by Mary Nichols
He dashed through villages, past cottages and farms, over fields, jumping hedges and ditches, hardly noticing them. The stallion carried him on and on, mile after mile, until its sleek black coat was a white froth of sweat and its great strength was almost spent. It had been a good buy, that horse, he thought as he lay over its neck; it was a pity to ruin it, but that could not be helped. Margaret was all he could think of. Margaret and that damned curse. This was it. This was how the fifth Lady Pargeter was doomed; you could not go against fate. But even while his mind was busy with pessimistic thoughts, he was urging the exhausted horse to greater effort. He would not give in. He would fight it to the end.
His mount was slowing and he knew it would do no good to use his spurs; the poor beast had given his all and no man could ask more than that. How much further? There was the river in sight again, winding its way through a small hamlet. Could it be Highmere? He turned towards it and there was the sluice. The gates were open but there was no sign of the barge. He dismounted and ran to a small clunch cottage by the water’s edge, banging on the door with his crop.
‘Has there been a lighterhouse through here?’ he demanded of the bent old man who opened the door.
The old fellow took his clay pipe from his toothless mouth and grinned. ‘Hundreds,’ he said. ‘Which other way would they go?’
‘I mean today. In the last hour or two. You’re the tollman, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, and I ain’t taken any tolls since noon.’
Could they have reached here that quickly? he asked himself. Or had the old man mistaken the time? ‘What manner of men were on board? Did they have a lady with them?’
‘A lady? No, unless they hid her in the sacks. Six lighters in the gang, there were, carrying grain.’
He breathed a sigh of relief. ‘The one I want to stop is a lighterhouse on its own. It has a red sail.’
‘And why do you want to stop it? Where’s your authority?’
‘I have the authority of the King.’ He produced a piece of paper from his pocket and waved it under the man’s nose, guessing he could not read. ‘I want the gates shut.’
‘Very well, but if you have a riot on your hands from upstream, on your own head be it.’
Between them they cranked the gates shut, after which Roland gave the man a guinea to rub Satan down and feed and water him.
‘Reckon you’ve rid that animal to death,’ the old fellow said, pocketing the coin. ‘But if you’re willing to pay to have horse-meat rubbed down, then who am I to quarrel with that?’
‘Go and do it,’ Roland commanded. ‘And then disappear. Go spend your guinea in the tavern.’
The tollman led Satan away and Roland settled down behind the bank to watch and wait.
The lighter had made good time at first, but the wind had died and they had reverted to being towed. While the haling-way was clear they made steady progress, but landowners had frequently built fences right down to the water’s edge and that meant the horse had to jump the obstruction—and, once they joined the river, the towpath frequently changed banks and the horse had to be swum across to pick up the tow on the other side. Margaret, tied to a post in the cabin, wished there were more obstacles to slow them down, though she had little hope of rescue. No one knew where she was and it could be days before the bodies of Henry and Nellie were discovered and, even then, no one would connect that incident with her. That she was in mortal danger had been brought home to her when she had seen how savagely the men had attacked her uncle and poor Nellie, who had only been trying to defend her. These men would not hesitate to kill her too.
There were six of them. Two, the man called James and another whose name was Iain, seemed educated, but the other four were no more than ruffians and they spoke with an accent which she found difficult to understand and they frequently lapsed into a foreign language which she guessed was Gaelic. One of them was no more than a boy, with a mop of curly hair and frightened eyes, whom the men called Robbie. They were all dressed in rough tweed and wore no cravats or wigs. They had taken turns to ride the horse and open lock-gates, but there had always been at least two of them in the little superstructure, watching her.
‘You will not be harmed so long as you behave yourself, my lady,’ James had said.
She forced herself to sound calm, to hide the terror which had turned her legs to jelly and her insides to water. ‘What are you going to do with me?’
‘You will be taken aboard a fishing-smack when we reach the coast.’
‘Why? I am no use to you, you must see that.’
‘You are our safe passage. Your fine husband will offer us no violence while you are on board.’
‘How can he know where I am? He has been away for weeks; what makes you think he is anywhere near?’
‘We do not, but it is better to be safe than sorry.’
‘Oh.’ She would not admit, even to herself, that she had been hoping they knew something she did not about her husband’s whereabouts, but the disappointment was hard to bear.
‘He has been a thorn in our flesh for too long,’ he added with a grim laugh. ‘Now we have turned the tables, and until we are safe away we shall continue to hold you. If you behave yourself, I will have you rowed ashore in some lonely spot on the Norfolk coast. Sooner or later someone will come along and pick you up.’
‘I do not think I can wait that long,’ she said, pushing her hands into her abdomen. ‘My child will pick his own time to come and I think it might be very soon.’
He looked her up and down as if assessing whether she told the truth, but decided it would be more convenient to disbelieve her, at least until there was more positive evidence. ‘Then you had better pray he is in no hurry, my lady.’
One of the other men put his head in the door. ‘Sluice coming up, sir. The gates are shut and the water is rising.’
‘Shut?’ He got to his feet. ‘Damnation. Pull in and send Charlie to find the tollman.’ He turned to Margaret. ‘Keep out of sight, do you hear? One false move and I’ll have your feet tied too.’
Charlie came back with the news that the tollman was nowhere to be found.
‘Then take one of the others and open the gates yourselves. And make haste or the tide will turn before we’re through.’
Two men disappeared behind the sluice while the barge rocked on its mooring-rope by the bank. For several minutes, while the others watched, nothing happened. James shouted impatiently, but there was no answer. He turned to the others. ‘Iain, go and see what has happened to that weak-kneed couple of no-good sheep-herders. If the water keeps rising we’ll be floated on to the fields.’
The man obeyed, leaving only the rebel leader and two others on board. Margaret could just see the back of James’s head as he peered towards the sluice-gates, but she could not see where the other two were. For the first time she was alone in the little cabin. If any more left the lighter, could she escape? She looked round for some way of loosening her bonds, but before she could do anything there was a shot and she saw all three men dive for cover behind the bulwarks.
Someone was trying to stop the men escaping. Margaret strained at her bonds to get closer to the little window, but all she could see was a few feet of the barge’s side.
‘Iain, what goes on there?’ James shouted, but there was no answer from his henchman, nor any more shooting.
Margaret heard him swear, and then the door of the cabin was opened and he strode over to untie her from the post. ‘Come.’ He grabbed her arm and propelled her out to the bows. ‘Open the gates, whoever you are!’ he shouted, pulling Margaret forward. ‘The lady will die an you do not.’
Nothing happened; no sound came from the other side of the gates, which remained firmly shut, nor was there any sign of the three men who had been sent to open the sluice. The river-level was rising behind it and threatened to overflow the banks. Margaret shivered with apprehension. ‘Tell whoever it is to open the gate,’ James ordered her, lifting his pistol to her head.
‘Shall I go and see?’ queried one of the men who remained on board.
‘No, we’ve already lost three.’
‘They may be trying to open the gates. Mayhap they’ve stuck.’
‘Then they would have answered my call.’ He took Margaret’s shoulder and forced her in front of him, pulling her up on the step so that she was in full view of anyone in the vicinity of the sluice. ‘I mean it!’ he shouted, raising his pistol to her temple. ‘One more killing makes no odds.’ He gave a cracked laugh. ‘Two killings in one. I care no more for unborn Englishmen than I do for full-grown ones.’
Slowly the gates began to open and, when they were wide enough to allow the barge to pass through, a figure that could only have been one of the rebels who had left the boat appeared on the bank and waved them on. ‘That’s better,’ James grunted, relaxing his hold on Margaret. ‘Why the devil did he take so long?’ He turned to take her back to the cabin. ‘Get back inside.’ He pushed her in without coming in himself to tie her to the post. He shut the door but she noticed he did not lock it.
She heard him shout to the man on the bank, ‘What’s happened to the others?’
The answer was indistinct, and then James said, ‘Get back on board; we’ve lost too much time already.’
Margaret went to the window. They were gliding through the sluice and would soon be in wider water and riding on the ebbing tide. She could feel their speed increasing. The man on the bank leapt on board and Margaret caught sight of him as he landed. It was Roland! She gasped and hurried to open the door, but checked herself in time. If she went out now and distracted him, she could put them both in danger. On the other hand he had three men to overcome, and if she went to his aid she might shorten the odds. She stood indecisively with her hand on the door-latch, straining her ears for sounds of a struggle which would tell her Roland had been recognised.
At first there was nothing, and then running feet and shots, two in quick succession. She could stand idle no longer; she wrenched open the door but went no further. Roland was struggling with James, rolling over and over on the empty deck. She could do nothing but watch with her hand to her mouth. One of the other men lay dead, his pistol a few inches from his outstretched fingers. She crept towards it, inch by inch. She had to reach it, though she did not know how to fire it if she did, but simply having it might help. She picked it up just as Roland sat astride James and, picking up his head, crashed it to the ground, rendering him unconscious. He scrambled to his feet in time to see Margaret stoop and grab the weapon. He walked over to her, breathing hard.
‘I think I can make better use of that, my lady,’ he said, smiling and taking it from her shaking fingers. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘N-no.’
A shadow momentarily blocked out the sun and Margaret looked up to see one of the men who had left the barge earlier climbing over the side behind her husband. ‘Roland, look out!’ she shouted. ‘Behind you!’
Before the words were out of her mouth, he had whipped round and fired. The man dropped back into the water with a splash. ‘I evidently did not hit him hard enough,’ Roland said laconically, then touched the motionless form of James with the toe of his boot. ‘Are there any more?’
‘There were six altogether, but three went to open the gates…’ she began.
‘Dead now,’ he said.
‘This one who was their leader and that one you…’ She pointed to the man whose gun she had taken. ‘There is one more.’
He turned to scan the craft. Young Robbie was cowering in the furthest corner of the stern.
‘He’s only a boy,’ Margaret said. ‘And frightened to death.’
She looked on as Roland went to take the lad by the shoulder and pull him to his feet, glad that he was not rough with him. ‘Go!’ he said, reaching into his coat pocket for his purse. ‘Here, take this and get as far away as you can while you have a whole skin.’
The boy grabbed the guinea and dived over the side. Margaret smiled as he scrambled up the bank and ran off through the village. ‘He’ll catch his death of cold in wet clothes,’ she said.
‘Better than dying on the end of a rope.’
Now it was all over she was shaking like an aspen and her legs would not support her. She felt her knees buckle. ‘Roland…’ The whole boat seemed to tip up as blackness enveloped her and she slid towards the deck.
Roland caught her and picked her up, taking her into the rough cabin and laying her on one of the bunks. ‘Oh, my poor, poor darling,’ he said, rubbing her hands and gently slapping her cheeks to bring her round.
She opened her eyes at last to see her husband’s face bending over her. His eyes were soft and misted and a muscle twitched in his jaw as if he was trying to control some overpowering emotion. He had his arms around her shoulders and her head was nestling against his coat. ‘Roland.’
‘I’m here, my love.’ He bent to kiss her gently. ‘Thank God they did not harm you…’ His voice was husky.
She was dreaming, she told herself; she had died and gone to heaven; he didn’t sound like Roland at all, certainly not the Roland she knew. That one had been self-possessed, sure of himself and what he believed in; this one sounded less sure, but oh, so much more endearing.
‘Roland, how came you here?’
‘I rode.’
‘But how did you know where I was? Those men… Uncle Henry and Nellie…’
‘I found them. I’m sorry, my darling, but Henry Capitain is dead.’
‘I thought he must be. They were so brutal. He came to my rescue.’ She was perfectly capable of sitting up, and walking too, but it was too comfortable lying in his arms. ‘Nellie?’
‘She was alive when I left her, though badly injured. Janet Henser will look after her.’
She had forgotten seeing Mistress Henser on the way to Sedge House, but the meeting had been providential. ‘She told you where I was?’
‘Yes.’
‘You went to see her, didn’t you? You went to ask her about that…that dreadful prediction. She told you to leave home, didn’t she?’
He smiled ruefully and kissed her again, making her wriggle happily in his arms. ‘I hoped that if I made restitution to all those Capitains who had been denied their birthright over the years you might be reprieved.’
‘But there was only Uncle Henry left. And he’s dead now, isn’t he?’
‘Yes, I am afraid so. But there is still you. Margaret, I could not let you die…’
‘I am not going to die. Not for a very long time. Did Mistress Henser not tell you to have faith?’
‘Yes.’ He was shamefaced. ‘I must have been mad.’
She smiled and lifted a finger to trace the outline of his chin. ‘So strong, so manly and so gullible.’
‘You don’t understand. If you had lived in Winterford all your life…’
‘Oh, I do understand, Roland. I very nearly succumbed myself, nearly gave up. I was going to leave…’
‘When? How?’ He looked round the lighterhouse. Through the open door the sun still shone, but it shone on the lifeless bodies of the Jacobites. ‘Not with these delinquents? Oh, Margaret, were you so desperate to escape from me?’
She laughed suddenly, a happy sound that made his spirits soar with new hope. ‘No, not with these men and not from you. From Rosalind. I found her journal, you know, and her grave in the garden. She seemed to haunt me more than anyone. My faith faltered and I was afraid…’ She sat up and turned towards him. ‘I wanted desperately to get away and then I learned my father had died quite recently and left me a great deal of money, enough to keep me and my child comfortably for life. I was able to go wherever I liked, but I couldn’t—not while there was a chance you would come back to me. I found any number of excuses to postpone the decision. I kept hoping you would return, that everything would be all right. I wished I had never heard of that awful curse…’
> ‘You do not wish it any more heartily than I do. I told Susan about it because I hoped she would understand, not just why I married you, but why I had come to love you…’
‘Do you?’ she murmured, lifting her hand to trace the outline of his jaw with her finger.
‘Yes. More than life itself.’ He caught her hand and put it to his lips, kissing each finger one by one and making her tingle with desire.
‘Is that why you were doing your best to throw it away, chasing all over the country after Jacobites and taking them on at odds of six to one?’
‘How do you know all that?’
‘Charles told me you were on a special mission, and when those men spoke of my husband being a thorn in their flesh I knew it.’ She paused. ‘There aren’t any more, are there?’
‘If there are, I am not pursuing them. I am coming home with you. I intend to be there when our child is born.’ He laid a hand on her abdomen. ‘You are quite sure he is all right?’
‘Absolutely. But what about…’ She stopped, not wanting to put a name to it. ‘You know what.’
‘To hell with it. We will fight it together, you and I.’
She smiled. The threat seemed insubstantial now that they were facing it together. He had said he loved her and that was enough to give her hope. If she had to die, then she would rather it was in his arms. ‘Mistress Henser said it was simply a matter of faith,’ she said. ‘And she is the wise woman, after all.’
‘Faith,’ he repeated softly. ‘I have been a fool, haven’t I?’
‘We both have.’
‘Let’s go home.’
Ten minutes later, they found Satan in the stable at the back of the tavern. He was contentedly munching hay, none the worse for his gruelling race. Reluctant to make him carry them both, Roland went to the tavern to try and hire a cart so that Margaret might ride in comfort. It was then that he looked up and saw a crowd coming down the rutted road towards him. He recognised several of his own servants, riding mounts from the Manor stables, and there were Winterford villagers too, Silas Gotobed and Marcus Clark among them. Johnson had obviously disobeyed his instructions to go home and wait for him there. He had retrieved the curricle from behind Sedge House and was some way behind the others. Roland smiled and waited for them to come up to him.