The Captain's Daughter (9 page)

He spoke with a heavy accent, and
she had to strain to understand him. She wondered if he thought she was asking
for her father. And the same time she felt as if he was probing her for some
reason. It had occurred to Amy that in England your speech and your accent told
the listener not only what part of the country you hailed from but also your
station in life. She wished that she was better at accents so that she could
have imitated Effie. Amy knew she didn’t sound like a maid and rather suspected
the folks she had spoken to about the old sailor, knew her speech did not agree
with her clothes.

But this Frenchman would be
different. To him she was a maid and a wench of humble station. When she worked
through all this in her mind, she blushed. Was he trying to take advantage of a
simple country maid? He was a Frenchman, after all. Embarrassed she tried to
change the conversion and blurted out the first thing that seemed to be appropriate.

“I just met another Frenchman
yesterday. You’re the second Frenchman I’ve met in two days.”

He looked at her strangely.

She almost squirmed wondering how
he would take that and again resorted to blurting out the first thing that came
to mind.

“Do you know him?”

“Mademoiselle, there are millions
of Frenchmen. I doubt it very much, bonne journée.”

She watched him march determinedly
into the Tabard Inn, then she turned back slowly to the patient Pansy and the
trap.

What should she do next
?
None of the coach passenger had seen the old sailor, but he could not have
disappeared. It is possible he was resting in some shady recess when the coach
passed by. There were a number of possibilities and if he was out there slowly
wending his way towards London or whatever his destination might be, she had to
find him and talk to him. Amy knew that she must go down the London Road until
she found him.

She urged Pansy south on the London
Road. The young horse, perhaps weary of standing around, took off at a good
clip. Even though Pansy’s enthusiasm soon wore off she still galloped at a
goodly pace. After the passage of some time, a milestone standing its lonely
vigil by the side of the London road told Amy she was ten miles south of
Stockley-on-Arne. She glanced at the sky where the clouds had mostly taken
their leave allowing the sun to shine upon the soggy land below.

Amy shook her head a little from
side-to-side. It was lunchtime and she would be missed for certain now, even if
they hadn’t notice her missing before this. What should she do? Where was the
old sailor? She should have caught up with him by now. Her family would begin
to worry about her. Especially, would Emma worry. She always confided in Emma.
She regretted not confiding in Emma this time. Amy felt miserable and guilty as
she directed the trap onto some grass at the side of the road.

She was abruptly wrenched out of
her pall of misery by an approaching horseman. It would seem strange a
maidservant sitting in a trap at the side of the road. She didn’t want a
stranger inquiring after her welfare, so she urged Pansy to go on at as fast a
clip as she could get out of her, at the same time Amy pulled her bonnet down
so it would cast a shadow over her face. It was just possible that a horseman
here might be a local who may recognize her.

As they were passing one another
she kept her head and bonnet so low that she could only see the rider’s boots.
After they passed one another, she gave a sigh of relief. But her relief was
only for a few moments. The rider must have turned around because he came
alongside her.

“Why if it isn’t our charming Lady
Amaryllis.”

She would recognize that voice and
sarcasm anywhere.

“Are we out for a pleasant
afternoon stroll?”

She yanked her bonnet up until it
was on the back of her head and looked defiantly at her interrogator.

“No Sir Benjamin, we are on an
urgent and important task.”

“Ten miles from home on a road
seething with highwaymen and brigands?”

“I fail to see this road seething
with anyone.”

She very purposely looked around.

“They hide in the shadows, and
behind the trees and bushes.”

Amy felt the fire arising within
her. She spoke slowly and emphatically.

“I will devour any highwayman who
should try and accost me.” She paused and then continued in a more thoughtful
vein. “Besides what brigand would accost a scullery maid.”

“That is a good point. Perhaps one
who is curious why a scullery maid, as you put it, would be riding in a lady’s
carriage. Which does raise an interesting question. I realize, Lady Amaryllis,
that it is none of my affair, but I have this fatal failing. My sad affliction
is a malignant curiosity that, fight it as I may and much as I seek help, I
have yet to be cured of. I keep asking myself, why would a gentle young lady be
out riding a trap with its top down in a bedraggled dress that appears to be
that of a scullery maid.”

Amy pulled on the reins and pulled
the trap to a halt. She fought back tears which were more from frustration that
anything else.

“I’m looking for an old sailor and
I cannot find him.”

“That,” said Ben, “would most
definitely not have been my first guess. Although since I am conversing with
Lady Amaryllis perhaps it should have been.”

Amy looked at him at sniffled.

He looked closely at her. “I hope
you’re not going to cry. Although if you do, I’m rather good at consoling young
maidens.”

“I do not need
consoling—consolation—and I’m not going to cry,” she said sniffling.

He looked at her again with that
irritating smile and cocked eyebrow.

“Would you like me to turn the trap
around and accompany you home?”

She sniffled her consent. Ben
dismounted, led Pansy, turning the trap around so it pointed north. Then he
looped his horse’s reins around the dash rail.

“May I accompany you home?”

He started to get into the trap.

“I appreciate your kind offer to
help me,” said Amy demurely, “but do you think it is proper for you to ride in
the trap with me? We have no chaperone.”

“No, but I’m not sure it is proper
for you to be out on a lonely road that is, or so I am told, infested with
cutthroats and thieves.”

As Amy didn’t protest, he took the
reins and they slowly made their way in the direction of home. In truth she
didn’t know what to say, or more accurately, she didn’t know what she
wanted
to say. Besides, it occurred to her she maybe should tell Ben why she was
looking for an old sailor.

“Sir Benjamin, you may wonder why I
am looking for an old sailor.”

“I perhaps would if I was told that
by any other young lady, but I am talking to Lady Amy, so I just accept it and
go on with my life.”

Amy ignored his sarcasm, also
noting he had called her Amy and not Amaryllis. With Ben that was always a
favorable sign.

“And perhaps you may be wondering
why I am wearing Effie’s best dress.”

He looked her up and down. “Is it
still her best dress?”

“If it’s ruined I’ll buy her
another. But it will likely be fine after it dries. I know men are ignorant
about such things,” she said, a little of the old impishness trying to poke its
way into the conversation, “but servant’s dresses are not like those worn by
ladies of our station. Our dresses have to be taken partially apart so that the
fabric portions that are washable can be laundered and the decorative parts
cleaned by other means, then the dress is sewn back together.”

“That’s why I like to wear peasant
clothes when I’m painting, digging graves for rhododendrons, or rescuing fair
maidens from a watery death.”

“You do? I seem to remember a fair
maiden sinking below the waters whom you didn’t try to rescue.”

“I have my code of chivalry. If the
waters the fair maiden is sinking below are eighteen inches or less, I tend to
just watch. But putting that aside, I believe you were about to tell me a tale
of an ancient mariner being pursued by a gentle lady in scullery maid’s
clothes.”

He looked up at the sky. “Please
wait a minute.”

Ben swung down out of the trap, and
quickly raised the top of the trap. As he secured the three prop nuts on each
side he hummed somewhat under his breath.

“She draigl’t a’ her
petticoatie,

Comin’ thro’ the rye!

Amy looked at him with some
irritation. She couldn’t make out what he was singing, but was pretty sure it
must be insulting in some way.

“What are you singing?”

“Oh, just a little song by the
Scotch poet, Robert Burns. You have heard of Burns?”

“Yes I’ve heard of Robert Burns.”

In a much louder voice he continued
his serenade.

“O, Jenny’s a’ weet. poor body,

Jenny’s seldom dry:

She draigl’t a’ her petticoatie,

Comin thro’ the rye!

Ben swung up onto the seat of the
trap and looked at her with a big grin. Then he took the reins and urged Pansy
forward on her trek back to Stockley-on-Arne. The allusion in the song was not
lost on Amy. She was silent for a few moments, then with her eyes narrowed and
her face tight, she shared her opinion of the song.

“Mr. Burns seems to have some
strange ideas, and I find his song most indelicate, not to say absurd.”

“In what way?”

“Well...” She paused. “What does
draigl’t mean?”

“Dragged.”

“If this Mr. Burns had any respect
for his readers he would write in English, but I suppose we must accept that
some people are uneducated and cannot speak good English.”

“Robert Burns grew up as a poor
farmer’s lad, but he is educated and can write very good English.”

“Then why is he writing poems that
people cannot comprehend?”

“A lot of people think highly of
his poems.”

“What people?”

“He is very popular in Scotland.”

“Well, you know what Samuel Johnson
said about the Scotch. And why would she be always wet from walking through a
field of rye?”

“Actually, there is a river called
the Rye near where Robert Burns lived when he was younger. But he doesn’t
capitalize the word
rye
in the song, so I suppose it is the grain he is
referring too. Why is she wet? I suppose it’s because it rains a lot in
Scotland. May I ask a question? Why are you wet?”

“I knew you couldn’t resist asking
that question.”

Amy was glad Ben was taking the
discussion in a new direction. She felt she had been led on the wrong side by
her irritation with Ben, or more accurately his sarcasm, and she felt guilty
about that. She knew his sarcasm, if it could properly be called that, was an
attempt at male humor, and that he meant no harm.

She was also uncomfortable at the
direction the conversation had gone, that is, her part of it, because she
harbored no animosity towards the Scots.

“So Sir Benjamin Anstruther you are
wondering why my petticoat is all dragl’t and wet. Well,” said Amy opening her
eyes as wide as possible and eyeing him strangely, “I will tell you. What you
are about to hear will leave you amazed, terrified, and dumbfounded.”

She laughed. And then in a more
serious mood she told him of the events of the last twenty-four hours. She told
him of the old sailor who brought the pouch. She told him of the old Bristol
newspaper, the letter with its abrupt and enigmatic ending, and the locket with
the picture of the baby that Emma insisted looked just like Amy. But she did
not tell him of her visit to Hillfield House and her conversation with the
Frenchman who said his name was Pierre.

So intent was her account of the
events and why she was trying to find the old sailor, that it was only when
they arrived at the stables at Sibbridge House that she realized she had come
home with a young gentleman and no chaperone.

“If anybody asks, Ben, Sir
Benjamin, tell them you just arrived and give them the impression that we didn’t
arrive together, without lying, of course.”

“Of course.”

As he spoke, old Hubert came out of
the stable. Had he seen them arrive together? She realized that the reins to
Ben’s horse were still wrapped around the dash rail.

“Oh, hello, Hubert, Sir Benjamin
just arrived.”

“What do you think of the weather,
Hubert,” asked Ben jovially.

“Unseasonable weather. This here
weather reminds of the spring of ’74. Or wasn’ it 1773? Be strange weather,
indeed it be. Twenty years ago this year. Rivers swollen. The Arne overflowed
its banks it did. Threatened Stockley, it did.” He looked gravely at the sky.
The muted sun made his grizzled face a landscape of ravines and rills. Hubert
was lost in his memories. “Praise the Lord and spare us from that comin’ agin
this year.”

While Hubert was lost in his
soliloquy and did not seem to be paying any attention, Amy unwrapped the reins
of Ben’s horse and dropped them to the ground. Freed from its tethering, the
horse started to wander away just as Hubert pronounced his brief benediction.
Ben quickly grabbed its reins which snapped Hubert back to the present. As Ben
strolled away, Amy followed him until she felt they were too far away for
Hubert to hear. As they paused she saw Hubert take Pansy and the trap into the
stable.

“Ben?”

He looked at her.

“Emma and I paid a visit to
Hillfield House yesterday afternoon.”

He looked at her questioningly.

“We thought you were home. It is
obvious you were not. We encountered a man there that we had never seen before.
He was a Frenchman.”

“You met...?”

Ben paused looking very uneasy. He
seemed to be searching for the right thing to say. It had not been Amy’s
intention to trip Ben up, but it worked out that way. She was about to take a
cue from Ben’s awkward pause, and tell about meeting his new secretary Pierre
when he suddenly continued.