The Frost Fair (3 page)

Meg only tossed her head in disdain and strode on. Another moment brought them to the stables. There they found the groom, a short, muscular, almost completely bald fellow who, wrapped in his work-apron, was on his knees examining the hoof of one of the horses. At the sight of two ladies from the house, he jumped to his feet and snatched off his apron. Meg carefully explained that she and her aunt wished to be taken to the nearest inn.

“
Now
, yer ladyship?” the fellow asked in surprise.

“Yes, right now.” She put down her bags, opened the reticule which had hung from the crook of her elbow, and took out a gold sovereign.

The man backed away from the proffered coin and frowned. “Lord Isham didn't order no carriage tonight,” he said suspiciously.

“His lordship doesn't know anything about it,” Meg admitted frankly.

The groom scratched at his chin. “Are ye sayin' that ye don't
wish
'im to know? I don't think it'd be right fer me to—”

“Don't be silly, man,” she cut in with asperity. “The trip can't be a very long one. Where is the nearest inn?”

“In Masham. On'y half-an-hour down the road, but—”

“Then why the to-do? I intend to hire a carriage there, and you'll be able to return here with yours so promptly that his lordship will never know you'd gone.”

The groom rubbed his bald head. “I don't know, yer ladyship. I'd like t'oblige ye, surely, but there'd be a terrible do if Lord Isham found out. I ain't even the coachman, y' see. On'y a groom, I be. An' Lord Isham'd surely take it as stealin', even if you an' me call it borrowin'.”

“The man's right, Meg,” Isabel put in. “Isn't it bad enough to ruin your
own
reputation—and mine? Must you make trouble even for the servants?”

“I tell you there'll be no trouble. He says he can be back in an hour.”

“Less 'n that, if
I
wuz drivin',” the groom admitted. “I kin 'andle these 'orses better'n anyone in Yorkshire.”

“Well, then—?” Meg offered him the coin again.

He shook his head. “I wouldn't need that t' do it, m'lady, if I tho't it wuz right.”

“Can it be so very wrong to borrow a carriage and a couple of horses for less than an hour?”

“Less'n an hour if the weather 'olds,” the groom said, weakening. “It feels like snow, if y'ask me.”

“What? You, too? I promise you, my man, that it will not snow. What is your name, by the way?”

“Roodle, yer ladyship. 'Enry Roodle.”

“Well, Roodle, are you going to take us, or do we have to
walk
the distance in this chill?”

With the question put that way, Roodle had no choice but to acquiesce. Quickly, he saddled his most dependable horses—two matched chestnut mares—to the phaeton, the smallest closed carriage in the Viscount's collection. Then he borrowed the coachman's caped coat and high hat from the alcove where it was stored (“In fer a penny, in fer a pound,” he told himself with a shrug), and they set out.

Once settled into the carriage and on their way, the two women lapsed into silence. Isabel, leaning back against the cushions, permitted herself to sink into gloom. Meg had changed her mind about marriage after all! It was her blasted independence. Isabel was at her wit's end about what to do to marry the girl off!

The trouble was that Meg didn't realize that her life was far from full. She had a large circle of friends and admirers, a great deal of money and many entertaining activities with which to fill her days. And in addition, the girl had, for the past few years, managed her estates and made all the decisions necessary in keeping control of a large fortune. She was accustomed to running her own life. While Isabel could understand her reluctance to give up that independence, she was nevertheless convinced that Meg's life would be more complete with a proper family. Not with Charles, necessarily, if Meg really didn't care for him, but with someone. Even if the problem of the inheritance were not looming up on the horizon to complicate matters, she would still wish for Meg to find a husband. Isabel turned and studied her niece surreptitiously. If one were entirely objective, the aunt supposed, one might not be able to claim that the girl was a beauty. She was too tall and built on lines that were too statuesque to suit current fashion. And her chin was too strong. But no one would deny that her eyes—a warm dark brown—sparkled with humor, and that her skin—though quite liberally sprinkled with freckles—was smooth and glowing. Of course her hair was a problem, and not unlike the girl herself; while its red-gold color and thick texture were magnificent, it was completely unruly and would go where it willed. Meg refused to cut it, yet no restraints, no binding, no combs or broaches could keep it from following its independent will. Yes, that's where the trouble was—excessive independence.

The girl's voice cut into her reverie. “Stop sighing, Aunt Bel. You've done so three times in the last two minutes. I know you're worrying over me, and I won't have it.”

“How can I help it? You're destroying your future.”

“By running away from Charles Isham? Really, Isabel—”

“By running away from a promise. By running away from a proper life!”

Meg made a face. “Do you think I would have had a ‘proper life' with Charles?”

“Yes, I do. He's a fine, respectable, worthy man. And you found him so, too, for you accepted him.”

“Yes, I did. But I don't know
what
made me do it.”

“You did it because of his worthiness.” She fixed her eyes on her niece in frowning disapprobation. “Why did you change your mind about him?”

“I didn't change it, exactly. I just realized that I couldn't bear to spend my life with his respectable worthiness.”

“See here, Meg, I've had enough of your disdain for the qualities which everyone else finds admirable! What's wrong with respectability?”

“Oh, Aunt Bel, it's so dull! I found myself bored after only four days in that house. What would I have felt after four years?”

Isabel frowned. “I was there with you during those four days, and I didn't find it dull. Am I to conclude that I'm dull, too?”

Meg looked contrite. “You know I didn't mean that,” she said, throwing her arm about her aunt's shoulder and hugging her. “You're the sweetest and best aunt in the world. And the only reason you didn't find Charles a stifling bore was because you didn't spend as much time with him as I did. Do you remember when he asked me to go with him to see the portrait gallery?”

“Yes. Yesterday afternoon, wasn't it?”

“To you it may have been an afternoon. To me it was a month! Whatever I said to him didn't make an impression at all. I might as well have been conversing with a mushroom! I even tried to be provoking. I said the rudest things—”

“Oh, Meg, you didn't!”

“Yes, I did. And that's the whole point. He should have shouted, taken offense, wrung my neck. But he did nothing! I'm really quite convinced that the man hears only what he wants to hear. I couldn't go through with it, Aunt Bel. I'd rather end up an old maid without a penny. So … I decided to bolt.” She turned her aunt's face up to hers and added with appealing earnestness, “Please say you're not angry with me, dearest. You wouldn't wish me to spend my life with someone so … stodgy, so dull, so utterly devoid of humor.”

Isabel squeezed her niece's hand in conciliation. “Of course I'm not angry, my love. I only wish … Ah, well, never mind. In any case, was it necessary for us to run off this way and leave poor Charles so completely unprepared? He'll have to face a roomful of dinner guests without knowing
what
to say to them. Wasn't that a bit cruel?”

Meg tried to look contrite. “I tried to tell him, really I did. ‘I don't think we'll suit,' I said over and over again. Charles is simply incapable of hearing what he doesn't want to hear. I did leave a note, you know.” A heartless giggle escaped her. “I wonder how long he'll keep those poor people sitting at the table before he realizes we've gone?”

Isabel, while disapproving of her niece's irresponsible behavior, nevertheless had to bite her lip to keep from smiling at the vision of the disastrous scene probably taking place at that moment in the Isham dining room. “It was quite dreadful of you to end the betrothal in this way, Meg. It would serve you right if he followed us and demanded your return to help him face the dinner guests and to make proper explanations to them and to him.”

“I hate explanations. And I hate dull dinner parties. That's why I bolted.” She could detect the twitch at the corners of her aunt's mouth. “He'll never catch us, you know. By the time he realizes we've flown, we'll have arrived at the inn at Masham. And by the time he decided to follow us—if he's foolish enough to do so—we shall be at Harrogate. He'll have no idea which route we've chosen or where we shall be stopping. So I haven't a worry in the—”

“Good Lord!” her aunt cried suddenly, staring out the window behind Meg. “What's that?”

Meg jumped, startled. “What, Aunt Bel?” she asked, whirling around to see if Charles had indeed decided to follow her and bring her to heel. “Is it—?”

“Look! Didn't I warn you?”

Aunt Isabel had been right. Through the dimness of the October twilight they could discern a number of thick, white flakes floating by the carriage window. It was snowing.

Chapter Three

“It's only a flurry,” Meg assured her aunt with firm optimism. “I wouldn't give it another thought.”

But by the time the groom had turned the carriage into the yard of the Horse With Three Tails Inn, the ground around them was buried under a thin cover of white. Meg, pretending that she was still unperturbed, let Roodle help her down. “Wait here in the carriage, love,” she said to Isabel, “until I hire another equipage. I mean to get us to Harrogate before we stop for the night.”

“Why Harrogate? It's already become dark,” her aunt said worriedly.

“Harrogate isn't more than an hour's ride. And the White Hart there will provide us with more comfortable lodgings than this forsaken place. Besides, I shall feel more at ease when I've put some distance between ourselves and Charles Isham.”

She walked quickly through the snow to the inn. One look at its tiny taproom convinced her that she would not find sleeping accommodations to her satisfaction in this modest, out-of-the-way hostelry. There were only two patrons in the room; a few more and the place would have been crowded. If there were bedrooms upstairs, they would probably be completely unsuitable, and Meg was certain there was not a private parlor to be had on these unimposing premises. She took off her bonnet and shook it out, brushed back a heavy lock of damp red hair from her forehead and looked around her.

A woman of florid complexion and wide girth was filling a tumbler with ale from a cask set on a shelf behind the bar near the door. There was no one else in the room who seemed to be in charge of the establishment, so Meg approached the woman. “I wish to hire a carriage to take me to Harrogate,” she said.

The woman threw her a quick glance and shook her head. “Not t'night, ma'am. It's comin' down snow.” And without another glance at Meg, she turned off the tap and carried the brimming glass to a gentleman seated at a table near the front window. “'Ere y'are, sir, just the way ye like it,” she said with obvious deference as she placed the glass before him. Then she lit an oil lamp on the table, made a clumsy curtsey and returned to the bar.

Meg, annoyed at the cavalier treatment accorded to her, especially when compared to the polite service the man at the window had received, smoldered. “My good woman,” she said in any icy undervoice, “I don't think you understood me. I have urgent need of a carriage. I will pay whatever price you require, but have your ostler harness the horses at once!”

The woman leaned her heavy arms on the bar and gave Meg a sneering smile. “I don't think ye understood
me
! I ain't hirin' out my rig to no one tonight. Do y' think I'll chance my only carriage on a snowy road? Where'd I be if it overturned, eh? Where'd I be?”

“If your driver is so ham-handed as to overturn the equipage on what is a mere
film
of snow, then I'll drive it myself!”

“You?” The woman gave a screeching laugh. “That's a good one, that is!”

An old man sitting nearby, dressed in rough fanner's garb, hooted. “Don't know wut the worl's comin' to, I don't. Ladies,
driviri
'!”

Meg felt the color rise to her cheeks. Chagrined, she turned to look at the gentleman at the window, hoping for some support. But the man had spread a newspaper on the table before him and was absorbed in reading and swilling his ale. Curling her fingers into angry fists, she turned back to the woman. “Ladies do drive carriages, and quite well, too. I, myself, have bested several gentlemen in races we've run in London. So let's have no further discussion on matters you know nothing about. Your driver may sit alongside me and watch as I drive. He'll learn something. And I'll pay for his lodging at Harrogate so that he needn't return with the carriage until the snow has disappeared. Will that suit you?”

“No, it won't. I ain't hirin' out my carriage tonight, and that's that!”

Meg wanted to stamp her foot in irritation. She'd never been spoken to in such a manner. These country bumpkins had not the least idea of how to behave toward their betters. What made matters worse was her awareness of a growing feeling of helplessness. She did not wish to remain in this inadequate, rustic hovel for the night, especially after being so irritatingly humiliated; she couldn't go back to face Charles and his houseful of guests; and unless she could procure a carriage, she couldn't move on to Harrogate, where Arthur Steele might already be awaiting her arrival. Then where was she to go? For the first time in her life she felt the beginnings of real panic. “Then I'll
buy
the carriage outright!” she said, inspired by desperation.