The Talisman Ring (20 page)

Eustacie came running down the stairs again just as Sir Hugh walked into the coffee-room with the landlord at his heels.

‘What’s all this?’ demanded Sir Hugh. ‘Here’s Nye telling me some story about Sally fainting. She never faints!’

Sir Tristram, looking down at Miss Thane, saw a shade of annoyance in her face. His lips twitched slightly, but he answered in a grave voice: ‘I fear it is true. You may see for yourself.’

‘Well, of all the odd things!’ said Sir Hugh, surveying her through his eyeglass with vague surprise. ‘I’ve never known her to do that before.’

‘She has sustained a great shock to her nerves,’ said Shield solemnly. ‘We can only trust that she has received no serious injury.’

‘Ah,
la pauvre
!’ exclaimed Eustacie, enjoying herself hugely. ‘I wonder she is not dead with fright!’ She thrust her cousin out of the way as she spoke, and sank upon her knees by the settle, holding the hartshorn under Miss Thane’s nose. ‘Behold, she is recovering!
C’est cela, ma chère! Doucement, alors, doucement!
’ Over her shoulder she addressed Sir Hugh. ‘Those wicked men attacked her – with sticks!’ she added, observing the Runners’ cudgels.

It took a moment for Sir Hugh to assimilate this. He turned and stared at the two Runners, incredulous wrath slowly gathering in his eyes. ‘What!’ he said. ‘They attacked my sister? These gin-swilling, cross-eyed numskulls? This pair of brandy-faced, cork-brained –’

Miss Thane interrupted this swelling diatribe with a faint moan, and opened her eyes. ‘Where am I?’ she said in a weak voice.

‘
Dieu soit béni!
’ said Eustacie devoutly. ‘She is better!’

Miss Thane sat up, her hand to her brow. ‘Two men with sticks,’ she said gropingly. ‘They ran after me and caught me…Oh, am I safe indeed?’

‘A little brandy, ma’am?’ suggested Nye. ‘You are all shook up, and no wonder! It’s a crying scandal, that’s what it is! I never heard the like of it!’

‘Sally,’ said Sir Hugh, ‘do you tell me that these blundering jackasses set upon you?’

She followed the direction of his pointing finger, and gave a small shriek, and clutched his arm. ‘Do not let them touch me!’

‘Let them touch you?’ said Sir Hugh, a martial light in his eye. ‘They had better try!’

‘It was all a mistake, ma’am! No one don’t want to touch you!’ said Mr Peabody. ‘I am sure we never meant no harm! It was the poor light, and us not knowing you.’

‘All a matter of Dooty,’ said Mr Stubbs, still holding his handkerchief to his nose.

‘You hold your tongue!’ said Sir Hugh. ‘Sally, what happened?’

‘I scarce know,’ replied his sister. ‘I went out for a breath of air, and before I had gone above a dozen steps I heard someone running behind me, and turning, saw these two men coming for me, and waving their sticks. I tried to escape, but they caught me, and handled me so roughly that I was near to swooning away on the spot. Then, by the mercy of Providence, who should come riding by but Sir Tristram! I screamed to him for help – indeed, I thought I was to be murdered or beaten into insensibility – and he flung himself from his horse and rescued me! He knocked the fat man down, and when the other one made for him with his cudgel threw him sprawling in the road!’

‘Tristram did that?’ exclaimed Eustacie. ‘
Voyons
,
mon cousin
, I begin to like you very much indeed!’

Sir Hugh, his wrath giving place momentarily to professional interest, said: ‘Threw him a cross-buttock, did you?’

‘On my hip,’ said Shield. ‘You know the trick.’

Sir Hugh put up his glass and surveyed Mr Stubbs’s afflicted nose. ‘Drew his cork, too,’ he observed, with satisfaction.

‘No,’ replied Sir Tristram. ‘I fancy Miss Thane deserves the credit for that.’

‘I did hit him,’ admitted Sarah.

‘Good girl!’ approved her brother. ‘A nice, flush hit it must have been. But what were they chasing you for? That’s what beats me.’

‘They said I was Ludovic Lavenham, and they arrested me,’ said Miss Thane.

Sir Hugh repeated blankly: ‘Said you were Ludovic Lavenham?’ He looked at the Runners again. ‘They
are
mad,’ he said.

‘Drunk more like, sir,’ put in the landlord unkindly. ‘They’ve spent the better part of the afternoon in my tap-room, drinking Blue Ruin till you’d wonder they could walk straight.’

A protesting sound came from behind Mr Stubbs’s handkerchief.

‘So that’s it, is it?’ said Sir Hugh. ‘You’re right: they reek of gin!’

‘It ain’t true, your Honour!’ said Mr Peabody, much agitated. ‘If we had a drop just to keep the cold out –’

‘Drop!’ ejaculated the landlord. ‘Why, you’ve pretty near had all there is in the house!’

Mr Stubbs ventured to emerge from behind his handkerchief. ‘I take my solemn oath it ain’t true,’ he said. ‘We suspicioned the lady was this Loodervic Lavenham – that’s how it come about.’

Sir Tristram looked him over critically. ‘That settles it: they must be badly foxed,’ he remarked.

‘Of course they are,’ agreed Thane. ‘Thought my sister was a man? I never heard of anything to equal it! They’re so foxed they can’t see straight.’

Mr Peabody hastened to explain. ‘No, your Honour, no! It were all on account of that abigail we saw here, and which was turned off so sudden, and which we thought was the lady.’

‘You are making matters worse for yourselves,’ said Sir Tristram. ‘First you say you thought Miss Thane was Ludovic Lavenham, and now you say you thought she was my cousin’s abigail. Pray, what were you about to chase an abigail?’

‘It’s as plain as a pikestaff what they are about,’ said Thane severely.

‘I knew she was a low, vulgar wretch!’ cried Eustacie, swift to improve this point.

The maligned Runners could only gape at her in dismay.

‘Well, Wright shall know how his precious Runners conduct themselves once they are out of his reach!’ promised Sir Hugh.

‘But, your Honour – but, sir – it weren’t like that at all! It was the abigail we thought was Loodervic Lavenham, on account of her being such a great, strapping wench, and when Miss here came so cautious out of the back door, like as if she was scared someone might see her, it was natural we should be mistook in her. What would the lady go out walking for when it was almost dark?’

Sir Hugh turned to look at his sister, his judicial instincts roused. ‘I must say, it seems demmed odd to me,’ he conceded. ‘What were you doing, Sally?’

Miss Thane, prompted partly by a spirit of pure mischief, and partly by a desire to be revenged on Sir Tristram for his inhuman suggestion of throwing cold water over her, turned her face away and implored her brother not to ask her that question.

‘That’s all very well,’ objected Thane, ‘but did you go out by the back door?’

‘Yes,’ said Miss Thane, covering her face with her hands.

‘Why?’ asked Sir Hugh, faintly puzzled.

‘Oh,’ said Miss Thane, the very picture of maidenly confusion, ‘must I tell you, indeed? I went to meet Sir Tristram.’

‘Eh?’ said Thane, taken aback.

Miss Thane found that she had underestimated her opponent. Not a muscle quivered in Shield’s face. He said immediately: ‘This news should have been broken to you at a more suitable time, Thane. Spare your sister’s blushes, I beg of you!’

Miss Thane, for once put out of countenance, intervened in a hurry. ‘We cannot discuss such matters now! Do pray, send those creatures away! I will believe they meant me no harm, but I vow and declare the very sight of them gives me a Spasm!’

This request was so much in accordance with the Runners’ own wishes that they both looked hopefully at Sir Hugh, and gave him to understand that if he cared to order them back to London, they would be glad to obey him. The day’s disasters had succeeded in convincing them that their errand was futile; and their main concern now was not to arrest a fugitive from the Law but to induce Sir Hugh to refrain from complaining of them to his friend, Sampson Wright. They were not drunk, and their motives had been of the purest, but against the testimony of Sir Hugh, and his sister, and Sir Tristram, and the landlord, they did not feel that they had any hope of being attended to in Bow Street.

Somewhat to their surprise, Miss Thane came to their support, saying magnanimously that for her part she was ready to let the matter rest.

‘Wright ought to know of it,’ said Sir Hugh, shaking his head.

‘Very true, but you forget that they have been punished already for their stupidity. Sir Tristram was very rough with them, you know.’

Sir Hugh was slightly mollified by this reflection. After telling the Runners that he hoped it would be a lesson to them, and warning them that if he ever caught sight of their faces again within the portals of the Red Lion it would be the worse for them, he waved them away. They assured him they would go back to London by the night mail, and with renewed apologies to Miss Thane, bowed themselves out of the inn as fast as they could.

‘Well, now that they’ve taken themselves off,’ said Nye, ‘I’ll go and let Mr Ludovic out of the cellar.’

Sir Hugh was not at the moment interested in Ludovic’s release. He was regarding Shield in a puzzled way, and as soon as the landlord had left the room, accompanied by Eustacie, said: ‘I dare say Sally knows what she’s about, but I don’t think you should appoint her to meet you like that. It’s not at all the thing. Besides, there’s no sense in it. If you want to see her, you can do it here, can’t you?
I’ve
no objection.’

‘I fear you can have no romantic leanings,’ said Shield, before Miss Thane could speak. ‘A star-lit sky, the balmy night breezes –’

‘But this is February! The breeze isn’t balmy at all – in fact, there’s been a demmed north wind blowing all day,’ pointed out Sir Hugh.

‘To persons deep in love,’ said Sir Tristram soulfully, ‘any breeze is balmy.’

‘Hateful wretch!’ said Miss Thane, with deep feeling, ‘Pay no heed to him, Hugh! Of course, I did not go to meet him!’

Sir Tristram appeared to be overcome. ‘You play fast and loose with me,’ he said reproachfully. ‘You have dashed my hopes to the ground, shattered my self-esteem –’

‘If you say another word, I’ll box your ears!’ threatened Miss Thane.

Sir Hugh shook his head at her in mild disapproval. ‘I see what it is: you’ve been flirting again,’ he said.

‘Don’t be so vulgar!’ implored Miss Thane. ‘There’s not a word of truth in it! I went out merely to trick the Runners. Sir Tristram’s arrival was quite by chance.’

‘But you told me –’

‘The truth is that you stumbled upon a secret romance, Thane,’ said Sir Tristram, with a great air of candour.

Thane looked from Sir Tristram’s imperturbable countenance to his sister’s indignant one, and gave it up. ‘I suppose it’s all a hum,’ he remarked. ‘Are you coming into the parlour? There’s a devilish draught here.’

‘Presently,’ replied Sir Tristram, detaining Miss Thane by the simple expedient of stretching out his hand and grasping her wrist.

She submitted to this, and when her brother had gone back to the parlour, said: ‘I suppose I deserved that.’

‘Certainly you did,’ agreed Sir Tristram, releasing her. ‘You would have been well served had I really thrown cold water over you. Are you at all hurt?’

‘Oh no, merely a bruise or two! Your intervention was most timely.’

‘And if I had not happened to have been there?’

‘I should have allowed them to drag me back here, of course, and fainted in Hugh’s arms instead of yours.’

He smiled a little, but only said: ‘You shouldn’t have done it.’

‘Oh, perhaps it was not, as Eustacie would say, quite
convenable
,’ she replied, ‘but you will admit that it has rid us of grave danger.’

‘You might have been badly hurt,’ he answered.

‘Well, I was not badly hurt, so we shall not consider that.’

At this moment Ludovic strolled into the room, and slid his sound arm round Miss Thane’s waist, and kissed her cheek. ‘Sally, I swear you’re an angel!’ he declared.

‘Anything less angelic than her conduct during the past half-hour I have yet to see,’ observed Sir Tristram. ‘An accomplished liar would be nearer the mark.’

‘
Quant à ça
, you also told lies,’ said Eustacie. ‘You pretended to be in love with her: you know you did!’

‘Did he?’ said Ludovic. ‘Perhaps he is in love with her. I vow I am!’

‘Cream-pot love, my child,’ interposed Miss Thane composedly. ‘You are pleased with me for having rid you of those Runners. And now that they have gone, when shall we break into the Dower House?’

‘Rid your mind of the notion that you are to make one of that party,’ said Shield. ‘Neither you nor Eustacie will come with us – if we go at all.’

‘Hey, what’s this?’ demanded Ludovic. ‘Of course we shall go!’

Miss Thane looked at Shield with a humorous gleam in her eyes. ‘Now pray do not tell me that after all the trouble I have been put to to remove the bars of our adventure we are not to have any adventure!’

‘I think you are likely to have all the adventure you could desire without going to Dower House to look for it,’ replied Shield. ‘I fancy the Beau’s suspicions will not be as easily allayed as the Runners’ were.’

‘Well, if Basil comes spying after me himself, we shall see some sport,’ said Ludovic cheerfully. ‘I wish you will discover when he means to go to town, Tristram.’

This was not a difficult task to accomplish, for the Beau, paying a friendly call upon his cousin that evening after dinner, volunteered the information quite unprompted. He wandered into the library at the Court, a vision of pearl-grey and salmon-pink, and smiled sweetly at Shield, lounging on the sofa by the fire.

Shield greeted him unemotionally, and nodded towards a chair. ‘Sit down, Basil: I’m glad to see you.’

The Beau raised his brows rather quizzically. ‘My dear Tristram, how unexpected!’

‘Yes,’ said Shield, ‘I’ve no doubt it is. I feel you should be told of an excessively odd circumstance. Are you aware that there have been a couple of Bow Street Runners in the neighbourhood, searching for Ludovic?’

For a moment the Beau made no reply. The smile still lingered on his lips, but an arrested expression stole into his eyes, as though he found such direct methods of warfare disconcerting. He drew up a chair to the fire and sat down in it, and said: ‘For Ludovic? Surely you must be mistaken? Ludovic is not in Sussex, is he?’