The Captain shook hands with Hester, saying seriously: ‘I am excessively sorry, ma’am, and I beg you will forgive her! I was never more shocked! I shall break her of these tricks, you may be sure, but in some ways she’s no more than a baby, which makes it devilish hard to explain to her why she mustn’t make up faradiddles about being compromised, and the rest of it.’
Lady Hester, casting a look of mild triumph at Sir Gareth, said: ‘I told you it would depend on what he was like, and I could see you didn’t believe me, only you perceive that I was right! Captain Kendal, don’t listen to anything that anybody may say to you, but just marry Amanda, and take her to Spain with you. It would be too bad if you did not, because she has been to a great deal of trouble over it, besides learning to wring chickens’ necks, and being exactly the sort of wife you ought to have, if you should happen to be wounded again.’
‘Well, I don’t want her to wring chickens’ necks – in fact, I won’t have her doing such things! – and I’d as lief not have her by, if I were to be hit again – though I’m glad she’d the sense to stop you bleeding to death, sir! – but, by Jupiter, ma’am, if you think that’s what I should do, I will do it!’ said the Captain, once more shaking her by the hand. ‘I’m very much obliged to you. It isn’t that I don’t know she’d do much better with me than with her grandfather, but she is very young, and I don’t want to take advantage of her. However, if you think it right, the General may go hang! Hallo! That sounds like his voice! Ay, here he comes – but who the devil has he got with him?’
Lady Hester, gazing in a petrified way at the three figures advancing towards her, said faintly: ‘Widmore and Mr Whyteleafe! Just when we were so comfortable!’
Eighteen
It was immediately apparent that although the three gentlemen bearing down upon the group under the apple-tree had arrived together at the Bull, this had not been through any choice of theirs. All were looking heated, and Lord Widmore was glaring so hard at Summercourt that it was not until Mr Whyteleafe ejaculated: ‘Sir Gareth Ludlow! Here – and with Lady Hester?’ that he became aware of the identity of the figure in the brocade dressing-gown. Since not even his wildest imaginings had pictured Hester in Sir Gareth’s company, he was so dumbfounded that he could only goggle at him. This gave the General an opportunity to step into the lead, and he was quick to pounce on it. Brushing past his lordship, and annihilating Mr Whyteleafe with the stare which had in earlier days turned the bones of his subordinates to water, he strode up to Sir Gareth’s chair, and said, in a sort of bark: ‘You will be good enough, sir, to grant me the favour of a private interview with you! When I tell you that my name is Summercourt – yes, Summercourt, sir! – I rather fancy that you will not think it marvellous that I have come all the way from London for the express purpose of seeking you out! I do not know – nor, I may add do I wish to know, who these persons may be,’ he said, casting an eye of loathing over Lord Widmore and the chaplain, ‘but I might have supposed that upon my informing them that I had urgent business to discuss here, common civility would have prompted them to postpone whatever may be their errand to you until my business was despatched! Let me say that these modern manners do not commend themselves to me – though I should have known how it would be, from a couple of cowhanded whipsters as little able to control a worn-out donkey as a pair of carriage-horses!’
‘It was not my chaplain, sir, who was driving down a narrow lane at what I do not scruple to call a shocking pace!’ said Widmore, firing up.
‘The place for a parson, I shall take leave to tell you, sir, is not on the box of a curricle, but in his pulpit!’ retorted the General. ‘And now, if you will be good enough to retire, I may perhaps be allowed to transact the business which has brought me here!’
Mr Whyteleafe, who had been staring at Hester with an expression on his face clearly indicative of the feelings of shock, dismay, and horror which had assailed him on seeing her thus, living, apparently, with her rejected suitor in a discreetly secluded spot, withdrew his gaze to direct an austere look at the General. The aspersion cast on his driving skill he disdained to notice, but he said, in a severe tone: ‘I venture to assert, sir, that the business which brings Lord Widmore and myself to call upon Sir Gareth Ludlow is sufficiently urgent to claim his instant attention. Moreover, I must remind you that our vehicle was the first to draw up at this hostelry!’
The General’s eyes started at him fiercely. ‘Ay! So it was, indeed! I am not very likely to forget it, Master Parson! Upon my soul, such effrontery I never before encountered!’
Lord Widmore, whose fretful nerves had by no means recovered from the shock of finding his curricle involved at the cross-road in a very minor collision with a post-chaise and four, began at once to prove to the General that no blame attached to his chaplain. As irritation always rendered him shrill, and the General’s voice retained much of its fine carrying quality, the ensuing altercation became noisy enough to cause Lady Hester to stiffen imperceptibly, and to lay one hand on the arm of Sir Gareth’s chair, as though for support. He was aware of her sudden tension, and covered her hand with his own, closing his fingers reassuringly round her wrist. ‘Don’t be afraid! This is all sound and fury,’ he said quietly.
She looked down at him, a smile wavering for a moment on her lips. ‘Oh, no! I am not afraid. It is only that I have a foolish dislike to loud, angry voices.’
‘Yes, very disagreeable,’ he agreed. ‘I must own, however, that I find this encounter excessively diverting. Kendal, do you care to wager any blunt on which of my engaging visitors first has private speech with me?’
The Captain, who had bent to catch these words, grinned, and said: ‘Oh, old Summercourt will bluster himself out, never fear! But who is the other fellow?’
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‘Lady Hester’s brother,’ replied Sir Gareth. He added, his eyes on Lord Widmore: ‘Bent, if I know him, on queering my game and his own!’
‘I beg pardon?’ the Captain said, bending again to hear what had been uttered in an undertone.
‘Nothing: I was talking to myself.’
Hester murmured: ‘Isn’t it odd that they should forget everything else, and quarrel about such a trifle?’ She seemed to become aware of the clasp on her wrist, and tried to draw her hand away. The clasp tightened, and she abandoned the attempt, colouring faintly.
Mr Whyteleafe, whose jealous eyes had not failed to mark the interlude, took a quick step forward, and commanded in a voice swelling with stern wrath: ‘Unhand her ladyship, sir!’
Hester blinked at him in surprise. Sir Gareth said, quite amiably: ‘Go to the devil!’
The chaplain’s words, which had been spoken in a sharpened voice, recalled the heated disputants to matters of more moment than a grazed panel. The quarrel ceased abruptly; and the General, turning to glare at Sir Gareth, seemed suddenly to become aware of the lady standing beside his chair. His brows twitched together in a quelling frown; he demanded: ‘Who is this lady?’
‘Never mind that!’ said Lord Widmore, directing at Sir Gareth a look of mingled prohibition and entreaty.
Sir Gareth met it blandly, and turned his head towards the General. ‘This lady, sir, is the Lady Hester Theale. She has the misfortune to be Lord Widmore’s sister, and also to dislike heated altercations.’
His lordship’s angry but incoherent protest was overborne by the General’s more powerful voice. ‘Have I been led here on a fool’s errand?’ he thundered. He rounded on Captain Kendal. ‘You young jackass, I told you to keep out of my affairs! I might have known you would lead me on a wild goose chase!’
Captain Kendal, quite undismayed by this ferocious attack, replied: ‘Yes, sir, in a way that’s what I have done. But all’s right, as I will explain to you, if you care to come into the house for a few minutes.’
A look of relief shot into the General’s eyes; in a far milder tone, he asked: ‘Neil, where is she?’
‘Here, sir. I sent her upstairs to wash her face,’ said the Captain.
‘Here? With this – this – And you tell me all’s right?’
‘I do, sir. You are very much obliged to Sir Gareth, as I shall show you.’