Sprig Muslin (7 page)

From the sparkling look in her eyes, it was to be inferred that the prospect strongly attracted her. It seemed, for a moment, as though she were on the point of divulging her Brigade-Major's name, but just as Sir Gareth was silently congratulating himself on the success of his tactics, she said suddenly: "I see what it is! It is all a trick, so that you may discover where I live, and ruin my scheme! Well, I shall
not
send a message to Neil!"

"You know, Amanda," he said seriously, "you may just as well tell me what I wish to know, because I am going to discover it, whether you do or whether you don't."

"No! How can you?" she demanded.

"If you force me to do so, I shall pay a visit to the Horse Guards, and enquire of them there if they can furnish me with the direction of a captain of infantry, a Brigade-Major, sent home from the Peninsula with a ball in his shoulder, but now in hourly expectation of rejoining. I expect they will be able to help me, though I can't but feel that Neil would infinitely prefer to be discovered in a rather more private style. This is for you to decide."

She did not speak for several moments; then she said, in a gritty little voice: "You think you've worsted me, but you have not! I shan't tell you anything, and I promise you I— I shall come about!"

"Very well," he replied equably.

"I believe," said Amanda, after another seething pause, "that kidnappers are sent to prison, or even
transported!
You would not like that, I daresay!"

"No, indeed!"

"Well! I am just warning you!" she said.

"Thank you! I am very much obliged to you."

"And if
you,"
declared Amanda, bethinking herself of the groom, and twisting round to address him, "had one grain of manliness, you would not permit your master to carry me off!"

Trotton, a deeply interested audience, was unprepared for this attack, and nearly lost his balance. Much discomposed, he could only stammer an unintelligible answer, and glance imploringly at Sir Gareth's back-view.

"Oh, you mustn't blame Trotton!" said Sir Gareth. "Consider how difficult is his position! He is obliged to obey my orders, you see."

"He is not obliged to assist you in kidnapping people!" she retorted.

"I engaged him on the strict understanding," said Sir Gareth firmly, "that that would form an important part of his duties."

"I w-wish you will not be so absurd!" said Amanda, struggling to suppress a giggle.

He turned his head to smile down at her. "That's better!"

She laid a mittened hand on his sleeve, directing a beseeching look up at him. "Oh, will you
please
let me go? You are ruining everything!"

"I know I am, and I do beg your pardon. I must be quite the most abominable marplot imaginable."

"Well, you are! And I thought you were so very agreeable!"

"I too have been badly deceived in myself," he said, shaking his head. "Would you believe it?—I had no notion that I was such a monster of inhumanity as I have proved myself to be."

"Well, it is being a monster to betray me, and then to try to roast me!" she said, turning away her flushed countenance, and biting her lip.

"Poor Amanda! You are perfectly right: it is a great deal too bad of me, and I won't roast you any more. Let me tell you instead where I am taking you!"

"I shan't listen to a word you say," she informed him coldly.

"That will teach me a lesson," he observed.

"I think you are the horridest creature!" she exclaimed. "Yes, and now I come to think of it, if you are taking me to your own home, it is most improper, and far worse than letting me go to an inn!"

"It would be," he agreed. "But my home isn't in this part of the country. I am taking you to Brancaster Park, where I think you will find a very kind hostess in Lady Hester Theale."

Upon hearing these words, Trotton, who was much attached to his master, very nearly allowed a protest to escape him. If Sir Gareth meant to arrive at Brancaster Park with this dazzling young beauty on his arm, he was unquestionably out of his senses, and ought to be restrained. But it was not the business of his groom to point out to him the unwisdom of introducing his chance-met bit of muslin to the Lady Hester. Trotton dared do no more than give a warning cough, to which Sir Gareth paid no heed at all.

Sir Gareth stood in no need of warning. Had any other solution for the safe disposal of Amanda occurred to him, he. would have seized it, for he was well aware that to present himself at Brancaster Park, with the declared intention of proposing marriage to Lady Hester, accompanied by Amanda must be as prejudicial to his interests as it was ludicrous. But he believed that he could rely on Hester to receive Amanda kindly; and he hoped that she would understand that he had no other choice than to bring that headstrong damsel to the shelter of her home.

Amanda, meanwhile, was demanding to be told who lived at Brancaster Park. When she learned that she was to be the uninvited guest of Lord Brancaster, and of his daughter, she protested vehemently, saying that so far from being anxious to regain possession of her, her grandfather would in all probability be delighted to know she was a guest in an Earl's country seat. Sir Gareth suggested helpfully that she should prevail upon Lady Hester to hire her as an abigail.

Amanda audibly ground her teeth. "If you force me to go there with you, I shall make you very, very sorry!" she warned him.

"I expect you will, and am already in a quake of terror," he agreed.

"I
trusted
you!" she said tragically. "Now you are going to betray my confidence, besides ruining all my schemes!"

"No, I won't betray your confidence, except, I think, to Lady Hester. When you have met her, you won't, I fancy, object to her knowing the truth. I shall desire her not to divulge it to her father, or—if they should happen to be at Brancaster—to her brother and his wife."

She was quick to catch a certain inflexion in his voice, and lifted her eyes to his profile, saying: "I can tell you don't like them above half, sir. Are they horrid?"

He smiled. "No, not horrid. I daresay very worthy people, but it so happens that they are not particular friends of mine."

"Oh! Is Lord Brancaster a particular friend of yours, sir?"

"Well, he is considerably older than I am," he temporised.

She digested this, enquiring presently: "Is Lady Hester a particular friend of yours, then?"

"Why, yes! She and I have been good friends for many years now."

He was prepared for even more searching questions, but she relapsed into silence. After several minutes, he said: "I have been wondering what I should tell Brancaster, and the Widmores, and I am strongly of the opinion, Amanda, that you are the daughter of some acquaintances with whom I have been staying, at Baldock. You are on your way to visit relations at—Oundle, perhaps—and from some cause or another I offered to take you with me as far as to Huntingdon, where these relations had engaged themselves to meet you. Unhappily, there must have been a misunderstanding, for no carriage awaited you there. Being pledged to present myself at Brancaster Park today, what was I to do? Why, take you along with me, to be sure, with the intention of conveying you to Oundle tomorrow! How does that suit your notion of a splendid story?"

"It is quite untrue," she said primly.

"I wonder why I should have thought that that would have recommended it to you?" he murmured.

The only reply he got to this sally was a dagger-glance. He said, over his shoulder: "I trust you heard that, Trotton?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, don't forget it!"

"Pray have the goodness to inform me, sir," said Amanda, with awful civility, "where you have the intention of taking me tomorrow?"

"I hope, to your grandfather."

"No!"

He shrugged. "As you wish."

Intrigued, she demanded: "Where, then?"

"That, my child, you will see, in good time."

"I believe you are at a stand!" she challenged him.

"Not a bit of it!"

Conversation languished after that, Amanda occupying herself for the remainder of the journey in turning over in her mind various plots for Sir Gareth's discomfiture, and returning only monosyllabic replies to his occasional remarks.

They reached Brancaster Park as the shadows were beginning to lengthen, passing through impressive lodge-gates, and driving for some way up an avenue which had been allowed to deteriorate into something akin to a cart-track. The trees, growing rather too thickly beside it, rendered it both damp and gloomy; and when the pleasure gardens came into sight these too bore unmistakeable signs of neglect. Amanda looked about her with disfavour; and, when her eyes alighted on the square, grey mansion, exclaimed: "Oh, I wish you had not brought me here! What an ugly, disagreeable house!"

"If I could have thought of any other place for you, believe me, I wouldn't have brought you here, Amanda!" he said frankly. "For a more awkward situation I defy anyone to imagine!"

"Well, if it seems so to you, set me down now, while there is still time!" she urged.

"No, I am determined not to let you escape me," he replied lightly. "I can only hope to be able to pass you off with some credit—though what the household will think of a young lady who travels with her belongings contained in a couple of bandboxes heaven only knows! I trust at least that we may not find the house full of guests. No, I fancy it won't be."

He was right, but his host, who did not scruple to exaggerate in moments of acute vexation, had been so describing it ever since the unwelcome arrival, earlier in the day, of the Honourable Fabian Theale.

Mr. Theale was his lordship's brother, and if he had been born with any other object than to embarrass his family, his lordship had yet to discover it. He was a bachelor, with erratic habits, expensive tastes, and pockets permanently to let. His character was volatile, his disposition amiable; and since he had a firm belief in benevolent Providence neither duns nor impending scandals had the power to ruffle his placidity. That it was first his father, and, later, his elder brother, who enacted the role of Providence troubled him not at all; and whenever the Earl swore that he had rescued him for the last time he made not the slightest effort either to placate his brother or to mend his extremely reprehensible ways, because he knew that while the Earl shared many of his tastes he had also a strong prejudice against open scandals, and could always be relied upon, whatever the exigencies of his own situation, to rescue one of his name from the bailiff's clutches.

At no time was his lordship pleased to receive a visit from Mr. Theale; when that florid and portly gentleman descended upon him on the very day appointed for Sir Gareth's arrival he so far forgot himself as to say, in front of the butler, a footman, and Mr. Theale's own valet, that no one need trouble to carry the numerous valises upstairs, since he was not going to house his brother for as much as a night.

Mr. Theale, beyond enquiring solicitously if his lordship's gout was plaguing him, paid no attention to this. He adjured the footman to handle his dressing-case carefully, and informed the Earl that he was on his way to Leicestershire. The Earl eyed him with wrath and misgiving. Mr. Theale owned a snug little hunting-box near Melton Mowbray, but if he was proposing to visit it in the middle of July this could only mean that circumstances had rendered it prudent, if not urgently necessary, for him to leave town for a space. "What is it this time?" he demanded, leading the way into the library. "You haven't come home for the pleasure of seeing me, so out with it I And I give you fair warning, Fabian—"

"No, no, it's no pleasure to me to see you, old fellow!" Mr. Theale assured him. "In fact, if I weren't in the basket I wouldn't have come here, because to see you fretting and fuming is enough to give one a fit of the dismals."

"When last I saw you," said the Earl suspiciously, "you told me you had made a recover! Said you had had a run of luck at faro, and were as fresh as ever."

"Dash it, that was a month ago!" expostulated Mr. Theale. "You can't expect it to be high water with me for ever! Not but what if you could trust to the form-book I ought to be able to buy an abbey by now. But there it is! First there was the Salisbury meeting—by the by, old fellow, did you lay your blunt on Corkscrew? Got a notion I told you to."

"No, I didn't," replied the Earl shortly.

"Good thing," approved Mr. Theale. "Damned screw wasn't placed. Then there was Andover! Mind you, if I'd followed my own judgment, Whizgig would have carried my money, and very likely I wouldn't be here today. However, I let Jerry earwig me into backing Ticklepitcher, so here I am. I hear you was at the July meeting at Newmarket, and came off all right," he added dispassionately.

"As to that—"

"Three winners, and a devilish long price you must have got on True-blue, my boy! If I were half as tetchy as you are, I should take it mighty ill that you didn't pass me the word."

"I'll grease you in the fist on one condition!" said the Earl brutally.

"Anything you please, dear boy!" said Mr. Theale, impervious to insult. "Just tip over the dibs!"

"I have Ludlow coming here today, on a visit, and I shall be glad if you will take yourself off!"