“Can one?” said Hester doubtfully.
“Yes, though sometimes, I own, one is forced to take desperate measures. And it is of no use to tease oneself about propriety,” she added, with a touch of defiance, “because it seems to me that if you never do anything that is not quite proper and decorous you will have the wretchedest life, without any adventures, or romance, or anything!”
“It is very true, alas!” Hester smiled at her again. “But not for you, I think.”
“No, because I have a great deal of resolution. Also I have made a very good plan of campaign, and if you will faithfully promise not to try to overset it, I will tell you what it is.”
“I shouldn’t think I could overset anyone’s plans,” said Hester reflectively. “Indeed, I promise I won’t try!”
“Or tell those other people?” Amanda said anxiously.
“My family? Oh, no!”
Reassured, Amanda sat down beside her, and for the second time that day recounted the tale of her adventures. Lady Hester sat with her hands lightly clasped in her lap, and her eyes fixed wonderingly on the animated little face beside her. Several times she blinked, and once a little trill of laughter was surprised out of her; but she did not make any comment until Amanda reached the end of her recital, and then she only said: “How very brave you are! I hope you will be able to marry your Brigade-Major, for I am sure you must have been made to be a soldier’s wife. I should think, you know, that your grandfather would give his consent if only you could be content to wait for a little while longer.”
“I have waited a very long time already, and now I am determined to be married, so that I can accompany Neil to Spain,” stated Amanda, looking mulish. “I daresay you think it is very wrong of me, and that I ought to obey Grandpapa, and so it may be—only I don’t care for anything except Neil, and I won’t go meekly home, whatever anyone says!”
This was uttered very challengingly, but all Hester said was: “It is very difficult to know what would be the best thing to do. Do you think, perhaps you should send for Neil?”
Amanda shook her head. “No, because he would take me back to Grandpapa, and there’s no depending on Grandpapa’s being grateful enough to give his consent to our marriage. In fact, he would very likely think I had plotted it all with Neil, which would be fatal! That is what he is bound to think, at the outset, but when he discovers that Neil knows no more than he does where I am, he will see that it is not so. And besides that he will be in a much worse pucker about me, which would be a good thing.”
This ruthless speech moved Hester to make a faint protest, but it was cut short by a tap on the door. Povey came in, with a dress of pink silk over her arm, and an expression of long-suffering on her face; and Hester got up, saying: “We are very much of a height, I believe, and I am quite sure that that gown will become you very much better than it becomes me. Will you put it on, and then, if it needs some little adjustment, Povey will arrange it for you?”
Amanda, whose eyes had sparkled at sight of the dress, said impulsively: “Thank you! It is most obliging of you, and exactly the sort of gown I wish for! I have never worn a silk one, because my aunt has the stuffiest notions, and she will not buy anything but muslin for me, even when she took me to the Bath Assemblies.”
“Oh, dear!” said Hester, looking conscience-stricken. “She is perfectly right! How scatterbrained of me! Never mind! The dress is not cut very low, and I will lend you a lace shawl to put round your shoulders.”
She then drifted away to find the shawl, but before she had reached her own room she heard her name spoken, and turned to see that Sir Gareth had come out of his bedchamber.
He had changed his driving-dress for knee-breeches and silk stockings, an elegant waistcoat of watered silk, and a swallow-tailed coat of black cloth; and no one, observing the exquisite set of that coat across his shoulders, and the nicety with which his starched neckcloth was arranged, could have supposed that he had effected this transformation with extreme rapidity, and without the assistance of his valet.
He came across the hall, saying, with his delightful smile: “I have been lying in wait for you, hoping to exchange a word with you before we go downstairs again. Has that absurd child told you the truth about herself? I warned her that I should! How good it was of you to accept her without a murmur! But I knew you would. Thank you!”
She returned his smile, but nervously. “Oh, no! Pray do not! there is not the least need—I am only too happy—! She has told me how she came to meet you. You did very right to bring her here.”
“Were you able to discover her name?” he demanded.
“No—but, then, I did not ask her to tell me. I expect she would rather not disclose it.”
“I am well aware of that, but this grandfather of hers must be found. Good God, she cannot be permitted to carry out her outrageous scheme!”
“It does seem very hazardous,” she agreed.
“Hazardous! Quite foolhardy! With that face, and no more worldly wisdom than a baby, how can she escape running into danger? She is as confiding as a kitten, too. Did she tell you I had abducted her? Well, I might have done so, you know! She hopped up into my curricle in the most trusting way imaginable.”
“I expect she knew she could trust you,” she replied. “She is quite innocent, of course, but not, I think, stupid. And so courageous!”
He said, after a tiny pause: “Yes—a headstrong courage, an enchanting waywardness which could so easily be her undoing. When I first saw her, I was reminded—I hardly know by what!—the tilt of her chin, perhaps, and a certain look in her eyes—” He broke off, as though he regretted his words.
“I, too,” she said, in her quiet voice. “I expect it was that resemblance which drew you to her.”
“Perhaps. No I don’t think it was. She was plainly a gently-bred child in difficulties: I could do no less than go to the rescue.”
“I am afraid she is not very grateful to you,” she said, with a glimmer of a smile.
“Not a bit!” he said, laughing. “She has promised to make me very sorry, and I daresay she’ll do it, for she is the naughtiest little wretch I ever encountered. My dependence is on you! If you can prevail upon her to disclose her grandfather’s name—”
“Oh, but I can’t!” she interrupted apologetically. “You see, I promised I wouldn’t try to overset her plan of campaign. So even if she were to tell me who she is I couldn’t betray her confidence, could I?”
He said, between amusement and exasperation: “In such a case as this? I hope you could, for most certainly you should!”
“I think she ought to be allowed to marry her soldier,” she said thoughtfully.
“What, at her age to be allowed to throw herself away on a needy young officer, and to undergo all the hardships of a life spent following the drum? My dear Lady Hester, you can have no notion of what it would be like! I am entirely at one with the unknown grandfather on that head.”
“Are you?” She looked at him in her shortsighted way, and sighed. “Yes, perhaps. I don’t know. What shall you do?”
“If she can’t be persuaded to let me escort her to her home, I must find out this Brigade-Major of hers. That should not prove to be a difficult task, but it will mean my posting back to London tomorrow. I see nothing for it but to take her with me, and to place her in my sister’s charge. It is really the most abominable coil!”
“Would you like to leave her in my charge?” she asked doubtfully.
“Of all things!” he replied. “But I am reasonably certain that she would run away as soon as my back was turned! Nor do I think that your brother and his wife would welcome her as a guest here.”
“No,” she admitted. She raised her eyes to his face, and said, with an unhappy little smile: “I beg your pardon: I am being so very unhelpful! But I could not compel Amanda to remain here, or, I am afraid, prevent Almeria’s saying cutting things to her. Excuse me! I have to fetch a shawl for her to wear!”