“No need to worry about that,” said Freddy kindly. “Shan’t stay above one night there, and I don’t mean to dawdle on the road. Hired a chaise-and-four. Won’t take me much above four hours to get back to town. Make an early start, and be in London by noon. No time for anything to go amiss here. Besides, no reason why anything should. Wouldn’t go if there was.”
Chapter XVII
Since Lord Buckhaven was a man of affairs, he paid for an early delivery of the post at his town-house. Consequently, Kitty found a letter addressed to her in Miss Fishguard’s spidery handwriting lying beside her plate on the breakfast— table next morning. She broke the wafer that sealed it, and opened it, but was soon knitting her brows over it. It was evident that it had been written in considerable agitation, for although the opening lines, which expressed Miss Fish— guard’s hope that her charge was in good health and continuing to find her stay in town agreeable, were perfectly legible, the writing soon became little better than a scrawl. As Miss Fishguard, in a conscientious determination to save Kitty the cost of receiving a second sheet, had crossed her lines closely, the task of deciphering the whole was very nearly impossible. After poring over it for some minutes, Kitty exclaimed: “I declare I don’t know what can be the matter with Fish! In general, she writes such a very neat hand, and here she is sending me a letter I cannot make head or tail of! I do hope Uncle Matthew has not driven her out of her wits!”
“I should think he would drive anyone out of her wits,” observed Meg, sipping her coffee. “He must be the most odious person imaginable!”
“Yes, but in her last letter Fish wrote that he was behaving quite amiably. Besides, she is really so much accustomed to his odd ways that she would not make a fuss only because he had thrown his stick at her, or something of that nature. But there can be no doubt that something is amiss, for she begs me to return so that she may tell me what has happened.”
“But. you cannot!” said Meg, putting down her cup.
“No, and she seems to feel that, for there is something here which I think is spare you for one day. That must mean you, Meg. Oh, yes! Now I see! That word, which I took to be Ladybirds, must be Lady Buckhaven! Then there is something I cannot read, and being thought a cockatrice.”
“Who?” demanded Meg. “If she means me, I think it is excessively uncivil of her, besides being unjust, for I never saw her but once in all my life!”
“Perhaps it isn’t cockatrice. Yet it certainly looks like it. However, here, on the very next line, is something about Henry VIII, so I don’t think it can be.”
“She cannot be writing to you about Henry VIII!” objected Meg.