“They are both part of the story,” replied Pen. She had been looking keenly at him, and thinking that he had not greatly changed, and she added: “I should have known you anywhere! Have I altered so much?”
“Yes. At least, I don’t know. It’s your hair, I suppose, cut short like that, and—and those clothes!”
He sounded shocked, which made her think that perhaps he had changed a little. “Well, I truly am Pen Creed,” she said.
“Yes, I see that you are, now that I have had time to look at you. But I cannot understand it! I could not help hearing some of what was said, though I tried not to—until I heard Miss Daubenay’s name!”
“Please, Piers, don’t fly into a rage again!” Pen said rather nervously, for she distinctly heard his teeth grind together. “I can explain everything!”
“I do not know whether I am on my head or my heels!” he complained. “You have been imposing on her! How could you do such a thing? Why did you?”
“I haven’t!” said Pen. “And I must say, I do think you might be a little more glad to see me!”
“Of course I am glad! But to come here masquerading as a boy, and playing pranks on a defenceless—That was why she failed last night!”
“No, it wasn’t! She saw the stammering-man killed, and ran away, you stupid creature!”
“How do you know?” he asked suspiciously.
“I was there, of course.”
“With her?”
“Yes, but—”
“You have been imposing on her!”
“I tell you it’s no such thing! I met her by the merest chance.”
“Tell me this!” commanded Piers. “Does she know that you are a girl?”
“No, but—”
“I knew it!” he declared. “And I distinctly heard the Major say that she had met you in Bath! I don’t know why you did it, but it is the most damnable trick in the world! And Lydia—deceiving me—encouraging your advances—oh, my eyes are open now!”
“If you say another word, I shall box your ears!” said Pen indignantly. “I would not have believed you could have grown into such a stupid, tiresome creature! I never met Lydia Daubenay in my life until last night, and if you don’t believe me you may go and ask her!”
He looked rather taken aback, and said in an uncertain tone: “But if you did not know her, how came you to be with her in the wood last night?”
“That was chance. The silly little thing swooned, and I—”
“She is not a silly little thing!” interrupted Piers, firing up.
“Yes, she is, very silly. For what must she do, upon reaching home, but tell her Papa that it was not you she had gone to meet, but me!”
This announcement surprised him. His bewildered grey eyes sought enlightenment in Pen’s face; he said with a rueful grin: “Oh Pen, do sit down and explain! You never could tell a story so that one could make head or tail of it!”
She came away from the table, and sat down on the window-seat. After a pained glance at her attire, Piers seated himself beside her. Each took critical stock of the other, but whereas Pen looked Piers frankly over, he surveyed her rather shyly, and showed a tendency to avert his gaze when it encountered hers.
He was a well-favoured young man, not precisely handsome, but with a pleasant face, a good pair of shoulders, and easy, open manners. Since he was four years her senior, he had always seemed to her, in the old days, very large, far more experienced than herself, and quite worthy of being looked up to. She was conscious, as she sat beside him on the window-seat, of a faint feeling of disappointment. He seemed to her little more than a boy, and instead of assuming his old mastery in his dealings with her, he was obviously shy, and unable to think of anything to say. Their initial encounter had of course been unfortunate, but Pen thought that he might, upon discovering her identity, have exhibited more pleasure at meeting her again. She felt forlorn all at once, as though a door had been shut in her face. A vague suspicion that what was behind the shut door was not what she had imagined only made her the more melancholy. To hide it, she said brightly: “It is such an age since I saw you, and there is so much to say! I don’t know where to begin!”
He smiled, but there was a pucker between his brows. “Yes, indeed, but it seems so strange! Why did she say she had gone out to meet you, I wonder?”
It was apparent to Pen that Miss Daubenay possessed his thoughts to the exclusion of everyone else. Repressing a strong desire to favour him with her opinion of that young lady, she recounted as briefly as she could what had passed between her and Lydia in the orchard. Any expectation she might have had of his viewing his betrothed’s conduct in the same light as she did was banished by his exclaiming rapturously: “She is such an innocent little thing! It is just like her to have said that! I see it all now!”
This was too much for Pen. “Well, I think it was a ridiculous thing to have said.”
“You see, she knows nothing of the world, Pen,” he said earnestly. “Then, too, she is impulsive! Do you know, she always makes me think of a bird?”
“A goose, I suppose,” said Pen somewhat tartly.
“I meant a wild bird,” he replied, with dignity. “A fluttering, timid, little—”
“She didn’t seem to me very timid,” Pen interrupted. “In fact, I thought she was extremely bold to ask a perfectly strange young man to pretend to be in love with her.”
“You don’t understand her. She is so trusting! She needs someone to take care of her. We have loved one another ever since our first meeting. We should have been married by now if my father had not picked a foolish quarrel with the Major. Pen, you cannot think what our sufferings have been! There seems to be no end to them! We shall never induce our fathers to consent to our marriage, never!”
He sank his head in his hands with a groan, but Pen said briskly: “Well, you will have to marry without their consent. Only you both of you seem to be so poor-spirited that you will do nothing but moan, and meet in woods! Why don’t you elope?”
“Elope! You don’t know what you are saying, Pen! How could I ask that fragile little thing to do anything of the sort? The impropriety, too! I am persuaded she would shrink from the very thought of it!”
“Yes, she did,” agreed Pen. “She said she would not be able to have attendants, or a lace veil.”
“You see, she has been very strictly reared—has led the most sheltered life! Besides, why should she not have a lace veil, and—and those things which females set store by?”
“For my part,” Pen said, “I would not care a fig for such fripperies if I loved a man!”
“Oh, you are different!” said Piers. “You were always more like a boy than a girl. Just look at you now! Why are you masquerading as a boy? It seems to me most peculiar, and not quite the thing, you know.”
“There were circumstances which—which made it necessary,” said Pen rather stiffly. “I had to escape from my aunt’s house.”
“Well, I still don’t see why—”
“Because I was forced to climb out of a window!” snapped Pen. “Moreover, I could not travel all by myself as a female, could I?”
“No, I suppose you could not. Only you should not be travelling by yourself at all. What a madcap you are!” A thought occurred to him; he glanced down at Pen with a sudden frown. “But you were with Sir Richard Wyndham when I came in, and you seemed to be on mighty close terms with him, too! For heaven’s sake, Pen, what are you about? How do you come to be in his company?”
The interview with her old playmate seemed to be fraught not only with disappointment, but with unforeseen difficulties as well. Pen could not but realize that Mr Luttrell was not in sympathy with her. “Oh, that—that is too long a story to tell!” she replied evasively. “There were reasons why I wished to come home again, and—and Sir Richard would not permit me to go alone.”
“But, Pen!” He sounded horrified. “You are surely not travelling with him?”
His tone swept away adventure, and invested her exploit instead with the stigma of impropriety. She coloured hotly, and was searching her mind for an explanation that would satisfy Piers when the door opened, and Sir Richard came into the room.