CHAPTER XXXI
THE INN AT CHIPPENHAM
The road which passed before the gates at Bastwick was not a highway, and Mr. Thomasson stood a full minute, staring after the carriage, and wondering what chance brought a traveller that way at that hour. Presently it occurred to him that one of Mr. Pomeroy’s neighbours might have dined abroad, have sat late over the wine, and be now returning; and that so the incident might admit of the most innocent explanation. Yet it left him uneasy. Until the last hum of wheels died in the distance he stood listening and thinking. Then he turned from the gate, and with a shiver betook himself towards the house. He had done his part.
Or had he? The road was not ten paces behind him, when a cry rent the darkness, and he paused to listen. He caught the sound of hasty footsteps crossing the open ground on his right, and apparently approaching; and he raised his lanthorn in alarm. The next moment a dark form vaulted the railings that fenced the avenue on that side, sprang on the affrighted tutor, and, seizing him violently by the collar, shook him to and fro as a terrier shakes a rat.
It was Mr. Pomeroy, beside himself with rage. ‘What have you done with her?’ he cried. ‘You treacherous hound! Answer, or by heaven I shall choke you!’
‘Done — done with whom?’ the tutor gasped, striving to free himself. ‘Mr. Pomeroy, I am not — what does this — mean?’
‘With her? With the girl?’
‘She is — I have put her in the carriage! I swear I have! Oh!’ he shrieked, as Mr. Pomeroy, in a fresh access of passion, gripped his throat and squeezed it. ‘I have put her in the carriage, I tell you! I have done everything you told me!’
‘In the carriage? What carriage? In what carriage?’
‘The one that was there.’
‘At the gate?’
‘Yes, yes.’
‘You fool! You imbecile!’ Mr. Pomeroy roared, as he shook him with all his strength. ‘The carriage is at the other gate.’
Mr. Thomasson gasped, partly with surprise, partly under the influence of Pomeroy’s violence. ‘At the other gate?’ he faltered. ‘But — there was a carriage here. I saw it. I put her in it. Not a minute ago!’
‘Then, by heaven, it was your carriage, and you have betrayed me,’ Pomeroy retorted; and shook his trembling victim until his teeth chattered and his eyes protruded. ‘I thought I heard wheels and I came to see. If you don’t tell me the truth this instant,’ he continued furiously, ‘I’ll have the life out of you.’
‘It is the truth,’ Mr. Thomasson stammered, blubbering with fright. ‘It was a carriage that came up — and stopped. I thought it was yours, and I put her in. And it went on.’
‘A lie, man — a lie!’
‘I swear it is true! I swear it is! If it were not should I be going back to the house? Should I be going to face you?’ Mr. Thomasson protested.
The argument impressed Pomeroy; his grasp relaxed. ‘The devil is in it, then!’ he muttered. ‘For no one else could have set a carriage at that gate at that minute! Anyway, I’ll know. Come on!’ he continued recklessly snatching up the lanthorn, which had fallen on its side and was not extinguished. ‘We’ll after her! By the Lord, we’ll after her. They don’t trick me so easily!’
The tutor ventured a terrified remonstrance, but Mr. Pomeroy, deaf to his entreaties and arguments, bundled him over the fence, and, gripping his arm, hurried him as fast as his feet would carry him across the sward to the other gate. A carriage, its lamps burning brightly, stood in the road. Mr. Pomeroy exchanged a few curt words with the driver, thrust in the tutor, and followed himself. On the instant the vehicle dashed away, the coachman cracking his whip and shouting oaths at his horses.
The hedges flew by, pale glimmering walls in the lamplight; the mud flew up and splashed Mr. Pomeroy’s face; still he hung out of the window, his hand on the fastening of the door, and a brace of pistols on the ledge before him; while the tutor, shuddering at these preparations, hoping against hope that they would overtake no one, cowered in the farther corner. With every turn of the road or swerve of the horses Pomeroy expected to see the fugitives’ lights. Unaware or oblivious that the carriage he was pursuing had the start of him by so much that at top speed he could scarcely look to overtake it under the hour, his rage increased with every disappointment. Although the pace at which they travelled over a rough road was such as to fill the tutor with instant terror and urgent thoughts of death — although first one lamp was extinguished and then another, and the carriage swung so violently as from moment to moment to threaten an overturn, Mr. Pomeroy never ceased to hang out of the window, to yell at the horses and upbraid the driver.
And with all, the labour seemed to be wasted. With wrath and a volley of curses he saw the lights of Chippenham appear in front, and still no sign of the pursued. Five minutes later the carriage awoke the echoes in the main street of the sleeping town, and Mr. Thomasson drew a deep breath of relief as it came to a stand.
Not so Mr. Pomeroy. He dashed the door open and sprang out, prepared to overwhelm the driver with reproaches. The man anticipated him. ‘They are here,’ he said with a sulky gesture.
‘Here? Where?’
A man in a watchman’s coat, and carrying a staff and lanthorn — of whom the driver had already asked a question — came heavily round, from the off-side of the carriage. ‘There is a chaise and pair just come in from the Melksham Road,’ he said, ‘and gone to the Angel, if that is what you want, your honour.’
‘A lady with them?’
‘I saw none, but there might be.’
‘How long ago?’
‘Ten minutes.’
‘We’re right!’ Mr. Pomeroy cried with a jubilant oath, and turning back to the door of the carriage, slipped the pistols into his skirt pockets. ‘Come,’ he said to Thomasson. ‘And do you,’ he continued, addressing his driver, who was no other than the respectable Tamplin, ‘follow at a walking pace. Have they ordered on?’ he asked, slipping a crown into the night-watchman’s hand.
‘I think not, your honour,’ the man answered. ‘I believe they are staying.’
With a word of satisfaction Mr. Pomeroy hurried his unwilling companion towards the inn. The streets were dark; only an oil lamp or two burned at distant points. But the darkness of the town was noon-day light in comparison of the gloom which reigned in Mr. Thomasson’s mind. In the grasp of this headstrong man, whose temper rendered him blind to obstacles and heedless of danger, the tutor felt himself swept along, as incapable of resistance as the leaf that is borne upon the stream. It was not until they turned into the open space before the Angel, and perceived a light in the doorway of the inn that despair gave him courage to remonstrate.
Then the risk and folly of the course they were pursuing struck him so forcibly that he grew frantic. He clutched Mr. Pomeroy’s sleeve, and dragging him aside out of earshot of Tamplin, who was following them, ‘This is madness!’ he urged vehemently. ‘Sheer madness! Have you considered, Mr. Pomeroy? If she is here, what claim have we to interfere with her? What authority over her? What title to force her away? If we had overtaken her on the road, in the country, it might have been one thing. But here—’
‘Here?’ Mr. Pomeroy retorted, his face dark, his under-jaw thrust out hard as a rock. ‘And why not here?’
‘Because — why, because she will appeal to the people.’
‘What people?’
‘The people who have brought her hither.’
‘And what is their right to her?’ Mr. Pomeroy retorted, with a brutal oath.
‘The people at the inn, then.’
‘Well, and what is their right? But — I see your point, parson! Damme, you are a cunning one. I had not thought of that. She’ll appeal to them, will she? Then she shall be my sister, run off from her home! Ha! Ha! Or no, my lad,’ he continued, chuckling savagely, and slapping the tutor on the back; ‘they know me here, and that I have no sister. She shall be your daughter!’ And while Mr. Thomasson stared aghast, Pomeroy laughed recklessly. ‘She s
hall be your daughter, man! My guest, and run off with an Irish ensign! Oh, by Gad, we’ll nick her! Come on!’
Mr. Thomasson shuddered. It seemed to him the wildest scheme — a folly beyond speech. Resisting the hand with which Pomeroy would have impelled him towards the lighted doorway, ‘I will have nothing to do with it!’ he cried, with all the firmness he could muster. ‘Nothing! Nothing!’
‘A minute ago you might have gone to the devil!’ Mr. Pomeroy answered grimly, ‘and welcome! Now, I want you. And, by heaven, if you don’t stand by me I’ll break your back! Who is there here who is likely to know you? Or what have you to fear?’
‘She’ll expose us!’ Mr. Thomasson whimpered. ‘She’ll tell them!’
‘Who’ll believe her?’ the other answered with supreme contempt. ‘Which is the more credible story — hers about a lost heir, or ours? Come on, I say!’
Mr. Thomasson had been far from anticipating a risk of this kind when he entered on his career of scheming. But he stood in mortal terror of his companion, whose reckless passions were fully aroused; and after a brief resistance he succumbed. Still protesting, he allowed himself to be urged past the open doors of the inn-yard — in the black depths of which the gleam of a lanthorn, and the form of a man moving to and fro, indicated that the strangers’ horses were not yet bedded — and up the hospitable steps of the Angel Inn.
A solitary candle burning in a room on the right of the hall, guided their feet that way. Its light disclosed a red-curtained snuggery, well furnished with kegs and jolly-bodied jars, and rows of bottles; and in the middle of this cheerful profusion the landlord himself, stooping over a bottle of port, which he was lovingly decanting. His array, a horseman’s coat worn over night-gear, with bare feet thrust into slippers, proved him newly risen from bed; but the hum of voices and clatter of plates which came from the neighbouring kitchen were signs that, late as it was, the good inn was not caught napping.
The host heard their steps behind him, but crying ‘Coming, gentlemen, coming!’ finished his task before he turned. Then ‘Lord save us!’ he ejaculated, staring at them — the empty bottle in one hand, the decanter in the other. ‘Why, the road’s alive to-night! I beg your honour’s pardon, I am sure, and yours, sir! I thought ’twas one of the gentlemen that arrived, awhile ago — come down to see why supper lagged. Squire Pomeroy, to be sure! What can I do for you, gentlemen? The fire is scarce out in the Hertford, and shall be rekindled at once?’
Mr. Pomeroy silenced him by a gesture. ‘No,’ he said; ‘we are not staying. But you have some guests here, who arrived half an hour ago?’
‘To be sure, your honour. The same I was naming.’ ‘Is there a young lady with them?’
The landlord looked hard at him. ‘A young lady?’ he said.
‘Yes! Are you deaf, man?’ Pomeroy retorted wrathfully, his impatience getting the better of him. ‘Is there a young lady with them? That is what I asked.’
But the landlord still stared; and it was only after an appreciable interval that he answered cautiously: ‘Well, to be sure, I am not — I am not certain. I saw none, sir. But I only saw the gentlemen when they had gone upstairs. William admitted them, and rang up the stables. A young lady?’ he continued, rubbing his head as if the question perplexed him. ‘May I ask, is’t some one your honour is seeking?’
‘Damme, man, should I ask if it weren’t?’ Mr. Pomeroy retorted angrily. ‘If you must know, it is this gentleman’s daughter, who has run away from her friends.’
‘Dear, dear!’
‘And taken up with a beggarly Irishman!’
The landlord stared from one to the other in great perplexity. ‘Dear me!’ he said. ‘That is sad! The gentleman’s daughter!’ And he looked at Mr. Thomasson, whose fat sallow face was sullenness itself. Then, remembering his manners, ‘Well, to be sure, I’ll go and learn,’ he continued briskly. ‘Charles!’ to a half-dressed waiter, who at that moment appeared at the foot of the stairs, ‘set lights in the Yarmouth and draw these gentlemen what they require. I’ll not be many minutes, Mr. Pomeroy.’
He hurried up the narrow staircase, and an instant later appeared on the threshold of a room in which sat two gentlemen, facing one another in silence before a hastily-kindled fire. They had travelled together from Bristol, cheek by jowl in a post-chaise, exchanging scarce as many words as they had traversed miles. But patience, whether it be of the sullen or the dignified cast, has its limits; and these two, their tempers exasperated by a chilly journey taken fasting, had come very near to the end of sufferance. Fortunately, at the moment Mr. Dunborough — for he was the one — made the discovery that he could not endure Sir George’s impassive face for so much as the hundredth part of another minute — and in consequence was having recourse to his invention for the most brutal remark with which to provoke him — the port and the landlord arrived together; and William, who had carried up the cold beef and stewed kidneys by another staircase, was heard on the landing. The host helped to place the dishes on the table. Then he shut out his assistant.
‘By your leave, Sir George,’ he said diffidently. ‘But the young lady you were inquiring for? Might I ask — ?’
He paused as if he feared to give offence. Sir George laid down his knife and fork and looked at him. Mr. Dunborough did the same. ‘Yes, yes, man,’ Soane said. ‘Have you heard anything? Out with it!’
‘Well, sir, it is only — I was going to ask if her father lived in these parts.’
‘Her father?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Mr. Dunborough burst into rude laughter. ‘Oh, Lord!’ he said. ‘Are we grown so proper of a sudden? Her father, damme!’
Sir George shot a glance of disdain at him. Then, ‘My good fellow,’ he said to the host, ‘her father has been dead these fifteen years.’
The landlord reddened, annoyed by the way Mr. Dunborough had taken him. ‘The gentleman mistakes me, Sir George,’ he said stiffly. ‘I did not ask out of curiosity, as you, who know me, can guess; but to be plain, your honour, there are two gentlemen below stairs, just come in; and what beats me, though I did not tell them so, they are also in search of a young lady.’
‘Indeed?’ Sir George answered, looking gravely at him. ‘Probably they are from the Castle Inn at Marlborough, and are inquiring for the lady we are seeking.’
‘So I should have thought,’ the landlord answered, nodding sagely; ‘but one of the gentlemen says he is her father, and the other—’
Sir George stared. ‘Yes?’ he said, ‘What of the other?’
‘Is Mr. Pomeroy of Bastwick,’ the host replied, lowering his voice. ‘Doubtless your honour knows him?’
‘By name.’
‘He has naught to do with the young lady?’
‘Nothing in the world.’
‘I ask because — well, I don’t like to speak ill of the quality, or of those by whom one lives, Sir George; but he has not got the best name in the county; and there have been wild doings at Bastwick of late, and writs and bailiffs and worse. So I did not up and tell him all I knew.’
On a sudden Dunborough spoke. ‘He was at College, at Pembroke,’ he said. ‘Doyley knows him. He’d know Tommy too; and we know Tommy is with the girl, and that they were both dropped Laycock way. Hang me, if I don’t think there is something in this!’ he continued, thrusting his feet into slippers: his boots were drying on the hearth. ‘Thomasson is rogue enough for anything! See here, man,’ he went on, rising and flinging down his napkin; ‘do you go down and draw them into the hall, so that I can hear their voices. And I will come to the head of the stairs. Where is Bastwick?’
‘Between here and Melksham, but a bit off the road, sir.’
‘It would not be far from Laycock?’
‘No, your honour; I should think it would be within two or three miles of it. They are both on the flat the other side of the river.’
‘Go down! go down!’ Mr. Dunborough answered. ‘And pump him, man! Set him talking. I believe we have run the old fox to earth. It wil
l be our fault if we don’t find the vixen!’
CHAPTER XXXII
CHANCE MEDLEY
By this time the arrival of a second pair of travellers hard on the heels of the first had roused the inn to full activity. Half-dressed servants flitted this way and that through the narrow passages, setting night-caps in the chambers, or bringing up clean snuffers and snuff trays. One was away to the buttery, to draw ale for the driver, another to the kitchen with William’s orders to the cook. Lights began to shine in the hall and behind the diamond panes of the low-browed windows; a pleasant hum, a subdued bustle, filled the hospitable house.
On entering the Yarmouth, however, the landlord was surprised to find only the clergyman awaiting him. Mr. Pomeroy, irritated by his long absence, had gone to the stables to learn what he could from the postboy. The landlord was nearer indeed than he knew to finding no one; for when he entered, Mr. Thomasson, unable to suppress his fears, was on his feet; another ten seconds, and the tutor would have fled panic-stricken from the house.
The host did not suspect this, but Mr. Thomasson thought he did; and the thought added to his confusion. ‘I — I was coming to ask what had happened to you,’ he stammered. ‘You will understand, I am very anxious to get news.’
‘To be sure, sir,’ the landlord answered comfortably. ‘Will you step this way, and I think we shall be able to ascertain something for certain?’
But the tutor did not like his tone; moreover, he felt safer in the room than in the public hall. He shrank back. ‘I — I think I will wait here until Mr. Pomeroy returns,’ he said.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 321