The Noblest Frailty

by Patricia Veryan

  * * *

  The gentleman in question was at that very moment lowering himself to the ground, having accomplished which, he stretched out his long legs and leaned back against the stone wall, closing his eyes. The cut above his right temple had stopped bleeding, but the blow must have jarred halfway down his spine, and each hair on his head seemed to throb. He had not the remotest idea of where he was, but considering England was such a tiny island, it was amazing he’d not walked clear across it. The lanes went on and on, one succeeding another, the occasional signposts all too often extending invitations from towns he’d never heard of, and only his small knowledge of celestial navigation enabling him to constantly head north. He sighed. He’d endured worse pain than that which he now suffered, but, Jupiter, he’d be glad to be rid of it! Still, he mustn’t lounge here for long. If what Devenish had said was true, and as far-fetched as it seemed, Dev was not the kind to lie, then the beautiful Yolande was in real peril. A man who would betray his country was capable of any villainy. Tyndale sighed again. He was so very tired. He could not guess at the hour, and his watch was gone, along with his ring. He didn’t mind the watch so much, but the ring had belonged to his father and carried the family crest. Blast those … misbegotten …

  He awoke shivering and soaked. More rain! It was a wonder this little island stayed afloat! He knew he’d slept only a short while, but it was very cold now, and the rain becoming a downpour. He struggled up and trudged through the puddles, concentrating on Yolande’s lovely eyes, and the proud rage that had flashed in them so adorably yesterday.… Or was it yesterday? Gad, but he was cold, and to add to his misery, a chill wind was rising, cutting icily through his wet clothes. A gate banged to a sudden gust. His teeth beginning to chatter, Tyndale drew his jacket closer, tucked his hands under his arms, and kept moving. A flickering glow of lightning illumined a cluster of distant, dilapidated farm buildings. The gate slammed again and he saw that it was not a gate, but the door to a small shed located only a few yards from the lane. Part of the farm, no doubt, but hidden from it by a stand of trees. He halted and scrutinized the shed with interest. A glance at the house verified that not a light shone. They would certainly be asleep at this hour. He scaled the low wall in a quick leap and again searched the gloom for irate men, or dogs. He’d had enough truck with dogs to last him for a while. But all was quiet, save for the depressing beat of the rain. He crept to the swinging door and peered inside. A toolshed, having among all the muddy impedimenta, a pile of dry sacks.

  Five minutes later, the shed door tight closed, his head comfortably settled on two of the folded sacks and the rest disposed over him, Tyndale smiled into the darkness. It was not the Clarendon, precisely, but it was no worse (a sight better!) than many a night he’d passed with Timothy Van Lindsay and his maniacs. Thunder bellowed, closer this time, and lightning shone through the many cracks in the dusty old shed. Tyndale grinned and yawned sleepily. “Just like Spain,” he thought. “Good old … Tim…”

  * * *

  Devenish awoke to the touch of watery fingers creeping down his neck. He swore and sat up. The roof of the barn had a large hole, this flaw revealed by the glare of lightning. “A fine thing!” he snorted indignantly. The two cats who had curled themselves up beside him opened yellow eyes to blink through the gloom. “Madame et Monsieur,” he said, “I regret the necessity to disturb you, but—” The light words ceased, and he stared in stark shock at a fourth inhabitant of the old barn. A small figure, cuddled so close against his back that he’d not seen it when he awoke. “Well, here’s a fine start!” he exclaimed. “Who the deuce asked you to attach your—” He ceased to speak as lightning flashed again. His breath was held for an instant, then released in a slow hiss. He’d noted a lantern hung on a nail against the wall, but had made no attempt to light it for fear of betraying his presence. Now, he stood cautiously, groped his way to it and was lucky enough to discover a tinderbox lying on the workbench. When he had ignited the wick, he turned the flame very low and tiptoed to the intruder, lying just as before and breathing with deep, soft regularity. He bent, and held the lantern closer. The shirt was too large for the child, the breeches tattered, and the thin sandals frayed, but it was not these that widened Devenish’s eyes. During the night, the stocking cap had shifted and a strand of hair had escaped. A long, dark, curling strand. He uttered a faint moan, reached down, and gently pulled the cap away. Thick, dark, matted curls tumbled down. “Oh, my God!” he groaned. “A female!”

  She had not been as fast asleep as he supposed. The long curling lashes flew open. Great eyes at once becoming wild with terror gazed up at him. The pale lips opened in a scream the more horrifying because it was soundless, and she sprang up. Devenish put down the lantern hurriedly, and leapt after her. He caught her at the door; a small, writhing madness.

  “No!” she sobbed. “Oh, no! Let me be! Gawd! Let me be!” And between sobs and cries and entreaties, came a thin keening shriek that he swiftly muffled.

  “Quiet!” he hissed. “I will not harm you, child! Just be quiet, or we’ll be put out in the rain, to say the least of it!”

  He glanced down when she ceased to struggle. Her eyes were half closed, the thin features like paper. “Egad! Am I suffocating you?” he gasped, removing his hand.

  “Let … me … be,” she whispered threadily. “Do not—oh, do not touch me!”

  She looked on the verge of a swoon. What in heaven’s name would he do if she committed so dreadful a thing? He released her hurriedly. “Just please do not scream,” he implored.

  She did not scream, but she swayed, an awful moaning escaping her. In a burst of sympathy, Devenish forgot her plea, put an arm about her bony little shoulders, and led her back to the pile of straw and the two cats. “Sit here,” he urged, drawing her down beside him. “There—that’s better. Poor creature. Was it a nightmare? I’ve had a few of them m’self.”

  Those haunted eyes watched him with a sort of dulled pleading, and he smiled his kindest smile and added, “I will not touch you. Promise.”

  Still looking straight at him, she began to weep; a helpless, undisguised sobbing that smote him to the heart, but when he edged back, horrified, the thin claw of a hand came out to clutch his own, and she gulped, “And—and you ain’t like—like Akim … or Benjo?”

  “I most certainly hope not, if they affect a little girl in this way.” A frown crept into his eyes. He asked in a different tone, “Is that why you ran away? From Akim and Benjo?” The tangled, greasy curls bounced as she nodded, and teardrops splattered. Devenish’s jaw set. “Are they little boys?”

  She shook her head. “Men. And I be eleven—I think.”

  Eleven. She looked no more than seven or eight.… Dreading the answer he might receive, he asked, “What did they do?”

  “They started to … to look at me.” Crimson swept over the pinched cheeks, and she threw grubby hands up to cover her eyes. “And—and one day Benjo catched me washing of myself in the stream. He took hold of my hair when I tried to cover up myself. And—and he laughed and said … he said they’d get a good price for me soon, from…”

  “From whom?”

  “From … Oh! From one of the Flash Houses!” Her eyes, agonized, were fixed on him, and Devenish gritted his teeth over the oaths that surged into his throat. By thunder, but was there anything lower than some men? He’d never been in a Flash House, but he’d heard of those hellish traps in which girls scarcely having known childhood were forced into prostitution and kept thereafter more or less permanently drunk to ensure they continued their trade; a trade from which they reaped only the benefits of food and warmth while their soulless procuress grew rich and fat at the expense of their degradation. Boys fared little better in those dens of vice: if they refused to steal and deliver up their spoils, they were cast out into the street, penniless, where the chances were that they would be hauled off to gaol, flogged, and thrown into the streets once more to begin the whole vicious circle over again.

&nb
sp; A small cold hand creeping into his own recalled Devenish from his bitter thoughts. The child was watching him beseechingly. He looked into the tear-streaked face of this helpless piece of jetsam caught in a relentless tide that must only lead to— Cutting off that terrible strain of reasoning, he demanded harshly, “What is your name? Have you no parents?”

  “They call me Tabby. And I don’t know about me mother or father. I was stole.”

  He looked at her clinically. Her hair was very dark, but he saw now that her skin was extremely pale beneath the dirt, and her eyes, although dark also, had flecks of hazel in them. She was a dirty, wretched, plain little girl, all skin and bone, but he saw the same promise in her thin form that Akim and Benjo must have seen, and his rage at those crude spoilers grew. Forcing himself to speak calmly, he asked, “Why Tabby?”

  “‘Cause I scratched ’em when they tried to touch me like—like Akim did once. And they said I was a wildcat, and after that they all laughed, and teased me, and—and called me all kinds of horrid, ugly things. I hates ’em all.” The bony fists clenched. She repeated through her teeth, “I hates ’em! So I didn’t say nothink, but last night when Akim’s mort was asleep and Akim and Benjo was drunk, I creeped away. And I’m never going back!” Her angry flush died away, her lips began to tremble pathetically, and her eyes blinked up at him, aswim with tears. “You won’t make me go? Oh, please—please!” She knelt, cowering before him, hands upstretched in supplication. “I’ll do anything! I’ll cook for you and scrub your floors when you get some. And when I grows up in a year or two, if you likes me a bit, I’ll—”

  Devenish gave a gasp and pulled her to her feet. “Hush! Poor child. Now, sit properly and do not even think such things.”

  Trembling, she whispered, “It would be better, sir … than a Flash House, but— Oh! Now I’ve gone and made you cross again! You do get very awful cross, mister…”

  “Devenish. Alain Devenish, at your service, madame!” He rose and swept her the most stately bow of which he was capable with his leg throbbing so. The child was delighted, laughter returned to her eyes, and her hands clapped joyously. “Now,” said Devenish, “we must find a name for you, for Tabby I will not tolerate.”

  “A name? A new name? Oh, sir—do that mean as you will keep me?” And she clasped her hands before her thin breast with such an intensity of hope that he feared to hear those fragile bones snap.

  “I cannot keep you, child,” he pointed out gently. “It wouldn’t be proper, for I’ve no lady wife to care for you, but—”

  Undismayed, she said, “Well, if you don’t got a wife, you prob’ly have a—”

  “No! I have not one of those, either! Now—what am I to call you?” He ran through his mind the names of every lady he could recall. “It must be a pretty name…”

  She said timidly, “If I was to think of a speshly lovely name, p’raps then you might keep me?”

  “No. But I shall see to it that you’ve a decent chance in life. One of my aunts, or cousins—some kind lady will take you in, and perhaps train you for her abigail. Would you like that?”

  The child tried to answer, but could not. And to his horror, flung herself down and began to kiss his muddy boots.

  “Good God!” he gasped, again hauling her up. “Never do such things!”

  She dragged one torn sleeve across her small nose, and sniffed, “I can’t help it. You be so good to I. Does you like ‘Josie’?”

  He said dubiously, “Josie? Why? Do you like it?”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “It—sort of comes into my head sometimes.”

  Devenish had been considering the merits of Antonia but—“Well, it’s better than Tabby!” he said. “Very well, Josie it shall be.” He looked about as a sudden flash was followed by a great rumbling bump of thunder. “Josie Storm! How’s that?”

  “Lovely!” The newly christened Miss Storm hugged herself ecstatically. “I feel new all over! Josie Storm … oooh!”

  Chapter VII

  “I WAS SURE they would be here for breakfast, Aunt,” said Yolande, her worried glance travelling for the hundredth time around the emptying coffee room of the hotel. “I wonder if we should not send one of the outriders in search of them? Or perhaps call in the constable?”

  “Yes, and a pretty figure we should cut when they were discovered roistering in some ale house!” her aunt sniffed. “The host told you, my love, that neither Devenish nor Tyndale—or whatever he calls himself—signed the guest register.”

  “No, but they stabled their horses here, and they were still here when we retired, for I sent Peattie downstairs to enquire. You know how Dev loves that mare. And Craig values Lazzy most highly.”

  “Goodness only knows why, for a more unattractive beast I seldom beheld. Oh, mercy, here is dear Mr. Garvey! Perhaps he can set your mind at ease.”

  James Garvey, looking very well in a dark brown riding coat and buckskins, came to join them, his grave “May I have the honour?” drawing an immediate and dramatic “Oh, pray do, sir!” from Mrs. Drummond, and a welcoming smile from her niece. His polite enquiries as to their night’s rest were brushed aside, Yolande replying almost impatiently, “Very nice, I thank you. Mr. Garvey, have you seen anything of my cousins Devenish and Tyndale? I hope you will not think me foolish, but I am becoming most anxious for them.”

  He rested an appreciative gaze upon her. “Your concern does you credit, dear lady. As does your gown. Dare I be so bold as to remark how pleasingly that shade of peach becomes you?”

  Irritated by what she considered a pointless digression, Yolande was also struck by the thought that Dev would have said carelessly that her dress was orange, if she’d asked him, and Tyndale would probably merely have observed that she looked charmingly. She smiled politely, but decided she would soon find Mr. Garvey’s suave manners a dead bore. Yet—how kindly he was regarding her, and only think how willingly he had spared them from what must otherwise have been a dull journey. “What a wretched, ungrateful girl I am!” she thought penitently.

  Her aunt had willingly jumped into the pause resulting from Yolande’s brief hesitation and was exclaiming over Mr. Garvey’s unending kindnesses. As soon as she paused to draw breath, Yolande cut into this welter of gratitude. “I echo my aunt’s sentiments, sir,” she said warmly. “You have been too good.”

  He looked a little solemn then. “I do have some news,” he said with marked reluctance. “I trust it will not distress you. The head ostler tells me that your cousins have departed, ma’am. They came to the stable late last night, apparently, claimed their mounts, paid their shot, and rode out.”

  Stunned, Yolande stared at him. She had, she knew, been out of reason cross with both of them. But could Dev have been so offended he would leave in such a way? Would Craig take himself off without so much as a farewell—a note, at least? A pang pierced her heart, and suddenly she felt miserable and betrayed.

  “Typical!” snorted Mrs. Drummond. “It would be asking too much of you, dear Mr. Garvey, to enquire if they left a billet-doux at the desk, perhaps?”

  “I did so, ma’am. That is, I asked of the clerk. There was nothing.”

  Mrs. Drummond cast her niece a smug “I told you so!” look.

  Yolande pulled herself together. “How foolish in me to have worried,” she said, striving not altogether successfully to sound lightly amused. “Well, dear, you were very right to tease me. I expect Sullivan has given Socrates his exercise by this time, so perhaps we should collect our cloaks and be upon our way.”

  * * *

  Sadly in need of a shave, and looking considerably tattered and weather-stained, Devenish lay back against the tree trunk and sighed beatifically. “How strange it is,” he mused, “that a dinner of bread and cheese eaten in town would be plain fare, but bread and cheese eaten under a tree is always so dashed magnificent.”

  Bathed in the golden rays of the late afternoon sun, Josie scratched her head and regarded her protector doubtfully. “Does that mean
as ye liked it?”

  “Nectar of the Gods!” sighed Devenish. He stood and reached down to help her up. “We’ve still far to go. Are you tired? We’ve come a long way today.”

  “I be a better walker’n you,” she said pertly. “Though you’re padding better’n what you did last night. Has you got blisters? Them boots is pretty, but they don’t look like walkers.”

  Devenish peered ruefully at his top boots. “They’re not. But I shall do, never fear. En avant, mon enfant!”

  “Très bien, monsieur,” giggled Josie.

  Devenish, who had been about to explain what he’d said, caught her skinny shoulder and pulled her to a halt. “What,” he breathed, “did you say?”

  “Nothing bad! Not nothing bad, sir! Oh, don’t be cross again! You was talking French, wasn’t you?”

  “Why—yes. Do you know what I said? What it means?”

  “It means ‘let’s go on’ or something, don’t it?”

  Marvelling, he released his hold and nodded. “What did you answer? In English, that is.”

  “Very well, sir.” He didn’t seem cross. Reassured, she tilted her head to one side and watched him curiously. “Why? Does you hate all Frogs, like Akim and Benjo does?”

  Starting on again, but still regarding her askance, he said, “Gad, no. I merely wonder, my small conundrum, how it is that your English is appalling, yet you know French. Where did you learn it?”

  “Don’t remember.” Her brow wrinkled, but at length she concluded, “Prob’ly heered a body say it. And my English ain’t—what you said. I speak good. Even Akim and—”

  “I know. Akim and Benjo. But I doubt they are authorities, elf. We must improve your grammar are you to obtain suitable employment.”