Sprig Muslin

by Georgette Heyer

  She flushed, and very slightly shook her head. ‘Don’t let us speak of that! I wish I might be of some assistance to you now, but I cannot think of anything I could usefully do. If Fabian has gone to Melton, he will have taken the road to Huntingdon, because although the more direct way is through Peterborough the road from Chatteris to Peterborough is very narrow and rough, and he will never venture on to it for fear of being made to feel ill. He is a very bad traveller.’ She paused, and seemed to reflect. ‘Will you feel obliged to call him out? I don’t know what may be the proper thing for you to do, and I don’t wish to teach you, but I can’t help feeling that it would be more comfortable if you did not.’

  His lips quivered, but he replied with admirable gravity: ‘Just so! I shan’t go to such desperate lengths as that, and although I own it would give me a good deal of pleasure to draw his cork – I beg your pardon! make his nose bleed! – I daresay I shan’t even do that. He is too old, and too fat – and heaven only knows what tale Amanda may have beguiled him with! I only wish I may not figure as the villain of it.’

  ‘Now, that,’ said Hester, roused from her gentle tolerance, ‘would be really too naughty of her, and quite beyond the line of what is excusable!’

  He laughed. ‘Thank you! I must go now. May I write to tell you the outcome of this nonsensical adventure?’

  ‘Yes, indeed, I hope you will, for I shall be very anxious until I hear from you.’

  He raised her hand to his lips, and kissed it, pressed it slightly, and then released it, and went away up the stairs. Lady Hester remained for a moment or two, staring absently at nothing in particular, before going slowly back into the breakfast-parlour.

  Eight

  The first check to Amanda’s new plan of campaign was thrown in the way by Mr Theale, who disclosed, when midway between Brancaster Park and Huntingdon, that he had ordered his coachman to drive straight through that town to the village of Brampton, where, he said, they would pause for breakfast and a change of horses. He did not tell her that he preferred, on the whole, not to be seen in her company in a town where his was naturally a familiar figure; but was prepared, if questioned, to dilate upon the excellencies of the posting-house at Brampton: a hostelry which had never, as yet, enjoyed his patronage. But she did not question him. Successful generals did not allow their minds to be diverted by irrelevancies: they tied knots, and went on.

  The set-back was not as severe as it might have been, had she been still adhering to her plan of seeking employment at one of the town’s chief posting-houses. This scheme she had abandoned, knowing that the George, the Fountain, and no doubt the Crown as well, would be the first places where Sir Gareth would expect to find her. But she had ascertained from the obliging Povey that stage-coaches to various parts of the country were to be boarded in Huntingdon, and it had been her intention to have bought herself a ticket on one of these, to some town just far enough away from Huntingdon to have baffled Sir Gareth. A village situated two miles beyond Huntingdon would not suit her purpose at all: it might be hours before a coach passed through it; if she succeeded in escaping from Mr Theale there, and walked back to Huntingdon, she would run the risk of meeting Sir Gareth on the road, or find, when she reached the coach office, that he had been there before her, and had directed the clerk to be on the watch for her. Mr Theale’s society, she decided, would have to be endured for rather longer than she had hoped.

  How to give Mr Theale the slip had become the most pressing of the problems confronting her, for however easy a matter it might have been in a busy county-town, it was not going to be at all easy in some small village. Artless questioning elicited the information that the next town on their road was Thrapston, which was some fifteen miles distant from Brampton. Mr Theale said that by nursing the horses a little they could very well make this their next stage, but Amanda had a lively dread that long before his leisurely carriage, with its odiously conspicuous yellow body, had reached Thrapston, it would be overtaken by Sir Gareth’s sporting curricle; and she realized that as soon as she was far enough from Huntingdon she must part company with her elderly admirer.

  She would do this without compunction, too, but with a good deal of relief. At Brancaster, fortified by the scarcely acknowledged protection of Sir Gareth in the background, she had thought Mr Theale merely a fat and foolish old gentleman, whom it would be easy to bring about her thumb; away from Brancaster, and (it must be owned) Sir Gareth’s surveillance, although she still thought him old and fat, she found, to her surprise, that she was a little afraid of him. She had certainly met his kind before, but under her aunt’s careful chaperonage no elderly and amorous beau had ever contrived to do more than give her hand a squeeze, or to ogle her in a very laughable way. She had classed Mr Theale with her grandfather’s friends, who always petted her, and paid her a great many extravagant compliments; but within a very short time of having delivered herself into his power she discovered that, for all this fatherly manner, he was disquietingly unlike old Mr Swaffham, or General Riverhead, or Sir Harry Bramber, or even Major Mickleham, who was such an accomplished flirt that Grandpapa scolded him, saying that he was doing his best to turn her head. These senile persons frequently pinched her cheek, or chucked her under the chin, or even put their arms round her waist, and gave her a hug; and old Mr Swaffham invariably demanded a kiss from her; so why she should have been frightened when Mr Theale’s arm slid round her was rather inexplicable. She had stiffened instinctively, and had had to subdue an impulse to thrust him away. He seemed to want to stroke and fondle her, too, and as her flesh shrank under his hand the thought flashed suddenly into her mind that not even Neil, who loved her, petted her in just such a fashion. Certain of her aunt’s veiled warnings occurred to her, and she began to think that possibly Aunt was not quite as foolish and old-fashioned as she had supposed her to be. Not, of course, that she was not well able to take care of herself, or at all afraid of her aged protector: merely, he made her feel uncomfortable, and was such a dead bore that she would be glad to be rid of him.

  This desire, however, carried with it no corresponding wish to see those match-bays of Sir Gareth’s rapidly overtaking her; and she scarcely knew how to contain her impatience while Mr Theale, very much at his ease, selected and consumed a lavish breakfast. Her scheme for the subjugation of her grandfather had by this time become entangled with a clenched-teeth determination to outwit and wholly confound Sir Gareth. His cool assumption of authority had much incensed a damsel accustomed all her short life to being tenderly indulged. Only Neil had the right to dictate to her, and Neil never committed the heinous sin of laughing at her. Sir Gareth had treated her as though she had been an amusing child, and he must be shown the error of his high-handed ways. At the same time, he had succeeded in imbuing her with a certain respect for him, so that, although the clock in the inn’s coffee-room assured her that it was in the highest degree unlikely that he had yet emerged from his bedchamber, she could not help looking anxiously out of the window every time she heard the sound of an approaching vehicle. Mr Theale, observing these signs of nervous apprehension, called her a silly little puss, and told her that she would be quite safe in his care. ‘He won’t chase after you, my pretty, and if he did I should tell him to go to the devil,’ he said, transferring a second rasher of grilled ham from the dish to his plate, and looking wistfully at a cluster of boiled eggs. ‘No, I shan’t venture upon an egg,’ he decided, with a sigh of regret. ‘Nothing is more prone to turn me queasy, and though I am in a capital way now, we have a longish journey before us, and there’s no saying that I shan’t be feeling as queer as Dick’s hatband before we come to the end of it.’

  Amanda, who was breakfasting on raspberries and cream, paused, with her spoon halfway to her mouth, a sudden and brilliant notion taking possession of her mind. ‘Do you feel unwell in carriages, sir?’ she asked.

  He nodded. ‘Always been the same. It’s a curst nuisance, but my coachman is a
very careful driver, and knows he must let the horses drop into a walk if the road should be rough. Ah, that makes you think me a sad old fogey, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, no!’ said Amanda earnestly. ‘Because it is exactly so with me!’

  ‘God bless my soul, is it indeed? Well, we are well suited to one another, eh?’ His gaze fell on her brimming plate; he said uneasily: ‘Do you think you should eat raspberries, my dear? I should not dare!’

  ‘Oh, yes, for I assure you I feel delightfully this morning!’ she replied, pouring more cream over the mound on her plate. ‘Besides, I am excessively partial to raspberries and cream.’

  Mr Theale, watching with a fascinated eye, could see that this was true. He hoped very much that Amanda was not misjudging her capacity, but he felt a little anxious, and when, half an hour later, her vivacious prattle became rather forced, he was not in the least surprised. By the time they reached the village of Spaldwick, it had ceased altogether, and she was leaning back against the elegant velvet squabs with her eyes closed. Mr Theale offered her his vinaigrette, which she took with a faintly uttered word of thanks. He was relieved to see that the colour still bloomed in her cheeks, and ventured to ask her presently if she felt more the thing.

  ‘I feel very ill, but I daresay I shall be better directly,’ she replied, in brave but faltering accents. ‘I expect it was the raspberries: they always make me feel like this!’

  ‘Well, what the devil made you eat them?’ demanded Mr Theale, pardonably annoyed.

  ‘I am so very partial to them!’ she explained tearfully. ‘Pray don’t be vexed with me!’

  ‘No, no!’ he made haste to assure her. ‘There, don’t cry, my pretty!’

  ‘Oh, don’t!’ begged Amanda, as he tried to put his arm round her. ‘I fear I am about to swoon!’

  ‘Don’t be afraid!’ said Mr Theale, patting her hand. ‘You won’t do that, not while you have such lovely roses in your cheeks! Just put your head on my shoulder, and see if you don’t feel better in a trice!’

  ‘Is my face very pink?’ asked Amanda, not availing herself of this invitation.

  ‘Charmingly pink!’ he asserted.

  ‘Then I am going to be sick,’ said Amanda, ever fertile of invention. ‘I always have a pink face when I am sick. Oh, dear, I feel quite dreadfully sick!’

  Considerably alarmed, Mr Theale sat bolt upright, and looked at her with misgiving. ‘Nonsense! You can’t be sick here!’ he said bracingly.

  ‘I can be sick anywhere!’ replied Amanda, pressing her handkerchief to her lips, and achieving a realistic hiccup.

  ‘Good God! I will stop the carriage!’ exclaimed Mr Theale, groping for the check-cord.

  ‘If only I could lie down for a little while, I should be perfectly well again!’ murmured the sufferer.

  ‘Yes, but you can’t lie down by the roadside, my dear girl! Wait, I’ll consult with James! Stay perfectly quiet – take another sniff at the smelling-salts!’ recommended Mr Theale, letting down the window, and leaning out to confer with the coachman, who had pulled up his horses, and was craning round enquiringly from the box-seat.

  After a short and somewhat agitated colloquy with James, Mr Theale brought his head and shoulders back into the carriage, and said: ‘James reminds me that there is some sort of an inn a little way farther along the road, at Bythorne – only a matter of a couple of miles! It ain’t a posting-house, but a decent enough place, he says, where you could rest for a while. Now, if he were to drive us there very slowly –’

  ‘Oh, thank you, I am so much obliged to you!’ said Amanda, summoning up barely enough strength to speak audibly. ‘Only perhaps it would be better if he were to drive us there as fast as he can!’

  Mr Theale had the greatest dislike of being hurtled over even the smoothest road, but the horrid threat contained in these sinister words impelled him to put his head out of the window again, and to order the coachman to put ’em along.

  Astonished, but willing, James obeyed him, and the carriage was soon bowling briskly on its way, the body swaying and lurching on its swan-neck springs in a manner fatal to Mr Theale’s delicate constitution. He began to feel far from well himself, and would have wrested his vinaigrette from Amanda’s hand had he not feared that to deprive her of its support might precipitate a crisis that could not, he felt, be far off. He could only marvel that she had not long since succumbed. Every time she moaned he gave a nervous start, and rolled an anxious eye at her, but she bore up with great fortitude, even managing to smile, tremulously but gratefully, when he assured her that they only had a very little way to go.

  It seemed a very long way to him, but just as he had decided, in desperation, that he could not for another instant endure the sway of the carriage, the pace slackened. A few cottages came into view; the horses dropped to a sober trot; and Mr Theale said, on a gasp of relief: ‘Bythorne!’

  Amanda greeted Bythorne with a low moan.

  The carriage came to a gentle halt in front of a small but neat-looking inn, which stood on the village street, with its yard behind it. The coachman shouted: ‘House, there!’ and the landlord and the tapster both came out in a bustle of welcome.

  Amanda had to be helped down from the carriage very carefully. The landlord, informed tersely by James that the lady had been taken ill, performed this office for her, uttering words of respectful encouragement, and commanding the tapster to fetch the mistress to her straight. Mr Theale, much shaken, managed to alight unassisted, but his usually florid countenance wore a pallid hue, and his legs, in their tight yellow pantaloons, tottered a little.

  Amanda, supported between the landlord, and his stout helpmate, was led tenderly into the inn; and Mr Theale, recovering both his colour and his presence of mind, explained that his young relative had been overcome by the heat of the day and the rocking of the carriage. Mrs Sheet said that she had frequently been taken that way herself, and begged Amanda to come and have a nice lay down in the best bedchamber. Mr Sheet was much inclined to think that a drop of brandy would put the young lady into prime twig again; but Amanda, bearing up with great courage and nobility, said in a failing voice that she had a revivifying cordial packed in one of her boxes. ‘Only I cannot remember in which,’ she added prudently.

  ‘Let both be fetched immediately!’ ordered Mr Theale. ‘Do you go upstairs with this good woman, my love, and I warrant you will soon feel quite the thing again!’

  Amanda thanked him, and allowed herself to be led away; whereupon Mr Theale, feeling that he had done all that could be expected of him, retired to the bar-parlour to sample the rejected brandy. Mrs Sheet came surging in, some twenty minutes later, bearing comfortable tidings. In spite of the unaccountable negligence of the young lady’s abigail, in having omitted to pack the special cordial in either of her bandboxes, she ventured to say that Miss was already on the high road to recovery, and if left to lie quietly in a darkened room for half an hour or so, would presently be as right as a trivet. She had obliged Miss to drink a remedy of her own, and although Miss had been reluctant to do so, and had needed a good deal of urging, anyone could see that it had already done much to restore her.

  Mr Theale, who was himself sufficiently restored to have lighted one of his cigarillos, had no objection to whiling away half an hour in a snug bar-parlour. He went out to direct James to stable his horses for a short time; and while he was jealously watching James negotiate the difficult turn into the yard behind the inn, the coach which carried his valet and his baggage drove up. Perceiving his master, the valet shouted to the coachman to halt, and at once jumped down, agog with curiosity to know what had made Mr Theale abandon the principles of a lifetime, and spring his horses on an indifferent road. Briefly explaining the cause, Mr Theale directed him to proceed on the journey, and, upon arrival at the hunting-box, to see to it that all was put in readiness there for the reception of a female guest. So
the coach lumbered on its way, and Mr Theale, reflecting that the enforced delay would give his housekeeper time to prepare a very decent dinner for him, retired again to the bar-parlour, and called for another noggin of brandy.

  Meanwhile, Amanda, left to recover on the smothering softness of Mrs Sheet’s best feather-bed, had nipped up, scrambled herself into that sprig-muslin gown which Povey had so kindly washed and ironed for her, and which the inexorable Mrs Sheet had obliged her to put off, and had tied the hat of chip-straw over her curls again. For several hideous minutes, after swallowing Mrs Sheet’s infallible remedy for a queasy stomach, she had feared that she really was going to be sick, but she had managed to overcome her nausea, and now felt ready again for any adventure. Mrs Sheet had pointed out the precipitous back-stairs to her, which reached the upper floor almost opposite to the door of the best bedchamber, and had told her that if she needed anything she had only to open her door, and call out, when she would instantly be heard in the kitchen. Amanda, having learnt from her that the kitchen was reached through the door on the right of the narrow lobby at the foot of the stairs, the other door giving only on to the yard, had thanked her, and reiterated her desire to be left quite alone for half an hour.

  In seething impatience, and peeping through the drawn blinds, she watched Mr Theale’s conferences with James, and with his valet. When she judged that James had had ample time in which to stable his horses, and, like his master, seek solace in the inn, she fastened her cloak round her neck, picked up her bandboxes, and emerged cautiously from the bedchamber. No one was in sight, and, hastily concocting a story moving enough to command Mrs Sheet’s sympathy and support, if, by ill-hap, she should encounter her on her perilous way to that door opening on to the yard, she began to creep circumspectly down the steep stairs. A clatter of crockery, and Mrs Sheet’s voice upraised in admonition to some unknown person, apparently engaged in washing dishes, indicated the position of the kitchen. At the foot of the stairs a shut door promised egress to the yard. Drawing a deep breath, Amanda stole down the remaining stairs, gingerly lifted the latch of the door, and whisked herself through the aperture, softly closing the door behind her. As she had expected, she found herself in the yard. It was enclosed by a rather ramshackle collection of stables and outhouses, and paved with large cobbles. Pulled into the patch of shade thrown by a large barn, stood the yellow-bodied carriage; and, drawn up, not six feet from the back door of the inn, was a farm-tumbril, with a sturdy horse standing between its shafts, and a ruddy-faced youth casting empty sacks into it.