Sprig Muslin

Meanwhile, Sir Gareth’s own pair, carefully though he had nursed them, were spent, and must be stabled. It was not his practice to leave his blood-cattle in strange hands, so when Trotton heard him issuing instructions at the George on the treatment the bays were to receive, and was himself ordered to see them properly bestowed, and realized that he was not to be left in charge of them, he knew that his master’s must indeed be a desperate case.

Sir Gareth, driving a pair of job horses, drew a blank at Islip, and another at Lowick. He then struck eastward, reaching, by way of an abominable lane, the road that linked Thrapston to Oundle. Here he was similarly unsuccessful, and broke back to the road that led to Kettering. Nowhere had anyone seen a yellow-bodied carriage, followed by a coach laden with baggage. He drove back to Thrapston, and, convinced in spite of all discouragement that Mr Theale was heading for the neighbourhood of Melton Mowbray, once more drove out of the town in that direction. How Mr Theale’s coachman could have contrived, on such a sweltering day, to have pushed his horses beyond Islip he knew not, but that the yellow-bodied carriage had taken the road to Melton Mowbray he was certain. And he was perfectly right, as he knew, as soon as he came upon the derelict, a mile short of Brigstock.

There was considerable cause for satisfaction in this, but Sir Gareth had been driving all day, and he had eaten nothing since his interrupted breakfast at Brancaster. By the time he arrived at the Brigstock Arms he was holding his temper on a tight rein; and when he entered the parlour to find Mr Theale lounging at his ease, with a bottle at his elbow, and his slippered feet on a stool, an impulse surged up within him to pluck that conscienceless hedonist out of his chair with one hand for the simple purpose of sending him to grass with one scientifically placed punch from the other. Indeed, it had already formed itself into a fist when Mr Theale spoke.

Mr Theale’s words gave Sir Gareth pause. He stood looking contemptuously down at him, his right hand unclenching as he recognized his condition. It would have been unjust to have described Mr Theale as drunk. It was his boast that no one had seen him deep-cut since the days of his youth, and certainly his capacity for brandy was prodigious. But his potations had cast a pleasant haze over the world, as he saw it, and they had induced in him a mood of immense affability. It was clearly out of the question to deal with him as he deserved. Sir Gareth said curtly: ‘I see. Where is Miss Smith?’

‘Schultz?’ enquired Mr Theale knowledgeably.

‘Where – is – Miss – Smith?’ repeated Sir Gareth.

‘Never heard of her,’ said Mr Theale. ‘Now I come to think of it, Weston makes for you, doesn’t he?’

‘Where is Amanda Smith?’ demanded Sir Gareth, altering the wording of his question.

‘Oh, her!’ said Mr Theale. ‘Damned if I know!’

‘Doing it rather too brown!’ Sir Gareth said, with a distinct rasp in his voice. ‘Don’t try to gammon me you didn’t carry her off from Brancaster this morning!’

‘Was it only this morning?’ said Mr Theale, mildly surprised. ‘I daresay you’re right, but it seems longer.’

‘Where is she?’

‘I keep telling you I don’t know. Yes, and now I come to think of it, a pretty cool hand you are, my boy! First you bring that fancy-piece to Brancaster, and next, damme if you don’t have the effrontery to come smash up to me, trying to get me to give her up to you! If I weren’t a very easy-going man I should very likely call you to account. Thought you had more delicacy of principle.’

‘Rid your mind of two illusions at least! Amanda is neither my mistress nor a fancy-piece!’

‘She isn’t? As a matter of fact, I’d got to thinking she might not be. You take the advice of a man who’s older than you, my boy, and has seen more of the world than you ever will! If she ain’t Haymarket ware, hedge off! I don’t say she ain’t a tempting armful – well, I thought so myself! –

but you may take it from me – !’

‘I wish to take nothing from you but that child!’ interrupted Sir Gareth. ‘Stop cutting shams, and tell me what you’ve done with her! I warn you, Theale, I’m in no mood to listen to any more of your lies!’

‘Now, don’t get in a tweak!’ recommended Mr Theale. ‘It’s no use your asking me what I’ve done with that chit, because I haven’t done anything with her. She gave me the bag. I don’t deny I wasn’t best pleased at the time, but I’m not at all sure now that it ain’t a good thing. Shouldn’t wonder at it if she’d have put me in the basket. You too. Forget her, my boy! After all, not the thing to offer for poor Hester, one moment, and to go chasing after Amanda the next.’

‘When did she give you the bag, and where?’ demanded Sir Gareth, ignoring this piece of advice.

‘I forget the name of the place, but she’d been eating a lot of raspberries.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t wonder you’re surprised. You’d have been even more surprised if you’d seen the cream she kept pouring over them. I warned her how it would be, but there was no stopping her. Swore she was in high gig, and so she was, then. That didn’t last, of course. She began to feel queasy – at least, that’s what she said. She may have been bamboozling me, though I shouldn’t think anyone could have eaten all those raspberries without becoming as sick as a horse. She sat there, moaning, and saying she must lie down. Got me to stop the carriage in some village or other. I daresay I’ll remember its name in a minute: it wasn’t far from Thrapston. Anyway, we went into an inn there, and Amanda went off upstairs with the landlady – a devilish woman, that! I give you my word, if I’d known what a shrew she was I wouldn’t have set foot inside the place!’

‘Never mind the landlady!’ said Sir Gareth impatiently.

‘Yes, it’s all very well for you to say never mind the landlady, but you didn’t have to listen to her talking as though you were a regular Queer Nabs, which I’ll be damned if I am!’

‘The landlady rumbled you, did she? Good! What happened when Amanda went upstairs?’

‘I had a glass of bingo. I needed it, I can tell you, because what with being bounced about in the carriage, and thinking every moment Amanda was going to cast up accounts, I was feeling damned queasy myself.’

‘For God’s sake – !’ exclaimed Sir Gareth. ‘I don’t wish to know what you drank, or what you felt like! What happened to Amanda?’

‘How should I know? The landlady said she was going to lie down for half an hour, and that’s the last I heard of her, or anyone else, for that matter.’

‘Do you mean that she left the inn without anyone’s seeing her?’

‘That’s it,’ nodded Mr Theale. ‘Tipped me the double, the sly little cat! Queer business: she just disappeared, though the lord alone knows how she managed it! A pretty fix to have found myself in! Yes, and a pretty breeze she raised, too!’