Sir Richard Wyndham was not an early riser, but he was roused from sleep at an unconscionably early hour upon the morning of Pen’s flight by the boots, who came into his room with a small pile of his linen, which had been laundered in the inn, and his top-boots, and told him diffidently that he was wanted belowstairs.
Sir Richard groaned, and enquired what time it was. With even greater diffidence, the boots said that it was not quite eight o’clock.
“What the devil?” exclaimed Sir Richard, bending a pained glance upon him.
“Yes, sir,” agreed the boots feelingly, “but it’s that Major Daubenay, sir, in such a pucker as you never did see!”
“Oh!” said Sir Richard. “It is, is it? The devil fly away with Major Daubenay!”
The boots grinned, but awaited more precise instructions. Sir Richard groaned again, and sat up. “You think I ought to get up, do you? Bring me my shaving water, then.”
“Yessir!”
“Oh, ah! Present my compliments to the Major, and inform him that I shall be with him shortly!”
The boots went off to execute these commands, and Sir Richard, surveying the beauty of the morning with a jaundiced eye, got out of bed.
When the boots came back with a jug of hot water, he found Sir Richard in his shirt and breeches, and reported that the Major was pacing up and down the parlour more like a wild beast in a circus than a Christian gentleman.
“You appal me,” said Sir Richard unemotionally. “Just hand me my boots, will you? Alas! Biddle, I never realized your worth until I was bereft of you!”
“Beg pardon, sir?”
“Nothing,” said Sir Richard, inserting his foot into one of the boots, and pulling hard.
Half an hour later he entered the parlour to find his matutinal guest fuming up and down the floor with a large watch in his hand. The Major, whose cheeks were unbecomingly flushed, and whose eyes started quite alarmingly, stabbed at this timepiece with one quivering finger, and said in a suppressed roar: “Forty minutes, sir! Forty minutes since I entered this room!”
“Yes, I have even surprised myself,” said Sir Richard, with maddening nonchalance. “Time was when I could not have achieved this result under an hour, but practice, my dear sir, practice, you know, is everything!”
“An hour!” gobbled the Major. “Practice! Bah, I say! Do you hear me, sir?”
“Yes,” said Sir Richard, flicking a speck of dust from his sleeve. “And I imagine I am not the only one privileged to hear you.”
“You are a dandy!” uttered the Major, with loathing. “A dandy, sir! That’s what you are!”
“Well, I am glad that the haste with which I dressed has not obscured that fact,” replied Sir Richard amiably. “But the correct term is Corinthian.”
“I don’t care a fig what the correct term may be!” roared the Major, striking the table with his fist. “It’s all the same to me: dandy, Corinthian, or pure popinjay!”
“If I lose my temper with you, which, however, I should be loth to do—at all events, at this hour of the morning—you will discover that you are mistaken,” said Sir Richard. “Meanwhile, I presume that you did not bring me out of my bed to exchange compliments with me. What, sir, do you want?”
“Don’t take that high and mighty tone with me, sir!” said the Major. “That whelp of yours has made off with my daughter!”
“Nonsense!” said Sir Richard calmly.
“Nonsense, is it? Then let me tell you that she has gone, sir! Gone, do you hear me? And her maid with her!”
“Accept my condolences,” said Sir Richard.
“Your condolences! I don’t want your damned condolences, sir! I want to know what you mean to do!”
“Nothing at all,” replied Sir Richard.
The Major’s eyes positively bulged, and a vein stood out on his heated brow. “You stand there, and say that you mean to do nothing, when your scoundrel of a cousin has eloped with my daughter?”
“Not at all. I mean to do nothing because my cousin has not eloped with your daughter. You must forgive me if I point out to you that I am getting a little weary of your parental difficulties.”
“How dare you, sir? how dare you?” gasped the Major. “Your cousin meets my daughter by stealth in Bath, lures her out at dead of night here, deceives her with false promises, and now— now, to crown all, makes off with her, and you say— you say that you are weary of my difficulties!”
“Very weary of them. If your daughter has left your roof—and who shall blame her?—I advise you not to waste your time and my patience here, but to enquire at Crome Hall whether Mr Piers Luttrell is at home, or whether he also is missing.”
“Young Luttrell! By God, if it were so I should be glad of it! Ay, glad of it, and glad that any man rather than that vicious, scoundrelly whelp of yours, had eloped with Lydia!”
“Well, that is a fortunate circumstance,” said Sir Richard.
“It is nothing of the kind! You know very well it is not young Luttrell! She herself confessed that she had been in the habit of meeting your cousin, and the young dog said in this very room—in this very room, mark you, with you standing by—”
“My good sir, your daughter and my cousin talked a great deal of nonsense, but I assure you they have not eloped together.”
“Very well, sir, very well! Where then is your cousin at this moment?”
“In his bed, I imagine.”
“Then send for him!” barked the Major.
“As you please,” Sir Richard said, and strolled over to the bell, and pulled it.
He had scarcely released it when the door opened, and the Honourable Cedric walked in, magnificently arrayed in a brocade dressing-gown of vivid and startling design. “What the deuce is the matter?” he asked plaintively. “Never heard such an ungodly racket in my life! Ricky, dear old boy, you ain’t dressed?”
“Yes,” sighed Sir Richard. “It is a great bore, however.”
“But, my dear fellow, it ain’t nine o’clock!” said Cedric in horrified tones. “Damme if I know what has come over you! You can’t start the day at this hour: it ain’t decent!”
“I know, Ceddie, but when in Rome, one—er—is obliged to cultivate the habits of the Romans. Ah, allow me to present Major Daubenay—Mr Brandon!”
“Servant, sir!” snapped the Major, with the stiffest of bows.
“Oh, how d’ye do?” said Cedric vaguely. “Deuced queer hours you keep in the country!”
“I am not here upon a visit of courtesy!” said the Major.
“Now, don’t tell me you’ve been quarrelling, Ricky!” begged Cedric. “It sounded devilish like it to me. Really, dear boy, you might have remembered I was sleeping above you. Never at my best before noon, y”know. Besides, it ain’t like you!”
He lounged, yawning, across the room to an armchair by the fireplace, and dropped into it, stretching his long legs out before him. The Major glared at him, and said pointedly that he had come to see Sir Richard upon a private matter.
This hint passed over Cedric’s head. “What we want is some coffee—strong coffee!” he said.
A maid-servant in a mobbed cap came in just then, and seemed astonished to find the room occupied. “Oh, I beg pardon, sir! I thought the bell rang!”
“It did,” said Sir Richard. “Have the goodness to tap on Mr Brown’s door, and to request him to step downstairs as soon as he shall have dressed. Major Daubenay wishes to speak to him.”
“Hey, wait a minute!” commanded Cedric. “Bring some coffee first, there’s a good girl!”
“Yes, sir,” said the maid, looking flustered.
“Coffee!” exploded Major Daubenay.
Cedric cocked an intelligent eyebrow. “Don’t like the notion? What shall it be? Myself, I think it’s too early for brandy, but if you fancy a can of ale, say the word!”
“I want nothing, sir! Sir Richard, while we waste time in such idle fripperies as these, that young dog is abducting my daughter!”
“Fetch Mr Brown,” Sir Richard told the servant.
“Abduction, by Jupiter!” said Cedric. “What young dog?”
“Major Daubenay,” said Sir Richard, “is labouring under the delusion that my cousin eloped last night with his daughter.”
“Eh?” Cedric blinked. An unholy gleam stole into his eyes as he glanced from Sir Richard to the Major; he said unsteadily: “No, by Jove, you don’t mean it? You ought to keep him in better order, Ricky!”
“Yes!” said the Major. “He ought indeed! But instead of that he has—I will not say abetted the young scoundrel—but adopted an attitude which I can only describe as Callous, sir, and supine!”
Cedric shook his head. “That’s Ricky all over.” His gravity broke down. “Oh lord, what the deuce put it into your head your daughter had gone off with his cousin? I’ll tell you what, it’s the richest jest I’ve heard in months! Ricky, if I don’t roast you for this for years to come!”
“You are going to the Peninsula, Ceddie,” Sir Richard said, with a lurking smile.
“You are amused, sir!” the Major said, bristling.
“Lord, yes, and so would you be if you knew as much about Wyndham’s cousin as I do!”
The maid-servant came back into the room. “Oh, if you please, sir! Mr Brown’s not in his room,” she said, dropping a curtsey.
The effect of this pronouncement was startling. The Major gave a roar like that of a baffled bull; Cedric’s laughter was cut short; and Sir Richard let his eyeglass fall.
“I knew it! Oh, I knew it!” raged the Major. “Now, sir!”
Sir Richard recovered himself swiftly. “Pray do not be absurd, sir!” he said, with more asperity than Cedric ever remembered to have heard in his voice before. “My cousin has in all probability stepped out to enjoy the air. He is an early riser.”
“If you please, sir, the young gentleman has taken his cloak-bag with him.”
The Major seemed to be having considerable difficulty in holding his fury within bounds. Cedric, observing his gobblings with a sapient eye, begged him to be careful. “I knew a man once who got into just such a taking. He burst a blood-vessel. True as I sit here!”
The maid-servant, upon whom the Honourable Cedric’s charm of manner had not fallen unappreciated, smothered a giggle, and twisted one corner of her apron into a screw. “There was a letter for your honour upon the mantelshelf when I did the room out,” she volunteered.
Sir Richard swung round on his heel, and went to the fireplace. Pen’s note, which she had propped up against the clock, had fallen down, and so missed his eye. He picked it up, a little pale of countenance, and retired with it to the window.
“My dear Richard,” Pen had written. “This is to say goodbye to you, and to thank you very much for all your kindness. I have made up my mind to return to Aunt Almeria, for the notion of our being obliged to marry is preposterous. I shall tell her some tale that will satisfy her. Dear sir, it was truly a splendid adventure. Your very obliged servant, Penelope Creed.
“P.S. I will send back your cravats and the cloak-bag, and indeed I thank you, dear Richard.”
Cedric, watching his friend’s rigid face, dragged himself out of his chair, and lounged across to lay a hand on Sir Richard’s shoulder. “Ricky, dear boy! Now, what is it?”
“I demand to see that letter!” barked the Major.
Sir Richard folded the sheet, and slipped it into his inner pocket. “Be content, sir: my cousin has not eloped with your daughter.”
“I don’t believe you!”
“If you mean to give me the lie—” Sir Richard checked himself, and turned to the abigail. “When did Mr Brown leave this place?”
“I don’t know, sir. But Parks was downstairs—the waiter, sir.”
“Fetch him.”
“If your cousin has not gone off with my daughter, show me that letter!” demanded the Major.
The Honourable Cedric let his hand fall from Sir Richard’s shoulder, and strolled into the middle of the room, an expression of disdain upon his aristocratic countenance. “You, sir—Daubenay, or whatever your name may be—I don’t know what maggot’s got into your head, but damme, I’m tired of it! For the lord’s sake, go away!”
“I shall not stir from this room until I know the truth!” declared the Major. “I should not be surprised if I found that you were both in league with that young whipper-snapper!”
“Damme, there’s something devilish queer about the air of this place!” said Cedric. “It’s my belief you’re all mad!”
At this moment the gloomy waiter came into the room. His disclosure that Pen had gone to Bristol with Mrs Hopkins made Sir Richard’s face assume a more masklike expression than ever, but they could not fail to assuage one at least of the Major’s alarms. He mopped his brow, and said gruffly that he saw that he had made a mistake.
“That’s what we’ve been telling you,” Cedric pointed out. “I’ll tell you another thing, sir: I want my breakfast, and I’ll be damned if I’ll sit down to it with you dancing about the room, and shouting in my ear. It ain’t restful!”
“But I don’t understand!” complained the Major in a milder tone. “She said she went out to meet your cousin, sir!”
“I have already told you, sir, that your daughter and my cousin both talked a deal of nonsense,” said Sir Richard, over his shoulder.
“You mean she said it to make me believe—to throw dust in my eyes? Upon my soul!”
“Now, don’t start that again!” begged Cedric.
“She has gone off with young Luttrell!” exploded the Major. “By God, I’ll break every bone in his body!”
“Well, we don’t mind that,” said Cedric. “You go and do it, sir! Don’t waste a moment! Waiter, the door!”
“Good God, this is terrible!” exclaimed the Major, sinking into a chair, and clapping a hand to his brow. “Depend upon it, they are half-way to the Scottish border by now! As though that were not enough! But there is Philips wanting me to take that wretched girl to Bath this morning, to see whether she can recognize some fellow they have caught there! What am I to say to him? The scandal! My poor wife! I left her prostrate!”
“Run back to her at once!” urged Cedric. “You have not a moment to spare! Tell me, though, had this fellow the diamonds upon him?”
The Major made a gesture as of one brushing aside a gnat. “What should I care for that? It is my misguided child I am thinking about!”
“I dare say you don’t care, but I do. The man who was murdered was my brother, and those diamonds belong to my family!”
“Your brother? Good Gad, sir, I am astonished!” said the Major, glaring at him. “No one—no one, believe me!—would credit you with having sustained such a loss! Your levity, your—”
“Never mind my levity, old gentleman! Has that damned necklace been found?”
“Yes, sir, I understand that the prisoner had a necklace in his possession. And if that is your only concern in this appalling affair—”
“Ricky, I must get my hands on that necklace. I hate to leave you, dear boy, but there’s nothing for it! Where the devil’s that coffee? Can’t go without my breakfast!” He caught sight of the waiter, who had reappeared in the doorway. “You there! What the devil do you mean by standing gaping? Breakfast, you gaby!”
“Yes, sir,” said the waiter, sniffing. “And what will I tell the lady, sir, if you please?”
“Tell her we ain’t receiving!—What lady?”
The waiter proffered a tray with a visiting card upon it. “For Sir Richard Wyndham,” he said lugubriously. “She would be obleeged by the favour of a word with him.”
Cedric picked up the card, and read aloud: “Lady Luttrell. Who the deuce is Lady Luttrell, Ricky?”
“Lady Luttrell!” said the Major, starting up. “Here? Ha, is this some dastardly plot?”
Sir Richard turned, a look of surprise in his face. “Show the lady in!” he said.
“Well, I always knew country life would never do for me,” remarked Cedric, “but damme, I never realized one half of it till now! Not nine o’clock, and the better part of the county paying morning calls! Horrible, Ricky, horrible!”
Sir Richard had turned away from the window, and was watching the door, his brows slightly raised. The waiter ushered in a good-looking woman of between forty and fifty years of age, with brown hair flecked with grey, shrewd, humorous eyes, and a somewhat masterful mouth and chin. Sir Richard moved to meet her, but before he could say anything the Major had burst into speech.
“So, ma’am! So!” he shot out. “You wish to see Sir Richard Wyndham, do you? You did not expect to meet me here, I dare say!”
“No,” agreed the lady composedly. “I did not. However, since we shall be obliged, I understand, to meet one another in future with an appearance at least of complaisance, we may as well make a start. How do you do, Major?”
“Upon my word, you are mighty cool, ma’am! Pray, are you aware that your son has eloped with my daughter?”
“Yes,” replied Lady Luttrell. “My son left a letter behind to inform me of this circumstance.”
Her calm seemed to throw the Major out of his stride. He said rather lamely: “But what are we to do?”
She smiled. “We have nothing to do but to accept the event with as good a grace as we can. You do not like the match, and nor do I, but to pursue the young couple, or to show the world our disapproval, will only serve to make us both ridiculous.” She looked him over with a rather mocking light in her eyes, but he seemed so much taken aback, that she relented, and held out her hand to him. “Come, Major! We may as well bury the hatchet. I cannot be estranged from my only son; you, I am persuaded, would be equally loth to disown your daughter.”
He shook hands with her, not very graciously. “I do not know what to say! I am utterly confounded! They have behaved very ill towards us, very ill indeed!”
“Oh yes!” she sighed. “But did we perhaps behave ill towards them?”
This was plainly going too far for the Major, whose eyes began to bulge again. Cedric intervened hastily: “Don’t set him off again, ma’am, for lord’s sake!”
“Hold your tongue, sir!” snapped the Major. “But you came here to see Sir Richard Wyndham, ma’am! How is this?”
“I came to see Sir Richard Wyndham upon quite another matter,” she replied. Her glance dwelled for an instant on Cedric, and travelled past him to Sir Richard. “And you, I think, must be Sir Richard Wyndham,” she said.
He bowed. “I am at your service, ma’am. Permit me to present Mr Brandon to you!”
She looked quickly towards Cedric. “Ah, I thought your face familiar! Sir, I hardly know what to say to you, except that I am more deeply distressed than I am well able to express to you.”
Cedric looked startled. “Nothing to be distressed about on my account, ma’am, nothing in the world! Must beg your ladyship to excuse my appearance! The fact is, these early hours, you know, put a man out!”
“Lady Luttrell refers, I apprehend, to Beverley’s death,” said Sir Richard dryly.
“Bev? Oh, of course, yes! Shocking affair! Never was more surprised in my life!”
“It is a source of profound dismay to me that such a thing should have happened while your brother was a guest in my house,” said Lady Luttrell.
“Don’t give it a thought, ma’am!” begged Cedric. “Not your fault—always thought he would come to a bad end—might have happened anywhere!”
“Your callousness, sir, is disgusting!” proclaimed the Major, picking up his hat. “I will not remain another instant to be revolted by such a display of heartless unconcern!”
“Well, damme, who wants you to?” demanded Cedric. “Haven’t I been trying to get you to go away this past half-hour? Never met such a thick-skinned fellow in my life!”
“Escort Major Daubenay to the door, Ceddie,” Sir Richard said. “I understand that Lady Luttrell wishes to see me upon a private matter.”
“Private as you please, dear boy! Ma’am, your very obedient! After you, Major!” He bowed the Major out with a flourish, winked at Sir Richard, and went out himself.
“What an engaging scapegrace!” remarked Lady Luttrell, moving forward into the middle of the parlour. “I confess, I much disliked his brother.”
“Your dislike was shared by most of his acquaintance, ma’am. Will you not be seated?”
She took the chair he offered, and looked him over rather penetratingly. “Well, Sir Richard,” she said, perfectly mistress of the situation, “you are wondering, I dare say, why I have come to call upon you.”
“I think I know,” he replied.
“Then I need not beat about the bush. You are travelling with a young gentleman who is said to be your cousin, I understand. A young gentleman who, if my maid is to be believed, answers to the somewhat unusual name of Pen.”
“Yes,” said Sir Richard. “We should have changed that.”
“Pen Creed, Sir Richard?”
“Yes, ma’am! Pen Creed.”
Her gaze did not waver from his impassive countenance. “A trifle odd, sir, is it not?”
“The word, ma’am, should have been fantastic. May I know how you came by your information?”
“Certainly you may. I have lately supported a visit from Mrs Griffin and her son, who seemed to expect to find Pen with me. They told me that she had left their roof in her cousin’s second-best suit of clothes, by way of the window. That sounded very like Pen Creed to me. But she was not with me, Sir Richard. It was not until this morning that my maid told me of a golden-haired boy who was putting up with his cousin—yourself, Sir Richard—at this inn. That is why I came. I am sure that you will appreciate that I felt a certain degree of anxiety.”
“Perfectly,” he said. “But Pen is no longer with me. She left for Bristol this morning, and is now, I must suppose, a passenger on the London stage-coach.”
She raised her brows. “Still more surprising! I hope that you mean to satisfy my curiosity, sir?”
“Obviously I must do so,” he said, and in a cool, expressionless voice, recounted to her all that had happened since Pen had dropped from her rope of sheets into his arms.
She heard him in attentive silence, and all the time watched him. When he had done, she did not say anything for a moment, but looked thoughtfully at him. After a pause, she said: “Was Pen very much distressed to find my son head over ears in love with Lydia Daubenay?”
“I did not think so.”
“Oh! And my son, I think you said, showed himself to be shocked at die seeming impropriety of her situation?”
“Not unnaturally, though I could have wished that he had not shown his disapproval quite so plainly. She is very young, you see. It had not occurred to her that there was anything amiss.”
“Piers had never the least tact,” she said. “I expect he told her that you were in honour bound to marry her.”
“He did, and he spoke no less than the truth.”
“Forgive me, Sir Richard, but did you offer for Pen because you felt your honour to be involved?”
“No, I asked her to marry me because I loved her, ma’am.”
“Did you tell her so, Sir Richard?”
“Yes. But she did not believe me.”
“Perhaps,” suggested Lady Luttrell, “you had not previously given her reason to suppose that you had fallen in love with her?”
“Madam,” said Sir Richard, with a touch of impatience, “she was in my care, in a situation of the utmost delicacy! Would you have expected me to abuse her confidence by making love to her?”
“No,” she said, smiling. “From the little I have seen of you, I should have expected you to have treated her just as I imagine you did: as though you were indeed her uncle.”
“With the result,” he said bitterly, “that that is how she regards me.”
“Is it indeed?” she said tartly. “Let me tell you, Sir Richard, that men of twenty-nine, with your air, countenance, and address, are not commonly regarded by young females in the light of uncles!”
He flushed, and smiled a little wryly. “Thank you! But Pen is not like other young females.”
“Pen,” said Lady Luttrell, “must be a very odd sort of a female if she spent all this while in your company and not succumbed to a charm of manner which you must be so well aware that you possess that I do not scruple to mention it. I consider that your conduct in aiding the chit to escape was disgraceful, but since you were drunk at the time I suppose one must overlook that. I do not blame you for anything you have done since you found yourself in the stage-coach: indeed, you have behaved in a manner that would, if I were twenty-years younger, make me envy Pen exceedingly. Finally, if she did not spend the better part of last night crying her eyes out, I know nothing about my own sex! Where is the letter she left for you? May I see it?”
He drew it from his pocket. “Pray read it, if you wish. It contains nothing, alas, that may not be read by other eyes than mine.”
She took it from him, read it, and handed it back. “Just as I thought! Breaking her heart, and determined you shall not know it! Sir Richard, for a man of experience, which I judge you to be, you are a great fool! You never kissed her!”
An unwilling laugh was dragged out of him at this unexpected accusation. “How could I, situated as we were? She recoiled from the very thought of marriage!”
“Because she thought you had asked her to marry you out of pity! Of course she recoiled!”
“Lady Luttrell, are you serious? Do you indeed think—”
“Think! I know!” said her ladyship. “Your scruples were very fine, I make no doubt, but how should a chit of Pen’s age understand what you were about? She would not care a fig for your precious honour, and I dare say—indeed, I am sure!—that she thought your forbearance mere indifference. And the long and the short of it is that she has gone back to her aunt, and will very likely be bullied into marrying her cousin!”
“Oh no, she will not!” said Sir Richard, with a glance at the clock on the mantelshelf. “I am desolated to be obliged to leave you, ma’am, but if I am to overtake that stagecoach this side of Chippenham, I must go.”
“Excellent!” she said, laughing. “Do not waste a thought on me! But having caught the stage, what do you propose to do with Pen?”
“Marry her, ma’am! What else?”
“Dear me, I hope you do not mean to join my foolish son at Gretna Green! I think you had better bring Pen to Crome Hall.”
“Thank you, I will!” he said, with the smile which she privately thought irresistible. “I am very much in your debt, ma’am.”
He raised her hand to his lips, and kissed it, and left the room, calling for Cedric.
Cedric, who had been partaking of breakfast in the coffee-room, lounged out into the entrance-parlour. “The devil take you, Ricky, you’re as restless as that plaguey friend of yours! What’s the matter now?”
“Ceddie, were you driving your own horses yesterday?”
“Dear old boy, of course I was, but what has that to say to anything?”
“I want ’em,” said Sir Richard.
“But, Ricky, I’ve got to go back to Bath to get hold of that necklace before it’s discovered to be made of paste!”
“Take the landlord’s gig. I must have a fast pair immediately.”
“The landlord’s gig!” gasped Cedric, reeling under the shock. “Ricky, you must be mad!”
“I am not in the least mad. I am going after the London stage, to recover that brat of mine. Be a good fellow, now, and tell them to harness the horses at once!”
“Oh, very well!” Cedric said. “If that’s the way it is! But I’ll be satisfied with nothing less than a cavalry regiment, mind!”
“You shall have anything you like!” promised Sir Richard, already half-way up the stairs.
“Mad, quite mad!” said Cedric despairingly, and set up a shout for an ostler.
Ten minutes later, the bays were harnessed to the curricle, and Sir Richard had stepped out into the yard, pulling on his gloves. “Famous!” he said. “I hoped you were driving your bays.”
“If you lame ’em—”
“Ceddie, are you—is it possible that you are going to tell me how to drive?” asked Sir Richard.
Cedric, who was still clad in his exotic dressing-gown, leaned against the door-post, and grinned. “You’ll spring ’em. I know you!”
“If I lame them, I will make you a present of my own greys!” said Sir Richard, gathering up the reins.
“Part with your greys?” exclaimed Cedric. “No, no, you’d never bring yourself to do that, Ricky!”
“Don’t disturb yourself: I shan’t have to.”
Cedric made a derisive sound, and lingered to watch him mount on to the box-seat. A commotion behind him distracted his attention, and he turned in time to see Mrs Hopkins enter the inn through the front-door, closely followed by a thick-set man in a frieze coat, and a broad-brimmed hat. Mrs Hopkins was labouring under great agitation, and sank immediately into a chair, volubly explaining to the bewildered landlord that she had never had such a turn in her life, and did not expect to recover from her palpitations for a twelvemonth. Took up by a Bow Street Runner, Tom!” she panted. “And him so innocent-seeming as never was!”
“Who?” demanded her spouse.
“That poor young gentleman which is Sir Richard’s cousin! Under my very eyes, Tom, and me not dreaming of such a thing! And then if he didn’t break away, the which I can’t but be glad of, whatever any one may say, Mr Gudgeon not excepted, for a nicer-spoken young gentleman I never did see, and I’m a mother myself, and I have a heart, though others may not, naming no names, and meaning no offence!”
“My God, here’s a pretty coil!” exclaimed Cedric, grasping with remarkable swiftness the gist of her remarks. “Hi, Ricky, wait!”
The bays were dancing with impatience. “Stand away from their heads!” commanded Sir Richard.
“And here’s Mr Gudgeon himself, wishful to see Sir Richard and Mr Brandon very particular, which I was obliged to take him up in the trap, though little I want Bow Street Runners, or the like, in my house, as you well know, Tom!”
“Ricky!” shouted Cedric, striding out into the yard. “Wait, man! That bloodhound of mine is here, and there’s the devil to pay!”
“Fob him off, Ceddie, fob him off!” called Sir Richard over his shoulder, and swept out of the yard into the street.
“Ricky, you madman, hold a minute!” roared Cedric.
But the curricle had bowled out of sight The ostler enquired whether he should run after it.
“Run after my bays?” said Cedric scornfully. “You’d need wings, not legs, to catch them, my good fool!”
He turned back to the inn, encountering in the doorway Lady Luttrell, who had come out to see what all the shouting was about.
“What is the matter, Mr Brandon?” she asked. “You seem very much put out.”
“Matter, ma’am! Why, here’s Richard gone off after the London Stage, and that crazy girl of his taken up by the Bow Street Runner in Bristol!”
“Good God, this is horrible!” she exclaimed. “Sir Richard must be recalled at all costs! The child must be rescued!”
“Well, by all accounts she seems to have rescued herself,” said Cedric. “But where she may be now, the Lord only knows! However, I’m glad that Runner has arrived: I was getting deuced tired of hunting for him.”
“But is it impossible to stop Sir Richard?” she asked urgently.
“Lord, ma’am, he’s half-way to the London road by now!” said Cedric.
This pronouncement was not strictly accurate. Sir Richard, driving out of Queen Charlton at very much the same time as Miss Creed was boarding the Accommodation coach at Kingswood, chose to take the road to Bath rather than that which led to Keynsham, and thence, due north, through Oldland to join the Bristol road at Warmley. His experience of Accommodation coaches was not such as to induce him to place much confidence in their being likely to cover more than eight miles an hour, and he calculated that if the stage had left Bristol at nine o’clock, which seemed probable, it would not reach the junction of the Bath and Bristol roads until noon at the earliest. The Honourable Cedric’s bays, drawing a light curricle, might be depended upon to arrive at Chippenham considerably in advance of that hour, and the Bath road had the advantage of being well known to Sir Richard.
The bays, which seemed to have been fed exclusively on oats, were in fine fettle, and the miles flashed by. They were not, perhaps, an easy pair to handle, but Sir Richard, a notable whip, had little trouble with them, and was so well satisfied with their pace and stamina that he began to toy seriously with the idea of making the Honourable Cedric a handsome offer for them. He was obliged to rein them in to a sedate pace whilst threading his way through the crowded streets of Bath, but once clear of the town he was able to give them their heads on the long stretch to Corsham, and arrived finally in Chippenham to learn that the Accommodation coach from Bristol was not due there for nearly another hour. Sir Richard repaired to the best posting-inn, superintended the disposal of the sweating bays, and ordered breakfast. When he had consumed a dish of ham-and-eggs, and drunk two cups of coffee, he had the bays put-to again, and drove westward along the Bristol road, at a leisurely pace, until he came to a fork, where a weather-beaten signpost pointed northward to Nettleton and Acton Turville, and westward to Wroxhall, Marshfield, and Bristol. Here he reined in, to await the approach of the stage.
It was not long in putting in an appearance. It rounded a bend in the deserted road ahead, a green-and-gold monstrosity, rocking and swaying top-heavily in the centre of the road, with half a dozen outside passengers on the roof, the boot piled high with baggage, and the guard sitting up behind with the yard of tin in his hand.
Sir Richard drew the curricle across the road, hitched up his reins, and jumped lightly down from the box-seat. The bays were quiet enough by this time, and except for some fidgeting, showed no immediate disposition to bolt.
Finding his way barred, the stage-coachman pulled up his team, and demanded aggrievedly what game Sir Richard thought he was playing.
“No game at all!” said Sir Richard. “You have a fugitive aboard, and when I have taken him into custody, you are at liberty to proceed on your way.”
“Ho, I am, am I?” said the coachman, nonplussed, but by no means mollified. “Fine doings on the King’s Highway! Ah, and so you’ll find afore you’re much older!”
One of the inside passengers, a red-faced man with very bushy whiskers, poked his head out of the window to discover the reason for the unexpected halt; the guard climbed down from the roof to argue with Sir Richard; and Pen, squashed between a fat farmer, and a woman with a perpetual sniff, had a sudden fear that she had been overtaken by the Bow Street Runner. The sound of the guard’s voice, saying: “There, and if I didn’t suspicion him from the werry moment I set eyes on him at Kingswood!” did nothing to allay her alarms. She turned a white, frightened face towards the door, just as it was pulled open, and the steps let down.
The next instant, Sir Richard’s tall, immaculate person filled the opening, and Pen, uttering an involuntary sound between a squeak and a whimper, turned first red, and then white, and managed to utter the one word: “No!”
“Ah!” said Sir Richard briskly. “So there you are! Out you come, my young friend!”
“Well, I never did in all my life!” gasped the woman beside Pen. “Whatever has he been and gone and done, sir?”
“Run away from school,” replied Sir Richard, without a moment’s hesitation.
“I haven’t! It isn’t t-true!” stammered Pen. “I won’t go with you, I w-won’t!”
Sir Richard, leaning into the coach, and grasping her hand, said: “Oh, won’t you, by Jove? Don’t you dare to defy me, you—brat!”
“Here, guv’nor, steady!” expostulated a kindly man in the far corner. “I don’t know when I’ve taken more of a fancy to a lad, and there’s no call for you to bully him, I’m sure! Dare say there’s many of us have wanted to run away from school in our time, eh?”
“Ah,” said Sir Richard brazenly, “but you do not know the half of it! You think he looks a young innocent, but I could tell you a tale of his depravity which would shock you.”
“Oh, how dare you?” said Pen indignantly. “It isn’t true! Indeed, it isn’t!”
The occupants of the coach had by this time ranged themselves into two camps. Several persons said that they had suspected the young varmint of running away from the start, and Pen’s supporters demanded to know who Sir Richard was, and what right he had to drag the poor young gentleman out of the coach.
“Every right!” responded Sir Richard. “I am his guardian. In fact, he is my nephew.”
“I am not!” stated Pen.
His eyes looked down into hers, with so much laughter in them that she felt her heart turn over. “Aren’t you?” he said. “Well, if you are not my nephew, brat, what are you?”
Aghast, she choked: “Richard, you—you— traitor!”
Even the kindly man in the corner seemed to feel that Sir Richard’s question called for an answer. Pen looked helplessly round, encountered nothing but glances either of disapproval, or of interrogation, and raised her wrathful eyes to Sir Richard’s face.
“Well?” said Sir Richard inexorably. “Are you my nephew?”
“Yes—no! Oh, you are abominable! You wouldn’t dare!”
“Yes, I would,” said Sir Richard. “Are you going to get out, or are you not?”
A man in a plum-coloured coat recommended Sir Richard to dust the young rascal’s jacket for him. Pen stared up at Sir Richard, read the determination behind the amusement in his face, and allowed herself to be pulled to her feet, and out of the stuffy coach.
“P’raps when you’ve quite finished, your honour, you’ll be so werry obliging as to move that curricle of yourn!” said the coachman sardonically.
“Richard, I can’t go back!” Pen said in a frantic undertone. “That Runner caught me in Bristol, and I only just contrived to escape!”
“Ah, that must have been what Cedric was trying to tell me!” said Sir Richard, walking up to the bays, and backing them to the side of the road. “So you were arrested, were you? What a splendid adventure for you, my little one!”
“And I have left your cloak-bag behind, and it’s no use trying to drag me away with you, because I won’t go! I won’t, I won’t!”
“Why won’t you?” asked Sir Richard, turning to look down at her.
She found herself unable to speak. There was an expression in Sir Richard’s eyes which brought the colour rushing into her cheeks again, and made her feel as though the world were whirling madly round her. Behind her, the guard, having let up the steps, and shut the door, climbed, grumbling, on to the roof again. The coach began to move ponderously forward. Pen paid no heed to it, though the wheels almost brushed her coat. “Richard, you—you don’t want me! You can’t want me!” she said uncertainly.
“My darling!” he said. “Oh, my precious, foolish little love!”
The coach lumbered on down the road; as it reached the next bend, the roof-passengers, looking back curiously to see the last of a very odd couple, experienced a shock that made one of them nearly lose his balance. The golden-haired stripling was locked in the Corinthian’s arms, being ruthlessly kissed.
“Lawks a-mussy on us! whatever is the world a-coming to?” gasped the roof-passenger, recovering his seat. “I never did in all my born days!”
“Richard, Richard, they can see us from the coach!” expostulated Pen, between tears and laughter.
“Let them see!” said the Corinthian.