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‘I don’t believe it!’ said Lady Wilfrid, recovering from her stupefaction. ‘She meant to entrap you from the start!’
‘Oh!’ cried Miss Fairfax, raising her hand to a suddenly burning cheek.
The Earl, glancing swiftly from one to the other of his relatives, said, ‘We are, I believe, at cross-purposes, ma’am. Oblige me by telling me in more precise terms, if you please, why you have followed me to this place.’
His aunt bent a look of deep reproach upon him. ‘Attempt to pass that unprincipled female off with what degree of credit you may, you will not deceive me! Can you deny that you are on your way to Gretna Green?’
‘So that’s it, is it?’ said the Earl. His frown had vanished, but the smile which took its place caused his cousin to remove himself thoughtfully to the other side of the table. ‘No, my dear Aunt Almeria, I do not deny it!’
The afflicted lady gave a gasp.
‘A nobody!’ she said. ‘You, a confirmed bachelor (for I don’t consider for a moment that nonsensical notion you had once of marrying your ward!), to fall under the sway of a wretched little dab of a governess! You cannot mean it!’
Miss Fairfax, who felt ready to sink, made a movement of protest, but the Earl spoke before she had time to forestall him.
‘I never meant anything more in my life,’ he said deliberately. ‘You have had your journey for nothing, ma’am: my determination to wed Miss Fairfax is fixed. As for your dismay, I am well aware that my marriage must come as a sad blow to my cousin there, but I have more than once warned him that it is ill waiting for dead men’s shoes. I have the honour, ma’am, to wish you a very good evening!’
He strode to the door, and wrenched it open. Before anyone could move, however, his effect was spoiled by the tempestuous entrance of a young lady in a travelling cloak whose hood had fallen back from a head of bright, tumbled curls. Without appearing to notice the other occupants of the room, this damsel cast herself upon his lordship’s chest, exclaiming, ‘Oh, my dear guardian, I’m so thankful you are here! The most dreadful thing! You must come at once!’
The bemused silence which had greeted Miss Gellibrand’s dramatic entrance was broken by the voice of Lady Wilfrid, stridently demanding to be told what Lucilla was doing in Grantham. No one enlightened her. The Earl, disengaging the lapels of his coat from his ward’s grasp, said, ‘What has happened? What has that fellow been doing to you?’
‘Oh, nothing, nothing, you stupid thing!’ said Miss Gellibrand, stamping her foot. ‘He is in a deep swoon, and I am quite distracted!’
‘In a deep swoon!’ exclaimed the Earl, in tones of considerable surprise. ‘In God’s name, why?’
‘I think his shoulder is broken,’ said Miss Gellibrand tragically.
‘What in the world has he been doing to get his shoulder broken? And how do you come to be here? I thought you at Newark!’
‘So we should have been, only that that odious chaise lost a wheel, just as we had passed the Ram Jam, and we were pitched into the ditch. And Edmund, in attempting to save me, was thrown heavily on to the side of the chaise, all amongst the breaking glass!’
‘Oh, my poor child, were you hurt?’ cried Miss Fairfax, moving towards her.
‘Oh, is that you, Mary? No, only the tiniest scratch. And at first I had no notion that Edmund had sustained any serious injury, for he never said anything, and in the scramble I didn’t notice that he was not using his left arm. We thought only of proceeding on our journey, knowing that Shane, and very likely you too, would be hard on our heels. Then the thing was, how to come by another chaise? We thought we should have been able to have hired one at Stretton, and we got on to a cart that was going there, while the post-boy rode on to get a wheelwright to fetch the chaise away. Only when we reached Stretton there was no chaise to be had, no suitable conveyance of any sort. There was nothing for it but to come on by the stage to Grantham. And I must say,’ added Miss Gellibrand buoyantly, ‘had it not been for my beginning to be in a pucker over Edmund, I should have enjoyed it above all things! Only fancy, dear sir, we had to sit four a side, and a horrid old man was chewing green onions all the way! And such an uproar as was made over our not being on the way-bill! Edmund had actually to bribe the coachman before he would take us up. He said if it was ever discovered h
e had shouldered us he would very likely be dismissed. However, that doesn’t signify. Though we had lost so much time, we were not unhopeful of outstripping pursuit, and my spirits at least were mounting when they were utterly overpowered by the sight of you, sir, driving past the stage! I thought all was lost, not knowing then how glad I should be to see you! For when we reached this town, we were set down at the most vulgar-looking inn, and I discovered that Edmund was suffering the greatest anguish, hardly able to stand! There was no staying at that horrid tavern, so we came to the Angel, Edmund leaning upon my arm, and myself, as you may suppose, in the greatest alarm imaginable. And then, to crown all, they tried to turn us away from here, saying it was a posting-house, and they could not admit stage-passengers! I do not know what would have become of us had not Edmund sunk suddenly into a swoon! Everything was bustle and confusion then, but I caught sight of your curricle being wheeled into a coach-house, my dear sir, and staying only to see my sainted Edmund carried into the house, I ran upstairs to find you. Please, please come to Edmund at once, and explain everything to that odious landlord!’
Lady Wilfrid, who had listened to this tumultuous recital in astonished silence, turned towards Miss Fairfax, as the Earl left the room in the wake of his volatile ward, and said in a stunned voice, ‘It is Lucilla who is eloping?’
‘Yes,’ said Miss Fairfax.
Lady Wilfrid eyed her suspiciously. ‘Am I to understand, then, that you are not about to marry my nephew?’
‘No, indeed,’ said Miss Fairfax, rather forlornly. ‘I accompanied Lord Shane merely to take Lucilla home again.’
‘Well, I don’t understand!’ suddenly announced Mr Drayton. ‘He said he was about to be married to you!’
‘I think,’ said Miss Fairfax diffidently, ‘that you made him lose his temper, and he said it to make you angry.’
‘He was always a disagreeable creature,’ said Lady Wilfrid. ‘I collect that he has set his face against Lucilla’s marriage, I dare say for no other reasons than pride and self-will.’
‘Indeed, ma’am, I believe Mr Edmund Monksley to be a most unexceptionable young man,’ replied Miss Fairfax, perceiving that in Lady Wilfrid Lucilla would find an eager ally. ‘The only objections are Lucilla’s youth and Mr Monksley’s lack of fortune.’
Lady Wilfrid fixed her with a singularly calculating gaze. ‘My nephew never had the least disposition to sympathise with the Pangs of Love,’ she uttered. ‘With me, it is otherwise. I have the tender heart of a parent, and such vulgar considerations as poverty, or inequality of birth, weigh with me not at all. Nothing could be more affecting than Lucilla’s story! But then I am all sensibility, quite unlike Shane, who has a heart of stone! I shall tell him that he has no right to forbid this marriage.’
The Honourable Frederick, who had apparently been pondering the situation, once more ceased sucking the knob of his cane to say in a tone of great relief, ‘Well this is famous! If he does not wed the governess, and we can prevail upon him to consent to Lucilla’s marriage to this swooning-fellow, I do not at all despair of a happy issue.’
‘Excuse me,’ said Miss Fairfax, conscious of her reddening cheeks. ‘I think I should go downstairs to assist in restoring Mr Monksley.’
