The Sergeant Major's Daughter

by Sheila Walsh

  “Very good, Miss Vale.”

  John had a great liking for Miss Vale; a young lady of considerable common sense—and always ready with a smile and a pleasant word. He stepped up to the Earl’s chair.

  “If you would care to take my arm, my lord?”

  No, John—I would not!” said Lord Stayne with dangerous calm. “I shall remain here. I already feel very much improved, thanks to Miss Vale’s ministrations! You may bring the brandy.”

  His valet was not happy; he looked to Felicity, who seemed not the least surprised. She stepped across to feel the Earl’s pulse and found it already much steadier.

  “If his lordship prefers to stay here and drink brandy,” she said, “I can see no great harm in it.”

  Thank you, Miss Vale!” said the Earl with heavy irony.

  “Think nothing of it, sir; The brandy will undoubtedly make your head much worse, but it is not within my power to order your life.”

  “No—I thank God!” he ejaculated. “It moves me profoundly to hear you admit it!”

  His jibe flicked her on the raw; she would have snatched her hand away, but his free one caught and held it.

  “Such a capable member,” he murmured, and his eyes lifted to her face. “I am grateful, in spite of a great many things I may have said to the contrary.”

  “Oh well ... as to that, most of them were justified,” she acknowledged with an uncertain grin. “I, too, said a great many things ... I fear I lost my temper.”

  His expression was inscrutable. “We both lost our tempers,” he said abruptly. “It is best forgotten.”

  “You are very generous, sir.” She felt absurdly close to tears. She tried to withdraw her hand and after a moment he released it.

  At the door, he called her name. “Tell me—was it really concern for my skin which moved you to abscond with my grays?”

  “Of course, my lord.” Felicity hesitated, then added, with a rueful twinkle, “but I am bound to confess I had been longing to drive them for an age!”

  She wasn’t sure if she imagined the laugh which followed on the closing of the door.

  After two weeks of frantic activity the school reopened, and Amaryllis finally left for London.

  She departed in Stayne’s carriage with a mountain of baggage, in an unseasonable flurry of snow, to a clamor of goodbyes.

  She was to travel as far as Chippenham, where her friends the Barsetts would meet her and take her on to London. When the carriage had disappeared from view, Felicity suddenly realized how much she was going to miss her.

  10

  “Do you know how some of our more enterprising pupils have been passing their time these past weeks?”

  Something in Ester’s voice made Felicity glance up from the progress chart she had been compiling. How different Ester was these days; the hollows in her cheeks had filled out and the pale hair, no longer lank, had been coaxed into soft, shining waves. She had grown into a handsome woman and as though aware of the fact, she moved with a new briskness and confidence.

  Her glance moved on to where Willie stood stolidly before a bright Bible painting on the wall. Poor isolated Willie! What really went on behind that blank facade? There were times when she despaired of ever penetrating it fully. Jennie, by contrast, was now a sturdy, lively toddler.

  “They have been conducting their own classes,” Ester’s voice drew her attention back with a jerk. “In that old drover’s hut upon the common.”

  “No! Really?” Felicity sat back with a grin of pure pride. “That’s quite a compliment, don’t you think?”

  “It depends how you look at it,” said Ester dryly. She gave Felicity an enigmatic look. “Ask yourself who would most wish to profit from such clandestine tuition?”

  “Oh glory! The Manor Court children?”

  “Precisely. I only heard about it myself this morning. Our brats have been selling their services at a halfpenny a session, with Lanny Price as their ringleader. He organized the scheme the moment he was off his sickbed.”

  Felicity smiled ruefully. “I wish he would devote as much energy to his own studies.”

  “Well, the money’s been rolling in from all accounts—with or without parental connivance.” Ester stood for a moment in frowning silence, a pile of books in her arms. “The Captain won’t like it.”

  “Need he know?”

  “He’ll know.”

  “He’s been very quiet lately. Perhaps Lord Stayne’s words went home and he has decided to accept the situation.”

  Felicity’s words lacked conviction; they both knew that silence from that quarter was as ominous as the quiet before a storm.

  Furthermore, whether Captain Hardman heard about it or not, it was inevitable that the Earl must. He always did. She had a feeling that it was something she was going to find difficult to explain away, which was a pity just when they had begun to establish a certain rapport.

  Without Amaryllis to chatter inanities, the dinner table had become a place for intelligent conversation, which sometimes spilled over into arguments lasting well into the evening.

  Indeed, they were so comfortable together that she found herself indulging in daydreams of a most dangerous nature. Even so, it was something of a relief when the Earl strode into the breakfast room one morning and laid a letter before her.

  Her appetite gone, she pushed away her plate and read swiftly, very much aware of his set face. Captain Hardman certainly hadn’t minced matters; phrases such as “gross interference,” “incitement to sedition,” and “flagrant disregard” leapt at her from the page.

  “Oh, really! How absurd!”

  “Then there is no truth in his accusation?” queried the Earl grimly.

  Felicity hedged, recruiting her defenses with a sip of tea. “A few children getting together to share knowledge—is that so wrong?”

  “Don’t equivocate. Money changed hands, did it not?”

  “Halfpennies, my lord,” she pleaded. “It was a childish prank and it won’t occur again, I promise you. I have spoken to them most severely.”

  “So I should hope. I have given Captain Hardman my personal assurances to that effect.”

  “Oh, thank you.” She smiled sunnily at him. “I daresay you have already breakfasted, but will you take a cup of tea, .my lord?”

  She deduced from his expression that he would not. He said, with a strong degree of exasperation, “You take it very calmly, too calmly. If Hardman were not so bedeviled by trouble among his foundry workers as to have his mind fully occupied, you and your brood might have fared much worse.”

  “I don’t see what he could have done, other than complain,” she reasoned. “And I’m not a bit surprised that his foundry workers are in revolt. The man is a petty little tyrant; he will be well served if he comes to a tyrant’s end. Fancy picking on children!”

  Stayne had been mending the fire with one of the apple logs that stood in the hearth. As the sparks flew up he turned, his exasperation tinged with reluctant laughter.

  “You are like a broody hen with those abominable brats! It’s woe betide anyone who threatens them!”

  “If I am, it’s because I am proud of them. They are such good children on the whole, and you must admit they have come on! My only failure seems to be Lanny Price. He still plays truant more often than he attends.”

  “My dear girl, you are wasting your time there. Lanny Price is a scamp—almost as wily a poacher as his father!”

  “Yes, but he does have ability, if one could only channel it,” she enthused, selecting a peach from the fruit dish and beginning to peel it. “It was he, you know, who organized those classes upon the common.”

  “That in no way commends him to me!”

  She grinned. “Perhaps not. But you must admit it shows initiative. Of course,” she ventured, “they do say that ex-poachers make the best gamekeepers, do they not?”

  His look demolished her. “You may take me for a flat, Miss Felicity Vale, but you’ve windmills in your head if you
think I’ll swallow bait of that kind!”

  “It was just a thought.”

  The Earl came and stood by her chair, bringing her firmly to her feet “And a thought is all it will ever be.” With a kind of urgency, he added: “Don’t let that crusading zeal of yours blind you to reality, my dear. Lanny Price will never change—but he will break your heart, if you let him!”

  The interview left the Earl in a mood of restless dissatisfaction—a mood he was experiencing more often of late and seemed unable to define. It led him now to seek out his head keeper and castigate him for allowing the vermin too much license.

  “We are losing far too many of the young chicks to predators. And the rabbit population is becoming a menace!”

  Perkins, well used to his lordship’s odd quirks of temper, turned a shade ruddier in complexion, shuffled his feet, and agreed stolidly that it was so. He would set more traps and organize a party of guns to deal with the rabbits.

  “I’ll come out with you now,” said the Earl abruptly. “In a couple of hours we should be able to dispose of a satisfactory number.”

  Perkins mentally consigned his peremptory employer to the devil and reluctantly set aside the thousand and one more urgent jobs he had intended to tackle.

  Rather less than two hours they were turning for home, having accounted for more than a score of rabbits and with exacerbated feelings on both sides slightly mollified.

  A rustling in the bushes to their left brought them to a halt. His lordship, quicker in his reactions, fired first; there was a squeal more human than animal. The Earl thrust his gun at Perkins and covered the space in a few urgent strides. The spaniels were there before him, sniffing curiously.

  Lanny Price lay face down, his head turned to one side, his features twisted in a silent mask of agony and his eyes wide with fear. The back of his threadbare smock was peppered with blood-smeared pellet holes. Near his out-flung hand lay a dead pigeon.

  “How about that, now!” said Perkins, peering over the Earl’s shoulder. “It appears we’ve caught ourselves something more’n rabbits, m’lord. That’s what I call a good morning’s work!”

  Stayne made no answer. He was totally confounded by the helpless anger coursing through him. Why? Oh why the devil must it be the Price boy!

  “You very nearly got yourself killed this time,” he said roughly.

  “Well, he’ll take no more from this patch—or any other, for that matter.” The keeper stooped to hoist Lanny to his feet. “Just you leave him to me, m’lord. I’ll keep him safe under lock and key until you’re ready to deal with him.”

  “No!” The Earl’s voice grated. He knew Perkins was looking at him oddly—probably thought he had taken leave of his senses! Could be he was right, at that. He heard himself saying: “No. I’ll carry the boy. You cut along and get Dr. Belvedere. Take him to the Price cottage.”

  The keeper opened his mouth—and thought better of it. You didn’t cross the Earl when he wore that look!

  Stayne lifted the slight, unyielding body and was appalled by its lack of flesh. The boy was no more than a weightless bag of bones.

  The children had been in perverse moods all morning. Both Felicity and Ester had been obliged to rebuke them on more than one occasion. When Felicity saw several of them peering through the window and whispering, her voice grew uncommonly sharp.

  “Sit down this instant and get on with your work! The next child to incur a rebuke will be punished.”

  Reluctantly the heads were drawn back, but Lanny’s younger sister, Meg, put up a tentative hand, her face paler than usual.

  “Please, miss, it’s our Lanny. ’Is lordship’s just gone past carrying ‘im ... ’e looks bad, miss!”

  Felicity arrived at the Price cottage in time to hear Stayne’s voice banked with suppressed fury.

  “... in God’s name, woman! Is one fool in the family not enough? Get it into that boy’s head, will you, that poaching is a deadly business! And I do mean deadly. He would be dead at this moment had I been using ball instead of shot. He will not be so lucky a second time!” Felicity saw him take out a coin. “Get some food into these children. Mind me, now—if your man robs you of that money, he will answer to me!”

  Stayne came sweeping through the doorway, almost knocking Felicity down. There was a curious blindness in his face. When she spoke, he grasped her arm most cruelly.

  “So much for your protégé, madam! I warned you, did I not? If you cannot make him mind you better, the only future he will enjoy is a free passage to Botany Bay!”

  He was gone and she was left staring into the pitifully bare room where two toddlers played in the straw, unaware of the drama being enacted. Lanny lay on a rough palliasse in one corner, white-faced but stoically silent.

  When Felicity went across to speak to him, he turned his face to the wall. His mother stood, still clutching the precious coin, her youngest child in her arms and an expression of bitter hopelessness in her eyes which moved Felicity almost to tears.

  Perkins arrived with the doctor, and left again at once, stiff with disapproval Felicity ran after him to find out what had happened. His account, though reluctantly given, was picturesque.

  “Oh, poor Lanny! He might have been killed!”

  “Not that one, Miss Vale, though it ’ud have been no more’n he deserved. It’ll take a while to dig the shot out of him, and he’ll not sit down for a spell, but he’ll live to hang, and so I would have told his lordship, but he took it uncommon strange when I ventured to suggest that he should make an example of the boy.”

  Perkins rubbed his rather bulbous nose, perplexed and none too pleased at having to let a known poacher, caught in the act, slip through his fingers.

  The accident distressed Felicity; it obsessed her mind for the remainder of the day. By evening she had little appetite, nor did she relish the prospect of meeting Lord Stayne in his present frame of mind. This much at least she was spared; Lord Stayne did not come to dinner.

  An attempt to quiz Cavanah elicited only that his lordship was a trifle indisposed, yet she had the distinct impression that he was being evasive.

  Crossing the Long Gallery later, she met John. His lordship’s valet carried a bottle of brandy. He bade her good evening as he paused by the door of a small salon. When she asked after Lord Stayne, the man hesitated.

  “His lordship is ... not quite himself this evening, Miss Vale,” he said, and his kindly face wore the same blank look Cavanah’s had done.

  Felicity looked from him to the bottle and her eyes widened in sudden comprehension. “You cannot mean ... is he foxed, John?”

  “Jug-bitten, miss,” admitted the unhappy valet.

  “Goodness! But does he ... is he in the habit of...?”

  “Oh, no! Hardly ever, miss. I disremember the last time he was castaway ... no, I tell a lie ... it was the time we heard that Master Antony had been killed.”

  “Then why now? Not because of what happened this morning, surely?” She had no doubt but that everyone knew of the events of the morning.

  “It’s not for me to say, Miss Vale, but he’s been acting uncommonly strange ever since. It isn’t like him.”

  “No.” Felicity was puzzled. “John, let me take the tray in.”

  “I wouldn’t recommend it, miss. Got an uncertain turn of temper has his lordship when he’s foxed.”

  She laughed. “That’s all right. I have dealt with soldiers in all stages of drunkenness. I doubt his lordship will have the power to shock me.”

  John’s mouth pursed in lines of disapproval, but he surrendered the tray and opened the door for her.

  She had never been in the room before. It was quite charming; small by Cheynings standards and much given over to crimson velvet and rosewood furniture, with a pair of comfortable looking plush armchairs set beside a blazing fire.

  In one of these sprawled Lord Stayne, coatless, his long legs stretched into the hearth. The candlelight fell on a riot of silver hair, more disheveled than fashion
could ever demand. His cravat had been tugged loose and an empty brandy glass dangled from limp fingers.

  He was staring fixedly into the fire and did not immediately perceive her.

  “You’ve been an interminable time over that bottle, curse you,” he growled, and then, as though sensing a change in the atmosphere, his glittering, unblinking stare shifted to Felicity; its intensity sent little ripples of shock through her.

  In contrast, his voice, though harsh, was uncaring. “Who gave you leave to come in here?”

  “No one, my lord,” she said as calmly as she was able.

  “I see,” he sneered. “This is more of your damned officiousness, is it? Well, I am in no mood for your homilies tonight, so you may hand over my bottle and get out!” Felicity put the bottle on the table beside him, distressed to see him less than himself.

  “Lanny isn’t badly hurt,” she ventured. “He is in some pain and his pride will smart, but he should not have been where he was, so you must not blame yourself.”

  The Earl laughed a little wildly and poured a generous measure of brandy with an unsteady hand, jarring the bottle against the rim of the glass.

  “Thank you. But I don’t blame myself, my dear Miss Vale.” He saluted her mockingly and drank. “I blame you.”

  “Me?” Felicity stood rooted to the spot.

  “Yes. You.” He nodded. “Because of you, I have been sitting here with my life set out before me. It might surprise you to know that I have always considered myself a just man—giving praise where it is due, and rigorously punishing the wrongdoer, but always fair, mind you—a magistrate should always strive to be fair.”

  “My lord, please...”

  “And then you came along, Felicity Vale, with your uncompromising ways and outspokenness and your ... shining honesty! And what has happened? I’ll tell you what has happened!” He leveled his glass at her and a little of the brandy slopped over the rim. “You’ve given me a cursed social conscience, madam—and it don’t sit well!”

  There was a tight lump in Felicity’s throat. “Sir—you are not yourself...!”