was judged expedient for Pen to pretend to be, instead of my affianced wife, my young cousin.”
“To be sure, yes! of course!” said Piers, mystified, but overborne by the Corinthian’s air of assurance.
“By now,” said Sir Richard, “we should be on our way back to London, had it not been for two unfortunate circumstances. For one of these, you, I must regretfully point out to you, are responsible.”
“I?” gasped Piers.
“You,” said Sir Richard, releasing Pen’s hand. “The lady to whom you, I apprehend, are secretly betrothed, has, in a somewhat misguided attempt to avert suspicion from the truth informed her parent that Pen is the man with whom she had an assignation in the spinney last night.”
“Yes, Pen told me that. Indeed, I wish she had not done it, sir, but she is so impulsive, you know!”
“So I have been led to infer,” said Sir Richard. “Unhappily, since I am for the present compelled to remain in Queen Charlton, her impulsiveness has rendered our situation a trifle awkward.”
“Yes, I see that,” owned Piers. “I am very sorry for it, sir. But must you remain here?”
“Yes,” replied Sir Richard. “No doubt it has escaped your memory, but a murder was committed in the spinney last night. It was I who discovered Brandon’s body, and conveyed the news to the proper quarter.”
Piers looked troubled at this, and said: “I know, sir, and I do not like it above half! For, in point of fact,
“I hope you did not?”
“No, because it is so excessively awkward, on account of Miss Daubenay’s presence in the spinney! But if she has said that she went there to meet Pen—”
“You had better continue to preserve a discreet silence, my dear boy. The knowledge that you also were in the spinney would merely confuse poor Mr Philips. You see, I have the advantage of knowing who killed Brandon.”
“I think,” said Pen judicially, “we ought to tell Piers about the diamond necklace, sir.”
“By all means,” agreed Sir Richard.
The history of the diamond necklace, as recounted by Miss Creed, made Mr Luttrell forget for a few moments his graver preoccupations. He seemed very much more the Piers of her childhood when he exclaimed: “What an adventure!” and by the time he had described to her his surprise at receiving a visit from Beverley, whom he had known but slightly up at Oxford; and had exchanged impressions of Captain Horace Trimble, they were once more upon very good terms. Sir Richard, who thought that his own interests would best be served by allowing Pen uninterrupted intercourse with Mr Luttrell, soon left them to themselves; and after Piers had once more felicitated Pen on her choice of a husband—felicitations which she received in embarrassed silence—the talk soon returned to his own difficulties.
She listened to his enraptured description of Miss Daubenay with as much patience as she could muster, but when he begged her not to divulge her sex to the lady for fear lest her nice sense of propriety might suffer too great a shock, she was so much incensed that she was betrayed into giving him her opinion of Miss Daubenay’s morals and manners. A pretty squabble at once flared up, and might have ended in Piers’ stalking out of Pen’s life for ever had she not remembered, just as he reached the door, that she had engaged herself to further his pretensions to Lydia’s hand.
It took a few moments’ coaxing to persuade him to relax his air of outraged dignity, but when it was borne in upon him that Lydia had summoned Pen to her side that morning, he did seem to feel that such forward conduct called for an explanation. Pen waved his excuses aside, however. “I don’t mind that, if only she would not cry so much!” she said.
Mr Luttrell said that his Lydia was all sensibility, and deprecated, with obvious sincerity, a suggestion that a wife suffering from an excess of sensibility might prove to be a tiresome acquisition. As he seemed to feel that the support of Lydia was his life’s work, Pen abandoned all thought of trying to wean him from his attachment to the lady, and announced her plans for his speedy marriage.
These palpably took Mr Luttrell aback. Lydia’s refusal to elope with him he regarded as natural rather than craven, and when Pen’s false-abduction scheme was enthusiastically described to him he said that she must be mad to think of such a thing.
“I declare I have a good mind to wash my hands of the whole affair!” said Pen. “Neither of you has the courage to make the least push in the matter! The end of it will be that your precious Lydia will be married to someone else, and then you will be sorry!”
“Oh, don’t suggest such a thing!” he begged. “If only my father would be a little conciliating! He used to like the Major well enough before they quarrelled.”
“You must soften the Major’s heart.”
“Yes, but how?” he asked. “Now, don’t, pray, suggest any more foolish abduction schemes, Pen! I daresay you think them very fine, but if you would but consider the difficulties! No one would ever believe we had not planned it all, because if she eloped with you she would not then wish to marry me, now, would she?”
“No, but we could say that I had forcibly abducted her. Then you could rescue her from me.”
“How should I know that you had abducted her?” objected Piers. “And just think what a pucker everyone would be in! No, really, Pen, it won’t answer! Good God, I should have to fight a duel with you, or something of that nature! I mean, how odd it would look if all I did was to take Lydia home!”
“Well, so we could!” said Pen, her eyes brightening, as new horizons swam into her ken. “I could have my arm in a sling, and say that you had wounded me! Oh, do let us, Piers! It would be such a famous adventure!”
“You don’t seem to me to have changed in the least!” said Piers, in anything but a complimentary tone. “You are the most complete hand indeed! I cannot conceive how you came to be betrothed to a man of fashion like Wyndham! You know, you will have to mend your ways! In fact, I cannot conceive of your being married at all! You are a mere child.”
Another quarrel might at this point have sprung up between them, had not Sir Richard come back into the room just then, with Mr Philips in his wake. He was looking faintly amused, and the instant expression of extreme trepidation which transformed the countenances of the youthful couple by the window made his lips twitch involuntarily. However, he spoke without a tremor in his voice. “Ah, Pen! Would you explain, if you please, your— er—owl story, to Mr Philips?”
“Oh!” said Pen, blushing furiously.
The magistrate looked severely across at her. “From the information I have since received, young man, I am forced to the conclusion that your story was false.”
Pen glanced towards Sir Richard. Instead of coming to her rescue, he smiled maliciously, and said: “Stand up, my boy, stand up, when Mr Philips addresses you!”
“Oh yes, of course!” said Pen, rising in a hurry. “I beg pardon! My owl-story! Well, you see, I did not know what to say when you asked why I had not been with my cousin last night.”
“Did not know what to say! You had only one thing to say, and that was the truth!” said Mr Philips austerely.
“I could not,” replied Pen. “A lady’s reputation was at stake!”
“So I am informed. Well, I do not say that I do not sympathize with your motive, but I must warn you, sir, that any further prevarication on your part may lead to serious trouble. Serious trouble! I say nothing of your conduct in meeting Miss Daubenay in a manner I can only describe as clandestine. It is no concern of mine, no concern at all, but if you were a son of mine—However, that is neither here nor there! Fortunately—” He cast a reproachful glance at Sir Richard—“fortunately, I repeat, Miss Daubenay’s evidence corroborates the information that this shocking crime was perpetrated by a person corresponding with the description furnished me of the man Trimble. Were it not for this circumstance—for I will not conceal from you that I am far from being satisfied! Very far indeed! You must permit me to say, Sir Richard, that your presence in the spinney last night points to your having positively aided and abetted your cousin in his reprehensible—But I am aware that
“No, no, you have it wrong!” Pen assured him. “My cousin was searching for me! In fact, he was very angry with me for going to the spinney, were you not, Richard?”
“I was,” admitted Sir Richard. “Very.”
“Well, the whole affair seems to me very strange!” said Philips. “I will say no more than that
“You behold me—er—stricken with remorse,” said Sir Richard.
