Sprig Muslin

Chapter 9

At the end of half an hour, Mr. Theale consulted his watch. He thought that he would give Amanda a little longer, and took himself and his cigarillo out on to the road. There was nothing much to be seen there, and after strolling up and down for a few minutes he went back into the inn, where the landlord met him with the offer of a slice or two of home-cured ham, by way of a nuncheon. It was not yet noon, but Mr. Theale had partaken of breakfast at an unwontedly early hour, and the suggestion appealed strongly to him. He disposed of several slices of ham, followed these up with a generous portion of cheese, dug from the centre of a ripe Stilton, and washed down the whole with a large tankard of beer. He then felt fortified against the rigours of travel, and, as Amanda had still not reappeared, requested Mrs. Sheet to step upstairs to see how she did.

Mrs. Sheet climbed laboriously up the stairs, but soon came back again, to report that the young lady was not in the best bedchamber.

“Not there?” repeated Mr. Theale incredulously.

“Happen she’s in the coffee-room, sir,” said Mrs. Sheet placidly.

“She ain’t there,” asserted the landlord. “Stands to reason she couldn’t be, because his honour’s eating a bite of ham there this half hour past. I daresay she stepped out for a breath of fresh air while you was eating your nuncheon, sir.”

Mr. Theale felt that this was unlikely, but if Amanda was not in the Red Lion there seemed to be no other solution to the mystery of her disappearance, and he again stepped out on to the road, and looked up and down it. There was no sign of Amanda, but Mr. Sheet, who had followed him out of the inn, thought that very likely she had been tempted to explore the spinney that lay just beyond the last straggling cottages of the village. Sir Gareth would not have wasted as much as five minutes in hunting for Amanda through a spinney, but Mr. Theale, as yet unacquainted with her remarkable propensity for running away, supposed that it was just possible that she had walked out for a stroll, as he himself had done earlier. No doubt, with the sun beating down upon the road, she had not been able to resist entering the spinney. It was thoughtless of her, and, indeed, decidedly vexatious, but young persons, he believed, were irresistibly drawn by woodland, and had, besides, very little regard for the clock. He walked down the road until he came abreast of the spinney, and shouted. When he had done that several times, he swore, and himself entered the spinney through a gap in the hedge. A track wound through the trees, and he went down it for some distance, shouting Amanda’s name at intervals. It was not as hot under the trees as on the sun-scorched road, but quite hot enough to make a full-bodied gentleman, clad in a tightly fitting coat, and with a voluminous neckcloth swathed in intricate folds under his chin, sweat profusely. Mr. Theale mopped his face, and realized with annoyance that the high, starched points of his collar had begun to wilt. He also realized, although with some incredulity, that Amanda had given him the slip; but why she had done so, or where she could be hiding, he could not imagine. He retraced his steps, and as he plodded up the dusty road the disquieting suspicion entered his head that she was not, after all, a member of the muslin company, but in truth the innocent child she looked to be. If that were so, her desire to escape from Sir Gareth’s clutches (and, indeed, his own) was very understandable. No doubt, thought Mr. Theale, virtuously indignant, Sir Gareth had encountered her after her expulsion from her amorous employer’s establishment, and had taken dastardly advantage of her friendless, and possibly penniless, condition. Mr. Theale’s morals were erratic, but he considered that such conduct was beyond the line of what was allowable. It was also ramshackle. Deceiving innocent damsels, as he could have told Sir Gareth from his own experience, invariably led to trouble. They might appear to be alone in the world, but you could depend upon it that as soon as the mischief was done some odiously respectable relative would come to light, which meant the devil to pay, and no pitch hot.

This reflection brought with it certain unwelcome memories, and made Mr. Theale feel that to abandon Amanda to her fate, which had at first seemed the most sensible thing to do, would perhaps be unwise. Since she knew his name, it would be prudent to recapture her, for heaven alone knew what sort of account she might spread of the day’s events if he was unable to convince her that his interest in her had all the time been purely philanthropic. That could quite easily be done, given the opportunity. The thing to do then, he decided, would be to deliver her into his housekeeper’s charge, and to leave it to that capable matron to discover what family she possessed. Of course, if she really had no relations living, and seemed inclined, once her alarm had been soothed, to take a fancy to him—But that was for the future. The immediate task was to find her, and that, in so small a village, ought not to be very difficult.

Mr. Theale, arrived once more at the Red Lion, proceeded to grapple with the task. It proved to be fatiguing, fruitless, and extremely embarrassing. Mrs. Sheet, on thinking the matter over, had remembered the bandboxes. It was just conceivable, though very unlikely, that Amanda had wandered out to take the air, and had contrived to lose herself; that she had burdened herself with two bandboxes for a country stroll was quite inconceivable, and indicated to Mrs. Sheet not a stroll but a flight. And why, demanded Mrs. Sheet of her lord, should the pretty dear wish to run away from her lawful uncle?

Mr. Sheet scratched his head, and admitted that it was a regular doubler.

“Mark my words, Sheet!” she said. “He’s no more her uncle than what you are!”

“He never said he was her uncle,” Mr. Sheet pointed out. “All he said was that she was a young relative of his.”

“It don’t signify. It’s my belief he’s no relation at all. He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

“He don’t look like one,” said the landlord dubiously.

“He’s one of those seducing London beaux,” insisted his wife. “He’s got a wicked look in his eye: I noticed it straight off. Them bandboxes, too! I though it was queer, a young lady not having what I’d call respectable luggage.”

“The luggage was on the other coach,” argued the landlord.

“Not hers, it wasn’t,” replied Mrs. Sheet positively. “She had all her things packed into those two boxes, for I saw them with my own eyes. Lor’s bless me, why ever didn’t she tell me my fine gentleman was making off with her unlawful? I wish I knew where she was got to!”

But no efforts of hers, or of Mr. Theale’s, could discover the least trace of Amanda. She had apparently been snatched up into the clouds, for no one in the village had seen her, and no one could recall that any of the vehicles which had passed through it had halted to pick up a passenger. Mr. Theale was forced, in the end, to accept the landlord’s theory, which was that Amanda had slipped unperceived up the road, and had been picked up beyond the village by some carriage or stage-coach. Mrs. Sheet clicked her tongue disapprovingly and shook her head; but since it would never have occurred to her that a young lady of undoubted quality, dressed, too, in the first style of elegance, would have sought refuge in a farm-tumbril, the suspicion that Joe Ninfield might be able to throw light on the mystery never so much as entered her mind. And if it had entered it, she would have dismissed it, because she knew that Joe was a shy, honest lad, who would never dream either of deceiving his godmother, or of taking up with a strange girl who was plainly a lady born.

Mr. Theale was forced to continue his journey alone; and by the time he climbed into his carriage again, not only was he exhausted by his exertions, but he was as much ruffled as it was possible for a man of his temperament to be. His enquiries in Bythorne awoke a most unwelcome curiosity in its inhabitants’ breasts; and although Mr. Sheet continued to treat him with proper deference it was otherwise with the redoubtable mistress of the house, who made no attempt to conceal her unflattering opinion of him. Lacking the inventive genius which characterized Amanda, he was quite unable to offer Mrs. Sheet an explanation which carried conviction even to his own ears; and an attempt to depress her presumption merely provoked her into favouring him with her views on so-called gentlemen who went ravening about the country, dressed up as fine as five-pence, the better to deceive the innocent maidens they sought to ruin.

It was some time before his spirits recovered their tone. The wooden countenance of his coachman did nothing to allay the irritation of his nerves. Mr. Theale cherished few illusions, and he was well aware that James had not only heard every word of Mrs. Sheet’s homily, but would lose no time in regaling his fellow-servants with the tale of his master’s discomfiture. James would have to be sent packing, which was as vexatious as anything that had happened during this disastrous day, since no other coachman had ever suited him half as well. Moreover, so many hours had been squandered that it was now doubtful whether he would reach Melton Mowbray that evening. The moon was at the full, but although moonlight would enable him to continue his journey far into the night, it would not save from being spoiled the excellent dinner that would certainly be prepared for his delectation, or prevent his becoming fagged to death. He was much inclined to think that if only he had not directed his valet to drive on he would have spent the night at Oakham, where, at the Crown, he was well-known, and could rely upon every attention’s being paid to his comfort. But his valet and his baggage were gone past reclaim, and the only piece of luggage he carried with him was his dressing-case.

He was still trying to decide, four miles beyond Thrapston, what would be best to do, when Fate intervened, and settled the question for him: the perch of the carriage broke, and the body fell forward on to the box.

Although considerably shaken, Mr. Theale was not much hurt by this accident. Its worst feature was the necessity it put him under of trudging for nearly a mile to the nearest inn. This was at the village of Brigstock, and was a small posting-house, too unpretentious to have hitherto attracted Mr. Theale’s patronage. His intention was to hire a post-chaise there, but so snug did he find its parlour, so comfortable the winged chair into which the landlord coaxed him, so excellent the brandy with which he strove to recruit his strength, and so tempting the dinner that was offered him, that he very soon abandoned all idea of proceeding any farther on his journey that day. After the cavalier treatment he had been subjected to by Mrs. Sheet, the solicitude of the host of the Brigstock Arms came as balm to his bruised spirit. Besides, his natty boots were pinching his feet, and he was anxious to have them pulled off. The landlord begged him to accept the loan of a pair of slippers, promised that a night-shirt and cap should be forthcoming, and assured him that nothing would give his good wife more pleasure than to launder his shirt and neckcloth for him while he slept. That clinched the matter: Mr. Theale graciously consented to honour the house with his custom, and stretched out a plump leg to have a boot hauled off. Once rid of Hessians which were never made for country walking, he began to revive, and was able to devote a mind undistracted by aching feet to the important question of what dishes to select for his dinner. Encouraged and assisted by the landlord, he ordered a delicate yet sustaining meal to be prepared, and settled down to enjoy the healing properties of cigarillos, a comfortable chair, and a bottle of brandy.

It was not long before a gentle sense of well-being began to creep over him; and then, just as he was wondering whether to light another cigarillo, or to take a nap before his dinner, his peace was shattered by the purposeful entry into the parlour of Sir Gareth Ludlow.

Mr. Theale was astonished. He had to blink his eyes several times before he could be sure that they had not deceived him. But the newcomer was certainly Sir Gareth, and, from the look on his face, he seemed to be in a thundering rage. Mr. Theale noticed this fleetingly, but his interest was claimed by something of greater importance. Sir Gareth’s blue coat was protected from the dust by a driving coat of such exquisite cut that it held Mr. Theale entranced. None knew better than he how seldom a voluminous coat with several shoulder-capes showed a man off to advantage, or how often it made him appear to be as broad as he was long. Sir Gareth, of course, was helped by his height, but the excellence of his figure could not wholly account for the graceful set of the folds that fell almost to his ankles, or for the precision with which half a dozen or more capes were graduated over his shoulders.

“Who,” demanded Mr. Theale reverently, “made that coat for you?”

Sir Gareth had endured a wearing and an exasperating day. It had not been difficult to trace Mr. Theale to Brampton, although a good deal of time had been wasted in seeking news of him in all the inns with which Huntingdon was too liberally provided. It had been after Brampton that the trail had become confused. That he had continued along the road which ran from Ely to Kettering was established by one of the ostlers at Brampton, but at Spaldwick, where, after studying his road-book, Sir Gareth expected to hear that he had stopped for a change, no one seemed to have seen him. That indicated that he had made Thrapston his first change, for there was no other posting-house to be found on that stretch of the road. At the next pike, the keeper rather thought that he had opened to three, or maybe four, yellow-bodied carriages, one of which, unless he was confusing it with a black chaise with yellow wheels, had turned northward into the lane which bisected the post-road. Sir Gareth, after a glance at his map, decided not to pursue this, for it led only to a string of tiny villages. A mile farther on, another, and rather wider, lane offered the traveller a short cut to Oundle, and here Sir Gareth halted to make enquiries, since it was possible, though unlikely, that Oundle was Mr. Theale’s destination. He could not discovered that any yellow-bodied carriage had turned into the lane that morning, but a sharp-eyed urchin volunteered the information that he had seen just such a turn-out, closely followed by a coach with trunks piled on the roof, driving along towards Thrapston a couple of hours back. There could be no doubt that this was Mr. Theale’s cortege, and Sir Gareth, after suitably rewarding his informant, drove on, confident that he would glean certain tidings of the fugitives at one of Thrapston’s two posting-houses. He swept through Bythorne, never dreaming that the carriage he was chasing was at that moment standing in the yard behind the modest little inn, with its shafts in the air.

Thrapston lay only four miles beyond Bythorne, and was soon reached, but neither at the White Hart nor at the George could Sir Gareth discover any trace of his quarry. Mr. Theale was perfectly well known at both these inns, and landlords and ostlers alike stated positively that he had not been seen in the town for several months.

It seemed so incredible that Mr. Theale should not have changed horses in Thrapston, that Sir Gareth had wondered if he could have bribed all these persons to cover his tracks. But those whom he questioned were so plainly honest that he dismissed the suspicion, inclining rather to the theory that just as he had chosen to stop in Brampton instead of Huntingdon, so too had Mr. Theale preferred to pause for the second change of horses at some house beyond a town where he was a familiar figure. On the road which ran through Corby, Uppingham, and Oakham to Melton Mowbray there appeared to be, on the outskirts of Thrapston, a suburb, or a village, called Islip. Stringent enquiry dragged from the landlord of the George the admission that a change of horses could be obtained there—by such gentlemen as were not over-particular.

Meanwhile, Sir Gareth’s own pair, carefully though he had nursed them, were spent, and must be stabled. It was not his practice to leave his blood-cattle in strange hands, so when Trotton heard him issuing instructions at the George on the treatment the bays were to receive, and was himself ordered to see them properly bestowed, and realized that he was not to be left in charge of them, he knew that his master’s must indeed be a desperate case.

Sir Gareth, driving a pair of job horses, drew a blank at Islip, and another at Lowick. He then struck eastward, reaching, by way of an abominable lane, the road that linked Thrapston to Oundle. Here he was similarly unsuccessful, and broke back to the road that led to Kettering. Nowhere had anyone seen a yellow-bodied carriage, followed by a coach laden with baggage. He drove back to Thrapston, and, convinced in spite of all discouragement that Mr. Theale was heading for the neighbourhood of Melton Mowbray, once more drove out of the town in that direction. How Mr. Theale’s coachman could have contrived, on such a sweltering day, to have pushed his horses beyond Islip he knew not, but that the yellow-bodied carriage had taken the road to Melton Mowbray he was certain. And he was perfectly right, as he knew, as soon as he came upon the derelict, a mile short of Brigstock.

There was considerable cause for satisfaction in this, but Sir Gareth had been driving all day, and he had eaten nothing since his interrupted breakfast at Brancaster. By the time he arrived at the Brigstock Arms he was holding his temper on a tight rein; and when he entered the parlour to find Mr. Theale lounging at his ease, with a bottle at his elbow, and his slippered feet on a stool, an impulse surged up within him to pluck that conscienceless hedonist out of his chair with one hand for the simple purpose of sending him to grass with one scientifically placed punch from the other. Indeed, it had already formed itself into a fist when Mr. Theale spoke.

Mr. Theale’s words gave Sir Gareth pause. He stood looking contemptuously down at him, his right hand unclenching as he recognized his condition. It would have been unjust to have described Mr. Theale as drunk. It was his boast that no one had seen him deep-cut since the days of his youth, and certainly his capacity for brandy was prodigious. But his potations had cast a pleasant haze over the world, as he saw it, and they had induced in him a mood of immense affability. It was clearly out of the question to deal with him as he deserved. Sir Gareth said curtly: “I see. Where is Miss Smith?”

“Schultz?” enquired Mr. Theale knowledgeably.

“Where—is—Miss—Smith?” repeated Sir Gareth.

“Never heard of her,” said Mr. Theale. “Now I come to think of it, Weston makes for you, doesn’t he?”

“Where is Amanda Smith?” demanded Sir Gareth, altering the wording of his question.

“Oh, her!” said Mr. Theale. “Damned if I know!”

“Doing it rather too brown!” Sir Gareth said, with a distinct rasp in his voice. “Don’t try to gammon me you didn’t carry her off from Brancaster this morning!”

“Was it only this morning?” said Mr. Theale, mildly surprised. “I daresay you’re right, but it seems longer.”

“Where is she?”

“I keep telling you I don’t know. Yes, and now I come to think of it, a pretty cool hand you are, my boy! First you bring that fancy-piece to Brancaster, and next, damme if you don’t have the effrontery to come smash up to me, trying to get me to give her up to you! If I weren’t a very easygoing man I should very likely call you to account. Thought you had more delicacy of principle.”

“Rid your mind of two illusions at least! Amanda is neither my mistress nor a fancy-piece!”

“She isn’t? As a matter of fact, I’d got to thinking she might not be. You take the advice of a man who’s older than you, my boy, and has seen more of the world than you ever will! If she ain’t Haymarket ware, hedge off! I don’t say she ain’t a tempting armful—well, I thought so myself!—but you make take it from me—!”

“I wish to take nothing from you but that child!” interrupted Sir Gareth. “Stop cutting shams, and tell me what you’ve done with her! I warn you, Theale, I’m in no mood to listen to any more of your lies!”

“Now, don’t get in a tweak!” recommended Mr. Theale. “It’s no use your asking me what I’ve done with that chit, because I haven’t done anything with her. She gave me the bag. I don’t deny I wasn’t best pleased at the time, but I’m not at all sure now that it ain’t a good thing. Shouldn’t wonder at it if she’d have put me in the basket. You too. Forget her, my boy! After all, not the thing, to offer for poor Hester one moment, and to go chasing after Amanda the next.”

“When did she give you the bag, and where?” demanded Sir Gareth, ignoring this piece of advice.

“I forget the name of the place, but she’d been eating a lot of raspberries.”

“What?”

“I don’t wonder you’re surprised. You’d have been even more surprised if you’d seen the cream she kept pouring over them. I warned her how it would be, but there was no stopping her. Swore she was in high gig, and so she was, then. That didn’t last, of course. She began to feel queasy—at least, that’s what she said. She may have been bamboozling me, though I shouldn’t think anyone could have eaten all those raspberries without becoming as sick as a horse. She sat there, moaning, and saying she must lie down. Got me to stop the carriage in some village or other. I daresay I’ll remember its name in a minute: it wasn’t far from Thrapston. Anyway, we went into an inn there, and Amanda went off upstairs with the landlady—a devilish woman, that! I give you my word, if I’d known what a shrew she was I wouldn’t have set foot inside the place!”

“Never mind the landlady!” said Sir Gareth impatiently.

“Yes, it’s all very well for you to say never mind the landlady, but you didn’t have to listen to her talking as though you were a regular Queer Nabs, which I’ll be damned if I am!”

“The landlady rumbled you, did she? Good! What happened when Amanda went upstairs?”

“I had a glass of bingo. I needed it, I can tell you, because what with being bounced about in the carriage, and thinking every moment Amanda was going to cast up accounts, I was feeling damned queasy myself.”

“For God’s sake—!” exclaimed Sir Gareth. “I don’t wish to know what you drank, or what you felt like! What happened to Amanda?”

“How should I know? The landlady said she was going to lie down for half an hour, and that’s the last I heard of her, or anyone else, for that matter.”

“Do you mean that she left the inn without anyone’s seeing her?”

“That’s it,” nodded Mr. Theale. “Tipped me the double, the sly little cat! Queer business: she just disappeared, though the lord alone knows how she managed it! A pretty fix to have found myself in! Yes, and a pretty breeze she raised, too!”

“Are you telling me,” said Sir Gareth dangerously, “that you left that child to fend for herself while you drove off at your ease?”

“There wasn’t much ease about it,” objected Mr. Theale. “To start with, it’s no pleasure to me to jaunter along in a carriage, and to go on with, the damned perch broke, and I had to walk a good mile in tight boots.”

“Did you make no effort to find Amanda?”

“Yes, I did, and how the devil I came to do anything so cork-brained—at my time of life, too!—has me lurched!”

“Where did you search for her?”

“All over the village,” replied Mr. Theale bitterly. “You wouldn’t think I could be such a gudgeon, would you? Because no sooner did those gapeseeds know that Amanda had given me the bag than they began to think there was something havey-cavey going on. Naturally, I’d told ‘em at the inn, when we arrived there, that Amanda was a young relative of mine. Of course, as soon as she slipped off, that wouldn’t fadge.”

“Where, besides the village, did you search?”

“In a spinney. The landlord thought she might have gone there for a breath of air. Shouted myself hoarse, but to no purpose. That was before I guessed she’d tipped me the double.” He poured some more brandy into his glass, and drank it, and suddenly ejaculated: “Bythorne! That was the name of the place! I thought it would very likely come back to me.”

“Bythorne! Good God! Then—When you couldn’t find her in the village, where next did you go?”

Mr. Theale lowered the glass, and looked at him in patient resignation. “Well, if ever I met such a fellow for asking muttonheaded questions! I came here, of course. Where did you think I went?”

“I thought,” said Sir Gareth, in a deadly voice, “that you must have searched any road or track that may lead from the village! Was it likely, if Amanda was trying to escape from you, that she would remain in a village which, as I recall, consists of nothing more than two rows of cottages, flanking the post-road?”

“Oh, you did, did you? You must have windmills in your head! Why the devil should I make a cake of myself, scouring the countryside for a girl I can see I’m dashed well rid of?”

“It would be useless to tell you!” Sir Gareth said, an angry pulse throbbing in his cheek. “But if you were not fifteen years my senior, as fat as a hog, and castaway into the bargain, I would hand you such a supply of homebrewed as would send you to bed for a month!”

“Not if you want to have me for an uncle,” said Mr. Theale, quite undismayed. “Chuffy thing to do. And let me tell you, my boy, that no one’s ever seen me castaway since I was up at Oxford. Never more than a trifle up in my hat: ask anyone!” He watched Sir Gareth pick up his hat and gloves, and stride towards the door, and said: “Now where are you off to? Ain’t you stopping to dinner?”

“I am not!” replied Sir Gareth, over his shoulder. “Surprising through it may seem to you, I am going to Bythorne!”

The door shut with a snap behind him. Mr. Theale shook his head sadly, and picked up the brandy-bottle again.

“Queer in the attic,” he remarked. “Poor fellow!”