1
At Lower Beighnham
“Do you suppose,” said Miss Dimity Parker dreamily, “that when I am in London a gentleman may fight a duel over my hand?”
“No,” said her cousin Egbert unencouragingly.
“No,” agreed her cousin Will unencouragingly.
“It would be difficult,” said her cousin Henrietta thoughtfully while Dimity was still only just beginning to achieve a pout: “for duels are generally fought between two gentlemen, I believe.”
Egbert and Will broke down in sniggers.
“That is NOT AMUSING, Henry Parker!” screamed Dimity.
Henrietta, known in the family as “Henry”, merely replied: “I thought it wasn’t bad, myself.”
Egbert and Will continued to snigger.
Dimity pouted. No-one took any notice of this—in fact Henry reburied herself in an old copy of the Morning Post and Egbert and Will ceased sniggering and began to roll about on the schoolroom floor in one of the friendly fights with which they beguiled most of their leisure hours: Egbert was fifteen and Will twelve. So after a few minutes Dimity said loudly: “I suppose next you will say I am not pretty enough to have a gen—two gentlemen fight a duel over my hand!”
Henry looked up from the Morning Post. “If that were the criterion, of course I should not.”
Egbert choked. Will hadn’t understood that word: he just looked blankly from the serene face of his older sister to his brother’s empurpled, choking one.
“However, I doubt very much if it is,” finished Henry on a blighting note, retiring into the paper once more.
“What is, then?” asked Egbert thoughtfully.
“The possession,” said Henry into the Morning Post, “of sufficient fortune to make the hand worth the having.”
“Well, I HAVE sufficient fortune!” screeched Dimity.
This was true. Her late papa had been a wealthy man: although himself merely a younger son of a genteel family of moderate means, he had amassed a considerable fortune, for he had married the only daughter of a wealthy merchant and subsequently gone into his father-in-law’s business. Dimity was the only offspring of the union: her mamma had died when she was born. It was but a year since her papa’s death: although she had duly gone into her blacks for him, Dimity, to say truth, had scarcely mourned him, for she had hardly set eyes on him in all her nineteen years. Her Uncle Simeon Parker, the incumbent of a small country parish, had brought her up with his own children. He and his wife were kindly people and had made no distinction between Dimity and their own girls. There had been little money to spend on the children’s education, true, but Mrs Parker herself had taught the little ones their letters, and Dimity, with Henry to keep her company as the cousin nearest in age to her, had been sent at the late Mr Parker’s expense to that most respectable of young ladies’ academies, Miss Blake’s school, near Brighton. If, therefore, Dimity had grown up into an empty-headed peacock, as her cousin Egbert had been known to maintain, or, Will’s claim, into a totty-head that could not add two and two and make it come out four, the blame could scarcely be laid at the Reverend and Mrs Parker’s door.
“Mm,” Henry now agreed into the Morning Post without interest.
“Mamma would say it was vulgar to mention the fact, however,” noted Egbert with considerable pleasure.
“Be silent, Egbert Parker: you are an unspeakable beast!” screamed his cousin, turning puce.
“It would therefore logically follow,” said Henry into the Morning Post, “that he should be silent: yes.”
Egbert, who had just been about to respond to his cousin’s gambit in kind, choked explosively instead.
“What?” cried Will aggrievedly.
Egg just went on choking.
“What’s the joke?” the boy cried plaintively.
“Nothing, they’re just being smart!” said Dimity furiously.
“Better than being totty-headed,” he noted.
Dimity opened her mouth to scream at him but Henry suddenly read aloud a paragraph from the Morning Post reporting a statement of the Duke of Wellington’s in the House of Lords. Her relatives goggled at her.
“I don’t doubt he was a great general, but politically the man must be an imbecile!” she said energetically.
There was a baffled silence. “Is there going to be another war?” asked Will hopefully at last.
“Imbecile!” retorted his big sister witheringly.
Egbert had silently wondered that, too, but now he agreed witheringly: “’Course not! By Jove, we have got Boney clapped up now for good and all: he won’t escape from St Helena in a hurry, I can tell you!”
“No. And possibly more to the point, Egg,” began Henry, “the republican movement in France—”
Grinning, Egg heaved a cushion at her.
Henry fielded it with the Morning Post and, having straightened out this journal with a terrific rustling and crackling, retired into it once more.
“In any event that thing must be months old,” noted Egg. “Isn’t it one of the papers that old Mr Whitmore sent over to Papa?”
“Mm,” agreed Henry.
“l wish there would be a war,” said Will glumly. “The Army is devilish flat in peace time, y’know: all the fellows say so.”
Will had lately joined Egbert at Rugby. Therefore Dimity replied on a pettish note: “I am sure all the horrid fellows at your horrid school do say so, but if I were you, William Parker, l should not let my Uncle Simeon or my Aunt Venetia hear you say it!”
Will stuck out his tongue at her.
“Mr Babbington swears like a trooper,” noted Henry detachedly into the Morning Post.
‘Mr Babbington is not Will’s papa, and in any case,” retorted Dimity crossly: “what has that to say to anything?”
Henry lowered the paper briefly. “Nothing. I suppose. Only that he is a clergyman, too.”
Mr Babbington adorned a neighbouring parish. He was what fairly could have been called a sporting parson and, though perhaps the breed had been more typical of the preceding century, the phenomenon was a still a common enough one in the year of grace 1818 for none of Henrietta Parker’s young relatives to react to her remark. Dimity in fact had rather hoped that that was what Henry had meant and on thinking it over had rather wished she had not insisted on the subject at all. Because the others might have seized upon it and—
And at that point Egg did seize upon it. He was very bored: his legs had lately become far too long for his old pony and Tim, the next brother to Will, had inherited it, and Papa could not afford to buy him a decent hack, let alone a decent hunter, and although Papa had said he might ride old Brownie whenever he himself did not need the horse, of course most of the time he did need him—and besides, Brownie would not jump anything higher than your knee. In fact, in the case of the height Egg’s own knee had lately attained, he would not jump anything as high. And today Papa did need him. So there was nothing for Egbert to do, on a cold, wet December day, but sulk in the schoolroom and pick fights with his cousin and his siblings.
“I expect, however, he’ll learn to restrain himself in your presence,” he said with a leer at his cousin.
“POOH!” shouted Dimity.
“Why should he?” asked Will blankly. “Dimity doesn’t care if he swears or not—do you?”
“Imbecile!” she said crossly.
Egg gave a coarse snigger. “I heard him tell her that her slightest wish was his command, and that he was her humblest of slaves!”
Henry lowered the Morning Post. “Even Mr Babbington cannot have said anything that imbecilic.”
“He did, too!” cried Dimity crossly, forgetting she didn’t in the least wish to encourage this topic of conversation.
“Why?” asked Will blankly.
“He wishes to marry her fortune,” replied his sister shortly.
Will choked. “He’s as old as the hills!”
“Yes, and he does not wish to marry my fortune at all: he said I had the face of an angel!” cried Dimity furious}y.
“That is probably true—with the caveat that none of us has seen an angel,” noted Henry. “But as he hasn’t wished to marry anyone at all for the last forty-five years, be she ever so angelically-faced, I think the suspicion must obtain, Dimity.”
Egg had a choking fit.
“Not forty-five,” objected Will, thinking it over carefully.
“He is at least that. In fact I dare say he may be as old as Papa,” returned Henry calmly.
“Yes, but he wouldn’t have wished to marry anyone until he was grown up, Henry!”
“That’s true,” she conceded, grinning. “Very well: for the last let us say twenty-five to thirty years.”
“In any case he is an ugly old pig and l do not wish to marry him, and l shall not!” cried Dimity, pouting very much.
“I wish you would,” said Henry with a sigh, “for if you don’t, I’m afraid there is always the horrid chance that he might offer for Alfreda, and she will feel it is her duty to accept him.”
This jolted even Dimity out of her normal self-absorption. “She couldn’t!” she gasped, while the boys looked at their sister in horror.
“Well. you know what she is. Duty,” said Henry, wrinkling her straight little nose.
“Oh, but she couldn’t, Henry! No-one could! He has all that curly black hair in his nose!”
This was undeniable.
“She doesn’t wish to be a burden to Papa and Mamma for the rest of her life,” explained Henry.
There was a short silence.
“Twenty-six isn’t very old,” ventured Dimity.
“Pooh, you said yourself only the other day Alfreda was on the shelf!” cried Egg crossly.
“Yes, you did, Dimity,” agreed Henry. “I thought perhaps she could be a governess, but she said that Papa had said he would not countenance any daughter of his being reduced to that drudgery.”
“No, indeed!” cried Dimity, shuddering.
“I should think not!” cried Egg, flushing up. “And if she is still not married by the time I grow up, she may come and live in my house, as Miss Hannaway lives in Sir Ferdinand’s!”
There was a short silence. Sir Ferdinand Hannaway was the great man of their little district. And Miss Hannaway might well be on the shelf but she was a very grand lady indeed. And reputed to rule her genial brother and her meek sister-in-law, not to say their offspring, with a rod of iron.
Finally Henry managed to say: “Um—yes, that’s very good of you, Egg, and I’m sure Alfreda would appreciate it.”
“Why could not horrid Sir Ferdinand have married her?” demanded Dimity aggrievedly.
Henry s jaw sagged slightly.
“In the first place, he’s old enough to be her father, and in the second place he married Lady Hannaway round about the time that Alfreda was five years old,” explained Egg clearly.
Will collapsed in a sniggering fit.
“Uh—yes; I don’t think she meant it to be taken, um, literally,” said Henry on a desperate note, seeing storm clouds gather on her golden-haired cousin’s angelic brow. “You meant it was an unkind move of Fate not to have awarded Alfreda Sir Ferdinand, did you not, Dimity?”
Dimity nodded eagerly. “Indeed: and also that is an unkind move of Fate to have made Roger Hannaway just a little boy!”
“He’s as old as me!” cried Will with great indignation.
Quickly Henry explained: “She means that Roger Hannaway isn’t old enough to marry Alfreda, cloth-head!”
“Oh,” he said feebly.
Dimity wrinkled the straight little nose which she shared with her cousin Henrietta. “Exactly: a little boy!” she said triumphantly.
Will was about to lodge an indignant protest but she added sadly: “And there is no-one else. –Henry!”
Henry had stealthily returned to the Morning Post. “Huh?”
“l said there is no-one else!” said Dimity loudly. “I wish you will come out of those silly old papers and talk, Henry!”
Henry sighed but came out of the paper. She agreed to her cousin’s proposition that there was no-one else in the neighbourhood that Alfreda might marry. She further agreed that Lower Beighnham was possibly the most boring neighbourhood in the whole of England—only slightly side-tracked by Egbert’s claim that Upper Beighnham was worse, humbug country. She further agreed that it was a great pity that the death of Dimity’s papa had prevented their both making their curtseys a year since, and that an outbreak of measles in the neighbourhood, Dimity herself having been one of the victims, had prevented their both making their curtseys a year before that, when they were but seventeen. She also agreed that by the time they eventually did get to London they would be positively haggish and ancient. Not pointing out to her cousin that if their mirrors were to be relied upon this metamorphosis was not imminent.
The Parkers were a remarkably handsome family. The Reverend Simeon Parker at fifty, with a head of silver curls, was a most striking figure. Venetia Parker, several years her husband’s junior, was a plump, pink-cheeked, pretty woman with a mass of fair curls just lightly frosted with silver. Even Egg and Will, though at the same time naturally being unspeakable beasts, were allowed by their cousin in her better moods to be passable as to looks. Henrietta was dark where Dimity was fair, but they both possessed heads of riotous curls and large blue eyes: Dimity’s being forget-me-not, while Henry’s tended more to the lapis lazuli, put-in-with-a-sooty-finger side. Alfreda, Egbert, Will and Tim also had these dark-haired, blue-eyed looks, but the oldest Parker brothers, Theo and Ludovic, and the two youngest members of the Reverend Parker’s family, little Lucy and Daniel, were all angelically fair like their Mamma.
It was not to be supposed that the Reverend Simeon Parker, with a numerous family to support, could have afforded to launch his second daughter into London Society, but he would not have to: the expense would be borne by his brother’s estate, the will having specifically ordained that this be done. There had, of course, been no need at all for the late Alfred Parker to have included Henrietta in this scheme, but he had been a generous and kindly man and had supposed that the two girls, having grown up together and attended school together, would not care to be separated. He had not known his daughter well enough to realize that any slight regrets she might have had for her cousin’s company would very soon have been swept away by the excitements of London; or Henry well enough to have realized that the whole idea of being launched upon the fashionable world was anathema to her.
Henry, indeed, had tried to give up her place to Alfreda, but her older sister had naturally refused the offer: for one thing she would not have dreamed of taking Henry’s treat, and for another, Uncle Alfred’s will had been most specific that it should be Henrietta. Henry was more or less resigned to her fate, having had the year the family had spent in their blacks to become accustomed to the idea. But that didn’t mean she looked forward to London with anything but a sinking feeling. The only consolation was that as she was not an heiress like Dimity, the gentlemen could be expected to ignore her.
Mrs Parker planned to take the girls up to London herself, but their introduction to polite society would be effected by one, Lady Tarlington, a distant cousin of the Parker brothers and Dimity’s godmother. Dimity could not recall ever having met her Ladyship, though on the occasions of her birthday and Christmas appropriate and not inexpensive presents would regularly arrive for her from that quarter. Lady Tarlington, it appeared, was much too fashionable to wish to grace their little rural backwater with her presence. And, as Henry had pointed out, this was only sensible of her: for where would she sleep if she did visit? Even if she and Dimity squished up there would scarce be room in their bed, and then, Katy-Ann Higgins also slept on that bed, and possibly Lady T. did not care for cats? And the Blue Boar, though doubtless an excellent supplier of ale and cider to the neighbourhood, was rather over-provisioned with shouting potboys and taproom customers and rather under-provisioned with draught-free, comfortable bedrooms of the sort that Lady T. was possibly used to. Though Henry made no doubt that Mr Higgins who ran it would welcome her with as much warmth as would the grandchild of his mother cat to their own humble accommodations. At the conclusion of his speech Dimity, having earlier told her not to talk nonsense, had been seen to be in helpless giggles, Miss Parker had had to blow her nose rather hard, the Reverend had had to leave the room on urgent business, and Mrs Parker herself had frankly mopped her streaming eyes.
Now Dimity chattered on about London and the delights to be expected of it and the dresses she planned to buy and—once again—the gentlemen who might be expected to fall for her face. Henry refrained from mentioning the fortune or fortune-hunters, though it was an effort. But her Papa had privily had words with her on this subject. He had agreed with her that Dimity was appallingly vain but had pointed out that when she got to London would be time enough for her to realize that it would not be her pretty face that would draw large numbers of impecunious swains to her train like bees to the honey-pot. And yes, he knew that the whole business would be dreadful, but he rather thought that Henry had better grin and bear it. Simeon Parker was not by any means a sporting parson, but he was a happy-natured man of a cheerful temperament. And besides, he privately thought that a Season in London would not do his second daughter any harm, and even if it did not do her the positive good that his spouse seemed to be expecting, at least it might serve to polish off a few of those rough edges! He was a sensible man as well as a kindly one, so he did not voice these thoughts to Henry herself: she would not, of course, have believed him for a minute. Henry had groaned but agreed that she’d try to grin and bear it.
So Dimity chattered and peered at her reflection in the spotted, greenish mirror above the schoolroom mantelpiece and Henry gritted her teeth, and tried to, if not grin, at least respond with appropriate noises, and bear it.
“What?” she said with a start.
“You’re not listening! I said it will be so much better than the dreary little assemblies at Upper Beighnham!”
“Oh! Yes, of course it will.”
Dimity began to go on about Almack’s. Possibly the Prince Regent was in there, too. Henry managed with an effort not to inform her that the Prince Regent was old and fat and venal. She began to think about the cockfight that Ludo and Egg intended going to this evening. Behind their father’s back: Mr Parker did not approve of cocking. She wouldn’t have a hope if it was Theo, of course, but Ludo was pretty spineless. And Egg wouldn’t care, he was on her side, he thought girls led pretty boring, stupid sorts of existences. It was a pity he’d got so tall, but if she rolled up the legs of a pair of his breeches...
“A cockfight?” said Wilfred Rowbotham in alarm. “No, I say, old man, you can’t be serious!”
“Don’t he care for rural pursuits, Aden?” asked Captain Lord Rupert Narrowmine with a laugh.
His second cousin Aden Tarlington was leaning back in an armchair smoking a cigar. He blew out a long stream of smoke and drawled: “It ain’t that he don’t care for cocking as such, it’s more that he’s too damned mean to risk dropping his blunt on a rural bird that’ll inevitably turn out to be half-blind or halt or both.”
The two other men both laughed and the amiable Mr Rowbotham added with a grin: “Aye, and that’s matched with something as bad but that’s been squeezed into the bargain!”
“No sporting instincts,” complained Mr Tarlington. “Dammit, Wilf, can’t you see that that makes it better? More of a gamble!”
“Makes it entirely a gamble!” agreed Captain Lord Rupert with a yelp of laughter.
“Well, I am on if you are, dear lads—in any case there is naught else to do in this damned hole,” Mr Rowbotham conceded with a sigh: “but did you manage to get out of the buffer where it is to be held, Aden?”
Aden was gazing dreamily at the inn’s cracked, dark ceiling. “Mm? Oh: here, old fellow. They have a room behind the taproom, I am informed.”
Lord Rupert poured himself the last of the mulled ale that stood on the hearth of the stuffy little parlour that was all the accommodation the Blue Boar could offer genteel customers—such not generally coming in its way. “You had best provide yourself with a vinaigrette, in that case, Wilf, for it will be a crowd of smelly rural yokels, y’know: we don’t want your delicate urban stomach to be overset.”
“No, and by the looks of it, you two don’t want it even to be fortified!” he retorted hotly as the last of the ale disappeared down the gallant Captain’s gullet.
“For God’s sake, Wilf, ring for some more, if you wish for some,” sighed Mr Tarlington.
Mr Rowbotham gave him a somewhat uncertain glance but duly rang the bell.
“So are you game, Aden?” pursued his cousin.
“Well, there is naught else to do, is there? As Wilf has so percipiently pointed out,” he noted.
Glaring, Mr Rowbotham retorted: “It ain’t my damned outfit that’s broke a trace! –I said we should have come down by curricle,” he told Aden’s cousin, “but this fellow would insist on travellin’ in a coach like a damned dowager! Dare say he will be inspectin’ the bedlinen next in the case it may be damp,” he added awfully.
The Captain’s wide shoulders shook but he said mildly: “Rubbish, Wilf, only an idiot would travel all this way in worsening weather in a curricle. –Especially with one of his teams poled up,” he added darkly, with a glance at his cousin.
Aden Tarlington closed his eyes and sighed,
“Er—in any case,” said Mr Rowbotham, rallying, “like I say, it ain’t my fault we’re stuck in this damned hole waiting for the trace to be repaired! –Where the Devil are we, anyway?”
“Er... No idea,” replied the coach’s owner, closing his eyes apparently definitively.
Looking cross, Wilfred came closer to the fire. He had to step over Aden’s long legs, which were occupying most of the hearthrug, but he did this, and warmed his coattails at the blaze.
“Um... Lower Something,” ventured Captain Lord Rupert.
“Beighnham,” said Aden with his eyes closed, and in a very bored voice.
“I’ve never heard of the damned place!” said Mr Rowbotham loudly.
“Nor have I, actually.” admitted Captain Lord Rupert, glancing warily at his cousin. “You sure we ain’t lost, old fellow?”
No response.
“Aden!” said his cousin loudly. “Are—we—lost?”
Aden drew on his cigar. “Not lost, no: we know where we are, Rupert, dear old chap: we’re at Lower Beighnham,” he murmured.
“WHAT?” shouted the gallant Captain, turning purple.
“We have certainly lost our way, however, if that is what you mean,” he murmured.
“By God, Aden, you’d try the patience of a saint!” shouted his cousin.
“I think I might have heard of an Upper Beighnham,” said Mr Rowbotham helpfully.
Aden’s shoulders shook infinitesimally.
The gallant Captain was about to shout at the pair of them, but thought better of it. “Well, dammit, how far off our route are we?” he demanded.
“No idea. All we like sheep have gone astray,” said Aden dreamily.
“Gone astray?” cried Mr Rowbotham crossly. “You is gone astray, all right! –And where is the damned buffer?” he added by the by.
“The bell’s probably broken,” noted Captain Lord Rupert on a sour note. “Aden! How far off our route are we?”
“Well, according to the locals, we do need to head for Upper Beighnham,” he admitted. “And then the route is more or less direct to Acton Underwood.”
There was a blank silence.
Finally Lord Rupert said: “Never heard of it.”
“Is it near Amory’s?” demanded Mr Rowbotham in a steely voice.
“Er...”
“Aden!” he shouted.
Aden’s shoulders shook infinitesimally but he said: “Near is a somewhat relative term. I believe it’s a mere thirty miles or so from his place. At all events Amory mentioned it as a landmark to watch out for.”
“Oh. –Thought you’d been there before, Rupert?” said Mr Rowbotham crossly.
At one time Captain Lord Rupert and Captain Sir Noël Amory had adorned the same regiment. Sir Noël had sold out a couple of years back. During those years Captain Lord Rupert had had more than time to reflect that old Noël had had the right idea: the Army was dashed flat in peace time. All spit and polish and parades. Well, being with the Occupation forces in Europe had not been all dull, but it was no sort of life, when all was said and done, for a serving officer!
“I have, and I ain’t never heard of this Acton place!” he retorted huffily. “And I tell you what, dear old lads: if that mother of poor old Noël’s is in residence, we is in a for a merry time of it!”
“Where else would she be?” said Mr Rowbotham in confusion.
“Might be staying with one of the married sisters,” explained Lord Rupert, “and let’s hope she is!”
“If she’s that bad, why did you accept the invitation?” drawled his cousin.
“Same reason as you did: because the alternative was being shut up in that damned barracks of your father’s with your ma naggin’ us to play charades and do the pretty to a parcel of horse-faced dowds and never letting a fellow out for a decent day’s hunting!” he retorted swiftly.
Aden pitched the stub of his cigarillo into the fire. “Graphic, if not elegant,” he murmured.
“Well, dammit, Aden, you was as eager to slope off as I was!”
At this point Mr Rowbotham broke down in a sniggering fit.
Lord Rupert glared at him but Aden Tarlington merely rose languidly and, strolling over to the door, opened it, to yell: “LANDLORD!” at the top of his lungs.
Then he returned to his chair and stretched his legs out again.
After a certain period of silence had elapsed Mr Rowbotham said on an uncertain note: “So we is agreed, old lads: we eat here and stay on for the cocking?”
“I won’t say that we have no alternative,” replied Aden dreamily, “but I will say that to try to make it to Acton Underwood tonight in worsening weather would be the height of folly.”
“Well, dammit,” spluttered the Captain: “how far is it to the dump?”
“We don’t know for sure it’s a dump, Rupert,” murmured his cousin. “My informant tells me— Here he is, you may ask him yourself;” he finished placidly, as the landlord came in, panting and beaming.
With a quick glare at his maddening relation, Lord Rupert said: “Landlord, how far is it to Acton Underwood?”
“Ah! Well, now, sir,” he said, scratching his grizzled head, “it do be a fair drive, like, and as I was telling this gentleman here,”—he sketched a bow to Mr Tarlington, who ignored it—“it wouldn’t be that advisable to try for it tonight, not with the weather closing in, like. I dessay it be a drive of forty mile, sir, thereabouts.”
“Forty—!” choked Captain Lord Rupert.
“Aye, well, seems as how you gentlemen have come quite a fair bit out of your way. Like, if you was meanin’ to head off to Acton Underwood from Burleigh Halt, your best plan would ’a’ been to—’
“Don’t tell us,” sighed Mr Tarlington. “Mr Rowbotham, here, desires further refreshment.”
The landlord’s eye brightened. “Ah! Now, what’ll it be, gents?”
Mr Rowbotham ordered more mulled ale. He made enquiries, though not wholly in a spirit of optimism, as to what would be available for their dinners, and was told that Mrs ’Iggins, she was a-doing a brace of capons on the spit as they spoke, and there was besides a pig’s cheek, and if the gents was partial to game, Mrs ’Iggins had a fine jugged hare as was only a-waiting— Mr Rowbotham enquired how long it had been waiting and, Mr Higgins returning an answer which appeared satisfactory, graciously allowed that they would try the hare. The landlord exited, bowing and beaming, assuring the gents that the ale would be along in a trice.
“I suppose a decent brandy would be too much to hope for,” noted Captain Lord Rupert in his absence.
“Far too much. We’re far too far inland,” replied his cousin.
“Hah, hah,” he said morosely.
Mr Rowbotham began to tell him that it was not a joke, and of the excellent French brandies he had had in small towns near the Channel, but Mr Tarlington ruthlessly interrupted his flow, to point out that, referring to Mr Rowbotham’s last remark but eighteen, it did look as if they were fixed here for the evening, yes. The Blue Boar at Lower Beighnham did not provide cushions in its one small private parlour, so there was nothing to hand that Mr Rowbotham could hurl at his maddening friend’s head, but after a short search along the mantel he hurled a handful of spills at him instead.
An onlooker might have supposed, from the conversation and demeanour of the three, that they were three very young gentlemen, but in fact this was not so. Though they were far from elderly none of them would ever see twenty-five again and Mr Tarlington, indeed, would shortly be able to say that he that he would never see thirty-five again. A certain air of irresponsibility which characterized the trio was due not so much to their ages as the fact that they were all three bachelors and accustomed to lead a pretty carefree life. At least, Captain Lord Rupert had only the cares of his rank, when he was on duty, and Mr Rowbotham virtually none, being, though a younger son, a gentleman of comfortable means.
Aden Tarlington, however, had considerable responsibilities, if not the official ones of a head of a family, for his father was still living. But Sir Gerald Tarlington’s temperament and inclinations had not led him to bother himself very much with the brood he had fathered and his attitude towards the ancestral acres was more nearly concerned with how much he could wring out of them than with their preservation for future generations of his line. And, indeed, over the preceding thirty-odd years he had done his best to gamble away all of the property that was not entailed. Lady Tarlington was wont to lament that poor Gerry had no luck at cards or dice: his sons maintained bitterly that the problem was rather that he had neither card sense nor any of the common variety.
It had not originally been supposed that Aden would succeed to the family property, for he was the second son. His older brother, Vernon Tarlington, had somewhat against his father’s wishes chosen an Army career, but when Aden had followed him into the Service Sir Gerald had raised no objection. Lady Tarlington had wept but that had surprized no-one. Contrary to his mamma’s expectations Aden had never even been wounded during his time with Wellington in the Peninsula. He had, however, learned rather more about discipline and responsibility than he might had he stayed at home like his friend Wilfred Rowbotham. Five years since, however, when he had unexpectedly inherited a singularly large fortune from an elderly distant cousin of his father’s, he had sold out with the rank of Major and returned home.
What he had found came as an unpleasant shock to him. Sir Gerald had applied to him, quite cheerfully, for a loan. Aden had replied that he had thought he had best settle all his papa’s debts and requested a statement of them. Of course he was aware of his father’s gambling, but he had had no idea that Sir Gerald had sold off so much of the property: there would be nothing left for the younger ones. And in fact, if the more pressing bills were not paid at once, Sir Gerald could speedily expect to adorn the Fleet Prison. Aden, both shocked and furious, read his father the sort of lecture with which he had been accustomed to favour the sillier and more reckless of the young officers in his charge. Sir Gerald had first attempted bluster, then knuckled under—with a few mournful references to damned bad luck and the cards never seeming to run his way which had done nothing to placate his wrathful son. After some consultation with Major Vernon Tarlington, who was as happy-go-lucky as their papa but fortunately not addicted to gambling, it had been agreed that the financial wellbeing of the family should be put into the hands of Aden and Sir Gerald’s man of business together—the latter almost weeping on Mr Tarlington’s shoulder with relief, for he had feared that the second son might be as feckless as Sir Gerald and his heir.
Aden had duly paid his father’s debts but warned him that further gambling debts would not be paid by him. When Sir Gerald had ignored this prohibition Aden had taken the drastic and, in terms of the social conventions by which his circle lived, unheard-of step of sending the genial baronet’s chief cronies, most notable amongst whom was His Royal Highness the Duke of York, written notification that in future Sir Gerald’s gambling debts would not be paid by the family. Anyone possessed of a less handsome fortune would immediately have placed himself beyond the pale of polite society by this action, but though people whispered and some of the more old-fashioned gentlemen who frequented White’s Club declared the fellow should be blackballed, Aden Tarlington, the possessor of forty thousand pounds a year, was not ostracized.
Aden put both his parents on fixed allowances—a considerable humiliation for Lady Tarlington, who had been accustomed to order what she liked from dressmakers and milliners without thinking of how it might be paid for. Or if it might be paid for. He did not go so far as to write to his mamma’s creditors informing them that future demands for payment would not be met: after Sir Gerry’s affair he had merely to threaten to.
Aden at this period had been thirty; his next two sisters were married. His third sister had already contracted an eligible engagement but there was still the next brother to her, Edmund, and the next two sisters, Marianne and Felicity, plus three little brothers who should have been at school. Edmund was up at the university and keen to take Holy Orders. Aden acquiesced thankfully in this plan, though it was not the sort of life he himself could have supported with equanimity. But Edmund had always been the quiet, studious one of the family. Marianne at eighteen should really have been brought out that Season: Aden saw to it she was launched the next, and with the dowry he had settled on all the unmarried girls, she speedily formed an eligible connexion. That left Felicity, still in the schoolroom, and Ferdy, Hilliard, and Paul, all of whom were running wild at home. Aden having seen his old headmaster, not a pleasant interview, and paid all of the family’s outstanding school fees, the boys were duly dispatched to school. Lady Tarlington would have been happy for Felicity to stay at home with a governess but Aden did not consider that the home environment of a gentleman who might be carried off to the Fleet at any moment was particularly suited to a young girl; so she was sent to Miss Blake’s excellent academy, situate in a quiet country village not far from Brighton. With the added advantage of being only a relatively short drive from Guillyford Place, the family home.
Then Vernon was killed at Waterloo. Everyone was very much shocked, but his parents in particular took it very badly. Sir Gerry had a stroke: not a very serious one: it left him with some stiffness in his left side and a slight twist in the facial muscles; nevertheless it was enough to turn the cheery baronet into a confirmed invalid. Oddly, still relatively cheerful, but the former preoccupation with gambling gave way almost entirely to a preoccupation with such matters as diet and draughts. This was not, as far as the rest of the family was concerned, so very bad. Lady Tarlington, however, was for a while completely overset by the death of the eldest son. Her reaction had known three stages. In the first, which lasted several months, she had extended bouts of weeping, spent mostly in her bed. The second stage comprised a sudden and complete aversion to Vernon’s wife, an inoffensive young woman, and her three little daughters, all as inoffensive as their mamma: the fault was in their not being sons, apparently—at least, that was all the sense her family ever managed to get out of her. During the second stage the weeping fits gradually abated, to her relatives’ relief. The third stage consisted of a determination, which could only be described as virulent, to marry Aden off to a suitable, nay, to a suitable and extremely eligible young woman. Not to a specific young woman, no, but to any suitable candidate.
It was now three years since Waterloo, and Aden had shown no signs of wishing to be married off, however highly suitable and immensely eligible the candidates presented for his inspection, but time had served only to strengthen Lady Tarlington in her resolve.
True, in the past Aden had consented to become engaged: at the age of twenty-five, a suitable age, he had contracted at his mother’s instigation an engagement with a suitable-seeming young woman from an approved family. She had had only a modest dowry but as he was a younger son with, at the time, apparently no expectations, this was no more than might have been expected. They had been engaged for some months and were on the point of fixing the wedding date when Miss Drusilla Tenby’s papa died, and the family had gone into mourning for a year. During that year Aden had been posted overseas. A week before he was due back on furlough the suitable Miss Tenby eloped with a scoundrelly rascal of an Irish cousin whom her idiotish mamma had encouraged to haunt the house after Mr Tenby’s death. It could not have been said that Aden was overset by this development: he had liked Miss Tenby, who was, if stupid, an exceedingly pretty brunette, all pink cheeks and dimples, well enough. But during the period of the engagement his early enthusiasm had definitely waned and he had had time to repent of having been so weak as to give in to his mother. But even though he did not regret Miss Tenby herself all that much her jilting of him was a horrid shock, and a considerable wound to his pride. It was fair to say that the experience, coupled with certain other experiences of the fair sex in the Peninsula with which, perhaps understandably, he did not regale his mother, had soured him with regard to women.
Inheriting old Cousin Jeremiah Aden’s fortune more or less finished him off in that regard. Once he had emerged from the morass of the family debts sufficiently to look around him, he found himself, from having been an impecunious serving officer of the sort that hostesses invited only to make up their tables, suddenly metamorphosed into the catch of the Season: the prey of all the match-making mammas of the fashionable world. Young ladies after his fortune, however pretty they might be, did not appeal: after five years of it Aden had developed the reputation of a heartless flirt. Débutantes were regularly warned away from him, now. It was true that in certain cases this served only to spur the young ladies on, but their efforts were in vain. Aden’s was not a Romantick personality but he had decided he would not marry where he could not give his heart. And as it was impossible to conceive of bestowing one’s heart upon a lady who was interested merely in one’s fortune, he did not envisage marriage as a real possibility.
The which did not, of course, prevent Lady Tarlington’s hatching endless plots. It was just a matter of finding someone suitable—with the right family background, of course! And pretty—of course she must be pretty: Tarlingtons—coy laugh—had always insisted their women be good-looking!
With the responsibilities, if not yet the title, of head of the family Aden fulfilled his obligations dutifully and conscientiously but it could not have been said he did so with enjoyment. A certain air of grim disillusionment hung about his tall figure and his utterances were customarily somewhat jaundiced in tone. His cousin Rupert and his old friend Wilf Rowbotham were both used to him and fond of him—and, indeed, appreciated the genuine worth of his character; and thus were ready to overlook his manner. Other members of the Upper Ten Thousand were not so ready: Aden was received very nearly everywhere, thanks to old Cousin Jeremiah’s fortune; but it could not have been said he was popular with his world. On the other hand, he did not desire to be.
The cocking proved to be exceeding rural, as Mr Rowbotham had feared, the room behind the taproom being everything that the three gentlemen had expected. However, the capons and the jugged hare having proven excellent, the friends were in a much better humour and enjoyed the entertainment well enough. Though at the end of it Mr Rowbotham was apparently set to maintain forever and a day that the grey had been squeezed—in especial as its prowess had won three guineas off him for a trio of scruffy young lads who, judging by their accents, must be some sort of local gentry.
“Inside knowledge, mark my words,” he said darkly as the crowd dispersed and the gentlemen retired to the stuffy little parlour for a last drink before bed—for the hour was now considerably advanced.
Aden had sat down before the hearth. “Naturally,” he agreed smoothly, stretching out his legs. “Just give a shout for the buffer, will you, old man?”
Mr Rowbotham duly stuck his head out into the passage and bellowed: “LANDLORD!”
“You was not bein’ forced to take that bet from those three lads, Wilf,” noted Captain Lord Rupert, also sitting down. –Mr Tarlington here gave a strange little smile which his friends did not remark.
“Well, no, but it was damned unfair, y’know. Dare say the whole countryside knows the fat fellow’s grey is the champion, hereabouts!” said Wilfred aggrievedly.
“I dare say that they do!” gasped the Captain, going into a paroxysm.
Mr Rowbotham glared, but did not respond. When the friends were sipping hot rum punch, however, he returned to the subject. “And what’s more, it’s Lombard Street to a china orange those three lads did not have so much as a crown between ’em to bet with, let alone three guineas!”
“Exactly! Should’ve asked to see the colour of their money, Wilf!” gasped Lord Rupert.
“Quite,” agreed Mr Tarlington, again with that strange little smile.
“Dare say the whole room knew damned well what they was up to, and that my bird would not stand a chance against that dashed grey,” he grumbled.
“Yes!” yelped Lord Rupert helplessly.
“Look, it ain’t funny! I was done, dammit! Done by three lads!”
“Yes!” gasped Lord Rupert.
“Yes,” agreed Aden, stretching: “and what makes it even worse, old fellow, is that they were not three lads.”
“Eh?” said Mr Rowbotham.
“What?” said Captain Lord Rupert. “Now, look, Aden, if you was thinkin’ anything along the lines of—uh— Well, in the first place any gudgeon that takes a bet like that on a bird he don’t know deserves to be choused out of his guineas, and in the second place the eldest of those lads can’t have been a day above seventeen! And y’don’t call a fellow out over a dashed cockfight, y’know!”
“Antiquated notions, these Army men have,” he murmured, while Mr Rowbotham’s jaw was still sagging at the idea he might call anyone at all out over anything. “l agree that the eldest—Ludo, I think they called him—cannot have been a day over seventeen. I maintain, however,” he said, getting up with a yawn, “that they were not three lads. I’m for bed. And I give you fair warning, Wilf,” he said with a lurking twinkle in his hard grey eyes, “that any attempt to call Rupert, here, out over his kicking you in the night will not be met with sympathy!”
Mr Rowbotham grinned and grimaced and said: “Might have guessed that.” –They had drawn straws for the privilege of sleeping alone in the second of the two tiny, stuffy bedrooms boasted by the Blue Boar. Mr Tarlington had won.
“Yes, but what are you talking about, Aden?” cried Lord Rupert as his cousin prepared to depart.
Mr Tarlington sighed. “The youngest of that unholy trio was not a boy. –And may well be in for a beating when she arrives home,” he added thoughtfully. “Well, I’d beat her if she was mine!” he ended with a sudden grin, going out. “’Night.”
“Eh?” said Mr Rowbotham.
“What?” said Captain Lord Rupert.
They stared at each other.
After a few moments, Lord Rupert, who had gone rather red, said: “Dash it, can’t have been! What l mean is, girls don’t attend cockfights!”
Mr Rowbotham shook his head. “Think he’s right, actually. Wasn’t payin’ that much attention, meself—but dare say he may be right. Usually is about the distaff side, y’know. –Well, told you that that Nancy Whatserface was a wrong un and you’d do better to stick to the little dancer, didn’t—”
“Shut it, Wilf!” shouted the gallant Captain, very red.
“—didn’t he?” finished Mr Rowbotham placidly.
After a moment Aden’s cousin said sulkily: “Very well, he did, and he was right. So what?”
“Uh—nothing, I suppose.” Mr Rowbotham yawned, and rose. “I’m for bed. –And mark my words: if you do kick me in the night, you’ll find yourself on the floor!”
“I’d like to see you try!” choked Lord Rupert as Wilfred went out, grinning, feeling for once he’d had the last word.
Rupert drained the remains of his cooled punch and stood up slowly. He frowned. Had it been a girl? Oh, well: Aden was no doubt right, he always was, damn his eyes! Only, a fellow felt a bit of a fool, not having noticed! The gallant Captain shook his head, made a rueful grimace, and went off to bed, promptly forgetting all about the lad who wasn’t a lad.
Mr Rowbotham had already forgotten; and Aden, though he had been rather more intrigued by the incident than he had let his naïve friends perceive, would also have forgotten about it, had it not been for the encounter of the following day.
“l shall ride,” said Captain Lord Rupert on a note of optimism, looking at a leaden sky.
Mr Rowbotham shivered a little and hugged himself into his fur-lined roquelaure. “On what the Blue Boar can produce? Well, it’ll be a change to see you ridin’ a greasy pig!”
“Witty, Wilf,” he noted. “No, that nag I had from the last stage will be rested, I’ll take him on.”
“Rupert, you said he was a bone-shaker!” objected Wilfred.
“Aye, but the alternative’s bein’ shut up in his coach listenin’ to him tell you what a rotten hand you is at chess!” he grinned.
This was a pretty accurate summation of the situation, yes. Mr Rowbotham grimaced and admitted as much.
“Ride, too,” suggested the Captain.
“Not on a greasy pig, I thank you!”
“Uh—no. –Tell you what, I would pretend I was asleep!”
“Masterly tactic, Rupert. Wonder Wellington did not resign command to you at Waterloo,” he noted.
The gallant one glared. He had thought it pretty cunning, actually. “Where the Devil is Aden?” he said grumpily.
“Stables, I expect. Always likes to see the horses for himself.”
Lord Rupert sighed. “Aye.” After a moment he admitted: “Well, he was a damned good officer, I’ll say that for him. Always looked to the men and the horses—you know. Pity he sold out, really. Though his mother was pleased.”
“Mm. And it would not have done, after all,” said Mr Rowbotham in a low voice, “with poor dear old Vernon being killed at Waterloo.”
“No,” he said with a sigh. “Tragic business, that. Harpingdon was sayin’ just the other day what a decent fellow he was.” Viscount Harpingdon was Lord Rupert’s older brother; Wilfred Rowbotham nodded silently. “Never had Aden’s head on him, of course, I’m not saying that,” continued the late Vernon Tarlington’s second cousin glumly, “only—well, a dashed good fellow, y’know?”
“Yes,” said Mr Rowbotham, touching his shoulder fleetingly.
Lord Rupert sighed. “Thinking of selling out meself!” he revealed abruptly.
“Eh?”
“Well, dammit, the Occupation was nothing but parades and inspections and doing the pretty to the French ladies! –Well, no, you may say, not all bad,” he said quickly, though Mr Rowbotham had not said anything, “but it ain’t soldiering!”
“No... I suppose you could transfer, old man. Might get yourself sent out to India, eh?”
“Thought of that. Sounds a dashed hot, filthy hole.”
Mr Rowbotham hesitated: he knew Aden’s cousin fairly well, but they were not really on intimate terms, and besides, he didn’t wish to seem to be giving advice. Then he said: “Er—well, y’know, if you is moped in a peace-time army, old fellow, you might not find civilian life that entertainin’, either. Uh—well, town can be dashed flat.”
“Harpy was thinking I might take over Harpingdon Manor,” he said wistfully.
Mr Rowbotham gulped.
“Aye, Papa would be mad as fire,” he said, reading his mind with no difficulty whatsoever.
“Yes,” said Mr Rowbotham faintly. The Earl of Blefford’s personality was a distinctly choleric one at the best of times.
“I dare say I might wangle an attachment as an attaché,” said Lord Rupert after a moment, as a groom led their equipage round from the stables.
“Yes, but dear fellow, if you didn’t fancy the Continent under the Occupation, surely that sort of life would be even flatter for you?” he gasped.
“What sort of life?” asked Mr Tarlington, appearing from the direction of the stables.
“That of an attaché,” Mr Rowbotham explained.
“It was only an idea,” said Lord Rupert hurriedly.
Mr Tarlington eyed him a trifle sardonically but not unkindly. “You would hate it, Rupert, it’s all doing the pretty to fat dames and foreigners.”—Mr Rowbotham here had to cough.—“You will just have to bite on the bullet and face up to your papa. I dare say Harpy won’t mind holding your hand.”
Uninsulted, Lord Rupert merely returned mournfully: “No, but you know Papa never listens to a thing Harpy says to him, either.”
This was true.
“Do it anyway. Does not the Manor property go with Harpy’s title?” said Mr Tarlington brutally.
“No! I mean, it does, but— Well, I ain’t sure of the legal position,” he admitted, “but we could not do that, Aden!”
“Old Blefford would never let ’em hear the last of it, an they did,” explained Mr Rowbotham.
Harpingdon Manor was pretty obscure, down on the south coast, on the border of Cornwall and Devon, and to Mr Tarlington’s knowledge the Earl had never so much as set foot on the property. He merely shrugged, however, and said: “Well, get in, Wilf.”
“Did they look after the horses to your satisfaction?” he replied on a sardonic note.
“Well enough; at least they have heard of the word ‘oat’, which is more than can be said for that last dump we stopped at.”
“He means,” said Lord Rupert, heading for his horse, “the one where they gave us the directions that set us on the wrong route!” He mounted hurriedly, grinning.
Mr Rowbotham climbed into the coach, also grinning.
“Yes, that’s the one,” agreed Mr Tarlington calmly, following him.
A groom was at the leaders’ heads; Mr Tarlington’s own postilion came up to the door of the coach respectfully: “Sir, we may expect to reach Acton Underwood this evening, the landlord tells me.”
“That is certainly what I gathered, yes, Finch.”
“But there ain’t nowhere to change the horses, sir, so—”
“Aye: put ’em along not too fast but steady, then, Finch, there’s a good fellow.”
“Yes, sir,” said the man, bowing slightly. He put the steps up, closed the door of the coach, mounted, and they set off.
They were well on the way to Upper Beighnham, Mr Rowbotham had refused with feeling Mr Tarlington’s offer of a game of chess on his little travelling set, and Mr Tarlington had pulled a book from the pocket of his many-caped greatcoat and was buried in it, when there was the sound of a shot, a startled shout from Finch, and a sickening scream.
The coach jolted to a halt and Mr Rowbotham opened his eyes with a start. “What—? By Christ, Aden, what—?” he gasped, as Mr Tarlington, who appeared quite composed, drew a pistol from his pocket.
“One of the horses has been shot. Stay here, and don’t poke your head out,” he said calmly. He lowered the left-hand window of the coach as he spoke and himself looked out cautiously, pistol well to the fore.
“Footpads?” croaked Mr Rowbotham.
“Very possibly... FINCH! TOMKINS!” he bellowed.
“It came from them woods, sir!” came the postilion’s voice in reply.
The woods were to their right. “Get over to this side, Wilf, and keep down,” said Mr Tarlington. He himself clambered over to the right-hand side of the coach and, letting that window down, peered out cautiously.
Captain Lord Rupert on his horse appeared at the left-hand window. “Two of ’em, so far, Aden. One of the wheelers is down. I’ll cover this side.”
“I can’t see— Ah,” said Mr Tarlington, levelling the pistol. Two shabbily clad figures on hairy nags had emerged from the little wood.
“Aden, old boy, for God’s sake don’t shoot anyone,” said Mr Rowbotham, very faint.
Mr Tarlington ignored him. He continued to aim steadily at the horsemen.
“Drop your weapons!” came a shout from the rear of the coach.
Mr Rowbotham jumped and gasped.
“It’s only Tomkins, you fool: he’s up behind,” said his friend tersely. “I can see two...”
“And is they dropping their weapons?” he said faintly.
“Yes,” said Mr Tarlington, opening the right-hand door and jumping out before his horrified friend could so much as gasp.
“I’ve got ’em covered, sir,” said his groom grimly, as he walked slowly forward, pistol levelled.
“Good. Am I in your line of fire, Tomkins?”
“No; you’re right, sir.”
Mr Tarlington had come up with the wheelers. One of them was down: the other was tangled in the traces, but not, he was glad to see, panicking. Finch was controlling the leaders, he saw with a quick glance, and did not have a hand free for a pistol. On the far side of the coach, Captain Lord Rupert had his back to the team and was covering the fairly open ground to the left.
“Sir, I think he’s bad!” panted Finch over his shoulder.
“Had it,” said Captain Lord Rupert without turning his head.
“Aye.” A pink froth was to be seen at the poor brute’s mouth: without more ado Mr Tarlington put his pistol to the creature’s head and pulled the trigger.
Abruptly the smaller of the figures on the hairy nags burst into tears.
Mr Tarlington walked away from the scene of carnage and, ignoring his postilion’s gasped warning to keep clear, they varmints might have a trick or two up their sleeves, went up to the two riders. He grasped the pony’s bridle strongly and said to its sobbing rider: “What the Devil do you imagine you are doing, playing at highway robbery?”
“I wasn’t! It was an accident! I never meant to shoot your poor horse!”
The taller figure was also almost in tears. “No, she did not, sir,” he said faintly.
Aden had recognized, not quite at once but certainly by the time he put the wounded horse out of his misery, two of the three “lads” who had been present at the cocking the previous evening. Now he said grimly to the girl: “What did you mean, then?”
Henry gulped, and went very red. She had brought off the trip to the cockfight so well that she had become vainglorious, and, since Papa and Mamma with Alfreda and Theo had driven out early in the vicarage’s carriage to Upper Beighnham, where Mrs Parker had purchases to make and a few calls to pay, she had suborned Egg into taking Brownie and the larger of the two ponies out on a rabbit-shooting expedition. With Theo’s shot-gun.
“Well?” the man said grimly, glaring at her.
She sniffed hard and said: “Me and Egg had a fight over the shot-gun, sir, and—and—it went off.” She bit her lip. “Um—well, it was all my fault, because I tried to take it off him,” she admitted.
“Get down,” he said.
“What?” she replied faintly.
“Get DOWN!” he shouted.
Miserably Henry dismounted.
“Sir—” began Egbert desperately.
“Hold your tongue, you stupid little idiot. I’ll deal with you in minute.” He grasped Henry’s shoulder and steered her over to the edge of the road where a large boulder was conveniently placed for his purpose. “Come here,” he said, seating himself on the boulder.
Henry looked at him in bewilderment.
Captain Lord Rupert glanced cautiously over his shoulder. “Is they not footpads, Aden?”
“No. A pair of stupid young fools, is all. Chuck me your crop, old man.”
A grin spread across the Captain’s square, amiable face: he threw Aden his riding crop.
Mr Tarlington caught it neatly. “Over my knee,” he said grimly to Henry. “Tomkins, you may put the pistol away!” he called, seeing the groom, though looking bewildered, still had it levelled at the boy. “It is only a pair of stupid children playing tricks. Go and help Lord Rupert free the wheeler.”
Obediently Tomkins, though looking doubtful, got down and went to help free the second wheeler, which was now distinctly restive.
“Over my KNEE!” said Mr Tarlington loudly
Scarlet-faced, Henrietta laid herself over the man’s knees. Without more ado he raised the skirts of her shabby riding coat and belted her until she was sobbing.
“There! And may that be a lesson to you not to fool with loaded guns!” he said breathlessly at last.
She stood up, biting her lip. Her hat had fallen off, and it was all too obvious to the onlookers that she was no lad.
Egbert, now leading the pony, had edged his mount down towards them as the gentleman spanked his sister. He eyed him uncertainly.
“Take the nags,” the man said to Henry. “It’s his turn, now.”
She nodded, sniffing and gulping, and took the bridles.
Egg got down, looking scared but defiant.
Aden could now see that the boy was little more than a child, in spite of his height. He did not, however, abate his grim manner. “How old are you?” he demanded.
“Fifteen, sir,” gulped Egg. “And—and my papa will reimburse you for the horse, sir!”
“How?” asked Henry.
“Be quiet; haven’t you done enough for one day?” he hissed, turning even redder than he had already been.
“Yes; I think in fact none of us desires to hear another word out of you,” agreed Aden blightingly.
Henry gave him a look of loathing, but was silent. As soon as she thought his attention was off her she gave a rending sniff and wiped her coat-sleeve across her eyes.
Not betraying that he was perfectly well aware of her every move, Aden said to the boy: “Whose idea was this expedition”
Egbert gulped. “Sir, I take all the blame!”
“I see: hers,” he returned calmly. “I thought as much. Well, you have behaved like a blithering young idiot, have you not?”
“Yes, sir. And it’s Theo’s gun, I’m not supposed to touch it,” he admitted glumly.
Mr Tarlington’s long mouth twitched slightly but he said only: “Mm. Well, can you think of any reason why l should not administer a sound beating to you?”
“No, sir,” admitted Egg.
“YES!” shouted Henry furiously. “Because it was my fault, not his!”
“Be silent, unless you want another dose,” returned Aden coldly. “And allow me to make it clear to you: your beating was for having dreamed up this expedition and suborned your brother to join you, and for having caused a defenceless animal unnecessary suffering;”—Henry went scarlet again—“whilst the beating your brother is about to receive is for not having been man enough to stand up to you and stop you in your tracks.”
Suddenly Mr Rowbotham’s head poked out from the coach window and he said loudly: “Amen!”
Aden swallowed a grin. “Should you care to administer it, then, Wilf?” he said solemnly.
“Lord, no: your horse, your honour, y’know.”
Henry hadn’t realized there was another gentleman in the coach: she had jumped. She looked at him angrily. Mr Rowbotham stared back interestedly.
Mr Tarlington then administered the promised beating to Egg. Egbert was pretty well used to this sort of chastisement but he recognized ruefully that the man had a damned hard hand. He got ten strokes and was aware he could count himself lucky. He stood up, grimacing, and silently wondering whether he’d beaten Henry as hard.
“I suggest you clear off home,” said Aden. “And get her out of her breeches.”
“Yes, sir!” he gulped. “Sir, my papa is the Vicar of Lower Beighnham, and I assure you he will of course reimburse you—”
“No, that is not necessary.”
Mr Rowbotham had got down from the coach. “Aden can afford any number of nags, y’know,” he said informatively to the boy. “My God!” he added involuntarily as he then perceived the carnage on the road. He backed off hurriedly
“Mm. A pretty sight,” noted Aden drily.
Mr Rowbotham produced a large silk handkerchief from the depths of his person and put it over his face. He goggled at Aden over the handkerchief.
“Horse blood. Distinctive smell,” noted Captain Lord Rupert mildly. “The other nags don’t like it, of course,” he added. “Takes a while to get ’em accustomed to it in battle, y’know.”
“Yes,” said Mr Rowbotham faintly through the handkerchief.
“She got him in the lung, I would say,” said the Captain dispassionately. “Don’t see that bright froth from any other sort of—”
Mr Rowbotham turned abruptly away and was very sick on the verge.
“—wound,” finished the Captain uncertainly.
Mr Tarlington had now perceived that Finch was also looking very green; but before he could move the girl, thrusting the reins of the two hairy beasts into her brother’s hands, went up to the man and took the leaders’ bridles, saying: “Get off, if you are going to be sick.”
Gulping, Finch hurled himself off and hurried over to the other side of the road to cast up his accounts.
Tomkins shook his head slowly. “They ain’t used to it, Captain, sir,” he said to Captain Lord Rupert.
Tomkins had been Aden’s batman in the Peninsula: Lord Rupert smiled at him. “No, well, takes a while, does it not?”
Egbert was now also very green: Mr Tarlington hurriedly took the nags’ reins out of his hands, saying resignedly: “Go on.”
“No, I—” Gulping, he dashed for the side of the road.
Aden was now quite near to the girl, who was holding the leaders with the utmost placidity; he moved a little closer and said to her sardonically: “I collect scenes such as these are common in your everyday life, ma’am?”
“No. But I have an iron stomach,” said Henry calmly, looking at him with dislike.
“I see,” he murmured, lips twitching.
“It is hardly to my credit, for l am in no wise responsible for it.”
He looked at her with some interest. “Quite. –I suppose it would be hoping too much that you might have some smelling-salts about your person?”
“Much too much,” replied Henry indifferently.
He smiled a little. “Then we shall just have to let them suffer.”
“Yes. –What shall we do about the horse?” she asked abruptly.
“Practically, or are you addressing the moral dilemma of whether or not to apprise your papa of the business, ma’am?”
Henry glared. “Practically, of course!”
“Er... Well, is there a knacker in the precincts of Lower Beighnham?”
“Oh, yes,” recalled Henry in some relief. “Mr Higgins.”
“What, the landlord of that unspeakable tavern?”
“No, his brother. I’ll tell him. But he will probably require payment to come all this way,” she noted glumly.
“In that case you may pay him out of your share of that three guineas you and your brothers choused out of my unfortunate friend,” he noted calmly.
Henry smiled faintly but said on a mournful note: “Well, I shall. Only I was going to spend it all on books.”
“Books?” he echoed, a trifle startled.
“Yes. We do not have very many in the house. Well, Papa has many volumes of sermons, and a lot of Greek and Latin books. But Mamma and Alfreda and I are partial to novels. Only we cannot afford to indulge the taste.”
“Just novels?” he murmured.
“I am quite fond of poetry, too,” said Henry with a sigh, “but Mamma and Alfreda do not care for it so much. So I thought I would purchase some volumes that all three of us might enjoy. And it there was any left over I thought l might buy Daniel a little wheeled horse. We saw one in a shop in Upper Beighnham, but I had only five shillings for Christmas presents for the whole family, so I couldn’t buy it.”
“I see,” he murmured.
Henry suddenly recollected she was addressing an enemy. She went very red and fell silent.
Aden Tarlington was conscious of a strong desire to know her age. He did not, however, enquire, and as her brother seemed to be recovered, sent the pair of them on their way. Finch and Tomkins thought they could manage to get the remaining three horses poled up, so he told them to get on with it.
“But we can’t leave the corpse on the side of the road!” croaked Mr Rowbotham, when it was evident his friend proposed proceeding.
“We can scarcely take it with us. And I for one do not propose waiting until that harum-scarum girl bethinks her of the knacker.”
“Uh—no-o...”
“Come on, Wilf, dashed chilly hangin’ about here!” urged the gallant Captain.
“Er—well...” Weakly Mr Rowbotham clambered back into the coach.
Mr Tarlington calmly produced his book and began to read again.
After quite some time Mr Rowbotham managed to say faintly: “S pose it was all in the day’s work for you.”
“Mm? Oh. Well, more or less, I’m afraid, old fellow, yes.”
Mr Rowbotham glared at him.
“Oh: I forgot,” said Mr Tarlington, producing a small flask from a pocket in the door of the coach. “Here.”
“Forgot!” he gasped, falling upon it.
“It may make you sicker.”
“It will do no such thing!” Mr Rowbotham downed a draught, shuddering. “Want some?”
“No.” Mr Tarlington let the window down. He stuck his head out and said loudly: “Rupert!”
Rupert came over to him.
“Brandy,” he said, handing out the flask. “Have some if you wish, and let Finch and Tomkins finish it.”
“Why did you not produce this before?” said the Captain feebly, taking it.
“He forgot he had it,” said Mr Rowbotham sourly.
“Typical!” he said, grinning. He downed a good draught and rode forward to hand it to Tomkins, who was now on the lone wheeler. “How is the stomach, Wilf?” he asked kindly, falling back alongside.
Glaring, Mr Rowbotham ordered his friend to put the window up.
Mr Tarlington obeyed, but murmured: “He was not teasing.”
Mr Rowbotham merely sniffed, and hunched into his roquelaure.
On reflection, Henry decided they had best not confess to Papa. It would certainly ease their consciences, she agreed, glaring at her brother, but what good could it do? Egg merely stuttered. It would only result, continued Henry, in Papa’s becoming very upset. Egbert pointed out it would also result in Papa’s punishing them as they deserved, or had she overlooked that small point? Henry decided they had best punish themselves: it would achieve the desired result without upsetting poor Papa. Egbert was a bit doubtful about the morality of this decision. He thought perhaps they should confess to Theo instead. After some cogitation Henry agreed: Theo could decide on their punishments. There was no fear that he would not do so: he was a serious-minded young man, in Holy Orders like his father. On the other hand Henry was pretty sure she could persuade him to see sense about not telling Papa.
And so it proved. Mr Theo Parker decided the culprits had best be forbidden any riding or shooting for the rest of the holidays—Egg’s face fell, he had been looking forward to being officially allowed to use Theo’s gun—and... In the spirit of making the punishment fit the crime Theo decreed that Egg and Henry should get up very early every morning until Egg had to return to school and muck out the stables and groom the horses and ponies. Old Nettleton was getting on, he would be glad of the lie-in in the mornings. And young Billy would be just as glad, he dared say. Henry had been afraid of a very much worse punishment, such as being made to sew a sampler or some such stuff—of which she was quite incapable. She accepted Theo’s dictum with some relief.
So that was what they did. No-one in the household noticed: Theo had been pretty sure they wouldn’t. And if the whole story, thanks to Mr Higgins the knacker, very soon got spread around the village of Lower Beighnham, at least it never came to the Vicar’s ears. For his parishioners were almost as fond of him as were his children, and just as concerned not to upset him needlessly.
On the other hand, it was very difficult indeed to explain the sudden appearance by hand delivery of a large and exciting parcel addressed to ‘‘Master Daniel, The Vicarage, Lower Beighnham,” which when opened proved to contain a wheeled toy horse. And, indeed, both Henry and Egg writhed with anguish over the matter for some time, as their innocent relatives continued to wonder and exclaim over it. This had not in any wise been Mr Tarlington’s intention when he had dispatched the gift, but it must be admitted that he would not have been at all displeased to know of it.
Very naturally Mr Wilfred Rowbotham and Captain Lord Rupert Narrowmine did not neglect to make a damned good story out of the episode, with which they regaled both Sir Noël Amory, when they arrived at their destination and, later, many other friends and relatives on whom it was their custom to inflict themselves during the winter months. Mr Tarlington had initially contemplated for a fleeting moment or so the possibility of shutting the two fools up on the subject—but then, after all they didn’t know the girl’s name, and it was in the highest degree unlikely that any of them would ever cross her path again—so he didn’t bother.
This remissness, as it would turn out, was to have unexpected repercussions, some of which would be distinctly unfortunate.
https://theogilvieconnection.blogspot.com/2022/09/miss-blakes-mistake.html