He was answered by the appearance of his cousin in the big doorway. Miss Marling had on a highly becoming hat, tied under her chin with pink ribands, and carried a feather-muff. Her face wore a look of mulish determination. ‘Oh, so there you are at last, Vidal!’ she said.
‘What in the fiend’s name brings you here?’ asked the Marquis, coming to her side. ‘There’s nothing for you to do in this coil.’
Miss Marling looked up at him defiantly. ‘I am coming with you.’
‘The devil you are!’ ejaculated his lordship. ‘No, my fair cousin. I don’t hamper myself with a petticoat on this journey.’
‘I am coming with you,’ repeated Miss Marling.
‘You’re not,’ said Vidal curtly, and beckoned to his groom.
Juliana caught at his wrist. ‘You shan’t go without me!’ she said in a fierce whisper. ‘You only care for your odious Mary, but she has run off with my Frederick, I’ll have you know, and I’ll come if I have to hire a post-chaise and travel alone! I mean it, Vidal!’
He looked down at her frowningly. ‘You do, do you? I doubt you won’t relish this journey overmuch.’
‘You’ll take me?’ she said eagerly.
He shrugged. ‘I’ll take you, but if I were your husband I’d soon school you, my girl.’ He handed her up somewhat urgently into the chaise, and said brusquely: ‘Does Tante know of this?’
‘Well, she was gone out, but I left a letter explaining as well as I could for the hurry I was in.’
‘Very well,’ Vidal said, and shut the door on her.
One of the lackeys put up the steps; the postillions were already in their saddles, and grooms stood to the horses’ heads. Vidal pulled on his gloves, gathered the bay’s bridle in his left hand, and mounted. ‘Port Royal!’ he said to the postillions, and reined the bay in hard to let the chaise pass out of the courtyard.
At the first post-stage Miss Marling insisted on descending from the chaise. While the horses were changed she favoured the Marquis with a pungent criticism of his manners, and the springs of the chaise. She said that never had she been so shaken and battered. She wondered that any man should be so brutal as to subject a lady to such discomfort, and declared that she vastly regretted having come on the journey.
‘I thought you would,’ replied his lordship. ‘Perhaps it’ll teach you not to meddle in my affairs.’
‘Your affairs?’ gasped Miss Marling. ‘Do you imagine that I care a pin for your affairs? I’ve come on my own, Vidal!’
‘Then don’t grumble,’ he returned.
Miss Marling stalked back to the chaise in high dudgeon. At the next halt she did not even look out of the window, but at the end of another twelve miles, she alighted once more, with her cloak held tightly round her against the sharp evening wind.
It was dusk and the landscape was dim, with a grey mist rising off the ground. The lamps on the chaise had been lit, and a comfortable glow came from the windows of the small inn.
‘Vidal, can we not stay here for the night?’ asked Miss Marling in a fading voice.
His lordship was speaking to one of the ostlers. He finished what he had to say, and then came leisurely towards his cousin. He had put on his greatcoat, an affair of buff-coloured cloth, with three capes at the shoulders. ‘Tired?’ he said.
‘Of course I am tired, stupid creature!’ replied Miss Marling.
‘Go into the inn,’ he commanded. ‘We dine here.’
‘I vow I could not eat a morsel.’
He did not pay any heed to this, but walked back to say something to his groom. Miss Marling, hating him, flounced into the inn, and was escorted by the landlord to a private parlour. A fire had been kindled in the grate, and Juliana drew up a chair and sat down, spreading her chilled fingers to the warmth.
Presently the Marquis came in. He flung his greatcoat over a chair, and kicked the smouldering logs to a small blaze. ‘That’s better,’ he said briskly.
‘You have made it smoke,’ remarked Miss Marling in a voice of long suffering.
He looked down at her with a hint of a smile. ‘You’re hungry, and devilish cross, Ju.’
Her bosom swelled. ‘You have treated me abominably,’ she said.
‘Fiddle!’ replied the Marquis.
‘You let me be jolted and bumped till the teeth rattled in my head. You thrust me into your odious chaise as though I were a mere piece of baggage, and you have not the civility to stay with me.’
‘I never drive when I can ride,’ said his lordship indifferently.
‘I make no doubt at all that had I been Mary Challoner you would have been glad enough to have borne me company!’
The Marquis was snuffing one of the candles, but he looked up at that, and there was a glint in his eye. ‘That, my dear, is quite another matter,’ he said.
Miss Marling told him roundly that he was the rudest creature she had ever met and when he only laughed, she launched into a speech of some length.
He interrupted her to say: ‘My good cousin, do you wish to catch up with our two runaways, or not?’
‘Of course I do! But must we travel at this shocking speed? They cannot reach Dijon for two or three days, and we’ve time enough, I should have thought, to come up with them.’
‘I want to overtake them to-night,’ Vidal said grimly. ‘They are not three hours ahead of us now.’
‘What! Have we gained on them so fast? Then I take it all back, Vidal, every word. Let us go on at once!’
‘We’ll dine first,’ answered his lordship.
‘How,’ demanded Juliana tragically, ‘can you suppose that I could think of food at such a time?’
‘Do you know,’ said the Marquis gently, ‘I find you excessively tedious, Juliana. You complain of the speed at which I choose to travel; you talk a great deal of damned nonsense about my incivility and your sensibilities; you spurn dinner as though it were poisoned; you behave, in short, like a heroine out of a melodrama.’
Miss Marling was prevented from replying by the entrance of two serving-men. Covers were laid, and chairs placed at the table. The men withdrew, and Miss Marling said carefully: ‘You have a vast deal to say in my dispraise, Vidal. Pray, is it to be expected that I should feel no agitation? To be sure, I am sorry I complained of the speed, but to be left hour upon hour alone in a jolting chaise is enough to try the patience even of a Mary Challoner.’
‘No,’ said his lordship. A reminiscent smile softened his mouth for a brief moment. ‘Come and sit down.’
She came, but told him that a glass of wine to revive her was all that was needed.
The Marquis shrugged. ‘Just as you please, cousin.’
Miss Marling sipped her wine, and watched his lordship carve the capon. She shuddered, and said that she wondered at him. ‘For my part,’ she added, ‘I should have thought any gentleman of the least sensibility would have refrained from – from gorging when the lady in his company –’
‘Ah, but I’m not a gentleman,’ said the Marquis. ‘I have it on the best of authority that I am only a nobleman.’
‘Good gracious, Vidal, who in the world dared to say such a thing?’ cried his cousin, instantly diverted.
‘Mary,’ replied his lordship, pouring himself out a glass of wine.
‘Well, if you sat eating as though nothing mattered save your dinner I’m not surprised,’ said Juliana viciously. ‘If I were not so angry with her, the deceitful, sly wretch, I could pity her for all she must have undergone at your hands.’
‘Seeing me eat was the least of her sufferings,’ answered the Marquis. ‘She underwent much, but it may interest you to know, Juliana, that she never treated me to the vapours, as you seem like to do.’
‘Then I can only say, Vidal, that either she had no notion what a horrid brutal man you are, or that she is jus
t a dull creature with no nerves at all.’
For a moment Vidal did not answer. Then he said in a level voice: ‘She knew.’ His lip curled. He glanced scornfully at his cousin. ‘Had I carried you off as I carried her you would have died of fright or hysterics, Juliana. Make no mistake, my dear; Mary was so desperately afraid she tried to put a bullet through me.’
‘Tried to put a bullet through you, Dominic?’ repeated Miss Marling incredulously. ‘I never heard a word of this before!’
‘It is not a story that I should be likely to tell, since it don’t redound to my credit,’ said Vidal drily. ‘But when you sit there full of airs and graces because you’ve been jolted over a bad road, and sneer at Mary –’
‘I didn’t sneer!’ said Juliana. ‘I’d no notion you behaved so dreadfully badly to her. You said you forced her aboard your yacht, but I never supposed that you really frightened her enough to make her fire at you. You need not be in a rage with me for saying so, Dominic, but when I saw Mary at your house she was so placid I made sure you’d not treated her so very brutally after all. Had you?’
‘Yes,’ said Vidal bluntly. He looked at Juliana. ‘You think it was vastly romantic for Mary to be carried off by me, don’t you? You think you would enjoy it, and you cannot conceive how she should be afraid, can you? Then think, my girl! Think a little! You are in my power at this moment, I may remind you. What if I make you feel it? What if I say to start with that you shall eat your dinner, and force it down your throat?’
Juliana shrank back from him involuntarily. ‘Don’t, Vidal! Don’t come near me!’ she said, frightened by the expression in his face.
He laughed. ‘Not so romantic, is it, Ju? And to force you to eat your dinner would be a small thing compared with some other things I might force you to do. Sit down, I’m not going to touch you.’
She obeyed, eyeing him nervously. ‘I – I wish I hadn’t come with you!’ she said.
‘So did Mary, with more reason. But Mary would have died sooner than let me see that she was afraid. And Mary, my love, is not my cousin.’
Juliana drew a long breath. ‘Of course, I didn’t think that you would really force me to eat,’ she said. ‘You – you merely startled me.’
‘Well, I shall force you if you don’t take care,’ said his lordship. He carved a slice of breast, and handed it to her. ‘Don’t be tiresome, Juliana. Eat it, and forget your sensibilities. You’ve not much time.’
Juliana took the plate meekly. ‘Oh, very well,’ she said. ‘I must say, Dominic, if you looked at Mary in that dreadful threatening way I can almost forgive her for running off with Frederick.’ She stole a sidelong look at him. ‘You were not very kind to Mary, apparently.’
‘Kind!’ ejaculated Vidal. ‘No, I was not – kind.’
Juliana ate another morsel of capon. ‘You seem to me to have behaved as though you hated her,’ she remarked.
He said nothing. Juliana peeped at him again. ‘You’re very anxious to get her in your power again, Vidal. But I don’t quite know why you should be, for you meant to marry her only because you had ruined her, and so were obliged to, didn’t you?’
She thought that he was not going to answer, but suddenly he raised his eyes from the contemplation of the dregs of his wine. ‘Because I am obliged to?’ he said. ‘I mean to marry Mary Challoner because I’m devilish sure I can’t live without her.’
Juliana clapped her hands with a crow of delight. ‘Oh, it is famous!’ she exclaimed. ‘I never dreamed you had fallen in love with my staid Mary! I thought you were chasing her through France just because you so hate to be crossed! But when you flew into a rage with me for saying she was too dull to be afraid of you, of course, I guessed at once! My dearest Dominic, I was never more glad of anything in my life, and it is of all things the most romantic possible! Do, do let us overtake them at once! Only conceive of their astonishment when they see us!’
‘Mary knows I am hard on her heels,’ Vidal answered, with a little laugh. ‘At every stage I meet with the same tale: the English lady was anxious to lose no time. She’s used to my way of travel, Juliana; she’ll whisk your Frederick to Dijon in a manner highly discomposing to his dignity.’
‘It is possible,’ said Miss Marling stiffly, ‘that Frederick and not Mary will have the ordering of the journey.’
Vidal chuckled. ‘Not if I know my Mary,’ he replied.
Twenty minutes later they took the road again. Dinner had revived Miss Marling’s spirits, and she made no demur at entering the chaise again. Knowing that she was within reach of her Frederick she could not now drive fast enough, and her only fear was that they might overshoot their mark. Somewhere on the route Frederick and Mary must have halted for the night, and Miss Marling was inclined to stop at every village they passed, in case the fugitives might be there.
She occupied herself in planning the scene that lay before her, and had decided on the speech she would make when there was a sudden crash, and she was hurled against the side of the chaise. There was a dreadful bump, the smash of breaking glass, and Miss Marling, considerably shaken and dazed, tried to right herself only to find that the seat of the coach was now at a very odd angle, and the off-door almost where the roof should have been. She heard the trampling of the horses plunging in alarm, and the voices of the postillions. Then the off-door was wrenched open, and Vidal said sharply: ‘Are you hurt, Ju?’
‘No, but what has happened? – Oh, I have cut myself ! Oh, this dreadful glass! It is too bad of you, Dominic! I said we were driving at a wicked pace, and now see what has happened!’
‘We’ve lost a wheel,’ explained his lordship. ‘Reach up your hands to me, and I’ll pull you out.’
This feat was performed in an expeditious if somewhat rough-and-ready fashion. Juliana was swung down on to the road, and left to examine her hurts while his lordship went to see that the frightened horses were unhurt. When he came back he found his cousin in a state of seething indignation. She demanded to know where they were, how he proposed to come up with the runaways, where they were to sleep, and whether anyone cared enough to bind up her bleeding hand or not.
The Marquis performed this office for her by the light of one of the chaise lamps, and told her not to be in a taking over a mere scratch. He said that they were, providentially, only a quarter of a mile from the next village, where they could obtain a lodging for the night in one of the cottages.
‘What?’ shrieked the afflicted Miss Marling. ‘Sleep in a horrid peasant’s cottage? I won’t! You must find another chaise at once! At once, Vidal, do you hear?’
‘I hear,’ said his lordship coolly. ‘Now, don’t be nonsensical, Juliana. You’ll do well enough. For all I know there may be an inn you can stay at, though I can’t vouch for the sheets. There’s no hope of repairing the chaise till the morning, for Richards will have to ride to the nearest town to find a smith. I’m sending him off now, and for the present you must make the best of it. We shall catch our runaways in time, don’t doubt it.’
Miss Marling, overcome by the ignominy of her position, sank down on the bank by the roadside and gave way to her emotions. The postillions regarded her with interested sympathy; Richards coughed in embarrassment; and my lord, raising his clenched fists to heaven, prayed to be delivered from every female but one.
Fifteen
At about the same time that the Marquis of Vidal’s chaise lost a wheel, the Duchess of Avon and Lord Rupert Alastair arrived in Paris, and drove straight to the Hôtel Avon.
‘What had we best do first, Rupert?’ her grace asked anxiously, as the chaise drew into the courtyard.
‘Have some dinner,’ replied his lordship, with a prodigious yawn. ‘If there’s anyone in the house, which I doubt.’
‘But why should you doubt? We know that Dominique is in Paris!’
‘Lord, Léonie, don’t be so simple! D
ominic’s lax, but damme, he wouldn’t bring his mistress to your house.’ Lord Rupert heaved his body out of the corner of the chaise, and looked out of the window. ‘Place looks as deserted as a tomb,’ he remarked, opening the door.
A solitary lackey came out of the house, attracted by the noise of the arrival, and began to say that his lordship was out of town. Then Lord Rupert sprang from the chairs, and the lackey, recognising him, looked very much taken aback, and as though he did not know what to say.
Lord Rupert eyed him appraisingly. ‘One of Lord Vidal’s servants, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘Where’s his lordship?’
‘I couldn’t say, my lord,’ answered the lackey cautiously.
‘Won’t say, more like,’ said Rupert. He turned, and gave his hand to Léonie who was descending from the chaise. ‘There’s one of Vidal’s fellows here, so it looks as though the boy had been here. Odd, damned odd.’
The Duchess shook out her crushed skirts with a purposeful air, and looked at the lackey, who was staring at her aghast. ‘It is you who are my son’s servant? Bon! Where is milor’?’
‘I don’t know, your grace. He’s not in town.’
‘Is there anyone in the house?’ demanded the Duchess.
‘No, your grace. Only the servants, that is.’
Léonie pounced on this. ‘Why is it then that the house is full of my son’s servants and yet he is not here?’
The lackey shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. ‘His lordship left Paris this afternoon, your grace.’
Léonie turned to Lord Rupert, throwing out her hands. ‘But it is imbécile ! Why should he leave Paris? I don’t believe a word of it. Where is Fletcher?’
‘Mr Fletcher and Mr Timms have both gone out, your grace.’
‘What, has his lordship gone off without his valet?’ demanded Rupert.
‘Yes, my lord.’
‘I am going into the house,’ announced Léonie.
Rupert watched her go, and looked at the lackey again. ‘Come on, out with it, my man: Where’s his lordship?’