Snowdrift and Other Stories

by Georgette Heyer

  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 –’

  ‘Do not touch me!’ said Miss Wyse, retreating. ‘You shan’t take me back! I won’t go with you!’

  ‘Don’t be such a little fool!’ said the Marquis, exasperated. ‘I warn you, this is no moment to play-act to me! I shall take you home, and there shall be no scandal, but help you to create a scene I will not!’

  Miss Wyse burst into tears. ‘I dare say you’re very angry with me,’ she sobbed, ‘and I know I have behaved badly, but indeed, indeed I couldn’t help it! I meant to be sensible – really I did, Carlington! – but I couldn’t bear it! Oh, you don’t understand! You’ve no s-sensibility at all!’

  Rather pale, he answered: ‘Don’t distress yourself, Fanny. Upon my soul, there is no need! This escapade means nothing: I will engage to give you no cause for complaint when we are married.’

  ‘I can’t!’ said Miss Wyse desperately. ‘You shan’t escort me home!’

  He regarded her with a kind of weary patience. ‘Then perhaps you will tell me what you do mean to do?’ he said.

  Miss Wyse lowered her handkerchief and looked boldly across at him. ‘I’m going to Gretna Green!’ she announced. ‘And nothing you can say will stop me!’

  ‘Have you taken leave of your senses?’ he demanded. ‘There’s no question of going to Gretna! And if there were what in the name of heaven could possess you to go there?’

  ‘I’m going to be married there!’ said Miss Wyse in a rapt voice.

  ‘Oh no, you are not!’ replied the Marquis forcibly. ‘Though it is just like you to do your best to turn everything to dramatic account! If you go to Gretna, you’ll go alone!’

  Miss Wyse gave a shriek at this. ‘Good God, what do you mean to do?’ she cried, running forward, and clasping her hands about his arm. ‘Granville, I implore you, have mercy!’

  The Marquis disengaged himself, looking down at her in the liveliest astonishment. Even supposing her to be on the verge of a fit of strong hysterics her behaviour seemed to him inexplicable. He was just about to enquire the reason for her last outburst when the door into the coffee-room was thrust open, and a young man in a bottle-green coat strode into the parlour, and checked on the threshold, staring in a challenging way at Carlington.

  His bearing, though not his dress, proclaimed the soldier. He was about five-and-twenty years old, with a fresh, pleasant countenance, and a curly crop of brown hair brushed into the Brutus style made fashionable by Mr Brummell.

  Carlington, turning his head to observe the newcomer, said somewhat irascibly: ‘This, my good sir, is a private room!’

  Miss Wyse released Carlington’s arm, and sped towards the intruder, upon whose manly bosom she seemed more than half inclined to swoon. ‘Henry!’ she cried. ‘This is Carlington himself!’

  Henry said in a grave, rather conscious voice: ‘I apprehended that it could be none other. I beg of you, however, not to be alarmed. My lord, I must request the favour of a few words with you alone.’

  ‘Oh no, he will kill you!’ quavered Miss Wyse, grasping the lapels of his coat.

  The Marquis put a hand to his brow. ‘Who the devil are you?’ he demanded.

  ‘I do not expect my name to be known to your lordship, but it is Dobell – Henry Dobell, Captain in the –th Foot, and at present on furlough from the Peninsula. I am aware that my action must appear to you desperate; of the impropriety of it I am, alas, miserably aware. Yet, my lord, I believe that when it is explained any man of sensibility must inevitably –’

  The Marquis checked this flow of eloquence with an upflung hand. ‘Captain Dobell, have you ever been badly foxed?’ he said sternly.

  ‘Foxed, sir?’ repeated the Captain, quite taken aback.

  ‘Yes, foxed!’ snapped the Marquis.

  The Captain gave a cough, and replied: ‘Well, sir, well –! I must suppose that every man at some time or another –’

  ‘Have you?’ interrupted the Marquis.

  ‘Yes, sir, I have!’

  ‘Then you must know what it is to have a head like mine this morning, and I beg you’ll spare me any more long-winded speeches, and tell me in plain words what you’re doing here!’ said Carlington.

  Miss Wyse, finding herself out of the picture, thought it proper at this moment to interject: ‘I love him!’

  ‘You need not hang upon his neck if you do,’ replied the Marquis unsympathetically. ‘Is he a relative of yours whom you have dragged into this affair?’

  ‘Relative! No!’ said Miss Wyse, affronted. ‘He is the man I love!’

  ‘The man you –?’ The Marquis stopped short. ‘Good God, is this an elopement?’ he demanded.

  ‘But – but you know it is!’ stammered Miss Wyse.

  The Marquis, who had almost reeled under the shock, recovered himself, and came towards them. ‘No, no, I’d not the least idea of it!’ he said. ‘I thought – well, it’s no matter what I thought. You must allow me to offer you my most sincere felicitations! Are you on your way to Gretna Green? Let me advise you to lose no time! In fact, I think you should set forward again at once. You may be pursued, you know.’

  ‘But did you not come in pursuit of us, sir?’ asked the astonished Captain.

  ‘No, no, nothing of the sort!’ replied the Marquis, grasping his hand, and wringing it fervently. ‘You have nothing in the world to fear from me, my dear fellow. I wish you every imaginable happiness!’

  ‘Every imaginable happiness?’ cried Miss Wyse indignantly. ‘Have you forgot that I am engaged to you, Carlington?’

  ‘You will be much happier with Henry,’ the Marquis assured her.

  ‘The advertisement will be in today’s Gazette!’

  ‘Don’t let that weigh with you! Is a mere advertisement to stand in the path of true love?’ said the Marquis. ‘I’ll repudiate it immediately. Leave everything to me!’

  ‘Don’t you want to marry me?’ gasped Miss Wyse.

  ‘Not in the – Not when your heart is given to another!’ said his lordship, with aplomb.

  ‘But Mama said – and your mama too – and everybody – that I must accept you because you were desperately in love with me, and it had been understood for so many years! Only when I had done it I knew all at once I couldn’t bear it, and I sent for Henry, and –’

  ‘Very right and proper,’ approved his lordship. ‘I could wish, of course, that you had sent for Henry before I wrote the advertisement for the Gazette, but never mind that now. The thing is for you to waste no time
upon this journey.’

  The Captain, who had been gazing upon his lordship in a bemused way, said in a much-moved voice: ‘Sir, your generosity does you honour! An explanation of conduct which you must deem treacherous indeed is due to you.’

  ‘No, no, pray don’t explain anything to me!’ begged the Marquis. ‘My head is none too clear, you know. Let me take you out to your chaise!’

  The Captain, finding himself propelled towards the door, hung back, and said: ‘We stopped here to partake of breakfast, sir!’

  ‘Not to be thought of!’ said Carlington firmly. ‘At any moment you may be overtaken, and Fanny wrested from your arms. You must make all possible speed to Gretna.’

  The mere thought of being wrested from the Captain’s arms caused Miss Wyse to add her entreaties to his lordship’s. Captain Dobell, still faintly protesting, was swept out of the inn, informed that this was no time to be thinking of food and drink, and pushed up into his chaise. He made a second attempt to explain his elopement to Carlington, but at a sign from the Marquis the post-boys whipped up their horses, and the chaise bowled off down the street, with the Captain hanging out of the window and shouting a final message to the Marquis, the only words of which to reach him were ‘everlasting gratitude’ and ‘eternally obliged’.

  The Marquis turned back into the inn, and strode across the coffee-room to the parlour. Miss Morland had emerged from the cupboard, and was standing by the table, trying hard not to laugh. The Marquis said: ‘Did you hear, Helen?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes. I couldn’t help hearing,’ she answered, a slight quaver in her otherwise solemn voice.

  ‘We must go back to London at once,’ said the Marquis.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Miss Morland.

  ‘For one thing,’ said the Marquis, ‘I want a change of clothes and for another this Gretna scheme was a piece of nonsense. I am not going to be married in company with that pair. We must have a special licence.’

  ‘But we are not going to be married,’ said Miss Morland. ‘It was all a jest. I was mad – I never meant to come with you!’

  ‘You had to come with me,’ retorted the Marquis. ‘I won you and you’re mine.’

  Miss Morland was trembling a little. ‘But –’

  ‘I have been in love with you for months, and you know it!’ said the Marquis.

  ‘Oh!’ said Miss Morland on the oddest little sob. ‘I did think sometimes that you were not – not indifferent to me, but indeed, indeed this is impossible!’

  ‘Is it?’ said the Marquis grimly. ‘We’ll see!’

  It seemed to Miss Morland that he swooped on her. Certainly she had no time to escape. She was nipped into a crushing embrace, and kissed so hard and so often that she had no breath left to expostulate. The Marquis did at last stop kissing her, but he showed not the least inclination to let her go, but looked down into her eyes, and said in an awe-inspiring voice: ‘Well? Are you going to marry me?’

  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.’

  ‘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.