Martin seemed to brush aside these words. “All was right until you came here! You put the wish to become a Countess into Marianne’s head, trifling with her, flattering her with your balls and your distinguishing attentions — to cast my pretensions into the shade! Then you brought in Ulverston, encouraged him to remain here! You set everyone against me! Marianne, Theo, Louisa — even my mother! Yes, even my mother, bemoaning the fact that you are going away to London! She will miss you amazingly! Ay, that is what she says! But there is one person you haven’t cozened with your soft words, one person who will not miss you! I hate you, St. Erth! From the bottom of my heart, I hate you!”
“If that is what you think, I cannot wonder at it,” the Earl said, a little sadly.
“Tell my mother I have gone to dine with Warboys!” Martin said fiercely, and flung out of the room.
Chapter 15
Martin was too much in the habit of dining from home for his absence to be greatly felt by his mother. Beyond saying several times that she had had no notion he meant to go to the Warboys’ that day, and supposing that he would drink tea at Whissenhurst, she made no comment. Her mind was engrossed by one of the complicated relationships in which she delighted, for she had chanced to read in the Gazette that a son had been born to the wife of a Mr. Henry Lamberhurst, which instantly reminded her that a third cousin of her own had married a Lamberhurst, who, in his turn, was linked by two other marriages with a branch of the Austell family. With the Viscount’s good-natured, if not very valuable, assistance, she beguiled the dinner-hour by pursuing through all their ramifications every offshoot of both families until she reached, with the dessert, the apparently satisfactory conclusion that the unknown Henry Lamberhurst could not be connected with the Lamberhursts she knew.
The Viscount was spared her subsequent recollections of some people she had once met at Ramsgate, and whom she rather fancied to have been in some way related to the family, these being imparted only to Miss Morville, when the two ladies withdrew to one of the saloons. Miss Morville, who had contrived to evade giving an account of her discoveries at Whissenhurst, and who had no wish to be more closely interrogated on the subject, encouraged these tedious reminiscences, and by interpolating a question now and then managed to keep her ladyship’s mind occupied until the appearance of the gentlemen turned her thoughts towards whist.
It was not until the party had broken up that Theo was able to exchange any private conversation with the Earl. He detained him then, as he was about to leave the library in the Viscount’s wake, and said in his blunt way: “One moment, St. Erth! What happened at Whissenhurst today between Martin and Ulverston?”
“A misunderstanding only.”
“Gervase, Martin must not be allowed to call Ulverston out!”
“He will not do so.”