The Toll-Gate

by Джорджетт Хейер

  “Yes,” she agreed uncertainly, stealing a sidelong look at him.

  He urged the cob to a trot again. “What I must first discover is the precise nature of Coate’s business here. To tell you the truth, I can’t think what the devil it can be! If this were Lincolnshire, or Sussex, I should be much inclined to suspect the pair of them of being engaged in some extensive smuggling, and of using your house as their headquarters; but this is Derbyshire, and sixty or seventy miles from the coast, I daresay, so that won’t answer.”

  “And hiding kegs of brandy in the cellars?” she asked, laughing. “Or perhaps storing them in one of our limestone caverns.”

  “A very good notion,” he approved. “But my imagination boggles at the vision of a train of pack-ponies being led coolly to and fro, and exciting no more interest than if they were accommodation coaches!” They had come within sight of Crowford village, and he gave back the reins and the whip into her hands, saying: “And we shall excite less interest, perhaps, if you drive, and I sit with my arms folded, groom-fashion.’’

  In the event, this precaution was superfluous, since the only two persons to be seen on the village street were a short-sighted old dame, and Mr. Sopworthy, who was standing outside the Blue Boar, but seemed to recall something needing his attention, and had disappeared into the house by the time the gig drew abreast of it. Miss Stornaway was still wondering why he had not waited to exchange a greeting with her when she drew up before the tollgate.

  The Captain alighted; the merchandize was unloaded, and his debts faithfully discharged. Joseph Lydd reported that only strangers had passed the gate during his absence, and got up beside his mistress. The Captain went to hold open the gate, and Miss Stornaway drove slowly forward. Clear of the gate, she pulled up again, for he had released it, and stepped into the road, holding up his hand to her. Hesitating, she transferred the whip to her left hand, and put the right into his. His fingers closed over it strongly, and he held it so for a moment while her eyes searched his face, half in enquiry, half in shy doubt. There was a little smile in his. “I meant what I said to you,” he told her. Then he kissed her hand, and let it go, and with considerably heightened colour she drove on.

  Chapter 6

  MR. LYDD, observing these proceedings out of the tail of his eye, preserved silence and a wooden countenance for perhaps two minutes. Then, as the gig, rounding a bend, passed the entrance to a rough lane, leading up to the moors, he gave a discreet cough, and said: “Fine young fellow, our new gatekeeper, miss. I disremember when I’ve seen a chap with a better pair of shoulders on him. Quite the gentleman, too—even if he is Ned Brean’s cousin.”

  “You know very well that he is not, Joseph,” said Miss Stornaway calmly. “He is a Captain of Dragoon Guards—or he was, until he sold out.”

  “A Captain, is he?” said Joseph, interested. “Well, it don’t surprise me, not a bit. He told me himself he was a military man, miss, and that didn’t surprise me neither, him having the look of it. In fact, I suspicioned he might be an officer, on account of the way he’s got with him, which makes one think he’s used to giving his orders, and having ’em obeyed—and no argle-bargle, what’s more!”

  “When did he tell you he was a military man?” demanded Nell.

  Under the accusing glance thrown at him, Mr. Lydd became a little disconcerted. He besought his young mistress to keep her eyes on the road.

  “Joseph, when has Captain Staple had the opportunity to tell you anything about himself, and why did he?”

  “To think,” marvelled Mr. Lydd, “that I should have gone and forgotten to mention it to you, missie! I’m getting old, that’s what it is, and things slip me memory, unaccountable-like.”

  “If you have been at the toll-house, prying into Captain Staple’s business——”

  “No, no!” said Joseph feebly. “Jest dropped in to blow a cloud, being as I was on me way to the Blue Boar! Yesterday evening, it was, and very nice and affable the Captain was. We got talking, and one thing leading to another he jest happened to mention that he was a military man.”

  “You went there on purpose!” said Nell hotly. “Because he—because you thought—I wish to heaven you and Rose would remember that I am not a child!”

  “No, Miss Nell, but you’re a young lady, and seeing as Sir Peter can’t look after you no more, like you ought to be—and Rose being an anxious sort of a female,” he added basely, “it seems like it’s me duty to keep me eye on things, as you might say!”

  “I know you only do it out of kindness,” said Nell, “but I assure you it is unnecessary! You have no need to be anxious about me!”

  “Jest what I says to Rose, missie! Them was me very words! ‘We got no need to be anxious about Miss Nell,’ I tells her. ‘Not now, we haven’t.’ That, out of course, was after I come home from the tollhouse.”

  Miss Stornaway, fully and indignantly conscious of the unwisdom of attempting to bring to a sense of his presumption a servitor who had held her on the back of her first pony, extricated her from difficulties in an apple-tree, and, upon more than one occasion, rescued her from the consequences of her youthful misdeeds, accomplished the rest of the short journey in dignified silence.

  Kellands Manor was an old and a rambling house, standing at no great distance from the pike road, which, in fact, ran through the Squire’s land. Its pleasure gardens, though well laid-out, were neglected, the shrubbery being overgrown, the flower-beds allowed to run riot, and the wilderness to encroach year by year on lawns once shaven and weedless. Miss Stornaway, unlike the one remaining gardener, looked upon this decay with indifference. Behind a crumbling stone wall an extensive vegetable plot was in good order; new trees had been planted in the orchard; and the home farm was thriving.

  Miss Stornaway, walking up from the stables with her rather mannish stride, the tail of her worn riding-dress looped over her arm, entered the house through a side-door, and made her way down a flagged corridor to the main hall. From this an oaken staircase rose in two graceful branches to the galleried floor above. She was about to mount it when a door on one side of the hall opened, and her cousin came out of the library. “Oh, there you are, cousin!” he said, in the peevish tone which was habitual with him. “I have been in these past twenty minutes, and desirous of having a word with you.”

  She paused, a hand on the baluster-rail, and one booted foot already on the first step of the stairway. “Indeed!” she said, looking down at him from her superior height, her brows lifting a little.

  His was not an impressive figure, and he was never so conscious of this as when he stood in his magnificent cousin’s presence. He had neither height nor presence, and a strong inclination towards dandyism served only to accentuate the shortcomings of his person. Skin-tight pantaloons of an elegant shade of yellow did not set off to advantage a pair of thin legs, nor could all the exertions of his tailor disguise the fact that his narrow shoulders drooped, and that he was developing a slight paunch. His countenance was tolerably good-looking, but spoilt by a sickly complexion and the unmistakable marks of self-indulgence; and his rather bloodshot eyes seemed at all times incapable of maintaining a steady regard. He sported several fobs and seals, wore exaggeratedly high points to his collars, and fidgeted incessantly with snuff-box, quizzing-glass, and handkerchief.

  “I’m sure I don’t know where you can have been,” he complained. “And Huby and that woman of yours quite unable to tell me! I must say, I don’t consider it at all the thing.”

  “Perhaps they thought my whereabouts no concern of yours,” suggested Nell. “I have been transacting some business in Tideswell. What is it that you wish to say to me?”

  Instead of answering, he embarked on a rambling censure of her independent manners. “I can tell you this, cousin, you present a very odd appearance, jauntering all over the country as you do. I wonder that my grandfather should suffer it, though I suppose the old gentleman is in such queer stirrups he don’t realize what a figure you make of yourself. Na
t was saying to me only this morning—”

  “Pray spare me a recital of Mr. Coate’s remarks!” she interrupted. “If my odd ways have given him a distaste for me, I can only say that I am heartily glad of it!”

  “There you go!” he exclaimed bitterly. “I should have supposed you might have taken pains to be civil to a guest, but no! You behave—”

  “Let me remind you, Henry, that Mr. Coate is a guest in this house neither by my wish nor my invitation!”

  “Well, he’s here by mine, and if you weren’t such an unaccountable girl you’d be glad of it! Handsome fellow, ain’t he? Slap up to the mark, too, as you’d say yourself!”

  “I should never describe Mr. Coate in such terms.”

  “Oh, don’t put on those missish airs with me, Nell! Lord knows I’ve heard you using all sorts of sporting lingo!”

  “Certainly! I trust, however, that I am in general veracious!” she retorted.

  “I’m not surprised that fine aunt of yours couldn’t nabble a husband for you!” he said, nettled. “You’ve a damned nasty tongue in your head! I can tell you this, a Long Meg like you can’t afford to put up the backs of people as you do!”

  “That is the second thing you have been so obliging as to tell me, and no more interesting to me than the first. Have you anything more to say?”

  “Yes, I have! I wish you will accord Nat a little common civility! It’s no very pleasant thing for me to have my cousin behaving like a shrew! One would have thought you would have been pleased with the very flattering distinction he accords you! I don’t know what you think is to become of you when the old man slips his wind! You needn’t look to me to provide for you, for if he has more to leave than the title and an estate mortgaged to the hilt—”

  “Are you having the effrontery to suggest that I—I, Nell Stornaway!—should encourage the advances of Coate?” she demanded. “Perhaps you think he would make a suitable match for me?”

  “Oh, well!” he muttered, his eyes shifting from hers. “You might do worse, and you’re not likely to do better. I don’t say—I never spoke of marriage, after all! All I care for is that you should make his visit agreeable. You don’t give a fig for the awkwardness of my position! If you open your mouth at the dinner-table, ten to one it is only to say something cutting to Nat—”

  “Yes, indeed! You would fancy that he must be sensible by now, would you not, that his presence at Kellands is only less distasteful to me than the extremely improper style of his advances? But, no!”

  “A woman of address would know how to turn it off without flying into a miff!”

  “Yes, and some women, no doubt, are more fortunate than I in those male relatives whose duty it might be thought to guard them from such unwanted attentions!”

  He coloured, and shot her a resentful glance. “What a piece of work you make about a trifle! I suppose you expect Nat to toad-eat you, though how you should when you wear a gown with a darn in it—the shabbiest thing! puts me to the blush, I can tell you!—and serve such plain dinners—only one course, and that ill-dressed! And then, to crown all, go off afterwards, and never come into the drawing-room, as you should! No tea-tray brought in: nothing as it should be!—’pon my soul, I don’t know why you should look to be treated with any extraordinary civility!”

  “Good gracious, does Mr. Coate desire tea in the evening?” she exclaimed. “I thought it was the brandy he wanted! I will not fail to tell Huby that between us we have quite mistaken the matter; and a tray shall be brought to you. My presence, however, you must dispense with: I sit every evening with my grandfather.”

  “Yes! If Nat had the good fortune to please you, you wouldn’t choose to spend your time with an old dotard who’s had his notice to quit!”

  She took a swift step towards him. He shrank back instinctively, but not quickly enough to escape a swinging box on the ear, which made him stagger. “You will speak of my grandfather with respect in this house, Henry! Understand that!”

  A burst of hearty laughter, coming from the direction of the front door, made her turn, at once startled and mortified. Nathaniel Coate stood upon the threshold, laughing, and waving his hat like a huntsman capping hounds to a scent. “Bravo, bravo! That was a wisty one, by God! It’s bellows to mend with you, Henry: she’ll give you pepper, by God, she will!” He tossed his hat and his whip on to a chair, and came forward, saying: “What have you been about, you stupid fellow? Why don’t you take that Friday-face of yours away before Miss Nell slaps it again?”

  Henry, taking this broad hint, retired again into the library, shutting the door behind him with a vicious slam, which made his friend give another of his loud laughs, and say: “Silly ninny hammer! Now we shall have him in the sullens! Ah, don’t be in a hurry to slip off, Miss Nell! Damme if this ain’t the first time I’ve laid eyes on you today!”

  Since he had contrived to step between her and the staircase she was unable to slip off. He was looking her over in a way that gave her the unpleasant sensation of having been stripped of her clothing; and although she was not at all afraid of him she would have been glad to have been able to escape. She said coolly: “You might have seen me at the breakfast-table, but you are not an early riser. Now, if you please, I must go to my grandfather!”

  He did not move from the stairs. “Ah, that’s a slap for me, ain’t it? I shall have to mend my ways, shan’t I? Why don’t you take me in hand, eh? Blister me if I wouldn’t enjoy being schooled by you! I don’t know when I’ve taken such a fancy to a girl as I have to you, and that’s the truth! Ay, you may look down that high-bred nose of yours, lass, and try to barn me you’re a stone statue, but I know better! Full of spirit, you are, and that’s how I like women to be—women and horses, and devilish alike they are! You’re a beautiful stepper, and a ginger besides, and that’s the metal for my money!”

  “If we are to employ the language of the stables, Mr. Coate,” she replied, rigid with wrath, “I will inform you that having lived all my life with a nonpareil I have nothing but contempt for mere whipsters! Now, if you will be so obliging as to permit me to pass——!”

  She had the momentary satisfaction of knowing that she had touched him on the raw, for he flushed darkly, but she regretted it an instant later. He strode up to her, an ugly look in his face, and said in a thickened voice: “Contempt, eh? We’ll see that!” He flung his arms round her before she could evade him, chuckling deep in his chest.

  She was a strong woman, and as tall as he, but found herself helpless. He was immensely powerful, and seemed to control her struggles without any particular effort. “Kiss and be friends, now!” he said, his breath hot on her face.

  A dry cough sounded from the staircase; a voice devoid of all expression said: “I beg pardon, miss: might I have a word with you, if convenient?”

  Coate swore, and released Nell. For a moment she confronted him, still unafraid, but white with anger, her eyes blazing. Then she swept past him, and went up the stairs to where her grandfather’s valet stood awaiting her. He stepped aside, bowing politely, and followed her to the gallery off which her own and her grandfather’s apartments were situated.

  “Thank you!” she said curtly. “I’m much obliged!”

  “Not at all, miss,” said Winkfield, as though such interventions were an accustomed part of his duties. “It was fortunate that I happened to be at hand. If I may say so, I feel that Mr. Coate would feel himself more at home in a different class of establishment. Perhaps, a hint to Mr. Henry—?”

  “Quite useless! Don’t disturb yourself, Winkfield! I’ll take good care never to be alone with him again!”

  “No, miss, it would be wiser, I expect. But if Sir Peter knew—”

  “Winkfield, most earnestly I forbid you to breathe one syllable to him!”

  “No, miss, and indeed I have not! But he knows more than we think for, and it’s my belief he’s fretting over it. He keeps asking me things, and wanting to know where you are, and the day he sent for Mr. Henry to come to his
room he was too much like his old self—if you understand me!”

  “We should not have allowed it. It put him in a passion, didn’t it?”

  “Well, miss, he never could abide Mr. Henry, but you know as well as I do that it won’t do to cross Sir Peter. What I didn’t like was the way seeing Mr. Henry seemed to make Sir Peter feel his own helplessness more than he has done for a long time now. Several times he’s said to me that he’ll make us all know who’s master at Kellands before he’s booked. Then he gets restless, and testy, and I know he’s been brooding over it, and raging in his mind because he hasn’t the power to do so much as get up out of his chair without he has me to lift him.”

  She said in a breaking voice: “Oh, if he had but died when he had that stroke!”

  “Yes, miss, I’ve often thought the same. It comes hard on a gentleman like Sir Peter to be as he is.”

  “Winkfield, you have not told him that my cousin has a friend staying here?”

  “No one has told him that, miss, unless Mr. Henry did, but he knows it well enough.”

  “On no account must he be permitted to set eyes on the creature! We must—we must get rid of the pair of them!”

  “Yes, miss, that’s what I have been thinking myself. But without we tell Sir Peter the whole there’s not much we can do. If it was only Mr. Henry, it would be enough for Sir Peter to tell him to be off: we could do the rest—if I may make so bold as to say so, Miss Nell! But that other! I don’t doubt Sir Peter would have him out, if he had to send for a law-officer to do the trick, but, by what Dr. Bacup says, it would bring on another stroke if he was to get agitated.”

  “No, no!” Nell said, dashing a hand across her eyes.

  “No, miss, that’s my own feeling. I couldn’t do it—not after all these years. We must hope that we can send Mr. Coate off without bringing Sir Peter into it.” He added thoughtfully: “Betty forgot to put a hot brick in his bed last night, but he made no complaint. It won’t do to damp the sheets, as I have told Rose, because we don’t want him laid up on our hands; but I’d say he was one as is partial to good living, and that mutton you had for dinner yesterday, Miss Nell—well! Let alone Mrs. Parbold scorching it on the spit, which she did, and the tears running down her face, Rose tells me, because we all have our pride, and no one can send up a better dressed dinner than she can!”