Pistols for Two (6 page)

The post-boys eyed him in some trepidation, but he paid no attention to them. He lifted a hand to wrench open the door of the chaise, but before he could grasp the handle the door was thrust open from within, and a fresh-faced youth, not waiting to let down the steps, jumped out, saying, in an impetuous, rueful voice: ‘I beg your pardon, sir! I didn’t mean – at least, I – oh, by Jupiter, sir,
how
you did give us the go-by! It was the most bang-up thing I ever saw in my life! But I’m afraid you’re very vexed!’ he added, gazing up in dismay at Lord Iver’s countenance.

His lordship was, in fact, thunderstruck, but his expression was certainly alarming. The unknown youth said contritely: ‘We shouldn’t have done so –
indeed
, I am very sorry! We were only funning – that’s to say – well, I dare say you know how it is, sir, when one is in spirits, and – and –’ His voice petered out unhappily, for he perceived no understanding at all in the eyes that stared so fiercely at him.

At this point, there was an intervention. A damsel, clad in the demure raiment suitable for a school-room miss, peeped out of the chaise, and said, with an engaging mixture of mischief and penitence: ‘It was all my fault! Because I wouldn’t put up at Stamford, and so we came on, because it is a whole year since I was at home, and I couldn’t have slept a wink, and it’s not so
very
much farther! Only when we changed horses at Greetham Jack said the light had begun to go, and Papa would say we shouldn’t have come on, but
I
said we might easily reach Grantham if we drove fast, and give them all
such
a surprise, for they don’t expect to see us until tomorrow. So Jack said: “
Oh, very well!
” but we should have everyone thinking we were eloping to Gretna Green, which sent us both into whoops, of course! And
that
was what put the notion into our heads!’

‘I should explain, sir, that she’s my sister,’ interpolated the youth, anxious to throw light upon dark places. ‘She has been at school, you see.’

‘Yes, but Mama let me come away before any of the others, so that Jack could bring me home. Isn’t it
famous
?’ rapturously exclaimed his sister. ‘Because Jack, you know, is
my
particular brother, just as Ned is Cecy’s!’

His lordship, stunned as much by all these whirling words as by the shock of finding that he had waylaid two complete strangers, could think of nothing to say but: ‘Oh!’ and that in a blank voice which made it necessary for Miss Tresilian, deeply appreciative of the scene, to take her underlip firmly between her teeth.

Frowning down his sister’s irrelevance, the young gentleman embarked manfully on an explanation of his conduct. ‘The thing was, sir, that I always
meant
to spring the horses, if the road was clear, because we have still more than twenty miles to go before we reach home, and my father – Oh, I should have told you that Father is Sir John Holloway, and we live near Grantham! Well – well, we were joking each other about being a runaway couple when you blew up to pass us, and I shouted to the post-boys to put ’em along – just cutting a lark, you know! But, of course, I shouldn’t have done so!’ he added hastily. ‘And I didn’t mean to keep it up. Only – well, when you gave chase it was so exciting – and when I saw you were going to make the attempt – well, I
do
beg your pardon, sir, but I wouldn’t have missed it for anything! You drove to an inch!’

‘I see,’ said his lordship. ‘Well, when next you try your hand at racing on the road, don’t do it in a post-chaise, and don’t take your sister with you! Tell me, have you come from London?’

‘Oh no! From Oxford, sir. One of the old tabbies at Bella’s school brought her up from Bath – Oh, I should have told you that I’m at Magdalen!’

‘Are you? Well, if you are to reach home before dark you’d best lose no more time. Up with you!’

‘
Thank
you!
’ said Mr Holloway, greatly relieved. ‘I’m excessively obliged to you for not – Oh, you go first, sir!’

‘No, I should only hold you up: I’m not going to drive at your hell-for-leather pace!’

Laughing heartily at this, Mr Holloway, after fervently shaking hands with his lordship, hoisted himself into the chaise, and it moved forward, Miss Tresilian having by this time drawn the curricle to the side of the road. His lordship, heavily frowning, walked back to it. He observed that Miss Tresilian had succumbed to her emotions, and regarded her balefully.

‘Oh, don’t look at me like that, Iver!’ she begged, wiping her streaming eyes. ‘If you could but have seen your own face – !’

‘Much help
you
were!’ he said, with a reluctant grin. ‘Yes, it’s all very well for you to laugh yourself into stitches, my girl, but where the devil
are
those pernicious brats?’

‘I
said
we had come on a wild goose chase! Have we all the time been pursuing that enchanting couple?’

‘Certainly not! Didn’t you hear the boy say they had come from Oxford? They can never have been on our road until they entered Stamford. I have not the smallest doubt that when
we
entered Stamford we were hard on the heels of our own pair.’

That sobered her. She said, in dismay: ‘Do you mean that they are ahead of us still?’

‘No, I don’t,’ he said decidedly. ‘They haven’t passed any of the pikes. From Stamford we have been following the Holloways.’

She was disturbed, but could not resist quizzing him. ‘Flying from a scent, Iver?
You?
’

He smiled, but absently, and remained for some moments in frowning silence. He said suddenly: ‘If the line was crossed in Stamford – Good God, why didn’t I think of that before? He has taken the girl to Grantley, of course!’ He saw that Miss Tresilian was bewildered, and added impatiently: ‘Windlesham’s place, beyond Market Deeping! You’ve met Arthur’s sister, haven’t you?’

‘Lady Windlesham! Yes, but what could he hope to achieve by that?’

‘Depend upon it, he has a special licence in his pocket, and means to be married under Caroline’s ægis.’

‘But
she
has no authority to sanction Lucy’s marriage!’

‘Much she would care for that! Arthur can bring her round his thumb any time he chooses to do it: she dotes on him! She’s of a romantic disposition, what’s more, and to judge by the impassioned entreaties she addressed to me on this subject has confused that precious pair with Romeo and Juliet.’

‘Iver, she
could
not be so unprincipled as to –’

‘Nothing of the sort!’ he interrupted. ‘She knows that Arthur is his own master, and if she doesn’t know already that you liked the connection well enough until you discovered that I was Arthur’s guardian, it wouldn’t, I assure you, take Arthur more than five minutes to convince her that if only the knot could be tied without your knowledge you would be more likely to fall on her neck than to try to overset the marriage!’

He climbed into his seat again as he spoke, and took the reins from her. She relinquished them unheedingly. ‘If that is indeed so, I can’t deny that it is a great deal better than a flight to the Border, but a marriage performed in such circumstances
must
give rise to the most odious gossip! I
cannot
allow it!’

‘There’s no need to fly into high fidgets,’ said his lordship, possibly to soothe alarm, but with a sad lack of sensibility. ‘Caroline is a pretty ninnyhammer, but Windlesham is a man of excellent good sense, and can be depended on to put his foot down on such a scheme.’

‘Yes, but –’

‘Oh, for God’s sake – !’ he exclaimed. ‘Can’t you think of anything but that addle-brained pair? For my part, they may go to the devil! I’m sick and tired of both, and have been thinking them a dead bore for the last three hours!’

Jerked by this sudden violence from her preoccupation, she realized that the horses had been set in motion. ‘Pray, where are we off to?’ she demanded. ‘If Arthur has taken Lucy to his sister’s house we have no need to proceed farther north! How can you be so idiotish, Iver?’

‘I’m not idiotish,’ he replied, with an odd laugh. ‘We set out for Gretna Green, and to Gretna Green we’ll go! Our immediate destination, however, is Coltersworth. We shall spend the night at the Angel, and tomorrow, unless you should very much dislike it, we will resume our journey to the Border.’

‘I should dislike it excessively,’ said Miss Tresilian, after a little pause.

He halted his team and turned, laying his hand on one of hers, and strongly grasping it. ‘Nell!’ he said, in quite another voice. ‘So many years wasted – so much bitterness – ! Nell, my dear love, don’t say it’s too late! You
must
marry me – you
shall
!’

Her fingers clung to his, and there was the sparkle of tears in her smiling eyes, but she replied with great dignity: ‘I have every intention of marrying you, but
not
, I promise you, in such a clandestine fashion as that! Iver, for heaven’s sake – ! There’s an Accommodation coach coming towards us –
George
!’

But as his lordship, with his usual top-lofty disregard of appearances, paid no heed whatsoever to this warning, and Miss Tresilian was powerless (even had she made the attempt) to free herself from his embrace, the roof passengers on the coach were afforded a shocking example of the decay of modern manners, one moralist going so far as to express his desire to see such shameless persons set in the stocks. ‘Kissing and hugging on the public highway!’ he said, craning his neck to obtain the last possible glimpse of the disgusting spectacle. ‘Calling themselves Quality, too!’

But in this he was wrong. With her cheek against his lordship’s, Miss Tresilian said, on a choke of laughter: ‘What a
vulgar
couple we are, love!’

‘Well, who cares a rush for that?’ he demanded. ‘Oh, my darling, what
fools
we have been!’

‘Papa,’ said Miss Massingham, ‘is persuaded you would have not the least objection, or you may be sure I should not have ventured to ask you, dear Charles, for perhaps you might not quite wish to oblige him in this way.’

She paused, and glanced doubtfully up at dear Charles. It could not have been said that his handsome countenance bore the expression of one delighted to oblige his Mama’s old friend, but he bowed politely. Miss Massingham reminded herself that this elegant gentleman, with his great shoulders setting off a coat of blue superfine, and his shapely leg encased in a skin-tight pantaloon and a Hessian boot of dazzling gloss, was the bouncing baby on whom, thirty years before, she had bestowed a coral rattle. She said archly: ‘You are grown so grand that I declare I stand quite in awe of you!’

The expression of boredom on Sir Charles Wainfleet’s countenance became more pronounced.

‘I am sure, a most notable dandy!’ said Miss Massingham, hopeful of giving pleasure.

‘Believe me, ma’am, you flatter me!’ said Sir Charles.

The third person present here came, as her duty was, to his rescue. ‘No, Louisa!’ she said. ‘
Not
a dandy!
They
only care for their clothes, and Charles cares for a great deal besides, such as prize-fighting, and cocking, and all the
horridest
things! He is a Corinthian!’

‘Thank you, Mama, but shall we leave this subject, and discover instead just what it is that the General feels I shall have not the least objection to doing?’

Encouraged by this speech, Miss Massingham plunged into a tangle of words. ‘It is so very obliging of you! The notion came into Papa’s head when I mentioned the circumstance of your Mama’s going to Bath next week, and that you mean to escort her! “Well, then,” he said, “if that is so, Charles may bring Anne home!” I instantly demurred, but, “Balderdash!” exclaimed Papa – you know his soldierly way! – “If he fancies himself to have become too great a man to escort my granddaughter home from school, let him come and tell me so!” Which, however, I do beg you will not do, Charles, for Papa’s gout has been very troublesome lately!’

‘Have no fear, ma’am! I should not dare!’ said Sir Charles, his weary boredom suddenly dissipated by a smile of singular charm.

‘Oh, Charles, you are so very – ! The thing is, you see, that ever since the Mail was held up in that shocking way at Hounslow last month we have not known how to bring Nan home in safety! You must know that she has been a parlour boarder this year past at the Misses Titterstone’s seminary in Queen’s Square, and we have promised that she shall come home at Christmas. But for the circumstance of Papa’s illness last winter, we had intended – but it was not to be! And now we find ourselves at a stand, and how we may entrust my poor brother’s only child, left to our care when he was killed in that dreadful Peninsula – how we may entrust her, as I say, to the perils of the road, without some gentleman to escort her, we know not! And I am confident,’ added Miss Massingham earnestly, ‘that she would not tease you, Charles, for we shall send her old nurse down to Bath, and you need do no more than drive your curricle within sight of the chaise, and so we may be easy!’

If Sir Charles wondered why General Sir James Massingham should consider that his presence, within sight of his granddaughter’s chaise, would afford a better protection against highwaymen than an armed escort, he did not betray this. Nor did he betray the reluctance of a Nonpareil to assume charge of a Bath miss. It was Lady Wainfleet who raised an objection. ‘Oh, but I depend on having Charles with me for Christmas!’ she said. ‘Dearest Almeria has been to visit me today, expressly to tell me that she will be in Bath herself for several weeks. She is to stay with her aunt, in Camden Place, and her brother, Stourbridge, is to bring her to town only a few days after we ourselves shall have left.’

Miss Massingham’s face fell. The notice that Sir Charles Wainfleet, wealthiest of baronets, had at last fulfilled the expectations of the impoverished Earl of Alford, by offering for the hand of the Lady Almeria Spalding, eldest daughter of this improvident peer, had appeared some weeks previously in the
Gazette
, and she recognized that Lady Almeria’s claims must take precedence of her niece’s.

It was at this point that Sir Charles shook off his air of detachment. ‘Almeria is going to Bath?’ he said.

‘Yes, is it not a happy chance? I was about to tell you of it when Louisa was announced.’

‘On the contrary!’ he returned. ‘It is unfortunate that I should not have been apprized of this circumstance earlier. It so happens that I have engagements in town which I must not break. It will not be in my power, ma’am, to remain in Bath above a couple of nights.’

‘You cannot mean to do such an uncivil thing as to leave Bath before Almeria arrives!’ cried his mother. ‘Good God, you would very likely meet her on the road!’

‘Were I to delay my departure until after her arrival,’ said Sir Charles glibly, ‘I dare say I should find it impossible to tear myself away. I could not reconcile it with my conscience to disoblige so old a friend as the General. I shall be happy, Miss Massingham, to afford your niece all the protection of which I am capable.’

It was impossible for Lady Wainfleet to say more. Miss Massingham was already overwhelming Sir Charles with her gratitude. She said that she could not thank him enough, and she was still thanking him when he escorted her out to her carriage. But when he strolled back to the drawing-room, Lady Wainfleet begged him to consider before deciding to leave Bath so soon. ‘Now that Almeria is to go there –’

‘That circumstance, Mama,
did
decide me,’ interrupted Sir Charles. ‘Within a few months I shall be obliged to spend the rest of my life in Almeria’s company. Allow me to enjoy what is left to me of my liberty!’

‘Charles!’ she faltered. ‘Oh, dear! if I had thought that you would dislike it so much I would never – Not that I have the least power to force you into a marriage you don’t like, only it has been an understood thing for so many years, and it is not as though you had ever a
tendre
for another eligible lady, and you are past thirty now, so that –’

‘Oh yes, yes, ma’am!’ he said impatiently. ‘It is high time that I settled down! I have no doubt that Almeria will do me great credit. We were clearly made for one another – but I shall not spend Christmas in Bath!’

Eight days later, having sustained an interview with two genteel spinsters in mittens and mob-caps, who were much flustered to find their parlour invaded by a large and disturbingly handsome gentleman, wearing a drab driving-coat with no fewer than sixteen shoulder-capes, Sir Charles made the acquaintance of his youthful charge. He beheld a demure schoolgirl, attired in a plain pelisse, and with a close bonnet almost entirely concealing her braided locks. She stood in meek silence while Miss Titterstone assured Sir Charles that dear Anne would be no trouble to him. Miss Maria, endorsing this statement, added, with rather odd anxiety, that she knew Anne would behave just as she ought. Both ladies seemed to derive consolation from the presence of Mrs Fitton, who all the while stood beaming fondly upon her nurseling.

Sir Charles, amused, wondered whether the good ladies suspected him of cherishing improper designs towards a chit of a schoolgirl in the most unbecoming hat and pelisse he had ever seen. Their evident uneasiness seemed to him absurd.

Farewells having been spoken, the travellers went out into the Square, where two vehicles stood waiting. One was a post-chaise and pair; the other a sporting curricle. Miss Massingham’s large grey eyes took due note of this equipage, but she made no remark. Only, as Sir Charles handed her up into the chaise, she said: ‘If you please, sir, would you be so
very
obliging as to permit me to stop for a few minutes at Madame Lucille’s, in Milsom Street?’

‘Certainly. I will direct your post-boy to drive there,’ he replied.

Upon arrival in Milsom Street, one glance at Madame Lucille’s establishment was enough to inform Sir Charles that Miss Massingham proposed to visit a mantua-maker. Assuring him that she would not keep him waiting for very long, she disappeared into the shop, followed by Mrs Fitton, whose smile, Sir Charles noticed, had given place to a look of decided anxiety.

Time passed. Sir Charles drew out his watch, and frowned. Speenhamland, where rooms for the night had been bespoken, was fully fifty-five miles distant, and the start of the journey had already been delayed by the chattiness of the Misses Titterstone. The horses were on the fret. Sir Charles walked them to the top of the street, and back again. When he had repeated this exercise some half a dozen times, there was a sparkle in his eye which made his groom thankful that it was the young lady and not himself who was keeping Sir Charles waiting.

At the end of another twenty minutes there erupted from the shop a vision in whom Sir Charles with difficulty recognized Miss Anne Massingham. Not only was she now arrayed in a crimson velvet pelisse, but she had set upon her head an all-too dashing hat, whose huge, upstanding poke-front was lined with gathered silk, and whose high crown was embellished with a plume of curled ostrich feathers. This confection was secured by broad satin ribbons, tied in a jaunty bow under one ear; and it displayed to advantage Miss Massingham’s dark curls, now released from bondage, and rioting frivolously. A tippet and muff completed this modish toilet; and she carried, with its forepaws drooping over the muff, a curly-tailed puppy of mixed parentage. This circumstance did not immediately strike Sir Charles, for his gaze was riveted to that preposterous hat.

‘Good God!’ he ejaculated. ‘My good child, you are not, I trust, proposing to travel to London in that bonnet?’

‘Yes, I am,’ asserted Miss Massingham. ‘It is the high kick of fashion!’

‘It is quite unsuited to a journey, and still more so to your years,’ said Sir Charles crushingly.

‘Fiddle!’ said Miss Massingham. ‘I am not a schoolgirl now, and if it had not been for Grandpapa’s illness I should have ceased to be one a year ago! I am nineteen, you know, and I have been saving all my money for months to buy just such a hat as this! You could not be so unkind as to forbid me to wear it!’

Sir Charles looked down into the pleading, upturned face; Sir Charles’s groom stared woodenly ahead. ‘What,’ demanded Sir Charles, turning upon the unhappy Mrs Fitton, ‘possessed you to let your mistress buy such a hat?’

‘Oh, don’t scold poor Fitton!’ begged Miss Massingham. ‘Indeed, she implored me not to!’

Sir Charles found himself quite unable to withstand the look of entreaty in those big eyes. A whimper from the creature in Miss Massingham’s arms provided him with a diversion. ‘How did you come by that animal?’ he asked sternly.

‘Is he not the dearest little dog? He came running into the shop, and Madame Lucille told me that her pug has had six puppies just like him! She let me buy this one very cheaply, because she is very desirous of disposing of them all.’

‘I imagine she might be,’ said Sir Charles, viewing the pup with disfavour. ‘However, it is no concern of mine, and we have wasted too much time already. If we are to reach Speenhamland in time for dinner we must make haste.’

‘Oh, yes!’ said Miss Massingham blithely. ‘And may I ride with you in your curricle, Sir Charles?’ She read prohibition in his eye, and added coaxingly: ‘Just for a
little
way, may I? For your groom, you know, may easily go with Fitton in the chaise.’

Again Sir Charles found it impossible to withstand the entreaty in those eyes. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘If you think you won’t be cold, you may jump up beside me.’

By the time the curricle had reached Bath Easton, Miss Massingham had begged Sir Charles to call her Nan, because, she said, everyone did so; and Sir Charles had reprimanded her for saying that her friends in Queen’s Square had greatly envied her her good fortune in being escorted to London by one who was well-known to be a buck of the first head.

‘A
what
?’ said Sir Charles.

‘Well, it is what Priscilla Gretton’s brother said, when she rallied him on the way he tied his neckcloth,’ explained Nan. ‘He said it was just how you tie yours, and that you were a buck of the first head.’

‘I am obliged to Mr Gretton for his approval,’ said Sir Charles, ‘and I dare say that when he has learnt to refrain alike from trying to copy my way with a neckcloth and from teaching cant phrases to schoolgirls he may do tolerably well.’

‘I can see that it is an expression I should not have used,’ said Nan knowledgeably. ‘Must I not call you a Nonpareil either, sir?’

He laughed. ‘If you wish! But why should you talk about me at all? Tell me about yourself!’

She was doubtful whether so limited a subject could interest him, but since she was of a confiding nature it was not long before she was chatting happily to him. When the horses were changed, there was very little about Miss Massingham that he did not know; and since he found her curious mixture of innocence and worldly wisdom something quite out of the common way he was not sorry that she spurned a suggestion that she should continue the journey in the chaise. She was not, she said, at all chilly; she had been wondering, on the contrary, whether she might perhaps be allowed to take the ribbons.

‘Certainly not!’ said Sir Charles.

‘You are such a famous whip yourself, sir, that you could very easily teach me to drive,’ argued Miss Massingham, in persuasive accents.

‘No doubt I could, but I shall not. I dislike being driven.’

‘Oh!’ said Miss Massingham, damped. ‘I don’t mean to tease you, only it would be
such
a thing to boast of!’

He could not help laughing. ‘Absurd brat! Well – for half an hour, then, but no longer!’

‘
Thank
you!’ said Miss Massingham, her air of gentle melancholy vanishing.

When she was at last induced to give the reins back to her instructor, the Beckhampton Inn had been passed, and the chaise had long been out of sight. Sir Charles put his pair along at a spanking pace, and would no doubt have overtaken the chaise had his companion not announced suddenly that she was hungry. A glance at his watch showed him that it was past one o’clock. He said ruefully: ‘I should have stopped to give you a nuncheon rather than have let you take the ribbons.’