The Nonesuch

He was not to see Miss Trent again for five days. Charlotte, instead of making the swift recovery to be expected of such a bouncing girl, returned from Harrogate only to take to her bed. Her feverish condition was ascribed by Dr Wibsey to the poison that had leaked into her system; but Mrs Underhill told Sir Waldo with simple pride that Charlotte was just like she was herself.

“It’s seldom I get a screw loose,” she said, “for, in general, you know, I go on in a capital way. But if there’s the least little thing amiss, such as a colicky disorder, it throws me into such queer stirrups that many’s the time when my late husband thought to see me laid by the wall for no more than an epidemic cold!”

Sir Waldo called every day at Staples to enquire after Charlotte, but not until the fifth day was he rewarded by the sight of Miss Trent, and even then it was under inauspicious circumstances. The invalid was taking the air on the terrace, seated in a comfortable chair carried out for her accommodation, with her mother on one side; and her governess, holding up a parasol to protect her from the sun, on the other; and with Mrs Mickleby and her two eldest daughters grouped round her. When Sir Waldo was ushered on to the terrace by Totton Mrs Mickleby had already learnt from her hostess that he had been a regular visitor to Staples. She drew her own conclusions, rejecting without hesitation the ostensible reason of his daily visits.

“So kind as he’s been you’d hardly credit!” Mrs Underhill told her, not without complacency. “Never a day passes but what he comes to enquire how Charlotte goes on, and it’s seldom that he don’t bring with him a book, or some trifle to amuse her, isn’t it, love? Well, Charlotte hasn’t any more of a fancy for reading than what I have, but she likes Miss Trent to read aloud to her, which she does beautifully, and as good as a play. Well, as I said to Sir Waldo only yesterday, it isn’t only Charlotte that’s very much obliged to him, for Miss Trent reads it after dinner to us, and I’m sure I couldn’t tell you which of us enjoys it the most, me, or Charlotte, or Tiffany. Well, it’s so lifelike that I couldn’t get to sleep last night for wondering whether that nasty Glossin would get poor Harry Bertram carried off by the smugglers again, or whether the old witch is going to save him—her and the tutor—which Tiffany thinks they’re bound to do, on account of its being near the end of the last volume.”

“Oh, a novel!” said Mrs Mickleby. “I must confess I am an enemy to that class of literature, but I daresay that you, Miss Trent, are partial to romances.”

“When they are as well-written as this one, ma’am, most certainly!” returned Ancilla.

“Oh, and he brought a dissected map!” Charlotte said. “I had never seen one before! It is all made of little pieces which fit into each other, to make a map of Europe!”

The Misses Mickleby had not seen one either, so Miss Trent, feeling that she had a score to pay, advised their mama, very kindly, to procure one for them. “So educational!” she said. “And quite exceptionable!”

Then Sir Waldo arrived, and although he did not single Miss Trent out for any particular attention Mrs Mickleby, who was just as quick as Mr Calver to recognize the signs of an affaire,was convinced that if she had not outstayed him he would have found an excuse to take Miss Trent to walk round the gardens, or some such thing.

“And it’s my belief, sorry though I am to think it, that she would have gone with him,” she told Mrs Banningham later. “I was watching her closely, and I assure you, ma’am, she coloured up the instant his name was announced. I never saw anyone look more conscious!”

“It doesn’t astonish me in the least,” replied Mrs Banningham. “There was always something about her which I couldn’t like. You,I know, took quite a fancy to her, but for my part I thought her affected. That excessive reserve, for instance, and her airs of gentility—!”

“Oh, as to that,” said Mrs Mickleby, a trifle loftily, “the Trents are a very good family! That is what makes it so distressing to see her showing such a want of delicacy. All those rides! Of course, she was said to be playing propriety, but I thought at the time it was very odd, very imprudent!”

“Imprudent!” said Mrs Banningham, with a snort. “Very sly, I call it! She has been on the catch for him from the outset. A fine thing it would be for her, without a penny to bless herself with! If he makes her an offer, which I don’t consider a certain thing at all. A carte blanche, possibly; marriage, no!”

“Someone should warn her that he is merely trifling. I should not wish her to be taken in, for however much I may deplore her conduct in luring him on to sit in her pocket, I do not think her fast.”