The Sergeant Major's Daughter (15 page)

“Well,
I
think
it is quite dweadful,” she complained with a delicate shudder. “The labowing classes are getting out of hand!”

Felicity was aware of a rising anger which she fought hard to contain. “Perhaps that is because some of them are close to starvation” she explained in a tight voice. “The enclosures deprived them of the strips of land where they used to grow a little food, and keep a cow or a pig or two of their own! Now the prices are soaring. They cannot even afford bread! There were near-riots at the bakery in Stapleforth two days ago.”

The atmosphere in the elegant blue and rose drawing room had become charged; Amaryllis was making frantic gestures to Felicity to let the matter drop, but Lord Francis now entered the lists. He was highly displeased to find his game ruined. Furthermore, he resented being preached at by a slip of a girl, who was ill-qualified as he saw it to judge any but the most parochial issues ... and who seemed possessed of the most reactionary views!

“Prices are hitting at everyone, ma’am,” he said in hectoring tones, his face ruddier than usual. “The banks are
calling in their money all over the country. Your peasants are not the only sufferers, I assure you!”

“No, but they are least able to bear the brunt.”

“
Don’t you believe it, m’dear!” Sir Peregrine was now on ground he knew wel
l.
“It’s my opinion that ruin strikes every bit as hard when you’re plump in the pocket—more so, in fact. Why, d’ye know, the
Gazette
last week was full of bankruptcies! Some of them came as a shock to me, I can tell you.”

Lizzie giggled nervously. “Even Mr. Brummell has been obliged to flee the country.”

“Ah, poor George! Things won’t be the same without him.”

Johnny Tremaine was quietly picking out a tune with one finger on the keyboard of the pianoforte. “Left a mountain of debts behind him, so I heard.”

“I saw him at Almacks once,” said Amaryllis, relieved that the conversation had taken a more comfortable turn. “
I’
m sure I couldn’t see anything very special about
him.
He wasn’t half so fine as some.”

“Then you lack discernment, puss, if you’ll forgive me for saying so.” Sir Peregrine took out a very prettily enameled gold snuffbox and offered it around before taking a liberal pinch himself. “Do you recall how he was in his prime, Francis?”

“By Jericho, yes!”

“I mind being at dinner with him,” chuckled Sir Peregrine, now firmly launched into reminiscent vein. “He’d his manservant behind his chair to tell
him
who was either side of him. That way the Beau was able to converse quite prettily with his neighbors without the slightest danger to the folds of his cravat.”

The anecdote was greeted with delighted laughter and the tensions eased.

Felicity looked around the room and despaired. These well-fed, well-dressed, and, on the whole, harmless paragons of society filled her with a sense of helplessness. How could they even begin to comprehend? Had any one of them, she wondered, the least conception of the kind of poverty—the gnawing hunger which drives men to violence?

She had come pretty close a few times, and so probably had Johnny Tremaine, but at least an army on the march could forage and, if necessary, commandeer food.

Un
cl
e Perry patted her hand. “Your feelings do you credit, child,” he murmured with uncanny perception. “But don’t despair of us completely, I beg you! Human beings, are by nature, selfish, but give us time, m’dear
...
give us time. All will be set to rights in time, you’ll see.”

She did see
—
and smiled a little bleakly, wondering if he realized just how quickly time would run out for some!

A few miles away in the woods of Manor Court, two figures, a man and a boy, moved with practiced stealth, melting into the deepest shadows. The night-black woods held no secrets for these two; their eyes were trained to see as well as any wild cat’s, so that no stirring of life, however infinitesimal, escaped them.

Lanny hadn’t wanted to come, but his pa had talked him around.

“Anything you take yourself, lad, you can keep to take home to your ma. Just so long as you helps me with me traps.”

With things the way they were, the temptation had been too much. But he hadn’t told Ma ... she’d made him promise not to go out any more and he felt bad about breaking his word. It wasn’t as though he got
a
thrill from it, even ... not the way he used to, though he’d rather die than admit it!

Miss Vale ... she wouldn’t like it, either. She hadn’t ’xac
tl
y made him promise ... not the way Ma had ... She said you had to do things right for the right reasons
...
not just to please other folk. He’d been going to school pretty regular since that “other business” ... even begun to enjoy it, though you wouldn’t catch him admitting that, either!

Still
...
she was all right, was Miss Vale. He got a queer lump in his throat thinking how disappointed she’d be ... not angry ... that wouldn’t be so bad ... just disappointed
... and kind of quiet...

“Hold hard, lad!” Dick Price laid a warning hand on his son’s arm. There were sounds—voices—coming nearer. They passed by uncomfortably close—several big dark shapes—and snatches of conversation drifted across to where they stood.

“
...
in a regular taking, ’e was! Fair spoilin’ for a
fight...”

“...
cold, flamin’ rage ... you know how ’e can be! Said it was time some folk learned
...
this time he’d handle it hisself...”

“...
wants to watch it! That Stayne’s no looby ... More ways to
skin a cat...
”
The voices were fading.

“Wait here,” Lanny’s pa hissed. “I’m going to follow ’em. I want to hear more.”

He was gone with no more than a whisper of sound. Lanny waited, fidgeting a little as time passed. A melancholy owl hooted and presently a hedgehog came snuffling through the undergrowth searching for grubs. It curled into a spiky ball as Lanny picked it up and stuffed it into his pocket. Ma’d need more than one miserable little hedgehog to make her overlook his broken promise, but it was a start When the scream came, it reverberated through the darkness, shattering the still night Lanny was sweating as he ran, slipping on the damp mossy earth and knowing before he got there what he must find. The capricious moon, coming from behind a cloud, shed a cold, dispassionate light through the motionless trees.

His pa lay staring in horror at the bloody pulped remains of what moments before had been his leg, now locked fast in the teeth of a man trap. His gasping sobs seemed scarcely human, and Lanny stood petrified with terror until a sense of urgency overtook him.

He sank to his knees, tearing with hopeless, inadequate fingers at the jaws of the trap, his own fierce sobs mingling with his pa’s.

“You’re
...
wasting time
...
boy. You’ll not
...
budge it.”

Footsteps were crashing through the undergrowth and there was a lot of shouting.

Dick Price roused himself from the welcoming blackness of oblivion. His voice rasped. “Get out. Can’t
you see ...
I’m done
for...”

“Over here!” came an exultant cry. “This way.”

“For the love of God! Go, boy ... while you can ... tell your ma
...
sorry. Now go.” He reared up agonizedly and gave Lanny a push. The boy went sprawling, scrambled up, and stared at his pa with a last, mute appeal. As if on cue, the moon vanished, and with a despairing cry Lanny plunged off into the trees, running like a wild animal—and above the sobbing that was his own breathing, he imagined a sound like the crack of a gunshot.

12

Dick Price’s body was found washed up on the riverbank where Lord Stayne’s land met the parish boundary. In the Earl
’
s absence the magistrate from the adjoining parish was notified. Sir Geoffrey Blunt received the news with undisguised satisfaction; the manner of the notorious poacher’s demise was of little interest to
him
.

When Felicity protested to him that Dick Price had been most foully murdered, he had shrugged and expressed it as his opinion that someone had saved the hangman a job. Feelings were running very high in the district where poaching was concerned.

Did Miss Vale not know, he said, that the law now only required two magistrates sitting together to pass sentence? Why only last week, Mr. Partridge, from Ba
rn
s Hollow, and himself had dealt very summarily with some eight or nine of the varmints. The three who had been apprehended in a pitched battle with gamekeepers had been executed and the remainder, caught on private land with the tools of their trade, so to speak, were to be transported at His Majesty’s pleasure.

No, indeed, Miss Vale need not trouble her head over the manner in which one such rogue may have met his end!

Oh, how Felicity longed for Lord Stayne! Perhaps there was little, if anything, he could have done, but at least he would have acted with more humanity!

And then there was the worry of Lanny; he hadn’t been seen since the night his father died. His mother had turned up on the school doorstep two days later, gaunt with worry.

“I’m that sorry to trouble you, miss,” she began. “But I know as you’ve alus had a soft spot for our Lanny ... and I’m that afeared!”

Felicity assured her that it was no trouble.

“With my man it was different ... I reckon I alus knew it would end that way, but the boy
...
” Her mouth started to tremble and Felicity made her come in and sit down. The poor woman was near to breaking. “I know as he went with ’is pa, miss ... though he swore he wouldn’t ever again. Dick had a way of talkin’ him ’round... only why hasn’t he come home?”

“Perhaps he is frightened... or even ashamed?”

“No, Miss Vale. Our Lanny’s no coward, whatever else ’e may be,” asserted his mother stubbornly, and Felicity was bound to agree. “I wouldn’t worry so, only I know as it was Manor Court they went to, and
that
Captain Hardman’d stop at nothing!”

“How can you be sure? Your husband was found a long way from there, you know.”

“It was Manor Court, miss.”

Her certainty, together with Lanny’s continuing absence, gnawed at Felicity, making her less appreciative than she should have been of her cousin’s generosity. True to her word, Amaryllis had come home laden with bolts of silks and muslins and crepes, with bonnets and fur tippets, ribbons and laces, and all manner of fripperies
...
and she plied Felicity with gifts until she cried,
“
Enough!”

“Nonsense!” cried Amaryllis. She spilled a cascade of enticing color onto Felicity’s bed and marched across to fling open the cupboard door.

“
I declare, I have never seen such a spartan closet!” she exclaimed with brutal candor. “Why, there cannot be above five or six dresses, aside from your blacks, which you cannot wish ever to don again
!”

“Six dresses are ample for my needs,” protested Felicity, half laughing.

“Then you shall have six new ones—no, no—I insist! It shall be my way of repaying you for the marvelous time I had in London, which I should never have had without your intervention. Besides,” she added ingenuously, “I have brought back so much, I shall scarcely miss these few lengths!”

“Oh! But I hardly think his lordship intended you to be spending his money on dresses for me.” Felicity frowned and began to gather up the tumbled material. “Indeed, I am persuaded that I should not accept.”

“Fiddle! As if that signified! I am determined you shall have your dresses. And furthermore, Ester shall help you to make up the yellow crepe at once, for I intend to hold a ball.”

Felicity gave up the argument without too many qualms. She looked curiously at her cousin.

“Amaryllis? How well do you like Johnny Tremaine?”

“Goodness! What a question!” Amaryllis feigned nonchalance, but she colored up very prettily, none the less. “He is well enough, I suppose, though I think him a shocking flirt!”

“He used to be, certainly, but I have a feeling he may be ready to reform
.
” Felicity hesitated, well aware of her cousin’s aversion to illness in any form and unsure how far it extended. She would not have Johnny hurt any further. “His
... disability does not offend you?”

“Of course not!” Amaryllis protested. “And anyway, I cannot see what that has to do with anything. You are asking too many questions.” She whisked from the room before she could be further interrogated.

Felicity had never seen beyond the boundary wall of Manor Court. Now she drove her gig smartly up the front d
r
ive, her straight-backed confidence hiding an inner quaking. It had taken every ounce of courage she possessed to come, her fears for Lanny’s safety having finally grown beyond what was bearable.

The wheels crunched on the wide semicircle of gravel in front of the house. Manor Court was modest in size when compared to Cheynings; a square arcadian manor house much as its name suggested, pleasantly grown over with creeper. As she halted the gig at the front steps, two men came as if from nowhere. One of them, the big Negro, reached out a huge black paw to grasp the gelding’s harness, while his companion slouched over to Felicity and leaned close, his hairy arms spread out along the side of the gig, barring her way.

“I wish to see Captain Hardman,” she informed him crisply, clasping her hands very tight and praying that they would not disgrace her by shaking.

“Do you now?” His eyes moved insolently over her. “But will the Capt’n want to see you, think you?”

Felicity stiffened angrily. “Perhaps you would be good enough to ask him?”

The man shrugged, spat reflectively into
a
nearby flower bed, and ambled off to inquire.

She was presently ushered into a pleasant, chintzy parlor, not in the least suited to its owner.

“Miss Vale?” The Captain sat at a desk with his back to the window. He made no effort to rise, nor did he ask her to be seated. “I am extremely busy. Be good enough to state the purpose of your visit.”

The light voice had a nervy edge which hadn’t been there before, as though, Felicity thought, his problems were beginning to get on top of him.

“It concerns the murdered poacher.”

A tiny muscle at the
corner
of his mouth twitched at her choice of word. “What is that scoundrel to me? He was found on Stayne’s land.”

Felicity could feel her palms growing damp as her eyes met his pale, empty ones. “But he did not die there, did he? Stayne does not use those abominable man traps; everyone knows it. No—he died here on your land, Captain Hardman—trapped and then shot by your men, with or without your connivance.”

A small, dagger-like knife lay on the desk. He picked it up and began to tap it twitchily against the desk edge.

“You are too loose-tongued by far, miss! I trust you are not spreading these vicious theories of yours about the village?”

“I don’t need to, sir. People know well enough how Dick Price met his end; they just don’t care very much. And though I care, my concern at present is for his son.”

“The red-haired brat? Where does he come in? You are talking in riddles, ma’am.”

“I believe Lanny was out with his father that night.”

“
And so?” The knife stilled. Reluctantly, Felicity was forced to admit that his perplexity seemed genuine.

“Nobody has seen him since,” she said, less surely.

A thin smile failed to reach his eyes. “And you imagine that I have him chained up in my cellar, perhaps? You are welcome to search where you please. I will call Rayner.”

“No,” Felicity said quickly, convinced that he would not suggest it if there was the least hope of her finding Lanny.
“
No, that will not be necessary. I am sorry to have troubled you, sir.” She felt sick with despair as she turned to the door.

Captain Hardman saw something of that despair mirrored in her face. He flung down the knife and stood up. “One moment, madam.”

He strutted across to the fireplace and pulled on a silken bell rope, and then stood with his back to the fire, his legs aggressively straddling the hearth.

“You have the accursed effrontery to invade the privacy of my home, accusing me of God knows what infamy! You spread scurrilous rumors which strike at my integrity ... encourage insubordination ... I would not even put it past you to have been actively concerned in the recent attacks upon my property.”

“No. You have no grounds!”

“Grounds enough, madam! As much as you have for your vile insinuations!”

The door opened and the hairy man came in.

“If you were a man, I could demand satisfaction,” the Captain continued inexorably. “I might even be considered justified in taking a horsewhip to you.” He paused significantly. “But how does one deal with an obstinate, trouble-making schoolmarm? It seems I must needs devise some appropriate means of alleviating my grievance and impressing upon you the ... impropriety of visiting a gentleman’s house unattended! You are unattended?”

The inference and the menacing presence of the man at her back made Felicity’s flesh crawl, but she said steadily, “I am, sir. But you should know that I left a note with a maid. If I am not back within—” she glanced at an ornate French clock on the mantelshelf above his head “—fifteen minutes from now, she is to take it at once to Sir Peregrine Trent. You will remember Sir Peregrine, I think?” She watched the color creep up under his skin. There was an uncomfortable moment when she wasn’t sure what would happen. When he spoke, his voice was clipped with fury and overlaid with a curious emphasis.

“Miss Vale is leaving, Rayner. It appears that, for the moment, we are unable to extend to her our intended hospitality. Perhaps we shall be afforded the opportunity at a later date.”

“I doubt it,” Felicity said shortly.

“Who knows, ma’am?” the high, light voice concluded. “You are an impetuous young woman! You might have spared yourself
this
interview had you stopped to think. Did it ever occur to you that, had I apprehended the poacher’s brat on my land, he would have been instantly handed over to Sir Geoffrey Blunt? Now,
there
is a magistrate who dispenses my kind of justice!”

Felicity was never so glad to escape into the fresh air. She longed to spring the gelding, but pride prevailed and her retreat was as calm and ordered as her arrival had been. Only when she reached the road did she relax, to find that her back was drenched in perspiration.

The
preparations for the ball had gone ahead with enthusiasm; in the end, more than seventy people were certain to attend. Amaryllis had engaged musicians all the way from Bath, there being none nearer worthy of her attention. For days beforehand all was in a bustle; the ballroom, an extraordinary brainchild of the 8th Earl, so reminiscent of the Regent’s Pavilion at Brighton with its domed roof and exotic interior, had not been in use since the late Countess’s day, and though it had received routine attention, it was now found to require much refurbishing before it met with Amaryllis’s satisfaction.

There was to be a buffet laid out in the dining room and one of the smaller salons had been designated as a card room.

The final preparations were at their chaotic peak when, unexpected as ever, Lord Stayne walked in on them. He surveyed the scene in an ominous silence, demanded to know what the devil was going on, and without waiting for answer, added a rider to the effect that he had obviously returned to a madhouse!

But by evening he appeared to have accepted the inescapable with at least tolerably good grace. He stood in the doorway of the drawing room prior to dinner; among the glittering array of guests already assembled Felicity thought him by far the most distinguished. His gray hair had been pomaded to a gleaming silver, making his eyebrows look very black in contrast. He was formally dressed in a black long-tailed coat, white satin waistcoat, and knee-breeches; in the folds of his cravat a diamond winked.

His glance traveled slowly around the room, passed her by, and then slowly returned. His eyes widened a little and he inclined his head. Felicity’s heart, which had already risen into her throat to suffocate her, now gave a treacherous lurch; she took herself firmly in hand and smiled back, knowing that she looked her best.

The pale yellow crepe had turned out well; she had resisted all persuasion by Amaryllis to deck it with frills and furbelows.

“No, no, my dear,” she had protested, laughing. “You must see that I was not built for frills! Believe me, I should resemble nothing so much as one of Mrs. Hudson’s great lemon blancmanges, festooned in whipped cream!”

Instead she had kept the lines simple and flowing, edging the dress down the front with a double row of cream lace; worn over a slip of cream satin, the result was more than she had hoped for. A fine gilt comb, another of her cousin’s gifts, set off her chestnut curls to advantage.

“I scarcely recognized my severely practical schoolmistress,” murmured the Earl when he finally reached her side. “I had no idea you were looking to outshine my sister-in-law!”

Although his humor was mocking, there was a slight restraint in his manner; remembering their last encounter, Felicity supposed he must also be remembering. She resolved to show him that he need not regard it.

She said with her normal good-humored raillery, “Thank you, my lord. Such a compliment from you must indeed be accounted an accolade! And one that I shall treasure!”

There was an immediate easing of tension.

“You think I would offer you Spanish coin?” he challenged quizzically.

“Gracious, no!” Felicity feigned shocked surprise. “Other people might empty the butter boat over one quite lavishly and think nothing of it, but that is not your way, my lord! I have too often been the recipient of your ... frankness, and am therefore persuaded that you must be sincere!”

Stayne’s smile ripened into an appreciative chuckle and Felicity found the oddest things happening to her knees.

Later, a small group formed in one
corner
of the ballroom.

“Has this madcap laid siege to your horses yet, Lord Stayne?” asked Johnny Tremaine.

“Don’t speak of it!” groaned Amaryllis.

Felicity and the Earl exchanged glances.

“It was Johnny who taught me to drive,” she explained demurely. “One hot, dusty summer in Lisbon when I was with the Pattersons.”

“Ha! You, was it?” observed the Earl pithily. “You’ve a great deal to answer for, let me tell you, Major!”

Johnny Tremaine laughed. “She was just fifteen at the time, mad about horses, and as persistent a skinny, long brown beanpole as I ever came across! Of course,” he grinned, “she’s filled out a bit since then, but I’ve no doubt she’s still as stubborn.”

Again the glances locked. The Earl lifted a mocking brow. “Since it would be ungallant in me to agree, I shall refrain from comment.”