The Last Gamble

by Mary Nichols

  ‘They’re racing us,’ the young man said. ‘We’ll never get by.’

  Duncan leaned across Helen and shouted to the second coachman. ‘Pull up, man. Let us past.’

  But the man either did not hear or did not want to hear. They proceeded neck and neck for several hundred yards and then pulled slowly ahead. Helen let out her breath in a long sigh of relief, although they did not slow down. She suspected that the horses were out of control and she could hear their coachman yelling at the man with the reins to relinquish them, but he seemed to be frozen with fear and unable to do anything.

  ‘Watch out!’ Duncan yelled as they rounded a bend and he caught sight of a fat, milk-laden cow plodding up the middle of the road towards them. The coachman at last grabbed the ribbons and hauled on them for all he was worth. The horses veered to the left, but the coach, slow to change direction, ploughed into the cow, wobbled terrifyingly and then embedded itself in a pile of stones on the grass verge. The lead horses, unable to pull the coach through the stones, came to a shuddering stop, rearing up and neighing in fright. The outside passengers screamed and the old lady fainted in Helen’s arms.

  Duncan clambered out, followed by the parson and the young couple, and then Helen, supporting the old lady. There was blood everywhere, which set the young lady into hysterics. Her husband took her off behind the coach to try and calm her. The old lady, fully recovered, left Helen to find out if her baggage was safe.

  Only Helen, of the inside passengers, was prepared to help the casualties and it soon became apparent that most of the blood belonged to the poor dead cow. The coachman, who had a broken arm, was cursing the young driver, who had been shot straight over the heads of the horses and had landed in the middle of a thorn bush. His language rivalled that of the coachman, which seemed to indicate he was not all that grievously injured.

  Most of the other outside passengers had been thrown from their seats and although they had sustained cuts and bruises, none seemed badly hurt. They had become suddenly sober and shame-faced. It was the guard who gave most cause for concern. He was lying some way off and had been knocked unconscious.

  ‘I’ll see to them,’ Helen told Duncan. ‘You look to the horses.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course I am sure.’

  He left her to go and look at the animals and she went behind a tree to pull off her petticoat and tear it into strips. She had hardly returned to the scene when the second coach came round the bend and drew to a stop.

  ‘You cow-handed numbskull!’ the second coachman yelled at the first. ‘You near had us off the road. Call yourself a coachie, why, you’re nothing but a buffle-headed, cork-brained souse-crown!’

  ‘And if you had anything in the attic at all,’ the first responded, ‘you’d have known there was a green amateur on the ribbons and pulled up instead of trying to race us.’

  ‘More fool you, Martin Gathercole, for allowing a greenhorn to take over.’

  There were more acrimonious exchanges, in which the uninjured passengers joined, apportioning blame as they saw fit, while Helen quietly got on with her self-appointed task. Let them argue it out. There was clearly blame on both sides but as long as they did not come to blows and cause more injuries, she was indifferent to the outcome. It was more important that the injured were cared for.

  There was little she could do for the guard except make him comfortable with her mantle as a pillow and bathe his face in cold water from the ditch into which they would certainly have tumbled if the pile of road-mending stones had not stopped them. He had a large bump on the back of his head and would need a doctor as soon as one could be fetched. Leaving him, she went to the young driver, who had scrambled out of the bush and was wandering around in a daze, holding his hand to his face. There was blood running through his fingers onto his cravat and down his expensive satin waistcoat.

  ‘Sit down,’ she commanded. ‘Let me look at you.’

  He sat on the bank and allowed her to pull his hand away from his face. ‘It’s a nasty cut,’ she said, dabbing at it with a strip from her petticoat. ‘And there’s a bruise on your cheek which will certainly spoil your looks for a few days. Whatever did you think you were about? You could have killed us all.’

  ‘It was only a prank,’ he said. ‘Everyone fancies being a coachie, don’t they? It is often done. But the cattle wouldn’t answer the whip, mean creatures, wanted to go their own way.’

  ‘Perhaps their way was best.’ She smiled suddenly. ‘After all, they have probably been cantering up and down this road several times a week for two or three years while you…’

  ‘I’m considered a good hand with the ribbons.’

  ‘Driving a phaeton or a curricle with one or two horses at most, I have no doubt, but a four-in-hand is a different matter altogether. I am surprised you allowed yourself to be persuaded.’

  ‘It was a wager, ma’am, couldn’t ignore a wager, now could I?’

  ‘Wager! It seems to me that gambling is all young men think of.’ Reminded of her father, she added, ‘And men old enough to know better too. Could you not have thought of the consequences? We could all have been killed. As it is, the guard has a cracked head and the coachman a broken arm, not to mention the upset to the passengers.’

  ‘I’m sorry, ma’am. I was a little bosky.’

  ‘That is not an excuse either. Now, hold that over the cut, while I look after the coachman.’

  Martin Gathercole was still being harangued by his opposite number, holding his injured arm in the good one and obviously in great pain. ‘Either help or go,’ he yelled back at him. ‘I ain’t got time to listen to you gabbling on like a fishwife.’ And with that he turned and walked round to the front of the coach where the Captain was soothing the horses.

  The left leader had taken the brunt of the impact into the stones and was still shuddering. Duncan was speaking gently as if to a child who had fallen and grazed a knee. ‘There, my lovely, you’ve had a fright, haven’t you? But all is well. Rest easy. Be calm. There, there.’ The horse stood still, blowing a little, but its eyes still reflected its unease. A sudden movement, a loud noise, would set it off again.

  Duncan moved to the off-side leader and spoke in the same calm voice. As soon as both leaders were quiet, the heavier wheelers stood still, patiently waiting for whatever orders were given. ‘I reckon they’ll settle once we are on our way again,’ Duncan said. ‘It’s the coach I’m not too sure about. One of the wheels looks buckled and the nearside door has come off its hinges. It’s impossible to tell if it is safe to drive until we get it out of the stones.’

  ‘Then we’d best do that.’ Martin turned and yelled at the other coachman. ‘Are you going to sit there all day? Or are you going to use those great fat shoulders of yours to do some good?’ Feeling a hand on his good arm, he turned to find Helen at his elbow.

  ‘Leave the others to see to it, Mr Gathercole,’ she said. ‘You need that arm looking after.’

  ‘Go on,’ Duncan said to him. ‘I’ll see to this.’

  Reluctantly he followed Helen to sit on the bank a little way from the amateur driver who sat nursing his head. ‘I never met such a crank-brained jack-at-warts,’ he said, nodding in the young man’s direction. ‘And a liar to boot. He told me he could drive, said he’d done it any number of times before on the Brighton run.’

  ‘More fool you for believing him,’ Helen said crisply. ‘You should have had more thought for your passengers. If the Company found out you would lose your job, isn’t that so?’

  ‘You’d tell?’

  ‘Not me, but the other driver might. He was angry enough.’ She glanced over to where all the uninjured passengers and the coachman and guard from the second coach were putting their shoulders to the wheels of the stranded vehicle while Duncan, standing at the front of the horses, urged them to pull.

  ‘Not he.’ He gave a laugh but it changed to a grunt of pain as Helen bound his arm to his chest. ‘All wind, that’s what he is. Don
e for the benefit of his passengers. He’s a good mate.’

  And it did seem to be true, for the man was huge and strong and was not sparing himself in his efforts to free the coach. Slowly, inch by inch, it was dragged from the stones and stood once more on the hard surface of the road. The passengers gathered round it, wondering if they dare trust themselves to it again. The young couple stood with their arms about each other, the old lady was threatening to sue the Company, though what injury she had sustained they could not see. The parson was looking at the bent wheel and muttering.

  ‘I reckon it will go, driven slowly,’ Martin said. ‘We’ll have to stop at the next inn and have it repaired.’

  ‘That’s all very well,’ the parson said. ‘But who’s going to drive it, a one-armed coachman or a befuddled guard who doesn’t seem to know which way is up?’

  ‘I’ll drive,’ Duncan said.

  ‘Give me strength, more amateurs!’ exclaimed the old lady. ‘I’m not getting back in that thing, not for the world.’

  ‘Then you’d best ride on with us, ma’am, we’ve got two spare seats,’ the second coachman said. ‘We’ll take one of the others too.’

  ‘Then it had better be that young scapegrace, Bertie Billingsworth,’ Martin said. ‘For I have seen and heard enough of him for one day.’

  The old lady’s luggage was transferred and the two passengers climbed aboard; the coachman manoeuvred the vehicle round the first one and they were gone, disappearing round the bend in the road.

  ‘Now, let’s help the guard inside,’ Duncan said. ‘And you, young shaver.’ He pointed to a young lad who had been knocked out when he was thrown from the roof and was still looking very dazed. ‘You too, Mr Gathercole, if the Reverend does not mind sitting outside for a few miles.’ No one seemed in the least surprised that he was directing operations and none objected.

  ‘Not at all.’ The parson clambered up on the roof beside some of the other outside passengers who had resumed their places, sobered by what had happened.

  ‘Not on your life!’ the coachman said. ‘I’ve never ridden inside my own coach afore and I’m not starting now. I’d die of shame.’

  ‘Yes, you are. You are in no fit state to ride on the box. And we are wasting time.’ Duncan turned to the young husband. ‘If you would not mind giving up your place, Mr…?’

  ‘Smith. Tom Smith,’ the young man said. ‘Of course…’

  ‘No!’ shrieked his wife. ‘No! You must not leave me! You really must not.’ She burst into noisy sobs.

  ‘Dearest, it is only for a few miles.’ He tried to soothe her, but she would not be pacified.

  ‘I wish I had never come with you. If I had known it was going to be like this, nothing would have induced me to undertake the journey. I want my mama.’

  ‘And how are we to produce your mama, ma’am?’ Duncan queried, all but losing patience with her. ‘You have your husband, is that not enough? He will be sitting directly above your head.’

  ‘He’s not my…’ She stopped suddenly and looked round at the company all agog. ‘Oh.’

  ‘Let him stay with her,’ Helen put in quickly before the young lady could make any more revelations. ‘I’ll ride on top.’

  Duncan turned to her. ‘Don’t be foolish. Ladies do not ride outside.’

  ‘This one does. Come now, you were the one complaining we were wasting time. I shall be quite comfortable.’

  ‘Then you sit on the box beside me. At least I can make sure you do not fall off.’

  And so it was arranged, not without much grumbling from the coachman, but as he was in a great deal of pain, he allowed himself to be helped into the coach beside the young couple. The door was tied with a piece of rope, Duncan retrieved Helen’s mantle and helped her to climb aboard, guiding her left foot onto the wheel-hub, her right onto the roller-bolt, then left onto a step and the right on the foot-board. She hitched along the seat and he picked up the reins and sprang lightly up beside her.

  ‘Everyone ready?’ he called, wrapping the mantle round Helen’s shoulders and the coachman’s rug about her knees.

  ‘Aye,’ came a chorus from behind him.

  ‘Then here we go.’ To Helen, he said. ‘Hold onto me, if you feel unsafe.’

  Slowly they drew away from the scene, over two hours behind schedule.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘I AM surprised he did not put up a greater fight,’ Helen said, as they proceeded at a walk.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Mr Gathercole. After all, we had all but been overturned by an amateur and he was scathing in his remarks about them, and yet he allowed you to take over…’

  Duncan chuckled. ‘There are amateurs and amateurs, Miss Sadler. I am well known to the coaching world as a safe pair of hands.’

  ‘You mean you have done what that young ninny did?’

  ‘Run a coach and four off the road? No, Miss Sadler, I have never done that, but I have shared the box with with some of the best coachmen on the road and they have asked me if I were wearing my driving gloves.’

  ‘A hint that they are open to a bribe, I suppose.’

  He laughed. ‘Yes, but I do believe no one inside the coach has ever been the wiser.’

  ‘Why do you do it?’ She watched his brown hands on the reins; he seemed only to need the slightest pressure of one finger, a turn of the wrist or a little flick of the whip and the horses moved unerringly down the road, somehow managing to avoid the worst of the potholes, though they could not help but go through one or two and then Helen had to hang on tight.

  ‘Why? Oh, for the challenge, the exhilaration of guiding a team of excitable horses down a narrow country lane in a poor light, managing a top-heavy vehicle in a gale, ploughing through snowdrifts, fording swollen streams, turning the whole equipage on a sixpence, bringing everyone safely to the next stage. There is more to driving a four-in-hand than sitting on the box with the ribbons in your hand, Miss Sadler.’

  ‘I am sure there is, so please enlighten me.’

  He looked sideways at her, wondering if she were teasing, but she looked perfectly serious. ‘First of all, you must know what each horse is doing the whole time. You must be aware if a leader is pulling to one side or if he is too eager, and be able to check him without upsetting the others. And if a wheeler is not pulling his weight, to give a touch of the whip which only he responds to.

  ‘You must decide whether to hold the horses back going downhill or let them have their head, whether to stop and have the shoes put on the back wheels or whether the wheelers can hold the coach without them. You must judge to a whisker how much rein to give on a bend in order to get the wheelers to follow the leaders in a smooth arc without turning too soon. Wheelers sometimes have a habit of taking the commands of the rein to the leader in front and turn too soon if they are not held in check. You have to point your leaders and shoot your wheelers.’

  She smiled. ‘Whatever does that mean?’

  ‘Well, if the bend is a right-hand one, the leaders have to be pointed into the turn, neither too soon nor too late, the nearside wheeler has to be held back slightly and the off-side wheeler urged on, so as to keep the pole between the leaders. For a left-hand bend it is the opposite. Watch me on this next bend, it needs only the slightest touch. Put your hands over mine, if you wish.’

  She watched his hands, tanned, sure, capable hands, but resisted the temptation to do as he suggested, afraid of the intimacy.

  ‘Go on. Feel how it is done. I shall not mind.’

  She reached out and put a gloved hand over each of his, but she sensed nothing of his driving, only a quivering sensation passing along her arms and right down into the pit of her stomach. Hastily she returned her hands to her lap.

  ‘You must be able to tell the speed you are doing, even in the dark,’ he went on, apparently unaware of her reaction. ‘Seven or eight miles an hour is safe, though there are times when this is exceeded, going downhill, for instance, or on a good stretch of road when it is possible t
o make up for time lost elsewhere.’

  ‘How did you learn to do it?’

  ‘From one of the best coachmen on the road.’ He laughed suddenly. ‘He used to say, “Horses are like women. Never let them know they are being driven; don’t pull and haul and stick your elbows out. Don’t get flurried, let every horse be at work and handle their mouths gently, then you might even drive four young ladies without ever rustling their feathers or their tempers.”’

  She smiled at the image he was creating; was he as good at handling young ladies as he was horses? ‘I can understand that, but surely it is wrong for inexperienced pranksters to attempt it. And the coachmen should never allow it.’

  ‘No more they should, but some are indulgent and see it as a way of adding to their income.’

  ‘To put lives at risk for money seems to me to be nothing short of criminal.’

  ‘You intend to report the matter?’

  ‘No, but I fancy the old lady will. She was threatening to sue. Mr Gathercole will lose his job if she does, won’t he?’

  ‘Perhaps, but perhaps the Company will do no more than issue a reprimand and fine him.’

  ‘Which he will pay from whatever the young scapegrace gave him and his gratuities. It seems to me they do very well from those, considering they have wages as well.’

  ‘Do you begrudge paying a little extra for your comfort, Miss Sadler?’

  ‘No, but I shall not tip this one.’

  He laughed. ‘No, I did not think you would. I heard you ringing a peal over him, and that poor sapskull who drove us into the stones. Just like a schoolma’am. Indeed, that is what I think you must be.’

  ‘Then you would be wrong.’

  ‘Oh?’ He turned briefly to look down at her. ‘What are you then?’

  ‘Nothing. Nobody. I wish you would not give it another thought.’