Arabella by Georgette Heyer Read Free Book Online Page A

friend’s house in a hackney! We shall have to contrive a little, Sophia. Now, let me see!”
    He sat staring into the fire for some minutes, while his sister-in-law pensively gazed out of the window, and tried not to let her mind dwell on what her sensitive husband’s feelings must be, could he but have had the least idea of what she was doing.
    “I’ll tell you what, sister!” said the Squire suddenly. “I’ll send Arabella to London in my travelling-carriage, that’s what I’ll do! No sense in wasting money on posting: it don’t matter to the girl if she spends some time on the road. What’s more, those post-chaises can’t take up all the baggage I’ll be bound Bella will have with her. Ay, and this governess of yours will have a box as well, I daresay.”
    “Your travelling carriage!” exclaimed Mrs. Tallant, rather startled.
    “That’s it. Never use it myself: it hasn’t been out of the coachhouse since my poor Eliza died. I’ll set the men on to furbish it up: it ain’t one of these smart, newfangled barouches, but it’s a handsome carriage—I bought it for Eliza, when we were first married, and it has my crest on the panel. You would not be comfortable, sending the girl off with strange post-boys, you know: much better to let my old coachman drive her, and I’ll send one of the grooms along to sit up beside him, with a pistol in his pocket in case of highwaymen.” He rubbed his hands together, well-pleased with the scheme, and began to estimate how many days it would take a strong pair of horses—or, at a pinch, even four—to reach London without getting knocked-up. He was inclined to think the plan would answer very well, and that Arabella would not at all object to resting the nags a day here or there upon the road. “Or she might travel by easy stages, you know!” he said.
    Upon reflection, Mrs. Tallant perceived that this plan had much to recommend it. Against the evils of lingering in the various posting-houses along the route, must be set the advantages of being driven by a steady, trustworthy coachman, and of being able, as the Squire had pointed out, to carry all the trunks and bandboxes in the carriage, instead of having to send them to town by carrier. She thanked him, therefore, and was still expressing the sense of her obligation to him when the young ladies came back into the room.
    The Squire greeted Arabella with great joviality, pinching her cheek, and saying: “Well, puss, this is a new come-out for you, eh? I’ll swear you’re in high gig! Now, here’s your mother and I have been putting our heads together, and the long and the short of it is you are to go to London in prime style, in your poor aunt’s carriage, and Timothy-coachman to drive you. How will that be, my lass?”
    Arabella, who had very pretty manners, thanked him, and said everything that was proper. He appeared pleased, told her she might give him a kiss, and he would be satisfied, and suddenly walked out of the room, adjuring her to wait, for he had a little something for her. When he came back, he found his visitors ready to take their leave of him. He shook hands warmly with them all, and pressed into Arabella’s a folded banknote, saying: “There! that is to buy yourself some fripperies with, puss!”
    She was quite overcome, for she had not expected anything of the sort; coloured, and stammered that he was by far too kind. He liked to be thanked, and beamed at her, and pinched her cheek again, very well satisfied with himself and her.
    “But, Mama,” said Sophia, when they were driving away from the Hall, “you will never let poor Arabella go to town in that antiquated carriage of my uncle’s!”
    “Nonsense!” replied her mother. “It is a very respectable carriage, and if it is old-fashioned I daresay it is none the worse for that. No doubt you would rather see her dash off in a chaise-and-four, but it would cost as much as fifty or sixty pounds, besides what one must give the postilions,