The Corinthian

Chapter 4

The man of fashion, at that precise moment, was sleeping heavily in one corner of a huge green-and-gold Accommodation coach, swaying and rocking on its ponderous way to Bristol. The hour was two in the afternoon, the locality Calcot Green, west of Reading and the dreams troubling the repose of the man of fashion were extremely uneasy. He had endured some waking moments, when the coach had stopped with a lurch and a heave to take up or to set down passengers, to change horses, or to wait while a laggardly pike-keeper opened a gate upon the road. These moments had seemed to him more fraught with nightmare even than his dreams. His head was aching, his eyeballs seemed to be on fire, and a phantasmagoria of strange, unwelcome faces swam before his outraged vision. He had shut his eyes again with a groan, preferring his dreams to reality, but when the coach stopped at Calcot Green to put down a stout woman with a tendency to asthma, sleep finally deserted him, and he opened his eyes, blinked at the face of a precise-looking man in a suit of neat black, seated opposite him, ejaculated: “Oh, my God!” and sat up.

“Is your head very bad?” asked a solicitous and vaguely familiar voice in his ear.

He turned his head, and encountered the enquiring gaze of Miss Penelope Creed. He looked at her in silence for a few moments; then he said: “I remember. Stage-coach—Bristol. Why, oh why, did I touch the brandy?”

An admonitory pinch made him recollect his surroundings. He found that there were three other persons in the coach, seated opposite to him, and that all were regarding him with interest. The precise-looking man, whom he judged to be an attorney’s clerk, was frankly disapproving; a woman in a poke-bonnet and a paduasoy shawl nodded to him in a motherly style, and said that he was like her second boy, who could not abide the rocking of the coach either; and a large man beside her, whom he took to be her husband, corroborated this statement by enunciating in a deep voice: “That’s right!”

Instinct took Sir Richard’s hand to his cravat; his fingers told him that it was considerably crumpled, like the tails of his blue coat. His curly-brimmed beaver seemed to add to the discomfort of his aching head; he took it off, and clasped his head in his hands, trying to throw off the lingering wisps of sleep. “Good God!” he said thickly. “Where are we?”

“Well, I am not quite sure, but we have passed Reading,” replied Pen, rather anxiously surveying him.

“Calcot Green, that’s where we are,” volunteered the large man. “Stopped to set down someone. They ain’t a-worriting theirselves over the time-bill, that’s plain. I dare say the coachman’s stepped down for a drink.”

“Ah, well!” said his wife tolerantly. “It’ll be thirsty work, setting up on the box in the sun like he has to.”

“That’s right,” agreed the large man.

“If the Company was to hear of it he would be turned off, and very rightly!” said the clerk, sniffing. “The behaviour of these stage-coachmen is becoming a scandal.”

“I’m sure there’s no call for people to get nasty if a man falls behind his time-bill a little,” said the woman. “Live and let live, that’s what I say.”

Her husband assented to this in his usual fashion. The coach lurched forward again, and Pen said, under cover of the noise of the wheels and the horses’ hooves: “You kept on telling me that you were drunk, and now I see that you were. I was afraid you would regret coming with me.”

Sir Richard raised his head from his hands. “Drunk I most undoubtedly must have been, but I regret nothing except the brandy. When does this appalling vehicle reach Bristol?”

“It isn’t one of the fast coaches, you know. They don’t engage to cover much above eight miles an hour. I think we ought to be in Bristol by eleven o’clock. We seem to stop such a number of times, though. Do you mind very much?”

He looked down at her. “Do you?”

“To tell you the truth,” she confided, “not a bit! I am enjoying myself hugely. Only I don’t want you to be made uncomfortable all for my sake. I quite see that you are sadly out-of-place in a stage-coach.”

“My dear child, you had nothing whatever to do with my present discomfort, believe me. As for my being out-of-place, what, pray, are you?”

The dimples peeped. “Oh, I am only a scrubby school-boy, after all!”

“Did I say that?” She nodded. “Well, so you are,” said Sir Richard, looking her over critically. “Except for—Did I tie that cravat? Yes, I thought I must have. What in the world have you got there?”

“An apple,” replied Pen, showing it to him. “The fat woman who got out just now gave it to me.”

“You are not going to sit there munching it, are you?” demanded Sir Richard.

“Yes, I am. Why shouldn’t I? Would you like a bit of it?”

“I should not!” said Sir Richard.

“Well, I am excessively hungry. That was the one thing we forgot.”

“What was?”

“Food,” said Pen, digging her teeth into the apple. “We ought to have provided ourselves with a basket of things to eat on the journey. I forgot that the stage doesn’t stop at posting-houses, like the mail-coaches. At least, I didn’t forget exactly, because I never knew it.”

“This must be looked to,” said Sir Richard. “If you are hungry, you must undoubtedly be fed. What are you proposing to do with the core of that apple?”

“Eat it,” said Pen.

“Repellent brat!” said Sir Richard, with a strong shudder.

He leaned back in his corner, but a tug at his sleeve made him incline his head towards his companion.

“I told these people that you were my tutor,” whispered Pen.

“Of course, a young gentleman in his tutor’s charge would be travelling in the common stage,” said Sir Richard, resigning himself to the role of usher.

At the next stage, which was Woolhampton, he roused himself from the languor which threatened to possess him, alighted from the coach, and showed unexpected competence in procuring from the modest inn a very tolerable cold meal for his charge. The coach awaited his pleasure, and the attorney’s clerk, whose sharp eyes had seen Sir Richard’s hand go from his pocket to the coachman’s ready palm, muttered darkly of bribery and corruption on the King’s Highway.

“Have some chicken,” said Sir Richard amiably.

The clerk refused this invitation with every evidence of contempt, but there were several other passengers, notably a small boy with adenoids, who were perfectly ready to share the contents of the basket on Pen’s knees.

Sir Richard had good reason to know that Miss Creed’s disposition was extremely confiding; during the long day’s journey he discovered that she was friendly to a fault. She observed all the passengers with a bright and wholly unselfconscious gaze; conversed even with the clerk; and showed an alarming tendency to become the life and soul of the party. Questioned about herself, and her destination, she wove, zestfully, an entirely mendacious story, which she embroidered from time to time with outrageous details. Sir Richard was ruthlessly applied to for corroboration, and, entering into the spirit of the adventure, added a few extempore details himself. Pen seemed pleased with these, but was plainly disappointed at his refusal to join her in keeping the small boy with adenoids amused.

He leaned back in his corner, lazily enjoying Miss Creed’s flights into the realms of fancy, and wondering what his mother and sister would think if they knew that he was travelling to an unknown destination, by stagecoach, accompanied by a young lady as unembarrassed by this circumstance as by her male attire. A laugh shook him, as he pictured Louisa’s face. His head had ceased aching, but although the detachment fostered by brandy had left him, he still retained a feeling of delightful irresponsibility. Sober, he would certainly not have set forth on this absurd journey, but having done so, drunk, he was perfectly willing to continue it. He was, moreover, curious to learn more of Pen’s history. Some farrago she had told him last night: his recollection of it was a trifle hazy, but there had surely been something about an aunt, and a cousin with a face like a fish.

He turned his head slightly on the dingy squabs of the coach, and watched, from under drooping eyelids, the animated little face beside him. Miss Creed was listening, apparently keenly interested, to a long and involved recital of the illness which had lately prostrated the motherly woman’s youngest-born. She shook her head over the folly of the apothecary, nodded wisely at the efficiency of an age-old nostrum compounded of strange herbs, and was on the point of capping this recipe with one in use in her own family when Sir Richard’s foot found hers, and trod on it.

It was certainly time to check Miss Creed. The motherly woman stared at her, and said that it was queer-and-all to meet a young gentleman so knowledgeable.

“My mother,” said Pen, blushing, “has been an invalid for many years.”

Everyone looked solicitous, and a desiccated female in the far corner of the coach said that no one could tell her anything about illness.

This remark had the effect of diverting attention from Pen, and as the triumphant lady plunged into the history of her sufferings, she sat back beside Sir Richard, directing up at him a look quite as mischievous as it was apologetic.

The lawyer’s clerk, who had not yet forgiven Sir Richard for bribing the coachman, said something about the license allowed to young persons in these days. He contrasted it unfavourably with his own upbringing, and said that if he had a son he would not pamper him by giving him a tutor, but would send him to school. Pen said meekly that Mr Brown was very strict, and Sir Richard, correctly identifying Mr Brown with himself, lent colour to her assertion by telling her sternly not to chatter.

The motherly woman said that she was sure the young gentleman brightened them all up, and for her part she did not hold with people being harsh with children.

“That’s right,” agreed her spouse. “I never wanted to break any of my young uns’ spirits: I like to see ’em up-and-coming.”

Several of the passengers looked reproachfully at Sir Richard, and, that no doubt of his severity might linger in their minds, Pen subsided into crushed silence, folding her hands on her knees, and casting down her eyes.

Sir Richard saw that he would figure for the rest of the journey as an oppressor, and mentally rehearsed a speech which was destined for Miss Creed’s sole edification.

She disarmed him by falling asleep with her cheek against his shoulder. She slept between one stage and the next, and when roused by the coach’s halting with its usual lurch, opened her eyes, smiled drowsily up at Sir Richard and murmured: “I’m glad you came. Are you glad you came?”

“Very. Wake up!” said Sir Richard, wondering what more imprudent remarks might be hovering on her tongue.

She yawned, and straightened herself. An altercation seemed to be in progress between the guard and someone standing in the inn-yard. A farmer, who had boarded the coach at Calne, and was seated beside Pen, said that he thought the trouble was that the would-be passenger was not upon the way-bill.

“Well, he cannot come inside, that is certain!” said the thin woman. “It is shocking, the way one is crowded already!”

“Where are we?” enquired Pea.

“Chippenham,” responded the farmer. “That’s where the Bath road goes off, see?”

She sat forward to look out of the window. “Chippenham already? Oh yes, so it is! I know it well.”

Sir Richard cocked an amused eye at her. “Already?” he murmured.

“Well, I have been asleep, so it seems soon to me. Are you very weary, sir?”

“By no means. I am becoming entirely resigned.”

The new passenger, having apparently settled matters with the guard, at this moment pulled open the door, and tried to climb up into the coach. He was a small, spare man, in a catskin waistcoat, and jean-pantaloons. He had a sharp face, with a pair of twinkling, lashless eyes set deep under sandy brows. His proposed entrance into the coach was resolutely opposed. The thin woman cried out that there was no room; the lawyer’s clerk said that the way the Company over-loaded its vehicles was a scandal; and the farmer recommended the newcomer to climb on to the roof.

“There ain’t an inch of room up there,” protested the stranger. “Lord, I don’t take up much space! Squeeze up, coves!”

“Full-up! Try the boot!” said the farmer.

“Cast your winkers over me, cull: I don’t take up no more room than what a bodkin would!” pleaded the stranger. “Besides, there’s a set of flash young coves on the roof. I’d be mortal afraid to sit with ’em, so I would!”

Sir Richard, casting an experienced eye over the man, mentally wrote him down as one probably better known to the Bow Street Runners than to himself. He was not surprised, however, to hear Miss Creed offering to squeeze up to make room, for he had, by this time, formed a very fair estimate of his charge’s warmheartedness.

Pen, edging close to Sir Richard, coaxed the farmer to see for himself that there was room enough for one more passenger. The man in the catskin waistcoat grinned at her, and hopped into the coach. “Dang me if I didn’t think you was a flash cull too!” he said, squeezing himself into the vacant place. “I’m obliged to ye, young shaver. When coves do Jimmy Yarde a service he don’t forget it neither.”

The lawyer, who seemed to have much the same opinion of Mr Yarde as that held by Sir Richard, sniffed, and folded his hands tightly on the box which he held on his knees.

“Lord bless you!” said Mr Yarde, observing this gesture with a tolerant smile, I ain’t no boman prig!”

“What’s a boman prig?” asked Pen innocently.

“There, now! If you ain’t a werry suckling!” said Mr Yarde, almost disconcerted. “A boman prig, young gentleman, is what I trust you’ll never be. It’s a cove as ends up in Rumbo—ah, and likely on the Nubbing Cheat afore he’s much older!”

Much intrigued, Pen demanded a translation of these strange terms. Sir Richard, having pondered and discarded the notion of commanding her to exchange places with him, lay back and listened with lazy enjoyment to her initiation into the mysteries of thieves’ cant.

A party of young gentlemen, who had been spectators of a cock-fight held in the district, had been taken up at Chippenham, and had crowded on to the roof. From the sounds preceding thence, it seemed certain that they had been refreshing themselves liberally. There was a good deal of shouting, some singing, and much drumming with heels upon the roof. The motherly woman and the thin spinster began to look alarmed, and the lawyer’s clerk said that the behaviour of modern young men was disgraceful. Pen was too deeply engaged in conversation with Jimmy Yarde to pay much heed to the commotion, but when, after the coach had rumbled on for another five miles, the pace was suddenly accelerated, and the top-heavy vehicle bounced over ruts and pot-holes, and swung perilously first to one side and then to the other, she broke off her enthralling discourse, and looked enquiringly at Sir Richard.

A violent lurch flung her into his arms. He restored her to her own seat, saying dryly: “More adventure for you. I hope you are enjoying it?”

“But what is happening?”

“I apprehend that one of the would-be sprigs of fashion above has taken it into his head to tool the coach,” he replied.

“Lord ha’ mercy!” exclaimed the motherly woman. “Do you mean that one of they pesky, drunken lads is a-driving of us, sir?”

“So I should suppose, ma’am.”

The spinster uttered a faint shriek. “Good God, what will become of us?”

“We shall end, I imagine, in the ditch,” said Sir Richard, with unruffled calm.

Babel at once broke forth, the spinster demanding to be let out at once, the motherly woman trying to attract the coachman’s notice by hammering against the roof with her sunshade, the farmer sticking his head out of the window to shout threats and abuse, Jimmy Yarde laughing, and the lawyer’s clerk angrily demanding of Sir Richard why he did not do something?

“What would you wish me to do?” asked Sir Richard, steadying Pen with a comfortingly strong arm.

“Stop the coach! Oh, sir, pray stop it!” begged the motherly woman.

“Bless your heart, ma’am, it’ll stop of its own this gait!” grinned Jimmy Yarde.

Hardly had he spoken than a particularly sharp bend in the road proved to be too much for the amateur coachman’s skill. He took the corner too wide, the near-hind wheels mounted a slight bank, and skidded down the farther side into a deep ditch, and everyone inside the vehicle was flung rudely over. There were screams from the women, oaths from the farmer, the cracking noise of split wood, and the shatter of broken glass. The coach lay at a crazy angle with sprigs of thorn-hedge thrusting in through the broken windows.

Pen, whose face was smothered in the many capes of Sir Richard’s drab driving-coat, gasped, and struggled to free herself from a hold which had suddenly clamped her to Sir Richard’s side. He relaxed it, saying: “Hurt, Pen?”

“No, not in the least! Thank you so very much for holding me! Are you hurt?”

A splinter of glass had cut his cheek slightly, but since he had been holding on to the leather arm-rest hanging in the corner of the coach, he had not been thrown, like everyone else, off his seat. “No, only annoyed,” he replied. “My good woman, this is neither the time nor the place for indulging in a fit of the vapours!”

This acid rider was addressed to the spinster, who, finding herself pitch-forked on top of the lawyer’s clerk, had gone off into strong hysterics.

“Here, let me get my dabblers on to that there door!” said Jimmy Yarde, hoisting himself up by seizing the opposite arm-rest. “Dang me if next time I travel in a rattler I don’t ride on the roof, flash-culls or no!”

The coach not having collapsed quite on to its side, but being supported by the bank and the hedge bordering the ditch, it was not difficult to force open the door, or to climb out through it. The spinster had indeed to be lifted out, since she had stiffened all over, and would do nothing but scream and drum her heels, but Pen scrambled out with an agility which scorned helping hands, and the motherly woman said that provided every gentleman would turn his back upon her she would engage to get out by herself too.

It was now considerably after nine o’clock, but although the sun had gone, the summer sky was still light, and the air warm. The travellers found themselves on a deserted stretch of road, a couple of miles short of the little town of Wroxhall, and rather more than thirty miles from Bristol. The most cursory inspection of the coach was enough to convince them that it would need extensive repairs before being able to take the road again; and Sir Richard, who had gone immediately to the horses, returned to Pen’s side in a few moments with the news that one of the wheelers had badly strained a tendon. He had been right in thinking that the reins had been handed over to one of the outside passengers. To tool the coach was a common enough pastime amongst young men who aspired to be whips, but that any paid coachman could have been foolish enough to relinquish his seat to an amateur far gone in drink was incomprehensible, until the coachman’s own condition had been realized.

Pen, who was sitting on Sir Richard’s portmanteau, received the news of complete breakdown with perfect equanimity, but all the other inside passengers burst into vociferous complaint, and besieged the guard with demands to be instantly conveyed to Bristol, by means unspecified. Between his indignation at his colleague’s gross misconduct, and his exasperation at being shouted at by six or seven persons at once, the unfortunate man was for some time incapable of collecting his wits, but presently it was suggested that if the travellers would only be patient, he would ride back on one of the leaders to Chippenham, and there try to procure some sort of a vehicle to convey them to Wroxhall, where they would be obliged to remain until the next Accommodation coach to Bristol picked them up there early on the following morning.

Several persons decided to set forward on foot for Wroxhall at once, but the spinster was still having hysterics, the motherly woman said that her corns would not permit of her tramping two miles, and the lawyer’s clerk held to it that he had a right to be conveyed to Bristol that night. There was a marked tendency in one or two persons to turn to Sir Richard, as being plainly a man accustomed to command. This tendency had the effect of making Sir Richard, not in the least gratified, walk over to Pen’s side, and say languidly, but with decision: “This, I fancy, is where we part company with our fellow-travellers.”

“Yes, do let us!” assented Pen blithely. “You know, I have been thinking, and I have a much better scheme now. We won’t go to Bristol at all!”

“This is very sudden,” said Sir Richard. “Do I understand you to mean that you have made up your mind to return to London?”

“No, no, of course not! Only now that we have broken down I think it would be silly to wait for another coach, because very likely we should be overtaken by my aunt. And I never really wanted to go to Bristol, after all.”

“In that case, it seems perhaps a pity that we came so far upon the road to it,” said Sir Richard.

Her eyes twinkled. “Stupid! I mean, my home is not in Bristol, but near to it, and I think it would be much better, besides being like a real adventure, to walk the rest of the way.”

“Where is your home?” demanded Sir Richard.

“Well, it is near Queen Charlton, not far from Keynsham, you know.”

“I don’t,” said Sir Richard. “This is your country, not mine. How far, in your judgment, is Queen Charlton from where we now are?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” replied Pen cautiously. “But I shouldn’t think it could be above fifteen, or, at the most twenty miles, going “cross country.”

“Are you proposing to walk twenty miles?” said Sir Richard.

“Well, I dare say it is not as much. As the crow flies, I expect it is only about ten miles off.”

“You are not a crow,” said Sir Richard dampingly. “Nor, I may add, am I. Get up from that portmanteau!”

She rose obediently. “I think I could quite well walk twenty miles. Not all at once, of course. What are we going to do?”

“We are going to retrace our steps along the road until we come to an inn,” replied Sir Richard. “As I remember, there was one, about a couple of miles back. Nothing would induce me to make one of this afflictive coach-party!”

“I must own, I am a little tired of them myself,” admitted Pen. “Only I won’t go to a posting-house!”

“Make yourself easy on that score!” said Sir Richard grimly. “No respectable posting-house would open its door to us in this guise.”

This made Pen giggle. She put forward no further opposition, but picked up the cloak-bag, and set out beside Sir Richard in the direction of Chippenham.

None of the coach-passengers noticed their departure, since all were fully occupied, either in reviling the coachman, or in planning their immediate movements. The bend in the road soon shut them off from sight of the coach, and Sir Richard then said: “And now you may give me that cloak-bag.”

“Well, I won’t,” said Pen, holding on to it firmly. “It is not at all heavy, and you have your portmanteau to carry already. Besides, I feel more like a man every moment. What shall we do when we reach the inn?”

“Order supper.”

“Yes, and after that?”

“Go to bed.”

Pen considered this. “You don’t think we should set forward on our journey at once?”

“Certainly not. We shall go to bed like Christians, and in the morning we shall hire a conveyance to carry us to Queen Charlton. A private conveyance,” he added.

“But—”

“Pen Creed,” said Sir Richard calmly, “you cast me for the role of bear-leader, and I accepted it. You drew a revolting picture of me which led everyone in that coach to regard me in the light of a persecutor of youth. Now you are reaping the harvest of your own sowing.”

She laughed. “Are you going to persecute me?”

“Horribly!” said Sir Richard.

She tucked a confiding hand in his arm, and gave a little skip. “Very well, I will do as you tell me. I’m very glad I met you: we are having a splendid adventure, are we not?”

Sir Richard’s lips twitched. Suddenly he burst out laughing, standing still in the middle of the road, while Pen doubtfully surveyed him.

“But what is the matter with you?” she asked.

“Never mind!” he said, his voice still unsteady with mirth. “Of course we are having a splendid adventure!”

“Well, I think we are,” she said, stepping out beside him again. “Piers will be so surprised when he sees me!”

“I should think he would be,” agreed Sir Richard. “You are quite sure that you don’t regret coining in search of him, I suppose?”

“Oh yes, quite! Why, Piers is my oldest friend! Didn’t I tell you that we made a vow to be married?”

“I have some recollection of your doing so,” he admitted. “But I also recollect that you said you hadn’t seen him for five years.”

“No, that is true, but it doesn’t signify in the least, I assure you.”

“I see,” said Sir Richard, keeping his inevitable reflections to himself.

They had not more than two miles to go before they reached the inn Sir Richard had seen from the window of the coach. It was a very small hostelry, with a weather-beaten sign creaking on its chains, a thatched roof, and only one parlour, besides the common tap-room.

The landlord, upon hearing of the breakdown of the stage-coach, accepted the travellers’ unconventional arrival without surprise. It was growing dark by this time, and it was not until Sir Richard had stepped into the inn, and stood in the light of a hanging lamp, that the landlord was able to obtain a clear view of him. Sir Richard had chosen for the journey a plain coat and serviceable breeches, but the cut of the blue cloth, the high polish on his top-boots, the very style of his cravat, and the superfluity of capes on his drab over-coat all proclaimed so unmistakably the gentleman of fashion that the landlord was obviously taken aback, and looked from him to Pen with considerable suspicion.

“I shall require a bedroom for myself, and another for my nephew,” said Sir Richard. “Also some supper.”

“Yes, sir. Did your honour say you was travelling on the Bristol-stage?” asked the landlord incredulously.

“Yes,” said Sir Richard raising his brows. “I did say so. Have you any objection?”

“Oh no, sir! no, I’m sure!” replied the landlord hastily. “Your honour said supper! I’m afraid we—we aren’t in the habit of entertaining the Quality, but if your honour would condescend to a dish of ham and eggs, or maybe a slice of cold pork, I’ll see to it on the instant!”

Sir Richard having graciously approved the ham and eggs, the landlord bowed him into the stuffy little parlour, and promised to have the only two guest-chambers the inn possessed immediately prepared. Pen, directing a conspiratorial look at Sir Richard, elected to follow the portmanteau and the cloak-bag upstairs. When she reappeared a slatternly maid-servant had spread supper on the table in the parlour, and Sir Richard had succeeded in forcing open two of its tiny windows. He turned, as Pen came in, and asked: “What in heaven’s name have you been doing all this time? I began to think you had deserted me.”

“Desert you! Of course I wouldn’t do anything so silly! The thing was, I could see the landlord had noticed your clothes, so I thought of a famous tale to tell him. That’s why I went off with him. I knew he would try to discover from me why you were travelling on the stage-coach.”

“And did he?”

“Yes, and I told him that you had had reverses on “Change and had fallen on evil times,” said Pen, drawing up her chair to the table.

“Oh!” said Sir Richard. “Was he satisfied with that?”

“Perfectly. He said he was very sorry. And then he asked where we were bound for. I said, for Bristol, because all the family had lost its money, and so I had had to be taken away from school.”

“You have the most fertile imagination of anyone of my acquaintance,” said Sir Richard. “May I ask what school you have been gracing?”

“Harrow. Afterwards I wished I had said Eton, because my cousin Geoffrey is at Harrow, and I don’t like him. I wouldn’t go to his school.”

“I suppose it is too late to change the school now,” Sir Richard said, in a regretful tone.

She looked up quickly, her fascinating smile crinkling the corners of her eyes. “You are laughing at me,”

“Yes,” admitted Sir Richard. “Do you mind?”

“Oh no, not a bit! No one laughs in my aunt’s house. I like it.”

“I wish,” said Sir Richard, “you would tell me more about this aunt of yours. Is she your guardian?”

“No, but I have had to live with her ever since my father died. I have no real guardian, but I have two trustees. On account of my fortune, you understand.”

“Of course, yes: I was forgetting your fortune. Who are your trustees?”

“Well, one is my uncle Griffin—Aunt Almeria’s husband, you know—but he doesn’t signify, because he does just what Aunt tells him. The other is my father’s lawyer, and he doesn’t signify either.”

“For the same reason?”

“I don’t know, but I shouldn’t wonder at it in the least. Everyone is afraid of Aunt Almeria. Even I am, a little. That’s why I ran away.”

“Is she unkind to you?”

“N-no. At least, she doesn’t ill-treat me, but she is the kind of woman who always gets her own way. Do you know?”

“I know,” Sir Richard said.

“She talks,” explained Pen. “And when she is displeased with one, I must say that it is very uncomfortable. But one should always be just, and I do not blame her for being so set on my marrying Fred. They are not very rich, you see, and of course Aunt would like Fred to have all my fortune. In fact, I am very sorry to be so disobliging, particularly as I have lived with the Griffins for nearly five years. But, to tell you the truth, I didn’t in the least want to, and as for marrying Fred, I could not! Only when I suggested to Aunt Almeria that I would much prefer to give my fortune to Fred, and not marry him, she flew into a passion, and said I was heartless and shameless, and cried, and talked about nourishing vipers in her bosom. I thought that was unjust of her, because it was a very handsome offer, don’t you agree?”

“Very,” said Sir Richard. “But perhaps a trifle—shall we say, crude?”

“Oh!” Pen digested this. “You mean that she did not like my not pretending that Fred was in love with me?”

“I think it just possible,” said Sir Richard gravely.

“Well, I am sorry if I wounded her feelings, but truly I don’t think she has the least sensibility. I only said what I thought. But it put her in such a rage that there was nothing for it but to escape. So I did.”

“Were you locked in your room?” enquired Sir Richard.

“Oh no! I daresay I should have been if Aunt had guessed what I meant to do, but she would never think of such a thing.”

“Then—forgive my curiosity!—why did you climb out of the window?” asked Sir Richard.

“Oh, that was on account of Pug!” replied Pen sunnily.

“Pug?”

“Yes, a horrid little creature! He sleeps in a basket in the hall, and he always yaps if he thinks one is going out. That would have awakened Aunt Almeria. There was nothing else I could do.”

Sir Richard regarded her with a lurking smile. “Naturally not. Do you know, Pen, I owe you a debt of gratitude?”

“Oh?” she said, pleased, but doubtful. “Why?”

“I thought I knew your sex. I was wrong.”

“Oh!” she said again. “Do you mean that I don’t behave as a delicately bred female should?”

“That is one way of putting it, certainly.”

“It is the way Aunt Almeria puts it.”

“She would, of course.”

“I am afraid,” confessed Pen, “that I am not very well-behaved. Aunt says that I had a lamentable upbringing, because my father treated me as though I had been a boy. I ought to have been, you understand.”

“I cannot agree with you,” said Sir Richard. “As a boy you would have been in no way remarkable; as a female, believe me, you are unique.”

She flushed to the roots of her hair. “I think that is a compliment.”

“It is,” Sir Richard said, amused.

“Well, I wasn’t sure, because I am not out yet, and I do not know any men except my uncle and Fred, and they don’t pay compliments. That is to say, not like that.” She looked up rather shyly, but chancing to catch sight of someone through the window, suddenly exclaimed: “Why, there’s Mr Yarde!”

“Mr who?” asked Sir Richard, turning his head.

“You can’t see him now: he has gone past the window. You must remember Mr Yarde, sir! He was the odd little man who got into the coach at Chippenham, and used such queer words that I could not perfectly understand him. Do you suppose he can be coming to this inn?”

“I sincerely trust not!” said Sir Richard.