Snowdrift and Other Stories

He gave an ugly little laugh. ‘My excesses, ma’am, were an all too brief escape from reality!’

Miss Morland looked meditatively at the coffee-pot. ‘If you do not care for Miss Wyse, my lord, why did you offer for her?’

‘You don’t understand!’ he said. ‘She has been brought up to think herself destined to become my wife! I could do no less than offer for her.’

‘Oh!’ said Miss Morland. ‘Is she very fond of you?’

He flushed slightly. ‘It is not for me to say. I believe – I think she wishes to marry me.’ A somewhat sardonic smile crossed his lips; he added: ‘And God help both of us if ever this adventure should come to her ears!’

Miss Morland poured herself out some more coffee. ‘Do you mean to abandon me, sir?’ she asked.

‘Certainly not,’ replied his lordship. ‘I shall put you in charge of a respectable female, and compel your brother to make provision for you.’

She raised her brows. ‘But you told my brother you would marry me,’ she pointed out.

He paused in his striding to and fro, and said: ‘I can’t marry you! God knows I would, but I can’t elope with you the very day my engagement to Fanny is published!’

She smiled at that, but not very mirthfully, and got up from the table. ‘Calm yourself, my lord. I have only been – punishing you a little. I came away with you because I was a great deal too angry to consider what I was about. What I really wish you to do is to convey me

to London where I shall take refuge with my old governess.’ She picked up her hat, and added: ‘I think – I am sure – that she will be very willing to engage me to teach music and perhaps painting in her school.’

He strode over to the window, and with his back to her said: ‘A Queen’s Square boarding-school! Helen, Helen –’ He broke off, biting his lips, and staring with unseeing eyes at a chaise that had just drawn up outside the inn. The chaise door opened, a young lady looked out, and the Marquis recoiled from the window with a startled oath.

Miss Morland was tying the strings of her cloak, and merely looked an enquiry.

‘Fanny!’ the Marquis ejaculated. ‘Good God, what’s to be done?’

Miss Morland blinked at him. ‘Surely you must be mistaken!’

‘Mistaken! Do you think I don’t know my promised wife?’ demanded his lordship savagely. ‘I tell you it is she! Someone must have sent her word – that meddling fool, Fort, I dare say!’

‘But surely Miss Wyse would not pursue you?’ said Miss Morland, rather aghast.

‘Wouldn’t she?’ said Carlington grimly. ‘You don’t know her! If she does not have hysterical spasms we may count ourselves fortunate!’ He looked round the room, saw a door at the opposite end of it, and hurried across to open it. A roomy cupboard was disclosed. ‘Go in there, my dear,’ commanded Carlington. ‘I must get hold of that landlord, and warn him to keep his mouth shut.’ With which he thrust Miss Morland into the cupboard, closed the door on her, and went quickly towards the other leading into the coffee-room.

He was not, however, in time to warn the landlord. As he stepped out of the parlour that worthy was escorting Miss Wyse into the coffee-room.

Carlington, realizing that it would be useless now to deny his extraordinary elopement, greeted his betrothed with biting civility. ‘Good morning, Fanny,’ he said. ‘An unexpected pleasure!’

Miss Wyse was a plump little lady, just nineteen years old, with huge, soulful brown eyes, and a riot of dark curls. When she saw Carlington she let fall a very pretty muff of taffeta, and clasped her hands to her bosom. ‘You!’ she gasped, with a strong suggestion of loathing in her voice. ‘Carlington!’

The Marquis grasped her wrist in a somewhat cavalier fashion, and said angrily: ‘Let me have no vapours, if you please! Come into the parlour!’

Miss Wyse uttered a throbbing moan. ‘How could you, Granville? Oh, I wish I were dead!’

The Marquis fairly dragged her into the parlour, and shut the door upon the landlord’s scarcely-veiled curiosity. ‘You do not waste much time, Fanny,’ he said. ‘Is this a sample of what I am to expect in the future? The very day our engagement is announced!’

‘Do not speak to me!’ shuddered Miss Wyse, who seemed to have a leaning towards the dramatic. ‘I am so mortified, so –’

‘I know, I know!’ he interrupted. ‘But you would have done better to have stayed at home.’

Miss Wyse, who had tottered to the nearest chair, sprang up again at this, and said: ‘No! Never! Do you hear me, Carlington? Never!’

‘I hear you,’ he replied. ‘So, I imagine, can everyone else in the place. There is a great deal I must say to you, but this is not the moment. My whole object now is to avert a scandal. Explanations – oh yes, they will be hard enough to make! – can come later.’

‘I don’t care a fig for scandal!’ declared Miss Wyse stormily. ‘People may say what they please: it is nothing to me! But that I should find you here – that you should have – Oh, it is cruel of you, Carlington!’

‘I’m sorry, Fanny,’ he said. ‘You’ll find the truth hard to believe, but I promise you you shall hear the truth from me. I beg of you, be calm! I will myself escort you back to town –’