Unexpected Magic (49 page)

“He did. What of it?”

“It is not true. The Prince is not here, I assure you. Please believe me. The Prince has disappeared and so has my brother. It seems certain that someone has them prisoner—unless you have news of them that I have not.” Cecilia held her breath until Lord Tremath answered. It could so easily be that what she said was quite wrong. After all, she knew so very little really.

Lord Tremath frowned at her. “Are you sure? He was to be leading the troops—the Prince, I mean. I know nothing of your brother.”

“But he is not,” said Cecilia. “It is the Count of Gairne.” She looked back at the valley, to make sure that what she said was still true, but the hill hid most of it from view where she now stood.

“Walk with us, my lady,” said Lord Tremath. “We will see.” He and the two men with him rode slowly to the edge of the cliff. Cecilia went nervously with them, nervous because she was suddenly “my lady” to this man too—it made her afraid that he was planning to keep her in a dungeon—and even more nervous of their horses. They were magnificent heavy warhorses. They had heard the sound of the battle and were jigging and curvetting with excitement. The squire, Cecilia knew, must be a magnificent horseman to keep his horse in check at all, and she was afraid she would be trampled on despite his skill.

She and the riders looked down at the valley. They had come at a rare moment of order. The outlaws were all grouped back against the cliff, archers kneeling, spearmen standing and cavalry wheeling into place on the wings. Robert was riding in front of them all, calling commands. Towerwood's army had drawn off slightly and filled the open end of the valley. Cecilia recognized Towerwood himself moving among the cavalry, arranging the next onslaught, waving an arm to call up fresh archers from the rear.

“Yes,” said Lord Tremath, “I see Towerwood there, and Darron, and March, and Moyne. There is no sign of the Prince, nor are there more than a few of his men, but they could be in reserve, behind that rise.”

Cecilia was not listening to him, nor was she thinking of their trampling horses any more. She was in tears because it was so plain that the outlaws were penned in against the cliff. The only possible way they could escape was up the way Tom had brought her, or up one or two other paths on the cliff. The paths were like little glaciers of frozen snow, and if any men could manage to climb them, there was Lord Tremath at the top.

“Why did they all laugh so?” she thought. “Because they knew there was no hope?”

Cecilia only remembered where she was, when she heard the squire say: “No, the Prince is not there. You spoke truly, my lady.”

“Then,” said Lord Tremath, “this is not our quarrel. Indeed, Towerwood scarcely needs our help as it is.”

He was right. Towerwood's army was moving in again to smash the remaining outlaws against the cliff face.

“But,” Cecilia cried out, “if you stay here you will be cutting them off in the rear.”

“That was our intention, my lady,” answered Lord Tremath. “Come.” He and the squire and the standard-bearer turned their eager horses and rode away, not very far, only a few yards from the cliff edge. Lord Tremath beckoned to Cecilia. “You must stay with us, my lady,” he said.

Cecilia did not want to leave the cliff edge. She made up her mind to stay. Then Towerwood's army threw itself on the outlaws, and it was like the sea breaking on a reef in a froth of swords and spears and rearing horses. Cecilia turned and ran toward Lord Tremath.

Almost as soon as she reached him, there was a clatter of hooves at the cliff face, and a foaming blue roan horse hurled itself scrambling onto the slope. There, Robert, on its back, reined in so hard that man and beast nearly toppled back over the cliff edge. After him came Rupert Lord Strass with James of March lying hanging over his saddle-bow. He too reined in as he saw Lord Tremath. Then to Cecilia's astonishment, outlaws in Hornet livery appeared all along the cliff edge, riding and on foot. Most of them were laughing as they appeared, but the sight of Lord Tremath stopped them where they stood. And from the waiting Tremath troops came a long burring of voices as the soldiers there realized that Towerwood and his allies were down in the valley fighting one another.

A
lex and Cecilia were missed at Arnforth Hall fairly early on, but the Courcys were the kind of family which only became united for action at the latest possible moment. Nothing was done for hours.

Susannah was the first to see that Alex and Cecilia were not coming. She had been waiting and watching all morning, for, at last, she had made up her mind that she would apologize to Alex. She would lick his boots if necessary. It had dawned on her, in that awful moment when the Wild Rider had suddenly hurled himself into the bay, that her remarks really hurt Alex's feelings. And when Alex and Cecilia did not come back to the farm, she was sure she had hurt them once too much. So, on the pretext of decorating the hall, she hung about near the front door. She saw Old John arrive in the trap and drive round to the servants' entrance. She ran round there as soon as she could, and saw Cecilia's bandbox and Alex's bag. Old John had gone by the time she realized that Alex and Cecilia were not there too.

She waited another hour. The bell rang for the hasty muddled lunch they always had the day of a party. Alex and Cecilia always came to this lunch. Susannah ran into the ballroom, all dirty pinafore and wild hair. Harry was there with Egbert, both on the same stepladder, trying to hang up a green paper dragon.

“Harry, Egbert, did you know Cecilia and Alex had not come yet?”

Harry, whose conscience was troubling him about the Hornbys even more than Susannah's, nearly fell off the stepladder. He saved himself by using Egbert, and Egbert, who had a soft spot for Cecilia, was not balanced either. Between them, they tore down the paper dragon.

“Go away, Susannah!” Harry said.

“Have it all to do again, now, what?” said Egbert.

Susannah tried her poetic sister Letitia after lunch, but Letitia, much smeared with ink, was composing rhymed mottoes for each of the guests and was not really attending. “Could I rhyme Cecilia with Ophelia, dear?” Lavinia and Emily, who were helping her, thought not. Susannah clapped her hands to her face and ran away to Charlotte.

“Ophelia was drowned!” she told Charlotte, too worried to make her idea plain.

“I know, dear.” Charlotte was already busy with her clothes, because, of course, her fiancé Charles Phelps was to be at the party.

By this time, most of the preparations were done. Martin came out of the billiard room where he had been avoiding work. Susannah caught him before he could vanish somewhere else. “Alex and Cecilia are not here yet.”

He was the one person who took her seriously. “Really? Standing on their dignity probably. After all, they must have some. Don't worry, though. That old father of theirs will send them along.”

“But Mr. Hornby has gone to London for Father.”

“So he has.” Martin realized that if he went on attending to Susannah, she would be sending him to the farm to look. He began to make off. “Let me know if they do not come in the next hour.”

This was a clever move, because Susannah was being dressed when the hour was up. She escaped though, because there was a crisis about Charlotte's hair and Susannah was forgotten. With her own hair in curl-papers and her pretty white dress unhooked, Susannah ran down to the hall and the ballroom, and then to find Martin. Martin had vanished, of course, but she found Harry, already dressed, prowling on a wide landing.

“What is it, Susannah? They still have not come, have they?”

“No,” she said. “They have not. Harry, I think it is my fault.”

“No,” he said. “It's mine. You can set yourself at ease, Susannah. If they are not here in half an hour I shall have to see Father about it.”

Susannah could not wait so long. A quarter of an hour later, when she was properly dressed, she went to her mother and tried to explain. Lady Courcy, fond though she was of Susannah, could not make head or tail of it. Nor could she rid herself of a sneaking feeling that none of it was very important. But her poor Susannah seemed so distressed that she agreed to talk to Sir Edmund about it. Anyway, the guests were beginning to arrive and she needed to hurry him up.

Sir Edmund Courcy, who was just like Martin, except that he took his hands out of his pockets to hunt, was of course not nearly dressed. Lady Courcy tried to frighten him into hurrying, as she always did, and it seemed to her that a good way to frighten him was to explain about Susannah.

“And those little Hornbys have not arrived. I cannot think what has happened. My poor Susannah is terribly upset, dear, and has some odd idea that it is her fault they have not come.”

“Why?” said Sir Edmund, mislaying the studs his man was following him around with. “They should have been here all day, surely?”

“But they have
not
been, dear.”

“Then why was I not told? My studs, Smith! Oh, there they are at last! Josiah is in London, you know, and I am responsible for those children. We must send to the farm and enquire.”

So, to Susannah's relief, a footman was sent to the farm. He went very reluctantly, since, being a footman, he was twenty times more of a snob than the family who paid him, but he went nevertheless. Susannah saw him anxiously to the door before she went off to greet the first of her guests.

Harry, meanwhile, knew nothing of this. Shortly after the footman left, he squared his shoulders, straightened his collar, and went to confess to Sir Edmund. His father stopped him impatiently after the first few sentences.

“What is the matter with you all? I sent James to enquire ten minutes ago. Why on earth should it be your fault? A man listening to you would think the whole family had conspired to keep these children at home.”

“Well, we did not exactly conspire, sir, but I am afraid that is what it may have seemed like to them.”

“Oh, nonsense,” said Sir Edmund. “Fudge!”

The party was in full swing by the time the footman returned. He had the presence of mind to call Sir Edmund away from the guests before he told him the alarming news that Alex and Cecilia had set out early and should have been at Arnforth two hours before luncheon.

“Miss Gatly was quite beside herself, sir, because it came on to snow soon after they left. She fears they are lost, sir.”

“With some justice, I imagine,” Sir Edmund answered, and hurried to his study to smoke a cigar and think. As soon as the cigar was lit, he remembered what Harry had said and rang for James again. “Fetch all my children here at once. I want Charlotte too, but not Charles Phelps. They are all to come whatever they are doing.” And as James went away again, Sir Edmund imagined himself telling Josiah the news and nearly bit his cigar through.

Fathers seldom mentioned business affairs in those days, so that none of the Courcys knew how grateful they should have been to Josiah. Sir Edmund, being as lazy as Martin, had let his money get into something rather worse than a mess. Josiah had discovered this by accident some time back and had been trying to straighten Sir Edmund out ever since. But the case was next to hopeless and things had reached the stage where it would be entirely due to Josiah's work in London that the Courcys had any money at all by the end of the week. Indeed, the most Sir Edmund hoped for was sufficient money to have Charlotte safely married at the end of January. After that, he was thinking of emigrating. And now, when he needed Josiah's help so badly, it looked as if his family had somehow lost Josiah's children.