The fog continued thick about the house and grounds when Elaine and Libby walked back from the Dower House late in the afternoon. Libby went directly up to her room, but Elaine went into the library to spend a short time glancing through her students’ latest efforts, before going up to change for dinner.
She was interrupted by the sudden entrance of Lord Derring, who appeared to be most agitated. “Miss Howard, I beg you to excuse this disturbance, but I thought you would want to know. I’ve only a moment, for I’ve asked Tibley to bring my chaise around to the front of the house and I must be off.”
“Why where can you be going at this time of day. You will miss your dinner.”
“Yes, I’m afraid I will and that is why I felt I needed to tell you, but you see I received word that little Bart Mullins was badly hurt, and I felt sure you would want me to fetch him to his mother.”
“Bart? Again? He was absent from our class this afternoon. What has the boy got into now? And how kind of you to go get him!”
“Well I could not help but think he would travel more comfortably in my chaise than in a farmer’s cart. It is bitter cold, and there is a good distance to cover, so I must make haste.”
“Is it far? What has happened to him?”
“I don’t have all the hows and whys of it, but it seems that the Vicar sent him off on an errand that took him some distance from home and the poor boy was attacked by a bull as he passed through a field. I’m afraid he is in very bad condition. The situation, you see, is most urgent. I am to bring him to his mother.”
“Mrs. Mullins will certainly want to accompany you, for Bart hardly knows you and will not be at all at ease in a stranger’s carriage.”
“Unfortunately, the poor woman was so overset by the news, that it seems she quite collapsed and is unable to go with me.”
“That hardly sounds like her. Oh, it must be very bad indeed! You must take Captain Howard with you then, for Bart knows him and will feel quite safe with him.
“Alas, the Captain is not yet back from his inspection of some drainage ditch with the good Chudleigh.”
“Then I had better come with you, for I am afraid that Bart may be unwilling to go with you. He is often just such a contrary child, and though he is frequently overbold and daring when it comes to getting himself into scrapes, he is also of a sadly suspicious disposition and inclined to be wary of strangers, and I’m afraid, invariably so if they are gentlemen of quality. Indeed, I cannot think how you would be able to manage him without me. And even if he is hurt too badly to put up resistance, still I think he will be much more comfortable if I am there to reassure him.”
“Do you think you ought to go? I do not want you to miss your dinner as well.”
“Oh what do I care for that? Do you think I could eat when Bart is in such serious trouble? Do but wait a moment, while I get my warm cloak and tell Roberts that I am going.”
He lifted her up into the carriage, pulled a large woolen wrap over her lap, and got in himself, taking the reins and telling Tibley he’d better stay behind, for they would need all the space in the chaise for the injured boy.
Once they were on the road, Elaine quizzed Lord Derring for more details, but he only shook his head and said he had been given no more information. She felt a kind of dizzy anxiety that puzzled her, for it was not unusual for Bart to fall into a scrape and though it seemed that his condition may be serious, she could not believe he would not survive (as indeed he inevitably did). The fog was thickening and she thought perhaps that was the cause of her sense of edginess, for it was unusually dark and impenetrable, so thick that she almost imagined she could feel the air slide across her cheeks. The carriage had started out at a fast clip, but had gradually lost speed and was now proceeding at a slower and slower pace.
“We are going so very slowly,” she said, peering out into the gloom. “Do you think it is much farther?”
“I believe it is still some good distance,” Lord Derring replied, “but I dare not go faster. The road has a hard coat of ice upon it, and this fog is so thick that I can scarcely see the road. I don’t want to miss our turn.”
He peered anxiously into the fog as they continued to move slowly forward and then nodded with satisfaction.
“This will be it!” And he turned the horses off the main road and onto a rough country lane lined with tall hedges.
They traveled in silence some short space of time. Then Lord Derring said a bit uncertainly, “We have not been traveling so very long yet. It is always amazing to me how slowly time passes when you are in a hurry. Don’t you find it so?”
“It’s just that I do not like to think of Bart hurt and alone somewhere, for though I’m certain that the kind person who sent word to his mother has also provided him with shelter and care, still he will feel quite alone surrounded by strangers.”
The fog was nearly impenetrable and so black that when the daylight gradually faded into night neither of them noticed it. Their progress remained tediously slow. Elaine found her eyes fairly burning from the effort of trying to see more than a few steps ahead of them. Neither spoke for some time, all their energies being consumed by their sense of urgency and the need to keep moving.
After what seemed to Elaine to be hours, the Viscount pulled the chaise into a small cobbled courtyard outside a rather shabby little country inn. He went into the inn to speak to the landlord and then, returning a few moments later, urged Elaine to come inside where they could warm themselves and take some refreshment.
“It appears this place does not have a private parlor, so I have requested that the innkeeper place a table in one of his bed chambers for us.”
“We can do very well down here in the coffee room,” Elaine protested. “You can see it is empty of company, and it will be much faster if we are served a quick meal here before going on.”
But Lord Derring was insistent upon hiring a room where they could talk undisturbed, and, unwilling to engage in a dispute before the landlord, she gave way and followed him reluctantly up the stairs.
They entered a small room at the front of the inn, with two narrow windows looking out over the yard. A bed had been pushed off to one side of the chamber to make room for a small wooden table and two caned chairs. A few smaller pieces of furniture had been removed altogether and placed in the hallway just outside the door to create a small space within where the travelers could walk back and forth to stretch their limbs and make their way past the table to look out of the windows should they so desire. The only light in the room came from a small candelabra that the landlord had placed in the center of the table.
“I very much regret that we can go no further tonight, my dear,” Lord Derring told her once the door to the hastily improvised parlor was closed. “The fog is most fearsome and I’m afraid we would be certain to lose our way.”
“But this is too bad! How can you be so cowardly as to be put off by a mere fog. Indeed, we cannot delay here. Bart is hurt and alone and must be brought home to his Mama!”
“You may rest easy on that account, my dear. I’m afraid that I may have, er, misled you somewhat.”
“Misled me?”
“Well, perhaps ‘lied to you’ would be a more accurate way of phrasing it, reprehensible though that is. I’m afraid you left me no other recourse. However I’m sure it will relieve your mind to know that your little Bart is, so far as I know, neither injured nor at all in need of your ministrations, though I am certain he would be most gratified to know how eager you were to fly to his rescue.”
“I don’t understand. What can you mean?”
“Why, that I have eloped with you, my dear. I could not bear to lose you, being, er, in the heat of my passion for you. May I pour you out some rataffia, my dear?”
“No you may not! What are you saying? What do you mean? Are you saying that you have abducted me?”
“Well if you will insist upon calling it an abduction, though you came with me willingly enough, then I will not shrink from cal
ling it that. Yes, my dear, if you will, then I have abducted you. Of course this rather dismal parlor in this deplorable inn is not precisely what I had planned, for I wanted to whisk you off most romantically to Challon, where I could have entertained you in style. Unfortunately this miserable inn will have to do for now, for the fog is so thick and dark, we really cannot travel further without serious risk. I have arranged for us to take rooms here for the night, and in the morning, when the fog has lifted, we will travel on.”
Elaine regarded the Viscount with smoldering eyes. “We cannot and will not stay the night here. I cannot imagine what ‘plans’ you may think you have had, but whatever they were, they have gone awry, and we must return to Lynnfield at once.”
“No, no. That is the one thing that we must not do. My dear, you look quite overset. Have you got the headache? I shall order you a tisane this instant.”
“I have not got a headache and I do not want a tisane. Neither will I remain in this sorry hostelry one more second.” She walked out of the private parlor in a rising temper and was somewhat gratified to note that at least Lord Derring was wise enough to refrain from attempting to stop her.
Downstairs, she called for the landlord, who came bowing deeply, asking in what way he could assist the young lady. When he heard what she wanted, he was most apologetic, but insisted there was not a single gig available for hire, nor any horses neither, but only the carriage in which she had just arrived. “For indeed Milady, this is no posting house and we don’t keep a livery, just a small cart for the Missus, which ain’t fit for the likes of you. Besides which she’s gone off in it to visit her ma, and no use looking for her to return on a night like this, the roads so icy and with such a black fog, the likes of which I never seen.” He knew of no other travelers who might assist her, for in general, he told her, very few people took this road who didn’t have business in the immediate neighborhood.
“Your wife is away? Is there a maid, then, who might be called upon to sleep in my bedchamber?” His daughter generally served as maid, he told her, but she had gone off with her mother, leaving only him and the stable lad to carry on as best they could.
“You’ve a stable lad? Could he then perhaps escort me to the nearest home in which a lady resides? For it is impossible that I should remain here unchaperoned.”
“Unchaperoned? The gentleman told me you was man and wife.”
“Well, we are not!” Elaine flashed indignantly. “I am here quite against my will and wish to be away from here instantly.”
“Well, I’d not bruit that fact about if I was you. If my Missus was here, she’d tell you in no uncertain terms that this is a respectable inn, and she’d put the pair of you right out the door, fog or no fog. But being as I’m of a somewhat more liberal bent and as his lordship is paying me handsome like, I’ll keep my eyes and ears shut. You’d do better to settle your tiff with the gentleman, for it’s clear he’s done something or other to annoy you, but you won’t convince me that you didn’t come in that front door right willingly not ten minutes ago.”
“Nevertheless, I must request the escort of your stable lad to the nearest home.”
“The nearest house with a respectable female in it is some five miles distant, and there’s no way Miss Anthea Grantham would take in a strange lady arriving on foot in the middle of the night, and that’s supposing our Jem could find his way there in this thick fog.”
And when Elaine insisted on talking to Jem, that worthy, who had just finished putting Lord Derring’s horses up for the night, giggled and wiped his nose and stammered that he reckoned he might be able to find his way home, which was after all just across the field, but he wasn’t wishful of going no further on such a night such as this.
Elaine thought a moment and then asked if Jem lived with his mother. He allowed as how he did.
“Then you shall take me to your mother, and I’ll stay the night there with her. And in the morning, you can escort me to Miss Grantham’s home.”
Jem blushed and stammered, and the landlord intervened. “You’ll do no such thing. The boy lives in a thatched cottage, and a badly run down one at that, with no more than one small room where they all sleep, his ma and his four brothers. And though Jem is harmless enough, I wouldn’t vouch for those brothers of his. They’re a right rowdy bunch and none of ‘em too smart. It wouldn’t be a fit place for a girl of their own class, nor safe neither, let alone for a lady such as you.”
When Elaine returned to the small chamber the landlord had given them as a private parlor, she found the Viscount pouring out a glass of rataffia. He handed it to her with a little elegant bow and she sank into a chair and drank it.
“There is a lady, a Miss Anthea Grantham, who lives no more than five miles distance from here. Will you not give up this madness and take me there?”
“I’m most sorry to be so disobliging, but no, my dear Miss Howard, I will not. I am determined, you see, to marry you.”
“This seems a deuced odd way of going about it!”
Lord Derring lifted his eyebrows at her language but appeared to be finding considerable amusement in the conversation. “But you are most charming, my dear! Surely you cannot have forgotten that I did first try the more conventional path, and if you recall, I was lamentably unsuccessful.”
“Well yes, but why do you think I would marry you now? Surely you don’t imagine that you can force me to consent?”
“Not I, but don’t you see, it is not I, but the circumstances which will quite force your hand. After this night alone with me, I’m afraid no other gentleman of quality would have you, so you will be obliged to settle for me. Come now, my dear. Is it so very bad? Just think what a comely couple we shall be. I promise, I quite worship you.”
“We will never be a couple!”
“But my dear, we already are, are we not? I am persuaded that the good landlord would quite agree with me.”
Elaine faced her tormentor directly. “Is it your intention to ravish me?”
“You know, I’m not at all certain that I could. And should I attempt it, I am quite sure it would be a most distressing experience for the both of us. Fortunately it is not at all necessary. I will defer that pleasure until after our wedding, and even then, my dear, you will find me a most considerate husband. I’ll not force you. I promise you that.”
“And I promise you that you will never be my husband.”
“You know, I rather think I shall.”
There didn’t seem to be much more to say on the subject. The Viscount had bespoken a meal, which in the absence of the landlord’s wife, turned out to be quite plain fare – a plate of cold meats and cheeses, served with a surprisingly good wine. The landlord himself served them and discretely retired.
Lord Derring made several efforts to initiate conversation, but as Elaine simply ignored each attempt, he soon abandoned what he clearly regarded as a thankless task, and they sat down to their dinner in silence. After no more than a few bites, Elaine found she had no hunger and excused herself. The landlord showed her to her room and at her request handed her the key, which she pointedly turned in the door behind her, taking this precaution even though she found that she believed Lord Derring when he had said he would not molest her.
She spent a mostly sleepless night, pacing her room and pondering her future. The Viscount was undoubtedly correct in supposing that no gentleman would consider marrying her after this night, and where once that thought would have bothered her not at all, maybe even brought her a sense of relief, now she found that it caused an ache deep inside her, not unlike the grief that she sometimes felt when she looked at her father’s face and thought that soon she would see it no more.
And to be sure, she was facing more than just spinsterhood. She would have to resign herself to living with disgrace. She would have to lead a much more restricted life in Bath than she had planned. Some of her friends would stand by her, she knew. Libby and Mary Hasting would not desert her, but other friends would have no choice b
ut to cut her acquaintance. It was all very well for Lady Caroline Lamb to brazen out the snubs of the ton, but Elaine could not be at all sanguine about her own ability to embrace a life of notoriety.
It was true that she had, in general, styled herself an original, being unwilling to abandon her books or to make any kind of pretense at being an empty-headed widgeon. She struggled to think how she might gather the courage to face what lay ahead, whether she might not after all find some way to still live the life she had planned.
Any hopes she had harbored of playing some part in Great Aunt Agatha’s school for young ladies were sadly dashed, she knew, but perhaps the children of the poor of Bath – children to whom an education meant the possibility of earning a modest living – perhaps they would not mind so very much that their teacher did not have a spotless reputation.
She thought then of Anne with a kind of horror, for a scandal of this proportion would almost certainly put a period to her Season and briefly she thought she must after all resign herself to marrying the Viscount. But even for Anne, she could not, would not. No, Anne would have to separate herself from her – go to live with their Aunt in London and hereafter cut her sister’s acquaintance. Aunt Katherine would find a way to make it all right. It would of course be a misery not to be allowed to see dear Anne again, but perhaps some ten years hence a reconciliation might be arranged, if Anne’s husband gave his permission.
Papa, well better not to think of Papa just yet. He would blame himself, she knew, since his machinations were responsible for bringing this viper into their home, but she felt sure he would not cut her off. No, she would live quietly with him until the end, reassuring him daily until he found a way to ease his conscience (as indeed he always did), and then, when he was gone, she would remove herself quietly to Bath with Libby and Mary Hastings.
An Unmarried Lady Page 18