‘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 whippersnapper!’
‘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 mask-like 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 s
aid.
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 stagecoach.’
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 the 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 stagecoach: 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.