Unmoved by this reflection, Keighley objected: ‘It’s more than thirty miles from here, your grace! You’ll have to change horses, and postilions too, because the boys couldn’t do it, not if we run into snow.’

‘Oh, I’m not travelling in the chaise!’ said Sylvester. ‘I’ll take the curricle, of course, and drive myself. You will come with me, and Swale can follow in the chaise. Tell the boys they must go as far as they can without a change. They are to bring my own team on by easy stages to the Pelican, and if I’m not there, to town. Swale, put up all I might need for several days in one of my portmanteaux!’

‘If your grace should wish me to travel in the curricle I shall be happy to do so,’ said Swale, with less truth than heroism.

‘No, Keighley will be of far more use to me,’ replied Sylvester.

His devoted retainer grunted, and went off to the stables. Within half an hour, resigned to his fate, he was seated beside his master in the curricle, gloomily surveying the prospect, which had by this time become extremely threatening. He had added a large muffler to his attire, and from time to time blew his nose on a handkerchief drenched with camphor. Upon Sylvester’s addressing a chatty remark to him, he said primly: ‘Yes, your grace.’ To a second effort to engage him in conversation he replied: ‘I couldn’t say, your grace.’

‘Oh, couldn’t you?’ Sylvester retorted. ‘Very well! Say what you wish to: that it’s devilish cold, and I’m mad to make the attempt to get to the Pelican! It’s all one to me, and will very likely make you feel more amiable.’

‘I wouldn’t so demean myself, your grace,’ replied Keighley, with dignity.

‘Well, that’s a new come-out,’ commented Sylvester. ‘I thought I was in for one of your scolds.’ Receiving no response to this, he said cajolingly: ‘Come out of the sullens, John, for God’s sake!’

Never, from the day when a very small Sylvester had first coaxed him to do his imperious will, had Keighley been able to resist that note. He said severely: ‘Well, if ever there was a crack-brained start, your grace! Driving right into a snowstorm, like you are! All I say is, don’t you go blaming me if we end up in a drift!’

‘No, I won’t,’ Sylvester promised. ‘The thing was, you see, it was now or never-or at least for a week. You may have been enjoying yourself: I wasn’t! In fact, I’d sooner put up at a hedge tavern.’

Keighley chuckled. ‘I suspicioned that was the way of it. I didn’t think we should be there long: not when I heard about the smoke in your grace’s bedchamber. Nor Swale didn’t like it, being very niffy-naffy in his ways.’

‘Like me,’ remarked Sylvester. ‘In any event, I could hardly have remained, when his lordship was suddenly called away, could I?’

‘No, your grace. Particularly seeing as how you wasn’t wishful to.’

Sylvester laughed; and good relations being restored between them they proceeded on their way in perfect amity. It was snowing in Devizes, but they reached Marlborough in good time, and at the Castle Inn stopped to rest the horses, and to partake of a second breakfast. Roaring fires and excellent food strongly tempted Sylvester to remain there, and he might have done so had it not occurred to him it was situated rather too near to Austerby for safety. The arrival of the Bath Mail clinched the matter. It was several hours late, but Sylvester learned from the coachman that although the road was bad in parts, it was nowhere impassable. He decided to push on. Keighley, fortified by a potation of gin, beer, nutmeg, and sugar, which he referred to as hot flannel, raised no objection; so the horses were put to again.

It was heavier going over the next ten miles, and once beyond the Forest of Savernake Sylvester was obliged, once or twice, to pull up, while Keighley got down from the curricle to discover the line of the road. Hungerford was reached, however, without mishap. Sylvester’s famous dapple-greys, with a light vehicle behind them, were tired, but not distressed. If rested for a space, he judged them to be perfectly capable of accomplishing the next stage, which would bring him to Speenhamland, and the Pelican.

By the time they set forward again on their journey it was past four o’clock, and to the hazards of the weather were added those of failing daylight. With the sky so uniformly overcast Keighley was of the opinion that it would be dark before they reached Newbury, but he knew his master too well to waste his breath in remonstrance. Sylvester, who could have numbered on one hand the occasions when he had been ill enough to coddle himself, was neither disconcerted by the blinding snow, nor troubled by its discomforts. Keighley, his cold at its zenith, wondered whether he could be persuaded to draw rein at the Halfway House, and would not have been altogether sorry had they foundered within reach of this or any other hostelry. Neither he nor Sylvester was familiar with the road, but fortune favoured them, just when it became most difficult. They met a stage-coach making its slow and perilous progress towards Bath, and were able to follow its deep tracks for several miles, before these became obliterated by the falling snowflakes. They were still discernible when Keighley’s sharp eyes saw the wreck of a curricle lying in the ditch, and remarked that someone had had a nasty spill. The curricle was covered with snow, but it was plainly a sporting vehicle, and had just as plainly been travelling eastward. Sylvester was assailed suddenly by a suspicion. He pulled up, the better to scrutinize the derelict. ‘It’s a curricle, John.’

‘Yes, your grace,’ agreed Keighley. ‘Broken shaft, let alone the near-side wheels, which I dare say are smashed. Now, for goodness’ sake, do you take care how you go! Nice bobbery if we was to end up the same way!’

‘I wonder?’ said Sylvester, unholy amusement in his voice. ‘I shouldn’t suppose there could be many desperate enough to take a curricle out in this weather. I wonder?’

‘But they was making for the Border, your grace!’ said Keighley, betraying a knowledge he had hitherto discreetly concealed.

‘That was only what Miss Eliza said. I thought young Orde must be a regular greenhead to have supposed there was the least chance of his getting within two hundred miles of the Border. Perhaps he isn’t a greenhead, John! I think we are going to make his acquaintance. I am glad we decided to push on to the Pelican!’

‘Begging your grace’s pardon,’ said Keighley grimly, ‘we didn’t decide no such thing! What’s more, if I may make so bold as to say so, you don’t want to make his acquaintance. Nor you don’t want to meet Miss again-not if I know anything about it!’

‘I daresay you know all about it,’ retorted Sylvester, setting his horses in motion again. ‘You usually do. What happened when they ran into the ditch?’

‘I don’t know, your grace,’ replied Keighley irascibly. ‘Maybe there was a coach passed, and they got into it.’

‘Don’t be a clunch! What became of the horses? They don’t belong to Master Tom, but to his father. He’d take precious good care of ‘em, wouldn’t he?’

‘He would, if his father’s the cut of your grace’s honoured father,’ acknowledged Keighley, with mordant humour. ‘Lord, what a set-out we did have, that time your grace took the young bay out, and-’

‘Thank you, I haven’t forgotten it! Master Tom, John, got his horses disentangled from that wreck, and led them to the nearest shelter. There can’t have been any broken legs, but I fancy they didn’t come off entirely scatheless. Keep your eyes open for a likely farm, or inn!’

Keighley sighed, but refrained from comment. In the event no great strain was imposed upon his visionary powers, for within half a mile, hard by a narrow lane which crossed the post road, a small wayside inn stood, set back a few yards from the road, with its yard and several outbuildings in its rear.

‘Aha!’ said Sylvester. ‘Now we shall see, shan’t we, John? Hold ‘em for me!’

Keighley, receiving the reins, was so much incensed by this wayward conduct that he said with awful sarcasm: ‘Yes, your grace. And if you was to be above an hour, should I walk them, just in case they might happen to take cold?’

But Sylvester, springing down from the curricle, was already entering the Blue Boar, and paid no heed to this sally.

The door opened on to a passage, on one side of which lay the tap, and on the other a small coffee room. Opposite, a narrow staircase led to the upper floor, and at the head of it, looking anxiously down, stood Miss Phoebe Marlow.

8

The startled exclamation which broke from her, and the look of dismay which came into her face, afforded Sylvester malicious satisfaction. ‘Ah, how do you do?’ he said affably.

One hand gripping the banister rail, a painful question in her eyes, she uttered: ‘Mama-?’

‘But of course! Outside, in my curricle.’ Then he saw that she had turned perfectly white, and said: ‘Don’t be such a goose-cap! You can’t suppose I would drive your mother-in-law thirty yards, let alone thirty miles!’

Her colour came rushing back; she said: ‘No-or she consent to drive in a curricle! What-what brings you here, sir?’

‘Curiosity, ma’am. I saw the wreck on the road, and guessed it to be Mr. Orde’s curricle.’

‘Oh! You didn’t-you were not-’ She stopped in some confusion; and then, as he looked up at her in bland inquiry, blurted out: ‘You didn’t come to find me?’

‘Well, no!’ he answered apologetically. ‘I am merely on my way to London. I am afraid, Miss Marlow, that you have been labouring under a misapprehension.’

‘Do you mean you were not going to make me an offer?’ she demanded.

‘You do favour the blunt style, don’t you? Bluntly, then, ma’am, I was not.’