Sprig Muslin

Chapter 14

For a long time after the doctor’s departure, Amanda remained seated beside Sir Gareth’s bed. To her eye, Dr. Chantry did not compare favourably with such members of the faculty as had previously come in her way, but she could see that whatever it was that he had obliged his patient to swallow had certainly been of benefit to him. He was still dreadfully pale, but he no longer lay in a deathlike swoon. He seemed to be heavily asleep, but from time to time his hand, which was lying outside the blankets, twitched, or he moved his head restlessly on the pillow.

At noon, Chicklade came softly into the room, and whispered to her that Mrs. Bardfield was below-stairs, having come up from her cottage at the other end of the village to take a look at her patient.

“She’ll sit up with him tonight, miss. Doctor says he won’t want anything for a while yet, so I don’t doubt we can manage well enough till dinner-time. Will I bring her up, so as she can see how the gentleman is?”

Amanda gave ready permission. In emergency, she could act not only with courage, but with an inborn sense of what was needed; but confronted with a sick-bed she was conscious of ignorance. It was with a thankful countenance that she rose to greet a woman of experience of sick-nursing.

She suffered a severe revulsion of feeling. The lady who presently wheezed her way up the stairs, and entered the room with no light tread, was not one whose appearance invited confidence. She was extremely stout, and although she seemed from her ingratiating smile to be good-humoured Amanda thought her countenance very unprepossessing. She liked neither the expression of her curiously hazy eyes, nor their inability to remain fixed for more than a moment on any one object. The cap which she wore under a large bonnet was by no means clean, and there emanated from her person an unpleasant aroma of which the predominant elements were onions, stale sweat, and spirituous liquor. The floor shook under her heavy tread, and when she bent over Sir Gareth, she said: “Ah, poor dear!” in an unctuous voice which filled Amanda with loathing. She then laid her hand on his brow, and said: “Well, he ain’t feverish, which is one good thing, but he looks mortal bad.” After that, she adjusted his pillows with hearty good-will, and ruthlessly straightened the blankets that covered him. He was too heavily drugged to wake, but Amanda could bear no longer to see Mrs. Bardfield’s rough and not over-clean hands touching him, and she said sharply: “Don’t! Leave him alone!”

Mrs. Bardfield was accustomed to the nervous qualms of sick persons’ relatives, and she smiled indulgently, saying: “Lor’ bless you, dearie, you don’t want to worrit your head now I’m here! Many’s the gentleman I’ve nursed, ay, and laid out too! Now, I’ll stay beside him for a while, because Mr. Chicklade’s got a nice bit of cold meat and pickles laid out for a nuncheon for you and the young gentleman, and a pot of tea besides. That’ll do you good, and you’ll know your poor uncle’s in safe hands.”

Amanda managed to thank her, though in a choked voice, and fled down the stairs to find Hildebrand. He was awaiting her in the small parlour, and when he saw her face he started forward, exclaiming in horror: “Good God, what is it? Oh, is he worse?’

“No, no! I wouldn’t have left him if he hadn’t been better! It is that detestable old woman! Hildebrand, she shan’t touch him! I won’t permit it! She is dirty, and rough, and she says she lays people out!”

“Yes, I know—I saw her, and I must own—But what are we to do, if you turn her off? You cannot nurse Sir Gareth, and Mrs. Chicklade seems very unamiable, so that I shouldn’t think—”

“Oh, no! I know just what I ought to do, only I cannot! I don’t even know her name! His sister, I mean. So I have made up my mind that Lady Hester must come, and I think she would be willing to, because she is very kind, and she said she would like to help me if she could. And besides that, Mr. Theale told me that Sir Gareth was going to offer for her, and although I don’t know if it was true, perhaps it was, and she would wish me to send for her! So—”

“Going to offer for her?” broke in Hildebrand. “But you said he was determined to marry you!”

“Yes, I know I did, but it wasn’t true! I can’t think how you came to imagine it was, for of all the absurd things—! I suppose I shall have to explain it all to you, but first I must know if that stupid post-boy is still here.”

“I think he’s in the tap, but I’ve paid him off. I—I thought that would be the right thing to do.”

“Oh, yes, but I find we shall need him, and the chaise! Hildebrand, I do hope to goodness he doesn’t still wish to inform against you?”

“No,” he replied, flushing. “I—I told Dr. Chantry, and he made all right. And I must tell you, Amanda, that even if Sir Gareth hasn’t behaved well towards you, he has behaved towards me with a generosity I can never repay. When the doctor told me what he said when he came to himself—” He broke off, his lip quivering.

“Yes, he is the kindest creature!” she agreed. “And though he made me very angry—and I still cannot feel that he had any business to interfere, and ruin my plan!—he didn’t do any of the things I said he did. Never mind that now! You must go and tell the post-boy that you will be requiring him to drive you to Brancaster Park, to bring back Lady Hester. I am not perfectly sure how many miles it is to Chatteris, but I shouldn’t think we can be very far from it.”

“Chatteris?’ he interrupted. “It must be five-and-twenty miles away, and very likely morel”

“Well, and if it is, surely you don’t mean to say you won’t go?” she demanded. “Of all the paltry things!”

“Of course I don’t!” he retorted, glaring at her. “But I am not going to hire a chaise for a drive of fifty miles and more! Besides, the post-boy Sir Gareth hired wouldn’t agree to it, because he was hired to go to Bedford, and nowhere else. And even if he did consent, I wouldn’t have him!”

“But—”

“I’ll tell you what it is, Amanda!” said Mr. Ross, in a most unadmiring tone. “You fancy no one can think of anything but yourself!”

“Well, no one has!” she said, firing up. “And certainly not you, for you only—”

“Who thought of riding on ahead to prepare the Chicklades?”

“Oh, that!” said Amanda, hunching up one shoulder.

“Yes, that!” he said furiously. “And, what’s more, it was I who thought of holding up the chaise, not you!”

“Well, if you mean to boast of that, I suppose you will say next that you thought of shooting Sir Gareth!” cried Amanda.

Battle was now fairly joined, and for the next few minutes two overwrought young persons found relief for their shocked nerves in a right royal quarrel. Sir Gareth on his sick-bed, and the nuncheon on the table were alike forgotten in a wholesale exchange of recriminations. Chicklade, coming into the parlour with a dish of fruit, stopped on the threshold, and for several moments listened, unperceived, to a quarrel which was rapidly sinking to nursery-level. Indeed, when he presently rejoined his wife, he told her, with a chuckle, that there could be no doubt that the young lady and gentleman were related: to hear them, you’d have thought them brother and sister.

As soon as they became aware of his presence, their quarrel ceased abruptly. In cold and haughty silence, they took their places at the table. Neither had any appetite, but each drank a cup of tea, and felt better. Amanda stole a surreptitious look at Hildebrand, found that he was stealing one at her, and giggled. This broke the ice; they both fell into laughter; after which Hildebrand begged pardon, if he had been uncivil; and Amanda said that she hadn’t really meant to say that she was sure he couldn’t write a play.

Friendly relations were thus re-established, but Hildebrand’s brief period of enchantment was over. It had not, in fact, survived the impatience she had shown when he had recovered from his swoon. She was still a very pretty girl, though not (when one studied her dispassionately) as beautiful as he had at first thought her; and she certainly had a great deal of spirit, but he preferred girls with gentler manners. He was inclined to think that, in addition to being much too masterful, she was unbecomingly bold. By the time she had confided to him, under the seal of secrecy, the exact circumstances which had led up to her encounter with Sir Gareth, he was sure of this. His shocked face, and unhesitating condemnation of her plan of campaign, very nearly resulted in the resumption of hostilities. To disapproval of her outrageous scheme was added indignation that she should have enlisted his support by painting Sir Gareth in false colours. He exclaimed that it was the shabbiest thing; and as she secretly agreed with him her defence lacked conviction.

“But it is true that he abducted me,” she argued.

“I consider that his behaviour has throughout been chivalrous and gentlemanly,” replied Hildebrand.

“I thought you looked to be stuffy as soon as I saw you,” said Amanda. “That is why I didn’t tell you how it really was. And I was quite right.”

“It is not a question of being stuffy,” said Hildebrand loftily, “but of having worldly sense, and proper notions of conduct. And now that I know the truth I can’t suppose that this Lady Hester would dream of coming here. How very much shocked she must have been!”

“Well, she was not!” said Amanda. “She was most truly sympathetic, so you know nothing of the matter! And also she told me that she has had a very dull life, besides being obliged to live with the most disagreeable set of people I ever saw, so I daresay she will be very glad to come here.” She paused, eyeing him. He still looked dubious, so she said in another, and much more earnest voice: “Pray Hildebrand, go and fetch her! That dreadful old woman upstairs will very likely kill poor Sir Gareth, because she is rough, and dirty, and I can see she means to lay him out! I won’t permit her to nurse him! I will nurse him myself, only—only that doctor said that he might grow feverish, and if, perhaps, I didn’t do the things I should for him, and he didn’t get better, but worse,and there was only you and me to take care of him—Hildebrand, I can’t!”

She ended on a note of suppressed panic, but Hildebrand was already convinced. The picture her words had conjured up made him blench. In his relief at finding that he had not killed Sir Gareth outright, optimism, which he now saw to have been unjustified, had sprung up in his breast. The thought that Sir Gareth might still die, here, in this tiny inn, far from his own kith and kin, attended only by a schoolroom miss and his murderer, made him shudder. Before his mind’s eye flitted a horrifying vision of himself seeking out Sir Gareth’s sister, and breaking to her the news that her brother was dead, and by his hand. He set his teacup down with a jar, exclaiming: “Good God, no! I hadn’t considered—Of course I will go to Chatteris! I never meant that I would not—and even if this Lady Hester should refuse to come back with me she will be at least able to tell me where I may find Sir Gareth’s sister!”

“She will come!” Amanda averred. “So will you go at once to tell the post-boy he must drive you to Brancaster Park?”

“No,” replied Hildebrand, setting his jaw. “I’ll have nothing to do with the fellow! Besides, what a shocking waste of money it would be to be hiring a chaise to carry me to Brancaster Park, when I shall reach it very much more quickly if I ride there—or, at any rate, to Huntingdon, where I may hire a chaise for Lady Hester’s conveyance—that is, if you think she won’t prefer to travel in her own carriage?”

Amanda, thankful to find him suddenly so amenable, said approvingly: “That is an excellent notion, and much better than mine! I see you have learnt habits of economy, which is something I must do too, for an expensive wife would not suit Neil at all, I daresay. But I have a strong feeling that that odious Lady Widmore would cast a rub in the way of Lady Hester’s coming to my aid, if she could, and she would be bound to discover what she meant to do, if Lady Hester ordered her carriage. In fact, the more I think of it, the more I am persuaded that Lady Hester must slip away secretly. So, when you reach Brancaster Park, you must insist on seeing her alone,and on no account must you disclose your errand to anyone else.”

Hildebrand was in full agreement with her on this point, having the greatest reluctance to spread further than was strictly necessary the story of the day’s dreadful events, but an unwelcome consideration had occurred to him, and he said uneasily: “Will it not make Mrs. Chicklade even more unamiable, if we bring Lady Hester here to stay? You know, I don’t like to mention it to you, but she has been saying such things! I don’t think Chicklade will attend to her, because he seems to be a good sort of a fellow, but she wants him to tell Dr. Chantry he won’t have Sir Gareth here, or any of us, because nothing will persuade her we are respectable persons—which, when one comes to think of it, we are not,” he added gloomily. “Depend upon it, she doesn’t believe the hum you told her, about Sir Gareth’s being our uncle.”

“We must remember always to say ‘my uncle’ when we have occasion to mention him,” nodded Amanda. “In fact, we had better call him Uncle Gareth even between ourselves, so that we get into the habit of it.”

“Yes, but she is so horridly suspicious that I daresay that won’t answer. And, in any event, it wouldn’t explain Lady Hester. I don’t think we ought to say that she is betrothed to Sir—to Uncle Gareth—if you are not perfectly sure of it. Ten to one, it would make her feel very awkward, if it turned out to be no such thing.”

“Yes, very true,” she replied, frowning over this difficulty. “I don’t at all wish to put her in an uncomfortable situation, so we must think of some tale which that disagreeable woman will believe.”

He watched her doubtfully, but after a moment her brow cleared, and she said: “Of course I know the very thing to make all right! Lady Hester must be my aunt! Because it is the circumstance of my having no chaperon that makes Mrs. Chicklade so disobliging. While I was putting off my stained gown, she kept on asking me the most impertinent questions, and saying that she wondered that my mother should let me travel in such a way, just as if she was sure I had no mother, which, indeed, I haven’t, as I told her. And also I told her that I had an aunt instead, and I could see that she didn’t believe me, though it is quite true. So, I think, Hildebrand, that the thing for you to do is to inform Chicklade that you feel it to be your duty to fetch my aunt, and that will convince Mrs. Chicklade that I was speaking the truth!”

Thus it was arranged, Chicklade greeting the suggestion with instant approval, and a good deal of relief. Hildebrand saddled Prince, and rode off, leaving Amanda preparing to banish Mrs. Bardfield irrevocably from the sick-room. It seemed likely that she would enjoy this task very much more than he expected to enjoy his.

He managed to reach Huntingdon in good time, by riding wherever possible across country. He learned there that his goal was situated very much nearer to St. Ives, and so rode on to that town. At the Crown, he was able to hire a post-chaise and pair, and to stable Prince; and midway through the afternoon he arrived at Brancaster Park.

Amanda, having strictly enjoined him to disclose his errand to none but Lady Hester, had seemed to think there could be no difficulty about doing this, but when he was admitted into the house by a servant, who civilly enquired what his name was, he saw that it was only too probable that Lady Hester would refuse to receive a gentleman quite unknown to her. He explained, stammering a little, that his name would not be familiar to her ladyship; and then, as he thought the servant was looking suspiciously at him, he added that he was the bearer of an urgent message. The man bowed, and went away, leaving him in a large saloon, where he instantly fell a prey to all sorts of forebodings. Perhaps the Earl would come in, and demand to know his business; perhaps Lady Widmore would intercept the message to her sister-in-law; or, worse than all, perhaps Lady Hester was not at home.

The minutes ticked by, and he became more and more apprehensive. He hoped that his neckcloth was straight, and his hair tidy, and, seeing that a mirror hung at one end of the room, he went to it, to reassure himself on these points. He was engaged in smoothing his rather creased coat when he heard the door open behind him, and turned quickly to find that he was being regarded by a lady in a pomona green half-dress and a lace cap tied over her softly waving brown hair. Much discomposed to have been surprised preening himself in front of a mirror, he blushed scarlet, and became tongue-tied.

After thoughtfully observing these signs of embarrassment, the lady smiled, and stepped forward, saying: “Pray do not mind! I know exactly how one is always quite positive that one’s hat is crooked, or that there is a smut on one’s face. How do you do? I am Hester Theale, you know.”

“How do you do?” he returned, still much flushed. “My name is Ross—Hildebrand Ross, but—but you don’t know me, ma’am!”

“No,” she agreed, sitting down on the sofa. “But Cliffe said that you have a message for me. Won’t you be seated?”

He thanked her, and sat down on the edge of a chair, and swallowed once or twice, trying to think how best to explain himself to her. She waited patiently, her hands folded in her lap, and smiled encouragingly at him.

“It is Amanda!” he blurted out. “I mean, it was she who made me come, because she said she knew you would help her, but I didn’t above half like to do it, ma’am, only—only the case is so desperate, you see!”

She looked startled, and exclaimed: “Oh, dear! Didn’t Sir Gareth find her, then? Of course I will do anything I can to help her, and if my uncle is the cause of her sending you to me, it is quite too dreadfully mortifying—though only to be expected, I am ashamed to say.”

“No, no! I mean, Sir Gareth did find her, but—well, it isn’t for herself that Amanda wishes you to go to her, but for him!”

She blinked at him. “I beg your pardon?” she said, bewildered.

He got up jerkily, squaring his shoulders. “The thing is—I don’t know how to tell you—but I—but he is very ill, ma’am!”

“Sir Gareth very ill?” she repeated, still looking bewildered. “Surely you must be mistaken? He was perfectly stout when I saw him yesterday!”

“Yes, but the thing is that I have shot him!” said Hildebrand, rushing his fence.

He hoped very much that she would not swoon away, or fall into hysterics, and was at first relieved that she neither moved nor spoke. Then he saw that not only was she alarmingly pale, but her eyes were staring at him blindly, and he had a horrid fear that perhaps she was about to have a spasm. But when she spoke, it was in a strangely calm voice that seemed to come from a long way away. “You said—very ill. Did you mean—dead?”

“No, upon my honour!” he answered eagerly. “And the doctor assured us that the bullet didn’t touch a vital spot, but he lost so much blood, in spite of Amanda’s doing all she could to stanch it—which, I must say, she did—and it was in so deep, that he may become feverish, and there is only Amanda to nurse him—though I am ready to do anything in my power—because she won’t let the midwife touch him. She says she is dirty and rough, and for my part I think she’s an elbow-crooker, because she reeks of spirits.”

She listened to this not very lucid speech intently, but it was apparently beyond her comprehension, for when he stopped she got up, and went to him, laying her hand on his sleeve, and saying: “I beg your pardon, but I don’t understand what you are trying to tell me. I think there has been an accident, has there not? And Sir Gareth was hurt, but not fatally?”

“Yes—that is, I never meant to shoot him, I swear!”

“Oh, no, I am sure you could not have meant to!”

These soothing words, and the smile that went with them, made him say impulsively: “I was afraid you would be very angry. But Amanda said you would not, ma’am—though when you learn the whole—”

“I don’t think I shall be angry. But I should be very much obliged to you if you would sit down beside me here, on the sofa, and tell me just how it happened, because at present it does seem very odd to me that Sir Gareth should have been shot. Unless, of course, you had taken your gun out after wood-pigeons, and shot him by accident?”

“Worse!” uttered Hildebrand, with a groan. “I held up his chaise!”

“But he wasn’t travelling in a chaise,” said Lady Hester.

“Yes, he was, ma’am. A hired chaise, to carry him and Amanda to Bedford.”

“Is that where she lives?” Lady Hester asked hopefully.

“Oh, no! At least, I don’t know, but I shouldn’t think so. He was meaning to hire a better chaise there, for they only had one at Kimbolton, and the shabbiest old thing! That is where I fell in with them. I am on my way to Wales.”

“Now I begin to understand!” she said, pleased to find that he was not, as she had begun to fear, suffering from sun-stroke. “I daresay you fell into conversation with Amanda, and that is how it all came about. What a resourceful girl she is, to be sure!”

“Yes, I suppose she is,” he said reluctantly. “Though it wasn’t she who thought of holding up the chaise. I thought of it!”

“I expect you are very resourceful too,” she said kindly.

“Well, I did think of that—not that I wish to boast, and of course I see now that it was very wrong—but from the way Amanda talks, you would imagine—You see, ma’am, this is how it was!”

He then poured into her ears an account of the whole affair. He discovered her to be a good listener, and since she did not put him out by uttering exclamations of horror or condemnation, he was encouraged to confide everything to her, even his own unfortunate weakness, which he could not mention without severe mortification. Indeed, he found it difficult to describe the scene in the lane without turning squeamish, and he was not at all surprised that his words drove the colour out of Lady Hester’s cheeks again. “It was horrible!” he muttered, covering his face with his hands, and shuddering. “Horrible!”

“Yes,” she agreed faintly. “But you said—surely you said!—not fatal?”

“Dr. Chantry told us that he did not anticipate that it would be so, but he says he must be most carefully nursed, and that is why Amanda made me come to fetch you, because she doesn’t know where his sister lives, or even what her name is.”

“To fetch me?” she said, startled. “But—” She stopped, looking at him blankly.

“Oh, if you please, wont you come?” Hildebrand begged. “I told Amanda I was sure you would not, but the case is desperate, and even if you tell me where to find Sir Gareth’s sister it must be at least two days before she could reach him, and it might be too late! And, what is more,” he added, bethinking himself of a fresh difficulty, “I don’t think I have enough money left to pay for such an expensive journey.”

“Oh, if only I could come!” she said, in an anguished tone. She got up quickly, and began to walk about the room. “You see, it isn’t possible! My father has gone to Brighton, but there is still my brother, and his wife, and the servants—” Again she stopped, but this time it was as though an idea had occurred to her. Hildebrand watched her anxiously. Suddenly her myopic gaze focused on his face, and she smiled. “Dear me, what a very poor creature I must seem to you! You see, I have never been in the habit of doing anything at all out of the way, so you must forgive me for not immediately thinking that I could. I daresay nothing could be easier. After all, Amanda contrived to escape from her home without the least difficulty, and I expect she was much more closely watched than I am. Let me consider a little!”

He waited in pent-up silence, venturing after a few moments to say: “I have a chaise waiting outside, if—if you feel that you could come with me, ma’am.”

“Have you? Oh, well, that makes everything perfectly simple!” she said, her worried frown lightening. “I shall tell the servants that you have come to me from my sister, Lady Ennerdale. I wonder what can have happened at Ancaster? The children, of course—they must be ill! Now, was it the Ennerdale children who had measles two years ago, or was it my sister Milford’s children. No, the Ennerdales have not had the measles: it was whooping-cough, now I come to think of it. Very well, they shall have the measles—all five of them, which would quite account for my sister’s desiring me to go to her.” She smiled vaguely upon Hildebrand, and said, gathering her half-train up: “Will you wait while I direct my woman to pack for me? My sister-in-law has driven to Ely, and I do not expect her to return until dinner-time. My brother is somewhere on the estate, but even if he were to come in, I daresay we may fob him off very easily. Do you think, in case you found yourself obliged to answer any awkward questions, you could decide how it comes about that my sister sent you to fetch me rather than one of her servants? It seems an odd thing for her to have done, but I am sure you will think of a very good reason. Sir Matthew Ennerdale-Ancaster—three boys and two girls, and poor little Giles is very sickly, and my sister sadly nervous!”

With these cryptic words, she went away, leaving Hildebrand quite as nervous as Lady Ennerdale. He hoped devoutly that Lord Widmore would not come in: the information conveyed to him by Lady Hester seemed to him meagre.

Upstairs, Lady Hester overcame the difficulty of answering Povey’s surprised questions by ignoring them. This, since she knew herself to be in disgrace, did not astonish Povey, but when she learned that she was not to accompany her mistress to the stricken household she was moved to the heart, and burst into tears. Lady Hester was sorry for her distress, but since some explanation would have to be forthcoming for her unprecedented conduct in going away unattended by her maid, she thought the best thing to do would be to pretend that she was still too angry with Povey to wish for her company. So she said, with gentle coldness: “No, Povey, I do not want you. Lady Ennerdale’s woman will do all I require. Do not pack any evening gowns, if you please: they will not be needed.”

At any other time, Povey would have expostulated, for however ill Lady Ennerdale’s offspring might be it was in the highest degree unlikely that her ladyship would collapse into a state of what she, as well as Povey, would certainly consider to be squalor. But the awful punishment that had been meted out to her possessed her mind so wholly that it was not until much later that the strange nature of the packing she had mechanically performed occurred to her. It was conceivable that Lady Hester might discover a need for hartshorn, but what she wanted with a roll of flannel, or why she insisted on taking her own pillow to her sister’s well-appointed house, were matters that presently puzzled Povey very much indeed.

When she came downstairs again, a plain pelisse worn over a sad-coloured morning-dress which she commonly wore when engaged in gardening, or attending to her dogs, Hester found the butler awaiting her in the hall, and she knew at once, from the look on his face, that he was not going to be as easy to deceive as the lachrymose Povey.

She paused at the foot of the stairs, drawing on her gloves, and looking at Cliffe with a little challenge in her eyes.

“My lady, where are you going to?” he asked her bluntly. “That chaise never came from Ancaster! It’s from the Crown at St. Ives, and the post-boy with it!”

“Oh, dear, how vexatious of you to recognize it!” sighed Hester. “And now I suppose you have told all the other servants!”

“No, my lady, I have not, and well you know I would not!”

She smiled at him, a gleam of mischief in her face. “Don’t! I rely on you to tell my brother, and her ladyship that I have gone to Lady Ennerdale—because the children all have the measles.”

“But where are you going, my lady?” Cliffe asked, perturbed.

“Well, I don’t precisely know, but it really doesn’t signify! I shall be quite safe, and not very far from here, and I shall return—oh, very soon, alas! Don’t try to detain me, pray! I have written a very untruthful letter to her ladyship: will you give it to her, if you please?”

He took it from her, and after staring very hard at her for a moment, bowed, and said: “Yes, my lady.”

“You have always been such a kind friend to me: thank you!”

“There is no one in this house, my lady, barring those it wouldn’t be seemly for me to name, who wouldn’t be happy to serve you—but I wish I could be sure I was doing right!”

“Oh, yes! For I am going upon an errand of mercy, you might say. Now I must not waste any more time: will you tell Mr. Ross I am quite ready to start?”

“Yes, my lady. I should perhaps mention that Mr. Whyteleafe has been with him for the past twenty minutes, however.”

“Dear me, how very unfortunate! I wish I knew what Mr. Ross may have told him!” she murmured. “Perhaps I had better go to the Red Saloon myself.”

She entered this apartment in time to hear Mr. Ross’s firm assertion that all the children had the measles, though none was so alarmingly full of them as little Giles. Lady Ennerdale, he added, was prostrate with anxiety.

“You astonish me!” exclaimed the chaplain, rather narrowly observing him. “I had not thought her ladyship—”

“Because,” said Mr. Ross hurriedly, “the nurse had the misfortune to fall down the stairs, and break her leg, and so everything falls upon her shoulders!”

“Yes, is it not dreadful?” interposed Lady Hester. “Poor Susan! no wonder she should be distracted! I am quite ready to set forward, Mr. Ross, and indeed I feel that we should lose no time!”

“All the way to Ancaster!” Mr. Whyteleafe said, looking thunderstruck. “You will never reach it tonight, Lady Hester! Surely it would be wiser to wait until tomorrow?”

“No, no, for that would mean that I should not arrive until quite late, and knocked up by the journey, I daresay. We shall spend the night somewhere on the road. And then I shan’t be extraordinarily fatigued, and shall be able to render my sister all the assistance possible.”

“If you must go, Lady Hester, I wonder at it that Sir Matthew should not have had the courtesy to fetch you himself! I make no apology for speaking plainly on this head! There is a lack of consideration in such behaviour, a—”

“Sir Matthew,” said Mr. Ross, “is away from home, sir. That is why I offered to be his deputy.”

“Yes, and how very much obliged to you I am!” said Hester. “But do not let us be dawdling any longer, I beg!”

Mr. Whyteleafe said no more, but he was evidently very much shocked by this renewed instance of the shameless demands made upon Hester by her sisters, and it was with tightly folded lips that he accompanied her to where the chaise waited. She was afraid that he too would recognize the post-boy, but he did not bestow more than a cursory glance on him, the circumstance of Lady Ennerdale’s having been shabby enough to have send a hired vehicle, with only two horses, for the conveyance of her sister, ousting all else from his head. Lady Hester was handed up into the chaise, Mr. Ross jumped in after her, the steps were let up, and in another minute they were drawing away from the house.

“Phew!” Hildebrand said involuntarily, pulling out his handkerchief, and mopping his brow. “I can’t tell you how thankful I was that you came in just then, ma’am, for he was asking me all manner of questions! He would know who I was, and I was obliged to tell him that I was employed by Sir Matthew as a secretary.”

“How very clever of you! I daresay he was very much surprised, for Sir Matthew is interested in nothing but sport.”

“Yes, he was—in fact, he said he could not imagine what I should find to do for Sir Matthew. So I said Sir Matthew had formed the intention of going into politics.”

This made her laugh so much that he lost any lingering shyness, had ventured to break to her the news that she had become, without her knowledge, Amanda’s aunt. He was a little afraid that she might be affronted, for she was much younger than Amanda had led him to suppose; but she accepted the relationship with approval, and said that perhaps she had better become his aunt too.

By the time the chaise arrived at Little Staughton, they were fast friends. Dusk was falling when it drew up before the Bull Inn, and lamplight shone through several of the windows. As Hildebrand jumped down, and turned to help Lady Hester, Amanda leaned out of one of the casements set under the eaves, and called, in a voice sharpened by anxiety: “Hildebrand? Oh, Hildebrand, have you brought her?”

He looked up. “Yes, here she is! Take care you don’t fall out of the window!”

She disappeared abruptly. The hand in Hildebrand’s trembled convulsively, but Lady Hester’s voice, when she spoke, was quite quiet. “I must leave you to settle with the post-boy, Hildebrand. I am afraid—”

She did not say what she was afraid of, but went swiftly into the inn. As she crossed the threshold, Amanda reached the foot of the steep stairs, and fairly pounced on her, dryly sobbing from mingled fright and relief. “Oh, thank God you are come at last! He is very, very ill, and I cannot make him he still, or even hear me! Oh, La—Aunt Hester, come!”

“Ah, I thought Miss would be sorry she turned off Mrs. Bardfield so hasty!” remarked Mrs. Chicklade, in the background, and speaking with a morbid satisfaction which made Amanda round on her like a tigress.

“Go away, you odious, impertinent creature! You said you washed your hands of it, and so you may, for I don’t want help from such a heathen as you are!”

Mrs. Chicklade’s colour rose alarmingly. “Oh, so I’m a heathen, am I? Me as has been a churchgoer all my life, and kept my house respectable—till this day!”

“Good-evening.”

The gentle, aloof voice acted on the incensed landlady like a charm. Cut short in mid-career, she stared at Lady Hester, her rich colour slowly fading.

“I am afraid,” said Hester, with cool courtesy, “that you are being put to a great deal of trouble. It is perhaps a pity I did not, after all, bring my maid with me. My nephew thought, however, that there would be no room for her in so small a house.”

Mrs. Chicklade felt herself impelled to abandon her martial attitude, and to drop an unwilling curtsy. “I’m sure, ma’am, I’m not one to grudge a bit of trouble. All I say is—”

“Thank you,” Hester said, turning away from her. “Take me up to your uncle’s room, Amanda!”

Amanda was only too glad to do so. Chicklade, an expression of considerable concern on his face, was bending over the bed on which Sir Gareth tossed and muttered. He looked round as the ladies entered the room, and said: “I don’t like the looks of him—not at all, I don’t! Mortal bad, he is, ma’am, but I don’t doubt hell be better now he has his good lady to tend him.”

Hester, casting off her bonnet and pelisse, hardly heard this speech, her attention being fixed on Sir Gareth. She went to the bed, and laid her hand fleetingly on his brow. It was burningly hot, and the eyes that glanced unrecognizingly at her were blurred with fever. She said: “Has the doctor seen him since this morning?”

“No!” answered Amanda, in a choked voice. “I have been waiting and waiting for him, for he promised he would come again!”

“Then I think someone should ride over to desire him to come as soon as he may. Meanwhile, if Hildebrand will bring up the smaller of my two valises, and you, landlord, will desire your wife to set a kettle on to boil, I hope we may make him more comfortable.”

“Is he going to die?” whispered Amanda, her eyes dark with dread.

“No!” Hester replied calmly. “He is not going to die, but he has a great deal of fever, and I fancy his wound is much inflamed. The arm is swollen, and these tight bandages are making it worse. Pray go down, my dear, and send Hildebrand up to me!”

Amanda sped away on this errand, and returned very speedily, followed by Hildebrand, bearing a valise. He was looking scared, and cast one shrinking glance at Sir Gareth, and then quickly averted his eyes. Lady Hester had stripped the blankets off the bed, so that Sir Gareth was now covered only by the sheet. Without seeming to notice Hildebrand’s sickly pallor, she directed him, in her quiet way, to open the valise. “You will find a roll of flannel in it, and some scissors. I am going to apply fomentations to the wound. Will you help me, if you please?”

“I will!” Amanda said. “Hildebrand faints if he sees blood.”

“He won’t see any blood, and I am quite sure he will not faint.”

“No, I—I swear I won’t!” Hildebrand said, through his clenched teeth.

“Of course not. You could not, when we depend so entirely upon you, could you? For, you know, I am not strong enough to lift Sir Gareth. It is a great comfort to know that you are here to share the nursing with me. Amanda, while I am busy with the fomentation, do you go down and try whether there is any wine to be obtained. A little hot wine will often relieve a fever.”

Amanda seemed for a moment as though she would have rebelled against what she suspected to be an attempt to exclude her from the sickroom, but after throwing a rather jealous glance at Hildebrand, she went away.

By the time she came back, carefully carrying, wrapped in a cloth, a glass of hot claret, Lady Hester had tied the last bandage, and was exchanging the very lumpy pillow on the bed for her own one of down. Hildebrand, who was supporting Sir Gareth in his arms, had not only recovered his colour, but looked to be in much better spirits. He had been able to look upon his handiwork without fainting; and Lady Hester, so far from reviling or despising him, had said that she did not know how she would go on without him.

Amanda reported that Chicklade had sent off the boy who helped him in the tap, and the small stable, to hasten the doctor, so Lady Hester said that since Sir Gareth seemed a little easier they would not try to get any of the mulled claret down his throat just at present. Hildebrand lowered him on to the pillow again, and although he was still very restless it was plain that the fomentation was already bringing him a certain measure of relief. Lady Hester sat down at the head of the bed, and began to bathe his face with lavender-water, softly directing her youthful helpers to go downstairs to await the doctor’s arrival. They tiptoed away. Left alone with Sir Gareth, Lady Hester smoothed back the tumbled curls from his brow with a loving hand. He stared up at her, and said in a hurried, fretting tone: “I must find her. I must find her.”

“Yes, Gareth, you shall,” she answered soothingly.’”Only be still, my dearest!”

For a moment she thought that there was a gleam of recognition in his eyes; then he turned his head away, and brushing the sheet, found her wrist, and grasped it strongly; he said, quite audibly: “You won’t escape me again!”

When, presently, the doctor was brought into the room by Amanda, he thought that the lady who rose to meet him had been crying a little. He was not surprised; and he said, with rough kindness: “Well, now, what is all this I am hearing about my patient? Some fever was to be expected, you know, but you may depend upon it that a man with a good constitution will recover from worse hurts than a mere hole in his shoulder. You need not tell me that he has that,ma’am I I have seldom attended a more splendid specimen than your husband, and I don’t doubt that between us we shall have him going on prosperously in a very short time.”

“But he is not my husband!” said Hester involuntarily.

“Not your husband?” he said, looking at her very hard. “I beg your pardon, but I understood from Chicklade that Mr. Ross had fetched Sir Gareth’s wife to him!”

“No,” said Hester helplessly. “Oh, no!”

“Then who may you be, ma’am?” he demanded bluntly.

“She is his sister, of course!” said Amanda, with great promptness. “I suppose that when my cousin said he would fetch our aunt, Chicklade thought she must be Uncle Gareth’s wife,but she isn’t.”

“Oh!” said the doctor. “So that’s how it is!”

“Yes, that’s how it is,” agreed Hester, accepting the situation.