Frederica

by Джорджетт Хейер

  “I haven’t the least idea. It’s a nice point, I admit.”

  “It occurred to me a minute ago. They can’t carry it, and they can’t fill the bag again, because where would they get the hydrogen? And all those casks couldn’t be brought on the wagon — at least, they could, but it would take them all day to get here, even if they knew where the thing meant to make its descent, which they never do.”

  “Very true. One can only assume that they must have it conveyed by farm-cart, or some such thing, to a place of safety — leaving it there to be recovered later.”

  “Well, if that’s how they manage, doesn’t it prove what a crackbrained thing it is?” said Jessamy scornfully. “A fine way to go on a journey! Getting set down in a field, very likely miles from where you wish to be, and then being obliged to pack the boat, and the bag, and the anchors, and all the rest of the gear, on to a cart, before you trudge off to find some sort of a carriage!”

  “A sobering thought,” agreed Alverstoke. “I fancy, however, that balloons are not intended for mere travel. Are you ready to set forward again?”

  Jessamy jumped up at once, and went out into the yard. He was critically inspecting the new team when Alverstoke joined him, exchanging with Curry various disparaging remarks about job-horses. He was surprised when Curry sprang up behind, but beyond saying that he had thought Alverstoke had meant to leave him in charge of the grays, he made no comment. His mind was preoccupied; and he only nodded when, a mile out of Watford, Alverstoke acidly animadverted on leaders which had acquired the habit of hanging off.

  No other vehicles than the Mail, and a private chaise, both southward bound and travelling fast, were encountered; and the only pedestrian was a venerable gentleman in a smock, who disclaimed all knowledge of balloons, adding that he didn’t hold with them, or with any other nasty, newfangled inventions; but at the end of the second mile Alverstoke saw a cluster of people ahead, and drew up alongside them. They were mostly of immature age, and they had emerged on to the post-road through a farm-gate opening on to undulating pastures. They were talking animatedly amongst themselves; and (said the Marquis sardonically) bore all the appearance of persons capable of running two miles to marvel at a deflated balloon.

  So, indeed, it proved; and they had been richly rewarded. Not that any of them had been in time to see anything; but there were them as had, and (as several voices assured his lordship) a rare bumble-broth it must have been, such as hadn’t happened in these parts, not since anyone could remember. Dicked in the nob they were, surely, for what must they do, with a good three acres of clear ground under them, but bear down on a clump of trees, and get all tangled up in the branches. Oh, it was a terrible accident! for although one of the gentlemen climbed down safe enough, the other, which was trying to help the nipperkin they had with them, made a right mull of it, by all accounts, and broke his arm; while, as for the nipperkin, he came crashing through the branches, with blood all over him, and was taken up for dead. “Which,” a senior member of the gathering told the Marquis, “wasn’t so laughable, nor anything like.”

  “Where?” Jessamy demanded hoarsely. “Where?”

  “Oh, you won’t see nothing now, sir! They was all gone off to Monk’s Farm above an hour ago, with the nipperkin stretched out on a hurdle. Well, all of us which came from Watford was too late to get a sight of aught but the balloon, with its ropes caught up in the elm-tree, and there’s no saying when they’ll start in to get it down, which don’t hardly seem worth waiting for. So we come away.”

  “I seen the doctor drive up in his gig!” piped up an urchin.

  “Ay, so you did, and got a clout from Miss Judbrook for your pains, poke-nose!”

  “Where is the farm?” asked Alverstoke, interrupting the goodnatured mirth caused by this last remark.

  He was told that it was at Clipperfield: a statement immediately qualified by the ominous words, as you might say; but when he asked for more precise information all that he was able to gather from the conflicting, and generally incomprehensible, directions offered by half-a-dozen persons was that the lane leading to the village joined the post-road at King’s Langley.

  Cutting short the efforts of a helpful youth to describe the exact situation of Monk’s Farm, he drove on, saying: “We shall more easily discover the whereabouts of the farm when we reach Clipperfield.” He glanced briefly at Jessamy, and added: “Pluck up! There’s a doctor with him, remember!”

  Jessamy, ashen-pale, trying desperately to overcome the long shudders that shook his thin frame, managed to speak. “They said — they said — ”

  “I heard them!” interrupted Alverstoke. “He was taken up for dead, and he was covered with blood. Good God, boy, have you lived all your life in the country without discovering that illiterates always invest the most trifling accident with the ingredients of melodrama? Taken up for dead may be translated into was stunned by his fall; and as for covered in blood —! What the devil should make him bleed but scratching his face, when he missed his hold, and tumbled down through the branches?”

  Achieving a gallant smile, Jessamy said: “Yes — of course! Or — or a nose-bleed!”

  “Very likely!”

  “Yes. But — ” He stopped, unable for a moment to command his voice, and then said jerkily: “Not — a trifling — accident!”

  “No, I am afraid he may have broken a bone or two,” replied Alverstoke coolly. “Let us hope that it will be a lesson to him! Now, my young friend, I am going to do what you have been wishing me to do from the start of this expedition: spring ’em!”

  As he spoke, the team broke into a canter, quickly lengthening their strides to a gallop. At any other time, Jessamy’s attention would have been riveted by the consummate skill displayed by a top-sawyer driving strange horses at a splitting pace along a winding road, too narrow for safety, and by no means unfrequented; but, in the event, a dreadful anxiety absorbed him, and his only impulse, when Alverstoke faultlessly took a hill in time, or checked slightly at a sudden bend, was to urge him to a faster speed. It was not he, but Curry, grimly hanging on, who shut his eyes when Alverstoke feather-edged a blind corner, leaving an inch to spare between the phaeton and an oncoming coach; and it was Curry, who, when the first straggling cottages of King’s Langley came into sight, gasped: “For God’s sake, my lord —!”

  But even as these words were jerked out of him, he regretted them, for the Marquis was already checking his horses. As the team entered the little town at a brisk trot, he said, over his shoulder: “Yes, Curry? What is it?”

  “Nothing, my lord! Except that I thought you was downright obfuscated, for which I’m sure I beg your lordship’s pardon!” responded his henchman, availing himself of the licence accorded to an old and trusted retainer.

  “You should! I’m not even bright in the eye.”

  “Look! There’s a signpost!” Jessamy said suddenly, leaning forward in his seat.

  “Clipperfield and Sarratt!” read Curry.

  His lordship turned the corner in style, but was forced immediately to rein the team in to a sober pace. The lane was winding and narrow, bordered by unkempt hedges, and so deeply rutted, so full of holes, that Curry remarked, with dour humour, that they might think themselves lucky the month was June, and not February, when the lane would have been a regular hasty-pudding. At the end of two difficult miles, which stretched Jessamy’s nerves to snapping-point, he said: “Cross-road ahead, my lord, and I can see a couple of chimneys off to the left. This’ll be it!”

  Whatever excitement had been aroused in Clipper-field by the recent accident had apparently died away. There was only one person to be seen: a stout woman, engaged in cutting a cabbage in the patch of garden in front of her cottage. Having, as she informed him, far too much to do without troubling herself with balloons, she was unable to give Jessamy any news of Felix; but she told Alverstoke that Monk’s Farm lay about a mile down the road, towards Buckshill. She pointed with her knife to the south, and said that he couldn’t
miss it: a statement which he mistrusted, but which turned out to be true.

  It was set a hundred yards back from the lane, a large, rambling house of considerable antiquity, with its barns, its pigstyes, and its cattle-byre clustered round it. Before its open door stood the doctor’s gig, in charge of his man. Alverstoke turned in through the big white gate, and drove up to the farm.

  Before the phaeton had stopped, Jessamy sprang down from it, and almost ran into the house. A shrill voice was heard demanding to know who he might be, and what his business was. “Ah!” said the Marquis. “The lady who clouted young — er — poke-nose, I fancy!”

  XXI

  The door of the farmhouse opened on to an unevenly flagged passage, at the end of which a flight of worn oak stairs rose to the upper floor. Jessamy, hesitating after his impetuous entrance, found himself confronted by an angular woman, whose sharp-featured countenance wore all the signs of chronic ill-temper. In answer to her angry enquiry, he stammered: “I beg pardon! It’s my brother! The — the boy who was carried in here!”

  This reply, far from mollifying her, had much the same effect as a match applied to a train of gunpowder. Her eyes snapped, her colour rose, and she said: “Oh, he is, is he? Then I’m mightily glad to see you, young sir, and I trust you’ve come to take him away! This house isn’t a hospital, nor a public inn neither, and I’ve got too much to do already without looking after sick boys, let me tell you! What’s more, I’m not a nurse, and I won’t take the responsibility, say what you like!”

  At this point, in what threatened to be a lengthy diatribe, she stopped, and her jaw dropped. Alverstoke was standing on the threshold. At all times an imposing figure, he was, on this occasion, a startling one, for although he wore a long driving-coat of white drab, with a number of shoulder-capes, it was unbuttoned, and revealed the exquisite attire he habitually wore in London, which included an extremely elegant waistcoat, the palest of pantaloons, and highly polished Hessian boots. In Bond Street he would have been complete to a shade; in a country village he looked quite out of place; but Miss Judbrook was almost as much impressed as she was astonished.

  He said, pleasantly, but with a faint touch of hauteur: “Why should you, indeed? I fancy you must be Miss Judbrook: I am Lord Alverstoke. I should like to see the doctor, if you please.”

  Miss Judbrook was so much overcome that she dropped a slight curtsy, and said: “Yes, my lord!” However, she was a redoubtable woman, and she made a swift recovery. “I hope I’m not an unfeeling woman, my lord, nor one as doesn’t know her duty, but it’s none of my business to be nursing boys which fall out of balloons, and I can’t and I won’t undertake it, as Judbrook should have known, instead of having him brought here without a word to me, let alone calling Betty out of the dairy to sit with him! I’m not going to do her work, so he needn’t think it! I’m sure I’m very sorry for the young gentleman, but as for having him laid up here, as bad as he is, and having to be sat with, and waited on hand and foot, I haven’t the time nor the patience to do it, which I told Dr Elcot to his head. And if Mrs Hucknall sets foot inside this house I leave it, and that’s flat!”

  “Yes, well, all these matters can no doubt be arranged — when I have had word with the doctor!” said Alverstoke.

  Miss Judbrook sniffed resentfully, but his evident boredom disconcerted her. She said, rather more mildly: “I’m sure I hope so, my lord! The doctor’s in my parlour — mussing it up with his splints and his bandages, and bowls of water, and I don’t know what more beside! This way!”

  She opened a door on the left of the passage, saying: “This is my Lord Alverstoke, wanting to see you, doctor, and the little boy’s brother. And I’ll be obliged to you not to slop any more water on to my new carpet!”

  “Oh, go away, woman, go away!” said the doctor testily.

  Contrary to Jessamy’s eager expectation, the doctor and the second of the two aeronauts were the only people in the room. The aeronaut, his brow adorned with sticking-plaster, was sitting in a chair by the table, while the doctor was bandaging his splinted forearm.

  “Felix?” Jessamy blurted out. “My brother?”

  The doctor paused in his task to direct a penetrating glance at him from under his bushy brows. “His brother, are you? Well, there’s no need for you to be in a stew: he hasn’t managed to kill himself!” He transferred his gaze to Alverstoke, and favoured him with a nod. “Good-day to you, my lord. Are you related to the boy?”

  “Cousin, and — er — guardian!” said Alverstoke.

  The doctor, continuing his work, said: “Then you’ll give me leave to tell you, my lord, that you’re a mighty careless guardian!”

  “So, indeed, it would appear,” agreed Alverstoke. “How badly is the boy hurt?”

  “Early days to tell you that. He suffered a severe concussion, cut his face open, and sprained a wrist, but there are no bones broken, barring a couple of ribs. Badly bruised, of course. He came round half-an-hour ago. Complained of headache. Which might mean — ”

  “That would be the altitude!” said his present patient. “Many people suffer from acute headache when — ”

  “I’m not an ignoramus!” growled the doctor. “Keep still!”

  “Is he — has he — injured his brain?” asked Jessamy, as though he dreaded to hear the answer.

  The doctor shot another of his piercing looks at him. “No reason to think so. He wasn’t himself — couldn’t expect him to be — but he knew what had happened to him, I think. Sang out that he couldn’t, and some gabble about falling.”

  Again the aeronaut intervened, addressing himself to Alverstoke. “I thought he was safe, my lord! Everything was going well till we started the descent! That was when we veered. You see, when you drop down close to the earth — ”

  “Yes, I understand that you frequently meet winds that were not encountered at higher altitudes,” interrupted Alverstoke. “Also that you were blown amongst trees. Never mind why! just tell me, if you please, what happened when you became entangled with — an elm tree, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes — that is, it may have been an elm, my lord! I don’t know anything about trees. When Mr Oulton saw that we weren’t going to clear it, which we should have done, if the valve hadn’t stuck, when he tried to close it, he shouted to me to grab hold of a branch, and climb out of the boat on to it. ‘You first, Beenish, and lend the boy a hand!’ he told me. Which I did, and it was easy enough, and there wasn’t much danger either, as long as the weight was taken out of the boat, so that it wouldn’t break through the branches, and crash down on to the ground. The valve being open, and the gas escaping pretty fast, there was no fear the balloon would rise again, you understand. And the little chap wasn’t a scrap afraid! That I’ll swear to! Cool as a cucumber, he was, and thinking of nothing but ways of controlling balloons! ‘Don’t be in a worry about me!’ he said. ‘I shall do!’ Which I never doubted, my lord! There was Mr Oulton, helping him to climb out of the boat, and I was just thinking he wouldn’t want me to lend him a hand when he suddenly seemed to lose his head. At least — I don’t know, but I can’t think what else it could have been, for it looked to me as if he had hold of the branch all right and tight, though it all happened so quickly, of course, that I can’t be sure of that. All I do know is that he cried out: ‘I can’t!’ and — and fell! My lore], I swear I did my best! I tried to grab hold of him, but I lost my balance, and the next thing was that 7 fell out of the tree!”

  Jessamy, who had been listening to him in gathering incredulity, exclaimed: “Felix? Why, he climbs like a cat!”

  “Young man,” said the doctor, “if you don’t know why your brother couldn’t grasp the branch I can tell you! His hands were numb with cold, that’s why!”

  “O my God!” uttered Beenish. “He never said — ”

  “Don’t suppose he knew it. Knew they were frozen. Didn’t know he couldn’t use ’em. Only a boy — excited too!”

  Beenish, looking at the Marquis, was plainly torn betwe
en a feeling of guilt and a desire to exculpate himself from blame. He said: “My lord, it wasn’t our fault! Maybe I should have sent him about his business, but he wasn’t doing any harm, and as Mr Oulton said himself, he’s such an intelligent little fellow — not like most of his age, only wanting to see the balloon go up for the marvel of it, and not caring for what makes it rise, or — ”

  “Pray don’t think I blame you!” said the Marquis. “If anyone is to blame it is I, for he was in my charge.”

  “Not your blame! Mine — mine!” Jessamy said, in a stifled voice.

  “The thing was, my lord, we never suspected what he meant to do! But I can’t deny I did say we should be happy to take him up with us, never dreaming — He begged us to, you see, and Mr Oulton answered him a bit sharply, telling him he was much too young, and — well, he looked so hurt — if your lordship knows what I mean? — ”

  “I know exactly what you mean,” said the Marquis grimly.

  “Well, that’s how it was, my lord! I told him we couldn’t take him without his father’s consent — and Mr Oulton bore me out! Yes, and it was him which said if we took up a boy which was under age, without his Pa’s consent, we should be clapped into jail, not me!” A reminiscent grin stole over Mr Beenish’s face. “And damme if the little rogue didn’t throw it up at him, when we’d hauled him into the boat! ‘It’s all hollow!’ he told Mr Oulton, game as a pebble! ‘You won’t be clapped into jail,’ he said, ‘because I haven’t got afather!’ “ A chuckle escaped him. “Pluck to the backbone!” he said. “His nerves won’t ever lose their steel! When I saw him clinging to that rope, and the balloon rising fast, as they do, my lord, I thought he was bound to take fright, and do something silly, and much good it was for us to shout to him to hold tight! But he did, and we got him in, like you saw. Ay, and he enjoyed every minute of the flight, even though the teeth were chattering in his head!” A groan from Jessamy made him turn his head. “We did the best we could, sir, but there wasn’t much we could do.”