“If you’re certain that they are unlikely to burst in, it would certainly be more comfortable,” replied the other, with a wistful glance at the easy chair. “Damn! Just look at the colour of my pantaloons!”
“Very eye-catching,” commended his companion following his gaze. “You feel, perhaps, that they are a shade too bright?”
“I wasn’t referring to their original colour,” explained the statesman, with a shade of coolness in his manner, “but to the confounded dust which I have managed to collect in that damned cupboard.”
“Often get dust in cupboards,” replied the Captain, sympathetically. “I’ve noticed it myself. Don’t bother—it will soon brush off. You wait here, then.”
He darted back to the hidden door, and, silently moving it open, slipped inside. He was back at his vantage point in time to see Captain Masterman returning to his superior officer.
“The men are ready, sir,” he reported, smartly. “All except Harris, who’s drunk. They’re putting him under the pump now.”
The Colonel nodded.
“Form ‘em up into marching order. I’ll settle with this damned landlord meanwhile, and join you outside.”
They moved out of Jackson’s sight towards the door. He waited a moment, then joined his companion in the parlour.
“They’re moving off,” he said, briefly. “Nobby will give us the word when they’re clear of the inn. Another glass of wine, in the meantime?”
My lord accepted gratefully. He felt the need of a restorative to his nerves.
It was not very long afterwards that the landlord appeared in the parlour, a look of strong relief on his ruddy countenance.
“They’ve gone, thank God!” he breathed. “Fair startled me out o’ my wits, they did! I thought they was Preventives, for sure!”
“My guest is also leaving, Nobby,” said Captain Jackson. “I gave orders for the gentleman’s coach to be stabled at the farm, and the coachman entertained in the kitchen there. Nip over and desire the driver to bring the vehicle to the front of the inn as quickly as possible.”
Nobby departed on this errand, and the Captain set down his glass.
“You must get away before they return,” he said. “Fortunately you can avoid the village. When you reach the top of this lane, go in the opposite direction from that by which you came. Continue for a mile or so, until you come to a turning on the right. Follow this, which makes a detour of the village, bringing you out beyond it on to the main coaching road.”
“Surely there can be no reason why they must not see my coach passing through the village?” demurred his lordship.
“Only that your crest is on its panels,” retorted the Captain. “It may occur to one or both of those gallant officers to wonder just why a prominent member of the Government should be travelling this particular stretch of the road in winter. Such curiosities are apt to be noised abroad; that’s the last thing either of us desires.”
The older man nodded.
“Of course, of course: you cannot be too careful, my boy. Heaven forbid that I should add to the dangers that surround you. What do you mean to do when I am gone?”
“Seek a conference with Number One, if possible tonight. After that, I have affairs which must be wound up here before I move on. If anything urgent should arise I will communicate it to you in the usual way.”
“I should like to have news of you even if there is nothing of an urgent nature to impart.”
“Then I will send it—through His Majesty’s mails. But do not look for any scholarly epistles, my lord!”
“It will be enough to hear that you are alive and well,” replied the other, soberly. “When I think—”
He broke off as the clatter of hoofs and wheels was plainly heard from outside the inn.
“Your coach!” exclaimed Jackson, with satisfaction. “Now, sir—”
He thrust my lord’s hat and gloves upon him, and ushered him hastily from the room.
It was now pitch dark outside, though the rain had for the moment stopped. The lanterns which hung on either side of the carriage did little to dispel the gloom. My lord shivered as he stepped out into the cold, dank night air, and turned to extend a hand to his companion before entering the coach.
“This is goodbye, then, for the present,” he said, in a low voice.
Captain Jackson took the hand, and gripped it for a moment in silence. Then he urged the other into the vehicle.
“I’ll mount up behind until you reach the high road,” he whispered. “Give your man the word to start.”
The door was slammed, and the order given. Captain Jackson swung himself lightly up on to the footboards behind.
From beside the pump in the inn yard, a figure rose unsteadily to its feet, and staggered towards the front of the inn. The noise of the coach had wakened Harris from the drunken slumbers to which he had earlier been abandoned in despair by his comrades of the Volunteers.
Into his fuddled brain penetrated the idea that something was amiss, that something ought to be done. Reaching for his musket with clumsy fingers, he raised it unsteadily, and fired in the general direction of the winking lamps of the coach. The exertion exhausted his possibilities. He collapsed once more on to the ground, letting fall the gun.
The bullet, not surprisingly, went wide of its mark. Captain Jackson felt a sharp sting as it grazed his upraised arm in its passage.
“What the devil—?” asked my lord, poking his head through the window.
The coachman, thoroughly alarmed, made as if to rein in his horses.
“Drive on!” shouted Jackson.
The man obeyed, fear overcoming his natural caution as he rounded the bend and took the narrow lane at breakneck speed. Once on the high road, Jackson drummed on the roof for the driver to stop.
“What in thunder was all that?” asked the statesman, as the Captain poked his head in at the still open window.
“Lord knows!” was the undisturbed reply. “But Nobby will see to it, and I’ll find out later. It may not be healthy down there at present. Farewell, my lord.”
He waved his hand airily, and, not waiting for a reply, ran off towards the lane which they had just left. The darkness swallowed him up.
My lord opened his mouth to speak, saw the futility of it, and instead rapped on the front of the coach for the driver to proceed. The man, disliking the whole exercise, needed no second bidding.
As for Captain Jackson, having turned into the lane, he scrambled up the bank and over the stone wall which topped it.
He vaulted lightly down into the dark, deserted grounds of Teignton Manor, and was soon lost in the shadows.
THREE - Miss Feniton Holds a Conversation
Dinner was over at Teignton Manor, and the gentlemen were sitting over their wine. Mr. Dorlais had ridden over to dine with his betrothed; when the ladies rose to leave their menfolk, his dark eyes told her that he begrudged the customary period of separation before he might with propriety join her in the withdrawing room. Miss Lodge met his glance unresponsively, however. She thought it was time he was taught a lesson.
Miss Feniton noticed the silent interchange with amusement. Her dear Kitty was a romantic, and that was the cause of this temporary coolness between the lovers. It was Miss Lodge’s romantic disposition which appealed so strongly to the other girl, whose chief characteristic was always said to be strong common sense. All the same, Kitty ought not to be allowed to toy with her happiness; Miss Feniton determined to give her a strong hint before the gentlemen came in, and then to contrive some means of leaving her and Guy undisturbed for a space. A reconciliation between two such ardent natures ought not to be too difficult to accomplish.
At first, however, Lady Feniton seemed set upon trying to wreck this amiable scheme of her granddaughter’s. Having disposed of a pious hope entertained by Lady Lodge that it would not rain tomorrow, and given in a few short sentences her opinion as to what was wrong with Mr. Pitt’s Government, she turned to Miss Feniton.
“I have been waiting an opportunity all day to tell you, my dear Joanna,” she began, “that I have at last had the honour of a reply from Algernon.”
“Indeed, ma’am?” replied Joanna, calmly, raising her green-flecked eyes to her grandmother’s face. “You must show it to me presently.”
“I will show it to you now,” insisted Lady Feniton. “I have it here with me. No doubt Catherine will like to see it, too—and you, of course, Letitia. Not that it tells one a great deal—there are merely a few lines penned, I observe, by his secretary—too much trouble, I suppose, to put pen to paper himself. But there! All you young people are alike nowadays!”
“For my part,” put in Miss Feniton, seizing this opportunity of promoting her benevolent scheme towards Kitty and Guy Dorlais, “I mean to escape that stricture, Grandmama, by devoting a small part of this evening towards the answering of some of my correspondence. I will agree that most of it is overdue.”
Lady Feniton looked her disapproval. “The morning is the time of day for letter writing,” she said, firmly. “However, here is Algernon’s note.”
She handed an expensive looking sheet of notepaper to Joanna, who took it and perused it silently.
“You’ll no doubt notice particularly the sentence about his ‘being happy to renew an acquaintance of such long standing and so many pleasurable memories’?” she asked, with a deep-throated chuckle. “I wonder if he includes under that head the many occasions when I was obliged to order corporal punishment for him?”
“He was only a boy when he stayed with you at Shalbeare House before, I recollect?” said Lady Lodge. Her friend nodded. “He was here on two occasions: the first when he was only ten years old, the second—let me see, Joanna would have been rising nine that
time, if I remember—yes, he would have been about fourteen, I suppose. A handful, I recollect, but I knew how to school him, you may depend!”
Lady Lodge could have no doubts whatever on this score, and said as much.
“There was some nonsense about his name, I recall,” continued Lady Feniton, reminiscently.
“Yes, I remember that, too,” interposed Joanna, having read the letter, and passed it on to Lady Lodge. “You would call him Algernon, ma’am, although he insisted that he was never called so at home. He became quite heated on the subject, and it ended by —” her voice tailed off.
“By my having the gardener thrash him soundly,” concluded her grandmother. “Algernon he was baptised by that foolish mother of his, and Algernon he remains, as far as I am concerned!”
Miss Feniton fell silent. She was recalling how she had concealed a portion of game pie in the pocket of her apron so that it might be smuggled in by a sympathetic nurse to the defiant, dry-eyed small boy. The incident must have made a strong impact upon her, she thought with surprise, for at that time she had been only five years old herself.
“It is a vastly polite letter,” said Kitty, having received it from her Mama. “Can you recollect what he was like, Jo?”
Miss Feniton was obliged to shake her head. In spite of the sharpness of that one memory, her other recollections of Lord Cholcombe’s heir were faint and confused.
“My dear Kit, all small boys are much alike,” she said, with a light laugh. “They are all noisy, boisterous, and slightly contemptuous of the opposite sex. I make no doubt that he was just the same as the rest of his species.”
“But what were his looks, I mean?” persisted Kitty. “Would you say he was a handsome child? Was he fair, for instance—or dark?”
This question produced some conflicting replies. Miss Feniton settled for fair hair, while Lady Feniton was positive that it had been brown.
“It was not a face you remember,” finished the dowager. “Not like Geoffrey’s, for instance, which made an indelible impression wherever he went. Still, one can’t have everything: his father is a Viscount, and may any day succeed to the Earldom. Such a prospect could atone for any want of looks in Joanna’s future husband.”
“There is quite a firm understanding, then?” asked Lady Lodge.
“Firm as the Bank of England! Geoffrey wished it from the moment that Joanna was born, and Cholcombe was just as decided. They were great friends, as you most likely know, before Geoffrey’s marriage. He used to spend a vast deal of time in Town in those days. We quite expected—but never mind that, now!”
Miss Feniton knew the meaning of this veiled remark. At one time, it had been supposed that her father would marry Lord Cholcombe’s sister. It was another instance of the many half uttered slights upon her mother’s memory. They had little real meaning for her, as she could not remember her parents: but they were not without a certain effect of which she was not completely conscious. If the mother had been such a disappointment, might not the child be so, too?
“It is a very pretty-spoken letter,” approved Lady Lodge. “When is Mr. Cholcombe expected at Shalbeare House?”
“In rather less than a fortnight from now,” answered Lady Feniton. “I have been thinking, Letitia—why do you not all come back with us when we return? Feniton is poor company for anyone, as who should know better than myself! Besides, it will look less particular if we have a party staying when Algernon makes his visit. I will ask Mr. Dorlais, too, Catherine, so you need not look so downcast,” she added, glancing at Kitty’s tell-tale face. “He should make a most suitable companion for Algernon, being much about the same age.”
“Oh, thank you, Lady Feniton!” exclaimed Kitty, in delight. “Indeed, I feared it would be so dull when you are all gone home! You will say yes, won’t you, Mama?”
Lady Lodge, who was a very different calibre from her guest, assented at once, though with the proviso that “we must ask Papa, of course.”
“Oh, he will agree, I feel sure!” said Kitty, secure in her power over both her parents. She smoothed the chestnut Titus crop which gave her such an elfin appearance, and turned her dark blue eyes solemnly upon Miss Feniton as a sudden thought struck her.
“But perhaps Guy will not come,” she said, doubtfully.
“If he does not, it will be your own fault,” murmured Joanna, significantly, in her ear.
Kitty raised her brows. “Why, whatever can you mean?” she whispered back.
“Conversation after dinner should be general,” reproved Lady Feniton, sharply. “I feel quite sure that you two girls have had time enough in solitude today to enable you to unburden yourselves of all your little confidences! But why do you suppose, Catherine, that Mr. Dorlais”—she gave the words light emphasis, for she disapproved of Kitty’s use of her betrothed’s Christian name, and wondered that Letitia could allow it—“should not accept my invitation?”
Kitty blushed. “He—it is possible, ma’am, that he may have another engagement,” she stuttered, nervously.
Lady Feniton smiled acidly, “When you are so charmingly in looks, Catherine? I do not think it likely! I must say, Letitia, that though in general, I do not approve of those dreadful shorn locks, they do suit your daughter’s style. Not that I mean you to copy, Joanna,” she warned. “Yours is quite another kind of beauty, and Carver knows to an inch just what best becomes you.”
Miss Feniton made no reply, but racked her brains feverishly to discover a way of diverting her grandmother’s attention long enough to enable her to have a private conversation with Kitty Lodge. If the worst came to the worst, she thought desperately, she would have to postpone it until they retired to their bedchambers for the night. Meanwhile, she could at least try to leave her friend alone with Mr. Dorlais for a space. If she braved her grandmother’s displeasure, and withdrew to the morning room, ostensibly to write letters, she knew she could rely upon Sir George Lodge, at any rate, to distract Lady Feniton’s attention from the engaged couple. Upon her grandfather, she could place no such reliance. Outside his library, he was a broken reed, drifting hither and thither at her ladyship’s whim. Which was probably why, reflected Joanna, he rarely left the library when he was in his own house.
Her opportunity did not come, and in a little while, the gentlemen joined them. Guy Dorlais went at once to Kitty, placing a chair at her other side.
“Now I am supplanted,” remarked Miss Feniton, with a smile. “I must tell you that you are about to have a signal honour paid you, Mr. Dorlais!”
“What is that?” he asked, with a humorous flash of his dark eyes.
“You are to be invited to make a stay at Shalbeare House,” said Joanna, solemnly. “Kitty fears, however, that you may have a previous engagement.”
“What is all this, sweetheart?” he asked, trying to take Kitty’s hand.
She snatched it hurriedly away, saying in muffled accents, “Take care! Lady Feniton is watching us!”
“What do I care for—” he was beginning, when Lady Feniton cut into the conversation.
“Sir Walter and myself are thinking of making up a small house party when we return home, Mr. Dorlais. May we hope to count you among our guests? Sir George and Lady Lodge are to come—and Catherine, of course. As to the other members, I am not yet quite decided, except for one gentleman Lord Cholcombe’s son. Are you at all acquainted with him, sir?”
“You make me very happy, ma’am,” replied Guy Dorlais, with a bow. “I shall be delighted to accept. Yes, I have some little acquaintance with Cholcombe—I fancy that on one occasion, we took part together in some private theatricals at the house of a mutual friend, and I have run across him from time to time at the Exeter Assemblies. I understand that he has a house in Exeter, though he is more frequently in London.”
“Oh, so you know this Mr. Cholcombe!” exclaimed Kitty, eagerly. “Pray tell us what he is like, Guy, do!”
Dorlais hesitated. “Well, it’s not so simple, Kit, to describe a fellow one’s met so seldom. What do you wish to know about him?”
“Everything!” said Kitty, without hesitation. “His colouring, height, whether or not he is handsome, his tastes and interests—oh, anything at all you can think of!”
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