Lydia said: ‘Well, if you don’t mind, I would prefer not to go to Gretna, because although it would be romantic I can’t help thinking it would be very uncomfortable. Besides, I couldn’t have any attendants, or a wedding-dress, or a lace veil, or anything.’
‘Don’t chatter!’ said Pen. ‘I am thinking.’
Lydia was obediently silent.
‘We must soften your father’s heart!’ declared Pen at length.
Lydia looked doubtful. ‘Yes, I should like that of all things, but how?’
‘Why, by making him grateful to Piers, of course!’
‘But why should he be grateful to Piers? He says Piers is a young cub.’
‘Piers,’ said Pen, ‘must rescue you from deadly peril.’
‘Oh no, please!’ faltered Lydia, shrinking. ‘I should be frightened! And just think how dreadful it would be if he didn’t rescue me!’
‘What a little goose you are!’ said Pen scornfully. ‘There won’t be any real danger!’
‘But if there is no danger, how can Piers –’
‘Piers shall rescue you from me!’ said Pen.
Lydia blinked at her. ‘I don’t understand. How can Piers –’
‘Do stop saying “How can Piers”!’ Pen begged. ‘We must make your father believe that I am a penniless young man without any prospects at all, and then we will run away together!’
‘But I don’t want to run away with you!’
‘No, stupid, and I don’t want to run away with you! It will just be a Plot. Piers must ride after us, and catch us, and restore you to your Papa. And he will be so pleased that he will let you marry Piers after all! Because Piers has very good prospects, you know.’
‘Yes, but you are forgetting Sir Jasper,’ argued Lydia.
‘We can’t possibly be plagued by Sir Jasper,’ said Pen impatiently. ‘Besides, he is away. Now, don’t make any more objections! I must go back to the George, and warn Richard. And I will consult with Piers as well, and I daresay we shall have it all arranged in a trice. I will meet you in the spinney this evening, to tell you what you must do.’
‘Oh no, no, no!’ shuddered Lydia. ‘Not the spinney! I shall never set foot there again!’
‘Well, here, then, since you are so squeamish. By the way, did you tell your Papa the whole? I mean, how you saw Captain Trimble kill the stammering-man?’
‘Yes, of course I did, and he says I must tell it to Mr Philips! It is so dreadful for me! To think that my troubles had put it out of my head!’
‘What a tiresome girl you are!’ exclaimed Pen. ‘You should not have said a word about it! Ten to one, we shall get into a tangle now, because Richard has already told Mr Philips his story, and I have told him mine, and now you are bound to say something quite different. Did you mention Richard to your Papa?’
‘No,’ confessed Lydia, hanging her head. ‘I just said that I ran away.’
‘Oh well, in that case perhaps there will be no harm done!’ said Pen optimistically. ‘I am going now. I will meet you here again after dinner.’
‘But what if they watch me, and I cannot slip away?’ cried Lydia, trying to detain her.
Pen had climbed on to the wall, and now prepared to jump down into the road. ‘You must think of something,’ she said sternly, and vanished from Miss Daubenay’s sight.
When Pen reached the George Sir Richard had not only finished his breakfast, but was on the point of sallying forth in search of his errant charge. She came into the parlour, flushed and rather breathless, and said impetuously: ‘Oh, Richard, such an adventure! I have such a deal to tell you! All our plans must be changed!’
‘This is very sudden!’ said Sir Richard. ‘May I ask where you have been?’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Pen, seating herself at the table, and spreading butter lavishly on a slice of bread. ‘I have been with that stupid girl. You would not believe that anyone could be so silly, sir!’
‘I expect I should. What has she been doing, and why did you go to see her?’
‘Well, it’s a long story, and most confused!’
‘In that case,’ said Sir Richard, ‘perhaps I shall unravel it more easily if you do not tell it to me with your mouth full.’
Her eyes lit with laughter. She swallowed the bread-and-butter, and said: ‘Oh, I’m sorry! I am so hungry, you see.’
‘Have an apple,’ he suggested.
She twinkled responsively. ‘No, thank you, I will have some of that ham. Dear sir, what in the world do you suppose that wretched girl did?’
‘I have no idea,’ said Sir Richard, carving several slices of the ham.
‘Why, she told her Papa that she had gone into the spinney last night to meet me!’
Sir Richard laid down the knife and fork. ‘Good God, why?’
‘Oh, for such an idiotic reason that it is not worth recounting! But the thing is, sir, that her Papa is coming to see you about it this morning. She hoped, you see, that if she said she had been in the habit of meeting me clandestinely in Bath –’
‘In Bath?’ interrupted Sir Richard in a faint voice.
‘Yes, she said we had been meeting for ever in Bath, on account of her Great-Aunt Augusta, and not wishing to be sent there again. I quite understand that, but –’
‘Then your understanding is very much better than mine,’ said Sir Richard. ‘So far I have not been privileged to understand one word of this story. What has her Great-Aunt Augusta to do with it?’
‘Oh, they sent Lydia to stay with her, you see, and she did not like it! She said it was all backgammon and spying. I could not but feel for her over that, for I know exactly what she means.’
‘I am glad,’ said Sir Richard, with emphasis.
‘The thing is, that she thought if she told her Papa that she had met me clandestinely in Bath, he would not send her there again.’
‘This sounds to me remarkably like mania in an acute form.’
‘Yes, so it did to me. But there is worse to come. She says that instead of being angry, her Papa is inclined to be pleased!’
‘The madness seems to be inherited.’
‘That is what I thought, but it appears that Lydia told her Papa that my name was Wyndham, and now he thinks that perhaps she is on the brink of making a Good Match!’
‘Good God!’
‘I knew you would be surprised. And there is another circumstance too, which turns everything topsy-turvy.’ She glanced up fleetingly from her plate, and said with a little difficulty: ‘I discovered something which – which quite took me aback. She told me whom she went to meet in the wood last night.’
‘I see,’ said Sir Richard.
She flushed. ‘Did you – did you know, sir?’
‘I guessed, Pen.’
She nodded. ‘It was stupid of me not to suspect. To tell you the truth, I thought – However, it doesn’t signify. I expect you did not like to tell me.’
‘Do you mind very much?’ he asked abruptly.
‘Well, I – it – You see, I had it fixed in my mind that Piers – and I – So I daresay it will take me just a little while to grow accustomed to it, besides having all my plans overset. But never mind that! We have now to consider what is to be done to help Piers and Lydia.’
‘We?’ interpolated Sir Richard.
‘Yes, because I quite depend on you to persuade Lydia’s Papa that I am not an eligible suitor. That is most important!’
‘Do you mean to tell me that this insane person is com-ing here to obtain my consent to your marriage with his daughter?’
‘I think he is coming to discover how much money I have, and whether my intentions are honourable,’ said Pen, pouring herself out a cup of coffee. ‘But I daresay Lydia mistook the whole matter, for she is amazingly stupid, you know, and perhaps he is coming to co
mplain to you about my shocking conduct in meeting Lydia in secret.’
‘I foresee a pleasing morning,’ said Sir Richard dryly.
‘Well, I must say I think it will be very amusing,’ Pen admitted. ‘Because – why, what is the matter, sir?’
Sir Richard had covered his eyes with one hand. ‘You think it will be very amusing! Good God!’
‘Oh, now you are laughing at me again!’
‘Laughing! I am recalling my comfortable home, my ordered life, my hitherto stainless reputation, and wondering what I can ever have done to deserve being pitchforked into this shameless imbroglio! Apparently, I am to go down to history as one who not only possessed a cousin who was a monster of precocious depravity, but who actually aided and abetted him in attempting to seduce a respectable young female.’
‘No, no!’ said Pen earnestly. ‘Nothing of the kind, I assure you! I have it all arranged in the best possible way, and your part will be everything of the most proper!’
‘Oh, well, in that case – !’ said Sir Richard, lowering his hand.
‘Now I know you are laughing at me! I am going to be the only son of a widow.’
‘The unfortunate woman has all my sympathy.’
‘Yes, because I am very wild, and she can do nothing with me. That is why you are here, of course. I cannot but see that I don’t look quite old enough to be an eligible suitor. Do you think I do, sir?’
‘No, I don’t. In fact, I should not be surprised if Lydia’s parent were to arrive with a birch-rod.’
‘Good gracious, how dreadful! I never thought of that! Well, I shall depend upon you.’
‘You may confidently depend upon me to tell Major Daubenay that his daughter’s story is a farrago of lies.’
Pen shook her head. ‘No, we can’t do that. I said just the same myself, but you must see how difficult it would be to persuade Major Daubenay that we are speaking the truth. Consider, sir! She told him that I had followed her here, and I must admit it looks very black, because I was in the spinney last night, and you know we cannot possibly explain the real story. No, we must make the best of it. Besides, I quite feel that we ought to help Piers, if he does indeed wish to marry such a foolish creature.’
‘I have not the slightest desire to help Piers, who seems to me to be behaving in a most reprehensible fashion.’
‘Oh no, indeed he cannot help it! I see that I had better tell you their whole story.’
Without giving Sir Richard time to protest, she launched into a rapid and colourful account of the young lovers’ tribulations. The account, being freely embellished with her own comments, was considerably involved, and Sir Richard several times interrupted it to crave enlightenment on some obscure point. At the end of it, he remarked without any noticeable display of enthusiasm: ‘A most affecting history. For myself, I find the theme of Montague and Capulet hopelessly outmoded, however.’
‘Well, I have made up my mind to it that there is only one thing for them to do. They must elope.’
Sir Richard, who had been playing with his quizzing-glass, let it fall, and spoke with startling severity. ‘Enough of this! Now, understand me, brat, I will engage to fob off the irate father, but there it must end! This extremely tedious pair of lovers may elope to-morrow for anything I care, but I will have no hand in it, and I will not permit you to have a hand in it either. Do you see?’
Pen looked speculatively at him. There was no smile visible in his eyes, which indeed looked much sterner than she had ever believed they could. Plainly, he would not lend any support to her scheme of eloping with Miss Daubenay herself. It would be better, decided Pen, to tell him nothing about this. But she wasnot one to let a challenge rest unanswered, and she replied with spirit: ‘You may do as you choose, but you have no right to tell me what I must or must not do! It is not in the least your affair.’
‘It is going to be very much my affair,’ replied Sir Richard.
‘I don’t understand what you can possibly mean by saying anything so silly!’
‘I daresay you don’t, but you will.’
‘Well, we won’t dispute about that,’ said Pen pacifically.
He laughed suddenly. ‘Indeed, I hope we shan’t!’
‘And you won’t tell Major Daubenay that Lydia’s story was false?’
‘What do you want me to tell him?’ he asked, succumbing to the coaxing note in her voice, and the pleading look in her candid eyes.
‘Why, that I have been with my tutor in Bath, but that I was so troublesome that my Mama –’
‘The widow?’
‘Yes, and now you will understand why she is a widow!’
‘If you are supposed to favour your mythical father, I do understand. He perished on the gallows.’
‘That is what Jimmy Yarde calls the Nubbing Cheat.’
‘I daresay it is, but I beg you won’t.’
‘Oh, very well! Where was I?’
‘With your tutor.’
‘To be sure. Well, I was so troublesome that my Mama sent you to bring me home. I expect you are a trustee, or something of that nature. And you may say all the horridest things about me to Major Daubenay that you like. In fact, you had better tell him that I am very bad, besides being quite a pauper.’
‘Have no fear! I will draw such a picture of you as must make him thankful that his daughter has escaped becoming betrothed to such a monster.’
‘Yes, do!’ said Pen cordially. ‘And then I must see Piers.’
‘And then?’ asked Sir Richard.
She sighed. ‘I haven’t thought of that yet. Really, we have so much on our hands that I cannot be teased with thinking of any more plans just now!’
‘Will you let me suggest a plan to you, Pen?’
‘Yes, certainly, if you can think of one. But first I should like to see Piers, because I still cannot quite believe that he truly wishes to marry Lydia. Why, she does nothing but cry, Richard!’
Sir Richard looked down at her enigmatically. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Perhaps it would be better if you saw Piers first. People – especially young men – change a great deal in five years, brat.’
‘True,’ she said, in a melancholy tone. ‘But I didn’t change!’
‘I think perhaps you did,’ he said gently.
She seemed unconvinced, and he did not press the point. The waiter came in to clear away the covers, and hardly had he left the parlour than Major Daubenay’s card was brought to Sir Richard.
Pen, changing colour, exclaimed: ‘Oh dear, now I wish I weren’t here! I suppose I can’t escape now, can I?’
‘Hardly. You would undoubtedly walk straight into the Major’s arms. But I won’t let him beat you.’
‘Well, I hope you won’t!’ said Pen fervently. ‘Tell me quickly, how does a person look depraved? Do I look depraved?’
‘Not in the least. The best you can hope for is to look sulky.’
She retired to a chair in the corner, and sprawled in it, trying to scowl. ‘Like this?’
‘Excellent!’ approved Sir Richard.
A minute later, Major Daubenay was ushered into the parlour. He was a harassed-looking man, with a high colour, and upon finding himself confronted by the tall, immaculate figure of a Corinthian, he exclaimed: ‘Good Gad! You are Sir Richard Wyndham!’
Pen, glowering in the corner, could only admire the perfection of Sir Richard’s bow. The Major’s slightly protuberant eyes discovered her. ‘And this is the young dog who has been trifling with my daughter!’
‘Again? ’ said Sir Richard wearily.
The Major’s eyes started at him. ‘Upon my soul, sir! Do you tell me that this – this young scoundrel is in the habit of seducing innocent females?’
‘Dear me, is it as bad as that?’ asked Sir Richard.
‘No, sir, i
t is not!’ fumed the Major. ‘But when I tell you that my daughter has confessed that she went out last night to meet him clandestinely in a wood, and has met him many times before in Bath –’
Up came Sir Richard’s quizzing-glass. ‘I condole with you,’ he said. ‘Your daughter would appear to be a young lady of enterprise.’
‘My daughter,’ declared the Major, ‘is a silly little miss! I do not know what young people are coming to! This young man – dear me, he looks no more than a lad! – is, I understand, a relative of yours?’
‘My cousin,’ said Sir Richard. ‘I am – er – his mother’s trustee. She is a widow.’
‘I see that I have come to the proper person!’ said the Major.
Sir Richard raised one languid hand. ‘I beg you will acquit me of all responsibility, sir. My part is merely to remove my cousin from the care of a tutor who has proved himself wholly incapable of controlling his – er – activities, and to convey him to his mother’s home.’
‘But what are you doing in Queen Charlton, then?’ demanded the Major.
It was plain that Sir Richard considered the question an impertinence. ‘I have acquaintances in the neighbourhood, sir. I scarcely think I need trouble you with the reasons which led me to break a journey which cannot be other than – er – excessively distasteful to me. Pen, make your bow!’
‘Pen?’ repeated the Major, glaring at her.
‘He was named after the great Quaker,’ explained Sir Richard.
‘Indeed! Then I would have you know, sir, that his behaviour scarcely befits his name!’
‘You are perfectly right,’ agreed Sir Richard. ‘I regret to say that he has been a constant source of anxiety to his widowed parent.’
‘He seems very young,’ said the Major, scanning Pen critically.
‘But, alas, old in sin!’
The Major was slightly taken aback. ‘Oh, come, come, sir! I daresay it is not as bad as that! One must make allowances for young people. To be sure, it is very reprehensible, and I do not by any means exonerate my daughter from blame, but the springtime of life, you know, sir! Young people take such romantic notions into their heads – not but what I am excessively shocked to learn of clandestine meetings! But when two young persons fall in love, I believe –’
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