Corinthian Read online

‘Well, it is near Queen Charlton, not far from Keynsham, you know.’

  ‘I don’t,’ said Sir Richard. ‘This is your country, not mine. How far, in your judgment, is Queen Charlton from where we now are?’

  ‘I’m not entirely sure,’ replied Pen cautiously. ‘But I shouldn’t think it could be above fifteen, or, at the most twenty miles, going ’cross country.’

  ‘Are you proposing to walk twenty miles?’ said Sir Richard.

  ‘Well, I dare say it is not as much. As the crow flies, I expect it is only about ten miles off.’

  ‘You are not a crow,’ said Sir Richard damningly. ‘Nor, I may add, am I. Get up from that portmanteau!’

  She rose obediently. ‘I think I could quite well walk twenty miles. Not all at once, of course. What are we going to do?’

  ‘We are going to retrace our steps along the road until we come to an inn,’ replied Sir Richard. ‘As I remember, there was one, about a couple of miles back. Nothing would induce me to make one of this afflictive coach-party!’

  ‘I must own, I am a little tired of them myself,’ admitted Pen. ‘Only I won’t go to a posting-house!’

  ‘Make yourself easy on that score!’ said Sir Richard grimly. ‘No respectable posting-house would open its doors to us in this guise.’

  This made Pen giggle. She put forward no further opposition, but picked up the cloak-bag, and set out beside Sir Richard in the direction of Chippenham.

  None of the coach-passengers noticed their departure, since all were fully occupied, either in reviling the coachman, or in planning their immediate movements. The bend in the road soon shut them off from sight of the coach, and Sir Richard then said: ‘And now you may give me that cloak-bag.’

  ‘Well, I won’t,’ said Pen, holding on to it firmly. ‘It is not at all heavy, and you have your portmanteau to carry already. Besides, I feel more like a man every moment. What shall we do when we reach the inn?’

  ‘Order supper.’

  ‘Yes, and after that?’

  ‘Go to bed.’

  Pen considered this. ‘You don’t think we should set forward on our journey at once?’

  ‘Certainly not. We shall go to bed like Christians, and in the morning we shall hire a conveyance to carry us to Queen Charlton. A private conveyance,’ he added.

  ‘But –’

  ‘Pen Creed,’ said Sir Richard calmly, ‘you cast me for the rôle of bear-leader, and I accepted it. You drew a revolting picture of me which led everyone in that coach to regard me in the light of a persecutor of youth. Now you are reaping the harvest of your own sowing.’

  She laughed. ‘Are you going to persecute me?’

  ‘Horribly!’ said Sir Richard.

  She tucked a confiding hand in his arm, and gave a little skip. ‘Very well, I will do as you tell me. I’m very glad I met you: we are having a splendid adventure, are we not?’

  Sir Richard’s lips twitched. Suddenly he burst out laughing, standing still in the middle of the road, while Pen doubtfully surveyed him.

  ‘But what is the matter with you?’ she asked.

  ‘Never mind!’ he said, his voice still unsteady with mirth. ‘Of course we are having a splendid adventure!’

  ‘Well, I think we are,’ she said, stepping out beside him again. ‘Piers will be so surprised when he sees me!’

  ‘I should think he would be,’ agreed Sir Richard. ‘You are quite sure that you don’t regret coming in search of him, I suppose?’

  ‘Oh yes, quite! Why, Piers is my oldest friend! Didn’t I tell you that we made a vow to be married?’

  ‘I have some recollection of your doing so,’ he admitted. ‘But I also recollect that you said you hadn’t seen him for five years.’

  ‘No, that is true, but it doesn’t signify in the least, I assure you.’

  ‘I see,’ said Sir Richard, keeping his inevitable reflections to himself.

  They had not more than two miles to go before they reached the inn Sir Richard had seen from the window of the coach. It was a very small hostelry, with a weather-beaten sign creaking on its chains, a thatched roof, and only one parlour, besides the common tap-room.

  The landlord, upon hearing of the breakdown of the stage-coach, accepted the travellers’ unconventional arrival without surprise. It was growing dark by this time, and it was not until Sir Richard had stepped into the inn, and stood in the light of a hanging lamp, that the landlord was able to obtain a clear view of him. Sir Richard had chosen for the journey a plain coat and serviceable breeches, but the cut of the blue cloth, the high polish on his top-boots, the very style of his cravat, and the superfluity of capes on his drab over-coat all proclaimed so unmistakably the gentleman of fashion that the landlord was obviously taken aback, and looked from him to Pen with considerable suspicion.

  ‘I shall require a bedroom for myself, and another for my nephew,’ said Sir Richard. ‘Also some supper.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Did your honour say you was travelling on the Bristol-stage?’ asked the landlord incredulously.

  ‘Yes,’ said Sir Richard raising his brows. ‘I did say so. Have you any objection?’

  ‘Oh no, sir! no, I’m sure!’ replied the landlord hastily. ‘Your honour said supper! I’m afraid we – we aren’t in the habit of entertaining the Quality, but if your honour would condescend to a dish of ham and eggs, or maybe a slice of cold pork, I’ll see to it on the instant!’

  Sir Richard having graciously approved the ham and eggs, the landlord bowed him into the stuffy little parlour, and promised to have the only two guest-chambers the inn possessed immediately prepared. Pen, directing a conspiratorial look at Sir Richard, elected to follow the portmanteau and the cloak-bag upstairs. When she reappeared a slatternly maid-servant had spread supper on the table in the parlour, and Sir Richard had succeeded in forcing open two of its tiny windows. He turned, as Pen came in, and asked: ‘What in heaven’s name have you been doing all this time? I began to think you had deserted me.’

  ‘Desert you! Of course I wouldn’t do anything so silly! The thing was, I could see the landlord had noticed your clothes, so I thought of a famous tale to tell him. That’s why I went off with him. I knew he would try to discover from me why you were travelling on the stagecoach.’

  ‘And did he?’

  ‘Yes, and I told him that you had had reverses on ’Change and had fallen on evil times,’ said Pen, drawing up her chair to the table.

  ‘Oh!’ said Sir Richard. ‘Was he satisfied with that?’

  ‘Perfectly. He said he was very sorry. And then he asked where we were bound for. I said, for Bristol, because all the family had lost its money, and so I had had to be taken away from school.’

  ‘You have the most fertile imagination of anyone of my acquaintance,’ said Sir Richard. ‘May I ask what school you have been gracing?’

  ‘Harrow. Afterwards I wished I had said Eton, because my cousin Geoffrey is at Harrow, and I don’t like him. I wouldn’t go to his school.’

  ‘I suppose it is too late to change the school now,’ Sir Richard said, in a regretful tone.

  She looked up quickly, her fascinating smile crinkling the corners of her eyes. ‘You are laughing at me.’

  ‘Yes,’ admitted Sir Richard. ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘Oh no, not a bit! No one laughs in my aunt’s house. I like it.’

  ‘I wish,’ said Sir Richard, ‘you would tell me more about this aunt of yours. Is she your guardian?’

  ‘No, but I have had to live with her ever since my father died. I have no real guardian, but I have two trustees. On account of my fortune, you understand.’

  ‘Of course, yes: I was forgetting your fortune. Who are your trustees?’

  ‘Well, one is my uncle Griffin – Aunt Almeria’s husband, you know – but he doesn’t signify, beca