Sprig Muslin (32 page)

"She—she isn't here, sir," said Amanda.

"Not here? Where's she gone off to, then? The boy told me she couldn't leave Gary!"

"I don't know. I mean, she never was here! It is my Aunt Hester who is nursing Uncle Gary!"

"But your brother said—"

"Oh, I expect he did not hear just what you were asking him!" said Amanda glibly. "He is very deaf, you know!"

"God bless my soul! Didn't seem to be deaf to me!"

"No, because he very much dislikes to have it known, and so he pretends that he can hear quite well."

"You don't mean it! I should never have suspected it. So Trixie ain't here after all! Who is this Aunt Hester you spoke of? One of your papa's sisters?" He seemed to become aware of Hester, standing frozen behind Amanda, and bowed. "How de do, ma'am? You'll excuse my getting up!"

"Yes, indeed!" Hester said faintly. "How do you do?" He frowned suddenly. "Ay, but you can't be Gary's sister, if you're a Wetherby!"

"No, no! I mean, I'm not a Wetherby! That is—" Amanda, observing her flounderings, rose nobly, but disastrously, to the rescue. "She is Uncle Gary's
other
sister," she explained.

"Other sister? He ain't got another!" said Mr. Vinehall. "Never more than three of them: Gary, poor Arthur, and Trixie! What's the game, you little puss? Trying to humbug an old man? No, no you'll catch cold at that!"

"Excuse me!" Hester said, unable to bear another moment of what was fast developing into an inquisition. "I will see if Sir Gareth can receive you, sir!"

With these hastily uttered words, she slipped from the room, and fled upstairs, tripping on her dress, and arriving in Sir Gareth's room out of breath, and with her cap crooked. "Gareth!" she gasped. "The most dreadful thing! We are quite undone!"

He lowered the copy of the
Quarterly,
which he had been reading. "Good God, what is it?"

"Mr. Vinehall!" she said, sinking limply into a chair.

"What, here?" he demanded.

"In the parlour, talking to Amanda. He has come to see you!"

"Now we
are
in the basket!" said Sir Gareth, accepting the situation with maddening calm. "Has he seen you?"

"Yes, of course he has, and of course he knew I wasn't Mrs. Wetherby! I was ready to sink, for I could think of nothing to say, and Amanda made a fatal mistake! Gareth, how
can
you lie there laughing?"

"My dear, I can't help but laugh when you burst in upon me looking perfectly demented, and with that ridiculous cap over one eye! I do wish you will throw it away!"

"This is
no
moment to be discussing my cap!" she scolded. "Amanda told him I was your
other
sister!"

"Now, that is not worthy of Amanda," he said, shaking his head. "He won't swallow it. She must think of something better."

"I don't see how she
can!
And, depend upon it, Hildebrand will come in, having no notion that he's very deaf, just to make matters worse!"

"Oh, is Hildebrand deaf?" he asked, interested.

"Yes—that is, no, you know very well he isn't! Oh, dear, I ought to have said I
was
a Wetherby! What's to be done now?
One
thing I am determined on! I won't meet him again! What shall you tell him?"

"I can't imagine," he said frankly. "It will depend on what Amanda may have told him."

"You may be obliged to tell the truth."

"I may, but I shall do my best to avoid the necessity."

"Yes, pray do! It is such a very complicated story, and I daresay it would quite exhaust you to have to explain it all to him."

His lips quivered, but he replied gravely: "And then we might discover that he hadn't believed a word of it."

"Yes, very true! Good God, he is coming!" she cried, springing out of her chair. "I can't and I won't face him! I should be bound to ruin everything by saying something bird-witted—you must know I should!"

"Yes, but I own I should dearly love to hear you!" Sir Gareth said, his eyes warm with amusement.

"How can you be so unfeeling? Where can I hide?" she said, looking wildly around.

"Slip away to your own room until he has gone!" he advised.

"I can't! The stairs are directly opposite this door! Oh, heavens, Gareth, only listen to him! How dreadful if he were to expire on the stairs! Though it would be a great stroke of good fortune for us, of course. But one cannot wish it to happen—unless, perhaps, it would be a merciful release for him, poor man! I shall have to get behind the curtain. For heaven's sake, Gareth, think of something to say that will satisfy him!"

The little bedchamber did not boast a wardrobe, but a chintz curtain had been hung across one corner of the room. To Sir Gareth's deep delight, Lady Hester plunged behind it, amongst his coats, just as Chicklade, who had aided the footman to push and haul Mr. Vinehall up the narrow stairs, opened the door, and announced the visitor.

Sir Gareth composed his countenance admirably, and greeted his father's old friend with every proper expression of gratitude and pleasure. It was some moments before Mr. Vinehall, deposited in a chair beside the bed, could recover his breath. His exertions had turned the red in his cheeks to purple, but this gradually abated. He waved his solicitous attendants out of the room, and said: "Gary! Well, by Jupiter! It must be a dozen years since I saw you last! How are you, my dear boy? Not in good point, I hear. How came you to break your arm? Lord, I should have recognized you anywhere!" He barely gave Sir Gareth time to answer suitably before he was off again, dropping his voice confidentially, and saying: "I'm glad I don't find that young lady with you, for I shouldn't know what to say to her, upon my word I should not! I wouldn't have put her out of countenance for the world, as I hope you know!"

"I am quite sure you would not, sir," said Sir Gareth, feeling his way.

"Ay, but it was not a very gallant way to behave, and I could see she was put out. Well, no wonder, for there was I blundering along, and Trixie's girl tells me she is devilish sensitive!"

"She has a great deal of sensibility," admitted Sir Gareth cautiously.

"Ay, I daresay, and there I was, bringing home the evils of her situation to her, like a regular blubberhead! I should have known how it was as soon as that pretty chit said she was your other sister, but it never so much as crossed my mind. As soon as she was gone, Trixie's girl told me, and, I give you my word, Gary, I was never more thunderstruck in my life! God bless my soul, I should have said your dear father was the last man on earth—why, even when he was cutting a dash in his salad days I never knew him to be in the petticoat-line! Ay, and I was as well acquainted with him as any man. I declare I can't get over it! You acknowledge, her, I see?"

"Quite—quite privately!" said Sir Gareth, only the faintest tremor in his voice.

"Ay, very proper," nodded Mr. Vinehall. "Was your mother aware of her existence?"

"Happily, no!"

"Just as well. She wouldn't have liked it. Nasty shock for her, for she doted on your father. Well, well, poor George, he managed to keep it dark, and you needn't fear I shall spread the tale about. Couldn't, if I wanted to, for it's seldom I see anyone these days. You'll know how to tell the poor girl she don't have to fear me. It's a sad business. Taking little thing, too: got a sweet face! What you should do, Gary is to find her a respectable husband."

"I shall do my best to, sir."

"That's right: you're too like your father not to do just as you ought! But tell me, my boy, how do you go on? How is Trixie? That was a tragic thing, Arthur's getting himself killed."

He remained for some twenty minutes, chatting in a rambling way about old times and old acquaintances; but he had evidently been warned by Amanda that he must not stay for long with the invalid, for he soon pulled out his watch, and said that he must be off. He could not rise unassisted from his chair, but his attendant was waiting outside the door, and came in answer to his husky bellow. After grasping Sir Gareth's hand, and adjuring him not to leave the district without coming over to see him, he went ponderously away, and was soon heard cursing Chicklade genially for some piece of clumsiness.

Lady Hester emerged from her hiding-place, her cap now wildly askew. Sir Gareth lay back against his pillows, watching her, a question behind the brimming laughter in his eyes.

"Gareth!" said Hester, in an awed voice. "You
must
own that Amanda is wonderful! I should
never
have thought of saying I was your natural sister!"

He was shaking with laughter, his hand pressed instinctively to his hurt shoulder. "No? Nor I, my dear!"

Suddenly she began to laugh too. "Oh, dear, of all the absurd situations—! I was just thinking how W—Widmore would l—look if he knew!"

The thought was too much for her. She sat down in the Windsor chair, and laughed till she cried. Mopping her streaming eyes at last, she said: "I don't think I have ever laughed so much in all my life. But I must say, Gareth, there is one thing about this new story of Amanda's which I cannot like!"

"Oh, no, is there?" he said unsteadily.

"Yes," she said, sober again. "It was
not
well done of Amanda to make up such a tale about your father. For he was a most excellent person, and it seems quite dreadful to be slandering him! Really, Gareth, you should have denied it!"

"I assure you, he would have delighted in the story, for he was blessed with a lively sense of humour," Sir Gareth replied. He looked at her, a glimmer in his eyes, and a smile quivering on his lips. "Do you know, Hester, in all these years I have held you in esteem and regard, yet I never knew you until we were pitchforked into this fantastic imbroglio? Certainly Amanda is wonderful! I must be eternally grateful to her!"

Chapter 16

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Sir Gareth, slowly winning back to strength, knew very well that it behoved him to send word to his household that he had not been kidnapped, or snatched up into thin air, but he preferred to let the world slide for just a little longer. It would never do, he told himself, to let his servants get wind of his whereabouts, for ten to one they would allow their tongues to wag; or, worse, Trotton, already strongly suspecting him of having taken leave of his senses, might arrive at the Bull, in an excess of zeal, and the unshakeable belief that his services would not be dispensed with. It was really quite impossible to explain to them what had happened; to tell them not to mention his whereabouts to anyone would be to invite an extremely undesirable curiosity. After all, he was known to have gone into the country for several days, and it would probably be thought that he had prolonged his visit, or perhaps formed the sudden resolve to go from Brancaster to stay with one of his numerous friends. Trotton, of course, would expect to find his master in Berkeley Square when he reached town, and would undoubtedly suppose that Amanda had again given him the slip. Well, that couldn't be helped, and at least Trotton wouldn't be anxious. He did toy with the idea of writing to his brother-in-law, to enlist his aid in running a nameless Brigade-Major to earth, and even got as far as starting a letter to him. But it proved to be rather too exhausting a task. One sheet of literary composition was enough to make his head swim; and when he read over what he had written, he tore it up. Warren would undoubtedly think he had run mad. So he told himself that in all likelihood no one was worrying about him at all, and gave himself up to lazy enjoyment.

Hester was similarly unconcerned. The Widmores must believe her to be with her sister Susan; and even if some chance presently revealed to them that she was not at Ancaster she did not flatter herself that they would feel any particular concern. They might wonder, and conjecture, and they would certainly think it odd of her; but the chances were that Almeria at least would assume that having rejected Sir Gareth's offer she had left Brancaster to escape the recriminations of her family.

But Sir Gareth and Lady Hester underrated their relations. By ill-luck, Lady Ennerdale had occasion to write to her brother, and the contents of her letter made it abundantly plain that her children were all in health and spirits, and that so far from enjoying Hester's companionship she supposed her to be at Brancaster. Exactly as Hester had foreseen, Lady Widmore instantly informed her lord that Hester had taken a crackbrained notion into her head of setting up house on her own. Not a doubt but that was what she was meaning to do: idiotish, of course, but just like her. All this upset over Ludlow's offer had irritated her nerves: my lady had thought her manner very strange. But then she was always totty-headed!

Lady Hester had been right, too, in thinking that her brother would not succumb to anxiety; but she had underestimated his dislike of scandal. Lord Widmore, had she gone to live with one of her sisters, would have raised not the smallest objection, for no one would have wondered at it. But people would wonder very much at it if an unattached lady left the shelter of her father's roof to live alone. To make it worse, she was not yet thirty. What, he asked his wife, would people think, if ever it leaked out that Hetty had tried to escape from her family? She must be found, and brought to her senses—unless she was all the time with Gertrude, or Constance. It would be excessively like her to have said Susan, when she meant Gertrude: he would write immediately to both his other sisters.