The Foundling

by Джорджетт Хейер

  Wragby paused in his ministrations to look up. “What, not on account of this fat flawn, sir? What’s happened to his Grace?”

  “I don’t know. I think that fellow has him imprisoned somewhere. I ought to have discovered more before I choked him, but—Here, give him some more brandy!”

  “You leave him be, sir; he’s coming to himself nice and gentle. He never come here to tell you a thing like that!”

  “Oh, yes, he did! He came to sell him to me! For the trifling sum of fifty thousand pounds, he’ll engage for it that his Grace is never seen again. He might even contrive to murder my father too. Obliging, isn’t he? He brought me that to look at!”

  Wragby stared at the Duke’s handkerchief. “My God, sir, what has he done to his Grace? That’s blood, or I never saw blood!”

  “I tell you I don’t know. Trust me, I shall know soon enough! He can’t be dead. No, he can’t be dead!”

  “Lor’ no, sir, of course he ain’t dead!” Wragby made haste to say. “Likely there was a bit of a mill, and his Grace had his cork drawn. Now, don’t you go fuming and fretting before there’s any need, sir! Not but what we might have known something like this would happen, if his Grace loped, off the way he did!”

  “God damn you, do you think I would have let him go if I’d thought he’d run into danger?” Gideon shot at him fiercely.

  “Of course you wouldn’t, sir! If you was to give me a hand, we could lay this hang-gallows moulder on the sofy. We don’t want to cosset him, but on the other hand he’s more apt to talk if we make him a bit comfortable. And talk he’s got to! If he don’t see reason, he’ll have to be made more uncomfortable than what he is now, but he don’t look to me like one as is hard at hand, and the less breeze we raise the better, sir.”

  Gideon nodded, and bent to take Mr. Liversedge’s legs. This unfortunate gentleman was heaved on to the sofa, and groaned faintly. “Leave him to me!” Gideon said curtly. “I’ll call you if I should need you.”

  Wragby looked at him doubtfully. “Yes, sir, but the way you’ve been handling him, and the black temper you’re in, begging your pardon, it’s more likely him as’ll need me than you!”

  “Don’t be a fool! I shan’t touch him. He thinks the cards are in his hands, but I am not quite at non plus! No, Mr. Liversedge! not quite!”

  Mr. Liversedge opened his eyes, and lifted a feeble hand to his bruised throat. He groaned again, and Gideon poured out some more brandy, and took it to him. Wragby, in open disapproval, watched him raise Mr. Liversedge, and put the glass to his lips again. He seemed satisfied, however, that his master had no immediate intention of resorting to any more physical violence, and after remarking that there was no sense in making the fellow jug-bitten, withdrew to stand guard outside the door.

  Mr. Liversedge found it rather painful to swallow, but he disposed of the brandy, and was even able to struggle into a sitting-posture. He tenderly felt his throat, uttered one or two more groans, and brought his blood-shot gaze to bear upon his host. “Very unhandsome!” he croaked. “Too hasty, sir! No need for any heat! Had but to say the word and the matter could have been arranged to your taste. For a small sum—quite trifling stun, say thirty thousand, or even twenty-five—willing to restore his Grace safe and sound!” He tried to clear his throat, and winced. “Happy to do so!” he said. “Not a man of violence—taken quite a fancy to his Grace—no wish to harm him!”

  Relief at learning that Gilly was not dead did much to abate Gideon’s wrath. He gave Mr. Liversedge some more brandy. Mr. Liversedge took the glass, and lowered his feet to the floor. “Much better as it is,” he said, his volatile spirits already beginning to turn events to good account. “I may say, Captain Ware, it is gratifying to discover very proper sentiment in you. No need to have been rough, though! In fact, foolish! Must bear in mind that without my goodwill impossible to find his Grace! A very good cognac, sir!”

  “Make the most of it!” Gideon advised him. “You’ll get none in Newgate.”

  Mr. Liversedge sipped the brandy delicately. He was beginning to feel very much better, as a gentle glow spread through him. “That, sir, is an ungentlemanly observation,” he said. “Moreover, you would gain nothing if you acted hastily, you know. Let bygones be bygones, Captain Ware! Nothing will afford me more pleasure than to restore his Grace to his family.”

  “You canting humbug, you are trying to hold his Grace to ransom!” Gideon said.

  “Well,” said Mr. Liversedge reasonably, “one must live, sir, after all.”

  “Be sure you have not long to do so!”

  “I see what it is!” said Mr. Liversedge. “But you mistake, sir! I don’t ask ransom of you! It will be nothing to his Grace: I daresay he will be very glad to pay it, for, you know, he might expect his price to be higher.”

  “Let me tell you this!” said Gideon. “His Grace is not going to be bled for as much as a farthing by any such fellow as you! Instead, Mr. Liversedge, you are going to go with me to where his Grace is! If I find him safe and unhurt, you may escape your deserts—though I don’t vouch for it!”

  Mr. Liversedge leaned back, and crossed one leg over the other. “Now, indeed, Captain Ware, it is of no use to fly into your high ropes!” he said. “Do but consider for a moment! I daresay you would like to have me clapped up in Newgate, but if you were so unwise as to call in the Law, his Grace would perish. I will be open with you. If I were not to return—and that speedily—to the unworthy habitation which now shelters his Grace, I very much fear that there are those, less mild in nature than myself, who would put a period to his existence. And that, you know, would be very shocking! Yet how could you prevent it? You might indeed clap me into some disagreeable gaol, but you cannot force me to divulge his Grace’s whereabouts. One dislikes to be obliged to use vulgar expressions, but I must permit myself to say that you are at a stand, sir!”

  “Down to every move on the board, are you not?” said Gideon, smiling unpleasantly.

  “Sir,” said Mr. Liversedge impressively, “if a man would succeed in carrying out large enterprises, he must be so! I have heard it related that the Duke—I refer, Captain Ware, to his Grace of Wellington, not his Grace of Sale—once said that he made his campaigns with ropes. If anything went amiss, he said, he tied a knot, and went on. A valuable maxim, sir, and one on which I have striven to mould my own campaigns. I tie a knot, and go on!”

  “Very well, if the knot holds,” replied Gideon. “This one won’t! If I had to search the whole of England for my cousin, I own I might find myself obliged to come to terms with you. But I have not, Mr. Liversedge. There is a card in my hand I fancy you had not thought I possessed. I received a letter from my cousin today. He wrote to me from the White Horse at Baldock. You and I, my engaging rascal, are going to Baldock to-morrow.” He observed, with satisfaction, his guest’s suddenly stricken countenance. “And when we reach Baldock, either you are going to conduct me to my cousin’s prison, or I am going to conduct you to the nearest magistrate. And let me further inform you, sir, that if it took every Runner at Bow Street, and every constable in Hertfordshire, and the militia beside to do it, I would see to it that not a house nor a barn was left unsearched within twenty miles of Baldock!”

  Mr. Liversedge, gazing in chagrin at his host’s purposeful face, found no difficulty in believing him. Captain Ware appeared to him to be one who would not have the slightest hesitation in employing measures as extreme as they were disagreeable. He would probably, reflected Mr. Liversedge bitterly, enjoy setting Hertfordshire by the ears. And he would do it, too, for no magistrate, or constable, or Colonel of Militia would refuse to search with the utmost stringency for so important a personage as the Duke of Sale. Mr. Liversedge thought of Mr. Mimms’s feelings, if a search-party were to descend upon the Bird in Hand, as it unquestionably would. Mr. Mimms’s protests, when the lifeless body of the Duke had been placed in one of his cellars, had been as pungent as they were unavailing. He was not a man who courted notoriety, but he had not quit
e escaped the notice of Hertfordshire authorities, and there was little doubt that his hostelry would be one of the first houses to be visited. Nor could Mr. Liversedge place the smallest reliance on the faulty memories of Post Office officials. Ten to one, some busybody of a clerk would recall that he had handled letters addressed to a Mr. Liversedge. One thing would lead to another, and several things, once added together, might even lead to Bath, where there were incensed persons only too anxious to lay their hands upon Mr. Liversedge. He was not a man much given to self blame, but he was inclined to own, at this moment, that he had made several mistakes. It was not, of course, his fault that Captain Ware should have proved to be blind to his best interests, but it might have been wiser to have abandoned his Grand Stratagem in favour of the simpler one of extracting ransom from the Duke himself. It was a painful reflection that had he done this he might even now bear in his pocket the Duke’s draft for a handsome sum. He looked at the Captain with dislike, and could not imagine what could have induced the Duke to confide his secrets to such a repellent person. It seemed unlikely that Captain Ware had any proper feelings at all, so that it was in a voice lacking in conviction that he said at last: “I am persuaded you would not create such an ungenteel stir!”

  Captain Ware laughed. It was not an infectious laugh, and it drew no answering gleam from Mr. Liversedge. It even grated upon his ear unpleasantly.

  “I think you will lead me to my cousin,” said Captain Ware, walking over to the door. He opened it, and found that Wragby was standing in the hall. He grinned at him. “Come here, Wragby!” he said. “We are going to take a little journey tomorrow into Hertfordshire, and we are going to take this person with us.”

  “You would be wiser to let me go immediately!” interpolated Mr. Liversedge desperately. “I dare not answer for the consequences to his Grace if I am any longer absent! He may be dead by the time you reach him, sir!”

  “Now, what must I do to teach you that I am not such a gudgeon as you supposed?” wondered the Captain. “Those who are his gaolers will most certainly keep him alive until they know how you have fared with me. Wragby, I want this fellow kept under guard! That should not trouble you, I fancy!”

  The ex-sergeant smiled indulgently. “Lor’ no, sir! We’ll rack up for the night, all right and tight together. And what may we be going to do in Hertfordshire, if I may make so bold as to ask?”

  “We are going to extricate his Grace from a scrape,” replied Gideon, his eyes alight. “I’ll take the curricle, and my bays. Tell Sturry to see to it! We shall set out at the earliest possible moment.”

  “What, are we going to take this rasher-of-wind along with us, sir?” demanded Wragby disapprovingly.

  “Sir,” said Mr. Liversedge, “I would not have believed that any man of honour and breeding could have served another such a backhand turn!”

  “Now, don’t you waste your breath talking slum!” recommended Wragby kindly. “A regular out-and-outer is the Captain, and so you’ll find afore you’re much older! You come along of me! Asking your pardon, sir, if you mean to go off, you’d best see the Colonel first.”

  “I am going to find him now,” said Gideon. “Don’t let this fellow slip through your fingers!”

  “What, me?” said Wragby, affronted. “It would take a better man than that silly bite to slip through my fingers, sir!”

  He then haled Mr. Liversedge up a narrow, twisted stair to the kitchen, planted him in a wooden chair, and after informing him that he was a chub to have bearded such a neck-or-nothing blade as the Captain, congratulated him on his narrow escape from death by strangulation. Mr. Liversedge, never one to let opportunity slide, made several ingenious attempts to convince him that enormous benefits would be his if he chose to ally himself with his prisoner, but Wragby, after listening to him admiringly, said that he was as bold as Beauchamp, but that if he wanted a bite of supper he had best stop pitching his gammon. Mr. Liversedge, making the best of things, accepted this counsel, and pulled his chair up to the table.

  Captain Ware, in spite of having chosen an unorthodox way of applying for it, had no difficulty in persuading his Colonel to grant him leave of absence. The Colonel not only considered Gideon one of his more promising officers, but he very much disliked scandal attaching to any member of his regiment. He no sooner learned that Gideon wished to go in search of his cousin than he said that he was very glad to hear it, and trusted that he would not return to town without him.

  Leaving the Colonel, Gideon hesitated on the brink of paying a call on his father, and then decided that it would be wiser to write to him. He had no wish to be obliged to enter into lengthy explanations, and still less to find himself with Lord Lionel as another passenger in his carriage. It was by this time too late for his dinner-engagement at the Daffy Club, even had he not been too much disturbed by Gilly’s plight to have any inclination for a convivial party. He walked into Stephen’s Hotel instead, in Bond Street, where, since his was a known face, and one, moreover, that belonged to the military set, he was made discreetly welcome, and led to a vacant table in the coffee-room. The dinner which was served was well-chosen, and well-cooked, but the Captain made a poor meal. Had it been practicable, he would have preferred to have left town that evening. He had no very real fear that the Duke would be murdered by Mr. Liversedge’s confederates, but he hated to think of Gilly in the hands of villains who might use him roughly, or incarcerate him in some comfortless stronghold. How he had got himself into such a situation Gideon could not imagine, although he suspected that the adventure he had hinted at had something to do with Mr. Liversedge. He had never supposed that anything other than the mildest excitement would befall Gilly, and Mr. Liversedge’s disclosure had come to him as a shock that brought with it a revulsion of feeling. He now realized that he had been a fool to imagine that Gilly, all untried as he was, could fend for himself. If he had had a grain of sense he would have applied for leave a week earlier, and joined Gilly on his adventures. Then he remembered the mischievous twinkle in Gilly’s eyes when he had last seen him, and his refusal to divulge his destination, or even his purpose in leaving London. Gilly had not wanted his cousin’s company, and that fact alone ought to have put a sane man on his guard. Captain Ware, as the wine grew low in the bottle, began to feel little better than a murderer. His imagination played round Gilly’s present lot, and it was with an effort that he refrained from jumping up, and striding out of the hotel. To remain inactive while Gilly might need him urgently was almost more than he could bear; and had there been a full moon he thought he must have set out on his journey immediately. He tried to comfort himself with the thought that if Gilly knew Liversedge’s destination he would know also that his big cousin would come speedily to his rescue; but it did not seem probable that Liversedge would have told him in which case he must have given himself up for lost.

  When he reached his chambers again, he found that Wragby, by way of facilitating his task, had, as he phrased it, given his charge such liberal potations of strip-me-naked that he was now quite shot in the neck, and sleeping heavily upon the kitchen-floor.

  “What a waste of good gin!” remarked Gideon.

  “Ah, but it weren’t the good gin, sir!” replied his henchman.

  Gideon went into his sitting-room, and sat down to write a brief note to his father. He informed him merely that he had discovered a clue to Gilly’s whereabouts, and was going out of town to find him. After that he went to bed, warning Wragby to be ready to make an early start next morning. Wragby said that there would be no difficulty about that, except that they might have to carry Mr. Liversedge down to the curricle, since he would undoubtedly be stale-drunk after imbibing so much bad gin.

  Chapter XVII

  The Duke came to himself slowly and painfully. While the cart in which he was conveyed some five miles to the Bird in Hand jolted its way down the rough lane which Mr. Shifnal chose in understandable preference to the pike-road, he lay for some time unconscious, and for the last mile in, a
queer state between swooning and waking. He seemed to himself to be suffering some nightmare. It hurt him to move hishead, and his eyelids were weighted. When he tried to open them knives stabbed behind them. At moments he was aware of movement, even of hands feeling his brow, and his wrists, and of a vaguely familiar voice speaking from a great distance away; but for long periods of time he sank back into uneasy oblivion, these merciful lapses being largely brought on by the bumping of wheels over all the inequalities of the road. Each lurch caused him exquisite torment, for Mr. Liversedge had struck hard, and with a heavy cudgel, and not only the Duke’s head, but his neck and spine had suffered. He was in one of these deep swoons when he was lifted out of the cart, and carried into the Bird in Hand through the back-door, so he knew nothing of the violent altercation which raged over his body, or of the disaster prophesied by Mr. Mimms.

  When he began to come more fully to his senses, it still hurt him to open his eyes, or to move his head, but he was regaining command over his faculties, and he knew that this weakness must be overcome. He forced himself to lift his eyelids, but winced as light struck against his aching eyeballs. Something cold and wet was laid across his brow; a voice said encouragingly: “That’s the dandy, now! You want to bite on the bridle, lad, and you’ll be as right as a trivet! Take a sup of this! Come on, now! open your mummer! There’s nothing like a glass of blood-and-thunder to put a cove in high gig!”

  A hand slid under his head, raising it. The Duke bit back an involuntary groan, and rather helplessly swallowed a mouthful of the fiery potion being held to his lips. Then he lifted a wavering hand to thrust the glass aside.

  “Have another sup, and you’ll feel as good as ever twanged!”

  The Duke knew from experience that nothing aggravated his periodic headaches more than liquor. In his hazy state of mind the only thing he knew was that one of these, and an unusually severe one, had attacked him. He whispered: “No.”