Miss Ryder's Memoirs (17 page)

But I was not sure to what she referred, and I was too exhausted to try to find out. “Come, Mama, it’s time to dress for dinner.”

I let her descend the stairs while I remained behind to place the reticule carefully in the trunk with the old gowns and parasols and all the paraphernalia of Mama’s Season in London. It had only taken her one Season to find herself a husband.

I couldn’t help but wonder if things would have been different if I had met Sir John during my Season. Would he have seen that I was different from the other girls? Was I? And was he really different than all those regimented men I had met—caught up in that artificial world, depending on it for the meaning in their lives? He would probably never have noticed me at all.

No, I didn’t believe that, really. Both of us were different. We would have noticed each other. But nothing might have come of it. Just being different wasn’t everything. It didn’t mean that we belonged together or that we were alike in the right kinds of ways. I was not naive about his past, nor about my own shortcomings as a wife for a baronet.

With a sigh I followed Mama down the stairs. How did it always happen that I ended up thinking about Sir John instead of solving this matter of the Masked Rider?

* * * *

From that moment on, Mama began feverishly making plans for the Public Day celebrations. We would have a small ball in the house after a day’s entertainment out on the grounds. There was to be dining al fresco at midday with shuttlecock and other games afterward. I longed to see how good Sir John would prove to be at a local exhibition of cricket. He had regaled Amanda with tales of his expertise, when he was trying to impress her, and now we would have an opportunity to see if this was mere braggadocio.

For myself, there were a million tasks I had to accomplish. We would be using the grounds for special activities and they had to be groomed especially carefully. The servants were all excited about the big day, because of course it was a special time for them as well. In our family it was a tradition to reward them with special gifts for their excellent help.

Amanda and I were the ones who chose the presents, and it was a complex task. Mama had once insisted that they would prefer money to the actual gift, and though that might have been true, the one time Papa tried it, he found that they were insulted because we had not gone to our usual trouble of selecting just the right thing.

So Amanda and I went around to the families on our regular visits, noting whether this cottage had curtains, and whether that frying pan was beginning to develop rust holes. We kept careful records of this sort of thing, and the ages of the children, and enlisted Mr. Marks, the local mercantile king, in our efforts to choose appropriate treats.

Sir John was fascinated by this tradition and dogged our footsteps, making helpful remarks such as, “Now, why did you put down that they needed a new set of curtains when there was a definite lack of bootblacking in their home?” Such teasing comments called for smart rejoinders from me, while Amanda looked puzzled and tried to explain to him that the cottagers often lacked such necessities as bootblacking, but did not really consider them of the same importance that we did.

Sir John would smile at her and nod, but it was really to me that he spoke. The bond between us seemed to grow with his teasing and my replies. He seemed to enjoy it as much as I. I did notice, though, that there were times when he would question my sister on a particular point, under the guise of establishing gifts for the servants.

“Would you say that the Edmondses were a particularly needy family?” he asked after we had left their threadbare but clean cottage.

“Oh, yes. Mrs. Edmonds has been very sick over the last year, since the baby was born.” Amanda spoke with great earnestness. “Mama thought at one point that Mrs. Edmonds was going to die. Jed is ever so grateful to her for her ministrations. He thinks Mama saved her life.”

What I got at this point was a thoughtful look from him. If it was Mama to whom Jed was grateful, that look seemed to say, would he be allowing me to ride out and waylay rich neighbors in the dark of night? Wouldn’t he have informed Mama so that she could have stopped me? I had to be particularly devious to keep him from deciding that he had been wrong in his assessment.

“But you know Jed would give his loyalty to any of us,” I scolded Amanda, as though she had slandered him by only noting Mama’s influence. “When Papa was alive, he once saved Jed’s own life, years ago.

“I don’t remember that.” Amanda’s sweet little brow furrowed and she cocked her head at me. “Papa was so modest. He never told me that tale at all. Did you witness the occasion?”

Because Sir John did not look convinced, I admitted that I had indeed done so. I may have gone too far in saying that Robert had as well, but it seemed a nice embellishment at the time.

“Thunder’s sire was only newly acquired at the time. No one was any good at restraining him, but Jed was determined to please Papa by trying to train him. Robert and I had come up to the stables one evening when there was a bit of an uproar in the house. I think we had broken a vase or destroyed a flower bed. Some such thing. In any case, we found Jed up on the horse’s back, with a very short rein and a very big problem. Oh, Lightning was bucking and stomping and doing everything he could to unseat the lad. You have to understand that even though Jed is small, he has absolutely no fear of horses, no matter how dangerous they are."

“And how dangerous was this one?” Sir John asked. He was leaning back against a tree where we had stopped to cool ourselves from the hot sun. There was a note of irony to his tone, which Amanda did not seem to recognize. I pretended I didn’t, either.

“Oh, very. Just as Papa came striding up the path, Lightning threw Jed and broke loose, kicking out at him as he lay on the ground. Papa gave no thought to the danger at all. He charged into the stableyard and struck the horse away from Jed, heedless of the flying hooves.” It was easy enough to describe the incident, since I had seen it happen, though not at Hastings and not to anyone I knew.

“How very dramatic.” Sir John was bland and unimpressed. “No wonder Jed is grateful to all of you Ryders. He’d probably lie and cheat and steal for you without the least hesitation.”

Amanda was horrified at this interpretation of my story. “Oh, no, no! Jed is not that sort of fellow at all. He would of course be grateful to Papa, but he’s an honest lad. Believe me, you are quite mistaken.”

“If you say so. I didn’t mean to disparage the fellow’s honesty,” Sir John explained. “I merely wished to indicate that I understood his incredible obligation to your family—saving both his life and his wife’s. That’s quite a coincidence, when you think about it.”

“Not at all. It could happen to anyone,” I assured him. Ready to leave the shade and perhaps even the presence of his searching eyes, I backed away from the tree and linked my arm with Amanda’s. “Let’s see if we can’t find some fruit to take in to Mrs. Cooper, why don’t we? She’d be delighted not to have to send one of the girls.”

Sir John laughed, but we ignored him. Right after supper I excused myself and went out to the stables. It seemed to me that someone there had to be involved in whatever was going on. Whoever the Masked Rider was, surely he used a horse from our stables. And someone in the stables had to know about it.

What had begun to worry me was that I knew all the stable hands and I would have sworn that simple loyalty to our family would have prevented any of them from allowing a stranger, or even Cousin Bret, to ride out in the middle of the night in black cape and mask. Such folly, such danger, would not be permitted.

My Lofty was delighted to see me, but I passed her by with an absent pat and moved on to Antelope. It was Antelope who had gone missing for several days, and there had been several suspicious aspects to her return. She had looked very well-cared-for, for an animal that had run wild for the better part of a week. And she had a very slight tendency to favor her right foreleg, something I’d never seen in her before. Just as though she’d suffered a sprain and was almost, but not quite, as good as new.

I found Jed in the tack room, polishing brass and looking melancholy. His wife had been doing poorly since their baby was born six months before, and I asked after her.

“Ellen’s not so well. Don’t care so much for the food these days, ya see. If she don’t eat, she’ll just fade away to nothing and the babe with her.”

“Has she been sent some of Mrs. Cooper’s special broth?”

“That she has. Your mother seen to it. And for a while it worked. Now even that won’t tempt her. Seems her stomach is too queer to take anything at all. Scares me, it does."

“Well, of course it does. Let me think about it. Perhaps I can find something that will agree with her. I’ll talk it over with Mr. Moore.” Our local pharmacist was forever concocting herbal brews of intrinsically wretched taste, which somehow served their purpose on the odd occasion. “I may be riding out later,” I said, very casually. “Will you be up late?”

“Now, what for would you be doing riding out at night?” His face crumpled up into a tight mask of concern. “You know better than to take that sweet mare out in the dark when she’s not accustomed.”

“Her night vision is a great deal better than mine. There’s an errand I need to run.”

"Best let me handle it. That’s what I’m here for." He wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“Now Antelope’s night vision isn’t as good, is it?”

“I wouldn’t rightly know, miss.”

“I imagine if Antelope were taken out at night she might take a tumble, might injure herself. But since she wasn’t supposed to be out at night, how could she appear in the morning with an injury?”

Jed polished the brass harder and faster. He made no attempt to comment on my speculation, but I could see that his face was growing paler with every word I uttered.

“Maybe what would happen would be that she simply disappeared for a few days until the injury was healed. That would make sense, wouldn’t it?”

The rag fell from his hand and he left it where it had fallen on the floor. Still he didn’t look up at me or answer me. Mama had tried to help his wife, continued to try to help her. Jed would not admit to anything she might be doing that was likely to get her in trouble. But I knew then. Without a doubt, I knew. And the thought terrified me, as much as it obviously did him.

Her rides had to be stopped, but my thoughts were too chaotic to see even a glimmer of a solution at that moment. Temporarily I settled on the only possibility with which Jed might assist me.

“I just want you to know that if on any night you’re saddling Antelope, I want to find Lofty saddled as well. I would take it amiss if I came out here and found the one gone and the other not ready to leave. Do you take my meaning, Jed?”

He grunted something that sounded like “Yes, ma’am,” and I didn’t scold him for his lack of proper manners. I left him rubbing furiously at the brass, muttering imprecations on the hapless chickens he could see pecking outside in the straw.

If I had wanted to join the others in the saloon, I would have had to change my boots, and I couldn’t bring myself to do it. As I slipped past the open door, I could hear Amanda playing the pianoforte and singing. She was in particularly good voice that evening, and I felt a twinge of jealousy when I heard Sir John join in with her. Cousin Bret has no ear for music; he was seated on the striped sofa looking bored.

Though I would have given much for a good night’s sleep, I had a suspicion that Mama intended to ride out that night. Perhaps it was something about the look of her eyes or the listening way she held her head, but I was convinced she would leave the house as soon as everyone settled down. At least this time I could be sure that Lofty would be ready to go when I needed her.

I spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out how to keep Sir John from following us. Eventually I chose the most logical method. There were, of course, several keys to the baronet’s room, one of them inside the room itself, so that a guest could lock the door. From my previous experience I felt sure that Sir John had never bothered to do any such thing. And if he didn’t lock the door, he was unlikely to notice whether or not the key was missing.

So while I could still hear the music coming from downstairs, I hurried to his room. Though my plan required only opening the door the smallest distance and reaching around it to remove the key, I found myself almost paralyzed when I stood in front of his room. Every time I had tried to do something unnoticed concerning this place, I had failed. By some odd chance would I find that he was in the room now, rather than in the saloon where he belonged?

Just to be on the safe side I knocked very softly. Then, with my heart pounding in my throat, I turned the knob as quietly as possible and pushed the door open. His room was dark. Even the candle was not lit yet for his arrival. I reached around the door and felt for the key in the lock. It slid out easily into my hand, heavy and cold. I felt like a thief, somehow, and quickly drew the door closed behind me.

Because I needed to know how much noise the key would make in locking the door, I inserted it again, on the outside. The first time I turned the key it seemed to make a great, hollow thunking sound when it locked. That would never do. I tried it again, more carefully. This time the sound was softer, but still far too loud for the middle of the night when not another soul would be stirring.

I decided to think about this problem in my own room and hurried down the hall. My bed looked particularly tempting but I refused to allow myself to lie down upon it even for a moment. Instead, I dismissed Milly and set about donning my darkest riding costume. Only the boots gave me trouble, as Dutch kept nudging me off balance while I tried to put them on.

The dog was an inspiration, though. He tended to wander around the house at night if he wasn’t shut in my room. And occasionally he would give one of his gruff barks, not really enough to awaken someone, just enough to cover the sound of a bolt slipping into place. I could get him to bark if I made him sit up for some food. Of course, there wasn’t so much as a radish in my room, so I had to sneak down to the larder to swipe a piece of meat. Mrs. Cooper was just putting off her apron and very nearly caught sight of me as I squeezed past the open kitchen door.