“Well, plenty of faces look surprised to see me and I think I’ve been rumbled even before first toss. They were expecting the Squire, you see, but I can’t explain how your father - my father, in this case - is indisposed because the minute I open my mouth to speak, that’s the cat out of the bag, sir.”
Quentin was relieved to learn the stable boy had not attempted to imitate him vocally. What kind of lisping ninny would he have portrayed?
“Any road, that doctor steps up and he explains about the Squire’s bad back and everyone believes him because it’s the truth and because it’s a doctor what’s saying it. Some folk tell me I’m doing my old man proud, stepping in to take the Squire’s place. Everybody’s looking me up and down and looking surprised but not displeased with what they see. I can see them nudging each other and murmuring but I pretend not to notice and I’m all aloof, like.
“Well, Scroggins rings a bell and announces the competition is about to get under way and so everybody shuffles off to get a good seat and-”
“Pardon me: ‘Scroggins’?”
“The postmaster, sir. That’s his name. He always officiates at the event, sir. His word is law.”
“Scroggins...” Quentin tried the name again. He shrugged and gestured to Francis to resume.
“It’s what they call a knockout, sir. They pull names out of a bag to begin with, pairing people up with their first opponent. Each pair plays a match. The winner progresses to the next round and the loser goes home, or to the pub, or stays behind to watch the rest - that’s up to them. In my first round, I’m drawn against a young farmhand called Toby. Lumpish great lumbering fellow with a face as red as a smacked bottom and no more wits than teeth in his head. When we shake hands before first toss, he’s champing on one of the metal hoops like a horse with a bit, sir. It’s no wonder he has so few teeth.
“Well, it was no contest, sir,” Francis grinned with pride. “Yon big lump kept throwing too far, didn’t he? Missed the peg by yards and almost brained two old ladies in the crowd. I, sir - or rather, you - didn’t drop a point. Every hoop stacked up on the peg, sir, pretty as a picture.”
“Bravo!”
“So, we’re through to the second round and this time it’s an older cove by the name of Sly. He’s the landlord of the Lion and Lamb, sir, but I don’t suppose you frequent that establishment.”
“Your supposition is entirely correct,” said Quentin. “Get on with it.”
“Well, sir. Sly is a worthier opponent than red-faced Toby. He’s got a steady hand and an unwavering eye and he barely drops a point. It all comes down to the final throw, sir. I’m up first and I’m sweating but I don’t dare take off the hat to wipe my brow. I makes the throw and it is perfection, if I might say so. The crowd applauds and Sly steps up. If he makes it, it’ll come down to a re-match. We all hold our breath. If I dropped a pin, you’d hear it. Sly levels the hoop, flexes his wrist a couple of times and throws - and he misses, sir. By quite a way. It’s completely out of character considering the way he’s been playing up to now. Everybody is surprised but Sly walks off, patting me on the shoulder as he passes. He goes back to his pub and that’s the end of it. I’m through to the final.”
“I don’t understand,” Quentin frowned.
“He threw it, sir.”
“Well, of course he threw it. That’s what you do.”
“I mean he threw the match, sir. He deliberately missed the peg so I would win.”
“Why on Earth would he want to do that?”
“Because he thought I was the Squire’s son, sir. And the Squire always wins.”
Quentin gaped. “What are you implying? Are you saying my father only wins because they let him? That there is no honour in quoits?”
“I don’t know, sir. But it’s time for the final and my opponent is not going to give me such an easy ride. Not by a long chalk.”
“Who was it?”
“Why, Doctor Goodhead, of course! He’s won through his matches with no trouble at all. He comes bounding up to the square and wishes me luck but I don’t so much as look at him - I don’t want him to see through my disguise. I stand there all snooty and aloof.”
“And he had no idea?”
“None whatsoever.”
Quentin was perplexed. He had hoped the doctor would know him in thick fog from a mile away but then, he supposed, it was better that he was deceived.
“It was a hard-fought contest, sir. Neither of us drops a point and we’re forced to tie-break. He’s a good player, sir, I have to own. Lovely wrist action and a smooth release. The hoops fly from his hand like a dream, sir. He makes it all look effortless.”
“Bully for him,” Quentin muttered. “Go on.”
“The tie-break goes on and on and it looks like we’ll be there long past sundown but then I get so hot, sir, from the hat and the cloak that I stops to have a drink of water. There’s a wench standing by with a ewer on a tray. I takes a drink and I tips it down my throat and it’s wonderful. Only in the doing so, sir, my cloak falls open and the doctor’s looking at me and he sees it, sir.”
“Sees what, for pity’s sake!”
“What I’m wearing beneath, sir. I’m still in my own clothes, sir.”
Quentin gaped. “O, you utter, utter fool!”
“I know, sir, but here’s the queer thing. The doctor redoubles his efforts and scores point after point. I’m struggling to match him. The air is electric, sir, with people hanging on our every move. Finally, one of us slips. The hoop rebounds off the peg and falls short. The next toss decides it, sir, and it’s all over.”
Quentin blinked. “Well, come on, man! Who was the victor?”
Francis sulked. “I’m hurt that you should have to ask, sir.” He reached into his cloak and withdrew a gleaming brass trophy. “The family honour is safe for another year.”
Quentin marvelled at the prize but before he could give voice to his thoughts or congratulate the stable boy, there came a loud knocking on the door.
“Open up!” said a voice. “It’s Doctor Goodhead.”
Qualms
“Oh, thank goodness!” Doctor Goodhead headed directly to the bed. Francis, at the open door, lingered uncertainly until Quentin dismissed him with a nod.
Doctor Goodhead shrugged off his overcoat and perched on the bed. “I thought you must be seriously hurt to miss the tournament. My mind was in torment.”
Gratified though he was to hear the doctor speak these words, Quentin could not resist pointing out that a broken arm was as serious a hurt as he would like to suffer, thank you.
“Let me see,” the doctor reached for the limb without waiting for permission. He unstrapped the splint and discarded the wood, then he unwrapped the makeshift bandage and looked at the injury. “It’s all purple - it is bruised but not broken.”
“Are you sure?”
“Are you able to move your fingers?”
Quentin tried, wincing at the pain.
“There, you see. A week or so of discomfort and discolouration and then you shall be right as rain. What did you do?”
“O, very little.”
Doctor Goodhead eyed him with suspicion. “Really? Well, I suggest you do not repeat it, whatever it was. Cold water compresses will make you more comfortable.”
He stood and picked up his coat. Quentin was alarmed that their time together was to be so swiftly curtailed.
“May I ask you something, Doctor?”
“Very well.”
“Why? Why did you not speak out?”
“About what?”
“When you saw it was not me at the tournament. You could have had my replacement discounted as an impostor. You could have won the trophy.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said the doctor, enigmatically. “I saw no impo
stor.”
He picked up his bag and headed for the door. “Your father is held in high regard around here, Kon-tan. It is something of a tradition that he wins the trophy. Luckily, what happened today did not upset that tradition. My opponent played excellently well.”
“And so should I have played, had I played.”
“You must not speak in such a manner; your father must not suspect.”
Quentin gaped. He was still gaping when the doctor left and the stable boy came back in. Francis had been waiting in the corridor, trying both to listen and not listen at the same time.
“You fool,” was Quentin’s greeting. “My arm is not broken, merely bruised.”
“That’s good news, isn’t it, sir?”
“The doctor seems willing to be complicit in our deception. Let us speak no more of it. You have served the family well today but now you may return to the stables.”
“But-”
But Quentin turned his face away. Francis waited to see if the young master would speak again but after an awkward moment, he took his leave. The trophy lay forgotten on the floor.
***
“Call me Ian...”
Quentin spent a few days in his room, resting his arm and wresting words from his brain and scratching them onto paper. The first line of his three-volume work of fiction continued to elude him. When Birkworth appeared with a tray, the butler cast an eye around the burgeoning collection of balled-up sheets on the floor but made no comment.
“Thank you, Birkworth,” Quentin gestured without looking up from his paper. “You may go.” A sudden thought induced him to call the butler back. “Oh, Birkworth!”
“Yes, sir?”
“My father. How fares he? And what did he think of the trophy?”
“He is in a much improved frame of mind, sir, thanks to your efforts at the peg. The trophy stands beside his bed. I have never seen a prouder man. You did well, sir.”
The butler nodded curtly and left Quentin feeling like a fraud and a deceiver. The true identity of the quoits champion must never come to light. Perhaps Francis ought to be dismissed? Or would that incite the fellow to full disclosure of the sorry truth? Was Francis the sort of petty-minded fellow who might stoop to such a course of action? Quentin felt unable to take that chance.
One morning, about a week after the tournament, Birkworth brought in breakfast and announced that visitors were expected for elevenses: the Lady Shaver and Miss Shaver. The young master’s presence was required in the drawing room.
“Very well,” Quentin tucked into a piece of toast. “I need to get out of this room. Fetch hot water, Birkworth; I shall shave. Or rather, you shall shave me, for my arm is still somewhat sore.”
“Yes, sir,” said Birkworth, without sounding put-upon in the slightest. He left the young master to finish his repast.
Truth be told, Quentin was pleased to have an excuse to get out of bed. It would be pleasant to see Lottie again and propagate the deception that she and he were ideally suited.
Ay me! More deception. I am sunk into a pit of intrigue and entangled in a web of lies.
Still, if it kept Aunt Fanny off his back with her matchmaking endeavours, it could only be to the good, so he tried to quell his qualms. And had not the old bird outstayed her welcome by, say, a hundred years? Had she not a home of her own to which she could repair?
Quentin remembered Roderick’s reaction on hearing the old bird was at Quigley Manor - and then he had ridden off on a riled-up Satan... Queer is insufficient a word for it.
***
He joined his Aunt Fanny in the drawing room. Lady and Miss Shaver were already present, with china cups and saucers resting on their laps.
“Ah, there you are, nephew,” Aunt Fanny stated in case there was some doubt.
“Good morning, Aunt, My Lady, Miss Shaver - charming as ever.” He took Miss Shaver’s fingertips in his own and affected to kiss them. Both Aunt Fanny and Lady Shaver were delighted by his conduct and they shared a frisson of excitement and a conspiratorial glance.
After a few moments of pleasantries and observations about the clemency of the weather, Aunt Fanny stood and addressed the company in a somewhat formal tone. “It is the nature of life for the male to seek a mate - I mean not to be biologically explicit - but we are all slaves to our natural urges and desires, of which there is none finer than the instinct to marry and to reproduce. For that is how we endure, that is how we perpetuate ourselves.”
Quentin pulled a face. It was a bit rich, he thought, and not a little embarrassing to hear his maiden aunt expound on such matters. He sent an apologetic grimace to Miss Shaver, who was trying to conceal a smirk of amusement behind her tea cup.
“My Lady Shaver and I are in complete accord,” Aunt Fanny continued. “We are delighted that you two young people have found each other and have so swiftly established a rapport and, dare I say, mutual affection the one for the other? We feel there ought to be no delay in the formalisation and announcement of an alliance between our two families.”
Miss Shaver spluttered and choked on her beverage. Quentin frowned in puzzlement.
“What mean you, Aunt?”
“O, Quentin!” giggled Miss Shaver, “We are to be married sooner than we had envisaged - than we had hoped, I mean!”
“We are?” Quentin gaped, vacant.
Aunt Fanny and Lady Shaver beamed indulgently. “I can see,” said Aunt Fanny, “which of you shall rule the roost in your marriage.”
“Marriage, Aunt? But the young lady and I have barely met more than twice.”
Aunt Fanny’s smile persisted but her eyes could have frozen a lake. “A word, nephew, if I may.”
She strode to the French windows, fully expecting Quentin to follow. Which he did, murmuring ‘excuse me’ to the ladies and setting his rattling cup and saucer on a side table.
Out on the patio, Aunt Fanny looked daggers at him. “Fool of a youth! You will not find a better alternative. Miss Shaver is a thoroughly charming, totally eligible, and excellently endowed young lady.”
“I have no doubt on that score, Aunt, but-”
“So you shall announce your engagement at a ball next month and then, one month later, the banns shall be read and. in due course, you shall be wed.”
“But why so hasty? Do you wish me to spend my leisure time in repentance?”
“I fear we may not be sufficiently precipitous. You and your midnight trysts! You shall marry that girl and make of her an honest woman. O, the shame of it!”
Quentin gaped. At last he understood. The stable boy’s story had reached his Aunt’s ears. He was about to set her right on a couple of points when he remembered that Roderick had asked for secrecy. He decided he had better play along for the time being.
“You gawp like a codfish who has received a demand from the income tax office.”
Quentin altered his expression to a grin. “Au contraire, ma tante. I am a child on Christmas morning who finds on opening his present exactly what he wished. And now, if you will excuse me, I shall take Miss Shaver for a turn of the gardens. After all, there can be no engagement without a proposal.”
Qualities
“This is perfect; you do see that, don’t you, Quentin?”
Miss Shaver was tripping through the orchard. She threw her arms wide and turned on the spot. “This will put an end to all the match-making, to all the ambushes with eligible strangers. We shall be left in peace.”
“I hardly think peace and marriage are synonymous,” grumbled Quentin.
“You are queasy still, I see. Let them throw us an engagement party. It will be enormous fun. Then we can stall and defer the actual ceremony indefinitely, although I still maintain it would suit us both extremely well, for I have no more desire to be married to a man than you have to be shackled to a w
oman.”
“Very well,” Quentin swallowed his doubt. “I agree to the party. Anything further is still open to negotiation.”
“Of course.” She extended a hand and they shook on it in a business-like fashion that amused them both greatly. “But you must propose,” she batted her eyelashes in mock flirtation. “My lady friends and indeed my mama will pester me to learn the story of how you popped the question.”
“Can you not fabricate an anecdote? You seem to me an expert in the art of deception.”
Miss Shaver swatted at him with the back of her hand, striking the arm that was still causing discomfort. He cried out and she laughed to hear it, before apologising profusely and soliciting his forgiveness.
“Prepare yourself,” Quentin advised. He cleared his throat and dropped to one knee, taking her hand in his and looking up into her eyes. “Miss Shaver,” he began, “Charlotte. Lottie... It is the nature of life for the male to seek a mate.”
Miss Shaver laughed. “O, please speak not to me of natural urges, Mr Quigley! It is too, too mortifying.”
“If I may continue?”
“O, but of course!”
“Will you marry me?”
“Yes.”
He sprang up and dusted off his trouser leg. “That’s that, then.”
“I believe the incident shall require some embellishment in the recounting,” said Miss Shaver. “Now, let us climb trees and throw apples at each other like monkeys at war.”
***
“What is all this talk I hear of balls?” Squire Quigley, now mobile enough to leave his room and sit at the head of the table for dinner.
“I am throwing one, brother,” said Aunt Fanny from the other end.
“Quoits not good enough for you!” the Squire blustered. He winked at Quentin.
“You misunderstand-” Aunt Fanny began but her brother’s laughter cut her short.
Quoits and Quotability Page 7