“Certainly not!” he replied. “Of course I have enough money for that!”
“I think you ought to have four horses,” she warned him. “Posting charges are very high, you know.”
“Good God, Pen, I’m not penniless! Lydia meant only that I am dependent upon my father. If he refuses to forgive us, I shall be obliged to find some genteel occupation, but I am persuaded that once the deed is done he will very soon come round. Oh, Pen! is she not an angel? I am quite overcome! Is it not affecting that she should trust me so implicitly?”
Pen opened her eyes at this. “Why shouldn’t she?” she asked, surprised.
“Why shouldn’t she? Really, Pen, you don’t understand in the least! Think of her placing her life, honour, all, in my care!”
“I don’t see anything wonderful in that,” replied Pen contemptuously. “I think it would be a great deal more extraordinary if she didn’t trust you.”
“I remember now that you never had much sensibility,” said Piers. “You are such a child!” He turned again to the interested abigail. “Now, Lucy, attend to me! You must take a letter back to your mistress, and assure her besides that I shall not fail. Are you prepared to accompany us to Scotland?”
She gaped at him for a moment, but however strange the idea might have been to her it apparently pleased her, for she nodded vehemently, and said: “Oh yes, sir, thank you, sir!”
“Who ever heard of taking a maid on an elopement?” demanded Pen.
“I will not ask Lydia to fly with me without some female to go with her!” declared Piers nobly.
“Dear me, I should think she would wish the girl at Jericho!”
“Lydia is quite unused to waiting upon herself,” said Piers. “Moreover, the presence of her maid must lend respectability to our flight.”
“Has she a little lap-dog she would like to take with her too?” asked Pen innocently.
Piers cast her a quelling look, and stalked across the room to a small writing-table near the window. After testing the pen that lay on it, mending it, and dipping it in the standish, he then sat while the ink dried on it, frowning over what he should write to his betrothed. Finally, he dipped the pen in the standish once more, and began to write, punctuating his labour with reminders to Lucy to see that her mistress had a warm cloak, and did not bring too many bandboxes with her.
“Or the parrot,” interpolated Pen.
“Lor’, sir, Miss Lydia hasn’t got any parrot!”
“If you don’t hold your tongue, Pen—!”
“No little lap-dog either?” Pen asked incredulously.
“No, sir, “deed, no! There’s only her love-birds, the pretty things, and her doves!”
“Well, you will not have room in the chaise for a dovecot, but you should certainly bring the love-birds,” said Pen, with an irrepressible chuckle.
Piers flung down his pen. “Another word from you, and I’ll put you out of the room!”
“No, you won’t, because this is a private parlour, and you are nothing but a guest in it.”
“But will I tell Miss to bring the love-birds?” asked Lucy, puzzled.,
“No!” said Piers. “Oh, do stop, Pen! You are driving me distracted! Listen, I have told Lydia that I will have a chaise waiting in the lane behind the house at midnight. Do you think that is too early? Will her parents go to her room as late as that?”
“No, sir, that they won’t!” said Lucy. “The Major does be such a one for retiring early! He’ll be in bed and asleep by eleven, take my word for it, sir!”
“Fortunately, it is moonlight,” Piers said, shaking sand over his letter. “Listen, Lucy! I depend upon you to see that your mistress goes early to bed; she must get what sleep she can! And you must wake her at the proper time, do you understand? Can I trust you to pack for her, and to bring her safely to me?”
“Oh, yes, sir!” replied Lucy, bobbing a curtsey. “For I wouldn’t be left to face the Major, not for ever so!”
“You had best go back to the house with all possible speed,” Piers said, applying a wafer to the folded letter, and handing it to her. “Mind, now! that letter must not fall into the wrong hands!”
“If anyone tries to take it from you, you must swallow it,” put in Pen.
“Swallow it, sir?”
’Pay no heed to my friend!” said Piers hastily. There! Be off with you, and remember that I depend upon your fidelity!”
Lucy curtseyed herself out of the room. Piers looked at Pen, still hugging her knees on the window-seat, and said severely: “I suppose you flatter yourself you have been helpful!”
Impish lights danced in her eyes. “Oh, I have! Only think if you had had to turn back to fetch the love-birds, which very likely you would have had to do if I had not reminded the abigail about them!”
He could not help grinning. “Pen, if she does bring them, I’ll—I’ll turn back just to wring your neck! Now I must go to arrange for the hire of a chaise, and four fast horses.”
“Where will you find them?” she asked.
“There is a posting-house at Keynsham where they keep very tolerable cattle. I shall drive over there immediately.”
“Famous! Go where you are known, and let the news of your wanting a chaise for midnight spread all over the countryside within three hours!”
He checked. “I had not thought of that! The devil! This means I must go into Bristol, and I can ill spare the time, with so much to attend to.”
“Nothing of the sort!” said Pen, jumping up. “Now I will be helpful indeed! I will drive to Keynsham with you, and I will order the chaise.”
His brow cleared. “Oh Pen, will you? But Sir Richard! Will he not object, do you think? Of course, I would take every care of you, but—”
“No, no, he will not object, I assure you! I shall not tell him anything about it,” said Pen ingenuously.
“But that would not be right! And I should not wish to do anything—”
“I will leave a message for him with the landlord,” promised Pen. “Did you walk into the village, or have you a carriage here?”
“Oh, I drove in! The gig is in the yard now. I confess, if you feel it would not be wrong of you to go with me, I should be glad of your help.”
“Only wait while I get my hat!” Pen said, and darted off in search of it.
Chapter 12
Miss Creed and Mr Luttrell, partaking of midday refreshment in Keynsham’s best inn, and exhaustively discussing the details of the elopement, were neither of them troubled by doubts of the wisdom of the gentleman’s whisking his betrothed off to Scotland at a moment when that lady had become entangled in a case of murder. Indeed, Mr Luttrell, a single-minded young man, was in a fair way to forgetting that he had ever had Beverley Brandon to stay with him. He had left his mother trying to write a suitable letter to Lady Saar, and if he thought about the unfortunate affair at all it was to reflect comfortably that Lady Luttrell would do everything that was proper. His conversation was confined almost exclusively to his own immediate problems, but he digressed several times animadvert on Pen’s unconventional exploits.
“Of course,” he conceded, “it is not so shocking now that you are betrothed to Wyndham, but I own it does surprise me that he—a man of the world!—should have countenanced such a prank. But these Corinthians delight in oddities, I believe! I dare say no one will wonder at it very much. If you were not betrothed it would be different, naturally!”
Pen’s clear gaze met his steadily. “I think you make a great bustle about nothing,” she said.
“My dear Pen!” He gave a little laugh. “You are such a child! I believe you haven’t the smallest notion of the ways of the world!”
She was obliged to admit that this was true. It occurred to her that since Piers seemed to be well-informed on this subject she might with advantage learn a little from him. “If I were not going to marry Richard, would it be very dreadful?” she asked.
“Pen! What things you do say!” he exclaimed. “Only think of your situation, travelling all the way from London in Wyndham’s company, without even your maid to go with you! Why, you must marry him now!”