High Spirits at Harroweby

by Comstock, Mary Chase

  “So you survived the night, my poor little dove,” Mrs. Bunche crooned. “And how are we feeling, pet?”

  “Quite well, thank you,” Lucy told her, smiling her crooked smile. “Whatever time is it? I feel it must be quite sinfully late.”

  “It is well past midday, but never mind the time, sweeting. Just tell me true—can it be you’ve no grippe? No ague? No putrification of the lung?”

  ‘ ‘Indeed, I do not think so!” the child exclaimed, her eyes wide.

  Unconvinced, Mrs. Bunche felt Lucy’s forehead and, pronouncing it to be as cool as a root cellar wall, commenced to worry that Lucy had been chilled so thoroughly as to defy the ability to take a fever. It took some minutes for Lucy to persuade the good soul that she felt extremely tolerable.

  Still, Mrs. Bunche frowned at her and exclaimed that she could not like the worry line that was beginning to form between the child’s eyes.

  “Not that I blame you, my turtle dove, for—I vow!—to be tormented with the likes of those two devilish fiends as followed you here last night would set a corn-fed sow to worriting itself.”

  At the mention of this pair, Lucy did indeed begin to fret herself, particularly when the proprietress informed her of the lodgings her supposed relations had suffered during the night. This revelation conjured up such a comical picture, however, that Lucy did indulge in a brief laugh, especially as she was able to see Lady Sybil convulse in mirth and throw her spectral arms around Mrs. Bunche’s neck. Lucy soon recovered herself, however. “To be sure, they deserve no better, for they are the most shocking creatures imaginable, Mrs. Bunche,” Lucy confided with a little tremble. “I cannot but dread that such a reception will only make them behave worse toward me than they have already done.”

  “Have no fear of that, my sweeting,” the good lady said, tweaking her under the chin rather painfully. “The groom awoke this morning to find two of my horses gone, and I have sent the magistrate and his deputies after them. You may rest your head and drink your chocolate in peace, lovey, if that sorry snail of a kitchen maid will but bring it up. What’s more, if no decent soul claims you for kin, I shall keep you myself!”

  Lucy was just raising her eyebrows at this thought when the door was opened by a slight chambermaid bearing a tray so heavily laden with victuals that she proceeded into the room slightly alist.

  “So there you are at last, Mopsa,” Mrs. Bunche grumbled in exasperated tones. “I do not know when I have seen such a sorry slowcoach!”

  The said Mopsa teetered precariously toward the fireside table and set down her burden with a resounding thud before answering her mistress. “But Mrs. Bunche,” she squeaked excitedly, bobbing a hasty curtsey, “there is such news! I’m sure you must forgive me when I tell you, for there is the hugest uproar down t’village as ever I saw, no nor me mum neither.”

  “What?” Mrs. Bunche snorted disdainfully. “Have the tinkers passed through town again?”

  “No, nor gypsies either, though I dearly love a gypsy!” the girl burbled with excitement. “And you will recall, I know, that black-eyed devil who would have carried me off to have his foul way with me, but that I told him I’d never have him. Yes, gypsies—”

  “Enough of gypsies, girl,” Mrs. Bunche cried. “I vow you will drive me cockeyed with your nonsense! Now what is this uproar you speak of?”

  “Uproar! You do well to call it so, Mrs. Bunche! You will not credit it, but there’s two foul criminals locked in the stocks, and they are using such sorry language as would make the devil himself blush.”

  “Is that all, ninny?” the older woman scolded. “Why, those stocks haven’t a moment to grow cool between victims, we live in such sorry times. Now, Mopsa, you go right now and—”

  “Oh, but that ain’t the halt of it, Mrs. Bunche,” the girl continued breathlessly, fanning herself with the bottom of her apron, “for one were a great fat lady and she riding a horse through town chasing hot as you please after a fat man ...”

  “My horses!” Mrs. Bunche exclaimed.

  “. . . who was yelping like anything for she kept smacking at him with a crop ...”

  “Great heavens!” Lucy chimed in.

  “... and she were all but mother-naked for he had stolen her gown ...”

  “Lord-a-mercy!” Mrs. Bunche cried.

  “... and soon enough she smacked his horse and it reared and whinnied so that it frightened her horse who reared, too, and straightaway didn’t they both end face down, arse up in a mucky ditch . . .”

  “Hoorah!” shouted Lucy.

  “. . . where the magistrate found them slinging mud and curses and—bless him—had them both clapped in irons and taken to the stocks! What’s more, they shall be locked in the gaol at sundown.”

  At the end of this remarkable speech, Mopsa curtseyed once again and began laying out Lucy’s nuncheon as if nothing untoward had happened at all. Mrs. Bunche, not one to miss out on excitement of this order, exited the chamber immediately, and soon enough Lucy could hear her calling loudly for her gig to be brought round. When Mopsa had completed her task and bobbed her way out, Lucy sprang from the bed, pulled off the huge nightrail with which Mrs. Bunche had supplied her on the previous night and began to dress herself.

  “Whatever do you make of this business, Lady Sybil?” she asked as she wiggled into her chemise.

  The ghost, who had been peering out the window to see if the village were at all visible from their vantage point, turned and smiled triumphantly. “I believe that fate has at last taken a hand in your difficulties, Lucy. I trust you may now sit quiet until Lord Waverly or his agent arrives, for I am sure it will be sometime today.”

  Lucy frowned and fingered the gold pomander she wore around her neck. By daylight it was clear that it had received a fair battering on the floor of the coach the night before, for several of the pearls were missing and the catch was bent. At least, however, it had not lost the facility of keeping Lady Sybil by her side. Sitting quietly and waiting for events to shape themselves was not at all what she had been used to lately. But in spite of her reassurances to Mrs. Bunche, she had to admit that she did feel somewhat fagged, even after a good night’s sleep. Perhaps a quiet day was in order, after all. Yawning, she crossed to the window and stood beside the ghost. The sun was now well past its summit and the inn yard was quite busy. Boys ran after chicken, two mud-specked horses were being led toward the barn even as Mrs. Bunche in her gig drove out, and milkmaids chatted companionably in the shade of a golden oak. In the distance, Lucy could see a vehicle approaching the inn accompanied by an outrider. There was something about the party that attracted Lucy’s attention, and suddenly she felt a strange buzz course through her. Even though the vehicle and rider were little more than dots on the horizon, she knew with an uncanny uncertainty that Lord Waverly had come at last.

  * * * *

  . . . Rosamonde at last looked into the depths of Roderick’s eyes, Selinda was reading, and recognized in them a mirror of her own overriding love and passion. The sun was just rising over the misty reaches of Larksdown Moor, and the song of the waking birds echoed at last in her heart.

  “The depths of our love cannot be sounded,” Roderick whispered in awed tones, “nor the brilliance of our devotion sullied. Say you will be my wife …

  “How can you doubt me?” Selinda murmured, caught up in her fantasy world.

  “Lady Selinda?” came Lord Waverly’s voice.

  She looked up with a blushing start. Her book, now that she had it back, had so stolen the focus from her worries that she had not even realized that the coach had come to a stop. Surely, she told herself, she could not have spoken aloud!

  “We shall be changing horses at this inn,” Lord Waverly was saying. “The Laughing Lion, it is called. I think you must wish to refresh yourself. I shall bespeak a private parlor, of course, but...”

  “Yes?”

  “There is,” he went on hesitantly, “the matter of the proprietor’s customary curiosity. I own I had f
orgotten that small matter, but my driver has reminded me that it is always so. You would not mind if I identified you as my wife?”

  Selinda sighed. How similar, yet how different from the declaration she had just read in her little book. “Of course. I am sure that is most wise,” was all she said, however. What a fool she was to allow herself to dream.

  Lord Waverly escorted her into the inn bearing a heavy heart. He had hoped a little wildly that she might honor his suggestion with at least a smile of encouragement, but she had only sighed. What had he expected? Even she must know that, for all his wealth, his connections, and, yes, his thoroughly engaged heart, he was considered an odd case by all and sundry. True, she had returned his kiss in the church—well, he had surprised her— and allowed herself to be comforted in the park when she felt herself to be assailed at all sides. And last night? Something had perhaps almost happened, but what of it? It was clear she knew no more of the world than that little orange kitten. He, who should have known better, ought not to read more into her smiles and veiled glances than was there. Life, after all, was not a book.

  Since Mrs. Bunche had left in a flurry some few minutes before their arrival. Lord Waverly and Lady Selinda stood in the entry of The Laughing Lion waiting for someone to notice their arrival. Each was occupied with his or her own gloomy thoughts and concerns, the corners of their mouths turned decidedly down, and each started with surprise when they heard a familiar voice from above cry out, “It is you! Famous!”

  Chapter Twenty

  The Marquess of Bastion was thoroughly lost. Even though it was Miss Snypish who held the map and she who had given directions, he did not feel at all equal to telling her that this countryside looked nothing like any corner of England he had ever visited on purpose. They had, he recalled now, taken a number of odd turns. It seemed to him that they were traveling south along the road rather than due north as they should have been. He had for most of the morning been rather preoccupied with the oddity he was sure they must present to all observers: a smart perch phaeton with dashing yellow wheels all besmirched with dirt and peopled by a desperate-looking couple. He hoped that no one mistook them for a pair of elopers. Of course, he reminded himself, if they were heading south, no one must think that.

  The marquess sighed and stole a glance at his companion. She did not seem disconcerted in the least. He could not have explained to anyone—certainly not his friend, the Earl of Slaverington— the creeping fascination he felt stealing over him like a rash. As he looked at Miss Snypish’s resolute profile, something in him stirred profoundly.

  “Turn right at the crossroads,” the lady directed him.

  “Maidstone?” he inquired blankly, looking at the sign. “What? Are we in Kent, then?”

  Miss Snypish nodded and commanded him to drive on. They had indeed turned south earlier in the day and executed a number of circuitous turns, but she had been relying on the marquess’s ignorance—which seemed to be vast—and a natural want of curiosity to prevent his questioning her on the route she had elected.

  She and the marquess had begun their journey full of rancor and dire vows of vengeance, but it had presently occurred to Miss Snypish that, while vengeance was sweet, it could profit her not at all. As the day progressed, she had guided the marquess farther and farther away from their quarry and deeper into territory she knew quite well: the rambling countryside of Kent.

  It was only a short distance from the crossroads to Maidstone. A short distance, too, she hoped, from the drudgery of her life as a poor spinster companion to the splendor of becoming the Marchioness of Bastion. As they drove into the center of the town, Miss Snypish requested that the marquess pull up in front of a respectable-looking house. Taking his whip from the Marquess, she leaned out over the edge of the phaeton and snapped it resolutely against what appeared to be a parlor window. It was not long before a homely woman in a mobcap appeared in the doorway. A look of unmitigated terror appeared on the servant’s face. Her mouth opened into a small o, and she gasped in a low tone, “The Stone Maid of Maidstone!”

  “What’s that she says?” the marquess inquired, turning a little pale.

  “Where is the magistrate, Lizzie?” Miss Snypish demanded quickly, ignoring his question. “Summon him at once!”

  Reacting immediately to this strident command, the woman bobbed and scurried back into the house. In just a few moments a sour-faced man appeared in the midst of polishing his spectacles. When at last he adjusted them on the end of his long, pointy nose, he gasped, “Letitia! Can that be you? What the devil brings you back to Maidstone?”

  “Yes, Papa, it is I,” she returned grimly. “This gentleman”—and here she tapped the marquess with the whip she still held—”has abducted me.”

  Bastion, the dawn of understanding rising at last in his eyes, turned and stared at her with a mixture of terror and admiration.

  * * * *

  Lucy scurried down the stairs and threw her arms first around Selinda and then Lord Waverly. Although she had maintained a brave front for the past day, she now gave way to a flood of tears. Her sister knelt beside her and comforted the little girl as best she could while Lord Waverly looked on from a discreet distance.

  As Lady Sybil hovered above, watching this scene, she could not help feeling a little disconcerted. She had cherished high hopes—and not without reason, she told herself—that Selinda and Waverly might by now have evinced some affection for each other. But they had entered the inn seemingly aloof and cold toward one another. Whatever could have happened? She knew quite well that nature had not bestowed more than a modicum of intelligence on her, but in matters of love she was never mistaken. These two were meant for each other and were, for some reason, fighting their attraction. Why must people in love always be so stupid? she wondered. As the party made their way up the stairs to Lucy’s rooms, the ghost floated behind, puzzling over what must be done to set the matter right.

  “It is a good thing,” Lucy noted when they had shut the door, “that good Mrs. Bunche thinks that children eat as much as armies, for I believe there is enough for all of us.”

  As Lucy reported the events since their last meeting, they were able to make a satisfactory meal of steak soup, sliced ham, pigeon pie, iced cakes, cherry tartlet, and steamy chocolate, even though they were forced to share the same table service. “And so,” Lucy concluded, “if that is not Rupert and Prudence in the town pillory, I am very much mistaken.”

  “It seems,” said Lord Waverly after a thoughtful pause, “that all that remains to be done is to inform my man of business of this sudden turn of events.”

  “Oh, yes,” Lucy said in matter-of-fact tones, “I forgot to mention that I have already sent a short note off to Mr. Noon.”

  Selinda stared in no small dismay at her little sister. “How do you come to be acquainted with Lord Waverly’s man of business?”

  “Well, I’m not formally,” Lucy told her, “but I did happen to remember his direction. What’s more, he should have received his message before now, for that messenger left at the same time as the one I dispatched to you.”

  Now it was Selinda and Waverly’s turn to explain that it had not been Lucy’s note but a completely different collection of circumstances which had set them on her trail that morning.

  “And so, I suppose my poor message waits all alone on some table or other for you to return, Lord Waverly,” Lucy sighed, “only I pray you will burn it before you read it, for I would not have you guess how much a-tremble I was as I wrote it.”

  At this moment, Mrs. Bunche entered the room, still in her cloak and bonnet. She eyed Selinda and Lord Waverly with some glaring suspicion before Lucy assured her that these two were of a different cut of cloth than the last pair the good woman had encountered.

  “Well, I hope so indeed, for I’ll not countenance this poor child pulling squashed rats from the teeth of iron machines of the devil’s invention! Howsomever, Miss Lucy,” she went on before they could solicit an explanation of t
his odd declaration, “there is a gray, rabbity sort of gentleman waiting for you in the downstairs parlor who says you’ve sent for him.”

  “That, I suppose, would be Mr. Noon,” Lucy ventured.

  “From the description,” Waverly told her, “I imagine you suppose correctly. Prepare yourself, ladies, to meet the most capable, competent, practical—and, therefore, terrifying—human on the face of the earth.”

  The little party found their way forthwith to a private parlor on the main floor. Mr. Noon was indeed a “rabbity sort of gentleman,” just as Mrs. Bunche had informed them, and Lucy decided after she had looked him over that what he lacked in long ears he made up for in whiskers and twitches. So vivid was this image in her mind that she would swear ever afterward that she caught a glimpse of a white tuft from between his coattails.

  Even though Lucy had explained only her own predicament (and that rather awkwardly, she supposed) in her hastily scrawled missive, Mr. Noon looked up unperturbed when the group entered the parlor. He had spread out in front of him what appeared to be a number of official documents and was giving instructions to an ancient clerk who was so bent as to resemble a question mark more than anything else.

  “That will be all for the moment, Smythe,” Mr. Noon told him with a brief twitch. “Good afternoon, my lord. I see you have arrived in a timely manner. Excellent. Quite excellent. Now we have several matters of business which must be attended to, but I assure you I shall ask for very little of your valuable time.”

  “I am at your disposal, Noon,” his Lordship nodded.

  “First, we have the matter of the miscreants. Basham, alias Shambeigh, was arrested in the early hours of this morning and has, I understand, given ready evidence against one Prudence Mordent, aliases too numerous to list, and her son, Rupert.”

  “They are now in the pillory in the village square,” Lucy told him helpfully. Mr. Noon did not look up but merely leaned across to a list and, dipping his quill in ink, made a large checkmark next to an item.