The Miser's Sister (23 page)

“Well it is, is it not, Oliver? Hydrogen is the proper name for inflammable gas, you know. In the furnace the oxygen combines with the iron filings, and the hydrogen passes out into the other tank. It bubbles through the limewater to remove some impurity
...
”

“Carbonic acid gas,” put in Oliver.

“. .       . and then flows up the rubber tubing into the envelope.”

The naval lieutenants were thoroughly impressed.

“I do not perfectly understand how the valve on the balloon works,” admitted Ruth. “I should like to see it in operation, only once the balloon is filled nothing will persuade me into the basket. Mr Polgarth tells excessively horrid tales of the accidents that have occurred.”

“Yes,” agreed one of the young men. “That is why we wish to go.”

Now, the basket was carried to its place. The balloon, patterned in green and yellow diamonds, was spread with its network of ropes in a wide circle on the ground. Bundles of faggots were set upon the kindling in the double hearth and stacked in large piles nearby.

Oliver came to where Ruth was watching.

“Bob would like you to light the fires,” he told her. “There is no danger at present. Once the iron is glowing and the water begins to flow, I want you standing well back. If there is a leak anywhere, there might be an explosion.”

“I’d be happy to light the fires, but I have no dragon. I daresay you have a tinderbox?”

“Bob has everything. Come.”

The intrepid aeronaut, it turned out, had everything except a way of producing a flame. Soon everyone in the crowd was asking everyone else for a tinderbox.

“I thought all sailors smoked tobacco,” said Ruth. “Surely one of you has one?”

“We left our stuff behind because of the extra weight,” explained one.

“Besides, even we know that you don’t light a pipe near inflammable gas,” pointed out the other.

A young woman ran up to the dismayed group.

“Oh, zir!” she cried, “me granfer smokes a pipe and allus carries tinder, on’y I canna find the owld curmudgeon.”

“Did he come this far?” asked Oliver. “Perhaps he wandered away and sat down to rest behind a rock. We must organise a search.”

The carter took charge, scouts were sent in every direction, and he himself went to search his cart, quite unable to believe that such a little thing could upset all his organisation.

There was the old man, curled up under a sack on the floor of the cart, snoring away oblivious to all the fuss. And beside him lay an ancient, foul-smelling clay pipe and a tinderbox.

In spite of the awakened owner’s vociferous protests, the carter seized the box and ran back to the furnace.

“Here y’are, my lady,” he declared, beaming as he presented it to Ruth. “Ever at your zervice, ma’am.”

In no time the fires roared up, and there was a ragged cheer from the spectators.

“We shall have to leave soon if we want to reach Boscastle before dark,” Oliver told Ruth. “If you don’t mind, I should like to wait until the hydrogen begins to flow, in case Bob needs help with any adjustments. Are you very weary?”

“A little, but nothing to signify. I shall sit in the curricle until you are ready. You must certainly wait until you know whether all is well with the apparatus.”

The sun was touching the western horizon by the time the furnace was judged sufficiently hot. The carter made the crowd stand clear as Bob turned the tap on the water tank. The hiss and sizzle of cold water meeting red-hot iron was heard above the crackle of the fires, and within a few minutes the fabric of the balloon began to stir.

One or two of the older Cornishwomen muttered uneasily about witchcraft, and several made signs against the Evil Eye, but most of the watchers clapped and cheered again. The crowd was growing now as sightseers from as far away as Truro gathered for the forthcoming spectacle, undeterred by the prospect of spending the night on the inclement moor.

Driving the curricle back along the track, Oliver was forced several times to pull to the side to allow the passage of vehicles headed in the opposite direction.

“How goes it?” the new arrivals would shout.

 “Very well!” Oliver assured one and all.

At last they reached the comparative quiet of the road at St Teath. The sun had set, though the sky was still bright.

“I fear we shall be late for dinner,” Oliver apologised. “I expect Mrs Trevelyan will read me a lecture for keeping you out so long.”

“I am more hungry than I am tired,” Ruth said. “I hope she will not send us fasting to bed. You must be hungry and tired after working so hard.”

“I enjoyed it. Ruth, you astounded Bob and his fellow aeronauts with your grasp of the subject. That was a very impressive lecture.”

“The officers were amazingly ignorant. Are you very vexed that you are unable to fly with them?”

“I doubt whether I shall ever have a second opportunity,” admitted Oliver sadly. “I had been looking forward to it for a long time. However, I daresay Bob is quite relieved. I am no light weight to be hoist into the sky.”

“Lady Pardoe and Rose were certainly relieved, and I also, though I am sorry for your disappointment. At what hour does Mr Polgarth expect the balloon to be ready?”

“There is no way to be sure in advance, so I shall leave as early as possible, though the actual lifting is planned for eleven o’clock. Mr Trevelyan will probably set out later, if you do not wish to rise at dawn.”

“I should like to go with you, but ‘dawn’ has a monstrous chilly ring to it. I shall wait and see how I feel in the morning.”

The Trevelyan household was astir betimes the next morning. Mrs Trevelyan, thinking Ruth more fatigued than she would admit, had given orders that she should not be woken before it was strictly necessary.

“Four days travelling, a day on the moors, and tomorrow to Bodmin!” she scolded Oliver as he gulped his breakfast. “Let the poor girl sleep another hour. I suppose you must leave for London on Friday, too! Lady Ruth will be fainting at your sister’s wedding if we do not have a care. Perhaps she had best stay here today.”

“She’d not miss the ascension for the world, ma’am,” protested Oliver.

“I shall get her there in plenty of time,” soothed Mr Trevelyan, reaching for a second muffin. When Oliver drove down the gravel drive, his host was still methodically disposing of a plateful of cold beef. “Daresay I’ll forget lunch in the excitement,” he explained to his wife.

He and Ruth set off at eight in a trap driven by a groom. It was another sunny day, with high puffs of cumulus like beaten egg-whites driven before a brisk south-westerly breeze. Mr Trevelyan teased Ruth about her unwillingness to go in the balloon.

“After your intrepid actions in escaping from Jem Blount and his ruffians, I am surprised that anything daunts you, Lady Ruth.”

“That was a matter of necessity, sir,” she explained. “Fortunately, there is no conceivable reason why I should fly through the air.”

“I saw Mrs Sage leaving London with Lunardi and Biggins in 1785,” the old gentleman reminisced. “They flew for three hours, landing in Middlesex. That was when I began to be fascinated by balloons. She was a beautiful woman.”

“Aha, Mr Trevelyan, I have found you out. It was not her sense of adventure but her beauty that interested you. Confess!”

“And I should not be going out today if I were not escorting another beautiful woman,” he laughed, delighted.

“That quite explodes my theory, for I know you to have been planning this outing for months!”

Long before they reached Brown Willy—a slow process, as the tracks were bustling with traffic—the balloon was visible, floating some fifty feet above the ground. They were forced to leave the trap several hundred yards from the place where the balloon was tethered, and proceed on foot.

There was a carnival atmosphere. The crowd had swelled to several hundred, and enterprising vendors had set up stalls selling gingerbread, hot pasties, cider, ale, and lemonade. Everywhere children ran underfoot and climbed perilously among the huge slabs of granite. Some of the spectators had perched comfortably on the rocks, where they could see over the heads of those on the ground.

The balloon was tethered to a vast boulder, and a number of ropes hung from the basket, held fast by men below. There seemed to be two figures in it, but it was impossible to distinguish them clearly against the bright sky.

Mr Trevelyan and Ruth made their way slowly through the festive throng toward the centre of interest. Suddenly Ruth felt a light touch on her arm, and someone murmured, “Lady Ruth!”

She turned to find Walter Vane at her elbow.

“Walter
...
Mr Vane! It is good to see you again,” she exclaimed.

“You look very well, Lady Ruth.” The curate saw who she was with. “Mr Trevelyan, your servant, sir.”

“And yours, Mr Vane.” The magistrate bowed politely but without cordiality. “You are interested in the aeronautical art?”

“Scarcely. However my vicar feels that I should be acquainted with whatever interests our parishioners. Since he went so far as to press his carriage upon me, here you see me, sir. Lady Ruth, might I have a word with you?”

“Of course, Walter. Pray excuse me a moment, Mr Trevelyan.

Mr Vane led her to a nearby rock, carefully spread his greatcoat upon it, and invited her to be seated. Most unusually, he seemed to find himself at a loss for words. Since Ruth had no notion how to begin a conversation with a gentleman to whom she had recently been betrothed, she waited for him.

“You have been in London?” he asked tentatively at last. “Did you find it to your liking?”

“The social life is amusing, and my uncle has been very kind to me. And to Letty, of course. I have enjoyed myself greatly, though it is fatiguing to be always going to parties. It was a pleasure to get out into the countryside now and then.”

“Moderation in all things is an excellent motto. I was surprised to learn that you are staying with the Trevelyans. Are you fixed in Boscastle for a lengthy period?”

“No, indeed. We must return to London on Friday. It is strange to come into Cornwall as a visitor.” Ruth noticed that they were both avoiding the mention of Mr Pardoe by name, and wondered how long they could continue to do so.

“Lady Ruth, do you
...
”

“Pray do not address me so formally, Walter. We were not used to be so ceremonious.”

“I dared not hope that you would consider me still your friend,” said Mr Vane with unwonted humility, “after my inexcusable behaviour with regard to your distressing adventure. When I came to look back on my words, I saw how heartless I must have appeared to you. Pray tell me you have forgiven me.”

“Of course I have, long since. I beg you will not regard it.”

“I fear I was jealous of your rescuer,” the curate confessed heavily. “With good reason, I suspect. If Mr Pardoe expects to return to London with you on Friday, he must think that the balloon will not travel far?”

“Mr Pardoe has had to abandon his plans to take part in the flight. He was very disappointed.”

“But I saw him with my own eyes, Ruth, climbing into the basket before it rose. And I am very certain he did not jump out again.”

“Surely not, Walter. You must have been mistaken. You have never met Mr Pardoe, have you? It was someone else.”

“Possibly,” said Mr Vane dubiously. “However, I distinctly heard several people mention his name. A tall, fair young man with broad shoulders.”

Ruth shaded her eyes and peered at the balloon, though she was by now convinced that Oliver must be in it. He had, after all, found the temptation irresistible and thrown to the winds his promise to his mother, his duty to the Law, his desire to be at Rose’s wedding, and his intention of accompanying her to see her brother. The strain of gazing at the sky made tears rise, and she blinked them away before turning back to Walter. He was looking at her with kind concern.

“Mr Pardoe has probably decided that the balloon will come down within a short distance,” said Ruth with a creditable laugh. “May I ask a favour of you, Walter?”

“My dear Ruth, I am yours to command.”

“I daresay Mr Pardoe has quite forgot that we were to visit Godfrey today. Would you be so good as to go with me in his place? I do not like to go alone, because of all the strangers who have gathered here.”

“With pleasure. Do you wish to wait for the departure?”

“No, I have seen enough of balloons to last me a lifetime. You said you have the vicar’s carriage?”

“Yes, it is just a dogcart, but a perfectly adequate vehicle on a pleasant day such as this. I expect you will recognise Dapple between the shafts.”

“I had better tell Mr Trevelyan where I am going.”

“That is scarcely necessary, unless you intend to make a protracted sojourn at the castle?”

“No, as short a time as possible. Still
...
”

“There is young Billy Somers, yonder. If you will await me here for a few moments, I shall charge him with a message to be delivered to Mr Trevelyan.”

“Thank you, Walter, that will be best. It would take forever to find him in this crush.”

Soon young Billy, the Camelford farrier’s son, sauntered off whistling, with a shilling in his pocket, to find the justice.

Walter and Ruth walked down the hill to the dogcart. The crowd was by now pressing close to the roped off area around the balloon, so their way was unobstructed. The pony was drowsing in the warm sun on the outskirts of a packed mass of carriages and carts. The curate handed Ruth up, joined her, and twitched the reins. Dapple unwillingly set off for Penderric Castle.

Ruth looked back once. The floating green and yellow globe, pulling on its anchor as if anxious to leave, seemed to mock her.

Chapter 21

The dogcart pulled up before the great front door of Penderric Castle. Ruth sat in silence for a moment, looking at the place that had been her home for so many years.

She did not feel at all as if she were coming home, so when Walter helped her down, she knocked at the door. There was no response. Remembering the Tremaines’ dilatory habits, she tried again, without result.