Джорджетт Хейер - Sprig Muslin

Captain Kendal drew an audible breath, and pronounced in a voice of awful and resolute civility: “Am I correct, sir, in thinking that I address Sir Gareth Ludlow?”

“Sir,” responded Sir Gareth gravely, but with a twitching lip, “you are!”

Captain Kendal appeared to struggle with himself. His fists clenched, and his teeth ground together; he drew another painful breath, and said in measured accents: “I am sorry, sir—damned sorry!—to see that you have your arm in a sling!”

“Your solicitude, sir,” said Sir Gareth, entering into the spirit of this, “moves me deeply! To own the truth, I am sorry to see it there myself.”

“Because,” said Captain Kendal, through his shut teeth, “your disabled condition renders it impossible for me to deal with you as you deserve! My heartfelt wish is that you may recover the use of your arm before I am obliged to leave England!”

“Good God!” exclaimed Sir Gareth, enlightenment dawning on him. He lifted his quizzing-glass again. “Do you know, I had quite a different picture in my mind? I wish you will tell me what your name is!”

“That, sir you will know in good time! You will allow me to tell you that what I learned at Kimbolton brought me here with two overmastering desires: the first to bring you to book, and the second to shake the hand of the boy who tried to rescue from your clutches a girl whose youth and innocence must have protected her from any but an unprincipled villain!”

“Well, I am afraid you can’t realize the first of these very proper ambitions,” said Sir Gareth apologetically, “but there’s nothing easier to accomplish than the second.” He sat up, and looked round, disturbing Joseph, who stood up, sneezed, and sprang off his knee. “When I last saw him he was in the throes of a dramatic composition, over there. Yes, there he is, but not, I perceive, still wrestling with his Muse.”

“What?”said Captain Kendal, taken aback. “Are you trying to hoax me, sir?”

“Not at all! Wake up, Hildebrand! We have a visitor!”

“Do you imagine,” demanded the Captain, “that I am the man to be taken-in by your shams?”

“I am sure you are not,” replied Sir Gareth soothingly. “You do seem to leap a little hurriedly to conclusions—but, then, I don’t know yet precisely what it was you learned at Kimbolton.”

“Why,” the Captain shot at him, “did the chambermaid find your ward’s door locked? Why did your ward think it necessary to lock her door?”

“She didn’t. I locked the door, so that she shouldn’t escape a second time. Yes, come over here, Hildebrand! Our visitor wishes to shake you by the hand. Let me present Mr. Ross to you, sir! This, Hildebrand, unless I much mistake the matter, is the Brigade-Major.”

“What, Amanda’s Brigade-Major?” exclaimed Hildebrand. “Well, of all things! However did you find us out, sir?”

“For God’s sake, have I strayed into a madhouse?” thundered the Captain. “Where is Amanda?”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Hildebrand, looking startled. “I daresay she has gone down the road to the farm, though. Shall I go and see if I can find her? Oh, I say, sir, I wish you will tell me!—will she be obliged to wring chickens’ necks if she goes to Spain?”

“Wring—No!” said the Captain, thrown by this time quite off his balance.

“I knew it was all nonsense!” said Hildebrand triumphantly. “I told her it was, but she always thinks she knows everything!”

“Neil!”

The Captain spun round. Amanda had just entered the orchard, bearing a glass of milk and a plate of fruit on a small tray. As the shriek broke from her, she dropped the tray, and came flying across the grass, to hurl herself on to the Captain’s broad chest. “Neil, Neil!” she cried, both arms flung round his neck. “Oh, Neil, have you come to rescue me? Oh, how splendid! I didn’t know what to do, and I was almost in despair, but now everything will be right!”

The Captain, holding her in a crushing hug, said thickly: “Yes, everything. I’ll see to that!” He disengaged himself, and held her off, his hands gripping her shoulders. “Amanda, what has happened to you? The truth, now, and no playing off any tricks!”

“Oh, you wouldn’t believe the adventures I have had!” she said earnestly. “First there was a horrid woman, who wouldn’t have me for a governess, and then there was Sir Gareth Ludlow, who abducted me, and next there was Mr. Theale, who said he would rescue me from Sir Gareth, only he was so odious that I was obliged to escape from him,and after that there was Joe, who was most kind, and gave me my dear little kitten. I wanted to stay with Joe, though his mother didn’t seem to wish me to, but Sir Gareth found me, and told the most shocking untruths which the Ninfields believed, and went on abducting me, and locking me in my room, and behaving in the most abominable way, in spite of my begging him to let me go, so that though I truthfully never meant Hildebrand to shoot him, it quite served him right—Oh, Neil, this is Sir Gareth! Uncle Gary, this is Neil!—Captain Kendal! And that’s Hildebrand Ross, Neil. Oh, Uncle Gary, I am excessively sorry, but I threw your glass of milk away! Hildebrand, would you be so obliging as to fetch another one?”

“Yes, very well, but you needn’t think I’m going to let you stand there telling bouncers about Uncle Gary!” said Hildebrand indignantly. “He did not abduct you, and as for telling lies about you—well, yes, but you told much worse ones about him! Why, you told me he was forcing you to marry him because you were a great heiress!”

“Yes, but I had to do that, or you wouldn’t have helped me to escape him!”

The Captain, a trifle stunned, released his betrothed, and turned to Sir Gareth. “I don’t understand yet what happened, sir, but I believe I have been doing you an injustice. If that’s so, I beg your pardon! But why you should not have restored Amanda immediately to General Summercourt, or at the very least have written to inform him—”

“He couldn’t!” said Amanda proudly. “He spoiled all my plan of campaign, and he carried me off by force, but he couldn’t make me tell him who I was, or Grandpapa, or you, Neil! I did think he would win even over that, because he meant to carry me off to his sister, in London, and discover your name at the Horse Guards, only he wasn’t able to, because, by the greatest stroke of good fortune, we met Hildebrand, and Hildebrand shot him—though that wasn’t what he meant to do, of course.”

“There is a great deal about this business I don’t understand, but one thing is plain!” said the Captain, sternly eyeing his beloved. “You have been behaving very badly, Amanda!”

“Yes, but I had to, Neil!” she pleaded, hanging her head, “I was afraid you would be a little vexed, but—”

“You knew that I should be very angry indeed. Don’t think you can cajole me, my girl! You may reserve that for your grandfather! He will be here at any moment now, let me tell you, for he was following me from London, and I left a message for him at Kimbolton. Do you know that he has had to call in the Bow Street Runners to find you?”

“No!” cried Amanda, reviving as if by magic. “Uncle Gary, did you hear that? The Runners are after me!”

“I did, and it confirms my worst fears,” said Sir Gareth. “What a pity, though, that you have only just learnt that you are being hunted! You could have made up an even more splendid story, if only you had thought of it.”

“Yes, I could,” she said regretfully. “Still, it would have been much better if Grandpapa had done what I told him to.”

“No, by God, it would not!” said the Captain forcefully. “And if you imagine, Amanda, that I would have married you, had the General been weak enough to have yielded to such a disgraceful trick, you much mistake the matter!”

“Neil!” she cried, her eyes flying to his face, and widening in dismay. “Don’t—don’t you wish to marry me?”

“That,” said the Captain, “is another matter! Now, you come into the house, and make a clean breast of the whole, without any more excuses, or any of your make-believe nonsense!”

“I wouldn’t! you know I wouldn’t!” Amanda stammered, flushing. “Not to you! Neil, you know I wouldn’t!”

“It will be as well for you if you don’t,” said the Captain, inexorably marching her off.

Hildebrand, watching with dropped jaw, turned his eyes towards Sir Gareth. “Well!”he gasped. “She—went with him as meek as a nun’s hen! Amanda!”

It was some time before Captain Kendal emerged again from the house and when at last he came striding through the orchard he was alone. Lady Hester, who had been sitting with Sir Gareth for some little while, blinked at him and said: “Good gracious, Gareth, how very odd of Amanda! I quite thought he would be a heroic-looking young man, did not you?”

Captain Kendal, reaching them, bowed slightly to Hester, but addressed himself to Sir Gareth. “I hope you will accept my apologies, sir. I don’t know how to thank you enough. I got the whole story out of her, and you may be sure I’ve given her a rare dressing. You must have had the devil of a time with her!”

“Nonsense!” Sir Gareth said, holding out his hand.

The Captain gripped it painfully. “You didn’t handle her right, you know,” he said. “She’s as good as gold, if you don’t give her her head. The mischief is that the General and Miss Summercourt have spoilt her to death, and as though that wasn’t enough, she’s been allowed to stuff her head with a lot of trashy novels. I can tell you, it fairly made my hair stand on end when I heard the stories she’s been making up! But the thing is that she hasn’t the ghost of a notion what they really mean. I daresay you know that. I hope you do!”

“Of course I know it! My favourite is the one about the amorous widower—though I must own that the latest gem, in which Hildebrand is to play the leading role, has rare charm. Now you must let me introduce you to my natural sister, Lady Hester Theale!”

The Captain shook hands with Hester, saying seriously: “I am excessively sorry, ma’am, and I beg you will forgive her! I was never more shocked! I shall break her of these tricks, you may be sure, but in some ways she’s no more than a baby, which makes it devilish hard to explain to her why she mustn’t make up faradiddles about being compromised, and the rest of it.”

Lady Hester, casting a look of mild triumph at Sir Gareth, said: “I told you it would depend on what he was like, and I could see you didn’t believe me, only you perceive that I was right! Captain Kendal, don’t listen to anything that anybody may say to you, but just marry Amanda, and take her to Spain with you. It would be too bad if you did not, because she has been to a great deal of trouble over it, besides learning to wring chickens’ necks, and being exactly the sort of wife you ought to have, if you should happen to be wounded again.”

“Well, I don’t want her to wring chickens’ necks—in fact, I won’t have her doing such things!—and I’d as lief not have her by, if I were to be hit again—though I’m glad she’d the sense to stop you bleeding to death, sir!—but, by Jupiter, ma’am, if you think that’s what I should do, I will do it!” said the Captain, once more shaking her by the hand. “I’m very much obliged to you. It isn’t that I don’t know she’d do much better with me than with her grandfather, but she is very young, and I don’t want to take advantage of her. However, if you think it right, the General may go hang! Hallo! That sounds like his voice! Ay, here he comes—but who the devil has he got with him?”

Lady Hester, gazing in a petrified way at the three figures advancing towards her, said faintly: “Widmore and Mr. Whyteleafe! Just when we were so comfortable!”

It was immediately apparent that although the three gentlemen bearing down upon the group under the apple-tree had arrived together at the Bull, this had not been through any choice of theirs. All were looking heated, and Lord Widmore was glaring so hard at Summercourt that it was not until Mr. Whyteleafe ejaculated: “Sir Gareth Ludlow! Here—and with Lady Hester?” that he became aware of the identity of the figure in the brocade dressing-gown. Since not even his wildest imaginings had pictured Hester in Sir Gareth’s company, he was so dumbfounded that he could only goggle at him. This gave the General an opportunity to step into the lead, and he was quick to pounce on it. Brushing past his lordship, and annihilating Mr. Whyteleafe with the stare which had in earlier days turned the bones of his subordinates to water, he strode up to Sir Gareth’s chair, and said, in a sort of bark: “You will be good enough, sir, to grant me the favour of a private interview with you! When I tell you that my name is Summercourt—yes, Summercourt,sir!—I rather fancy that you will not think it marvellous that I have come all the way from London for the express purpose of seeking you out! I do not know—nor, I may add, do I wish to know, who these persons may be,” he said, casting an eye of loathing over Lord Widmore and the chaplain, “but I might have supposed that upon my informing them that I had urgent business to discuss here, common civility would have prompted them to postpone whatever may be their errand to you until my business was despatched! Let me say that these modern manners do not commend themselves to me—though I should have known how it would be, from a couple of cow-handed whipsters as little able to control a worn-out donkey as a pair of carriage-horses!”