Джорджетт Хейер - Sprig Muslin

“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!”

A couple of miles beyond the cross-road from Cambridge to St. Neots the road forked. Sir Gareth took the right fork without hesitation. His youthful companion, who had (as she artlessly informed him) hitherto travelled in no more sporting vehicle than a gig, which Grandpapa sometimes permitted her to drive, was hugely enjoying herself, and was too ruthlessly intent on discovering whether her protector was a whip celebrated enough to merit the title of Nonesuch to notice a weatherbeaten signpost which bore, in faded lettering, the simple legend: To St. Ives. It was otherwise with the faithful henchman. Standing precariously behind his master, and maintaining his balance by a firm grip on the curricle’s lowered hood, he ventured to intervene. He had engaged himself to drive her to Huntingdon, and he considered it his duty to point out to Sir Gareth that he had taken the wrong fork.

Restraining an impulse to curse his too-helpful retainer, Sir Gareth said calmly. “Thank you, Trotton, I know the road.”

But the mischief was done. Bristling with suspicion, Amanda demanded: “Is this not the road to Huntingdon?”