The Talisman Ring (24 page)

He nodded, and waited for her by the door, and when she seemed not to be coming, said: ‘You do not mean to secede from our councils, I hope?’

She smiled. ‘You are not used to be so civil. Fighting must have a mellowing effect upon you, I think.’

‘Have I been uncivil?’ he asked, looking at her with disconcerting seriousness.

‘Well, perhaps not uncivil,’ she conceded. ‘Just disapproving.’

He followed her out of the room, and as they mounted the stairs, said: ‘I wish you will rid yourself of this nonsensical notion that I disapprove of you.’

‘But do you not?’ inquired Miss Thane, turning her head.

He stopped two stairs below her, and stood looking up at her, something not quite a smile at the back of his eyes. ‘Sometimes,’ he said.

They found Ludovic drinking Constantia wine, and arguing with Sir Hugh about the propriety of breaking into other people’s houses to recover one’s own property. Eustacie, seated by the window, upheld the justice of his views, but strongly condemned the insensibility of persons who allowed others to sleep while such adventures were in train. She was rash enough to appeal to her cousin Tristram for support, but as he only replied that he had not till now thought that he had anything to be thankful for with regard to last night’s affair, he joined Miss Thane in her ill-graces.

Ludovic’s immediate desire was to learn from his cousin by what means he now proposed to find the talisman ring, but they had not been discussing the matter for more than five minutes when a chaise was heard approaching at a smart pace down the road. It drew up outside the inn, and Eustacie peeping over the blind, announced in a shocked voice that its occupant was none other than Beau Lavenham.

‘What audacity!’ exclaimed Miss Thane.

‘Yes, and he is wearing a waistcoat with coquelicot stripes,’ said Eustacie.

‘What!’ ejaculated Ludovic. ‘Here, where’s my dressing-gown? I must take a look at him!’

‘Oh no, you must not!’ said Sir Tristram, preventing his attempt to leap out of bed.

‘It is too late: he has entered the house. What can he want?’

‘Probably to convince us that he was really in London last night,’ said Shield. ‘We’ll go down to him, Eustacie.’

‘
Je le veux bien!
What shall I say to him?’

‘Whatever you please, as long as it does not concern Ludovic.’ He looked across the room at Miss Thane. ‘Do you think you can contrive to be as stupid and talkative as you were when he last saw you?’

‘Oh, am I to be allowed to take part?’ asked Miss Thane. ‘Certainly I can be as stupid. To what purpose?’

‘Well, I think it is time we frightened Basil a little,’ said Sir Tristram. ‘Since he must now be very sure that Ludovic is in Sussex, we will further inform him that we suspect him of being Plunkett’s real murderer.’

‘That’s all very well,’ objected Ludovic, ‘but what do you expect him to do?’

‘I haven’t a notion,’ said Shield calmly, ‘but I am reasonably certain that he will do something.’

‘Tell me what you wish me to say!’ begged Miss Thane.

Beau Lavenham was not kept waiting long in the parlour. In a very few minutes his cousins joined him there. He shot a quick, searching look at them under his lashes, and advanced, all smiles and civility. ‘My dear Eustacie – Tristram, too! You behold me on my way home from a most tedious, disagreeable sojourn in town. I could not resist the opportunity of paying a morning call upon you. I trust I do not come at an awkward time?’

‘But no!’ said Eustacie, opening her eyes at him. ‘Why should it be?’

Sir Tristram came over to the fire in a leisurely fashion, and stirred it with his foot. ‘Oh, so you’ve not yet been home, Basil?’ he inquired.

‘No, not yet,’ replied the Beau. He put up his ornate quizzing-glass, and through it looked at Shield. ‘Why do you ask me so oddly, my dear fellow? Is anything amiss at the Dower House?’

‘Something very much amiss, I am afraid,’ said Shield. He waited for a moment, saw the flash of eagerness in the Beau’s eyes, and added: ‘One of your Jacobean chairs has been broken.’

There was a moment’s silence. The Beau let his glass fall, and replied in rather a mechanical voice: ‘A chair broken? Why, how is that?’

The door opened to admit Miss Thane. Until she had exclaimed at finding the Beau present, greeted him, inquired after his health, the condition of the roads, and the state of the weather in London, there was no opportunity of reverting to the original subject of conversation. But as soon as she paused for breath the Beau turned back to Shield, and said: ‘You were telling me something about one of my chairs being broken. I fear I don’t –’

‘Oh!’ exclaimed Miss Thane, ‘have you not heard, then? Has Sir Tristram not told you of the shocking attempt to rob you last night? I declare I shall not know how to go to bed this evening!’

‘No,’ said the Beau slowly. ‘No. He has not told me. Is it possible that my house was broken into?’

‘Exactly,’ nodded Sir Tristram. ‘If your servants are to be believed a band of desperate ruffians entered through the library window.’

‘Yes,’ chimed in Miss Thane, ‘and only fancy, Mr Lavenham! Sir Tristram had been dining with us here, and was riding back to the Court when he heard shots coming from the Dower House. You may imagine his amazement! I am sure you should be grateful to him, for he instantly rode up to the house. You may depend upon it, it was the noise of his arrival which frightened the wretches into running away.’

The glance the Beau cast at his cousin was scarcely one of gratitude. He had turned rather pale, but he said in quite level tones: ‘I am indeed grateful. What a fortunate chance that you should have been passing the house just at that moment, Tristram! I suppose none of these rogues was apprehended?’

‘I fear not,’ replied Shield. ‘By the time I entered the house there was no sign of them. There had been (as you will see for yourself presently) a prodigious struggle in the library – quite a mill, I understand. I am afraid your fellows were much knocked about. In fact, your butler,’ he pursued, stooping to put another log on the fire, ‘welcomed my advent with profound relief.’

‘No doubt!’ said the Beau, breathing rather quickly. ‘I do not doubt it!’

‘The poor butler!’ said Miss Thane, with a tinkling laugh. ‘I am sure I do not wonder he should be alarmed! He must feel you to be his preserver, Sir Tristram. He will be doubly glad to exchange his masters!’

The Beau looked at her. ‘I beg your pardon, ma’am?’

Miss Thane said: ‘I only meant, since he was about to enter Sir Tristram’s service –’

‘You are mistaken, Miss Thane,’ Sir Tristram interrupted, frowning at her. ‘There is no question of my cousin’s butler leaving his service that I know of.’

‘Oh, how stupid of me! Only you was saying to Eustacie that you had found Mr Lavenham’s butler, and she asked, do you not remember, whether his memory –’

Eustacie said in a hurry: ‘I hope so much that nothing has been stolen from your house, Basil. To have –’

‘So do I hope it, my cousin. But pray let Miss Thane continue!’

Miss Thane, encountering a frown from Eustacie, stammered: ‘Oh, indeed it was nothing! I would not for the world – I mean, I was mistaken! I confused one thing with another. My brother tells me I am a sad shatterbrain.’

Sir Tristram intervened, saying in his cool way: ‘I am making no attempt to steal your butler from you, I assure you, Basil.’

‘Of course not! The stupidest mistake!’ said Miss Thane, all eagerness to atone. ‘It is not your present butler, Mr Lavenham, but one you was used to employ. I remember perfectly now!’ She looked from Sir Tristram to Eustacie and faltered: ‘Have I said something I ought not? But you
did
tell Eustacie.’

The Beau was gripping his snuff-box tightly. ‘Yes? A butler I once employed? Are you thinking of taking him into your service, Tristram?’

‘Why, yes, I confess I had some such notion,’ admitted Shield. ‘You have no objection, I trust?’

‘Why should I?’ said the Beau, with a singularly mirthless smile. ‘I doubt, though, whether you will find him so useful as you expect.’

‘Oh, I dare say I shall not engage him after all,’ replied Shield, and made haste to change the subject.

The Beau did not linger. Excusing himself on the score of being obliged to go home to ascertain what losses, if any, he had sustained, he very soon took his leave of the party, and drove away in the direction of Warninglid.

No sooner as he had left the inn than Eustacie cast herself upon Miss Thane’s bosom, announcing that she forgave her for her unfeeling conduct of the night before. ‘You did it so
very
well, Sarah. He was
bouleversé
, and I think frightened.’

‘He was certainly frightened,’ agreed Miss Thane. ‘He forgot to smile. What do you suppose he will do, Sir Tristram?’

‘I hope he may make an attempt to find Cleghorn and buy his silence. If he does he will have delivered himself into our hands. But don’t let Ludovic stir from the house! I’ll warn Nye to be careful whom he lets into the inn.’

‘I can feel my flesh creeping already,’ said Miss Thane, with a shudder. ‘It has suddenly occurred to me that that very unpleasant person thinks Ludovic is occupying the back bedchamber.’

Eustacie gave a gasp. ‘Oh, Sarah, you do not think he will come to murder Ludovic, do you?’

‘I shouldn’t be at all surprised,’ said Miss Thane. ‘And
I
am occupying the back bedchamber! I just mention it, you know.’

‘So you are!’ Eustacie’s face cleared. ‘But it is of all things the most fortunate! It could not be better,
enfin
!’

‘That,’ said Miss Thane, with strong feeling, ‘is a matter of opinion.
I
can see where it could be much better.’

‘But no, Sarah! If Basil comes to murder Ludovic in the night he will find not Ludovic, but you!’

‘Yes, that was what I was thinking,’ said Miss Thane.

‘Well, but it would be a good thing, Sarah!’

‘A good thing for whom?’ demanded Miss Thane with asperity.

‘For Ludovic, of course! You do not
mind
doing just that little thing to help, do you? You said that you wanted to have an adventure!’

‘I may have said that I wanted to have an adventure,’ replied Miss Thane, ‘but I never said that I wanted to be murdered in my bed!’

‘But I find that you are absurd, Sarah! Of course he would not murder you!’

‘Unless, of course, he regarded it as a good opportunity to rid the world of a chattering female,’ said Sir Tristram, with a gravity wholly belied by the twinkle in his eyes. ‘That is a risk, however, which we shall have to run.’

Miss Thane looked at him. ‘You did say “we,” didn’t you?’ she said in a failing voice.

He laughed. ‘Yes, I said it. But in all seriousness, Miss Thane, I do not think there will be any risk. If you are afraid, share Eustacie’s bed.’

‘No,’ said Miss Thane, with the air of one going to the stake. ‘I prefer that my blood should be upon your heads.’

She spoke in jest, and certainly did not give the matter another thought, but the exchange had made an impression on Eustacie’s mind, and for the rest of the day she could scarcely bear to let Ludovic out of her sight. When Sir Tristram had gone, and Miss Thane proposed they should take their usual morning walk, she refused with such resolution that Miss Thane forebore to press the matter, but went out with her brother, leaving Eustacie keeping guard over Ludovic like a cat with one kitten.

As the day drew towards evening Eustacie’s fears became more pronounced. When the candles were lit and the blinds drawn, she persisted in hearing footsteps, and fancying some stranger to have got into the inn. She confided in Miss Thane that she was sure there was someone in the house, hiding, and insisted, in spite of his protestations that no one could have entered without his knowledge, upon Nye’s searching every nook and cranny. The house was an old and rambling one, and the boards creaked a good deal. Miss Thane, when Eustacie held up her finger for the fifth time, enjoining silence that she might listen for a fancied noise, said roundly: ‘A little more, and I shall be quite unable to sleep a wink all night.
Now
what’s amiss?’

Eustacie, drawing the curtains more closely across the window, said: ‘There was just a crack. Someone might look in and see Ludovic. I think it will be better if I pin the curtains together.’

Sir Hugh, who was engaged upon his nightly game of piquet with Ludovic, became aware of her restlessness, and turned to look at her. ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘So you don’t like the moonshine either! It’s a queer thing, but if ever I have a bad dream you may depend upon it the moon’s up. There’s another thing, too: if ever it gets into my room it wakes me. I’m glad to meet someone else who feels the same.’

No one thought it worth while to explain Eustacie’s real motive to him, so after recounting various incidents illustrative of the baneful effect of the moon upon human beings, he returned to his game, and speedily became oblivious of Eustacie’s fidgets.

Since Eustacie could not bring herself to go up to bed leaving Ludovic, quite heedless of danger, below-stairs, the piquet came to an early end, and the whole party went up to bed soon after ten o’clock. Having assured herself that the windows in Ludovic’s room were securely fastened and his pistols loaded and under his pillows, Eustacie at last consented, though reluctantly, to seek her own couch. Ludovic took her in his sound arm, and kissed her, and laughed at her fears. She said seriously: ‘But I am afraid. I love you so much that it seems to me very probable that you will be taken away from me. Promise me that you will lock your door and draw the bolts!’

He laid his cheek against her hair. ‘I’ll promise anything, sweetheart. Don’t trouble your pretty head over me! I’m not worth it.’

‘To me, you are.’

‘I wish I had two arms!’ he sighed. ‘Do you know that you are marrying a ne’er-do-well?’

‘Certainly I know it. It is just what I always wanted,’ she replied.

Miss Thane came along the passage at this moment and put an end to their
tête-à-tête
. She quite agreed with Eustacie that Ludovic must lock his door. She had every intention, she said, of locking her own. She bore Eustacie off to her room, stayed with her till she was safely tucked up in bed, turned the lamp down, made up the fire, and went away wondering whether there really might be something to fear, or whether they had allowed their fancy to run riot. This problem kept her awake for some time, but after a couple of hours spent in straining her ears to catch the sound of a footfall she did at last fall asleep, lulled by the monotonous rise and fall of her brother’s snores, drifting to her ears from across the passage.