Sprig Muslin

‘Let us take a turn in the garden!’ said Mr Theale, much heartened by this disclosure.

Seven

It could not have been said, when Amanda came to the end of her imaginative confidences, that Mr Theale perfectly understood all the ramifications of her story. Certain features, such as the precise nature of the circumstances which had drawn Sir Gareth into her life, remained obscure, but this did not greatly trouble him. One thing was quite plain to him: Sir Gareth had hideously mangled a promising situation, which, reflected Mr Theale, was a further example of the unwisdom of trusting to appearances. One wouldn’t have suspected that a fellow with such address, and such easy, pleasant manners, would have so grossly mishandled a shy filly whom anyone but a cod’s head must have guessed would respond only to a very light hand on the bridle. That Amanda had disliked him from the outset Mr Theale did not for a moment believe, for the particular story Amanda had selected for his edification was the one she owed to the pen of Mr Richardson. Sir Gareth had recognized the provenance, and had very unkindly said so; Mr Theale, whose reading did not embrace the works of novelists admired by his parents, did not recognize it. Broadly speaking, he accepted the story, but the construction he put upon it was scarcely what the fair plagiarist would have desired. No doubt the little lovebird had encouraged the widowed parent of her young mistress to make up to her: probably, thought the cynical Mr Theale, she had hoped to lure him into proposing marriage. That would account for the apparent inhumanity of the gentleman’s sister in turning her out of doors incontinent. Just how much time had elapsed, or what had happened, between this heartless eviction and Amanda’s arrival at Brancaster under Sir Gareth’s protection, Mr Theale neither knew nor troubled to discover. She had said that she had met Sir Gareth for the first time on the previous day, but that, naturally, was a lie. Understandable, of course, but Mr Theale was rather too downy a one to accept it. On his own admission, Sir Gareth had lingered on the road from London. He had pitched them a Canterbury-story about a visit to old friends in Hertfordshire: in Mr Theale’s view, it had been a young friend who had detained him, and had succeeded in fixing his interest so securely that rather than lose her he had adopted the perilous course of bringing her to Brancaster. Mr Theale considered it a bold stroke, but a trifle hare-brained: ten to one that had been when the chit had taken fright. When all was said and done, he thought, preening himself, an experienced man of fifty, even though he had become a little portly, could give Ludlow points, and beat him. A handsome face and a fine figure were very well in their way, but what was needed in this case was delicacy.

Mr Theale, in the most delicate fashion imaginable, offered Amanda an asylum. He did it so beautifully that even if she had been attending closely to him she must have found it difficult to decide whether he was inviting her to become an inmate of his hunting-box in the guise of a maidservant, or in that of an adopted daughter. In the event, she paid very little heed to his glibly persuasive periods, being fully occupied in considering how, and at what stage of the journey to Melton Mowbray, to dispense with his further escort.

On one point, Mr Theale failed to reassure her. So great was her dread of Sir Gareth that nothing served to convince her that he would not, as soon as her flight was discovered, pursue her relentlessly, probably springing his horses in a very reckless way, and quite certainly, unless she had several hours’ start of him, overtaking her, and snatching her back into his power.

‘No, no, he won’t do that!’ Mr Theale said comfortably.

‘Well, I think he will,’ replied Amanda. ‘He is determined not to let me escape: he said so!’

‘Ay, I heard him,’ said Mr Theale, chuckling to himself. ‘He was bamming you, my dear. The only thing he can’t do is to get you away from me. He’s been hoaxing you more than you knew. I’ll go bail he hasn’t told you what brought him here, has he?’

‘No,’ admitted Amanda. ‘But –’

‘Well, he’s come to offer for my niece,’ disclosed Mr Theale.

‘For Lady Hester?’ gasped Amanda, round-eyed with surprise.

‘That’s it. Sets him at a stand. A nice dust there would be if the truth of this business were to become known! Bad enough to have brought you here in the first place. The tale will be that I’ve taken you to those relations of ours at Oundle. Of course, he’ll know I haven’t done any such thing, because he knows there ain’t any relations at Oundle, but he won’t dare say so; and as for trying to get me to hand you over to him – well, if he’s got as much effrontery as that, he’s got more than any man that ever existed!’

‘I think,’ said Amanda firmly, ‘that we should fly from this place at dawn.’

‘No, we shouldn’t,’ replied Mr Theale, even more firmly. ‘Not at dawn, my dear.’

‘Well, very early in the morning, before anyone is out of bed,’ she conceded.

Mr Theale, although not addicted to early rising, agreed upon reflection that it would be desirable to have left Brancaster before Sir Gareth had emerged from his bedchamber. He could not be induced to favour so ungodly an hour as that suggested by Amanda, but after some argument a compromise was reached, and they parted, Mr Theale repairing to the library, where he was later discovered, apparently sleeping off a liberal potation of brandy; and Amanda seating herself under a fine yew-tree on the lawn. Here she was found by Lady Hester, who begged her to come back into the house before she contracted a chill. Amanda, who had be

en pondering the astonishing intelligence conveyed to her by Mr Theale, would dearly have liked to have asked her whether she really was about to become affianced to Sir Gareth. The question was on the tip of her tongue when she reflected that if the story were untrue Lady Hester might be put out of countenance by such a question. In her youthful eyes, Hester was long past the marriageable age, but she approved of her, and was inclined to think that she would be just the wife for a gentleman also stricken in years. The unexpected streak of maturity which underlay her childish volatility made it possible for her to understand, in the light of Mr Theale’s disclosure, the hitherto incomprehensible hostility of Hester’s abigail; and although she was not much given to considering any other interests than her own she did feel that it would be a great shame if, through her unwitting fault, the match came to nothing. This led to the comfortable conviction that in leaving Brancaster without the formality of bidding farewell to her kind hostess she was acting almost entirely in Hester’s interests. So she accompanied Hester back to the drawing-room with all the good-humour engendered by the agreeable feeling of having decided to adopt a very unselfish course of action. She was only sorry that it was impossible to guess, from either Hester’s demeanour or Sir Gareth’s, whether they were, in fact, betrothed, or whether the story was nothing but a hum.

An even stronger desire to know what had happened in the morning-room burned in the breasts of the other members of the party. Nothing was to be read in either of the principals’ countenances, but the Earl, trying unavailingly on several occasions to catch Sir Gareth’s eye, was despondent.

It was not until some time after the ladies had retired for the night that the truth was out. Mr Theale, mounting the stairs on his way to bed, reached the upper hall just as Lady Widmore, her colour considerably heightened, emerged from Hester’s room, shutting the door behind her with a distinct slam. Perceiving Mr Theale, she ejaculated with all the exasperation of one whose worst fears had been realized: ‘She rejected him!’

‘Tell her not to make a cake of herself!’ recommended Mr Theale.

‘Lord, do you think I haven’t? Mind, I hold him entirely to blame! What possessed the man to bring that girl here?’ Mr Theale closed one eye in a vulgar wink. ‘You don’t say so!’ her ladyship exclaimed. ‘The devil take him! Upon my soul, if that ain’t the biggest insult – Yes, but she don’t believe it, Fabian! That’s what puts me out of all patience with her. You needn’t doubt I told her there was nothing in it, though from the way he kept his eyes on the little baggage – well! But Hester is such a zany! “Take it from me, my dear,” I said, “he’s no more in love with her than Cuthbert is!” And what do you think she said to that? I declare I could have boxed her ears! You know that way she has of answering you as though she hadn’t heard above half you had said to her! “No,” she said, “not yet! ” I’m sure I don’t know how I kept my temper, for if there’s one thing I can’t abide it’s people who go off into a daze, which, let me tell you, is what Hester does! Not yet, indeed! “Pray, what do you mean by that?” I asked her. So then she looked at me, as if I were a hundred miles away, and said: “I think perhaps he will be.” You know, Fabian, there are times when I can’t but wonder whether she’s queer in her attic! Depend upon it, I told her pretty roundly that if that was what she thought she’d best snap the man up before the mischief was done. All she had to say to that was that she didn’t think she would, for all the world as though I had offered her a slice of cake, or some such thing. I’ve been talking to her for ever, but if she listened to anything I said it’s more than I bargain for! Well, I’ve no patience with her, and so I have told her! To be whistling Ludlow down the wind at her age, and affairs here in the case they are, makes me angry enough to burst my stay-laces! He was prepared to come down devilish handsomely, you know. Well, I don’t say Hester hasn’t often vexed me to death, but I declare I never thought she would behave so selfishly! What his lordship will have to say about it I hope I don’t have to listen to! I shall have enough to bear from Widmore, for this news will be bound to turn his stomach sour on him, you mark my words if it don’t!’

‘You know what, Almeria?’ interrupted Mr Theale, a look of profound concentration on his florid countenance. ‘I believe she has a tendre for him!’

Lady Widmore stared at him in contempt and suspicion. ‘I suppose you are top-heavy,’ she remarked.

Not for the first time, Mr Theale wondered what had possessed his nephew to marry this coarse-tongued and unattractive female. ‘No, I’m not,’ he said shortly.

‘Oh, beg pardon! But what made you say such a daffish thing, if it wasn’t brandy?’

‘It ain’t daffish, but I daresay it may seem so to you. There isn’t one of you here who can see what’s dashed well under your noses. It occurred to me when I saw Hester look at Ludlow.’

‘I’ll swear she has never given the least sign of such a thing!’ she said incredulously. ‘What the deuce can you possibly mean?’

‘Just a certain look in her eye,’ said Mr Theale knowledgeably. ‘No use asking me to explain it, because I can’t, but I’d lay you odds she’d have had him if he hadn’t walked in with that little ladybird on his arm.’

‘I could wring her neck!’ exclaimed Lady Widmore, her cheeks reddening angrily.

‘No need to do that: I’m going to take her off your hands first thing in the morning. To those relations at Oundle,’ he added, with another of his vulgar winks.