Read Online The Nonesuch by Georgette Heyer - Free Book Online Page B

blurt out whatever thought came into her head, infallibly incurring Mrs Chartley’s deep, if unexpressed, disapproval. Mrs Chartley was a kindly woman, but her sense of propriety was strict. It was with relief that Ancilla saw her charge carried off by her friend and contemporary, Miss Jane Chartley, who came running down the stairs as soon as they had entered the house. No doubt the Rectory schoolroom would be regaled with Charlotte’s opinion of the Nonesuch, but at least her governess would not be put to the blush by her forthright speech and far from retiring manners.
    In the event, when she was ushered into the parlour, Ancilla found Patience alone. She was busy with some white work, hemming a seam with the tiniest of stitches, but she gladly laid it aside when she saw Ancilla. She was quite as eager to discuss the Nonesuch as Charlotte, but being a very well brought-up girl she was much less precipitate, and spent as much as five minutes talking on indifferent topics before saying: ‘I must tell you that we have had such an interesting visitor this morning, Miss Trent. Papa took him to see the Church: I wonder, did you meet him there?’
    ‘Sir Waldo? Yes, we did. Indeed, we walked back together, all four of us, and parted at the gate. Your papa went off with him then to the stables.’
    ‘Oh, yes! He rode over to call on Papa, and then Papa brought him in to introduce him to Mama and me, and he was with us for quite half-an-hour. What did you think of him? Were you surprised? I own, I was – and Mama too, I think! All the gentlemen have been talking so much about his being such an out-and-out Corinthian that I had pictured something quite different – though I’ve never seen a Corinthian, of course. You have, I expect: is that what they are really like? Do you think he is one?’
    ‘There can be no doubt he is: a very famous one! As for whether all Corinthians are like him, I can’t tell, for I was never acquainted with one.’
    Patience said shyly: ‘I fancy you don’t care for that set, and I must say I never thought I should either, for one hears such things about them! But he is not in the least what I had imagined! Not proud, or – or what Dick calls a dashing blade !He was so easy, and unaffected, and well-informed; and he seems to feel just as he ought about serious matters: he and Papa talked a little of the dreadful hardships the poor people have been suffering, and I could see how pleased Papa was with him. What did you think of him, Miss Trent?’
    ‘Oh, a diamond of the first water!’ replied Ancilla promptly. ‘His air, one of decided fashion; his manners most polished; his address – perfection!’
    Patience looked at her. ‘You didn’t like him?’
    ‘On the contrary! I thought him very amiable.’
    ‘Ah, that signifies that you think his manners amiable, but not – not his disposition!’
    ‘My dear Miss Chartley, I know nothing about his disposition!’
    ‘No, but – Oh, I think I must tell you! It can’t be wrong to do so! Sir Waldo hasn’t mentioned the matter, even to Papa, and we believe he would as lief it were not known, because he told Wedmore that Mr Calver had privately desired him, when the precise state of his affairs should have been ascertained, to make provision for his old servants. Even Papa doesn’t believe Mr Calver did anything of the sort! The Wedmores are to have a pension which will make them comfortable beyond anything they had hoped for: Mrs Wedmore came to tell Honeywick yesterday! You may imagine how much she was overcome – how thankful!’
    ‘Indeed! I am very glad to know that Sir Waldo has done what he should.’
    ‘Yes, and of course it was expected that he would. You may say that he is so wealthy that it means no more to him than it would mean to me to give a penny to a beggar, but what strikes one so particularly is the manner of it. It was done with a delicacy that shows Sir Waldo to be a man of sensibility, not above considering what must