Джорджетт Хейер - Sprig Muslin

“Because,” said Sir Gareth, as though he had not heard, but with the glimmer of an appreciative smile in his eyes, “I have already worked ‘em far harder than I ought.”

“Just so, sir!” said his henchman, grinning at him.

It did not take long to accomplish the journey to Whitethorn Farm. Leaving Trotton with the curricle, Sir Gareth was ushered by Mr. Ninfield into the rambling old house. Dusk was beginning by this time to shadow the landscape, and in the large, flagged kitchen the lamp had been kindled. Its mellow light fell on Amanda, on the floor, and playing with a litter of kittens. Seated in a window chair, with his hands clasped between his knees, was a stalwart youth, watching her with a rapt and slightly idiotic expression on his sunburnt countenance; and keeping a wary eye on both, while she vigorously ironed one of her husband’s shirts, was a matron of formidable aspect.

Amanda glanced up casually, as the door opened, but when she saw who had entered the kitchen she stiffened, and exclaimed: “You! No! No!”

Young Mr. Ninfield, although not quick-witted, took only a very few seconds to realise that here in the person of this bang-up nonesuch, was Amanda’s persecutor. He got up, clenching his fists, and glaring at Sir Gareth.

He was perfectly ready, and even anxious, to do battle, but Sir Gareth took the wind out of his sails, by first nodding at Amanda, and saying amiably: “Good-evening, Amanda!” and then coming towards him, with his hand held out. “You must be Joe Ninfield,” he said. “I have to thank you for taking such excellent care of my ward. You are a very good fellow!”

“It’s the young lady’s guardian, Jane,” Mr. Ninfield informed his wife, in a penetrating aside.

“It is not!”Amanda declared passionately. “He is trying to abduct me!”

Joe, who had numbly allowed Sir Gareth to grasp his hand, turned his bemused gaze upon her, seeking guidance. “Throw him out!” ordered Amanda, a sandy kitten clasped to her breast in a very touching way.

“You’ll do no such thing, Joe!” said his mother sharply. “Now, sir! P’raps you’ll be so good as to explain what this means!”

“All’s right, Jane,” Mr. Ninfield said, chuckling. “It’s like you thought, only that it was school Miss ran off from.”

“I didn’t!” cried Amanda, her face scarlet with rage. “And he’s not my guardian! I don’t even know him! He is an abominable person!”

“Of course I am!” said Sir Gareth soothingly. “Though how you know that, when you are not even acquainted with me, I can’t imagine!” He smiled at Mrs. Ninfield, and said in his charming way: “I do hope, ma’am, that she has not been troublesome to you? I can’t thank you enough for your kindness to her!”

Under Amanda’s baffled and infuriated gaze, Mrs. Ninfield dropped a curtsy, stammering: “No, no! Oh, no, indeed sir!

Sir Gareth glanced down at Amanda. “Come, my child, get up from the floor!” he said, in a voice of kindly authority. “Where is your hat? I never abduct ladies without their hats, so put it on, and your cloak too!”

Amanda obeyed the first of these commands, largely because she found herself at a disadvantage when sitting at his feet. She could see that the tone he had chosen to adopt had had its inevitable effect, even upon her moonstruck admirer, but she made a desperate bid for freedom. Staring up into his amused eyes, she said: “Very well! If you are my guardian, who am I?”

“An orphan, cast upon the world without a penny,” he replied promptly. “You have lately been employed by a young lady, whose widowed father—a most reprehensible person, I fear—made such improper advances to you, that—”

“Oh, how I much hate you!” she cried, flushing with mortification, and stamping her foot. “How dare you stand there telling such lies?”

“Well, but, missie, it’s what you told us yourself!” said Mr. Ninfield, hugely entertained.

“Yes, but that was because—well, that was just make-believe He knows it isn’t true! And it isn’t true that he is my guardian, or that I ran away from school, or anything!”

Mrs. Ninfield drew a long breath. “Sir, are you her guardian, or are you not?” she demanded.

“No,” he replied, his voice grave, but his eyes dancing. “I am an abductor. I met her only yesterday, and that by chance, snatched her up into my curricle, and bore her off in spite of all her protests to a gloomy mansion in the heart of the country. I need scarcely tell you that she contrived to make her escape from the mansion while I slept. However, it takes a good deal to daunt a thoroughgoing villain, so you won’t be surprised that here I am, having hunted her down remorselessly. I am now about to carry her off to my castle. This, by the way, is perched on a precipitous rock, and, besides being in an uncomfortable stage of neglect and decay, is inhabited only by ghosts and sinister retainers of mine. From this fortress, after undergoing a number of extremely alarming adventures, she will I have little doubt, be rescued by a noble youth of handsome though poverty-stricken aspect. I expect he will kill me, after which it will be found that he is the wronged heir to a vast property—probably mine—and all will end happily.”

“Now, sir—!” protested Mrs. Ninfield, trying not to laugh. “Give over your nonsense, do!”

Joe, having listened with painstaking concentration to the programme laid down for Amanda’s future entertainment, once more clenched his large fists, and uttered, slowly, but with determination: “I won’t have her put in no castle.”

“Don’t be a gaby!” said his mother. “Can’t you see the gentleman’s only making game of her?”

“I won’t have him make game of her neither,” said Joe stubbornly.

“Please to pay no heed, sir!” begged Mrs. Ninfield. “Now, that’s enough, Joseph! Do you want the gentleman to think you’re no better than a knock-in-the-cradle, which I’ll be bound he does?”

“Not at all! I think he’s a splendid fellow,” said Sir Gareth. “Don’t worry, Joe! I was only funning.”

“I don’t want you to take her anywhere,” Joe muttered. “I’d like her to stay here, fine I would!”

“Yes, and so would I have liked to stay here!” said Amanda warmly. “I never enjoyed anything half as much, particularly feeding all those droll little pigs, and these lovely kittens, but everything is spoilt now that Sir Gareth knows where I am, and it would be of no use staying here any more.” Her voice trembled, and a tear sparkled on the end of her long lashes. She kissed the sandy kitten, and reluctantly set it down on the floor, giving such a pathetic sniff that Mr. Ninfield, a tenderhearted man, said uncomfortably: “Don’t you take on, missie! P’raps, if my missis is agreeable—” He stopped, as he caught his wife’s eye, and coughed in some embarrassment.

“Cheer up, my child!” Sir Gareth said. “This is no time for tears! You must instantly set about the task of thinking how best to revenge yourself on me.”

She cast him a darkling look, but said nothing. Inspiration came to Joe, his withers unbearably wrung by her distress. Swooping upon the sandy kitten, he picked it up the the scruff of its neck, and held it out to Amanda. “You take him!” he said gruffly.

Nothing could have succeeded better in diverting her mind at that moment. Her face brightened; she clasped the kitten again, exclaiming: “Oh! How excessively kind of you! I am very much obliged to you! Only—” Her eyes turned apprehensively towards her hostess, and she said prettily: “Perhaps it is your kitten, and you would not wish me to take it away?”

“I’m sure you’re very welcome to it, miss, but I’ll be bound the gentleman won’t want to be worrited by a kitten on the journey,” Mrs. Ninfield responded.

“I am going to take this dear little kitten with me,” said Amanda, addressing herself to Sir Gareth, with immense dignity, and a challenge in her eye.

“Do!” he said cordially, tickling the kitten’s ear. “What shall you call it?”

She considered the matter. “Well, perhaps Honey, because of his colour, or—” She broke off, as her gaze alighted on the kitten’s donor. “No, I shan’t!” she said, bestowing a brilliant smile upon him. “I shall call him Joseph, after you,and that will remind me of feeding the pigs, and learning to milk the cow!”

At these very beautiful words, Joe was so overcome that he grew beetroot-red, and lost all power of speech, merely swallowing convulsively, and grinning in a way that made his fond mother itch to box his ears. Mr. Ninfield went off, in a practical spirit, to find a covered basket; and in a very short time Sir Gareth, silently invoking a powerful blessing on the head of one who had, however unwittingly, averted the threat of a disagreeable scene, was handing his charge up into the curricle, and delivering into her hands a basket in which one small kitten indignantly vociferated his disapproval of the change in his circumstances.

It was not to be expected that Amanda’s pleasure in having acquired a new pet would for long save Sir Gareth from recrimination. She had never been wholly diverted, but had ceased from further argument because she had perceived how deftly he was cutting the ground from beneath her inexperienced feet. It made her very angry, but she could not help admiring, secretly, a strategy which she recognized to be masterly; nor, in spite of a strengthened determination to put him utterly to route, did she think the worse of him for having got the better of her. But that she was certainly not going to tell him, far preferring to relieve her feelings by delivering herself of a comprehensive indictment of his character. To this, Trotton, perched up behind her, listened in shocked and wondering silence. What Sir Gareth could see in such a young termagant to make him fall madly in love Trotton could not imagine, but he did not for an instant doubt that his master was clean besotted.

“You are meddlesome, and tyrannical, and untruthful, and, which is worse than all, treacherous!”scolded Amanda.

“Not treacherous!” protested Sir Gareth. “I promise you, I told none of those people the true story.”

“I am quite astonished that you didn’t, for I daresay you don’t care a button about breaking your solemn word to people!”

“I didn’t think they would believe me,” explained Sir Gareth.

“And above everything you are shameless!” said Amanda indignantly.

“No, not quite, because, I assure you, I am shocked at my own mendacity.”

“You are?” she exclaimed, turning her head to study his profile.

“Profoundly! I never knew I had it in me to tell so many bouncers.”

“Well, you did—brazenly, too!”

“Yes, and you don’t know the half of it. When I think of the Banbury story I told at the Red Lion, I know that I am sunk beyond reproach.”

This ruse succeeded. “What was it?” Amanda demanded, much interested.

“Why I said that you were a great heiress, and had eloped with the dancing-master, who wanted to marry you for the sake of your fortune.”

“Did you indeed say that?” Amanda asked, awed.

“Yes—brazenly!”

“Well, it doesn’t make your conduct any better, and I am very angry with you, but I must say I do think it was a splendid story!” Amanda said, rather enviously. “Particularly the bit about the dancing-master!”

“Yes, I liked that bit, too,” owned Sir Gareth. “Did you really eat enough raspberries to make you sick?”

“Well, I ate a great many raspberries, but I wasn’t sick. That was only pretending, because I couldn’t think of any other way to be rid of that horrid old man. I wonder what became of him?”

“An evil fate. After searching for you in a wood until he was exhausted, he got a tremendous scold from Mrs. Sheet, and then, to crown his day, the perch of his carriage broke, and he was obliged to walk a mile in tight boots to the nearest inn.”

She gave a giggle, but said: “Have you seen him, then?”

“I have.”

“What happened!” she asked, filled with pleasurable anticipation.

“He told me where he had lost you, and I drove back to Bythorne immediately.”

“Is that all?” she said, disappointed. “I quite thought that you would have challenged him to a duel!”

“Yes, I know it was very poor-spirited of me,” he agreed, “but really I think he has perhaps been punished enough. I fancy he can’t have enjoyed the drive in your company.”

“No, and I didn’t enjoy it either!” said Amanda. “He tried to make love to me!”