Sprig Muslin

Chapter 3

Three days later, Sir Gareth, in happy ignorance of the wretched indecision into which his proposal had thrown his chosen bride, left London, and pursued a rather leisurely progress towards Cambridgeshire. He drove his own curricle, with a pair of remarkably fine match-bays harnessed to it, and broke the journey at the house of some friends, not many miles from Baldock, where he remained for two nights, resting his horses. He took with him his head groom, but not his valet: a circumstance which disgusted that extremely skilled gentleman more than it surprised him. Sir Gareth, who belonged to the Corinthian set, was always very well dressed, but he was quite capable of achieving the effect he desired without the ministrations of the genius who had charge of his wardrobe; and the thought that alien hands were pressing his coats, or applying inferior blacking to his Hessian boots, caused him to feel no anguish at all.

He was not expected at Brancaster Park until the late afternoon, but since the month was July, and the weather sultry, he set forward for the remainder of the journey in good time, driving his pair at an easy pace, and pausing to bait, when some twenty miles had been accomplished, in the village of Caxton. The place boasted only one posting-house, and that a modest one; and when Sir Gareth strolled into the coffee-room he found the landlord engaged in what appeared to be a somewhat heated argument with a young lady in a gown of sprig muslin, and a hat of chip-straw, which was tied becomingly over a mass of silken black locks.

The landlord, as soon as he perceived an obvious member of the Quality upon the threshold, abandoned the lady without ceremony, and stepped forward, bowing, and desiring to know in what way he might have the honour of serving the newcomer.

“It will be time enough to serve me when you have attended to this lady,” replied Sir Gareth, who had not failed to remark the indignant expression in the lady’s big eyes.

“Oh, no, sir! No, indeed! I am quite at liberty—very happy to wait upon your honour immediately!” the landlord assured him. “I was just telling the young person that I daresay she will find accommodation at the Rose and Crown.”

These words were added in a lowered voice, but they reached the lady’s ears, and caused her to say in a tone of strong disapprobation: “I am not a young person, and if I wish to stay in your horrid inn, I shall stay here, and it is not of the least use to tell me that you have no room, because I don’t believe you!”

“I’ve told you before, miss, that this is a posting-house, and we don’t serve young per—females—who come walking in with no more than a couple of bandboxes!” said the landlord angrily. “I don’t know what your lay is, nor I don’t want to, but I haven’t got any room for you, and that’s my last word!”

Sir Gareth, who had retired tactfully to the window-embrasure, had been watching the stormy little face under the chip-hat. It was an enchantingly pretty face, with large, dark eyes, a lovely, wilful mouth, and a most determined chin. It was also a very youthful face, just now flushed with mortification. The landlord plainly considered its owner to be a female of no account, but neither the child’s voice nor her manner, which was decidedly imperious, belonged to one of vulgar birth. A suspicion that she was a runaway from some seminary for young ladies crossed Sir Gareth’s mind: he judged her to be about the same age as his niece; and in some intangible way she reminded him of Clarissa. Not that she was really like Clarissa, for Clarissa had been divinely fair. Perhaps, he thought, with a tiny pang, the resemblance lay in her wilful look, and the tilt of her obstinate chin. At all events, she was far too young and too pretty to be going about the country unattended; and no more unsuitable resting-place than the common inn to which the landlord had directed her could have been found for her. If she were an errant schoolgirl, it clearly behoved a man of honour to restore her to her family.

Sir Gareth came away from the window, saying, with his attractive smile: “Forgive me, but can I perhaps be of some assistance?”

She eyed him uncertainly, not shyly, but with speculation in her candid gaze. Before she could answer, the landlord said that there was no need for the gentleman to trouble himself. He would have expanded the remark, but was checked. Sir Gareth said, quite pleasantly, but on a note of authority: “It appears to me that there is considerable need. It is quite out of the question that this lady should spend the night at the Rose and Crown.” He smiled down at the lady again. “Suppose you were to tell me where you want to go to? I don’t think, you know, that your mama would wish you to stay at any inn without your maid.”

“Well, I haven’t got a mama,” replied the lady, with the air of one triumphing in argument.

“I beg your pardon. Your father, then?”

“And I haven’t got a father either!”

“Yes, I can see that you think you have now driven me against the ropes,” he said, amused. “And, of course, if both your parents are dead we shall never know what they would have felt about it. How would it be if we discussed the matter over a little refreshment? What would you like?”

Her eyes brightened; she said cordially: “I should be very much obliged to you, sir, if you would procure a glass of lemonade for me, for I am excessively thirsty, and this odious man wouldn’t bring it to me!”

The landlord said explosively: “Your honour! Miss walks in here, as you see her, wanting me to tell her when the next coach is due for Huntingdon, and when I say there won’t be one, not till tomorrow, first she asks me if I’m needing a chambermaid, and when I tell her I’m not needing any such thing, she up and says she’ll hire a room for the night! Now, I put it to your honour—”

“Never mind!” interrupted Sir Gareth, only the faintest tremor in his voice betraying the laughter that threatened to overcome him. “Just be good enough to fetch the lady a glass of lemonade, and, for me, a tankard of your homebrewed, and we will see what can be done to straighten out this tangle!”

The landlord started to say something about the respectability of his house, thought better of it, and withdrew. Sir Gareth pulled a chair out from the table, and sat down, saying persuasively: “Now that we are rid of him, do you feel that you could tell me who you are, and how you come to be wandering about the country in this rather odd way? My name, I should tell you, is Ludlow—Sir Gareth Ludlow, entirely at your service!”

“How do you do?” responded the lady politely.

“Well?” said Sir Gareth, the twinkle in his eye quizzing her. “Am I, like the landlord, to call you miss? I really can’t address you as ma’am: you put me much too strongly in mind of my eldest niece, when she’s in mischief.”

She had been eyeing him rather warily, but this remark seemed to reassure her, which was what it was meant to do. She said: “My name is Amanda, sir. Amanda S—Smith!”

“Amanda Smith, I regret to be obliged to inform you that you are a shockingly untruthful girl,” said Sir Gareth calmly.

“It is a very good name!” she said, on the defensive.

“Amanda is a charming name, and Smith is very well in its way, but it is not your surname. Come, now!”

She shook her head, the picture of pretty mulishness. “I shan’t tell you. If I did, you might know who I am, and I have a particular reason for not wishing anyone to know that.”

“Are you escaping from school?” he enquired.

She stiffened indignantly. “Certainly not! I’m not a schoolgirl! In fact, I am very nearly seventeen, and I shall shortly be a married lady!”

He sustained this with no more than a blink, and begged pardon with suitable gravity. Fortunately, the landlord returned at that moment, with lemonade, beer, and the grudging offer of freshly baked tarts, if Miss should happen to fancy them. Judging by the hopeful gleam in Amanda’s eyes that she would fancy them very much, Sir Gareth bade him bring in a dish of them, adding: “And some fruit as well, if you please.”

Quite mollified by this openhanded behaviour, Amanda said warmly: “Thank you! To own the truth, I am excessively hungry. Are you really an uncle?”

“Indeed I am!”

“Well, I shouldn’t have thought it. Mine are the stuffiest people!”

By the time she had disposed of six tartlets, and the better part of a bowl of cherries, cordial relations with her host had been well-established; and she accepted gratefully an offer to drive her to Huntingdon. She asked to be set down at the George; and when she saw a slight crease appear between Sir Gareth’s brows very obligingly added: “Or the Fountain, if you prefer it, sir.”

The crease remained. “Is someone meeting you at one of these houses, Amanda?”

“Oh, yes!” she replied airily.

He opened his snuff-box, and took a leisurely pinch. “Excellent! I will take you there with pleasure.”

“Thank you!” she said, bestowing a brilliant smile upon him.

“And hand you into the care of whoever it is who is no doubt awaiting you,” continued Sir Gareth amiably.

She looked to be a good deal daunted, and said, after a pregnant moment: “Well, I don’t think you should do that, because I daresay they will be late.”

“Then I will remain with you until they arrive.”

“They might be very late!”

“Or they might not come at all,” he suggested. “Now, stop trying to hoax me with all these taradiddles, my child! I am much too old a hand to be taken in. No one is going to meet you in Huntingdon, and you may make up your mind to this: I am not going to leave you at the George, or the Fountain, or at any other inn.”

“Then I shan’t go with you,” said Amanda. “So then what will you do?”

“I’m not quite sure,” he replied. “I must either give you into the charge of the Parish officer here, or the Vicar.”

She cried hotly: “I won’t be given into anyone’s charge! I think you are the most interfering, odious person I ever met, and I wish you will go away and leave me to take care of myself, which I am very well able to do!”

“I expect you do,” he agreed. “And, I very much fear, I am just as stuffy as your uncles, which is a very lowering reflection.”

“If you knew the circumstances, I am persuaded you wouldn’t spoil everything!” she urged.

“But I don’t know the circumstances,” he pointed out.

“Well—well—if I were to tell you that I am escaping from persecution—?”

“I shouldn’t believe you. If you are not running away from school, you must be running away from your home, and I conjecture that you are doing that because you’ve fallen in love with someone of whom your relations don’t approve. In fact, you are trying to elope, and if anyone is to meet you in Huntingdon it is the gentleman to whom—as you informed me—you are shortly to be married.”

“Well, you are quite out!” she declared. “I am not eloping, though it would be a much better thing to do, besides being most romantic. Naturally, that was the first scheme I made.”

“What caused you to abandon it?” he enquired.

“He wouldn’t go with me,” said Amanda naively. “He says it is not the thing, and he won’t marry me without Grandpapa’s consent, on account of being a man of honour. He is a soldier, and in a very fine regiment, although not a cavalry regiment. Grandpapa and my papa were both Hussars. Neil is home on sick leave from the Peninsula.”

“I see. Fever, or or wounds?”

“He had a ball in his shoulder, and for months they couldn’t dig it out! That was why he was sent home.”

“And have you become acquainted with him quite lately?”

“Good gracious, no! I’ve known him for ever! He lives at—he lives near my home. At least, his family does. Most unfortunately, he is a younger son, which is a thing Grandpapa quite abominates, because Papa was one too, and so we both have very modest fortunes. Only, Neil has every intention of becoming a General, so that’s nothing to the purpose. Besides, I don’t want a large fortune. I don’t think it would be of the least use to me, except, perhaps, to buy Neil’s promotion, and even that wouldn’t answer, because he prefers to rise by his own exertions.”

“Very proper,” Sir Gareth said gravely.

“Well, I think so, and when we are at war, you know, there is always a great deal of opportunity. Neil has his company already, and I must tell you that when he was obliged to come home he was a Brigade-Major!”

“That is certainly excellent. How old is he?”

“Twenty-four, but he is quite a hardened campaigner, I assure you, so that it is nonsense to suppose he can’t take care of me. Why, he can take care of a whole brigade.”

He laughed. “That,I fancy, would be child’s play, in comparison!”

She looked mischievous suddenly, but said: “No, for I am a soldier’s daughter, and I shouldn’t be in the least troublesome, if only I could marry Neil, and follow the drum with him, and not have to be presented, and go to horrid balls at Almack’s, and be married to an odious man with a large fortune and a title.”

“It would be very disagreeable to be married to an odious man,” he agreed, “but that fate doesn’t overtake everyone who goes to Almack’s, you know! Don’t you think you might like to see a little more of the world before you get married to anyone?”

She shook her head so vigorously that her dusky ringlets danced under the brim of her hat. “No! That is what Grandpapa said, and he made my aunt take me to Bath, and I met a great many people, and went to the Assemblies, in spite of not having been presented yet, and it didn’t put Neil out of my head at all. And if you think, sir, that perhaps I was not a success, I must tell you that you are quite mistaken!”

“I feel sure you were a success,” he replied, smiling.

“I was,” she said candidly. “I had hundreds of compliments paid me, and I stood up for every dance. So now I know all about being fashionable, and I would liefer by far live in a tent with Neil.”

He found her at once childish and strangely mature, and was touched. He said gently: “Perhaps you would, and perhaps you will, one day, live in a tent with Neil. But you are very young to be married, Amanda, and it would be better to wait for a year or two.”

“I have already waited for two years, for I have been betrothed to Neil since I was fifteen, secretly! And I am not too young to be married, because Neil knows an officer in the 95th who is married to a Spanish lady who is much younger than I am!”

There did not seem to be anything to say in reply to this. Sir Gareth, who was beginning to perceive that the task of protecting Amanda was one fraught with difficulty, shifted his ground. “Very well, but if you are not at this moment eloping, which, I own, seems, in the absence of your Brigade-Major, to be unlikely—I wish you will tell me what you hope to gain by running away from your home, and wandering about the countryside in this very unconventional manner?”

“That,” said Amanda, with pride, “is Strategy, sir.”

“I am afraid,” said Sir Gareth apologetically, “that the explanation leaves me no wiser than I was before.”

“Well, it may be Tactics,” she said cautiously. “Though that is when you move troops in the presence of the enemy, and, of course, the enemy isn’t present. I find it very confusing to distinguish between the two things, and it is a pity Neil isn’t here, for you may depend upon it he knows exactly, and he could explain it to you.”

“Yes, I begin to think it is a thousand pities he isn’t here, even though he were not so obliging as to explain it to me,” agreed Sir Gareth.

Amanda, who had been frowning over the problem, said: “I believe the properest expression is a plan of campaign! That’s what it is! How stupid of me! I am not at all surprised you shouldn’t have understood what I meant.”

“I still don’t understand. What is your plan of campaign?”

“Well, I’ll tell you, sir,” said Amanda, not displeased to describe what she plainly considered to be a masterpiece of generalship. “When Neil said that on no account would he take me to Gretna Green, naturally I was obliged to think of a different scheme. And although I daresay it seems to you pretty poor-spirited of him, he is not poor-spirited, and I don’t at all wish you to think such a thing of him.”

“Set your mind at rest on that head: “I don’t!” replied Sir Gareth,

“And it isn’t because he doesn’t wish to marry me, for he does, and he says he is going to marry me, even if we have to wait until I am of age,” she assured him earnestly. She added, after a darkling pause: “But, I must say, it has me quite in a puzzle to understand how he comes to be a very good soldier, which everyone says he truly, is, when he seems to have not the least notion of Surprise, or Attack. Do you suppose it comes from fighting under Lord Wellington’s command, and being obliged to retreat so frequently?”

“Very likely,” responded Sir Gareth, his countenance admirably composed. “Is your flight in the nature of an attack?”

“Yes, of course it is. For it was vital that something should be done immediately! At any moment now, Neil may be sent back to rejoin the regiment, and if he doesn’t take me with him I may not see him again for years, and years and years! And it is of no avail to argue with Grandpapa, or to coax him, because all he does is to say that I shall soon forget about it, and to give me stupid presents!”

At this point, any faint vision which Sir Gareth might have had of a tyrannical grandparent left him. He said: “I quite expected to hear that he had locked you in your room.”

“Oh, no!” she assured him. “Aunt Adelaide did so once, when I was quite a little girl, but I climbed out of the window, into the big elm tree, and Grandpapa said I was never to be locked in again. And, in a way, I am sorry for it, because I daresay if I had been locked in Neil would have consented to an elopement. But, of course, when all Grandpapa would do was to give me things, and talk about my presentation, and send me to parties in Bath, Neil couldn’t perceive that there was the least need to rescue me. He said that we must be patient. But I have seen what comes of being patient,” Amanda said, with a boding look, “and I have no opinion of it.”

“What does come of it?” enquired Sir Gareth.

“Nothing!” she answered. “I daresay you might not credit it, but Aunt Adelaide fell in love when she was quite young, like me, and just the same thing happened! Grandpapa said she was too young, and also that he wished her to marry a man of fortune, so she made up her mind to be patient, and then what do you think?”

“I haven’t the remotest guess: do tell me!”

“Why, after only two years the Suitor married an odious female with ten thousand pounds, and they had seven children, and he was carried off by an inflammation of the lungs! And none of it would have happened if only Aunt Adelaide had had a grain of resolution! So I have quite made up my mind not to cultivate resignation, because although people praise one for it I don’t consider that it serves any useful purpose. If Aunt Adelaide had been married to the Suitor, he wouldn’t have contracted an inflammation of the lungs, because she would have taken better care of him. And if Neil is wounded again, I am going to nurse him, and I shall not permit anyone,even Lord Wellington himself, to put him on one of those dreadful spring-wagons, which was harder to bear than all the rest, he told me!”

“I’m sure it must have been. But none of this explains why you ran away from your home,” he pointed out.

“Oh, I did that to compel Grandpapa to consent to my marriage!” she said brightly. “And also to show him that I am not a child, but, on the contrary, very well able to take care of myself. He thinks that because I am accustomed to be waited on I shouldn’t know how to go on if I had to live in billets, or perhaps a tent, which is absurd, because I should. Only it never answers to tell Grandpapa anything: one is obliged to show him. Well, he didn’t believe I should climb out of the window when I was locked into my room, though I warned him how it would be. At first, I thought I would refuse to eat anything until he gave his consent—in fact, I did refuse, one day, only I became so excessively hungry that I thought perhaps it wasn’t such a famous scheme, particularly when it so happened that there were buttered lobsters for dinner, and a Floating Island pudding.”

“Naturally you couldn’t forgo two such dishes,” he said sympathetically.

“Well, no,” she confessed. “Besides, it wouldn’t have shown Grandpapa that I am truly able to take care of myself, which is, I think, important.”

“Very true. One can’t help feeling that it might have put just the opposite notion into his head. Now tell me why you think that running away from him will answer the purpose!”

“Well, it wouldn’t: not that part of it, precisely. That will just give him a fright.”

“I have no doubt it will, but are you quite sure you wish to frighten him?”

“No, but it is quite his own fault for being so unkind and obstinate. Besides, it is my campaign, and you can’t consider the sensibilities of the enemy when you are planning a campaign!” she said reasonably. “You can have no notion how difficult it was to decide what was best to be done. In fact, I was almost at a stand when, by the luckiest chance, I saw an advertisement in the Morning Post. It said that a lady living at—well, living not very far from St. Neots, wished for a genteel young person to be governess to her children. Of course, I saw at once that it was the very thing!” A slight choking sound made her look enquiringly at Sir Gareth. “Sir?”

“I didn’t speak. Pray continue! I collect that you thought that you might be eligible for this post?”

“Certainly I did!” she replied, with dignity. “I am genteel, and I am young, and, I assure you, I have been most carefully educated. And having had several governesses myself, I know exactly what should be done in such a case. So I wrote to this lady, pretending I was my aunt, you know. I said I desired to recommend for the post my niece’s governess, who had given every satisfaction, and was in all respects a most talented and admirable person, able to give instruction in the pianoforte, and in water-colour painting, besides the use of the globes, and needlework, and foreign languages.”

“An impressive catalogue!” he said, much struck.

“Well, I do think it sounds well,” she acknowledged, accepting this tribute with a rosy blush.

“Very well. Er—does it happen to be true?”

“Of course it’s true! That is to say—Well, I am thought to play quite creditably on the pianoforte, besides being able to sing a little, and sketching is of all things my favourite occupation. And naturally I have learnt French, and, lately, some Spanish, because although Neil says we shall be over the Pyrenees in a trice, one never knows, and it might be very necessary to be able to converse in Spanish. I own, I don’t know if I can teach these things, but that doesn’t signify, because I never had the least intention of being a governess for more than a few weeks. The thing is that I haven’t a great deal of money, so that if I run away I must contrive to earn my bread until Grandpapa capitulates. I have left behind me a letter, you see, explaining it all to him, and I have told him that I won’t come home, or tell him where I am, until he promises to let me be married to Neil immediately.”

“Forgive me!” he interpolated. “But if you have severed your lines of communication how is he to inform you of his surrender?”

“I have arranged for that,” she replied proudly. “I have desired him to insert an advertisement in the Morning Post! I have left nothing to chance, which ought to prove to him that I am not a foolish little girl, but, on the contrary, a most responsible person, quite old enough to be married. Yes, and I didn’t book a seat on the stage, which would have been a stupid thing to do, on account of making it easy, perhaps, for them to discover where I had gone. I hid myself in the carrier’s cart! I had formed that intention from the outset, and that, you see, was what made it so particularly fortunate that the lady who wished for a governess lived near to St: Neots.”

“Oh, she did engage you?” Sir Gareth said, unable to keep an inflection of surprise out of his voice.

“Yes, because I recommended myself very strongly to her, and it seems that the old governess was obliged to leave her at a moment’s notice, because her mother suddenly died, and so she had to go home to keep house for her papa. Nothing could have fallen out more fortunately!”

He was obliged to laugh, but he said: “Abominable girl What next will you say? But if you are now on your way to take up this desirable post, how come you to be trying to hire yourself as a chambermaid at this inn, and why do you wish to go to Huntingdon?”

The triumphant look in her eyes was quenched; she sighed, and said: “Oh, it is the shabbiest thing! You would hardly believe that my scheme could miscarry, when I planned it so carefully, would you? But so it was. I am not on my way to Mrs.—to That Female. In fact, quite the reverse. She is the horridest creature!”

“Ah!” said Sir Gareth. “Did she refuse after all to employ you?”

“Yes, she did!” answered Amanda, her bosom swelling with indignation. “She said I was by far too young, and not at all the sort of female she had had in mind. She said she had been quite deceived, which was a most unjust observation, because she said in the advertisement that she desired a young lady!”

“My child, you are a shameless minx!” said Sir Gareth frankly. “From start to finish you deceived this unfortunate woman, and well you know it!”

“No, I did not!” she retorted, firing up. “At least, only in pretending I was Aunt Adelaide, and saying I had been my own governess, and that she didn’t know! I am truly able to do all the things I told her I could, and very likely I should be able to teach other girls to do them too. However, all was to no avail. She was very disagreeable, besides being excessively uncivil. Unreasonable, too, for in the middle of it her eldest son came in, and as soon as he heard who I was he suggested that his mama should engage me for a little while, to see how I did, which was most sensible, I thought. But it only made her crosser than ever, and she sent him out of the room, which I was sorry for, because he seemed very amiable and obliging, in spite of having spots,” She added, affronted: “And I do not at all understand why you should laugh, sir!”

“Never mind! Tell me what happened next!”

“Well, she ordered the carriage to take me back to St. Neots, and while it was being brought round she began to ask me a great many impertinent questions, and I could see she had an extremely suspicious disposition, so I though of a splendid story to tell her. I gave myself an indigent parent, and dozens of brothers and sisters, all younger than I am, and instead of being sorry for me, she said she didn’t believe me! She said I wasn’t dressed like a poor person, and she would like to know how many guineas I had squandered on my hat! Such impudence! So I said I had stolen it, and my gown as well, and really I was a wicked adventuress. That, of course, was impolite, but it answered the purpose, for she stopped trying to discover where I had come from, and grew very red in the face, and said I was an abandoned girl, and she washed her hands of me. Then the servant came to say that the carriage was at the door, and so I made my curtsy, and we parted.”

“Abandoned you most certainly are. Were you driven to St. Neots?”

“Yes, and it was then that I hit upon the notion of becoming a chambermaid for a space.”

“Let me tell you, Amanda, that a chambermaid’s life would not suit you!”

“I know that,and if you can think of some more agreeable occupation of a gainful nature, sir, I shall be very much obliged to you,” she responded, fixing him with a pair of hopeful eyes.

“I’m afraid I can’t. There is only one thing for you to do, and that is to return to your grandpapa.”

“I won’t!” said Amanda, not mincing matters.

“I think you will, when you’ve considered a little.”

“No, I shan’t. I have already considered a great deal, and I now see that it is a very good thing Mrs.—That Female—wouldn’t employ me. For if I were a governess in a respectable household Grandpapa would know that I was perfectly safe, and he would very likely try to—to starve me out. But I shouldn’t think he would like me to be a chambermaid in an inn, would you?”

“Emphatically, no!”

“Well, there you are!” she said triumphantly. “The instant he knows that that is what I am doing, he will capitulate. Now the only puzzle is to discover a suitable inn. I saw a very pretty one in a village, on the way to St. Neots, which is why you find me in this horrid one. Because I went back to it, after the coachman had set me down, only they didn’t happen to need a chambermaid there, which was a sad pity, for it had roses growing up the wall, and six of the dearest little kittens! The landlady said that I should go to Huntingdon, because she had heard that they needed a girl to work at the George, and she directed me to the pike-road, and that is why I am here!”

“Are you telling me,” demanded Sir Gareth incredulously, “that you bamboozled the woman into believing that you were a maidservant? She must be out of her senses!”

“Oh, no!” said Amanda blithely. “I thought of a splendid story, you see.”

“An indigent parent?”

“No, much better than that one. I said I had been an abigail to a young lady, who most kindly gave me her old dresses to wear, only I had been turned off, without a character, because her papa behaved in a very improper way towards me. He is a widower, you must know, and also there is an aunt—not like Aunt Adelaide, but more like Aunt Maria, who is a very unfeeling person—”

“Yes, you may spare me the rest of this affecting history!” interrupted Sir Gareth, between amusement and exasperation.

“Well, you asked me!” she said indignantly. “And you need not be so scornful, because I took the notion from a very improving novel called—”

“—Pamela. And I am astonished that your grandfather should have permitted you to read it! That is to say, if you have a grandfather, which I begin to doubt!”

She showed him a shocked face. “Of course I have a grandfather! In fact, I once had two grandfathers, but one of them died when I was a baby.”

“He is to be felicitated. Come, now! Was there one word of truth in the story you told me,or was it another of your splendid stories?”

She jumped up, very much flushed, and with tears sparkling on the ends of her long eyelashes. “No, it was not! I thought you were kind, and a gentleman,and now I see I was quite mistaken, and I wish very much that I had told you a lie, because you are exactly like an uncle, only worse! And what I told those other people was just—just make-believe, and that is not the same thing as telling lies! And I am excessively sorry now that I drank your lemonade, and ate your tarts, and, if you please, I will pay for them myself. And also,” she added as her misty gaze fell on an empty bowl, “for the cherries!”

He too had risen, and he possessed himself of the agitated little hands that were fumbling with the strings of a reticule, and held them in a comforting clasp. “Gently, my child! There, there, don’t cry! Of course I see just how it was! Come! Let us sit on this settee, and decide what is best to be done!”

Amanda, tired by the day’s adventures, made only a token of resistance before subsiding on to his shoulder, and indulging in a burst of tears. Sir Gareth, who had more than once sustained the impassioned and lachrymose confidences of an ill-used niece, behaved with great competence and sangfroid, unshaken by a situation that might have cast a less experienced man into disorder. In a very few minutes, Amanda had recovered from her emotional storm, had mopped her cheeks, and blown her diminutive nose into his handkerchief, and had offered him an apology for having succumbed to a weakness which, she earnestly assured him, she heartily despised.

Then he talked to her. He talked well, and persuasively, pointing out to her the unwisdom of her present plans, the distress of mind into which a continuance of them must throw her grandfather, and all the disadvantages which must attach to a career, however temporary, as a serving-maid in a public inn. She listened to him with great docility, her large eyes fixed on his face, her hands folded in her lap, and an occasional sob catching her breath; and when he had finished she said: “Yes, but even if it is very bad it will be better than not being allowed to marry Neil until I come of age. So will you please take me to Huntingdon, sir?”

“Amanda, have you attended to one word I’ve said to you?”

“Yes, I attended to all of them, and they were exactly the sort of things my own uncles would say. It is all propriety and nonsense! As for grieving Grandpapa, it is quite his own fault, because I warned him that he would be excessively sorry if he didn’t give his consent to my marriage, and if he didn’t believe me he deserves to be put in a pucker for being so stupid. Because I always keep my word, and when I want something very much I get it.”

“I can well believe it. You must forgive me if I tell you, Amanda, that you are a shockingly spoilt child!”

“Well, that is Grandpapa’s fault, too,” she said.

He tried another tack. “Tell me this! If he knew of your exploit, do you think your Neil would approve of it?”

She replied unhesitatingly: “Oh, no! In fact, I expect he will be very angry, and give me a tremendous scold, but he will forgive me, because he knows I would never serve him such a trick. Besides, he must perceive that I am doing it all for his sake. And I daresay,” she added reflectively, “that he won’t be so very much surprised, because he thinks I’m spoilt, too, and he knows all the bad things I’ve done. Indeed, he has often rescued me from a fix, when I was a little girl.” Her eyes brightened; she exclaimed: “Why, that would be the very thing! Only I think it ought to be a dire peril this time. Then he can rescue me from it, and restore me to Grandpapa, and Grandpapa would be so grateful that he would be obliged to consent to the marriage!” She frowned in an effort of concentration. “I shall have to think of a dire peril. I must say, it’s very difficult!”

Sir Gareth, who experienced no difficulty at all in thinking of it, said in a damping voice that by the time she had contrived to advise Neil of her danger it might be too late for him to effect a rescue.

She rather regretfully acknowledged the justice of this observation, further disclosing that she was not perfectly sure of Neil’s direction, since he had gone to London, for a medical inspection, after which he would report at the Horse Guards. “And goodness knows how long that will take! And the dreadful part of it is that if the doctors think him quite well again, he may be sent back to Spain almost immediately! That is why it is imperative that I should lose not a moment in—in prosecuting my campaign!” She jumped up, saying with a challenging look: “I am very much obliged to you, sir, and now, if you please, we will part, for I believe Huntingdon is almost ten miles away, and if there is no stage, and you don’t wish to take me there in your carriage, I shall have to walk, so that it is high time I was setting forward.”

She then held out her hand, with all the air of a great lady taking gracious leave of an acquaintance, but upon Sir Gareth’s not only taking it in his, but maintaining a firm hold on it, her grandeur abruptly deserted her, and she stamped her foot, and commanded him to let her go instantly.

Sir Gareth was in a dilemma. It was plainly useless to continue arguing with Amanda, and he had seen enough of her to be tolerably sure that an attempt to frighten her into, disclosing her grandfather’s name and direction would fail. If he carried into execution his threat to hand her into the charge of the Parish officer, nothing was more certain than that she would give this worthy the slip. Leave her to her own absurd devices? No: it was impossible, he decided. Headstrong and, indeed, extremely naughty she might be, but she was as innocent as a kitten, and by far too lovely to be allowed towander unescorted about the country.

“If you don’t let me go this instant, I shall bite you!” stormed Amanda, tugging fruitlessly at his long fingers.

“Then not only will you not be offered a seat in my curricle, but you will get your ears soundly boxed into the bargain,” he replied cheerfully.

“How dare you—” She broke off suddenly, stopped clawing at his hand, and raised a face alight with joyful expectation. “Oh, will you take me up in your curricle, sir? Thank you!”

He would not have been in the least surprised had she flung her arms round his neck in her transport of gratitude, but she contented herself with squeezing his hand tightly between both of hers, and bestowing upon him a rapturous smile. Registering a silent vow not to let so trusting a damsel out of his sight until he could restore her to her proper guardian, he put her into a chair, and went off to inform his astonished groom that he must relinquish his seat in the curricle to a lady, and stand up behind as best he might.

Trotton thought it a strange start, but when, a few minutes later, he clapped eyes on the unexpected passenger, the disturbing suspicion that his master had run mad darted into his mind. There were plenty of gentlemen in whom such conduct would have seemed natural, but Sir Gareth, in Trotton’s experience, had never been one to fall into the petticoat line. Sir Gareth had not told any member of his household what his errand was to Brancaster Park, but all his servants, from his butler down to the kitchen porter, had guessed what it must be, and it seemed to Trotton the height of insanity for him to succumb just at this moment to the lures thrown out by the pretty bit of muslin he was handing up into his curricle. A nice set-out it would be if he were to be seen driving such a prime article as that down the road! He wondered whether perhaps his master had a touch of the sun, and was trying to remember what ought to be done for sufferers from sunstroke when Sir Gareth’s voice recalled his wandering wits.

“Are you deaf, Trotton? I said, let ‘em go!”