The Corinthian Read online

  ‘Pen! What things you do say!’ he exclaimed. ‘Only think ofyour situation, travelling all the way from London in Wyndham’s company, without even your maid to go with you! Why, you must marry him now!’

  She tilted her chin. ‘I don’t see that I must at all.’

  ‘Depend upon it, if you do not, he does. I must say, I think it excessively strange that a man of his years and – and milieu – should have wished to marry you, Pen.’ He realized his speech was scarcely complimentary, and hastened to add: ‘I don’t mean that precisely, only you are so much younger than he is, and such a little innocent!’

  She pounced on this. ‘Well, that is one very good reason why I need not marry him!’ she said. ‘He is so much older than I am that I daresay no one would think it in the smallest degree odd that we should have taken this journey together.’

  ‘Good Gad, Pen, he is not as old as that! What a strange girl you are! Don’t you wish to marry him?’

  She stared at him with puckered brows. She thought of Sir Richard, of the adventures she had encountered in his company, and of the laughter in his eyes, and of the teasing note in his voice. Suddenly she flushed rosily, and the tears started to her own eyes. ‘Yes. Oh, yes, I do!’ she said.

  ‘Well! But what is there to cry over?’ demanded Piers. ‘For a moment I quite thought – Now, don’t be silly, Pen!’

  She blew her nose defiantly, and said in somewhat watery accents: ‘I’m not crying!’

  ‘Indeed, I can’t conceive why you should. I think Wyndham a very good sort of man – a famous fellow! I suppose you will become very fashionable, Pen, and cut the deuce of a dash in town!’

  Pen, who could see no future beyond a life spent within the walls of her aunt’s respectable house, agreed to this, and made haste to direct the conversation into less painful channels.

  Although Keynsham was situated only a few miles distant from Queen Charlton, it was close on the dinner-hour when Piers set Pen down at the George Inn again. By this time, a post-chaise had been hired, and four good horses chosen to draw it, the whole being appointed to arrive at a rendezvous outside the gates of Crome Hall at half-past eleven that evening. Beyond a certain degree of anxiety concerning the extent of the baggage his betrothed would wish to bring with her, and some fears that her flight might be intercepted at the outset, Mr Luttrell had nothing further to worry about, as his guide and mentor frequently assured him.

  Pen would have liked to have been present at the fatal hour, but this offer Piers declined. They bade each other farewell, therefore, at the door of the George Inn, neither suffering the smallest pang at the notion that each was about to be joined in wedlock to another.

  Having waved a last good-bye to her old playmate, Pen went into the inn, and was met by Sir Richard, who looked her up and down, and said: ‘Abominable brat, you had better make a clean breast of the whole! Where have you been, and what mischief have you done?’

  ‘Oh, but I left a message for you!’ Pen protested. ‘Did they not give it to you, sir?’

  ‘They did. But the intelligence that you had gone off with young Luttrell merely filled me with misgiving. Confess!’

  She twinkled up at him. ‘Well, perhaps you will not be quite pleased, but indeed I did it all for the best, Richard!’

  ‘This becomes more and more ominous. I am persuaded you have committed some devilry.’

  She passed into the parlour, and went to the mirror above the fireplace to pat her crisp, dishevelled curls into order. ‘Not devilry, precisely,’ she demurred.

  Sir Richard who had been observing her in some amusement, said: ‘I am relieved. Yes, I think the sooner you put on your petticoats again the better, Pen. That is a very feminine trick, let me tell you.’

  She coloured, laughed, and turned away from the mirror. ‘I forgot. Well, it doesn’t signify, after all, for it seems to me that I have reached the end of my adventure.’

  ‘Not quite,’ he replied.

  ‘Yes, I have. You do not know!’

  ‘You look extremely wicked. Out with it!’

  ‘Piers and Lydia are going to elope to-night!’

  The laugh died out of his eyes. ‘Pen, is this your doing?’

  ‘Oh no, indeed it is not, sir! In fact, I had quite a different plan, only I dared not tell you, and, as a matter of fact, Piers did not think well of it. I wanted to abduct Lydia, so that Piers could rescue her from me, and so soften her Papa’s heart. However, I daresay you would not have approved of that.’

  ‘I should not,’ said Sir Richard emphatically.

  ‘No, that’s why I said nothing to you about it. In the end Lydia decided to elope.’

  ‘You mean that you bullied the wretched girl –’

  ‘I did not! You are most unjust, sir! On my honour, I did not! I don’t say that I didn’t perhaps put the notion into her head, but it was all the Major’s doing. He threatened to take her to Lincolnshire to-morrow morning and of course she could not support life there! Oh, here comes the waiter! I will tell you the whole story presently.’

  She retired to her favourite seat in the window while the covers were laid, and Sir Richard, standing with his back to the mighty fireplace, watched her. The waiter took his time over the preparations for dinner, and during one of his brief absences from the parlour, Pen said abruptly: ‘You were quite right: he has changed, sir. Only you were wrong about one thing: he does not think I have changed at all.’

  ‘I did not suspect him to be capable of paying you so pretty a compliment,’ said Sir Richard, raising his brows.

  ‘Well, I don’t think he meant it to be a compliment,’ said Pen doubtfully.

  He smiled but said nothing. The waiter came back into the room with a laden tray, and began to set various dishes on the table. When he had withdrawn, Sir Richard pulled a chair out for Pen, and said: ‘You are served, brat. Hungry?’

  ‘Not very,’ she replied, sitting down.

  He moved to his own place. ‘Why, how is this?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know. Piers is going to elope with Lydia at midnight.’

  ‘I trust that circumstance has not taken away your appetite?’

  ‘Oh no! I think they will deal famously together, for they are both very silly.’

  ‘True. What had you to do with their elopement?’

  ‘Oh, very little, I assure you, sir! Lydia made up her mind to do it without any urging from me. All I did was to hire the post-chaise for Piers, on account of his being well-known in Keynsham.’

  ‘I suppose that means that we shall be obliged to sustain another visit from Major Daubenay. I seem to be plunging deeper and deeper into a life of crime.’

  She looked up enquiringly. ‘Why, sir? You have done nothing!’

  ‘I am aware. But I undoubtedly should do something.’

  ‘Oh no, it is all arranged! There is truly nothing left to do.’

  ‘You don’t think that I – as one having reached years of discretion – might perhaps be expected to nip this shocking affair in the bud?’

  ‘Tell the Major, do you mean?’ Pen cried. ‘Oh, Richard, you would not do such a cruel thing? I am persuaded you could not!’

  He refilled his glass. ‘I could, very easily, but I won’t. I am not, to tell you the truth, much interested in the affairs of a pair of lovers whom I have found, from the outset, extremely tiresome. Shall we discuss instead our own affairs?’

  ‘Yes, I think we ought to,’ she agreed. ‘I have been so busy to-day I had almost forgot the stammering-man. I do trust, Richard, we shall not be arrested!’

  ‘Indeed, so do I!’ he said, laughing.

  ‘It’s very well to laugh, but I could see that Mr Philips did not like us at all.’

  ‘I fear that your activities disarranged his mind. Fortunately, news has reached him that a man wh