The Rescuers. Margery Sharp

Miss Bianca. She knew perfectly well where the Moot-house stood – Bernard had explained everything so clearly – but she just couldn’t, it seemed, put her knowledge on paper. And here was good brave Nils preparing to set forth with no more guide than a garden-party hat!

      “Yes,” said Miss Bianca recklessly. “Those are duckponds …”

      An idea was forming in her mind, an idea so extraordinary and thrilling, her heart at once began to beat faster.

      “All the same,” added Miss Bianca, “I think it will be wiser to return with you myself, and conduct you to the Moot-house in person.”

      What on earth induced her to make such a mad, unnecessary offer? Her own personal mission was creditably accomplished, no one expected any more of her, upstairs in the Boy’s new schoolroom a luxurious porcelain pagoda waited for her to come back to it. As the Boy waited for her – or would wait, how anxiously, should she quit his side! Miss Bianca’s eyes filled with tears as she thought of him. But she thought also of someone else: of Bernard from the pantry.

      It has often been remarked that women of rank, once their affections are engaged, can be completely reckless of the consequences. Duchesses throw their caps over the windmill for grooms, countesses for footmen. Miss Bianca, more discerningly, remembered Bernard’s modesty and kindness and courage. “Did I call him undistinguished?” she chided herself. “Isn’t the Tybalt Star distinction enough for anyone?” To make no bones about it, Miss Bianca suddenly felt that if she was never to see Bernard again, life in any number of porcelain pagodas would be but a hollow sham.

      Thus, since obviously Bernard couldn’t come to her, it was she who had to rejoin Bernard; and fortunately duty and inclination coincided.

      “Which I take very kindly,” Nils was saying. “Can you be ready, ma’am, by the dawn tide?”

      “What!” exclaimed Miss Bianca. Her thoughts hadn’t carried her quite as far as that!

      “It so happens there’s a cargo boat,” explained Nils. “Nothing like cargo boats for picking up a passage upon! And not so many bound your ways neither – we should take the chance! In fact, in my opinion, we should start for the docks straight off.”

      “Heavens!” thought Miss Bianca. Yet in one way it made her decision easier. The thought of seeing the Boy again, possibly for the last time – of running up on to his pillow and breathing a last farewell in his ear – was already almost unnerving her. “Better not,” she thought, “I might break down …” She rose, smiling.