The Corinthian Read online

  ‘Would that be Sir Jasper Luttrell, sir?’

  ‘Yes, indeed, we are going on a visit to him.’

  The landlord was plainly shaken. Sir Jasper was apparently well-known to him; on the other hand Sir Richard was not. He cast him a doubtful, sidelong look, and slowly shook his head.

  ‘Well, if you won’t let out your gig on hire, I suppose I shall have to buy it,’ said Sir Richard.

  ‘Buy my gig, sir?’ gasped the landlord, staggered.

  ‘And the horse too, of course,’ added Sir Richard, pulling out his purse.

  The landlord blinked at him. ‘Well, I’m sure, sir! If that’s the way it is, I don’t know but what I could let you drive the gig over yourself – seeing as how you’re a friend of Sir Jasper. Come to think of it, I won’t be needing it for a couple of days. Only you’ll have to rest the old horse afore you send him back, mind!’

  Sir Richard raised no objection to this, and after coming to terms with an ease which led to the landlord’s expressing the wish that there were more gentlemen like Sir Richard to be met with, the travellers had only to wait until the cob had been harnessed to the gig, and led round to the front of the inn.

  The gig was neither smart nor well-sprung, and the cob’s gait was more sure than swift, but Pen was delighted with the whole equipage. She sat perched up beside Sir Richard, enjoying the hot sunshine, and pointing out to him the manifold superiorities of the Somerset countryside over any other county.

  They did not reach Queen Charlton until dusk, since the way to it was circuitous, and often very rough. When they came within sight of the village, Sir Richard said: ‘Well, brat, what now? Am I to drive you to Sir Jasper Luttrell’s house?’

  Pen, who had become rather silent during the last five miles of their drive, said with a little gasp: ‘I have been thinking that perhaps it would be better if I sent a message in the morning! It is not Piers, you know, but, though I did not think of her at the time, it – it has occurred to me that perhaps Lady Luttrell may not perfectly understand…’

  Her voice died away unhappily. She was revived by Sir Richard’s saying in matter-of-fact tones: ‘A very good notion. We will drive to an inn.’

  ‘The George was always accounted the best,’ offered Pen. ‘I have never actually been inside it, but my father was used to say its cellars were excellent.’

  The George was discovered to be an ancient half-timbered hostelry with beamed ceilings, and wainscoted parlours. It was a rambling house, with a large yard, and many chintz-hung bedrooms. There was no difficulty in procuring a private parlour, and by the time Pen had washed the dust of the roads from her face, and unpacked the cloak-bag, her spirits, which had sunk unaccountably, had begun to lift again. Dinner was served in the parlour, and neither the landlord nor his wife seemed to recognize in the golden-haired stripling the late Mr Creed’s tomboyish little girl.

  ‘If only my aunt does not discover me before I have found Piers!’ Pen said, helping herself to some more raspberries.

  ‘We will circumvent her. But touching this question of Piers, do you – er – suppose that he will be able to extricate you from your present difficulties?’

  ‘Well, he will have to, if I marry him, won’t he?’

  ‘Undoubtedly. But – you must not think me an incorrigible wet blanket – it is not precisely easy to be married at a moment’s notice.’

  ‘Isn’t it? I didn’t know,’ said Pen innocently. ‘Oh well, I dare say we shall fly to Gretna Green then! We used to think that would be a splendid adventure.’

  ‘Gretna Green in those clothes?’ enquired Sir Richard, levelling his quizzing-glass at her.

  ‘Well, no, I suppose not. But when Piers has explained it all to Lady Luttrell, I expect she will be able to get some proper clothes for me.’

  ‘You do not entertain any doubts of Lady Luttrell’s – er – receiving you as her prospective daughter-in-law?’

  ‘Oh no! She was always most kind to me! Only I did think that perhaps it would be better if I saw Piers first.’

  Sir Richard, who had so far allowed himself to be borne along resistless on the tide of this adventure, began to perceive that it would shortly be his duty to wait upon Lady Luttrell, and to give her an account of his dealings with Miss Creed. He glanced at that young lady, serenely finishing the last of the raspberries, and reflected, with a wry smile, that the task was not going to be an easy one.

  A servant came in to clear away the dishes presently. Pen at once engaged him in conversation and elicited the news that Sir Jasper Luttrell was away from home.

  ‘Oh! But not Mr Piers Luttrell?’

  ‘No, sir, I saw Mr Piers yesterday. Going to Keynsham, he was. I do hear as he has a young gentleman staying with him – a Lunnon gentleman, by all accounts.’

  ‘Oh!’ Pen’s voice sounded rather blank. As soon as the man had gone away, she said: ‘Did you hear that, sir? It makes it just a little awkward, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Very awkward,’ agreed Sir Richard. ‘It seems as though we have now to eliminate the gentleman from London.’

  ‘I wish we could. For I am sure my aunt will guess that I have come home, and if she finds me before I have found Piers, I am utterly undone.’

  ‘But she will not find you. She will only find me.’

  ‘Do you think you will be able to fob her off ?’

  ‘Oh, I think so!’ Sir Richard said negligently. ‘After all, she would scarcely expect you to be travelling in my company, would she? I hardly think she will demand to see my nephew.’

  ‘No, but what if she does?’ asked Pen, having no such dependence on her aunt’s forbearing.

  Sir Richard smiled rather sardonically. ‘I am not, perhaps, the best person in the world of whom to make – ah – impertinent demands.’

  Pen’s eyes lit with sudden laughter. ‘Oh, I do hope you will talk to her like that, and look at her just so ! And if she brings Fred with her, he will be quite overcome, I dare say, to meet you face to face. For you must know that he admires you excessively. He tries to tie his cravat in a Wyndham Fall, even!’

  ‘That, in itself, I find an impertinence,’ said Sir Richard.

  She nodded, and lifted a hand to her own cravat. ‘What do you think of mine, sir?’

  ‘I have carefully refrained from thinking about it at all. Do you really wish to know?’

  ‘But I have arranged it just as you did!’

  ‘Good God!’ said Sir Richard faintly. ‘My poor deluded child!’

  ‘You are teasing me! At least it was not ill enough tied to make you rip it off my neck as you did when you first met me!’

  ‘You will recall that we left the inn in haste this morning,’ he explained.

  ‘I am persuaded that would not have weighed with you. But you put me in mind of a very important matter. You paid my reckoning there.’

  ‘Don’t let that worry you, I beg.’

  ‘I am determined to pay for everything myself,’ Pen said firmly. ‘It would be a shocking piece of impropriety if I were to be beholden for money to a stranger.’

  ‘True. I had not thought of that.’

  She looked up with her sudden bright look of enquiry. ‘You are laughing at me again!’

  He showed her a perfectly grave countenance. ‘Laughing? I?’

  ‘I know very well you are. You may make your mouth prim, but I have noticed several times that you laugh with your eyes.’

  ‘Do I? I beg your pardon!’

  ‘Well, you need not, for I like it. I would not have come all this way with you if you had not had such smiling eyes. Isn’t it odd how one knows if one can trust a person, even if he is drunk?’

  ‘Very odd,’ he said.

  She was hunting fruitlessly through her pockets. ‘Where can I have put my purse? Oh, I think I must have