Sprig Muslin

‘I might die!’ she urged.

‘Well, if you did that, it wouldn’t signify whether you were locked in, or not, would it?’

‘Oh, how hateful you are! I might be burnt in my bed!’

‘If the house should happen to catch fire, I will engage not only to rescue you, but Joseph as well. Goodnight – and dream of a revenge on me!’

Mr Ross heard the click of a closing door, and the grating of the key in the lock. He moved softly forward to peep round the angle of the wall, and was in time to see Sir Gareth withdraw the key from the lock of a door, and cross the corridor to a room directly opposite.

For several minutes Mr Ross remained on the landing, not knowing just what he ought to do. When he had heard Amanda beg Sir Gareth not to lock her door, his impulse had been to dash to her support. But before he could do so, all the awkwardness of his situation had been realized, and he had hesitated. Profoundly shocked though he was, and burning to perform some heroic deed for Amanda’s sake, he yet could not feel that he would be justified in intervening, or even, perhaps, successful. It was cruel of Sir Gareth to lock the door on Amanda, but if he was her guardian no one could gainsay his right to do so. The things Amanda had said to him certainly indicated that he had behaved very badly to her, but what he had done, or why she was so reluctant to accompany him to London, could at present be matters only for conjecture.

He decided that his first step must be to find a way of approaching Amanda, and he did not immediately perceive how this was to be accomplished. A whispered conversation through the keyhole would be a very indifferent way of communicating with her, and might well bring Sir Gareth out upon him. A little further consideration, however, put him in mind of the fact that her bedroom must, from its position, look out on to the small, walled garden at the back of the inn, and he conceived the happy idea of walking out into this, and of attracting Amanda’s attention by throwing stones at her window.

Fortunately, since he might have been hard put to it to distinguish her window amongst several others which looked on to the garden, this expedient was found to be unnecessary. Amanda’s window stood open, and Amanda was kneeling at it, clearly silhouetted by the candle behind her, her elbows on the ledge, and her face propped between her hands.

Thrust firmly into her room, and the door closed on her, the agitation from which she was suffering had found relief in a burst of tears. Without having precisely decided on a course of action, she had been turning over in her mind a plan of escaping from the White Lion as soon as it was light; and the discovery that Sir Gareth had been aware of this provoked her to quite irrational fury. Though she meant to outwit him if she could, it was insulting of him to suspect her; and his calm air of mastery made her want to hit him. Well, she would show him!

The first step towards showing him had been to run to the window, to ascertain whether it were possible to climb down from it, or even, since the upper storey of the house was at no great height from the ground, to drop down from it. She had not previously thought of this way of escape, and so had not inspected the window. It needed only the most cursory inspection now to inform her that to squeeze herself through it would be impossible. She began to cry again, and was still convulsively sobbing when Mr Ross came cautiously into the garden through a wicket-gate opening into the stable-yard, and saw her.

The moon was up, brightly illuminating the scene, so there was really no need for Mr Ross, softly treading along the flagged path until he sto

od immediately beneath Amanda’s window, to attract her attention by saying, thrillingly, ‘Hist!’ Amanda had seen him as soon as he entered the garden, and had moodily watched his approach. She could think of no way in which he could be of assistance to her.

‘Miss Smith! I must have speech with you!’ piercingly whispered Mr Ross. ‘I heard all!’

‘All what?’ said Amanda crossly.

‘All that you said to Sir Gareth! Only tell me what I can do to help you!’

‘No one can help me,’ replied Amanda, sunk in gloom.

‘I can, and will,’ promised Mr Ross recklessly.

A faint interest gleamed in her eyes. She abandoned her despairing pose, and looked down at his upturned face. ‘How? He locked me in, and the window is too small for me to get out of.’

‘I will think of a way. Only we cannot continue talking like this. Someone may hear us! Wait! There is bound to be a ladder in the stables! If I can contrive to do so unobserved, I’ll fetch it, and climb up to you!’

Amanda began to feel more hopeful. Up till now she had not considered him in the light of a possible rescuer, for he seemed to her very young, and no match for a man of Sir Gareth’s fiendish ingenuity. He now appeared to be a man of action and resource. She waited.

Time passed, and the slight hope she was cherishing dwindled. Then, just as she was thinking that there was nothing to do but to go to bed, Mr Ross came back, bearing a short ladder, which was used for climbing into the hay-loft. He set this up against the wall of the house, and mounted it. He had to climb to the topmost rung before his head rose above the window-sill, and his hands could grasp it, and the last part of the ascent was somewhat precariously accomplished.

‘Oh, pray be careful!’ begged Amanda, alarmed but admiring.

‘It’s quite safe,’ he assured her. ‘I beg pardon for having been such an age: I had to wait, you see, because that man – your guardian’s groom – was giving the head ostler all manner of directions. Why are you locked in?’

‘Because Sir Gareth is determined not to let me escape,’ she replied bitterly.

‘Yes, but – You see, I did not perfectly understand from what you was saying to him why you wish to escape, or what he means to do with you. Of course, I saw how much you feared him long before!’

‘Saw how much I – Oh! Oh, yes!’ said Amanda, swallowing with an effort her very natural indignation. ‘I am wholly in his power!’

‘Yes, well, I suppose – I mean, if he’s your guardian, you must be. But what has he done to frighten you? Why did you say he was a snake?’

Amanda did not answer for a moment. She was feeling tired, quite unequal to the task of rapidly composing a suitable explanation. A sigh broke from her. The sadness of this sound wrought powerfully upon Mr Ross. He ventured to remove one hand from the sill, and to lay it tenderly on hers. ‘Tell me!’ he said.

‘He is abducting me,’ said Amanda.

Mr Ross was so much astonished that he nearly fell off the ladder. ‘Abducting you?’ he gasped. ‘You cannot be serious!’