The Quiet Gentleman

'You are a remarkable woman, Miss Morville.'

'On the contrary, I am sadly commonplace,' she replied. 'I shall say no more to you tonight on what has occurred. I can see it has teased you very much, and I wish you will try to put it out of your mind until you are stronger.' She straightened the quilt as she spoke, and after a moment's hesitation said, in a colourless tone: 'Your medicine I keep in my own charge, and you may like to know, my lord, that all the nourishment you partake of passes from the head-cook's hands to Turvey's only.'

'Yes, I had not considered the chances of poison,' he said thoughtfully. 'Thank you! This is your doing, I collect.'

'By no means. I fancy it was concerted between Turvey, Abney, and the head-cook himself. Whatever may be the sentiments of certain members of your family, sir, you have trustworthy guards in your servants.'

'It seems so indeed! I cannot conceive why they should concern themselves with my welfare!'

She said gravely: 'There is no understanding it, to be sure, but so it is! And here, I think, comes Chard. I shall leave you now, my lord. Pray do not vex yourself more than you need! You have been frowning ever since you heard Martin's story, you know!'

'Have I? I beg your pardon! He has given me food for a good deal of thought.'

'You will be able to think more clearly in a day or two,' she said, and went to the door, and opened it. 'You may come in, Chard: his lordship wishes to speak with you. You will not keep him wakeful overlong, I know. Goodnight, my lord!'

She went out, and Chard approached the bed cautiously. He was welcomed with a smile. 'Not dead yet, Chard. What a work you must have had, driving those grays, and preventing me from falling out of the curricle!'

'Well, I did, me lord,' Chard owned, grinning at him. 'And very much contra pelo it went with me not to be able to stop to catch the villain red-handed! But by the time I had them grays under control you was gone off into a swound, and bleeding so that I durstn't do anything but drive home hell-for-leather.'

'I am very much obliged to you. You did right, and I doubt whether you would have caught my would-be assassin, even had you been able to stop.'

'I would have liked to have got just one glimpse of him, me lord,' Chard said. 'I know what I know, but it ain't enough. And I'm rare set-about that I let that young—let Mr. Martin slip through my hands tonight, so to speak! What I don't see is how he got into your lordship's room without me seeing him at it!'

'He got into it by way of that stair, which you may see, if you turn round.'

'Ho!' said Chard, having subjected the panel and the cavity beyond it to a close inspection. 'So that's the way it is, is it? Next thing we know we'll be having an embascado inside this here Castle, as well as out of it! Well, me lord, that's properly bowled me out, that has! Why, you might have been smothered in your bed, and no one the wiser!'

'I fancy that very nearly did happen to me once,' said the Earl reflectively. 'I don't mean to be approached by that stair again, so, if you will be so good, Chard, you may take a candle, and go out by the secret way, and when you come out of the cupboard, into which I understand it has access, lock it, and keep the key. Here it is!'

Chard took the key, but said: 'Ay, me lord, but that ain't enough! There's someone as is desperate set on stashing your glim, and by what I've seen he won't stop for much. Seems to me we'll both of us be easier in our minds if I was to set here quiet during the night, while your lordship gets a bit of sleep!'

The Earl shook his head. 'Thank you, no! I have something else for you to do. I fancy nothing will be attempted against me while I am confined to my bed, with Turvey in the dressing-room.'

'Him!' said Chard scornfully. 'He might wake if you was to sound a trumpet outside his door—there's no saying!'

'He would wake if I called to him. But I have a better answer for a would-be assassin than Turvey. Open the top right-hand drawer of that chest, if you please! You will find my pistol there: bring it to me! Be careful! it is loaded and primed. Thank you!' The Earl took the pistol, and laid it on the table beside his bed. 'Now light a candle!' He waited until Chard had obeyed him, and then said: 'Don't mount guard outside Mr. Martin's room!'

'Me lord!' Chard said explosively. 'Mr. Martin was caught by me the best part of the way to King's Lynn this day!'

'Yes. I know.'

'Very good, me lord, but p'raps you don't know what sort of a Canterbury tale he saw fit to tell me!'

'I have heard it. But I do not wish him to know that he is watched. In the house, I think I stand in no danger. But in a day or two I shall be out of this bed, and when that happens, then I want you to watch Mr. Martin, once he is outside these walls. You will not always find it possible to follow him, but discover where he goes, and if he takes a gun out, follow him as close as you may.' He paused. 'And if I too am outside these walls, Chard, don't let him out of your sight!' he said deliberately.

CHAPTER 18

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Martin's return to Stanyon brought about two changes in the existing arrangements at the Castle: the Dowager emerged from the seclusion of her own apartments, and Lord Ulverston postponed his departure for London. No one was much surprised at this, and although the Earl murmured that Lucy's presence was unlikely to preserve him from harm he raised no demur to it, events having largely banished from Martin's mind other and less immediately important issues. Indeed, it was doubtful if Martin would now have offered for Marianne, had her affections been disengaged, for when she drove over to Stanyon with her parents, to enquire after the progress of its owner, her shocked gaze informed him tolerably clearly what were her sentiments upon the occasion. That the story he had told should have met with disbelief, first, and palpably, from his half-brother, and then from the lady whom he had intended to wed, struck Martin with stunning effect, and in some measure prepared him for his reception at Mr. Warboys's hands. 'Doing it rather too brown, Martin!' Mr. Warboys said bluntly. 'Always said that nasty temper of yours would land you in a fix one of these days!' He added, with considerable courage: 'Lesson to you! Have to live it down, old boy!'

Instead of issuing the challenge which Mr. Warboys would have had no hesitation in declining, Martin had turned on his heel, and walked off without another word spoken.

The Dowager, resuming her place in the household at Stanyon, soon realized that Martin's return had not, as she had felt sure it must, allayed all suspicion against him. Nothing in her well-ordered existence had prepared her for such a situation as now confronted her. Her egotism happily preserved her from self-blame, but her agitation was, nevertheless, acute, and prompted her to pay her stepson a visit. Miss Morville was powerless to resist this incursion; she could only hope that the Earl's constitution was strong enough to support him through the ordeal. She discovered, as others had done before her, that his apparent fragility and his gentleness were alike deceptive. He received his stepmother with equanimity, and although her visit wearied him it did not, as Miss Morville had feared it must, agitate his pulse. The Dowager harangued him for half an hour, ringing all the changes between scolding, dictating, and pleading. He heard her with patience, and answered her with such kindness that she left his room much tranquillized, and only realized some hours later that her intervention had achieved nothing. He did not banish Martin from Stanyon, but he would not again admit him to his bedchamber; he told her that he should adhere to his story of the man in homespuns, but he gave her no assurance that he believed Martin to be innocent of the attempt upon his life. It was not until Martin questioned her upon these points that the Earl's ommissions occurred to her. She had seldom suffered so severe a setback, and its effect upon her was such that Miss Morville felt herself obliged to accede to her almost tearful request to her young friend not to leave her while her nerves were so much overset.

Thus it was that Mr. and Mrs. Morville, arriving in the middle of the following week at Gilbourne House, found that although their daughter was certainly there to welcome them she had no immediate intention of rejoining the family circle. Mr. Morville, much astonished, was at once shocked and grieved. He feared that Drusilla had been led away by grandeur; and, had he received the least encouragement from his helpmate, he would have felt strongly inclined to have exerted his parental authority to compel his daughter to return to her own home. So far from receiving such encouragement, he was dissuaded, in unmistakable terms, from expressing even the mildest desire for Drusilla's return.

'It appears,' said Mrs. Morville fluently, 'that they are in trouble at Stanyon. If Lady St. Erth wishes Drusilla to remain with her for the present, I should not like to be disobliging, you know.'