The Last Gamble

by Mary Nichols

  ‘So what are we to do?’ Mrs Goodman looked from Mr Hartley to the Captain. ‘We surely cannot all stay here. It looks a dreadful place.’

  ‘It’s better than the roadside, ma’am,’ Duncan said. ‘And I am sure we shall be made welcome.’ They would be welcome, there was no doubt. How often did a coachload of people arrive on this particular doorstep with no alternative but to accept its hospitality? He strode over to the door, ducking his head under its low lintel. There was only one parlour, low-ceilinged and dingy, the smell of stale tobacco smoke clinging to the air.

  He went through a door at the other end and found himself in a kitchen, where a fat woman was stationed over a stove stirring something in a pan and a scrawny girl stood at a table cutting up a cabbage. They looked up when his large frame filled the doorway.

  ‘We need food,’ he said, laying two sovereigns on the table beside the cabbage. ‘The best you can manage. And a bedroom for two ladies.’

  ‘The food you can have,’ the fat woman said. ‘But we don’t have no beds. This ain’t an inn.’

  ‘That is evident,’ he said. ‘But you must have one room with a bed in it.’ He put down two more coins which chinked beside the first.

  ‘Only my own, if that’s what you had in mind.’

  ‘That will do but clean sheets and blankets, mind you.’

  It took the couple and their daughter all of two hours to produce a meal which turned out to be surprisingly good. All the passengers, even the man who travelled outside which was unheard of, dined together around one large table with the tavernkeeper and his wife, a situation which pleased Helen. There was no intimacy with Captain Blair and she could allow the conversation to drift around her without feeling she had to take part.

  From now on she would hold her tongue, and no matter how many more untoward incidents occurred, she would stay out of them. Perhaps Captain Blair would then realise he had made a very grave mistake; she was not the sort of woman to fall into his arms at the drop of a hat. But she had, oh, she had, and God forgive her, she had enjoyed it, had wanted it to continue, had felt her insides turn to quivering jelly. There must be something very dissolute in her makeup for that to happen and she must be very wary of it.

  Perhaps, when they reached Preston, which was the next town of any size, he would decide he had had enough of her company and ride on. The thought of that filled her with dread. What was the matter with her? Did she want him to stay or to go?

  If only there was someone she could confide in, but there was only Mrs Goodman, and somehow Helen did not think she would receive very good advice from that quarter. The lady in question was doing her obvious best to captivate Mr Hartley who seemed not to mind at all, laughing at her jokes and agreeing with everything she said, calling her ‘my dear’ and beaming at Robert, who had seen it all before and simply scowled back at him. Helen was reminded of the Captain’s comment that the good lady would be looking for husband number four and found herself smiling in spite of her anger with him. Unless she missed her guess, number four was already hooked.

  Helen and a reluctant Mrs Goodman were the first to break up the party and were shown up to the room under the rafters where the landlord and his fat wife usually slept. Helen was doubtful about the sheets, but their hostess assured her they were freshly laundered, and accepting her word, she undressed and crawled into bed beside Mrs Goodman, hoping fervently that that good lady would draw breath long enough to fall asleep. She need not have worried; without the gentlemen to entertain, she was not in the least interested in conversation and was soon snoring. Helen turned her back on her and stopped her ears and in a little while, exhausted from all that had happened, she fell asleep herself.

  A wheelwright arrived next morning in a flat-bottomed cart containing spare wheels, a couple of axle-trees, a hub or two and the tools of his trade. He was taken out to the abandoned coach by the coachman and the guard, riding two of their original horses and leading the other two, long before the passengers woke for their breakfasts. All except Duncan.

  While the other three men passengers and Robert had curled up under blankets on the hard floor of the parlour, if such a dismal room could be given that grandiose name, and the landlord and his wife tried to share a settle in the kitchen, he had chosen to sleep in the hayloft above the horses, who being more than usually crowded themselves, snorted and snuffled the whole night long. As soon as dawn crept between the cracks in the wooden slats of the building, he rose and went for a walk to clear his head.

  He prayed his father had recovered from his illness, or if not, that it was not as serious as everyone had at first thought. Duncan loved his father, just as he loved his brother and his nephew and niece, but he could no more have left Helen to go to them than take wings and fly. Mind you, he told himself wryly, he wished he could fly, wished he could take Helen Sadler by the hand and whisk her into the sky.

  He looked up at the lowering clouds; there was bad weather on the way or he missed his guess and the sooner they left the better. He heard the drum of hooves and the clatter of wheels and returned to the yard to find their old coach, with a spanking new yellow-painted wheel, being loaded with their luggage and the little old tavernkeeper dashing about trying to be helpful but in reality getting in the way of the coachman and guard who were, once again, their professional selves. He joined the other passengers and climbed aboard.

  Helen, sitting once again thigh to thigh with Duncan, was acutely aware of his presence beside her. It seemed as though he had been sitting there, her uninvited escort, since the beginning of time instead of just four days. Why didn’t he go on? He could long ago have changed to the mail or acquired a horse to ride; either would have been quicker and he had said more than once he was in a hurry.

  She felt as if she were doomed to be riding in a coach, mile after mile, stage after stage, flitting from one incident to another, to eternity. It was difficult to think about how it had come about, to remember the lovely old house where she had lived in such comfort, difficult to recall the face of her beloved mother or the father who had decided to end it all.

  Nor had she ever seen the place where she was going: could not picture the man she was going to meet, her guardian. It was as if she had no past and no future, flotsam buffeted by life’s storms. No wonder she had clung to the lifeline thrown out by Captain Blair. They were strangers at the outset and they were still strangers. She knew nothing whatever about him, except that when he had kissed her she had been able to offer no defence at all and even thinking about it made her burn with shame.

  She had an itch in the middle of her back and would dearly have loved to put her hand behind her and given it a good scratch but she could not move without disturbing the man beside her. She tried not to fidget, knowing as the itch moved from one place to another, that she had probably picked up a flea or two and, in spite of herself, smiled. There was a first time for everything, for kisses and for flea bites.

  Duncan saw the smile and wondered what had prompted it; only a moment before she had looked on the verge of tears. He knew he had caused her distress and hated himself for it, but he also knew that a public apology would make matters worse. Until he could speak to her alone, he would do better to pretend there was nothing wrong and that was made easier by Robert, who was determined to quiz him, asking if he had ever met Napoleon or the Duke of Wellington and was the King as fat as everyone said he was? Had His Majesty really led a charge at Waterloo?

  Duncan humoured him, answering his questions, telling him that if His Majesty imagined he was leading a charge, then who was he to say differently, but he wondered how he had managed to mount the horse because he hadn’t been able to do that for years. And not even a King could be in two places at once.

  ‘But you were there, sir?’

  ‘Indeed I was, along with a few thousand others.’

  And so it went on until, at last, they arrived in Lancaster where Mrs Goodman and her son were whisked away in Mr Hartley’s carriage, which had be
en sent to meet him. Helen said goodbye and watched them go, with a tired heart. Travelling was like that, bone-shakingly tiring, a time for making new acquaintances whom you never saw again after the journey ended, a time for conversation and for reflection, but not a good time for making decisions; it was too transitory, too unreal. Everything seemed unreal, even the tall shape of Captain Blair with his firm jaw and laughing brown eyes, as he escorted her into the inn as if nothing at all had happened.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THERE was time only for a hasty meal and none at all for conversation and Helen was glad of that; the last thing she wanted was to talk to Captain Blair. He, sensing her mood, made sure she was comfortably seated and some food ordered and then excused himself. She had no idea where he had gone and told herself she did not want to know. An hour later she returned to the coach, to find the wart-nosed man already in his seat, hugging his case on his lap as if he had never moved. His hat with the broken crown was still on his head.

  Captain Blair was talking to the coachman at the head of the horses. He seemed to have an easy rapport with everyone, Helen noted, high or low, it seemed to make no difference.

  Seeing her, he came over and handed her in without speaking and sat down beside her. She hitched herself as far away from him as she could and stared out of the window so that she did not have to look at him, because looking at him would remind her of that kiss and how it had affected her. The sooner she put it from her mind, the sooner her peace of mind would be restored.

  The outside passengers climbed aboard, the coachman did his ritual inspection and they were off again at a canter, trying to make up for lost time. But there seemed to be little hope of that; the further north they went, the worse the weather became with high winds and driving rain and they were soon reduced to a walk. Helen began to wonder how much of the Captain’s teasing had been been true and how much invented. She could see nothing from the window, but a curtain of water. The travellers on the roof, she realised, must be suffering dreadfully.

  ‘Captain, could we not ask the coachman to stop and invite some of the outside passengers to come inside?’ Her concern for them overcame her reluctance to address the man beside her. ‘They must be wet and frozen up there.’ Then to the little man. ‘You would not object, sir, would you?’

  ‘I doubt the coachman will want to pull up on this incline,’ he said, which was as near as he dare go to refusing altogether. ‘He will never get the horses going again.’

  ‘Then we could ask him to stop when we get to the top. I think it is shameful for us to sit here in the dry with seats to spare when they are being soaked.’

  ‘It is what they paid for,’ he said. ‘To ride outside and risk the elements. They may not wish to spend the extra.’

  ‘Goodness, sir, I am not asking you to give up your seat, simply to ask others in out of the wet. Where is your humanity?’

  Duncan groaned inwardly. She was at it again, trying to rule other people, imposing her will and not taking kindly to being denied. He could not deny her. There was nothing wrong with her humanity; she had demonstrated it enough in the last four days.

  ‘It is a question of common practice,’ the man said. ‘Outside passengers are outside passengers and those who choose to travel inside do so because they do not wish to consort with their inferiors and they pay for the privilege.’

  ‘I never heard anything so top-lofty.’

  ‘And you, if I may say so, miss, are rag-mannered and impertinent.’

  Duncan who had been enjoying the exchange, decided it had gone far enough. ‘Sir, Miss Sadler asked out of the goodness of her kind heart, if we might share the coach with others less fortunate. I think it is very considerate of her and I, for one, am happy to comply.’

  ‘But I am not.’

  ‘You, sir, are outnumbered.’ And with that he put his head out of the window and shouted into the teeth of the gale. ‘Coachman, would you be so kind as to stop a moment?’

  The coachman, thinking one of his inside passengers had been taken ill, pulled the horses up so quickly, they reared and then shuddered to a halt. ‘What’s amiss?’

  Duncan opened the door and jumped down. ‘Nothing is amiss. Miss Sadler would like to invite two or three of your outside passengers in out of the wet. You have no objection, have you?’

  ‘None.’ He grinned, though the rain was dripping off his hat brim and his shoulder cape was soaked. ‘You can take pity on me too, if you like.’

  Duncan smiled back at him and looked up at the passengers huddled on the roof. ‘You, you and you,’ he said, pointing to a wizened old man in a brown coat and a felt hat tied on with string, a little old lady wrapped in a black cloak and a lad of about fourteen in nothing more than trousers and short jacket who was shivering so violently he was shaking the vehicle. ‘You can ride inside if you’ve a mind to. Nothing extra to pay.’ He turned to the coachman. ‘That’s right, isn’t it, Mr Grinley?’

  ‘It’s all the same to me.’

  In no time at all the three selected passengers were seated inside, loud in their thanks to the kind gentleman.

  ‘Don’t thank me,’ he said, as they moved off again. ‘Thank the lady.’

  ‘Then I do so with all my heart,’ the old man said. ‘My wife is fair frozen.’

  ‘Poor dear,’ Helen said, removing her mantle. ‘Here, you have this, it’s warm and dry. I don’t need it, truly I don’t.’ She slipped the old woman’s cloak from her shoulders and wrapped the mantle round her, then took the tiny wrinkled hands in her own and rubbed them gently. ‘You’ll soon be warm again. Such dreadful weather to have to travel in.’

  ‘Yes, and like to get worse,’ the man said, rubbing his own gnarled hands up and down his thighs to try and restore some feeling to them. ‘It was fair enough, though cold, when we set out yesterday to visit my brother and go to the Preston horse fair, but today its seems that winter has come early. I shouldn’t be surprised if it snowed afore the week is out.’

  ‘Poppycock!’ exclaimed the man with the wart on his nose. ‘It is only a bit of rain.’

  ‘Then I suggest you go and sit on the roof and try it,’ Helen snapped, and returned to her task of reviving the old lady.

  Duncan, watching her at work, was filled with an aching longing to have her hold his hands like that and look at him with the compassion she was showing the old lady. But to him she was coolly impersonal and it was all his own fault. How to put it right he did not know.

  On the hilly roads they needed to change horses more frequently and that was not always easily accomplished; the smooth, practised changeovers of the coaching inns of the south were no more and everything was chaotic, made worse by the weather. Even getting down from the coach and going into an inn for refreshment meant dashing through a downpour. And without her mantle, Helen was cold to the bone by the time they reached Kendal and was glad when she learned the coach was going no further that night.

  ‘It is too dangerous to travel over Shap Fell in the dark,’ the guard told them. ‘Specially in this weather. We’ll set off agaın as soon as it’s light.’

  Duncan, afraid that Helen might catch a chill, did what he had done all along, saw to her trunk, arranged for a room for her and ordered a bath and hot water to be taken up to it, though he knew he must draw the line at settling her bill. It was not that he could not afford it, nor that he did not want to pay but simply because she would fly up in the boughs if he suggested it; she had done so on a previous occasion and that was before he had been foolish enough to insult her with that kiss.

  ‘Captain,’ she said, summoning all her dignity. ‘I am perfectly capable of ordering such things for myself. I wish you would go away.’

  ‘Do you?’ he asked softly.

  She could not bring herself to look him in the eye. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I will not burden you with my presence.’ He delved into his bag and produced a small jar, handing it to her with a smile. ‘Use this after your bath, you may find it efficacious
.’

  She took it, looking down at it with a puzzled little frown until she realised it contained ointment, guaranteed to kill fleas and soothe their bites, so it said on the label. She was astonished that he had even noticed her discomfort when she had made every effort to hide it and even more surprised that he had diagnosed the trouble. She felt like dashing the jar to the floor and castigating him for his impertinence but the sensible, practical side of her told her it would be foolish. ‘Thank you, Captain.’

  She turned and climbed the stairs, leaving him to join a crowd of men in the taproom. Let him play cards if he wanted to, what had it to do with her? She was well rid of him.

  The room she had been given was large and beautifully furnished, unmarred by a single speck of dust, with pristine linen on the bed, a bath on the rug before a glowing fire filled almost to the brim with steaming water, soap and fluffy towels on the rail by the wash stand. The chambermaid was moving about, making sure everything was just as it should be.

  ‘The gentleman said I was to stay and help you undress, miss,’ she said.

  If the girl had not mentioned the Captain, Helen would have been grateful for the offer, as it was, she decided he took too much upon himself. ‘It was kind of him to think of it,’ she said. ‘But I can manage very well, thank you.’ She found a coin for the girl. ‘I should like a tray brought up in half an hour, some soup, I think, and a little chicken and vegetables, whatever you have to hand. And hot chocolate.’

  ‘Very good, miss.’ The girl bobbed and went out, shutting the door carefully behind her. Helen stood and looked about her. It was almost like home, with Daisy in attendance and everything done exactly as she liked it. Would those days ever come again? She sighed and began slowly undressing.

  The bath was hot and scented and she sat and soaped herself, examining the bites which had caused so much irritation. She must have caught the fleas at that run-down old tavern, though they could equally well have come from any one of her fellow passengers. It was one of the hazards of travelling by public coach.