“We shall see,” she said. “Do not let me down. Mr Merton, may I trouble you for a note detailing the bet? To convince the magistrate.”
He nodded, understanding. Hortensia exhaled slowly. It was a relief to have Mr Merton involved, for he was very quick on the uptake, and entirely to be relied upon.
Just then, Gaffney returned with the brandy, with Crabbe and another couple of footmen in attendance, and there was no more opportunity for private talk. Hortensia could only hope it had been enough. Mr Merton slipped away, and returned soon after, pushing a piece of paper into her hand. Shortly after that Miss Cartwright and Miss Wilde appeared, one holding a Bible and the other the book of common prayer, so it was to be supposed that Charlie would have a dull time of it on his journey to Sagborough.
The carriage was brought round, Charlie and the two ladies were disposed within it, and, after some discussion, Mr Merton and Gaffney, the largest footman in the house, were squeezed in also, and the carriage rolled on its ponderous way.
Then Hortensia turned, and fled through the house to the stables.
“Tom! Tom, where are you? Tom!” She raced up one side of the stables, then back down the other. “Tom!”
“Here, madam.”
“Oh, thank God! Where is Lord Humphrey, do you know?”
“Aye, he went off to Tambray Hall with Lady Harriet in her carriage not half an hour ago.”
She made rapid calculations in her head. “Yes, that is possible — just. But there is no time to be lost. Tom, I need the curricle, right now. Please have the greys harnessed at once.”
“Lord Humphrey’s curricle, madam?”
“Yes, of course! At once! It is imperative!”
To her enormous relief, he did not quibble, but instantly nodded once. “Twenty minutes, madam.”
“Make it fifteen. I shall be back directly.”
She ran again, first to the attics, and then to her own room for a pelisse and bonnet and gloves, and a small portmanteau. Then another race back to the stables, where the greys were already waiting. She tossed the portmanteau onto the rumble seat, and jumped up onto the driving seat.
“Tom, you are wonderful. Pray get us moving while I fasten these wretched buttons.”
“Aye, madam.”
They clattered over the cobbles and out under the arch, Tom expertly deploying the whip, while Hortensia fastened the tiny pearl buttons on her pelisse, and then tied the ribbons on her bonnet.
“Oh, the devil take it! I forgot my gloves. Never mind, I daresay I may drive well enough without them. Let me have the reins now, Tom, and hold tight, for I am going to spring them.”
Tom blew the horn to alert the lodge to open the gates, and they tore through as if on fire, and then on through the village, the horn again in use to ensure no one stepped inadvertently in front of them. Hortensia hardly noticed, being fully occupied in controlling the spirited horses, who were well pleased to be allowed to proceed at such a pace, and most unwilling to slow down for the least obstacle. They passed within an inch of the parson’s gig, startling the two ladies it conveyed, and then neatly dived through a curricle-sized gap between a cart full of carrots and a carriage that looked familiar.
“Oh, well done!” Tom cried. “A fine piece of driving, Miss Quayle!”
“Thank you, but was that a Drummoor outfit?” she said.
“Lady Moorfield and Lady Patience,” he said. “Don’t worry, we went past so quick, I’ll wager they never saw a thing.”
“It cannot be helped if they did,” she said. “Which way to Tambray Hall, Tom?”
“Next left, madam. It’s a tight corner, with a mile post on the inside. After that, you should have a clear road until close to Camnay Farm, where the hay wains will be out for scything the two big meadows.”
They drove in almost total silence, Hortensia concentrating on the horses, and Tom making only the occasional remark to warn of turns and possible hazards. In not much more than half an hour, therefore, they came to the neat stone wall that marked the southern perimeter of Tambray Hall. Approaching them in the opposite direction was Lady Harriet’s neat carriage.
“Devil take it!” Hortensia said, pulling the curricle to a halt in the very centre of the lane so that carriage would be forced to stop. “I had hoped to reach him before they even arrived here. Now we have a problem.”
Two heads peered out of either side of the carriage as it slowed to a halt. Even before wheels had stopped turning, one door flew open and Humphrey descended in a lather of indignation.
“Tom, what the devil are you about—? Oh! Miss Quayle? What is going on?”
“I must take you to Sagborough, Humphrey, but you have quite spoilt my devious plan, for you have already called at Tambray Hall and now — good day to you, Lady Harriet! — and now Lord and Lady Melthwaite have seen you, and it is imperative that no one should know where you are. But it is too late and I am very cross with you.”
He smiled up at her, not in the least disconcerted. “I would by no means spoil any plan of yours, Miss Quayle, devious or otherwise. But pray explain it all to me, and perhaps we may contrive some amendment which will make you less cross.”
And her stomach fluttered at the affection in his voice, and the warmth of his smile. She could not help herself from smiling back just as warmly.
Beside them, Lady Harriet looked from one to the other, and murmured, “Well, well, well. So that is how it is.”
Quickly, Hortensia explained about the stolen necklace, and how Charlie had been hauled off to the constables. “So you see, we must help him! You do understand, do you not?”
Humphrey laughed. “Oh, yes! And how are we to do that? Are we going to spring him from prison?”
“Of course!” she said. “At least — you are, Humphrey.”
18: Sagborough
Humphrey could not help laughing, partly from exhilaration, for what could be better than breaking into the prison at Sagborough and snaffling a prisoner from under the noses of the constables? But partly, it was the excitement on Hortensia’s face, which so exactly matched his own. What a woman she was! No weeping or wailing or hand-wringing for her. Instead, she formulated a plan and carried it out. Although…
He frowned. “I am not quite sure how it is to be done. The prison is moderately secure, you know. How are we to break in?”
“Oh, no necessity for breaking in. You will walk in through the front door.”
His frown deepened. “But—”
“And he will walk out of it. Do you not see? I have told him to tell the constables that he is you.”
“But that will not work! If I go into the prison, the constables will see at once that there are two of us who look exactly the same.”
“Really, Humphrey!” she cried. “You are very slow today. Naturally you will not walk in looking as you do now. You will be a parson — I have brought some clothes from the play attic, although I hope they fit, for you are very large, it must be said. I even have a Bible for you, but you must think up a name for yourself and a reason why you have been asked to go there, for I cannot think of every little detail. Then, when you go in, you must ask to be alone with the prisoner, you know — so that he might confess, or some such. Then you switch clothes, and Charlie walks out as the parson.”
Humphrey was laughing so hard by this time that he could form no coherent sentences. It was Harriet who began to object.
“But that just puts Humphrey in prison instead of Charlie, so it seems to me that he is in just the same difficulty.”
“No, no!” Humphrey said, trying to stop laughing and not quite succeeding. “Do you not see? If Charlie is caught stealing, he will be hanged for it, or at best transported. But Lord Humphrey Marford pretending to be a groom and stealing a necklace for a wager?”
“Oh, I see,” Harriet said. “A slapped wrist, perhaps, or a few days in prison, depending on the magistrate.”
That set Humphrey off again. “Oh yes, depending on the magistrate!”
“But there is a difficulty,” Hortensia said. “I had hoped to intercept you before you called on Lord and Lady Melthwaite, but now they know that you were here this morning, so you could not be in the carriage on your way to Sagborough at the same time.”
“A great many people know where Humphrey was bound,” Harriet said. “His valet, several grooms, my coachman, although he will say nothing of it.”
“They are all servants,” Hortensia said. “But if Lord Melthwaite tells everyone that you were here—”
“But I was not,” Humphrey said. “Obviously, I cannot be here, since I am busy stealing a necklace and being hauled off to Sagborough. However, someone impersonating me might possibly have been here.”
“Ohhh!” breathed Hortensia. “How splendidly ingenious! Naturally you bribed Charlie to take your place on the visit to Tambray Hall.”
Harriet laughed, but shook her head also. “You are both insane, and possibly even brazen enough to pull it off. You may be assured of my secrecy, and Merton is discretion itself, so you need have no fears there. Good luck, Humphrey, and congratulations, Miss Quayle.”
“Erm, thank you, but—?”
“I never thought Humphrey would ever find his equal in daring, but it seems he has. You are very well matched, and will be very happy together, I daresay, if you can avoid being hanged first. Good day to you both, and enjoy your stay in prison, Humphrey. I shall tell Connie not to wait dinner on your account.”
And with that she climbed back into her carriage, the impassive coachman manoeuvred past the curricle and the equipage disappeared towards Drummoor in a cloud of dust.
Tom scrambled into the rumble seat while Humphrey climbed into the curricle. “Shall you drive, my lord?” Hortensia said in a small voice.
“You seems to be doing perfectly well,” he said. “Pray continue, Miss Quayle.”
They drove on for some miles, rehearsing the story again, but Humphrey cursed Harriet for her foolish clumsiness. If she had said nothing, they would have gone on in the highest spirits. Hortensia had called him by name, in the most delightful manner, and he had had the most tremendous difficulty in not calling her by name, too. Now the casual mention of them being ‘well matched’ had set a damper on the spirits of both. There was a constraint between them, and how he hated it! In the two days since the outing to Branksford Abbey, they had hardly spoken a word to each other, apart from polite greetings and requests to pass the buttered prawns. She still wore her drably unadorned greys and lilacs, and still passed almost unnoticed amongst the company as the mousy companion, Miss Quayle. No one appreciated her but Humphrey, for even Julius had been routed, yet they were as strangers to each other.
But as they neared Sagborough, and the leafy lanes and golden fields gave way to cottages and then houses and finally the many-storeyed buildings of the town, gradually she began to relax and even smile a little, as the excitement of the venture could not be suppressed. He directed her off the main road into small, quiet back lanes and they drove to a secluded spot at the rear of the prison, shielded from view by a wing of the building and some overgrown pear trees. Here Humphrey donned the greatcoat, wig and hat of a clergyman.
“You forgot a plain neckcloth,” he said, struggling into the coat with Tom’s laughing assistance, for it was several sizes too small.
“I packed a scarf,” she said. “That will have to do to hide your magnificently arranged cravat. Oh dear! That coat has surely not been in fashion these thirty years. ”
“Poor Billings!” he said, shaking spiders from the wig. “If he could see me now, he would give notice on the spot.”
“No, he would not, for you are not Lord Humphrey Marford at this moment,” she retorted. “Who are you, in point of fact?”
“I am Mr Nathanial Hay, the parson of St Simeon’s Church in the parish of Mishcombe,” he said at once, in the quavering voice of a septuagenarian. “I was summoned by… someone, I shall think who it might be presently… and informed that Lord Humphrey was in trouble and— Lady Hester, of course! No one would question the wishes of such a sweet old lady. Lady Hester sent me to talk sense into her foolish great-nephew. There, will I do?”
She giggled. “Poor Mr Hay! Such a dapper little man. I dare swear he never in his life looked so disreputable as you do now. Let us hope no one in Sagborough knows the real Mr Hay. But you will carry it off admirably, Humphrey. Good luck! Oh, I almost forgot.” She fished the rumpled note from Mr Merton out of her pocket. “You will need this for the magistrate. Go on now.”
He stood beside the curricle, and took one of her hands. “Thank you, Hortensia. I hope Charlie is suitably grateful for all this. Oh — but what are you planning to do with him?”
She was blushing furiously at the use of her name, and when she answered her voice was not quite even. “Why, take him straight back to Drummoor. Where else should he go?”
“I am not sure, but not there. If any of the maids should see him—”
“Oh. Yes, of course. What about the inn where you met him?”
“I have a better idea. Take him to Silsby Vale House, where his mother is cook. She can knock some sense into his skull, if anybody can. Tom knows the way to Silsby Vale, then Charlie can direct you from there. I must go, but… Hortensia, do not wait here too long for Charlie. If this goes wrong, neither of us will be coming out tonight. When the church clock next strikes the hour, you must go, understand?”
She nodded. “You will be all right? I mean — you will not be transported or anything of the sort? I should not like that at all!”
“Neither should I,” he said, smiling up at her suddenly anxious face. “Have no fear, the magistrate will treat gently with me.”
“Of course, for you will know him well, I daresay. You probably dine with him.”
Humphrey laughed. “Most assuredly, and I shall not even have to suffer the rigours of prison for very long. The court is in session tomorrow, so I shall be home in time for dinner and we shall drink champagne and toast the success of our little adventure. Good bye for now.”
“God be with you,” she said quietly.
Reluctantly he released her hand and strode away. At the corner, he looked back to see her white face watching him. She gave him a tremulous smile, and he responded with a little wave. Then he turned the corner, walked along to the entrance to the constables’ house, and pushed open the door, remembering to stoop a little, since he was an elderly parson now.
It was a dispiriting place, the constables’ house, just a few rooms squeezed between the courthouse and the cells. There were only two public rooms, one an office and the other fitted with benches for those awaiting the release of a prisoner. Since both had a propensity to be filled to overflowing with argumentative drunken farm labourers on market and festival days, the furnishings had the tired air of battle-hardened survivors, covered with dents and scratches, and not a chair or table in the place with four solid legs.
All was quiet today, and one of the constables bustled out from the rear rooms, where he had no doubt been enjoying his dinner, judging by the spot of gravy on his chin. He was a well-rounded man, who would undoubtedly enjoy his meal, and not be happy to have it interrupted. But he understood the significance of the parson’s hat and the Bible, and made a passable effort at a smile.
“Good day to you, sir. How may I be of service to you?”
“I am Mr Nathanial Hay, parson of St Simeon’s Church in the parish of Mishcombe, by Drummoor,” Humphrey began, in his querulous voice. “I understand you have one of my parishioners in your care just now, my good sir. Lord Humphrey Marford.”
The constable’s eyebrows rose. “Well, he says he’s Lord Humphrey, sir, but he ain’t no gentleman, by his manner o’ dress, sir.”
“Ah, the foolish boy! These nobles, they will have their little jests! And their little wagers. Has he not explained how it came about?”
“Oh, yes, sir, but… so he really is Lord Humphrey? Lor’ love me, I’d never have guessed it! But a
charge has been laid, sir, and he’ll have to go up before the magistrate tomorrow.”
“Of course, of course! I expect nothing less of you, my good man. You carry out your duties in the most exemplary manner. The citizens of Sagborough must sleep easier in their beds at night knowing that the splendid men of the constabulary are protecting them.”
The constable’s chest puffed out a little. “Why, thank’ee, sir! It’s right grand to be appreciated, like.”
“No, Lord Humphrey has made his bed, and now he must lie on it, eh? He will see how the magistrate likes his little joke. But his great-aunt, Lady Hester, is most concerned for his immortal soul, and has asked me if I might visit him in his rough cell and induce him to pray with me.”
“Ah, Lady Hester!” the constable said, his face softening. “Such a beauty she was, in her day. My old da’, he danced with her once, at the harvest ball at the assembly rooms. They don’t come to the harvest ball no more, the Marfords, but in those days they did, and danced with anyone who asked ’em. I remember her well. Anything to oblige poor Lady Hester. How is she, the dear, sweet lady?”
“Very frail, but in good spirits, as always.”
“Tell her we’ve not forgot her here in Sagborough. This way, sir, and mind that beam or you’ll crack your skull, a great, tall gentleman like yourself. Down this way — watch that flag, sir, it’s a bit uneven. Here he is, sir, the prisoner.” He rattled his keys, the lock creaked and a heavily studded door was flung open. “I’ll just wait out here, sir.”
“No need, my good man. You may lock me in with him, so that you need not fear he will escape, while you have a few minutes to finish your dinner. Let us have… oh, twenty minutes for quiet prayer and reflection.”
“Well, now, I’m not sure…”
“You would not want to deprive a man of his chance to talk privily with a man of God, I am certain.”
“Oh no, not at all, sir. Twenty minutes, then.”
The keys rattled, the lock clanked, and the constable’s ponderous footsteps echoed into the distance. Then silence fell. The cell was a gloomy place, lit by one barred window high up on the wall. Apart from a bucket and a wooden shelf against the wall, to act as both seat and bed, the room was unfurnished.
Lord Humphrey (Sons of the Marquess Book 2) Page 17
