A Most Unusual Lady

by Janet Grace

  ‘I have bandaged John and he is resting,’ she told him. ‘The bullet passed straight through and it is only a flesh wound; the bone seems undamaged.’

  ‘Thank heaven!’ he said. ‘And thank you.’

  Ezra and Ezekiel had edged curiously forward to hear her news of John, and now seemed to give her grudging acceptance as a fellow human being. They nodded gruff comments, and Ezra volunteered the information that they would soon be back in Bullockstone Cove.

  ‘Lost they ’Cise men and no problem,’ he declared with great satisfaction. ‘Outsail anything round here, can Master John’s Gannett He slapped the gunwale approvingly. ‘As can ’is lordship there. An’ the weather, she ’elped, o’ course. Clouded up just roight.’

  It had, Louisa noticed, clouded over completely, blotting out the stars. There was a light, steady breeze and a hint of drizzle in the air. A faint lightness in the east proclaimed the approach of dawn. Ezra followed her look.

  ‘We’ll be snug up in the cove before the sun’s up,’ he assured her, ‘and the goods unloaded. A good night’s run.’

  ‘You mean to say,’ exclaimed Louisa, the obvious truth that had lain unnoticed in the night’s confusion suddenly hitting forcibly home, ‘you mean to say that this boat is actually full of smuggled goods? Now? That I am a smuggler’s accomplice?’ She was outraged.

  Ezra chuckled somewhere within the hearth-brush beard.

  ‘That’s putting things blunter than we care to, ma’am, but that’s about the sum of it. A good run. Bit choppy on the way out, but a foine run back. ’Part from they Excise men.’

  He spat disparagingly overboard, and Ezekiel, whose only contribution to the conversation had been a few indecipherable grunts, followed suit.

  ‘My dear!’ Robert was regarding her once again with amusement as she took part in this unusual conversation. ‘Perhaps you would prefer to wait below deck again? If you could check on John for me I would be grateful, and then try to sleep. I will take us back safely now.’

  He smiled at her reassuringly.

  ‘Of course.’ She nodded slowly, and returned thoughtfully back below deck. Of her emotions she was unsure whether excitement, outrage, hope or despair was uppermost. Or just plain confusion. Whatever, she was utterly exhausted, and her head throbbed.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Gannet reached the sheltered waters of Bullockstone Cove at dawn, as Ezra had predicted. It was a fine natural harbour, entered by a narrow channel through high ground and widening into a surprisingly large anchorage, hidden from land and sea by the steep enclosing cliffs.

  At the far end was a small valley where a stream had cut its way down to the sea, levelling just enough land on its bank sides for a huddle of stone-built fishermen’s cottages to crouch between the cliffs behind and the shingle beach. The entrance to the cove was hidden from the open sea by Bullockstone Island, a sheer-sided protrusion of grey stone topped with bare, salt-flecked turf, that stood a short way off shore astride the harbour entrance.

  Robert rounded these hazards with the nonchalant ease of long practice, and even as they dropped anchor the creak and plash of oars could be heard from the direction of the beach, showing that their arrival was expected. They were manned by another of Ezra’s sons, a lad of maybe ten or eleven, who manoeuvred the heavy wooden boat with surprising skill and rejoiced in the name of Jonah, a choice Louisa felt to be unduly pessimistic in a family of their calling.

  ‘I am afraid we shall need to impose on your family for what is left of the night.’ She heard Alnstrop speaking to Ezra. ‘John and Miss Stapely are in no state to travel on to Alnstrop until they are rested.’

  ‘Ah! Roight, sir.’ Ezra sounded taken aback, but agreed readily enough. ‘Missus’ll cope.’

  She and John were bundled unceremoniously into the boat, and a considerable weight of boxes rapidly packed around them, before Jonah was given his orders to, ‘Get them two up to the cottage, tell yer ma they’re staying over, get them crates stacked on the beach and get back ’ere sharpish!’

  Straining his thin, wiry arms and puffing cheerfully through an engaging, broken-toothed grin, the lad complied. Louisa soon found herself steadying John as they stumbled up the shingle through persistent drizzle to Ezra’s home.

  Mrs. Gammidge greeted John with anxious duckings, and Lord Alnstrop and Louisa with complete bewilderment. However, she pressed bowls of an excellent hot fish stew upon them and, seeing their exhaustion, insisted they sleep, producing clean blankets from a great wooden cupboard by the fireplace and chivvying Louisa into her own bedroom.

  ‘That’s roight, my dear, you just curl up on our bed. Don’t mind young Ruthie, she’s on the truckle at the end.’

  She latched the door firmly shut, and the last Louisa heard before she fell asleep was the creak of John’s footsteps overhead, and Mrs. Gammidge’s voice calling up the ladder.

  ‘And don’t you worry about Daniel and Jeremiah. Take our ’Zekiel’s place, this end o’ the mattress. Sleep well!’

  Then, faintly, Robert’s quiet tones.

  ‘Don’t worry about me, Mrs. Gammidge. I’ll just sit by the fire and see all’s well.’

  When Louisa awoke it was broad daylight, though gloomy with cloud and rain. The truckle-bed was empty. Ruthie had presumably sought her breakfast. Voices, including Robert’s, could be heard from the main room next door.

  Achingly stiff, her bruised head still tender, she climbed off the high, lumpy feather mattress. It was of questionable cleanliness, she now noted with resignation. She surveyed the ruins of the neat grey merino dress in which she had hoped to impress the Addiscombes. She could not begin to think what to do about the Addiscombe family, and on studying the dress, which proved to be sadly torn at the hem and liberally spattered and stained with salt, blood and brandy, and other splashes of indeterminate but probably nasty origin, she concluded that there was very little she could do about that, either. Her shawl, which some kind soul had retrieved from the Gannet and laid over her, was almost as bad. However, she tucked it round herself against the chill and spent a few minutes replaiting and pinning her hair into what she hoped was a presentable coil. Of her bonnet, she now realised, she had seen no trace since Ezra’s attack in the ice-house, and she gloomily concluded that it must still be lying there among his kegs and boxes. Also there, she thought with a start, must be her reticule, containing all her money—even that for the stage-coach fare.

  As she could think of nothing constructive to do about any of these problems, she put them aside and ventured into the main room, where space was rapidly made for her on a bench at the wooden table, and a bowl of steaming porridge placed before her.

  ‘Hot and filling. That’s what you need.’

  The men went out in the rain—Robert to see to the Alnstrop horses, the others to load the wagon—and Mrs. Gammidge chased the younger children out to lend a hand. She then sat slowly down opposite her visitor and looked at her uncomfortably.

  ‘Oi need to talk to you, miss.’ She paused. Her lank hair was scraped back into a rough knot, her face, lined and wind-burned, was careworn but kindly, and her red chapped hands lay helpless on the table. A good, loyal woman, Louisa thought, with sympathy.

  ‘They were telling me how you came to be here. What my Ezra done to you. Hittin’ you and bringing you down here in the cart. Oi couldn’t believe it. If only you’d never gone in there, miss. Oi don’t know why ever you did, for ’tis all private, you know. ’E just panicked, what with all that stuff stored there, and a big run last night. Why, ’e couldn’t leave you to report to the Excise, could ’e, miss? Oi knew ’e never meant you no real ’arm. Not real ’arm. What with that, and then ’is lordship chasing Master John on board and tryin’ to persuade ’im to leave it all an’ come ashore. Oh, dear lord. You’ll not be reporting of ’im now, will you, miss? God knows what we’d do with ’im gone.’

  Louisa paused and stared at her porridge. She was angry and distressed at what had happened to her. She felt humi
liated, and frightened about her future. Also, she was quite convinced in her own mind that Ezra’s original plan had been to quietly drop her overboard somewhere in the English Channel. She ought to do something, the man deserved punishment. But somehow Louisa had no heart to pursue the matter. The woman’s heartfelt appeal touched her, and she felt she could not be responsible for bringing more hardship on such a family. She reassured Mrs. Gammidge.

  That awkward matter out of the way, Louisa had another helping of porridge, and watched with interest while the older woman filleted pout whiting.

  So it was that Robert returned to the cottage to find his unwilling free-trader and her hostess engrossed in a conversation over the neatest ways to prepare fish, with vigorous demonstrations. Yet again he was disconcerted to find himself both impressed and amused by her undaunted spirit as he extricated Miss Stapely ready for the journey five miles or so inland to Alnstrop.

  ‘I have thought long and hard about this journey back to Alnstrop,’ he said with a frown as he took her aside, ‘but I can think of no way to make it comfortable for you, and I think this is the best solution. I will ride ahead with both horses and warn my sister of your arrival, so she can make ready for you. John will travel with you on Ezra’s cart, and will ensure your safety, and I have arranged for one of the Gammidges’ girls, young Mary over there, to travel with you in case you should need assistance. We can only hope that you meet nobody on the road.’

  Taking her hand in a quick farewell clasp, Alnstrop adjured the Gammidges to make good speed, mounted a handsome chestnut hack and, leading John’s grey, set off.

  They were to travel perched on the back of the wagon, which was loaded with boxes, the top ones of which very openly, and in some cases odoriferously, proclaimed their cargo of local-caught fish, crabs and lobster. Ezra and Ezekiel were to drive the wagon, and the two ‘gentry’, with Mary, were to sit on the back behind the trays of fish, legs dangling and, John persuaded Louisa, swathed in greasy sacking.

  ‘It will help to keep the rain off and effect a simple disguise should we meet anyone,’ he urged. ‘I hoped you wouldn’t object!’

  He was half laughing, half anxious, wanting her to enjoy the whole ridiculous escapade. Exasperatedly resigned, but with her sense of humour alive to the whole situation, she replied with tart briskness, ‘But of course not, sir! A sacking shawl is precisely what I require to replace my mislaid bonnet, and I do believe that a few fish stains are all that my dress now lacks. Let us remedy that omission immediately!’

  She donned the heavy sacking with a flourish, thanked Mrs. Gammidge gravely for her kind hospitality, and jumped up lightly on to the cart.

  ‘Come on, then, sir!’ she commanded John. ‘Your carriage awaits you.’

  The journey, by a little-used track over the headland and across bleak, open moor, passed quite without incident—in fact, they did not pass another soul. They eventually arrived at an unobtrusive side door into the basement of the new wing of Alnstrop House, which led into an infrequently used corridor past the gunroom, another room filled with a vast assortment of fishing tackle, and various other stores.

  Alnstrop was waiting with unusual impatience for the arrival of the cart. He had hurried back over the moors, and given an anxious Hetta a brief account of his adventures. He had not, however, given more than the merest facts of Miss Stapely’s imminent arrival, feeling it would be wrong to disclose her story without her consent. His mysterious reticence and fretting anticipation had naturally fuelled Hetta’s speculative curiosity, and she was almost as keen as he for the cart’s arrival. She was relieved, however, when he announced he would wait by the gunroom.

  ‘Yes, dearest Robert, do take your caged tiger impression elsewhere. You are enough to drive a doting sister demented. I shall be waiting in my room.’

  Just as Alnstrop reached the gunroom the handle of the garden-door at the end of the passage clicked slightly as it caught and turned, and Robert, his attention held, paused in the doorway of the gunroom to watch. As the door pushed open a relieved smile crossed his lordship’s face, for he recognised the voice of his brother.

  ‘Robert suggested I bring you in this way. With any luck we shan’t meet another soul, and I will take you up the back staircase to Hetta’s room. You’ll be undisturbed there, and I’ll send Hetta along to lend you clothes and so on. She’s a good egg, my sister—always into any scrapes with me when we were younger.’

  His brother had entered the corridor and begun peeling off a voluminous covering of sackcloth. A strong aroma of fish had assailed the lordly nostrils when he became aware of Louisa’s brisk voice answering.

  ‘Well, I must say I do hope she will oblige me with a bath and a change of clothing. I would not expect so much except for the fact that she is your sister, John Ferdinand, and if family characteristics run strong she will no doubt consider an exhausted fishwife in her bedroom to be a trivial occurrence! But I would not wish to meet your brother again looking as I do.’

  Her voice was pleasant and light as Louisa moved into view, and here, in his own home, it was suddenly as if Robert saw her for the first time. He observed her thick chestnut hair escaping from its coils and pins into soft brown waves over her shoulders and, as she turned, her wide brown eyes, darkly lashed, looking wryly up at his brother. She also was shaking off a dripping and malodorous sacking cloak.

  Lord Alnstrop, washed, changed by his outraged valet, and now dressed with what Hetta considered interestedly to be an unaccustomed elegance, coughed gently and stepped forward.

  ‘I am desolated to have to disappoint your wishes, ma’am.’

  He briefly took her hand and smiled.

  ‘Lord, Robert, you made me jump!’ John exclaimed.

  His lordship turned and surveyed his young brother slowly from head to foot. The stare faltered briefly over the arm, still bandaged in a makeshift sling of fine, lace-trimmed lawn, but did not stop, and he made no comment. The aroma of fish wafted around them. Unconsciously, John’s chin tilted a little higher and he straightened his shoulders.

  There was a faint twitch of amusement at the corner of Alnstrop’s mouth, a crinkling at the corners of his eyes, but he commented with some severity, ‘We are going to need to talk, John, and at some length. Shall we say in my study, in one hour? I trust by then you will be fit to use the furniture.’

  Louisa listened with increasing self-conscious embarrassment, acutely aware of being the outsider in this family tension, and of her own bedraggled state against Alnstrop’s quiet elegance and imposing home.

  He turned to her again, took her hand and bowed.

  Here, she thought, I stand: a fishwife.

  ‘I am delighted to welcome you to my home, Miss Stapely. My sister, Henrietta, is waiting to meet you.’

  Louisa remembered her thoughts when she had first seen Alnstrop House. A chance meeting with his lordship would be a mistake. How right she had been! After one despairing glance at her attire, she flung up her chin, spread her skirts, and dropped a perfect curtsy.

  ‘I am delighted to be here, my lord.’

  The gracious effect was marred by the sackcloth, which slid damply to the floor about her feet. Louisa, who had noted with hope the amusement in Alnstrop’s face, spoke with brave lightness while she gazed up at him, a hint of despair behind the smile in her eyes. ‘I beg you will forgive my unconventional attire, sir.’

  He took her hand to raise her to her feet, and held it for a moment, staring down at her. Her eyes were bright and seemed huge in her tired face. He knew he ought to disapprove of that smattering of freckles across her straight little nose, and her tumbled hair made her look absurdly young. Like Henrietta, he suddenly thought. Indeed, she was looking up at him with an attempt at that same light of laughter that he always found so impossible to resist in Hetta. But her smile had faded, and she was flushing slightly. He discovered he was still holding her hand. Had he offended her? He loosed it abruptly.

  ‘You must meet my sister at once, Miss St
apely. I believe you will deal very well together. John will escort you up.’

  Perturbed by his own confused, unaccustomed emotions, uncertain of her response, Robert backed firmly into the gunroom and shut the door.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  John led Louisa through several corridors to a polished wooden staircase which wound sharply upwards.

  ‘There is a strong family likeness between you,’ Louisa found herself commenting.

  The similarity had been startling, seeing both brothers together in daylight. They both stood about six feet tall, with broad, muscular shoulders. Although John still carried a hint of adolescent lankiness, the promise of his brother’s superb physique was there for the future. They both had the striking black hair that was characteristic in the family. John wore his negligently long, shades of Lord Byron there, Louisa thought with amusement, whereas his lordship’s hair was aggressively short, more like a prizefighter, she reflected severely. And those same startling blue eyes, crinkling up at the corners and teasing gently.

  Miss Stapely, the governess-to-be, redirected her thoughts.

  ‘And is your sister much like you?’

  ‘Lord, yes!’ John said casually. ‘Like peas from a pod. The Ferdinands always are. Have been for generations. We can show you the long gallery if you wish, stuffed full of ancestors, but it’s fearfully tedious for they all look exactly the same!’ He grinned. ‘Here’s my sister’s room. And here, to prove what I was just telling you, is Hetta.’

  The vivacious little figure came quickly to open the door to them, the Ferdinand hair in a dark, tumbled cloud of curls bouncing around her head, her hands clasped in excitement.

  ‘My dear,’ she bubbled, ‘you don’t know how glad I am that you have come! Quickly, come in. John, do go away, you smell atrocious!’ She shut the door firmly on her brother. ‘Robert tells me you are obviously an adventure come to lighten my tedium, and I am to give you hot baths, food, and all the clothes you wish, but your arrival is surrounded by mystery and disguise. I am so happy! This is wonderful!’ She drew a deep breath. ‘Can you tell all, or are your lips irrevocably sealed? And what can I fetch you first?’