Snowdrift and Other Stories Read online

  Perhaps his lordship had been sickened; he never said it, certainly did not shun female society, but even when in the act of uttering civilities to some hopeful lady a cynical gleam was apt to lurk behind the boredom in his eyes. He was thirty-three, and for ten perilous years he had gone his single way, always courted, never caught, until the rumour that he was paying attentions to such a one would provoke no more than a shrug of the shoulder, a laugh, and a shake of the head. ‘Reveley! Oh, he is a confirmed bachelor!’

  The confirmed bachelor, leaning back against the blue velvet squabs of his chaise, his eyes half-closed, was on his way to Bath, and could not imagine why.

  To drink the waters? Assuredly not. To stroll through the Pump Room, then; to pay morning calls; to attend balls; to hazard a fortune at the gaming-tables? He supposed so, and smiled a little wryly at his own folly, and wished that he could find something new to do, or recapture his youthful enthusiasms, his power of being pleased, his – ah, yes! His interest in life.

  If I lived between the covers of a romance, he thought, no doubt I should cast aside the trappings of nobility, and fare forth in a suitable disguise in quest of adventure. Which would unquestionably be extremely uncomfortable, and – in this prosaic world – a barren quest.

  He opened his eyes fully, and looked out over the waste of Hounslow Heath, across which the chaise was by this time making its way. Adventure upon Hounslow Heath! He mused. Well, yes, let us suppose a highwayman. But in broad daylight? Alas, no, that is a trifle too improbable, my friend. And would it be an adventure, I wonder? I am such a depressingly good shot. It could be nothing more than an incident, enlivening for the moment, perhaps, but not – oh, not capable of holding one’s interest!

  The chaise had passed a gibbet, with a blackened shrivelled figure hanging in chains which creaked mournfully in the wind, but of live highwaymen there was no sign. The Heath, at three o’clock on an autumn afternoon, was the haunt only of peewits and snipe, and the only object of interest seemed to be that common enough sight; a chaise stranded on the road with a wheel off.

  His lordship had a good view of this through the windows of the door in front of him. The chaise, obviously a hired vehicle, sprawled drunkenly at the side of the road, while the single post-boy, having taken his pair out of the shafts, stood consulting with the passenger, a young gentleman in a badly fitting suit of clothes, who stood with his cloak-bag beside him, rather helplessly surveying the wreck of his conveyance.

  The Earl observed all this as his own chaise bore down upon the other, and sighed, and let down the window and ordered the postilions to stop.

  The young gentleman in the road looked up as the chaise drew up alongside him. It was seen that he was a very young gentleman, hardly out of school, judged his lordship. He was dressed in a plain blue coat with silver buttons and buff breeches under a long travelling cloak, and he wore his own curling fair hair brushed back from his face and tied in the nape of his neck with a black riband. A muslin cravat round his throat, top-boots, and a hat clutched under one arm completed his toilet. He looked hot and disconsolate and – yes, decided his lordship, looking lazily down into the upturned face – oddly suspicious. The eyes, which were celestial blue, held a challenge, at variance with a somewhat womanish cast of countenance. The Earl opened the door of the chaise, and said in his pleasant, languid voice:

  ‘How unfortunate! Consider me entirely at your service, I beg of you.’

  The young gentleman hunched a shoulder, replying rather ungraciously: ‘Thank you. It is nothing – a broken lynch-pin.’

  The Earl seemed to be slightly amused at this grudging form of address. He said:

  ‘So I perceive. Do you mean to stay by your chaise indefinitely, or would you like me to take you up with me as far as the next stage?’

  The young gentleman flushed.

  ‘You are very good, sir,’ he said gruffly. An anxious frown knit his brow. All at once he blurted out:

  ‘Delay is fatal to me! I must reach Bath!’

  ‘How I envy you!’ remarked his lordship.

  ‘Envy me?’ exclaimed the young gentleman in tones of great astonishment.

  ‘Certainly. To be under an obligation – however irksome, to have a set purpose – how refreshing!’ said the Earl, between a smile and a sigh.

  Then, observing that the other was regarding him with a good deal of misgiving, he added:

  ‘Oh, I am quite sane, I assure you! Come, you had best step up beside me. You will be able to hire another chaise at Longford, I dare say.’

  The young gentleman still seemed to hesitate for a moment or two, but after a despairing glance cast at his wrecked chaise, and a very searching one at the Earl, he murmured that he was much obliged, and climbed up into the other chaise.

  He took his seat beside the Earl; his cloak-bag was stowed in the boot, and, the steps being put up again, the chaise was soon moving forward at a brisk rate. The young gentleman glanced at his lordship, and said with careful formality:

  ‘Sir, I must thank you for your courtesy. Had my need been less urgent I should have scrupled to have thrust myself upon you, but it is imperative that I should lose no time on the road.’

  A suspicion that the youth might be escaping from school crossed the Earl’s mind, but was banished by the next words, delivered somewhat haltingly:

  ‘You think it very odd, I dare say, sir, but my presence is – is instantly required in Bath.’

  The Earl said, with a twinkle in his eye: ‘Can it be that I am assisting at an elopement?’

  ‘Well, no, sir, not precisely an elopement,’ replied the young gentleman, colouring.

  The Earl, although an idle curiosity had been roused in him, was too well-bred to press the point. He merely inclined his head and remarked:

  ‘You will no doubt be able to hire another chaise at Longford, or Colnbrook.’

  ‘Yes, but –’ The young man broke off, his cheeks still more flushed, and turned his head away to gaze out of the side-window.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ he said.

  There was a pause.

  ‘If you like to mention my name at the George, at Colnbrook,’ said his lordship gently, ‘I believe you will have no trouble.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said the young gentleman. ‘It would be convenient to pay for the hire of a second chaise at the end of the journey. Do you think –’

  ‘I have no doubt it can be easily arranged,’ said the Earl. ‘My name, by the way, is Reveley.’

  ‘Reveley,’ repeated the other, committing it to memory.

  It was apparent that the name conveyed nothing to him. The Earl, accustomed to see it act upon his world like a kind of talisman, was amused.

  ‘Yes, Reveley,’ he said. ‘May I have the honour of knowing yours?’

  The youth gave a start.

  ‘Oh, to be sure, yes!’ he replied. ‘It is – it is Brown. Peter Brown.’

  The Earl received this rather unconvincing piece of information with unruffled civility, and began to converse amiably upon a number of unexceptionable topics. Cranford Bridge was soon reached, and Peter Brown, catching sight of a milestone, discovered that he was within two miles of Longford. He desired to be set down at the posting-house there, but the Earl, very willing to beguile the tedium of his journey by solving the mystery that clung about his companion, countered with a proposal that he should continue in the chaise as far as Colnbrook, and there dine.

  ‘I had not thought about dinner,’ said Peter Brown doubtfully. ‘I am in such haste, you see.’

  ‘But if you don’t dine you will be extremely hungry,’ the Earl pointed out.

  A sudden smile, charged with a kind of rueful merriness, lit Peter Brown’s countenance.

  ‘I am extremely hungry, sir,’ he confessed.

  ‘Then you must certainly dine with me at Colnbrook,’ said the Earl.

  ‘You are very good, sir. To be sure, these four horses must cover the distance twice as fast as a pair.’

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