‘Well, it is near Queen Charlton, not far from Keynsham, you know.’
‘I don’t,’ said Sir Richard. ‘This is your country, not mine. How far, in your judgment, is Queen Charlton from where we now are?’
‘I’m not entirely sure,’ replied Pen cautiously. ‘But I shouldn’t think it could be above fifteen, or, at the most twenty miles, going ’cross country.’
‘Are you proposing to walk twenty miles?’ said Sir Richard.
‘Well, I dare say it is not as much. As the crow flies, I expect it is only about ten miles off.’
‘You are not a crow,’ said Sir Richard damningly. ‘Nor, I may add, am I. Get up from that portmanteau!’
She rose obediently. ‘I think I could quite well walk twenty miles. Not all at once, of course. What are we going to do?’
‘We are going to retrace our steps along the road until we come to an inn,’ replied Sir Richard. ‘As I remember, there was one, about a couple of miles back. Nothing would induce me to make one of this afflictive coach-party!’
‘I must own, I am a little tired of them myself,’ admitted Pen. ‘Only I won’t go to a posting-house!’
‘Make yourself easy on that score!’ said Sir Richard grimly. ‘No respectable posting-house would open its doors to us in this guise.’
This made Pen giggle. She put forward no further opposition, but picked up the cloak-bag, and set out beside Sir Richard in the direction of Chippenham.
None of the coach-passengers noticed their departure, since all were fully occupied, either in reviling the coachman, or in planning their immediate movements. The bend in the road soon shut them off from sight of the coach, and Sir Richard then said: ‘And now you may give me that cloak-bag.’
‘Well, I won’t,’ said Pen, holding on to it firmly. ‘It is not at all heavy, and you have your portmanteau to carry already. Besides, I feel more like a man every moment. What shall we do when we reach the inn?’
‘Order supper.’
‘Yes, and after that?’
‘Go to bed.’
Pen considered this. ‘You don’t think we should set forward on our journey at once?’
‘Certainly not. We shall go to bed like Christians, and in the morning we shall hire a conveyance to carry us to Queen Charlton. A private conveyance,’ he added.
‘But –’
‘Pen Creed,’ said Sir Richard calmly, ‘you cast me for the rôle of bear-leader, and I accepted it. You drew a revolting picture of me which led everyone in that coach to regard me in the light of a persecutor of youth. Now you are reaping the harvest of your own sowing.’
She laughed. ‘Are you going to persecute me?’
‘Horribly!’ said Sir Richard.
She tucked a confiding hand in his arm, and gave a little skip. ‘Very well, I will do as you tell me. I’m very glad I met you: we are having a splendid adventure, are we not?’
Sir Richard’s lips twitched. Suddenly he burst out laughing, standing still in the middle of the road, while Pen doubtfully surveyed him.
‘But what is the matter with you?’ she asked.
‘Never mind!’ he said, his voice still unsteady with mirth. ‘Of course we are having a splendid adventure!’
‘Well, I think we are,’ she said, stepping out beside him again. ‘Piers will be so surprised when he sees me!’
‘I should think he would be,’ agreed Sir Richard. ‘You are quite sure that you don’t regret coming in search of him, I suppose?’
‘Oh yes, quite! Why, Piers is my oldest friend! Didn’t I tell you that we made a vow to be married?’
‘I have some recollection of your doing so,’ he admitted. ‘But I also recollect that you said you hadn’t seen him for five years.’
‘No, that is true, but it doesn’t signify in the least, I assure you.’
‘I see,’ said Sir Richard, keeping his inevitable reflections to himself.
They had not more than two miles to go before they reached the inn Sir Richard had seen from the window of the coach. It was a very small hostelry, with a weather-beaten sign creaking on its chains, a thatched roof, and only one parlour, besides the common tap-room.
The landlord, upon hearing of the breakdown of the stage-coach, accepted the travellers’ unconventional arrival without surprise. It was growing dark by this time, and it was not until Sir Richard had stepped into the inn, and stood in the light of a hanging lamp, that the landlord was able to obtain a clear view of him. Sir Richard had chosen for the journey a plain coat and serviceable breeches, but the cut of the blue cloth, the high polish on his top-boots, the very style of his cravat, and the superfluity of capes on his drab over-coat all proclaimed so unmistakably the gentleman of fashion that the landlord was obviously taken aback, and looked from him to Pen with considerable suspicion.
‘I shall require a bedroom for myself, and another for my nephew,’ said Sir Richard. ‘Also some supper.’
‘Yes, sir. Did your honour say you was travelling on the Bristol-stage?’ asked the landlord incredulously.
‘Yes,’ said Sir Richard raising his brows. ‘I did say so. Have you any objection?’
‘Oh no, sir! no, I’m sure!’ replied the landlord hastily. ‘Your honour said supper! I’m afraid we – we aren’t in the habit of entertaining the Quality, but if your honour would condescend to a dish of ham and eggs, or maybe a slice of cold pork, I’ll see to it on the instant!’
Sir Richard having graciously approved the ham and eggs, the landlord bowed him into the stuffy little parlour, and promised to have the only two guest-chambers the inn possessed immediately prepared. Pen, directing a conspiratorial look at Sir Richard, elected to follow the portmanteau and the cloak-bag upstairs. When she reappeared a slatternly maid-servant had spread supper on the table in the parlour, and Sir Richard had succeeded in forcing open two of its tiny windows. He turned, as Pen came in, and asked: ‘What in heaven’s name have you been doing all this time? I began to think you had deserted me.’
‘Desert you! Of course I wouldn’t do anything so silly! The thing was, I could see the landlord had noticed your clothes, so I thought of a famous tale to tell him. That’s why I went off with him. I knew he would try to discover from me why you were travelling on the stagecoach.’
‘And did he?’
‘Yes, and I told him that you had had reverses on ’Change and had fallen on evil times,’ said Pen, drawing up her chair to the table.
‘Oh!’ said Sir Richard. ‘Was he satisfied with that?’
‘Perfectly. He said he was very sorry. And then he asked where we were bound for. I said, for Bristol, because all the family had lost its money, and so I had had to be taken away from school.’
‘You have the most fertile imagination of anyone of my acquaintance,’ said Sir Richard. ‘May I ask what school you have been gracing?’
‘Harrow. Afterwards I wished I had said Eton, because my cousin Geoffrey is at Harrow, and I don’t like him. I wouldn’t go to his school.’
‘I suppose it is too late to change the school now,’ Sir Richard said, in a regretful tone.
She looked up quickly, her fascinating smile crinkling the corners of her eyes. ‘You are laughing at me.’
‘Yes,’ admitted Sir Richard. ‘Do you mind?’
‘Oh no, not a bit! No one laughs in my aunt’s house. I like it.’
‘I wish,’ said Sir Richard, ‘you would tell me more about this aunt of yours. Is she your guardian?’
‘No, but I have had to live with her ever since my father died. I have no real guardian, but I have two trustees. On account of my fortune, you understand.’
‘Of course, yes: I was forgetting your fortune. Who are your trustees?’
‘Well, one is my uncle Griffin – Aunt Almeria’s husband, you know – but he doe
sn’t signify, because he does just what Aunt tells him. The other is my father’s lawyer, and he doesn’t signify either.’
‘For the same reason?’
‘I don’t know, but I shouldn’t wonder at it in the least. Everyone is afraid of Aunt Almeria. Even I am, a little. That’s why I ran away.’
‘Is she unkind to you?’
‘N-no. At least, she doesn’t ill-treat me, but she is the kind of woman who always gets her own way. Do you know?’
‘I know,’ Sir Richard said.
‘She talks,’ explained Pen. ‘And when she is displeased with one, I must say that it is very uncomfortable. But one should always be just, and I do not blame her for being so set on my marrying Fred. They are not very rich, you see, and of course Aunt would like Fred to have all my fortune. In fact, I am very sorry to be so disobliging, particularly as I have lived with the Griffins for nearly five years. But, to tell you the truth, I didn’t in the least want to, and as for marrying Fred, I could not ! Only when I suggested to Aunt Almeria that I would much prefer to give my fortune to Fred, and not marry him, she flew into a passion, and said I was heartless and shameless, and cried, and talked about nourishing vipers in her bosom. I thought that was unjust of her, because it was a very handsome offer, don’t you agree?’
‘Very,’ said Sir Richard. ‘But perhaps a trifle – shall we say, crude?’
‘Oh!’ Pen digested this. ‘You mean that she did not like my not pretending that Fred was in love with me?’
‘I think it just possible,’ said Sir Richard gravely.
‘Well, I am sorry if I wounded her feelings, but truly I don’t think she has the least sensibility. I only said what I thought. But it put her in such a rage that there was nothing for it but to escape. So I did.’
‘Were you locked in your room?’ enquired Sir Richard.
‘Oh no! I daresay I should have been if Aunt had guessed what I meant to do, but she would never think of such a thing.’
‘Then – forgive my curiosity! – why did you climb out of the window?’ asked Sir Richard.
‘Oh, that was on account of Pug!’ replied Pen sunnily.
‘Pug?’
‘Yes, a horrid little creature! He sleeps in a basket in the hall, and he always yaps if he thinks one is going out. That would have awakened Aunt Almeria. There was nothing else I could do.’
Sir Richard regarded her with a lurking smile. ‘Naturally not. Do you know, Pen, I owe you a debt of gratitude?’
‘Oh?’ she said, pleased, but doubtful. ‘Why?’
‘I thought I knew your sex. I was wrong.’
‘Oh!’ she said again. ‘Do you mean that I don’t behave as a delicately bred female should?’
‘That is one way of putting it, certainly.’
‘It is the way Aunt Almeria puts it.’
‘She would, of course.’
‘I am afraid,’ confessed Pen, ‘that I am not very well-behaved. Aunt says that I had a lamentable upbringing, because my father treated me as though I had been a boy. I ought to have been, you understand.’
‘I cannot agree with you,’ said Sir Richard. ‘As a boy you would have been in no way remarkable; as a female, believe me, you are unique.’
She flushed to the roots of her hair. ‘I think that is a compliment.’
‘It is,’ Sir Richard said, amused.
‘Well, I wasn’t sure, because I am not out yet, and I do not know any men except my uncle and Fred, and they don’t pay compliments. That is to say, not like that.’ She looked up rather shyly, but chancing to catch sight of someone through the window, suddenly exclaimed: ‘Why, there’s Mr Yarde!’
‘Mr who?’ asked Sir Richard, turning his head.
‘You can’t see him now: he has gone past the window. You must remember Mr Yarde, sir! He was the odd little man who got into the coach at Chippenham, and used such queer words that I could not perfectly understand him. Do you suppose he can be coming to this inn?’
‘I sincerely trust not!’ said Sir Richard.
Five
His trust was soon seen to have been misplaced, for after a few minutes the landlord came into the room, to ask apologetically whether the noble gentleman would object to giving up one of his rooms to another traveller. ‘I told him as how your honour had bespoke both bedchambers, but he is very wishful to get a lodging, sir, so I told him as how I would ask your honour if, maybe, the young gentleman could share your honour’s chamber – there being two beds, sir.’
Sir Richard, meeting Miss Creed’s eye for one pregnant moment, saw that she was struggling with a strong desire to burst out laughing. His own lips quivered, but before he could answer the landlord, the sharp face of Mr Jimmy Yarde peered over that worthy’s shoulder.
Upon recognizing the occupants of the parlour, Mr Yarde seemed to be momentarily taken aback. He recovered himself quickly, however, to thrust his way into the parlour with a very fair assumption of delight at encountering two persons already known to him. ‘Well, if it ain’t my young chub!’ he exclaimed. ‘Dang me if I didn’t think the pair of you had loped off to Wroxhall!’
‘No,’ said Sir Richard. ‘It appeared to me that Wroxhall would be over-full of travellers to-night.’
‘Ay, you’re a damned knowing one, ain’t you? Knowed it the instant I clapped my glaziers on you. And right you are! Says I to myself, “Wroxhall’s no place for you, Jimmy, my boy!”’
‘Was the thin woman still having the vapours?’ asked Pen.
‘Lordy, young chub, she were stretched out as stiff as a corpse when I loped off, and no one knowing what to do to bring her to her senses. Ah, and mighty peevy I thought myself, to hit on the notion of coming to this ken – not knowing as you had bespoke all the rooms afore me.’
His bright face shifted to Sir Richard’s unpromising countenance. ‘Unfortunate!’ said Sir Richard politely.
‘Ah, now!’ wheedled Mr Yarde, ‘you wouldn’t go for to out-jockey Jimmy Yarde! Lordy, it’s all of eleven o’clock, and the light gone. What’s to stop your doubling up with the young shaver?’
‘If your honour would condescend to allow the young gentleman to sleep in the spare bed in your honour’s chamber?’ interpolated the landlord in an ingratiating tone.
‘No,’ said Sir Richard. ‘I am an extremely light sleeper, and my nephew snores.’ Ignoring an indignant gasp from Pen, he turned to Mr Yarde. ‘Do you snore?’ he asked.
Jimmy grinned. ‘Not me! I sleep like a babby, so help me!’
‘Then you,’ said Sir Richard, ‘may share my room.’
‘Done!’ said Jimmy promptly. ‘Spoke like a rare gager, guv’nor, which I knew you was. Damme, if I don’t drain a clank to your very good health!’
Resigning himself to the inevitable, Sir Richard nodded to the landlord, and bade Jimmy draw up a chair.
Not having boarded the stagecoach when Pen had announced Sir Richard to be her tutor, Jimmy apparently accepted her new relationship without question. He spoke of her to Sir Richard as ‘your nevvy,’ drank both their healths in gin-and-water bespoken by Sir Richard, and seemed to be inclined to make a night of it. He became rather loquacious over his second glass of daffy, and made several mysterious references to Files, and those engaged on the Dub-lay, and the Kidd. Various embittered strictures on Flash Culls led Sir Richard to infer that he had lately been working in partnership with persons above his own social standing, and did not mean to repeat the experience.
Pen sat drinking it all in, with her eyes growing rounder and rounder, until Sir Richard said that it was time she was in bed. He escorted her out of the parlour to the foot of the stairs, where she whispered to him in the tone of one who has made a great discovery: ‘Dear sir, I don’t believe he is a respectable person!’
‘No,’ said Sir Richard. ‘I don’t believe it eith
er.’
‘But is he a thief ?’ asked Pen, shocked.
‘I should think undoubtedly. Which is why you will lock your door, my child. Is it understood?’
‘Yes, but are you sure you will be safe? It would be dreadful if he were to cut your throat in the night!’
‘It would indeed,’ Sir Richard agreed. ‘But I can assure you he won’t. You may take this for me, if you will, and keep it till the morning.’
He put his heavy purse into her hand. She nodded. ‘Yes, I will. You will take great care, will you not?’
‘I promise,’ he said, smiling. ‘Be off now, and don’t tease yourself over my safety!’
He went back to the parlour, where Jimmy Yarde awaited him. Being called upon to join Mr Yarde in a glass of daffy, he raised not the slightest objection, although he very soon suspected Jimmy of trying to drink him under the table. As he refilled the glasses for the third time, he said apologetically: ‘Perhaps I ought to warn you that I am accounted to have a reasonably strong head. I should not like you to waste your time, Mr Yarde.’
Jimmy was not at all abashed. He grinned, and said: ‘Ah, I said you was a peevy cull! Knowed it as soon as I clapped my daylights on to you. You learned to drink Blue Ruin in Cribb’s parlour!’
‘Quite right,’ said Sir Richard.
‘Oh, I knowed it, bless your heart! “That there gentry-cove would peel remarkably well,” I says to myself. “And a handy bunch of fives he’s got.” Never you fret, guv’nor: Jimmy Yarde’s no green ’un. What snabbles me, though, is how you come to be travelling in the common rumble.’
Sir Richard gave a soft laugh suddenly. ‘You see, I have lost all my money,’ he said.
‘Lost all your money?’ repeated Jimmy, astonished.
‘On ’Change,’ added Sir Richard.
The light, sharp eyes flickered over his elegant person. ‘Ah, you’re trying to gammon me! What’s the lay?’
‘None at all.’
‘Dang me if I ever met such a cursed rum touch!’ A suspicion crossed his mind. ‘You ain’t killed your man, guv’nor?’
‘No. Have you?’