Anne Mather - Leopard In The Snow

Still, she consoled herself, with a glance at her wrist watch. It was only two o’clock and she had plenty of time to find a hotel before nightfall. Any hotel would do, just so long as it provided food and shelter. She could continue on her way tomorrow.

Tomorrow!

She spared a thought for her father. By tomorrow he would have discovered she had gone away. What would he do? Would her note that she needed to get away on her own for a while satisfy him, or would he institute some sort of search for her? The latter seemed the most likely. Her father was not the kind of man to be thwarted, and he would, no doubt, be furious that his daughter, his only offspring, should try to defy him.

But the chances of him discovering her here were slim. In fact, Helen congratulated herself, deciding to come north had been an inspiration. In recent years her most usual haunts had been the West Indies and the South of France, and if her father looked anywhere for her it would be somewhere warm. He knew how she loved the sun, how she enjoyed swimming and sailing, all water sports. He would never expect her to remember the small hotel where he had taken her as a schoolgirl in the years following her mother’s death when they had been everything to one another. And he would certainly not expect her to drive into a raging blizzard …

The snow was thickening on her wiper blades, causing them to smear the windscreen rather than clear it. It seemed ages since she had passed another vehicle and she paused to wonder whether in fact the road she was following led anywhere. It might simply be the track to some farm or a private dwelling of some sort, and how on earth would she be able to turn in such a narrow space?

She frowned. If it was a farm track she would go and knock at the door and ask whether they could give her some firm directions as to how to reach the nearest village. She no longer expected to reach Bowness tonight.

The wipers got worse and with an impatient exclamation she stopped the car and leaving the engine running climbed out and brushed the snow away. It clung to her fingers. It was so cold, and with a shiver she clambered back inside again. Maybe she had been foolhardy in bringing the car. Perhaps she should have used the train. But she had not wanted to risk someone at the station recognising her and possibly remembering this when her father discovered she was missing and started making a fuss.

To her annoyance, the wipers stuck again, and she was forced to get out again and attend to them. She had taken off her long boots with their platform soles because they were impossible for driving and when she had attended to the wipers the first time she had balanced on the door valance. But this time she stopped to put her boots on and while she did so the engine idled to a halt.

Shaking her head, she got out and stood in the snow. It was quite deep, even on the road, and brushed the turnups of her flared scarlet pants. Drops of snow melted on her shoulders as she quickly cleared the snow from the windscreen and satisfying herself that the wipers would at least work for a short period, she got into the driving seat again.

It took several more minutes to divest herself of the boots again and then she turned the ignition. It revved, but nothing happened. Cursing silently to herself, she tried again, allowing it to go on for a long time, but still nothing happened. A pinprick of alarm feathered along her veins. What now? Surely the car wasn’t going to let her down? It never had before. And it wasn’t old. But it hadn’t actually encountered conditions like these before.

Several minutes later she gave up the attempt to try and start the car again. It was getting later all the while and pretty soon it would start to get dark. She dared not risk staying here any longer in the vain hope that someone might come along and rescue her. There were no visible signs that anyone had passed that way that day although the steadily falling snow hampered any real inspection of the road’s surface. Nevertheless, her most sensible course would be to leave the car and go in search of assistance, she decided. If she stayed where she was and no one came, the car could well be buried by morning and she had heard of motorists freezing to death in this way.

Thrusting such uncomfortable thoughts aside, she reached for her boots and began to pull them on again. It was quite an adventure, she told herself, in an attempt to lighten her spirits. Who would have thought when she left London this morning that by late afternoon she would be the victim of an abandoned car in a snowstorm? Who indeed? Her earlier self-congratulation that her father would never look for her here might rebound on her in the most unpleasant way possible.

She shook her head and got out of the car. At least her coat was warm. Made of red suede and lined with sheepskin, it showed up well against the whiteness of the snow. Maybe someone would see her, even if she didn’t see them. She drew the hood up over her head, and tucked inside the long strands of black hair which the wind had taken and blown about her face. Well, this was it! Sheepskin mittens to warm her hands, her trouser legs rolled up almost to the knee, her handbag – what more could any intrepid explorer want?

She looked up and down the deserted road. There seemed no point in retracing her tracks. She knew there was nothing back there – at least, not for miles. Forward it would have to be!

The snow stung her cheeks, and the wind whistled eerily through the skeletal branches of the trees and bushes that hedged the track. She was tempted to penetrate the hedge and climb the sloping fields beyond in an attempt to see some form of habitation in this white wasteland, but a preliminary reconnaissance landed her in snow at least two feet deep and was sufficient to deter any further forays in that direction. It wasn’t possible, she told herself, that one could walk so far without encountering either a house or another human being, but she had. This winding road which had quickly hidden the car from view might be circling a mountain for all she knew. Certainly she was going uphill, her aching legs told her that, but what alternative had she?

She stopped and looked back. It was impossible to distinguish anything beyond a radius of a hundred yards. She was totally and completely lost and the greyness in the sky was not wholly due to the appalling conditions. Evening was approaching and she was no nearer finding a place to stay than she had been an hour ago. A fluttery sense of panic rose inside her. What was she going to do? Was this how fate repaid her for challenging her father’s right to choose her a husband?

Something moved. Out of the corner of her eye she could see a movement, a trace of some colour up ahead of her. She blinked. What was it? An animal probably, foraging for food. Poor creatures. What could any animal find beneath this all-covering blanket?

Shielding her eyes, blinking again as snow settled on her lashes and melting ran down into her eyes, she tried to see what it was that had caught her attention. It was an animal, that much she could see, and no doubt her red coat had attracted its attention, too. It might be a dog, she thought hopefully, with an owner close at hand. Oh, please, she begged silently, let it be a domestic animal!

The creature was loping towards her. It looked like a dog. It was a curious tawny colour, and as it drew nearer she saw that it had splashes of black, too. A sort of tawny Dalmatian, only there weren’t such things.

Then her legs went weak. She felt sick with fear. Panic crawled to the surface. It was no dog. It was no domestic animal. It was a leopard ! A leopard in the snow!

For a moment she was rooted to the spot. She was mesmerised by that silent, menacing gait. She moved her head helplessly from side to side. There were no leopards in Cumberland! This must be some terrible hallucination brought on by the blinding light of the snow. The creature made no sound. It couldn’t be real.