* * *
Mr. James Garvey, resplendent in a jacket of maroon Bath suiting and a cravat that had caused Yolande to wish that her brother John (an aspiring dandy) might see it, frowned thoughtfully at his empty plate. “I fear I must disagree with you, my dear lady,” he said. “Rackety, Devenish may be, but as your niece says, it does seem a trifle odd that he and his cousin should have departed with word to none.” He looked with grave sympathy into Yolande’s anxious eyes. How very pretty she was in that misty green evening gown, and how wisely she had chosen to wear no jewellery, allowing the eye to dwell undistracted upon her fair skin. She was not as lovely as his adored Lisette, of course, but very pretty indeed. And useful, for anyone chancing to see him on his northward journey could now read nothing more into it than that he escorted two ladies. Perfectly innocuous. And with the threat that Devenish constituted now happily removed, he could proceed to his destination with perfect equanimity. “You said, I believe,” he murmured, “that you last saw your cousins early in the afternoon?”
Yolande nodded. “Soon after we returned from church. I will own I was a trifle annoyed by—by a small disagreement, but I had not thought they would just leave.” She added worriedly, “It is so unlike Devenish.”
“Perhaps the Canadian fellow was upset because Socrates bit him,” said Mrs. Drummond, off-handedly.
“I doubt that, Aunt Arabella. He did not seem angry when I arrived home from church.”
“Oh, that’s right! I had forgot that time.”
“Good heavens! Never say it happened again?”
“While you were resting, my love. I brought Mr. Tyndale, for somehow I cannot endure to call him ‘nephew,’ or Craig, he seems so—so alien! Where was I? Oh, yes—I fetched him up here and tended him, thought it was not a bad bite at all, and soon stopped bleeding.”
“Bleeding! Oh, Aunt Arabella! I wish you had not brought Socrates! He has the most horrid disposition.”
At once firing up in defence of her pet, Mrs. Drummond wailed, “How can you blame it on my poor doggie? If truth be told, Mr. Tyndale brought it on himself, for had he not hurt Socrates’ little nose, the dear pet would not have bitten the clumsy creature!”
“Craig hurt Socrates?” gasped Yolande, considerably taken aback. “But—but, why?”
“You may well ask, though I’m sure it is all of a piece. He is, after all, from a wild frontier, and obviously more accustomed to deal with savages than civilized ladies and gentlemen. Only think of how he almost brought about your own death, my dear.”
“Did he, by thunder?” ejaculated Mr. Garvey, straightening in his chair. “It would seem that you are well rid of the fellow, Miss Drummond.”
Irked, Yolande said, “It is not quite as it sounds, sir. There was an accident, true, but Mr. Tyndale rescued me from it most gallantly.”
“Oh, very gallantly, I am sure!” said Mrs. Drummond, huffily. “And not a thought for me, lying senseless in a ditch! It’s a wonder my neck was not broke, and indeed I still suffer so many aches and pains that I feel sure it will be found I have taken some grievous inner hurt!”
“Of course Craig thought of you!” Yolande flared hotly. “We both did! I am assured he would never have left you had there not been others to aid you, whereas I was helpless, with the team bolting as they were. I truly am sorry you were so badly shaken, Aunt, but Craig—”
“No, no, never apologize, dear love,” Mrs. Drummond inserted in honeyed tones, but with her eyes sparking. “Indeed, I can but marvel at the forbearance that leads you to intercede for the crude fellow. Under the circumstances.”
Flushed with vexation, and looking, or so thought James Garvey, exceedingly lovely, Yolande fell into the trap. “Circumstances? What circumstances? The circumstance that having unwittingly endangered my life, Cousin Craig proceeded very bravely to save it?”
“Why—no, dearest,” purred her aunt with sublime innocence. “I had meant simply the circumstance of your being promised to dear Alain Devenish. And the Colonial being so obviously—however presumptuously—enamoured of you!”
Thoroughly angered, Yolande prepared to retaliate with the remark that since she was to wed Devenish and that Craig was aware of the fact, her defence of him was as devoid of interest as it was impartial. But she could not speak the words and, tongue-tied, her face flaming, she knew why. Her feelings for Craig Tyndale could, under no circumstances, be described as being devoid of interest.
Mrs. Drummond had little use for Alain Devenish, but she was aware that he was a peerless suitor if compared to his Canadian cousin. Triumphant, she smiled a faint but smug smile through a brief, pregnant pause.
Hiding amusement, Mr. Garvey reached out to place his well-manicured fingers over Mrs. Drummond’s hand, lying upon the tablecloth. “Poor little lady,” he soothed gently. “How worried your niece must have been for your sake. And how pleased I am that you have effected such a remarkable recovery, so that I may beg you will both accompany me this evening. It would seem there is to be a lecture in the Parish Hall upon the words of Lawrence and a young fellow called Constable. I am no connoisseur of the arts, but I understand the paintings of several local artists will also be on display, and it might prove an entertainment to suit the sensibilities of such gentle ladies as yourselves.”
Mrs. Drummond was pleased to accept. Turning to the quiet Yolande, Mr. Garvey gave her a surreptitious grin so full of mischief that her disturbed heart was eased. “You are too kind to us, sir,” she protested gratefully.
He shook his head and said with perfect, if oblique, honesty, “Miss Drummond, you cannot know what it means to me to be allowed to keep such charming company.”
“Such graciousness,” sighed Mrs. Drummond, as she climbed the stairs to prepare for the outing. “Such an air! Oh, Yolande, how it would gladden my heart to see you wed so perfect a gentleman as Mr. Garvey.”
Yolande scarcely heard her. “I wonder,” she muttered, “wherever they can be.”
Mrs. Drummond tossed her head. “If I know anything at all in the matter,” she said tartly, “they are likely carousing in some tavern in an intoxicated condition, and will awaken with fearful headaches, wishing themselves dead!”
* * *
Fervently wishing himself dead, Alain Devenish dragged his unco-operative body out of the ditch and again sprawled, face down, at the side of the lane, too nauseated to move another inch. He had, he told himself fuzzily, probably felt worse in his life. He could not remember when. His head ached dully, he felt wretchedly ill, and his leg was pounding so that he clutched at it miserably. Dimly, he was nudged by a sense of urgency; of something vital he must accomplish with the least possible delay, and obedient to that spur he struggled upwards, fighting the nausea until it overwhelmed him and he sank down and was very sick. For a while he lay still, not thinking at all, drenched in a cold sweat and lacking the strength of a newborn kitten. But gradually he began to feel less limp and, after what seemed a very long time, he crept slowly to his knees and thence to his feet. The lane, the dark loom of hedges, the violet skies of evening, tilted slowly to the right. He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and hung on. When he peeped through his lashes once more, the countryside had righted itself. His first few steps were uncertain, but in a little while he was going along less erratically. Still, it was several more minutes before he began to wonder why he was here, and where “here” was.
Puzzled, he slowed, then stopped. A large badger, very wet, trotted busily into the lane, paused to shake itself, then froze, petrified, as it saw the human so near to it. There was water nearby, then, thought Devenish. The badger watched, undecided as to whether a retreat or an attack was indicated. Devenish started to bow, thought better of it, and said softly, “Good evening, Mr. Badger. Alain Devenish at your service.” The badger abandoned its deliberations and waited fearlessly. Devenish put it in possession of the fact that he had been properly hornswoggled. “I was,” he advised, “half suffocated, drugged, and tossed into a ditch. And let
me tell you, sir, that if the party I suspect of this dastardly crime was in truth responsible, it is a miracle I yet live!” The badger took a few unhurried steps. “Off to your club, eh?” said Devenish. “Then, if you’ve no objection, I do believe I shall avail myself of your bath.” The badger paused, twitched its long whiskers, and went upon its way.
Devenish watched it, a faint smile lurking about his mouth, then turned aside, crossed the ditch, found a break in the hedgerow and emerged into a wide meadow that sloped downwards to a distant gleam that was the river. Starting thitherward with quickening step, he tensed and stopped. Yolande! His lovely little lady was at the mercy of that miserable libertine, Garvey! Trusting him! Supposing him to be—what was it she’d said? “All that is conciliating!” He thought, “Conciliating! My God!” He must get to her, and as fast as may be! But starting off, he again checked, the sense that he was followed bringing a recollection of the vicious assault in the stable. He swung around, ready for battle, his keen eyes scanning the quiet loom of the hedge. But there was no movement this time; no rush of dark forms, no sickly-smelling rag to be clapped over his nostrils with the resultant and immediate weakness that had been so swiftly followed by unconsciousness. Perhaps it was only the badger, who had decided to come this way after all. He resumed his route. “Not too sociable creatures, badgers,” he advised a field mouse as it scampered past. “But far more decent,” he went on, his usually humorous mouth settling into a stern line, “than many of us who walk on two legs!”
The evening air was sweet with the scents of damp earth and honeysuckle, and vibrant with the small, myriad voices of the night dwellers; the warning call of an owl, the pattering progress of some water rat or mole, countless chirps and rustlings that ceased abruptly as Devenish approached the river. Coming to the bank, he sat down, pulled off boots and stockings, divested himself of coat, cravat, and shirt, rolled up his breeches, and stepped gingerly into the water. He gasped and danced a little to that icy immersion, but waded deeper, bent, and with the aid of his handkerchief managed to wash himself quite well. The cold water took his breath but set his skin to tingling and his head began to throb less viciously. When he felt sufficiently cleansed, he trod rapidly up the bank, and then stood very still, listening.
The sounds of the night had resumed when he’d begun to take off his clothes, but now all was very silent. The breathless hush was of itself a warning. He thought, “So I was right the first time!”
“You might as well have taked off the lot,” said a clear, childish voice. “You’re all over wetness.”
Devenish, who had jumped at the first word, now continued up the bank, peering at the small, dark outline beside his discarded garments. “Who the deuce are you?” he enquired, then hopped as he trod on a sharp pebble and added an exasperated, “Dammitall!”
The small figure backed away.
“My apologies. No—do not go away,” Devenish pleaded. “What are you doing out alone after dark like this? You should be laid down upon your bed.”
“Never mind about me,” said the child with surprising firmness. “I may be all of my ownness. But I is not touched in the upper works.”
Devenish was beginning to shiver. “N-no more am I. Are you a boy?”
“’Course. What are you going to dry on?”
“My shirt.” He took it up and began to scrub vigorously. “It will dry as I go along. And because a fellow bathes in the river, don’t mean he’s a looby.”
“Anyone what puts his whole self—or most of it—into the river at night, is crazy. But it ain’t ’cause of that I thinked it. I heered you talking to the badger.”
Beginning to feel a little warmer, Devenish laughed, pulled the shirt briskly back and forth across his shoulders, then shook it out and began to put it on. “So you were watching, were you? I thought someone was. As for the badger—well, when a fellow’s alone he talks to all manner of things. I didn’t frighten him, you know.”
“I know. You got Rat Paws.”
“I’ve—what?”
The child shrank back behind one protectively up-flung arm. “Don’t ye clout me! Oh, don’t you never clout me!”
“Curse and confound it!” fumed Devenish. “I’m not going to hit you. Put your blasted arm down at once!”
With slow caution that guarding arm was lowered. A scared voice whimpered, “Lor’, but you get so cross, so quick! I be afeared!”
Devenish winced. Even from this unknown child! “My wretched temper,” he muttered contritely. “I’m sorry, boy. Now, tell me why you made that revol—er, that unkind remark about my hands.” He held out one slim, neatly manicured member and peered at it by the light of the rising half-moon. “They ain’t that bad, surely?”
“Rat Paws don’t mean hands! Cor!” the scorn was apparent. “Don’t you know nothink? It means as you understand the little people. Animals.”
“Does it, by Jove!” Devenish pulled on his jacket. “Well, I’ll be dashed! Rat Paws, eh? And how did you know, my elf, that I’ve a way with animals?”
The child sighed and shook his head at this inexplicable obtuseness. “Because of the badger, ’course,” he explained patiently. “He would’ve either runned off or gived you a good bite if you didn’t have the Rat Paws. Not many does. I don’t. But I seen it before. Among the Folk.”
“Aha!” Devenish felt in his pockets. “So you’re a gypsy lad, are you?”
The child sprang up and crouched, hissing furiously. “Go on! Count it! Count it! See if I cares! I didn’t prig nothink!”
“I doubt there was anything to prig. Someone was before you, I fear.”
The boy sniffed and sat down with the unaffected, loose-limbed slump of childhood. “I bean’t surprised. You deserve it for being indecent.”
“Good God!” Devenish abandoned his hopeful but doomed search for any kind of cash or pawnable item still remaining about his person. “Now what are you accusing me of? Because I took off my shirt? Did it offend you to look upon my nakedness, Master Virtuous, you should have continued about your probably nefarious pursuits!”
There was a brief pause, then the boy remarked thoughtfully, “I don’t know what all them jawbreakers means. But I heered you say the badger he was more decent than what you is. And badgers are not always nice.”
Devenish chuckled. “Well, that wasn’t quite what I meant. Now, sirrah, I think I shall walk with you so far as your cottage—or do you dwell in a caravan, perhaps? Anyway, I’ll see you safe home. Which way? And by the by, where are we?” The small stocking-capped head turned to him with incredulity. “I was robbed in St. Albans,” he explained, “and thrown in a ditch not far away from here, but I’ve no least idea where I am.”
“Lawks! A rank rider?” The boy moved a step closer and looked around uneasily.
“Something like that.” Devenish dropped a reassuring hand onto a very frail shoulder. “Never fear, laddie. He’s far off by this time.”
“I hopes as how he is. We’re on the outside of Cricklade.”
Devenish knit his brows. “Oh, then that’s the Thames, is it? Jove! I’ve a school friend lives nearby, just past Tewkesbury.”
“Tewkesbury!” The boy gave a muffled snort and began to move off. “It’s this way. There’s a sign at the crossroads.”
Following, Devenish scanned him narrowly. How thin he was, poor shrimp. Likely half-starved, and although he moved along well, his stride was short and cautious as he picked his way across the meadow. It was too dark to see the face and, beyond noting how peaked it seemed, the eyes dark shadows in that pale oval, Devenish had no clear impression of his looks. There was an inconsistency about his speech that was intriguing. Although he used cant terms and his grammar was atrocious, the h’s and g’s were largely intact, and just now he had said with surprising precision, “badgers are not always nice.” Odd. Recalling his last succinct exclamation, Devenish enquired, “What’s wrong with Tewkesbury?”
“Nought. Be ye going to walk?”
“Touc
hé! I suppose…” he frowned, “I’ve no choice.” And then, resenting a scornful “Hah!” he demanded, “And why should that disgust you?”
“’Cause you be a nob. And nobs don’t walk better’n thirty miles.”
“Surprising as it may seem to you, young sir,” said Devenish loftily, “I have been on the padding lay before. Now then”—he indicated the row of shabby cottages they were approaching—“is this where you live?” The boy nodded and led the way to a gate that drooped in a picket fence sadly lacking paint.
Devenish closed the gate behind him, waved cheerily, and went on his way. “Strange little duck,” he mused, then glanced back curiously. It was stranger that a gypsy should live in a cottage, but perhaps the child’s parents had tired of the nomadic life. At all events, it was none of his bread and butter. But, by gad! when he and Yolande set up their nursery the children would not be permitted to wander about the countryside after dark! Yolande … His eyes softened to a surge of tenderness. God love her sweet soul, already he missed her damnably! He squared his shoulders. “Tewkesbury. Thirty miles. Lord!”
He stepped out briskly and soon came to the fork in the lane, the signpost pointing south to Swindon, and northwest to the Cotswolds, beyond which lay Tewkesbury and the home of Valentine Montclair. Perhaps he might advance faster by retreating, for Swindon, on horseback at least, was not far from the Leith’s country seat, Cloudhills, where he could be sure of a warm welcome and the loan of a chaise and pair, even if Tristram was from home. But he had no horse, and Cloudhills was as far as Tewkesbury and in the wrong blasted direction! He’d never visited Montclair’s country place, but Val had been a fine fellow at Harrow, and would most certainly do all he might to aid a former schoolmate.
Not until he had walked a long way did it occur to him that Craig might be the villain who’d had him abducted, so that he might dishonourably pursue his cousin’s lady without fear of interruption. He halted, scowling, but almost immediately grinned and shook his head. Never. Tyndale, whatever else he might be, was a gentleman.
The Noblest Frailty Page 12