Sprig Muslin

‘Oh, yes! For I am going upon an errand of mercy, you might say. Now I must not waste any more time: will you tell Mr Ross I am quite ready to start?’

‘Yes, my lady. I should perhaps mention that Mr Whyteleafe has been with him for the past twenty minutes, however.’

‘Dear me, how very unfortunate! I wish I knew what Mr Ross may have told him!’ she murmured. ‘Perhaps I had better go to the Red Saloon myself.’

She entered this apartment in time to hear Mr Ross’s firm assertion that all the children had the measles, though none was so alarmingly full of them as little Giles. Lady Ennerdale, he added, was prostrate with anxiety.

‘You astonish me!’ exclaimed the chaplain, rather narrowly observing him. ‘I had not thought her ladyship –’

‘Because,’ said Mr Ross hurriedly, ‘the nurse had the misfortune to fall down the stairs, and break her leg, and so everything falls upon her shoulders!’

‘Yes, is it not dreadful?’ interposed Lady Hester. ‘Poor Susan! No wonder she should be distracted! I am quite ready to set forward, Mr Ross, and indeed I feel that we should lose no time!’

‘All the way to Ancaster!’ Mr Whyteleafe said, looking thunderstruck. ‘You will never reach it tonight, Lady Hester! Surely it would be wiser to wait until tomorrow?’

‘No, no, for that would mean that I should not arrive until quite late, and knocked up by the journey, I daresay. We shall spend the night somewhere on the road. And then I shan’t be extraordinarily fatigued, and shall be able to render my sister all the assistance possible.’

‘If you must go, Lady Hester, I wonder at it that Sir Matthew should not have had the courtesy to fetch you himself! I make no apology for speaking plainly on this head! There is a lack of consideration in such behaviour, a –’

‘Sir Matthew,’ said Mr Ross, ‘is away from home, sir. That is why I offered to be his deputy.’

‘Yes, and how very much obliged to you I am!’ said Hester. ‘But do not let us be dawdling any longer, I beg!’

Mr Whyteleafe said no more, but he was evidently very much shocked by this renewed instance of the shameless demands made upon Hester by her sisters, and it was with tightly folded lips that he accompanied her to where the chaise waited. She was afraid that he too would recognize the post-boy, but he did not bestow more than a cursory glance on him, the circumstance of Lady Ennerdale’s having been shabby enough to have sent a hired vehicle, with only two horses, for the conveyance of her sister, ousting all else from his head. Lady Hester was handed up into the chaise, Mr Ross jumped in after her, the steps were let up, and in another minute they were drawing away from the house.

‘Phew!’ Hildebrand said involuntarily, pulling out his handkerchief, and mopping his brow. ‘I can’t tell you how thankful I was that you came in just then, ma’am, for he was asking me all manner of questions! He would know who I was, and I was obliged to tell him that I was employed by Sir Matthew as a secretary.’

‘How very clever of you! I daresay he was very much surprised, for Sir Matthew is interested in nothing but sport.’

‘Yes, he was – in fact, he said he could not imagine what I should find to do for Sir Matthew. So I said Sir Matthew had formed the intention of going into politics.’

This made her laugh so much that he lost any lingering shyness, and ventured to break to her the news that she had become, without her knowledge, Amanda’s aunt. He was a little afraid that she might be affronted, for she was much younger than Amanda had led him to suppose; but she accepted the relationship with approval, and said that perhaps she had better become his aunt too.

By the time the chaise arrived at Little Staughton, they were fast friends. Dusk was falling when it drew up before the Bull Inn, and lamplight shone through several of the windows. As Hildebrand jumped down, and turned to help Lady Hester, Amanda leaned out of one of the casements set under the eaves, and called, in a voice sharpened by anxiety: ‘Hildebrand? Oh, Hildebrand, have you brought her?’

He looked up. ‘Yes, here she is! Take care you don’t fall out of the window!’

She disappeared abruptly. The hand in Hildebrand’s trembled convulsively, but Lady Hester’s voice, when she spoke, was quite quiet. ‘I must leave you to settle with the post-boy, Hildebrand. I am afraid –’

She did not say what she was afraid of, but went swiftly into the inn. As she crossed the threshold, Amanda reached the foot of the steep stairs, and fairly pounced on her, dryly sobbing from mingled fright and relief. ‘Oh, thank God you are come at last! He is very, very ill, and I cannot make him lie still, or even hear me! Oh, La – Aunt Hester, come!’

‘Ah, I thought Miss would be sorry she turned off Mrs Bardfield so hasty!’ remarked Mrs Chicklade, in the background, and speaking with a morbid satisfaction which made Amanda round on her like a young tigress.

‘Go away, you odious, impertinent creature! You said you washed your hands of it, and so you may, for I don’t want help from such a heathen as you are!’

Mrs Chicklade’s colour rose alarmingly. ‘Oh, so I’m a heathen, am I? Me as has been a churchgoer all my life, and kept my house respectable – till this day!’

‘Good-evening.’

The gentle, aloof voice acted on the incensed landlady like a charm. Cut short in mid-career, she stared at Lady Hester, her rich colour slowly fading.

‘I am afraid,’ said Hester, with cool courtesy, ‘that you are being put to a great deal of trouble. It is perhaps a pity I did not, after all, bring my maid with me. My nephew thought, however, that there would be no room for her in so small a house.’

Mrs Chicklade felt herself impelled to abandon her martial attitude, and to drop an unwilling curtsy. ‘I’m sure, ma’am, I’m not one to grudge a bit of trouble. All I say is –’

‘Thank you,’ Hester said, turning away from her. ‘Take me up to your uncle’s room, Amanda!’

Amanda was only too glad to do so. Chicklade, an expression of considerable concern on his face, was bending over the bed on which Sir Gareth tossed and muttered. He looked round as the ladies entered the room, and said: ‘I don’t like the looks of