The Admiral's Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page B

my new living, or I should certainly invite you to drive in our park. I think you would be most pleased with it, for the land has been laid out very cleverly.”
    Maggie expressed her regret that, since she would certainly be occupied a great deal with her relatives, she could not take advantage of such a generous invitation. Mr. Wayland passed a quarter of an hour enumerating all the many points on which he might be congratulated for obtaining so choice a living, and when he felt he had punished Miss Trevor enough, he rose to go. His manner seemed to relent a little at the door, however, for as he had his hand upon the knob, he turned around and inquired in what part of Essex Miss Trevor would be.
    â€œI go to Ramblay Castle, near Debbens,” replied Maggie, not at all displeased, after all Mr. Wayland’s boasting, to be able to claim her relatives as inhabiting a castle themselves.
    But Mr. Wayland appeared to have been taken suddenly ill. His small eyes grew round in disbelief, what little color there had been in his cheeks drained away, and clutching at his heart, he spluttered—“Ramblay! Good God! It is the very location of my living!”

Three
    THE FIRST PART of Maggie’s journey to Essex was accomplished without incident. Riding in the comfort of her father’s chaise, with her own coachman at the reins and her maid beside her, there was little to occupy her mind save the passing scenery and a general apprehension at the prospect of meeting her cousins. It had been arranged that Lord Ramblay’s carriage should meet her halfway, at the posting house at Dartmoor, and as the chaise clattered its way over the potholes of the Great North Road, raising behind it a huge cloud of dust, her uneasiness increased. Now at last she would see for herself what kind of man the Viscount was—whether his letter had been, as her father claimed, tempered by a natural restraint of manner or whether, as she really hoped was not the case, he was really just the kind of cold, indifferent man as his style of writing made him seem.
    Gradually the verdant undulations of the Sussex countryside, with its clay hills and misty pastures, began to give way to a different kind of view. The farther north they progressed, the more regulated the landscape became. Flatter and more cultivated than that of Sussex, it seemed to have fallen a great deal under the ordering influence of man. Where the south had been soft and wild, here the neat fields and meadows were layed out in regular patches of color, with only the intermittent interruption of a narrow stream or woodsy copse. The day had dawned very clear and fine, with one or two wispy clouds in the azure expanse of sky. Maggie, who had traveled little over this part of the country, watched the changing scene with fascination.
    The posting house at Dartmoor was among the busiest in all of England. Situated just at the junction of the Great North Road and the Bath Highway, it attractedevery kind of conveyance going either north or west, to London or the Midlands. As the Admiral’s chaise drew toward it, a great hum of activity became visible. Post boys, vaulting off their lathered mounts, paused barely long enough to catch a breath before leaping onto fresh horses and tearing off again. Chaises for hire, elegant private equipages, and two stage coaches crowded the yard, while the various coachmen, some in livery, some in the crudest leather jerkins, shouted orders with equal bravado to an ostler leaning up against a post. The ostler was evidently more fascinated by the droning of some flies than all their impatience. Almost at once Maggie’s ears were assaulted with a din of voices and her nostrils with an equally riotous concoction of odors. As they turned into the yard, a servant in yellow livery stepped before the horses, nearly causing them to bolt and bringing forth an incoherent volley of abuse from the coachman. But in short order they had driven into the