Taking Liberties (53 page)

‘If you would give the keys to Tinkler, Mama, he will see to everything.'

She stared down at her belt and then unhooked her chatelaine and stared at Tinkler, concentrating, as he took it from her. Tinkler, Tinkler, second footman in her day.

It was so strange. When she tried to remember Chantries it seemed very small and unreal as if she looked through the wrong end of a telescope at a play of manners performed by miniature actors and actresses. Now the pygmies had grown very big and were crowding about her but they were no less unreal. Time was changed by the dramatist to quicken some events and make others slow.

Robert authoritative: ‘No, no, you cannot go back to Plymouth tonight, Captain. Nor tomorrow, from the look of the weather. Once we are straight we shall be pleased to accommodate you at T'Gallants until the snow clears. Ah, the landlady. You have an extra guest, my good woman, the best for Captain Nicholls.'

Mrs Hallewell, bobbing. ‘Yes, your lordship. We had another staying, but he's away now.'

‘And these people?'

‘Relatives, your lordship.'

Philippa taking her cloak to dry it, almost dancing. Makepeace kneeling before her, tenderly unlacing her boots.

Alice wondering how to reach T'Gallants with the bridge too unsafe for a coach, not considering walking.

And in the centre of it Nicholls, the dark maypole around which they all twirled, Nicholls saying nothing, listening to every word spoken and unspoken, Nicholls's eyes glancing at Makepeace, Zack, Philippa, but always returning to her face.

‘She's tired. Can't you see how tired the woman is?' Makepeace's voice shrill and doing her no favours. ‘Let her rest.'

Cold and snow and the bridge.

T'Gallants already lit and bustling with servants.

Dell, coming forward, curtseying: ‘Her ladyship's maid, your lordship.'

‘What happened to Joan?'

‘Retired, your lordship.'

‘Good Lord. Very well, look to your mistress; she seems unwell.'

Dell taking her away and the voice of Alice trailing behind them. ‘Robert, have you ever
seen
such a face?'

 
He wasn't in her bedroom.

‘Where is he? Where are they all?'

‘Did it work then? Has he gone, that dear love?'

Her head cleared; she was back in real life—she recognized it by its tragedy. ‘It worked. Don't cry, don't cry; you should have seen how happy he was. Be proud of him.'

They sat together on the bed, tightly holding hands.

‘We got the men away,' Dell said, still weeping. ‘Jack, the spalpeen, was at the back door telling me not to let them in—and them at that moment knocking at the front. I wouldn't have opened in any case.'

At that time, neither Dell nor the occupants of the Pomeroy Arms had known who the arrivals were, except that there were a lot of them. ‘Searchers, I thought, and likely to have the door down.'

She'd run to the Great Hall and told the men to clear the place and hide in the shaft room. ‘And for a wonder, they did it. They're there now.'

‘Is Gil with them?'

‘No, that's the worrit. He went down to the Pomeroy to wait for you. I'd told him what you and Toby were up to and the man was worried for you; never seen anger like it.'

‘Is he there now?' Her brain began to work.
‘We had another staying, but he's away now.'
‘No, no, he isn't. They must have hidden him somewhere.'

They sat listening to the invasion of the house: the grunt of men carrying furniture to the bedrooms; maids talking to each other as they scurried along the passage outside; the high voice of Alice downstairs, giving orders.

‘Can they do this?' Dell asked.

‘Yes. I told them I had leased the house; while I am in possession they can do what they like. I have no rights, you see. A woman has no rights.'

She made Dell lie down and settled herself beside her to wait. She was saved from complete realization of what was happening by the detachment of shock, a feeling that she was a helpless twig being rushed to disaster by the waters of Fate and that Fate might as well get on with it.

‘They'll be putting the servants in the bedrooms on the sea side,' Dell said. ‘Dear God, they'll be near the shaft room.'

There was sudden screaming and a kerfuffle from which emerged the word: ‘Ghost.' Somebody had encountered Mrs Green.

‘No, they won't. They'll put them in the attics.'

‘Bless her.'

Gradually, after hours, the house quietened and then fell silent.

‘Time to go.'

As they crept along the passage outside, Diana heard her son's snores coming from the bedroom two doors along from hers. Not what he's used to, she thought.

She could only identify the section of wall that opened into the secret room by the scuff mark from Ralph Gurney's boot. ‘Bring a cloth up as soon as you can and get rid of that. Nicholls will prowl if he gets the chance. This is his opportunity.'

‘God rot him.'

They didn't go in right away but opened the other doors along the shaft-room passage. They were empty; the servants had preferred the attics.

Diana looked in on Mrs Green's room. The woman was awake and shivering. ‘It's all right, Mrs Green. My son and daughter-in-law have come to stay for a while.' She paused. ‘There is no need to tell them what has been happening here.'

It was supererogatory, she knew—Mrs Green told nobody anything—but it was as well to say it. Beneath the woman's nightgown one breast was noticeably larger than the other; she took her dose of laudanum like a drowning woman sucking air.

Perhaps Kempson-Jones could earn his money for once, and do an examination. Dear God, take some of these burdens away from us.

Outside, they returned to the hidden door, manipulated the candle sconce and went in, closing the door behind them. Nineteen pairs of eyes and a pair of spectacles regarded them.

‘Where's the chief?'

‘It's all right, Bilo. He is hiding somewhere in the village.'

They had plenty of room in which they could all lie down; they'd managed to bring their palliasses with them, as well as their cards and dice, but they were huddled against the chimney wall to keep warm. The air was thick but presumably opening the door to the shaft for air made the room too cold. They can't segregate now, Diana thought, Bilo and Abell will have to work it out. Her money was on Bilo.

‘Evacuation completed successfully, ladyship,' Lawyer Perkins said.

‘Very good, Mr Perkins. Gentlemen, I'm sorry,' she told them, ‘but, as you probably know, members of my family have arrived and you must realize they would not look kindly on the concealment of escaped prisoners of war. More than that, they are accompanied by a captain of the Revenue who would happily have you back in Millbay within the hour. I must beg you to be very quiet. We are trying to procure a boat to take you to France but until that comes, or my people go, you must put up with some hardship.'

‘We ain't complainin', ma'am,' Abell said, ‘but we sure is hungry, we ain't had no dinner.'

Dell said: ‘Grand concealment that'll be, carrying nineteen trays through the house. This isn't St James's now.'

‘It ain't? Boys, we must've took the wrong turning.'

‘
Thought
we was lacking dinner napkins.'

They were in good spirits but feeding them was going to be a terrible difficulty. The Missus, Diana thought, I
must
talk to the Missus. She'll think of something.

‘We'll do our best, gentlemen,' she said. ‘In the meantime be patient and very, very quiet.'

Even opening the door to leave presented a danger. Suppose someone in the passage outside saw part of the wall give way? She opened it a crack and listened. Then she thought of another problem. ‘Mr Perkins?'

He was beside her. ‘Mr Perkins,' she whispered, ‘how do you manage . . . calls of nature?'

‘The shaft, ma'am. Same as we did in the Great Hall. Like Tobias told us.'

‘Oh. Yes, of course.' Tobias had thought of everything. How would they manage without him? She dragged her mind away from what he would be suffering in his prison.

Outside, in the passage, Dell said: ‘Will you rest now?'

‘I need to see the Missus. I must.' Makepeace would know what to do.

‘Rest first, I'll wake you before dawn.'

They went to Diana's room and slept in her bed together, too frightened and troubled to sleep apart.

 
The back door was locked.

‘There must be spare keys.' Diana felt the onset of panic; people would be waking up and asking her where she was going—and she had to see Makepeace. ‘There
must
be. Tobias opened up in the mornings and he didn't use mine.'

They searched the silent kitchen. It was better stocked than she had ever seen it; partridge, grouse and pheasant hung in the game cupboard; hams and sausages from the ceiling hooks; pies and tarts that had been packed in snow gently thawed out in the larder; the egg rack was full, so were the vegetable bins; on cupboard shelves stood preserves, potted beef and shrimps, crystallized fruits, strawberries in wine. The pleasant smell of yeast came from under a cloth where dough had been left to rise.

Alice had stocked up in Plymouth for her stay in the wilderness.

‘D'ye think they'll miss this?' Dell was holding up an enormous pork pie.

‘Probably, but take it anyway.' They started purloining bits of food: a jar of potted beef; a cut or two of salt fish; the remains of some capons; a big slice of cheese. They ran with them up to the shaft room, opened the door, threw them in and ran back.

Eventually, Dell found a spare set of keys hanging inside an aumbry door.

As they scampered down the hill, they heard an upstairs window open behind them. They ran the harder.

It had snowed hard in the night and was still snowing. Each roof, each chimney, was sprouting growing white fur that copied the shape beneath exactly. As they hurried past the lane, Diana saw that it was blocked. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen here; they were all locked in together.

Nearing the Pomeroy, Diana said: ‘We can't go in. Nicholls will be up.'

‘He'll be an early riser, sure enough, the bastard.'

They loitered in the stables, surrounded by the reassuring smell of grains and horse manure, waiting for Sanders to come and begin the day's work on the stalls.

‘This is ridiculous,' Diana said. ‘I am entitled to go into an inn. I am not to be hindered by a mere customs officer.'

But she didn't move. His stillness was the fulcrum around which all terrible things swung; she felt him watching her even when he was not there.

Ridiculous, ridiculous. Nevetheless, she stayed where she was.

Dell felt it, too. ‘He's a Cyclops, rot him.'

‘Argus, I think. Cyclops had only one eye.'

‘I'd put 'em out for him, however many eyes the bastard has.'

It wasn't Sanders who came to see to the horses, it was one of the Chantries coachmen. Callender? Challenor? A pleasant-enough man, if memory served her right.

‘Good morning, Challenor. Would you be so good as to fetch Mrs Hedley out here? Quietly?'

‘Certainly, your ladyship.'

That was one thing about Chantries' staff; with Aymer as master they had learned not to blink at unaccountable behaviour by their betters.

When Makepeace came nobody spoke until all three had clambered into her coach and shut its doors and windows. They huddled for a moment, their arms round each other.

‘Toby's . . .' Makepeace began and ran out of words because there were none. When she'd gone outside the inn last night and seen that it was not Tobias but Josh driving the coach, she had fallen on her knees in the snow in gratitude for the deliverance of the one and grief at the sacrifice of the other.

‘Dell,' she said, ‘I don't know what to say to you. Or you, ladyship. '

‘He wanted to do it,' Dell said, dully. ‘He sets high store by that lad of yours. And I'll be waitin' at the gate when he gets out. I'll wait 'til doomsday.'

It was too painful; Diana cut her short. ‘There's no time, Missus. We have to get back. Where's Gil?'

‘At Rachel Gurney's. There was just time to get him through the kitchen door. Lucky Maggie Hallewell recognized Nicholls or I'd have thought they were just travellers gone astray.' She grinned. ‘Manners did for the pig. You could tell he wanted to march in ahead of the rest and find the place stuffed with contraband, but he had to wait for your daughter-in-law to go first and she was a trouble to get out of the coach.'

‘What's to be done about the men? How are we to feed them? Missus, I don't know what to do.'

Makepeace reached over and patted Diana's knee. ‘Don't worry about the men. We'll get 'em food. We've got the shaft.'

‘No, no, you can't use it, you have no idea of the noise it makes. They'll hear it.'

‘Not in the middle of the night they won't.' She leaned forward; she was pleased with herself. ‘And I've got us a boat.'

Diana's eyes didn't leave Makepeace's face, absorbing reassurance from it. It's the freckles, she thought.

‘A lugger,' Makepeace said, sitting back in expectation of congratulation. ‘Costing me a fortune, mind—those Thurlestone men are bloodsuckers. She's free trading just now but they're expecting her back in a couple of days,
when
'—Makepeace stretched—‘she will sail round to Babbs Cove by night, load our perishable goods and deliver them to France.'