph must have inherited from his grandfather. We rumble to balls and rout-parties in that: Julian thinks it’s just the thing. You won’t—and nor, for that matter, do I. You can have the phaeton when I’m not using it myself, but—”

“Oh, lord, no!” Laurence interrupted. “I shouldn’t think of taking your horses out! The gig will do well enough, if I should want to drive myself anywhere.”