Sprig Muslin (23 page)

"Oh!" said Mr. Ross, rather at a loss.

"I was left an orphan at an early age," she continued, embellishing Sir Gareth's crude handiwork. "Alas! I am quite alone in the world, without kith or kin."

Mr. Ross, himself a great reader of romances, found nothing to object to in the style of this narrative, but cavilled a little at the matter. "What, have you no relations at all?" he asked incredulously. "No cousins, even?"

Amanda thought him unnecessarily captious, but obligingly presented him with a relative. "Yes, I have an uncle," she conceded. "But he cannot help me, so—"

"But why not?
Surely
—"

Amanda, regretting the creation of an uncle who seemed likely to prove an embarrassment, with great presence of mind place him beyond Mr. Ross's reach. "He is in Bedlam," she said. "So we need not think any more about
him.
The thing is that—"

"Mad?"
interrupted Mr. Ross, in horrified accents.

"Raving
mad," said Amanda firmly.

"How very dreadful!"

"Yes, isn't it? Because I have no one to turn to but Sir Gareth."

"Is he a dangerous madman?" asked Mr. Ross, apparently fascinated by the uncle.

"I do wish you would stop asking questions about my uncle, and attend to what I am saying!" said Amanda, exasperated.

"I beg pardon! It must be excessively painful for you!"

"Yes, and it is quite beside the point, too. Sir Gareth, wishing to possess himself of my fortune, is determined to force me into marriage with himself, and for this purpose is carrying me to London."

"To London? I should have thought—"

"To London," repeated Amanda emphatically. "Because that is where he lives, and he means to incarcerate me in his house until I submit. And it's no use saying the parish constable would stop him, because Sir Gareth would deny every word, and say that he was taking me to live with his sister, who is a very disagreeable woman, and would do anything to oblige him. And everyone would believe him, because they always do. So you would only make a great noise, which I should very much dislike, and all to no purpose."

Mr. Ross could see that this was very likely, but he was still puzzled. "Where have you been living?" he demanded. "I don't perfectly understand. You said he abducted you: haven't you been residing under his roof?"

"No, no, I have hitherto resided with a very respectable woman, who—" She stopped, and decided to eliminate a possible danger. "—who is dead. I mean, she died two years ago, and Sir Gareth then placed me in a seminary, which is exactly the sort of thing he
would
do! Only now that I am old enough to be married, he came and removed me, and naturally I was pleased, because
then
I believed him to be everything that was amiable. But when he told me that I must marry him—"

"Good God, I should have thought he would have had more address!" exclaimed Mr. Ross. "Told you that you must marry him when he had only that instant removed you from the seminary?"

"Oh, no! The thing was that he supposed I should like the notion, because previously I had been excessively attached to him, on account of his being so handsome, and agreeable. Only, of course, I never thought of marrying him. Why, he's quite old! So then I was in a great fright, and I ran away from the place where we were staying last night and he chased me all day, and found me at last, and brought me here. And I cannot think how to escape again, and oh, I am so very unhappy!"

The passionate sincerity with which these final words were uttered pierced Mr. Ross to the heart. He was ashamed to think that he had for a moment doubted the story, and in some agitation implored Amanda not to cry. Amanda, between sobs, told him of her early adventures. These had been wholly enjoyable at the time, but regarded in retrospect, now that she was tired and defeated, the day seemed to her to have been one of unrelieved misery and discomfort.

Mr. Ross had no difficulty in believing this at least. He would, indeed, have found it impossible to have believed that anything less than the direst necessity could have induced a gently-born young female to have take so unprecedented and perilous a step as to cast herself upon the world as she had done. From the moment of her escape, the poor little thing had been mercilessly hounded. It did not surprise him to learn that the fat old gentleman who had with such false kindness offered to carry her to Oundle had tried to take advantage of her innocence. His sensitive nature made it easy for him to imagine the desperation of terror which must have had her in its grip, and the thought of so fragile and lovely a creature cowering on the floor of a farm-cart made him shudder, not the smallest suspicion entering his head that she had thoroughly enjoyed this part of her adventure. The description of the devilish cunning employed by Sir Gareth to regain possession of her lost nothing in the telling. Sir Gareth began, in Mr. Ross's mind, to assume an aspect of smiling villainy. He wondered how he should have been taken-in by his pleasant manners, until he remembered certain warnings given him by his father against too readily trusting smooth-tongued and apparently creditable gentlemen of fashionable appearance. The world, said the Squire, was full of plausible banditti on the lookout for green young men of fortune. Their stock-in-trade was winning charm, and they frequently bestowed titles upon themselves, generally military. No doubt they were also on the look-out for rich wives, but naturally the Squire had not thought it necessary to tell his son this.

Had some chance brought Mr. Ross face to face with Sir Gareth again, it was possible that his leaping imagination would have suffered a check. But Sir Gareth had gone to bed, and Mr. Ross's last sight of him had been of him on the corridor, locking Amanda into her room. Every word he had said to Amanda bore out the truth of her story, and of his cynical heartlessness there could be no doubt. Only a hardened scoundrel, in Mr. Ross's opinion, could have laughed at Amanda's anguish. Sir Gareth, not content with laughing, had mocked at her distress. He had also (now one came to think of it) tried to deceive her with promises of generous entertainment in London.

No chance brought Sir Gareth on to the scene to counter-act the combined influences on an impressionable youth of Amanda and a full moon. Perched on the stable-ladder, a modern Romeo and his Juliet discussed ways and means.

It did not take them long to discard the trappings of convention. "Oh, I wish you will not call me Miss Smith!" said Juliet.

"Amanda!" breathed Mr. Ross reverently. "And my name is Hildebrand."

"Isn't it odd that we should both of us have the most ridiculous names?" said Amanda. "Do you find yours a sad trial?"

Struck by her rare understanding, Mr. Ross told her just how sad a trial his name had been to him, and explained to her the precise circumstances which had led to his being given a name calculated to blight his scholastic career. He had never dreamed it could sound well until he heard it on her lips.

After this digression, they became more practical, and very much more argumentative. A number of schemes for Amanda's deliverance, all of which depended upon some extremely improbable stroke of good fortune, were considered, and dismissed regretfully; and a promising new alliance was nearly ruptured by Hildebrand's rejection of a daring suggestion that he should creep into Sir Gareth's room, and steal from under his pillow (where there could be no doubt it was hidden) the key to Amanda's room. In Hildebrand, an inculcated respect for convention warred with a craving for romance. The thought of the construction Sir Gareth would inevitably place on the attempted theft of the key, should he wake (as Hildebrand rather thought he would) before the accomplishment of the design, made that young gentleman blush all over his slim body. He was naturally unable to disclose to Amanda the cause of his reluctance, and so was obliged to endure the mortification of being thought a wretchedly cowardly creature.

"Oh, well, if you are
afraid
—!" said Amanda, with a disdainful shrug of her shoulders.

Her scorn sharpened his wits. The glimmerings of a plan, more daring than any that had occurred to her, flickered in his brain. "Wait!" he commanded, his brows knit portentously. "I have a better notion!"

She waited. After a prolonged silence, pregnant with suspense, Mr. Ross said suddenly: "Are you willing to place your honour in my hands?"

"Yes, yes, of course I am!" responded Amanda, agog with exasperation.

"And do you think," he asked anxiously, descending with disconcerting rapidity from these heights, "that, if I were mounted on my horse, Prince, you could contrive to leap up before me?"

"I could, if you reached down your hand to me," replied Amanda optimistically.

He considered this for a daunted moment. "Well, I shall be holding a pistol in my right hand, and I shouldn't
think
I could contrive to hold the bridle in it as well," he said dubiously. "I could try, of course, but— No, I think it would be best if I tucked the reins under my knee. And even if Prince does become restive it won't signify, once I have you firmly gripped. All you will have to do is to set your foot on mine in the stirrup, and spring the moment I tell you to. Do you think you can do that?"

"Are you going to ride off with me across your saddlebow?" demanded Amanda eagerly.

"Yes—well, no, not precisely! I mean, I thought, if you put your arms round me, you could sit before me—just until we were beyond the reach of pursuit!" he added quickly

"Yes, that would be much more comfortable," she agreed. "Of course I could do it!"

"Well, when the notion first came to me, I thought you could, too, but now I come to think of it more particularly, I can see that it is a thing we ought to practise."

"No, no, I am persuaded there can be not the least difficulty!" she urged. "Only think how knights in olden times were for ever riding off with distressed ladies!"

"Yes, and in armour, too!" he said forcibly struck. "Still, we don't know but what they may have bungled it before they acquired the habit, and it won't do for us to bungle it. I think I had better dismount, and hold Prince while you get upon his back. Are you able to mount without assistance?"

"Certainly I am! But what are you going to do?"

"Hold you up on the road to Bedford!" disclosed Hildebrand.

Amanda uttered a squeak, which he correctly interpreted as an expression of admiration and approval and save a little jump of excitement. "Like a highwayman? Oh, what a
splendid
scheme!
Pray
forgive me for not having thought yon had any courage!"

"It's a pretty desperate thing to do, of course," said Hildebrand, "but I can see that only desperate measures will answer in this case and I would do
anything
to save you from your guardian! I cannot conceive why your father left you in the care of such an infamous person! It seems the oddest thing!"

"
He was deceived in him, but never mind that!" said Amanda hastily. "How do you know he means to go to Bedford?"

"I discovered it when I was waiting for an opportunity to seize this ladder! Only to think that I was wishing that groom at Jericho, when all the time I had been guided to the stables by Providence! Because the groom was arranging for the hire of a chaise for his master, and enquiring about the state of the road that runs to Bedford. It's not a pike-road you know, but Sir Gareth means to go
by it, just to Bedford, which is only one stage. And there you are to change from this chaise, which is a shabby, oldfashioned one, and go on to London in a better one, which, of course, may readily be hired in a place like Bedford. Four horses, too! By Jove, it is
another
instance of Providence! For, you know, if this weren't such a quiet place, with precious little custom, I daresay they would keep any number of fast vehicles for hire, and bang-up cattle as well, and I might have been at a stand. For I daresay I should have found it pretty hard to cover
two
postilions, as well as Sir Gareth. But only a pair of horses are hired for the first stage, which makes my task much easier. And I will own myself astonished if we do not find the road deserted, so early in the day! I mean, it can't be like the pike-roads, with mails and stages going up and down at all hours."

Amanda agreed to this, but was shaken by doubt. "Yes, but how will you procure a pistol?" she objected.

"Procure one! I have a pair of my own, in my saddle holsters," said Hildebrand, unable to keep a note of pride out of his voice. "Loaded, too."

"Oh!" said Amanda, rather thoughtfully.

"You need not be afraid that I don't know how to handle them. My father holds that one should be accustomed to guns as soon as possible. I don't wish to boast, but I am accounted a tolerably good shot."

"Yes, but I don't wish you to shoot Sir Gareth, or even the post-boy," said Amanda uneasily.

"Good God, no! Of course I shall do nothing of the sort! Lord, a pretty kick-up
that
would mean! I might be obliged to fire one of the pistols over the post-boy's head, to frighten him, you know, but I promise you I shan't do more. There won't be the least need. I shall hold Sir Gareth covered, and you may depend upon it he won't dare to move, with my pistol pointing at his head. He is bound to be taken quite by surprise, but
you
will not be, and you must lose not an instant in jumping down from the chaise, and mounting Prince. Then I shall get up behind you, and we shall be off in a trice." He paused, but Amanda said nothing. After a moment, he said, rather hurt: "You don't care for the scheme?"