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Lydia said: ‘Well, if you don’t mind, I would prefer not to go to Gretna, because although it would be romantic I can’t help thinking it would be very uncomfortable. Besides, I couldn’t have any attendants, or a wedding-dress, or a lace veil, or anything.’

  ‘Don’t chatter!’ said Pen. ‘I am thinking.’

  Lydia was obediently silent.

  ‘We must soften your father’s heart!’ declared Pen at length.

  Lydia looked doubtful. ‘Yes, I should like that of all things, but how?’

  ‘Why, by making him grateful to Piers, of course!’

  ‘But why should he be grateful to Piers? He says Piers is a young cub.’

  ‘Piers,’ said Pen, ‘must rescue you from deadly peril.’

  ‘Oh no, please!’ faltered Lydia, shrinking. ‘I should be frightened! And just think how dreadful it would be if he didn’t rescue me!’

  ‘What a little goose you are!’ said Pen scornfully. ‘There won’t be any real danger!’

  ‘But if there is no danger, how can Piers –’

  ‘Piers shall rescue you from me!’ said Pen.

  Lydia blinked at her. ‘I don’t understand. How can Piers –’

  ‘Do stop saying “How can Piers”!’ Pen begged. ‘We must make your father believe that I am a penniless young man without any prospects at all, and then we will run away together!’

  ‘But I don’t want to run away with you!’

  ‘No, stupid, and I don’t want to run away with you! It will just be a Plot. Piers must ride after us, and catch us, and restore you to your Papa. And he will be so pleased that he will let you marry Piers after all! Because Piers has very good prospects, you know.’

  ‘Yes, but you are forgetting Sir Jasper,’ argued Lydia.

  ‘We can’t possibly be plagued by Sir Jasper,’ said Pen impatiently. ‘Besides, he is away. Now, don’t make any more objections! I must go back to the George, and warn Richard. And I will consult with Piers as well, and I daresay we shall have it all arranged in a trice. I will meet you in the spinney this evening, to tell you what you must do.’

  ‘Oh no, no, no!’ shuddered Lydia. ‘Not the spinney! I shall never set foot there again!’

  ‘Well, here, then, since you are so squeamish. By the way, did you tell your Papa the whole? I mean, how you saw Captain Trimble kill the stammering-man?’

  ‘Yes, of course I did, and he says I must tell it to Mr Philips! It is so dreadful for me! To think that my troubles had put it out of my head!’

  ‘What a tiresome girl you are!’ exclaimed Pen. ‘You should not have said a word about it! Ten to one, we shall get into a tangle now, because Richard has already told Mr Philips his story, and I have told him mine, and now you are bound to say something quite different. Did you mention Richard to your Papa?’

  ‘No,’ confessed Lydia, hanging her head. ‘I just said that I ran away.’

  ‘Oh well, in that case perhaps there will be no harm done!’ said Pen optimistically. ‘I am going now. I will meet you here again after dinner.’

  ‘But what if they watch me, and I cannot slip away?’ cried Lydia, trying to detain her.

  Pen had climbed on to the wall, and now prepared to jump down into the road. ‘You must think of something,’ she said sternly, and vanished from Miss Daubenay’s sight.

  When Pen reached the George Sir Richard had not only finished his breakfast, but was on the point of sallying forth in search of his errant charge. She came into the parlour, flushed and rather breathless, and said impetuously: ‘Oh, Richard, such an adventure! I have such a deal to tell you! All our plans must be changed!’

  ‘This is very sudden!’ said Sir Richard. ‘May I ask where you have been?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Pen, seating herself at the table, and spreading butter lavishly on a slice of bread. ‘I have been with that stupid girl. You would not believe that anyone could be so silly, sir!’

  ‘I expect I should. What has she been doing, and why did you go to see her?’

  ‘Well, it’s a long story, and most confused!’

  ‘In that case,’ said Sir Richard, ‘perhaps I shall unravel it more easily if you do not tell it to me with your mouth full.’

  Her eyes lit with laughter. She swallowed the bread-and-butter, and said: ‘Oh, I’m sorry! I am so hungry, you see.’

  ‘Have an apple,’ he suggested.

  She twinkled responsively. ‘No, thank you, I will have some of that ham. Dear sir, what in the world do you suppose that wretched girl did?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ said Sir Richard, carving several slices of the ham.

  ‘Why, she told her Papa that she had gone into the spinney last night to meet me!’

  Sir Richard laid down the knife and fork. ‘Good God, why?’

  ‘Oh, for such an idiotic reason that it is not worth recounting! But the thing is, sir, that her Papa is coming to see you about it this morning. She hoped, you see, that if she said she had been in the habit of meeting me clandestinely in Bath –’

  ‘In Bath?’ interrupted Sir Richard in a faint voice.

  ‘Yes, she said we had been meeting for ever in Bath, on account of her Great-Aunt Augusta, and not wishing to be sent there again. I quite understand that, but –’

  ‘Then your understanding is very much better than mine,’ said Sir Richard. ‘So far I have not been privileged to understand one word of this story. What has her Great-Aunt Augusta to do with it?’

  ‘Oh, they sent Lydia to stay with her, you see, and she did not like it! She said it was all backgammon and spying. I could not but feel for her over that, for I know exactly what she means.’

  ‘I am glad,’ said Sir Richard, with emphasis.

  ‘The thing is, that she thought if she told her Papa that she had met me clandestinely in Bath, he would not send her there again.’

  ‘This sounds to me remarkably like mania in an acute form.’

  ‘Yes, so it did to me. But there is worse to come. She says that instead of being angry, her Papa is inclined to be pleased!’

  ‘The madness seems to be inherited.’

  ‘That is what I thought, but it appears that Lydia told her Papa that my name was Wyndham, and now he thinks that perhaps she is on the brink of making a Good Match!’

  ‘Good God!’

  ‘I knew you would be surprised. And there is another circumstance too, which turns everything topsy-turvy.’ She glanced up fleetingly from her plate, and said with a little difficulty: ‘I discovered something which – which quite took me aback. She told me whom she went to meet in the wood last night.’

  ‘I see,’ said Sir Richard.

  She flushed. ‘Did you – did you know, sir?’

  ‘I guessed, Pen.’

  She nodded. ‘It was stupid of me not to suspect. To tell you the truth, I thought – However, it doesn’t signify. I expect you did not like to tell me.’

  ‘Do you mind very much?’ he asked abruptly.

  ‘Well, I – it – You see, I had it fixed in my mind that Piers – and I – So I daresay it will take me just a little while to grow accustomed to it, besides having all my plans overset. But never mind that! We have now to consider what is to be done to help Piers and Lydia.’

  ‘We?’ interpolated Sir Richard.

  ‘Yes, because I quite depend on you to persuade Lydia’s Papa that I am not an eligible suitor. That is most important!’

  ‘Do you mean to tell me that this insane person is com-ing here to obtain my consent to your marriage with his daughter?’

  ‘I think he is coming to discover how much money I have, and whether my intentions are honourable,’ said Pen, pouring herself out a cup of coffee. ‘But I daresay Lydia mistook the whole matter, for she is amazingly stupid, you know, and perhaps he is coming to co