The Last Gamble

by Mary Nichols

  ‘Do you think he will come after you?’

  ‘Yes, but he will be very angry. I do not know which is worse, his anger or Tom’s. And if Tom decides he has had enough of me, I will be quite ruined. And I shall have to stay here forever and ever.’ And again her eyes filled with tears.

  Helen bit off the comment that Dorothy should have thought of that before setting out, and instead offered to help her off with her dress so that she could wash.

  ‘I wish I could remain as calm as you do,’ the girl said, as she stepped out of her dress and stood in her petticoat and chemise. ‘Nothing seems to upset you. Look how you tended the wounded. I could not have done that, the blood made me feel sick.’

  ‘Most of it belonged to the cow. And truly, I did nothing exceptional. Shall I find you another gown?’ She opened Dorothy’s portmanteau and pulled out a flimsy lace nightgown, a pair of satin shoes, two petticoats and a round gown of pink gauze with a satin slip in deep rose. It had a very full skirt, caught up with little garlands of silk roses, but it had been rolled up and stuffed into her bag without thought and was so creased as to be unwearable, even if it had been suitable for travelling. ‘Is this all you’ve got?’

  ‘Yes. I told you I had never packed before.’

  ‘Then I will brush this one.’ She picked up the worn gown from the floor. ‘Have a wash, you will feel better.’

  Given something specific to do, Dorothy complied. ‘Have you been a lady’s maid?’ she asked, as she towelled herself.

  ‘Me?’ Helen asked, startled. ‘Good heavens, no. What gave you that idea?’

  ‘You seem to know exactly what to do.’

  ‘Do I?’ she repeated. ‘It is only common sense, you know. Think what you would do if you were at home and then do it. Now you would sit and brush your hair, would you not?’

  ‘Jenny would.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Dorothy was homesick, it did not need a soothsayer to tell that, and thinking of home and what her life used to be like made Helen homesick too. She envied Dorothy having parents who cared for her, who would be worried by her disappearance, who would, she was sure, forgive her and welcome her back into the family fold. For Helen there was no going back, only an uncertain future. She smiled, unwilling to let Dorothy see her misery. ‘But if you want me to do it, then you must wait until I have washed and dressed myself.’

  ‘I’m sorry I am so helpless.’

  ‘It is not your fault. But if you are to survive, you must learn to be a little more self-reliant. Is Tom able to provide you with a maid?’

  ‘No, not yet. Later, when we are settled.’

  Helen wondered what Tom had told her about his prospects, if anything at all. ‘Why don’t you both wait for your papa to catch up with you? I am sure he will understand and forgive you. If you want to marry Tom after that, I doubt he will put obstacles in your path, knowing how determined on it you are.’

  ‘Do you think so? Do you really think so?’ She sounded so eager to accept the idea that Helen prayed she was right.

  ‘Yes.’ She helped Dorothy back into her dress and did the buttons up at the back, glad that she herself had had the foresight to make sure her dresses were easy to get into and out of. ‘Now you rest on the bed. I am going downstairs.’

  ‘You will not leave me?’

  ‘No, but do you mind if I tell Captain Blair what you have told me? I am sure he can be relied upon to be discreet and he may have some advice to offer.’

  ‘No, but do make him promise not to repeat it.’

  Why she had suggested the Captain, Helen did not know, except that she had come to rely on him. She wanted confirmation that she had been right to suggest the young couple should wait for Mr Carstairs and beg his forgiveness.

  She found him in the parlour alone. He was sitting on the settle under the window and staring out onto the cobbled yard, deep in thought. ‘Captain?’

  He started up at the sound of her voice, as if he had been in another place, another time, listening to voices she could not hear, seeing people she would never know. ‘Oh, Miss Sadler, I beg your pardon, I was in a brown study.’

  ‘Fretting at the delay, Captain?’

  ‘Yes, among other things. Did you wish to speak to me?’

  ‘Yes. I have just come from Miss…’ She stopped. ‘The young lady who has been travelling with us.’

  He smiled. ‘She has pitched herself into a bumblebath, hasn’t she?’

  ‘Yes. She and the young man, Tom Thurborn she tells me his name is, are eloping.’

  ‘That much was obvious from the first.’

  ‘Oh, do you think so? I did not notice anything amiss until the accident when she admitted he was not her husband. She is in a very excited state and I am quite concerned for her. She is beginning to regret her foolhardiness. I came to ask your advice.’

  ‘My advice, Miss Sadler? What can it possibly have to do with me? Or you, either. They got themselves into this mess and must get themselves out of it.’

  ‘But she is very confused and quite helpless without her maid. I have advised her to wait until her father comes and to beg his forgiveness.’

  ‘Is that what you would do, Miss Sadler? In her shoes, I mean.’

  ‘I do not know. If she really does love the young man…’

  ‘If. That is the question. It seems to me, she does not know her own mind.’

  ‘I am sure she must do. No young lady would contemplate such an enormous step and risk everything she values, if she were not truly in love…’

  ‘Love what is love, but “an abject intercourse between tyrants and slaves"?’

  ‘Oliver Goldsmith,’ she said, green eyes twinkling. ‘I am familiar with the quotation, but is a bitter comment on life. Surely you are not so cynical?’

  ‘It is what I have come to expect.’

  ‘Then you have been very unfortunate.’

  ‘And you have not? Love has treated you kindly?’

  ‘It has not been unkind. But we are not speaking of me, but of Tom and Dorothy. It must be truly dreadful when parents refuse to consent to a match when two people are in love. No wonder they eloped.’

  ‘Would you elope, Miss Sadler?’ His dark eyes seemed to be burning into hers, trying to make her reveal her innermost secrets, and she knew she would need all her strength to resist. But it had become a kind of deadly serious game between them; him probing, her parrying, asking, refuting, finding out things about each other and scoring points for how difficult or how easy it had been, losing them when the fantasies were exploded.

  What made it worse was that there were no rules about telling the truth. Who would be the winner, the one who discovered the most or the one who revealed nothing, the liar or the truth teller?

  ‘Does it take so long to decide?’ His voice came to her through her reverie.

  ‘To decide?’

  ‘Whether you, being in love, would ever consider eloping?’

  ‘That is irrelevant.’

  He laughed. ‘Oh? But do you know, that’s what I thought you were doing when I first saw you at the Blue Boar, when you said you wanted the Glasgow coach. I wondered where your lover was.’

  ‘You forget, sir, that there would be no question of my having to elope. I am of no consequence at all, an ordinary young woman, who has to earn her living and who is certainly old enough to make up her own mind on the subject of marriage.’

  ‘How old are you? Nineteen, twenty?’

  ‘Sir, you are very wanting in conduct to ask me that. And we are talking about Tom and Dorothy, not me.’

  ‘I crave pardon,’ he said, but there was a twinkle in his eye. ‘I can ask a working girl her age, but not a princess. I should have remembered.’

  ‘I am not a princess and it is unkind of you to mock me.’

  ‘Oh but you are. No one but a princess could be so top-lofty.’

  ‘I am not accustomed to…’ She stopped suddenly. That was exactly what he meant; she was giving herself away all the time. Sh
e wished she were a princess then she might pass the whole thing of as a prank—the reason for her journey, her poverty, her obligation to him. She tried again. ‘I am not used to dealing with men like you, helpful one minute, hateful the next. It is almost as if you were two men, not one.’

  She had done it again; she had turned the conversation right round so that they were talking about him and not her. Two men indeed! But was she right? ‘You have brought it on yourself by being so secretive.’

  ‘Why should I satisfy your curiosity? That is all it is, idle curiosity. If you had been a woman, I would have set you down as a gabble-grinder with nothing in your head but gossip.’

  ‘But I am not a woman,’ he said, refusing to be offended, though that was what she had intended. ‘I am a mere man, with a man’s instincts to look after those who are weak and vulnerable.’

  ‘I am neither weak nor vulnerable.’

  ‘I stand corrected.’ He laughed aloud, throwing back his dark head so that the long line of his throat showed against the pale lemon of his cravat. He had a mole beneath his chin, she noticed, and felt a sudden urge to reach out and touch it. Then, seriously, ‘But you think Miss Carstairs is?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What do you want me to do about it?’

  ‘Talk to Mr Thurborn, find out his intentions…’

  ‘I fancy the young lady’s papa has already done that and found the answers unsatisfactory.’

  ‘Yes, but you could point out how this escapade is affecting Dorothy, see if a solution can be found.’

  ‘Where is the young man?’

  ‘I saw him in the yard five minutes ago.’

  ‘Very well.’ He sighed heavily and stood up. ‘Wait here for me. We will talk some more.’

  Why had he said that? he asked himself as he strolled out to the yard in search of Tom Thurborn. What did it matter to him whether she was a princess or a servant and why was he so determined to find out? Was it simply curiosity? He had told her to wait for him, though there was nowhere she could go. Would he wait for her if she asked him to? He knew the answer without thinking. He would wait forever, he could never leave her. Princess or pauper, it did not matter.

  He shook himself as he crossed the yard to where the young man stood kicking at stones with dusty hessians, watching the ostlers. He was being ridiculous. She was nothing to him, simply a young woman on a coach, amusing herself baiting him. And he was fool enough to fall for it.

  Tom looked up at his approach. ‘Hallo, Captain. This is a deuced inconvenient business, ain’t it?’

  ‘Yes. I fancy more for you than for me. I am told you are expecting to be pursued.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Miss Carstairs confided in Miss Sadler, who told me.’

  ‘It is none of your affair, sir.’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more,’ he said, smiling. ‘Unfortunately, Miss Sadler has made it her affair and that means I cannot avoid becoming involved.’

  ‘I cannot think why Dorrie should even mention it.’

  ‘Are you blind? Have you not been aware of Miss Carstairs’ distress?’

  ‘Of course, I have. It is the accident, the delay, you know what women are.’

  ‘No, I don’t think I do. Do you?’

  ‘Oh, you know what I mean. Dorrie will be as right as ninepence when we are on our way again.’

  ‘You are determined to go through with it, then?’

  ‘Good God, Captain, you surely do not think I would abandon her?’

  ‘She apparently thinks you would.’

  ‘Why? I have never given her the slightest reason to doubt me. I would not. She is everything to me.’

  ‘And yet you took her from her parents and put her through an ordeal which would have strained the stoutest heart…’

  ‘Miss Sadler manages very well.’

  Duncan smiled. ‘Yes, not all young ladies are as practical and self-reliant as Miss Sadler. You cannot measure Miss Carstairs against that young woman. The cases are very different.’

  ‘No, but what else could I do? Her father would have none of me, though I am not the penniless cur he believes me to be. I come from good stock, farmers who left England half a century ago and made good in Canada. Out there, we are in the top one hundred, not quite what it is in England, but well enough. In any case, I have an inheritance in this country, a small estate in Berkshire, I have no intention of uprooting my darling, if she does not wish it.’

  ‘At this moment I believe she wishes she was safe back home.’

  ‘No, I do not believe that.’

  ‘Could she go home if she wanted to? Would there be any reason why she should not go back unmarried?’

  ‘What?’ He looked puzzled. ‘Oh, you mean… No, Captain, I would not harm a hair of her head and I’d kill anyone who tried. She is still the innocent.’

  ‘Then take her back. Speak to her father again, perhaps he will relent.’

  ‘I doubt that.’

  ‘Then enrol the help of the mother. Women understand these affairs of the heart better than men. Let Mrs Carstairs be your advocate.’

  ‘If that is what Dorrie wants, but I must hear it from her own lips.’

  ‘I’ll send Miss Carstairs out to you.’

  Duncan returned to the inn, leaving Tom to dwell on what he had said, though whether he would take it to heart, he was unsure. Miss Sadler was sitting where he had left her, a slight, downcast figure in unrelieved black, but not dull, by no means dull. She was like a beacon in the wilderness, lighting a path to…

  He stopped. Where? Where was she going and why? She was frowning a little as if trying to solve a puzzle, and her lips were pursed. Very kissable lips. For one brief moment he allowed himself to imagine what it would be like to kiss her. Behind him he heard the door open and Miss Carstairs came into the room.

  Helen looked up and saw them both, the man, dark and brooding with a half-smile on his lips, the girl, all flounces and eagerness.

  ‘I could not stay on that bed a moment longer,’ Dorothy said, sitting down beside Helen. ‘I should not have poured the whole story out to you like that, complaining about everything. It is not your fault. It was only the upset of nearly being overturned in the coach and seeing all that blood which made me behave foolishly and caused my doubts about what we were doing. I have no doubts at all. I want to marry Tom as soon as I can. If you can put up with the inconvenience for the one you love, then so can I.’

  Duncan drew in his breath audibly making them both turn to look at him. So there was someone. Miss Sadler had confided in the chit that she was going to meet a lover. He should have known. Oh, what a fool he had been!

  ‘Excuse me, ladies,’ he said. ‘I have arrangements to make for my onward journey.’ And with that he turned on his heel and strode from the room, intending to hire a riding horse, or walk on to the next village and see if there was another coach going on, anywhere, away from the girl in black with the huge luminous eyes who had made him want to protect her, who frustrated him beyond endurance.

  ‘I must find Tom,’ Dorothy said into the heavily laden atmosphere. Helen and the Captain had quarrelled, judging by the thunderous looks he had given them when he stormed out. She hoped it had not been over her and Tom. ‘Have you seen him?’

  ‘The Captain was talking to him outside.’

  ‘Will you help me look for him? Oh, I do hope he has not disappeared.’

  ‘Of course he hasn’t disappeared,’ Helen said, more sharply than she intended. The Captain had been upset about something or why had he left so abruptly, as if he were washing his hands of the whole affair? She knew he had not wanted to be dragged into it, but he had gone off to speak to Mr Thurborn quite happily. What could they have said to each other to have brought about such a change?

  And what was that Dorothy had said? ‘If you can put up with the inconvenience for the one you love’? Where had she got that idea? But that would not have caused the Captain to take himself off. After all, he
had thought she was eloping and that only strengthened his surmise. Why did she wish Dorothy had never said it? Why did it matter so much?

  She stood up and followed Dorothy out to the yard where they searched high and low. There was no sign of either man. ‘I saw the young one walking down the lane that way,’ one of the ostlers said, when Dorothy spoke to him.

  ‘Was he alone?’ Helen asked.

  ‘Yes. Gone for a stroll until the coach is ready, I’ll be bound.’

  But Dorothy did not believe that. She began to wail that Tom had left her and Helen was obliged to put aside her own concerns to comfort her. ‘Come back inside, he may be there.’ She put her arm about the girl’s shoulders and drew her indoors, wondering what she would do if the young man did not turn up. She could not leave her and neither could she afford the expense of extra nights’ lodgings waiting for Mr Carstairs to turn up. He might not come or he might miss them.

  And now the Captain had gone too, bored with their game and exasperated by the eloping couple and who could blame him? But without him to guide her, she knew she would be lost, whatever she had told him to the contrary. Two days she had known him, only two days, and yet she already knew that life without him would be bleak indeed.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  TOM was nowhere to be found inside the inn either and Dorothy became inconsolable, crying loudly enough to have everyone in the building running to see what was wrong. ‘Whatever shall I do? Whatever shall I do?’

  ‘Stop weeping all over Miss Sadler, for a start,’ Duncan said, pushing his way past the innkeeper, the innkeeper’s wife, the old lady and assorted passengers, to her side.

  Helen, her arms round Dorothy, looked up to see his tall figure standing over them and breathed a huge sigh of relief and pleasure. He stood looking down at them with a quirky smile; so, she was pleased to see him back, her expressive eyes gave her away. ‘Now, tell me, what the matter is this time,’ he demanded, doing his best to sound severe.

  Dorothy was incoherent and it was left to Helen to explain what had happened. ‘I do not know what you said to him,’ she said. ‘But you seem to have driven him away instead of making him face up to his responsibilities.’