Джорджетт Хейер - The Nonesuch

“ No! ” he interrupted forcefully. “I won’t have our affairs blabbed all round the district!”

“It’s bound to be talked of. And I’m persuaded Mrs Chartley—”

“Not if I fetch her back! Which I promise you I mean to do, for my mother’s sake!” He added rather grandly: “I shall be obliged to call that fellow out of course, but I shall think of some pretext for it.”

At any other time she must have laughed, but she was too busy racking her brains to pay much heed to him. “Something must have happened,” she repeated. “Something that made her feel she couldn’t remain here another instant. Oh, good God, Lindeth! He must have offered for Patience—and she told Tiffany!”

Courtenay gave a whistle of surprise. “So that’s serious, is it? Well, by Jove, if ever I expected to see her given her own again! Lord, she’d be as mad as fire! No wonder she ran off with Calver! Trying to hoax everyone into thinking it was him she wanted all along!”

She was momentarily daunted, but she came about again, “Yes, she might do that, in one of her wild fits, but he would not. Wait! Only let me think!” She pressed her hands over her eyes, trying to cast her mind back.

“Well, if she isn’t going to Gretna Green, where else can she be going?” he argued.

Her hands dropped. “What a fool I am! To London, of course! That’s what she wanted—she begged me to take her back to the Burfords! Of course that’s the answer! She must have persuaded Mr Calver to take her to Leeds—perhaps even to escort her to London!” She read disbelief in Courtenay’s face, and said: “If she made him believe that she was being hardly used here—you know how she always fancies herself to be ill-treated as soon as her will is crossed! Recollect that he doesn’t know her as we do! She has shown him her prettiest side, too—and she can be very engaging when she chooses! Or—or perhaps he has done no more than put her on the stage, in charge of the guard.”

“Stage!” exclaimed Courtenay contemptuously. “I wish I may see Tiffany condescending to a stage-coach! A post-chaise-and-four is what she’d demand! And much hope I have of catching it!”

“She couldn’t go post,” said Miss Trent decidedly. “She spent all her pin-money in Harrogate. And I must think it extremely unlikely that Mr Calver could have been able to oblige her with a loan. She would need as much as £25, you know, and how should he be carrying such a sum upon him, when all he meant to do was to take her out for a driving-lesson? And I fancy he’s not at all beforehand with the world.” She thought for a moment, and then said, in a constricted voice: “Mr Underhill, I think—I think you should drive over to Broom Hall, to consult Sir Waldo. He is Mr Calver’s cousin, and—and I think he is the person best fitted to handle this matter.”

“Well, I won’t!” declared Courtenay, reddening. “I’m not a schoolboy, ma’am, and I don’t need him to tell me what I should do, or to do it for me, I thank you! I’m going to tell ’em to bring the phaeton up to the house immediately. If that precious pair went to Leeds they must have passed through the village, and someone is bound to have seen them. And if they did, trust me to have Tiffany back by nightfall! If you ask me, I’d say good riddance to her, but I’ll be damned —begging your pardon!—if I’ll let her shab off to the Burfords as if we had made her miserable here!”

Miss Trent had no great faith in his ability to overtake a truant who had had three hours’ start; but since she felt quite as strongly as he did that every effort must be made to do it, and realized that to persist in urging that Sir Waldo should be consulted would be a waste of breath and time, she resigned herself to the prospect of an uncomfortable, and possibly nerve-racking drive. He was relieved to learn that she meant to accompany him, but he warned her that he was going to put ’em along .That he would do better to be content with putting his horses well together was an opinion which she kept to herself.

When she found that he had had a team harnessed to the phaeton her heart sank. His leaders were new acquisitions, and he was not yet very expert in pointing them, or indeed of sticking to them, as she very soon discovered. Observing that there was not a moment to be lost, Courtenay sprang his horses down the avenue to the lodge-gates. Since it was not only rather narrow, but had several bends in it as well, Miss Trent was forced to hold on for dear life. The sharp turn out of the gates was negotiated safely, though not, perhaps, in style, and they were soon bowling along the lane that led to the village. Courtenay, exhilarated by his success in negotiating the difficult turn out of the gate, confided to Miss, Trent that he had been practising the use of the whip, and rather thought he could back himself to take a fly off the leader’s ear.

“I beg you won’t do any such thing!” she replied. “I have no wish to be thrown out into the ditch!”

Nettled, he determined to show her that he was at home to a peg, and it was not long before her worst fears were realized. Within less than a quarter of a mile from Oversett, feather-edging a bend in the lane, his front-wheel came into sharp collision with a milestone, partially hidden by rank grass, and the inevitable happened. Miss Trent, picking her self up, more angry than hurt, found that one wheel of the phaeton was lying, a dismal wreck, at some distance from the carriage, that one of the wheelers was down, a trace broken, and both the leaders plunging wildly in a concerted effort to bolt. Blistering words were on the tip of her tongue, but she was a sensible woman, and she realized that there were more urgent things to do than to favour Courtenay with an exact and pithy opinion of his driving-skill. She hurried to his assistance. Between them, they managed to quieten the frightened leaders, backing them gently to relieve the drag on the crippled phaeton from the remaining trace. “Cut it!” she commanded. “I can hold this pair now. Do you get that wheeler on his feet!”

Speechless with rage and chagrin, he had just freed the leaders when, sweeping round the bend towards them, came the Nonesuch, his team of chestnuts well in hand, and his groom seated beside him. The team was pulled up swiftly, every rein holding as true as if it had been single; the groom jumped down, and ran to the wheelers’ heads; and the Nonesuch, his amused gaze travelling from Courtenay, beside his struggling wheeler, to Miss Trent, who had led the two sweating leaders to the side of the lane, said: “Dear me! Do what you can, Blyth!”

The groom touched his hat and went to Courtenay, who was suffering such agonies of mortification at being found in such a situation that he would have been hard put to it to decide whether he wished himself dead or the Nonesuch. He blurted out, scarlet-faced: “It was that curst milestone! I never saw it!”

“Very understandable,” agreed Sir Waldo. “But if I were you I would attend to my horses! You really need not explain the circumstances to me.” He looked smilingly at Miss Trent. “How do you do, ma’am? Quite a fortunate encounter! I was on my way to visit you—to invite you to go with me to Leeds.”

“To Leeds!” The exclamation was surprised out of her; she stood staring up at him, her embarrassment forgotten.

“Yes: on an errand of mercy!” He glanced towards the phaeton, and saw that the fallen wheeler was up. “Very good, Blyth! Now take those leaders in hand!”

The groom, who had been running a hand down one of the unfortunate wheeler’s legs, straightened himself, saying: “Yes, sir. Badly strained hock here.”

“So I should imagine. Render Mr Underhill all the assistance you can!”