“She is with a fellow called Ludlow—Gareth Ludlow—who came upon her in a common inn, where, I know not, and bore her off to Kimbolton. I have been dining tonight with Ludlow’s sister, a Mrs. Wetherby, and what I heard in that house—My God, I don’t know how I contrived to keep my tongue still!”

“Ludlow?” the General said numbly. “Bore her off? My little Amanda? No, no, it isn’t possible! Tell me the whole, damn you!”

He listened in silence to Captain Kendal’s succinct recital, but it seemed as though he had hardly taken it in, for he sat looking blankly at the Captain, repeating uncomprehendingly: “Abducted her—trying to escape from him—found in a cow-byre?”He managed to pull himself together, and said in a firmer voice: “It isn’t possible! She’s nothing but a child! Did you discover from from these Wetherbys—”

“Exactly what I have told you! They knew no more, and you may be sure I asked no questions! They suppose Amanda to belong to the muslin company: a very prime article was the term used by Wetherby! Upon no account would I have said one word that might lead them to the truth!”

“It isn’t possible!” the General said again. “A man of Ludlow’s quality—Good God, in whatever case he met her he must have recognized at a glance that she was a child—a gently-bred child, and as innocent—Why the devil didn’t he restore her to me? Or, if she wouldn’t tell him what her name was, place her in the care of a respectable woman?”

“Yes, why?”said the Captain harshly. “That is a question he will answer to me before he is much older! What kind of a man is he?”

The General made a hopeless gesture. “How should I know? I’m not acquainted with him. A man of fashion: he belongs to the Corinthian set. Handsome fellow, with a fine figure, rich enough to be able to buy an abbey. He’s not married—I fancy there was some sort of a tragedy, years ago. I’ve never heard any ill of him: on the contrary, I believe him to be very well liked. But what’s that to the purpose? If she has been all this time with him—By God, he shall marry her! He has compromised her—my granddaughter!—and if he thinks—”

“He marry her—!” We’ll see that!” interrupted the Captain grimly. “Now, sir! The first thing you must do is to call off the Runners, so that we may get through this damnable business with as little noise as possible. I’m off to Kimbolton in the morning, and if I can get no news of Ludlow there I’ll try a cast or two. But something I must learn: he cannot have passed unnoticed in so small a place. If you like to leave it in my hands, very well! If you prefer to accompany me, better!”

“Accompany you, you insubordinate, insolent young dog?” exploded the General. “What right have you to meddle in my affairs? Don’t think I’ll consent to let you marry Amanda, for I won’t! My granddaughter to throw herself away on a penniless cub in a Line Regiment? No, by God! I am going to Kimbolton, and I desire neither your aid nor your company!”

“As you please!” shrugged Captain Kendal. “I shall be leaving at first light, and no doubt that would not suit you. I beg you will not neglect to send a letter to Bow Street. We shall meet in Kimbolton! Goodnight!”

Chapter 17

At very much the same time as these stirring events were taking place in London, Lord Widmore received letters from his two youngest sisters, and learned from them that with neither had Lady Hester sought shelter. As he had by then argued himself into a belief that she could have gone nowhere else, the tidings came as a severe shock to him, and caused him to exclaim unguardedly: “Gertrude and Constance have not seen Hester since we left London!”

Until that moment, Mr. Whyteleafe had been left in ignorance of the true state of affairs, Lord Widmore being very much more circumspect than his sire. But Mr. Whyteleafe was present when the letters were brought up from the receiving-office, and this involuntary outburst not only arrested his attention, but caused him to demand from his lordship an explanation. He got the explanation from Lady Widmore. Her ladyship’s disregard for appearances made her much inclined to treat the escapade as a very good joke, an attitude of mind which so much revolted her lord that it was with relief that he unburdened himself to the chaplain. Mr. Whyteleafe’s reactions were all that they should have been. He changed colour, and uttered: “Not at Lady Ennerdale’s! Not with Mrs. Nutley, or Lady Cookham! Good God, sir, this is terrible!”

Lord Widmore, looking upon him with approval, decided to admit him into his confidence. As a result, he learned for the first time of the existence of Hildebrand Ross. Until that moment no one had told him that the person supposedly sent by Lady Ennerdale to escort her sister on the journey had been other than a servant. He now discovered that Hester had gone away with an unknown young gentleman of undoubted gentility but suspicious aspect, and exclaimed: “She has eloped!”

But Mr. Whyteleafe did not think that Hester had eloped. Mr. Ross, although sufficiently depraved to utter unblushing lies to a man whose cloth should have commanded his respect, was scarcely of an age to contemplate marriage with a lady approaching her thirtieth year. Mr. Ross, he feared, was no more than a go-between.

Lady Widmore, laughing in a very vulgar way, asked who the deuce was there for Mr. Ross to go between, but she was not attended to. By rapid stages Mr. Ross became an infernal agent, employed either by a secret and obviously ineligible lover, or by a daring kidnapper. Lady Widmore, declaring that she was in stitches, said that any kidnapper who thought to wring a groat out of a family that had not a feather to fly with must be so bottleheaded that even such a goosecap as Hester would be able to escape from his clutches. In her opinion, Hester herself, more sly than any of them had suspected, had employed Mr. Ross to assist her to slip away from Brancaster without exciting surprise or opposition. She recommended her husband to subject his butler to a rigorous inquisition. If anyone knew what kind of an undergame Hester was engaged in, she said, he might lay his life that one was Cliffe, whose maudlin affection for Hester had often put her ladyship out of all patience.

Lord Widmore failed to elicit any information from Cliffe, but Mr. Whyteleafe was more successful. Cliffe, already anxious and more than a little doubtful of the wisdom of his having abetted Hester, crumbled under the powerful exhortations of the chaplain. He was brought to realize that his mistress’s reputation, nay, even her life, perhaps, was at stake, and, weeping, he gave up the only piece of information he had. He told Mr. Whyteleafe that he had recognized the post-boy in charge of the chaise that had borne Lady Hester away as one of the lads employed at the Crown Inn at St. Ives.

From then onward Mr. Whyteleafe assumed command. In a manner calculated to convince the trembling butler that he had aided Lady Hester to commit an indiscretion which must plunge her entire family into a ruinous scandal, he laid a strict charge of silence upon Cliffe. Almost as impressively he pointed out to Lord Widmore that no whisper of the affair must be allowed to reach the ears of any but themselves. Together he and his lordship would discover, at St. Ives, the destination of that post-chaise; together they would track down the fugitive. No coachman or postilion should go with them: they would set forth alone, and in the curricle which the Earl kept at Brancaster for his use when in Cambridgeshire. “And I,” added Mr. Whyteleafe, recollecting that Lord Widmore was a very indifferent whip, “will drive it!”

Meanwhile, in happy ignorance of the hostile forces converging upon him, Sir Gareth was making a recovery upon which his medical attendant never ceased to congratulate himself. It would be some time before his wound would cease to trouble him (a circumstance due, Lady Hester had no hesitation in asserting, to the shockingly rough and ready methods employed in the extraction of the bullet), and still longer before he could hope to regain his full strength; but the progress he made was steady; and it was not long before he was able to persuade his several nurses to let him leave his bed, and try what the beneficial effects of fresh air would do for him. A small orchard lay behind the inn, and, as the weather continued to be sultry, one golden day succeeded another, it was here that he spent his days, in an idyllic existence which not even the ill-humour of Mrs. Chicklade could mar. That stern moralist had never been convinced of the respectability of the party she was called upon to serve; and when she saw the parlour chairs carried into the orchard, together with a table, and all the cushions the inn could yield, and further discovered that her misguided spouse had consented to carry meals there, she knew that her worst suspicions had fallen short of the truth. A set of heathen gypsies, that’s what Chicklade’s precious ladies and gentlemen of quality were, and let no one dare to tell her different! But Chicklade said that he knew the Quality when he saw it, and while the dibs were in tune the visitors might eat their dinner on the roof, if that was their fancy. As for the morals of the party, it was not for him to criticize an out-and-outer who dropped his blunt as freely as did Sir Gareth.

So Mrs. Chicklade, appeased by the thought of the gold that was flowing into her husband’s coffers, continued to cook three handsome meals a day for her disreputable guests, and startled her neighbours by appearing suddenly in a new and impressive bonnet, and a gown of rich purple hue.

As for the disreputable guests, only Amanda was not entirely content to remain at Little Staughton. Sir Gareth had his own reasons for not wishing to bring his stay to an end; Lady Hester, tending him, sitting in comfortable companionship beside him under the laden fruit trees, valued as she had never been before, was putting on a new bloom; and Hildebrand, inspired by the rural solitude, had made a promising start to his tragic drama, and was not at all anxious to return to a more exacting world. He had got his horse back, too, yielding at last to a command from his adopted uncle to stop being a gudgeon, and to retrieve the noble animal without more ado. He still slept on a camp-bed set up in Sir Gareth’s room: not because his services were any longer needed during the night-watches, but because there were only two guest-chambers in the inn. Sir Gareth was thus kept fully abreast of the drama’s progress, the day’s literary output being read to him each night, and his criticisms and suggestions invited. No qualms were suffered by Hildebrand: he blithely assured Sir Gareth that his parents, believing him to be on a walking-tour of Wales, would not expect to receive any letters from him; and as for the friends he should have joined, they would think only that he had changed his plans, or had been delayed, and would doubtless overtake them.