by Caro Peacock
‘Another minute, please.’
Before I could answer, a voice sounded a long way behind us.
‘Celia? Where are you, Celia?’
Her body turned as stiff as one of the oak branches.
‘It’s Stephen. My stepfather must have sent him out to look for me.’
‘It’s some way off,’ I said. ‘He’s probably on the terrace.’
But she was running down the lane, leaving her bag behind. I picked it up and followed at a fast walk.
‘Celia?’
Still distant, but a little closer. I could make out her shape, a few dozen yards ahead of me. Then it lurched and disappeared. She gasped.
‘Elizabeth.’
‘Stay there, I’m coming.’
She was on the ground, hands round her left ankle.
‘What’s happened?’
‘I can’t get up.’
I knelt to give her my shoulder and she managed to get herself upright, but gasped when she tried to put her foot to the ground.
‘Then you must hop,’ I said, drawing her arm round my shoulder.
‘What about the bags?’
‘We’ll have to leave them.’
We managed fifty yards or so. We couldn’t hear her brother calling any more but now the hunt was up and when they’d failed to find her in the ballroom or on the terrace it was only a matter of time before somebody came after us. Then, as we stopped for another rest, the ground vibrated and the sound of hooves going at a slow and steady walk came out of the darkness below us.
‘Oh thank god,’ Celia said. ‘It’s Philip come for me.’
I was less certain. Philip was supposed to be bringing a coach for her, but I could hear no wheels. It was almost completely dark now, with the hedges dense on either side. We walked on. The black shape of a horse’s head and ears came into sight from below us, then became a horse and rider. Celia’s fingers dug into my arm.
‘It isn’t him.’
I was scared too, thinking that some of Sir Herbert’s men had come to cut off our escape. A second horse’s head came into view. The horse stopped suddenly, aware of us, and blew sharply through its nostrils. A voice reassured it.
‘Don’t be feared, girl. Nobody’s going to hurt you.’
Amos Legge’s voice.
‘Rancie,’ I said. ‘Rancie girl.’
‘Miss Lane, is that you?’
He was riding the first horse, a big cobby type as far as I could make out.
‘Yes. Is anybody behind you?’
‘Gentleman with a phaeton, just turning it round in a gateway.’
‘Philip,’ Celia said. ‘That’s Philip.’
‘How far down?’ I said.
‘Half a mile or so.’
Celia would never walk that far.
‘I’ve a friend here wanting to get to the phaeton,’ I said. ‘Can you take her up in front of you?’
I managed to get Celia alongside the cob and he reached down and swung her in front of his saddle as easily as if she’d been a bag of apples.
‘Could you take hold of the other one, miss? She’ll likely follow in any case.’
He handed me down Rancie’s reins and wheeled the cob round. She and I followed them down the lane. Rancie’s head was up and she was sniffing the air. We’d only been going for a minute or two when she let out a whinny. I looked past the hindquarters of Amos’s cob and saw a circle of light coming up the road. As we drew closer together I could make out a carriage lamp with a man on foot behind it.
‘Philip.’
From up above me, Celia’s voice sang out as confident and clear as a blackbird. How she knew when he could have been no more than a dark shape to her was a minor miracle.
‘Celia.’ A deeper-toned bird called back to her.
The light came sliding and dipping towards us at such a rate it was surprising the candle stayed burning. When he reached us and the light fell on him I saw a slim and pale-faced man, probably tolerably good looking but so full of hurry and anxiety it was hard to tell. Celia practically threw herself off the saddle bow at him and without hesitation he dropped the lamp and caught her in his arms. There was a flurry of ‘so scareds’ and ‘darlings’ and ‘safe now’ and ‘always’.
‘No, you’re not safe yet,’ I said, bending to pick up the extinguished lamp. ‘You’re not safe until you’re miles away and married.’
The phaeton was visible now, backed into a gateway with its one surviving lamp lit and a groom holding the two horses. Philip carried her into it and sat beside her with his arm round her. The groom jumped on to the box and turned the horses. As the phaeton began to move, Celia turned round.
‘Elizabeth –’ (So she still hadn’t heard me) ‘– I’ll always be so very, very grateful to you. I’ll send for you when we have a house, I promise.’
‘I doubt it very much,’ I said. ‘On both counts.’
But I said it to the back of the departing phaeton.
Amos Legge slipped off the cob and stood beside me.
‘Where we going now, miss?’
‘Up to the house.’
Looking back, it hurts me to think I didn’t even thank him.
‘Give you a leg up on Rancie, if you like. There’s a saddle on her.’
‘Better not, thank you.’
Riding astride in skirts and petticoats was not a comfortable prospect. So we both stayed on foot and went slowly up the lane in the dusk, he and the cob leading the way. At a bend, I glanced down to the main road and saw the single light of the phaeton speeding through the dark, probably at a canter. Somewhere, at first light, her conscientious Philip would have a clergyman waiting in a suitably private chapel and whatever happened her name wouldn’t be Mandeville any more.
‘Mr Legge,’ I said into the dusk between us, ‘there’s something important I want to say to you.’
‘Yes, miss.’
The cob plodded on.
‘If anything happens to me, please keep Rancie. Or if you can’t keep her, find someone who’ll treat her well.’
We took another few paces while he considered.
‘What are you thinking might happen to you, miss?’
‘I don’t know. But my mind would be easier if you’d promise.’
Another few paces.
‘If it makes your mind easier, yes.’
We went on up the road between clouds of white cow parsley flowers that seemed to glow with their own light against the dark hedges. Rancie walked easily and delicately, occasionally nuzzling my shoulder. We were almost at the point where the back road joined the carriage drive when she stopped suddenly, raised her head and flared her nostrils.
‘What’s wrong, Rancie?’
The cob stopped too and whinnied. There were lanterns up ahead, two or three of them, and silhouettes behind. Then voices calling out to us, sharp and angry.
‘Who are you? Stop where you are.’
And a sharper voice above the rest, ‘Celia, is that you?’
I said softly to Amos Legge, ‘Do you happen to have a pistol with you?’
‘They don’t mean us any harm, miss. It’s the other lady they’re looking for.’
‘Do you have a pistol? If you have, please lend it to me.’
It was a real hope. A man who travelled might carry one to keep off highwaymen. In my mood, it seemed downright unreasonable of Amos not to have one. I suppose my voice was sharp, because he tried to soothe me.
‘No, miss. In any case, there’s no call for one.’
The cob was scared by now and wouldn’t budge, so we stayed where we were as the lamps came towards us. There were five men. When one of them turned his lamp sideways, throwing light on the rest of the group, I could see that three of them looked like grooms or coachmen, one was the man who called himself Trumper, and the man leading them was Celia’s brother, Stephen. He was hatless, still dressed in the dark cut-away coat, trousers and light pumps he’d worn for the ball. His face was furious.
‘Turn the light on them,’
he snapped at one of the grooms. Then, seeing Amos Legge, ‘Who the hell are you? What are you doing here?’
Amos Legge said nothing.
‘Helping the man who’s got your sister,’ Trumper suggested.
‘Is that true?’
Stephen Mandeville took a step towards Legge, who didn’t move an inch.
‘I asked you a question?’
When Legge still didn’t reply he raised an arm as if to punch him in the face. Legge simply took hold of the arm and pushed it aside as if it had been no more than a tree branch in the way.
‘Take hold of him,’ Mandeville said to the grooms.
‘Don’t touch him,’ I said. ‘It has nothing to do with him.’
Rancie and I were outside the circle of lamplight and, until then, I think they’d only been conscious of a second horse and person without paying us much attention. Now the light came on us.
‘I’ve seen her …’ Trumper began.
‘Her friend, the governess,’ Stephen said.
‘She’s not a governess, she’s –’
‘It doesn’t matter who she is. She’s just come from helping my sister run away.’
Trumper yelled something to a groom about running up to the house and bringing back a couple of horses. Stephen rushed towards me. I couldn’t see his face but felt the anger burning off him.
‘Are you going to kill me too?’ I said.
My hand ached for a pistol, a dagger, for anything. I turned and pulled at the stirrup leather on Rancie’s saddle, thinking that at least I might batter the stirrup iron into his eyes and blind him. He flung me against Rancie’s side, grabbed the stirrup leather away from me and before I could stop him, vaulted into the saddle and snatched the reins.
‘Take the other …’ he yelled.
I’m sure he was calling to Trumper to take the cob and come with him. He jerked sharply on the reins to turn Rancie facing down the road. She gave him more chance than he deserved. For a moment she simply stood there, surprised by the sudden weight on her back and the pain on the bars of her mouth. He cursed her, jerked at the reins again, dug his heels into her sides. Her head went up, then up and up until her front hooves were in the air and the shape of her was towering against the darkness like some horse in a legend landing from the sky, just touching the earth with the tips of her hind hooves. He was thrown off high into the air over my head, flying then falling like a shot goose, heavy and unwieldy. I felt the impact of the air as he went past and heard the snatched intake of his second last breath. Second last because, I dare say, he might have rattled a last one as he landed on his head on the hard-packed earth of the road and broke his neck more quickly and cleanly than the hangman would have done.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
For another heartbeat Rancie reared up against the sky, then her front hooves came down to earth with a thud softer than the one Stephen had made when he landed. After that, total silence for a moment, then Trumper and the grooms ran to the dark figure on the ground and the light of their lamp spread round him. His neck was skewed in a way no living man’s could be. One of the grooms started swearing in a scared, meaningless stream. The smell of Rancie’s sweat was in my nostrils and Amos Legge’s voice in my ear.
‘Get up on her, miss. You weren’t here. You never saw anything.’
‘He’s dead,’ I said.
His hand rested a moment on my shoulder.
‘No great loss, I dare say. Now, up you get.’
Rancie hadn’t moved since her feet had touched down. Her quick, panicky breaths were warm against my hand. I think he must have thrown me up on her, because one moment I was on the ground and the next I was across her back, my fingers in her mane and my face against Amos Legge’s chest. He pushed me upright in the saddle and gave me the reins.
‘Go on. Wherever she takes you.’
‘But you …’
‘I’ll find you. Now go on, girl.’
He slapped a hand on Rancie’s hindquarters and she spun round.
‘Stop them! The damned horse has killed him.’
Trumper’s voice, from only a few steps away. The thought that he wanted to kill Rancie in revenge made me dig my heels into her sides and lean low on her neck. I heard a voice wild as a banshee’s yelling at her to go, go, and it was part of the fear to realise that the voice was my own. She hit full gallop in a couple of strides and was off into the darkness towards the main carriage drive. My instinct would have been for the back road, but Stephen’s body and the grooms were there.
‘Stop! Stop her!’
Trumper’s voice, behind us and to the left. No hoofbeats, so he was probably following on foot. He might be trying to cut us off as we turned on to the bridge across the ha-ha, and he wasn’t far behind. I urged Rancie on, trying to find the stirrups with my toes. One of my shoes fell off. As we hit the gravel of the main drive her pace slackened a little. A man’s scream came from behind us. At first I was afraid it might be Amos Legge, but it was too close for that and the string of curses that followed suggested that Trumper had come to grief. I supposed he’d forgotten the ha-ha and had fallen into it.
As we rounded the curve of the drive a great white shape appeared out of the darkness. I recognised it as marble Europa and her bull at the end of the bridge, so unless Rancie and I were to follow Trumper into the ha-ha, it was time for caution. I drew on the reins to bring her back to a trot, gently I hoped, but she stopped so suddenly that only another handful of mane saved me from going off over her shoulder. Voice shaking, fearing that Trumper would clamber out of the ha-ha and catch up with us, I begged her to go on. Then I saw what was stopping her. There was something blocking the bridge. It looked like a carriage of some description, and my first thought was that it had been put there to bar our way, though how anybody could have acted so quickly I didn’t know. Rancie and I froze a few paces from the bridge.
‘Oh Lord, he’s coming after us.’
A woman’s moan of fear came from the carriage. It sounded like Mrs Martley. While I was trying to puzzle it out, another voice from somewhere in the dark behind me.
‘Liberty – is that you?’
Daniel’s voice.
‘I’m here,’ I said.
‘Thank the gods. Where were you? I’ve been looking for you everywhere.’
He came up beside us, caught me as I slid down and started hustling me towards the carriage. Rancie’s reins were still in my hand.
‘They’ll blame her. She must come with us,’ I said. ‘And we must wait for Amos Legge.’
‘Legge will look after himself.’
He took the reins from me and tied them to the back of the carriage. I let him guide me, hoping he was right. The sheer relief of finding him took away what was left of my strength. He bundled me into the carriage, next to Mrs Martley, who kept wanting to know what was happening and getting no answer. There was a man sitting opposite her, slumped and silent – presumably the tenor who had been so insistent on getting back to Windsor. The carriage started moving. I looked back at Mandeville Hall, fearful that the doors to the terrace would open and Sir Herbert come rushing out. The doors stayed closed, but all the downstairs windows were blazing with light and incredibly the sounds of a galop drifted out over the park.
‘They’re still dancing,’ I said.
‘Last dance in the second set,’ said Daniel, part of his mind automatically with the music even now.
So Celia had left home and Stephen had died in less time than it took to skip through half a dozen dances. A scared groom was probably waiting at the back door to find some way of passing the news along a chain of footmen. When we came to the lodge at the bottom of the drive the great gates were open in case of latecomers to the ball, so we drove straight through. For the next few miles I kept looking back towards Mandeville Hall until its brightly lit windows diminished to candle glimmers, then to nothing.
I think Daniel must have told the driver to keep to the back roads in case anybody tried to follow us, becaus
e by the time the sky started to grow light we were lurching at walking pace along a rutted lane between hedges. Our carriage was an old and smelly landau drawn by two mis-matched horses, the best the tenor’s bribery could procure from the stables. Rancie was pacing along behind like a quiet pony rather than an aristocrat with the blood of Derby winners in her veins. Next to me, Mrs Martley slept with her head against the leather hood and her mouth open. The tenor sitting opposite was a human pyramid of capes and shawls, topped by a pair of eyes filled with misery at what the dawn air might be doing to his voice. Neither was in a condition to care about the story I’d told Daniel as we went along. All the time he’d kept hold of my hand.
‘Child, I’d have given anything in the world to have spared you that.’
I think I’d shocked Daniel, describing Stephen Mandeville’s end. It would have shocked him far more – Daniel being such a civilised man – if I’d tried to share with him the fierce joy I felt when I knew he was dead. That joy had faded now, leaving only an immense weariness.
‘Didn’t you guess he’d killed my father?’ I said to Daniel. ‘You must have known why she fainted.’ I nodded across at Mrs Martley, so as not to wake her by saying her name. ‘She saw him and heard his voice and knew he was the other man in the carriage.’
Daniel nodded.
‘You did guess, then. Why didn’t you say so?’
‘I was concerned at what you might do, child. I thought if I could only take you away to London, put it in the hands of the proper authorities …’
‘Who’d have done nothing, you know that. He killed his own grandmother too, and they wouldn’t have done anything about that either.’
Even now, although justice had been done in my heart, it would not show in the official records. The version put about by Sir Herbert and Kilkeel would be what the world knew. Mrs Beedle died of heart seizure after all and her grandson in a tragic riding accident while nobly trying to rescue his sister from an abductor. What his sister would feel I should probably never hear. I didn’t expect to see Celia again. I’d done all I could at the end to save her from the true story about her brother. Now she’d have to do the best she could with the rest of her life. Like me.
