The Miller's Dance (47 page)

In perhaps fi
ve seconds every choice open
and its consequences - flashed through Jeremy's mind. He turned to Paul.

'My dearest, we
cannot be inhospitable to a gentl
eman in need. Perhaps you may feel restored after your refreshments and your brief rest. At least, let us be accommodating to the coachman and to a fellow traveller. Let us
try.
If you feel worse we shall have to give
up our journey and resume it
tomorrow.'

His eye met Paul's. They both knew that after they reached Dobwalls there was two hours before they stopped in Lostwithiel. Stephen was not so sure of his geography

and seemed about to continue the argument, but Jeremy stopped him with a gracious lifting of his hand.

'Your concern, Lieutenant, is gr
eatl
y appreciated. But I think in this we must
...
take this decision.'

By now all the other travellers were on the coach. The Reverend Arthur May helped his wife up the step and followed her in. She took the seat whose seat-cushion concealed the tools; he took his place beside her.

'After you, sir,' Lieutenant Morgan Lean said grimly and the fat man heaved himself in and took the seat opposite Paul. The whole coach creaked with his weight
.
After Stephen had got in Marshall folded up the step after him and climbed on to the driver's seat where Stevens was already flicking his whip. The post-boys relinquished their grip of the horses' heads and the coach drew out of the yard, lurching and rattling upon the rutted road.

I

Mr Rose was a lawyer, and not at all thin-skinned. In spite of his protestations, he did not seem concerned that his conversation might disturb
the lady. He lived in Liskeard,
he explained, and had been up at five that morning, examining witnesses for the defence in a case of a man recently charged with obstructing a Customs & Excise officer in
the
performance of his duty, a ma
tter shortly to be heard before
a special jury at Launceston Assizes. He was also advising on a case in which two boys were charged with stealing a two-year
-old colt valued at £10.10
s.od. and a month-old-calf valued at
f2.12s
.6d

.
He was off to Dobwalls now to interview a rich widow of sixty-seven whose affairs he handled and who had set her mind on marrying one of her footmen, aged twenty-two.

Diamond eyes sparkling over the tops of the crescent lenses, he emanated good will but, fortunately, little apparent curiosity as to the business of his fellow travellers. For the most part it was Jeremy he addressed himself to, while Paul lay back under his veil with his eyes closed and Stephen leaned moodily staring out of the window.

Jeremy said, yes, and no, and indeed, sir, and thought: this is a new and unanticipated risk - that this man with his lawyer's eyes will be in close proximity with us as far as Dobwalls, and will be very well able to remember and describe us. It was not just their clothes he would remember, as the coachmen would, but the colour of their eyes, the shape of their faces, their hands, the flaws in their teeth.

Yet somehow he personally was now too far committed to turn back
...
How long to Dobwalls? How long from Dobwalls to Lostwithiel? And was there a further risk at
Dobwalls of some other interfering fool wishing to travel inside? And if so, how could he best be discouraged? In those split seconds of indecision in the hotel yard he had reasoned that it was better to allow this fat old man to stop their work for forty-five minutes than to rouse comment among
the
other passengers or thought in the mind of the coachmen or the guard. It could hardly be suspicion, but it might just make them think a
little
more about the three passengers inside and their exclusiveness and the drawn blinds.

'...
Failure of all these banks,' Mr Rose was saying. The Tamar Bank at Launceston, Cudlipp & Co., Hill & Co., Pearce, Hambly & Co. Caused great distress in the area. Poor people have found themselves altogether without victuals.'Many others, hitherto in a respectable way of life, persons who have scraped and saved to gather together a few pounds by frugality and by forbearance from the simplest enjoyment, such persons have found themselves living almost upon
bread
an
d
water,
bread and water, sir, finding at a single stroke their
little
all vanished and themselves reduced to the same state as the improvident, the careless, the lazy, the spendthrift, the drunkard and the glutton. D'you know, sir, I blame Mr Pitt for this! If he were alive today he would observe the
fruits of his financial contriv
ings!'

Dobwalls to Lostwithiel. About nine miles. Two hours to work? Much less because of stops. But one hour would suffice-with luck. It would all depend on the strength of the cash-boxes. Cash-box
es belonging to the bank of War
leggan
&
Willyams - something to give him the extra motive power - perhaps it was emodve power - to undertake this rash and dangerous adventure.

Through the curtains of his bedroom he had that morning seen the boxes being loaded, before the passengers joined and the rest of the luggage. The boxes had not looked too formidable; but if they proved unopenable in the short term, it might be possible to carry them away. That would be very dangerous despite travelling rugs and coats and skirts.

Of course there was nothing to prevent them going on to
St Austell, or even beyond - except for their infinitely careful prearranged plans. The Reverend and Mrs Arthur May were to leave the coach at Lostwithiel, her condition having become worse, so that they would choose to spend the night at the Talbot Inn and continue their journey on the morrow. After a decent interval at the Talbot Inn for rest they would take a stroll in the late afternoon twilight and would not return. This
walk would take them in as gentl
e a manner as was seemly along the left bank of the River Fowey, a couple of miles downstream until they came to Lantyan Wood, almost opposite to St Winnow. They would find a stone-built folly put up in the previous century and would shelter there for the rest of the evening. In the meantime Lieutenant Morgan Lean would alight as expected at St Austell. There he would stroll a few hundred yards up the little town to Kellow's Hotel where the day before yesterday he had stabled three horses. Having redeemed these, he would ride out and disappear into the night.

In fact he would ride east again by St Blazey Gate, and Tywardreath to Golant. Just before the village he would take a left turn which in a couple of miles would bring him to the folly in Lantyan Wood. Timing was not of the essence here, but when they rehearsed the ride in the daylight it had taken four hours. At the latest he ought to be there by 10 p.m.; thereafter they would have all night to ride across country to the Gatehouse—cloaked to avoid notice of their very noticeable clothing — where they would change into their own things and have their disguises burnt—wigs and all-before dawn.

'Sir?' said Jeremy, aware that he had unexpectedly been asked a question.

‘
Your benefice, sir. Are you returning to it?'

'No, no, we live in Devonshire. We are to spend a month with my sister in Falmouth. Perhaps we should not have undertaken the journey, but my wife has been very well until a week or so ago.'

Mr Rose tut-tutted sympathetically. 'You have other children?'

'A boy of five.
’

'A bonny lad, I'm sure. I have no children myself. My wife died of the smallpox two years after we were wed and I have not cared to remarry. However, my lot has led me into many pleasant places. For instance
...'
He was off again.

Stephen, sitting beside him and facing Paul, was conscious that there was a sprinkling of sawdust on the floor. There had been more sawdust than they had expected. They had not been careful enough. The sawdust looked new, not grey and muddy as it would have done if it had been left on
the
floor for sometime. And yet
...
who could possibly see any cause for suspicion in such a sign? Unless the man were a seer or a thought-reader, how could he conceivably imagine what had been going on before he arrived, just behind where he was sitting, and what would begin again immediately they were rid of him? The greater danger would be the moment when he got out. One of the coachmen bending inwards to put down the step might notice it.
Stephen moved his boot, apparentl
y stretching, rubbed the heel of the boot over the floor, dirtying and obscuring the sawdust.

'D'you know, I have a very interesting case in my hands at the moment. One William Allen, a cardmaker, who died seventy-odd years ago, left in his will the sum of five shillings, out of a house in Fore Street, to be given to ten poor widows at Christmas for ever. But there is now a move to stop it, to discontinue it, on the plea that it is contrary to the Mortmain Act. D'you know what that is?'

‘
No, sir.'

'Allow me to explain
...'

For God's sake, where is Dobwalls? Stephen thought He was not sure he agreed with all of Jeremy's arrangements anyhow: they were too
elaborate,
kept too closely to the apparent pattern of the Brighton robbery. Far better for them all to have alighted at St Austell, and, when the coach had gone on, to walk up the street to Kellow's Hotel, pick up the three horses, and bolt off. If they had not been recognized in the coach it was unlikely they should be recognized
in St Austell; darkness would fall soon after they left; they would have disappeared effectively into the dark, even have been seen riding east so as to put prying eyes off. In Stephen's view, the simplest ways were always the best.

Jeremy was for more carefully covering their tracks. If they left the coach at different times
the
authorities would ' be much more confused. Just as when he and his friends had read the account in
The
Morning
Post,
no one would be able to decide whom to suspect, and where to start looking. Also, ' Jeremy had argued, if the first robbery became known to the bank—and banks even as far apart as Courts and Warleggan & Willyams might well have some sort of contact, particularly over a robbery - the almost identical nature of
the
thefts would lead them to blame the same gang. If the people , responsible for the first robbery were caught, no one would believe their denials as to the second. And as anyhow it was a hanging matter, they could n
ot very well be punished more
than once for the double offence.

'You should pause on your way home, sir, spend a day at the inn, see Liskeard; it is well worth a visit,' said Mr Rose.

'Indeed.'

'A very handsome church, St Martin's. They tell me it is the second largest in the county. John Hony is the present vicar. Been there more than thirty years. Excellent good man. I am sure he would welcome the opportunity of meeting a fellow cleric such as yourself. Where did you say was your incumbency?'

'Sidmouth.' Jeremy used the first town that came to his mind.

'Ah yes. Indeed yes. Did you also know that Mr Edward Gibbon, the famous historian, represented Liskeard in Parliament nearly forty years ago? Not that he ever saw the town, so far as I know. He stood in the Eliot interest. Don't think he ever made much of a name for himself in the House.
’

Paul thought: Damn and rot this man! He stands between
...
between us all and a lot of money. With it, with his share, Stephen would no doubt buy a privateer and put himself in command of it; so hope to make more money while the war lasted. Jeremy similarly was working out some private war in his own mind over
the
girl Cuby Trevanion. Paul had never believed there could have been that much intensity and bitterness in his old friend. Far from being the 'led' in this dangerous expedition, he was
the
leader
’
. Not only did the private war involve Cuby, it extended to embrace the Warleggan family. If this robbery were successful the only regret it seemed Jeremy would feel would be that the sum taken would not be sufficient to bring
the
bank down.

Whereas he, Paul thought, was
ambition was really the only justifiable one, in that he was engaging in this adventure largely to save his father from a debtors' prison. (Of course he had all a young man's ambitions for fine living and fine clothes; but at least he was not caterwauling after some young woman who had jilted him. 'My lord,' he would say before the judge put on the black cap, 'at least my motives were not frivolous; I was attempting to save my family from penury and starvation.')
'Not
that his literary work was faultless s
aid Mr Rose, blinking over his spectacles,
I
think Mr Gibbon was by temper incapable of apprehending spiritual aspirations by sympathetic insight, and he assailed with sneer and innuendo what he did not understand in the Christian faith yet feared openly to attack. Don't you agree, sir?'

'Indeed I do.
’

'His end was miserable, as you no doubt know. While still a young man he suffered a rupture and thereafter persistently neglected it. In his latest years such was his corpulency and his gout-' Mr Rose briefly looked down at his own great stomach - 'that he developed a varicocele and thereafter was perforce buttoned up in the morning and never opened till he was undressed at night, so that every need of nature was performed in his clothes. I believe he was so noisome that no one could endure to be near him. Eventually dropsy supervened
...'

'Please,' said Jeremy. 'My wife
...'

'Of course. I beg your pardon, madam.'

The coach was slowing. 'Dobwalls,'said Stephen.

'Indeed.' Mr Rose beamed again. 'Where I leave you, alas. I may say, sir, and you, ma'am, and you, Lieutenant, that I have seldom known a journey pass so quickly and so pleasantly. I must therefore acknowledge the elegance and the seemliness of your company. I wish you all good day.'

This was a stage merely to take people up and put them down, so there was no blowing of horns or other formality. Mr Rose eased his bulk out or the interior and one outside passenger alighted with him. After he had left there was a pause of a minute or more. Marshall thrust his head in.

'Beg pardon, cap'n; Mr Jewell,, your friend, cap'n, Mr Jewell, don't belong to be turning up.'

‘I
t seems not,' said Stephen, bracing himself to fight off another request for the spare seat.

'Well, thur tis, cap'n, thur tis. Some folk do act some strange, wasting all that thur money. Eh, well, we'd best be off now. Looks, ma'am, as if you'll not be disturbed the more.'

He shut the door and climbed up on to the driver's seat. The coach moved on.

II

The little saws were almost useless, for, however much greased, they grated on the wood, and you couldn't keep to a regular rhythm lest the steadiness of the sound should be picked up outside.

The clock face was completely cut through from midday until the half-hour, and again from three-quarters to
the
end. The wood was moving now; by pressing on
it it would
bend. Better that it should come out towards them, for if it fell inwards it might clatter. Jeremy got his fingers in the holes around five past and pulled. The wood screeched. He hastily let go and for a minute or so all work was suspended. It was Paul's turn to keep watch but he had been so concerned to see the operation completed that he had not been looking out. The coach slowly stopped.