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‘I should hope you were not taking your groom! But me you are taking, make up your mind to that, Iver! Who is to protect Lucy’s reputation if I don’t! You cannot! – in fact, you would be very much more likely to blast it!’
‘Thank you! Let me tell you that I am not travelling in a post-chaise, but in my own curricle!’
‘So I should suppose! And let me tell you, my lord, that this won’t be the first time I’ve travelled in a curricle – or driven one, if it comes to that!’
‘It will not come to that!’ declared his lordship, flinging these words after her retreating form.
The first few miles of the journey were accomplished in silence, since Miss Tresilian was absorbed in her agitating reflections, and Lord Iver’s attention was fully engaged by the task of guiding a spirited team through the noise and bustle of the crowded streets. His curricle was lightly built and well sprung; and since, like every other sporting blood of his day, he had not two but four horses harnessed to it, and was himself a Nonesuch of the first stare, it bowled over the ground, when the streets were left behind, at a speed that allayed one at least of Miss Tresilian’s fears. The June day was bright and warm, the road in excellent condition, and these circumstances helped materially to restore her spirits. When my lord swept through Barnet without a check she asked him where he meant to change horses. He replied curtly that his team was good for two stages. Miss Tresilian relapsed into silence, but, after some twenty minutes, said suddenly: ‘Try as I will, I can’t believe we haven’t come on a wild goose chase!’
‘Then perhaps you will tell me why you forced yourself upon me?’
‘On the chance that you might be right – but the more I consider it the less do I think you can be!’
But at Welwyn, where my lord arranged for the stabling of his own horses, and had a fresh team put-to, her optimism was quenched. One of the waiters at the White Hart had had ample opportunity to observe the handsome young gentleman who had jumped down from a chaise to procure a glass of lemonade for his lady; and he described him in terms which left no room for doubt. Miss Tresilian’s rising spirits went into eclipse, and were not improved by his lordship’s saying, as he drove out of the yard: ‘Satisfied?’
Spurred by this unhandsome taunt, she responded: ‘A very odd notion you must have of me if you suppose I could be satisfied by such intelligence! I was never more shocked in my life!’
‘I should hope you had not been! If anything had been needed to prove me right in thinking you wholly unfit for the post of guardian your niece has supplied it!’
‘Well, if it comes to that, you’ve made a sad botch of your ward, haven’t you?’ she retorted.
‘I have not the smallest doubt that Arthur was cajoled into this escapade by your niece’s wiles!’
‘To own the truth,’ said Miss Tresilian frankly, ‘nor have I! Lucy has ten times his spirit! There is a want of resolution in him which I can’t but deplore, even though I perfectly understand the cause of it. Poor boy! It must have been hard indeed to have developed strength of character, bullied and browbeaten as he has been almost from infancy!’
‘Bullied and browbeaten?’ echoed his lordship.
‘I dare say you never knew you were crushing his spirit,’ she offered, in a palliative tone.
‘No! Nor he either, let me tell you! You have only to add that fear of me has driven him into this elopement, and you will have gone your length!’
‘Well, of course it has!’ she said, turning her head, in genuine astonishment, to scan his grim profile.
‘God grant me patience!’ he ejaculated. ‘So you mean to shuffle off the blame on to my shoulders, do you? Well, you won’t do it! You are to blame, not I!’
‘I?’ she gasped.
‘Yes, you! With your henwitted scheme to carry the girl out of the country! Of all the cork-brained, ill-judged –’
‘This,’ interrupted Miss Tresilian, ‘goes beyond belief! Next you will say that it was I who forbade the marriage!’
‘You were the only person with the authority to do so, at all events!’
‘Indeed? I collect I merely dreamed that you said you would put an end to the project, and warned me not to under-rate your power?’
‘When I said that I gave you credit for having enough sense not to precipitate a crisis which any but a confirmed pea-goose must have foreseen!’
‘No, that is too much!’ she exclaimed. ‘And don’t dare to tell me that you are without power, Iver, because I know very well that you hold Arthur’s purse-strings, and can withhold every penny of his fortune from him!’
‘Don’t be so ridiculous!’ he said irritably. ‘How could I possibly do so? A pretty figure I should cut!’
‘You threatened to do it!’
‘Very likely I may have, but if he believed I meant it he’s a bigger gapeseed than I knew! If he was in earnest, there was nothing I could do to prevent the marriage – eligible enough in the eyes of the world, if not in mine! Had you refrained from interfering, I could have handled him: it wasn’t any threat of mine which goaded him into this clandestine start, but your determination to carry the girl out of his reach!’
‘Well, of all the wickedly unjust things you have ever said to me, this is without parallel!’ she exclaimed. ‘So I interfered! And for what other purpose, Iver, did you call in Green Street than to prevail upon me to do so?’ She saw a slight flush creep into his lean cheek: a sign of discomfiture which afforded her far more gratification than she was prepared to admit. After a tiny pause, she added severely: ‘If there is any virtue in you you’ll own yourself at fault, and beg my pardon!’
That drew a disconcerting reply from him. He glanced at her, fire in his eyes. ‘Oh no! Not again! Once I did so – took on myself the blame for a quarrel which was not of my making – begged you to forgive –’ He checked himself, and said bitterly: ‘Even Arthur isn’t as big a gudgeon as I was!’
