Snowdrift and Other Stories Read online

  ‘No, of course you did not!’ he said soothingly. ‘Put your arm round my neck! I am going to carry you to the curricle, and then we’ll see what can be done.’

  But although, when he had set her gently in her place, one glance at her ankle was enough to inform him that the first thing to be done was to remove her boot, a second glance, at her face, equally certainly informed him that to subject her to this added pain would cause her to faint again. He untethered the horses, and led them back on to the road, telling Nan curtly that he was going to drive her to Hungerford.

  ‘Duke!’ she uttered imploringly.

  Sir Charles looked round impatiently, found Duke at his feet, and, grasping him by the scruff of his neck, handed him up to his mistress.

  The short distance that separated them from Hungerford was covered in record time. Miss Massingham endured the anguish of the journey with a fortitude that touched her protector, even contriving to utter a small, gallant jest. Sir Charles, lifting her down, and carrying her into the Bear Inn, said: ‘There, my poor child! You will soon be easier, I promise! You are a good, brave girl!’

  He then bore her in to the empty coffee-room, laid her on a settle, and, while the waiter hurried to summon the landlady, removed the boot from a fast-swelling foot. As he had feared, Nan fainted. By the time she had recovered from this swoon, she had been established in a private parlour. She came round to find herself lying on a sofa, with a stout woman holding burnt feathers under her nose, and two chambermaids applying wet cloths to her ankle.

  ‘Ah!’ said Sir Charles bracingly. ‘That’s better! Come now, my child!’

  Miss Massingham then felt herself raised, was commanded to open her mouth, and underwent the unpleasant experience of having a measure of neat brandy tilted down her throat. She choked, and burst into tears.

  ‘There, there!’ said Sir Charles, patting her in a comforting way. ‘Don’t cry! You will soon feel very much more the thing!’

  Miss Massingham, a resilient girl, began to revive. The visit of the local surgeon, fetched by one of the ostlers after prolonged search, tried her endurance high, but as he pronounced that, although she had badly sprained her ankle, she had broken no bones, she soon took a more hopeful view of her situation, and was even able to think that she might very well be driven on to Speenhamland.

  But this was now impossible. Not only was she in no state to be conveyed thirteen miles in an open curricle, but the short winter’s day had ended, and the snow had begun to fall. Sir Charles was obliged to disclose to his charge that she must remain at the Bear until the following morning.

  ‘To own the truth,’ confided Nan, ‘I am excessively glad of it. I am a great deal better, I assure you, but I would as lief not drive any farther for a little while.’

  ‘Just so,’ agreed Sir Charles, with a wry smile. ‘But as I can place not the slightest dependence upon Mrs Fitton’s feeling alarm until it will be too late for her to return in quest of you, I have thought it advisable to inform them here that you are my young sister.’

  ‘Now, that,’ said Miss Massingham, betraying at once her innocence and her sophistication, ‘is a truly splendid thing, sir, for it shows that at last I am a grown-up lady!’

  ‘Let me tell you,’ said Sir Charles severely, ‘that if you had refrained from buying that outrageous hat I should have had no need to employ this subterfuge! Never in my life have I encountered such an abominably behaved brat as you are, Nan!’

  ‘I have been very troublesome to you, sir,’ said Nan penitently. ‘Are you very much vexed with me?’

  He laughed. ‘No. But you will ruin all if you call me “sir” in this inn! Remember that I am your brother, and say “Charles”!’

  5

  A NIGHT’S REST did much to restore Miss Massingham to the enjoyment of her usual spirits. She partook of an excellent breakfast; hoped that Duke, in whose company Sir Charles had endured a disturbed night, had not discommoded her protector; and demonstrated the ease with which she could, with the aid of a stick, hop about on one foot. Sir Charles, who had been relieved to find, on pulling back his blinds, that only a light powdering of snow lay upon the road, recommended her to sit quietly on the sofa, and went out to see a pair of horses put-to. It was upon his return to the inn that, entering from a door at the back of the house, he was halted in his tracks by the sight of a handsome young woman, who had just come in through the front door.

  This lady, catching sight of him, exclaimed: ‘Charles! You here?’

  ‘Almeria!’ returned her betrothed, in hollow accents.

  ‘But how comes this about?’ demanded her ladyship, advancing towards him with her hand held out. ‘Is it possible you can have come to meet me? We spent the night at the Pelican, you know. A broken trace has made this halt necessary, or we must have missed you. There was not the least occasion for you to have come all this way, my dear Charles!’

  ‘I am ashamed to say,’ replied Sir Charles, dutifully kissing the hand extended to him, ‘that such was not my intention. I am bound for London – to keep an engagement I must not break!’

  She did not look to be very well pleased with this response, but just as she was about to demand the nature of his engagement, the landlady came down the stairs, with a large bolster in her arm. ‘This will be just the thing, sir!’ she announced. ‘It has been laying in the loft these years past, and I’m sure Miss is welcome to take it, the sweet, pretty young lady that she is! I’ll carry it out directly, and see if it can’t be arranged so as to make her comfortable!’

  With this kindly speech, she disappeared through the door opening on to the stable-yard. Sir Charles, closing his eyes for an anguished moment, opened them again to find that his betrothed was regarding him through unpleasantly narrowed eyes.

  ‘Miss?’ said the Lady Almeria icily.

  ‘Why, yes!’ he returned. ‘I am escorting the granddaughter of an old friend home from her school in Bath.’

  ‘Indeed?’ said Lady Almeria, her brows rising.

  ‘Oh, good God, Almeria!’ he said impatiently. ‘There is no occasion for you to assume the air of a Siddons! It’s only a child!’

  ‘A new come-out for you, Charles, to be taking care of children! May I know why a bolster is necessary to her comfort? An infant in arms, I collect?’

  ‘Nothing but a romp of a schoolgirl, who had the misfortune to sprain her ankle yesterday!’

  It was at this inopportune moment that Nan, dressed for the road, hopped out of the parlour, Duke frisking beside her, and announced brightly that she was ready to set forward on the journey. Duke, perceiving that the door to a larger freedom stood open, made a dash for it.

  ‘Charles! Stop him!’ shrieked Nan.

  The voice in which Sir Charles commanded Duke to come to heel startled that animal into cowering instinctively. Before he could recover his assurance, he had been picked up, and tucked under Sir Charles’s arm.

  ‘You frightened him!’ said Nan reproachfully. She found that she was being surveyed from head to foot by a lady with an arctic eye and contemptuously smiling lips, and glanced enquiringly at Sir Charles.

  ‘So this,’ said Lady Almeria, ‘is your schoolgirl!’

  Sir Charles, only too well aware of the impression likely to be created by Miss Massingham’s hat, sighed, and prepared to embark on what was (as he ruefully admitted to himself) an improbable explanation of his circumstances.

  ‘Sir Charles is my brother, ma’am!’ said Miss Massingham, coming helpfully to the rescue.

  Lady Almeria’s lip curled. ‘My good girl, I am well acquainted with Sir Charles’s sister, and I imagine I need be in no doubt of the relationship which exists between you and him!’

  ‘Be silent!’ Sir Charles snapped. He put Duke into Nan’s free arm. ‘Go back into the parlour, Nan! I will be with you directly,’ he said, smiling reassuringly down at her.

  He closed the parlour door upon her, and turned to confront his betrothed. That he was very angry could be seen by the glint