He dismounted at the farmyard gate, and bade Job Stallion, the groom, drive in alone and announce that Sir Jasper Standish had sent the curricle for Miss Pounce, as it was her father and mother’s pleasure she should come to the dance.
The ruse succeeded with a facility beyond his expectations. Pamela had been finding the lonely evening disconsolate enough. Baby Tom slept, while old Nance displayed uncommon wakefulness. The time was heavy on Pamela’s hands, and to while it away she had had the happy thought of trying on the pretty garments which she had prepared before Mr. Bellairs’ appearance in church had made a call upon her prudence.
Now the reaction which so often follows self-sacrifice had set in. She was beginning to call herself a fool, and to regret her excessive discretion. Thus when old Nance laboured, panting, to the attic chamber, and supplemented Job’s message with: “You’d never think of saying nay now, Pam, my dear. Ain’t it Providence you should just have been fitting on? And, oh, to be sure, was there ever so pure lovely a gown? You’ll be the belle o’ the ball, my dearie, that you will, and easy!”
Pamela never hesitated at all. She caught her travelling-cloak off the peg, and lifted her best feathered hat from its bandbox—how could a milliner resist such an opportunity?—pinned it on her auburn curls, cast herself headlong down the stairs, out through the farm kitchen like a whirlwind, and laughing, swung herself up on the curricle beside the grinning Joe.
She was rather taken aback when this latter halted outside the farmyard gate, and a portly figure appeared from the shadow of the oak tree. Hat in hand, Sir Jasper pleasantly saluted her.
“Why, Miss Pounce, this is capital. Your father and mother vowed you’d never come, but I said I was sure so good a daughter would be obedient to her parents. Nevertheless”—he was climbing up beside her in the high seat, while Job shut the gates behind them—“I was ready, you see, to exercise a neighbour’s persuasion, should you persist in your cruel resolve. The ball would be nothing without you, ’pon honour. There are half a dozen fine young bucks with faces as long as my whip-handle already.”
By this time Job was up on the back seat, and his master started the chestnuts at a pace that only his own pride and temper would have urged upon them.
“Oh, la!” cried Miss Pounce, and made a clutch for her hat. She drew the pure keen air into her lungs, felt the wind of their passage blow with the most delicious invigoration against her face. “Oh, la! Was there ever anything so beautiful? ’Tis the first time I have driven by moonlight. ’Tis the first time I have ever driven in a curricle! Oh, ’tis like flying, Sir Jasper! Oh, what a night! I vow I feel like a bird!”
The moonlight flooded the road, hedges and trees sparkled and shimmered white as diamonds. The sky was one mighty sapphire, darkly, wonderfully blue. The stars, fainting in the moonlight, looked like the thousand facets of a jewel.
“Oh,” cried Pamela again, “I’ll make a head out of it for the opera, I will indeed! Sapphire blue ribbands and frosted silver feathers. ’Tis an inspiration.”