Yes, I could marry that revolting twerp, Dunby.
Advantages
1. Money
2. I could be a good mother to his poor little daughter, Elvina
3. I wouldn’t be dependent on the de Gracy family
4. They would have to treat me with respect
Disadvantages
1. A vain halfwit for a husband
2. A harsh, cold-hearted insect of a father-in-law
3. If I ran off to America I would bring disgrace on my relations
4. If I ran off to America I would be letting down that poor little child
5. If I fell in love with someone else – a real man – I could never marry him and be happy
No. It must be a loan. Now I just have to pluck up courage. Maybe I could take the pistol Ned put together and point it at them. “Lend me some money,” I could say. “Your money or your daughter’s life!” Ha!
Later
Well, I went. I showed them the letter, and they were very sympathetic.
“I wouldn’t worry, cousin,” said Lady Anne. “These Carew people don’t sound the sort to just throw a man out to starve. They will look after him.”
“But you don’t understand,” I said. “It is a hard life in America. There are no shops or markets. They must chop down trees to build their homes, they must grow everything from seed… Nothing is easy.”
Juliana shrugged and made her thin lips go even thinner. One day they’ll disappear and she’ll look like a stuffed scarecrow’s head.
“None of us finds life easy, Susan.”
I could not believe she’d spoken those words. She lives in a fine house. Yes, the furnishings are somewhat shabby, but she has servants, and enough to eat, and they are all well and warmly dressed. They think they are hard up, yet they don’t know what real hardship is.
But I kept these thoughts to myself. I took a deep breath and asked my favour. When I’d finished speaking, there was a short silence. Then Lady Anne spoke.
“My dear, are you quite mad?” She turned to Sir Roger. “She cannot go, can she?”
“Indeed no,” he said gruffly. “Errk, hmm. If I let you go, cousin, I should be failing in my duty.”
I spoke quietly. “Sir, I should be failing in mine if I did not go.” I tried one last appeal. “Please. Help me. Lend me the money.”
Juliana jumped to her feet. “Money! Haven’t you had enough? You cost us money! Why—”
Thankfully, Sir Roger silenced her. If she had gone on, I think I would have slapped her.
I got to my feet. “I thank you for your time. I will not trouble you again.”
They stood, and Lady Anne took my arm and walked me to the open door. “Go back to your little cottage,” she said. “Sit and wait and trust that all will be well. For I’m sure it will be.”
I set off, but she called to me from the window. “Susannah! Wait!”
I turned, a shiver of hope running through me. Had they changed their minds?
“Godfrey would prefer you to come here for his lessons. Tomorrow, then?”
I didn’t trust myself to speak, but came straight home to record my thoughts.
Oh, Jack is barking. Someone is coming.
Dusk
My visitor was Juliana.
“I have had such a good idea to help you get to America!” she said. “I had to come straight away to tell you.”
“Oh, cousin, thank you!” I cried, regretting that I’d ever doubted her character. “You’ll help me, then?”
I assumed she would offer me something I could sell, but how wrong could I be?
“Well, of course, I cannot help you personally,” she said. “I have nothing of my own, you know.”
Liar. They may have fallen on slightly harder times, but they have plenty.
“No, this is my idea,” she said. “One of our servants left us to emigrate, and he had nothing at all. Even less than you!”
“Then how did he travel?”
“Simple,” she said. “What you do is this. You agree to work on a plantation for a fixed time, and the plantation owner pays for your board and passage across the ocean. You see?”
“Work? As what?”
“As a servant, of course.” She looked uneasy as she saw my expression, and well she might. “Cousin, you have little choice. Er, I can see you do not like my idea.” She backed away. “I do assure you I meant well.”
“Thank you for sparing precious time to think of me, cousin Juliana,” I said. “It is getting dark. You should go home.”
I could have added, “Before I slap your face,” but I did not.
Luke was waiting for her, of course. That girl thinks she is poor but she has everything she needs. Everything I do not have.
One thing I do know. I will find that money. I will! I don’t care how. And I will do whatever is necessary to get me on that ship to America.
July 31st
Two nights have passed. I have not slept. I toss and turn, and kick Bid to stop her snorting. I listen to the owls. I count chickens in a chicken run. But I cannot sleep. Something terrible, but exciting, is going through my mind. I cannot bring myself to write the words, though there is no one in this cottage who can read.
August 1st
Tonight!
August 2nd
All morning yesterday, I prepared. I sorted my clothes out. I gave Ned extra food – feed – for Moonbeam. I gathered rags. I took a couple of handfuls of damp soil and put them inside a little blue pouch – an old silk one that has seen better days. I found a reasonably clean sack and hid it in the stable.
Then I reminisced in front of Bid about my mother, and we both shed a little tear. I told her I could not see my mother, but she could see hers whenever she wanted.
“Go!” I said. “Go today, Bid. Perhaps it is an omen that we are talking of your mother. Perhaps she needs you. Maybe she’s unwell.”
“Oh, don’t say that, Mistress. You makes me feel bad.”
“Then go to her.”
“But time’s a-moving on. I would never get back afore dark, and you know I don’t like the dark.”
“Stay with her, Bid. I will be perfectly all right. I have Ned here, and I shall forbid him to go out rabbiting.”
And she did. Ned and I waved her off, with her arms full of little gifts for her mother (by courtesy of the de Gracy kitchen and garden).
“You are kind, Mistress Susannah,” said Ned.
Oh yes?
I was extra generous during the late afternoon and early evening. I sat sewing while the light held, and kept Ned supplied with strong ale, and then plenty of good wine. He always sleeps well, but I knew that what he was drinking would make him sleep through the loudest thunderstorm. Before long, I was helping him up to Bid’s little room. I let him roll on to the bed, then closed the shutters and crept out.
I went to my bedroom and changed my clothes. Can it be six months since I last wore Dominic’s breeches? I took out the hat I’d worn that night we left home – the very hat I’d pulled low over my face when we met the highwayman.
I would be pulling it low again but, this time, I would be the highwayman.
I gave Jack the heel of a loaf of bread to chew on and told him to be quiet. Then I crept out to Moonbeam’s makeshift stable. I wrapped and tied rags round his hooves so that I could get him off de Gracy land with the least chance of being heard. Once saddled, I led him out and along the drive. I was ready to pull him into the shrubbery if I heard the slightest sound of anyone coming.
We made it through the gates with no problem, other than me jumping in fright as a badger scuttled across our path. The road beyond Gracy Park is little more than a track, and I headed for the crossroads, about a mile away. There, I turned right and, where the woods grew close, I urged Moonbeam into the trees. Once we were among the shadows, I pulled out my afternoon’s sewing – a black mask which covered my eyes and the upper part of my face. I reached into the blue silk pouch, which I’d tied to the saddle, and took out the damp dirt
. I rubbed this around my face. I have seen how white owls gleam in the darkness, and I didn’t want my cheeks and chin to do the same.
I waited and waited. It must have been nigh on two hours.
Down in the valley to my right, candles glimmered in several windows of a rambling building, and in the moonlight I could make out smoke curling lazily upwards.
Sometimes I saw movement, people going in and out and silhouetted for a moment against the lamplight in the doorway. Sometimes the sound of harsh voices floated up to me. The Stag’s Head. Just beyond it was a double bridge. The first arch went over a river, the second over a stream that ran parallel to it. The water gleamed silver in the moonlight. Ned told me he caught our trout in that stream.
No one came.
Oh, well, I thought. That’s that. Susannah Makepeace, highway girl. That’s a laugh. And I rode home with my pathetic empty sack, half disappointed that I was none the richer for my night’s work, and half relieved that I hadn’t been forced to rob anyone.
For that is how I’m thinking now. I will be forced to do it. There is no other way I can get to my brother before it’s too late.
I finally fell into bed, and then could not sleep. My thoughts were all imaginings of what it will be like when I get to America. I will nurse Dominic back to health – I will, I will. Then we will build ourselves a home and we will both work the land, and when we are rich, we’ll come home, and I’ll find Bid and Ned, and we’ll pay our debts and all will be well. All will be well. That was my final thought as I fell asleep.
My first thought as I woke this morning made my skin go cold and clammy, my heart pound and my blood run hot. I must have a guardian angel, I really must. I have called Dunby Vean stupid, but none come more stupid than me.
I dressed as a highwayman, and waited for my first victim, and I didn’t have a pistol! I completely forgot to take it!
Tonight will be different.
Later
Ned knows. He knows because I left too many clues. I really am a dunderhead. I left the rag bindings on Moonbeam’s hooves. I left my blue silk pouch tied to the saddle (I did at least think to take that off, so poor Moonbeam could get some rest). And when I came downstairs to get a drink this morning, Ned was sitting at the table, his head in his hands, moaning about how he’d drunk too much, and never again and all that. Then he looked up at me, and his eyes widened in surprise.
“Mistress, you’re filthy. What’s happened?”
I had forgotten to rub my disguise off my face. Once he put that together with the trail of clues I’d left, there was the most almighty row. It only ended when I told Ned, rather nastily, to remember his place and watch how he spoke to me. I feel bad about that.
I told him that being a highway girl is easy and safe. “I’ve proved it, haven’t I? I’m back here, safe and sound.”
“So who did you rob? And what did you get?”
That foxed me. I thought quickly. “I did not really intend to rob anyone last night. It was just a practice, to see if I can do it. And I can!”
“Who did you see on the road?” He looked hard at me.
I felt that the word “liar” was scrawled across my forehead. Then I remembered that he could not read it even if it was, and I pushed on with my lies.
“Oh, all manner of people. Coaches, men on horseback, a lady in a fine carriage…”
“You didn’t see no one, did you?”
I was about to insist that I did when I saw how pointless it is to lie. “No one.”
He laughed! “That’s because you went too late!”
“When should I have gone?”
“Either twilight, when foolish people are still travelling, or after nightfall, at the time men are making their way home from the inn. Oh, sometimes you might get someone who’s travelling all night, but that’s generally ’cos they haven’t got the price of a bed. They ain’t worth robbing.”
I set some cold mutton and the remains of yesterday’s bread before him. “Ned. Help me. Support me. I have to do this.”
“Mistress, why won’t you let me do it?”
“You cannot. You are lame; you could not control Moonbeam at full speed. And think! If you were thrown, how would you escape on foot?”
He hung his head.
“No,” I said. “It’s impossible. It must be me. I go again tonight. Will you help me?”
Slowly, he nodded.
Just then, Bid came in. “Morning, you two. Goodness, why the long faces? Juliana de Gracy hasn’t been here, has she?” Bid is always worried my cousin will notice the books that find their way to my shelf.
Ned looked up at me. “Tell her.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. “What?”
“Tell Bid. Or I will. I don’t keep no secrets from her.”
Clearly their friendship has deepened. I have been too wrapped up in my own thoughts to notice.
“You tell her,” I said. “I’m taking Jack for a walk. I need to clear my head. As do you,” I added sharply to Ned.
August 3rd
I did it. I went again. Ned has persuaded Bid to keep my secret, and I have promised them that part of anything I steal acquire shall be theirs, so that when I go to America, they will have something of their own. For they won’t have this cottage and, anyway, Ned couldn’t stay hidden all his life.
How long he can stay hidden at all is a problem. For while I was off walking with Jack, they didn’t have their sentry to let them know of visitors. Poor Ned had to dive under the kitchen table when Juliana knocked on the door. She had brought me some sewing to do, to while away the time. Not embroidery, or tapestry. Oh no! She brought two of her old gowns for me to wear, but asked me to remove the lace trimmings and return them to her so she could have them put on a new gown. It’s a wonder she didn’t ask me to do that for her, too!
Anyway, dusk found me once again hidden among some tall trees. This time I knew I had someone waiting for me at home. And this time, I had a pistol. I cannot shoot anyone, as Ned couldn’t get all the parts for the firing mechanism, but it looks most threatening. Thank you, keeper! And this time, Moonbeam’s face was as dirty as mine. Ned pointed out how the moonbeam marking was so distinctive.
“He’d be recognized in a trice by someone local,” he said.
“But nobody sees him. I don’t go anywhere, do I?”
Ned rolled his eyes. “The de Gracy family see him. Their servants see him. Maybe even their friends see him. And anyway,” he continued impatiently, “someone’s only got to say they was robbed by someone riding a horse with moonbeam markings on its face…”
Ned had a point. I did as he said.
Once I was in the trees – in a different place this time – I scarcely had to wait more than a few minutes. A horse and rider came trotting along the road. They moved so fast there was barely a moment to think. I pulled my hat down low over my piled-up hair, checked my mask was in place, took up the pistol and urged Moonbeam to the edge of the road. I trembled badly, but I just kept thinking, Dominic, Dominic, Dominic…
At first I thought the rider hadn’t seen me, but I think he was paralysed with shock.
“Hold, there!” I growled.
He yanked on his reins, and the horse stopped.
“What d’you want? I’ve got nothing, I tell you!”
“Give me your money!” I gestured with the pistol towards a bag hanging from his saddle. “And that!”
He unhooked the bag and tossed it to the ground in front of my horse.
“And your money! Be quick about it! I know you have money!”
He fished around and I heard the clank of coins. These he flung to the ground, too. “That’s all I’ve got, I swear. Let me go. I’ve got little ones at home awaiting their father. Think of the little ones.”
I didn’t really take in what he was saying. I was wondering what to do next. I couldn’t get off Moonbeam and pick up the money, in case he jumped on me, so I waved the pistol again. “Go! Fast as you can. And don’t look back, or
it’ll be the worse for you.”
He didn’t need telling twice. “Thank you. Thank you.” And he was gone.
I waited a moment, hoping no one else would appear, and made sure he didn’t look back. Then I dismounted and grabbed the bag and all the coins and stuffed them in my sack. Within half a minute Moonbeam and I were on our way home.
It seems as if I did all this coolly and calmly. I was anything but calm. I know my voice shook, but perhaps it wasn’t noticed because of the gruff way in which I spoke. I wasn’t even aware of my surroundings on the way back, my mind was whirling so fast.
It was easy! And surely I will be less nervous next time? For there will be a next time. I shall not go tonight because it is Sunday. It would be wrong to commit a crime on a Sunday.
Last night’s haul was eleven shillings, a watch that doesn’t, of course, mark the time properly, and a silver toothpick in a little silver case. There was also a large quantity of half-eaten sausage. I know who’d eaten it because some of it was still stuck to the toothpick.
This little lot (apart from the sausage) would easily get me to Bristol, but it would hardly take me to America.
August 5th
Bid and Ned insist that I must wait by a different road each time I go out, or at least a different part of the road.
“If you rob in a partickler place, sooner or later someone’s going to bring the constable to catch you,” said Ned. “I hear them talking in the Stag’s Head about things like that. You have to be careful.”
“’Tis true,” said Bid. “And Susannah, if you’re caught, you do know what it means, don’t you?”
I could not bring myself to speak. I almost stopped breathing. For so long, I’ve put it out of my mind – that dreadful sight at the crossroads where I parted from Dominic.
Ned spoke for me. “’Scuse me saying it, Susannah, but you got to know what you’re risking. If you’re caught, they’ll hang you. And you might be strung up and left for the birds to—”
I leapt up. “Hold your tongue, Ned! I will not listen. I do this for my brother, and if I must take risks, I must!”
We were saved from further bad words and worse thoughts by Jack, letting us know that Juliana was riding past. I looked out of the window. She raised her whip and dipped her head in her own form of a friendly greeting.
Highway Girl Page 8