Sprig Muslin

‘What of it? I can tell you this, Hetty: it ain’t so often that persons of our station marry for love. Look at me! You can’t suppose I was ever in love with poor Widmore! But I never took, any more than you did, and when the match was proposed to me I agreed to it, because there’s nothing worse for a female than to be left on the shelf.’

‘One grows accustomed to it,’ Hester said. ‘Can you believe, Almeria, that Sir Gareth and I should – should suit?’

‘Lord, yes! Why not? If the chance had been offered to me, I should have jumped out of my skin to snatch it!’ responded Lady Widmore frankly. ‘I know you don’t love him, but what’s that to the purpose? You think it over carefully, Hetty! You ain’t likely to receive another offer, or, in any event, not such an advantageous one, though I daresay Whyteleafe will pop the question, as soon as he gets preferment. Take Ludlow, and you’ll have a handsome fortune, a position of the first consequence, and an agreeable husband into the bargain. Send him to the rightabout, and you’ll end your days an old maid, let alone be obliged to listen to your father’s and Widmore’s reproaches for ever, if I know anything of the matter!’

Hester smiled faintly. ‘One grows accustomed to that too. I have sometimes thought that when Papa dies I might live in quite a little house, by myself.’

‘Well, you won’t,’ said Lady Widmore trenchantly. ‘Your sister Susan will pounce on you: I can vouch for that! It would suit her very well to have you with her to wait on her hand and foot, and very likely act as governess to all those plain brats of hers as well! And Widmore would think it a first-rate scheme, so you’d get no support from him, or from Gertrude or Constance either. And it’s not a particle of good thinking you’d stand out against ’em, my dear, for you haven’t a ha’porth of spirit! If you want a home of your own, you’ll take Ludlow, and bless yourself for your good fortune, for you won’t get one by any other means!’

With these encouraging words, Lady Widmore took herself off to her own bedchamber, pausing on the way to inform her lord that provided he and his father could keep still tongues in their heads she rather fancied she had done the trick.

The Lady Hester, once her maid was dismissed, the candles blown out, and the curtains drawn round her bed, buried her face in the pillow and cried herself quietly to sleep.

Three

Three days later, Sir Gareth, in happy ignorance of the wretched indecision into which his proposal had thrown his chosen bride, left London, and pursued a rather leisurely progress towards Cambridgeshire. He drove his own curricle, with a pair of remarkably fine match-bays harnessed to it, and broke the journey at the house of some friends, not many miles from Baldock, where he remained for two nights, resting his horses. He took with him his head groom, but not his valet: a circumstance which disgusted that extremely skilled gentleman more than it surprised him. Sir Gareth, who belonged to the Corinthian set, was always very well dressed, but he was quite capable of achieving the effect he desired without the ministrations of the genius who had charge of his wardrobe; and the thought that alien hands were pressing his coats, or applying inferior blacking to his Hessian boots, caused him to feel no anguish at all.

He was not expected at Brancaster Park until the late afternoon, but since the month was July, and the weather sultry, he set forward for the remainder of the journey in good time, driving his pair at an easy pace, and pausing to bait, when some twenty miles had been accomplished, in the village of Caxton. The place boasted only one posting-house, and that a modest one; and when Sir Gareth strolled into the coffee-room he found the landlord engaged in what appeared to be a somewhat heated argument with a young lady in a gown of sprig muslin, and a hat of chip-straw, which was tied becomingly over a mass of silken black locks.

The landlord, as soon as he perceived an obvious member of the Quality upon the threshold, abandoned the lady without ceremony, and stepped forward, bowing, and desiring to know in what way he might have the honour of serving the newcomer.

‘It will be time enough to serve me when you have attended to this lady,’ replied Sir Gareth, who had not failed to remark the indignant expression in the lady’s big eyes.

‘Oh, no, sir! No, indeed! I am quite at liberty – very happy to wait upon your honour immediately!’ the landlord assured him. ‘I was just telling the young person that I daresay she will find accommodation at the Rose and Crown.’

These words were added in a lowered voice, but they reached the lady’s ears, and caused her to say in a tone of strong disapprobation: ‘I am not a young person, and if I wish to stay in your horrid inn, I shall stay here, and it is not of the least use to tell me that you have no room, because I don’t believe you!’

‘I’ve told you before, miss, that this is a posting-house, and we don’t serve young per – females – who come walking in with no more than a couple of bandboxes!’ said the landlord angrily. ‘I don’t know what your lay is, nor I don’t want to, but I haven’t got any room for you, and that’s my last word!’

Sir Gareth, who had retired tactfully to the window-embrasure, had been watching the stormy little face under the chip-hat. It was an enchantingly pretty face, with large, dark eyes, a lovely, wilful mouth, and a most determined chin. It was also a very youthful face, just now flushed with mortification. The landlord plainly considered its owner to be a female of no account, but neither the child’s voice nor her manner, which was decidedly imperious, belonged to one of vulgar birth. A suspicion that she was a runaway from some seminary for young ladies crossed Sir Gareth’s mind: he judged her to be about the same age as his niece;

and in some intangible way she reminded him of Clarissa. Not that she was really like Clarissa, for Clarissa had been divinely fair. Perhaps, he thought, with a tiny pang, the resemblance lay in her wilful look, and the tilt of her obstinate chin. At all events, she was far too young and too pretty to be going about the country unattended; and no more unsuitable resting-place than the common inn to which the landlord had directed her could have been found for her. If she were an errant schoolgirl, it clearly behoved a man of honour to restore her to her family.

Sir Gareth came away from the window, saying, with his attractive smile: ‘Forgive me, but can I perhaps be of some assistance?’

She eyed him uncertainly, not shyly, but with speculation in her candid gaze. Before she could answer, the landlord said that there was no need for the gentleman to trouble himself. He would have expanded the remark, but was checked. Sir Gareth said, quite pleasantly, but on a note of authority: ‘It appears to me that there is considerable need. It is quite out of the question that this lady should spend the night at the Rose and Crown.’ He smiled down at the lady again. ‘Suppose you were to tell me where you want to go to? I don’t think, you know, that your mama would wish you to stay at any inn without your maid.’

‘Well, I haven’t got a mama,’ replied the lady, with the air of one triumphing in argument.

‘I beg your pardon. Your father, then?’

‘And I haven’t got a father either!’

‘Yes, I can see that you think you have now driven me against the ropes,’ he said, amused. ‘And, of course, if both your parents are dead we shall never know what they would have felt about it. How would it be if we discussed the matter over a little refreshment? What would you like?’

Her eyes brightened; she said cordially: ‘I should be very much obliged to you, sir, if you would procure a glass of lemonade for me, for I am excessively thirsty, and this odious man wouldn’t bring it to me!’

The landlord said explosively: ‘Your honour! Miss walks in here, as you see her, wanting me to tell her when the next coach is due for Huntingdon, and when I say there won’t be one, not till tomorrow, first she asks me if I’m needing a chambermaid, and when I tell her I’m not needing any such thing, she up and says she’ll hire a room for the night! Now, I put it to your honour –’

‘Never mind!’ interrupted Sir Gareth, only the faintest tremor in his voice betraying the laughter that threatened to overcome him. ‘Just be good enough to fetch the lady a glass of lemonade, and, for me, a tankard of your home-brewed, and we will see what can be done to straighten out this tangle!’

The landlord started to say something about the respectability of his house, thought better of it, and withdrew. Sir Gareth pulled a chair out from the table, and sat down, saying persuasively: ‘Now that we are rid of him, do you feel that you could tell me who you are, and how you come to be wandering about the country in this rather odd way? My name, I should tell you, is Ludlow – Sir Gareth Ludlow, entirely at your service!’

‘How do you do?’ responded the lady politely.

‘Well?’ said Sir Gareth, the twinkle in his eye quizzing her. ‘Am I, like the landlord, to call you miss? I really can’t address you as ma’am: you put me much too strongly in mind of my eldest niece, when she’s in mischief.’

She had been eyeing him rather warily, but this remark seemed to reassure her, which was what it was meant to do. She said: ‘My name is Amanda, sir. Amanda S – Smith!’