The Toll-Gate

by Джорджетт Хейер

  He responded with great civility; and Miss Stornaway, searching her mind for further matters of topographical interest, recalled that the spring, in Tideswell, which had an uncertain ebb and flow, was also reckoned amongst the wonders of the Peak.

  This subject lasted until the turnpike was reached. Tideswell lay not far from this, and the rest of the way was beguiled in discussing the exact nature of the commodities to be purchased in the town. Miss Stornaway, informing the Captain that it was her custom to stable Squirrel at the Old George while she transacted her business, would have driven there immediately, but as soon as the outlying buildings of the town came into sight John stopped her, saying that it would be best if he were to be set down there. “You may overtake me on the road when we have each of us done all this shopping,” he said. “It won’t do for you to be seen driving a gatekeeper, you know.”

  “Good heavens, I don’t care for that!” she said scornfully.

  “Then I must care for you,” he replied.

  “Nonsense! You don’t look in the least like a gatekeeper! Besides, no one knows you!”

  “They soon will. One of the disadvantages of being bigger than the average, ma’am, is that one is easily recognizable. No, don’t drive on!”

  Except for a lift of her obstinate chin she gave no sign of having heard him. After a moment, he leaned forward, and, taking the reins above her hand, pulled Squirrel up. She flamed into quick wrath, exclaiming: “How dare you? Understand me, sir, I am not accustomed to submit to dictation!”

  “I know you are not,” he said, smiling at her. “Never mind! You may very easily punish me by refusing to take me up again presently. Will an hour suffice us, do you suppose?”

  He jumped down from the gig, and for a moment she eyed him uncertainly. There was so much amused understanding in his face that her little spurt of temper died, and she said: “Oh, if you choose to be so nonsensical—! Yes, an hour—and you will be well served if I make you trudge all the way to Crowford!”

  She drove on, and he followed her on foot into the town.

  By a stroke of good fortune, he found a pair of serviceable brogues in a warehouse that catered for the needs of farm labourers, but not all his endeavours could discover a coat into which he could squeeze his powerful shoulders. He was obliged to abandon the search, and to purchase instead a leather waistcoat. By the time he had acquired coarse woollen stockings, a supply of flannel shirts, and several coloured neckcloths, only a few minutes were left to him in which to write and to despatch a letter to the Hon. Wilfred Babbacombe, at Edenhope, near Melton Mowbray. This missive was necessarily brief, and requested Mr. Babbacombe, in turgid ink and on a single sheet of rough paper, to ransack two valises consigned to his guardianship and to wrench from them such shirts, neckcloths, nightshirts, and underlinen as they might be found to contain, and to despatch these, in a plain parcel, to Mr. (heavily underscored) Staple, at the Crowford Toll-gate, near Tideswell, in the County of Derbyshire.

  Having sealed this communication with a wafer, and deposited it at the receiving-office, Captain Staple gathered together his various packages, and set out on the homeward journey.

  He had not proceeded very far along the road out of the town before Miss Stornaway overtook him. She pulled up, and he was soon seated beside her again, bowling along in the direction of Crowford.

  “I must tell you at once that I have exceeded your instructions, and bought for you, besides wax candles, a lamp which you may set upon the table, and which will be very much more the thing for you,” she told him. “You informed me that you were in the possession of an independence, so I did not scruple to lay out another six shillings of your money. Did you contrive to procure raiment more fitted to your calling than what you are wearing now?”

  “Yes, but I had a great fancy for a frieze coat, and I could not find one to fit me!”

  “You mean, I collect, into which you might squeeze yourself!” she retorted. “Well! I warned you how it would be! Tideswell is not, after all, a large town.”

  “No,” he agreed. “And sadly lacking in historic interest. Apart from its spring there really seems to be nothing to say about it, which leaves me quite at a loss.”

  “Oh?” she said, puzzled, and slightly suspicious.

  “We could talk about the weather, of course,” he said thoughtfully. “Or I could describe to you some of the places I have visited abroad.”

  She bit her lip, but when he began, in the blandest way, to expatiate upon the grandeur of the Pyrenees, she interrupted him, exclaiming impetuously: “I wish you will not be so foolish! I don’t care a button for the Pyrenees!”

  “You would care even less for them, had you ever been obliged to winter there,” he observed. “You choose what we are to talk about! Only don’t say, Captain Staple! and then decide that I am not, after all, a trustworthy confidant.”

  Quite unused to such direct dealing, she stammered: “I d-didn’t! Why should I——How can I know that you are to be trusted? I never set eyes on you until yesterday!”

  “There, I am afraid, I can’t help you,” he said. “It would be of very little use to tell you that I am entirely to be trusted, so perhaps we had better continue to discuss the Pyrenees.”

  There was an awful silence. “I beg your pardon!” said Nell stiffly.

  “But why?” asked John.

  “I did not mean to offend you.”

  “Of course not. I’m not offended,” he said pleasantly. “On the contrary, I am very much obliged to you for having done my marketing for me. By the by, how much did you expend on my behalf, ma’am?”

  A flush mounted to her cheek; she said: “You need not continue to slap me, Captain Staple!”

  That made him laugh, A quick, indignant glance at him informed her, however, that the expression in his eyes was one of warm kindness. No one had ever looked at her just like that before, and it had the effect upon her of making her feel, for perhaps the first time in her life, a strong desire to lay the burden of her cares upon other shoulders. Captain Staple’s were certainly broad enough to bear them.

  “That, at least, is something I should never do to you, Miss Stornaway,” he said. “I think life has dealt you too many slaps.”

  “No—oh, no!” she said, in a shaken voice. “Indeed, I have been very much indulged!”

  “Yes, possibly, when your grandfather was a hale man. Too much depends upon you now, and I cannot discover that there is anyone to support or to advise you.”

  She said, with the flash of a wry smile: “Captain Staple, if you continue in this vein you will induce in me a mood of self-pity that will very likely cause me to burst into maudlin tears! And that, I am persuaded, you would dislike excessively!”

  “I own I would prefer you not to burst into tears on the high road,” he admitted. “Some other vehicle would be bound to come into sight just at that moment!”

  A gurgle of laughter escaped her. “Very true! I won’t do it.”

  “I’ve a notion you are not prone to shed tears,” he said smilingly.

  “I’m more prone to swear!” she confessed. She added apologetically: “It comes from having lived always with my grandfather, and being about the stables a great deal.”

  “Don’t guard your tongue on my account!” he begged, his eyes dancing.

  “Ah, you don’t provoke me to swear!”

  “Who does? The gentleman in the natty waistcoat?”

  She hesitated.

  “Now is the moment for Captain Staple!” he murmured. “Give me the reins!” She transferred them without protest to his hand, and the cob, obedient to a light signal, dropped to a walk. “That’s better,” said John. “What’s the fellow doing here, if he didn’t come to dangle after you?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what brought either of them here! Since my grandfather was taken ill it is very quiet at Kellands. We don’t entertain, and—and there are no longer hunters in the stables. Not that my cousin would care for that: he is not a hunting
man; but Coate talks a great deal about the runs he has enjoyed with all the best packs. I don’t know how that may be.”

  “Nor I, indeed, and it would be unjust to hazard a guess, I expect,” the Captain said cheerfully.

  “Well, he hasn’t the look of a Melton man, has he?”

  “No. How came your cousin to make a friend of him?”

  Her lip curled. “I daresay he could find no one better. Henry is the most miserable creature! My grandfather was used to call him a park-saunterer. Jermyn told me once that he was a pretty loose fish besides.” She saw a muscle twitch in the Captain’s cheek. “Don’t laugh at me! I warned you my language is unladylike!”

  “Just so! In what way is Henry a loose fish? If he is a miserable creature, I take it he don’t go raking round the town?”

  “Oh, no! But the people he knows are not at all the thing, and Jermyn said it was too bad he should be known to be his cousin, because he suspected him to be not over-particular in matters of play and pay.”

  “That’s bad,” said John. “Does he pursue any gainful occupation, or is he a gentleman of means?”

  “Well, I don’t think he’s very plump in the pocket, but he must have a competence, I suppose, for my uncle married a lady of moderate fortune, and he was their only child. At all events, he was never bred to any profession.”

  “Hangs on the town, eh? Gamester?”

  “Oh, yes, and that was what Jermyn disliked so much! He thought him the most paltry fellow to spend his days being ear-wigged at Tattersall’s, when he knows so little about horses that whenever he buys one you may depend upon it will be found to be touched in the wind, or for ever throwing out a splint! Then, too, he does not play at the clubs, but at houses in Pall Mall, where one never sees the real Goes! In fact,” said Miss Stornaway, summing the matter up in a word, “the fellow’s a skitter!”

  “I see,” said John, only the very slightest tremor in his voice.

  “Until Jermyn was killed, I scarcely knew him, because Grandpapa quarrelled with my uncle upon the occasion of his marriage,” Nell pursued. “She was the daughter of a Cit, and, I believe, rather a vulgar person. Not,” she added, in a reflective tone, “that Grandpapa ever liked him above half—according to what Huby has told me. Huby is our butler, and he has been at Kellands for so long that he knows far more about Grandpapa than I do. But when Jermyn died, Henry became the heir, and Grandpapa thought himself obliged to receive him. He used to come here now and then, because in those days he was afraid of Grandpapa, but you could see that he thought it a dead bore. When Grandpapa had that dreadful stroke, Henry ceased to come, which I was very glad of. I never heard anything more of him until ten days ago, when he suddenly arrived at Kellands.” Her eyes smouldered. “He had the effrontery to tell me that he thought it his duty! You may guess how I liked that!”

  “I imagine you must have told him how soon he might pack his bags again?”

  “I did,” she said bitterly. “Then—then I was made to see that it is not in my power to be rid of him! He is sly enough to know that I would not, for any consideration you might offer me, permit him to agitate my grandfather. I was obliged to acquiesce in his remaining, particularly when he talked of rusticating for a while, because he was scorched. For Grandpapa to be succeeded—as might happen at any moment—by a man imprisoned for debt would be too much! Besides, I am very well able to deal with Henry. But then, you see, Coate arrived at Kellands, and to my astonishment Henry informed me that it was by his invitation! Since that day there has been no doing anything with Henry: he is ruled entirely by that creature, and I think—I am sure—that he is afraid of him. Coate orders all as he pleases—or he would do so, if I were not there to check him!”

  “Are you able to do that?”

  “Yes, in general, because I have the good fortune to take his fancy,” she said disdainfully. “I have been the object of his gallantry this past week. He has even done me the honour to inform me that he likes a female to be spirited: it affords the better sport, you see.” She was interrupted at this point, Captain Staple expressing a strong desire to make Mr. Coate’s acquaintance. She laughed, but shook her head. “No, no, I beg you will not! I am well able to take care of myself, and if I were not I have Joseph and Winkfield at hand. If I chose to disclose the whole to my grandfather, he would have both Coate and Henry turned out of doors: he is still master at Kellands! I don’t choose to. Dr. Bacup considers that any agitation might prove fatal, and my chief concern is to shield him from any knowledge of what is going on.”

  “Very well, but you have no need to keep that knowledge from me. What is going on?” asked John.

  “I don’t know.” She clasped and unclasped her hands. “That is what alarms me—not, I give you my word, Coate’s encroaching fancies! He and Henry are here for some purpose, and I cannot discover what it may be. It’s nothing good! Henry is afraid of something, and Coate is afraid of what Henry may divulge when he’s in his cups. He watches him like a cat, and once I heard him threaten to break his neck if he didn’t keep his mouth shut.”

  “Did he, by Jove! Can you discover nothing from your cousin?”

  “No. When he is sober, it would be useless to question him, and when he’s foxed, Coate takes good care not to let him out of his sight. He becomes a trifle fuddled nearly every night, but he doesn’t say anything to the purpose.”

  “Am I to understand by that that you are present at these—er—carouses?” demanded John,

  “Of course I am not! It is what Huby tells me. He is very old, and he pretends to be deaf, for he was quite sure Coate could be up to no good, as soon as he laid eyes on him. Only he cannot conceive, any more than I can, what it could be that should bring him to the Peak district, or why he should ally himself with such a poor creature as Henry.”

  “I haven’t met Henry, but I apprehend you don’t think it possible that he might have hired Coate for some nefarious purpose? The fellow sounds to me very like a paid bravo.”

  She considered this for a moment, but gave a decided negative. “For Coate is the master, not Henry. Besides, what use could he find for a bravo here?”

  “Well, if your Cousin Henry is indeed the snirp you think him, I can only suppose that he is useful to Coate for some reason as yet hidden from us. Perhaps he is in possession of some vital secret necessary to the success of Coate’s plans.”

  She looked at him sceptically. “You don’t believe that!”

  “I don’t know. There must be some reason for such an ill-assorted alliance!”

  “I think you must be quizzing me! Such a notion is fantastic!”

  “Very likely, but I might say the same of your apprehensions. Oh, no! don’t eat me! I haven’t said it, and I swear I don’t think it!”

  She cast him a fulminating look. “Perhaps, sir, you believe me to be suffering from the merest irritation of the nerves?”

  “Not a bit of it! I believe you to be a woman of admirable common sense, and I place the utmost reliance on what you tell me. If you were the most vapourish female imaginable, I must still lend an attentive ear to your story: do not let us forget that a gatekeeper, stationed almost at your door, has disappeared under circumstances which one can only call mysterious! That is quite as fantastic as anything you have told me, you know!”

  Slightly mollified, she said: “It seems absurd, but do you suppose Brean’s disappearance may be connected in some way with whatever it is those two are plotting?”

  “Certainly I do—though in what way I must own I have not the smallest conjecture! However, it will not do to be applying the principles of common sense to a situation which we clearly perceive to be something quite out of the ordinary, so do not tell me, ma’am, that it is fantastic to suppose that your cousin and his friend can have anything to do with a gatekeeper!”

  She smiled, but absently, saying, after a moment: “I thought I was indulging my fancy only, but—the thing is, Captain Staple, that I am persuaded my cousin is suspicious of you! I don’
t know who told him that there was a new gatekeeper at the Crowford pike, but he knows it, and has been asking me who you are, and what has become of Brean.”

  “Well, that does not encourage us to think that Brean is working with him,” John admitted. “On the other hand, he might be cutting a sham—making it appear, you see, as though he knew nothing of Brean. Or even being afraid of what Brean may be doing.”

  “No, I don’t think it is that,” she replied, knitting her brows. “Coate seems not to care about it. He came into the room when Henry was questioning me, and all he said was that he had fancied you were not the man who had opened to him before, but for his part he had paid very little heed to you.”

  “Well, before he is much older he will be paying a great deal of heed to me,” observed John. “However, you were very right not to tell him so! He is too set in his ways, and a surprise will be good for him. For anything we know, of course, he and Brean may have decided to tip Cousin Henry the double. Or—But the possibilities stretch into infinity!”

  “Are you funning again?” she demanded. “I collect that you think it all incredible!”

  “Not a bit of it! You will allow, however, that in this prosaic age it is certainly unusual to find oneself suddenly in the middle of what promises to be an excellent adventure! I have spent the better part of my life looking for adventure, so you may judge of my delight. The only thing is, I wonder if I was wise to turn myself into a gatekeeper? I can’t but see that it is bound to restrict my movements.”

  “I must say, I can’t conceive what should have induced you to do anything so whimsical!” she said frankly.

  “Oh, it wasn’t whimsical!” he replied. “After I had seen you, I had to provide myself with an excuse for remaining at Crowford, and there it was, ready to my hand!”

  She gave a gasp. “C-Captain Staple!”

  “On the other hand,” he went on, apparently deaf to this interruption, “I could scarcely hope to escape remark, were I to revert to my proper person, and that might put our fine gentlemen on their guard. No: setting the hare’s head against the goose-giblets, things are best as they are—for the present.”