Sprig Muslin (15 page)

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. 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 backdoor 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.

Amanda had not bargained for this bucolic character, and for a moment she hesitated, not quite knowing whether to advance, or to draw back. The youth, catching sight of her, stood staring, allowing both his jaw, and the empty crate he was holding, to drop. If Amanda had been unprepared to see him, he was even more unprepared to see, emerging from the Red Lion, such a vision of beauty as she presented to his astonished gaze.

"Hush!"
commanded Amanda, in a hissing whisper.

The youth blinked at her, but was obediently silent.

Amanda cast a wary look towards the kitchen-window. "Are you going to take that cart away?" she demanded.

His jaw dropped lower; he nodded.

"Well, will you let me ride in it, if you please?" She added, as she saw his eyes threaten to start from their sockets: "I am escaping from a Deadly Peril! Oh, pray make haste, and say I may go in your cart!"

Young Mr. Ninfield's head was in a whirl, but his mother had impressed upon him that he must always be civil to members of the Quality, so he uttered gruffly: "You're welcome, miss."

"Not so loud!" begged Amanda. "I am very much obliged to you! How shall I climb into it?"

Young Mr. Ninfield's gaze travelled slowly from her face to her gown of delicate muslin. "It ain't fitting!" he said, in a hoarse whisper. "There's been taties in it, and a dozen pullets, and a couple o' bushels o' kindling!"

"It doesn't signify! If you could lift me into it, I can cover myself with those sacks, and no one will see me. Oh, pray be quick! The case is quite
desperate! Can't
you lift me?"

The feat was well within Mr. Ninfield's power, but the thought of picking up this fragile beauty almost made him swoon. However, she seemed quite determined to ride in his cart, so he manfully obeyed her. She was feather-light, and smelled deliciously of violets. Mr. Ninfield, handling her with all the caution he would have expended on his mother's best crockery, suffered another qualm. "I don't like to!" he said, holding her like a baby in his muscular arms. "You'll get your pretty dress all of a muck!"

"Joe!" suddenly called Mrs. Sheet, from within the house.
"Joe!"

"Quickly!"
Amanda urged him.

Thus adjured, Mr. Ninfield gave a gulp, and tipped her neatly into the cart, where she instantly lay down on the floor, and became screened from his bemused gaze by the sides of the cart.

"The pickled cherries for your ma, Joe!" screeched Mrs. Sheet, from the kitchen-window. "If I hadn't well-nigh forgot them! Wait, now, till I fetch the jar out to you!"

"Do not betray me!" Amanda implored him, trying to pull the empty sacks over herself.

Mr. Ninfield was astonished. Mrs. Sheet, besides being a lifelong crony of his mother's, was his godmother, and he had always looked upon her as a kindly and benevolent person. As she came out into the yard, he almost expected to find that she had undergone a transformation, and was relieved to see that her plump countenance was still as good-natured as ever. She handed a covered jar to him, bidding him take care to keep it the right way up. "And mind you give my love to your ma, and thank her for the eggs, and tell your pa Sheet would have settled for the kindling, and that, only that he's serving a gentleman," she said. "We've got Quality in the house: a very fine-seeming gentleman, and the prettiest young lady you ever did see! Likely she's his niece. Poor lamb, she was took ill in the carriage, and is laid down in my best chamber at this very moment."

Mr. Ninfield did not know what to reply to this, but as he was generally inarticulate his godmother set no particular store by his silence. She gave him a resounding kiss, repeated her injunction to take care of the pickled cherries, and went back into the house.

Mr. Ninfield picked up the empty crate, and peeped cautiously over the side of the cart. From its floor a pair of bright, dark eyes questioned him. "Has she gone?" whispered Amanda.

"Ay."

"Then pray let us go too!"

"Ay," said Mr. Ninfield again. "I'll have to put this crate in—if convenient, miss."

"Yes, pray do so! And I will hold the jar for you," said Amanda obligingly.

Matters being thus satisfactorily arranged, Mr. Ninfield went to the horse's head, and began to lead the placid animal out of the yard, on to the road. The wheels of the cart being shot with iron, Amanda was considerably jolted, but she made no complaint. The horse plodded along the road in a westerly direction, Mr. Ninfield walking beside it, pondering deeply the extraordinary adventure that had befallen him. His slow but profound cogitations caused him, at the end of several minutes, to say suddenly: "Miss!"

"Yes?" replied Amanda.

"Where would you be wishful I should take you?" enquired Mr. Ninfield.

"Well, I am not perfectly sure," said Amanda. "Is there anyone in sight?"

"No," replied Mr. Ninfield, having stared fixedly up and down the road for a moment or two.

Reassured on this point, Amanda knelt up, and looked down at her rescuer over the side of the cart. "Where are you going yourself?" she asked chattily.

"Back home," he replied. "Leastways—"

"Where is your home? Is it on this road?"

He shook his head, jerking his thumb toward the south. "Whitethorn Farm," he explained laconically.

"Oh!" Amanda looked thoughtfully at him, considering a new scheme. A slow tide of bashful crimson crept up to the roots of his hair; he smiled shyly up at her, and then looked quickly away, in case she should be affronted. But the smile decided the matter. "Do you live there with your mother?" asked Amanda.

"Ay. And me dad. It's Dad's farm, and Granfer's afore him, and me great-granfer's afore
him,"
he said, becoming loquacious.

"Would your mother let me stay there for a little while, do you think?"

This brought his head round again. He had not the smallest notion of what his mother's views might be, but he said ecstatically: "Ay!"