I have done it! Looking into the mirror this afternoon, I see not a young lady called Miranda Dennison, but a boy of fifteen or sixteen in rather loose, ill-fitting clothes. That, I have decided, is an advantage. I do not want to look too well-off, for that would attract attention in the village. I stole some pomade from Philip’s room, and it holds my hair back perfectly, along with pins. The cap looks quite natural now. But the splendid thing is my face. I discovered that by simply rubbing a little dirt on my face, I change it completely. It is as if the smudges were a mask over my own features.
Of course, it is not very pleasant to be dirty. But I know I can wash it off when I return. Funnily, the most difficult part of the whole disguise was procuring the dirt! I conceived the idea and went out into the garden to fetch some, and then realized that I had nothing to put it in. I could not just grub a handful of earth and take it to my room. Aside from being thought utterly demented if anyone saw, it wasn’t practical. And then when I returned to my bed chamber I could not find any suitable container. In the end I had to take a jar from the kitchen when Cook and Alice stepped out for a moment, and then Cook nearly caught me filling it! How she would have stared to see me scooping garden earth into her fine clean jar.
But it is done now. And I have hidden the jar in the very back of the wardrobe, where I keep my borrowed clothes. I really do think I have been exceedingly clever. And now it remains only to try out my disguise. Philip and Alan are out, and Rosalind is lying down in her room until tea. I intend to walk around the park and through the village, keeping my cap well down over my face and speaking to no one this first time. It will be merely a trial of my ingenuity, and my nerve. The idea of actually venturing outside my room in breeches still unsettles me considerably.
* * *
What a ridiculous adventure! I shall set down everything just as it happened, for it is such an odd tale that it will be good practice for me, though it is not the sort of story I shall write in my own novel.
When I finally got up the courage to leave my room, I slipped on a hooded cloak in case I should encounter any of the household on the way downstairs. It is a warm day, and I knew I should get some puzzled looks for the cloak, but they would be as nothing to the astonishment my costume would provoke.
Fortunately, I met no one in the hall or at the door. I crept out and hurried at once to the shrubbery that lines the drive. And I have to admit I was most relieved to disappear into it; I stood there for quite five minutes waiting for my heart to stop pounding and to gather the courage to go on. How silly I must have looked, crouching under the cedar branches in my heavy cloak! It was very hot.
Finally, though, I told myself that I must either go on or go back, and the latter seemed so cowardly that I at once threw off the cloak, hung it on a branch, and stepped out into the drive. And nothing happened. There was no earthquake or bolt of lightning. Indeed, it was almost a disappointment, after all my worrying. There was no one about. Everything was just as usual. The birds sang, a squirrel leaped in the tree, one of Philip’s dogs barked near the stable. It seemed there ought to be some marking of my venture, but there was not. Still, I was relieved, too, as I started walking down the drive toward the road.
It was then that I saw Forbes. He was walking toward me along the gravel drive, his hands clasped behind him, his eyes on the ground. He seemed far away and, perhaps, troubled. All of this was extremely odd, of course. In the first place, Forbes does not take walks. And in the second, whenever I have seen him in the house he has looked perfectly imperturbable. Except the one time when he was speaking to that man in the cellar.
And so this was an interesting circumstance, but most of these conclusions came to me only later on. At the moment when I saw Forbes, I was paralyzed with fear. I had not imagined any such test of my disguise this first time, and for a moment, I could not even move.
But as Forbes came closer I knew I had to do something. I could not meet him face to face. I thought of diving back into the shrubbery, but it was too thick just there. I would have attracted his attention for certain. I felt like a trapped rat!
Finally, when he was scarcely fifty feet from me, I made up my mind. I shoved my hands deep in my pockets, bent my head so that my cap hid my face, and began walking very fast down the drive, determined not to stop for anything.
I could hear Forbes’s footsteps crunch on the gravel. I kept to the verge of the drive, as far from him as possible, and absolutely plunged along. He hesitated, then stopped. “You there,” he said, and my heart seemed to flutter in my chest. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
I was even with him, and I did not pause. Indeed, I walked even faster. “You are trespassing,” he called. “Stop and explain yourself.”
I ran. Down the drive toward the gates as fast as I could. (It is far easier to run in breeches.) Forbes followed for a little, then gave up when I easily outdistanced him. He is rather old, so I take no great credit for getting away. And I was so overset by the meeting that I had to sit down along the road and put my head on my knees for a considerable time. Dreadful pictures rose in my brain and made me tremble—what if it had been Alan or Philip I met? I should not have outrun them, and how would I have explained myself? I saw that I had not planned nearly well enough, and was very grateful for my luck.
After a while, though, I determined to go on. There was no sense giving up when I had already surmounted the greatest obstacle. So I continued along the road to the village, keeping a careful watch for riders and a hiding place always in view.
I met no one else until I reached the edge of the village. There, I passed a woman who stared, it is true, but I felt certain it was mere curiosity about a stranger, not penetration of my disguise. The villagers do not know me.
It was quite exciting to walk about the streets as a boy. Few people paid any more attention than the woman had. That is, they stared, wondering who I was, but no one accosted me or spoke. One little boy, goaded by his companions, shouted, “Who are you, then?” But I merely nodded and kept walking. I began to think it was all very easy, and to feel almost comfortable in my strange garb, when I came to the little inn near the center of the town.
It is really just an alehouse. There are very few travelers here, and it is used mainly by the village men. I had no thought of going in—I am not so foolhardy—but I paused beneath a window to see if I could hear anything, and I did.
Several men were talking inside, their voices rough and angry. “I say we do something about ’im,” said one. “I’ve seen ’is type. He’ll be sticking ’is nose in, giving his damned orders, swanking about as if ’e owned us.”
Another man snorted contemptuously. “We ain’t in the army any longer, Bob. Ain’t nothing ’e can do.”
“Call in the bloody ’cisemen,” protested the first.
“His lordship will see about that,” was the answer.
There was a sound of spitting and a short silence. Then another man said, “When’s the next?”
“A week,” replied the second voice. “A big ’un too.”
“Hah.”
At that moment, I heard footsteps approaching around the corner of the building, and I knew I must not be caught listening. It was vastly frustrating, for I had not yet understood what they were talking of, but I moved away, and in the next instant came face to face with Alice the kitchenmaid!
We stared at each other, and then Alice’s eyes widened and she said, “Miss Miranda!”
Well, I could see she was utterly scandalized. I had to make up some story to excuse my behavior. And it could not be the truth, for I did not know how far she was to be trusted.
I do not know how I thought of it, for my mind was whirling. Somehow, the words just came from my mouth. I told Alice it was a joke on Rosalind, that I meant to try to fool her and I needed to practice my role first. I talked all sorts of nonsense about our childhood, and how we were always arranging the most elaborate, outrageous jests on one another, and how Rosalind had caught me last and I wished to pay her back. It seemed quite unbelievable to me, but Alice appeared to be convinced. I believe she thinks the “quality” are all slightly mad anyway. When I ran out of words, she giggled and said, “I’ll help you try it out on the village.” She giggled again. “We’ll put it about that you’re a second cousin of Cook’s from the North, and we can go about together. Won’t that show Eddie Forbes, then?”
It occurred to me later that perhaps she didn’t believe me at all, or at least didn’t particularly care what I was up to since it fit in with some plan of her own. But at the time I was simply grateful that she didn’t intend to tell anyone. We walked back to the house together, and she helped me slip upstairs. She has invited me to a village wedding in three days. I don’t know whether I shall go. I have no time to think. I must change and wash in time for tea.