Georgette Heyer (38 page)

  Wilmot watched the horses out of sight, and then turned to Peters. 'Now, my man, as soon as my horse is shod, you and I will go to Lyme, and confer a little with Captain Ellesdon!'

The ostler, when he slipped out of the inn that morning, had betaken himself to the house of one Mr Westley, who was minister of Charmouth. Here he was confronted by the parson's housekeeper, a rigid Puritan, who, upon his demanding speech with her master, told him austerely that Mr Westley was at his morning-exercise, and might not be disturbed. She lifted a warning hand, and the ostler could plainly hear the minister's voice issuing from his study.

  He hesitated. There was no thought in his mind of disturbing the parson at his prayers, for he was himself a pious man, and the sound of a man wrestling so fluently with his own soul filled him with too much respect to allow of his intruding worldly matters into such a godly communion. The question that teased him was whether he should wait for Mr Westley to end his prayers, and so – for he knew the parson delighted in long prayers – lose his chance of a reward from the mysterious strangers at the Queen's Head, when they should take horse. Gentlemen of Mr Payne's stamp could nearly always be counted upon to leave a gold piece in the bottom of the stirrup-cup, and gold pieces were not easily come by in such hard times as these.

  Half-formed suspicions were revolving mazily in his head. He had heard stories of noble gentlemen escaping from their enemies in female disguise, and he wondered whether the lady at the inn were perhaps a man. It did not seem very likely. He had not been able to look closely at her, but his memory retained a brief vision of a full, exquisitely rounded bosom, and of a dimpled cheek too smooth ever to have known the touch of a razor. Her waiting-man's great height, and swarthy com plexion, had startled him, and an unbidden thought had crossed his mind that the King of Scots was a tall, black-avised man. But he had not seriously supposed that the waiting man could be the King of Scots. It was only when he saw how private the strange visitors kept them selves, and had been told that their horses were to remain saddled and bridled all night, that he began to wonder whether his mistress might not be housing Malignants, who were fugitives from the great battle which had lately been fought at Worcester. He had thought it odd that one who was dressed as a serving man should spend the night with his master in the parlour, but when he had set his eye to the keyhole he had seen the big, black man lounging in a chair by the table, and he had not been able to believe that anyone so easy, so shabby, and so tanned of face could be the King. Yet, some uneasiness still possessing his mind, he had presently resolved to lay the matter before the parson. With the housekeeper's severe eyes upon him, and the prosaic daylight making the night's mysteries seem unreal, doubt shook him. He remembered that one of the horses must be taken to be re-shod, and thought he might lose more than the visitors' reward if his mistress should discover him to be absent from his post. He muttered something about coming again presently, and turned away from the minister's house.

  Mistress Wade rated him shrilly when he entered the inn's stableyard, and told him to take the horse with the cast shoe to the stithy at once. He asked her who these guests of hers might be, but she was in a morning humour, and bade him mind his own business. He went off up the street, leading my Lord Wilmot's horse, secure in the conviction that the party could not leave the inn until he returned.

  The blacksmith's forge was situated some little distance up the street. Hammet, the smith, was working on a broken ploughshare, but when he learned that a gentleman's horse had been brought to him to be shod, he laid the ploughshare aside, and bade the ostler lead the horse in. His experienced eye at once recognized breed; he said with casual interest: 'You'll be having noble guests at the Queen's Head, seemingly.'

  'I know not that,' the ostler replied cautiously.

  'This is a right good horse.'

  'Ay, that's so.'

  The smith picked up one of the gelding's feet, and studied the size and shape of the shoe. 'Come from the north, have they?' he remarked. He walked round the horse, and inspected each of his hooves in turn. 'I'll tell you something about this nag, friend,' he offered.

'What's that?'

  'Why, he has but three shoes, and they were set in three different counties, and one of them in Worces tershire.'

  The ostler stared at him. Behind the mistrustful blankness in his eyes, his brain felt hot with suspicion. He said slowly: 'Nay, how can you tell that?'

  'Trust me, I can tell!' replied the smith, moving away to the back of the forge. ''Tis the way the nails are, look you.'

  'Worcestershire,' repeated the ostler, ruminating. 'They kept themselves mightily private. One of them is a powerful big fellow.'

  Hammet began to blow up his furnace. 'Ay?' he said absently.

  The ostler watched him for a minute or two in silence. His suspicion fought in his head with caution, and the dread of making himself a laughing-stock. 'They do say as he's a serving-man. He came riding before a wench. He's a queer-seeming fellow, black as a coal. T'other's a fat gentleman, and high- stomached. I was wondering –' he paused, looking at the smith in a little indecision.

  Hammet thrust a horseshoe into the heart of the furnace with his long tongs. 'Private, was they?' he said.

  'Ay. Like as if they was afeard to be seen. The big 'un has on a plain grey suit, withouten any lace. He has his hair cut short, like a countryman.'

  The smith turned his head; the ostler saw that the stolidity of his countenance was disturbed by some sudden glimmer of comprehension. 'Was you to Lyme Fair yesterday?'

  'Nay, I don't hold with such. There's a mort of ungodliness at fairs.'

  'Ay, that's true.' The smith relapsed into silence, inaccessible behind his own consuming thoughts. He began to hammer the red-hot shoe, seeking refuge from conversation in the clanging din he set up.

  The two men eyed one another furtively. A new suspicion was seething in the ostler's brain. He made no attempt to shout above the noise of hammering, but stood in fretting silence until the shoe was nailed in place. He paid for the work, and led the horse back to the inn. A vague intuition quickened his brain: he felt that he had been able to read Hammet's mind; the vision of a great reward filled his eyes. When he discovered that only one of the party of three travellers still remained at the inn, his heart bounded sickeningly in his breast. He pocketed the coin that was tossed to him, and went in at once to his mistress to get her leave for his going to Lyme. She grumbled, but, having no visitors in the house, told him he might go, and a good riddance to him for a lazy gadabout.

  The smith, meanwhile, had scarcely waited until the ostler was out of sight before he strode off at a smart pace towards the minister's house.
A queer-seeming
fellow, black as a coal . . . a powerful big fellow . . . his hair
cut short, like a countryman's
. The recollected phrases stirred him to a greedy excitement. He had heard a proclamation read in Lyme upon the previous day. Its words echoed in his head:
Take notice of him to be a tall
man, above two yards high, his hair a deep brown near to
black, and has been, as we hear, cut off since the destruction
of his army at Worcester, so that it is not very long
. When it had presently been nailed to a wall, he had spelled the proclamation out laboriously, not dreaming it might concern him.
Whosoever shall apprehend the person of
the said Charles Stewart, and shall bring or cause him to be
brought to the Council of State, shall have given and bestowed
on him or them as a Reward for such service, the sum of One
Thousand pounds.

  The thought of such a fortune made his sense stagger, and his breath come quickly and painfully. He hurried on up the hill.

  When he reached the minister's house, Mr Westley had just come to the end of his morning-exercise, and received him without delay. He was a spare, thin-faced zealot. He saw nothing absurd in the tale the smith unfolded, but listened to it attentively, and offered to go with him at once to the inn. No thought of earthly reward tainted his zeal, as Hammet knew. He would have scorned to touch a groat of the blood-money offered for Charles Stewart's capture, but he saw a heavenly crown in the business, being, as my Lord of Newcastle would have said, Bible mad.

  Together, the two men strode down the steep, cobbled street to the inn at its foot.

  Mistress Wade met them at the door, and gave the minister a civil good-day. Her gaze flickered over the blacksmith, and he drew back a little, for she was a redoubtable woman, with a scathing tongue in her head.

  Westley went breezily to work with her. 'Why, how now, Margaret?' he said. 'So you are a maid-of-honour now, as I learn!'

  Her eyes narrowed mistrustfully; she set her arms akimbo, thrusting out her chin. 'What mean you by that, Master Parson?'

  'Why,' said Westley, watching her like a cat, 'Charles Stewart lay last night at your house, and kissed you at his departure, so that now you can't but be a maid-of honour!'

  She remembered the kiss, and the smile that had gone with it. She had slapped the tall man's tanned face, yet fondly, feeling a stir in her blood which belonged to youth, not to staid middle-age. She flew suddenly into one of her quick rages; her palm itched to slap in good earnest, but she controlled the impulse. 'Strangers lay in my house last night. I know not who they were, nor would not demean myself to pry into what's no concern of mine.'

  'Was there not a tall, dark man amongst them?' he persisted.

  'And what if there was?'

  'Woman, that was none other than the traitor, Charles Stewart!'

  She was for a moment stupefied. She thought of the big, lusty young man who had lounged at his ease in her parlour, and had girdled her round the waist with a strong arm, and kissed her, and murmured a lewd jest in her ear. She had been a rollicking lover in her time, bringing to the business something of the same carnal, carefree zest which she had seen in the King's eyes, and felt, with a faint, delightful shudder of the flesh, in the touch of his hand, and the strength of his hard, male body. None of your prim, shy, newfangled lovers, that young man, but a rare, hot lad that would take his plea sure gaily, as nature meant him to do, and waste little time between meeting and bedding.

  Suddenly her rage flared up, as she looked at Westley's thin form, his cold eyes, and pale, tight mouth. There was not as much red blood in all his undesiring body as there was in one of that wicked, black lad's fingers, she thought scornfully. She shook her fist at him. 'So it was the King that lay in my house, was it?' she said. 'You scurvy, ill-conditioned rogue! You'll go about to bring me and my house into trouble, will you? But let me tell you this, Master Parson: if I thought it was the King, I would think the better of my lips all the days of my life! And so, Master Parson, get you out of my house, or else I'll get those that shall kick you out!'

  He recoiled, as much from the glimpse he caught of some primitive excitation of feeling in her as from the menace of her clenched fist, and flashing eyes. The skirt of his black gown was all but nipped between the door and the wall, as she slammed the stout oak in his face. He turned round, and saw the blacksmith hiding a grin behind his hand. He said with what dignity he could muster: 'The mouth of a strange woman is a deep pit. We will go to the magistrate.'

  The smith agreed, but rather doubtfully, seeing the reward for the King's apprehension begin to slip out of his reach. He thought if the magistrates were to move in the matter they would very likely claim the reward. His footsteps lagged a little behind Westley's impetuous strides; he remembered his deserted forge, and half wished that he had not led the parson on this chase.

  When they reached Commer, the home of Mr Butler, the nearest Justice of the Peace, they were taken, after a short delay, into a parlour where the squire awaited them.

  He was a short, stout man, rather red of face, and inclined to be choleric. He was, by conviction, a Parliamentarian, but although he was forced to suffer them, he had little liking for the rigid Puritans. He favoured Westley with a bow, but when his full blue eyes alighted on Hammet, they started alarmingly, and caused the smith to shift his feet upon the polished floor-boards, and to look all ways but one.

  'Ha!' said Mr Butler, straddling before his empty hearth, his hands linked behind his back.

  This exclamation much discomposed the smith. He was sorry now that he had come with the minister, for it was plain that the squire thought he had taken a liberty.

  Westley said: 'I have come to you, sir, with this honest man, whom you may know for Hammet, the blacksmith –'

  'I know him very well,' interrupted Butler, still keeping Hammet under the stare of his fierce blue eyes. 'I marvel that he can leave his trade to come a-visiting upon a working-day!'