The Accidental Highwayman

by Ben Tripp

  Morgana and I came, after half an hour, to a small village of thirty cottages with a church no bigger than the stables at the Manse. The homes looked jolly, even in the rain: They were bewigged in thatch and had whitewashed walls and boxes of bright flowers at the windows. Strange to think I had jumped Midnight through the roof of such a cottage not long before. There was a small public house at the far end of the village, which I thought might offer the miserable Morgana some warmth, at least. As we approached it, I saw there was a mail-post before the door, and at the foot of the mail-post a brassbound trunk. Upon the trunk sat a yellow-haired young woman, as damp as the rest of us. Beside her sat a threadbare and equally damp baboon.

  “Lily?” said I.

  Chapter 16

  DESIGNS UPON WOMEN’S HEARTS

  I DOUBT THERE is a man in the world who has sorrowed as a woman can sorrow, be she half Faerie or entirely from Liverpool, as Lily was. For it was she, at the very bottom of the selfsame pool of misery in which I’d so often seen her bathe when I was a small boy, like a clumsy pearl diver always dropping the same oyster overboard and plunging down after it again.

  When I spoke her name, she looked up sharply. When she saw it was I, her face dissolved into fresh tears like a wrung sponge. Now I had two weeping women, one upon either hand, with whom to contend. At a loss for what else to do, I suggested we get in out of the rain.

  In the snug of the public house, which was a room about ten feet square, with a hearth half as large to warm it, we sat with our backs to the streaming windows and our faces to the fire. The landlord did not know what to make of me, as you can imagine—had I broken both their hearts? But why the ape? His imagination must have composed tales around the four of us that would have daunted Shakespeare’s powers of invention. But he made no complaint over the presence of a Gypsy girl, and for that I was most grateful.

  I convinced my bedraggled feminine companions to take a little restorative: for Morgana, a hot toddy of whisky and Spanish lemon, and for Lily, gin and water. I had a dish of piping hot coffee to ward off a chill, as I’d had many cold baths that day. Morgana had never before consumed alcohol, so the effect was an immediate improvement in her spirits. Lily, on the other hand, required several infusions. Once her sobs abated, she told us her tale—with increasing emphasis as her thirst was increasingly quenched.

  The baboon, as you have probably guessed, was my old friend Fred, late of Trombonio’s Traveling Wonder Show. He had fallen to Lily’s care after the troupe was disbanded, and when the white-faced and black-hearted clown had (inevitably) joined the crowded ranks of Lily’s faithless ex-suitors, she had taken the creature with her.

  “Me and Fred, we’ve been a-tramping since. ’E’s such a comfort, holdin’ of my hand and offerin’ me dead mice, but it’s no use. I can’t stop my misery up.”

  After this latest heartbreak, she had decided she could endure no more of life upon the road, and had determined to fall upon the mercy of her only living relative, an uncle. This person, of advanced age and sharp opinions, made his home at the margin of the very hamlet to which we had come. He had once been the master of a show that played at the hippodrome outside Finchley for fifteen years, and toured Europe. Disaster ended the show, but the uncle had cannily put away sufficient fortune for the rest of his years.

  The reason we found Lily sitting irresolute in the rain was because all was not well between her and the uncle. Truth to tell, it could scarcely have been worse. Lily’s decision to take up performing, which her uncle denounced vehemently since his forced retirement, had driven a wedge between them. He was her only relative by that time, but had no kinship to offer her unless she abandoned the trade. In defiance, she toured as a high-rope dancer, having vowed never to give up performing—and never to return.

  “But this latest romance done me in,” she said, slurring her words a trifle. “That d____ Pierrot with his lovely big eyes and strong hands, I thought he was the one to make a honest woman of me. Things went grand for nearly a year—four months at least. Or anyway it was a number of weeks. But then he strayed, and strayed again, and ere I knows it, it’s me he’s straying with, and him affianced to somebody else!”

  With this, she broke down sobbing, and Morgana, moved to tears by sympathy and a Faerie inability to command whisky, also wept. So when the landlord entered to see if I wanted a doctor for them, in desperation I told him to bring some cheese and fruit for us, and oats for Midnight. Fred and I shared the meal, and by the time we were done, the women had regained their composure.

  “Anyroads,” continued Lily, refreshed after the crying, “here I am at his doorstep, and haven’t the courage to knock upon the door. My uncle hated me, said he. Never wanted to set eyes on me again, said he. I’d come to ruin, said he as well. Here I am, ruined just like he said I’d be, and between my pride and his, I’m afraid to say hello.”

  She managed not to weep, but dabbed at her eyes continuously. Morgana was all sighs, with one hand pressed to her bosom, eyes rolled heavenward. You’d think she’d never heard such a sorry tale, to look at her. In any case, I looked at Fred, and he at me, and neither of us had any idea what to say. Fred outlasted me, so eventually I spoke.

  “Dearest Lily,” said I. “Since ever I’ve known you, you have suffered these reversals. Every man to whom you attach your affections is, as you inevitably discover, a cad of the lowest sort. And yet there is always another, and always much the same. Perhaps your uncle is a different sort of man, who will have changed his heart for better, not worse? Such men are made, you know. We are not only rakes and rapscallions.”

  “Oh, Kit,” she cried, and threw her arms about my neck. “You’re the only true gent I ever knew, but only a boy before. Now that you’re a proper fellow, have you not grown callous like all the other men of my acquaintance?”

  “I should hope not,” said I, thrown into disarray by her pretty speech. “That is to say, I haven’t tried it.”

  “He will, you know,” Lily said to Morgana. “They all do. Wait and see: My uncle will cast me off his door-stoop without a kind word. Our Kit will be rid of me as quickly as he can, because he’s got designs on you, my dearie. Then I’ll be alone, except for Fred, and he’s not a gentleman, he’s a Papio anubis. I can’t marry him.”

  About halfway through this statement Morgana suddenly became alert, and her eyes were bent upon me with singular intensity, like the rays of a dark lantern with a green lens*. I did wish to be rid of Lily as quickly as I could, so she was half right. But I didn’t have designs on the princess. Or did I? The word designs was simply too general. I found Morgana charming and interesting, yes. And of course she was bewitchingly beautiful. But that hardly constituted a design. Now here was Morgana with her eyes blazing like emeralds on a fire, and me with no idea what to say. Because all things being equal, I could see having designs on her, if I didn’t precisely have designs yet. So I didn’t want to deny it more than was absolutely necessary.

  But, thought I, and all but shook my head, like a drugged man, this is her magic working on me. For all I knew, I wasn’t even fond of her. It could just be an unknown comprimaunt of hers. Some magic was done with gestures, and some with but a glance. Of the most subtle magic, there was no outward sign at all.

  Thus reminded, I found my tongue: “Lily, I assure you, I am at this young lady’s service, but I have no unspoken designs upon her. My intentions precisely match her own.”

  “Oooh,” cried Lily, now delighted, “are you and her engaged for to be married?”

  I felt flames rise up my cheeks and chap them red, and blustered, “I didn’t say that! We are on the same business, that’s all.” Morgana’s eyes drilled into me like gimlets.

  “Oh.” Lily was disappointed. Our story obviously wasn’t as tragically romantic as hers.

  “But,” I added, “My friend here is fleeing an unwanted engagement herself. It’s quite the opposite of your problem, which is suitors fleeing you.”

  Lily began weeping again,
and I realized she had every right to be upset. I hadn’t spoken in quite the most politic way. “That is to say, what I mean,” I gabbled, “is—”

  “That’s quite enough, Mr. Bristol,” Morgana said in what must have been her best royal court princess voice—it was so haughty, it struck me dumb—and then she addressed Lily, as kind as could be: “Let’s go up to your uncle’s house and make him take you in, shall we? I think he owes thee an apology.”

  And with that, she rose, helped Lily to her feet, and guided her to the front door of the public house. Fred and I exchanged mute glances, then rushed out after them.

  Chapter 17

  THE THREE QUESTIONS

  LILY’S UNCLE must have put away a good deal of money, because his house was nearly as large as the Rattle Manse and in immaculate condition. The rain drummed down on a roof of firm slates, the windows were shut tight against the spray, and a red door with golden flowers painted upon it stood fast before us. There hung the knocker, and there stood Lily, but nothing happened for a very long time. Fred, Midnight, and I sheltered under a mulberry tree while Morgana and Lily bravely faced the door.

  At last, it was Morgana who took up the knocker and clapped it thrice upon the plate. We could hear the rap-rap-rap echo through the house. Someone was at home; there was a fire in the parlor and lamps lit elsewhere at windows.

  A maid of about Lily’s age opened the door. She looked strikingly like Lily, in fact, with yellow hair, although her figure was more plenitudinous abaft, due to a less active career. “Good afternoon,” she said, sternly. “Can I help you?”

  Lily started weeping again, so Morgana explained the situation over Lily’s shoulder to the puzzled maid. “This is Lily, the niece of Mr.— What’s his name?”

  “Cornelius Puggle,” said Lily, through her tears.

  “This is Mr. Puggle’s niece,” Morgana continued. “She’s been cruelly abandoned, and Mr. Puggle was the first to do it, though not the last. It is time he made some reparation for his coldhearted behavior, and take her in.”

  The maid took a long time about it, but eventually said, “You’d better come in, then. The monkey can stay in the barn with the horse.”

  The maid, whose name was Prudence, took us into the parlor once we’d wrung ourselves out somewhat. Morgana retained her cloak, which by some trick was dry not only inside but outside, too, the moment she entered the house. Lily and I stood and tanned our backsides by the fire until we might have outshone Willum. Morgana and Prudence seated themselves decorously in chairs. I observed that Morgana’s features and costume had changed in some subtle way that made her look more English and less Romany, without any particular alteration I could identify.

  Then Prudence revealed she was not a maid.

  “I am Mr. Puggle’s nurse and caretaker,” she said. “You are not the first person to come here making claim upon his avuncular affections; I have interviewed no fewer than twenty-three nieces in the last five years. In each case, the young ladies proved to be mistaken about the relationship.”

  “But—but why would anyone lay claim to be me?” cried Lily. “Uncle Cornelius hates me.”

  “He hated his niece ten years ago when she ran away. But as every girl with an eye to his fortune knows, Cornelius Puggle underwent a change of heart almost the minute she left. Since then he has tirelessly sought the girl out, and his agents have even located her for brief periods, but always she evaded them. And during all these years, never once did she come to his door. It was his greatest wish to beg her forgiveness. Tragically, he has succumbed to senility, and so that interview can never be fulfilled. But while he still retained some of his wits, he entrusted me with three secrets that only his true niece could know. No one has correctly answered these questions since ever I came to this house.”

  “How could you not have known about this change of heart?” I asked Lily, incredulous as I was.

  “I’m ashamed to tell,” said Lily, and I think she really was.

  “You’d better out with it, then,” I cried, “for your ignorance doesn’t sound very likely.”

  Lily shook her head. “Any time anyone would mention my uncle, I would do this”—here she thrust her fingers into her ears—“and say, ‘Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb,’ over and over again until they stopped speaking. I wouldn’t hear a word about him. It drove my last fiancé mad. That’s the truth, and I’m very ashamed of it.”

  “Well,” said Prudence, “perhaps you would be so kind as to answer the questions with which Mr. Puggle entrusted me, and we can see you on your way.”

  Morgana and I were fairly craning our necks with curiosity. Our eyes met several times, and her earlier fury at me was gone. Now she looked altogether swept up in the excitement of this unexpected drama.

  “First,” said Prudence, standing grandly by the door with one hand on a spinning chart-globe of the known world, “what was the name of Mr. Puggle’s pet goldfish?”

  Lily laughed. “It didn’t have a name. He didn’t believe animals ought to have names as they hadn’t any souls.”

  “I see,” said Prudence.

  “Was she correct?” Morgana blurted out, in a very human manner.

  “All in good time, young lady,” said Prudence. Young lady! thought I. She’s older than your grandmother! But Prudence turned to Lily again and said, “What is the name of this rug?”

  We all looked down at our feet, and there was a great blonde animal skin with short, coarse hair, the skin covered in the sort of tattoos that sailors get, of ships and knotted ropes and birds on the wing. You can imagine my surprise when I recognized it myself!

  “Frieda!” Lily and I cried at the very same instant. We stepped off the rug right away. It didn’t seem decent to stand on a deceased colleague.

  “That’s your answer?” Prudence said.

  “Who else could it be?” Lily reasoned. “Frieda the Tattooed Camel. I think my own name’s wrote on there somewhere, pricked in hindia hink.”

  “I’ll vouch for old Frieda myself,” said I. “I know she’s got that one right.”

  “Unfortunately,” said Prudence, “Frieda the Tattooed Camel is fairly well known, and therefore this has proven the weakest of the three questions. Several women have gotten it right, none of them the niece. Now here is the third question: How wide is forty-two?”

  Well, that question stopped me cold. The others hadn’t been riddles. This one sounded to me like a trick—something a Faerie might come up with. Morgana and I raised our brows together, and I could see she was as confused as I, although prettier at it.

  But Lily, after only a moment’s thought, snapped her fingers and said, “As wide as a circus-ring. Forty-two feet. Uncle Cornelius had a hippodrome, you see, and it was designed after Philip Astley’s trick-riding circus in London*. So the horse-circuit, or circus, was forty-two feet across.”

  There was a long, tense silence. The rain beat at the windows and the flames beat at the coals, but the four occupants of that room were absolutely silent. Then Prudence spun the globe beneath her fingers once, twice, and again, as if each revolution represented one question.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “You had better go.”

  * * *

  A large and ominous footman saw us to the door. We sloshed our way around to the barn, which communicated with the house by a passageway on the upper story. Lily was so miserable, gin-soaked, and worn with sorrow she could hardly walk, and Morgana, although by far the least sturdy of the pair, was bearing her up. Midnight and Fred were standing inside the barn door, Fred tickling Midnight’s nostrils with a wisp of straw.

  “We should at least wait out the storm in here,” Morgana said. “Th’art both soaked.”

  “That footman means us no good,” I said. “If we’re not out of here in five minutes, he’ll throw us out. My master could have thrashed him, but not I.”

  I wanted to find the stairs inside the barn and rush up there into the back of the house straightaway, to introduce Lily to her uncle; but a
ccording to Prudence he hadn’t any wits left and would not recognize his own mother, let alone a wayward niece from ten years before. In fact, I had earlier attempted to go up the stairs inside the house itself, but the footman—a burly, red-haired fellow with enormous arms and a lace jabot—had emerged from a back room and escorted us out bodily.

  Yet when I found a steep flight of steps at the rear of the barn and prepared to mount them, it was Lily who said, “Don’t trouble him.”

  “But you answered the questions correctly. You said so!” I cried.

  “I could have been lying,” Lily said. “I could have lied about this entire business.”

  But you didn’t lie, Lily,” I protested. “I’ve known you since I was a small boy and can assure you, if you knew how to lie you wouldn’t have suffered so many romantic disappointments!”

  That got Lily weeping again. I gave up. While Morgana tried to console her, I put the saddle back on Midnight.

  Then I turned to them, very serious now: “Lily, there’s something you should know. I wasn’t going to trouble you with it, because I thought you’d soon be reunited with your uncle. However, things have changed. There’s little time. Morgana, who has been your constant companion the last two hours, is fleeing an unsuitable arrangement, as I told you. But there’s more to it. The instigator of the situation has a lot of armed and dangerous servants, who are in pursuit of her. We must make the shore of the Irish Sea without being detected by them, or all is lost. So we cannot take you with us. I’ll accompany you back to the village, but then we must part ways.… Oh goodness, look. A bee.”

  For just as I was finishing up my speech, I spied a solitary bee walking crookedly atop a tack-box near the door.

  “Yes I know,” said a disembodied voice, seething with frustration. “I’ve been trying to read it ever since you came barging in here!”

  With that, Willum appeared from atop a beam over the barn doors. “Your Royal Highness? Yes, I know. I just did another ruckins in front of a mortal in direct defiance of the eighth verse of the tenth chapter of the Eldritch Law. But I have simply got to read that bee!”