Court of Foxes

by Christianna Brand

  But she knew he would not. Three days ago up in Twm Shon Catti’s cave, he had told her to begone, to get out of his life for ever — but she knew that he’d never really let her go. And she had come not unprepared for protests. ‘Then let any woman travel with him as attendant, it needn’t be me. Willie-bach will drive the coach and in case of a trap—’ she used the word deliberately and with care ‘– simply leave the coach and horses at the gates, we’ve no need of them here, these town-bred beasts are no use to us — and make good your escape…’

  ‘If the old mother’s promised—’ began Dio, but they paid no heed to him. She had chosen the right word to use to such wild untamed creatures as these. ‘If it’s traps,’ said Willie-bach, ‘someone else may drive him: not I. I put my head into no trap.’ There was a rumble of assent among the men. ‘There may not be a price on my head as there is on Y Cadno’s, but it lies uneasy unless it lies here at the Cwrt. I drive into no traps.’

  ‘Who else then?’ They were silent. ‘In that case, you’d better let me go as I first suggested.’

  ‘Ay, and never return,’ said Dio, laughing. ‘As we first suggested.’

  Blodwen with her scarred cheek came forward from the shadows, moving in her own indolent yet oddly violent way. ‘For my part she never need. One vixen is enough for The Fox and I am that one.’

  ‘Then do you drive the coach,’ said Gilda, quickly.

  ‘I drive?’ cried Blodwen, taken aback. ‘How could I drive four horses?’

  ‘You have but to hold a bunch of reins, fool. Town-bred creatures as they are, they won’t stray from the path, when the rest’s so stony and rough. And when you come to the castle gates, pull them up there.’

  ‘The lodge keepers—’ began Huw Peg-leg.

  ‘They won’t molest a woman. Even if the family don’t keep to their promise, it’s men they want for crimes like these, they won’t trouble a woman. Leave coach and horses at the gates and just jump down and walk away,’ she said to Blodwen contemptuously. ‘It’s simple enough.’

  ‘Ay, well simple enough for you. But for me…’ All her bold brassiness was gone, she moved to Dio’s side and standing there, quietly, appealed to something all of them would understand. ‘My mother lives in a cottage close by the castle gates. She believes me a decently married woman, living a respectable life far away from here. If she should see me! If she should find how I’m living now—!’

  There were sentimental murmurings. ‘Poof, you can cover your face, can’t you?’ said Gilda, exultant, for with every word they played into her hands. ‘Wrap yourself in a cloak, wear a hood, have a scarf across your mouth as we do when we ride out…’ But she turned away with a scornful shrug of her shoulders. ‘What’s the use? The truth is, she dare not.’

  ‘I dare not?’ The women held Blodwen back. Gilda glanced at her once, at the terrible scar, at the ring on her own finger. She repeated: ‘You dare not.’

  ‘Others know me if you don’t,’ said Blodwen sullenly. ‘There’s nothing I don’t dare.’

  ‘That’s what I’ve been told. We shall see how you prove it,’ said Gilda sweetly, ‘when the time comes…’

  And when the time came — sure enough, Blodwen was there. Willie brought out the coach and four on to the forecourt, Madam Vixen appeared, his lordship walking shakily, leaning on her arm, Blod the Bruises on his other side. He took a courteous if somewhat ironical farewell of the gang, lined up to see him go, and was helped up into the coach. Gilda stood in its doorway; he bent over her hand and kissed it gratefully. ‘He drives away very cheerfully, however,’ she remarked to Dio stepping back among the men, ‘leaving me to your tender mercies! I seem to have found more chivalry among villains like you, than with my own fine gentlemen.’ And she called to Willie, still up on the box, to take the coach down on to the pathway, get the horses settled, so that Blodwen would have not too much trouble with them. ‘If she makes an appearance,’ she added scornfully, ‘which I begin to doubt. Where is she?’

  ‘Catti, Eirwen — go find her!’

  ‘No,’ said Gilda, grimly. ‘I’ll go! She’ll not come for Catti and Eirwen; but she’ll come for me!’ While Willie eased the coach horses off the rough ground and on to the hardly less rough going of the stony and pitted path that led to the forest road, she strode off back into the fortress and soon a shrill screaming was heard and Blodwen came running out, wrapped in a hooded cloak, a scarf about her mouth and nose, with the red scar bright against the brown cheek showing above it: looking back fearfully over her shoulder, running out and across the foreground, cursing and muttering in Welsh and all the time looking backwards as she ran. Willie jumped down from the box and gave her a heave and a shove that landed her into the driving seat and she gathered up the reins into a bundle and caught up the tall whip in an evidently trembling hand. The horses, fresh from their too long inactivity, went off at a frisking pace, dragging the coach, rather dangerously rocking, after them. In the entrance to the fortress, a slim figure appeared as they all ran, cheering, after the vehicle, and waved and stood there watching and turned back, into the hall. The mob ran a little way, were out-distanced by the almost stampeding horses, stood and waved and laughed and cheered, and strolled back as a corner was turned and the coach out of sight.

  And the dark hood fell back; and the golden hair tumbled all about her face as she turned, hands light on the reins, and called back triumphantly: ‘We’re free!’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  IT WAS A COLD, GREY DAY. A veil of rain had begun to fall, the fine, thin drizzle that lies like a silver veil over the valleys of south Wales — laying its soft hand on her upturned face, washing away the red paint of poor Blodwen’s ‘scar’, drenching the soft, golden floss of her hair, fallen free from the disguising hood. She tugged the four horses this way and that, reciting the rhythm as taught by Willie-bach to Blodwen, and religiously dinned by herself into ears unaccustomed to lessons. By now Blodwen would have been found. By now they would be asking, ‘Where’s Madam Vixen?’, would have been answered by Jenny that she must be in her own room, the door was barred and (which was true enough) she made no answer to any appeal; with a hint that perhaps her ladyship had been a little more upset by his lordship’s departure than she had pretended… (Had not even gone to watch him drive off; she, Jenny, had stood for a moment in the doorway, watching, and when she turned back — Madam Vixen had disappeared.) So they would have ‘left her to herself’ — until they came upon Blodwen, tied and gagged — not very painfully, however — and locked away into a larder — full of the horrors she had suffered, suddenly set upon and bundled into that terrible place… Blodwen had been very ready to enter into a scheme without danger to herself, which would rid her for ever of her rival.

  And it would be for ever. She may have him and with all my heart, thought Gilda, slapping the wet reins on the steaming haunches, lifting her face, ecstatic, to the silver rain — I am free for ever of Gareth y Cadno and the Court of Foxes.

  They came to a main road and so to a village; to the great gates of wrought iron with a gilded coat of arms. A man came out of the lodge and stared without much welcome at the un-crested coach and its four post horses — those same horses which the pretended Lord Tregaron, unable to produce the family equippage, had hired to pull the shabby coach on the pretext that so unimposing an outfit would deceive observers in London, and further give them greater safety from the wicked footpads that haunted the roads between Hanover Square and Wales.

  She jumped down from the box, one foot to the rim of the wheel, one to a spoke — made a quick pretence to be in difficulties — (I must, I must learn again how to behave like a lady!) The man came uncertainly forward. She cried out: ‘It’s my lord! It’s the Earl! I have brought him back!’ and fell into a graceful swoon, just not too soon but that the lodge-keeper had time to catch and support her.

  ‘My lord! It’s his lordship!’ Other men came running out, flung open the doors of the coach. ‘He’s here — it’s true! Oh, m
y lord, are you sick? — come quick, he’s a-fainting!’ She came to herself pretty smartly at that and rushed back to him; but it was only a faint, if a genuine one this time, reaction probably from the excitement and unaccustomed exertion. She climbed in with him. ‘Send someone running up to the house with the news, and then let the coach follow — put a man up to drive it very slowly, very carefully…’ And she sat there cradling him in her arms while they rumbled up the long driveway. ‘You’re home and safe, my dearest. Just one effort more and the long trial will be ended.’

  An old woman stood at the entrance doorway, awaiting them: an old woman, not fat but enormously broad in the hips, with a small head, like a cherry perched on top of a cottage loaf: dressed in some dark stuff, a sober country magnificence that paid no tribute whatsoever to comfort. Behind her shoulder, leaning eagerly forward like a dog on the leash, yet held in by habitual control, stood a tall young woman, heavy as a lad, with a plain face above her quiet but splendid dress, a big nose and a sad, straight mouth. They said nothing, made no outcry; only stood tense and anxious as he was lifted out and carried up the wide flight of shallow steps past them as they stood there and into the great, pillared marbled hall. Gilda, following, stood unattended while they went to him, saw him laid on a couch, sent footmen and maidservants scurrying for rugs, cushions, restoratives. He must have opened his eyes and said something for after a few moments the Countess, seated erect on a chair at his side, said sharply: ‘Where?’ and both women turned round and looked at her, stared and looked away. For a moment she thought that the younger made an attempt to rise and come to her, but the mother restrained her. ‘Leave her, she shall have attention later.’ And then, evidently in reply to a further word from her son: ‘Yes, yes, every attention. But first we must get you to your room, you must have doctors…’

  Gilda stood quietly watching them; watching him carried away out of her sight. After a while a footman appeared with a tray of wine and biscuits, placed a chair for her. The old woman came to her there, marching across the marble floor, pudgy yet oddly stately. ‘Well, now young woman…’ She stopped and stared anew. ‘Have I seen you somewhere before?’

  Only as I hung upside-down peering in at the window of your coach, thought Gilda. Aloud she said: ‘Hardly possible, I think?’

  ‘And your voice… Well, never mind all that. I understand from my son that you have been in some sort instrumental in effecting his escape?’

  ‘In so far as I stole a coach and four horses from these desperadoes, Madam, got him into it — sick and helpless as you see him — and single-handed drove it here, all at the risk of my own life — why, yes, I think you may say that I was in some sort “instrumental”.’ I must be modest and ladylike, she thought, and not make an enemy of her; but how can I while she stands here so safe and smug and talks to me of ‘instrumental’? She took a small revenge. ‘Your ladyship has received a message — and given an undertaking?’

  ‘I have been the victim of insolent threats through the danger to my son.’ It did not apparently occur to her that since her son had been ‘rescued’ and not delivered over to her by the gang, the undertaking no longer held. She was doubtless too much concerned in getting rid of her unwelcome guest. ‘Come — I need no longer detain you. You had better be dried and have your wet clothes attended to; and then you shall be given food and drink, sufficiently rewarded for your trouble — my steward shall see to it — and you may then be conducted to any place you care to name, by what means you choose.’

  She stood there in the huge, dim hall; in her bedraggled cloak over Blodwen’s bright, tawdry dress, the hood pushed back and the golden floss of her hair hanging about her neck in dark streaks, her face half obscured by the red smears of the rubbed-away ‘scar’. She said: ‘I thank you, Madam. The other favours I will with your permission refuse, including the sufficient reward. As to safe conduct — why then, you may send me home if you will to my house and establishment of servants in South Audley Street, not far from your ladyship’s own mansion in Hanover Square.’ As the old woman goggled, for one moment at least at a loss, she added: ‘It behoves a lady to recognise another, even under such guise as this.’

  The Countess started again: stared at her anew. ‘I know now who you are! You’re the woman Blanche told us about: who was there when—’

  ‘When your eldest son died, Madam, who died in my arms — not hers, for she sat shrieking in her carriage afraid to put out her coward head.’

  ‘It was you who — who stripped her half naked, tore her jewels from her and flung them into the road for her to stoop and pick up—’

  ‘She and her woman must tell tales to account for their behaviour on that night. The fact is that she offered me her gew-gaws if I would not ask her to remove her petticoats — which same undergarments I needed only to staunch your son’s wounds; who, but for such help, must certainly have bled to death. True I flung her jewels in the dirt; if she picked them up I know not, I was too busy in attendance upon your sons, Madam, the dying and the dead. And while she crept back to safety and drove off, leaving them there,’ cried Gilda triumphantly, ‘I who had stumbled upon this affair in my attempt to get away from my captors, turned back and went with them into their stronghold again — only so that I might attend upon his lordship. Whom now I have for the second time rescued and so bring back to you.’ And, flown to heights of oratory by this picture of herself, so splendid and now, in her explanations to David so oft-repeated that she almost believed it herself, she concluded: ‘I have lost much in these past weeks, my lady, including something of missishness, perhaps, and some of my dignity, no doubt; and a great deal, I fear, of my pretty little, lady-like ways — but I have lost them in his service. But one thing I retain, one title I retain — and that title I share, that title I have in common with you, my lady Countess. For to you, but also to me, Madam — the present Earl of Tregaron owes his life.’

  The daughter came down the stairway; David’s sister — came running down when she saw the great doors opening and the small figure, head up, marching in deeply offended dignity, out of the house. ‘Mother! My lady! — for God’s sake, stop her!’ And she ran after Gilda and turned her — by no means unwilling though she put up so pretty a pretence of dignified refusal — and brought her back into the hall. ‘David has told me — he owes so much to you, we all owe so much to you! Mother, this poor lady — nothing should be too much for us to offer her, no thanks too deep, no honour too great for her…’ And she added in tones in which awe now was added to tenderness and gratitude, a plea which she doubtless felt her mother could hardly resist. ‘In another country, she is a marchioness.’

  The Countess of Tregaron, it transpired however, thought on the whole but lowly of foreign titles. ‘Who was this Marchese d’Astonia, I know nothing of any such family?’ His relict now sat at her table nevertheless: slightly comic but totally exquisite in a gown of the huge Lady Anne’s, tied and tucked up and in some sort made wearable; and was altogether made much of in obedience to very imperative commands from the sickroom. ‘D’Astonia Subeggio? I never heard of the name.’

  ‘The owner existed, however, without your ladyship’s permission,’ said Gilda. Let them but get through the next week or two and she would be back in her Bijou and David her lover — and never more than that, thank God! — so really after all there was no need to accept these gratuitous insults. ‘I should know, I suppose, for he married me.’

  ‘Evidently surviving his marriage but a short time,’ said the Countess, looking her insolently up and down.

  ‘Your ladyship’s husband was less fortunate,’ said Gilda; but this time had the cowardice to drop her voice a little and when challenged refused to repeat herself. She embarked upon one of her little impromptus, to forestall further questioning as to her antecedents. ‘My husband had been my guardian. My father, the younger son of a great house had been killed with my mother in a driving accident, while visiting their friend in Italy — I, a small child, alone surviving. H
e took me into his home and thereafter made me his daughter. And if your ladyship asks me what was my father’s family or my mother’s, I regret I can supply you with but very little information — even if it were your right to demand it. I knew myself only as Marigelda — it was his wish to make me all his own, first as his foster-child, then as his bride; and then, all too soon, his widow.’

  ‘A love child, evidently,’ said the old woman, rich in insolence; as though to herself.

  ‘Like Gareth the highwayman,’ said Gilda; as though to herself.

  The Countess shot up out of her chair as though she had been stung and without ceremony led the way up to where David, ever protesting his return to almost normal strength, sat cosseted in a chair in the drawing-room. He had been kept very much to his room and therefore knew nothing, presumably, of the situation obtaining downstairs. Now, confronted by his mother in a towering rage, he looked up in astonishment. ‘David! You insist that you are now quite well again. Nothing keeps this — lady — here but your demand that she remain in the house until you are recovered.’ He struggled up to his feet, casting aside the swaddling rugs, but she beat down his protestations. ‘She may have what assistance she requires in her return to London where she claims to have an establishment — and “establishment” may well be the word,’ raged Madam Countess, speaking a little more truly than she knew. ‘For the rest, my hospitality is exhausted. I must ask her to go.’

  He was paralysed with horror. His sister threw herself upon her knees at her mother’s feet. ‘Mother, dear Madam, reflect — she saved David’s life!’

  ‘So she never tires of reminding us,’ said the Countess, giving her daughter a yank to bring her up to her feet, which however had only the effect of toppling her ludicrously to her hands and knees. ‘If what she wants is a reward, she shall have it. But she must go.’