How to give Mr. Theale the slip had become the most pressing of the problems confronting her, for however easy a matter it might have been in a busy county-town, it was not going to be at all easy in some small village. Artless questioning elicited the information that the next town on their road was Thrapston, which was some fifteen miles distant from Brampton. Mr. Theale said that by nursing the horses a little they could very well make this their next stage, but Amanda had a lively dread that long before his leisurely carriage, with its odiously conspicuous yellow body, had reached Thrapston, it would be overtaken by Sir Gareth’s sporting curricle; and she realised that as soon as she was far enough from Huntingdon she must part company with her elderly admirer.
She would do this without compunction, too, but with a good deal of relief. At Brancaster, fortified by the scarcely acknowledged protection of Sir Gareth in the background, she had thought Mr. Theale merely a fat and foolish old gentleman, whom it would be easy to bring about her thumb; away from Brancaster, and (it must be owned) Sir Gareth’s surveillance, although she still thought him old and fat, she found, to her surprise, that she was a little afraid of him. She had certainly met his kind before, but under her aunt’s careful chaperonage no elderly and amorous beau had ever contrived to do more than give her hand a squeeze, or to ogle her in a very laughable way. She had classed Mr. Theale with her grandfather’s friends, who always petted her, and paid her a great many extravagant compliments; but within a very short time of having delivered herself into his power she discovered that, for all his fatherly manner, he was disquietingly unlike old Mr. Swaffham, or General Riverhead, or Sir Harry Bramber, or even Major Mickleham, who was such an accomplished flirt that Grandpapa scolded him, saying that he was doing his best to turn her head. These senile persons frequently pinched her cheek, or chucked her under the chin, or even put their arms round her waist, and gave her a hug; and old Mr. Swaffham invariably demanded a kiss from her; so why should she have been frightened when Mr. Theale’s arm slid round her was rather inexplicable. She had stiffened instinctively, and had had to subdue an impulse to thrust him away. He seemed to want to stroke and fondle her, too, and as her flesh shrank under his hand the thought flashed suddenly into her mind that not even Neil, who loved her, petted her in just such a fashion. Certain of her aunt’s veiled warnings occurred to her, and she began to think that possibly Aunt was not quite as foolish and oldfashioned as she had supposed her to be. Not, of course, that she was not well able to take care of herself, or at all afraid of her aged protector: merely, he made her feel uncomfortable, and was such a dead bore than she would be glad to be rid of him.
This desire, however, carried with it no corresponding wish to see those match-bays of Sir Gareth’s rapidly overtaking her; and she scarcely knew how to contain her impatience while Mr. Theale, very much at his ease, selected and consumed a lavish breakfast. Her scheme for the subjugation of her grandfather had by this time become entangled with a clenched-teeth determination to outwit and wholly confound Sir Gareth. His cool assumption of authority had much incensed a damsel accustomed all her short life to being tenderly indulged. Only Neil had the right to dictate to her, and Neil never committed the heinous sin of laughing at her. Sir Gareth had treated her as though she had been an amusing child, and he must be shown the error of his high-handed ways. At the same time, he had succeeded in imbuing her with a certain respect for him, so that, although the clock in the inn’s coffee-room assured her that it was in the highest degree unlikely that he had yet emerged from his bedchamber, she could not help looking anxiously out of the window every time she heard the sound of an approaching vehicle. Mr. Theale, observing these signs of nervous apprehension, called her a silly little puss, and told her that she would be quite safe in his care. “He won’t chase after you, my pretty, and if he did I should tell him to go to the devil,” he said, transferring a second rasher of grilled ham from the dish to his plate, and looking wistfully at a cluster of boiled eggs. “No, I shan’t venture upon an egg,” he decided, with a sigh of regret. “Nothing is more prone to turn me queasy, and though I am in a capital way now, we have a longish journey before us, and there’s no saying that I shan’t be feeling as queer as Dick’s hatband before we come to the end of it.”
Amanda, who was breakfasting on raspberries and cream, paused, with her spoon halfway to her mouth, a sudden and brilliant notion taking possession of her mind. “Do you feel unwell in carriages, sir?” she asked.
He nodded. “Always been the same. It’s a curst nuisance, but my coachman is a very careful driver, and knows he must let the horses drop into a walk if the road should be rough. Ah, that makes you think me a sad old fogey, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, no!” said Amanda earnestly. “Because it is exactly so with me!”
“God bless my soul, is it indeed? Well, we are well suited to one another, eh?” His gaze fell on her brimming plate; he said uneasily: “Do you think you should eat raspberries, my dear? I should not dare!”
“Oh, yes, for I assure you I feel delightfully this morning!” she replied, pouring more cream over the mound on her plate. “Besides, I am excessively partial to raspberries and cream.”
Mr. Theale, watching with a fascinated eye, could see that this was true. He hoped very much that Amanda was not misjudging her capacity, but he felt a little anxious, and when, half an hour later, her vivacious prattle became rather forced, he was not in the least surprised. By the time they reached the village of Spaldwick, it had ceased altogether, and she was leaning back against the elegant velvet squabs with her eyes closed. Mr. Theale offered her his vinaigrette, which she took with a faintly uttered word of thanks. He was relieved to see that the colour still bloomed in her cheeks, and ventured to ask her presently if she felt more the thing.
“I feel very ill, but I daresay I shall be better directly,” she replied, in brave but faltering accents. “I expect it was the raspberries: they always make me feel like this!”
“Well, what the devil made you eat them?” demanded Mr. Theale, pardonably annoyed.
“I am so very partial to them!” she explained tearfully. “Pray don’t be vexed with me!”
“No, no!” he made haste to assure her. “There, don’t cry, my pretty!”
“Oh, don’t!” begged Amanda, as he tried to put his arm round her. “I fear I am about to swoon!”
“Don’t be afraid!” said Mr. Theale, patting her hand. “You won’t do that, not while you have such lovely roses in your cheeks! Just put your head on my shoulder, and see if you don’t feel better in a trice!”
“Is my face very pink?” asked Amanda, not availing herself of this invitation.
“Charmingly pink!” he asserted.
“Then I am going to be sick,” said Amanda, ever fertile of invention. “I always have a pink face when I am sick. Oh, dear, I feel quite dreadfully sick!”
Considerably alarmed, Mr. Theale sat bolt upright, and looked at her with misgiving. “Nonsense! You can’t be sick here!” he said bracingly.