The Quiet Gentleman

The wood was full of shadows, and already a little chilly, after the setting of the sun, but Miss Morville, neither so fashionable as to disdain wearing a warm pelisse, nor so delicate as to be unable to walk at a brisk pace, suffered no discomfort. She did not even imagine, when some small animal stirred in the undergrowth, that she was being followed; and was so insensible as to remain impervious to the alarm which might have been caused by the sudden scutter of a rabbit across the path. A quarter of an hour’s quick walking brought her to within sight of the main avenue. The thud of a horse’s hooves came to her ears, which led her to suppose, not that a desperate, and probably masked, brigand approached, but that the Earl, having parted from the Grampounds, was on his way back to the Castle. She was right: in another instant, she had a brief vision of Cloud, cantering along the grass verge beside the avenue. Since she was walking almost at right angles to the avenue, Cloud and his rider were swiftly hidden from her sight, as they passed the opening of the ride, and became obscured by the trees and the bushes which bordered the avenue. But although she could no longer see the horse and his rider, she could still hear the thud of the hooves, and when these ceased abruptly, to be succeeded by the unmistakable sound of a fall, followed by the scrabble of hooves on loose stones, and the clatter of a bolting horse, she was not so prosaically-minded as to suppose that these sounds could have been caused by anything other than an accident. It seemed odd that the Earl should have taken a toss on a smooth stretch of turf, but without pausing to consider the improbability of such an occurrence Miss Morville picked up her skirts and ran forward as quickly as she could. Within a very few seconds she had reached the avenue, to be confronted by a startling sight. Of Cloud there was no sign, but his rider lay motionless across the narrow grass verge, his head and shoulders resting on the avenue. This circumstance, as Miss Morville realized, was enough to account for his having been stunned. She dropped to her knees beside his inanimate form, and without the smallest hesitation ripped open his coat to feel the beat of his heart.

The Earl regained consciousness to find himself lying with his head in Miss Morville’s lap, his elaborate Mail-coach cravat untied, and the scent of aromatic vinegar in his nostrils. Gazing bemusedly up into the concerned face bent over him, he uttered, a trifle thickly: “Good God! I fell!”

“Yes,” agreed Miss Morville, removing her vinaigrette from under his nose. “I cannot discover, my lord, that any limb is broken, but I might be mistaken. Can you move your arms and your legs?”

“Lord, yes! There are no bones broken!” he replied, struggling up to a sitting posture, and clasping his head between his hands. “But I don’t understand! How in the devil’s name came I — Where’s my horse?”

“I expect,” said Miss Morville, “that he has bolted for his stable, for there was no sign of him when I reached your side. Do not disturb yourself on his account! He could scarcely have done so had he sustained any injury! It is, in fact, a fortunate circumstance that he bolted, for he will give the alarm, you know, and since your groom knows in which direction you rode out we may shortly expect to receive succour.”

He uttered a shaken laugh. “You think of everything, ma’am!”

“I may think of everything,” said Miss Morville, “but I am not always able to accomplish all I should wish to! My chief desire has been to procure water with which to revive you, but, in the circumstances, I scarcely dared to leave your side. I do not think,from what I can observe, that you have broken your collar-bone.”

“I am very sure I have not, ma’am. I have merely broken my head!”

“Does it pain you very much?” she asked solicitiously.

“Why, yes! It aches like the very deuce, but not, I assure you, as much as does my self-esteem! How came I to fall, like the rawest of greenhorns?” He received no answer to this, and added, with an effort towards playfulness: “But I forget my manners! I must thank you for preserving my life, Miss Morville — even though it may have been at the cost of my cravat!”

“I am not, in general,” said Miss Morville carefully, “an advocate for the employment of hyperbole in describing trifling services, but I believe, my lord, that in this instance I may be justly said to have done so.”

He was engaged, with only slightly unsteady fingers, in loosely knotting the ruined cravat about his throat, but at these words he paused in his task to frown at her in some bewilderment. “I collect that in this uncertain light I must have been so careless as to let Cloud set his foot in a rabbit-burrow. I own, I have no very clear remembrance of what occurred, but — ”

“No,” said Miss Morville.

He looked intently at her. “No?”