Snowdrift and Other Stories

‘If you mean that I am not in love with her, no, certainly I am not!’ responded the Earl stiffly. ‘The match was the wish of both our fathers.’

‘How elevating it is to encounter such filial piety in these days!’ observed Miss Fairfax soulfully.

The Earl dropped his hands, and let his team shoot, nearly unseating Miss Fairfax. Silence reigned once more. At Barnet, which marked the end of the first stage, the greys were still going well, a circumstance which induced the Earl to sweep past the Red Lion, with its yellow-jacketed post-boys and its twenty-six pairs of good horses, and press on for another nine miles to Hatfield. Miss Fairfax, who had never driven so fast in her life, began to fear that at any moment they must overtake the fugitives. She ventured presently to ask the Earl when he expected to catch up with them.

‘I have no means of knowing. Before nightfall, I trust.’

‘Indeed, I trust so too!’ said Miss Fairfax, with a good deal of feeling. ‘But if you do not?’

‘Then, ma’am, we shall put up at an inn for the night, and continue our journey in the morning.’

Miss Fairfax appeared to struggle with herself, saying presently in a voice of strong emotion, ‘I shall pass over the impropriety of such a scheme, my lord, but I desire to point out to you that all the baggage I have with me is this reticule!’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I regret the inconvenience, but it can’t be helped.’

This was too much for her. ‘Let me tell you, sir, that it can be helped very easily, by your abandoning this chase, and returning, like a sensible man, to London!’

‘I shall return when I have caught my ward, and not before.’

‘Well,’ said Miss Fairfax, controlling herself with an obvious effort, ‘it all goes to show how mistaken one may be in a person’s character. I was used to think you, sir, for all your faults, perfectly amiable and gentlemanly.’

‘For all my faults!’ he repeated, surprised into looking round at her. ‘And pray what are these faults of mine?’

‘Temper, pride, reserve, obstinacy, stupidity, and the most overbearing manners!’ she replied, without hesitation.

There was just the suggestion of a quiver at the corners of his mouth. ‘You are frank, ma’am! I, on the other hand, thought you, until this morning, the perfect governess.’

Miss Fairfax did not appear to derive any extraordinary degree of gratification from this tribute, but turned a little pale, and said unsteadily, ‘I beg your pardon. I should not have spoken so. I am aware that in your eyes I have acted wrongly.’

He glanced quickly down at her, a softer expression on his face, but he said nothing for a few minutes, being fully engaged in quartering the road, to avoid a succession of deep pits in it. After a time, however, he said in a gentler tone, ‘Come! We gain nothing by bickering, after all. I never thought to find myself quarrelling with you, Mary Fairfax!’

‘Didn’t you, sir?’

‘Why, no!’ he said, slightly smiling. ‘You have always seemed to me the most restful of women, ma’am.’

‘I suppose you mean unobtrusive,’ said Miss Fairfax crossly.

It was many hours later, and the last grey light was fading from the sky, when the curricle entered Grantham, a distance of over a hundred miles from London. Miss Fairfax, by this time resigned to her fate, was enveloped in his lordship’s many-caped driving-coat of drab cloth, and his lordship himself was in a mood of dangerous exasperation.

All had gone smoothly during the first part of the journey. The greys had held up until Hatfield was reached, and there the Earl had been fortunate enough to secure a team of strengthy, quick-actioned beasts to carry him to the next stage. But a little beyond Biggleswade they had encountered a whisky, driven by a very down-the-road-looking man, who came sweeping round a bend on the wrong side, and collided with the curricle. Thanks to the Earl’s presence of mind in swerving aside almost into the ditch, there was not much damage done, but a necessary repair to one of the off-side wheels had to be effected at the next town they came to. This meant a delay of nearly an hour, but the Earl’s temper was not seriously impaired until much later, when, crossing Witham Common, one of the wheelers of the team put-to at Stamford went dead lame. To be reduced at the end of a long day to running pick-axe set the seal to his lordship’s exasperation. There was nothing for it but to drive slowly on to the next posting-house. The Earl, mounting the box again, after an inspection of the wheeler’s leg, told Miss Fairfax bitterly that the whole business, from start to finish, might be laid at her door, an accusation which she received in weary silence.

Conversation thereafter was of a desultory nature. In Grantham, the Angel and Royal showed welcoming lights glowing in its oriel windows; and as the curricle passed under the Gothic stone arch into the courtyard, Miss Fairfax was conscious, not of any desire to return to London, but of a profound inclination towards dinner, and a well-aired bed.

The Earl handed her down from the curricle. She was so stiff that to move was quite painful, but she managed to discard the voluminous driving-coat, to straighten her bonnet, and to walk with a very fair assumption of dignity into the inn. She fancied that the maidservant who escorted her to a bedchamber looked at her curiously, but she felt too tired to enter upon any extempore explanation of her baggage-less condition.

The Earl had engaged a private parlour, and, although it was early summer, had caused a fire to be kindled in the grate. He looked to be in a better humour when Miss Fairfax presently entered the room. He was engaged in snuffing one of the candles in a branch on the table, and said in his abrupt way: ‘I hope you are hungry. The cooking is good here.’

‘I am hungry,’ she replied. ‘But mostly I am quite in a worry to know how to account to the chambermaid for my lack of baggage. It must present the oddest appearance!’

‘You need not regard it. I am known here.’

This careless response did not seem to Miss Fairfax to offer the least explanation of her plight, but she refrained from pointing this out to his lordship. As she moved toward the fire, he said, ‘When we changed horses at Stilton, I made certain enquiries. From what I was able to ascertain, we should by now have caught up with the runaways, had it not been for those unfortunate mishaps. They certainly stopped at Stilton, not many hours before we did. They are travelling with a single pair of post-horses. Since there is no moon, I fancy they will be putting up at Newark, or thereabouts, for the night.’

A suspicion that the couple might be in Grantham crossed Miss Fairfax’s mind. As though he had read her thought, the Earl said, ‘I cannot discover that they stopped in this town. Nothing has been seen of them here, or at the George. It seems odd, but it is possible, of course, that they changed horses at Greetham. I wish now that I had enquired for them there. However, they will scarcely go beyond Newark tonight. I shall drive there when we have dined.’

‘Nothing,’ said Miss Fairfax, with resolution, ‘would induce me to travel another mile this day!’

‘It will be quite unnecessary for you to do so. I shall bring Lucilla back with me.’