Sprig Muslin

‘No, by Jupiter!’ agreed the Captain. ‘Like my old nurse, who is persuaded I got hit because she wasn’t there to tell me not to get in the way of the nasty guns!’

‘Exactly so!’ said Warren, laughing heartily. ‘I told Trotton I never knew a man more able to take care of himself than Ludlow, but I might as well have spared my breath. I shall have to discover what tale he’s fobbed my wife off with, or I shall be bowled out.’

But when Mrs Wetherby came back into the room he soon found that this would be unnecessary. She was looking so much amused that he was surprised into exclaiming: ‘What the deuce did Trotton tell you to set you off laughing?’

She threw him a saucy look. ‘The truth, of course! Did you think I couldn’t get him to tell me the whole? Pooh! How could you be so nonsensical as to suppose I should be shocked, as though I were a schoolroom miss? I was never more enchanted! When I had despaired of ever seeing the old Gary again, doing such daring things, and being so gay, and adventurous! How I wish I could have seen him snatching up this beautiful girl in his curricle, and driving off with her! Of all the absurd starts! Depend upon it, he sent Trotton home because he was off to the Border with his Amanda! Did Trotton tell you that was her name? Isn’t it pretty?’

‘What?’ ejaculated Captain Kendal.

She was surprised, for he had fairly shot the word at her, but before she could answer Warren intervened, saying in a displeased voice: ‘You are talking nonsense, my dear, and allowing your romantic notions to run away with you. The Border, indeed! You may be sure there is no question of that!’

‘Oh, you are thinking of her trying to escape from him, and his chasing after her, and finding her in a cow-byre, or some such thing!’ she said, laughing. ‘My dear Warren, how can you be so green? No female in her senses would wish to escape from Gary, least of all a girl who was found in a common inn, entirely unattended!’

‘You will be giving Kendal a very odd idea of your brother if you lead him to suppose that Gary would for a moment contemplate marriage with such a girl,’ Warren said repressively.

She was aware that her natural liveliness, exaggerated as it was by relief, had betrayed her into raillery that was beyond the line of being pleasing, and coloured, saying: ‘I was only funning, of course! It cannot be more than a – well, a charmingly romantic interlude! – but it will do Gary a great deal of good, so you must not expect me to pull down my mouth, and preach propriety, if you please!’

After his one startled exclamation, Captain Kendal had not again unclosed his lips. They were indeed tightly gripped together, in a way that suggested to his hostess that he was tiresomely prudish. There was a stern look in his face, and an expression in his eyes which quite startled her. He might disapprove of her vivacity, but why he should look murderous she was at a l

oss to understand. She stared at him; he lowered his eyes; seemed to make an effort to suppress whatever emotion it was that had him in its clutch; and said curtly that it was time he took his leave. He would not stay for tea, but he said everything that was proper before shaking hands briefly with his hostess. Warren accompanied him to the front-door. ‘My wife, when she is in funning humour, talks a great deal of flummery,’ he said. ‘I need not ask you not to repeat her nonsense, I know.’

‘You need have no fear of that, sir!’ said Captain Kendal emphatically. ‘Goodnight! And thank you for a – very pleasant evening!’

A bow, and he was gone. Warren went upstairs again to scold his wife for having shocked her guest, and to read her a homily on the evils of a long tongue; but he was himself a little puzzled by the Captain’s behaviour.

Captain Kendal, meanwhile, hailed the first hackney he saw, and bade the jarvey drive him to Grillon’s Hotel. While this aged vehicle lumbered on its way to Albermarle Street, he sat rather rigidly upright, clenching and unclenching one fist, and frowning straight ahead. Arrived at Grillon’s, he demanded General Summercourt in a voice grim enough to make the porter look rather narrowly at him.

The General was discovered, seated at a desk in a small writing-room. There was no one else in the room. The General looked up, and when he saw who had come in, his face hardened, and he said: ‘You, eh? And just what do you want, young man?’

‘I want to know what took you to Bow Street today, sir!’ the Captain replied.

‘Oh, you do, do you?’ snapped the General, exploding into the wrath of a much harassed man. ‘Then I will tell you, you damned, encroaching jackanapes! Thanks to you my granddaughter has been missing from her home for more than a fortnight. Read that!’

Captain Kendal almost snatched the sheet of writing-paper that was being thrust at him, and rapidly read the lines written in Amanda’s childish hand. When he came to the end, he looked up, and said fiercely: ‘Thanks to me? Do you imagine, sir, that Amanda took this step with my knowledge? That I would permit her – By God, if that is the opinion you hold of my character I do not wonder at your refusing your consent to our marriage!’

The General glared at him for a moment. ‘No, I don’t,’ he said shortly. ‘If I had, I should have come to you and choked her whereabouts out of you! But if you hadn’t come making up to her, putting ideas into her head, egging her on to defy me –’

‘So far from egging her on to defy you, I have told her that I will not, while she is so young, marry her without your consent, sir! And she knows I mean what I say!’

‘Yes! And this is the outcome! I am to be forced to consent! Well, you may be sure of this, Neil Kendal! – I will not! Damme, I will not!’

‘I collect, then, that you haven’t put a notice in the Morning Post, sir?’

‘No! I have put the matter in the hands of the Runners. They have been searching for her now for a se’enight!’

‘And she has been missing above a fortnight!’ the Captain flung at him. ‘Taking it mighty coolly, are you not, sir?’

‘Damn your impudence, I made sure she was hiding in the woods! She did so once before, when she couldn’t get her own way, the little puss!’

‘Call off the Runners!’ said the Captain. ‘I can tell you more than they appear to have discovered, and pretty hearing it is! Where Amanda is I don’t know, but whom she is with I do know!’

‘For God’s sake, Neil, what do you mean?’ demanded the General, turning pale. ‘Out with it!’

‘She is with a fellow called Ludlow – Gareth Ludlow – who came upon her in a common inn, where, I know not, and bore her off to Kimbolton. I have been dining tonight with Ludlow’s sister, a Mrs Wetherby, and what I heard in that house – My God, I don’t know how I contrived to keep my tongue still!’

‘Ludlow?’ the General said numbly. ‘Bore her off? My little Amanda? No, no, it isn’t possible! Tell me the whole, damn you!’

He listened in silence to Captain Kendal’s succinct recital, but it seemed as though he had hardly taken it in, for he sat looking blankly at the Captain, repeating uncomprehendingly: ‘Abducted her – trying to escape from him – found in a cow-byre?’ He managed to pull himself together and said in a firmer voice: ‘It isn’t possible! She’s nothing but a child! Did you discover from these Wetherbys –’