Sprig Muslin

‘No, I did not!’ she retorted, firing up. ‘At least, only in pretending I was Aunt Adelaide, and saying I had been my own governess, and that she didn’t know! I am truly able to do all the things I told her I could, and very likely I should be able to teach other girls to do them too. However, all was to no avail. She was very disagreeable, besides being excessively uncivil. Unreasonable, too, for in the middle of it her eldest son came in, and as soon as he heard who I was he suggested that his mama should engage me for a little while, to see how I did, which was most sensible, I thought. But it only made her crosser than ever, and she sent him out of the room, which I was sorry for, because he seemed very amiable and obliging, in spite of having spots.’ She added, affronted: ‘And I do not at all understand why you should laugh, sir!’

‘Never mind! Tell me what happened next!’

‘Well, she ordered the carriage to take me back to St Neots, and while it was being brought round she began to ask me a great many impertinent questions, and I could see she had an extremely suspicious disposition, so I thought of a splendid story to tell her. I gave myself an indigent parent, and dozens of brothers and sisters, all younger than I am, and instead of being sorry for me, she said she didn’t believe me! She said I wasn’t dressed like a poor person, and she would like to know how many guineas I had squandered on my hat! Such impudence! So I said I had stolen it, and my gown as well, and really I was a wicked adventuress. That, of course, was impolite, but it answered the purpose, for she stopped trying to discover where I had come from, and grew very red in the face, and said I was an abandoned girl, and she washed her hands of me. Then the servant came to say that the carriage was at the door, and so I made my curtsy, and we parted.’

‘Abandoned you most certainly are. Were you driven to St Neots?’

‘Yes, and it was then that I hit upon the notion of becoming a chambermaid for a space.’

‘Let me tell you, Amanda, that a chambermaid’s life would not suit you!’

‘I know that, and if you can think of some more agreeable occupation of a gainful nature, sir, I shall be very much obliged to you,’ she responded, fixing him with a pair of hopeful eyes.

‘I’m afraid I can’t. There is only one thing for you to do, and that is to return to your grandpapa.’

‘I won’t!’ said Amanda, not mincing matters.

‘I think you will, when you’ve considered a little.’

‘No, I shan’t. I have already considered a great deal, and I now see that it is a very good thing Mrs – That Female – wouldn’t employ me. For if I were a governess in a respectable household Grandpapa would know that it was perfectly safe, and he would very likely try to – to starve me out. But I shouldn’t think he would like me to be a chambermaid in an inn, would you?’

‘Emphatically, no!’

‘Well, there you are!’ she said triumphantly. ‘The instant he knows that that is what I am doing, he will capitulate. Now the only puzzle is to discover a suitable inn. I saw a very pretty one in a village, on the way to St Neots, which is why you find me in this horrid one. Because I went back to it, after the coachman had set me down, only they didn’t happen to need a chambermaid there, which was a sad pity, for it had roses growing up the wall, and six of the dearest little kittens! The landlady said that I should go to Huntingdon, because she had heard that they needed a girl to work at the George, and she directed me to the pike-road, and that is why I am here!’

‘Are you telling me,’ demanded Sir Gareth incredulously, ‘that you bamboozled the woman into believing that you were a maidservant? She must be out of her senses!’

‘Oh, no!’ said Amanda blithely. ‘I thought of a splendid story, you see.

’

‘An indigent parent?’

‘No, much better than that one. I said I had been an abigail to a young lady, who most kindly gave me her old dresses to wear, only I had been turned off, without a character, because her papa behaved in a very improper way towards me. He is a widower, you must know, and also there is an aunt – not like Aunt Adelaide, but more like Aunt Maria, who is a very unfeeling person –’

‘Yes, you may spare me the rest of this affecting history!’ interrupted Sir Gareth, between amusement and exasperation.

‘Well, you asked me!’ she said indignantly. ‘And you need not be so scornful, because I took the notion from a very improving novel called –’

‘– Pamela. And I am astonished that your grandfather should have permitted you to read it! That is to say, if you have a grandfather, which I begin to doubt!’

She showed him a shocked face. ‘Of course I have a grandfather! In fact, I once had two grandfathers, but one of them died when I was a baby.’

‘He is to be felicitated. Come, now! Was there one word of truth in the story you told me, or was it another of your splendid stories?’

She jumped up, very much flushed, and with tears sparkling on the ends of her long eyelashes. ‘No, it was not! I thought you were kind, and a gentleman, and now I see I was quite mistaken, and I wish very much that I had told you a lie, because you are exactly like an uncle, only worse! And what I told those other people was just – just make-believe, and that is not the same thing as telling lies! And I am excessively sorry now that I drank your lemonade, and ate your tarts, and, if you please, I will pay for them myself! And also,’ she added, as her misty gaze fell on an empty bowl, ‘for the cherries!’

He too had risen, and he possessed himself of the agitated little hands that were fumbling with the strings of a reticule, and held them in a comforting clasp. ‘Gently, my child! There, there, don’t cry! Of course I see just how it was! Come! Let us sit on this settee, and decide what is best to be done!’

Amanda, tired by the day’s adventures, made only a token of resistance before subsiding on to his shoulder, and indulging in a burst of tears. Sir Gareth, who had more than once sustained the impassioned and lachrymose confidences of an ill-used niece, behaved with great competence and sangfroid, unshaken by a situation that might have cast a less experienced man into disorder. In a very few minutes, Amanda had recovered from her emotional storm, had mopped her cheeks, and blown her diminutive nose into his handkerchief, and had offered him an apology for having succumbed to a weakness which, she earnestly assured him, she heartily despised.

Then he talked to her. He talked well, and persuasively, pointing out to her the unwisdom of her present plans, the distress of mind into which a continuance of them must throw her grandfather, and all the disadvantages which must attach to a career, however temporary, as a serving-maid in a public inn. She listened to him with great docility, her large eyes fixed on his face, her hands folded in her lap, and an occasional sob catching her breath; and when he had finished she said: ‘Yes, but even if it is very bad it will be better than not being allowed to marry Neil until I come of age. So will you please take me to Huntingdon, sir?’

‘Amanda, have you attended to one word I’ve said to you?’

‘Yes, I attended to all of them, and they were exactly the sort of things my own uncles would say. It is all propriety and nonsense! As for grieving Grandpapa, it is quite his own fault, because I warned him that he would be excessively sorry if he didn’t give his consent to my marriage, and if he didn’t believe me he deserves to be put in a pucker for being so stupid. Because I always keep my word, and when I want something very much I get it.’

‘I can well believe it. You must forgive me if I tell you, Amanda, that you are a shockingly spoilt child!’