Sprig Muslin (20 page)

She cast him a darkling look, but said nothing. Inspiration came to Joe, his withers unbearably wrung by her distress. Swooping upon the sandy kitten, he picked it up the the scruff of its neck, and held it out to Amanda. "You take him!" he said gruffly.

Nothing could have succeeded better in diverting her mind at that moment. Her face brightened; she clasped the kitten again, exclaiming:
"Oh!
How excessively kind of you! I am
very
much obliged to you! Only—" Her eyes turned apprehensively towards her hostess, and she said prettily: "Perhaps it is your kitten, and you would not wish me to take it away?"

"I'm sure you're very welcome to it, miss, but I'll be bound the gentleman won't want to be worrited by a kitten on the journey," Mrs. Ninfield responded.

"I am going to take this dear little kitten with me," said Amanda, addressing herself to Sir Gareth, with immense dignity, and a challenge in her eye.

"Do!" he said cordially, tickling the kitten's ear. "What shall you call it?"

She considered the matter. "Well, perhaps Honey, because of his colour, or—" She broke off, as her gaze alighted on the kitten's donor. "No, I shan't!" she said, bestowing a brilliant smile upon him. "I shall call him Joseph, after
you,
and that will remind me of feeding the pigs, and learning to milk the cow!"

At these very beautiful words, Joe was so overcome that he grew beetroot-red, and lost all power of speech, merely swallowing convulsively, and grinning in a way that made his fond mother itch to box his ears. Mr. Ninfield went off, in a practical spirit, to find a covered basket; and in a very short time Sir Gareth, silently invoking a powerful blessing on the head of one who had, however unwittingly, averted the threat of a disagreeable scene, was handing his charge up into the curricle, and delivering into her hands a basket in which one small kitten indignantly vociferated his disapproval of the change in his circumstances.

Chapter 11

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It was not to be expected that Amanda's pleasure in having acquired a new pet would for long save Sir Gareth from recrimination. She had never been wholly diverted, but had ceased from further argument because she had perceived how deftly he was cutting the ground from beneath her inexperienced feet. It made her very angry, but she could not help admiring, secretly, a strategy which she recognized to be masterly; nor, in spite of a strengthened determination to put him utterly to route, did she think the worse of him for having got the better of her. But that she was certainly not going to tell him, far preferring to relieve her feelings by delivering herself of a comprehensive indictment of his character. To this, Trotton, perched up behind her, listened in shocked and wondering silence. What Sir Gareth could see in such a young termagant to make him fall madly in love Trotton could not imagine, but he did not for an instant doubt that his master was clean besotted.

"You are meddlesome, and tyrannical, and untruthful, and, which is worse than all,
treacherous!"
scolded Amanda.

"Not treacherous!" protested Sir Gareth. "I promise you, I told none of those people the true story."

"I am quite astonished that you didn't, for I daresay you don't care a button about breaking your solemn word to people!"

"I didn't think they would believe me," explained Sir Gareth.

"And above everything you are shameless!" said Amanda indignantly.

"No, not quite, because, I assure you, I am shocked at my own mendacity."

"You are?" she exclaimed, turning her head to study his profile.

"Profoundly! I never knew I had it in me to tell so many bouncers."

"Well, you did—brazenly, too!"

"Yes, and you don't know the half of it. When I think of the Banbury story I told at the Red Lion, I know that I am sunk beyond reproach."

This ruse succeeded. "What was it?" Amanda demanded, much interested.

"Why I said that you were a great heiress, and had eloped with the dancing-master, who wanted to marry you for the sake of your fortune."

"Did you
indeed
say that?" Amanda asked, awed.

"Yes—brazenly!"

"Well, it doesn't make your conduct any better, and I am
very
angry with you, but I must say I do think it was a splendid story!" Amanda said, rather enviously. "Particularly the bit about the dancing-master!"

"Yes, I liked that bit, too," owned Sir Gareth. "Did you really eat enough raspberries to make you sick?"

"Well, I ate a great many raspberries, but I wasn't sick. That was only pretending, because I couldn't think of any other way to be rid of that horrid old man. I wonder what became of him?"

"An evil fate. After searching for you in a wood until he was exhausted, he got a tremendous scold from Mrs. Sheet, and then, to crown his day, the perch of his carriage broke, and he was obliged to walk a mile in tight boots to the nearest inn."

She gave a giggle, but said: "Have you seen him, then?"

"I have."

"What happened!" she asked, filled with pleasurable anticipation.

"He told me where he had lost you, and I drove back to Bythorne immediately."

"Is
that
all?" she said, disappointed. "I quite thought that you would have challenged him to a duel!"

"Yes, I know it was very poor-spirited of me," he agreed, "but really I think he has perhaps been punished enough. I fancy he can't have enjoyed the drive in your company."

"No, and I didn't enjoy it either!" said Amanda. "He tried to make love to me!"

"I should forget about him, if I were you, for he is certainly not worth remembering. But it is not wise, my child, to let strangers make off with you, however old and respectable they may seem to you."

"Well!"
she cried, "When you have been
forcing
me to go with you ever since I met you, which I wish I never had, because although you are quite old, it is very plain to me that you are not in the least respectable, but, on the contrary, a deceiving person, and quite as odious as Mr. Theale!"

He laughed. "A home thrust, Amanda!" he acknowledged. "But at least I am not as fat as Mr. Theale, however odious!"

"No," she conceded, "but you took much worse advantage of me!"

"Did I indeed?"

"Yes, you did! For when you told Mrs. Ninfield those lies about me, you made it seem as though they were true, and then, when you did tell the truth, you made it sound like a lie! It was—it was the shabbiest trick to play on me!"

He was amused, but he said: "I know it was. Indeed, most unhandsome of me, and I do most sincerely feel for you. It must be very disagreeable to be paid back in your own coin. And the dreadful thing is that I believe it is rapidly becoming a habit with me. I have already thought of another very truthful sounding lie to tell about you, if you insist on denying that you are my ward."

"I think you are abominable!" she said hotly. "And if you do not instantly tell me where we are going I shall jump out of your horrid carriage, and very likely break my leg!
Then
you will be sorry!"

"Well, of course, it might be a little tiresome to be obliged to convey you to London with your leg in a splint, but on the other hand you wouldn't be able to run away from me again, would you?"

"London?" she ejaculated, ignoring the rest.

"Yes, London. We are going to spend the night at Kimbolton, however."

"No! No! I won't go with you!"

He caught the note of panic, and said at once: "I am taking you to my sister's house, so don't be a goose, Amanda!"

The panic subsided, but .she reiterated her determination not to go with him, and was not in the least reconciled to her fate when he told her that she would meet his nephews and nieces there. She had a tolerably clear picture of all that would happen. Mrs. Wetherby would treat her as though she were a naughty child; she would be relegated to the schoolroom, where the governess would have orders never to let her out of her sight; Sir Gareth would discover her name from Neil; and she would be taken ignominiously home, having failed either to achieve her object, or to prove to her grandfather that she was an eminently grown-up and capable woman.

The blackest depression descended upon her spirits. Sir Gareth was not going to give her the smallest opportunity to escape from him a second time; and even if he did, her experiences had taught her that it was of very little avail to escape if one had no certain goal to make for. She felt defeated, tired, and very resentful; and for the remainder of the way refused even to open her lips.

There was only one posting-house in Kimbolton, and that a small and oldfashioned building. It did not hold out much promise of any extraordinary degree of comfort, but it possessed one feature which instantly recommended it to Sir Gareth. As he drew up before it, and ran a critical eye over it, he saw that its windows were all small casements. This circumstance solved for him a problem which had been exercising his mind for several miles. Sir Gareth had not forgotten the story of the elm tree.

The landlord, recognizing at a glance the quality of his unexpected guests, was all compliance and civility; and if at first he thought that it was odd conduct on the part of so grand a gentleman as Sir Gareth to carry his ward on a journey in an open carriage, and without her maid, he very soon banished any unworthy suspicions from his mind. There was little of the lover to be detected in Sir Gareth's demeanour, and as for the young lady, she seemed to be in a fit of the sullens.

Amanda made no attempt to deny that she was Sir Gareth's ward. However innocent she might be of the world's ways, she was well aware of the impropriety of her situation, having been carefully instructed in the rules governing the social conduct of young ladies. It had been permissible, though a trifle dashing, to drive with Sir Gareth in an open curricle; driving with Mr. Theale in a closed carriage Aunt Adelaide would have stigmatized as fast; while putting up at the inn in the company of a gentleman totally unrelated to her was conduct reprehensible enough to put her beyond the pale. Amanda accepted this without question, but was quite unembarrassed by her predicament. None of the vague feelings of alarm which had attacked her in Mr. Theale's carriage assailed her; and it did not for an instant occur to her that Sir Gareth, odious though he might be, was not entirely to be trusted. On first encountering him, she had been astonished to learn that so charming and personable a man could be an uncle; she would scarcely have been surprised now to have discovered that he was a great-uncle; and felt no more gene in his company that if he had been her grandfather. However, she knew that her private belief that, so far from damaging her reputation, his presence was investing her adventure with a depressing respectability, would not be shared by the vulgar, so she not only held her peace when he spoke to the landlord of his ward, but seized the first opportunity that offered of pointing out to him the gross impropriety of his behaviour. Looking the picture of outraged virtue, she announced, with relish, that she was now ruined. Sir Gareth replied that she was forgetting Joseph, and recommended her, instead of talking nonsense, to restrain her chaperon from sharpening his tiny claws on the polished leg of a chair.

After such a callous piece of flippancy as this, it was only to be expected that when Amanda accompanied her protector downstairs to the coffee-room she should do so with all the air of a Christian martyr.

The landlord had been profuse in apologies for his inability to offer Sir Gareth a private parlour. The only one the White Lion possessed was occupied already by an elderly gentleman afflicted with gout, and although the landlord plainly considered Sir Gareth more worthy of it, he doubted whether the gouty gentleman would share this view.

But Sir Gareth, in spite of having thrown a judicious damper over Amanda's sudden access of maidenly modesty, was a great deal more aware of the perils of her situation than she, and he had no desire to add to the irregularity of this journey by dining with her in a private parlour. The landlord, relieved to find him so accommodating, assured him that every attention would be paid to his comfort, and added that since the only other visitor to the inn was one very quiet young gentleman he need not fear that his ward would be exposed to noisy company.

The coffee-room was a pleasant, low-pitched apartment, furnished with one long table, a quantity of chairs, and a massive sideboard. The window-embrasure was filled by a cushioned seat, and this, when Sir Gareth and Amanda entered the room, was occupied by the quiet young gentleman, who was reading a book in the fading daylight. He did not raise his eyes from this immediately, but upon Sir Gareth's desiring the waiter to bring him a glass of sherry, he looked up, and, his gaze falling upon Amanda, became apparently transfixed.

"And some lemonade for the lady," added Sir Gareth unthinkingly.

He was speedily brought to realize that he had been guilty of gross folly. Amanda might be forced to acknowledge him as her guardian, but she was not going to submit to such arbitrary treatment as this. "Thank you, I don't care for lemonade," she said. "I will take a glass of sherry."

Sir Gareth's lips twitched. He met the waiter's understanding eye, and said briefly: "Ratafia."