Джорджетт Хейер - Sprig Muslin

“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!”

Mr. Sheet, summoned for the second time in one day to attend to a member of the Quality, was gratified, but a little flustered. He owned a snug property in the Red Lion, but he had never aspired to cater for carriage-people. His cellars were well stocked with beer and spirits, but he could see at a glance that if this tall exquisite in the awe-inspiring driving coat and the gleaming top-boots meant to dine in his house, he would infallibly call for a bottle of wine. Furthermore, notable cook though Mrs. Sheet was, it was doubtful if the sort of fancy dishes such an out-and-outer would demand lay within the boundaries of her skill. Then Sir Gareth disclosed his errand, and Mr. Sheet became still more flustered. He had naturally discussed with his wife the extraordinary affair of the young lady with the bandboxes, and at great length; and the more he had considered the matter the stronger had become his uneasy conviction that they had not heard the last of it. He did not think that blame could possibly attach to anything he had done, but still he had had a presentiment that there was trouble in store for him.

“Yes, sir,” he said, “There was a young lady come here this morning, with a stout gentleman, but she up and ran away, and more than that I can’t tell your honour, not if I was to be hung for it!”

He found that the visitor’s gray eyes were uncomfortably penetrating, but he met them squarely enough, if a trifle nervously. Sir Gareth said: “I think I should tell you that I am that young lady’s guardian. I have been looking for her all day, with what anxiety you may guess! I haven’t found her, but I did find the stout gentleman, and what I learned from him made me hope with all my heart that I should find Miss Smith here.”

The landlord shook his head. “No, sir. I’m sure, if we’d known—but she never said nothing, and being as the stout gentleman said she was a relation of his—”

“What’s all this?”

The voice came from behind Sir Gareth, and he turned quickly, to find himself confronting a buxom dame in a neat cap, tied under her plump chin in a starched bow, and with her hands folded over her ample stomach. She had a comely, good-humoured face, which yet held much determination, but there was a martial light in her eye, and she was regarding Sir Gareth, if not with hostility, certainly with suspicion.

“The gentleman was asking for that young lady, Mary,” explained Mr. Sheet. “Him being her guardian, by what he tells me.”

“That’s as may be,” said Mrs. Sheet cryptically.

“I beg you will tell me, ma’am, did you, as I suspect, come to her rescue?” asked Sir Gareth. “Have you got her here, in safety?”

By this time, she had taken him in thoroughly, from his booted heels to his ordered brown locks. Her gaze came to rest on his face; and after a thoughtful moment her own face relaxed a little. “No, sir, I have not—which isn’t to say that I don’t wish I had, for dear knows there was no call for her to run off like she did, if she’d only told me the trouble she was in! And who might you be, if I might make so bold, sir?”

Sir Gareth gave her his card. “That is my name, and my direction, ma’am.”

She studied the card, and then favoured him with another long stare. “And by what you was saying to Sheet, sir, you’re the young lady’s guardian?”

“I am,” replied Sir Gareth, reflecting that this at least was true, even though he was self-appointed. A sudden and rueful smile flashed in his eyes. “For my sins! I will be perfectly frank with you, ma’am, and tell you that Miss Smith is the most wilful little monkey it has ever been my ill-fortune to have to do with. Her latest exploit is to run away from the seminary, where she was a parlour-boarder. I imagine I need not tell you that I am in considerable anxiety about her. If you can assist me to find her, I shall be very much in your debt.”

Mr. Sheet, watching his wife with some misgiving, was relieved to see that she had apparently decided in the gentleman’s favour. The belligerent expression had vanished, and it was with cordiality that she replied: “‘Deed, and I wish I could, sir, for such a sweet, pretty young creature I never did see! But it’s true, what Sheet was saying to you: she never said a word to either of us, but slipped off unbeknown’st. Run away from school, had she? But however did she come to take up with that dressed-up old fidget? Sheet got the notion into his head he was her uncle, but that I’ll be bound he’s not!”

“No—the dancing-master!” said Sir Gareth, with a certain vicious satisfaction.

Her jaw dropped. “What, and run off with one of the young ladies at the school? Well, I never did in all my life!”

“Miss Smith,” said Sir Gareth, rivalling Amanda in inventiveness, “is a considerable heiress. By what means that fellow inserted himself into her good graces, I know not, but there can be little doubt that his object was to possess himself of her fortune. She is not yet seventeen, but had he succeeded in reaching Gretna Green with her, and making her his wife, what could I have done?”

Her eyes were as round as crown-pieces, but she nodded her head understandingly. “Ay, a pretty kettle of fish that would have been, sir! Well, I never liked him, not from the start, and what has me in a puzzle is what made her take a fancy to him! Why, he’s old enough to be her grandpa, and as fat as a flawn besides!”