Death of a Fop (Bow Street Consultant series Book 1) (16 page)

“I need to see” she whispered.

“Then stay well back you brave little idiot” said Caleb.

Somehow the adjective brave outweighed being called an idiot; and somehow Jane knew that he was paying her fortitude a compliment in not insisting – and he could force her – that she return to her room.

Caleb ran silently down ahead of Jane on silent, stockinged feet, not missing a stair though the darkness was profound in the stairwell. There were sounds of a tussle; words that Jane hoped she had not understood correctly; and then a sudden detonation, which echoed!

“GAWDSTREWTH Fowler you nodcock, you’ve been and shot
me
” said Caleb’s voice.

“Not me, Mr Armitage, I saw the candleight on that other feller’s barking-iron; It’s him I done shot and he have put a ball in you!” cried Fowler “Don’t you go and stick your spoon in the wall now, or Missus’ll have me guts fer garters fer lettin’ of ’im shoot yer!”

“Stubble it and help me with this fellow then!” said Caleb. “It’s a flesh wound. I ain’t about to turn up me toes.”

Jane, horrified and working on not screaming, terrified for Caleb’s life, came down the rest of the way. One ominously still figure was lying in the doorway to the kitchen; Caleb was sitting on the other. His assailant was wriggling hard. Fowler was shaking like a blancmanger, the pistol still in his hand. The scene was like something from a melodramatic book like ‘The Castle of Wolfenbach’ in the flickering of the two candles, one in Fowler’s other hand and one in Jane’s. There was a solid pewter candlestick on a table by the doorway however so Jane set down her own chamber candle, picked up the heavy candlestick and hit the man under Caleb over the head.

“Oh
very
well done Mrs Churchill” said Caleb, a trifle faintly.

“Fowler” said Jane “Light more candles; then truss up this – person. And check if the other is indeed shot dead and if there is any chance he is not, truss him up too. Mr Armitage you are all over blood; pray go and sit in Mrs Ketch’s chair by the fire and I shall attend to your wound as soon as we are certain these two present us with no further problems” she spoke in a far crisper tone than her sick horror at so much blood would have permitted her to do had she not been sensible to the fact that Caleb Armitage needed her to be strong and deal with his wound.

“Yes ma’am” said Caleb “The mistress of the house is in charge and in fine fettle.”

“There’s a time and a place for facetiae, Mr Armitage and I’ll reserve judgement on whether now is it when I have seen to you” said Jane crisply.

“Mrs Churchill! You cannot order a man around like that and then not marry him!” Caleb’s voice was weak but he could not resist teasing.

“I can and I shall do as I see fit in my own house” said Jane ambiguously.

She screamed suddenly as a smaller figure landed on her back knocking her over and putting out her candle very effectively by snuffing it beneath the weight of her body; this figure had hurtled down from the dresser where presumably it had taken refuge when it became clear that Fowler and Caleb were attacking the two larger men; and escape was its main priority.

Fowler yelled; and Caleb swore. There were sounds of a chase and the gritty, teeth-setting sound of coal on coal; and then a bang.

“Cove got out through the coal hatch” said Caleb “Strewth, I must be losin’ me touch…”

“I don’t know about losing your touch, Mr Armitage, but you are most certainly losing blood” said Jane a little breathlessly as she got to her knees, checking herself mentally for any worse wounds than a crop of bruises and being winded. “Fowler, light a candle and go bolt that door before we go any further. I will have yours to see to Mr Armitage’s wound; mine is I believe quite broken.”

“Be aware” said Caleb “Coal dust can explode…. Besides, the door won’t bolt. They’ve sawed the bolt because Ripon was not there to let them in…. That’s what I heard. It must have woken you too, Ma’am.”

“What I’ll do Madam is to lock the door from the coal cellar to the kitchen,” said Fowler, “aye, and pull the table across it too. And to think I told my brother the army was too exciting for me!”

“You’re loving it Fowler” said Caleb.

“Mr Armitage, I will not say that the exhilaration is not an interesting change but I should not go so far as all that” said Fowler. “If, however, you was finding yourself a part of the household and needing a man, I should not say that valeting might not be an interesting way forward.”

“You are moving too fast on too many fronts Fowler” said Jane “And any more would be impudence.”

“Yes Mrs Churchill ma’am” said Fowler.

The ball had fortunately not lodged in Caleb’s arm; it was as he had said, a flesh wound, as Jane found when she cut away the stitching of the seam of his shirt; but he had lost a lot of blood and the sleeve of his shirt was soaked in it and it had dripped down onto his buckskins too. Jane sighed.

“Mrs Kemp is going to have to do more to them than go over with a lot of buffball” she said “They’ll need salt to take the blood out, and then the stiffness from washing them will take some working with warmed beeswax and vegetable oil. Ah well, you’ll be confined to your bed for a day or two so you shall not need them.”

“Mrs Churchill, I will not” said Caleb. “I need to be up and about to be ready for any reinforcements that fellow has gone after.”

“If you don’t sit still, Mr Armitage” said Jane tartly “The level of reinforcements you will need yourself for causing yourself more harm will be General Blücher and all his Brunswickers. Now instead of marching to the sound of the guns I pray you will sit to the sound of my bandaging.”

“Yes Colonel Ma’am” said Caleb in a deceptively meek voice.

Jane washed the wound – a neat hole right through the flesh of the upper arm – and packed it with basilicum powder and put on a linen bandage from the strips Mrs Kedge kept against emergency. The linen was good; the sheet from which it had come had been as new as any in her bottom drawer but Frank had ripped it across because he declared that he could still scent the stench of her giving birth on it.

It had been a totally different sheet to the one she had birthed on, that had still been being laundered; but Frank had been like that. Had he only torn it lengthways it might still have been serviceable sides-to-middled; but he would rip it from side to side, and with the centre seam necessary to make a full sized sheet, a seam the other way was impractical. Jane had made two pillow slips from the torn sheet and given the rest to Mrs Ketch to roll as bandages, for accidents can happen in the best regulated household.

Caleb grunted in relief as the bandage kept the wound somewhat compressed; and sighed in greater relief as Jane laid his forearm up across his chest to rest on the other shoulder and tied a sling to hold it.

“That should do very nicely,” she said, “we can send for a doctor in the morning.”

“If you think I want to see any damn sawbones….” said Caleb “Oh I was thinking of sending for a proper physician,” said Jane, “but if you dislike the idea very much we shall defer the decision until the morning; it is,” she added as though in an aside to Fowler, “a necessary thing to humour the patient lest he fall into a fever.”

“You’re a damned managing wench, Mrs Churchill” said Caleb. “Here, Fowler, is that fellow over there dead?”

“Yes Mr Armitage; I fancy it must be beginner’s luck” said Fowler “And I’m afeared I’m going to shoot the cat.”

He certainly looked green enough to be expected to vomit.

“Rise above it, brother of a soldier!” said Caleb. “You might as well stick him in the coal cellar; here, let me have a look at his face first” he half rose.

“Fowler will lift his head for you” said Jane.

“Sorry madam but Fowler will not” said Fowler, fleeing.

Caleb got up and came over, grunting slightly.

“As I thought,” he said, “this is the fellow who was torturing Dorothy. Well
he
won’t do anything of the kind again.”

“Indeed no; and I must give Fowler a bonus for so excellent a shot” said Jane. “He will be quite a hero with Dorothy!”

“S’welp me, better him than me” said Caleb. “This other don’t look a whole lot better character; whatever else. I reckon these precious pair are the ones that did for your husband. That was quite a baste on the costard you gave him; I doubt he’ll wake afore daylight. Here, let me reload the barker Fowler’s left lying about so careless; with one arm useless I can’t guarantee to throw this fellow in with out other prisoner and stop Jimmy the slum trying something on. You keep the barker pointed at him and I guarantees yer, there ain’t nothin’ so scary as a woman with a pistol.”

“Why?” asked Jane.

“Because women is held to be nervous with loud noises and to shut their eyes and pull the trigger anywise; which could mean an injury a lot worse than death, especially as a woman is generally weak and can’t aim as high” said Caleb. “Just take it from me that a barking-iron in the hands of any mort is a scary business” he added hastily.

He half dragged the unconscious man to the storeroom where James Ripon was incarcerated; and Jane held the pistol resolutely on the startled captive.

“Gawd, wot have yer done to O’Toole?” he demanded, shocked “Where’s Smudger?”

“Well, well, quite the happy family” said Caleb. “Anyone else you’d care to name for me while you’re about it?”

Ripon went green.

“No fear,” he said, “they’d bloody kill me.”

“Well you’re for the queer ken at least and most likely dancing at Beilby’s ball” said Caleb cheerfully. “And knowing what your mate Smudger did to one man and tried to do to a girl, I’d happily watch you dancing on the nubbing-cheat” and he swung the door back on the frightened man.

“And now” said Jane “You will go to bed. Fowler!” as the footman returned “All are safe bar the body; perhaps you will lock the door to the kitchen until the morning so that you might explain; and run for a constable. And on a Sunday they may not be there!” she said.

“Tomorrow, Mrs Churchill, I will be equal to deal with anything” said Fowler majestically.

“Good man” said Caleb. “And yes ma’am, I am now going!”

Jane hardly expected to sleep after the night alarums; but she woke up to Ella’s cheerful voice asking if it were to be considered a normal feature of entertaining a Bow Street Runner to find bodies in the kitchen.

Jane sat up.

“Ella, you were not surely permitted into the kitchen before that horrid thing had gone?”

“Mrs Jane I was not; and nor should you have been! You should have woken me; what is the good of me sleeping in your dressing room if not to be woken to support you? And that wretched man has taken a fever!”

“I was afraid he might” said Jane. “What has the magnificent Fowler managed to do about tea and toast with
that
on the floor?”

“Magnificent Fowler! I’ll magnificent him!” said Ella “Putting on airs because he shot a common housebreaker! He went and got some street urchins and paid them to get a barrow to take the body to Bow Street with a letter in his own hand, mark you, written in Mr Armitage’s name that they were to take it in charge and send a constable to collect the prisoners. Hah!”

“I wager at that it was at Mr Armitage’s suggestion,” said Jane mildly, “feverish or no. I must go and look at my patient; write a note for me to Doctor….. no, I did not like Doctor Wingfield. Dear me, how very provoking!”

“Mrs Jane dearie, there’s nothing wrong with Mr Armitage that we can’t cure and a doctor can’t charge for killing,” said Ella, “and I do grant you, though I wasn’t sure at first, he is worth saving. And though I’ve had more upsets in the last few days than is considered proper in a decent household, well you can’t complain that it is dull. Lawks, though, I’m glad it wasn't me hitting that fellow on the head!”

“Ella, you are sweet to me, but don’t you think that you ought to be ashamed of your reticence?” asked Jane.

Ella flushed but laughed, glad that her mistress was in a good enough mood to be moved to irony.

“Madam must have her little joke” she said. “Miss Bates is all agog to hear all about it.”

Jane smiled.

“Dear Aunt Hetty; I fancy she is quite enjoying herself bar the strain of the funeral” she said. “I will go to her when I have attended Mr Armitage. He will eat gruel; milk gruel but gruel. And if he behaves himself I may permit him a restorative pork broth.”

Ella had her own ideas on what Mr Armitage might think about that; she also had the opinion that her mistress would win the encounter.

“Gruel and bedrest or I get a doctor in to bleed you,” said Jane, “and I’m not sure that bleeding might not be a bad idea anyway; it lets out the evil humours of a wound.”

“I lost enough blood thank you,” said Caleb, “if I lose any more I shall turn into a revenant and haunt your house for eternity moaning and rattling chains or whatever such unnatural wights do.”

“I doubt anyone would notice the difference after last night,” said Jane, “which as the rest of the household contrived to sleep through it means there would be little point to such a doleful and macabre exercise. Here is your gruel; when you have eaten it I shall check your wound. If you do not eat it I shall send for a military surgeon.”

“Madam, you are a cruel woman” said Caleb “I believe I have been laid up under the sign of the cat’s foot!”

“Indeed you have, Mr Armitage” said Jane smiling at him.

“Jane-girl, if you smile at me like that, I’ll eat any damnable slop you put in front of me” Caleb asseverated. Jane blushed.

“Why the poor man is feverish indeed” she said lightly. “Caleb, I wish you will permit Ella and me to nurse you without making a fight of it; I am not unaccustomed to sick nursing, though I confess never of one wounded by a bullet before.”

“I’ll try to behave Jane-girl,” said Caleb, “even for Ella; for I fear if I refuse her ministrations you might withdraw yours.”

“I should certainly have to consider it; for you are a contrary creature, Mr Armitage” said Jane.

“Oh but Mrs Churchill, I do have my faults also” said Caleb.