by Mira Stables
She could not bring herself to eat the savoury smelling bacon that Rab presently brought her, though she managed a piece of bread and drank two cups of rather smoky tea with gratitude. Rab said apologetically that if she was sure she didn’t want the food he would eat it himself since it was a pity to let good victuals waste. Perkis said nothing, but wolfed his portion in sour silence. When they had done eating Rab rinsed the plates and cups in a fresh bucket of water and re-packed the hamper, careful to remove every trace of their temporary occupation. Perkis obviously considered himself above this menial sort of work and sat smoking a pipe of rank-smelling tobacco while the fire smouldered down, from time to time taking out a large silver ‘turnip’ which he consulted ostentatiously. Rab, his task completed, beckoned Chantal outside and, in deep embarrassment, indicated a privy at the end of the derelict garden. Privy was something of a misnomer since the tumbledown shed lacked a door, and, “I’m sorry, miss,” he mumbled, “but I’ll have to stay in the garden, case you was to take it into your head to run away. Not that there’s anywhere to run to,” he ended thoughtfully, obviously thankful that his duties as a squire of dames had been satisfactorily accomplished.
Chantal could see that he was right. No wonder the little farm had been deserted. The countryside was bleak, the soil thin and sour looking, with no sign of human habitation for miles, though somewhere she could hear the distant barking of a dog. No help to be found here. But the hot tea had banished the remnants of her headache and the argument between the two men, when Rab had taken her part, had done something to raise her spirits. Moreover the barking of that dog had given her the germ of an idea. She might not be able to contrive her own escape, but at least she could try to leave a trail that a possible search party might pick up. There was Jester. Neither her cousin nor his minions knew about Jester, or of the hound’s amazing ability to follow a human scent. And surely Dominic would use the animal in his search? Because he would search for her. It never entered her head to doubt that.
In the optimistic mood induced by this tiny spark of hope, she began to count the obstacles that he would have to overcome. It must surely be evident that she had been carried off in some vehicle, and she thought it distinctly possible that the vehicle in question had been noticed, however careful her cousin’s arrangements. It was not sufficient to dress Perkis in a sober coachman’s livery and to select a carriage so nondescript as to pass unnoticed on a busy highway. They were not using a busy highway, and the party also included Rab, whose size alone would make him memorable.
Chantal, who was beginning to understand the country folk among whom she had passed the summer, thought it very likely that the strangers had been not only noticed but carefully studied and thoroughly discussed. No one would have questioned them directly – that would have been discourteous – but the purpose of their visit would have been the subject of much surmise, especially if they had been more than a day or two in the neighbourhood. A sparsely populated area might make abduction easy, but it was much more difficult to cover one’s tracks in a district where everyone knew everyone else and most of them were related. Cousin Giffard would not have allowed for that!
So she was quite grateful when Perkis, making the most of his brief interlude of power, decreed that they would not start for another quarter of an hour. She put the time to good use, drifting about the desolate farmhouse with a depressed and nervous air which appeared to give Perkis considerable satisfaction and which allowed her to finger doors and window ledges as evidence of her abstraction. No bloodhound worthy of the name could possibly miss the scent of Chantal Delaney in that miserable hovel by the time she had done. Her final triumph was to succeed in handling the gate that gave access to the yard. While Perkis was harnessing up – and arguing with Rab about the desirability of tying her up again – she managed, on the pretext of a loosened shoe-string, to rest her foot on the bottom bar of the gate as she re-tied it. A well-simulated stumble as the foot came down allowed her to catch at a higher bar with both hands and to brush her skirts against the structure. Then she was ordered back into the coach, Rab looking morose again and warning her savagely that if there was so much as a peep out of her, he’d put her to sleep so’s she’d not wake up till journey’s end. But once again his humanity had prevailed over his partner’s petty spite. She could only be thankful and sit meekly in her corner wondering what excuse she could make to be permitted to set foot on the ground again. It was a dispiriting task.
Once they stopped for a change of horses, but Rab took no chances. He pulled down the blinds and came to sit beside her, one powerful arm pinning her against his side, the other hand over her mouth.
“Might ha’ been tempted ayont your strength,” he muttered, half surly, half apologetic, as he released her again.
About mid-afternoon they stopped again, this time to consult a road book. They had come to a cross-road, and the route that Perkis wished to follow looked very rough and narrow. After careful consultation he decided to chance it and was justified when, after about a mile and a half, it joined a much better road. The rough lane, it appeared, was a short cut to a newly made highway. Perkis studied this dubiously and backed the carriage into the mouth of the lane.
“Too much traffic for my liking,” he told Rab. “Look at them wheel tracks! What do you say we back up a piece? I’ve a fancy for one o’ those cold sausages and a sup of ale, but it’ll not do to be hanging about on the high road.”
Rab’s large frame demanded a good deal of sustenance. He was always ready to fall in with any suggestion that involved eating, so he was prompt to approve. The carriage was pulled up where the lane widened a little, and Perkis joined the other two in the interior. They ate in silence, for Perkis’s presence inhibited any friendliness that Rab might have shown. The two men made a hearty meal. Chantal drank some of the milk left over from breakfast and ate some fragments of oatcake, choking down the dry morsels with a vague notion that she should make an effort to keep up her strength rather than because she had any appetite.
Perkis wiped greasy fingers on the seat of his breeches and jumped down into the lane, disappearing behind the hedge for a few moments. He came back presently and nodded to Rab, who also vanished briefly. Perkis leaned against the door of the carriage.
It was a loathsome necessity, but it was the chance she had been seeking and Chantal did not propose to miss it from any notions of pride or foolish modesty. With every appearance of embarrassment and looking anywhere but at Perkis’s face, she muttered shamefacedly, “May I go, too, please?”
Rab returned in time to hear Perkis guffaw. “Aye, milady. All made the same way, ain’t we? Got to answer nature’s call or suffer for it, fine lady and ’umble groom alike,” he sniggered. But Rab’s return and the scowl on the big man’s face as he caught the tenor of the exchange prevented further taunts. A crimson-faced Chantal looked up pleadingly at Rab and indicated a gateway and a clump of bushes. He nodded. Perkis said sourly, “And no trying to make a run for it. Five minutes. Then I’ll be seeking you with this,” and he showed her the pistol that slipped so easily into the large pocket of his driving coat.
She wasted no time. Purposely she fumbled with the gate, then hurried behind the bushes. A strip torn from her handkerchief was tied to one low branch, and with the heel of her shoe she scratched a large arrow in the turf to indicate the direction they were taking. She was back beside the carriage within the allotted time and resumed her place in silence, ignoring Perkis’s grin and his insolent enquiry as to whether she was more comfortable now.
To speak the truth she was very much more comfortable. If, by any combination of miracle and perseverance, a search party reached this point; she had left a plain and unmistakeable clue for them to find. The knowledge sustained her spirits until afternoon slowly gave place to evening. There had been no further opportunity to leave the carriage, and though they had passed several other vehicles and even one or two pedestrians on this more frequented road there had been no chance of e
luding Rab’s vigilance. Lights were beginning to prick out in the farmhouses and cottages that she could see tucked away in the folds of the hills. Evening was closing in, and with evening would come the encounter with her cousin. Despite her brave efforts, help might never reach her. With the coming of darkness it did not seem so certain that someone would have noticed the strange carriage, while the idea of Dominic using Jester in the search for her was probably ridiculous. The clues she had left – had abased herself to leave – were useless. Dominic was probably trotting peacefully home from Ayr, unless he had been delayed, and would not even know that she was missing. It was with sick foreboding that she realised that the carriage was passing through a gateway and proceeding up a neglected drive towards a squat, unpretentious house dimly seen in the dusk, where one lighted window proclaimed that they were expected.
Chapter Ten
But Dominic was not on his way home from Ayr. He had never even reached that historic town. He had left Dorne in a mood of dissatisfaction, not to say irritability. This he had ascribed largely to the fact that Chantal had disappeared somewhere in the grounds and that he had been unable to bid her farewell and remind her of the need to be cautious when she left the island. Telling himself that this was sheer folly did nothing to alleviate the heaviness of his spirits. He put Rusty into a hand gallop along the grassy verge. The exercise served to steady the headstrong animal but did nothing for his master. With every stride that separated him from Chantal his apprehension grew. He tried to convince himself that it was without foundation; merely the echo of his own foolish fears; the heritage bequeathed to him by that distant highland ancestress who, reputedly, had been blessed – or cursed – with the ‘sight’, but he was prey to the gloomiest forebodings. Some danger, some evil, threatened the girl he loved. It was no use telling himself that she was in safe keeping. With the best will in the world, Oliver was incapable of protecting her. Murdoch was a tower of strength, a good man with his hands and useful with a pistol if it came to shooting. But Murdoch was a busy man with many calls upon his services that might take him away from Dorne. Why had he not thought to tell Murdoch not to leave the island until his own return?
In an attempt to suppress his fears he deliberately turned his thoughts to the letter that was taking him north. The exercise gave him no comfort. As he had said to Oliver, the letter was suspiciously smooth. The writer introduced himself as a fellow philanthropist – which had immediately set up all Dominic’s prickles. His charities were his own business. Only Oliver and the men who helped to implement his wishes were in his confidence. Not even his mother knew the whole. So how had this oily character come to be so well informed? Some of his pensioners had relatives who occasionally visited them, and no doubt they might have talked – one could scarcely pledge them to secrecy – but even if a vague rumour of his activities had reached the writer of the letter by such channels as these, he must have gone to a deal of trouble in ferreting out the whole. If he, Dominic, had not been so preoccupied with his wooing of Chantal, he might have thought of this before.
The more he thought of it now, the more it troubled him. The letter described the applicant’s case with touching pathos. He was, it seemed, a splendid fellow, honest and industrious and incredibly brave, keeping a cheerful countenance in the face of his terrible afflictions. He was totally blind and had lost a leg. So what was he industrious at, demanded a disbelieving little imp at the back of Dominic’s mind. He had amassed considerable experience in such cases and he knew that finding suitable employment was perhaps the greatest problem that the men had to face. Not a relative in the world, the writer went on, and no pension, despite his years of gallant service.
Then how had he lived, wondered Dominic. There was no mention of the campaigns in which the man had served so gallantly, nor of the engagement in which he had come by his injuries or of the regiment in which he had served. Too easy to check, reflected the cynical philanthropist grimly.
He drew the lightly sweating Rusty to a halt and considered the possibilities. No one was appointed to meet him in Ayr. He preferred to descend on unknown applicants unannounced. One was more likely to come at the truth that way. So no one would be discommoded if he deferred his visit for a few days. And despite all his efforts the conviction was steadily growing within him that he was urgently needed at home. If it proved to be just a foolish fancy, he had little to lose. He would have his journey to start again – and next time he would make adequate arrangements so that he could travel with an easy mind. If his fears were well founded, then Pegasus himself would not be swift enough to carry him home.
He pulled out his watch. Rusty was not quite done but he had been ridden hard. If he could hire a decent hack he could be home by midnight. Chantal would be surprised, Oliver would laugh. He would not mind the laughter so he found them both safe.
He was fortunate with his hireling. It had not Rusty’s speed, nor, for that matter, his awkward temper, but it was a strengthy beast with a good heart and willingly gave of its best. He pressed on steadily, nursing the animal as best he could in face of his ever-increasing urge to make haste, and came home to Dorne a little before midnight. He slid out of the saddle at the end of the lane, encouraging the weary beast with heartening promises of clean straw and cool water and a feed of oats as a reward for its efforts, but even as he talked his nostrils were assailed by the acrid tang of a recent fire, and almost at the same moment he realised that all the horses were loose in the paddock. The stables! So that was the danger that he had sensed from afar. But the horses were all right. With a great sigh of relief that it was no worse, he turned the newcomer into the nearest loose-box and hurried round the corner of the building to discover the extent of the damage.
He walked into a scene that looked like a field hospital. The three grooms who lived in the quarters were stretched out on the ground, two of them unconscious and wrapped in blankets, the third groaning with the pain of a broken arm which Oliver was splinting for him. Oliver himself was a shocking sight. His clothes were soaked. His fine white evening shirt was caked with sand and blood, its sleeves in ribbons which revealed the cuts and bruises that covered his arms. But it was the set, white face, the glittering eyes, that most appalled his brother. Not since they had told him that he would never walk again had Oliver looked so. For one brief moment as he glanced up from his task and saw Dominic, a flicker of relief showed through the mask, but he said only, “I thought it was Murdoch. He’s gone to rouse the village.” He secured the bandage neatly, handed the patient a measure of brandy and bade him swallow it, assuring him that he would do very well in a little while and that the doctor would give him something to ease the pain when he arrived. Then he turned again to Dominic.
“My chair is over there,” he gestured. “Murdoch fetched it over for me. But I’ve managed well enough without.” He glanced dispassionately at his arms. “Bring it for me, will you? I’ve a tale to tell that is for your ear alone.”
At his request Dominic lifted him into the chair and wheeled him out of the circle of light cast by the stable lanterns down to the edge of the water. There, in the quiet darkness, his eyes fixed on the surge and ebb of the little waves, Oliver told his brother of Chantal’s disappearance.
“I didn’t know what was happening,” he explained. “One cannot hear very much down here. Certainly I didn’t hear her cry out. She was busy about the horses for a while – I saw Pegeen at the bottom of the paddock. When she didn’t come back to the boat and no one came with a message, I grew anxious. I managed to roll out of the boat – rolled it over, too, I’m afraid – and swam for the beach. Made what shift I could to drag myself up to the coach house and was just catching my breath after that, when Murdoch came clattering down the lane. He suspected mischief as soon as he discovered he’d been lured off to Wigtown on a wild goose chase. Horse thieves, he was thinking of, with those tinklers camping in the glen, but never dreamed of anything so shocking as this. We found the grooms easily enough. The first two had
been knocked out as they slept, but that poor little devil must have roused. He’d put up a good fight against odds and taken a proper mauling. Arm, collar bone and a broken jaw, but he managed to mumble out something about a giant of a man, a stranger in these parts, and some of the tinklers from the camp. Murdoch fetched the others out here because the quarters are full of smoke and then went across to rouse the house and fetch my chair. Now he’s away for the doctor and to get more help.”
There was a heavy silence. Then he added slowly, “I’m sorry, Nick. I should have guarded her better.”
In the darkness Dominic’s hand dropped on his shoulder with a comforting pressure. “Not your fault, old fellow. I had grown careless. Too busy planning how I could win her to wife to remember the danger in which she stood. But tomorrow will be time enough for aportioning blame and repentance. Tonight we’ve to plan how to get her back.”
There were lights bobbing towards them down the lane. They must go back and see to the comfort of the injured grooms before they could give their full attention to the far more difficult task of tracing Chantal. It was late indeed before they had made the best arrangements that could be contrived for the casualties and were able to foregather in Murdoch’s office for a council of war. Murdoch begged leave to introduce to this one, George Crawford, the son of a neighbouring farmer. “For Geordie and me ha’ noticed twa-three queer-like things that’ll maybe help,” he explained, for once forgetting the meticulous English that he normally used in his dealings with his employers.
