Marianne could not doubt that his refusal to accompany the Grampounds arose from his determination to engage her in private conversation. He had made two attempts already to detach her from the rest of the party, and since she did not know what to say to him if he offered her an apology, or how to repulse him if he tried to renew his love-making, she was thrown into a flutter of nerves, and so earnestly begged Miss Morville not to leave her side for an instant that Drusilla, who had meant to walk across the Park to her own home, to perform some few duties there, was obliged to abandon her design. Until the Grampounds took their departure, everyone lingered in the Castle, but when, not more than an hour later than had been intended, and after only two false starts, the coaches, preceded by the Earl and his brother-in-law on horseback, at last passed under the Gate-tower, and bowled away through the Park, there was nothing to keep the remaining company within doors any longer. Miss Morville suggested the refreshment of a walk in the shrubbery to Marianne, and thither they repaired, enjoying the bright spring sunshine, and talking over such aspects of the ball as Marianne could bear to recall without pain. The painful episode, however, was bound to obtrude, and although a night’s repose had to a great extent soothed Marianne’s more exaggerated reflections, she confided in Miss Morville that although she had previously thought her Mama very old-fashioned to allow her to go nowhere without her chaperonage, she now saw how dangerous it was for a female to be alone with a young man.
After they had been walking about the paths for a little while, they were joined by Lord Ulverston. He had an arm for both ladies, but it was not long before Miss Morville perceived herself to be unnecessary either to his comfort or to Marianne’s. She ventured to suggest that she should leave them, to go on her interrupted errand to Gilbourne House. Beyond saying: ‘Must you go indeed? You will be so tired, after dancing all night!’ Marianne made no objection. The dangers attached to finding herself alone with a young man were forgotten; and since Miss Morville had perfect confidence in Lord Ulverston’s ability to keep whatever ardour he might feel within the bounds of the strictest propriety, she had no hesitation in leaving him to entertain her friend.
She was met at Gilbourne House by the housekeeper, who had a great many problems to lay before her, and a great many grievances to pour into her ears. Not the least of these was the shocking ingratitude, selfishness, and duplicity of one of the maids, who, having been given permission to spend a night at her own home in the village, had, instead of returning in good time upon the following morning, sent up a message to the house that she had had the misfortune to sprain her ankle, and could not set her foot to the ground. As the village lay a mile beyond Gilbourne House, it was not to be expected that stout Mrs Buxton could go there to verify the truth of this message: but she informed Miss Morville darkly that she had always suspected the errant damsel of flightiness.
Miss Morville did not share this suspicion, but she promised to visit Kitty’s home, for she had a strong sense of duty, and had been bred up by her progressive parents to think the well-being of her dependents particularly her concern.
So after a slight argument with Mrs Buxton, who, by no means as progressive as her master and mistress, desired her not to go to the village without taking a manservant with her to act as escort, and to carry her basket, Miss Morville set out to visit the sufferer.
She found the case to be exactly as had been stated, poor Kitty’s ankle being very much swollen. Her offerings of arnica, eggs, and a cheese wrested from Mrs Buxton’s jealously guarded storeroom, were accepted with thanks, and some doubt, Kitty’s mother being of the unshakable opinion that nothing could do more good to sprains, sores, chilblains, and a variety of other ills, than goose-fat, well rubbed in. But a visit from Miss Morville was at once an honour and a pleasure. She must be taken into the tiny parlour, regaled with juniper wine, and the whole history of Kitty’s accident, and thanked again and again for her condescension. The hour was consequently rather far advanced when Drusilla at last left the cottage, and it was beginning to be dusk. She had only a little way to walk, however, before she was able to enter the Park, by one of its subsidiary gates. An avenue led from the gate to the stables, and the kitchen-court, but it was circuitous, and the quickest way was through the Home Wood, by one of the pleasant rides which led to the main avenue.
The wood was full of shadows, and already a little chilly, after the setting of the sun, but Miss Morville, neither so fashionable as to disdain wearing a warm pelisse, nor so delicate as to be unable to walk at a brisk pace, suffered no discomfort. She did not even imagine, when some small animal stirred in the undergrowth, that she was being followed; and was so insensible as to remain impervious to the alarm which might have been caused by the sudden scutter of a rabbit across the path. A quarter of an hour’s quick walking brought her to within sight of the main avenue. The thud of a horse’s hooves came to her ears, which led her to suppose, not that a desperate, and probably masked, brigand approached, but that the Earl, having parted from the Grampounds, was on his way back to the Castle. She was right: in another instant, she had a brief vision of Cloud, cantering along the grass verg
e beside the avenue. Since she was walking almost at right angles to the avenue, Cloud and his rider were swiftly hidden from her sight, as they passed the opening of the ride, and became obscured by the trees and the bushes which bordered the avenue. But although she could no longer see the horse and his rider, she could still hear the thud of the hooves, and when these ceased abruptly, to be succeeded by the unmistakable sound of a fall, followed by the scrabble of hooves on loose stones, and the clatter of a bolting horse, she was not so prosaically-minded as to suppose that these sounds could have been caused by anything other than an accident. It seemed odd that the Earl should have taken a toss on a smooth stretch of turf, but without pausing to consider the improbability of such an occurrence Miss Morville picked up her skirts and ran forward as quickly as she could. Within a very few seconds she had reached the avenue, to be confronted by a startling sight. Of Cloud there was no sign, but his rider lay motionless across the narrow grass verge, his head and shoulders resting on the avenue. This circumstance, as Miss Morville realized, was enough to account for his having been stunned. She dropped to her knees beside his inanimate form, and without the smallest hesitation ripped open his coat to feel the beat of his heart.
The Earl regained consciousness to find himself lying with his head in Miss Morville’s lap, his elaborate Mail-coach cravat untied, and the scent of aromatic vinegar in his nostrils. Gazing bemusedly up into the concerned face bent over him, he uttered, a trifle thickly: ‘Good God! I fell!’
‘Yes,’ agreed Miss Morville, removing her vinaigrette from under his nose. ‘I cannot discover, my lord, that any limb is broken, but I might be mistaken. Can you move your arms and your legs?’
‘Lord, yes! There are no bones broken!’ he replied, struggling up to a sitting posture, and clasping his head between his hands. ‘But I don’t understand! How in the devil’s name came I – Where’s my horse?’
‘I expect,’ said Miss Morville, ‘that he has bolted for his stable, for there was no sign of him when I reached your side. Do not disturb yourself on his account! He could scarcely have done so had he sustained any injury! It is, in fact, a fortunate circumstance that he bolted, for he will give the alarm, you know, and since your groom knows in which direction you rode out we may shortly expect to receive succour.’
He uttered a shaken laugh. ‘You think of everything, ma’am!’
‘I may think of everything,’ said Miss Morville, ‘but I am not always able to accomplish all I should wish to! My chief desire has been to procure water with which to revive you, but, in the circumstances, I scarcely dared to leave your side. I do not think, from what I can observe, that you have broken your collarbone.’
‘I am very sure I have not, ma’am. I have merely broke my head!’
‘Does it pain you very much?’ she asked solicitously.
‘Why, yes! It aches like the very deuce, but not, I assure you, as much as does my self-esteem! How came I to fall, like the rawest of greenhorns?’ He received no answer to this, and added, with an effort towards playfulness: ‘But I forget my manners! I must thank you for preserving my life, Miss Morville – even though it may have been at the cost of my cravat!’
‘I am not, in general,’ said Miss Morville carefully, ‘an advocate for the employment of hyperbole in describing trifling services, but I believe, my lord, that in this instance I may be justly said to have done so.’
He was engaged, with only slightly unsteady fingers, in loosely knotting the ruined cravat about his throat, but at these words he paused in his task to frown at her in some bewilderment. ‘I collect that in this uncertain light I must have been so careless as to let Cloud set his foot in a rabbit-burrow. I own, I have no very clear remembrance of what occurred, but –’
‘No,’ said Miss Morville.
He looked intently at her. ‘No?’
‘You have been unconscious for several minutes, sir,’ said Miss Morville. ‘When once I had ascertained that your heart still beat strongly, I had leisure to look about me, to discover, if I might, what had been the cause of the accident. I am excessively reluctant to add to your present discomforts, but I must request you, in your own interests, to look at what met my eyes a minute or two ago.’
The Earl’s surprised gaze obediently followed the direction of her pointing finger, and alighted upon a length of thin, yet stout, cord, which lay on the ground across the avenue, to disappear into the thicket beyond.
‘You will observe,’ said Miss Morville dispassionately, ‘that the cord is attached to one of the lower branches of that tree upon your left hand. I have been trying to puzzle it out in my mind, and I am strongly of the opinion, my lord, that if the other end of the cord were to be held by some person standing concealed in the thicket to your right, it would be a simple matter for such a person suddenly to pull it taut across the path at the very moment when your horse was abreast of it.’
There was a moment’s silence; then the Earl said: ‘Your power of observation is acute, ma’am. But what a happiness to be assured that I fell from no negligence of my own!’
She seemed to approve of this light-hearted response, for she smiled, and said: ‘I am sure you must be much relieved, my lord.’ She was then silent for a short space, adding presently: ‘To be attaching exaggerated importance to trifling circumstances is what I have no patience with, but I cannot conceal from you, my lord, that I do not at all like what has occurred!’
‘You express yourself with praiseworthy moderation, Miss Morville,’ Gervase returned, rising to his feet, and brushing the dirt from his coat. ‘I will own that for my part I dislike it excessively!’
‘If,’ she said, holding her hands rather tightly clasped in her lap, ‘I could rid my mind of the horrid suspicion that only my unlooked-for presence here is the cause of your being alive at this moment, I should feel very much more comfortable.’
He held down his hand to her. ‘Come, get up, ma’am! You will take cold if you continue to sit on the damp ground. My case was not likely to be desperate, you know. I might, of course, have broken my neck, but the greater probability was that I should come off with a few bruises, as indeed I have, or with a broken limb at the worst.’
She accepted his assistance in rising to her feet, but said with a little asperity: ‘To be sure, there is not the least reason why you should credit me with common-sense, for I daresay I may never have warned you that although I am not bookish I have a tolerably good understanding! My fault is a lack of imagination which makes it impossible for me to believe that a cord was stretched across your path by some mischance – or even,’ she added tartly, ‘by supernatural agency, so pray do not try to entertain me with any of your nonsensical ghost-stories, sir, for I am not in the mood for them!’