Sprig Muslin

by Georgette Heyer

  ‘You will have to come with me to Kimbolton,’ Sir Gareth said, drawing on his gloves. ‘I shall be escorting the young lady to my sister’s house tomorrow, and shall hire a chaise for the purpose. You may then drive the curricle back to Thrapston, settle my account there for the hire of these tits, and bring the bays up to London after me. I shan’t look for you to arrive for at least two days, so take care you don’t press ’em!’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Trotton, in a carefully expressionless voice. ‘I wouldn’t be wishful to do so – not in this hot weather!’

  ‘Because,’ said Sir Gareth, as though he had not heard, but with the glimmer of an appreciative smile in his eyes, ‘I have already worked ’em far harder than I ought.’

  ‘Just so, sir!’ said his henchman, grinning at him.

  It did not take long to accomplish the journey to Whitethorn Farm. Leaving Trotton with the curricle, Sir Gareth was ushered by Mr Ninfield into the rambling old house. Dusk was beginning by this time to shadow the landscape, and in the large, flagged kitchen the lamp had been kindled. Its mellow light fell on Amanda, on the floor, and playing with a litter of kittens. Seated in a windsor chair, with his hands clasped between his knees, was a stalwart youth, watching her with a rapt and slightly idiotic expression on his sunburnt countenance; and keeping a wary eye on both, while she vigorously ironed one of her husband’s shirts, was a matron of formidable aspect.

  Amanda glanced up casually, as the door opened, but when she saw who had entered the kitchen she stiffened, and exclaimed: ‘You! No! No!’

  Young Mr Ninfield, although not quick-witted, took only a very few seconds to realize that here, in the person of this bang-up nonesuch, was Amanda’s persecutor. He got up, clenching his fists, and glaring at Sir Gareth.

  He was perfectly ready, and even anxious, to do battle, but Sir Gareth took the wind out of his sails, by first nodding at Amanda, and saying amiably: ‘Good-evening, Amanda!’ and then coming towards him, with his hand held out. ‘You must be Joe Ninfield,’ he said. ‘I have to thank you for taking such excellent care of my ward. You are a very good fellow!’

  ‘It’s the young lady’s guardian, Jane,’ Mr Ninfield informed his wife, in a penetrating aside.

  ‘It is not!’ Amanda declared passionately. ‘He is trying to abduct me!’

  Joe, who had numbly allowed Sir Gareth to grasp his hand, turned his bemused gaze upon her, seeking guidance. ‘Throw him out!’ ordered Amanda, a sandy kitten clasped to her breast in a very touching way.

  ‘You’ll do no such thing, Joe!’ said his mother sharply. ‘Now, sir! P’raps you’ll be so good as to explain what this means!’

  ‘All’s right, Jane,’ Mr Ninfield said, chuckling. ‘It’s like you thought, only that it was school Miss ran off from.’

  ‘I didn’t!’ cried Amanda, her face scarlet with rage. ‘And he’s not my guardian! I don’t even know him! He is an abominable person!’

  ‘Of course I am!’ said Sir Gareth soothingly. ‘Though how you know that, when you are not even acquainted with me, I can’t imagine!’ He smiled at Mrs Ninfield, and said in his charming way: ‘I do hope, ma’am, that she has not been troublesome to you? I can’t thank you enough for your kindness to her!’

  Under Amanda’s baffled and infuriated gaze, Mrs Ninfield dropped a curtsy, stammering: ‘No, no! Oh, no, indeed sir!’

  Sir Gareth glanced down at Amanda. ‘Come, my child, get up from the floor!’ he said, in a voice of kindly authority. ‘Where is your hat? I never abduct ladies without their hats, so put it on, and your cloak too!’

  Amanda obeyed the first of these commands, largely because she found herself at a disadvantage when sitting at his feet. She could see that the tone he had chosen to adopt had had its inevitable effect, even upon her moonstruck admirer, but she made a desperate bid for freedom. Staring up into his amused eyes, she said: ‘Very well! If you are my guardian, who am I?’

  ‘An orphan, cast upon the world without a penny,’ he replied promptly. ‘You have lately been employed by a young lady, whose widowed father – a most reprehensible person, I fear – made such improper advances to you, that –’

  ‘Oh, how much I hate you!’ she cried, flushing with mortification and stamping her foot. ‘How dare you stand there telling such lies?’

  ‘Well, but, missie, it’s what you told us yourself!’ said Mr Ninfield, hugely entertained.

  ‘Yes, but that was because – well, that was just make-believe! He knows it isn’t true! And it isn’t true that he is my guardian, or that I ran away from school, or anything!’

  Mrs Ninfield drew a long breath. ‘Sir, are you her guardian, or are you not?’ she demanded.

  ‘No,’ he replied, his voice grave, but his eyes dancing. ‘I am an abductor. I met her only yesterday, and that by chance, snatched her up into my curricle, and bore her off in spite of all her protests to a gloomy mansion in the heart of the country. I need scarcely tell you that she contrived to make her escape from the mansion while I slept. However, it takes a good deal to daunt a thorough-going villain, so you won’t be surprised that here I am, having hunted her down remorselessly. I am now about to carry her off to my castle. This, by the way, is perched on a precipitous rock, and, besides being in an uncomfortable state of neglect and decay, is inhabited only by ghosts and sinister retainers of mine. From this fortress, after undergoing a number of extremely alarming adventures, she will, I have little doubt, be rescued by a noble youth of handsome though poverty-stricken aspect. I expect he will kill me, after which it will be found that he is the wronged heir to a vast property – probably mine – and all will end happily.’

  ‘Now, sir – !’ protested Mrs Ninfield, trying not to laugh. ‘Give over your nonsense, do!’

  Joe, having listened with painstaking concentration to the programme laid down for Amanda’s future entertainment, once more clenched his large fists, and uttered, slowly, but with determination: ‘I won’t have her put in no castle.’

  ‘Don’t be a gaby!’ said his mother. ‘Can’t you see the gentleman’s only making game of her?’

  ‘I won’t have him make game of her neither,’ said Joe stubbornly.

  ‘Please to pay no heed, sir!’ begged Mrs Ninfield. ‘Now, that’s enough, Joseph! Do you want the gentleman to think you’re no better than a knock-in-the-cradle, which I’ll be bound he does?’

  ‘Not at all! I think he’s a splendid fellow,’ said Sir Gareth. ‘Don’t worry, Joe! I was only funning.’

  ‘I don’t want you to take her anywhere,’ Joe muttered. ‘I’d like her to stay here, fine I would!’

  ‘Yes, and so would I have liked to stay here!’ said Amanda warmly. ‘I never enjoyed anything half as much, particularly feeding all those droll little pigs, and these lovely kittens, but everything is spoilt now that Sir Gareth knows where I am, and it would be of no use staying here any more.’ Her voice trembled, and a tear sparkled on the end of her long lashes. She kissed the sandy kitten, and reluctantly set it down on the floor, giving such a pathetic sniff that Mr Ninfield, a tenderhearted man, said uncomfortably; ‘Don’t you take on, missie! P’raps, if my missis is agreeable –’ He stopped, as he caught his wife’s eye, and coughed in some embarrassment.

  ‘Cheer up, my child!’ Sir Gareth said. ‘This is no time for tears! You must instantly set about the task of thinking how best to revenge yourself on me.’

  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 by 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 to
wards 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.

  Eleven

  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 rout, 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 old-fashioned 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 rule 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 an 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 gêne in his company than 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.