The wipers got worse and with an impatient exclamation she stopped the car and leaving the engine running climbed out and brushed the snow away. It clung to her fingers. It was so cold, and with a shiver she clambered back inside again. Maybe she had been foolhardy in bringing the car. Perhaps she should have used the train. But she had not wanted to risk someone at the station recognising her and possibly remembering this when her father discovered she was missing and started making a fuss.
To her annoyance, the wipers stuck again, and she was forced to get out again and attend to them. She had taken off her long boots with their platform soles because they were impossible for driving and when she had attended to the wipers the first time she had balanced on the door valance. But this time she stopped to put her boots on and while she did so the engine idled to a halt.
Shaking her head, she got out and stood in the snow. It was quite deep, even on the road, and brushed the turnups of her flared scarlet pants. Drops of snow melted on her shoulders as she quickly cleared the snow from the windscreen and satisfying herself that the wipers would at least work for a short period, she got into the driving seat again.
It took several more minutes to divest herself of the boots again and then she turned the ignition. It revved, but nothing happened. Cursing silently to herself, she tried again, allowing it to go on for a long time, but still nothing happened. A pinprick of alarm feathered along her veins. What now? Surely the car wasn’t going to let her down? It never had before. And it wasn’t old. But it hadn’t actually encountered conditions like these before.
Several minutes later she gave up the attempt to try and start the car again. It was getting later all the while and pretty soon it would start to get dark. She dared not risk staying here any longer in the vain hope that someone might come along and rescue her. There were no visible signs that anyone had passed that way that day although the steadily falling snow hampered any real inspection of the road’s surface. Nevertheless, her most sensible course would be to leave the car and go in search of assistance, she decided. If she stayed where she was and no one came, the car could well be buried by morning and she had heard of motorists freezing to death in this way.
Thrusting such uncomfortable thoughts aside, she reached for her boots and began to pull them on again. It was quite an adventure, she told herself, in an attempt to lighten her spirits. Who would have thought when she left London this morning that by late afternoon she would be the victim of an abandoned car in a snowstorm? Who indeed? Her earlier self-congratulation that her father would never look for her here might rebound on her in the most unpleasant way possible.
She shook her head and got out of the car. At least her coat was warm. Made of red suede and lined with sheepskin, it showed up well against the whiteness of the snow. Maybe someone would see her, even if she didn’t see them. She drew the hood up over her head, and tucked inside the long strands of black hair which the wind had taken and blown about her face. Well, this was it! Sheepskin mittens to warm her hands, her trouser legs rolled up almost to the knee, her handbag – what more could any intrepid explorer want?
She looked up and down the deserted road. There seemed no point in retracing her tracks. She knew there was nothing back there – at least, not for miles. Forward it would have to be!
The snow stung her cheeks, and the wind whistled eerily through the skeletal branches of the trees and bushes that hedged the track. She was tempted to penetrate the hedge and climb the sloping fields beyond in an attempt to see some form of habitation in this white wasteland, but a preliminary reconnaissance landed her in snow at least two feet deep and was sufficient to deter any further forays in that direction. It wasn’t possible, she told herself, that one could walk so far without encountering either a house or another human being, but she had. This winding road which had quickly hidden the car from view might be circling a mountain for all she knew. Certainly she was going uphill, her aching legs told her that, but what alternative had she?
She stopped and looked back. It was impossible to distinguish anything beyond a radius of a hundred yards. She was totally and completely lost and the greyness in the sky was not wholly due to the appalling conditions. Evening was approaching and she was no nearer finding a place to stay than she had been an hour ago. A fluttery sense of panic rose inside her. What was she going to do? Was this how fate repaid her for challenging her father’s right to choose her a husband?
Something moved. Out of the corner of her eye she could see a movement, a trace of some colour up ahead of her. She blinked. What was it? An animal probably, foraging for food. Poor creatures. What could any animal find beneath this all-covering blanket?
Shielding her eyes, blinking again as snow settled on her lashes and melting ran down into her eyes, she tried to see what it was that had caught her attention. It was an animal, that much she could see, and no doubt her red coat had attracted its attention, too. It might be a dog, she thought hopefully, with an owner close at hand. Oh, please, she begged silently, let it be a domestic animal!
The creature was loping towards her. It looked like a dog. It was a curious tawny colour, and as it drew nearer she saw that it had splashes of black, too. A sort of tawny Dalmatian, only there weren’t such things.
Then her legs went weak. She felt sick with fear. Panic crawled to the surface. It was no dog. It was no domestic animal. It was a leopard! A leopard in the snow!
For a moment she was rooted to the spot. She was mesmerised by that silent, menacing gait. She moved her head helplessly from side to side. There were no leopards in Cumberland! This must be some terrible hallucination brought on by the blinding light of the snow. The creature made no sound. It couldn’t be real.
But as it got closer still, she could see its powerful shoulders, the muscles moving under the smooth coat, the strong teeth and pointed ears. She imagined she could even feel the heat of its breath.
With a terrified gasp she did the thing she had always been taught never to do in the face of a charging animal, she turned to run. In the days when she was a teenager, she had sometimes gone to stay with a friend from boarding school whose parents had kept a farm. They had taught her that to show any animal panic only inflamed the creature’s senses, but right now she knew only a desperate desire for self-preservation.
She stumbled through the deep snow at the side of the road and forced her way through the hedge, feeling the twigs tearing at her hair, scratching her cheeks painfully. But anything was better than the thought of the leopard’s claws on her throat and panic added its own strength to her weakened limbs. The field was a wilderness of white, the deepness of the snow hindering her progress. Any moment she expected to feel the animal’s hot breath on her neck, its paws weighing her down. Sobs rose in her throat, tears sprang to her eyes. She should never have left London, she thought bitterly. This was what came of behaving selfishly.
Beneath the snow her foot caught in a rabbit hole and she lost her balance and fell. Sobbing, she tried to crawl on, but as she did so she heard a sound which she had been beginning to think she would never hear again. That of a human voice – a human voice shouting with all the curtness of command: “Sheba! Sheba – heel!”
Helen’s shoulders sagged, and she glanced fearfully over her shoulder. The leopard had halted several feet away and was standing regarding her with disturbing intensity. A man was thrusting his way through the hedge, a tall lean man dressed all in black – black leather coat, black trousers, and knee-length black boots. His head was bare and as Helen scrambled to her feet she saw that his hair was so light as to appear silver in some lights. Yet for all that his skin was quite dark, not at all the usual skin to go with such light hair. There was something vaguely familiar about his harshly carved features, the deep-set eyes beneath heavy lids, the strongly chiselled nose, the wide mouth with its thin lips that were presently curved almost contemptuously as he approached her. And she saw as he climbed the ridge that he walked with a distinct limp which twisted his hip slightly.
