‘You cannot mean to do such an uncivil thing as to leave Bath before Almeria arrives!’ cried his mother. ‘Good God, you would very likely meet her on the road!’
‘Were I to delay my departure until after her arrival,’ said Sir Charles glibly, ‘I dare say I should find it impossible to tear myself away. I could not reconcile it with my conscience to disoblige so old a friend as the General. I shall be happy, Miss Massingham, to afford your niece all the protection of which I am capable.’
It was impossible for Lady Wainfleet to say more. Miss Massingham was already overwhelming Sir Charles with her gratitude. She said that she could not thank him enough, and she was still thanking him when he escorted her out to her carriage. But when he strolled back to the drawing-room, Lady Wainfleet begged him to consider before deciding to leave Bath so soon. ‘Now that Almeria is to go there –’
‘That circumstance, Mama, did decide me,’ interrupted Sir Charles. ‘Within a few months I shall be obliged to spend the rest of my life in Almeria’s company. Allow me to enjoy what is left to me of my liberty!’
‘Charles!’ she faltered. ‘Oh, dear! if I had thought that you would dislike it so much I would never – Not that I have the least power to force you into a marriage you don’t like, only it has been an understood thing for so many years, and it is not as though you had ever a tendre for another eligible lady, and you are past thirty now, so that –’
‘Oh yes, yes, ma’am!’ he said impatiently. ‘It is high time that I settled down! I have no doubt that Almeria will do me great credit. We were clearly made for one another – but I shall not spend Christmas in Bath!’
2
Eight days later, having sustained an interview with two genteel spinsters in mittens and mob-caps, who were much flustered to find their parlour invaded by a large and disturbingly handsome gentleman, wearing a drab driving-coat with no fewer than sixteen shoulder-capes, Sir Charles made the acquaintance of his youthful charge. He beheld a demure schoolgirl, attired in a plain pelisse, and with a close bonnet almost entirely concealing her braided locks. She stood in meek silence while Miss Titterstone assured Sir Charles that dear Anne would be no trouble to him. Miss Maria, endorsing this statement, added, with rather odd anxiety, that she knew Anne would behave just as she ought. Both ladies seemed to derive consolation from the presence of Mrs Fitton, who all the while stood beaming fondly upon her nurseling.
Sir Charles, amused, wondered whether the good ladies suspected him of cherishing improper designs towards a chit of a schoolgirl in the most unbecoming hat and pelisse he had ever seen. Their evident uneasiness seemed to him absurd.
Farewells having been spoken, the travellers went out into the Square, where two vehicles stood waiting. One was a post-chaise and pair; the other a sporting curricle. Miss Massingham’s large grey eyes took due note of this equipage, but she made no remark. Only, as Sir Charles handed her up into the chaise, she said: ‘If you please, sir, would you be so very obliging as to permit me to stop for a few minutes at Madame Lucille’s, in Milsom Street?’
‘Certainly. I will direct your post-boy to drive there,’ he replied.
Upon arrival in Milsom Street, one glance at Madame Lucille’s establishment was enough to inform Sir Charles that Miss Massingham proposed to visit a mantua-maker. Assuring him that she would not keep him waiting for very long, she disappeared into the shop, followed by Mrs Fitton, whose smile, Sir Charles noticed, had given place to a look of decided anxiety.
Time passed. Sir Charles drew out his watch, and frowned. Speenhamland, where rooms for the night had been bespoken, was fully fifty-five miles distant, and the start of the journey had already been delayed by the chattiness of the Misses Titterstone. The horses were on the fret. Sir Charles walked them to the top of the street, and back again. When he had repeated this exercise some half a dozen times, there was a sparkle in his eye which made his groom thankful that it was the young lady and not himself who was keeping Sir Charles waiting.
At the end of another twenty minutes there erupted from the shop a vision in whom Sir Charles with difficulty recognized Miss Anne Massingham. Not only was she now arrayed in a crimson velvet pelisse, but she had set upon her head an all-too dashing hat, whose huge, upstanding poke-front was lined with gathered silk, and whose high crown was embellished with a plume of curled ostrich feathers. This confection was secured by broad satin ribbons, tied in a jaunty bow under one ear; and it displayed to advantage Miss Massingham’s dark curls, now released from bondage, and rioting frivolously. A tippet and muff completed this modish toilet; and she carried, with its forepaws drooping over the muff, a curly-tailed puppy of mixed parentage. This circumstance did not immediately strike Sir Charles, for his gaze was riveted to that preposterous hat.
‘Good God!’ he ejaculated. ‘My good child, you are not, I trust, proposing to travel to London in that bonnet?’
‘Yes, I am,’ asserted Miss Massingham. ‘It is the high kick of fashion!’
‘It is quite unsuited to a journey, and still more so to your years,’ said Sir Charles crushingly.
‘Fiddle!’ said Miss Massingham. ‘I am not a schoolgirl now, and if it had not been for Grandpapa’s illness I should have ceased to be one a year ago! I am nineteen, you know, and I have been saving all my money for months to buy just such a hat as this! You could not be so unkind as to forbid me to wear it!’
Sir Charles looked down into the pleading, upturned face; Sir Charles’s groom stared woodenly ahead. ‘What,’ demanded Sir Charles, turning upon the unhappy Mrs Fitton, ‘possessed you to let your mistress buy such a hat?’
‘Oh, don’t scold poor Fitton!’ begged Miss Massingham. ‘Indeed, she implored me not to!’
Sir Charles found himself quite unable to withstand the look of entreaty in those big eyes. A whimper from the creature in Miss Massingham’s arms provided him with a diversion. ‘How did you come by that animal?’ he asked sternly.
‘Is he not the dearest little dog? He came running into the shop, and Madame Lucille told me that her pug has had six puppies just like him! She let me buy this one very cheaply, because she is very desirous of disposing of them all.’
‘I imagine she might be,’ said Sir Charles, viewing the pup with disfavour. ‘However, it is no concern of mine, and we have wasted too much time already. If we are to reach Speenhamland in time for dinner we must make haste.’
‘Oh, yes!’ said Miss Massingham blithely. ‘And may I ride with you in your curricle, Sir Charles?’ She read prohibition in his eye, and added coaxingly: ‘Just for a little way, may I? For your groom, you know, may easily go with Fitton in the chaise.’
Again Sir Charles found it impossible to withstand the entreaty in those eyes. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘If you think you won’t be cold, you may jump up beside me.’
3
By the time the curricle had reached Bath Easton, Miss Massingham had begged Sir Charles to call her Nan, because, she said, everyone did so; and Sir Charles had reprimanded her for saying that her friends in Quee
n’s Square had greatly envied her her good fortune in being escorted to London by one who was well-known to be a buck of the first head.
‘A what?’ said Sir Charles.
‘Well, it is what Priscilla Gretton’s brother said, when she rallied him on the way he tied his neckcloth,’ explained Nan. ‘He said it was just how you tie yours, and that you were a buck of the first head.’