by M C Beaton
The coachman picked up the reins and cracked his whip. The coach surged forward.
“Move,” hissed Richard to Amanda.
He spurred his mount and was off through the trees. Amanda drove her heels into Bluebell’s fat sides, but the animal refused to budge.
Suddenly a bullet whistled through Amanda’s hat and Bluebell jumped violently and set off headlong through the trees. Lord Hawksborough had climbed through the carriage window opposite from the side of the road Richard had been on, had climbed on the box and seized the coachman’s horse pistol and had fired straight at Amanda. The terrified coachman, trying to help, had only succeeding in hindering, and had jostled his lordship’s arm at the last moment, which was why Amanda Colby was alive with a hole in her hat instead of dead with a hole in her brain.
Bluebell blundered headlong through the woods. Trees rushed past and a small moon lurched and weaved about the stormy sky above.
Amanda all but ran into Richard, who had come riding back hell for leather, after he had heard the shot.
“I’m all right,” shouted Amanda. “Home! Let’s get home.”
Bluebell did not slow until the tall chimneys of Fox End came in sight. Then he dug in all four hooves and began cropping some plants by the side of the road.
“Leave him!” hissed Richard.
“I can’t,” wailed Amanda. “There are a lot of donkeys around here, but one who has recently been ridden and standing at a place so near Fern Hill would bring suspicion down on our heads. Get some sugar.”
“I have some in my pocket,” said Richard. He held it out and Bluebell immediately started trotting obediently after Richard’s horse.
They did not speak until they had unsaddled the animals, rubbed them down, and put them in their respective stalls for the night.
Then they sat down in the harness room, and, by the light of one candle, prised open the lid of the jewel box. Diamonds, pearls, rubies, and emeralds sparkled and blazed up into their wide, shocked eyes. Richard silently drew out Lord Hawksborough’s large ruby ring and handed it to Amanda. It looked like a great drop of glistening blood.
“I feel sick and dirty,” said Richard, his voice seeming to come from far away. “I meant to revenge you by taking his ring.”
White-faced, Amanda nodded and handed him back the ring, which he dropped into the box with the other jewels.
“We should never have done it,” said Richard slowly. “It was exciting at first, but frightening old men and women is a terrible thing to do. Those servants were too old to protect anybody. What was that shot?”
Amanda took off her tricorne and handed it to him. There was a hole through the crown. “Lord Hawksborough,” she said. “Bluebell would not move. He climbed on the roof of the carriage. The coachman jogged his arm or I should not be alive.”
“What will we do?” said Richard, his voice hoarse with the effort of holding back tears. “I don’t want the jewels. I don’t want any of it.”
He looked very young and vulnerable. Amanda took his hand in hers. “We’ll bury them in the earth of the stable floor,” she said. “And if we ever get a chance to go to London, we’ll dig them up and leave them at Lord Hawksborough’s house. Oh, I wish I were dead.”
Richard shivered. “If you could have seen the look on his face, Amanda. He would have killed me with his bare hands if he had not been concerned over the welfare of his mother and sister. Vengeance, that’s what he wants. And he won’t rest till he gets it.”
“Any minute now the search will be on,” said Amanda urgently. “Fetch a pick and spade, Richard, and let us get finished with this terrible evening.”
Richard worked like a man possessed, hacking and digging at the hard-packed earth of the stable floor until there was a sizable hole.
They wrapped the jewel box carefully in the sack, threw the tricornes, wigs, and masks on top of it, and piled the earth back in, stamped it down, and covered it with straw. Richard dusted his hands and gave a sigh of relief. “I feel a little better, but not much. Oh, Amanda, you and your crazy ideas.”
“At least I have some ideas, crazy or not…” began Amanda hotly, and then she looked at her brother, her eyes glittering with unshed tears, and said, “Don’t let’s quarrel, Richard. We are both fools. I feel so terribly guilty.”
“Aunt Matilda!” exclaimed Richard. “I think I hear her calling.” He buttoned up his coat, saying urgently, “She must not find you in boy’s clothes. I will go and talk to her while you go in by the kitchen door and change.”
Amanda did as she was bid, tearing off the clothes in her bedroom and stuffing them into the back of a closet.
When she pushed open the door of the morning room it was to find Richard waiting impatiently by the fire while Aunt Matilda sat in one of the wing chairs, very upright, very excited.
“Now you are here, Amanda,” she cried. “I would not tell my news until we were all together. You will never guess where I have been today. I have been at Hember Cross for a meeting with my old school friend, Maria Pitts!”
“Well, that was very pleasant, I’m sure,” said Amanda, wondering if she dared send Richard to fetch the rest of the brandy.
“But it is better than that!” cried Aunt Matilda. “You see, I heard she would be staying at the Feathers, although she did not attend the ball. I called on her and told her of our plight. I would not have found the courage to be so pushing for myself, but I consider you both my children, and you shall not starve as long as there is breath in this body,” said Aunt Matilda, striking her scrawny bosom.
Richard and Amanda looked away with all the customary embarrassment the young feel when confronted by the old making a cake of themselves.
“Maria was vastly fond of me when we were at school and she immediately offered us all a home in London. She said Amanda would be a very good friend for her daughter, who is to make her come-out next Season, and she was sure something could be found for Richard.
“We are to advertise Fox End and let it to some suitable party, and then we are to go to London, and… Oh, it is the first and only really sensible thing I have done in my life.”
Amanda and Richard forced themselves to congratulate their aunt and make a fuss over her, but each was thinking that this terrible evening need never have happened and Aunt Matilda’s good news was only burying them under a greater weight of guilt.
“When are we to leave?” asked Amanda at last.
“As soon as someone can be found to take Fox End. I called at Mrs. Jolly’s on the road home and she thinks it will do very well for her cousin, and she thinks he will be free to take it in a month or two.”
“How did you get to Hember Cross?” asked Richard.
“I walked,” said Aunt Matilda.
“You’re a Trojan, Aunt,” said Richard. Hember Cross was ten miles from Fox End.
Almost at the same time, Amanda and Richard began to feel more cheerful. The same thought had struck them. If they were to live in London, they could take the jewels with them and get the wretched stuff back to its rightful owner.
“But, Aunt,” said Amanda slowly, “we have not the clothes for a London Season.”
“That is to be arranged as well,” cried Aunt Matilda. “Maria is amazingly generous.”
“Mrs. Pitts must be very fond of you.”
“Oh, she is. Nobody else liked her. The other girls found her too severe and moralising. But no one wanted to be my friend either, because I was quite poor and very timid, and so we found we had each other. She did say, as I recall, that she would never forget me and if I were in need of any help, she would always be there. We exchanged a few letters and then she ceased to write altogether. Someone at the ball who had known me slightly a long time ago told me that my friend Maria was to stay a night at the Feathers en route for London.
“But I forgot to tell you the other piece of excitement. All the men in the neighbourhood have been rounded up to try to track down two monstrous highwaymen who robbed a coach on Fern
Hill. It is amazing they did not come for you, Richard.”
“Why should they come for me?” cried Richard, turning pale.
Aunt Matilda looked at him in amazement. “Because you are an able-bodied man, dear Richard. But possibly it is because Mr. Brotherington was called to help organise things, and, well… he does not approve of any of us.”
“Did they call at the vicarage?” asked Amanda.
“Oh, yes, the squire did to see if the Jollys had seen or heard anything. Two highwaymen it was, one on a donkey and one on a horse, he said. One large and one small. ‘Do you know,’ I said, ‘that sounds just like Richard and Amanda,’ and how the squire did laugh!”
“I’ll get the brandy,” said Amanda abruptly.
Aunt Matilda watched her go, an anxious frown creasing her forehead. “I trust our dear Amanda is not taking to strong spirits, Richard?”
“No, she is excited about your good news,” said Richard, who still looked very pale. “Have you thought, Aunt, that we cannot live on Mrs. Pitt’s generosity forever?”
“Of course not. Just until the Season is over. Mrs. Pitts says she will find a husband for Amanda. She says if she can find a husband for her own daughter, then she can find a husband for anyone,” added Aunt Matilda with a giggle.
What an unkind thing to say, thought Richard.
“And,” Aunt Matilda was going on, “if our dear Amanda does not take, we will still have Fox End and we will have the rent from Mrs. Jolly’s cousin.”
Richard brightened. A vision of his future raced through his head. Go to London… return the jewels… disguise himself and hand ’em to Lord Hawksborough’s servant… Amanda would not have to worry about getting married… a good sort but not exactly a beauty to bring the suitors crowding around… back home to hunting and fishing and perhaps the arms of Miss Belinda Tring-Carter.
He thought briefly of the saucy girl he had kissed in the seminary garden. No, she had been too bold. He liked women to be gentle and meek and helpless.
Amanda returned with the brandy and three glasses.
She still looked tired and strained so Richard hurriedly pointed out that they could return to Fox End after the Season next July and find the rent from Mrs. Jolly’s cousin waiting to carry them through a good few months until such time as he fashioned a career for himself.
Amanda gradually began to look less strained. Perhaps she would meet a pleasant young man during the Season who would want her as a bride. Someone who did not enrage her and leave her feeling strangely breathless as Lord Hawksborough had done. Someone with whom she could be comfortable.
Then she remembered the call from Mr. Brotherington’s servant, and told Richard she was sure their persecution had only just begun.
“He can’t persecute us when we ain’t here.” Richard grinned.
“And Mr. Jolly’s cousin is a retired judge,” said Aunt Matilda. “He’ll probably have him up at the next assizes.”
Amanda looked wonderingly at her aunt. The change from the sad, drooping, depressed female of before the assembly was amazing. Aunt Matilda positively sparkled.
Then Amanda’s thoughts went on to the mysterious Mrs. Pitts. She did not sound at all as if she would turn out to be a companionable woman. But perhaps her daughter was better. Amanda had never had a female friend. And then something Mrs. Jolly once said about Aunt Matilda came back to her. “Your aunt,” Mrs. Jolly had said one day, “was not always so quiet and timid. She was companion to a horrible old lady at one time, a Mrs. Hersey, who bullied her unmercifully. But strange to say, your aunt seemed to blossom under the treatment. She really needs someone to tell her what to do every minute of the day.”
Oh, dear, thought Amanda, does that mean Mrs. Pitts is a bully?
Then she found her eyes beginning to droop with the effects of the brandy and the emotional strain of the day.
When she finally lay down to sleep, she found herself dreaming of a secure and comfortable life, free from the threat of poverty, and free from the necessity of marrying the first man who asked her.
4
It was a bare month after the highway robbery that the Colbys and Aunt Matilda found themselves ready to leave for London. Mrs. Jolly’s cousin, a Mr. Cartwright-Browne, had been told by his physician that he should spend some time in the country to ease the pressure of his blood. He was due to take up residence a week after the Colbys left.
Amanda and Richard had decided to unearth the box of jewels and burn the masks and hats and wigs on the bonfire an hour before they left. They could not risk doing it sooner in case they were surprised by Aunt Matilda, who had lost her need for long, escaping sleep and woke at the slightest sound.
Mrs. Pitts’s generosity did not run to furnishing them with a carriage to take them to London and so they were taking the vicarage carriage into Hember Cross and from Hember Cross they were to catch the mail coach to London, an expensive mode of travel which would take almost the last of their money.
But this mode of travel had the advantage of speed. They could leave in the morning and arrive in London in the afternoon, thereby saving the greater expense of a night at a posting house.
The trunks were corded and ready, the furniture had been swathed in holland covers to keep the dust from it until Mr. Cartwright-Browne should arrive, and Aunt Matilda was up in her room fussing over the packing of toiletries into two handboxes when Amanda and Richard made their way silently to the stables.
“I’ll feel a million times easier when we have the jewels with us,” said Richard. “I kept a small trunk just for the purpose to slip in with the others in the hall.”
“Don’t talk so loudly,” whispered Amanda. “Oh, what is that?”
There was a rumble of carriage wheels in the drive at the front of the house.
“Let Aunt see to whoever it is,” said Richard urgently. “We must have the jewels.”
But before they could reach the stables, the carriage, instead of stopping at the front of the house, drove right around the side and halted beside them. It was the carriage from the vicarage. An elderly gentleman opened the door and stiffly climbed down.
“You must be the Colby twins,” he said. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Mr. Cartwright-Browne.”
He was a very old gentleman, small and wizened, in a pepper-and-salt frock coat and gaiters. He wore a bagwig and carried a cane.
Richard signalled to Amanda with his eyes. “Please step into the house, Mr. Cartwright-Browne,” she said. “I will find you some refreshment. You were not expected until next week.”
“That I know, Miss Colby, but Mrs. Jolly—I arrived there last night—told me you were leaving this morning. I decided to move in right away. I am very fond of my cousin but I have always lived alone and am set in my ways. I would like to see the stables first.
“I believe you are leaving a horse and a donkey in my charge? Good. They will be well looked after. I have sent for my servants and they will be arriving later today.”
“But…” began Richard desperately, but Mr. Cartwright-Browne was already marching towards the stables with a quick, rather crablike gait.
Richard threw a wild look at Amanda, and both followed.
Mr. Cartwright-Browne examined the stables and the harness room, and then gave Bluebell a lump of sugar and stroked his nose. The minutes ticked by and still the old gentleman prodded this and that with his cane and asked innumerable questions.
“If we could finish this conversation in the house…” Amanda was beginning to say, when a shadow fell across them. The bulk of Mr. Brotherington looked in the doorway.
“Heard there was a new tenant,” he said, striding forward. “I own all the land about here. I’ll have you know I’ll shoot that donkey if I find it on my pasture again, see.”
“Who are you?” snapped Mr. Cartwright-Browne.
“Name of Brotherington.”
“Well, Brotherington,” said Mr. Cartwright-Browne, very stiffly on his stiffs. “I am the new tenant. My n
ame is Mr. Cartwright-Browne. You are trespassing on my property and if you don’t take yourself off, I shall have you taken to the nearest roundhouse and charged.”
“Ho!” Mr. Brotherington tried to stare Mr. Cartwright-Browne down, but harder and wickeder men had tried when they had faced up to the elderly judge from the dock of the Old Bailey.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” snarled Mr. Brotherington, walking away stiff-legged like a surly bulldog being outfaced by a fox terrier.
“I shall see to that man before very long,” said Mr. Cartwright-Browne meditatively, and if the twins had not been so worried about the jewels, they would have enjoyed the prospect of looking forward to hearing about how their tormentor was being tormented.