Her eyes flew open. ‘You don’t mean to say you’ve done it?’ she gasped.
‘Of course I’ve done it! What, were you afraid I should lock the wheels? Absurd creature!’ He glanced over his shoulder, saw that the post-boys had reined in their horses to a trot, and checked his own team. In another minute he had brought them to a halt, swinging them across the road to form a barrier. He gave the reins into Miss Tresilian’s hands, and, as the chaise drew up, sprang down, and strode towards it.
The post-boys eyed him in some trepidation, but he paid no attention to them. He lifted a hand to wrench open the door of the chaise, but before he could grasp the handle the door was thrust open from within, and a fresh-faced youth, not waiting to let down the steps, jumped out, saying, in an impetuous, rueful voice: ‘I beg your pardon, sir! I didn’t mean – at least, I – oh, by Jupiter, sir, how you did give us the go-by! It was the most bang-up thing I ever saw in my life! But I’m afraid you’re very vexed!’ he added, gazing up in dismay at Lord Iver’s countenance.
His lordship was, in fact, thunderstruck, but his expression was certainly alarming. The unknown youth said contritely: ‘We shouldn’t have done so – indeed, I am very sorry! We were only funning – that’s to say – well, I dare say you know how it is, sir, when one is in spirits, and – and –’ His voice petered out unhappily, for he perceived no understanding at all in the eyes that stared so fiercely at him.
At this point, there was an intervention. A damsel, clad in the demure raiment suitable for a school-room miss, peeped out of the chaise, and said, with an engaging mixture of mischief and penitence: ‘It was all my fault! Because I wouldn’t put up at Stamford, and so we came on, because it is a whole year since I was at home, and I couldn’t have slept a wink, and it’s not so very much farther! Only when we changed horses at Greetham Jack said the light had begun to go, and Papa would say we shouldn’t have come on, but I said we might easily reach Grantham if we drove fast, and give them all such a surprise, for they don’t expect to see us until tomorrow. So Jack said: “Oh, very well!” but we should have everyone thinking we were eloping to Gretna Green, which sent us both into whoops, of course! And that was what put the notion into our heads!’
‘I should explain, sir, that she’s my sister,’ interpolated the youth, anxious to throw light upon dark places. ‘She has been at school, you see.’
‘Yes, but Mama let me come away before any of the others, so that Jack could bring me home. Isn’t it famous?’ rapturously exclaimed his sister. ‘Because Jack, you know, is my particular brother, just as Ned is Cecy’s!’
His lordship, stunned as much by all these whirling words as by the shock of finding that he had waylaid two complete strangers, could think of nothing to say but: ‘Oh!’ and that in a blank voice which made it necessary for Miss Tresilian, deeply appreciative of the scene, to take her underlip firmly between her teeth.
Frowning down his sister’s irrelevance, the young gentleman embarked manfully on an explanation of his conduct. ‘The thing was, sir, that I always meant to spring the horses, if the road was clear, because we have still more than twenty miles to go before we reach home, and my father – Oh, I should have told you that Father is Sir John Holloway, and we live near Grantham! Well – well, we were joking each other about being a runaway couple when you blew up to pass us, and I shouted to the post-boys to put ’em along – just cutting a lark, you know! But, of course, I shouldn’t have done so!’ he added hastily. ‘And I didn’t mean to keep it up. Only – well, when you gave chase it was so exciting – and when I saw you were going to make the attempt – well, I do beg your pardon, sir, but I wouldn’t have missed it for anything! You drove to an inch!’
&
nbsp; ‘I see,’ said his lordship. ‘Well, when next you try your hand at racing on the road, don’t do it in a post-chaise, and don’t take your sister with you! Tell me, have you come from London?’
‘Oh no! From Oxford, sir. One of the old tabbies at Bella’s school brought her up from Bath – Oh, I should have told you that I’m at Magdalen!’
‘Are you? Well, if you are to reach home before dark you’d best lose no more time. Up with you!’
‘Thank you!’ said Mr Holloway, greatly relieved. ‘I’m excessively obliged to you for not – Oh, you go first, sir!’
‘No, I should only hold you up: I’m not going to drive at your hell-for-leather pace!’
Laughing heartily at this, Mr Holloway, after fervently shaking hands with his lordship, hoisted himself into the chaise, and it moved forward, Miss Tresilian having by this time drawn the curricle to the side of the road. His lordship, heavily frowning, walked back to it. He observed that Miss Tresilian had succumbed to her emotions, and regarded her balefully.
‘Oh, don’t look at me like that, Iver!’ she begged, wiping her streaming eyes. ‘If you could but have seen your own face – !’
‘Much help you were!’ he said, with a reluctant grin. ‘Yes, it’s all very well for you to laugh yourself into stitches, my girl, but where the devil are those pernicious brats?’
‘I said we had come on a wild goose chase! Have we all the time been pursuing that enchanting couple?’
‘Certainly not! Didn’t you hear the boy say they had come from Oxford? They can never have been on our road until they entered Stamford. I have not the smallest doubt that when we entered Stamford we were hard on the heels of our own pair.’
That sobered her. She said, in dismay: ‘Do you mean that they are ahead of us still?’
‘No, I don’t,’ he said decidedly. ‘They haven’t passed any of the pikes. From Stamford we have been following the Holloways.’
She was disturbed, but could not resist quizzing him. ‘Flying from a scent, Iver? You?’
He smiled, but absently, and remained for some moments in frowning silence. He said suddenly: ‘If the line was crossed in Stamford – Good God, why didn’t I think of that before? He has taken the girl to Grantley, of course!’ He saw that Miss Tresilian was bewildered, and added impatiently: ‘Windlesham’s place, beyond Market Deeping! You’ve met Arthur’s sister, haven’t you?’
‘Lady Windlesham! Yes, but what could he hope to achieve by that?’
‘Depend upon it, he has a special licence in his pocket, and means to be married under Caroline’s ægis.’
‘But she has no authority to sanction Lucy’s marriage!’
‘Much she would care for that! Arthur can bring her round his thumb any time he chooses to do it: she dotes on him! She’s of a romantic disposition, what’s more, and to judge by the impassioned entreaties she addressed to me on this subject has confused that precious pair with Romeo and Juliet.’
‘Iver, she could not be so unprincipled as to –’
‘Nothing of the sort!’ he interrupted. ‘She knows that Arthur is his own master, and if she doesn’t know already that you liked the connection well enough until you discovered that I was Arthur’s guardian, it wouldn’t, I assure you, take Arthur more than five minutes to convince her that if only the knot could be tied without your knowledge you would be more likely to fall on her neck than to try to overset the marriage!’