The Smile of the Stranger

by Joan Aiken

  “Those hills are the South Downs,” Captain Davenport called back after a while. He sounded more cheerful. “Now we are in Sussex! Soon we shall come to Chichester, and then it is only fifteen miles or so to Petworth.”

  “What happens at Petworth?” asked Juliana.

  “That is where we leave Prue.”

  Juliana was relieved that he seemed in better spirits. She had been much afraid that his curt manner meant he was now bitterly regretting the whole adventure but could see no honorable way of going back from it.

  However, beyond Chichester—a pleasant old town with red-roofed houses, a tall-spired cathedral, and a market cross like a little round chapel where the four main streets met—his spirits unfortunately received another check. They had been obliged to slow to a walking pace in order to negotiate the cobbled streets of the town, and when Captain Davenport attempted to whip up his horses to their previous brisk speed, one of them made no effort to obey the lash, but continued at a plodding pace, forcing its companion to a similar dawdling progress. A man by the roadside called out, “No use larruping that ’un, measter! ’E be dead lame, surelye!”

  Cursing, Captain Davenport descended from the box, and discovered the truth of this statement.

  “God rot the swindling scoundrel that hired me this wretched turnout!” he exclaimed in a passion. “Now what’s to be done?”

  Juliana, who had just hastily finished cobbling together little Prue’s pelisse by turning up the hem with very long basting stitches, now laid the coat on the seat, opened the stiff door with some difficulty, and, joining Captain Davenport, agreed with him that the horse was not fit to go any farther.

  “But look,” she said, “is that not an inn, a little farther along the road? Yes—I can see a sign, the Coach and Horses. Surely they might be able to furnish us with another horse? How fortunate we are that the mishap occurred so close to a source of help.”

  “True—I suppose they may have a horse,” agreed Captain Davenport, slowly and doubtfully. He turned to look at Juliana. For the first time in several hours, his engaging smile lightened the harassed, irritable expression that had overhung his countenance. “But—the difficulty is—you will think me a wretchedly unhandy conspirator, my dear, by the fact is that it is pockets to let with me—I used up my last five guineas hiring this accursed rattletrap and spavined pair, and shall not be able to lay my hands on any more blunt until we reach Pet—until we come to my sister’s.”

  “Oh, if that is all your worry,” Juliana said, relieved, “you may set your mind at rest, for I have some money on me, enough to hire another horse, I am sure.”

  “You have?” His face cleared wonderfully. “My dearest angel, I might have known that I could depend upon you!”

  The matter was soon arranged. Captain Davenport led the equipage, at a walking pace, as far as the inn, where the landlord engaged to supply them with another horse in five minutes; there was one out at pasture, he said, that would take the gentleman fifty miles without turning a hair. The new horse having been brought and put to between the shafts, they were soon on their way again.

  Hitherto they had traveled in an easterly direction, along the coast, but beyond the Coach and Horses they turned north, inland, and soon began to ascend the grassy gentle slopes of the South Downs. After climbing several moderate hills, they reached one that was decidedly steep; Captain Davenport requested that, in order to spare the horses, his passengers should get out and walk up. This Juliana was very ready to do, for the rain had now ceased, and she welcomed the prospect of a walk to warm her up. Little Prue, however, was very reluctant to get out. She did, indeed, agree to put on her mended pelisse, and even surveyed herself with some approval, but at the order to walk she cried and whimpered and screamed that she did not wish to walk, hated walking, detested walking!

  “What difference can her small weight make? Let her stay in,” suggested Juliana, but the exasperated Captain Davenport, muttering something about spoiled brats, forcibly dumped her in the road, whereupon she sat down, flatly refused to stir a step, and had to be dragged to her feet with a box on the ear by the furious captain. He then stamped away to lead the horses, leaving the disciplining of Prue to Juliana, who, by alternate cajoling and sternness, by telling stories, lavish promises of sugarplums when they should reach Petworth, and an occasional sharp reprimand, finally managed to persuade the child as far as the top of the hill.

  There, jigging about uncomfortably on one leg, she complained that she wished to go to the closet.

  “Well, there’s no closet here,” said Captain Davenport impatiently. “You will just have to go behind a bush. Run behind one of those bramble clumps over there. Hurry up!” He pointed to a green slope set about with may trees in blossom. “Heaven deliver me from ever again traveling with a child,” he growled as Prue went off in a dawdling, reluctant manner, with many suspicious glances back over her shoulder.

  “Poor child, she probably fears that we may go off and abandon her,” said Juliana.

  “I would like nothing better! Hey, but I’m weary,” he added, throwing the reins over a signpost that stood where four white chalky tracks met on the hilltop. “Let us sit in the carriage until that ill-conditioned imp reappears.”

  Juliana would have preferred to look about her at the grassy, bushy slopes that curved away in every direction around them, but Captain Davenport, taking her hand, assisted her into the carriage. He jumped up beside her and enveloped her in a passionate embrace, pulling her down beside him on the seat.

  “Stop—stop—oh, pray, stop!” gasped Juliana, hardly able to catch her breath between his kisses.

  “How can I stop? It is driving me mad—being so close to you and yet prevented from showing what I feel,” he muttered, clasping her so tightly that she feared her ribs might crack.

  “Sir—Captain Davenport—”

  “Francis, my angel—call me Francis!”

  “I do not think we should be doing this until—until we—”

  “Hush! How can I help it?” He covered her mouth with his.

  In vain did Juliana try to thrust him away. And she was becoming seriously alarmed at what seemed a total inattention to their situation on his part, when help arrived, in the form of a small human whirlwind. Crying, “Do not do that, do not do so!” little Prue scrambled back into the carriage and forced herself jealously between the pair, pushing and hammering at Captain Davenport with her fists.

  “Oh, confound you, you hell-begotten little pestilence! Get out of the carriage and stay out!” he growled.

  “No, I will not! You are not to kiss that lady!”

  “She is in the right—and we should in any case be on our way,” hastily agreed Juliana, who had had time to withdraw into a corner of the carriage, retie the strings of her mobcap, and shake her dress into order. “Did you not say that Prue’s relations were to receive her at midday? And it is already long past that hour. It is nearly three!”

  “Damn them, they will just have to wait!” But receiving a somewhat quelling look from Juliana, he at last jumped sulkily out of the carriage, gathered up the reins, and returned to his box. Juliana had barely time to close the door before he cracked his whip and the carriage started with a jolt.

  Now their way lay downhill, down a slope which soon became much steeper than the one they had slowly and with such difficulty ascended. Captain Davenport was soon obliged to put on the drag, to prevent the carriage rolling down on top of the horses, who snorted nervously and slipped on the smooth chalk track. Captain Davenport was too preoccupied with reining back his team to address any remarks to Juliana, who, in any case, was not in a mood for conversation. In fact, she found herself momentarily more distressed and concerned at her situation. She began to ask herself whether she had not committed a terrible blunder in agreeing to this elopement. Captain Davenport seemed to be turning out such a different person from what she had s
upposed him! Gone were the polished manners, the elegance of mind, the respect, the tender consideration! And I fear it is my own fault, Juliana thought miserably. I myself have wrought this change in him, I have forfeited his respect. How can he look up to someone who has agreed to such a scandalous breach of propriety?

  But then she thought: Perhaps he is merely worried and put out by so many things going amiss; when we reach his sister’s house, I daresay he will recollect himself, and all will be as before.

  She told herself this, but in her heart she was not certain that she believed it. One fact that dismayed her very much was that she found she could not enjoy Captain Davenport’s embraces. Loving him as she was sure she did, she had felt certain that being kissed by him would be the summit of bliss; but it was not. Rather, as she owned to herself ruefully, it was like being gnawed by a hungry dog. But how can this be? she asked herself. Why do I find it so disagreeable? I love him, do I not?

  Or do I?

  Absorbed in these disconcerting reflections, she hardly observed the couple of small hamlets and smooth green farmland through which they had been passing once the Downs were left behind. But now they came to a narrow stone bridge over a little river, and Captain Davenport, pointing with his whip, called in a relieved voice, “Yonder lies Petworth—see the church spire? A mile up this lane, and we shall be there.”

  “How far is it from Petworth to Horsham?” Juliana inquired.

  “Horsham?”

  “Is not that where Mrs. Bracegirdle resides?”

  “Mrs. Br—oh, Horsham, yes. It is about another ten miles.”

  Prue, who had relapsed into silence, now complained that she was middling hungry and wanted her dinner.

  “Be quiet, you!” Captain Davenport said to her, slewing round with such a savage face that she shrank back into her corner, quite cowed. He must have noticed Juliana’s expression, for he added more mildly, “Forgive me, my angel. I am afraid I have been acting like a bear with a sore head. The truth is, if you must know, that ever since we left the Downs, one of my teeth has begun to ache most confoundedly, and I can hardly stand the pain.”

  He laid a hand on his jaw, wincing, and Juliana realized that his face did indeed look somewhat swollen.

  “Oh, how shocking for you!” she exclaimed in the liveliest sympathy. “Poor dear, and you have had so many difficulties to bear! I am so sorry for you. But surely there will be a surgeon in Petworth—it looks like a good-sized little town. Do you not think that you should have the tooth drawn without delay? I am certain that you should not be driving in such a state.”

  “Well, perhaps you are right,” he owned, wincing from another twinge. “I will inquire at the inn where we are to meet Cox—where Prue’s uncle is to pick her up—if there is a tooth-drawer or barber in the town.”

  “Yes, I am sure you should do so,” said Juliana warmly. Poor dear, how I have been misjudging him, she thought to herself. If he has been in pain all this while, it is no wonder that he has seemed a trifle surly. The only wonder is that he should have wished to kiss me!

  After about ten minutes’ more driving, Captain Davenport arrived in the main square of Petworth, which occupied an irregular, sloping space round a central town hall, and contained three inns, the Bull, the Half-Moon, and the White Hart. Of these the White Hart seemed the largest; Captain Davenport drove around it into a fair-sized yard at the back, demanded a feed for the horses, and then disappeared into the inn, to make inquiries about surgeons.

  Juliana, who had noticed that some kind of entertainment was taking place in the square, suggested to Prue that they should walk round and see what was going on. They discovered half a dozen morris dancers in the middle of a performance, watched by an admiring crowd. Prue’s complaints of hunger were soon appeased by the gift of a large hunk of gingerbread off a pie stall, and she stood eating this contentedly enough, watching the antics of the dancers, who wore ribbons on their hats, bells tied to their legs, and held staves which they clacked together loudly as they danced. Twenty or thirty people had by now assembled, and Juliana said, “Look out for your uncle among these people, Prue, my child, and tell me if you see him.”

  Prue gazed about her rather blankly and shook her head.

  Presently they saw Captain Davenport in front of the White Hart, and made their way toward him. He wore a much more cheerful expression, and said, “They say there is a barber and surgeon up the hill in Church Road—a man called Goble. I shall go up to him directly. Can you find some amusement about the town until I return? I daresay it will not take many minutes to have my business attended to. Walk about—look at the shops—watch the dancing. Oh, but could you oblige me with a little more money, my dear?” he asked Juliana. “I daresay a tooth will not cost above a shilling or two.”

  “Of course,” she said, pulling out her purse, and, with a nod of thanks, he took a handful of money and hurried off.

  “What about Prue’s uncle?” she called after him, but he did not hear.

  “You said as how you’d buy me sugarplums in Pet-worth,” Prue reminded Juliana, tugging at her hand.

  “So I did—let us go down this little street, and perhaps we may find a baker’s, or a cake shop.”

  Petworth seemed to be a very small town indeed, set around the top of a hill. Three or four streets leading irregularly out of the central square soon petered away into fields and farmland. The shops were not many or at all elaborate; however, they found a baker who had some toffee apples, and were returning, with Prue wreathed in sticky bliss, toward the main square and the morris dancers, when a voice hailed them.

  “Hillo, Prue, my sweetheart! So we meet again!”

  Glancing up, startled, for the voice was an educated one, Juliana wondered if this could be Prue’s uncle. Surely not? The young man who had accosted them wore the uniform of a naval lieutenant; he had a pink face, a merry eye, and yellow curly hair.

  “Where’s Davvy, then?” he inquired, falling into step beside them, and giving Juliana a friendly grin. He took a large bite from the side of Prue’s toffee apple, which made her scream with indignation. She made no answer to his question, so Juliana replied for her.

  “He was afflicted with severe toothache, and had to go to a surgeon,” she explained.

  “Was he, though, poor old fellow? He always has the most confounded ill luck,” said the lieutenant, bursting into a fit of laughter. “Oh, well, an aching tooth is soon mended! Hope the barber doesn’t have to trim that beard he was at such pains to grow! In the meantime, allow me to introduce myself—Lieutenant Cox, Tom Cox at your service! Prue knows me already, don’t you, Prue, for we met on the docks in Southampton last week when you were out with your papa. And you must be Tillie,” he added, turning to inspect Juliana’s apron and mobcap. “Devilish good taste Dav always did have—no wonder he calls you his Sussex Rose—remind me to congratulate him, my dear! But where’s the heiress—did she not come up to scratch? Don’t tell me all Dav’s playacting has been in vain?”

  “The heiress?” inquired Juliana, puzzled.

  “Why, Miss Moneybags—what’s her name, Paget? Don’t tell me after Dav grew that Charles the First pair of mustachios and went to so much trouble, that you have not brought her along, just when I’ve cozened my captain into granting me three weeks’ leave, so that I can help you carry her off to Scotland?”

  He mistook the stunned look on Juliana’s face for one of chagrin, and added kindly, “I’m sure your nose need not be out of joint, my dear, never look so glum! I dare swear Dav will always love you best, but he could not have married you, after all! This will only be a marriage of convenience, though. Even the Prince of Wales does it, so why should not Dav? Once he has his hands on the lady’s fortune, and has paid her half to old Madam Horse-face, the mother, I daresay he will be ready to set you up in fine style—you and little Miss Prue, here. Do you fancy a house in Chelsea—or one at Richmond? Hey
, sweetheart? You will be riding behind a team of six gray horses in a few months! But where is the young lady? Did you manage to bring her as far as this without raising her suspicions?”

  Finding her voice with an effort, Juliana replied, “Oh, yes. She suspected nothing at all. She is resting—in a private parlor at the inn. The large one in the square—the White Hart.”

  “What about Davvy’s cattle?” Lieutenant Cox wanted to know. “Are they good for another hundred miles or so? Or should I pay them off? I’ve found a couple of prime steppers at the Bull. But I’ve no dibs on me, and the old lady would not pay out a penny until she was assured that we had her daughter safe under hatches.”

  Juliana felt her knees almost failing under her, so faint with horror did Lieutenant Cox’s artless disclosures make her. She managed to say hoarsely, “The pair we have come with—are not very good. Perhaps you should take a look at them. They are in the White Hart yard. Pray, where—where is the old lady?”

  “Oh, she was taking a nuncheon at the Bull,” he said blithely. “I told her she had best remain out of sight lest she should scare the bird from covert… Very good, I shall go and cast an eye over Davvy’s hacks. Do you come up to the Bull in ten minutes or so, and we may discuss our plan of campaign when old Dav comes from his tooth-drawer.”

  And, chuckling again at his friend’s misfortune, Lieutenant Cox swung off in the direction of the White Hart.

  Without waiting an instant, Juliana started away in the opposite direction. She was dazed, almost witless from shock. Her main impulse was that of an animal—to escape from the scene of so many horrifying revelations, to go to ground. Without any conscious plan, she walked up a short street, took a left turn, then a right one, along a grassy track which seemed to lead downhill, out of the town.