“Now,” she said, between set teeth. “Stop the hackney at once, or I plunge this into your body!”
His eyes met hers coolly: there was admiration in them.
“As you wish, my child,” he answered carelessly. “Perhaps, after all, you do not desire to return home yet. The night is still young.”
The sword wavered.
“What do you mean?” she asked, suspiciously.
“Pray keep that weapon steady! You will never hit your mark, you know, if you do not. What do I mean? Why, simply that I ordered the jarvey to take us to your house; and here, if I mistake not, we are.”
She peered anxiously from the window, the sword dangling loosely in her grasp. He had spoken the truth. They were that moment drawing up at the entrance to the mews; and here, coming forward stealthily, was Tom, the stable boy, whose clothes she had borrowed.
“Then you tricked me!”
She flung the weapon down. He took it up, and examined it with exaggerated anxiety. “Have a care to that! It is made of finest steel, and a little thing will destroy its balance. Yes, I tricked you: I feel that you richly deserved a sharp lesson.”
She looked at him with hatred in her eyes.
“I shall not forget, Mr. Barsett,” she said, in level, controlled tones. “Never fear, one day I shall find the way to repay you.”
Chapter XI: Amanda has Food for Thought
“How very odd it is,” remarked my Lady Twyford, “that John Webster should have returned home without taking leave of us!”
“I told you, Mama,” expostulated Amanda, “that he did come to take leave, found you from home, and was unable to stay until you returned. It was on the morning that I had a headache, you may remember, and you and Bella went shopping.”
“I still think it odd,” insisted her mother. “Pray, what could be the haste?”
Isabella looked up quickly from her needlework. Amanda saw a guilty touch in her glance, but she soon bent her head over her work again.
“Oh, you know how it is,” explained Amanda, glibly. “John was ever impulsive. I think he grew tired of the Town and its pleasures, and longed for a breath of pure country air.”
“Well, I dare say he will be back soon enough. I don’t imagine that he will fail to attend your birthday ball, Amanda.”
“That reminds me,” said her daughter, in a hurt tone. “Mama, why did you not tell me that you meant to send out the invitations?”
“How do you come to know that they have been sent out?” asked my lady, sharply.
Isabella looked up, interested, and Amanda rated herself inwardly. She must really try to keep a better guard on her tongue; fortunately, this was not so very bad a slip.
“Oh, quite by chance,” she answered, airily.
“I suppose John told you,” said her mother. “You two have always been very confidential together.”
Amanda let it be understood that this was so, without committing herself to a direct lie. She could never make known the real circumstances of her discovery.
“Well, I’m sorry if you should feel slighted because I failed to consult you, miss,” said my lady, tartly. “But you have been giving yourself far too many airs since you came to Town, and I was determined that you should not have the opportunity of attempting to decide who should be asked to this ball.”
“I had as soon do without one,” said Amanda, haughtily, but her lip trembled.
“I knew that, too, and was not to be embroiled in a vulgar argument. You will do as Papa and I think fit.”
Amanda looked rebellious, but dared make no reply to this.
“Really, Mama,” interposed Isabella, with a trace of indignation, “I cannot think why you should be so unkind of a sudden to poor Mandy! What can she have done to deserve your rancour? And on the subject of her birthday, too, when of all times, she might expect to do as she chooses!”
Lady Twyford had the grace to look a trifle ashamed of herself. The truth was that, of late, she had come to be just a little apprehensive of her younger daughter’s will. She would never have admitted to such a thing, however; moreover, she had a very real affection for her children, although at times she tended to treat them as pawns in her game.
“La, Bella, it is very pretty in you to plead for the graceless girl, but you must admit that she has behaved far from well on several occasions. She has been vastly pert and forward with Mr. Barsett; and it was not proper for her to be sitting alone with Mr. Thurlston the other day. Her upbringing has been all that it should be; the fault is in herself.”
At mention of Mr. Barsett, Amanda’s cheeks flamed scarlet. Her mother attributed this to quite the wrong cause, and was mollified. “Very well, I see that you have sufficient proper feeling to be ashamed of your conduct,” she said, patting Amanda’s hand consolingly. “Now, only promise me that you will be a good girl at your ball, and we will say no more of past mistakes.”
Amanda promised, in a strangled voice; Isabella bent her head lower over her work, to conceal a smile.
“Excellent! We must decide what you are to wear, for the day will soon be upon us. I am nearly certain that it must be white, and silk, I should imagine — but we will consult Madame Celeste on the morrow. Now I wonder — pearls, rubies? Or diamonds?”
She went off into a mild reverie, and Amanda rose to look out of the window, which faced the street. After a moment, she espied a figure crossing from the opposite flagway, and approaching the house purposefully. She recognised it for Mr. Thurlston. Her heart missed a beat.
Presently, the servant announced him. He entered, looking as usual, handsome, poised and debonair. He greeted the ladies politely, and, in response to my lady’s invitation, he seated himself at Isabella’s side, and began a trifling conversation.
What a splendid conspirator he was, thought Amanda! He did not betray by one word or look that there was any understanding between himself and Lady Twyford’s younger daughter. He calmly sat there, chatting equally to all three; and if he could be said to pay more attention to one than another, an onlooker would have placed the preference with Bella, rather than her younger sister. He passed her the scissors whenever she required them — Isabella’s passion for embroidery had grown of late — and gave his opinion upon the matching of the silks as though such a decision were of the utmost importance. It was all done very neatly, thought Amanda; so different from stupid John Webster, who in a like situation, had drawn down suspicion upon himself with every phrase he uttered. It crossed her mind that perhaps this might be because John was the more honest of the two: then she remembered the difference in situation of the gentlemen concerned. As the only son of a country squire, John, though not the heir to a great title and fortune, was yet one day to be master of his father’s lands and comfortable income; while Mr. Thurlston had nothing but what could be gained only by the exercise of tact, and suppression of his own wishes in deference to those of others.
As time passed, and the appointed period which was the rule for morning calls drew to a close, Amanda chafed a little. She wanted to find a way of gaining a few moments alone with the gentleman, but for once, her ingenuity failed her utterly. She could think of nothing which would succeed in ridding her of both Mama and Isabella at the same time.
She had not looked for help from Mr. Thurlston; as far as she knew, he had nothing urgent to communicate to her, and their agreement had been that only in such a case would he try to see her alone. She was the one who had something to tell. But surely there could be no mistaking the import of a sentence which presently he let fall?
“The Park is so charming at this time of year, is it not? I frequently go there in the early morning, to avoid the crowds.”
“That is what I find so vastly disagreeable about London,” said Amanda, casually. “Every pleasant green place is filled with a chattering mob of people. It is not so in the country.”
“You should try it at seven o’clock tomorrow morning,” he said, with a smile. “You would be agreeably surprised.
”
“I shall most likely be abed,” she answered, carelessly, seeming to be only half listening to him.
“She did once go out riding in the early morning,” stated my lady. “I did not think it suitable.”
He bowed, and changed the subject with alacrity. After a short interval, he rose to go.
“That is a vastly agreeable young man,” remarked Lady Twyford, after his departure. “It is a thousand pities that he is, so to speak, penniless.”
Isabella sighed: Amanda fancied that she might be thinking of John, but she had no time to dwell on this supposition, for her thoughts were all for the morrow, and for the assignation which had been so neatly made before her mother’s face.
Almost she gave up the next morning, supposing herself mistaken, for it was some time before she could find Mr. Thurlston in the Park. Finally, she ran him to earth in a thickly wooded stretch, shielded from view on every side. He greeted her with his usual charming smile, but she sensed that he was ill at ease, and he seemed little disposed to linger.
He had sought her out, he informed her, to tell her that he knew his cousin to have met Sir Francis Dashwood a few days since.
“And so do I know it!” said Amanda, triumphantly. “At least, he didn’t meet him, exactly, but he would have done, but for me!”
He asked what she meant, and was told some of the events of that fateful evening. He was given to understand that his cousin Charles had pretended to abduct her, and behaved in a vastly insulting way, but he was spared the full details. This was partly because Amanda did not care to recall them to her own memory; but more from a sense of reserve in dealing with one, who, when all was said, had been known to her but a short time.
“Pretend to abduct you?” he asked thoughtfully, looking into the middle distance.
“Oh, it was all a hum, you know!” said Amanda, hurriedly. “That odious creature actually had the effrontery to say that he considered I needed a sharp lesson!”
“It was unpardonable conduct,” he replied, but his mind still did not seem to be on his words.
“Vile!” she agreed, wholeheartedly; then, with her irresistible honesty — “But I dare say my own conduct was not so very admirable, after all!”
“That does not excuse his taking advantage of a defenceless female: but you will be avenged, never fear, one day. I will try to discover when there is to be a meeting at Medmenham, and if he means to be present.”
It was a novel idea to Amanda to think of herself as a defenceless female but she let that pass, too taken up with another speculation.
“How do you contrive to find out all these things?” she asked, curiously.
“I have my sources of information,” he replied, vaguely, then not for the first time, glanced uneasily about him.
“But I believe we had best not linger here. When some definite knowledge comes to hand, we will meet again, and form a plan for smuggling you into the Abbey. Meanwhile, it will be better not to appear too intimate when we meet in public; we must seem to be two people who have nothing out of the way to say to each other. I’m sure you will agree.”
Amanda assented; but somewhere in the back of her mind, a small niggling doubt buzzed about like a restless gnat. She was thoughtful as she rode homewards.
Later that same morning, over breakfast, my lady touched upon the matter of a date for Isabella’s wedding.
“It is for you to say, my love, when it shall be,” she offered, magnanimously. “That is a bride’s privilege, you know!”
Isabella had been expecting this for some time now, and was not unprepared with her answer.
“Mr. Barsett and I have already discussed the point, Mama,” she said, carelessly, but with a beating heart. “We were agreed that there is no haste.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed my lady, in a tone of surprise. “That seems a very odd decision for a suitor to take.”
“Oh, he was for fixing upon a day quite soon,” replied Isabella, still airily. “But there is Amanda’s birthday ball — and, one way and another, I did not quite see —”
“But you will surely not wish to have too long an engagement, my love. And June is the perfect month for a wedding! We must make a start on ordering your bride-clothes; that can be undertaken at once, while I am about to settle with Madame the details of our gowns for Amanda’s ball. We will go this very morning!”
Isabella perforce consented, though without any of the expressions of joy which might have been expected.
“’Pon rep, I find it difficult to understand you!” her mother said, in tones of exasperation. “It has not taken long for the pleasures of the Town to pall as far as you are concerned! When we first arrived, you could think of nothing but balls and masquerades, and what you should wear to attend them! Now it seems all one to you whether you go or stay at home, and never have I seen you betray so little interest in matters of dress! I tell you, Isabella, you are fast becoming a dowd!”
“Nonsense, Mama,” ventured Amanda, consuming rolls and butter voraciously, for she had eaten nothing before taking her ride in the Park — “Bella always looks quite the prettiest girl in any room she chooses to enter!”
“Well,” admitted Lady Twyford, some-what mollified, “I will agree that your sister is a very handsome female; but she had best have a care, for all that. Good looks do not last for ever. Bella is close on twenty, and the sooner she is wed, the better.”
She broke off, observing her younger daughter taking another roll, and spreading it thickly with butter.
“Amanda! Pray do not eat in that abandoned way!”
Suddenly, something seemed to snap in Isabella. She leapt to her feet, throwing down her napkin on the table with disgust.
“I will not be discussed and prosed over as though I were still in the schoolroom!” she exclaimed, in a high, unnatural voice. “I shall wed Mr. Barsett when I choose you hear, Mama? — when I choose!” She burst into tears, and ran from the room. Lady Twyford gazed after her, thunderstruck.
“Well!” she began. “Of all the —”
“Oh, hush, Mama!” interrupted Amanda. “Cannot you see that she is overwrought? I must go to her.”
Lady Twyford nodded.
“Of course — nerves, poor child. I well remember before I wed your Papa — try if you may calm her.”
Amanda ran lightly upstairs, and pushed open the door of her sister’s bedchamber. She found Isabella lying across the great four-poster in an abandonment of grief.
She wisely said nothing for a moment, but gathered the shaking girl into her young arms. After a while, the sobs subsided. Isabella sat up, pushing the hair back from her wet cheeks. Amanda crossed to the washing-stand, and poured some water from a ewer into the basin.
“Bathe your face, my love.”
Her sister obeyed, and Amanda watched silently while she repaired the damage to her appearance.
“It won’t do, Bella,” she said, at last, quietly.
“It must! It must!”
The words were spoken in low, broken tones.
Amanda leaned over, and taking her sister by the shoulders, forced Isabella to look into her eyes.
“Why must it? Tell me that.”
“It’s all arranged — I could not, for very shame, cry off now — Mama would never forgive me — and I should look so foolish —”
“Better look a fool than behave like one,” said Amanda, grimly.
“Oh, you cannot understand! You are too young —”
“I am exactly,” said Amanda, counting on her fingers, “one year, eleven months, two days and five hours younger than you.”
“In time, yes: I was speaking of experience, of knowledge of the world.”
“I have enough knowledge of the world not to wed a man I dislike!”
“I don’t dislike him!” retorted Isabella. “That is just what I cannot make you understand! He — in some queer way, he fascinates me — and yet —”
“And yet you don’t love him,” finished Amanda.
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br /> “Oh, why must you talk always of love? What does it signify? The life a woman is to lead after marriage is surely the most important thing to her; as Mr. Barsett’s wife, I shall have position, wealth, title — I shall live in Town, and pass my time in a thousand agreeable ways, instead of being buried alive in the country, with no fresh face to see in a round dozen of years! Where did you hear all this talk of love, Mandy? It is — it is vulgar!”
“I heard it from John Webster.”
Isabella’s face paled slightly. She was silent for a moment, brooding.
“Much he knows of it!” she broke out, at last. “A calf affection — a trifling thing that breaks at the first hint of opposition! If I ever considered love — if I ever allowed myself to do anything so improper — I should imagine it to be a passion that takes one by storm — that carries all before it!”
Amanda nodded. “Yes, I know, Bella: you conjure up the picture of a knight on a white charger, bearing you off in the teeth of all opposition! I am not the only member of the family endowed with a taste for the dramatic, it would seem! Well, I grant you that perhaps John is a little lacking in story-book gallantry, but he loves you truly, for all that! And you should be well matched on that head, for you yourself are grown a very model of propriety these days!”
“Mama is right,” said Isabella, forcefully. “You are still a schoolgirl, Mandy.”
“Don’t dare to call me that!”
“Well you are, you know. But the words certainly seem to have a power of angering you quite out of proportion to their meaning. Why is that?”
“It’s because he used them to me when first we met, and — and since.”
“He?” Isabella’s brows wrinkled in a frown. “Oh, you must mean Mr. Barsett. Yes, I recollect now. But when has he used them since? You have not seen him except in my company, and I cannot recall —”
“Oh, I don’t know, precisely!” answered Amanda, hurriedly. This was dangerous ground: she tried a change of subject. “You did not tell me that he had tried to appoint a day for the wedding.”
A faint blush came to Isabella’s cheek. She was recalling what had passed at that interview.
The Georgian Rake Page 13
