'I must return, of course,' he replied, a worried expression in his eyes. 'For they won't know where I am, and I fear my father will be fretting himself into a fever. I should never forgive myself if he were to suffer one of his heart-attacks.'
'No, indeed!' said Miss Farlow. 'Poor gentleman! Your mama, too! One hardly knows which of them to pity most, though I suppose her case is the worse, because of having double the anxiety!' She saw that he was looking guilty, and said consolingly: 'But never mind! How happy they will be when they see you safe and sound! Are you their only offspring, sir?'
'Well, no: not precisely the only one,' he answered. 'I'm their only son, but I have three sisters, ma'am.'
'Four!' interpolated Lucilla.
'Yes, but I don't count Sapphira,' he explained. 'She's been married for years, and lives in another part of the country.'
'I collect your father doesn't enjoy good health,' said Miss Wychwood, 'which makes it of the first importance that you shouldn't leave him in suspense for a moment longer than is necessary.'
'That's just it, ma'am!' he said, turning eagerly towards her. 'His constitution was ruined in the Peninsula, for besides being twice wounded, and having a ball lodged in his shoulder, which the surgeons failed to extract, after subjecting him to hours of torture, he had several bouts of a particularly deadly fever, which one gets on the Portuguese border, and which he never perfectly recovered from. And although he doesn't complain, we – my mother and I – are pretty sure that his shoulder pains him a good deal.' He hesitated, and then said shyly: 'You see, when he is well he is the most amiable man imaginable, and – and the most indulgent father anyone could wish for, but the indifferent state of his health makes him very – very irritable, and inclined to become agitated, which is very bad for him. So – so you will understand that it is of the first importance not to do anything to put him into the hips.'
'Indeed I understand!' said Miss Wychwood, regarding him with a kindly eye. 'You must certainly go home tomorrow, and by the quickest way possible. I'll furnish you with the means to pay your shot, redeem your watch, and hire a post-chaise, and you may repay me by a draft on your bank – so don't set up your bristles!'
She smiled as she spoke, and Ninian, who had stiffened, found himself smiling back at her, and stammering that he was very much obliged to her.
Lucilla, however, was frowning. 'Yes, but – Well, I see, of course, that it's your duty to go home, but what will you say when you are asked what has become of me?'
Nonplussed, he stared at her, saying after a pause during which he tried in vain to think of a way out of this difficulty: 'I don't know. I mean, I shall say that I can't answer that question, because I gave you my word I wouldn't betray you.'
Lucilla's opinion of this was plainly to be read in her face. 'You had as well tell them immediately where I am, because your father will make it a matter of obedience, and you'll knuckle down, just as you always do! Oh, why, why didn't you do as I begged you? I knew something like this would be bound to happen!'
He reddened, and replied hotly: 'If it comes to that, why didn't you do as I begged? I warned you that no good would come of running away! And if you mean to blame me for escorting you when I found you wouldn't listen to a word of reason it – it is beyond everything! A pretty fellow I should be if I let a silly chit of an ignorant schoolgirl wander about the country alone!'
'I am not an ignorant schoolgirl!' cried Lucilla, as flushed as he was.
'Yes, you are! Why, you didn't even know that you have to be on the waybill to get a seat on a stage-coach! Or that the Bath coaches don't go to Amesbury! A nice fix you'd have been in if I hadn't overtaken you!'
Miss Wychwood got up from the table, saying firmly that any further discussion must be continued in the drawingroom. Miss Farlow instantly said: 'Oh, yes! So much wiser, for there is no saying when Limbury, or James, will come into this room, and one would not wish the servants to hear what you are talking about – not but what I daresay even Limbury, though a very respectable man, has been on the listen, for servants always seem to know everything about one, and how they should, if they don't listen at keyholes, I'm sure I don't know! Amesbury! I was never there in my life, but I am acquainted with several persons who have frequently visited it, and I fancy I know all about it! Stonehenge!'
On this triumphant note, she beamed upon the company, and followed Miss Wychwood out of the room. Neither of Miss Wychwood's youthful guests, both reared from birth in the strictest canons of propriety, returned any answer to this speech, but they exchanged speaking glances, and young Mr Elmore demanded of Miss Carleton, in an undervoice, what the deuce Stonehenge had to say to anything?
Having comfortably installed her guests in the drawingroom, Miss Wychwood said chattily that she had been considering their problem, and had come to the conclusion that the wisest course for Ninian to pursue would be to tell his father, his mother, and Mrs Amber the whole story of his escapade. She could not help laughing when she was confronted by two horrified faces, but said, with a good deal of authority: 'You know, my dears, there is really nothing else to be done! If the case had been different – if Lucilla had suffered ill-treatment at Mrs Amber's hands – I might have consented to keep her presence here a secret, but, as far as I can discover, she has never been ill-treated in her life!'
'Oh, no, no!' Lucilla said quickly. 'I never said that! But there is another kind of tyranny, ma'am! I can't explain what I mean, and perhaps you have never experienced it, but – but –'
'I haven't experienced it, but I do know what you mean,' Annis said. 'It is the tyranny of the weak, isn't it? The weapons being tears, reproaches, vapours, and other such unscrupulous means which are employed by gentle, helpless women like your aunt!'
'Oh, you do understand!' Lucilla exclaimed, her face lighting up.
'Of course I do! Try, in your turn to understand what must be my feelings on this occasion! I couldn't reconcile it with my conscience, Lucilla, to hide you from your aunt.' She silenced, by a raised finger, the outcry which rose to Lucilla's lips. 'No, let me finish what I have to say! I am going to write to Mrs Amber asking her if she will permit you to stay with me for a few weeks. Ninian shall take my letter with him tomorrow, and I must trust that he will assure her that I am a very respectable creature, well able to take care of you.'
'You may be sure I will, ma'am!' said Ninian enthusiastically. Doubt shook him, and his brow clouded. 'But what must I do if she won't consent? She is a very anxious female, you see, and almost never lets Lucy go anywhere without her, because she lives in dread of some accident befalling her, like being kidnapped, which did happen to some girl or other only last year, but not, of course, in Cheltenham, of all unlikely places!'
'Yes, and ever since Uncle Abel died she bolts all the doors and windows every evening,' corroborated Lucilla, 'and makes our butler take the silver up to bed with him, and hides her jewellery under her mattress!'
'Poor thing!' said Miss Wychwood charitably. 'If she is so nervous a good watch-dog is the thing for her!'
'She is afraid of dogs,' said Lucilla gloomily. 'And of horses! When I was young I had a pony, and was used to ride every day of my life – oh, Ninian, do you remember what splendid times we had, looking for adventures, and following the Hunt, which we were not permitted to do, but the Master was a particular friend of ours, and never did more than tell us we were a couple of rapscallions, and would end up in Newgate!'
'Yes, by Jupiter!' said Ninian, kindling. 'He was a great gun! Lord, do you remember the time that pony of yours refused, and you went right over the hedge into a ploughed field? I thought we should never get the mud off your habit!'
Lucilla laughed heartily at this recollection, but her laughter soon died, and she sighed, saying in a melancholy voice that those days were long past. 'I know Mama would have bought a hunter for me, when I grew to be too big for dear old Punch, but Aunt Clara utterly refused to do so! She said she wouldn't enjoy a moment's peace of mind if she knew me to b
e careering all over the countryside, and if I was set on riding there was a very good livery-stable in Cheltenham, which provides reliable grooms to accompany young ladies when they wish to go for rides – on quiet old hacks! Exactly so!' she added, as Ninian uttered a derisive laugh. 'And when I appealed to my – my insufferable Uncle Carleton, all he did was to reply in the vilest of scrawls that my Aunt Clara was the best judge of what it was proper for me to do.'
'I must say, one would take him for a regular slow-top,' agreed Ninian. 'He isn't, though. It might be that he doesn't approve of females hunting.'
'A great many gentlemen don't,' said Miss Farlow. 'My own dear father would never have permitted me to hunt. Not that I wished to, even if I had been taught to ride, which I wasn't.'
There did not seem to be anything to say in answer to this, and a depressed silence fell on the company. Lucilla broke it. 'Depend upon it,' she said, 'my aunt will write to Uncle Carleton and he will order me to do as I'm bid. I don't believe there is any hope for me.'
'Oh, don't despair!' said Annis cheerfully. 'It wouldn't surprise me if your aunt were to be too thankful to learn that you are in safe hands to raise the least objection to your prolonging your visit to me. She might even be glad of a respite! And if she thinks the matter over she will surely perceive that to fetch you back immediately would give rise to just the sort of scandal-broth she must be most anxious to avoid. Ninian escorted you here because I invited you: what could be more natural? I wonder where I made your acquaintance?'
Lucilla smiled faintly at this, but it was a woebegone effort, and it took a little time to convince her that there was no other way out of her difficulties. Annis felt extremely sorry for her, since it was obvious that Mrs Amber was so morbidly conscious of the responsibility laid on her that she chafed the poor child almost to desperation by the excessive care she took of her.
Before the tea-tray was brought in, Annis took Ninian to her book-room while she there wrote the letter he was to carry to Mrs Amber, and supplied him with enough money to defray the various expenses he had incurred. She told Lucilla that she needed his help in the composition of the letter, but her real object was to discover rather more about Lucilla's flight than had so far been disclosed. She had mentally discounted much of what Lucilla had told her as the exaggeration natural to youth, but by the time Ninian had favoured her with his version of the affair she had realized that Lucilla had not exaggerated the pressure brought to bear on her, and could easily picture the effect on a sensitive girl such pressure would have. No one had ill-treated her; she had been suffocated with loving kindness, not only by her aunt, but by Lord and Lady Iverley, and by Ninian's three sisters; even Eliza, a ten-yearold, conceiving a schoolgirl passion for her, and doting on her in a very embarrassing way. Cordelia and Lavinia, both of whom Miss Wychwood judged to be two meekly insipid young women, had, apparently, told Lucilla that they looked forward to the day when they could call her sister. This, Ninian said, in a judicial way, had been a mistaken thing to have done; but it did not seem to have occurred to him that his own conduct left much to be desired. It was obvious to Miss Wychwood that his devotion to his parents was excessive; but when she asked him if he had indeed been prepared to marry Lucilla, he replied: 'No, no! That is to say – well, what I mean is – oh, I don't know, but I thought something would be bound to happen to prevent it!'
'But I collect, my dear boy,' said Miss Wychwood, 'that your parents love you very dearly, and have never denied you anything?'
'That is just it!' said Ninian eagerly. 'My – my every wish has been granted me, so – so how could I be so ungrateful as to refuse to do the only thing they have ever asked me to do? Particularly when my mother begged me, with tears in her eyes, not to shatter the one hope my father had left to him!'
This moving picture failed to impress Miss Wychwood. She said, somewhat dryly, that she was at a loss to understand why his loving parents should have set their hearts on his marriage to a girl he had no wish to marry.
'She is the daughter of Papa's dearest friend,' explained Ninian, in a reverential tone. 'When Captain Carleton bought Old Manor, it was in the hope that the two estates would be joined, in the end, by this marriage.'
'Captain Carleton, I assume, was a gentleman of substance?'
'Oh, yes! All the Carletons are full of juice!' said Ninian. 'But that has nothing to do with the case!'
Miss Wychwood thought that it probably had a great deal to do with the case, but kept this reflection to herself. After a moment, Ninian said, flushing slightly: 'My father, I daresay, has never had a mercenary thought in his head, ma'am! His only desire is to ensure my – my happiness, and he believes that because, when we were children, Lucy and I were used to play together, and – did indeed like each other very much, we should deal famously together as husband and wife. But we shouldn't!' declared Ninian, with unnecessary violence.
'No, I don't think you would!' agreed Miss Wychwood, amusement in her voice. 'Indeed, it has me in a puzzle to guess what made your parents think you would!'
'They believe that Lucy's wildness comes of her being young, and kept too close by Mrs Amber, and that I should be able to handle her,' said Ninian. 'But I shouldn't, ma'am! I never could keep her out of mischief, even when we were children, and – and I don't wish to be married to a headstrong girl, who thinks she knows better than I do always, and says I have no spirit when I try to stop her doing something outrageous! I did try to stop her running away from Chartley, but, short of taking her back by force, there was no way of doing it. And,' he added candidly, 'by the time I caught up with her she had reached a village, and she said if I so much as laid a finger on her she would scream for help, besides biting and scratching and kicking, and if it was pudding-hearted of me to have hung up my axe, very well, I'm a pudding-heart! Only think what a scandal it would have created, ma'am! She would have roused the whole place – and several of the farm-workers were already going to start work in the fields! I was obliged to knuckle down! Then she said that since they would none of them believe her when she said nothing would prevail upon her to marry me, the best way of proving it to them was by running away. And I'm bound to own that I did feel it might be a good thing to do. But when she tried to persuade me to go home, and pretend I knew nothing about her having left the house before dawn, I did not knuckle down! Well, what a miserable fellow I should be to let such a stupid chit jaunter about quite unprotected!'
'Is that what she did?' asked Miss Wychwood, unable to repress a note of appreciation in her voice.
'Yes, and if only I hadn't been woken up by the moonlight on my face I shouldn't have known a thing about it!' said Ninian bitterly. 'Of course I got up to pull the blinds closely together, and that's why I saw Lucy. She was making off down the avenue, and carrying a portmanteau. I wish I hadn't seen her, I don't mind owning, but since I did see her, what could I do but follow her?'
'I can't imagine!' confessed Miss Wychwood.
'No, well, you see how it was! I had to dress, of course, and then creep out of the house, to the stables, and by the time I'd harnessed a horse to my gig, and fobbed off Sowerby – he's one of our grooms, and what must he do but come out in his nightshirt to see who was stealing a horse and carriage! – Lucy was halfway to Amesbury. I guessed she must be going that way, for I naturally supposed her to be trying to go back to Cheltenham, and I am pretty sure there's a coach which goes to Marlborough from Amesbury, and Marlborough's on the post-road to Cheltenham. I thought that was as bird-witted as it could be, but it wasn't as bird-witted as her precious Bath-scheme! I said all I could to persuade her to abandon such a hare-brained notion, but it was to no purpose, so when it came to her saying that by hedge or by stile she would get to Bath, it seemed to me that the only thing to be done was to drive her there.'
He ended on a defensive note, and looked so sheepish that Miss Wychwood had no difficulty in realizing that Lucy, by far the stronger character, had, in fact, talked him into reluctant compliance. She said, howe
ver, that he had certainly done the right thing; and advised him to tell his father, without reserve, what were his sentiments on the subject of the marriage proposed to him. 'Depend upon it,' she said, 'he will hardly feel surprise now that Lucilla has made it abundantly clear what her sentiments are! I shouldn't wonder at it if he felt relief at being spared such a daughter-in-law!' She affixed a wafer to the letter she had inscribed, and rose from her desk, saying, as she handed the letter to him: 'There! That will, I trust, reassure Mrs Amber and may even convince her – though she sounds to me to be a remarkably foolish woman! – that her wisest course will be to give Lucilla permission to remain in my charge until she has had time to recover from all this agitation. Come, let us go back to the drawing-room! Limbury will be bringing in the tea-tray immediately.'