The Miser's Sister (5 page)

Ruth saw that Oliver was holding his own, and turned back into the passageway. As they had hoped, one of her escort had lowered himself into the hole before Oliver had been forced to attack Jem. Now he was desperately trying to haul himself out. With great satisfaction she stamped on his fingers, then thrust at his head with her foot. He fell back with a shout and there was a thud below.

Anxiously she hurried back to the fight.

The struggling pair was on the ground, the smuggler uppermost. Ruth could not see that Oliver had him in a stranglehold, eyes popping, mouth gaping. She picked up the earthen pitcher and hit him as hard as she could on the back of the head. He collapsed.

Oliver extricated himself, stood up, and brushed himself off. “Thank you,” he said.

“I kicked the other one down into the lower cave,” Ruth told him proudly, “but he may climb out.” Then she fainted in his arms.

Laying her tenderly on the sand, Oliver went to investigate.

He was as proud of himself as of her, never having been one for a brawl. There were scrabbling sounds from the bottom of the hole and a frightened voice called:

“What’s agoin’ on? Jem! Shorty! He’p me!”

“Your friends are
...
ah
...
out of commission,” Oliver informed him pleasantly. “Do you wish to come up and try conclusions with me?”

“Nay, niver, zo he’p me! I think I breaked me leg,” whined the appalled rogue. “He’p me, zir, and I’ll be yer zarvint fer life. They made me do it, honest they did.”

“I expect you will manage to climb up before the sea returns. Try hard!” Oliver urged. “I confess I am far from interested in your fate. Goodbye.”

Ruth was alert when he returned. She had possessed herself of Jem’s pistol and was sitting against the wall, aiming it gingerly in the general direction of the two motionless bodies. Oliver gave her an encouraging grin and examined his erstwhile opponents. Then he collected the old man’s sack and sat down beside her. He took the pistol.

“I wish I could shoot them both,” he said regretfully. “However, I find I have not the stomach to kill them in cold blood. The other fellow has broke his leg and will not trouble us. Ruth, you were quite magnificent. Here, eat as much bread as you can while I check our escape route.”

Her heart too full for words, Ruth tried to put into her gaze all her admiration and gratitude. Beneath its intensity, Oliver blushed.

“Here.” He pushed the half loaf into her hands and stood up. As he strode off, chain clanking, she smiled to herself.

“Oliver!” He turned. “The key!”

She threw it to him and in a moment he was freed. He disappeared round the corner.

Ruth forced herself to swallow a few morsels. Now that she could relax, every bone in her body ached and she felt slightly dizzy. She was determined not to be a burden, but she hoped fervently that the way out would not prove difficult.

Oliver came back, found his boots, and put them on.

“The trapdoor is open, and there is a ladder,” he reported cheerfully. He regarded his victims. The big man was beginning to stir. “I’d best chain this one,” he decided. “Friend Jem will be out for a while yet but we don’t want Shorty coming after us. His head must be solid bone.”

He dragged the dead weight over to Ruth’s chain, and there was a satisfying click as the fetter closed.

Ruth put the remains of the bread in her pocket and went to join him. Each carrying a lamp, they set off.

The trapdoor opened into another cave. Ruth went to explore while Oliver pulled up the ladder and closed the door. He rolled a heavy boulder onto it. The present inhabitants of the lower caves would have to await their friends or the Law, he hoped.

“This cave opens about thirty feet above a beach,” Ruth called. “There’s a sort of path down. I don’t see any way out of the cove. It is half light and misty. I think it must be near dawn.”

With some scrambling, they reached the beach. Ruth scanned the towering cliff for a path, while Oliver made his way over jumbled rocks to the far side of the small cove. The tide was low, but waves were breaking fiercely around the base of the headland, and there was no passage. On the side where they had emerged he could see, dimly through the mists, a dark hole just above the waterline. The entrance to the lowest cave.

Seaweed growing up the bottom few feet of the cliffs on the landward end of the cove showed that it was filled at high tide. There was no path leading up.

“They must have come by boat,” Ruth said. “Only I don’t see any sign of one.”

“I expect they hid it thoroughly from both the sea and above. In this fog and with all these rocks, we could search forever, and the tide must be on the turn.”

Once more, they scrutinised the precipice. It was close to vertical, but there were plenty of handholds and footholds. On one side, a steep slope of grass swung down about a third of the way.

“I think there is a ledge leading up to the turf—over there.” Ruth pointed uncertainly. “If we could get to that
...
”

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained. We’ve looked before we leap and no one could say we are crossing a bridge before we come to it. Up you go.” With a crooked, reassuring grin, he lifted her fragile form as high as he could.

Ruth found a toehold and a crack for her fingers, and started climbing. It was not much harder, she discovered, than climbing a ladder, but what a long ladder! Soon her arms and legs were trembling with fatigue, her hands numb with cold.

“To your left!” shouted Oliver. “Keep going! Just a few more yards.”

Her arms felt like lead. Without his encouragement she could not have moved another inch. At last she pulled herself onto the ledge and lay breathless, heart pounding.

“I’m on my way,” Oliver called.

He was stronger, but he was heavier, his feet and fingers bigger. Cracks and knobs that had sufficed for Ruth were quite inadequate to support him, and several times he had to make detours around blank rock faces that she had somehow scaled. Once a projection crumbled as he put his weight on it, and Ruth, watching from above, held her breath as he dangled over the void. Reaching with cautious desperation, he managed to find a seam wide enough for his toes, and the agonising climb continued. An endless time later, he swung up beside her.

From there the narrow ledge ran smoothly upwards. After a brief rest, they started off again. The going was comparatively easy but Ruth was rapidly losing her last shreds of strength. They came to a place where the ledge had broken away, and they would have to clamber around a wide fissure. She looked at it in despair.

“I cannot, I simply cannot. Oliver, go on without me and fetch help.”

“We’ll do it,” he said calmly. “Come, sit for a moment, and I’ll warm your hands.”

Perched precariously, they huddled together for all too brief a moment. As soon as he felt her fingers warm to life between his palms, he made her go on. If she sat for too long, she might be unable to rise.

They reached the grass, steep and slippery with dew. However, it grew in tussocks against which they could brace their feet. Oliver took the lead. He scrambled up a short way, set himself securely, and leaned down to pull Ruth to him. Though she made feeble efforts to help herself, he could see that she would not be able to go much farther. They neared the top.

Oliver was tiring himself. His shoulder ached, and for the first time he noticed the graze where Jem’s bullet had hit him. It was not deep and had bled very little, but overuse was making it painful.

With a final effort he struggled over the ridge, hauled Ruth up beside him, and collapsed in the springy, scratchy heather. She lay with her face against his waistcoat, eyes shut; his arms were around her. She never wanted to move again, indeed she doubted she could. The heather supported them, insulated them from the damp chill. She dozed off.

A cold, wet nose poked Oliver’s cheek. A black and white sheepdog wagged its tail ingratiatingly, barked once, and bounded off.

Carefully laying Ruth, whose eyes opened drowsily, in the heather, Oliver stood up. A hundred yards off a shepherd was directing his three dogs with whistles as they rounded up his bleating flock.

Oliver shouted.

The shepherd glanced at him, then returned to his task. “Wait here, Ruth. There’s a fellow over there can surely tell us where we are.”

With renewed energy he strode off, only to return in a very few minutes, frustrated.

“The old curmudgeon first refused to notice me, then said nothing but ‘Ar.’ Let us see if your presence will convince him that there is a lady in distress.”

Unceremoniously, Oliver picked Ruth up in his arms, and carried her to where the old man had resumed his whistling. He set her on her feet immediately before him.

“Pray be so good as to direct us,” she begged. “We are quite lost in this mist.”

With a huge and toothless grin the shepherd waved his arm to the south.

“Scuzzle,” he mumbled.

Shrugging in disgust, Oliver again picked up Ruth, who was swaying, and set off southward.

Chapter 5

The mist was thinning, and soon a pale, wintry sun shone down. To his right, Oliver looked down on the Atlantic, far below, white-capped into the distance. On his left and ahead the ground sloped gradually away, covered with short, wiry grass, scattered with patches of heather and bracken and occasional clumps of gorse.

Unfortunately, he could see that very shortly it began to rise again, and the swelling slopes were completely abandoned to gorse and rocks. Undeterred, he walked on and reaching the bottom, found a narrow sheep trail, winding as it ascended.

Ruth was so light in his arms that she would have been no burden had it not been for his wounded shoulder, now stiffening. She seemed to be in a daze, quite content to lean her head against his shoulder, the good one, and trust herself to him.

At last the path led him to the top of the hill. He found himself overlooking a wide inlet with high, rocky walls. On the far side, the headland rose considerably higher than his position, and it was crowned by a tower. Inland, a curved stone pier protected a harbor dotted with boats, and beyond, a wooded valley with several cottages and a sizable house was visible.

He set Ruth down and sat beside her with a sigh.

“‘Scuzzle,’” she said, “of course. It’s Boscastle. That tower is the Coast Guard lookout, and the house is Mr Trevelyan’s. He’s a magistrate, I think.” Unexpectedly, she giggled. “Pray do not think me impertinent, Oliver, but your stomach has been rumbling quite excessively. You will do well to eat this bread.”

He smiled down at her affectionately. She was a shocking sight, her wan, dirty face with its bravely attempted smile, surrounded by lank brown hair, her meagre body swathed in a filthy, torn cloak. He did not notice. Her dark eyes drew him with their trusting expression and the mysterious depths behind, and he bent to kiss her. Their lips met, briefly, lightly, before she moved away.

“Eat,” she urged. “I think I shall be able to walk part of the way if the path is easy.” Her eyes were downcast, hidden from him. Suddenly ravenous, he chewed on the hard, dark crust she had given him.

The sheep track swung left, descending the steep hill diagonally. At first, bracken brushed them on either side and rocky steps were frequent. Gradually the path widened until it became a cart road, and they came to a gate with a stile beside it. Ruth managed to climb the wall by the projecting shingles, then Oliver had to carry her again.

The slope levelled at last. The water was a few feet below the track on the right, and they passed the quay, deserted and silent. It was still early, and the tide too low for boats to sail down the inlet to the open sea.

Oliver walked wearily through the sleeping hamlet. Iron gates, with “Trevelyan House” intricately worked into their bars, stood open, and a short gravel drive led them to a comfortable-looking stone house, obviously a gentleman’s residence. Oliver set Ruth on her feet and rang the bell.

After a few moments, a young footman opened the door, gaped, and quickly slammed it again. They heard a cry of “Mr Webster! Mr Webster!” receding down the hall.

Oliver seized the bellpull and jerked it several times. A fearsome clangour broke out on the other side of the door. Shortly it opened again. A dignified, portly butler regarded them sternly.

“Beggars and tinkers to the back door,” he directed.

Oliver exploded.

“My good man, this is Lady Ruth Penderric! She has just escaped from abductors and is, as you may see, in sore need of comfort. I must see the justice at once, and we are both close to expiring from hunger!”

The butler stared.

“Lady Ruth! Is it possible? James! Come at once and assist her ladyship! Call Mrs Burston! Indeed, I beg your pardon, sir. Who could have guessed? Whatever is the world coming to?”

His last question was repeated many times, with equal lack of response, in the next few hours. Mrs Trevelyan and her housekeeper bore Ruth off to a bath, a bowl of hot soup, and bed, clucking anxiously and wondering whether to send to Camelford for the doctor. Oliver, after a brief explanation to his host, vanished above stairs for half an hour to reappear clean, shaven and wrapped in the butler’s dressing gown, that being the only garment in the house large enough to cover him decently. His ankles were plainly visible below, and a pair of carpet slippers had been slit to make room for his toes.

Directed by the footman, he entered the library and apologised to Mr Trevelyan for his appearance.

“Pray do not regard it, sir. We magistrates become used to odd occurrences. Come and sit by the fire. I thought you would not mind eating from a tray in here so that we may have privacy. I am all agog to hear the full tale of your shocking experience.”

Oliver was only too glad to ensconce himself in a well-stuffed chair by the blazing fire. The dishes, uncovered, proved to contain a large quantity of ham and eggs, hot muffins dripping with butter, cold roast beef, and fruit. The elderly gentleman poured him a cup of coffee and sat down opposite to watch with evident gratification as the pile of food diminished.