Aunt Sophie's Diamonds (27 page)

"You haven't mentioned it to mama."

"I shall speak to your mama this very day. And I shall speak to
you,
too, alone, as soon as I have seen her.” He arose and began strolling to the door.

"Must you leave so soon?” she asked.

"I can't in good faith eat Jonathon's stringy mutton after the way I treated him this morning. And I can't carry you off with me to Chanely, much as I would like to. I must see Fletcher. More developments in the case. Can I count on you to evade Jonathon's importunities?"

"Yes, I'll run and hide if I see him coming."

"Good girl, and if he finds you, tell him you are already taken, and your lover is a fiend of jealousy."

She looked a question at him. “I wouldn't like to tell him such a plumper,” she replied.

He laughed lightly. “With six of the seven deadly sins under your belt, I wonder you should stick at that. And it isn't a plumper, either. When do you think your mama and the Trump will be back?"

"By midafternoon I believe. They left around ten."

"I'll be back around three or four then, to speak to your mother."

"I'll try to cheer Loo up till you get here."

She went with him to the outer door, where he stood with one hand on the handle looking at her, as if he were loth to leave. “Practice your lines, Claudia,” he said. He took her hand and raised it to his lips, kissing each of her fingers in a row, then he turned and left, closing the door quietly after him.

She stood a few moments transfixed, before hopping to the saloon to have a view of his back as he rode away. ‘Practice your lines,’ he had said. The only interpretation she could put on his words was so marvelous she didn't dare think it. It was not possible she had worked that smooth, elegant gentleman up to such a pitch he meant to propose to her. She, a tall, plain, old girl who had nothing to do with style but a craving for it.

She went to her room to consider in privacy, with a rose shawl about her shoulders, every detail of their acquaintance. She could find no allusion to marriage but the words he had said before departing. ‘Nasty strings’ and ‘moving her into his house bag and baggage,’ being ‘resigned’ to her mother and the flintlike face he wore every time he heard of her being slighted were not even considered. She dwelt instead on his tall and handsome figure, his noble-looking face, his two beautiful palaces with their multitude of servants, of the diamonds of the first water he brought to Chanely in ever-changing variety, and was sure she had misunderstood his meaning. She wouldn't let herself believe anything else, for the disappointment of being wrong would surely kill her.

She didn't go belowstairs till Miss Bliss called her for luncheon. Entertaining Loo was completely forgotten, but when her cousin failed to come to the table for luncheon, she went upstairs to get her and received an unpleasant shock. Luane was not in her room.

Upon her return from Chanely Saturday morning, Luane Beresford did precisely as Sir Hillary supposed she would do—went to her room to write a letter to her dilatory lover, chastising him and his guardian. She did not like writing letters. She knew exactly what she wanted to say, but somehow the words that ended up on her page, much crossed out and very unevenly aligned, did not express her thoughts. Before she had half a sheet filled, she had succeeded only in aggravating her feelings, not giving vent to them. She squashed the messy sheet into a ball, threw it into a corner, and jumped up from her chair. She put her ten pounds in the reticule, donned her riding hat and gloves, and let herself out the back way to go to the stables.

It was eleven o'clock. Gabriel would just be leaving Maldon for Cambridge. On a previous occasion when he had missed the post by a few minutes, Sir Hillary had dashed him on to the next stop—Witham it was. She would hasten to Witham and have a few words with Gab before he left. He would hear the full budget of his uncle's iniquity, and if there was an ounce of pluck in him, he wouldn't stand for it. Just what he would do in the five minutes she might have to see him she didn't know, but she couldn't sit still and do nothing. In her mind she may have realized she wouldn't see him at all, but in her heart and in her fancy she envisioned a passionate meeting.

Maldon seemed a very long way off, and when she reached it, she was much of a mind to turn back, but there she heard the encouraging news that the post had been side-swiped not a mile out of town by a young buck playing hunt the squirrel, and had had to stop and send back to the village for a wheeler. Very likely it wasn't more than a mile ahead of her. With the cheerful prospect of shouting at someone, she urged her mount on to a faster pace. She didn't overtake the post, but various carriages loomed ahead of her that
might
have been it for all she could see through their dust, and in this fashion she got three-quarters of the way to Witham. Then she did see the post and slackened her pace to stay just behind it.

Gabriel, in a deep fit of the sullens, had no notion of getting down to stretch his legs at Witham, and Loo had to go to the carriage and request him to do so. “I have an urgent message from home,” she added, to put a good face on it before the other passengers. His astonishment, upon learning the truth, was exceeded only by his anger. How came she to do such a harebrained thing, he asked. Before she could defend herself, the driver was urging Tewksbury to take his seat. Then he realized it was impossible to leave a young lady unattended eighteen miles from home on a fagged animal, and very likely without a penny in her pocket.

"There's another buck here is looking for a seat if you've a mind to wait for the stage,” the driver said impatiently.

"Oh, very well,” Gabriel replied, and the seat was sold. “I'll have to poke along on the stage now,” he said to Loo, who was cheered to learn she would have two whole hours with her lover.

The local inn provided their joint necessities of a place to converse in private and a meal. With Sir Hillary a good, safe, eighteen miles away, they again hired a private parlor. Money was no problem—Luane had her ten pounds, and Gab too had money from his uncle. An hour passed pleasantly in abusing their guardian, then they went to stroll about the village till the stage came.

"Your horse will be fagged by the time you get home,” Gabriel commented.

"I'll just dawdle along and will likely be home before dark."

The word ‘dark’ made him suddenly aware of the ineligibility of the scheme, and before he was through lecturing her, she had been called a mad woman for chasing after him, even in broad daylight.

"If I had known you only meant to abuse me, I wouldn't have,” she returned. “It's clear you wouldn't have done as much for
me.
I suppose Sir Hillary has been running me down to you."

"Certainly not! He blamed me for the whole."

"Then you should be flattered."

"I am, but dammit, Loo, how are you to get back? The whole house will be in an uproar by now if you didn't tell anyone you were coming."

"Nobody will notice. None of them cares a straw about me,” she said, letting a whine creep into her voice.

"Sir Hillary will notice."

"Him again! You never think of
me.
I'll be lucky if I ever get home at all this night. I'll likely be waylaid by highwaymen or assaulters of some sort."

"We'll hire a chaise and pair for you right now, before the stage leaves."

She objected to such a foolish waste of money, but when they got to the local stables there wasn't a chaise or pair or even a gig or whisky to be had.

"It will have to be the stage for you, too, then,” Gab decided, unsure whether he did the right thing to put an unchaperoned lady on the stage, but very sure he did not wish to face his uncle again that day, in view of the strong words that had blistered his ears that morning. At least, it was a short trip for her. At their next stop at the office of the stage, they met discouraging news. Every seat was booked, and to clinch the matter, all customers were present, as the vehicle was leaving in minutes. The next was at midnight, and entirely inappropriate for a lady traveling alone.

These enquiries ate up so much of their time that Gabriel's stage came and left without his even making an inquiry, and they were stranded at Witham, with only one tired nag between them. In a fit of depression, Gabriel suggested walking home, with the hope that some kind stranger might pick them up.

"Walk,
and us with nearly thirty pounds between us?” Luane asked in astonishment. “Don't be such a gawk. We'll find a private carriage for rent."

This quickly proved unfeasible. The one gentleman Gab had the fortitude to put the proposition to laughed in his face. “We'll start walking,” he told Loo in a commanding tone. “It's only eight miles to Maldon—won't take more than a couple of hours if we hustle. We can rent something there."

"There's a little village half-way to Braintree—only a few miles away. Let's go there instead,” she countered.

"It's in the wrong direction. If there's nothing to rent there, we're farther from home than ever."

This detail was quickly talked down as no reason at all, and before he knew what had happened, she was on her nag, being led towards Braintree by himself. Between the mount's slow gait and stopping every time a carriage rumbled past, cloaking them in dust, it was some two hours before they reached the little village, only to discover it boasted no stable at all.

"I guess it must have been somewhere else I thought I saw a stable,” she said wearily.

It was now five o'clock. They were miles from home, with no means of conveyance, tired, dirty, and hungry. With Luane, the last named was the first attended to, and they went directly to the only public place—a small, disreputable inn with no private parlor. They ate an unappetizing meal in near silence. Gabriel's mind was roving over the nonexistent possibilities of coming out of the affair with honor, and Luane's was wondering where they should sleep for the night.

"This is the only inn in town. We'll have to put up here for the night,” she told him.

"This is no place for a lady.” The boisterous company, mostly masculine, was becoming interested in the pretty young lady who sat eying them nervously, and began making comments.

"I know it isn't. That huge man with the fierce mustachios is looking at me. You'll have to speak to him, Gab."

Gabriel turned and intercepted a leering look from a man a foot taller and twice as broad as himself, and at least ten years older. “We'd better leave,” he said.

She went reluctantly with him, and as they left, a gentleman got up and followed them. Gabriel was prepared for the worst, and was relieved to see the fellow was old, and not so very large. He proved not to be after Luane at all, but only concerned for their safety. After a few polite preliminaries, he gave them some good advice.

"I advise you to go directly to the rectory,” he said. “The rector will be happy to put you up for the night. It won't do to put the young lady up at the inn. An unsavory place at the best of times, and on a Saturday night..."

The rectory proved to be only a quarter of a mile away, and they had both just enough strength to haul themselves to it and throw their weary bodies on the rector's mercy. All was arranged speedily and satisfactorily. The young lady would sleep with the rector's daughter, and the gentleman would have the spare room. Tomorrow he would escort them to Witham and try for a chaise, or if necessary take them to Maldon himself. It was such a relief to Gabriel that he felt in the few moments between his head hitting the pillow and the arrival of sleep that he had rubbed through pretty well. Given the circumstances, he didn't see what his uncle could charge him with.

After the youngsters had gone early to bed, the rector turned to his wife and said with a sage nod, “There'll be a set of angry parents after that pair of runaways before morning, or I miss my bet."

"They seem very young to be getting married,” she answered.

"They do surely, but when it comes to running away and being away overnight, there's nothing for it but to have them decently married. I'll have out my book and brush up on the ceremony. They'll want it done before the young lady is taken home in disgrace. Aye, and wanting
today's
date on the certificate, which I don't hold with."

"Where's the harm, dear?” his wife replied, handing him the book of services to peruse while she sat in happy reminiscence of her own wedding day twenty years previously.

Claudia flew into the dining room all in a flutter when she saw her cousin's room to be empty, but Miss Bliss made little of it. “She's gone for a canter to get rid of her temper. Does it all the time. She'll be in better curl when she comes back."

"I'm surprised she'd miss lunch,” Claudia replied.

"She's got her purse full for a change. She'll run over to Billericay and fill up on sweets. She's quite a baby still."

"Does Sir Hillary allow her to ride about all alone?"

"He's only just become her guardian,” Miss Bliss pointed out. “Sophie allowed her to ride between here and Chanely alone, and she occasionally sneaked over to the village. Everyone knows her, and it's safe enough."

Claudia was satisfied with this, but after lunch she went to the stables to make sure the mount was gone. She was told Miss Beresford had set off for Chanely, which was along the road to Billericay, but a little later when she had still not returned, Claudia went to her cousin's room. Remembering Jonathon's remarks the previous evening about an elopement, she began to fear that possibility. But the closets held all their customary garments, and on that score at least she could be easy.

As she returned belowstairs, her mama and the Trump were tooling up to the doorway in a magnificent carriage—black, drawn by four black horses, and escorted by two outriders, though they had only been to Maldon. Such a cavalcade stunned Miss Milmont, and she ran to her mama to compliment her on such high style.

"How grand you and the—Mr. Blandings look. Quite like royalty, in such a carriage. Do you always travel so grandly, Mr. Blandings?"