Sprig Muslin Page 3

  ‘You have had the courage to spurn a match of mere worldly brilliance. A match which, I daresay, would have been welcome to any lady less highminded than yourself. Let me venture to say that you have done just as you should: nothing but misery, I am persuaded, could result from an alliance between yourself and a fashionable fribble.’

  ‘Poor Sir Gareth! I fear you are right, Mr Whyteleafe: I should make him such an odiously dull wife, should I not?’

  ‘A man of his frivolous tastes might think so,’ he agreed. ‘To a man of more serious disposition, however – But on this head I must not, at present, say more.’

  He then made her a bow, looking at her in a very speaking way, and withdrew, leaving her hovering between amusement and consternation.

  Her sister-in-law, who had not failed to mark the exchange, from the other end of the Long Gallery, where the party had assembled after dinner, did not hesitate, later, to ask her what had been said. ‘For if he had the effrontery to speak to you about this offer your papa has received, I hope you gave him a sharp set-down, Hetty! Such presumption! But there! I don’t doubt your papa egged him on. I promise you I made no bones about telling him that capping hounds to a scent won’t do in this case.’

  ‘Thank you: that was kind. But Mr Whyteleafe didn’t try to persuade me. Indeed, he said that he had told my father he would not, which I thought very courageous in him.’

  ‘Ay, that was what made Lord Brancaster as sulky as a bear. I’ll tell you what, Hetty: you’ll do well to accept Ludlow’s offer before Widmore puts it into your father’s head that you mean to have a beggarly parson for your husband.’

  ‘But I don’t,’ said Hester.

  ‘Lord, I know that! But I have eyes in my head, and I can see that Whyteleafe is growing extremely particular in his attentions. The devil of it is that Widmore has seen it too, and you know what a slowtop he is, my dear! Your father’s another. I don’t doubt he said something to put you in a tweak.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Hester said calmly.

  ‘At all events, he told you Ludlow was still moping for that girl he was betrothed to the deuce knows how many years ago!’ said Lady Widmore bluntly. ‘If you take my advice, you won’t heed him! I never saw a man less in the dumps that Ludlow.’

  ‘No, indeed. Or a man less in love,’ remarked Hester.

  ‘What of it? I can tell you this, Hetty: it ain’t so often that persons of our station marry for love. Look at me! You can’t suppose I was ever in love with poor Widmore! But I never took, any more than you did, and when the match was proposed to me I agreed to it, because there’s nothing worse for a female than to be left on the shelf.’

  ‘One grows accustomed to it,’ Hester said. ‘Can you believe, Almeria, that Sir Gareth and I should – should suit?’

  ‘Lord, yes! Why not? If the chance had been offered to me, I should have jumped out of my skin to snatch it!’ responded Lady Widmore frankly. ‘I know you don’t love him, but what’s that to the purpose? You think it over carefully, Hetty! You ain’t likely to receive another offer, or, in any event, not such an advantageous one, though I daresay Whyteleafe will pop the question, as soon as he gets preferment. Take Ludlow, and you’ll have a handsome fortune, a position of the first consequence, and an agreeable husband into the bargain. Send him to the rightabout, and you’ll end your days an old maid, let alone be obliged to listen to your father’s and Widmore’s reproaches for ever, if I know anything of the matter!’

  Hester smiled faintly. ‘One grows accustomed to that too. I have sometimes thought that when Papa dies I might live in quite a little house, by myself.’

  ‘Well, you won’t,’ said Lady Widmore trenchantly. ‘Your sister Susan will pounce on you: I can vouch for that! It would suit her very well to have you with her to wait on her hand and foot, and very likely act as governess to all those plain brats of hers as well! And Widmore would think it a first-rate scheme, so you’d get no support from him, or from Gertrude or Constance either. And it’s not a particle of good thinking you’d stand out against ’em, my dear, for you haven’t a ha’porth of spirit! If you want a home of your own, you’ll take Ludlow, and bless yourself for your good fortune, for you won’t get one by any other means!’

  With these encouraging words, Lady Widmore took herself off to her own bedchamber, pausing on the way to inform her lord that provided he and his father could keep still tongues in their heads she rather fancied she had done the trick.

  The Lady Hester, once her maid was dismissed, the candles blown out, and the curtains drawn round her bed, buried her face in the pillow and cried herself quietly to sleep.

  Three

  Three days later, Sir Gareth, in happy ignorance of the wretched indecision into which his proposal had thrown his chosen bride, left London, and pursued a rather leisurely progress towards Cambridgeshire. He drove his own curricle, with a pair of remarkably fine match-bays harnessed to it, and broke the journey at the house of some friends, not many miles from Baldock, where he remained for two nights, resting his horses. He took with him his head groom, but not his valet: a circumstance which disgusted that extremely skilled gentleman more than it surprised him. Sir Gareth, who belonged to the Corinthian set, was always very well dressed, but he was quite capable of achieving the effect he desired without the ministrations of the genius who had charge of his wardrobe; and the thought that alien hands were pressing his coats, or applying inferior blacking to his Hessian boots, caused him to feel no anguish at all.

  He was not expected at Brancaster Park until the late afternoon, but since the month was July, and the weather sultry, he set forward for the remainder of the journey in good time, driving his pair at an easy pace, and pausing to bait, when some twenty miles had been accomplished, in the village of Caxton. The place boasted only one posting-house, and that a modest one; and when Sir Gareth strolled into the coffee-room he found the landlord engaged in what appeared to be a somewhat heated argument with a young lady in a gown of sprig muslin, and a hat of chip-straw, which was tied becomingly over a mass of silken black locks.

  The landlord, as soon as he perceived an obvious member of the Quality upon the threshold, abandoned the lady without ceremony, and stepped forward, bowing, and desiring to know in what way he might have the honour of serving the newcomer.

  ‘It will be time enough to serve me when you have attended to this lady,’ replied Sir Gareth, who had not failed to remark the indignant expression in the lady’s big eyes.

  ‘Oh, no, sir! No, indeed! I am quite at liberty – very happy to wait upon your honour immediately!’ the landlord assured him. ‘I was just telling the young person that I daresay she will find accommodation at the Rose and Crown.’

  These words were added in a lowered voice, but they reached the lady’s ears, and caused her to say in a tone of strong disapprobation: ‘I am not a young person, and if I wish to stay in your horrid inn, I shall stay here, and it is not of the least use to tell me that you have no room, because I don’t believe you!’

  ‘I’ve told you before, miss, that this is a posting-house, and we don’t serve young per – females – who come walking in with no more than a couple of bandboxes!’ said the landlord angrily. ‘I don’t know what your lay is, nor I don’t want to, but I haven’t got any room for you, and that’s my last word!’

  Sir Gareth, who had retired tactfully to the window-embrasure, had been watching the stormy little face under the chip-hat. It was an enchantingly pretty face, with large, dark eyes, a lovely, wilful mouth, and a most determined chin. It was also a very youthful face, just now flushed with mortification. The landlord plainly considered its owner to be a female of no account, but neither the child’s voice nor her manner, which was decidedly imperious, belonged to one of vulgar birth. A suspicion that she was a runaway from some seminary for young ladies crossed Sir Gareth’s mind: he judged her to be about the same age as his niece;
and in some intangible way she reminded him of Clarissa. Not that she was really like Clarissa, for Clarissa had been divinely fair. Perhaps, he thought, with a tiny pang, the resemblance lay in her wilful look, and the tilt of her obstinate chin. At all events, she was far too young and too pretty to be going about the country unattended; and no more unsuitable resting-place than the common inn to which the landlord had directed her could have been found for her. If she were an errant schoolgirl, it clearly behoved a man of honour to restore her to her family.

  Sir Gareth came away from the window, saying, with his attractive smile: ‘Forgive me, but can I perhaps be of some assistance?’

  She eyed him uncertainly, not shyly, but with speculation in her candid gaze. Before she could answer, the landlord said that there was no need for the gentleman to trouble himself. He would have expanded the remark, but was checked. Sir Gareth said, quite pleasantly, but on a note of authority: ‘It appears to me that there is considerable need. It is quite out of the question that this lady should spend the night at the Rose and Crown.’ He smiled down at the lady again. ‘Suppose you were to tell me where you want to go to? I don’t think, you know, that your mama would wish you to stay at any inn without your maid.’

  ‘Well, I haven’t got a mama,’ replied the lady, with the air of one triumphing in argument.

  ‘I beg your pardon. Your father, then?’

  ‘And I haven’t got a father either!’

  ‘Yes, I can see that you think you have now driven me against the ropes,’ he said, amused. ‘And, of course, if both your parents are dead we shall never know what they would have felt about it. How would it be if we discussed the matter over a little refreshment? What would you like?’

  Her eyes brightened; she said cordially: ‘I should be very much obliged to you, sir, if you would procure a glass of lemonade for me, for I am excessively thirsty, and this odious man wouldn’t bring it to me!’

  The landlord said explosively: ‘Your honour! Miss walks in here, as you see her, wanting me to tell her when the next coach is due for Huntingdon, and when I say there won’t be one, not till tomorrow, first she asks me if I’m needing a chambermaid, and when I tell her I’m not needing any such thing, she up and says she’ll hire a room for the night! Now, I put it to your honour –’

  ‘Never mind!’ interrupted Sir Gareth, only the faintest tremor in his voice betraying the laughter that threatened to overcome him. ‘Just be good enough to fetch the lady a glass of lemonade, and, for me, a tankard of your home-brewed, and we will see what can be done to straighten out this tangle!’

  The landlord started to say something about the respectability of his house, thought better of it, and withdrew. Sir Gareth pulled a chair out from the table, and sat down, saying persuasively: ‘Now that we are rid of him, do you feel that you could tell me who you are, and how you come to be wandering about the country in this rather odd way? My name, I should tell you, is Ludlow – Sir Gareth Ludlow, entirely at your service!’

  ‘How do you do?’ responded the lady politely.

  ‘Well?’ said Sir Gareth, the twinkle in his eye quizzing her. ‘Am I, like the landlord, to call you miss? I really can’t address you as ma’am: you put me much too strongly in mind of my eldest niece, when she’s in mischief.’

  She had been eyeing him rather warily, but this remark seemed to reassure her, which was what it was meant to do. She said: ‘My name is Amanda, sir. Amanda S – Smith!’

  ‘Amanda Smith, I regret to be obliged to inform you that you are a shockingly untruthful girl,’ said Sir Gareth calmly.

  ‘It is a very good name!’ she said, on the defensive.

  ‘Amanda is a charming name, and Smith is very well in its way, but it is not your surname. Come, now!’

  She shook her head, the picture of pretty mulishness. ‘I shan’t tell you. If I did, you might know who I am, and I have a particular reason for not wishing anyone to know that.’

  ‘Are you escaping from school?’ he enquired.

  She stiffened indignantly. ‘Certainly not! I’m not a schoolgirl! In fact, I am very nearly seventeen, and I shall shortly be a married lady!’

  He sustained this with no more than a blink, and begged pardon with suitable gravity. Fortunately, the landlord returned at that moment, with lemonade, beer, and the grudging offer of freshly baked tarts, if Miss should happen to fancy them. Judging by the hopeful gleam in Amanda’s eyes that she would fancy them very much, Sir Gareth bade him bring in a dish of them, adding: ‘And some fruit as well, if you please.’

  Quite mollified by this openhanded behaviour, Amanda said warmly: ‘Thank you! To own the truth, I am excessively hungry. Are you really an uncle?’

  ‘Indeed I am!’

  ‘Well, I shouldn’t have thought it. Mine are the stuffiest people!’

  By the time she had disposed of six tartlets, and the better part of a bowl of cherries, cordial relations with her host had been well-established; and she accepted gratefully an offer to drive her to Huntingdon. She asked to be set down at the George; and when she saw a slight crease appear between Sir Gareth’s brows very obligingly added: ‘Or the Fountain, if you prefer it, sir.’

  The crease remained. ‘Is someone meeting you at one of these houses, Amanda?’

  ‘Oh, yes!’ she replied airily.

  He opened his snuff-box, and took a leisurely pinch. ‘Excellent! I will take you there with pleasure.’

  ‘Thank you!’ she said, bestowing a brilliant smile upon him.

  ‘And hand you into the care of whoever it is who is no doubt awaiting you,’ continued Sir Gareth amiably.

  She looked to be a good deal daunted, and said, after a pregnant moment: ‘Well, I don’t think you should do that, because I daresay they will be late.’

  ‘Then I will remain with you until they arrive.’

  ‘They might be very late!’

  ‘Or they might not come at all,’ he suggested. ‘Now, stop trying to hoax me with all these faradiddles, my child! I am much too old a hand to be taken in. No one is going to meet you in Huntingdon, and you may make up your mind to this: I am not going to leave you at the George, or the Fountain, or at any other inn.’

  ‘Then I shan’t go with you,’ said Amanda. ‘So then what will you do?’

  ‘I’m not quite sure,’ he replied. ‘I must either give you into the charge of the Parish officer here, or the Vicar.’

  She cried hotly: ‘I won’t be given into anyone’s charge! I think you are the most interfering, odious person I ever met, and I wish you will go away and leave me to take care of myself, which I am very well able to do!’

  ‘I expect you do,’ he agreed. ‘And, I very much fear, I am just as stuffy as your uncles, which is a very lowering reflection.’

  ‘If you knew the circumstances, I am persuaded you wouldn’t spoil everything!’ she urged.

  ‘But I don’t know the circumstances,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Well – well – if I were to tell you that I am escaping from persecution – ?’

  ‘I shouldn’t believe you. If you are not running away from school, you must be running away from your home, and I conjecture that you are doing that because you’ve fallen in love with someone of whom your relations don’t approve. In fact, you are trying to elope, and if anyone is to meet you in Huntingdon it is the gentleman to whom – as you informed me – you are shortly to be married.’

  ‘Well, you are quite out!’ she declared. ‘I am not eloping, though it would be a much better thing to do, besides being most romantic. Naturally, that was the first scheme I made.’

  ‘What caused you to abandon it?’ he enquired.

  ‘He wouldn’t go with me,’ said Amanda naïvely. ‘He says it is not the thing, and he won’t marry me without Grandpapa’s consent, on account of being a man of honour. He is a soldier,
and in a very fine regiment, although not a cavalry regiment. Grandpapa and my papa were both Hussars. Neil is home on sick leave from the Peninsula.’

  ‘I see. Fever, or wounds?’

  ‘He had a ball in his shoulder, and for months they couldn’t dig it out! That was why he was sent home.’

  ‘And have you become acquainted with him quite lately?’

  ‘Good gracious, no! I’ve known him for ever! He lives at – he lives near my home. At least, his family does. Most unfortunately, he is a younger son, which is a thing Grandpapa quite abominates, because Papa was one too, and so we both have very modest fortunes. Only, Neil has every intention of becoming a General, so that’s nothing to the purpose. Besides, I don’t want a large fortune. I don’t think it would be of the least use to me, except, perhaps, to buy Neil’s promotion, and even that wouldn’t answer, because he prefers to rise by his own exertions.’

  ‘Very proper,’ Sir Gareth said gravely.

  ‘Well, I think so, and when we are at war, you know, there is always a great deal of opportunity. Neil has his company already, and I must tell you that when he was obliged to come home he was a Brigade-Major!’

  ‘That is certainly excellent. How old is he?’

  ‘Twenty-four, but he is quite a hardened campaigner, I assure you, so that it is nonsense to suppose he can’t take care of me. Why, he can take care of a whole brigade.’

  He laughed. ‘That, I fancy, would be child’s play, in comparison!’

  She looked mischievous suddenly, but said: ‘No, for I am a soldier’s daughter, and shouldn’t be in the least troublesome, if only I could marry Neil, and follow the drum with him, and not have to be presented, and go to horrid balls at Almack’s, and be married to an odious man with a large fortune and a title.’

  ‘It would be very disagreeable to be married to an odious man,’ he agreed, ‘but that fate doesn’t overtake everyone who goes to Almack’s you know! Don’t you think you might like to see a little more of the world before you get married to anyone?’