The Quiet Gentleman by Georgette Heyer Read Free Book Online Page B

Miss Morville indulgently, shepherding him out of the room. ‘ I know!’
    ‘And the devil of it is,’ said the Earl, twenty minutes later, to his cousin, ‘that I have let that wretched chit talk me into permitting the continued existence of that abominable epergne in my dining-room!’

Four
    The Earl spent the rest of the morning in the muniment room, docilely permitting his cousin to explain the management of his estates to him, and to point out to him the various provisions of his father’s will. Besides the very considerable property which had been left to Martin, personal bequests were few, and included no more than a modest legacy to the nephew whose diligence and business ability had made it possible for him to spend the last years of his life in luxurious indolence.
    Theodore Frant was the only offspring of the late Earl’s younger brother, who, in the opinion of his family, had crowned a series of youthful indiscretions by marrying a penniless female of birth considerably inferior to his own. His tastes had been expensive, and a passion for gaming had made him swiftly run through his patrimony. His wife survived the birth of her child only by a few weeks; her place was filled by a succession of ladies, ranging from an opera-dancer to a fruit-woman, according to the fluctuating state of his finances; and the Earl, upon the only occasion when he was constrained to visit his disreputable relative, finding his youthful nephew engaged in bearing a quartern of gin upstairs to the reigning mistress of the establishment, acted upon the impulse of the moment, and bore the sturdy boy off with him, to be reared with his own two sons at Stanyon. His brother, though he had hoped for more tangible relief, raised no objection, reflecting that in moments of acute stress the Earl’s purse must always be untied for him, his lordship having the greatest objection to allowing any scandal to be attached to his name. Happily for the Earl’s peace of mind, an inflammation of the lungs, contracted during a wet week at Newmarket, carried the Honourable John off three years later.
    It was not to be expected that the second Lady St Erth would immediately greet with approbation the inclusion into her home of the son of so unsteady a man; but even she was soon brought to acknowledge that Theo inherited none of his father’s instability. He was a stolid, even-tempered boy, and he grew into a taciturn but dependable young man. The Earl, who sent his own sons to Eton, in the tradition of his family, caused Theo to be educated at Winchester. He did not, like his cousins, go to Oxford, but instead, and by his own choice, applied himself to the task of learning the business of his uncle’s agent. So apt a pupil did he prove to be, that when the older man resigned he was able and ready to succeed him. In a very short space of time he was managing the Earl’s estates better than they had been managed for many years, for he was not only capable and energetic, but his subordinates liked him, and he was devoted to the Frant interests. His uncle relinquished more and more of his affairs into his hands, until it became generally understood that Mr Theo must be applied to for whatever was needed.
    Gervase, knowing this, had expected his father to have left him more handsomely provided for. He said as much, looking at his cousin in a little trouble, but Theo only smiled and said: ‘You may be thankful he did not! I had no expectation of it.’
    ‘He might have left you an estate, I think.’
    ‘Studham, perhaps?’
    ‘Well, I had as lief you had it as Martin,’ said Gervase frankly. ‘I was really thinking of the property he bought towards Crowland, however. What’s the name of the manor? – Evesleigh, is it not? Shall I make it over to you?’
    ‘You shall not! There has been enough cutting-up of the estate already.’
    ‘But, Theo, you cannot spend all your life managing my property!’
    ‘Very likely I shall not. I have a very saving