By the time they reached Basingstoke there were four sovereigns for the youth; and if he was sweating, it was nothing to which the horses were doing. They dripped and trembled and steamed, foam-flecked from mane to tail. Pamela’s green purse was considerably lighter; but it had been worth it. The fat dappled greys which had trotted off with my Lady Selina and Mr. Bellairs that morning were even now being led out of the shafts. A comfortable trot they had come at, to judge by their untroubled appearance.
“Yes, Miss,” said the formidable-looking landlady who ruled at the Angel, Basingstoke, and who, no doubt, found a distinct growth of beard and a bass voice as useful to her if not more than the support of any man. “A lady and a gentleman are partaking of refreshment in the parlour. And what might you be wanting with them?”
Her eye, small and fierce as a wild boar’s, appraised the new guest up and down.
Pamela saw that travelling alone she was suspect; she had an inspiration.
“I am Lady Selina’s own woman,” she said pertly. “Her Ladyship expects me. Kindly direct me.”
She had seen too many lady’s maids not to be able to play the part: she was now the fashionable Abigail to the life—plausible, supple, sure of herself; her gaze was challenging; her air deferential, yet on the verge of insolence.
The bearded landlady shrugged her shoulders, and told the drawer to bring Miss into Britannia.
“You needn’t knock, young man, I will announce myself,” said Pamela. She tapped discreetly with her nails on the panel just beneath the figure with the trident; then, without waiting for a reply, opened the door.
In one swift glance she took in the scene: the Mad Brat did not seem to be getting on any better with Mr. Bellairs than she had with either her Colonel or her Baronet. She was seated, her elbows on the table, her chin in her hand. With frowning brows, a fixed and angry stare, flushed cheeks and pouting lips, she was the image of “Beauty in a rage.” Mr. Bellairs was pacing the room with his hands behind his back; and he, too, the very incarnation of bad temper.
The milliner did not give herself time to reflect whether the obvious tension betokened good or evil for her. She had to act.