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‘I am obliged to Mr Gretton for his approval,’ said Sir Charles, ‘and I dare say that when he has learnt to refrain alike from trying to copy my way with a neckcloth and from teaching cant phrases to schoolgirls he may do tolerably well.’
‘I can see that it is an expression I should not have used,’ said Nan knowledgeably. ‘Must I not call you a Nonpareil either, sir?’
He laughed. ‘If you wish! But why should you talk about me at all? Tell me about yourself!’
She was doubtful whether so limited a subject could interest him, but since she was of a confiding nature it was not long before she was chatting happily to him. When the horses were changed, there was very little about Miss Massingham that he did not know; and since he found her curious mixture of innocence and worldly wisdom something quite out of the common way he was not sorry that she spurned a suggestion that she should continue the journey in the chaise. She was not, she said, at all chilly; she had been wondering, on the contrary, whether she might perhaps be allowed to take the ribbons.
‘Certainly not!’ said Sir Charles.
‘You are such a famous whip yourself, sir, that you could very easily teach me to drive,’ argued Miss Massingham, in persuasive accents.
‘No doubt I could, but I shall not. I dislike being driven.’
‘Oh!’ said Miss Massingham, damped. ‘I don’t mean to tease you, only it would be such a thing to boast of!’
He could not help laughing. ‘Absurd brat! Well – for half an hour, then, but no longer!’
‘Thank you!’ said Miss Massingham, her air of gentle melancholy vanishing.
When she was at last induced to give the reins back to her instructor, the Beckhampton Inn had been passed, and the chaise had long been out of sight. Sir Charles put his pair along at a spanking pace, and would no doubt have overtaken the chaise had his companion not announced suddenly that she was hungry. A glance at his watch showed him that it was past one o’clock. He said ruefully: ‘I should have stopped to give you a nuncheon rather than have let you take the ribbons.’
‘We could stop now, could we not, sir?’ said Miss Massingham hopefully.
‘If we do it must only be for a few minutes,’ he warned her.
She agreed readily to this; and as they were approaching Marlborough he drove to the Castle Inn, and commanded the waiter to bring some cold meat and fruit as speedily as possible. Miss Massingham and her puppy, whom she had christened Duke, in doubtful compliment to his Grace of Wellington, both made hearty meals, after which Miss Massingham, while Sir Charles settled the reckoning, took her pet for a run on the end of a blind-cord, which she abstracted from the coffee-room, and for which Sir Charles was called upon to pay. She said that she would walk along the broad village street, and that he might pick her up in the curricle. Ten minutes later he ran her to earth outside a bird-fancier’s shop, the centre of a small crowd of partisans and critics. Upon demand, he learned that Miss Massingham, discovering a number of songbirds cooped inside small wicker-cages, which were piled up outside the shop, had not only released the wretched prisoners, but had hotly harangued the fancier on the cruelty of his trade. It cost Sir Charles a sum grossly in excess of the birds’ worth, and the exercise of his prestige as an obvious member of the Quality, to extricate his charge from this imbroglio, and she was not in the least grateful to him for having done it. She censured his conduct in having given the man money instead of knocking him down. ‘Which I am persuaded you might have done, because Priscilla’s brother told us that you are a Pink of the Fancy,’ she said severely.
‘I shall be obliged to you,’ said Sir Charles, with asperity, ‘if you will refrain from repeating the extremely improper remarks made to you by Priscilla’s cub of a brother!’
‘Now you are vexed with me!’ said Nan.
‘Yes, for your conduct is disgraceful!’ said Sir Charles sternly.
‘I did not mean to do what you would not like,’ said Miss Massingham, in a small voice.
Sir Charles preserved an unbending silence for several minutes. It was then borne in upon him that Nan, having apparently lost her handkerchief, was wiping away large teardrops with a gloved finger. The result was not happy. Sir Charles, pulling up, produced his own handkerchief, took Nan’s chin in one hand, and with the other removed the disfiguring smudges. ‘There! Don’t cry, my child! Come, smile at me!’
She managed to obey this behest. He knew an impulse to kiss the face he had upturned, but he repressed it, released her chin, and drove on. By the time Froxfield was reached, he had succeeded in diverting her mind, and the rest of the way to Speenhamland might have been accomplished without incident had not Duke, who had been sleeping off his meal, awakened, and signified, in no uncertain manner, his wish to leave the curricle.
4
Pulling up beside a spinney, Sir Charles set down his passengers, adjuring Miss Massingham not to allow her disreputable pet to stray. Unfortunately, she had neglected to tie the cord round his neck again, and no sooner did he find himself on the ground than he dashed into the spinney, yapping joyfully. She ran after him, and was soon lost to sight. Sir Charles was left to study the sky, which was developing a leaden look which he did not like. When a quarter of an hour had passed, he alighted, patience at an end, led his horses into the spinney, tied the reins round a sapling, and strode off in search of the truants.
For several moments there was no response to his irate shouts, but suddenly he was checked by a hail. It came from quite near at hand, but it was disturbingly faint. Alarmed, he followed the direction of the cry, rounded a thicket, and came upon Miss Massingham, trying to raise herself from the ground. Beside her sat Duke, with his tongue lolling out.
‘Now what have you done?’ said Sir Charles, exasperated. Then he saw that Miss Massingham’s face was paper-white, and he went quickly up to her, and dropped on to one knee, saying in quite another voice: ‘My child! Are you hurt?’
Miss Massingham, leaning thankfully against his supporting arm, said: ‘I am so very sorry, sir! I didn’t perceive the rabbit-hole, and I tripped, and I think I must have d-done something to my ankle, because when I tried to stand up it hurt me so much that I f-fainted. Indeed, I did not mean to be troublesome again!’
‘No, of course you did not!’ he said soothingly. ‘Put your arm round my neck! I am going to carry you to the curricle, and then we’ll see what can be done.’
But although, when he had set her gently in her place, one glance at her ankle was enough to inform him that the first thing to be done was to remove her boot, a second glance, at her face, equally certainly informed him that to subject her to this added pain would cause her to faint again. He untethered the horses, and led them back on to the road, telling Nan curtly that he was going to drive her to Hungerford.
‘Duke!’ she uttered imploringly.
Sir Charles looked round impatiently, found Duke at his feet, and, grasping him by the scruff of his neck, handed him up to his mistress.
The short distance that separated them from Hungerford was covered in record time. Miss Massingham endured the anguish of the journey with a fortitude that touched her protector, even contriving to utter a small, gallant jest. Sir Charles, lifting her down, and carrying her into the Bear Inn, said: ‘There, my poor child! You will soon be easier, I promise! You are a good, brave girl!’
