by Mira Stables
It was a very thoughtful gentleman who drove back to Furze House. He was a proud man, accustomed to wielding absolute authority; not one who would easily confess to error. But he was also a man of integrity, and the more he considered the evidence the more he was reluctantly compelled to admit that he might have done Miss Ingram a grave injustice. A little late in the day he recalled those slight inconsistencies which had puzzled him at the time and which he had dismissed as trivial. He came to the conclusion that a carefully casual call on Staneborough might be a useful exercise. Their acquaintance was of the slightest but he could make the excuse that he had thought the invalid might like news of Letty while he was laid by the heels. He was not yet prepared to exonerate Miss Ingram completely but it might be helpful to enquire a little further into her relations with Letty’s future husband. If, indeed, on this afternoon’s showing, Staneborough still stood in that position.
In his preoccupation he actually allowed the bays to dawdle, and as a consequence was late home. Since he was thoughtful of his servants and was, in any case, dining alone, he decided not to delay matters further by changing his dress and sat down to dinner in his riding clothes. Russet had been far out in her calculations here. Mr Cameron certainly appreciated good food but ate sparingly, and he had never been one for sitting over his wine. Which was fortunate on this occasion since he was called upon to endure a most uncomfortable interview with his housekeeper.
Phoebe was too damned convincing. His conscience, already restive where his dealings with Miss Ingram were concerned, began to rebel in earnest. Moreover it was manifestly unfair to leave the responsibility for his captive’s welfare to the servants if she was behaving in so peculiar a fashion. He would have to see the girl for himself and the sooner the better. But since his code of courtesy would not permit him to visit a lady—even a prisoner—in riding dress, first he must change into more formal garb. It was with this object in view that he had gone up to his room, there to be drawn to the open window by sounds indicative of an attempt at stealthy entrance and to discover Miss Ingram in the middle of her perilous passage.
He devoutly hoped that he would never again be required to live through another such aeon of paralysed helplessness. The moonlight had spared him nothing; the tightly closed eyes; the under lip, caught so fiercely between white teeth that a tiny bead of blood showed black on the fair skin; the desperate clutching fingers. And himself a useless frozen image, because the least sound or movement might break the tension of determination that held her and he would have to watch her hurtle helplessly to her death.
Small wonder that he had unleashed the full fury of his rage over her, once he had her safe. And she, sick and shaken as she was, had come back at him with a jest. Some foolish quip in response to his remark about her fate being laid at his door. Not very subtle, perhaps. But the sheer courage of the girl! And then she had collapsed and he had summoned Phoebe. Mr Cameron, who listed courage and truthfulness about equal at the head of the moral qualities that he respected, found himself compelled to unwilling admiration. Miss Ingram’s truthfulness might still be open to question but there could be no doubting her courage.
He was down betimes next morning making his usual round of the stables, but so absent was his manner that even the head groom decided to leave him severely alone instead of launching into the detailed report and commentary in which he was used to indulge. He lingered over his breakfast, too, though he would have been hard put to it to say what he had eaten, and poured himself a second cup of coffee before he decided to summon Ameera.
The girl seemed frightened, but he spoke to her in her own tongue so kindly and gently that Miss Ingram would scarcely have recognised him, and it was not long before she was telling him of her pity for the prisoner’s loneliness and of her idea of introducing Chimi by way of entertainment and company. Since they had aired the topic pretty thoroughly in the kitchen quarters, she even confessed to the belief that it was Chimi’s acrobatic prowess that had given Miss Ingram the idea of attempting the ledge. But how could she have dreamed of such a thing, pleaded poor Ameera. And had to be consoled and assured that no one thought her in the least to blame.
He dismissed her presently, asking her to send Phoebe to him and straitly enjoining her not to leave Miss Ingram until Phoebe returned. Not that he really imagined the girl would try to repeat last night’s exploit, but he was taking no risks.
A long conference with Phoebe left him in something of a quandary. As that good soul had foretold he had thought better of his threat to have the windows barred, but he was not yet ready to agree to the prisoner’s unconditional release. He was fast coming round to the opinion that either he had totally misread the situation or—grimly—that he had been deliberately misled. But he had gone to some trouble to arrange the abduction of Miss Ingram and until he was wholly convinced, he preferred to keep her under his hand. The problem was how to achieve this and, at the same time, guard against such dangerous tricks as she had essayed last night.
A suggestion from Phoebe that Miss Russet should be asked to pledge her word to make no further attempt at escape met with a shake of the head and an amused lift of a disbelieving eyebrow. That aroused her indignation. “A decent woman has just as good a notion of honour and faithfulness to her pledged word as any man,” she told him roundly. “Maybe more, because she has good sense as well. You’d not find a woman leaving her trades-folk’s bills unpaid while she strained every nerve and impoverished her own family to pay some ridiculous gaming debt.”
“As Miss Ingram’s father did,” pointed out her employer.
“Well—there you are then,” retorted Phoebe, with incontrovertible feminine logic. “She is an Ingram. Surely you can take her word?”
Mr Cameron was not convinced. He decided to discuss the matter with his prisoner. But the reports of his two underlings gave him much food for thought and presently sent him once more to the stables. His unexpected appearance caused some surprise but no alarm. He was too strict a master for there to be any likelihood of slackness. In fact he exchanged a few pleasant comments with his head groom, received a satisfactory report on the progress of the black colt destined for a racing career, and wended his way towards the humbler servitor who was charged principally with the welfare of his dogs. After a brief but highly technical conference with this worthy he accepted delivery of a small wriggling bundle which he tucked under one arm, since it was just too large to go into the capacious pocket of his driving coat, and returned to the house.
Though this was not precisely his intent, the pup certainly served to remove any constraint that he might have felt over his interview with Miss Ingram. Set down on four widely splayed legs she skated perilously on the polished oak boards, wiggled an ecstatic rump at her hostess and promptly squatted to make a puddle. By the time that Mr Cameron had snatched her up again and dumped her outside on the verandah and Phoebe, scolding vigorously, had mopped up the evidence, Miss Ingram’s pale little face had relaxed into something approaching its usual friendly air.
“Which you should have known what she’d do, sir, and her not two months old and motherless at that, poor little soul,” ended Phoebe. “If you’re thinking to leave her with Miss Russet she’ll need a tray of soil. And a basket to sleep in, or we’ll have her making free with the chairs which is what I don’t hold with. I’ll go and see Heaton about it right away.”
“Should you like to keep the little thing?” enquired Mr Cameron rather stiffly as the door closed behind her. “I’m afraid she’ll make a good deal of work and need constant watching, but it might be an interest for you, and Phoebe tells me you are in need of something of the kind. Do you care for dogs?”
Miss Ingram said that she did. “Though I have never before had dealings with one so young,” she added thoughtfully. And then, watching the pup, who had already forgotten her lapse from grace and was investigating the balcony furnishings with lively curiosity, “What is she? She has something of the look of my cousin’s pug, but
surely she is too big?”
“Much too big—and of a very different temperament. She’s a bull bitch, the only survivor of the litter. Her dam died in whelping and Heaton has brought her up by hand so she is friendly and trustful. Full grown she’ll be a first-rate guard for her owners and their property,” he told her, thankful to be able to converse on an impersonal topic.
It seemed that Miss Ingram also subscribed to this idea. “But are they not the dogs that are used in baiting bears and bulls?” she enquired. “And sometimes, I believe, in fighting other dogs, so that men may bet on the result.”
Her jailer looked grim. “That is so,” he admitted. “Though I trust that you are not adding the notion of my breeding dogs for such purposes to the rest of the crimes that you hold against me. The bulldog’s courage is universally acknowledged. But because he looks slow and easy-going, gamesters will often put their money on some more active, savage-seeming dog—usually to the financial profit of the bulldog owner. For my part I abhor all such practices.”
He stopped abruptly. He had been on the verge of explaining how he had bought the pitiful bitch, heavily in whelp, from a brutal master; how he and Heaton had sat up all night with her when the pups were born; had used all their skill and patience in the vain attempt to save her. But it was no part of his scheme to appeal to Miss Ingram’s sympathies. He began to understand, in some small measure, the quality in her that drew her legions of admirers. She was a listener; not just waiting to air her own views, but truly interested in what you were saying. Even in the present unpropitious circumstances her small pale wedge of a face lit with animation as she listened to his remarks about the pup and her breed. But he refused to be so easily seduced, however innocent the topic. There was renewed stiffness in his voice as he said, “If you wish to keep the pup, she will need exercise. Phoebe assures me that I may safely trust to the honour of an Ingram. If you will give me your promise that you will not try to escape, you may walk in the gardens each day.”
She took a moment or two to think this over. Then she said slowly, “I will not promise not to make a bid for freedom if opportunity offers. But if you will trust me with the puppy I will not use her as a pretext. While I am walking her in the garden you may rely on my promise.”
He considered her thoughtfully. It was a reasonable compromise—and more convincing, he felt, than more fulsome avowals.
“Will you also promise me that you will not again risk your life by attempting that way of escape?” He jerked his head towards the open window.
There was no pretence about the nervous little shiver, hastily controlled, or the convulsive clenching of her hands. But her voice was quiet and unemotional as she said, “That I will promise without reserve.”
“Then you will ring for Ameera when you wish to go out,” he instructed.
She nodded. And, on an afterthought, asked impulsively, “What is her name? The puppy.”
“As yet she has none. You may choose for her. Only”—for the first time she saw his rueful, twisted grin—“nothing too fanciful, I beg of you. Remember how she will look when she is grown!”
With that he left her, absorbed and amused as she had not been since she had been snatched out of her ordered comfortable life.
The pattern of her days changed rapidly. The pup was young and needed frequent walking. There were her meals to be supervised—she was a greedy eater and apt to choke—and romping games to be devised or she grew bored and destructive. She was also firmly convinced that she was a lap-dog and clambered confidently into Russet’s lap whenever she felt the need of a brief nap to restore her energies. She was, in fact, a full time occupation and a very rewarding one, being both intelligent and affectionate.
Their first excursions were rather stilted affairs, Russet feeling awkward at the formality of being escorted to the terrace by no less a person than Ahmed Khan himself, grave-faced and imposing in his morning livery of snowy white linen and intricately twisted turban, the puppy excited and alarmed by her introduction to the restriction of collar and leash. And that makes two of us, thought Russet wryly, for she too felt that she had been let out to a very limited freedom. The grounds at Furze House were not large. No more than eight or nine acres had been laid out as park—or, more accurately, as ‘wild’ garden, since it had been skillfully planted with shrubs and furnished with winding grassy paths that made the most of its limited size. All the rest was formal garden, terraces, flower beds and lawns, the latter of such velvety smoothness that one could not even contemplate permitting a puppy to sully their perfection.
Russet felt that the wild garden was the most suitable for her charge’s needs, but the pup, as she had already discovered, had a will of her own. Having accepted the discipline of the leash and indulged her mistress with a full investigation of her kingdom, she decided that she preferred people and activities to rustic solitude. Since Russet had no particular objection to following where she was led, it was amazing how often their walks ended at the stables—where his fosterling was always sure of a warm welcome from Heaton—or in the kitchen premises, which a keen nose had early learned to associate with food. Before the week was out the pair of them were a familiar sight in every corner of the grounds. Herrick had greeted Miss Ingram with delight and insisted on showing her round the stables, where she petted satiny muzzles and was permitted to feed one or two old pensioners with favourite titbits. She might have been an honoured guest. Only when she returned to her own room did she recall that she was still a prisoner, and even then the recollection was no longer oppressive, since she had but to ring for Ameera or Phoebe if she wished to go out again.
Since she was of a friendly and forthright disposition and since all the servants treated her with respect, her walks abroad began to assume the nature of a royal progress. Ahmed Khan would bow her out. There would be gardeners eager to draw her attention to some choice bloom that had opened overnight, or a stable boy looking expectantly for a friendly smile or a word of greeting. Phoebe would come bustling out to ask if she would not like a glass of cool lemonade after her exertions, and Herrick openly regretted that the master’s orders prevented him from driving her out to see some of the pretty countryside so much admired by visitors.
Mr Cameron, who had been called to Town on urgent business before he had been able to pay his intended call on Staneborough, was sadly shaken on his return to discover the change that had taken place in his household during his ten days’ absence.
He rode in on a scene of innocent merriment. The bull pup, in an unguarded moment, had made off with a surcingle, and, with small teeth set firmly in the leather, was refusing to surrender it, despite command and blandishment. Russet, perched on a mounting block, was chuckling triumphantly over the failure of Heaton to win obedience where she herself had already lamentably failed. Herrick and two of the stable staff were offering advice, helpful or humorous. So much met Mr Cameron’s amazed and affronted gaze at first glance. His incisive, “Drop it!” was more effective than an incantation. One groom promptly melted away into the comforting gloom of the stable while the other sprang forward to take his horse. Heaton surrendered the end of the strap that he was holding to Herrick, called the two pointers to heel and departed with unusual celerity, and the pup actually did drop the strap, though more from eagerness to greet the newcomer than from any notion of obedience. Only Miss Ingram and Herrick remained outwardly unmoved, Herrick because he was legitimately concerned with the fate of the purloined surcingle, Russet because she refused to show any sign of apprehension in the presence of the enemy. For all his keen assessing glance, he could not know how fast her heart was beating at this unexpected confrontation.
The arrival of Phoebe, buxom and beaming, bearing a tray that held a glass of milk and a plate of rout cakes, offered final proof—if any were needed—of the quiet revolution that had been taking place at Furze House during his absence. So trivial a task would normally have been delegated to the newest and youngest maidservant. That Phoebe should assu
me it indicated that the mantle of her approval and protection had now been cast firmly over his prisoner. He caught something about—“so thin as you are, I thought milk might set you up better than lemonade,” and had a ridiculous impulse to protest that the thinness was none of his doing; that the girl had birdbones, had been no more than a slip of a thing when first he had seen her. He managed to restrain it and said with solemn politeness that he trusted that Miss Ingram was enjoying good health. With matching gravity the lady informed him that her health was always excellent and, for good measure, enquired if he had had a comfortable journey.