Yvonne Goes to York (10 page)

He learned there was a carpenter’s shop on the outskirts of town on his road back to Bradfield Park and called there just as the owner was locking the doors. Patiently, he asked the usual question. The owner, a Mr Griggs, said he had never come across a carpenter of the name Grenier or Miller. ‘Wouldn’t be in the trade yourself?’ he asked. ‘I was short-staffed today, what with some of them demanding a holiday for the assizes. What’s the fascination in sitting in a dusty court hearing poor wretches being sentenced to the rope? It’s beyond me.’

Benjamin straightened his livery. ‘I am a footman,’ he said haughtily, if a trifle tipsily, for he had drunk quite a number of tankards of ale during his visits to the taverns.

‘And what’s a footman doing looking for a
carpenter
?’

‘This carpenter is a friend of the Marquis of Ware,’ lied Benjamin.

‘If he’s a friend of a marquis, what’s he doing working as a carpenter?’

‘He ain’t no ordinary carpenter,’ said Benjamin. ‘He’s one of those Frenchies.’

‘Oh, an immigrant! We had one of those. Good worker.’

‘Name?’

‘Called himself Green.’

Green … Grenier, thought Benjamin, his interest quickening.

‘What became of him?’

Mr Griggs patted the now locked doors rather like a man patting a horse and turned round. ‘Well, he was working at the lathe when two men came in. He looked none too pleased to see them.’

‘Tall man wiff white ’air?’ exclaimed Benjamin, whose accent always became cockney when he forgot to control it. ‘An’ a foppish, prancing young fool?’

‘Sounds like ’em.’

‘So what happened?’

‘They come up to him and began to talk. Mr Green took off his apron, hitched his coat and hat down from a nail on the wall, and just walked off with them. I ran after him and said, ‘Hey, you can’t just stop work when you feels like it.’ He says as how he’s sorry but he’s got to go.’

‘Maybe they held a gun on ’im,’ said Benjamin, half to himself.

‘Not that I could see,’ said Mr Griggs. ‘Here! What’s all this about?’

‘Too long a story,’ said Benjamin over his shoulder
as he strode off. He felt uneasy. If Mr Grenier had just walked off, just like that, could it be that he had really changed his mind and wanted to go back to France with them?

But he wouldn’t have disappeared like that without having let his daughter know, thought Benjamin. And he had surely used his real name at the greengrocer’s so that his daughter would be sure of finding him.

The sky was turning a pale green and a bat fluttered high above his head. Better get back quickly and report what he knew. He stepped out smartly, but as he came abreast of a tavern he could hear the merry sound of voices, the tinkle of glasses, and the rattle of dice.

His feet seemed to have a life of their own, separate from his brain and his conscience, both of which were telling him to get back to Bradfield Park as quickly as possible with his news.

He saw that the men playing dice were finely dressed. He edged towards their table, waited until one threw up his hands in disgust and walked away, and neatly slid into his place.

Time flowed past as Benjamin’s fortunes rose and sank and rose again. It was past midnight when the company declared the game at an end and urged Benjamin to join them in several bottles of wine.

‘Must get back to Bradfield Park,’ said Benjamin. ‘What, old Wetherby’s place? You won’t get much from him. Proper old skinflint,’ said one.

‘House seems pretty grand,’ commented Benjamin, his clever black eyes roaming from face to face.

‘Lady Wetherby holds the purse-strings,’ said
another. ‘Wetherby speculated on ’Change and lost his fortune. Has to ask her for every penny.’

Benjamin made his way out into the fresh air, trying to clear his tipsy brain. Lady Wetherby cracked the whip because she had the money. Therefore, it followed that Wetherby might want money of his own and might be prepared to assist a traitor to get it.

He went along the winding road feeling muzzy and tired. He sat down by the side of the road and put his head in his hands. He shouldn’t have drunk so much. The next moment, he was fast asleep.

Hannah, Yvonne, and the marquis were in the little sitting-room between the bedchambers. The marquis had called to move his night-things to Yvonne’s room and had found both of them dressed, awake, and worried.

Benjamin had not returned, explained Hannah. The marquis said he would wait with them. He was not so worried about Benjamin’s fate as Hannah was, thinking that any unsupervised servant had probably taken to the town’s taverns. Benjamin was quick and clever but no servant could surely be expected to play detective for very long when the delights of the town lured him.

Yvonne was quiet, stitching away, adding an extra flounce to another muslin gown, Hannah having given her a gown to cannibalize. She was turning the events of the day over in her mind. She and Hannah had searched the grounds and the house and had not found any place where a man might be hidden. When they had gathered in the drawing-room that evening, Mr
Ashton and Monsieur Petit were absent, as was their host. Lady Wetherby blithely said her husband had had some business to attend to in the town. The marquis, on hearing this, became convinced that Lord Wetherby was in on the plot and was glad he had not confided in him.

But Dusty had been very much in evidence, thought Yvonne, and she had been winsome, she had been charming, and she had been totally sickening. How could the marquis bear that unending stream of baby talk, that vacuous blue stare? But he had flirted easily with Dusty and had appeared to enjoy her company immensely.

‘I suppose he will marry her.’ Yvonne turned brick-red when she realized she had voiced this thought aloud.

The marquis’s silvery eyes glinted at her in the lamp-light. ‘Who will marry whom?’

‘I was remembering something, that is all,’ said Yvonne, pricking her finger with her needle and uttering an exclamation of dismay.

‘If you mean I will marry Dusty, no, I do not think so,’ said the marquis. ‘But it is important that Lady Wetherby thinks so. I was talking to one of the gamekeepers and he told me that it is Lady Wetherby who has the money, but that she is nonetheless notoriously clutch-fisted. It is only the thought of my title and fortune that has made her welcome us.’

‘So you do have a fortune, Mr Giles?’

‘Yes, Miss Grenier.’

‘Then why the alias?’

 ‘A whim. I am a whimsical fellow. I confess I sometimes do silly and irrational things.’

‘Do you kiss females when the whim takes you?’ Yvonne’s voice was sharp and Hannah looked from one to the other.

‘Oh, yes. But that has proved too dangerous a sport. Do you know, Miss Pym, that the last lady I kissed had her revenge on me?’

‘How could I, my lord? But how did she get her revenge?’

‘She stole my heart.’

‘Miss Dusty, I suppose,’ said Yvonne waspishly.

‘Now you are being deliberately obtuse.’

‘If I may interrupt your banter,’ said Hannah, ‘I would like to remind you that my Benjamin has not yet returned and I am nearly out of my wits with worry.’

‘If we took some action, we should feel better,’ said the marquis. ‘Let us walk a little way past the lodge gates and we might meet him coming home.’

Hannah was relieved at the prospect of any action whatsoever. Soon the three were making their way down the long drive. Yvonne gave a little shiver and looked back. ‘I feel as if the whole house is watching us,’ she whispered.

‘Do you not think that they might try to kidnap Miss Grenier?’ suggested Hannah nervously. ‘I feel we have made a grievous error in coming here.’

‘They would not dare. Besides, I am convinced Lady Wetherby knows nothing of it.’

‘Why are you going along with this adventure, my lord?’ asked Hannah. ‘If you travelled north with the
sole purpose of calling on a friend, will not he or she be waiting for you?’

The marquis hesitated. If only he could be sure about Yvonne. If he could be sure she was not playing a deep game, then he would call the authorities to have Petit and Ashton arrested and then let them prove their innocence in a court of law. But he could not bear the idea of Yvonne herself having to stand trial. In his very English way, the marquis had doubts about Yvonne simply because no other woman had ever aroused his senses so much. He wanted to marry her were she innocent. He could not marry a traitor. Perhaps she was used to charming men. She could certainly play the coquette very easily.

‘Give me another day and I will tell you,’ he said.

They opened the small gate at the side of the larger lodge gates and let themselves out into the road. A bright moon was shining through the black lace of the trees above, harlequinning their faces in chequered patterns of silver and black.

‘Oh, where can that wretched footman of mine be?’ mourned Hannah.

‘Why, there, I think,’ answered the marquis in a voice suddenly tinged with amusement. A little down the road, they could see a figure sitting on a milestone.

‘It cannot be Benjamin,’ protested Hannah. ‘Why should he fall asleep by the roadside when he was so nearly at Bradfield Park?’

They approached the sleeping figure. It was indeed Benjamin, head buried in his cravat, hat tilted down over his face, snoring heavily.

‘Wake up this minute!’ shouted Hannah, angry with relief.

Benjamin started awake, screamed, ‘Spies!’ and fell over behind the milestone.

‘Faugh! What a smell of beer.’ Hannah wrinkled her nose in disgust. ‘And tobacco. Get up, you lazy hound, and present yourself.’

Benjamin, now fully awake and sobered, clambered out onto the road and said huffily, ‘I was exhausted, modom, what with trudging around all them
carpenters
.’

‘And taverns, by the smell of it.’ Hannah gave his arm an irritated shake. ‘Well, what did you find, if anything?’

So Benjamin told them of how Ashton and Petit had visited Grenier where he was working and how he had evidently gone off with them without a struggle.

‘So if he went willingly, he is somewhere about in hiding,’ said the marquis. ‘If not, in captivity. We have played cat and mouse long enough. The time has come to confront Lord Wetherby with what we know.’

‘My father would never have gone willingly with them,’ exclaimed Yvonne.

The marquis’s voice held a cold edge. ‘You have not seen him for some time. He may have changed.’

‘Never!’

‘Let’s not stand here arguing,’ pleaded Hannah. ‘We must go back to the house and try to find Lord Wetherby if he has returned.’

They silently made their way back up and through the lodge gates and up the drive under the thicker blackness of the trees in the park. Then Yvonne let out
an exclamation. ‘I am … how you say … tripping over my shoe-lace.’ They waited as she bent to tie it. And then, in the stillness of the night, the marquis distinctly heard a gun being cocked nearby.

‘On your faces,’ he shouted. He put an arm round Hannah and an arm around Yvonne, who had just straightened up, and bore them face downwards on the grass beside the drive. ‘What …?’ began Benjamin, who was still standing. There was the sound of a report and a bullet whizzed through Benjamin’s tall hat. He let out a screech and fell on his face on the grass.

‘They’ve killed Benjamin,’ wailed Hannah, crawling on her hands and knees towards her footman’s fallen body.

‘No, modom,’ came Benjamin’s voice, ‘but the bleeders ’ave wounded me dimmed ’at.’

‘Stay where you are,’ whispered the marquis. He sat up cautiously and drew a pistol from his pocket. Then, holding it primed and ready, he eased himself to his feet. A bullet whizzed past his ear and the marquis took aim and fired in the direction from which the shot had come. There was a sharp scream of pain, then the sound of breaking twigs and branches, then nothing.

‘I think I wounded whoever it was,’ said the marquis in a low voice. ‘On your feet and let us make rapidly for the house.’

Hannah found her mouth was dry with fear. She put an arm around Yvonne’s waist and ran with her towards the shelter of the portico. The marquis and Benjamin soon joined them. They had waited behind, the marquis with his gun at the ready, until they were sure the two women were safe.

‘Now,’ said the marquis. ‘Let’s rouse this household.’

In the hall, he rang the bell until the butler appeared in his night-shirt. The marquis ordered him to rouse the staff and then Lord and Lady Wetherby.

Lord Wetherby proved to be at home and came down the staircase with his wife, both of them looking very angry indeed.

‘What is the meaning of this, Ware?’ demanded Lady Wetherby. ‘Is not my Dusty to get her beauty sleep? “Stay in your room, pet,” that’s what I told her, for ten to one they’re all drunk.’

‘We went out to look for Miss Pym’s missing footman,’ said the marquis, addressing both servants and master. ‘On the road back through the park and not far from the lodge gates, someone tried to kill us. Someone shot at us. As you are here, Lord Wetherby. I am sure our assailant was either Ashton or Petit – by the latter I mean the man who calls himself Smith. They are spies for the French, so what are you doing giving them house room?’

‘I didn’t know who they were,’ raged Lord
Wetherby
. ‘I mean, I know that loose screw, Ashton. Why should I turn ’em away? Said they were only going to stay a few days. French spies be damned. You’re romancing, that’s what. Been at the brandy, hey?’

‘You will soon be making a statement to the nearest magistrate,’ said the marquis, ‘for I intend to go to the authorities in the morning and put the whole case before them.’

‘You do that,’ shouted Wetherby. ‘And then take yourself off and those women with you.’

Lady Wetherby looked alarmed. ‘Watch your tongue, Wetherby,’ she said, ‘and don’t you go
insulting
Ware like that or you’ll have our Dusty
heartbroken
. Don’t she dote on Ware already? Don’t he dote on her? Well, now.’

She folded her surprisingly strong arms under her ample bosom.

‘Dote on Dusty, dote on Dusty!’ shrieked Lord Wetherby, suddenly beside himself with rage. ‘
Everything
for bloody Dusty and nothing for me. Gowns that cost hundreds of pounds for Dusty, and if I want a new hunting dog, you won’t loosen those purse-strings. Well, let me tell you this. If you think Ware cares a fig for dear little Dusty, you are a bigger cretin than I thought you were. His most noble lordship has only got eyes for that French
cousin
of his, and if you weren’t so blind, you would see it.’