Arabella
‘My dear Miss Tallant, pray do not think of such a thing!’ shuddered her companion. ‘I only hope we may be spared any sort of accident!’ Neither lady’s wish was destined to be granted her. No such excitement as a hold-up awaited them, but a little way short of the Marston turnpike the perch of the carriage broke, and the body fell forward upon the box. The Squire’s travelling carriage had stood too long in his coach-house. After the coachman had delivered himself of a long, self-exculpatory monologue, the groom was sent off to take counsel of the pike-keeper, half a mile down the road. When he returned, it was with the pleasing intelligence that no adequate assistance was to be hoped for in the next village: it must be sought in Grantham, five or six miles farther on, where a conveyance could no doubt be hired to fetch the ladies in while the perch was mended, or replaced. The coachman then suggested that his passengers, both of whom were standing by the roadside, should climb up into the carriage again to await deliverance, while the groom took one of the horses and rode on to Grantham. Miss Blackburn was meekly ready to follow this advice, but her charge thought poorly of it. ‘What! Sit in that horrid, draughty carriage all that time? I won’t do it!’ she declared. ‘But we cannot continue to stand in the rain, dear Miss Tallant!’ said Miss Blackburn. ‘Of course we cannot! Either way I am persuaded you would catch your death! There must be a house hereabouts which would lend us shelter! What are those lights over there?’ They plainly shone from the windows of a residence set a little back from the road. The groom volunteered the information that he had noticed some lodge gates a few steps back. ‘Good!’ said Arabella briskly. ‘We will walk up to it, ma’am, and beg them to give us shelter for a little while.’ 53
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