Meridon (Wideacre Trilogy 3) (53 page)

‘We’ll settle up tomorrow,’ the captain said, watching his every move.

‘I’m in no hurry,’ Will lied. He stepped towards the door, his eyes on me. The waiter came and draped my cape around my shoulders. I picked up my hat which I had tossed off during the game, ran my hands through my curls and crammed it on.

‘A grand evening!’ I said. ‘I thank you both.’

I stepped towards the door. I was as loath to turn my back on those two as I would take my eyes off a snake. I felt utterly sure that once I could not see them they could spring on me.

I took two steps towards the doorway, Will was through the door, starting to descend the stair, I was in the doorway, I was through. I went down each stair one at a time, making myself go slow, forcing myself to walk cautiously, as a drunk walks.

‘Thank you, good fellow,’ Will said as the porter fumbled with the bolts of the door. He was hesitating as if they would hold us. Hold us at the bolted door while they rushed us. I risked a quick glance behind me. Redfern and Thomas were at the top of the stairs looking down at us. I felt my throat tighten in panic.

‘Good-night!’ Will called. His voice was assured. I did not trust myself to speak, I waved a casual hand and hoped to God that my face was not too white. The last bolt slid free, the porter swung open the door, the grey light of dawn and the clean cold smell of a spring morning flooded in upon us.

We stepped out, arm in arm, into the silent streets.

The sun was not yet up, it was that pearly pale time of the morning when it is half-way between dark and dawn. I glanced at Will; his face was lined as if he had aged ten years. I knew my own face was bleached with the strain, my eyes dark-shadowed.

‘Are we clear?’ he asked me, his voice very low.

‘I think so,’ I said.

It was a hopeful lie and we both knew it. We did not think so.

‘Walk slowly,’ he said softly. ‘If they’re going to get us it’ll be before we get out into the main street.’

We strolled, five steady paces, away from the doorway of the club. Then there was a shout from behind us:

‘Hey! Hey! Michael! You’ve forgotten your cane! Come back!’

‘Run!’ Will said and grabbed my hand.

As soon as we had taken our first strides I heard them shout behind us, confused instructions to head us off. We hurtled around the corner into Curzon Street. The road was absolutely deserted, the place empty and silent.

‘Damn!’ Will said.

‘This way!’ I said quickly and led him down the street, running close to the wall of the buildings, hoping to be hidden by the shadows.

From the mews behind us we heard their boots on the cobbles, the noise of them stopping and then a loud voice yell, ‘They went that way! That way!’ and I knew we had been spotted.

I led Will across the road at the run and dived up Queen Street. I glanced behind me. There were five of them, a little slower than us and we had a good lead. But Captain Thomas was gaining a little, he looked fit. Already my breath was coming in gasps and I could feel my knees starting to go weak.

We ran without speaking up the length of Queen Street, they were about a hundred yards behind us. I could not believe there were no lighted doorways, no carriages, no late parties, not even a neutral witness. There was no one. Will and I were on our own against five villains and the deeds to Wideacre in Will’s pocket.

At the corner I did not hesitate even for a second. I was running without a thought in my head except to get away from them. Now I dived over the road and up John Street hoping to be into the shadows before they came to the crossroads and saw us.

We nearly made it, but we heard Thomas shout, ‘Stop! Listen for them!’ and then the triumph in his yell. ‘They’re going that way! After them!’

The road was narrow and the clatter of boots on cobbles
behind us seemed to get louder and louder. My cape was twisted around my legs, hampering me like hobbles on a horse, I could feel myself slowing. Only fear was moving me on now; and I was not going fast enough.

‘Which way?’ Will gasped.

My mind reeled. I had been heading for home, instinctively threading my way through the fashionable streets and the dark secret mews streets behind them. But I knew I could not keep up this pace. They would be upon us, and in any case I would lose my way in this warren of new gracious squares and back lanes.

‘The park!’ I said. I thought of the cool trees and the dark hollows where we might hide. I thought of the icy grass shining under the pale light of early morning. It was as like to country as we would get in London and I had a great longing for earth under my feet. Both Will and I were country children, we needed to be home.

We swung left down Farm Street and I could see the high trees of the park, it seemed like miles away at the end of the street.

‘Down there,’ I said. I was running even more slowly, my throat was tight and my chest heaving. ‘You run, Will, you’ve got the deeds. Get them away. Get away with them.’

He shot me a swift sideways look, his teeth gleaming in the half-light. The idiot was smiling.

‘We’ll make it,’ he said. ‘Keep running.’

I was so angry with him not understanding that I could not keep running, I was finished, that my anger gave me a spurt of energy which bore me up. Also, I was afraid. That made me faster than our pursuers. Behind us were men, angry and greedy for my land, but they were not scared as I was. I had run from men too many times in my life not to feel my heart race when I heard boots on cobblestones behind me. My heart was thudding in my chest, and my breath was hoarse, like in my illness, but I could still run and run and run.

We burst across the road. There were one or two carriages in the distance, but no one close enough, and anyway, the hue and
cry was after us. If we called for help we might find ourselves before a magistrate, and I had a law-breaker’s terror of the justices.

‘Those trees…’ Will gasped. He was near the end of his strength too, he was wet with sweat, his face shiny in the pale light. He headed towards a little coppice of beeches and silver birches. They were stark in the pale shadows, their bare branches thin threads of blackness against the lighter sky. But they would give us some shelter.

I shot a look behind me. They were hard on our heels, crossing the road even now. They would see us go into the coppice, we would not have time to hide. They would cast about and catch us.

‘You go on!’ I said peremptorily. ‘I’ll hold them up! For God’s sake, Will!’

He turned roughly on me as soon as we were hidden from sight.

‘Drop your breeches,’ he ordered. I gaped at him and he dragged my cloak from my neck and bundled it under a bush of blackberry.

‘Drop your damned breeches!’ he whispered harshly. ‘You pass as my doxy!’

Then I understood. I ripped the boots off my feet and tore the breeches off. My cravat went the same way, and I stood before Will in my night-shirt. Without hesitation he took a handful of the material at the neckline and ripped it so that it dropped down to my bubbies, showing my milk-white neck and shoulder, the rounded curve of my breast and the rosy nipple.

Behind us, at the edge of the coppice we heard Thomas’ voice, and Redfern shouting:

‘Look up to the trees, check the boughs!’

Will flung himself upon me and bore me down to the ground.

‘Open your legs for God’s sake, Sarah,’ he said impatiently, and rolled himself over so that he was lying on me. I felt him fumble at his breeches and I felt my white face burn red as he pulled them down so he was bare-arsed.

‘Will!’ I said in whispered protest.

He had a moment to rear up and look at me, his face was brimful with mischief. ‘Stupid little cow,’ he said lovingly, then he dipped his head into my naked neck and started thrusting at me with his hips.

‘Holloa!’ came the yell behind him, Captain Thomas skidded to a halt and his bully-boys craned over his shoulder. Will kept his head down, I risked a peep over his shoulder. They were staring at me and at my bare splayed legs. I ducked my head down into Will’s warm jacket and inwardly cursed them and every damned man on the whoreson earth. I hated Will, and Captain Thomas, and Wideacre with every inch of my frigid angry body.

‘Did ye see a couple of gentlemen, run through here?’ Thomas rapped out.

Will let out a great bellow of rage, or it would have passed for frustrated lust. ‘What the devil d’you think I’m doing, keeping watch?’ he hollered. ‘O’course I didn’t. What does it look to you that I’m doing? Go your ways, damn you. I’ve paid for twenty minutes and twenty minutes I’ll have!’

They hesitated, two of them fell back.

‘They went that way…’ I said. My voice was silky, slurred. I gestured with an outflung hand and they saw my naked shoulder and the line of my throat, gleaming in the pale light.

Captain Thomas bowed to me, ironically. ‘I am much obliged to you ma’am,’ he said. ‘And I apologize for disturbing you, sir.’ We heard him take two steps. ‘It seems the lady is less attentive than the man,’ he said and the men laughed. Then his voice changed. ‘Is that them? Boarding that coach? Dammit! After them!’

We heard the noise of them crashing through the undergrowth and their yells to the coachman. We froze, as still as leverets in bracken, while we listened to the coach pull away, and them chasing after it, yelling to attract the guard’s attention. Then it was quiet. They had gone.

Will Tyacke lay on top of me, his face buried in my neck, breathing in the smell of my sweat, his face rubbing against my skin, his hardness pushing insistently through my rumpled shift
at the deep inner core of me where I could feel I was as soaking wet as any loving strumpet behind a hay stack.

‘It’s all right, Will,’ I said, my voice warm with laughter. ‘You can stop pretending. They’re gone.’

He checked himself with a shudder but the face he raised to look at me was alive with love.

‘My God, I love you,’ he said simply. ‘It would be well worth being hanged for card-sharping to rip your nightgown open and lie between your legs – even for a moment.’

I stretched in a movement as languorous and sensual as a cat. I felt as if blood had never flowed in my veins before this moment. I felt warm all over, I felt alive all over. My skin, the inside of my wrists, the soles of my feet, the warm palms of my hands, the tingling tip of my tongue, every tiny fraction of me glowed like gold. And deep deep between my legs I felt a pulse beating as if I had never been alive there before, as if Will was a plough to turn the earth and make it fertile, and that suddenly my body was no longer wasteland; but rich fertile ploughland, hungry for seed.

‘Not now,’ I said unwillingly. ‘They’ll be back when they’ve stopped the coach. They’re not stupid.’

Will leaped up. ‘No!’ he said. ‘Here! Your clothes!’

He reached into the blackberry bush, stamping his feet and cursing in a whisper when the briers scratched him. Then he turned his back in incongruous chivalry while I got dressed. I crammed my hat on my head, and wrapped my cloak around me.

‘Home to Wideacre,’ Will said decisively.

‘I’ve got to fetch Sea,’ I said.

Will checked, looked at me to see if I was jesting.

‘We cannot!’ he said. ‘We cannot risk retracing our steps, going back the way we’ve come. We should strike across the park now, go west, double back later.’

‘I want Sea,’ I said stubbornly. ‘Sea will get us home. And you’ll want your horse.’

‘They’d send them on…’ Will started.

‘Not they,’ I said certainly. ‘I’m finished with the Haverings for all time. They’ll not send on as much as a pocket handkerchief of mine. I’m getting my horse out of their stables before they know their pigeon’s flown the coop.’

Will hesitated, looked from my resolute face to the streets of the city which were getting noisy and busy as the sun rose.

‘I’m not going without Sea,’ I said.

‘Oh very well,’ he said sullenly, and we strode out of the coppice shoulder to shoulder without a spark of passion or even affection between us. Cross as cats.

We saw a hackney coach going down Park Lane and we hailed it and bundled in. Will counted his silver in the pale light through the window to see if he would have enough to meet the fare without flashing his gold guineas around. He was always as cautious as a yeoman, Will Tyacke.

I leaned back against the dirty squabs of the coach and sighed. ‘How much have you got?’ I asked.

Will pulled out his gold coin by coin and carefully counted. ‘Ninety-eight guineas,’ he said. ‘You lost all your stake, didn’t you?’

‘Aye,’ I said smiling at him under my half-closed eyelids. ‘I like to play like a gentleman.’

‘You play like a cheat,’ he said instantly. Then he cocked his head. ‘What was that?’

I dropped the window and we listened.

There were shouts from behind us, I heard a voice say: ‘Hey coachman! Wait!’

Will’s face was white. ‘They turned,’ he said. ‘What now?’

‘We outpace them!’ I said.

Before he had a chance to protest I grabbed his handful of guineas and stuffed them in my pockets. I went head-first out of the coach window clutching the door frame and up on to the box beside the driver like a street urchin.

‘What?’ he said. He was already pulling up his horse in obedience to the shouts from behind.

‘Go on!’ I yelled.

He gawped at me.

I put a fistful of guineas in his hands. ‘Card-sharpers,’ I shouted over their noise. ‘They don’t like losing. And they’re blown. Keep this old nag going and there are twenty guineas for you at the end of the ride!’

He glanced quickly behind. Only the captain and a couple of men had kept up. They would not catch us if the damned nag between the shafts could go faster than a knock-kneed stumble.

‘Faster!’ I said.

The man broke into a wide broken-toothed grin. ‘Twenty guineas?’ he asked.

‘Thirty!’ I said.

He flashed his whip over the horse’s back and the creature, startled, broke into a shambling canter. Will, sticking his head out of the window, could see we were drawing away from the gamblers.

‘Howay!’ he yelled.

I laughed aloud.

Then I looked to the front.

Some damned hay-wagon was blocking our way. It had turned on its side and there were half a dozen men scurrying around trying to right it, a couple of idle milkmaids pausing to watch, and four or five link boys.

The hackney could edge around the wagon if the people would give us space but they were all over the road. I looked back. Captain Thomas was red in the face but he saw we were stuck. I saw him smile.

‘Stop thief!’ he yelled, damn his strong lungs.

I thrust my hand deep in my pocket.

‘Let me pass, lads!’ I yelled. ‘Look here!’

With a great broadcast sweep I flung the coins in my pocket – guineas, silver, coppers – wide into the sky. The urchins and the milkmaids dived to the ground out of our path. The men righting the hay cart looked blankly at me and then chased after the rolling coins.

‘Drive on!’ I ordered. Another handful of coins as we got through and, as from nowhere, beggars and street-walkers and urchins and thieves were all out of their doorways and lodgings falling over each other in their haste to chase the money.

‘Sarah!’ Will exclaimed, anguished.

I laughed. ‘Look!’ I said pointing back.

Captain Thomas had pushed someone in his haste to get
through the crowd and the man had pushed back. What had been a little scramble was now a promising street-fight. The man had punched Thomas roughly in the shoulder and had hold of his coat collar and would not let him pass. I danced up and down on the box waving farewell and holloaing.

‘Goodbye, pigeon-plucker!’ I yelled in triumph. ‘Goodbye, curtal! Goodbye, you glim-glibber! You poxy tatsman! You hog in armour!’

The hackney whirled around the corner and threw me off balance. I fell down to the seat and grinned at the driver.

‘Drop us at the corner of the mews behind Davies Street,’ I said, and he nodded and drove where I ordered.

‘A fine night you’ve been having,’ he observed.

I stretched luxuriously, thinking of the deeds safe, and Will safe, and me safe away from the Haverings and the Quality life at last.

‘A fine night,’ I agreed.

The coach drew up at the corner and Will tumbled out. He shook his head at me. ‘Good God, Sarah!’ he said. ‘That was near all the money I had!’

‘I promised the driver thirty guineas if he got us away,’ I said. ‘Turn out your pockets, Will.’

The driver came down from the box as Will and I went through every pocket in our coats and breeches. We mustered seventeen guineas and some coppers.

‘I won’t hold you to it,’ he said. ‘Seventeen is fair, I’ll have that off you.’

He helped himself to the coins out of Will’s reluctant palm and drove off, beaming.

Will’s face could have modelled for an etching of a countryman fleeced in the big city.

‘Sarah that was
all
our money!’ he said. ‘How d’you think we’ll get home?’

‘Ride,’ I said cheerily.

‘And go hungry?’ Will demanded. ‘We’ve little money for food.’

I gleamed at him. ‘I’ll steal it,’ I said. ‘Or you can call up a crowd and I’ll ride on the street corners.’

Will’s cross face collapsed into laughter. ‘Oh you’re a rogue,’ he said. ‘By rights I should never bring you to Wideacre, they’re an honest crew there and you are a brigand!’

I laughed back, then we turned and walked side by side down the cobbled street to the stables.

It was early still, and quiet in these back streets. In the distance there was the noise of milkmaids and the water-carrier; at the end of the road the night-soil cart went past with a stench blowing behind it. The city was not yet awake. Only working people, with the hardest jobs, were up this early.

The groom was waiting for us, his eyes wide at the state of me, and the state of his best suit, and Will with his shirt hanging out the back.

‘My lady…’ he said helplessly.

‘I’ll have to keep your suit,’ I said pleasantly. ‘But I’ll send you money for another and for the service you’ve done me this night, when I get to my home.’

‘To the house?’ he said hopefully.

‘Sussex,’ I said.

His face looked stunned. ‘M’lady, you’re never running off,’ he said. ‘I’ll lose my place if they know I let you go, and you’ll be ruined. Go home, m’lady, I’ll say anything you want.’ He turned to Will. ‘You know she’s not for you,’ he said fiercely. ‘I could see how you looked at her, but you know she’s Lady Havering now. You’ll ruin her if you take her away.’

Will gave a snort of laughter. ‘I take her!’ he said. ‘I don’t want her. She can go home if she likes, I can no more control her than I can order the wind to blow. I’ve got what I came for. I want nothing more.’

I had my hand on the stable door but at that I turned and smiled at Will with all my heart in my eyes. It was the smile of a woman who knows herself to be utterly and faithfully beloved. There would never be anyone for Will but me, we both knew it. There would never be anyone but him for me.

‘I want Sea,’ I said. ‘And Mr Tyacke wants his horse. Put a man’s saddle on Sea, I’m riding astride.’

He gave an audible moan at that, but he went into the
darkness of the stable and I heard him curse Sea as he blew out as the girth was being tightened. Then he led the two horses out into the street. Their hooves clattered loudly on the cobbles and he looked around nervously.

‘What am I to say?’ he demanded. ‘They’ll ask me where Sea is. What am I to say?’

‘Tell them her ladyship ordered it,’ Will said curtly. ‘How could you argue with her?’

‘They’ll ask what she was wearing! And that’s Lord Perry’s saddle…’ the man said despairingly.

‘Oh dammit, you come too,’ I said, suddenly impatient with the nonsense. ‘Take a horse and come with us. We’re going down to Wideacre. There’s work you can do there. We can send the horse back later, and it will be better if there’s no one here to gossip.’

Will looked at me. ‘We take a groom with us?’ he asked incredulously.

I grinned. ‘Why not?’ I demanded. ‘I thought it would appeal to your radical conscience. We release him from his servitude, we break his chains. We stop him bellyaching on about what they will say to him.’

Will nodded, his eyes dancing. ‘Get a horse,’ he said to the man. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Gerry,’ he said from inside the stables. ‘Could I have one of Lord Perry’s hunters?’

‘For God’s sake, no!’ Will exclaimed. ‘A working horse, what d’you think this is, a picnic?’

‘Seems a waste, if we’re stealing a horse, to take a cheap one,’ I muttered mutinously, but at Will’s sharp look I fell mum.

Gerry led a handsome black hack out of the stables and swung into the saddle. He was beaming.

‘Now we’d better move fast,’ Will said. ‘When will they notice you gone, Sarah?’

‘Not till eight,’ I said. ‘And no one will disturb her ladyship before ten.’

Will squinted at the sky. ‘Must be six now,’ he said uneasily. ‘I’d give a guinea to be safe home.’

He helped me up into the saddle and swung up into his own. Sea’s ears went forward and he side-stepped and danced on the spot, impatient to be off.

‘Knows he’s going home,’ Gerry said admiringly. ‘He’s a fine animal, I’ve never seen better.’

‘You lead the way,’ Will said to him. ‘Get us on the Portsmouth road, but use as many back streets as you can. I’d rather we weren’t seen.’

Gerry nodded importantly, and led the way down the mews street. The hooves echoed loudly and someone looked out from a high window. Will glanced at me.

‘Pull your hat down,’ he said, then he looked a little closer. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘You look awful pale.’

‘I’m fine,’ I lied promptly.

We paused at the corner of David Street and I looked down the road to where the Havering House stood on the corner. I could see smoke coming from the chimneys as Emily went around lighting fires, back to her usual back-breaking work now the dirty work of nursing me was done.

‘Emily,’ I said.

She had cared for me when no one else would do so. She had let me out to see Will and told no one about it. She had helped me get Perry up to bed and kept mum. And she had held me and bathed the sweat off my forehead and sat with me night after night with no thanks, and no tip, and no rest. She would go on lighting the fires and cleaning the grates and sweeping the stairs and sleeping in a cramped bare attic until she grew too old to work. Then Lady Havering would throw her out and if someone had said to her, ‘But the old woman will have to end her days in the poorhouse,’ her ladyship would widen her blue eyes and ask why Emily had never saved her wages since she had worked from childhood? and exclaim, ‘How improvident are the poor!’

‘Emily,’ I said.

‘What?’ Will asked. They were hesitating, ready to turn down the street, waiting for me. Sea champed at his bit, reined-in too tight.

‘I’m taking Emily,’ I said, deciding suddenly. ‘She shouldn’t
be left there. She shouldn’t be left with Lady Havering, in that house. She should come with us to Wideacre.’

Will’s face was a picture of rising rage. ‘You are taking your maid?’ he demanded. ‘You, a jumped-up gypsy brat, need to take a maid with you?’

‘No, you idiot,’ I replied briskly. ‘She was the only one in that whole household who ever showed me a ha’penny of love. I’m not leaving her behind. She’d be happy on Wideacre. She can ride pillion behind Gerry.’

I slid down from Sea and tossed the reins to Will. He caught them, and before he could protest I had run up the street and tapped on the big front door. I heard Emily’s little feet pattering down the hall and her nervous: ‘I ain’t allowed to open the door…’ tail off as she opened the door and saw first a slim young man in grey, and then my face under the grey tricorne hat.

‘Sarah! I beg pardon m’m, I means your ladyship!’

‘Hush,’ I said peremptorily. Not all the escapes in the world could make me unstintingly pleasant. ‘Don’t chatter, Emily. Fetch your bonnet and all the money you have. You can come away with me if you want. I’m running away to my home in Sussex and you can come too. There’s work you can do there, farm work – but fairly paid and not too hard. You might like it. D’you want to come? I’m leaving now.’

She flushed scarlet. ‘I’ll come,’ she said defiantly. ‘Dammit! I will!’ and she turned on her heel and bounded up the main staircase where she was not allowed to go, and then scuttered along the passageway to the attic stairs.

I glanced back down the street. The daylight was getting brighter, the sun was up in a sky the colour of primroses, it would be a fine day. A cool clear day. A good day for travelling. Will made an impatient beckoning motion at me. I smiled and waved back.

I was not afraid of being seen, I was not afraid of being caught. Since I had lain beneath Will in the darkness of the park, I had lost every scrap of fear I had ever known. There was a warmth and a lightness about me as if I would never fail or fear anything ever again. I did not fear Lady Havering, nor poor Perry. I knew at last who I was and where I was going. A lifetime of travelling had not taught me half so much.

There was a rush along the hall and Emily came out, wrapped in a tatty shawl and with a bonnet on her head. She carried a shawl roughly knotted in one hand, and a little withy birdcage in the other with a starling in it.

‘Can I bring ‘im?’ she asked me anxiously. ‘I’ve ‘ad ‘im for a year, and ‘e sings marvellous.’

I glanced down the street to Will who was now rigid with anger. ‘Of course,’ I said and my voice shook with laughter. ‘Why not?’

Emily pulled the door gently to close and came down the steps. We walked back towards the horses.

‘Your young man,’ she said with quiet satisfaction as she saw Will. She did not seem in the least surprised.

I held her bag and the cage as Gerry jumped down from his horse and lifted her up and then mounted behind her. I passed the bundle up and then the cage. The starling, annoyed by the jolting, began to sing loudly. I shot a sly look at Will.

He was not fuming at all, he was not seething with irritation. He sat on his horse as easily and as calmly as if he were taking the air on Wideacre.