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‘For God’s sake, have I strayed into a madhouse?’ thundered the Captain. ‘Where is Amanda?’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Hildebrand, looking startled. ‘I daresay she has gone down the road to the farm, though. Shall I go and see if I can find her? Oh, I say, sir, I wish you will tell me! – will she be obliged to wring chickens’ necks if she goes to Spain?’
‘Wring – No!’ said the Captain, thrown by this time quite off his balance.
‘I knew it was all nonsense!’ said Hildebrand triumphantly. ‘I told her it was, but she always thinks she knows everything!’
‘Neil!’
The Captain spun round. Amanda had just entered the orchard, bearing a glass of milk and a plate of fruit on a small tray. As the shriek broke from her, she dropped the tray, and came flying across the grass, to hurl herself on to the Captain’s broad chest. ‘Neil, Neil!’ she cried, both arms flung round his neck. ‘Oh, Neil, have you come to rescue me? Oh, how splendid! I didn’t know what to do, and I was almost in despair, but now everything will be right!’
The Captain, holding her in a crushing hug, said thickly: ‘Yes, everything. I’ll see to that!’ He disengaged himself, and held her off, his hands gripping her shoulders. ‘Amanda, what has happened to you? The truth, now, and no playing off any tricks!’
‘Oh, you wouldn’t believe the adventures I have had!’ she said earnestly. ‘First there was a horrid woman, who wouldn’t have me for a governess, and then there was Sir Gareth Ludlow, who abducted me, and next there was Mr Theale, who said he would rescue me from Sir Gareth, only he was so odious that I was obliged to escape from him, and after that there was Joe, who was most kind, and gave me my dear little kitten. I wanted to stay with Joe, though his mother didn’t seem to wish me to, but Sir Gareth found me, and told the most shocking untruths which the Ninfields believed, and went on abducting me, and locking me in my room, and behaving in the most abominable way, in spite of my begging him to let me go, so that though I truthfully never meant Hildebrand to shoot him, it quite served him right – Oh, Neil, this is Sir Gareth! Uncle Gary, this is Neil! – Captain Kendal! And that’s Hildebrand Ross, Neil. Oh, Uncle Gary, I am excessively sorry, but I threw your glass of milk away! Hildebrand, would you be so obliging as to fetch another one?’
‘Yes, very well, but you needn’t think I’m going to let you stand there, telling bouncers about Uncle Gary!’ said Hildebrand indignantly. ‘He did not abduct you, and as for telling lies about you – well, yes, but you told much worse ones about him! Why, you told me he was forcing you to marry him because you were a great heiress!’
‘Yes, but I had to do that, or you wouldn’t have helped me to escape from him!’
The Captain, a trifle stunned, released his betrothed, and turned to Sir Gareth. ‘I don’t understand yet what happened, sir, but I believe I have been doing you an injustice. If that’s so, I beg your pardon! But why you should not have restored Amanda immediately to General Summercourt, or at the very least have written to inform him –’
‘He couldn’t!’ said Amanda proudly. ‘He spoiled all my plan of campaign, and he carried me off by force, but he couldn’t make me tell him who I was, or Grandpa
pa, or you, Neil! I did think he would win even over that, because he meant to carry me off to his sister, in London, and discover your name at the Horse Guards, only he wasn’t able to, because, by the greatest stroke of good fortune, we met Hildebrand, and Hildebrand shot him – though that wasn’t what he meant to do, of course.’
‘There is a great deal about this business I don’t understand, but one thing is plain!’ said the Captain, sternly eyeing his beloved. ‘You have been behaving very badly, Amanda!’
‘Yes, but I had to, Neil!’ she pleaded, hanging her head. ‘I was afraid you would be a little vexed, but –’
‘You knew that I should be very angry indeed. Don’t think you can cajole me, my girl! You may reserve that for your grandfather! He will be here at any moment now, let me tell you, for he was following me from London, and I left a message for him at Kimbolton. Do you know that he has had to call in the Bow Street Runners to find you?’
‘No!’ cried Amanda, reviving as if by magic. ‘Uncle Gary, did you hear that? The Runners are after me!’
‘I did, and it confirms my worst fears,’ said Sir Gareth. ‘What a pity, though, that you have only just learnt that you are being hunted! You could have made up an even more splendid story, if only you had thought of it.’
‘Yes, I could,’ she said regretfully. ‘Still, it would have been much better if Grandpapa had done what I told him to.’
‘No, by God, it would not!’ said the Captain forcefully. ‘And if you imagine, Amanda, that I would have married you, had the General been weak enough to have yielded to such a disgraceful trick, you much mistake the matter!’
‘Neil!’ she cried, her eyes flying to his face, and widening in dismay. ‘Don’t – don’t you wish to marry me?’
‘That,’ said the Captain, ‘is another matter! Now, you come into the house, and make a clean breast of the whole, without any more excuses, or any of your make-believe nonsense!’
‘I wouldn’t! You know I wouldn’t!’ Amanda stammered flushing. ‘Not to you! Neil, you know I wouldn’t!’
‘It will be as well for you if you don’t,’ said the Captain, inexorably marching her off.
Hildebrand, watching with dropped jaw, turned his eyes towards Sir Gareth. ‘Well!’ he gasped. ‘She – went with him as meek as a nun’s hen! Amanda!’
It was some time before Captain Kendal emerged again from the house, and when at last he came striding through the orchard he was alone. Lady Hester, who had been sitting with Sir Gareth for some little while, blinked at him, and said: ‘Good gracious, Gareth, how very odd of Amanda! I quite thought he would be a heroic-looking young man, did not you?’
Captain Kendal, reaching them, bowed slightly to Hester, but addressed himself to Sir Gareth. ‘I hope you will accept my apologies, sir. I don’t know how to thank you enough. I got the whole story out of her, and you may be sure I’ve given her a rare dressing. You must have had the devil of a time with her!’
‘Nonsense!’ Sir Gareth said, holding out his hand.
The Captain gripped it painfully. ‘You didn’t handle her right, you know,’ he said. ‘She’s as good as gold, if you don’t give her her head. The mischief is that the General and Miss Summercourt have spoilt her to death, and as though that wasn’t enough, she’s been allowed to stuff her head with a lot of trashy novels. I can tell you, it fairly made my hair stand on end when I heard the stories she’s been making up! But the thing is that she hasn’t the ghost of a notion what they really mean. I daresay you know that. I hope you do!’
‘Of course I know it! My favourite is the one about the amorous widower – though I must own that the latest gem, in which Hildebrand is to play the leading rôle, has rare charm. Now you must let me introduce you to my natural sister, Lady Hester Theale!’
