The Viscount was not the only person to look askance upon Martin’s new valet. Turvey, when he undressed his master that evening, informed him that the Castle had a fresh inmate. His tone contrived to convey the additional information that Mr. Leek was scarcely the type of man with whom he was in the habit of associating. “If I may venture to say so, my lord, a strange Individual for Mr. Martin to take into his service. Very different from Studley, who, although scarcely conforming to Our standards, I have always found to be a most respectable person. Besides having quite a Way with Mr. Martin’s boots,” he added, as one giving honour where it was due. “Of course, my lord, the same results as We achieve are not to be obtained, as I had occasion to tell him, through the use of mere blacking; but when one takes into account the very meagre means at his disposal he did very well — very well indeed! It is to be hoped Mr. Martin will not be disappointed in his new man. More I will not say.”
“Whatever else I may believe, that I do not!” said the Earl.
“I hope, my lord,” said Turvey, skilfully rolling the bandage he had removed from about the Earl’s chest and shoulder, “that I am not one to cast aspersions upon others; and if Studley’s sudden removal from the Castle strikes me as being a peculiar circumstance, I am sure I should prefer to keep my reflections to myself, were I not deeply concerned with your lordship’s welfare.”
“Thank you. I collect that Studley has gone to visit his father.”
“Yes, my lord — his ailing father,” said Turvey, dusting basilicum-powder over the healing wound. “Very proper, I am sure — though how he became aware that his parent was in poor health I do not know. I fancy, my lord, that Dr. Malpas cannot but be pleased with the condition of your wound. If your lordship would be so obliging as to raise your left arm a trifle, I will replace the bandages!”
The Earl complied with this request, but he said: “Out with it! What are you trying to tell me, Turvey? Do you suspect that Studley has no father?”
“On that head, my lord, I have no information, and shall keep an open mind. I was merely curious to know how the news of his parent’s indisposition reached Studley.”
“Possibly through the medium of the post. Not too tight, if you please!”
Turvey slackened the bandage. “I beg your lordship’s pardon! I should myself have supposed that Studley must have received a letter from his parent were it not for the fact that when Chard rode to Grantham for the paregoric draught recommended by the doctor, he called at the receiving-office, and brought back to the Castle such letters as were there. There were only two, my lord: one for her ladyship, and one for the housekeeper. I trust the bandage is not now too tight?”
“Thank you, no. It is possible, you know, that, having been turned off by Mr. Martin, Studley sought for an excuse to explain his sudden departure. He might not wish it to be known that he had been dismissed.”
Turvey bowed slightly. “Very understandable, I am sure, my lord. Particularly if he thought that no one would have believed it. I am told that Studley has been with Mr. Martin ever since he was a boy. Yes, my lord: remarkably attached to him, I am informed.” He then helped the Earl to put oh his night-shirt, and turned to pull back the bedclothes. “Your lordship might desire me, before I myself retire to rest in the dressing-room, to turn the key in the lock of this door. Mr. Martin’s new man — doubtless bewildered by the many galleries and corridors in the Castle, and anxious to acquaint himself with his surroundings — has, if I may say so, a tendency to prowl. Would your lordship care to have a pillow under the left shoulder?”
“No, thank you,” Gervase replied, stretching himself out in the huge bed. “Nor should I care to have my door locked. Where does he prowl?”
“That, my lord, I am not in a position to say,” said Turvey, tucking in the blankets. “One of the two occasions when I encountered him, he appeared to be acquainting himself with the bedchambers opening on to this gallery. He explained to me that he was trying to find Mr. Martin’s room. Is there anything further I can do for your lordship?”
“Only one thing! Do not alarm the Servants’ Hall with this story!”
“Your lordship need feel no apprehension. I should think it most improper to impart my reflections to any but your lordship,” responded Turvey, with hauteur. “It would be idle to deny, however, that a good deal of comment has been provoked amongst the staff, no one being able to understand what should have prevailed upon Mr. Martin to have hired this Leek. I need scarcely say that I have discouraged all attempts to discover what may be my opinion. I shall continue to do so. Good-night, my lord!”
He then withdrew to the adjoining room, leaving the Earl to digest his sinister tidings.
Upon the following morning, Theo took his leave of his cousin, saying, with his slight smile: “You are so well-guarded I may abandon you with a quiet mind! Don’t overtax your strength! Ulverston, I rely upon you to remember you are under oath to send me word if — if Gervase should suffer a relapse!”
“Ay, you may depend upon me!” the Viscount said. “As for relapses — pooh! If you had ever campaigned with Ger, you would know he has a stronger constitution than any of us!”
He repeated this observation when, later in the day, Miss Morville tried to dissuade her patient from emerging from the seclusion of his own bedchamber. Her efforts were quite unsuccessful, and the Viscount told her privately that she was wasting her time. “All you’ll get is a soft answer, ma’am. Never knew such an obstinate fellow as Ger! He don’t look it, and the lord knows he don’t sound it, but don’t you let him humbug you! Besides, it won’t hurt him, y’know. Wouldn’t think it to look at him, but the time he got that nasty slash on his arm he had it stitched up, and never told a man-jack of us how bad it was.”
“I was not thinking so much of that,” confessed Miss Morville. “It may be foolish of me, but while he is confined to his room it must surely be impossible for anyone to hurt him!”
“He ain’t going to be hurt,” said the Viscount confidently. “Best thing now would be for an attempt to be made on him. Can’t leave the thing as it is, y’know! Got to catch our fine gentleman red-handed, ma’am. Now, you ain’t the blabbing sort, so I’ll tell you this: young Martin can’t stir an inch without having Chard on his heels! Good man, Chard!”
“Good God! Is he spying on Martin? Does Martin know it?”
“Lord, no! No one knows it but Chard and me!” said the Viscount. “Except you, of course. The thing is, I can’t watch Martin, and it must be plain to everyone but dear old Ger that someone ought to. So I set Chard on to it. Good notion, don’t you think?”
“Excellent!” said Miss Morville, in rather a hollow voice.
“You see,” explained his lordship kindly, it won’t do to let the thing alone. Only let Martin try to do Ger a mischief now,and we can spike his guns, ma’am!”
“Yes, but — ” She stopped, and closed her lips firmly on some unexpressed thought.
The Viscount, tolerant of feminine weakness, advised her to put it out of her mind. Miss Morville, after a short struggle with herself, again refrained from speech.
The Earl left his room some time after noon. His toilet had occupied him for longer than was usual, since he was obliged to move his left arm with caution, and refused to abate one jot of his meticulous neatness. He bore with patience such suggestions from Turvey as that he should make his appearance in his dressing-gown; but when the valet went so far as to beg him to leave the arrangement of his cravat in his hands, patience failed, and he spoke softly but so very much to the point that it needed only a look from him, some minutes later, to dissuade Turvey from offering to escort him to whichever of the saloons he chose to sit in.
Leaving his henchman the personification of cold disapproval, he strolled down the gallery in the direction of the Grand Stairway. As he approached the door which led to the stair up which Martin had told him he had come, on the night of the storm, it opened, and a portly man, dressed in an ill-fitting suit of black clothes, peeped into the gallery. When he saw the Earl, he gave a start, and seemed to be in two minds whether to advance or to withdraw. The Earl, pausing, raised his quizzing-glass to his eye, and surveyed him with interest.
The dress, if not the bearing, of the stranger proclaimed his avocation, but it scarcely needed this to inform the Earl that he was confronting his brother’s new valet. Ulverston’s description rose forcibly to his mind. Mr. Leek’s homely features were certainly unprepossessing, for besides being muffin-faced, he had small, quick-glancing eyes, and a nose which, having at some time in its owner’s career been broken, was now far from straight. Close-cropped, grizzled hair, and a gap in his upper jaw occasioned by the loss of two teeth added little to his charm, and his smile, which, while it stretched his mouth left his eyes mirthless, did nothing to improve his countenance.
“Ah!” said the Earl. “You, I fancy, must be Mr. Martin’s new man!”
“Valet to the Honourable Martin,” said Mr. Leek, on a reproving note. “Tempor’y! Being, as you may say, retired!” He added, as one tardily recollecting his instructions: “Me lord!”
“I see you know me.”
“Properly speaking,” replied Mr. Leek, “no! But the other flash — the other gentlemen being accounted for, which is the aforesaid Honourable Mr. Frant, and me Lord Ulverston, I reaches by deduction the concloosion that your lordship is this Earl.”
“Which Earl?” Gervase enquired.
“The one as owns this ken,” replied Mr. Leek, with a comprehensive gesture.
“I do own it, and as its owner I am a trifle curious to know what precise circumstance could take my brother’s valet to a stair that leads only to some storerooms, and to the Fountain Court?”
“Getting me bearings, me lord,” explained Mr. Leek. “Which ain’t as easy as anyone might think which was reared in this Castle! What I do say, and will stand to, is that I never in all my puff see a ken which I’d liefer mill! That is, if I was a mill-ken, which, o’course, I ain’t. But there are them as I know as would slum this ken — ah, quicker than wipe your eye!”
“Break into it?” asked the Earl.
“Ah!” said Mr. Leek. “Well, look at all them jiggers and glazes, me lord!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“What I should say,” Mr. Leek corrected himself, with an embarrassed cough behind his hand, “is them doors and winders, me lord! Any prig could open ’em, and no one a ha’porth the wiser!”
“Could you?”
“I could,”admitted Mr. Leek frankly, “which ain’t, however, to say I would! ”
“You need not, need you?” said Gervase, with flickering smile. “You, after all, are inside this ken!”
Mr. Leek, a little disconcerted, agreed to this, adding: “Besides which, milling kens ain’t my lay — properly speaking!”
“No, I fancy I have a shrewd suspicion of what your lay is,” said the Earl.
Mr. Leek eyed him a trifle askance. “That’s right, me lord: gentleman’s gentleman!”
“But only temporarily!” the Earl reminded him.
Mr. Leek was spared the necessity of answering by the sudden arrival of his employer upon the scene. Martin, rounding the angle of the gallery, halted in his tracks, exclaiming: “What the devil brings you here, Leek?” He glanced at the Earl, coloured, and said rather awkwardly: “I am glad to see you out of your room, St. Erth!”
The Earl, on whom the almost imperceptible jerk of the head which dismissed Mr. Leek was not lost, replied amiably: “Thank you, Martin.”
“You will find my mother in the Italian Saloon!” said Martin.
“Again I thank you. Add to your goodness by lending me your arm!”
Martin looked very much surprised, but after a moment’s hesitation he moved forward, and offered his arm. Striving after a natural manner, he said: “I daresay you feel pretty weak still.”
“Oh, no, but it will be well if we are seen to be on excellent terms,” Gervase replied, slipping a hand in his arm, and beginning to stroll with him down the gallery.
The arm stiffened. “Considering you would not allow me to set foot inside your room all these days — ”
“You must make allowances for the whims of an invalid,” said the Earl. “Do tell me what singular merit attaches to your new valet! I feel he must possess some extraordinary attribute, under his rough exterior, which induced you to hire him.”
“Oh — Leek!” Martin said, with a laugh. “You are as bad as Theo! There’s no mystery about it! Merely, Studley asked to be permitted to visit his old father, and I hate to have strangers about me.”
“Ah, he is an acquaintance of yours?”
“Why, no, not precisely! He’s Hickling’s uncle — my groom, you know! Of course, it wouldn’t do to keep him for ever, but he does well enough while Studley is away. Besides, he — he keeps my boots in good order!”
The Earl, whose Hessians shone with a mirror-like gloss, for an instant levelled his glass at Martin’s top-boots. He let it fall, and said politely: “That is certainly an advantage. Er — what does he use on them?”
“Blacking, I suppose! What does Turvey use on yours?”
“Ah, that is a secret into which I have not been admitted!”
“Champagne, perhaps?” said Martin sardonically.
“I should not be at all surprised.”
They had come by this time to the head of the Grand Stairway. Abney, emerging from the Italian Saloon, stared at them for an astonished moment, and then bowed, and said, with a good deal of feeling: “Your lordship! May I say how very happy I am to see your lordship restored to us?”
“Thank you; I am much obliged to you. Shall I find her ladyship in the Italian Saloon?”
“Indeed, yes, my lord!” Abney said, moving towards the door again. “Sir Thomas and Miss Bolderwood have called to enquire after your lordship, and are with my lady now.”
The Earl’s slender fingers closed on an arm that showed a tendency to withdraw itself. Martin said jerkily: “I’ll leave you! I have to go down to the stables!”
“In good time,” replied Gervase.
“If you think,” said Martin, in a savage undervoice, “that I want to watch Ulverston making sheep’s eyes at Marianne, you much mistake the matter!”
By this time, however, Abney had thrown open the door into the saloon, and the Earl, merely saying: “Never mind!” obliged his young relative to enter the room beside him.
Their arrival had the effect of cutting off various conversations in mid-air. Marianne, who had been exchanging sweet nothings with the Viscount in the window-embrasure, exclaimed, and ran forward, saying impulsively: “Oh, how glad I am! Everything is right again, and you are better!” She then blushed, cast a deprecating look at Martin, began to stammer something incoherent, and was rescued by Ulverston, who said cheerfully: “Hallo, Ger! How do you find yourself, dear boy?”
“St. Erth and Martin!” announced the Dowager, having verified this fact through her long-handled glasses. “I am excessively pleased to see you, St. Erth. I said it would not be long before you were upon your feet again. I had no apprehension that it could be otherwise. The Frant constitution is excellent. Someone should set a chair for St. Erth. Ah, Martin has done so! I knew I could depend upon him, for I am sure nothing could exceed his solicitude for his brother.”
Martin looked anything but grateful for this testimony, but said roughly: “You had better sit down, St. Erth, or you will go off into a swoon, or something, and I shall be blamed for it!”
Sir Thomas, who was cordially shaking hands with the Earl, said bluntly: “Now, that’s enough, young man! Least said is the soonest mended! Well, my lord, I came to see how you did, but little did I expect to find you out of your bed! Ay, you are a trifle pale, but that’s nothing! I am heartily glad to see you so stout! Such faradiddles as we have been hearing! Not that I believe a quarter of what is told me! No, no, I have been about the world a little too much for that!”
“St. Erth was shot by a poacher,” stated the Dowager. “I was not at all surprised. I thought that that was how it must have been. They should all of them be transported.”
“Well, well, if we could lay them by the heels, so they should be!” said Sir Thomas. “Do you sit down, my lord!”
While everyone was either endorsing this advice, or offering the Earl a cushion, or a stool for his feet, Martin escaped from the saloon, almost colliding in the doorway with Abney, who was on the point of ushering in two more visitors. He fell back, bowing perfunctorily, and Abney announced Mr. and Mrs. Morville.
Mrs. Morville acknowledged Martin’s bow with a nod, and a smile; Mr. Morville, who had been dragged unwillingly to render the observances of civility to his daughter’s hostess, said: “Ha, Martin!” and surveyed the rest of the company with a disillusioned eye, which the Viscount (as he informed his betrothed in a whisper) found singularly unnerving.
Mrs. Morville, meanwhile, having shaken hands with the Dowager, exchanged greetings with Sir Thomas and Marianne, smiled at her daughter, and wished that the Dowager would be a little more particular in her presentation of the two strange young gentlemen.
“My stepson, St. Erth, and Lord Ulverston!” said the Dowager generally.
Both gentlemen were bowing. Mr. Morville answered the question in his wife’s mind by staring very hard at the Viscount, and ejaculating: “Ulverston, eh? Well, well, that takes me back a good few years! How do you do? Your father and I were up at Cambridge together. You’re very like him!”
Mrs. Morville, bestowing a brief smile upon Ulverston, then turned her attention to the Earl, shaking hands with him, and expressing the conventional hope that he was recovered from his accident. Since Drusilla had not chosen to describe him to her parents, his fair countenance came as a shock to Mrs. Morville, who had expected to confront an unmistakable Frant. She almost blinked at him, found that he was smiling at her, and instantly understood why her staid daughter had lost her heart to him. Her own heart sank, for she was by no means a besotted mother, and while she truly valued Drusilla she could not find it in her to suppose that it lay within her power to engage the affections of one who, besides being a notable parti,was more handsome than (she felt) any young man had a right to be.
Nothing of this showed, however, in her manner. The Earl was expressing the sense of his obligation to Drusilla: she replied calmly that she was glad Drusilla had found an opportunity to be useful; and, seating herself on the sofa, made a little gesture to the place beside her, saying: “I am persuaded you should not stand, Lord St. Erth.”
The Dowager, who had resumed her own seat by the fire, said: “I assure you, he is perfectly well again, my dear Mrs. Morville. Young men, you know, are amazingly quick to recover from such accidents. I daresay his nerves have suffered less than mine. I have a great deal of sensibility. I do not deny it: I am not ashamed to own the truth. Dr. Malpas has been obliged to visit me every day, and in general I enjoy very good health. I inherit my constitution from my dear father. You were not acquainted with my father, Mr. Morville. I have often been sorry that you were not, for you would have been excessively pleased with one another. My father was a great reader, though not, of course, during the hunting-season.”
Fortunately, the historian was too well-used to having such remarks addressed to him to betray his feelings other than by a satirical look over the top of his spectacles, and a somewhat dryly expressed regret that he had not been privileged to meet the late Lord Dewsbury. Mrs. Morville began to talk to the Earl about his service in the Peninsula; her husband returned to his interrupted conversation with Ulverston, and the Dowager addressed one of her monologues to Sir Thomas, in which her affection for her stepson, her hatred of poachers, and the state of her nerves became inextricably mixed with her conviction that if young persons in general, and St. Erth in particular, had more regard for their elders they would take care not to incur accidents calculated to alarm them. By the time she had recollected two of her deceased parent’s moral reflections upon the selfishness of young people, Sir Thomas discovered that he must carry his daughter back to Whissenhurst. The Dowager, although she had observed with displeasure Lord Ulverston’s attentions to Marianne, had lately had other things to occupy her mind than Martin’s courtship. She said graciously: “Marianne is in very good looks. I am always pleased to welcome her to Stanyon, for she has very pretty manners, and she was most good-natured in playing at spillikins with dear little Harry and John. When I come to London I daresay I shall find her quite the belle of Almack’s — that is, if you have vouchers, and if you have not I shall be happy to procure them for you.”
“Much obliged to you!” said Sir Thomas, anything but gratefully. “No difficulty about that, however! I hope your ladyship will come to London in time to attend Lady Bolderwood’s ball. Don’t mind telling such a kind friend as you that you’ll hear me make an interesting announcement.” He observed, with satisfaction, a startled look on her face, and chuckled. “Ay, that’s the way the wind blows!” he said, with a jerk of his head towards Lord Ulverston. “We said it must remain a secret until after the little puss’s presentation, but, lord! I suppose it must be all over the county by now!”
He then took his leave, and the party broke up. Both St. Erth and Ulverston escorted the visitors downstairs, and while the Morvilles’ carriage was waited for, Sir Thomas, finding himself beside his host, shot one of his penetrating looks at him, and said: “So it was a poacher, was it? H’m! Coming it strong, but I don’t blame you! I shan’t give you my advice, because for one thing it ain’t any of my business, for another you young fellows never listen to advice, and for a third I’ve a notion you’ll manage your affairs very well for yourself. Only don’t take foolish risks, my lord! Where’s your cousin?”
“At Evesleigh,” replied the Earl.
Sir Thomas grunted. “Gone back there, has he? Well! You be careful! That’s all I’ve got to say!”
He gave the Earl no opportunity to answer him, but turned away to bid farewell to Mrs. Morville. By the time the carriage had driven off, his own and Marianne’s horses had been brought round from the stables. Lord Ulverston lifted Marianne into the saddle, good-byes were exchanged, and the Bolderwoods rode away. Ulverston, perceiving that the Earl’s thoughtful gaze was following Sir Thomas, said: “Regular quiz, ain’t he? Rather wondered at first what m’father would say to him, but I daresay they’ll deal famously together. He’s no fool, Sir Thomas: in fact, he’s a devilish knowing cove!”
“I begin to think you are right,” said the Earl slowly. “Devilish knowing! — unless I misunderstood him.”