‘Who cares?’ he returned. ‘I am not such a prosy old fellow as to be for ever thinking of what is the thing, I assure you!’ He glanced down at her profile. ‘You have never told me anything about yourself, Miss Wantage. I collect you are not related to Lady Saltash?’
‘No,’ she replied.
‘Forgive me if I seem to you impertinent! But I see you living a life that must be unsuited to one of your youth and natural spirits, and I –’
‘Lady Saltash is everything that is kind!’ she said. ‘Indeed, I am under no inconsiderable obligation to her, and if I have seemed to you to be ungrateful –’
‘Ungrateful! No, indeed! I have been much struck by your constant attentions to her. I have the greatest regard for Lady Saltash, but I cannot believe that you are happy in Camden Place.’
She was silent, her colour much heightened. After a short pause, he continued: ‘Do you mean to remain permanently in your present position?’
She started. ‘Oh, no! It would be impossible, for I have not the least claim on Lady Saltash! Already I feel that I have trespassed on her kindness for too long. I do not – I am not perfectly certain what I shall do, but you must know that I was trained to become a governess, and – and it was with the object of finding an eligible situation in some seminary that I came to Bath.’
‘A governess! You!’ he exclaimed. ‘You are not serious! You cannot mean me to believe that you wish for such an existence!’
A rather melancholy smile trembled on her lips. ‘Oh, no! I shall dislike it of all things! In fact, I once said that I would do anything rather than become one! But if I do find such a post perhaps it will not be so very bad after all.’
‘Have you no relatives to provide for you?’ he asked. ‘You are so young! Surely there must be someone – a guardian, perhaps – whose business it must be to take care of you?’
‘No, there is no one – at least, I have a cousin who gave me a home when my father died, but she could not house me for ever, you see, and to tell you the truth I did not like her, nor she me.’
‘I had not imagined that this could be so,’ he said, in a moved tone. ‘I had thought – This alters things indeed!’ He smiled, as she looked up enquiringly, and said: ‘No wonder you dream of romance and adventure! You should be called Cinderella, I think!’
Her mouth quivered. She replied: ‘It is odd that you should say so. I have sometimes thought that too. You do not know the whole, and I cannot tell it to you just now, though perhaps one day I may. I – I was very like Cinderella.’
‘Except that no Prince has yet come with a glass slipper for you to try on your foot!’ he said.
She was silent, her attention apparently fixed on the road ahead, her face still a little flushed. When she did speak, it was with a touch of constraint, and only to say that she fancied it must be time they were thinking of a return to Camden Place. He agreed at once, for he thought her embarrassment arose from maidenly shyness. He said gently: ‘Was it very dull and disagreeable in your cousin’s house, Cinderella?’
She smiled at that. ‘Yes, odiously dull! And she has three daughters, and they are all of them quite shockingly plain, though perhaps not plain enough to be called the Ugly Sisters!’
‘And did they go to parties while you stayed at home and swept out the kitchen?’
‘Well, not quite as bad as that, for I was not out, you know! I do think they were not always very kind to me, but I dare say it was tiresome for them to be obliged to have me.’
‘I hope they may every one of them die a spinster!’
‘Oh, no, how spiteful!’ she protested.
‘You dreamed of romance, and they made you a governess! I cannot forgive them! You must have your romance in despite of them! How would you like to be carried off, married out of hand, cosseted and cared for by a husband who would adore you – ah, the happy-ever-after ending, in effect? Is that not what you have dreamed of?’
‘All girls do,’ she said, in a constricted tone. ‘At least, when they are very young and foolish, they do. But – but real life is not quite like the fairy-tales.’
‘But you were made to live a fairy-tale life, and I am determined you must do so!’
She raised her candid eyes to his face, and said simply: ‘Please do not, Mr Tarleton! I know you are only funning, but – but I would rather you did not!’
‘I will do nothing to displease you,’ he promised. ‘Shall I see you at the Dress Ball at the Lower Rooms to-morrow night?’
‘I – I am not perfectly certain. I believe not.’
‘Oh, that is too unkind!’ he teased. ‘Did you not promise to let me put your name down for the minuet? I shall certainly do so before I leave Bath this evening. You will not be so cruel as to leave me without a lady to stand up with!’
She returned a light answer; he continued to talk easily on a number of trivial topics for the remainder of the drive; and set her down in Camden Place more enchanted than ever with her, and resolved upon a course of action fantastic enough to have appealed to the silliest damsel ever discovered between the marbled covers of a circulating library novel.
It was when Hero was returning on foot from Milsom Street, later in the afternoon, that she fell in with George. She had been executing a commission for Lady Saltash, and he at once relieved her of her parcel, and insisted on escorting her back to Upper Camden Place. They had just crossed Bennet Street when Sherry’s curricle swept round the corner from Belmont.His start, and the expression of frozen amazement on his face were not lost on Hero; and as it did not occur to her (or for that matter, to George) that his astonishment was due not so much to seeing her as her companion, the last shreds of hope that he might have come to Bath to search for her were banished from her mind. While Sherry was disentangling his curricle from the phaeton, she hurried on towards Russel Street, almost dragging George with her. Himself no mean whip, other considerations were momentarily lost with him in the contemplation of the wreckage Sherry had caused.
‘Well, of all the cow-handed things to do!’ he exclaimed.
