He stamped wearily into the yard of the "Black Bull," swung into the inn, and making his way down a passage, opened the first door he came upon. A lady and a gentleman were at table there, and Mr. Granby, realizing that he intruded, was for withdrawing hastily, when a cheery voice hailed him.
"Mr. Granby! Gad! You're come at last!" Mr. Pepper had risen from the table, and was advancing towards him with a smile upon his pleasant young face. Granby gasped, and looked at the lady. It was Jenny.
"At least," cried slow-witted Granby, thinking that matters were to be righted after all, "it seems I am not come too late." And he put his hand to the hilt of his small-sword. But Pepper only laughed.
"If it's the pretty show of sword-play you're thinking of, you're too late altogether. Come in, man, and break your fast with us. I make no doubt you'll be nigh dead of hunger." And he drew Granby, despite himself almost, into the room.
"What―what do you mean?" he demanded, scowling, for he noticed now that Jenny's air was not such as her position should inspire; her cheeks were red, and she seemed a prey to laughter.
"Why," said Mr. Pepper airily, advancing a chair for his guest, "when you never came, what was I to do with this lady on my hands? I ask you, what would you have done in my place?"
The question quenched all Mr. Granby's vexation. Engrossed as he had been in his own calamities, he had given no thought to Mr. Pepper's quandary.
"You'll agree," continued Mr. Pepper, "that I could scarce ride on with her after daylight. We should have been stopped. Besides, there are limits to a horse's endurance, and to a man's. We must stop somewhere. At the first inn would be Miss Egerton's opportunity. She has but to call for help, and in what case should I find myself? I have been in gaol once, as I have already had occasion to inform you, and I have little fancy for repeating the experience. I hope, sir, that you realize my delicate position."
"Indeed, sir," murmured the confused and bewildered Granby, "I own it must have been trying!"
"You see, then," Mr. Pepper cut in, "that it was necessary to do something that should put me in shelter from the law."
"And he did," Jenny explained, laughter sparkling in her eyes and dimpling her smooth, fresh cheek, "what you will agree was the only thing to do. He told me the truth. Oh, shame, Mr. Granby! Shame on you for setting such a scheme on foot and subjecting a poor girl to so much misery and discomfort."
"But, madam―," groaned Mr. Granby unable to say more.
"Mr. Pepper was wise to tell me the truth, and cast himself, as he did, upon my mercy," she concluded.
Mr. Granby said nothing. He sat nursing his hat, his gaze averted, abashed like a child caught in a naughty act. How different was all this from the brave plan they had made!
"Miss Egerton very charitably forgave us," said Pepper, "and we determined to break our fast here whilst awaiting you."
Granby screwed up his courage to ask: "And now?" in a very sheepish voice.
"You see," Pepper explained confidentially, "even having made my peace with Miss Egerton, I felt myself far from secure. You'll remember why I was in gaol two years ago. I told you the reason." Granby nodded.
"Therefore," put in Jenny, "it became necessary for Mr. Pepper further to protect himself."
"In her mercy," Pepper resumed, "she realized how unpleasant it might be for me if I were discovered here―by her guardian, say―alone with a child upon whom I had no claim of kinship. Besides, the lady has a reputation, and I could not in honesty have called myself your friend if I had allowed the reputation of a lady whom you had thought of making your wife to be placed in jeopardy. So while breakfast was cooking we stepped across the street, and were quietly married by the most civil parson in the world."
"Odso!" roared Granby. "You are fooling me, then?" And he got heavily to his feet, his face purple with indignation.
"Fooling you?" cried Pepper. "Not I. I am telling you the truth. I ask you what else was I to do? You yourself forced the situation upon me. What other way out of it had I? And, rat me, sir, where have you tarried all night that you never overtook me as we had arranged?"
"Bah!" said Granby, who was now beginning to understand things. "I have been walking a matter of twenty miles since the knave you hired deprived me of my horse."
He paused, summoning invective to his aid, his wits now penetrating to the very heart of this situation. It flickered in that moment through his mind that Squire Clifford had made some allusion to a spark for whom his ward was suspected of a fancy. This, then, was the sparking question, and Granby had been fooled by him. And it was into the keeping of this hair-brained young scapegrace―who had been gaoled already for running off with some girl or other―that Jenny had given her sweet young life! Granby felt naturally vindictive. He planted himself squarely on his feet, and dully eyed the couple at the table.
"Will you tell me," he asked with grim unction, "the name of the lady for whose abduction you were gaoled two years ago, Mr. Pepper?"
Mr. Pepper looked disconcerted, Granby thought with relish.
"It's something of an ordeal, sir, to be forced to confess to such follies in the presence of my wife, and―and on my bridal morning. Still, if you insist―"
"I do," said Granby firmly. "She shall know what manner of man she had wed."
"It's two years ago, and that's a long time in a young man's life," said Pepper. "My memory may be at fault, but I believe it was a Miss Egerton, of whom you may have heard, sir." And from the ripple of laughter that broke from Jenny's lips, Granby knew that he was being mocked with the truth.
It was more than he could bear. He swung out of the room, and out of the inn, and tired, damp and hungry though he was, he determined to get a horse and ride back to Clifford Manor to tell the squire what had befallen. He realized with angry shame how those merry young gentlemen at the "King's Arms" had fooled him the night before when they sent him to Pepper for guidance in this delicate matter.
While he waited in the yard for a horse, he could not resist a peep through the window of the room where the bridal couple were at table. A bright firelight played upon walls and ceiling, and relieved the lingering gloom of that Christmas morning. Jenny, he noticed, sat with a kerchief to her eyes, and Mr. Pepper with an arm round her neck strove to console her. The sight affected Granby oddly. Maybe she was weeping out of pity for the treatment he had received; maybe she was thinking of her guardian and the trouble he would make for them. Mr. Granby was honestly fond of the child, and he felt a lump in his throat as he pondered the matter of her tears. Tears on her wedding-day!
He noticed now how well-matched they were in youth and looks, and he realized how ill-matched would she have been had she wedded him as was intended. He remembered, too, now that his mood was softening, that, after all, Pepper was little to blame for what had happened. It was those rascally wags at the "King's Arms" who had fooled him rather than Pepper. In Pepper's place he might himself have done just what Pepper had done.
And then a peal of joybells crashed suddenly upon the morning air to remind Granby of what day it was, and what the message of that day was.
He straightened himself. He may have been dull, podgy and unimaginative, but he was a good fellow at heart. Back into the inn and into their parlour he strode, and so full of purpose was his step that Jenny looked up in alarm as he thrust wide the door. He advanced, his face rather red, his eyes more sheepish than ever.
"I forgot," said he, "to wish you a merry Christmas, and I've come back to do it. If you'll ride to Clifford Manor with me, I think I can persuade the squire to let us all spend this bridal Christmas happily together." And he held out a hand to each of them.