‘I daresay you would,’ he replied. ‘Much good that would do me! Lord, what an after-clap there would be if I was to do any-thing so ramshackle as to drive off to London with a chit of your age – and nothing but a dashed bandbox between the pair of us!’ he added, looking with profound disapproval at this object.
‘I didn’t mean we should go in the whisky! How can you be so absurd? A post-chaise, of course!’
‘Yes, and four horses as well, no doubt!’
She nodded, surprised that he should have thought it necessary to have asked.
Her innocent look, far from captivating Laurence, exasperated him. ‘Have you the least notion what it would cost?’ he demanded.
‘Oh, what can that signify?’ she exclaimed impatiently. ‘My uncle will pay for it!’
‘Very likely, but he ain’t here,’ Laurence pointed out.
‘He will pay all the charges when I reach London.’
‘You won’t reach London. Who’s to pay the first post-boys? Who’s to pay for the changes of teams? If it comes to that, who’s to pay for your lodging on the road? It’s close on two hundred miles to London, you know – at least, I collect you don’t know! What’s more, you can’t put up at a posting-house, travelling all by yourself ! I shouldn’t wonder at it if they refused to take you in. Well, I mean to say, who ever heard of such a thing? Now, do but consider, Miss Wield! You can’t do such a jingle-brained thing: take my word for it!’
‘Do you care what people may say?’ Tiffany asked scornfully.
‘Yes,’ he answered.
‘How paltry! I don’t!’
‘I daresay you don’t. You’re too young to know what you’re talking about. If you’re so set on going to London, you ask Miss Trent to take you there!’
‘Oh, how stupid you are!’ she cried passionately. ‘She wouldn’t do it!’
‘Well, that quite settles it!’ said Laurence. ‘You drink your lemonade, like a good girl, and I’ll drive you back to Staples. No need to tell anyone where we’ve been: just say we went farther than we intended!’
Curbing the impulse to throw the lemonade in his face, Tiffany said winningly: ‘I know you couldn’t be cruel enough to take me back to Staples. I had rather die than go back! Go with me to London! We could pretend we were married, couldn’t we? That would make everything right!’
‘You know,’ said Laurence severely, ‘you’ve got the most ramshackle notions of anyone I ever met! No, it would not make everything right!’
She looked provocatively at him, under lashes. ‘What if I did marry you? Perhaps I will!’
‘Yes, and perhaps you won’t!’ he retorted. ‘Of all the outrageous –’
‘I am very rich, you know! My cousin says that’s why you dangle after me!’
‘Oh, does he? Well, you may tell your precious cousin, with my compliments, that I ain’t such a gudgeon as to run off with a girl who won’t come into her inheritance for four years!’ said Laurence, much incensed. ‘Yes, and another thing! I wouldn’t do it if you was of age! For one thing, I don’t wish to marry you; and, for another, I ain’t a dashed hedge-bird, and I wouldn’t run a rig like that even if I were all to pieces!’
‘Don’t wish to marry me?’ Tiffany gasped, and suddenly burst into tears.
Horrified, Laurence said: ‘Not a marrying man! If I were – Oh, lord! For God’s sake, don’t cry! I didn’t mean – that is, any number of men wish to marry you! Shouldn’t wonder at it if you became a duchess! I assure you – most beautiful girl I ever set eyes on!’
‘Nobody wants to marry me!’ sobbed Tiffany.
‘Mickleby! Ash! Young Banningham!’ uttered Laurence.
‘Those! ’ Tiffany said, with loathing. ‘Besides, they don’t ! I wish I were dead!’
‘You’re above their touch!’ said Laurence desperately. ‘Above mine too! You’ll marry into the Peerage – see if you don’t! But not,’ he added, ‘if you go beyond the line!’
‘I don’t care! I want to go to London, and I will go to London! If you won’t escort me, will you lend me the money for the journey?’
‘No – Good God, no! Besides, I haven’t got it! And even if I had I wouldn’t lend it to you!’ Strong indignation rose in his breast. ‘What do you suppose my cousin Waldo would have to say to me if I was to do anything so cock-brained as to send you off to London in a post-chaise-and-four, with nothing but a dashed bandbox, and not so much as an abigail to take care of you?’
‘Sir Waldo?’ Tiffany said, her tears arrested. ‘Do you think he would be vexed?’
‘Vexed! Tear me in pieces! What’s more,’ said Laurence fairly, ‘I wouldn’t blame him! A nice mess I should be in! No, I thank you!’
‘Very well!’ said Tiffany tragically. ‘Leave me!’
‘I do wish,’ said Laurence, eyeing her with a patent want of admiration, ‘that you wouldn’t talk in that totty-headed fashion! Anyone would think you was regularly dicked in the nob! Leave you, indeed! A pretty figure I should cut!’
She shrugged. ‘Well, it’s no matter to me! If you choose to be disobliging –’
‘It may not be any matter to you, but it is to me!’ interrupted Laurence. ‘Seems to me nothing matters to you but yourself !’
‘Well, it seems to me that nothing matters to you but yourself !’ flashed Tiffany. ‘Go away! Go away, go away, go away !’
Her voice rose on every repetition of the command, and Laurence, in the liveliest dread of being precipitated into a scandalous scene, swallowed his spleen, and adopted a conciliatory tone. ‘Now, listen!’ he begged. ‘You don’t want for sense, and you must see that I can’t go away, leaving you here alone! What the deuce would you do? Tell me that! And don’t say you’ll go to London, because for one thing you haven’t enough blunt to pay for the hire of a chaise, and for another I’d lay you long odds there ain’t a postmaster living that would be such a clunch as to oblige you! If you was to try to tip him a rise, he’d be bound to think you was running away from school, or some such thing, and a rare hobble he’d be in if he aided and abetted you! What he’d do would be to send for the constable, and then your tale would be told!’ He perceived that her eyes had widened in dismay, and at once enlarged on this theme. ‘Before you knew where you were you’d be taken before a magistrate, and if you refused to tell him who you was he’d commit you. A pretty piece of business that would be!’
‘Oh, no!’ she said, shuddering. ‘He wouldn’t – he couldn’t !’
‘Oh, yes, he would!’ said Laurence. ‘So, if you don’t want everyone to know you tried to run away, and had to be bailed out of prison, you’d best come home with me now. No need to fear I’ll tell a soul what happened! I won’t.’
She did not answer for a minute or two, but sat staring at him. Miss Trent would instantly have recognized the expression on her face; Laurence was less familiar with it, and waited hopefully for her capitulation. ‘But if I were to go on the stage-coach, or the Mail,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘no one would try to stop me. I know that, because several of the girls used to come to Miss Climping’s school on the stage. I’m very much obliged to you for warning me! Yes, and the Mail coaches travel all night, so I shan’t have to put up at a posting-house! How much will it cost me to buy a ticket, if you please?’
‘I don’t know, and it don’t signify, because I’m not going to let you go to London, post, stage, or Mail!’
She got up, and began to draw on her gloves. ‘Oh, yes! You can’t prevent me. I know just what to do if you try to – and it won’t be of the least use to stand leaning against the door like that, because if you don’t open it for me at once I shall scream for help, and when people come I shall say that you are abducting me!’
‘What, in an open carriage, and you hopping down in the yard as merry as a cricket? That won’t fadge, you little pea-goose!’
/> ‘Oh, I shall say that you deceived me, and I never knew what your intentions were until – until you made violent love to me, just now!’ said Tiffany, smiling seraphically.
Laurence moved away from the door. It seemed more than likely that she would put this threat into execution; and although it would be open to him to explain the true circumstances to such persons as came running to her rescue, not only did he shrink from taking any part at all in so vulgar and embarrassing a scene, but he doubted very much whether his story would be believed. He would not have believed it himself, for a more improbable story would have been hard to imagine. On the other hand, Tiffany’s story, backed by her youth, her staggering beauty, and the private parlour, was all too probable. He said mildly: ‘No need to kick up a dust! I ain’t stopping you. But the thing is that it will cost you a deal of money to buy a seat on the Mail, and I can’t frank you – haven’t above a couple of guineas in my purse!’
‘Then I shall go by the stage. Or even in a carrier’s cart !’ replied Tiffany, her chin mulishly set.
‘Wouldn’t take you,’ said Laurence. ‘Of course, you could go by the stage, but they’re deucedly slow, you know. Bound to be overtaken. Nothing that cousin of yours would like better than to go careering after a stage-coach in that phaeton of his!’
‘No! How should he guess where I was going? Unless you told him, and surely you wouldn’t be so wickedly treacherous?’
‘Well, I should have to tell him! Dash it all, –’
‘Why?’ she demanded. ‘You don’t care what becomes of me!’
‘No, but I care what becomes of me,’ said Laurence frankly.
Some dim apprehension that she had met her match dawned on Tiffany. She regarded Laurence with a mixture of indignation and unwilling sympathy, annoyed with him for considering no interest but his own, yet perfectly able to appreciate his point of view. After a reflective pause, she said slowly: ‘People would blame you? I see! But you’d help me if no one knew, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yes, but they’re bound to know, so –’
‘No, they won’t. I’ve thought of a capital scheme!’ interrupted Tiffany. ‘You must say that I hoaxed you!’
‘I shall. It’s just what you did do,’ said Laurence.
‘Yes, so it will be almost true. Only, you must say that I went off to the dressmaker, and you waited, and waited, but I didn’t return, and though you looked all over for me you couldn’t find me, and you hadn’t the least notion what had happened to me!’
‘So I drove back to Broom Hall – just taking a look-in at Staples, to tell Miss Trent I’d lost you in Leeds!’
‘Yes,’ she agreed happily. ‘For by that time I shall be out of reach. I’ve quite made up my mind to go by the Mail, and I know precisely what to do about paying for the ticket: I’ll sell my pearls – or do you think it would be better to pawn them? I know all about that, because when I was at school, in Bath, Mostyn Garrowby, who was my first beau, though much too young, pawned his watch to take me to a fête in the Sydney Gardens one evening!’
‘You don’t mean to tell me you was allowed to go to fêtes?’ said Laurence, incredulously.
‘Oh, no! I had to wait until everyone had gone to bed, of course! Miss Climping never knew.’
This artless confidence struck dismay into Laurence’s soul. He perceived that Miss Wield was made of bolder stuff than he had guessed; and any hopes he might have cherished of convincing her that her projected journey to London would be fraught with too much impropriety to be undertaken vanished. Such a consideration could not be expected to weigh with a girl audacious enough to steal away from school at dead of night to attend a public fête in the company of a roly-poly youth without a feather to fly with.
‘What do you advise?’ enquired Tiffany, unclasping the single row of pearls she wore round her neck.
He had been pulling uncertainly at his underlip, but as she turned to the door, shrugging her shoulders, he said: ‘Here, give ’em to me! If you must go to London, I’ll pawn ’em for you!’
She paused, eyeing him suspiciously. ‘I think I’ll do it myself – thank you!’
‘No, you dashed well won’t!’ he said, incensed. ‘You don’t suppose I’m going to make off with your pearls, do you?’
‘No, but – Well, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if you went galloping back to Staples! Though I must own that if I could trust you – Oh, I know! I’ll come with you to the pawnbroker! And then we must discover where to find the Mail, and when it leaves Leeds, and –’
‘Very well! You come – but don’t blame me if we walk smash into someone who knows you!’
The change in her expression was almost ludicrous. She exclaimed: ‘Oh, no! No, no, surely not?’
‘Nothing more likely,’ he said. ‘Seems to me the tabbies spend the better part of their time jauntering into Leeds to do some shopping. Not that I care – except that I should be glad if we did meet the Squire’s wife, or Mrs Banningham, or –’
She flung up protesting hands. ‘Oh, how odious you are! You – you would positively like to betray me!’
‘Well, if that’s not the outside of enough!’ he said. ‘When I’ve warned you – !’
Still rampantly suspicious, she said: ‘If I let you go alone, and you met one of those horrid creatures, you’d tell them!’
‘Give you my word I wouldn’t!’ he replied promptly.
She was obliged to be satisfied, but it was with obvious reluctance that she dropped her string of pearls into his outstretched hand. He pocketed them, and picked up his hat. ‘I’ll be off, then. You stay here, and don’t get into a pucker, mind! I daresay it will take me some little time to arrange matters. I’ll tell ’em to send up a nuncheon to you.’
He then departed, returning nearly an hour later to find Miss Wield so sick with apprehension that she burst into tears at sight of him. However, when he handed her a ticket, and informed her that he had obtained a seat for her on the next Mail coach bound for London, her tears ceased, and her volatile spirits soared again. They were slightly damped by the news that it was not due to arrive in Leeds, coming from Thirsk, for another two hours, but agreeably diverted by the restoration to her of her pearls. ‘Thought it best to spout my watch instead,’ explained Laurence briefly.
She accepted them gratefully, saying, as she clasped them round her neck again: ‘I am very much obliged to you! Only, if I must wait so long for the Mail, perhaps I should travel on the stage, after all.’
‘Not a seat to be had!’ responded Laurence, shaking his head. ‘Way-bills all made up! Besides, the Mail will overtake the stage – no question about that! You’ll be set down at the Bull and Mouth, in St Martin’s Lane, by the bye. Plenty of hacks to be had there: nothing for you to do but to give the jarvey your uncle’s direction.’
‘No,’ she agreed. ‘But I do wish – Where must I go to meet the Mail?’
‘Golden Lion: no need to tease yourself over that! I’ll take you there.’
The anxious furrow vanished from her brow. ‘You don’t mean to leave me here alone? Then I am most truly obliged to you! I misjudged you, Mr Calver!’
He cast her a slightly harried glance. ‘No, no! That is, told you at the outset I’d have nothing to do with it!’
‘Oh, yes, but now everything will be right!’ she said blithely.
‘Well, I hope to God it will be!’ said Laurence, with another, and still more harried glance at the clock on the mantelshelf.
Nineteen
Miss Trent, returning from a long, dull drive, which had afforded her far too much opportunity to indulge in melancholy reflection, reached Staples in a mood of deep depression. Relinquishing the reins to the monosyllabic groom who had accompanied her on the expedition, she descended from the gig, and rather wearily mounted the broad steps that led to the imposing entrance to the hous
e. The double-doors stood open to the summer sunshine, and she passed through them into the hall, pulling off her gloves, and hoping that she might be granted a respite before being obliged to devise some form of entertainment to keep her exacting charge tolerably well amused during an evening void of any outside attraction. She was momentarily blinded by the transition from bright sunlight to the comparative darkness of the hall, but her vision cleared all too soon; and a lowering presentiment assailed her that no period of repose awaited her. At the foot of the stairs, and engaged in close colloquy, were Mr Courtenay Underhill and Miss Maria Docklow, abigail to Miss Tiffany Wield. Both turned their heads quickly to see who had come into the house, and one glance was enough to confirm Miss Trent’s forebodings.
‘Oh, dear!’ she said, with a faint, rueful smile. ‘Now what’s amiss?’
‘That damned resty, rackety, caper-witted cousin of mine – !’ uttered Courtenay explosively. He saw Miss Trent’s delicate brows lift slightly, and reddened. ‘Oh – ! Beg pardon, ma’am, but it’s enough to make anyone swear, by God it is!’
Miss Trent untied the strings of her straw bonnet, and removed it from her flattened locks. ‘Well, what has she done to vex you?’ she asked, laying the bonnet down on the table.
‘Vex me! She’s run off with that man-milliner, Calver!’ declared Courtenay.
‘Nonsense!’ said Miss Trent, preserving her calm.
‘Well, it ain’t nonsense! She’s been gone for three hours, let me tell you, and –’
‘Has she? Some accident to the carriage, I daresay, or perhaps the horse has gone lame.’
‘Worse, miss!’ announced Miss Docklow, in sepulchral accents.
‘Why, how can you know that?’ Miss Trent asked, still undismayed.
‘Ay! that’s what I said!’ said Courtenay grimly.
‘But,’ interposed the abigail, determined to hold the centre of the stage, ‘“if that, sir, is what you think,” I said, “come upstairs, and see what I have seen, sir!” I said.’