by M C Beaton
He rounded on his mother furiously – both mother and son having forgotten the very presence of Letitia Cambridge – and said, ‘She will not reach London.’
‘You were lucky last time,’ said Mrs Handford urgently. ‘This time, Miss Pym will shout for the constable.’
‘She won’t get a chance,’ jeered Sir Geoffrey. ‘High time someone stopped that interfering busybody’s mouth.’
Mrs Cambridge shrank back in her chair. Like most ladies of her class, she was only dimly aware of the brutish side of the gentlemen she met in drawing-rooms or balls. Women, although damned as the inferior sex, benefited in a way by being treated like delicate children. No uncouth words or thoughts were revealed to them, and they were rarely subjected to any shocking lusts, it being tacitly understood that gentlemen who required such diversions took their pleasures outside the home.
She rose to leave. Her stomach felt queasy and her conscience, never much exercised, nonetheless was giving her several painful jabs.
Neither mother nor son appeared aware of her going. Mrs Cambridge stood outside the house, irresolute. She felt she ought to warn Lady Beatrice. But, on the other hand, perhaps she was reading too much into Sir Geoffrey’s remarks about stopping Miss Pym’s mouth.
She trailed off home and ate a light luncheon of soup, grilled sole and potatoes and tartlets, all washed down with a bottle of champagne. She felt a little nap would do her good and clear her brain. She was not to wake until late in the evening, long after the London coach had left, and so was able to persuade herself that fate had taken the matter out of her hands.
Hannah climbed inside the coach at six and Benjamin joined the outside passengers on the roof. The day had turned mellow and fine, turning the cobbles of the twisting streets to pure gold. Sea-gulls wheeled and screamed overhead as the coach rumbled off. The other passengers consisted of a clerk, dressed in a showy waistcoat and, over it, a velvet coat which was rather short in the sleeve and showed a large expanse of dirty cuff; a fat and fussy woman who kept peering suspiciously at the other passengers and clutching a large wicker basket on her lap; a large and rubicund farmer in creaking new boots and a shirt so cruelly starched it was a wonder it did not creak as well; a thin, cross-looking woman with finicking genteel mannerisms whom Hannah privately damned as a governess or some other upper servant; and a schoolboy eating sweets from a sticky bag and gazing morosely all around as if hating the whole pernicious race of adults.
New straw had been thrown on the floor on top of the old straw, which had not been cleaned out. Hannah plucked fretfully at bits of straw clinging to her gown and wondered how Lady Beatrice would fare with Lord Alistair.
Usually Hannah’s journey home to London was spent in dreaming happily of seeing Sir George Clarence again and rehearsing what she would tell him. But now the shadow of the beautiful Lady Beatrice fell over all. Why had she, Hannah Pym, so recklessly promised to spend the rest of her life with Lady Beatrice? Lady Beatrice did not need her. By the time she sold her horses, her carriage, and her jewels, there would be enough to keep her in modest comfort for the rest of her life.
And why, thought Hannah, had she herself decided to move next year, when her travels were over, to some poky cottage in some rustic village? Surely only a pastoral poet could find comfort in antique Tudor houses with dry rot in the beams and rising damp in the walls. When Hannah had thought of that cottage before, in her mind it had always been summer, with flowers blooming in the garden, roses tumbling over the door, and pleasant bucolic villagers stopping at the garden gate to pass the time of day. Now she thought of a cottage in the winter: of going to bed at six to spare candles, of being snowed up, of being cold and lonely. Her new odd station in life would mean that she would be above the majority of the villagers socially but below the gentry, rather in the position of a governess who belonged to neither the one class nor the other. She and Lady Beatrice would probably murder each other out of sheer boredom. She could not expect a young man like Benjamin to stay away from the city for long.
Her curiosity in her fellow passengers was dimmed because of worries about her own future. Nor did she look for adventures. The only adventure Hannah Pym wanted now was to sit beside her best tea-service, dispensing tea to Sir George, but without Lady Beatrice. She tried to think hopefully of the possible result of Lady Beatrice and Lord Alistair travelling together, but could not. Lord Alistair would no doubt opt to drive his cattle himself and Lady Beatrice would travel alone inside the coach. I should have stayed with them, thought Hannah. I could perhaps have engineered some accident or some diversion to throw them together.
* * *
Before the coach had even left Brighton, Lady Beatrice was pacing agitatedly up and down her drawing-room, the letter Hannah had left for her in her hands. Hannah’s message had been brief, almost curt. She liked the Flying Machines and preferred to travel that way. She would call on Lady Beatrice in London and do the best she could to manage that lady’s affairs.
Lady Beatrice realized that she had taken Hannah Pym’s friendship for granted. She wondered now how she could have been so ungrateful. Without Hannah’s strength, she never would have had the courage to defy her parents. Now that Hannah had shown her the road to take, she certainly did not need her. She could live very comfortably in a quiet way from the money she could raise from the sale of her jewels. But the tone of Hannah’s short letter seemed to indicate the spinster might be having second thoughts about sharing her life with her, and that came as a rude shock.
The house was empty. The servants had all gone ahead to London. What if Sir Geoffrey had called again to find her unprotected? Had Hannah not considered that possibility?
There was a loud knock at the street door. She automatically waited for some servant to go and answer it before realizing she would need to go down herself.
Lord Alistair stood on the threshold. Behind him stood a magnificent travelling carriage, the one that Benjamin had longed to travel in, with a coachman on the box, two grooms on the backstrap, and two outriders.
‘You had better come inside a moment, my lord,’ said Lady Beatrice.
He followed her into the shadowy hall and they both stood under the chandelier, which was wrapped up in a bag of holland cloth.
‘Miss Pym has decided not to travel with us,’ said Lady Beatrice. ‘She has taken the six o’clock coach.’
‘How strange!’ Lord Alistair looked down at her curiously. ‘Did you offend her in any way?’
‘Not that I know of. Do not look so downcast. I can easily catch the coach.’
Lady Beatrice looked miserable. ‘The fact that she left without speaking to me leads me to believe that she regrets our friendship. I must confess I did not realize up until now how much it meant to me. If you can bear my undiluted company, my lord, I think it would be more tactful to leave Miss Pym to her own devices.’
He found he was sorry for her. He thought she looked young and defenceless, and yet surely, after the hell of her marriage, she should be hardened to a minor irritation like the possible loss of a friend. And yet, he thought, when had Lady Beatrice had any friends? He had seen her in saloon or ballroom, always beautiful, always icy, always composed.
‘Have you eaten?’ he asked.
She looked up at him, puzzled, and then her face cleared and she said with a little laugh, ‘Not since breakfast.’
‘Then I suggest my servants wait for us until we dine at the Ship, and then we will be on our road. I always get the blue devils when I am hungry.’
At the Ship, always the most popular hostelry in Brighton, a table was miraculously found for them at the bay window. About them rose the buzz and chatter of the other diners, mostly fashionable. The unfashionable still dined at two in the afternoon, the medium fashionable at four, and the very fashionable at around seven.
Lady Beatrice was wearing a pretty little hat tilted slightly over her dark curls. Her close-fitting carriage gown of dark-green velvet flattered her figure, and long pearl
earrings complemented the whiteness of her skin.
After they had been served, Lord Alistair said, ‘Are you sure you will be able to settle down with Miss Pym and forgo all the pleasures of a social life?’
She smiled ruefully. ‘I should be grateful to be free of Sir Geoffrey and my parents, but I confess I am a trifle worried. Miss Pym talks of enlivening our evenings by doing good works, and why not? I have led a shamelessly selfish life.’
‘Do not be too hard on yourself,’ he said, signalling to the waiter to refill their wineglasses. ‘Marriage to Blackstone can hardly have been a bed of roses.’
She turned her glass this way and that and said in a low voice, ‘It was disgusting, although easier in recent years, for he would return home usually drunk and unconscious, and then, as soon as he recovered, he would be off gambling and drinking again.’ She coloured slightly. Both were aware she had referred obliquely to the fact that Mr Blackstone had usually been too drunk to demand his marital rights.
‘But I shall come about,’ she said with a slight smile. ‘Miss Pym will see to that. Let us talk about you for a change. How is it you have escaped marriage for so long?’
His eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at her, wondering if Lady Beatrice was beginning to flirt with him, but her eyes were still sad.
‘I enjoy my bachelor life too much,’ he said lightly. ‘And I am become very agricultural of late. I own estates in Wiltshire. Good land now, but it was in a shocking state when I got it. At first I hired estate managers to put the land in good heart. The first few were useless and lazy and so I began to study and try to make the changes myself. It became absorbing and interesting. I shall never forget that first good harvest … But I must be boring you!’
‘Not at all. Do go on.’
‘It was a bumper harvest. I was so excited, like a schoolboy, I had to help bring it in myself. Then we had a great harvest party. What dancing! What celebration! It made Almack’s on assembly night seem a desert of boredom. Each year, I spend longer there, and each year I become more reluctant to leave.’
‘What is your house called? What is it like?’
‘Clarendon Park. It was the Davenants’ old place. Colonel Davenant died a while back, if you remember. As a younger son, I found myself with capital from prize money gained during my military service but no property, and so I bought it. It is a fine old house, completely Tudor with great chimneys, dark smoky halls, and mullioned windows. There is a fine park and some good natural vistas, but no mock temples or ornamental lakes; nothing to look at but the deer flitting through the trees of the Holm Wood.’
Lady Beatrice leaned slightly back in her chair and half closed her eyes. ‘Is it peaceful?’ she asked.
He laughed. ‘Nothing to listen to on a wet day but the rain dripping down the chimneys. In fact, I think I shall only spend a few days in London before going there. I adore the place.’
‘It sounds very pleasant.’ Lady Beatrice sighed. ‘That Gothic castle in which I was brought up could hardly be called a home. So huge, so bleak, so menacing. I spent my youth in the east wing with my governess and I hardly ever saw my parents.’
He felt an odd desire to protect her. He tried to imagine her at Clarendon Park and could not. But yet, the Lady Beatrice he could not imagine at Clarendon Park was the Lady Beatrice of the ballroom, not the sad and subdued beauty facing him across the table. He began to talk lightly of Brighton society until he had the pleasure of seeing her face relax, and by the time they took their places in his coach, they were on easy, friendly terms. He had meant to travel on the box so as to observe the conventions, but Lady Beatrice was a widow, not a young miss, and so he decided there would be no harm in travelling in her company. He thought briefly of Hannah Pym and wondered what had caused that unpredictable spinster to decide to take the stage-coach.
Hannah was beginning to wonder that very thing herself. The coach was cold and musty. Usually she would have ordered hot bricks for her feet at the first inn they stopped at, but she felt sapped of energy, an unusual state of affairs. She slowly fell asleep, her head jolting with the motion of the coach. She dreamt she was floating in a warm blue sea. She was completely naked. Sir George Clarence was swimming towards her. He was naked as well, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world.
A commotion awoke her. The passengers were screaming. She sat up, blinked, and looked around. The clerk opposite was whey-faced. ‘Highwaymen,’ he said through white lips and put his fob-watch in his boot for safety. The thin spinster was praying volubly and the farmer was cursing and the woman holding the basket was weeping copiously. The schoolboy seemed unmoved, as if highwaymen were just another part of the adult world he so detested.
The door of the carriage was jerked open and a masked figure stood there, the light from the carriage lamp shining on the barrel of the long horse-pistol he brandished.
‘Out, all of you!’ he barked.
Shivering and crying and cursing, the passengers climbed down. ‘Any interference,’ shouted the highwayman to the passengers, coachman, and guard on the roof, ‘and I’ll shoot this lot.’
Then he glared at the passengers. ‘Is this the lot of you?’ he demanded.
The thin spinster fell to her knees and babbled, ‘Spare me. I have nothing. Nothing!’
He ignored her. He reached out and caught hold of Hannah’s arm and pulled her away from the others. ‘Get on board,’ he ordered the rest of the passengers. They did just that, not one seeming to care for Hannah’s plight, except Benjamin, who slid quietly down from the roof of the coach on the far side where the highwayman could not see him and crept off into the darkness.
The coachman cracked his whip and the coach rumbled off, leaving Hannah and the highwayman standing on the road together.
‘Well, Sir Geoffrey,’ said Hannah quietly, for she had recognized him despite his mask, ‘you may stop the charade and release me now.’
He shook her arm furiously. ‘Where is she?’
Hannah looked at him levelly. A small bright moon riding high above silvered the landscape, and the wind from the far-away sea moaned across the downs. ‘If you mean Lady Beatrice, Sir Geoffrey, she left for London earlier today escorted by Lord Alistair.’ Hannah had no intention of telling him that Lady Beatrice had probably left at the same time as the coach in case he managed to ride ahead and catch up with them – that is, if they were ahead. Hannah thought they might have passed the coach while she was asleep.
‘It’s all your fault, you crook-nosed bag,’ he growled. ‘You stopped my marriage. You caused my humiliation, and b’Gad, you shall pay for it.’ He hurled her away from him. Hannah staggered and fell to her knees.
‘Say your last prayers, Miss Pym,’ jeered Sir Geoffrey. He raised the pistol.
Hannah closed her eyes. She thought briefly that she had had a good life. She had not known cold or starvation, and who could ask for more than that?
There was a sickening crack. She felt a great fiery pain in her chest and fell forward.
And then she heard a voice in her ear. ‘Modom! Are you all right? It is me, Benjamin.’
She dazedly opened her eyes. Benjamin was stooped over her, a large tree branch in his hand. Sir Geoffrey was stretched out cold by the edge of the road.
‘I am shot, Benjamin,’ whispered Hannah. ‘There was a great pain in my chest.’
‘You ha’n’t been,’ protested Benjamin. ‘I hit the bleeding shite wiff all me might afore he pulled the poxy trigger. Do get up, modom.’
Hannah wonderingly felt her chest and looked at her hand in the moonlight. There was no blood. The crack which she had believed to be a pistol shot must have been caused by Benjamin’s hitting Sir Geoffrey on the head and the pain had been caused by her imagination. Helped by Benjamin, she staggered to her feet.
‘What shall we do with him, modom?’
Before Hannah could answer, a posse of militia came pounding up the road on horseback, their captain at the head. The captain swung himself do
wn from the saddle while his soldiers surrounded the fallen Sir Geoffrey. The coachman had stopped at the nearest town and had reported the highwayman to the authorities.
To the captain’s urgent queries, Hannah gave him her name and address and said shakily that she was unharmed. ‘The coachman said the felon took you apart from the other passengers,’ said the captain. ‘Do you know why?’
Hannah cast a sharp look at Benjamin. ‘I think he was mad,’ she said with a shudder. ‘He would have killed me if my brave footman had not struck him on the head.’ She had no intention of telling the captain that she had recognized Sir Geoffrey. Let Sir Geoffrey find out what it was like to be treated as a common highwayman.
One of the soldiers had removed Sir Geoffrey’s mask. ‘Ever seen him before?’ demanded the captain. ‘I am very faint and weak,’ said Hannah feebly. ‘And my eyes are not strong enough to make out anything in the night. I would like to go to the nearest town and find a bed for the night.’
‘As you will, madam,’ said the captain. ‘We will be taking this felon to the nearest round-house, which is at Castlefort. We’ll put you up on a horse and have you there in no time.’
But Hannah could not ride, and so Benjamin mounted and held her in front of him as they plodded through the darkness. ‘Why did you not tell that captain about Sir Geoffrey?’ asked Benjamin.
‘Sir Geoffrey’s name would impress them. He will of course say he did it all as a joke. Give him a little while to suffer.’
They reached an inn at Castlefort called the Green Tree. The captain arrived at the same time to explain their luggageless presence to the landlord. Then he saluted smartly and said he would call on them again as soon as the highwayman was safely under lock and key.
He arrived back again just as they were about to begin supper.
‘This ’ere highwayman,’ said the captain, scratching his powdered wig, ‘says as how he is Sir Geoffrey Handford.’
