Maggie MacKeever Read Free

Although he had decided that this dusty young miss wasn’t a bit o’ muslin looking to take profitable advantage of the influx of sporting gentlemen into the neighborhood, it was unthinkable that she should appear in the taproom, a woman in the bar-parlor being an outrage on the company and on womankind; and the other parlor was filled to the rafters with sporting gentlemen. But if Miss wouldn’t mind stepping around the corner, the innkeeper promised to provide her with a suitable repast at a rustic little table set beneath the gnarled branches of an ancient oak tree.
    Miss wasn’t at all averse, and settled down happily with hot buttered muffins and cold pigeon pie, while the rooster made an equally good meal of the crumbs. Mr. Smithton settled down beside her and frowned. He might have done precious little studying during his brief stay at Cambridge, but he knew up from down. “See here,” he said sternly, “you shouldn’t be racketing around the countryside on your own. It ain’t the thing. Gives folks a very poor notion, if you know what I mean. But then, you always was a bit of an oddity, even as a brat. Prosing on forever about this and that. Too smart by half, which is a disconcerting thing in a female!”
    Miss Minchin choked, perhaps on the notion that Mr. Smithton was qualified to proffer her advice. When she could speak again, she gasped, “Mrs. Phipps was to travel with me. She was our housekeeper, as you may recall. But she had an accident!” She then related to Peregrine the saga of the unfortunate Mrs. Phipps’s altercation with a marauding neighborhood hound, caught red-handed (so to speak) in the very act of filching a joint from off the kitchen shelf. Mrs. Phipps having an equally strong passion for mutton, a spirited chase had ensued, which led into the scullery, where the maidservant had left off scrubbing the floor to flirt with the apothecary’s boy. Mrs. Phipps put a foot in the scrub bucket and sprained her ankle, and the enterprising hound and the dinner joint got clear away.
    Miss Minchin concluded the tale and wiped buttery crumbs off her chin. “And so here I am! On my way to Brighton to acquaint Sir Geoffrey Elphinstone’s daughters with such tidbits of knowledge that seem appropriate to young ladies of their position in life. Or I was on my way until that wretched accident. I had thought to hire a carriage.” She sighed. “But I doubt I could afford it. I don’t suppose—”
    “That I could lend you mine?” Mr. Smithton confirmed the contention of his cronies that he thought more swiftly when his idea pot had been primed with a bit of the grape, or in this case a couple or more tankards of ale. “You’re barking up the wrong tree. I did have a rig. Had it this morning, in point of fact. Had it three hours ago! Then I made a little wager. To tell truth, Miss Minchin, I’m all to pieces. In the basket. Run aground.”
    “Oh!” said Tabby, recalling her uncle’s opinion of Mr. Smithton as a shocking loose screw. “How very dreadful for you.”
    Mr. Smithton grinned. “Don’t trouble your head about it! I promise you I shan’t. I’ll make a recovery. This ain’t the first time I’ve been at point nonplus!” It occurred to him that his companion was in a similar position. Naturally she could not be expected to meet such a challenge with the sang-froid possessed by a man of the world.
    Poor puss! he thought, as he watched Miss Minchin crumble a muffin for the rooster. What a good sort of girl she was. Game to the backbone and full of pluck. A pity she should be reduced to such straits—set adrift, penniless, to make her way in the world, alone, without family to offer succor or shelter or advice—although in Peregrine’s opinion, a female with a classical education was just tempting fate. But old Tolly had been the best of the fellows at King’s College, as knaggy an old gager as ever drew breath, despite the bees he had in his head about learning Latin and Greek