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‘Did your son see the way she went?’ asked Sir Gareth.
This question seemed to strike Mr Ninfield as being exquisitely humorous. A grin spread over his face, and he gave a chuckle. ‘Ay! In a manner of speaking, he did. She never said nothing about any school, though.’
‘Lor’, Ned!’ cried Mrs Sheet, in sharp suspicion. ‘You’re never going to tell me you’ve seen her too? Where is she?’
He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, saying laconically: ‘Whitethorn.’
‘Whitethorn?’ she gasped. ‘However did she come to get there?’
He began to chuckle again. ‘In my cart! Joe brought her. Proper moonstruck, he was.’
‘Ned Ninfield!’ she exploded. ‘You mean to tell me Joe didn’t know no better than to offer a young lady like she is a ride in that dirty cart of yours?’
‘Seems it was her as was set on it, not him. Told him to pick her up, and pop her into the cart where no one wouldn’t see her. Which he done. And I don’t know as I blame him,’ added Mr Ninfield thoughtfully. ‘Not altogether, I don’t.’
‘I don’t believe it!’ Mrs Sheet declared.
‘Oh, yes!’ Sir Gareth interposed, a good deal amused. ‘Nothing, in fact, is more likely! Not so long ago, she hid herself in a carrier’s cart. I expect she enjoyed the ride.’
‘She did that, your honour,’ corroborated Mr Ninfield. ‘She and my Joe ate up the better part of a jar of pickled cherries between ’em, what’s more. Sticky! Lor’, you ought to have seen ’em!’
‘The cherries I sent Jane special!’ ejaculated Mrs Sheet.
Sir Gareth laughed. ‘I offer you my apologies, ma’am: I told you she was a little monkey!’ He turned, stretching out his hand to the farmer. ‘Mr Ninfield, I’m very much in your debt – and more thankful than I can describe to you that my ward had the good fortune to fall in with your son. By the way, I do hope to God you didn’t tell her you were coming here to make enquiries about her? If you did, she will certainly have fled from the house before I can reach it.’
‘No, sir, she don’t know nothing about it,’ Mr Ninfield replied, rather coyly wiping his hand on his breeches before grasping Sir Gareth’s. ‘But the thing is – well, it’s like this, sir! I’m sure I’m not wishful to give offence, but – you wouldn’t be the gentleman as is father to a young lady as had Miss Amanda to wait on her, would you?’
‘I would not!’ said Sir Gareth, recognizing Amanda’s favourite story. ‘I collect you mean the gentleman who made such improper advances to her that his sister – most unjustly, one feels – turned her out of the house without a moment’s warning. I haven’t a daughter, and I am not even married, much less a widower. Nor has Miss Amanda ever been a waiting-woman. She got the notion out of an old novel.’
‘Well, I’m bound to say you didn’t look to me like you could be him,’ said Mr Ninfield. ‘Downright wicked, that’s what I thought, but my good lady, she wouldn’t have it. She says to me private that she’d go bail Miss was telling us a lot of faradiddles, because nothing wouldn’t make her credit that Miss was an abigail, nor ever had been. So it was a school she run away from, was it, sir? Well, that won’t surprise the wife, though she did think it was perhaps her home she run away from: likely, because someone had crossed her. Powerful hot at hand, I’d say – meaning no disrespect!’
‘You’re very right!’ Sir Gareth said. ‘Under what disguise does she hope to remain in your house, by the way? Has she offered herself to your wife as a chambermaid?’
‘No, sir,’ grinned Mr Ninfield. ‘When last I see her, she was making my Joe teach her how to milk the cows, and just about as happy as a grig.’
‘Ah, going to be a dairymaid, is she?’ said Sir Gareth cheerfully. An idea that had peeped into his mind now began to take hopeful possession of it. He looked at Mr Ninfield consideringly, and said, after a moment: ‘Is she a troublesome charge? Do you think Mrs Ninfield would be prepared to keep her as a boarder for a few days?’
‘Keep her, sir?’ repeated Mr Ninfield, staring at him.
‘The case, you see, is this,’ said Sir Gareth. ‘Either I must take her back to school, or I must make some other arrangement for her. Well, I have been most earnestly requested not to take her back to the school, which puts me in something of a fix, for I can’t hire a governess for her at a moment’s notice. I must convey her to my sister’s house in town, and, frankly, I am very sure she won’t want to go with me there. Nor, I must add, am I anxious to saddle my sister with such a charge. It occurs to me that if she is happy in your wife’s care it would perhaps be as well to leave her there until I am able to provide for her suitably. I daresay, if she did not know that I was aware of her direction, she would be glad to stay with you, and would no doubt enjoy herself very much, milking cows, and collecting eggs, and in general fancying herself to be very useful.’
‘I’ll be bound she would, the pretty dear!’ said Mrs Sheet approvingly. ‘A very good notion, I call it, and just what will put dancing-masters and such out of her head.’
But Mr Ninfield dashed Sir Gareth’s hopes. ‘Well, sir,’ he said apologetically, ‘I’m sure I’d be pleased to have her, and it goes against the shins with me to act disobliging, but it’s Joe, you see. She’s got him so as he don’t know whether he’s on his head or his heels. He don’t take his eyes off her, and when he told his ma that Miss was like a princess out of one of them fairy stories, Mrs Ninfield she said to me, private, that we must find out quick where she comes from before Joe gets ideas into his head which is above his station. Because it wouldn’t do, sir.’
‘No, it wouldn’t do,’ agreed Sir Gareth, relinquishing his scheme with a pang. ‘If that is how the land lies, of course I must take her away immediately. Where is your farm?’
‘It’s a matter of three miles from here, sir, but it ain’t a very good road. You go up the post-road, about half a mile, and there’s a lane turns off to your left. You follow that past Keyston, until you see a rough track, left again. You go down that for a mile and a half, maybe a bit more, like as if you was heading for Catworth, and just afore you come to a sharp bend you’ll see Whitethorn. You can’t miss it.’
‘Good gracious, Ned, where have your wits gone begging?’ interrupted Mrs Sheet impatiently. ‘Just you get back into your gig, and lead the gentleman!’
‘Thank you, I wish you will!’ Sir Gareth said. ‘In the direction of Catworth, is it? Tell me, can I, without too much difficulty, reach Kimbolton from Whitethorn?’
‘Yes, sir, easy, you can. All you’ve to do is to go on down the lane till you come to the post-road – the one as runs south of this one, between Wellingborough and Cambridge. Then you swing left-handed into it, and Kimbolton’s about five miles on.’
‘Excellent! I’ll rack up there for the night, and carry the child off to London by post-chaise tomorrow – if she doesn’t contrive to give me the slip from the posting-house there! But before we set out you must join me in a glass. Ma’a
m, what may I have the pleasure of desiring your husband to serve you with?’
