Ladies Must Live Part 4

"Are you teaching this subject, or am I?"

"Certainly you can't think _you_ are. But if you say so, I'll have a try."

Not sorry to create a diversion, Christine looked about her, and was more diverted from the subject in hand than she had expected to be.

They were on the wrong road. What with the snow and the fact that she had been so busy talking that she really had no idea how far they had been, it took her a moment to orient herself anew. She told him with a conscience-struck look.

"And you," said Riatt, "who do not even know the road to your own house, were volunteering to pilot me through an emotional crisis."

Even a suggestion of adverse criticism was unpleasant to Miss Fenimer.

She was not accustomed to it; and she answered with some sharpness:

"Yes, but the road is real, whereas I understand your embarra.s.sment through the attentions of ladies is purely fict.i.tious."

Riatt wondered how fict.i.tious, but he turned the cutter about in obedience to her commands. The horse started forward even more gaily, under the impression that he was going home. But for the drivers, the change was not so agreeable. A high wind had come up, the snow was falling faster, and the light of the winter afternoon, already beginning to fade, was obscured by high, dark, silver-edged banks of clouds.

"Upon my word," said Riatt, "I think we had better go back."

"It's only a little way from here," Christine answered, trying hard to think how far it really was. She did want to get her father's coat, but she was not indifferent to the triumph of making Riatt late for dinner, and leaving Nancy Almar throughout the afternoon with no companion but Wickham or Jack Ussher.

The wind cut their faces, the horse pulled and pranced, the gaiety had gone out of their little expedition. They drove on a mile or so, and then Riatt stopped the horse.

"We've got to go back, Miss Fenimer," he said firmly.

"Oh, please not, Mr. Riatt; we are almost there, and," she added with a fine sense of filial obligation, "I really feel I must do as my father asked me."

Riatt felt inclined to point out that she, with her m.u.f.f held up to her face, was not making the greatest sacrifice to the ideal of duty.

"Have you any very clear idea where your house is?" he asked. His tone was not flattering, and Christine was quick to feel it.

"Do I know where I live five months of the year?" she returned. "Of course I do. It's just over this next hill."

The afternoon was turning out so perversely that she would hardly have been surprised to find that the house had disappeared from its accustomed place. But as they came over the crest, there it was, in a hollow between two hills, looking as summer houses do in winter, like a forlorn toy left out in the snow.

"But it's shut up," said Riatt. "There's no one in it."

"I have the keys to the back door."

He touched the horse for the first time with the whip, and they went jingling down the slope, in between the almost completely buried gateposts, and drew up before the kitchen door.

Miss Fenimer kicked her feet free from the rugs, jumped out, and from the recesses of her m.u.f.f produced a key which she inserted in the lock.

"Now you won't be long, will you?" said Riatt, with more of command than persuasion in his tone.

It was a principle of life on the part of Christine that she never allowed any man to bully her; or perhaps, it would be more nearly just to say that she never intended to allow any man to do so until she herself became persuaded that he could, and with this object she always made the process look as difficult and dangerous as possible at the very beginning.

She looked back at him and smiled with irritating calm.

"I shall be just as long as is necessary," she replied, and so saying, she turned, or rather attempted to turn, the key.

But disuse, or cold, or her own lack of strength prevented and she was presently reduced to asking Riatt to help her. He did not volunteer his a.s.sistance. She had definitely and directly to ask for it. Then he was friendliness itself.

"Just stand by the horse's head, will you?" he said, and when he saw her stationed there, he sprang out, and with an almost insulting ease opened the door.

Just as he did so, however, a gust of wind, fiercer than any other, swept round the corner of the house and carried away Christine's hat. She made a quick gesture to catch it, and as she did so, struck the horse under the chin. The animal reared, and Christine jumped aside to avoid being struck by its hoofs; the next instant, it had thrown its head in the air, and started at full speed down the road, dragging the empty sleigh after it. Riatt, who had his back turned, did not see the beginning of the incident, but a cry from Christine soon roused his attention, and he started in pursuit, calling to the animal to stop, in the hope that the human voice might succeed when all other methods were quite obviously useless. But the horse, now thoroughly excited by the hanging reins, the bells, and the sense of its own power, went only faster and faster, and finally disappeared at full speed.

Riatt came slowly back; he was sinking in the snow to his waist at every step. Christine was watching him with some anxiety.

"Is there a telephone in the house?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"No, it's disconnected when we leave in the autumn."

There was a moment's silence, then she said questioningly: "What shall we do?"

"There's only one thing we can do," he returned; "go into the house and light a fire."

But Christine hesitated.

"I don't think it will be wise to waste time doing that," she said, "if you have to go back on foot to the Usshers'--"

"Go back on foot!" Riatt interrupted. "My dear Miss Fenimer, that is quite impossible. It must be every inch of ten miles, it's dark, a blizzard is blowing, I don't know the way, and we haven't pa.s.sed a house."

"But, but," said she, "suppose they don't rescue us to-night?"

"They probably will to-morrow," answered Riatt, and he walked past her into the house.

CHAPTER II

Christine was glad to get out of the wind, but the damp chill of the deserted house was not much of an improvement. Ahead of her in the darkness, she could hear Riatt snapping electric switches which produced nothing.

"Isn't the light connected?" he called.

"I don't know."

"Aren't there lamps in the house?"

"I don't know."

"Where could I find some candles?"

"What a tiresome man!" she thought; and for the third time she answered: "I don't know."