The Foundling

by Джорджетт Хейер

  The Duke sat down again at the table, opposite to his host, in a drooping posture that, while it might deceive Liversedge into believing him to be overcome by consternation, enabled him to get his hands under the table-edge undetected. “You have the letters!” he uttered.

  “Yes, Mr. Ware, yes!” beamed Liversedge. “You shall count them!”

  He put his hand into the breast of his coat as he spoke, and as he glanced down, the Duke gripped the ledge of the table, and drove it violently forward. It caught Mr. Liversedge all unawares, and full in the midriff. He uttered a sound between a grunt and a shout, tried to save himself and failed. His chair tipped backwards, and he fell, snatching fruitlessly at the red table-cloth. In the same instant, the Duke, releasing the table, whipped the pistol from his pocket, and thumbed back the hammer. “Now, Mr. Liversedge!” he said, panting a little, for the table was a heavy one, and had taken all his strength, to thrust forward. “Don’t move! I am held to be a very fair shot.”

  But the command was unnecessary. As he looked down at the portly frame at his feet, he saw that Mr. Liversedge was incapable of moving. His head had struck against the iron fender, and not only was a sluggish trickle of blood oozing from his scalp, but he was insensible. Mechanically, the Duke’s left hand went to his pistol, and grasped the hammer. He pressed the trigger, as Captain Belper had taught him to do, and gently released the hammer, easing it down. Still holding the pistol in his hand, he dropped on his knee beside Liversedge, and slipped his left hand into the breast of his coat. A slim package had been already half drawn from an inner pocket. He pulled it out, and swiftly assured himself that it did indeed contain some half a dozen letters directed in Matthew’s hand. It was characteristic of him that before he rose to his feet he slid a hand over Mr. Liversedge’s heart. It was beating rather faintly, but there was no doubt that its owner still lived. The Duke hauled his inanimate body, not without difficulty, clear of the grate, and rose to his feet. As he did so, the door opened, and he turned swiftly, his pistol at the ready, his thumb on the hammer. But he did not pull it back a second time. Belinda stood on the threshold, looking in wide-eyed surprise at her uncle’s prostrate form.

  “Oh!” she said. “Is he dead?”

  “No,” the Duke replied. He crossed the floor to her side, and shut the door. “He will recover: this is only a swoon! What made you hold your peace just now? You know I am not Matthew Ware!”

  “Oh, yes!” she replied, smiling at him happily. “You are not at all like Mr. Ware! He is much bigger than you, and more handsome, too. I liked Mr. Ware. He said he would give me—”

  “Why did you not inform your uncle of his mistake? What made you accept me as you did?”

  “Uncle Swithin doesn’t like it when I dispute with him,” she explained. “He said I was to say just what he told me, and I should have a purple silk gown.”

  “Oh!” said the Duke, a good deal taken aback. “I am excessively obliged to you, and if a purple silk gown is what you desire I would I could give you one! How old are you?”

  “I think I shall soon be seventeen,” she answered.

  “You think! But you know when you have a birthday, surely?”

  “No,” said Belinda regretfully. “Uncle Swithin’s head is cut open.”

  This remark seemed to be more in the nature of a statement than a reproach, but the Duke, glancing down at Mr. Liversedge’s form, saw that his pallid countenance was ghastly in hue, and felt a certain measure of compunction. He did not think that Mr. Liversedge was in much danger of bleeding to death, but he did not desire his death, and thought, moreover, that his own position might be awkward if this should happen. He bent over him again, and bound his own handkerchief round his head, saying: “When I am gone, you may summon help, but pray do not do so until then!”

  “No,” said Belinda obediently. “I wish you was not going! Where did you come from?”

  Her unconcern with her uncle’s plight made the Duke laugh in spite of himself. “I did not drop from a balloon, I assure you! I came from Baldock, and I think it is time that I returned there. Your uncle will be recovering in a moment, and since I do not care for the look of his friends belowstairs, I think I had best depart before he can summon them to his aid.”

  “Mr. Mimms is very disagreeable,” she observed. She raised her lovely eyes to his face, and said simply: “I wish you would take me with you, sir!”

  “Indeed, I wish I might!” he said. “I am very sorry to leave you in such a place. Were you fond of my—of Mr. Ware?”

  “Oh, yes!” she replied, a soft glow in her eyes. “He was a very pretty-behaved gentleman, and when we were married he said I should have jewels, and a purple silk gown.”

  The thought that his young cousin had wounded anyone so young and so beautiful had been troubling the Duke, but this artless speech considerably allayed his qualms. He smiled, and, colouring a little, said: “Forgive me—I have very little money in my pocket, but if your heart is set upon a silk gown—I do not know about such matters, but will you take this bill and buy yourself what you like?”

  He had been half afraid that she might be offended, but she smiled in a dazzling way at him, and accepted the note he was holding out. “Thank you!” she said. “I had never any money to spend of my own before! I think you are quite as handsome as Mr. Ware!”

  He laughed. “No, no, that is flattery, I fear! But I must not stay! Goodbye! Pray do not let your uncle use you again as he has done!”

  He caught up his hat from the table, cast a final glance at Mr. Liversedge, who was beginning to recover his complexion, and went swiftly out of the room, and down the stairs. Belinda sighed regretfully, and looked in a doubtful way at her guardian. In a few more moments he groaned, and opened his eyes. They were blurred at first, but they cleared gradually. He put a hand first to his cracked skull, and then, instinctively, to his inner pocket. Then he groaned again, and enunciated thickly: “Lost!”

  Belinda, a kind-hearted girl, perceiving that he was striving to pick himself up, helped him into a chair. “Your head is broke,” she informed him.

  “I know that!” said Mr. Liversedge, tenderly feeling his skull. “That I should have been floored by a greenhorn! For God’s sake, girl, don’t stand there with your mouth half-cocked! Fetch me the brandy-bottle from the cupboard! Why did you not call Joe, silly wench? Five thousand pounds gone in the flash of an eye!”

  Belinda brought him the brandy, and he recruited his strength by a generous pull at the bottle. His colour was by now much more healthy, but his spirits were sadly overborne.

  “Done by a gudgeon!” he said gloomily. “Done by a miserable, undersized sapskull that has no more wits than to talk of marriage to the first pretty wench he meets! I was never more betwattled in my life! If I could but get my hands on your precious Mr. Matthew Ware—!”

  “Oh, it wasn’t Mr. Ware!” said Belinda sunnily.

  Mr. Liversedge raised his aching head from between his hands and stared at her in blear-eyed surprise. “What?” he demanded. “Did you say it was not Mr. Ware?”

  “Oh, no! Mr. Ware is a much prettier young gentleman,” said Belinda. “He is tall, and handsome, and—”

  “Then who the devil was he?” interrupted Mr. Liversedge incredulously.

  “I don’t know. He did not say what his name was, and I didn’t think to ask him,” replied Belinda, rather regretfully.

  Mr. Liversedge hoisted himself out of his chair with an effort. “My God, what have I done to be saddled with such a fool?” he exclaimed. “If he was not Ware,—why—why, girl, could you not have told me so?”

  “I didn’t know you would wish me to,” said Belinda innocently. “You said I must say just what you told me, and you don’t like it if I don’t obey you. And I like him quite as well as Mr. Ware,” she added consolingly.

  Mr. Liversedge boxed her ears.

  Chapter XI

  The Duke returned to Baldock in high fettle. For one who had never before fended for himself
, he had managed the affair, he thought, pretty well. Matthew’s letters were safely tucked into his pocket; he had not paid Mr. Liversedge a farthing for them; and he had not had recourse to Manton’s pistol. Even Gideon could hardly have done better. In fact, Gideon would probably not have done as well, since Mr. Liversedge, confronted by his formidable size and extremely purposeful manner, would undoubtedly have conducted himself far more warily. Gilly was too modest not to realize that the success of his stratagem must be largely attributed to his lack of inches, and his quite unalarming appearance. Mr. Liversedge had palpably summed him up as a scared boy within one minute of his having entered his parlour, and had not thought it necessary to be upon his guard. That had not been very wise of Mr. Liversedge, but Gilly was inclined to suspect that for all the breadth and scope of his visions, Mr. Liversedge was not a rogue of any great mental attainment. However, be that as it might, Gilly had scarcely expected to have succeeded so well, and he thought he had a very good right to feel in charity with himself. Nothing now remained to do but to burn Matthew’s letters, set Matthew’s anxious mind at rest, and go back to London with Tom next day. In his present mood he was rather sorry to have no excuse for absenting himself any longer from his household. Certain aspects of his stolen journey had not been altogether comfortable, but on the whole he had enjoyed himself very well, and he had derived a good deal of satisfaction from the discovery that he was not as helpless as he had feared he might be.

  This mood of gentle elation suffered a set-back upon his arrival at the White Horse. The inn appeared to have become the focus of interest in the town, for a large and motley crowd was gathered before it, in the centre of which the impressive figure of the town-beadle seemed to be haranguing a heated and flustered Mrs. Appleby. Then the Duke perceived that one of the beadle’s ham-like hands was grasping young Mr. Mamble by the coat-collar, and a sense of foreboding crept over him. He drew up, and prepared to step down from the gig.

  Nearly everyone was too much absorbed in the strife raging between the beadle, Mrs. Appleby, a weedy man in a black suit, a farmer with a red face, and a stout lady in a mob-cap, whose voice was even shriller than Mrs. Appleby’s, to have any attention to spare for the arrival of a gig; but the melancholy waiter, who had been surveying the scene with the gloomy satisfaction of one who has foreseen trouble from the outset, chanced to look up as the Duke rose from the driving-seat, and exclaimed: “Ah, here is the gentleman!”

  The effect of these simple words was slightly overwhelming. Tom, taking advantage of an involuntary slackening of the grip on his collar, twisted himself free, and thrust his way through the crowd, crying thankfully: “Oh, sir! Oh, Mr. Rufford!

  He had scarcely reached the Duke’s side, and clutched his arm, when Mrs. Appleby had seized the other arm, saying indignantly: “Thank goodness you’ve come, sir! Such goings-on as I never saw, and me not knowing which way to turn!”

  “Hif you are the cove as is responsible for this young varmint,” said the beadle, reaching the Duke a bare fifteen seconds later than Mrs. Appleby, “hit is my dooty to inform you—”

  The rest of this pronouncement was lost in the instant hubbub that arose. The weedy man, the fanner, and the lady in the mob-cap all broke into impassioned speech. The Duke, stunned by Mrs. Appleby’s voice in one ear, and Tom’s in the other, begged them to speak to him one at a time, but was not attended to. Various members of the crowd thought it incumbent upon them to take sides in the dispute, and for a few minutes the fragments of their observations reached the Duke in a confused medley. Such phrases as he caught could not be regarded as other than ominous. The words “lock-up house”—“upsetting of the Mail”—and “a-smashing of Mr. Badby’s good cart” were being freely bandied about; and whereas one half of the crowd seemed disposed to take a lenient view of whatever it was that Tom had done, the other and more vociferous half was urgent with the beadle for his immediate transportation.

  “I didn’t! I did not!” Tom asserted passionately. “Oh, sir, pray tell them I did not!”

  “Sir!” began the beadle portentously,

  “Mr. Rufford, sir, do you make him attend, for listen to me he will not!” besought Mrs. Appleby.

  A sudden lull fell, and the Duke realized with dismay that everyone, with the exception of the beadle, was looking at him in the evident expectation that he would instantly take command of the situation. He had never regretted the absence of his entourage more. He even wished that his Uncle Lionel could have been suddenly and miraculously wafted to the scene. The very sight of Lord Lionel’s imposing figure and aristocratic visage would be enough to cause the crowd to disperse, while any well-trained footman would have cleaved a way for his Grace in a fashion haughty enough to have quelled even the beadle. But the Duke found himself bereft of all whose business in life it was to shield him from contact with the vulgar herd, and was obliged to fend once more for himself. He contrived to shake off the two frenzied grips on his arms, and to say in his usual gentle way: “Pray let us go into the house! And do not, I beg of you, all talk to me at once, for I can distinguish nothing that you say!”

  His soft voice, falling upon the ears of the crowd in striking contrast to the strident accents of the combatants, seemed to have an instant and sobering effect. Even the beadle was not unaffected by the indefinable air of dignity which wrapped the Duke round, and raised no objection to withdrawing into the coffee-room of the inn.

  “Come, Tom!” the Duke said. He saw one of the ostlers standing nearby, and added: “You there! Take the gig into the yard, if you please!”

  He then passed into the White Horse, and Tom, Mrs. Appleby, the beadle, the weedy man, the farmer, and the lady in the mob-cap all crowded in after him. Once within the coffee-room both Tom and Mrs. Appleby would have poured their stories into his ears, but he interrupted them, saying: “Pray wait! I will attend to you in a minute.” He looked at the beadle, and said calmly: “Now will, you tell me what all this bustle is about?”

  The beadle was impressed in spite of himself. Unquestionably this quiet young gentleman was a member of the Quality. His experience had taught him the value of civility in dealing with such, and it was in moderated accents that he informed the Duke that four varmints, of whom young Mr. Mamble was the ringleader, had not only caused obstruction upon the King’s highway, but had effected the ruin of an honest citizen’s new cart, and had been guilty of the frightful crime of delaying and seriously incommoding the Mail, the penalty for which offence, as Mr. Rufford was no doubt aware, being no less than the sum of five pounds.

  “Dear me!” said the Duke. “And how did all this come about, Tom?”

  “I didn’t do those things! At least, I never meant to, and how was I to know the Mail was approaching?” said Tom, deeply aggrieved. “You told me I might amuse myself!”

  By this time another person had edged himself into the room, a nervous-looking man in a muffler, who awaited no invitation to describe to the Duke in detail the damage suffered by his new cart through the young cob’s rearing up in alarm, and subsequently kicking in the front of the vehicle, at the unprecedented sight of two donkeys, a cow, and Mr. Datchet’s old bay gelding being ridden backwards down the main street.

  “It was a race!” explained Tom.

  The beadle here took up the tale, and from his recital the Duke gathered that just as the entrants for this peculiar race reached the corner of the road, the Mail swept round it, coming from the opposite direction, and narrowly escaped an overturn. One of the leaders, in fact, got a leg over the trace, the coachman had the greatest difficulty in controlling his team, and all the passengers had suffered severe shocks to their nerves.

  After recounting the exact circumstances of the crime, the beadle attempted to outline to the assembled company the ultimate fate of the sporting young gentlemen, and the immediate and awful penalties they had incurred. He was at once interrupted by the lady in the mob-cap, who asserted tearfully that her Will had always been a good boy, as well Mr. Piddinghoe
knew, until led astray by evil companions. She was seconded by the weedy man, who stated that nothing short of the most violent pressure could have induced his Fred so to demean himself; and by the farmer, who said loudly and belligerently that it was nobbut a boy’s prank, and he would dust Nat’s jacket for him, and no more said.

  However, a great deal more had to be said before the Duke could settle the affair. Mrs. Appleby very unwisely demanded to be told what should get into the boys to make them take and run a race backwards, and this encouraged Toni to explain indignantly and at length the difficulties of handicapping fairly two donkeys, one cow, and an old horse. He seemed to think that he deserved congratulation for having hit upon so novel a solution to the problem, and dwelled so insistently on the excellent performance of the cow under these conditions that everyone but the Duke and the beadle allowed themselves to be diverted from the main point at issue, and either exclaimed several times that they would never have thought it, or argued that it stood to reason the cow would have as good a chance as the horse, particularly seeing as the horse was that broken-down old brute of Mr. Datchet’s.

  The Duke, meanwhile, detached the owner of the ruined cart from the circle, and settled his claims out of hand. Much mollified, Mr. Badby stowed away the money which the Duke paid him for the repair of his cart, and said that he had been young himself, and was never one to create a to-do over a trifle. It then transpired that the driver and the guard of the mail-coach had very handsomely forborne to lodge an official charge against Tom, so that with Mr. Badby’s retirement from the lists, the beadle was left without any very powerful weapon to use against the miscreants. The Duke was then inspired to suggest that after so much alarm and excitement everyone must stand in need of such revivifying cordials as could be found in the tap-room, and invited the assembled company to refresh themselves there at his expense. The idea took well; and after the Duke had sternly dismissed Tom to the Pink Parlour, and had promised the beadle that he should be suitably dealt with, the whole party repaired to the tap-room, where liberal potations of ale, gin, or porter very soon induced even the beadle and the weedy man, who proved to be Baldock’s leading tailor, to look upon the late disturbance as a very good jest. The Duke’s shy smile and quite unconscious charm were not without their effect, and since he was found to have not the least height in his manner it was not long before his obvious quality was forgotten, and he was being confided in on all manner of topics, from the Spasms endured by the lady in the mob-cap, to the shocking price of serges, corduroys, shalloons, and tammies.