Sprig Muslin Read online

  Amanda had not bargained for this bucolic character, and for a moment she hesitated, not quite knowing whether to advance, or to draw back. The youth, catching sight of her, stood staring, allowing both his jaw, and the empty crate he was holding, to drop. If Amanda had been unprepared to see him, he was even more unprepared to see, emerging from the Red Lion, such a vision of beauty as she presented to his astonished gaze.

  ‘Hush!’ commanded Amanda, in a hissing whisper.

  The youth blinked at her, but was obediently silent.

  Amanda cast a wary look towards the kitchen-window. ‘Are you going to take that cart away?’ she demanded.

  His jaw dropped lower; he nodded.

  ‘Well, will you let me ride in it, if you please?’ She added, as she saw his eyes threaten to start from their sockets: ‘I am escaping from a Deadly Peril! Oh, pray make haste, and say I may go in your cart!’

  Young Mr Ninfield’s head was in a whirl, but his mother had impressed upon him that he must always be civil to members of the Quality, so he uttered gruffly: ‘You’re welcome, miss.’

  ‘Not so loud!’ begged Amanda. ‘I am very much obliged to you! How shall I climb into it?’

  Young Mr Ninfield’s gaze travelled slowly from her face to her gown of delicate muslin. ‘It ain’t fitting!’ he said, in a hoarse whisper. ‘There’s been tatties in it, and a dozen pullets, and a couple o’ bushels o’ kindling!’

  ‘It doesn’t signify! If you could lift me into it, I can cover myself with those sacks, and no one will see me. Oh, pray be quick! The case is quite desperate! Can’t you lift me?’

  The feat was well within Mr Ninfield’s power, but the thought of picking up this fragile beauty almost made him swoon. However, she seemed quite determined to ride in his cart, so he manfully obeyed her. She was feather-light, and smelled deliciously of violets. Mr Ninfield, handling her with all the caution he would have expended on his mother’s best crockery, suffered another qualm. ‘I don’t like to!’ he said, holding her like a baby in his muscular arms. ‘You’ll get your pretty dress all of a muck!’

  ‘Joe!’ suddenly called Mrs Sheet, from within the house. ‘Joe!’

  ‘Quickly!’ Amanda urged him.

  Thus adjured, Mr Ninfield gave a gulp, and tipped her neatly into the cart, where she instantly lay down on the floor, and became screened from his bemused gaze by the sides of the cart.

  ‘The pickled cherries for your ma, Joe!’ screeched Mrs Sheet, from the kitchen-window. ‘If I hadn’t well-nigh forgot them! Wait, now, till I fetch the jar out to you!’

  ‘Do not betray me!’ Amanda implored him, trying to pull the empty sacks over herself.

  Mr Ninfield was astonished. Mrs Sheet, besides being a lifelong crony of his mother’s, was his godmother, and he had always looked upon her as a kindly and benevolent person. As she came out into the yard, he almost expected to find that she had undergone a transformation, and was relieved to see that her plump countenance was still as good-natured as ever. She handed a covered jar to him, bidding him take care to keep it the right way up. ‘And mind you give my love to your ma, and thank her for the eggs, and tell your pa Sheet would have settled for the kindling, and that, only that he’s serving a gentleman,’ she said. ‘We’ve got Quality in the house: a very fine-seeming gentleman, and the prettiest young lady you ever did see! Likely she’s his niece. Poor lamb, she was took ill in the carriage, and is laid down in my best chamber at this very moment.’

  Mr Ninfield did not know what to reply to this, but as he was generally inarticulate his godmother set no particular store by his silence. She gave him a resounding kiss, repeated her injunction to take care of the pickled cherries, and went back into the house.

  Mr Ninfield picked up the empty crate, and peeped cautiously over the side of the cart. From its floor a pair of bright, dark eyes questioned him. ‘Has she gone?’ whispered Amanda.

  ‘Ay.’

  ‘Then pray let us go too!’

  ‘Ay,’ said Mr Ninfield again. ‘I’ll have to put this crate in – if convenient, miss.’

  ‘Yes, pray do so! And I will hold the jar for you,’ said Amanda obligingly.

  Matters being thus satisfactorily arranged, Mr Ninfield went to the horse’s head, and began to lead the placid animal out of the yard, on to the road. The wheels of the cart being shod with iron, Amanda was considerably jolted, but she made no complaint. The horse plodded along the road in a westerly direction, Mr Ninfield walking beside it, pondering deeply the extraordinary adventure that had befallen him. His slow but profound cogitations caused him, at the end of several minutes, to say suddenly: ‘Miss!’

  ‘Yes?’ replied Amanda.

  ‘Where would you be wishful I should take you?’ enquired Mr Ninfield.

  ‘Well, I am not perfectly sure,’ said Amanda. ‘Is there anyone in sight?’

  ‘No,’ replied Mr Ninfield, having stared fixedly up and down the road for a moment or two.

  Reassured on this point, Amanda knelt up, and looked down at her rescuer over the side of the cart. ‘Where are you going yourself?’ she asked chattily.

  ‘Back home,’ he replied. ‘Leastways –’

  ‘Where is your home? Is it on this road?’

  He shook his head, jerking his thumb towards the south. ‘Whitethorn Farm,’ he explained laconically.

  ‘Oh!’ Amanda looked thoughtfully at him, considering a new scheme. A slow tide of bashful crimson crept up to the roots of his hair; he smiled shyly up at her, and then looked quickly away, in case she should be affronted. But the smile decided the matter. ‘Do you live there with your mother?’ asked Amanda.

  ‘Ay. And me dad. It’s Dad’s farm, and Granfer’s afore him, and me great-granfer’s afore him,’ he said, becoming loquacious.

  ‘Would your mother let me stay there for a little while, do you think?’

  This brought his head round again. He had not the smallest notion of what his mother’s views might be, but he said ecstatically: ‘Ay!’

  ‘Good!’ said Amanda. ‘It so happens that I never thought of it before, but I now see that the thing for me to do is to become a dairymaid. I should like it of all things! I daresay you could teach me how to milk a cow, couldn’t you?’

  Mr Ninfield, dazzled by the very thought of teaching a fairy princess to milk a cow, gulped, and uttered once again his favourite monosyllable: ‘Ay!’ He then fell into a daze, from which he was recalled by the sight of an approaching vehicle. He pointed this out to Amanda, but she had seen it already, and had disappeared from view. He gave it as his opinion that she had best remain hid until they reached the lane leading, by way of the village of Keyston, to Whitethorn Farm. Fortunately, since she found it extremely uncomfortable to crouch on the floor of the cart, this was not very far distant. As soon as Mr Ninfield told her that they had left the post-road, she bobbed up again, and desired him to lift her down, so that she could ride on the shaft, as he was now doing.

  ‘For it smells of hens on the floor,’ she informed him, ‘besides being very dirty. Do you think your mother would be vexed if we ate some of these pickled cherries? I am excessively hungry!’

  ‘No,’ said Mr Ninfield, for the second time recklessly committing his parent.

  Nine

  At the end of half an hour, Mr Theale consulted his watch. He thought that he would give Amanda a little longer, and took himself and his cigarillo out on to the road. There was nothing much to be seen there, and after strolling up and down for a few minutes he went back into the inn, where the landlord met him with the offer of a slice or two of home-cured ham, by way of a nuncheon. It was not yet noon, but Mr Theale had partaken of breakfast at an unwontedly early hour, and the suggestion appealed strongly to him. He disposed of several slices of ham, followed these up with a generous portion of cheese, dug from the centre of a ripe Stilton