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  ‘You have had the courage to spurn a match of mere worldly brilliance. A match which, I daresay, would have been welcome to any lady less highminded than yourself. Let me venture to say that you have done just as you should: nothing but misery, I am persuaded, could result from an alliance between yourself and a fashionable fribble.’

  ‘Poor Sir Gareth! I fear you are right, Mr Whyteleafe: I should make him such an odiously dull wife, should I not?’

  ‘A man of his frivolous tastes might think so,’ he agreed. ‘To a man of more serious disposition, however – But on this head I must not, at present, say more.’

  He then made her a bow, looking at her in a very speaking way, and withdrew, leaving her hovering between amusement and consternation.

  Her sister-in-law, who had not failed to mark the exchange, from the other end of the Long Gallery, where the party had assembled after dinner, did not hesitate, later, to ask her what had been said. ‘For if he had the effrontery to speak to you about this offer your papa has received, I hope you gave him a sharp set-down, Hetty! Such presumption! But there! I don’t doubt your papa egged him on. I promise you I made no bones about telling him that capping hounds to a scent won’t do in this case.’

  ‘Thank you: that was kind. But Mr Whyteleafe didn’t try to persuade me. Indeed, he said that he had told my father he would not, which I thought very courageous in him.’

  ‘Ay, that was what made Lord Brancaster as sulky as a bear. I’ll tell you what, Hetty: you’ll do well to accept Ludlow’s offer before Widmore puts it into your father’s head that you mean to have a beggarly parson for your husband.’

  ‘But I don’t,’ said Hester.

  ‘Lord, I know that! But I have eyes in my head, and I can see that Whyteleafe is growing extremely particular in his attentions. The devil of it is that Widmore has seen it too, and you know what a slowtop he is, my dear! Your father’s another. I don’t doubt he said something to put you in a tweak.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ Hester said calmly.

  ‘At all events, he told you Ludlow was still moping for that girl he was betrothed to the deuce knows how many years ago!’ said Lady Widmore bluntly. ‘If you take my advice, you won’t heed him! I never saw a man less in the dumps that Ludlow.’

  ‘No, indeed. Or a man less in love,’ remarked Hester.

  ‘What of it? I can tell you this, Hetty: it ain’t so often that persons of our station marry for love. Look at me! You can’t suppose I was ever in love with poor Widmore! But I never took, any more than you did, and when the match was proposed to me I agreed to it, because there’s nothing worse for a female than to be left on the shelf.’

  ‘One grows accustomed to it,’ Hester said. ‘Can you believe, Almeria, that Sir Gareth and I should – should suit?’

  ‘Lord, yes! Why not? If the chance had been offered to me, I should have jumped out of my skin to snatch it!’ responded Lady Widmore frankly. ‘I know you don’t love him, but what’s that to the purpose? You think it over carefully, Hetty! You ain’t likely to receive another offer, or, in any event, not such an advantageous one, though I daresay Whyteleafe will pop the question, as soon as he gets preferment. Take Ludlow, and you’ll have a handsome fortune, a position of the first consequence, and an agreeable husband into the bargain. Send him to the rightabout, and you’ll end your days an old maid, let alone be obliged to listen to your father’s and Widmore’s reproaches for ever, if I know anything of the matter!’

  Hester smiled faintly. ‘One grows accustomed to that too. I have sometimes thought that when Papa dies I might live in quite a little house, by myself.’

  ‘Well, you won’t,’ said Lady Widmore trenchantly. ‘Your sister Susan will pounce on you: I can vouch for that! It would suit her very well to have you with her to wait on her hand and foot, and very likely act as governess to all those plain brats of hers as well! And Widmore would think it a first-rate scheme, so you’d get no support from him, or from Gertrude or Constance either. And it’s not a particle of good thinking you’d stand out against ’em, my dear, for you haven’t a ha’porth of spirit! If you want a home of your own, you’ll take Ludlow, and bless yourself for your good fortune, for you won’t get one by any other means!’

  With these encouraging words, Lady Widmore took herself off to her own bedchamber, pausing on the way to inform her lord that provided he and his father could keep still tongues in their heads she rather fancied she had done the trick.

  The Lady Hester, once her maid was dismissed, the candles blown out, and the curtains drawn round her bed, buried her face in the pillow and cried herself quietly to sleep.

  Three

  Three days later, Sir Gareth, in happy ignorance of the wretched indecision into which his proposal had thrown his chosen bride, left London, and pursued a rather leisurely progress towards Cambridgeshire. He drove his own curricle, with a pair of remarkably fine match-bays harnessed to it, and broke the journey at the house of some friends, not many miles from Baldock, where he remained for two nights, resting his horses. He took with him his head groom, but not his valet: a circumstance which disgusted that extremely skilled gentleman more than it surprised him. Sir Gareth, who belonged to the Corinthian set, was always very well dressed, but he was quite capable of achieving the effect he desired without the ministrations of the genius who had charge of his wardrobe; and the thought that alien hands were pressing his coats, or applying inferior blacking to his Hessian boots, caused him to feel no anguish at all.

  He was not expected at Brancaster Park until the late afternoon, but since the month was July, and the weather sultry, he set forward for the remainder of the journey in good time, driving his pair at an easy pace, and pausing to bait, when some twenty miles had been accomplished, in the village of Caxton. The place boasted only one posting-house, and that a modest one; and when Sir Gareth strolled into the coffee-room he found the landlord engaged in what appeared to be a somewhat heated argument with a young lady in a gown of sprig muslin, and a hat of chip-straw, which was tied becomingly over a mass of silken black locks.

  The landlord, as soon as he perceived an obvious member of the Quality upon the threshold, abandoned the lady without ceremony, and stepped forward, bowing, and desiring to know in what way he might have the honour of serving the newcomer.

  ‘It will be time enough to serve me when you have attended to this lady,’ replied Sir Gareth, who had not failed to remark the indignant expression in the lady’s big eyes.

  ‘Oh, no, sir! No, indeed! I am quite at liberty – very happy to wait upon your honour immediately!’ the landlord assured him. ‘I was just telling the young person that I daresay she will find accommodation at the Rose and Crown.’

  These words were added in a lowered voice, but they reached the lady’s ears, and caused her to say in a tone of strong disapprobation: ‘I am not a young person, and if I wish to stay in your horrid inn, I shall stay here, and it is not of the least use to tell me that you have no room, because I don’t believe you!’

  ‘I’ve told you before, miss, that this is a posting-house, and we don’t serve young per – females – who come walking in with no more than a couple of bandboxes!’ said the landlord angrily. ‘I don’t know what your lay is, nor I don’t want to, but I haven’t got any room for you, and that’s my last word!’

  Sir Gareth, who had retired tactfully to the window-embrasure, had been watching the stormy little face under the chip-hat. It was an enchantingly pretty face, with large, dark eyes, a lovely, wilful mouth, and a most determined chin. It was also a very youthful face, just now flushed with mortification. The landlord plainly considered its owner to be a female of no account, but neither the child’s voice nor her manner, which was decidedly imperious, belonged to one of vulgar birth. A suspicion that she was a runaway from some seminary for young ladies crossed Sir Gareth’s mind: he judged her to be about the same age as his niece;