by M C Beaton
Lady Carsey, lying in bed in one of the Langfords’ guest bedchambers, was not asleep. She had felt fate was looking after her by sending that horrible Pym woman and Benjamin into her reach. As the earl had correctly guessed, she had no intention of mounting any attack herself. Men would have to be hired. But then, there was the question of money.
Like most landowners who managed their estates badly, Lady Carsey could not understand why she was suddenly short of money. She employed an agent, and when she needed money, it was the agent’s duty to screw even more money out of the tenants. Not being in the slightest interested in the welfare of her tenants or in any agriculture whatsoever, it was enough for Lady Carsey when she rode out on her estates to think that all the land as far as she could see was hers. She did not care whether the land was growing gorse or grass, wheat or weeds. To a practised eye, the condition of her estates would spell ruin. There was the worn-out character of the soil, the poverty-stricken appearance of the tenants, and the dilapidated state of the farm buildings. The hedges were wild, the roads were dangerous in summer and impassable in winter. Knowing nothing of the land, Lady Carsey had long been convinced it would pay anything and it was her agent’s duty to fill the voracious maw of her purse. But badly managed estates, like badly managed countries, have a way of suddenly collapsing all at once, or rather, that is how it looks to the one responsible for the neglect. So as the tenants left for other pastures, as the land yielded less and less, so Lady Carsey found that the well had dried up.
There was nothing else to be done, she thought, but to find herself a rich husband. To that end she had invited herself and her nephew, Mr Fotheringay, to the Langfords’, having heard that the Langfords were friends of the unmarried Earl of Ashton. Although her nephew had stolen money from her before, she had managed to catch up with him before he had spent it, shaken it out of him, and become on friendly terms with him again. He was a weak, shiftless, dandified creature, and Lady Carsey needed someone to do her bidding. She accordingly rang for her maid and told the girl to fetch Mr Fotheringay.
The Exquisite presented himself half an hour later dressed in a huge quilted dressing-gown and wearing a turban on his head. The turban gave him a comical look, rather like one of the players in a pantomime who dress up in women’s clothes and try to look as ungainly as possible.
‘Yaas?’ he demanded, sinking languidly into a chair.
‘That Pym creature is here and her precious footman, Benjamin,’ said Lady Carsey. ‘Benjamin, would you believe it, won a purse at a prize-fight by flooring Randall.’
‘I was there!’ cried Mr Fotheringay. ‘Capital sport. Didn’t tell you ’cos I reckoned you’d had enough of him.’
‘When you have ceased your enthusiastic burblings, you might recollect, my dear nephew, that I have a score to pay with that unlovely couple.’
‘Oh, no,’ said Mr Fotheringay with a delicate shudder. ‘Remember what happened last time? That old witch, Pym, nearly burned your house down.’
‘Exactly. And that is why I must get revenge but I must not be seen to be involved.’
Lady Carsey scowled horribly. Her standing in the town of Esher had diminished as rapidly as her money. It had got about quickly that her great wealth was nearly gone and no one fawned on her any more. She had not told her nephew of her financial troubles knowing that he hung around her in the hope of easy pickings. Arich woman could command great respect, could bribe officials, in those venal times, but a woman with the duns on her doorstep was another matter.
‘I do not want to hire villains,’ she said. ‘That was disastrous last time. Pym and her creature are setting off at six in the morning on the stage-coach from the Crown. I want you to hold up that coach and rob them or shoot them. Whatever you will.’
‘You’re mad,’ exclaimed Mr Fotheringay, startled out of his customary languor. ‘I cannot hold up the stage-coach on the Dover road in broad daylight.’
‘Then think of something,’ said Lady Carsey angrily. ‘I know. It is quite simple. There is no need for dramatics. They don’t know what you look like. Get yourself a ticket on that coach. Do what you will. I’ll give you poison. Put it in their grog at the first stop.’
‘But the authorities will then question all on the coach.’
‘And who is to know it’s you? Disguise yourself and make yourself scarce once you have harmed them in some way.’
‘Murder,’ said Mr Fotheringay in a hollow voice. ‘I can’t do it.’
‘I think you can. There is a slew of duns after you in London who would dearly like to know your whereabouts. And then you would have me to deal with.’
Mr Fotheringay bit his nails and looked at her out of the corner of his eyes. He was an evil creature but without the strength and boldness of his aunt. ‘What’s in it for me?’ he asked.
‘Ten thousand guineas.’
Mr Fotheringay stared at her in amazement, unaware that she could not hope to find such a sum and had no intention of paying him anyway.
‘I like the poison idea,’ he said. ‘Do you have any?’
‘Of course.’
‘Silly of me to ask.’
‘Besides,’ said Lady Carsey, ‘you have nothing to fear. People are dropping like flies all over England with one thing or the other. No local physician is going to trouble to open up their stomachs and try to diagnose whether they have been poisoned or not.’
‘True, true,’ agreed Mr Fotheringay, looking more cheerful, for he moved in a half-world where he knew well that relatives were conveniently poisoned for their money and often the perpetrators got away with it.
‘And what will you be doing when I am off a-poisoning?’ he asked acidly.
‘Oh, I shall be planning how to seduce the Earl of Ashton.’
Deborah and William arose very early. Deborah put on a severe-looking grey gown and covered it with a blue wool cloak. On her head, she placed a sandy-coloured wig she had found in a hamper of props which had been used for amateur theatricals and, on top of that, a bonnet with a deep brim that concealed her face. William had borrowed a livery from one of the footmen. Over it he wore a greatcoat and one of the very latest in slouch hats, pulled down over his eyes. They both primed their pistols, William carrying his in one capacious pocket of his coat, and Deborah putting her smaller one in her reticule.
She had lost her fears of the night before. Now all it seemed like was a splendid adventure, and not for a moment would she admit to herself that that was because somewhere deep inside, she was sure Lady Carsey would not send anyone to attack the coach. The mornings were light and the Dover road was busy. No highwayman had held up the Dover coach in broad daylight.
Her high spirits plunged when William said gaily, ‘This will be an adventure to tell my Clarissa.’
‘I would not do that,’ said his sister acidly. ‘She would scream and faint.’
‘Right into my arms,’ finished William, and began to whistle.
Deborah frowned, feeling uneasy. Her safe, carefree world was beginning to shake and tremble. Until the arrival of Clarissa, she had imagined she and William would always be together. She had not paid much serious attention to her father’s threats to send her up to London for a Season. What was the good of having a splendid adventure if William was still going to think of Clarissa?
William called the coachman to bring the carriage round to take them to the inn. He told the butler that should the earl call, he was to say that Lady Deborah and Lord William were out fishing.
They arrived in the inn yard to find it full of bustle and noise. William changed his outside ticket for an inside one and then climbed into the repaired coach after his sister. The other passengers were a fussy old man who took snuff, a large lady of uncertain years wearing a bonnet with a huge pheasant’s feather, a timid little girl who appeared to be the large lady’s granddaughter, and a thin foppish man who scurried aboard the coach at the last minute with his head down and then sat darting curious glances this way and that. It was this l
ast individual who made William cock a humorous eye at his sister and give her a nudge. ‘What a guy,’ he muttered.
Mr Fotheringay had chosen to attire himself as a huntsman, despite the fact that the season was over and he detested hunting. He was wearing a low narrow-collared coat which, although it was single-breasted, had a hole made on the button side to enable it to be kept together by means of a miniature snaffle. Under his coat was the broad ridge-and-furrow of a white cord waistcoat with a step collar, the vest reaching low down his figure, with large flap pockets and a nick out in front, like a coachman’s. Instead of buttons, the waistcoat was secured with fox’s tusks and catgut loops, with a heavy curb chain passing from one pocket to the other. His breeches came low down the leg and ended in a pair of what were called pork-butcher’s boots – brown varnished things with thick soles. His spurs were bright and heavy, with formidable necks and rowels.
He was wearing a beaver hat with a curled brim and, belying the sportsmanlike appearance of his clothes, his face was painted.
His eyes fastened first on William’s livery. ‘Cold morning,’ said Mr Fotheringay, rubbing his hands. ‘But good hunting weather, for the scent will be high on such a morn.’
William raised his eyebrows superciliously.
‘Got this one yesterday,’ went on Mr Fotheringay, who, unlike most coach passengers, seemed eager to get into conversation. He brought a fox’s brush out of his pocket and held it up. The large woman screamed and urged him to put it away.
‘Yes, do,’ agreed Deborah, ‘for it does smell so dreadfully of moth-balls. You will be in bad odour with the farmers, sir, if you hunt out of season.’
Mr Fotheringay cursed under his breath. Never a huntsman and despising the breed, he had assumed they clattered across the fields all the year round.
He then affected surprise at the sight of William. ‘Bless me!’ he cried. ‘Ain’t you that fellow that trounced Randall?’
‘The same,’ said William and received a furious nudge from his sister, for his voice was cultured, well-modulated and hardly like Benjamin’s tones, which swung between the coarse and the refined.
‘By George, that was a fight,’ cried Mr Fotheringay. ‘Allow me to introduce meself. Name of Crank.’
Deborah stifled a giggle of laughter, but then the twins decided at the same time that the less they said, the better. ‘Go to sleep, Benjamin,’ said Deborah in what she hoped were the same rather authoritative bossy tones as Hannah Pym usually used.
‘Yes, modom,’ said William meekly and closed his eyes.
The coach, after rolling on for several miles with its now silent passengers, stopped briefly at Chatham. Mr Fotheringay fingered the bottle of poison in his pocket. A mixture of rum and milk was handed in to the passengers. No opportunity yet.
From Chatham the coach took that old Roman road, the old Watling Street, which ran as straight as an arrow. Both William and Deborah fell asleep, as did the other passengers, even Mr Fotheringay, who had become resigned to the idea of committing murder. Neither the Hannah Pym facing him nor her footman were as he remembered them was his last sleepy worry, and surely Benjamin, whom he had recently seen in the prize-ring, was older and taller? But he had checked at the booking-office to confirm they were on the coach. The Pym one had sandy hair poking out from below a hideous bonnet, just as he remembered, and Benjamin was in livery.
The Earl of Ashton awoke early, looked at the clock, yawned, turned over and went to sleep again. He had not had a long lie in bed in ages.
He awoke properly at ten in the morning and looked at the clock in amazement before ringing the bell and summoning his valet.
‘I hope my guests are not up and about,’ he said.
‘Only Miss Pym,’ said the valet. ‘The lady has gone for a walk about the grounds. I found this note on the floor earlier, my lord.’
The earl looked at it in surprise. It was in the shape of a cocked hat, the sort of note ladies usually send to gentlemen. He was used to being pursued and hoped Miss Conningham had not had the temerity to write to him.
‘Get my shaving water ready,’ he ordered. ‘And put that down. I will read it later.’
At last shaved and washed and dressed, he picked up the note and opened it. He read what Benjamin had written and then cursed loudly.
He ran down the stairs and into the hall, shouting for his horse.
To make sure, he rode all the way to Downs Abbey, feeling considerably cooler by the time he arrived. Lady Carsey’s thugs, if she had hired any, could not possibly mistake two golden-haired aristocrats, brother and sister, for Miss Pym and Benjamin. They would get a well-deserved fright, that was all. Nonetheless, he dismounted and walked into the hall and was soon questioning the old butler, Silvers.
Silvers inclined his head and said gravely that my lord and my lady had gone out fishing. ‘You have ridden hard, my lord,’ said Silvers. ‘Would you care to take some refreshment?’
The earl hesitated, but reminded himself that the coach was long gone and he had had no breakfast. ‘I would like some coffee, Silvers, and something to eat.’
‘Very good, my lord.’ The butler led the way to a morning-room on the ground floor and threw open the door.
‘We shall serve you breakfast directly, my lord.’
The earl sat down at the table. Then his eye fell on a large hamper standing against the wall. He got up and opened it. It was full of a mixture of clothes and wigs and grease-paint. He wondered whether the twins played charades of an evening. And what was such a thing doing in the breakfast-room?
The morning papers were brought in by a footman and handed to him. He opened one and then stared across it at the retreating footman, who was wearing a plain brown jacket and buff breeches.
‘Where is your livery?’ demanded the earl sharply, hoping that the servants were not taking their master’s absence as an excuse to slack off.
The footman looked at the floor. To the suddenly suspicious earl he seemed to be thinking hard. Then the footman’s eye fell on the hamper and his face cleared. ‘My lord and my lady were set on putting up a little play,’ he said. ‘It has a footman in it, so Lord William asked if he could borrow my livery.’
‘Oh, he did, did he?’ The earl threw down his newspaper and made for the door. ‘Tell Silvers I shall not be staying,’ he said over his shoulder. He must try to catch that coach!
5
I wish, sir, you would practise this without me. I can’t stay dying here all night.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
The Dover coach rumbled on, passing through Rainham, Moor Street, Newington and finally rolled into Sittingbourne, where the travellers were to breakfast.
The sleepy twins awoke to the fact that they were both feeling jaded and gritty, that no one had held up the coach, and the dawning realization that no one was likely to.
Sittingbourne was a depressing town. It had started to rain, a thin, greasy drizzle. Deborah and William had only ever visited posting-houses, and the best ones at that. They had never, before their supper at the Crown in Rochester, patronized any hostelry which catered to stage-coach passengers. But the fare at the Crown had been very good. The food at the Bear at Sittingbourne proved to be quite another matter.
The insiders sat at a round table, except William, who suddenly remembered he was a footman, and stood behind his sister’s chair.
‘My footman is exhausted after his efforts at the prize-fight,’ said Deborah. ‘You may join us at table, Benjamin.’
Mr Fotheringay made space for William, so that he was sitting between the twins.
He fingered the bottle of poison in his pocket. What kind of poison was it? He felt squeamish. He hoped they would die quietly. But how to administer it?
Coffee was served along with the greasy breakfast. Deborah toyed with her food and studied a vast painting hung opposite the table. It depicted a rural scene, but it was so badly executed, it was hard to distinguish whether the figures in it were dancing or assaulting on
e another.
Mr Fotheringay gently eased the stopper from the bottle in his pocket. ‘Look!’ he cried suddenly. ‘Is that not the Prince of Wales’s coach arriving?’
People rushed to the door. Others, like William, stood up and craned their necks. Deborah, uninterested in the Prince of Wales and still staring moodily at the picture and wishing she had not come, saw the table reflected in the glass and saw the huntsman deftly pour the contents of a little bottle into her coffee-cup and then William’s.
Her heart began to hammer. She did not believe this action had anything to do with Lady Carsey, but thought the huntsman, Mr Crank, was attempting to drug them. Of course. He thought William was Benjamin and was after the prize-money.
When the others returned, complaining there had been no coach of any kind arriving, Deborah suddenly cried out, ‘But there are the Runners.’
Now it was Mr Fotheringay’s turn to run to the door. Deborah quickly switched her coffee-cup for Mr Fotheringay’s. For a moment, Mr Fotheringay thought he would die of fright, for there was a man in a red waistcoat strutting about the yard, but he finally realized that, despite the red waistcoat, the man was not one of the famous Bow Street Runners, come to take him to justice.
He returned to the table shaking his head. ‘You are mistook, quite mistook,’ he drawled. He turned to Deborah. ‘But you do not drink your coffee?’
‘It looks like sludge,’ said William, who had been warned by Deborah. ‘You drink yours first, sir, and tell us if it is palatable.’
‘By all means.’ Mr Fotheringay picked up his cup and drank the contents. ‘Excellent,’ he said, although he thought it had tasted decidedly nasty.
Deborah was feeling almost ill with nerves. And then into the inn dining-room strode the Earl of Ashton.
‘I want to speak to you two – now,’ he commanded.
He had expected an altercation, but to his surprise both rose meekly and followed him out. ‘Have you gone mad?’ demanded the earl. ‘You could have been in danger.’
