She put the food into his hands and urged him to eat. Then she said, ‘Now Billy, you’re going to have an adventure with Thomassin.’ She told him to sit down while she slipped the boots on to his feet. ‘We’re going to the races – you’ll like that. You’ll have to behave, though, and keep very quiet or someone will recognise you and put you back in your cage. You don’t want that, do you?’
When she woke up that morning wondering what ought to be done about Billy, she had finally decided that the best thing to do was take him with her to Caverton Edge. Poor thing, he had never had any pleasure and she was sure that she could control him. She’d give him some money – it would be easy to pick a couple of pockets in the race crowd – and then he’d be able to slip away from the course in the press of people when the racing was over. When she told him this plan, she was rewarded by the look of sheer delight on his face. He jumped to his feet and held out a hand to her, wanting to start that very minute but she shook her head. ‘Not yet. We’ll have to wait till it’s busier on the road. You stay here in the tower for a bit longer and I’ll come back to you when it’s time to go to see the horses racing,’ she told him.
His face fell and he wanted her to remain with him so he tried to detain her by grabbing at her skirt with his huge hand but she prised open his fingers and mastered him by the force of her personality and through his love for her. ‘Let go, Billy. I’ll come back soon,’ she promised and then she ran off, darting into the depth of the woods like a fairy.
Only a short distance away from the tower, her sharp eyes heard the sounds of something moving about among the undergrowth. The girl paused and shrank back behind a tree trunk. Someone was coming into the clearing before her. A man appeared waving a stick and shoving it into the thick shrubs massed beneath the trees. She sighed with relief when she saw it was Jesse.
She ran out towards him crying, ‘What are you doing up here?’
He was surprised to see her but he explained, ‘Billy’s escaped. He’s simple and might hurt somebody. I’m looking for him. I’m going to search that old tower up here – remember, the one we used to play in as bairns? Billy came with us sometimes and he might have remembered it, too. There’s no telling what goes on in his head.’
Thomassin nodded. ‘Yes, I remembered that as well when I heard about Billy running away. I’ve just been up to the tower and had a good look round. He’s not there, Jesse. Maybe they’ve found him by now anyway,’ she told him.
He sighed. ‘They probably have. It’s easier looking for someone in the daylight.’
Thomassin lied with a guileless look, ‘I heard people down on the field shouting out a little while ago. Let’s go back to the Fair.’ She took his arm and added, ‘It’s the races today and you’ve entered Barbary, haven’t you? I’m laying a guinea on you to win.’ She clung to him, looking up adoringly as if her cup of happiness was full and arm in arm they made their way back down the hill together.
When they came within sight of the field where the Fair had been held, he paused and looked down at her with a solemn expression. ‘I want to tell you something, Thomassin.’
Her smile glittered at him but her eyes were wary. ‘What?’ she asked.
‘If I win that race today I’m going away. There’s a prize of fifty pounds and if I win it, I’m going away.’
‘Take me with you,’ she pleaded.
‘No.’ He was definite. ‘I’ll give you half the purse but you must let me go free. I’m not ready to settle down. I’m sorry, but I’ve made up my mind.’
‘But if you win the fifty bars and don’t give them to our people, Gib’ll cast you out…’
‘I don’t care if he does. I’m going away. I’m tired of faking, choring and killing.’ Jesse’s face was set with determination.
Thomassin stopped and cried, ‘It’s all the fault of that minister. He shouldn’t have made you into a pol-engro. He cursed you.’ But when she saw that he really meant what he said, she turned on him like a wild cat and hissed, ‘And it’s because of that girl with the black skin. You’ve been bewitched by that one. If she asked you to take her with you, you’d do it. Why won’t you take me?’
She was clinging with both hands to his shirt-front and he had to shake her off. He clasped her hands in his and implored her, ‘Don’t act like this, Thomassin. I want a new life and it’s got nothing to do with that girl. I’m going away and that’s the end of it.’
Chapter 14
In Havanah Court everyone was late in rising. Canny felt very old and tired after his exertions of the night before and lay in bed looking bleak while he thought about Elliot’s machinations. What a good thing it was that he had been prevented by Odilie from having Grace committed to the madhouse. Even the cynical Wattie Thompson had been horrified by Elliot’s duplicity and had not hesitated in telling him so. But when Lucy Allen appeared that was the most astonishing thing of all. Canny and Thompson had agreed between themselves to say nothing about it – they’d not seen her, hadn’t recognised her, for as far as they were concerned, the poor soul would go free.
When he thought about Elliot, Canny reflected that he’d chosen his lawyer because of his sharp mental ability, but if he could behave like that towards his own wife and daughter, what was there to stop him from cheating his clients?
‘I’d better get myself another lawyer when this marriage business is over,’ was his predominating thought as he rose from bed. Another busy day lay ahead of him for Odilie’s engagement was to be announced, and the Rutherfords were to accompany the Duke to the race meeting at Caverton Edge. Only yesterday the idea of such an outing would have filled him with glee. Today it made him feel tired. He wished that it was already over.
Odilie was also dejected when she woke up. She turned her face into the lace-fringed pillow and groaned because her head was aching. The light showing between her bedcurtains told her that the day she dreaded was well advanced and she shivered because during the hours to come she felt that she would be carried along by events like a twig on a flooded river. By nightfall her fate would be well and truly sealed. She’d be affianced to the Duke, caught in a situation from which there was no escape.
As she sat up in bed and pulled one of the curtains aside, she saw the sun gleaming on the silver and crystal dressing table ornaments. The necklace she had worn on the previous night lay sparkling beside them and memories of Grace’s wedding came flooding back. How wonderful that had been, like a romance in a storybook. She wondered if the newly-wedded pair had reached Fairhope and wistfully envied them their wonderful happiness which seemed even more like a miracle in the full light of day than it had been last night.
She lay back smiling as she remembered the scene in the tent with the chorus of howling collie dogs. It was so incongruous! Then she thought about the vivid, yearning face of Grace’s mother, who had the air of someone to whom a hundred fantastical things had happened. That woman looked as if she had truly lived.
Odilie reflected that her own wedding would be very different. Certainly there would be music and pomp, anthems, flowers, prayers and pageantry but it would lack the ingredients that had made her friend’s impromptu ceremony so memorable – it would lack love and commitment and above all it would lack passion.
These thoughts were interrupted by Aunt Martha who came bustling into the room crying out, ‘It’s nearly ten o’clock, Odilie. I thought you were never going to waken. What are you going to wear? We’re setting out for Caverton Edge with the Duke’s party in an hour.’
‘I’ve a headache, I feel ill,’ groaned Odilie.
‘That’s what you get for wandering about half the night. I heard you come in but I never said a word to your father though it was almost as late before he came home. That Wattie Thompson was always a bad influence on him. He’s nursing a headache as well and that’s Thompson’s fault, pushing drink on him all last night I’m sure. But I’m not asking what you were doing out so late…’
‘I’ll tell you anyway,’ said Odilie, who was standing bef
ore her glass in her nightgown. ‘Last night I went to a wedding. Grace got married.’
‘Heavens bless us!’ cried Martha, clasping her hands. ‘Grace Elliot married! Where – when – who to?’
‘In the marrying tent at the Fair, that’s where. In the middle of the night, that’s when – and to a shepherd called Adam Scott, that’s to whom!’
‘Well that’s one in the eye for Andrew Elliot,’ laughed Martha.
‘I think her father’ll be a quieter man from now on,’ predicted Odilie, remembering Grace’s mother’s triumph when she gave her daughter the wedding present of a bundle of deeds.
‘Good. It’s about time,’ said Martha, who had never liked Elliot.
Odilie had more news to impart. ‘You’ll be interested to hear this bit, Aunt Martha. Grace’s mother, Lucy Allen, the one you wouldn’t talk about, was at her wedding. She’s not dead after all.’
Martha’s face registered shock. ‘Oh, bless me! Elliot said the poor soul died years ago. That’s how he could marry again! I didn’t want to talk to you about Lucy because folk in Lauriston never really believed she’d killed that bairn, especially after Hester upped and married Elliot. Oh, I’d like to see her again. She was a sweet lassie.’
‘You couldn’t call her that now, I’m afraid. She looks formidable. She must have changed a lot,’ said Odilie, remembering Alice’s bleak face. ‘She was obviously happy to see Grace getting married to such a good young man, though. She really glowed at the end. It was as if she’d achieved the most important aim in her life.’
Martha nodded sagely. ‘She loved that bairn, did Lucy. I told you how she carried on when they took her away. The screams of her were terrible. They went through me like knife thrusts. The bairn was all she got from that marriage. Where’s she now?’
Odilie sighed. ‘I’ve no idea. If she’s any sense she’ll be far away from here.’
‘I hope you’re right because if he knows anything about her coming back Elliot’ll do his damnedest to spite her,’ Martha predicted.
‘Oh, he knows all right,’ said Odilie.
‘Poor Lucy. I hope she’s changed enough to outwit him this time,’ said Martha with a heavy look on her face as she began sorting through Odilie’s clothes in the wide-open wardrobe. ‘But what are you going to wear today, my dear? This is an important day for you. Everyone’ll be looking at you,’ she said, pulling out first one gown and then another and holding them up for Odilie’s scrutiny.
‘I know, don’t remind me. I’ll hate it.’ Odilie’s voice was cold.
‘None of that now. You’re going to be the most striking-looking girl on the course. Are you going over in the Duke’s carriage or in your father’s with me and Canny?’
‘Neither. I want to ride my mare across. All the men ride so why shouldn’t women… I’ll wear my new habit!’ was Odilie’s brisk reply.
The habit had been delivered only a few days before from a London modiste. It was made from pale cream linen and the tight-waisted jacket emphasised Odilie’s slender figure. A deep fluted peplum flowed out over the hips and the bodice was cunningly darted and fastened down the front with military-style rosettes of plaited braid. There were gathering puffs on the tops of the sleeves which tapered tightly down to the wrists and the skirt swept the floor in a majestic swirl. When the girl put it on her aunt raised her hands in speechless admiration. ‘A picture,’ she sighed.
‘And I’ll wear my new brown boots and my silk hat with the feather,’ announced Odilie who was slightly cheered by her pleasing appearance in the new outfit.
Martha pulled out a hatbox and reverently took out a high-crowned top hat made of beige-coloured stiffened silk. A jaunty feather was sticking up from one side of the ribbon around its crown. When it was perched on Odilie’s head and the big-meshed brown veil dropped over her dark eyes, Martha said proudly, ‘You look a perfect Duchess, Odilie, a lady of style! You’re beautiful. Now I’ll ask the gardener to make a nosegay for your buttonhole. Roses, perhaps?’
Odilie shook her head. ‘No, not roses. Ask him for a gardenia, one of the big ones from the glasshouse. I love their smell – they remind me of Jamaica.’
* * *
From early morning Jem and Long Tom had been out searching for Billy. As the field in which the Fair had been held gradually emptied, their despair increased for no one they spoke to had seen the fugitive. There was not a trace of him.
Jem went to speak to his brother Simon who was loading his circus. ‘I’m going south and if I see your Strong Man on the road, I’ll take him in with my folk,’ Simon promised. ‘They’ll watch he doesn’t run away again and I’ll send you a message to say we’ve got him. Where are you going now?’
‘I don’t know. I’ll look around here a bit longer for Billy and then I’ll head for Wooler too because Alice said she was taking the road south. My God, this has been some Fair, Simon. I feel as if the world’s collapsed around me. I’ve always been afraid I’d lose her again,’ groaned Jem. A sleepless night had made him look older than his age and his shoulders sagged dispiritedly.
His brother put a hand on his shoulder in comfort. ‘You’ve not lost her for good, lad. She’s real fond of you – I could see that.’
After he left the circus, Jem headed for the gypsy encampment but most of the Romanies including old Rachel had already left. A dark-haired, flashing-eyed girl in a scarlet shawl was still there, however, and he asked her, ‘Where’s the big man with the white hair, the one they call Gib?’
She told him, ‘He’s gone to the race course. We’ve a horse running for the Duke’s cup today.’
‘I wanted to tell him that Billy’s run away,’ said Jem.
She did not take the news very seriously. ‘He knows about that but Billy can’t have gone far,’ she said in an indifferent voice.
‘Maybe not, but he’s dangerous wherever he is. He gets violent,’ replied Jem.
‘Oh, he looked like a big bairn to me. Maybe you’re worrying about it too much,’ said Thomassin, ‘but I’ll tell Gib to look out for him.’
Finally, in despair, Jem went to the authorities’ tent and reported that his Strong Man had run away. They did not take him very seriously, either.
‘Oh aye,’ said the craggy-faced provost of Jedburgh, ‘and what are we meant to do about that?’
Rubbing his tired face with his hand Jem explained, ‘He’s a bit simple and he can get rough sometimes. He’s very strong… he could kill somebody by mistake.’
‘No’ like some o’ them that go around killing folk and meaning it,’ said Turnbull, who had spent an arduous night trying to quieten the scrapping gypsies and whose only wish was to see the lot of them off the field and go home himself. His most pressing problem now was to ensure that his town’s share of the Fair profits, nearly four thousand pounds in bank draughts and coin, was safely transported to Jedburgh without let or hindrance. Some of the old soldiers who had been hanging around the Fair looked rough customers.
‘His name’s Billy and he’s like a big bairn,’ explained Jem again. ‘But he’s stronger than five men put together.’ ‘We’ll keep an eye out for him,’ said Turnbull briskly.
‘You’ll not shoot him?’ asked Jem anxiously.
‘No’ unless he needs shooting,’ was the brusque reply. At noon, staggering with exhaustion, Jem made his way back to the freak show and sat down heavily on the half-demolished platform surrounded by the litter and debris of Fair Day. One by one the worried freaks came and clustered around watching him anxiously as he sat with his head in his hands. The bearded lady patted him gently on the arm and handed him a slice of beef laid on top of a bit of bread. ‘Eat that, Jem. You’ve not had a bite I,’ she said. He bit into it and chewed slowly, eyes on the ground, the picture of dejection.
‘You’ve not seen or heard anything of them then?’ Hans’ voice was tentative. When Jem shook his head, Long Tom looked shame-faced because he still blamed himself for Billy’s escape.
‘I’m afraid in case h
e kills somebody – or somebody kills him. Nobody but us really knows what he’s like,’ Jem told them.
‘Aw, poor Billy,’ sighed the dwarves in unison and Meg gave a strangled sob clutching her baby to her heart as she did so.
‘Any news of Alice?’ asked Long Tom and Jem groaned even more loudly.
‘Not a cheep. If we could get on the road soon, we might meet her at Wooler or Alnwick. I hope she waits for us there. Simon’s got a booking at Wooler the day after tomorrow and he’ll keep an eye open for Billy and Alice too.’
‘What about us, Jem?’ asked Meg anxiously.
‘I can’t leave here till I find Billy. He’s my responsibility. The old woman gave him to me,’ he said, then added, ‘but if you want to go on alone, get started. I’ll follow later.’
They looked at each other in dismay as one by one they drifted back to their waggons to discuss the turn of events. Jem was not left alone to brood for long, however, because a young man on a rough carthorse came riding into their circle leading a big chestnut with a blaze on its nose. ‘Somebody said that you’re Mr Archer. Is this horse yours?’ he asked the slumped figure.
The big man looked up and furrowed his brow. There was a bemused look on his face.
‘Is this horse yours?’ repeated the young man. ‘I found it half-drowned on our farm this morning. There was a note tucked into the saddle-flap saying it belonged to Jem Archer, at St James’ Fair, Lauriston. The folk in the circus said that’s you.’
‘I am. It’s my horse right enough. Thank you for bringing it back… Where did you say you found it?’
‘In a moss above Mowcop. It’d got itself bogged. Up to the withers in glaur it was – look, you can see the mark. I searched around to see if the rider was lying about but I didn’t find anybody, but that’s some bog we’ve got up there. It swallows up a cow a year. I hope there wasn’t anybody on the horse when it got in there… it’s a bad bit, that.’
Jem shuddered and put a hand up to the horse’s lace stroking its nose. ‘It’s the horse Alice took,’ he said half to himself.
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