‘Well, I must say I think it will be very amusing,’ Pen admitted. ‘Because – why, what is the matter, sir?’
Sir Richard had covered his eyes with one hand. ‘You think it will be very amusing! Good God!’
‘Oh, now you are laughing at me again!’
‘Laughing! I am recalling my comfortable home, my ordered life, my hitherto stainless reputation, and wondering what I can ever have done to deserve being pitchforked into this shameless imbroglio! Apparently, I am to go down to history as one who not only possessed a cousin who was a monster of precocious depravity, but who actually aided and abetted him in attempting to seduce a respectable young female.’
‘No, no!’ said Pen earnestly. ‘Nothing of the kind, I assure you! I have it all arranged in the best possible way, andyourpart will be everything of the most proper!’
‘Oh, well, inthatcase –!’ said Sir Richard, lowering his hand.
‘Now I know you are laughing at me! I am going to be the only son of a widow.’
‘The unfortunate woman has all my sympathy.’
‘Yes, because I am very wild, and she can do nothing with me. That is why you are here, of course. I cannot but see that I don’t look quite old enough to be an eligible suitor. Do you think I do, sir?’
‘No, I don’t. In fact, I should not be surprised if Lydia’s parent were to arrive with a birch-rod.’
‘Good gracious, how dreadful! I never thought of that! Well, I shall depend upon you.’
‘You may confidently depend upon me to tell Major Daubenay that his daughter’s story is a farrago of lies.’
Pen shook her head. ‘No, we can’t do that. I said just the same myself, but you must see how difficult it would be to persuade Major Daubenay that we are speaking the truth. Consider, sir! She told him that I had followed her here, and I must admit it looks very black, because Iwasin the spinney last night, and you know we cannot possibly explain the real story. No, we must make the best of it. Besides, I quite feel that we ought to help Piers, if he does indeed wish to marry such a foolish creature.’
‘I have not the slightest desire to help Piers, who seems to me to be behaving in a most reprehensible fashion.’
‘Oh no, indeed he cannot help it! I see that I had better tell you their whole story.’
Without giving Sir Richard time to protest, she launched into a rapid and colourful account of the young lovers’ tribulations. The account, being freely embellished with her own comments, was considerably involved, and Sir Richard several times interrupted it to crave enlightenment on some obscure point. At the end of it, he remarked without any noticeable display of enthusiasm: ‘A most affecting history. For myself, I find the theme of Montague and Capulet hopelessly outmoded, however.’
‘Well, I have made up my mind to it that there is only one thing for them to do. They must elope.’
Sir Richard, who had been playing with his quizzing-glass, let it fall, and spoke with startling severity. ‘Enough of this! Now, understand me, brat, I will engage to fob off the irate father, but there it must end! This extremely tedious pair of lovers may elope tomorrow for anything I care, but I will have no hand in it, and I will not permit you to have a hand in it either. Do you see?’
Pen looked speculatively at him. There was no smile visible in his eyes, which indeed looked much sterner than she had ever believed they could. Plainly, he would not lend any support to her scheme of eloping with Miss Daubenay herself. It would be better, decided Pen, to tell him nothing about this. But she was not one to let a challenge rest unanswered, and she replied with spirit: ‘You may do as you choose, but you havenoright to tell me what I must or must not do! It is not in the least your affair.’
‘It is going to be very much my affair,’ replied Sir Richard.
‘I don’t understand what you can possibly mean by saying anything so silly!’
‘I daresay you don’t, but you will.’
‘Well, we won’t dispute about that,’ said Pen pacifically.
He laughed suddenly. ‘Indeed, I hope we shan’t!’
‘And you won’t tell Major Daubenay that Lydia’s story was false?’
‘What do you want me to tell him?’ he asked, succumbing to the coaxing note in her voice, and the pleading look in her candid eyes.
‘Why, that I have been with my tutor in Bath, but that I was so troublesome that my Mama –’
‘The widow?’
‘Yes, andnowyou will understand why she is a widow!’
‘If you are supposed to favour your mythical father, I do understand. He perished on the gallows.’
