Resolution

22

Resolution

    It was very early. Eudora and her horse were motionless at the top of a low, rounded hill. Before them spread a very English view of green countryside, purple-blue shadowed hills, and the gleam of a small lake. If asked, however, Miss Bon-Dutton would not have been able to say if the day were fine or clouded, or even if the view included a lake. She sat there for quite some time, simmering. Yesterday she had sent a note to Sir John Stevens, asking if he would be so good as to call at Hailsham House in order to enable them to have a private word. This morning she had come down to find a reply awaiting her. It had not precisely pointed out that it was not the done thing for unmarried women to send gentlemen notes requesting that they call, but then, it had not needed to. Sir John regretted that he was unable to comply with Miss Bon-Dutton’s request. That was all: no explanation, not even the hypocritical expression of his compliments. Eudora had seldom in her life been so angry. In fact, had she been able to think clearly, which she was not, she would not have been able to recall any occasion on which she had been so angry.

    The ride on the feistiest of the slugs in Raffaella’s stables had not improved her mood. Nor had the reflection that damned Raffaella had already embarked on her campaign of riding out on the longsuffering Yellow Pillow in order to “happen” across Mr Beresford. True, yesterday she had happened across nothing, according to her own report, but a shepherd’s boy with a small group of sheep, but she was completely undeterred. And had unblushingly dispatched two of her footmen to the village with orders to spy out from the locals what Mr Beresford’s favoured place for riding out might be. Eudora simmered.

    Eventually she said through her teeth: “Oh, to Hell with it! He cannot think any worse of me, and what the Devil do it matter what he thinks of me? Get up, you slug!” And, kicking the creature into motion, set him at the slope at his fastest pace, his unwilling nose turned in the direction of Sir John Stevens’s shooting-box.

     Miss Bon-Dutton had been quite prepared to bully the person who should open Sir John’s door to her into letting her in, but there had been no need: the man who answered the door had been some sort of a porter, yawning and in need of a shave. He had scratched the whiskers and looked dubious, but shown her into a small, shabby sitting-room without comment. There was no fire in the grate, and the room was chilly: Miss Bon-Dutton suppressed an urge to hug herself and instead stood quietly on the hearth-rug. Breathing deeply. The thought that the gentlemen might all be out with the guns or the rods had had more than time to occur before the door at last opened.

    “You should not be here,” said Sir John without preamble.

    She had intended to be extremely cool and proper with him. Somehow this resolution went right out of her head.

    “Rubbish,” she said grimly. “I am not a simpering débutante, and if my reputation cannot stand a call at your shooting-box in full daylight, be damned to it.”

    John Stevens looked thoughtfully at the flared nostrils and the flush on the handsome cheeks. “Mm,” he said neutrally. “Will you not be seated, Miss Bon-Dutton?”

    “No, thank you,” she said grimly. “This will not take long.”

    “I think perhaps it had better not, indeed. It is still early, but if you stay very much longer, my guests will be downstairs in quest of a morning’s shooting, and you will run the risk of walking into Sir Cedric Rowbotham, his brother Shirley, my brother-in-law Tommy Brantwell, or young Jerry in the hall. But perhaps,” he said courteously, “you were not aware they were with me?”

    “Yes!” she said impatiently. “At least— Not the Brantwells,” she amended on a weak note.

    “Ah.”

    “It cannot signify! I am come,” said Miss Bon-Dutton, flushing in spite of herself, “in response to your reply to my note.”

    “I wondered if you might,” he owned slowly. “Though I admit I did not truly think you would.”

    At this point Miss Bon-Dutton of course should have intimated coolly, preferably without saying so in so many words, that she had not requested he attend at Hailsham House on her own account. “I confess I do not care what you thought, sir,” she said grimly. “Your opinion of me is a matter of total indifference to me. Though I should like an explanation of why you felt yourself justified in writing me such a damned impertinent message.”

    He raised his eyebrows slightly. “Did it strike you as impertinent? I thought it was succinct, merely.”

    “It was no such thing!” said Eudora angrily. “And you know it!”

    Again he looked with interest at the flush on her cheeks. “No, well, let us say it at least conveyed my meaning.”

    “Do not imagine I wished you to call on my account!” flashed Eudora angrily.

    “No? Why did you wish me to call, ma’am?”

    She took a deep breath. “I think you are not so dense as not to have guessed. But since you wish me to spell it out, I shall do so. I wished to ask you to speak to Senhora Baldaya about this visit to Mr Beresford’s county.”

    There was a short pause. “Ah—hers or mine, ma’am?” he drawled.

    Eudora went very red. “You know damned well I meant hers. And if that is your attitude, I am clearly wasting my time.”

    “I think you are, yes. And since it appears we are not beating about the bush, allow me to say that I did intend my note to imply that I have no intention of interfering in Mrs Baldaya’s concerns, now or in the future. As,” he said pointedly, “I believe I intimated to the inane Mr Valentine?”

    “He may be inane, but at least he has a heart!” cried Eudora angrily. “You are an older man whom she respects; why the Devil cannot you bestir yourself and behave like a feeling being instead of a damned iceberg?”

    There was a short silence. Miss Bon-Dutton glared at him, her breast heaving.

    “I’m a damned iceberg, am I?” he murmured, the long mouth twitching a little.

    “Do not DARE to laugh!” shouted Miss Bon-Dutton furiously.

    “No,” agreed Sir John with difficulty.

    “This is not a matter for amusement! She is on course to make herself he laughingstock of Europe, in especial with the damned Rowbothams here!”

    “I must apologise for my guest list, ma’am,” he murmured.

    “God damn you! Stop LAUGHING!” shouted Eudora, tears in her eyes.

    At that Sir John stepped up very close and swiftly grasped her wrists before she had time to move. “Does it not occur that she may succeed in ensnaring Beresford?” he said evenly.

    Not perceiving that, although the tone was even enough, the gentleman’s eyes were very bright and he was breathing rather hard, Miss Bon-Dutton, trying in vain to pull out of that very hard grasp, replied breathlessly: “Of course she will not, his damned mother is in residence, and let me go, you creature!”

    “Mm. Well, be that as it may, if my speaking to her were to have the result you seem to envisage, had you thought that that would leave her free to—er—consider other offers?”

    “Offer for her if you wish, I care not! But for God’s sake, if that’s how you feel about her, why won’t you ACT?” shouted Eudora.

    “Very well!” said Sir John with a mad laugh. Swiftly he pulled her against him, and covered her mouth with his.

    “How DARE you?” shouted Miss Bon-Dutton, wrenching her mouth away from his. “Let me go at once!”

    “Don’t— Ouch!” he gasped. “Don’t kick me, Eudora: you won’t succeed in freeing yourself.”

    “I think you have gone mad!” she gasped. “Let me go at once!”

    “No. Marry me,” he said, the voice still calm, but the chest heaving.

    Miss Bon-Dutton’s jaw dropped. After a discernible silence she managed to croak: “What?”

    “Marry me, Eudora, and let me show you I’m not an iceberg,” he said with a sparkle in his eye, “any more than you are, yourself, in spite of the frosty front you present to the world.”

    After another discernible silence Eudora said feebly: “I am not an iceberg.”

    “No. I own, I have spent a damned miserable couple of years believing you were.”

    She swallowed.

    “And clearly you believed the same of me.” He relaxed his grasp on her wrist, but Miss Bon-Dutton did not pull away. Smiling a little, he stroked his thumb gently over her left palm. The properly brought up Eudora Bon-Dutton was seen to gulp.

    “Good,” said John Stevens mildly, this time kissing her very, very gently. After a few heart-stopping moments Eudora drew a shuddering breath and crushed herself against him.

    “Come and sit down,” he said eventually, “or I’ll forget entirely I'm a gentleman.”

    Limply Eudora allowed him to take her hand and lead her to a battered sofa. Though noting valiantly: “I rather gathered you had already forgot it, sir.”

    “Call me sir again,” he said as they sat down, “and I shall be forced to take the sternest measures.”

    “What?” asked Eudora feebly.

    “Don’t ask!” he said with a sudden loud laugh.

    She looked at him uncertainly, very flushed, and he smiled, put a hand under that very stubborn chin, and said mildly: “Will you?”

    “What?” said Miss Bon-Dutton dazedly.

    “Marry me.”

    She drew a deep breath. “I think I ought to warn you that I’ll do my best to rule you, and generally lead you a dog’s life.”

    “Yes? Then I think I ought to warn you, that I’m accustomed to rule in my own house and go my own way.”

    “It—it would be a recipe for disaster,” said Eudora shakily.

    “Possibly. But possibly not, if we lay down the ground rules,” he said calmly. “Perhaps you would care to spell out, in which areas of my life you would attempt to rule me?”

    “Y— I—I haven’t thought about it in respect to you, personally,” said Eudora feebly.

    “No? In respect to whom?”

    She swallowed, but admitted: “Charles Quarmby-Vine. And others of his ilk, I suppose. Well,” she said, as he said nothing. “I always envisaged myself trying to force Charles or—or someone like him—into the sort of political life for which he would not care.”

    “I have a political life,” he murmured. “Or do you disapprove of my last appointment?”

    “What, the Portuguese thing?” replied Miss Bon-Dutton immediately. “No, of course! But I must say, I think you should have got the damned government to pay you an honorarium! Not to mention your living expenses while you were over—” She stopped, perforce. “Don’t do that,” she said, emerging very red and ruffled from a warm embrace. “I cannot think. Where was I? Oh, yes: your living expenses while you were over there,” she said, giving him a hard look.

    “I entirely agree,” said Sir John calmly. “But you see, the best of my poor endeavours did not result in squeezing more than the money for the passage out of ’em. Though I quite concede that, had you been—er—in my corner at the time, things might have been different.”

    “Are you laughing again?” said Miss Bon-Dutton dangerously.

    “I’m apt to do that,” he explained meekly.

    “Mm,” she said, biting her lip. “I never realised, before…”

    “No, well, perhaps I only showed the iceberg side,” he said lightly.

    “I think so. Though perhaps I never gave you much opportunity for t’other.”

    “No.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “You can be very discouraging,” he said lightly.

    “So can you,” said Eudora through trembling lips.

    “Yes. And all joking aside, perhaps that is a point we had best address. Um, to put it simply,” he said slowly, “no company manners between us, eh?”

    She gulped. “Yes,” she said faintly. “I mean, no. I mean, I agree, buh-but I don't know if I can.”

    “I know. If we both try very hard?” he said, squeezing her hand.

    “Yes,” agreed Eudora faintly, with a wince.

    “Hell,” said Sir John in dismay. “I'm sorry. Didn’t mean to hurt you.”

    “No. It’s all right. Didn’t mean to be a ninny.”

    There was a short silence.

    “I’m not a Charles Q.-V,” he said lightly.

    “No. Did you really try to get your expenses out of the damned government?” replied Eudora feebly.

    “Mm? Oh, Hell, yes! –See?” he added meanly.

    “You're laughing again,” said Eudora weakly. “Um—God. I—I ought to say, it will never work, Sir John.”

    “‘I ought to say it will never work, John,’” he corrected solemnly.

    Eudora looked up at him limply and tried to smile.

    “I think we have a great deal in common,” he said simply.

     Yes.” She licked her lips. “But perhaps too much?” she ventured shakily.

    John Stevens took a very deep breath. “I own, I have wondered that. I think, all I can say to that is, I love you, I desire you very much— Yes,” he said steadily as she went very red, “that is important, with me; and I think we could make it work. Will you?”

    Eudora licked her lips again. “Before I answer that, I—I have to ask this. Will you give up the other women?” she said baldly, looking him in the eye.

    The strong nostrils flickered, and the indomitable Miss Bon-Dutton knew an urge to shrink. “Yes,” he said grimly. “Ain’t it dawned that I’ve not looked at another woman since the moment I met you?”

    “You—um—certainly there were no on-dits!” she gasped, very overset.

    “No. I’ve been half out of my mind, thinking that you were not the sort who—uh—could ever reciprocate,” he admitted, gnawing on his lip. “But at the same time, I was not inspired to take up with any other woman. Dick Marchant told me a dozen times I was out of me skull,” he added.

    “Oh,” said Eudora doubtfully.

    “Not to pop the question, and see what the reaction would be, he meant. Well, almost half the time,” he murmured.

    “You monster!” she gasped.

    Grinning, he put his hand under that determined chin again.

    “Don’t do that, I can’t think,” said Eudora very, very faintly.

    “That,” said Sir John, grinning very much, “is an entirely encouraging sign, my dear! Well?”

    Miss Bon-Dutton looked into those very bright eyes that were looking challengingly into hers, and gulped. “This is mad. Um—oh, very well. Yes.”

    “‘Yes, John’,” he murmured provocatively.

    “Yes, John,” agreed Miss Bon-Dutton limply.

    “What was it you came for, again?” he murmured, quite some time later.

    Eudora sat bolt upright on the sofa with a gasp.

    Immediately Sir John collapsed in a helpless wheezing fit.

    “Stop that, you monster,” she said without conviction. “Um—damned Raffaella, of course. Cannot you stop her?”

    “I doubt Wellington and Blücher combined could stop her. Well, do you know of anyone who ever did?”

    “Uh—her damned mother, I suppose,” she admitted feebly. “But only when she was under her roof. And even she didn’t manage to stop her when it came to the crunch, come to think of it.”

    “Well, I shall speak to her if you wish, my dear, but I really don’t think it will have any effect, if your speaking to her did not.”

    “You’re a man,” said Eudora simply.

    His lips twitched a little but he merely replied: “She is that sort of female, of course. And as I say, I shall try.”

    “Thank you. Um, John?” said Eudora, going very red.

    Nobly John Stevens managed to ignore the blush. “Mm?”

    “Possibly if you were to hold some sort of entertainment, and invite the whole damned neighbourhood, she might see that she has no hope of Mr B.? No?” she said as he shook his head.

    “No hostess,” he said simply.

    Eudora’s face fell. “Oh, no. Damn.”

    “Um… I suppose a picknick might not be ineligible,” he said slowly. “But the thing is, it ain’t such a formal thing as, say, a dinner, and would the Beresfords come?”

    “It would be easy to refuse, though you are not nobody,” said Eudora on a hopeful note.

    “Flattering, but not wholly convincing… No, wait, I have it!” he said, his shoulders shaking.

    Eudora eyed him suspiciously. “What?”

    “The Senhora Baldaya,” he said with relish, “will hold a grand dinner and ball, to which the whole of the neighbourhood will be invited, to announce the engagement of her connection Eudora Bon-Dutton, granddaughter and cousin to the Dukes of Chelford—” He broke off, perforce, as Miss Bon-Dutton had attacked him with a cushion.

    When the cushion had been hurled to the side of the room and Miss Bon-Dutton had been ruthlessly pushed back against the sofa arm and kissed very hard indeed, and when she had gathered the strength to push away the hand that was impertinently fondling her bosom, the which she had by now discovered that hand was wont to do, if unchecked, Eudora sat up again, very flushed indeed, and admitted: “It would do, you know.”

    “Aye: Mrs Beresford would not care to offer either of us a slight,” he noted drily.

    She winced, but nodded.

    “You had best write your relatives without delay and get ’em over here. Er—young Mrs Bobby Q.-V. ain’t about to produce another brat, is she?”

    Eudora hadn’t even realised he knew her relatives’ names, let alone— “No,” she said limply.

    “Good, well, get them over. Er—Chelford?” he said with a wince.

    “They are down at Dallermaine. I think it would be too short notice, they have a large house-party.”

    “Good,” he said frankly. “I suppose they will have to come to the wedding?”

    “Er—I think they will have to be invited,” admitted Eudora limply.

    “Mm,” he said with a little smile, eyeing her sideways. “Going too fast for you, my dear?”

    “A—a little.”

    “It’s the male nature, alas,” he said tranquilly. “You will just have to get used to it.”

    Miss Bon-Dutton’s bosom swelled indignantly.

    “No, true!” he said with a laugh. “You will get used to it. Well, what do you think?”

    “What? Oh; the party. Ye-es. Well, it will certainly bring them together.”

    “We can no more,” he said seriously. “The rest will be up to the two parties most nearly concerned.”

    “Mm.”

    “Er—Eudora, my dear, don’t pin your hopes on anything’s coming of it,” he said cautiously.

    She sighed. “I’m not. I wish I could believe that— No, it will never happen. The best outcome we might expect is that Mr Beresford will indicate his indifference and that she will then sheer off.”

    He put a hand gently on her knee. “I think so.”

    “Yes,” she said faintly. “Don’t—please don’t do that.”

    He eyed her narrowly. “Why not, precisely, Eudora? Too improper?”

    “What? No,” she said limply.

    “What, then?’ he persisted, not removing the hand.

    Eudora took a deep breath, looked him in the eye, and announced grimly: “If you must know, it inspires me with a desire to fling myself at you!”

    “Thank God for that!” he said with a crazy laugh, pulling her into his arms.

    Eudora expected, certainly given the recent examples, that he would then kiss her: but he did not, just held her very tightly. She listened to the hammering of his heart, and felt very confused, and very… strange. And when at last he held her away from him a little and looked into her eyes with tears in his own and said hoarsely: “I do love you, you know,” was able to reply, very shakily, true, but quite definitely: “I love you too, John.”

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