The Fortune-Hunter

by Julia Herbert

“That is my impression, too, from my short acquaintance with him. I was shocked at the change in him. We talked quite calmly and with complete understanding of each other, but I was conscious all the while that he does not really believe he can be saved from the rope.”

  “Don’t speak so!”

  “Forgive me. I don’t do it to distress you, only to show you how serious the matter is.” His calm eyes, of a strange clear grey like sea-ice, rested on her with compassion. “He believes that the Pegmen are determined to see him hanged. He feels it is useless to explain himself in court because it will make no difference to the result. When I asked him to account for the fact that Stephen Boles reported his presence at Parall that night, he merely shrugged.”

  “He was there,” Amy said in a low voice, feeling something of her father’s despair. “I saw him come home at midnight. And he was angry. I fear Stephen Boles was speaking the truth.”

  “On that very assumption, I pressed your father to account for the story. He no longer troubled to deny that he had been with Mr. Gramont, but repeated that if didn’t matter, that he was as good as dead, like the murdered man. Then he said something very significant.”

  “Pray, sir, what was that?” she queried, sitting forward in her seat.

  “He said, ‘I must do what I can for the living, and that’s best achieved by saying nothing. Once I’m out of the way, poor Amy can pick up her life again.’ ”

  She saw him watch her carefully as he reported the words. She let their meaning press in upon her and took her time before she spoke. “He means that once he’s dead, Bernard may one day forgive me for being the daughter of his father’s murderer.”

  “So I think too,” Maldon said. “His first wish is for your happiness, since he feels he is doomed in any case.”

  “You are very quick, sir,” she faltered. “You understand my father’s thoughts very well.”

  “And is he correct?” he asked in a steady tone. “Is he correct in thinking that your happiness depends on Bernard Gramont?”

  It was days now since Amy had allowed her thoughts to dwell on Bernard. His absence, his silence, the way he had turned his back on her without even asking for her understanding—all these had hurt too much to dwell upon. Now, at Jeffrey Maldon’s question, the grief welled up again. Her eyes brimmed with tears. She couldn’t speak.

  “I see it does,” Mr. Maldon said. “Well, it is better to be aware of the stumbling-blocks...”

  The waiter came in at that moment with a great tray of silver dishes containing cold ham, turbot, veal pasty, and an apricot syllabub. During the few minutes that he spent clattering them out upon the table, Amy was able to recover herself.

  “I hope it is what you like, sir,” she murmured, indicating the menu. “I had to guess at your tastes.”

  “It all looks delicious. And though I wasn’t aware of it until I saw the food, I’m very hungry. Thank you.” He accepted the plate she offered him and paused. “You will eat something too?”

  “No, sir, I don’t want anything.”

  “Pray do, Miss Tyrrell. I don’t want you fainting from lack of food.”

  “I’m not in the habit of fainting,” she said, rather crossly. “Do you take me for a ninny?”

  “Anything but, ma’am.”

  She eyed him suspiciously, but he was busy putting glazed turbot on his plate. After he had swallowed a few mouthfuls he looked up, met her glance, and said, “Come, I believe you’re envying me this dish. Try a little.”

  “Please don’t treat me like a baby, sir. I’ve told you I’m not hungry.”

  “Then why do you look so envious as I enjoy the turbot?”

  “I am not looking envious!”

  “Peckish, then.”

  “Peckish?” She was about to object vigorously, then caught the upturn of his lips. He was teasing her! She frowned, then felt a gurgle in her throat, and despite herself began to laugh. “Peckish?” she repeated. “That is not a word to use of a young lady, sir! A young lady may feel inclined for a little sustenance, but she can never be peckish!”

  “I stand corrected. But if this particular young lady would agree to try the turbot, or even the cold ham, I should feel less like feeding time at the bear pit!”

  “Very well,” she agreed, “just to keep you company.” The truth was that, surprisingly enough, she was hungry.

  They ate in companionable silence for a' few minutes. Maldon poured wine for her, and as she picked up her glass raised his own.

  “A toast,” he proposed. “To the clearing of your father’s name.”

  “Amen.” She held up her glass, then sipped. “You believe it can be done?”

  “Of course.”

  “But how?”

  “By finding out who it was who did indeed kill Beau Gramont.”

  “But who could have done it, Mr. Maldon? Beau Gramont was a very popular man.”

  “So you say. But, forgive me, Miss Tyrrell, men hear more of the truth than can be known to women. In the coffee-houses and taverns it was widely said that many a husband had reason to hate Beau Gramont.”

  Hesitating, Amy nodded. After a moment’s unwillingness she said: “My own mother believes that Papa killed Beau Gramont in a jealous rage.”

  “And did he?”

  “Of course not! My father has too much sense to think Beau ever looked at Mama except as a neighbour and hostess who needed to be flattered a little.”

  “So it appears that your father had little reason to harm the man. But there are others who might have done it.”

  “Who, Mr. Maldon?”

  “The men who are so anxious to have your father hanged for it—the Pegmen. Isn’t it widely rumoured that landowners have to fall in with the smugglers’ wishes? Lend them wagons and carts, horses and cattle, give them barns and outhouses in which to house their goods? Then why can we not assume that Mr. Gramont fell into their bad books in some way over such an issue?”

  “Beau Gramont? In league with the Pegmen?” Amy frowned and shook her head. “I think not. He was too ... too...”

  “Frivolous?”

  “Perhaps that’s the word. Too frivolous. I don’t believe the Pegmen would ever have trusted Mr. Gramont with any of their secrets.”

  Mr. Maldon sipped his wine. After a moment he remarked: “Mr. Gramont lived very well.”

  “Why, yes.”

  “Imported Italian curios, including the dagger with which he was killed.”

  “Yes.”

  “Dressed his wife and daughters in silk.”

  “Ye-es.”

  “From what source did he draw his income, do you know?”

  She gazed at him, perplexed. “I’ve no idea.”

  “Bernard played cards and lost money heavily. It’s the talk of the coffee-houses that he has debts.”

  “Indeed?” She watched him. “And what else, sir?” Mr. Maldon didn’t tell her what else he had heard of Bernard’s escapades. Instead he said, “Such things cost money.”

  “Are you saying you think the Gramonts got their income from smuggling?”

  “Miss Tyrrell, smuggling is a business, much like any other except that it is illegal. In every business there is a man who lays out money in the first place. In smuggling such a man is known as the venturer—he ventures his money to buy silks and tobacco and spirits and tea without paying the duty on them. How if Mr. Gramont was a venturer?”

  “You seem to know a good deal about it, sir?”

  “Oh, aye,” he said in a nonchalant tone, “one picks up such things in tavern talk.” He held up his glass to the light, watching the red glow of the candle flame through the wine. “One of the riding officers, a smart fellow called David Bartholomew, has told me one or two things about the situation on the Hampshire coast.”

  “Bartholomew?” she said. “Uncle Pierce mentioned him.”

  “Did he, now? It may be, Miss Tyrrell, that Mr. Pierce’s mind has gone along the same lines.”

  She nodded, thoughtful. “The
difference is that you are willing to pursue that line of inquiry whereas Uncle Pierce shied away from it!”

  “Mr. Pierce has known Beau Gramont and his family a good many years,” Maldon pointed out. “He is unwilling to think of them as being friends of the Pegmen, perhaps.”

  “Perhaps,” she said in a dry tone. “Or perhaps it is just as he said to me—he is afraid. Whereas you are not, Mr. Maldon.

  He laughed and pushed the glass bowl of syllabub towards her. “Come,” he said, “let’s gluttonise with a large helping of pudding and then get some rest. In the morning, Miss Tyrrell, you are to buy your Papa some clean linen, some soap and other small items of which I made a list, then I will take them to him in the prison. I’ve made arrangements for him to be moved to a private cell, not by any means a luxurious place but better than where I found him. The warden is a decent man, I hear, an old soldier called Colonel McMurray. He will hand on to your father any personal necessities that you supply, and see that he receives food from outside the walls if you will make arrangements to pay for it. So we have much to do in the morning.”

  Seeing that he didn’t wish to talk about his own part in the affair, Amy said no more. After they had finished their meal they shook hands and parted. She went upstairs to bed, suddenly nearly overwhelmed with fatigue to the extent that she had difficulty getting out of her gown and into her night things.

  The sheets on the bed were not as fine as those in her room at the Manor House, but they and the bed hangings smelt of starch and lavender. She lay breathing in the scent and thinking that Mr. Maldon, when he bent over her hand, had smelt of leather and plain soap.

  Mr. Maldon. Jeffrey. Jeffrey Maldon. This evening, early in their conversation he had momentarily startled her by using her first name. She had meant to rebuke him for the familiarity, but the moment had gone by. Now she wondered at it. It seemed to imply that he thought of her as Amy. She tried to think of him as Jeffrey, and the idea was not strange, not displeasing. Jeffrey Maldon, her friend.

  Of course she could never feel towards him as she did towards Bernard. He was not as handsome, and he could be rather stern in a way that disconcerted her; whereas Bernard was always amusing and lighthearted. Or at least, that was how Bernard used to be, before the tragedy of his father’s death. What was Bernard like now? Why did he never send any word to her?

  She felt once again that desperate welling up of perplexity and grief, but she was too tired to cry. Gradually consciousness drifted from her.

  Her last thought as she fell asleep was that Mr. Maldon had a good share of altruism in his make-up—because if he cleared her father of the charge of murdering Beau Gramont, he also cleared the way for a reconciliation between herself and Bernard.

  Let it be so, she prayed, slipping into dreams. Oh, let it be so...

  CHAPTER

  FOUR

  As Mr. Maldon had foretold, the early part of next morning was spent in making the purchases asked for by Amy’s father. Then she had to submit to being left in anxiety and frustration at the George Inn while Maldon carried the packages to Mr. Tyrrell.

  The waiting time was broken up by the reappearance of Bryce, looking shamefaced. “Mr. Maldon told me I should come and ask your pardon, miss,” he said. “I didn’t mean to run away yesterday, but, my faith, Miss Tyrrell, they were so enraged against you! I’ve never seen the like!”

  “Nor I,” Amy commented. “I wonder why they should have been in such a passion at me. What have I ever done to them?”

  “ ’Twasn’t you, miss. ’Twas your father.”

  “Certainly, I understand that,” she said. “But my father was taken into custody for a crime that can surely have little interest to the citizens of Winchester?”

  “Well, y’see, Miss Tyrrell, those weren’t exactly the good citizens of this town ... I spent the evening keeping myself to myself in one of the taverns and I heard enough to let me know that about half of those men shaking their fists at your coach were friends of the Pegmen.”

  “Do you say so? But, even so, Bryce, I should have thought that though they recognised the carriage with my father’s initials, they would not have troubled themselves over it. What threat am I to them? A daughter visiting her father in prison?”

  “Oh, they’ve had a setback to stir them up, miss,” Bryce said, anxious to win approval that might wipe out his failure of yesterday. “The Swift, privateer, captured the Three Brothers, a smuggler’s craft, day before yesterday. Four thousand pounds of tea and about forty casks of rum and brandy, to say nothing of coffee, silk and lace.”

  “What! There’s a cargo for you!”

  “Aye, truly. ’Tis a great loss to them to have it taken by a government boat. So they are angry, and wishful to take it out on someone—and there you were, miss, riding into Winchester with hardly anybody to keep you safe. I don’t care to think what might have happened if Mr. Maldon hadn’t galloped up.”

  “Nor do I, Bryce!” She thought with regret of some of the hard words she had uttered last night, and so as to change the subject went on, “And so what has happened to this great haul of tea and brandy and so forth? Why don’t the Pegmen go and get it back, rather than taking out their spite on me?”

  “Well, you see, Miss Tyrrell, it’s locked up in Poole Custom House. They’re dog-mad about it. If it had been piled up on a quay or a harbour wall with a couple of militiamen to guard it, they might have got it back easy enough. But a Custom House with padlocks on the doors, that’s a different kettle of fish. And to make matters worse, the dragoons are out in the countryside today. That seems to mean that the government were kept informed of the Swift's activities and knew they’d need the army out to keep order. I dare say the Pegmen feel that for the first time there’s some sort of real pother waiting for them. And rightly they deserve it,” Bryce ended, going red with indignation, “raising their hands against a lady like yourself, Miss Tyrrell. .”

  Bryce then went off to have the coach put-to.

  When Mr. Maldon walked in, he brought a carefully folded paper for Amy. It was a letter from her father, very brief but breathing love and concern in every word. Folded within it was another for her mother; Amy blinked back the tears as she put both notes lovingly away in the bosom of her gown.

  “How was he, sir? How did he look?”

  “Better, I think. He acknowledged to me that he had his first full night’s sleep since being put in the gaol.”

  They stayed only for a late breakfast of coffee and fresh bread before they set off for Markledon. Poor Bryce, totally untrained as a coachman, was very happy to have Jeffrey Maldon take his place from time to time on the box as they approached the more difficult stretches of road, which to Amy was a reassurance although she missed his companionship at the carriage door. He jogged along at the side of the vehicle on the powerful black, seemingly giving no care to directing the beast.

  She said to him at one point, “What would you do if your mount took fright?”

  “Gylo? He has more sense than do so while he and I are together.” He laughed, bending down to look in at her. “Don’t be afraid, Miss Tyrrell. No angry smugglers are likely to threaten us today. Have you not noticed the distant escort?”

  “No, sir—where?”

  “A quarter of a mile away on the heath... five dragoons under a sergeant.”

  “Did you ask for an escort, Mr. Maldon?”

  “When I heard the troops were out, I thought it a good idea. It’s true I was able to rout the opposition yesterday, but then I took them by surprise. This morning, surprise might have been on their side. So a little precaution seemed called for.”

  She was impressed. Here was a very quick and far-seeing mind at work. She began to feel hopeful, even, that he would find some way to save her father.

  At the Manor House, Amy’s mother fell upon her neck. “My love!” she wept. “I have been beside myself with anxiety! The most horrid rumours have been flying here “There, there, Mama,” Amy soothed, with a glance over
her head at Mr. Maldon that begged his forgiveness of this poor welcome. “Everything is all right.”

  “Now that you are back, yes, I’m more at rest,” Mrs. Tyrrell gasped. “But have you heard that the Pegmen are out in bands fighting and marauding? Because of some misfortune they have had.”

  “We heard, Mama, we heard. Come, let’s go in and sit down. Don’t you see I have brought a visitor with me?” Mrs. Tyrrell disengaged herself from Amy and raised a tear-stained face to Mr. Maldon. “Why, sir, how kind of you to come calling!” she faltered. “You are the very first...”

  “Mama,” Amy said, to remind her mother of the duties of hospitality, “let me quickly tell you how wonderfully kind Mr. Maldon has been. He has agreed to take on the defence of my father and indeed has already visited him twice. Look, he brought a letter from him this very morning!”

  She held out the paper. Her mother took it as if it was alight and in flames, with great caution. “From your father?’ she whispered. From her face it might have been thought she had heard a voice from the grave. “Oh, Amy! How did he look?”

  “I didn’t see him, Mama. He sent word by Mr. Maldon that he would prefer me not to come. But ask Mr. Maldon for news while I run to the kitchens in hopes of getting a meal on the table.”

  “Nay, Miss Tyrrell, pray don’t,” Mr. Maldon put in. “I shall not stay, if you’ll forgive me.”

  “But sir—it’s the least we can do, to offer you some “I must get about on business, ma’am. Too long has gone by and nothing attempted. It’s a week now since Mr. Gramont was murdered, and who knows what has happened to any witnesses?”

  “You mean Stephen Boles, I take it? Where can you hope to find him, Mr. Maldon, and at this time of night?” Amy found herself loath to part with Mr. Maldon even in such a good cause.

  “Well, ma’am, I certainly shan’t find him here at the Manor House,” he replied with faint impatience.