So I popped Cousin Amelia's epistle into my pocket without breaking the seal, and put on my bonnet at once, that I might be ready to start, and not keep Cousin John waiting.
The leavetaking was got over more easily than I expected. People generally hustle one off in as great a hurry as the common decencies of society would admit of, in order to shorten as much as possible the unavoidable gêne of parting. Sir Guy, staunch to his colours, was to drive me back on the detested drag; but his great face fell several inches when I expressed my determination to perform the journey this time inside.
"I've bitted the team on purpose for you, Miss Kate," he exclaimed, with one of his usual oaths, "and now you throw me over at the last moment. Too bad; by all that's disappointing, it's too bad! Come now, think better of it; put on my box-coat, and catch hold of 'em, there's a good girl."
"Inside, or not at all, Sir Guy," was my answer; and I can be pretty determined, too, when I choose.
"Then perhaps your maid would like to come on the box," urged the Baronet, who seemed to have set his heart on the enjoyment of some female society.
"Gertrude goes with me," I replied stoutly; for I thought Cousin John looked pleased, and Sir Guy was at a nonplus.
"Awfully high temper," he muttered, as he took his reins and placed his foot on the roller-bolt. "I like 'em saucy, I own, but this girl's a regular vixen!"
Sir Guy was very much put out, and vented his annoyance on his off-wheeler, "double-thonging" that unfortunate animal most unmercifully the whole way to the station. He bade me farewell with a coldness, and almost sulkiness, quite foreign to his usual demeanour, and infinitely pleasanter to my feelings. Besides, I saw plainly that the more I fell in the Baronet's good opinion, the higher I rose in that of my chaperone; and by the time John and I were fairly settled in a coupé, my cousin had got back to his old, frank, cordial manner, and I took courage to break the seal of Cousin Amelia's letter, and peruse that interesting document, regardless of all the sarcasms and innuendoes it might probably contain.
What a jumble of incongruities it was! Long stories about the weather, and the garden, and the farm, and all sorts of things which no one knew better than I did had no interest for my correspondent whatever. I remarked, however, throughout the whole composition, that "mamma's" sentiments and regulations were treated with an unusual degree of contempt, and the writer's own opinions asserted with a boldness and freedom I had never before observed in my strait-laced, hypocritical cousin. Mr. Haycock's name, too, was very frequently brought on the tapis: he seemed to have breakfasted with them, lunched with them, walked, driven, played billiards with them, and, in short, to have taken up his residence almost entirely at Dangerfield. The postscript explained it all, and the postscript I give verbatim as I read it aloud to Cousin John whilst we were whizzing along at the rate of forty miles an hour.
"P.S.—I am sure my dear Kate will give me joy. You cannot have forgotten a certain person calling this autumn at Dangerfield for a certain purpose, in which he did not seem clearly to know his own mind. Everything is now explained. My dear Herod (is it not a pretty Christian name!)—my dear Herod is all that I can wish, and assures me that all along it was intended for me. The happy day is not yet fixed; but my dearest Kate may rest assured that I will not fail to give her the earliest intelligence on the first opportunity. Tell Mr. Jones I shall be married before him, after all."