Deborah Goes to Dover (8 page)

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 last 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

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 one 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.’

‘We wanted an adventure,’ said Deborah in a little voice. She had no intention of telling the earl about the huntsman and that mysterious bottle, but the reflection had been dim and now she was sure her strung-up nerves had been making her imagine things.

‘I think the best thing both of you can do,’ snapped the earl, ‘is go and sit in the inn and I will cancel your tickets, hire a chaise, and take you both home.’

‘Very good,’ said William meekly.

The earl stared at them in surprise, not expecting acquiescence.

William and Deborah, with heads bowed, went back to the inn dining-room.

‘Where is the huntsman?’ asked Deborah.

‘Gone out to the necessary house,’ said the large woman. ‘Feeling poorly.’

‘Back in a minute,’ muttered William. He ran out of the back of the inn and into the garden where the necessary house, or privy, stood at the end. From it came the terrible noise of retching.

He wrenched open the door. Mr Fotheringay was kneeling in front of the wooden seat, making himself sick. William waited until the next spasm had passed and said coolly, ‘That’ll teach you to try to drug us, you villain.’

Mr Fotheringay turned a sweating, green face up to him. The poison had been an overdose of chloral, but he had managed to get rid of most of it. ‘I knew what
you’d done,’ he whispered, ‘when I began to get dizzy.’ William was standing with his slouch hat in his hand, his guinea gold curls gleaming faintly in the gloom. ‘You’re not Benjamin,’ cried Mr Fotheringay.

‘No,’ said William, ‘and my sister ain’t Miss Pym either.’

‘Don’t tell her I’ve failed,’ begged Mr Fotheringay.

The light dawned. ‘Lady Carsey?’ asked William.

He nodded.

‘I should turn you over to the nearest magistrate,’ pointed out William.

Mr Fotheringay rallied slightly. ‘What good would that do? I would swear you was fantasizing and I’d simply been taken ill. No proof.’

William stood for a long moment. Mr Fotheringay was desperately ill again.

‘Who are you?’ demanded William.

‘Mind your own business.’

William seized him by his neckcloth and jerked him upright, thrust a hand into his pocket and pulled out some letters, all addressed to Mr Fotheringay.

‘So now I know who you are,’ said William fiercely. ‘I don’t want any scandal.’ He thought quickly. This Fotheringay must have got rid of the bottle of poison somewhere. There was, as he had said, no proof. It would come out in court that he, William, and his sister had been travelling on the stage because they thought Miss Pym and her footman were going to be attacked by Lady Carsey’s henchmen. It would all sound mad. It would get in the newspapers and Clarissa would read about it.

He let go of Mr Fotheringay, who slumped to the earthen floor. William bent down and said fiercely, ‘Do not come near Miss Pym again. If I see you anywhere in her vicinity, I will kill you. Understood?’

Mr Fotheringay nodded weakly.

William stalked off and Mr Fotheringay remained where he was on the floor of the privy and began to cry. After a while, he heard someone calling, ‘Mr Crank. Coach leaving.’ He remembered his
pseudonym,
struggled out and said to the landlord’s wife, who was looking for him, ‘I am feeling too poorly to continue my journey. I need a room and a bed.’

Soon he was safely tucked up in bed in an inn bedchamber with a hot brick at his feet. He was beginning to feel quite light-hearted. It was not the first time he had narrowly escaped death. The half-world of criminals and seedy young men he usually inhabited was full of violence.

And why should his aunt, Lady Carsey, know he had failed? If that horrible young man and his sister told her anything, then it was too bad, but he intended to keep away from her anyway. But if they did not, and she believed him to have committed the deed, then she might send him the money. He rang for pen, ink and paper and wrote her a letter saying he had successfully done what she had commanded and would she forward the money she had promised to the Bear Inn in Sittingbourne. He sealed it, handed it to a waiter and told him to put it on the next up mail coach.

Meanwhile, Deborah and William were being driven back toward Rochester by the Earl of Ashton
in a comfortable post-chaise. Deborah was feeling very low. She wondered what had happened to the mysterious Mr Crank, but could not say anything in front of the earl.

The earl, for his part, had received such a humble apology from William that he was feeling indulgent towards the pair of them. They were little more than children, he reflected. He thought uneasily of the violent feelings he had experienced when he had kissed Lady Deborah, but then gave a mental shrug and decided he had been celibate too long. He talked to them lightly, but rather like an uncle. Deborah felt very depressed and removed her ugly bonnet and took off her wig and ran her fingers through her thick blonde curls, one of the first feminine gestures William had ever seen her make.

At Downs Abbey, the earl refused to enter the house, saying he must return home and see how his guests were faring. ‘And I had better go and see Langford,’ he added, ‘and warn him about Lady Carsey. She should not be allowed to remain under his roof.’

He ruffled Deborah’s curls just as if she were a child and smiled in a kindly way. ‘You are a dreadful scamp,’ he said with a grin, ‘and the sooner your father is home to take care of you, the easier I shall feel.’

The twins waited until he had left and went indoors. William seized Deborah’s arm and dragged her into the morning-room. ‘What happened?’ demanded Deborah.

William told her while Deborah’s eyes widened in alarm. ‘I could have killed him, William, and how could I ever have lived with that?’

‘Well, you didn’t,’ said William crossly. ‘But you see, Deb, I couldn’t make a scandal and what proof do we have?’ He did not know Mr Fotheringay was Lady Carsey’s nephew, assuming from Mr
Fotheringay’s
dreadful dress that he was some thug she had hired. ‘He seemed more frightened of Lady Carsey than the law and swore he would simply say he had been taken unwell. And what guys we would look! And what would Clarissa think if she saw it in the newspapers?’

‘A pox on Clarissa!’ shouted the overwrought Deborah.

‘Watch your trap,’ snapped William. Deborah turned her face away to hide the sudden rush of tears. When had she and William ever quarrelled before?

‘Hey, Deb!’ cried William suddenly. ‘I have a plan.’

She turned to face him, glad the brief row was over.

‘What plan?’

‘This Lady Carsey is at Langford’s. He’ll send her packing, but she’ll probably be there tonight. You remember Langford’s place and how the cook used to spoil us, you know, that door at the side where we’d creep in and find our way down to the kitchens?’

‘Yes, what of it?’

‘We’ll go over tonight and
haunt
her, you as Miss Pym and me as Benjamin. Woo! Hoooo! Wooo!’ cried William, waving his arms and jumping up and down.

But somewhere on the road back from
Sittingbourne,
under the earl’s tolerant, avuncular eye, Lady Deborah had left the last remnant of her childhood behind.

She sat down wearily. ‘Don’t be tiresome, William. It’s a stupid idea.’

‘It’s a first-rate idea,’ raged William. ‘I’ll go myself, if you’ve turned coward.’

‘I have not turned coward,’ said Deborah hotly. ‘But what if it goes wrong and Ashton learns of it? He’ll write to the embassy in Turkey and tell Papa to come home.’

‘How would he find out about it? What has happened to you, Deb? You used to be
fun
.’

‘Oh, I’ll go, I’ll go,’ said Deborah, terrified of losing her beloved brother’s affection.

‘Good, that’s more like you,’ said William with satisfaction. ‘Why should that horrible, horrible woman come out of this without even a fright?’

The Earl of Ashton was aware of a difference in his home as soon as he walked into the hall. A fire was burning brightly in the huge hall fireplace, for the day had turned chilly, although he could not, now he came to think of it, remember having seen a
welcoming
fire in the hall before. Then, on a side-table, was an exquisite arrangement of flowers.

Hannah Pym had taken over. He did not yet know that, only that the great mansion seemed less drab and dingy than usual.

He changed out of his riding-clothes and went
down to the drawing-room. Again, there were flowers everywhere and the pleasant scent of wax candles. Hannah was reading, Mrs Conningham was sewing, Abigail was playing the piano, and the captain was standing beside her, turning the pages.

‘I am sorry I had to leave you,’ said the earl, sitting down on a chair next to Hannah. ‘That wretched pair, Lord William and Lady Deborah, went off in the coach, masquerading as you and your footman. It was Sittingbourne before I caught up with them and brought them back.’

‘How could they do such a thing?’ demanded Hannah, very cross that Lady Deborah should
continue
to behave like a tomboy. For a short while it had looked to Hannah’s matchmaking eye as if there might be a chance that the earl would become romantically interested in Lady Deborah.

‘They are little more than children,’ said the earl with an indulgent laugh. ‘Now I must leave you again, Miss Pym, for I feel it my duty to ride over and tell Langford about Lady Carsey. He should not have such a creature under his roof.’