Snowdrift and Other Stories

Miss Morland, quite cowed by such treatment, meekly nodded her head.

Pursuit

THE CURRICLE, WHICH was built on sporting lines, was drawn by a team of four magnificent greys, and the ribbons were being handled by one of the most noted whips of his day: a member of the Four Horse Club, of the Bensington, the winner of above a dozen races – in short, by the Earl of Shane, as anyone but the most complete country bumpkin, catching only the most fleeing glimpse of his handsome profile, with its bar of black brown, and masterful, aquiline nose, would have known immediately. Happily, however, for his companion’s peace of mind, the only persons encountered on the road were country bumpkins, the curricle having passed the Islington toll-gate, and entered upon the long, lonely stretch of road leading to the village of Highgate.

The Earl’s companion was a governess, a lady, moreover, who would very soon have attained her thirtieth year, and who was seated bolt-upright beside him, dressed in a sober round gown of French cambric under a green pelisse, and a bonnet of moss-straw tied over her smooth brown ringlets. Her hands, in serviceable gloves of York tan, were clasped on the crook of a plaid parasol, and she appeared to be suffering from a strong sense of injury. Her eyes, which were a fine grey, and generally held a good deal of humour, stared stonily at the road ahead, and her mouth (too generous for beauty) was firmly compressed.

For several miles she had seemed to be totally oblivious of the Earl’s presence, and except for shuddering in a marked fashion whenever he sprang his horses, she paid not the smallest heed to the really remarkable driving skill he was displaying. Though he feather-edged his corners to perfection, put his horses beautifully together, cleared all obstacles, including a huge accommodation-coach which took up nearly all the road, in the most nonchalant style, and handled his long whip with the veriest flick of the wrists, he might as well, for all the admiration he evoked, have been a stage-coachman.

To do him justice, he had neither the expectation nor the desire of being admired. The excellence of his driving was a matter of course; he was, besides, in a very bad temper. He had been interrupted in the middle of his breakfast by the arrival on his doorstep of his ward’s governess, who had travelled up to London from his house in Sussex to inform him, in the coolest fashion, that her charge had eloped with a lieutenant of a line regiment. He considered her attitude to have been little short of brazen. Instead of evincing the contrition proper in a lady who had so grossly failed in the execution of her duty, she had said in her calm way that it served him right for not having given his consent to the marriage six months before. You would have thought from her manner that she had positively sped the young couple on their way to the Border (though that she swore she had not); and she had actually had the effrontery to advise him to make the best of it.

But the Earl, who had enjoyed his own way ever since he could remember, was not one who acquiesced readily in the oversetting of his will, and instead of accepting Miss Fairfax’s advice he had ordered out his curricle and greys, had commanded Miss Fairfax to mount up on to the seat beside him, turning a deaf ear to her protests, and had driven off at a spanking rate, with the express intention of overtaking the runaways, and of bringing the recalcitrant Miss Gellibrand back to town under the escort of her governess.

Since he was driving an unrivalled team over the first stage of the journey, and could afford to change horses as often as he chose, Miss Fairfax could place little dependence on the eloping couple’s contriving to outstrip pursuit. They had, indeed, several hours’ law, but she guessed that Mr Edmund Monksley, living upon his pay, would have to be content to travel with a pair of horses only harnessed to his post-chaise. The hire of post-horses was heavy, the journey to Gretna Green long, and the Earl’s method of driving too swift for any job-chaise and pair to outdistance.

The bare expanse of Finchley Common being reached, a faint hope of being held up by highwaymen sustained Miss Fairfax’s spirits for some way, but when the equipage arrived at the Whetstone gate without incident, she relapsed again into melancholy.

Her silence seemed to irritate the Earl. He said in a sardonic voice, ‘We have a good many miles to cover, I dare say, so you may as well come out of your sulks, ma’am. I should be interested to learn what right you imagine you have to indulge in this air of outraged virtue!’

‘I have told you, sir, until I am quite tired of it, that I had nothing to do with Lucilla’s flight,’ said Miss Fairfax coldly.

‘No! You merely encouraged the fellow to visit my ward whenever he chose, and in spite of my prohibition – which you were perfectly well aware of!’

‘I didn’t encourage him at all. He never set foot inside your house, sir.’

‘Then where the devil did they meet?’ demanded his lordship.

‘In the orchard,’ replied Miss Fairfax.

‘Very romantic!’ said the Earl, with a snort of disgust. ‘And pray what were you about, ma’am?’

‘Looking the other way,’ said Miss Fairfax unblushingly.

‘I wonder you dare to sit there and

tell me so! It only remains for you to say that this damnable elopement has your approval!’

‘Well, it has not,’ she replied. ‘I should have preferred a pretty wedding for them, but since you were so extremely disagreeable, and Mr Monksley’s regiment has been ordered to the Peninsula, I really do not know what else they could have done, poor things!’

‘Do you realise, ma’am,’ demanded the Earl, ‘that you have helped my ward to throw herself away, at the age of seventeen, upon a penniless nobody, wholly dependent for his advancement upon the hazards of war? – since I am very certain he will never be able to afford to buy his promotion!’

‘No, I fear not,’ she agreed. ‘I do not know, of course, the extent of Lucilla’s fortune.’

‘Negligible!’

‘Then I expect you will be obliged to purchase a company for him,’ said Miss Fairfax.

‘I?’ he ejaculated, looking thunderstruck.

‘You are so wealthy a few hundred pounds can’t signify to you, after all.’

‘Upon my word, ma’am! I shall do nothing of the kind!’

‘Very well,’ said Miss Fairfax, ‘if you are determined on being disobliging, I dare say Lucilla won’t care a button. She is a soldier’s daughter, and not in the least likely to turn into a fashionable young lady. I feel sure she and Mr Monksley will deal extremely together.’

‘Are you aware, ma’am, that it is my intention to marry Lucilla myself?’

There was a slight pause. Miss Fairfax said rather carefully, ‘I was aware of it, sir, but I have always been at a loss to know why. You must be quite sixteen years her senior, nor have you, during the three years I have been in charge of Lucilla, shown the least partiality for her society. In fact, you have kept her secluded in the country, and have only visited her at the most infrequent intervals.’