Sprig Muslin

‘Yes, I am! And, what is more, it’s true!’ said Amanda.

‘Good God! I would not have believed it to have been possible! My dear Miss Smith, you may be easy! I will instantly have you set free! There will be no difficulty. I have but to inform the parish constable, or perhaps a magistrate – I am not perfectly sure, but I shall speedily discover –’

‘No, no!’ she interrupted hastily. ‘It would be useless! Pray do not do so!’

‘But I am persuaded it is what I should do!’ he expostulated. ‘How should it be useless?’

She sought wildly for some explanation which would satisfy him. None occurred to her, until, just as she was wondering whether she dared tell him the truth, or whether (which she suspected) he would disapprove as heartily as Sir Gareth of her plan of campaign, there flashed into her brain a notion of transcendent splendour. It almost took her breath away, for not only was it an excellent story in itself: it would, properly handled, afford her the means of being exquisitely revenged on Sir Gareth. It was Sir Gareth’s own story, now to prove his undoing. ‘You see,’ said Amanda, drawing a deep, ecstatic breath. ‘I am an heiress.’

‘Oh!’ said Mr Ross, rather at a loss.

‘I was left an orphan at an early age,’ she continued, embellishing Sir Gareth’s crude handiwork. ‘Alas! I am quite alone in the world, without kith or kin.’

Mr Ross, himself a great reader of romances, found nothing to object to in the style of this narrative, but cavilled a little at the matter. ‘What, have you no relations at all?’ he asked incredulously. ‘No cousins, even?’

Amanda thought him unnecessarily captious, but obligingly presented him with a relative. ‘Yes, I have an uncle,’ she conceded. ‘But he cannot help me, so –’

‘But why not? Surely –’

Amanda, regretting the creation of an uncle who seemed likely to prove an embarrassment, with great presence of mind placed him beyond Mr Ross’s reach. ‘He is in Bedlam,’ she said. ‘So we need not think any more about him. The thing is that –’

‘Mad?’ interrupted Mr Ross, in horrified accents.

‘Raving mad,’ said Amanda firmly.

‘How very dreadful!’

‘Yes, isn’t it? Because I have no one to turn to but Sir Gareth.’

‘Is he a dangerous madman?’ asked Mr Ross, apparently fascinated by the uncle.

‘I do wish you would stop asking questions about my uncle, and attend to what I am saying!’ said Amanda, exasperated.

‘I beg pardon! It must be excessively painful for you!’

‘Yes, and it is quite beside the point, too. Sir Gareth, wishing to possess himself of my fortune, is determined to force me into marriage with himself, and for this purpose is carrying me to London.’

‘To London? I should have thought –’

‘To London,’ repeated Amanda emphatically. ‘Because that is where he lives, and he means to incarcerate me in his house until I submit. And it’s no use saying the parish constable would stop him, because Sir Gareth would deny every word, and say that he was taking me to live with his sister, who is a very disagreeable woman, and would do anything to oblige him. And everyone would believe him, because they always do. So you would only make a great noise, which I should very much dislike, and all to no purpose.’

Mr Ross could see that this was very likely, but he was still puzzled. ‘Where have you been living?’ he demanded. ‘I don’t perfectly understand. You said he abducted you; haven’t you been residing under his roof?’

‘No, no, I have hitherto resided with a very respectable woman, who –’ She stopped, and decided to eliminate a possible danger. ‘– who is dead. I mean, she died two years ago, and Sir Gareth then placed me in a seminary, which is exactly the sort of thing he would do! Only now that I am old enough to be married, he came and removed me, and naturally I was pleased, because then I believed him to be everything that was amiable. But when he told me that I must marry him –’

‘Good God, I should have thought he would have had more address!’ exclaimed Mr Ross. ‘Told you that you must marry him when he had only that instant removed you from the seminary?’

‘Oh, no! The thing was that he supposed I should like the notion, because previously I had been excessively attached to him, on account of his being so handsome, and agreeable. Only, of course, I never thought of marrying him. Why, he’s quite old! So then I was in a great fright, and I ran away from the place where we were staying last night, and he chased me all day, and found me at last, and brought me here. And I cannot think how to escape again, and oh, I am so very unhappy!’

The passionate sincerity with which these final words were uttered pierced Mr Ross to the heart. He was ashamed to think that he had for a moment doubted the story, and in some agitation im

plored Amanda not to cry. Amanda, between sobs, told him of her earlier adventures. These had been wholly enjoyable at the time, but regarded in retrospect, now that she was tired and defeated, the day seemed to her to have been one of unrelieved misery and discomfort.

Mr Ross had no difficulty in believing this at least. He would, indeed, have found it impossible to have believed that anything less than the direst necessity could have induced a gently-born young female to have taken so unprecedented and perilous a step as to cast herself upon the world as she had done. From the moment of her escape, the poor little thing had been mercilessly hounded. It did not surprise him to learn that the fat old gentleman who had with such false kindness offered to carry her to Oundle had tried to take advantage of her innocence. His sensitive nature made it easy for him to imagine the desperation of terror which must have had her in its grip; and the thought of so fragile and lovely a creature cowering on the floor of a farmcart made him shudder, not the smallest suspicion entering his head that she had thoroughly enjoyed this part of her adventure. The description of the devilish cunning employed by Sir Gareth to regain possession of her lost nothing in the telling. Sir Gareth began, in Mr Ross’s mind, to assume an aspect of smiling villainy. He wondered how he should have been taken-in by his pleasant manners, until he remembered certain warnings given him by his father against too readily trusting smooth-tongued and apparently creditable gentlemen of fashionable appearance. The world, said the Squire, was full of plausible banditti on the look-out for green young men of fortune. Their stock-in-trade was winning charm, and they frequently bestowed titles upon themselves, generally military. No doubt they were also on the look-out for rich wives, but naturally the Squire had not thought it necessary to tell his son this.

Had some chance brought Mr Ross face to face with Sir Gareth again, it was possible that his leaping imagination would have suffered a check. But Sir Gareth had gone to bed, and Mr Ross’s last sight of him had been of him on the corridor, locking Amanda into her room. Every word he had said to Amanda bore out the truth of her story, and of his cynical heartlessness there could be no doubt. Only a hardened scoundrel, in Mr Ross’s opinion, could have laughed at Amanda’s anguish. Sir Gareth, not content with laughing, had mocked at her distress. He had also (now one came to think of it) tried to deceive her with promises of generous entertainment in London.

No chance brought Sir Gareth on to the scene to counteract the combined influences on an impressionable youth of Amanda and a full moon. Perched on the stable-ladder, a modern Romeo and his Juliet discussed ways and means.