Aurora

by Joan Smith

  He was really awfully tired of working in the stables. He’d saved up twenty-five pounds, mostly in tips, in two years. It would take ten times that to buy Mama a house. She might be dead by then. Why shouldn’t he go and see this man, see if he was Ken? His twenty-five pounds would buy him a jade, good enough to get to Kent, not so very far away. And if it wasn’t Ken at all, he’d just turn around and come back. No harm in that. He’d go at night so nobody would see him. Clare said he mustn’t be seen, or they’d put him in gaol, maybe even hang him. He felt his neck, and wondered if he dared to go. He could write. But he couldn’t write very well. He wouldn’t want Lord Raiker to see what a messy fist he wrote. He’d buy a jade and go in person. Get Cook to wash his good shirt and give his good jacket and trousers a brushing off, and go to call on his half brother. He was so excited that night he hardly slept.

  The next morning early he got up and did his chores, and went around to get Jemmie Sadler to take his job at the inn for a few days. He had the great luck of buying a horse, a little crippled but he could be nursed along, from a chap right at the inn. He’d ridden it in from Sussex and wanted to be rid of it now he was in the city. He was on the road home before ten o’clock, but there was no hurry. He daren’t show his face in the village before it was pitch dark. He got nearly forty miles the first day, and would have got farther, but the nag gave out on him and he had to walk the last ten miles. My, he was tired. All he wanted to do was curl up by the side of the road and sleep, but he had to take better care of his clothes than that. He shouldn’t have worn the good outfit. It was covered with dust. He slept in the stable of the inn at Maidstone and went on the next day with his horse making an even slower pace, but at least carrying him. There was no problem of arriving too early. He was afraid he’d get there too late to call at Raiker Hall. Of course Ken would be at Raiker Hall. Where else would Lord Raiker be staying?

  When he got in front of the door, all nice and safe—not a soul had seen or recognized him—he was hesitant to knock. There were lights on. The man was home and up, but was he alone? Shouldn’t he go around to the back and approach his half brother via the kitchen? That might be more respectful, and he didn’t want to be lacking in respect. He walked around to the back and tapped timidly at the door, just as he used to when Papa was alive. He didn’t recognize the fellow that let him in, but he was decked out in the Raiker livery right enough. He recog­nized that. Wouldn’t that be a soft job, though? Walking around in fancy clothes answering doors and whatnot, and getting more for it likely than he got for tending horses. He said with the utmost deference that he’d like to see Lord Raiker, please, if it wasn’t too much trouble, and would he be so kind as to ask if he might go up.

  “Lord Raiker don’t live here, fellow. What do you want him for?”

  “Business,” Rutley mumbled. Not here? Where the deuce was he? He worded this question and was told Raiker was putting up at the inn, and that Lady Raiker was still in residence.

  “Clare?” Rutley asked bluntly.

  “Lady Raiker,” the footman replied with a sneer. But the name had caused the footman to wonder if he hadn’t better tell her ladyship about the person. With all the strange doings of late, it was as well to keep her ladyship informed, and a wide-awake fellow might very well re­place old Wilkins, whom her ladyship didn’t like above half. “Just step in and sit down,” the footman said. “What’s your name, eh?”

  Here was a poser. He dare not give his name. There might be posters up proclaiming him for the villain he was. “Just say an old friend,” he answered, and sat down. Clare would be angry as the devil he’d come, but no one had seen him, and she would help him. Clare had always liked him, had sympathized with his position. She was a lovely girl, Clare, and so dashed clever she’d know what he should do.

  The footman had the ill luck to run into Wilkins on his way to her ladyship, and was told with a supercilious sneer that he would “see the person” himself. Wilkins was very careful about all his employer’s doings these days. But before he had turned to go, Lady Raiker was in the hall demanding to know what was going on. Wilkins tried to dissuade her from seeing the man before he had seen him first, but she was adamant. With a leery look at Wilkins, she sent him off upstairs to close a window shutter she imagined to be banging before having the man admitted.

  Her strange behaviour had raised Wilkins’ suspicions to such a height that he hid at the top of the stairs to get a look at the person, and found the likelihood that he was Horace strong enough that he was at considerable pains to get a note off to the inn at once. It was difficult to do, but he had a working agreement with the stableboy, who was always glad to pick up a shilling. His next business was to try to get his ear to the door to overhear what went on between Lady Raiker and her visitor, but she was not to be outwitted by her butler, and took Rutley into her private little study and closed the door. She never spoke above a whisper, either. Wilkins couldn’t distinguish a single word from her, and she kept hushing up Rutley so that not enough came through the door to make any sense.

  Clare didn’t quite know whether she was relieved or dismayed to see Horace Rutley. That he was here was of course a giant nuisance, but only think if he had met Kenelm before herself! Here was one blessing. Then, too, she had now the opportunity to be rid of him for good before Kenelm could find him. She immediately set about doing this.

  “Horace, what brings you here? You know I told you you must never come here again.”

  “I see in the paper Kenelm is back. Bernard’s dead. Kennie always seemed a friendly fellow, what little I seen of him. I’m hard up, Clare, with my allowance cut off.”

  She discovered by careful questioning and requestioning that no one knew he was here but herself, and with this satisfactory knowledge, she began her campaign. Fortunately Rutley still found her attractive. “It is lucky for you you found me here instead of Kenelm,” she said. “The man is changed, Horace. He has been in India amongst the heathens for years, and has come back a hard man. He hates you—would certainly have you turned over to the authorities if he ever discovered you here.”

  “He can’t know what I did, unless you told him, Clare,” Rutley answered.

  “Of course I didn’t tell him. There have been all sorts of things going on. The gypsy was dug up, and they have found out all about your killing him.”

  “How could they know that? You were the only one there. I only did it to protect you. You shouldn’t have been seeing him alone, Clare. It ain’t proper.”

  “I told you why he was there. He wanted money. I owed him money for posing for me, and he was in a hurry to get it. His poor little daughter was ill.”

  “You were kissing him.”

  “No, Horace, he was kissing me. Forcing his attentions on me, after I was kind enough to meet him that night. You did right to shoot him.”

  “Then they shouldn’t hang me for it. You could tell them the truth, Clare, that I did it to protect you.”

  “Dear Horace, we must protect the family name. You are a Raiker too—the best of them, in my opinion. How proud you must be of your connection with the family. We don’t want the family name dragged through the mud. Lawsuits, and there is no saying the judge wouldn’t decide against you, even if you did the right thing. Lord Raiker has taken you in such strong dislike . . . he is looking all over for you, Horace. He was here this very day telling me so.”

  “What does he want me for? I only killed the gypsy. How did they know he was a gypsy, Clare? You had me take off all his clothes and put on Ken’s uniform so no one would think it was a gypsy.”

  “So much has happened I hardly know where to begin. The emerald necklace is missing. Someone stole it, the gypsies I expect, but Ken has taken the idea you took it. You didn’t, did you?”

  “I never knew anything about an emerald necklace.”

  “I never believed for a moment you stole it. I know you are not a thief, but Kenelm won’t believe it. I expect he is jealous of you, if the truth were known
.”

  “Ashamed, more like.”

  “He has become abominably proud,” she said, changing tack neatly. “It annoys him that you are a living testi­mony to his father’s straying. He would like nothing better than to get rid of you.”

  Rutley began feeling his neck again, and looking about the room for a hiding place should Lord Raiker come in.

  “We must get you out of here at once,” Clare said.

  “I have no money, Clare. You’ve got to help me.”

  “Naturally I will give you all I have. All I can lay my hands on, but it isn’t much. You must go away, Horace. Far away. Back to America would be best.”

  “I didn’t like it in America, Clare. It’s devilish hot in the summertime and perishing cold in the winter.”

  “America is a huge country. You wrote your mama from Boston. You should go farther west. Far enough away that Kenelm can never find you. He plans to kill you. He says it in so many words.”

  “I’ll tell him what really happened. Tell him I didn’t take the necklace.”

  Clare swallowed nervously. “He wouldn’t believe a word of it. He is become positively deranged. What we must do is hide you. Get you out of here at once, tonight.”

  “I haven’t been off the road for two whole days. I’m too tired to go on tonight, and my nag is winded too. I’ll have to sleep here tonight. Oh, but I can’t leave in the daylight. I’ll hide tonight and tomorrow, and leave the next night after dark. How much money can you let me have?”

  “Enough to see you on a boat to America, and something to get you started. I’ll scrimp and save, do whatever I must to help you, Horace. It is hard to have to part with you so soon, but I must not be selfish. Your safety must come before anything else.”

  “I don’t like America,” he tried, hoping for a reprieve, since Clare seemed still to love him.

  “You will like it better with some money in your pocket. Open an inn—that will be something for you, my dear. You are too good to be an ostler. You are a Raiker. You must be the proprietor.”

  Horace considered this with some satisfaction. “I sup­pose I could do that,” he said at length, not happily, but resigned.

  “I’ll go to the stable to sleep, shall I?” he asked.

  Clare was in a quandary as to what to do with Rutley in the immediate future. She dared not let him stay in the house, with Wilkins nosing around, and the stables were even more dangerous. He would be out of her surveillance completely there. But he must be kept on the premises. She needed a little time to collect sufficient money to get him packed off far away, and wanted to talk to him a good deal more—to impress on him the necessity of never returning, never writing his mother, never daring to re­turn here. With the house full of servants, she didn’t know where to conceal him.

  “I’m famished,” Horace remarked, in the middle of her deep thinking. Yet another problem. She didn’t wish to arouse the servants’ curiosity. They had already seen too much. Some story must be made to satisfy them. Glancing at Rutley, she doubted they would recognize him. The footman who brought him up had been with her only five years, but if Wilkins were to catch a glimpse, he might recognize the man. No, getting food was too risky. Horace must go hungry for one night. It wouldn’t hurt him—he’d run to fat.

  With her mind darting a dozen ways, she suddenly recalled the mount Rutley had spoken of, even now in her stable. That too must be gotten rid of. Horace and the horse must both be sent off to some safe corner to hide, and in importance she didn’t rate one much higher than the other, except as a nuisance. Somewhere Kenelm would not discover them. After a rapid calculation of her options, Clare decided on the abandoned shepherd’s hut, a good two miles away from the house and the road. Bernard had gotten rid of the small herd; so far as she knew, the place was now sitting idle. Not so sheltered as she would like, but off the beaten track, with some trees that could hide the mount. Horace must not light a fire or in any way attract attention to his presence.

  She impressed these facts on him several times, and finally sent him off, still clamouring for food. He was not to return. She would go to him tomorrow at dawn with food, return later with money. At his last objection that he was awfully hungry, she relented, not through pity, but for fear he would risk going into town for a meal. She asked for some bread and cheese for herself, and with this meager repast, Horace was made to do.

  The taking of food delayed his departure; in all he was at the house for over an hour. Time for the stableboy to get to the inn, and to discover that Lord Raiker was not there. It was believed he was visiting the younger Lady Raiker. The boy considered the message urgent enough to deliver it to the Dower House without first consulting Wilkins. There too he drew a blank. Raiker had been there, but had left, presumably to return to the inn. Becoming panic-stricken, the boy left the message in all its detail—that Rutley was at the Hall—then returned to the inn. He had taken the short cut through the fields, and must have missed Raiker, who would have used the road back to the inn. Eventually, Kenelm was run to earth, and the news given.

  “By God!” he said, laughing in delight. “A better piece of luck than I dared hope for. We’ll see her squirm now. There’s a handsome reward in this for you and your uncle, my lad.” He immediately went to the inn stable and had his mount saddled up to gallop back to Raiker Hall.

  There was no point in going to Clare. Raiker went instead to the back door to discover of Wilkins, lurking in readiness for him, that man and horse had been and were gone. Wilkins thought the bird was Rutley right enough, but gone to pot and seed, and looking a wretched enough fellow. He had set off to the northwest alone, and there was nothing there at all, unless he meant to go cross the country to Ashford, which made no sense to any of them. To Kenelm it indicated not Ashford but London, for Hor­ace to lose himself in the crowded back alleys of that teeming city. He must overtake him before he got there, and he wasted not a minute in setting out in pursuit.

  * * *

  Chapter 19

  The minute the boy had left the Dower House after deliv­ering his news, Malone took charge. She was highly perturbed, and secretly delighted. Words gushed out of her mouth, with little attention to accuracy, but much at­tempt at a vocabulary exalted enough to honour the occa­sion. “What we’ve got to do is get over to the Hall at once to be a collaboration of the testimony that Rutley is there. She’ll do away with him in the batting of an eye. We’ll be lucky if he ain’t slaughtered already and stuck in a hole in the ground.”

  “Wilkins saw him, and Kenelm is on his way. There is no need for us to go,” Marnie pointed out.

  “We’ve no idea where Kenelm is, or if the moll-dawdling lad that was here will ever find him in time. We will look no-how come the dawn, if Rutley has slipped off into obscenity again, and not a one of us can take the stand and lay an affeydavey we saw him. It’s imperious that at least one of us goes to see, and if you haven’t the stomach for it, I’ll go myself.” This threat was delivered to Aurora, who was less anxious not to go than her sister.

  “I think she’s right,” Rorie said.

  “Of course I’m right, and there’s not a second to waste. Get your pelisse and let’s be off. And we have to go quietly, too.”

  “Take a footman with you at least,” Marnie cautioned.

  “We don’t want a whole brigade creeping up to the window. To take a peek and be sure it’s him is all we’re doing.”

  “You don’t know him. You can’t give an identification,” Marnie pointed out.

  “I can indemnify that the corpse Clare will have killed before morning is the selfsame one we’re going to see through the windows, if we only hurry,” Malone answered stoutly. “He won’t last through the night. That’s a fore­gone concussion. She’ll swear on a stack of Bibles she never saw hide nor hair of the fellow before in her life, and get a dead man to vilify it. Time’s wasting. Come on.”

  “I’ll go,” Rorie said, and jumped up.

  Malone grabbed up her rolling pin as
she hastened through the kitchen, and handed a meat cleaver to Auro­ra, who replaced it and seized a butcher knife instead. They did not arrive in time to see Rutley actually in conversation with Clare through a window, as Malone had intended. But they saw plain enough a large, dark man lead a dispirited horse from the stable and look carefully about him before striking off into the shadowy park.

  “What do we do now?” Rorie asked in a whisper.

  “Follow him. We must be able to tell Kenelm where to find him.”

  “He has a horse. Oh, why didn’t I ride my mount?”

  Rutley mounted his nag as they spoke, and in a flash Malone had taken her decision. “Steal one from the stable and follow him. I’ll taggle along as fast as I can on foot. He ain’t setting any hot pace. He’ll end up carrying that nag before he’s gone a mile if I know anything.”

  “There will be stableboys in the barn.”

  “No there won’t. The lad that sleeps out is off looking for Ken. This is your chance to deserve Kenelm, my girl. Show him what you’re made of.”

  With this bracing encouragement, Rorie slipped into the stable and untied Clare’s mount. She didn’t bother with a saddle, but put on the bit and bridle and mounted bare­back, which necessitated her riding astride. Clare’s mount was fast and strong, well able to outdistance the hack Rutley had. There was no fear of losing him, but as she crept along through the darkness with the eerie sounds of nocturnal animals magnified in the silence around, she felt other fears.

  A rag of cloud sailed over the moon, momentarily increasing the blackness and her fear. She clutched at the butcher knife with one hand and the reins with the other, having some trouble to hold the horse back as far as she would have liked. Over her shoulder, she saw Malone running as fast as she could. She was highly visible, as her white apron flapped about her legs, with only her shoulders and chest covered by a dark shawl. She was a reassuring sight.