The Nonesuch

This put Tiffany in mind of something which, in her large dreams of the future, she had overlooked. Never having travelled except in the company of some older person, who made all the arrangements, she was ignorant of where, and under what conditions, post-chaises were to be hired; or, failing this, the only mode of travel to which she was accustomed, how one obtained a seat on the stage, or the Mail; and at what hour these humbler conveyances left Leeds for London. She stole a glance at Laurence’s profile, and decided that it would be necessary to enlist his help. It might require some coaxing to obtain it; but she could not doubt that he was one of her more fervent admirers. Courtenay had jeered at her for being taken in by a fortune-hunter, and if Courtenay was right in thinking that the exquisite Mr Calver was hanging out for a rich wife she thought that it would not be difficult to persuade him to render her a signal service. She directed him to the King’s Head, adding that she would like some lemonade, and that there were several private parlours to be hired at this hostelry.

Laurence was perfectly ready to regale her with lemonade, but he thought it quite unnecessary, and even undesirable, to hire a private parlour. However, since she seemed to take it for granted that he would do so, he kept his objections to himself. But when, in the inn’s yard, he picked up her bandbox, it occurred to him that it was extraordinarily heavy. When Tiffany had first handed it up to him, he had been too much astonished by her festal raiment to pay any heed to the weight of the bandbox, but he now directed a look at her which was sharp with suspicion, and said: “Very heavy, this dress of yours, ain’t it?”

“Well, there are some other things in the box,” she confessed.

“I should rather think there must be! Seems to me there’s something pretty smokey going on, and if there is—”

“I am going to explain it to you!” she said hastily. “But in private, if you please!”

He regarded her with misgiving; but before he could say more she had flitted away from him, into the inn; and it was not until they had been ushered into the same parlour which Lindeth had hired for his memorable nuncheon-party that he was able to demand the explanation.

Tiffany bestowed upon him her most devastating smile, and said simply: “Well, I told you a bouncer! It isn’t a ball-dress. It’s—oh, all manner of things! I am going to London!”

“Going to London?” repeated Laurence blankly.

She fixed her glorious eyes to his face in a melting look. “Will you escort me?”

Mr Calver’s carefully arranged locks were too lavishly pomaded to rise on end, but his eyes showed a tendency to start from their sockets. He replied, unequivocally: “Good God, no! Of course I won’t!”

“Then I must go alone,” said Tiffany mournfully.

“Have you taken leave of your senses?” demanded Laurence.

She sighed. “You must know I haven’t. I am going to—to seek the protection of my Uncle James Burford.”

“What do you want that for?” asked Laurence, unimpressed.

“I am very unhappy,” stated Tiffany. “My aunt has not used me as she should. Or Ancilla!”

Mr Calver’s intelligence was not generally thought to be of a high order, but he had no difficulty in interpreting this tragic utterance. He said gloomily, and with a regrettable want of tact: “Lindeth’s offered for the parson’s daughter, has he? Oh, well! I guessed as much! No use going to London, though: he wouldn’t care a straw!”

“Nor do I care a straw!” declared Tiffany, her eyes flashing. “That’s not why I am determined—determined!—to go to my uncle!”

“Well, it don’t signify,” said Laurence. “You can’t go to London today, that’s certain!”

“I can, and I will!”

“Not with my help,” said Laurence bluntly.

No one had ever responded thus to Tiffany’s demands; and it cost her a severe struggle to keep her temper. “I should be very grateful to you!” she suggested.

“I daresay you would,” he replied. “Much good that would do me! Lord, what an after-clap there would be if I was to do anything so ramshackle as to drive off to London with a chit of your age—and nothing but a dashed bandbox between the pair of us!” he added, looking with profound disapproval at this object.

“I didn’t mean we should go in the whisky! How can you be so absurd? A post-chaise, of course!”

“Yes, and four horses as well, no doubt!”

She nodded, surprised that he should have thought it necessary to have asked.

Her innocent look, far from captivating Laurence, exasperated him. “Have you the least notion what it would cost?” he demanded.

“Oh, what can that signify?” she exclaimed impatiently. “My uncle will pay for it!”

“Very likely, but he ain’t here,” Laurence pointed out.

“He will pay all the charges when I reach London.”