The LadyShip (18 page)

While Ned went to supervise the care of their horses,
therefore, she clumsily, although not unkindly, offered to
assist Clarissa in whatever way she might. This young lady,
however, remaining where Ned had unceremoniously
dumped her on the quilt-covered bed, had assumed a
thoughtful expression, and when Mrs Judson leaned solici
tously over her, she regarded the landlady speculatively and then sat up, clutching her by the sleeve.

“Oh, thank you!” she exclaimed in a desperate whisper
and with a suddenly frightened appeal in her green eyes.
“Please—you must help me to get away. You see, that gen
tleman... That is, I am being abducted!”

A light covering
of snow lay over the Oxford road, but it
was scarcely deep enough to impede the progress of a less
soundly constructed vehicle than Her Ladyship.

Miss Bennett, Mr Allingham, Lord Vernon Dudley, and—
after some dispute among rival claimants for the honour—
small Willy (in borrowed finery), riding postilion, had set
off from Newbury after consuming a fortifying tea consist
ing of steak, eggs, two kinds of pudding (sweet and sa
voury), ale, and coffee. Lucy, closely followed by the
puppylike Felix, had put herself in charge of waiting on the
travellers—or at any rate on the gentlemen, for it was longer than usual before Elinor appeared in the coffee-room,
dressed for travel. Lucy had observed with interest that her
sister had taken particular care with her toilette, arranging
her chestnut locks in a softer style and donning her best fur-
trimmed cloak and lined half-boots to match. She had
greeted Mr Allingham and Lord Vernon calmly, but when,
she caught Lucy’s questioning gaze on her, she reddened
slightly and only nodded without speaking to her as she
poured coffee for herself.

The general consensus, arrived at over the tea-table, was
that the runaways were more likely to have turned north
from Hungerford than to have taken the Newbury–Oxford
road and that it was therefore unnecessary to halt before
Oxford to make enquiries after them. Lord Vernon had
elected to drive this first stage of the journey—”to get it
over with”—thus leaving Miss Bennett and Mr Allingham
together in the coach for a longer period than either of
them was quite comfortable about.

Elinor had made up her mind before leaving The LadyShip that she would confess her suspicion—nay, her cer
tainty, for she would have to put it so—that it was her
brother who had eloped with Clarissa Dudley. She had
been encouraged at The LadyShip by Allingham’s increasingly cordial behaviour towards her to think that he would
forgive her for her deception—if not Ned for his. However,
once enclosed in the coach with him, she was dismayed to find him withdrawing again and treating her, at best, with strict formality.

She had not yet reached the complete realisation that Allingham regarded Clarissa’s flight in the light of a deliver
ance rather than a disaster—certainly not yet any inkling that she herself was more on his mind than his late unlamented betrothed, or that her own reputation was of some
concern to him.

As a result of this mutual misunderstanding, silence
reigned inside Her Ladyship for some miles. A good deal of time was passed in gazing out of the windows at the unre
lenting, if yet insignificant, fall of snow, but it was presently
too dark even to pretend to discern any alteration in this
steady accumulation. Miss Bennett then busied herself with
lighting the night lamps suspended on hooks from either
side of the spacious coach. Mr Allingham observed that she
did this as if they were still at the inn and she were merely
going about her normal evening duties. He was about to
venture a remark to this effect, but something more than
normally daunting in her manner prevented him from
doing so.

“I must congratulate you again, Miss Bennett, for your
coach,” he said rather. “It is an admirable contraption—
well-sprung and doubtless easy to handle, as we shall hear
from Vernon. It is also remarkably draft-free for a vehicle
that has had no breaking-in period.”

“Thank you, sir,” replied Miss Bennett from the opposite
corner. “It is indeed untested, but hardly unproved, Mr
Nash and my brother having put a great deal of thought into
every joint and joist. I am glad that you do not share Lord Vernon’s opinion of her as—what was his phrase?—the
misbegotten offspring of a packet boat by the Royal Mail.”

Allingham laughed at that, almost excessively, she
thought, but at least he was no longer so stiffly correct to
wards her. She then had the happy notion to offer him one
of the fur lap rugs stored in an open shelf fitted into the
extra-long front section of the coach. Since he was sitting
facing back, he turned to pull the rugs out for her—to find,
curled up on one of the rugs, a darker ball of fur, which emitted a sleepy
mrau
when he disturbed it.

“Miss Bennett, I believe we have a stowaway!”

“Oh, good heavens—it’s Boney.”

“Undoubtedly. Somehow I cannot be surprised,” Allingham
said, pulling a limp feline out of his hiding-place and
offering him to Elinor. “Take him, ma’am, if you please. I
believe I have had enough of posing as a cushion for this
presumptuous animal.”

Elinor relieved him of Boney, and when she had spread
one of the rugs over her skirts, she put her cat down on her
own lap, where he curled up contentedly to resume his
nap.

“Fickle creature!” Allingham said with a smile. “He must
be acquainted with our Clarissa.”

His smile vanished suddenly when he realised what he
had said. Elinor, mortified for him, looked away, but then made up her mind that there would never be an auspicious
moment to say what she had to.

“Mr Allingham—” she began.

“Please, Miss Bennett, forgive me. I did not mean to bur
den you with my personal...indiscretions.”

“No, sir, you misunderstand what I was about to say.” She paused, gave Boney a stroke to steady herself, and
went on, “I must tell you that I know who Miss Dudley has
eloped with.’

He raised an eyebrow; his blue eyes seemed to look into
her mind and read it, but she said the words just the same.
“It is my brother, Ned.”

There was a pause before he said, dispassionately, “May I
ask how you know this, ma’am?”

She told him, ending with, “I know that does not sound
like positive evidence that it is Ned, but... well, we are
twins, you see. I know when something this important
about him is true. I know also that there is no way to ade
quately apologise to you for his actions, except to say he had no personal animosity towards you. I am certain, in
deed, that he had no knowledge of you—that is, of your re
lationship to Miss Dudley.”

“Your apology is unnecessary, Miss Bennett. I will haz
ard a guess that Mr Bennett knew all about me—or all that
Clarissa might have told him—but that it was Clarissa who
instigated this entire escapade.”

“In that case, I am sorry for his ill manners in consid
ering it necessary—whatever Miss Dudley may have told
him.”

A smile twitched at the corners of Allingham’s mouth. “I
beg you, Miss Bennett, let us leave off apologising to each other. Now that we have relieved ourselves of our individ
ual embarrassments, there should be no need of it.”

Elinor could not help smiling at this, and drew an an
swering twinkle from Allingham’s eyes. There was another
pause of several minutes, however—during which both
passengers again looked out their respective windows at
the impenetrable greyness outside—before either of them
ventured another word. It was Allingham who next broke the silence.

“About my...er, relationship with Miss Dudley,
ma’am—”

“I assure you, sir, there is no need at all for you to explain
it to me.”

“On the contrary, Miss Bennett, as it appears that this ep
isode may well end in your brother’s marrying my be
trothed, I believe you have every right to know the story. I
am assuming—having had no previous inkling of Clarissa’s
intentions in the matter—that there was an understanding
between her and your brother before ever I made an offer
to her, and that it was that offer which precipitated this ad
venture. I have no notion why she accepted me under
those circumstances, nor why she thought me such an ogre
that she could not confide in me.”

“I am certain she could not have thought anything of the
kind!” Elinor stated emphatically, but then found herself
blushing at her own vehemence. He had looked so genu
inely puzzled—and, Elinor imagined, even a little hurt— that she had been moved to reassure him before fully con
sidering in what light such a firm recommendation of his
character might place her. He looked at her curiously, but
fortunately said no more than, “Indeed.”

After a moment, however, he went on, “Of course, Cla
rissa is, like her esteemed mama, somewhat prone to
dramatising things, I suppose she imagined herself making
some sort of sacrifice for love—even if not for love of me.”

Elinor found her voice again. “She
is
making a sacrifice. I
cannot imagine that her family will look favourably on any
sort of a match with my brother, runaway or no.”

“Can he not support a wife?”

“Yes, I suppose he can, but—”

“Is he a wastrel, a gambler, a loose screw? Does he drink
or hold up mail coaches?”

“No, of course not!”

“Then the family will come around in time. Besides, Ver
non will support them.”

“Lord Vernon? Why should he?”

Allingham smiled. “For the very reason that he needn’t do it. Vernon is an incurable romantic—he specialises in
runaway marriages and unsuitable connexions. The other
side of the matter, of course, is your family, Miss Bennett.
What will they think of it?”

“I’m afraid there isn’t any ‘they’. My father died two years
ago, and Ned is head of the family now. My sister will be de
lighted with anything he chooses to do, and I
...
Well, I
have not had the privilege of meeting Miss Dudley, but I’m
sure that if Ned loves her, I shall too.”

“Well, don’t lose hope,” Allingham said, a little drily.
“You may not have to live with her.”

It was as well that a sudden lurch in the motion of the
coach just at that moment succeeded in extinguishing Elinor’s lamp—and disturbing Boney’s rest—for she could think of no adequate reply to this provocative statement and was saved from the necessity of venturing an interpretation of it by Mr Allingham’s replacing the cat on the shelf containing the lap rugs, and then searching
for the tinder-box to relight the lamp for her. This was found in one of a number of cabinets with sliding doors
that contained, among other useful items, a spyglass, a port
folio of writing materials, and a barometer fitted into the
shaft of a walking-stick. Mr Allingham examined this for a
moment but said it told him nothing he could not discover
for himself by putting his head outside for two seconds,
and stowed it away again.

He moved over to Elinor’s side of
the coach to unhook her lamp. Elinor made a move to slide
out of his way, but he had left her nowhere to go. He felt
her stiffen slightly and paused in the act of raising the glass
shield on the lamp to glance down at her, but she did not
meet his look. He finished his chore and rehung the lamp, but did not move away again immediately. Elinor became
c
onscious of the passage of several very long seconds, dur
ing which she fixed her eyes first on the sleeve of his coat, then on the panelling beyond his ear—noting also the way
his close-cropped hair curled in tight symmetrical curves
down the nape of his neck—and, at last, on his face. He was
smiling.

“Believe me, Miss Bennett, there is nothing I should like
more than to take advantage of my position at this moment,
but I am not in the habit of embarrassing ladies with my more ungentlemanly impulses. You needn’t look quite so
much like a frightened hare.”