‘In love!’ interpolated Sir Richard, apparently thunderstruck.
‘Well, well, I daresay you are surprised! One is apt to fancy the birds always too young to leave the nest, eh? But –’
‘Pen!’ said Sir Richard, turning awfully upon his supposed cousin. ‘Is it possible that you can have made serious advances towards Miss Daubenay?’
‘I never offered marriage,’ said Pen, hanging her head.
The Major seemed to be in danger of suffering an apoplexy. Before he could recover the power of speech, Sir Richard had intervened. Upon the Major’s bemused ears fell a description of Pen’sshameless precocity that caused the object of it to turn away hastily to hide her laughter. According to Sir Richard’s malicious tongue, Bath was strewn with her innocent victims. When Sir Richard let fall the information that this youthful moral leper was without means or expectations, the Major found enough breath to declare that the whelp ought to be horsewhipped.
‘Precisely my own view,’ bowed Sir Richard.
‘Upon my word, I had not dreamed of such a thing! Penniless, you say?’
‘Little better than a pauper,’ said Sir Richard.
‘Good Gad, what an escape!’ gasped the Major. ‘I do not know what to say! I am aghast!’
‘Alas!’ said Sir Richard, ‘his father was just such another! The same disarming air of innocence hid a wolfish heart.’
‘You appal me!’ declared the Major. ‘Yet he looks a mere boy!’
Pen, feeling that it was time she bore a part in the scene, said with an air of innocence which horrified the Major: ‘But if Lydia says I offered marriage, it is not true. It was all mere trifling. I do not wish to be married.’
This pronouncement once more bereft the Major of speech. Sir Richard’s forefinger banished Pen to her corner, and by the time the outraged parent ceased gobbling, he had once more taken charge of the situation. He agreed that the whole affair must at all costs be hushed up, promised to deal faithfully with Pen, and finally escorted the Major out of the parlour, with assurances that such depravity should not go unpunished.
Pen, who had been struggling with an overwhelming desire to laugh, went off into a peal of mirth as soon as the Major was out of earshot, and had, in fact, to grasp a chair-back to support herself. In this posture she was discovered by Mr Luttrell, who, as soon as Sir Richard and the Major had passed through the entrance-parlour, oblivious of his presence there, bounced in upon Pen, and said through shut teeth: ‘So! You think it damned amusing, do you, you little cur? Well, I do not !’
Pen raised her head, and through brimming eyes saw the face of her old playmate swim before her.
Mr Luttrell, stuttering with rage, said menacingly: ‘I heard you! I could not help but hear you! So you didn’t intend marriage, eh? You – you boast of having t-trifled with an innocent female! And you think you c-can get off scot-free, do you? I’ll teach you a lesson!’
Pen discovered to her horror that Mr Luttrell was advancing upon her with his fists clenched. She dodged behind the table, and shrieked: ‘Piers! Don’t you know me? Piers, look at me! I’m Pen!’
Mr Luttrell dropped his fists, and stood gaping. ‘Pen?’ he managed to utter. ‘Pen? ’
Eleven
They stood staring at one another. The gentleman found his voice first, but only to repeat in accents of still deeper amazement: ‘Pen? Pen Creed?’
‘Yes, indeed I am!’ Pen assured him, keeping the table between them.
His fists unclenched. ‘But – but what are you doing here? And in those clothes? I don’t understand!’
‘Well, it’s rather a long story,’ Pen said.
He seemed slightly dazed. He ran his hand through his hair, in a gesture she knew well, and said: ‘But Major Daubenay – Sir Richard Wyndham –’
‘They are both part of the story,’ replied Pen. She had been looking keenly at him, and thinking that he had not greatly changed, and she added: ‘I should have known you anywhere! Have I altered so much?’
‘Yes. At least, I don’t know. It’s your hair, I suppose, cut short like that, and – and those clothes!’
He sounded shocked, which made her think that perhaps he had changed a little. ‘Well, I truly am Pen Creed,’ she said.
‘Yes, I see that you are, now that I have had time to look at you. But I cannot understand it! I could not help hearing some of what was said, though I tried not to – until I heard Miss Daubenay’s name!’
‘Please, Piers, don’t fly into a rage again!’ Pen said rather nervously, for she distinctly heard his teeth grind together. ‘I can explain everything!’
‘I do not know whether I am on my head or my heels!’ he complained. ‘You have been imposing on her! How could you do such a thing? Why did you?’
‘I haven’t!’ said Pen. ‘And I must say, I do think you might be a little more glad to see me!’
‘Of course I am glad! But to come here masquerading as a boy, and playing pranks on a defenceless – That was why she failed last night!’
‘No, it wasn’t! She saw the stammering-man killed, and ran away, you stupid creature!’
‘How do you know?’ he asked suspiciously.
‘I was there, of course.’
‘With her?’
‘Yes, but –’
‘You have been imposing on her!’
‘I tell you it’s no such thing! I met her by the merest chance.’
‘Tell me this!’ commanded Piers. ‘Does she know that you are a girl?’
‘No, but –’
‘I knew it!’ he declared. ‘And I distinctly heard the Major say that she had met you in Bath! I don’t know why you did it, but it is the most damnable trick in the world! And Lydia – deceiving me – encouraging your advances – oh, my eyes are open now!’
‘If you say another word, I shall box your ears!’ said Pen indignantly. ‘I would not have believed you could have grown into such a stupid, tiresome creature! I never met Lydia Daubenay in my life until last night, and if you don’t believe me you may go and ask her!’
He looked rather taken aback, and said in an uncertain tone: ‘But if you did not know her, how came you to be with her in the wood last night?’
‘That was chance. The silly little thing swooned, and I –’
‘She is not a silly little thing!’ interrupted Piers, firing up.
‘Yes, she is, very silly. For what must she do, upon reaching home, but tell her Papa that it was not you she had gone to meet, but me!’
This announcement surprised him. His bewildered grey eyes sought enlightenment in Pen’s face; he said with a rueful grin: ‘Oh Pen, do sit down and explain! You never could tell a story so that one could make head or tail of it!’
She came away from the table, and sat down on the window-seat. After a pained glance at her attire, Piers seated himself beside her. Each took critical stock of the other, but whereas Pen looked Piers frankly over, he surveyed her rather shyly, and showed a tendency to avert his gaze when it encountered hers.
He was a well-favoured young man, not precisely handsome, but with a pleasant face, a good pair of shoulders, and easy, open manners. Since he was four years her senior, he had always seemed to her, in the old days, very large, far more experienced than herself, and quite worthy of being looked up to. She was conscious, as she sat beside him on the window-seat of a faint feeling of disappointment. He seemed to her little more than a boy, and instead of assuming his old mastery in his dealings with her, he was obviously shy, and unable to think of anything to say. Their initial encounter had of course been unfortunate, but Pen thought that he might, upon discovering her identity, have exhibited more pleasure at meeting her again. She felt forlorn all at once, as though a door had been shut in her face. A vague suspicion that what was behind the shut door was not what she had imagined
only made her the more melancholy. To hide it, she said brightly: ‘It is such an age since I saw you, and there is so much to say! I don’t know where to begin!’
He smiled, but there was a pucker between his brows. ‘Yes, indeed, but it seems so strange! Why did she say she had gone out to meet you, I wonder?’
It was apparent to Pen that Miss Daubenay possessed his thoughts to the exclusion of everyone else. Repressing a strong desire to favour him with her opinion of that young lady, she recounted as briefly as she could what had passed between her and Lydia in the orchard. Any expectation she might have had of his viewing his betrothed’s conduct in the same light as she did was banished by his exclaiming rapturously: ‘She is such an innocent little thing! It is just like her to have said that! I see it all now!’
This was too much for Pen. ‘Well, I think it was a ridiculous thing to have said.’
‘You see, she knows nothing of the world, Pen,’ he said earnestly. ‘Then, too, she is impulsive! Do you know, she always makes me think of a bird?’
‘A goose, I suppose,’ said Pen somewhat tartly.
‘I meant a wild bird,’ he replied, with dignity. ‘A fluttering, timid, little –’
‘She didn’t seem to me very timid,’ Pen interrupted. ‘In fact, I thought she was extremely bold to ask a perfectly strange young man to pretend to be in love with her.’
‘You don’t understand her. She is so trusting! She needs someone to take care of her. We have loved one another ever since our first meeting. We should have been married by now if my father had not picked a foolish quarrel with the Major. Pen, you cannot think what our sufferings have been! There seems to be no end to them! We shall never induce our fathers to consent to our marriage, never!’
He sank his head in his hands with a groan, but Pen said briskly: ‘Well, you will have to marry without their consent. Only you both of you seem to be so poor-spirited that you will do nothing but moan, and meet in woods! Why don’t you elope?’
‘Elope! You don’t know what you are saying, Pen! How could I ask that fragile little thing to do anything of the sort? The impropriety, too! I am persuaded she would shrink from the very thought of it!’
‘Yes, she did,’ agreed Pen. ‘She said she would not be able to have attendants, or a lace veil.’
‘You see, she has been very strictly reared – has led the most sheltered life! Besides, why should she not have a lace veil, and – and those things which females set store by?’
‘For my part,’ Pen said, ‘I would not care a fig for such fripperies if I loved a man!’
‘Oh, you are different!’ said Piers. ‘You were always more like a boy than a girl. Just look at you now! Why are you masquerading as a boy? It seems to me most peculiar, and not quite the thing, you know.’
‘There were circumstances which – which made it necessary,’ said Pen rather stiffly. ‘I had to escape from my aunt’s house.’
‘Well, I still don’t see why –’
‘Because I was forced to climb out of a window!’ snapped Pen. ‘Moreover, I could not travel all by myself as a female, could I?’
‘No, I suppose you could not. Only you should not be travelling by yourself at all. What a madcap you are!’ A thought occurred to him; he glanced down at Pen with a sudden frown. ‘But you were with Sir Richard Wyndham when I came in, and you seemed to be on mighty close terms with him, too! For heaven’s sake, Pen, what are you about? How do you come to be in his company?’
The interview with her old playmate seemed to be fraught not only with disappointment, but with unforeseen difficulties as well. Pen could not but realize that Mr Luttrell was not in sympathy with her. ‘Oh, that – that is too long a story to tell!’ she replied evasively. ‘There were reasons why I wished to come home again, and – and Sir Richard would not permit me to go alone.’
‘But, Pen!’ He sounded horrified. ‘You are surely not travelling with him?’
His tone swept away adventure, and invested her exploit instead with the stigma of impropriety. She coloured hotly, and was searching her mind for an explanation that would satisfy Piers when the door opened, and Sir Richard came into the room.
One glance at Mr Luttrell’s rigidly disapproving countenance; one glimpse of Pen’s scarlet cheeks and over-bright eyes, were enough to give Sir Richard a very fair notion of what had been taking place in the parlour. He closed the door, saying in his pleasant drawl: ‘Ah, good-morning, Mr Luttrell! I trust the – er – surprising events of last night did not rob you of sleep?’
A sigh of relief escaped Pen. With Sir Richard’s entrance the reeling world seemed, miraculously, to have righted itself. She left the window-seat, and went instinctively towards him. ‘Sir, Piers says – Piers thinks –’ She stopped, and raised a hand to her burning cheek.
Sir Richard looked at Piers with slightly raised brows. ‘Well?’ he said gently. ‘What does Piers say and think?’
Mr Luttrell got up. Under that ironical, tolerant gaze, he too began to blush. ‘I only said – I only wondered how Pen comes to be travelling in your company!’
Sir Richard unfobbed his snuff-box, and took a pinch. ‘And does no explanation offer itself to you?’ he enquired.
‘Well, sir, I must say it seems to me – I mean –’
‘Perhaps I should have told you,’ said Sir Richard drawing Pen’s hand through his arm, and holding it rather firmly, ‘that you are addressing the future Lady Wyndham.’
The hand twitched in Sir Richard’s, but in obedience to the warning pressure of his fingers Miss Creed remained silent.
‘Oh, I see!’ said Piers, his brow clearing. ‘I beg pardon! It is famous news indeed! I wish you very happy! But – but why must she wear those clothes, and what are you doing here? It still seems very odd to me! I suppose since you are betrothed it may be argued that – But it is most eccentric, sir, and I do not know what people may say!’
‘As we have been at considerable pains to admit no one but yourself into the secret of Pen’s identity, I hardly think that people will say anything at all,’ replied Sir Richard calmly. ‘If the secret were to leak out – why, the answer is that we are a very eccentric couple!’
‘It will never leak out through me!’ Piers assured him. ‘It is no concern of mine, naturally, but I can’t help wondering what should have brought you here, and why Pen had to get out of a window. However, I don’t mean to be inquisitive, sir. It was only that – having known Pen all my life, you see!’
It was Miss Creed’s turn now to give Sir Richard’s hand a warning pinch. In fact, so convulsive was her grip that he glanced down at her with a reassuring little smile.
‘I am afraid I cannot tell you our reasons for coming here,’ he said. ‘Certain circumstances arose which made the journey necessary. Pen’s attire, however, is easily explained. Neither of us wished to burden ourselves with a duenna upon a mission of – er – extreme delicacy; and the world, my dear Luttrell, being a censorious place, it was judged expedient for Pen to pretend to be, instead of my affianced wife, my young cousin.’
‘To be sure, yes! of course!’ said Piers, mystified, but overborne by the Corinthian’s air of assurance.
‘By now,’ said Sir Richard, ‘we should be on our way back to London, had it not been for two unfortunate circumstances. For one of these, you, I must regretfully point out to you, are responsible.’
‘I?’ gasped Piers.
‘You,’ said Sir Richard, releasing Pen’s hand. ‘The lady to whom you, I apprehend, are secretly betrothed, has, in a somewhat misguided attempt to avert suspicion from the truth informed her parent that Pen is the man with whom she had an assignation in the spinney last night.’
‘Yes, Pen told me that. Indeed, I wish she had not done it, sir, but she is so impulsive, you know!’
‘So I have been led to infer,’ said Sir Richard
. ‘Unhappily, since I am for the present compelled to remain in Queen Charlton, her impulsiveness has rendered our situation a trifle awkward.’
‘Yes, I see that,’ owned Piers. ‘I am very sorry for it, sir. But must you remain here?’
‘Yes,’ replied Sir Richard. ‘No doubt it has escaped your memory, but a murder was committed in the spinney last night. It was I who discovered Brandon’s body, and conveyed the news to the proper quarter.’
Piers looked troubled at this, and said: ‘I know, sir, and I do not like it above half ! For, in point of fact, I first found Beverley, only you told me not to say so!’
‘I hope you did not?’
‘No, because it is so excessively awkward, on account of Miss Daubenay’s presence in the spinney! But if she has said that she went there to meet Pen –’
‘You had better continue to preserve a discreet silence, my dear boy. The knowledge that you also were in the spinney would merely confuse poor Mr Philips. You see, I have the advantage of knowing who killed Brandon.’
‘I think,’ said Pen judicially, ‘we ought to tell Piers about the diamond necklace, sir.’
‘By all means,’ agreed Sir Richard.
The history of the diamond necklace, as recounted by Miss Creed, made Mr Luttrell forget for a few moments his graver preoccupations. He seemed very much more the Piers of her childhood when he exclaimed: ‘What an adventure!’ and by the time he had described to her his surprise at receiving a visit from Beverley, whom he had known but slightly up at Oxford; and had exchanged impressions of Captain Horace Trimble, they were once more upon very good terms. Sir Richard, who thought that his own interests would best be served by allowing Pen uninterrupted intercourse with Mr Luttrell, soon left them to themselves; and after Piers had once more felicitated Pen on her choice of a husband – felicitations which she received in embarrassed silence – the talk soon returned to his own difficulties.
She listened to his enraptured description of Miss Daubenay with as much patience as she could muster, but when he begged her not to divulge her sex to the lady for fear lest her nice sense of propriety might suffer too great a shock, she was so much incensed that she was betrayed into giving him her opinion of Miss Daubenay’s morals and manners. A pretty squabble at once flared up, and might have ended in Piers’ stalking out of Pen’s life for ever had she not remembered, just as he reached the door, that she had engaged herself to further his pretensions to Lydia’s hand.