The Captain's Daughter (5 page)

The next morning
, as they were leaving the dining
room after breakfast Amy’s mother suddenly blurted out: “Saturday morning next
week.”

Now her mother did have a habit of
firing off thoughts without necessarily preparing her listeners.

“I’m sorry mother,” said Amy, “what
do you mean by Saturday morning of next week.”

“The picnic, of course, what else
would I mean.”

“Of course, Mother. May I take Sir
Benjamin’s invitation over to Hillfield House?”

They had paused in the front hall.
Just inside the door stood Hubert with a long face.

“It’s not necessary, dear,” said
her mother. “I’ve summoned old Hubert and he will deliver it.”

“But Hubert is not feeling well.
I’d be glad to take it.”

Amy had no idea how old Hubert felt
this morning, but he never really felt well, at least this is the impression he
gave. And indeed, as Amy knew, anything that hinted of physical activity made
him feel worse. As for Hubert himself, he remained silent. He had no intention
of interfering in a conversation between Amy and her mother, especially since
he rather favored Amy’s argument on his behalf.

“Hubert, are you ailing this
morning?” Lady Sibbridge demanded.

“Don’t feel none too good, Ma’am,”
he mumbled with a ‘none too good’ facial expression.

“He might die on the way,” Amy
added, and then immediately regretted her comment which seemed too much like
overkill, but her mother as usual paid no heed to the excess of her remark. On
the other hand, old Hubert didn’t seem to care for her remark given the grimace
on his face. Amy realized his apprehension and apologized.

“Well, I suppose,” her mother
replied.

Lady Sibbridge was visibly
reluctant. Then Mattie entered the hall from the dining room. Their father was
still at the table chewing his breakfast and Amy rather supposed that Mattie
had been regaling him, the last survivor at breakfast table, with her
infatuation with the drooly youth. Whatever shortcomings their father had
nowadays, he was definitely a good listener.

Their mother grabbed Mattie by the
arm.

“Take Mattie with you. She will
enjoy your trip to Hillfield House.”

That was not Mattie’s opinion.

“Mother,” she wailed, “Mr.
Throckmorton, Lazarus’s father, is coming by sometime today. It would not be
polite if your daughter was not here to greet him.”

Amy might have marveled at Mattie’s
strained logic, but much of Mattie’s logic was strained. Mattie was anxious to
remain home in the hope that the drooly youth would accompany his father. Amy
was fine with that, but she would have to take someone with her. Her mother
would never countenance her going by herself.

“Perhaps Emma could accompany me.”

She quickly excused herself from
her mother’s presence before her mother thought it over. Even her mother
realized that Emma’s usefulness as a chaperone was in question. In fact, Emma
was more likely to be an accomplice.

Amy found Emma in her study room.

“Come with me, Emma. You must go
with me to Hillfield House to deliver a picnic invitation to Ben... Sir
Benjamin.”

“I thought you wanted me to
concentrate on my studies,” said Emma as she quickly turned over the paper she
had been examining before Amy could see what was written on it.

“This is an emergency,” Amy told
her as she looked suspiciously at the paper Emma was stuffing into the middle
of a stack of other papers. How easy it was to fool Mrs. Parkhurst, although in
truth the poor governess had never faced an enemy like Emma in her entire and
varied career.

“Well, if I must for my beloved
sister, I must go to her aid,” said Emma with painfully faked reluctance.

At Hillfield House the butler
invited them into the foyer.

“I have an invitation I wish to
give to Sir Benjamin,” Amy told the butler.

“If you will place it on the tray,”
said the butler lifting a silver tray from a nearby table and holding out to
her, “I will take it to Sir Benjamin.”

She reluctantly placed it on the
tray, and the butler started to leave.

“I would like to talk to Sir
Benjamin,” Amy called after the butler as he left on his errand.

Amy had in truth snooped around
Hillfield House when it was not occupied although she was disinclined to admit
it, but this was the first time she had been inside and it being Ben’s
residence added a little thrill to seeing it.

The butler regally returned very
shortly and Amy looked at him expectantly. She had expected Ben and wondered
why he hadn’t come to see her.

“I am sorry, milady, but Sir
Benjamin is unable to see you at this time. He sends his regrets, and he asked
me to convey his deepest apologies. He does not want you to feel he is being
rude but it is impossible for him to come at this time.”

“We can wait until he is
available,” she proffered.

“It will be a long time until he is
finished with his task. You may wish to return at another time milady.”

Amy interpreted the butler’s words
as meaning
go away
, which annoyed her. She felt like she was being
snubbed. What could Ben possibly be doing that he couldn’t set it aside for a
few minutes as any gentleman would do if a lady requested to see him?

“Very well,” she said with an
unaccustomed snippiness. And added coldly, “Thank you. Please give our
greetings to Sir Benjamin. We will not bother him further.”

Outside Emma climbed back into the
trap. Amy was about to join her sister when her curiosity got the better of
her.

“Wait here Emma. I’m going to take
a quick look around the house.”

From previous snooping, which had
generally been justified by some tortured excuse, she knew that at the back of
the house was a walled garden. This was unusual for a country house where it
seemed quite unnecessary unlike its city companions.

As she sneaked towards the wall at
the back end of the house she heard the sound of digging. Peeking through the
broad slit between the wall and the edge of the solid gate she could see a
garden that had not been well tended. This was likely because the house had
been closed for a while and was just recently being occupied again.

When she moved sideways her narrow
vertical view of the garden changed. Suddenly she saw three men. Two were
standing beside what appeared to be an open trench. One of the men was dressed
in clothing similar to that of a clerk. The other man standing next to the
trench was wearing rough clothing such as a gardener might wear. The man
digging in the trench, who was bent over as he shoveled dirt out of the trench,
was also wearing peasant clothing.

She had hoped at first that Ben
might be there because that would explain why he was not available to respond
to her request, but he was nowhere to be seen. Then she realized as she studied
the trio that the man digging in the trench
was
Ben.

She was deeply puzzled why Sir
Benjamin Anstruther, Baronet, would be digging dirt while a clerk and even the
gardener looked on. It just didn’t make sense. And what was the trench. It
looked for all the world like a grave. After watching the proceedings for about
ten minutes she tiptoed away from the gate as if to hide her footsteps that no
one would hear anyway since the soft soil was cushioning her steps.

As they headed home in the trap she
told Emma what she saw. Thoughts were whirling around in her head but they
weren’t coming in for a landing because she could think of no possible
explanation for what she had just witnessed.

“Sorry for leaving you in the trap
for so long,” apologized Amy, “but it was a really puzzling scene.”

“Don’t be concerned,” Emma
reassured her. “Anyway, you surely don’t think I would sit here twiddling my
thumbs while you were snooping... I mean investigating mysterious goings on at
Hillfield House. While you had your nose stuck in the gate I looked around
myself.”

“What did you see?”

“Nothing much. I looked through the
side window but couldn’t see anything because of the lace curtain. There was a
little table under the window and what looked like an artist’s sketchbook. As
far as I could make out there was a sketch of a horse, but that’s all I could
see. So I gave up and went back to the trap. I didn’t want to go around the
other side. I thought I better wait in the trap in case you had to make a quick
escape.”

“Emma, you make it sound like I was
engaged in some kind of a furtive activity.”

“Weren’t you?”

Emma frowned and wrinkled he nose.

“Are you sure it was Ben who was
digging the grave.”

“He was digging a trench. I didn’t
say he was digging a grave. I said it
looked
like a grave.”

“This seems like something out of a
novel by Mrs. Radcliffe,” said Emma eagerly.

“No it is not,” said Amy firmly.
“Anyway how do you even know about Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels? For that matter,
how do you even know about Ann Radcliffe? Do you pay someone to smuggle in
contraband? I saw you earlier reading that broadsheet that you tried to hide
from me.”

“No, that’s absurd. It’s not
contraband.”

“To mother, it most assuredly is.”

“If you have to know, snoopy, the
paper I was reading is called
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal
Society
which is a perfectly respectable journal to read.”

“Not to mother, because
you-are-a-girl.”

Amy dragged out the last four words
semi-mockingly.

“Anyway, where did you get it
Emma?”

“It was lying on father’s desk.
Lord Ramsay left it yesterday. After all, he’s a member of the Royal Society.”

“You stole it from your poor
father?”

“No I didn’t steal it. I asked
father for it.”

“He said yes?”

“He said something. I took it that
he meant yes.”

“You’re a disgrace Emma. It will
disgrace the entire family when you end up on the gallows. And what about Mrs.
Radcliffe’s gothic novels? Where did you find out about Ann Radcliffe’s novels?
Please tell me you don’t have one of her novels. Emma!”

“No, I don’t have one of Mrs.
Radcliffe’s novels.”

Amy studied her sister as Pansy
pulled the trap into the drive of their house. Then she pointed an accusing
finger at Emma.

“But you’ve read one of her novels,
haven’t you? Don’t dissemble. I can read your mind.”

“No you can’t. I know that for
sure,” said Emma menacingly. “Because if you could read my mind you would go
stark-raving-mad. They would cart you off to Bedlam and throw you into a cell
where you would scream and bang your head against the padded walls until you
sank into insensibility.”

Sometimes Emma was a little
dramatic.

That night Amy couldn’t sleep. She
watched the line of moonlight that shone through the slit in the curtains
slowly make its way along her wall crossing the frame of her door and creeping
towards where she lay. Its companion was the old clock in the hall downstairs
that sounded out the quarter hour, the half hour, and then announced each hour.
The sound traveled upstairs, along the hall, and through her closed door. It
reached her softly but still reminded her of how long she’d lain awake.

What was Ben up to? Why was he
digging what looked like a grave? Did it have to do with that dark coach that
flew by her and Emma two nights ago? She desperately tried to make sense of
everything. Ben in peasant clothes digging in the ground. Ben who refused to
see her. He probably didn’t want her to see him in his peasant’s clothes. But
why? You don’t dig in the garden in all your finery. Why wouldn’t he want her to
see him in rustic clothes?

Then a thought came into her head.
A most disturbing thought. Emma said she had seen a sketchbook with a drawing
of a horse. Amy had recently encountered a young man in rustic clothes, holding
a sketch book while Turpin, who no one could deny was a horse, rudely and
unceremoniously deposited her in the River Arne.

Amy bounced out of her bed and out
of her room in almost one leap. She stomped down the hall. Emma’s door was
unlocked. Emma was sleeping peacefully in her bed while a wide swath of
moonlight flooded in through a wide gap in her curtains and bathed the sleeping
girl’s face and hair in its silver glow. She looked so peaceful and angelic.

Amy shook her awake.

“Was the drawing you saw through
the window at Hillfield House a picture of Turpin?”

“Huh,” said a groggy Emma. “It was
a horse. Turpin is a horse. I don’t know.”

Any didn’t have to ask. She already
knew the answer. She stomped out of Emma’s room, shutting the door behind her
with a bang.

“I’m going to have to start locking
my door,” Emma softly moaned as she slid back into the arms of sleep.

Back in her room, Amy threw herself
violently on her bed. If she had been awake before, she was really wide awake
now.

“Ohhhh!” She pounded her fists on
her bed.

Ben was the one that had seen her
thrown by Turpin. Ben was the one that had mocked her in her time of calamity.
And Ben had been mocking her all along, the scoundrel. He’d smirked while
dancing with her at Brewminster Hall. He was making fun of her when they rode
down to the River Arne yesterday.

“You will regret your treatment of
me,” she muttered under her breath. “I will repay you Sir-Benjamin-Anstruther.
I will not rest easy until you come crawling to me on your hands and knees
pleading for mercy. Revenge is my only goal from now until doomsday. You have
gone too far. Now is the time for me to plan your demise.”

Amy was not unlike her sister Emma
in some respects, especially when it came to excessive dramatics. She fell
asleep and did not wake until late the next morning.