‘Do you know,’ said Miss Thane, with an air of candour, ‘I believe you are wise. You are not cut out for matrimony. Your faith in females was shattered by an unfortunate affair in your youth; your eyes were opened to the defects of the female character; you are –’
Sir Tristram looked thunderous. ‘Who told you this?’ he snapped.
‘Why, you did!’
‘I?’ he repeated.
‘Most certainly.’
‘You are mistaken. I am ready to allow that there may be many excellent women in the world. I do not know by what sign you knew that there had been an affair in my past about which I do not care to think. I can assure you that it has not prejudiced me against your sex.’
Miss Thane listened to this with her usual placidity, and, far from showing discomfiture, merely said: ‘It seems to me very inexplicable that you can have met your cousin with so open a mind and yet failed to fall instantly in love with her.’
He gave a short laugh. ‘There is no fear of my falling in love, ma’am. I learned my lesson early in life, but believe me, I have not forgotten it!’
‘How melancholy it is to reflect that so few people have the good sense to profit by their experience as you have done!’ said Miss Thane soulfully. ‘I wonder if we should warn your cousins of the disillusionment in store for them?’
‘I do not think it will be necessary, Miss Thane. Moreover, there is no immediate likelihood of their being married. Ludovic’s affairs seem to me to be in as bad a way as they well might be.’
She became serious at once. ‘Do you think them hopeless?’
‘No, not hopeless,’ he replied. ‘But we have no certainty of the talisman ring being in Basil Lavenham’s possession, and to be frank with you, I don’t place much dependence upon its being in the priest’s hole, even if he has got it. Assuming that he has, I think he would remove it from a hiding-place known to Ludovic the instant he suspected his presence in the neighbourhood.’
‘But does he suspect his presence?’
‘There is no saying what the Beau suspects, Miss Thane. Don’t allow Ludovic to convince you that we have to deal with a fool! He is no such thing, I assure you.’
‘You need not tell me that: I have met him. Will you think me fanciful if I say that I have a strong feeling that he is truly at the bottom of all Ludovic’s troubles?’
‘No, I think it myself. The difficulty will be to prove it.’
‘If you cannot find the ring what is to be done?’
She saw his mouth harden. He had evidently considered this question, for he replied at once: ‘If the worst comes to the worst, the truth will have to be got out of him by other methods.’
Miss Thane, looking at Sir Tristram’s powerful frame, and observing the grimness in his face, could not help feeling sorry for the Beau if the worst should come to the worst. She replied lightly: ‘Would – er – other methods answer, do you suppose?’
‘Probably,’ said Sir Tristram. ‘He has very little physical courage. But until we have more to go upon than conjecture, we need not consider that.’
She sat thinking for a few moments, and presently said: ‘In one way it might not be so bad a thing if he did suspect Ludovic’s presence here. If he suspected it he must, I imagine, realize that you have been convinced of Ludovic’s innocence. I have frequently observed that when people are a little alarmed they are apt to behave with less than common sense. Your cousin has been so secure until now that it has been easy to act with coolness and presence of mind.’
‘Very true,’ he conceded. ‘I have thought of that, but the risks outweigh the advantages. If it were not for one circumstance I should seriously consider removing Ludovic from this country.’
‘He seems very determined. I don’t think that he would consent to go,’ said Miss Thane.
‘I shouldn’t ask his consent,’ replied Shield.
‘Dear me, you seem to be in a very ruthless mood!’ she remarked. ‘What makes you hesitate to kidnap poor Ludovic?’
‘His marksmanship,’ he answered. ‘A man would have to be in desperate straits before he engaged in a shooting-match with Ludovic. The Beau won’t risk it.’
‘Well,’ said Miss Thane, getting up from her chair, ‘I am far from wishing you to ship Ludovic out of the country (besides, it’s my belief he would come back), but I’ve a notion we are going to see some stirring adventures before we leave this place.’
‘It’s very possible,’ he agreed. ‘Are you afraid?’
She raised her eyes to his face. There was a hint of amusement in them. ‘My dear sir, can you not see that I am positively trembling with fright?’ she said.
He smiled. ‘I beg your pardon. But to have a finger in a pie of Ludovic’s making is enough to cause the bravest to quail! What I chiefly dread is his taking it into his head to break into the Dower House without waiting for word from me. Do you think you can prevent him?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Sarah candidly. ‘But I can at least get word to you if he becomes unmanageable.’
For the time being, however, even Ludovic himself was forced to admit that his strength was not sufficiently recovered to permit of his riding five miles to the Dower House. He had lost a good deal of blood, and had been feverish for long enough to make him tiresomely weak upon first getting up out of his sick-bed. He was not one to submit patiently to being an invalid, not did it seem to be possible to impress him with a sense of the dangerous nature of his situation. Once he was possessed of his clothes, nothing short of turning the key on him could keep him in his room. He strolled about the inn in the most careless way imaginable, his left arm disposed in a sling and Sylvester’s great ruby on his finger. When begged to conceal this too well-known ring somewhere about his person, or to give it back to Tristram for safe-keeping, he said No, he had a fancy to wear Sylvester’s ruby. Twice he nearly walked into the arms of local visitors to the Red Lion, who had come in for a tankard of ale and a chat over the coffee-room fire, and only Miss Thane’s timely intervention prevented him sallying forth into the yard with Sir Hugh to win his bet with a little marksmanship. Miss Thane, accustomed to handling the male, did not attempt to dissuade him from shooting. She merely suggested that if he wished to fire a noisy pistol the cellar would be the best place for such a pastime. Ludovic was just about to argue the point when Sir Hugh providentially pooh-poohed his sister’s suggestion, on the score that no one could be expected to culp a wafer in the wretched light afforded by a branch of candles. This was quite enough to make Ludovic instantly engage to win his wager under these or any other conditions, and down they both went, with Clem in attendance. There being no wafers available a playing-card had to suffice. When Ludovic tossed the ace of hearts to Clem, and said carelessly: ‘Hold it for me, Clem!’ Sir Hugh was shocked almost out of his sleepy placidity, and indeed went so far as to adjure the tapster not to be fool enough to obey. Clem, who, besides possessing boundless faith in Ludovic, would never have dreamed of disobeying his orders, merely grinned at this piece of advice, and held up the card by one corner. Ludovic, lounging on a barrel, inspected the priming of his pistol, requested Thane to move the candles a little to one side, levelled the pistol, and fired. The card fluttered to the ground. Clem, grinning more than ever, picked it up and showed it to Sir Hugh with the pip blown clean out of it.
This feat seemed to call for celebration, and Miss Thane, descending into the cellar in search of them some time later, found that they had broached a keg of Nantes brandy, and had no immediate intention of returning to upper ground. Invigorated by the brandy, Sir Hugh was seized by a desire to emulate Ludovic’s skill – but without Clem’s assistance. His efforts, unattended by success, brought Nye down to put a stop to a sport which was not only riddling the walls of the cellar, but creating enough noise to lead anyone above-stairs to suppose that the inn was being besieged.
Since he was not allowed to step outside the Red Lion, and dissuaded from wandering about at large in it, it was a fortunate circumstance that Eustacie was staying under the same roof with Ludovic. Her presence beguiled the most tedious hour, and her vehement way of saying: ‘But no, Ludovic, you shall not!’ had the power of restraining him where Miss Thane’s reasoned arguments might have failed. He taught Eustacie how to throw dice and how to play piquet; he told her hair-raising and entirely apocryphal tales of adventures to be met with at sea; he teased her, and laughed at her, and ended inevitably by catching her in his sound arm and kissing her.
No sooner had he done it than he recollected the impropriety of such conduct. He released her at once, and said, rather pale, and with the laugh quite vanished from his eyes: ‘I’m sorry! Forgive me!’
Eustacie said earnestly: ‘Oh, I did not mind at all! Besides, you kissed me before, do you not remember?’
‘Oh, that!’ he said. ‘That was a mere cousinly kiss!’
‘And this one, not?’ she said simply. ‘I am glad.’
He ran his hand through his fair locks. ‘I’m a villain to have kissed you at all! Forget that I did! I had no right – I ought to be shot for doing such a thing!’
Eustacie stared at him in the blankest surprise. ‘Voyons, I find that you are excessively rude! I thought you wanted to kiss me!’
‘Of course I wanted to! Oh, devil take it, this won’t do! Eustacie, if everything were different: if I were not a smuggler and an exile I should beg you to marry me. But I am these things, and –’
‘I do not mind about that,’ she interrupted. ‘It is not at all convenable that you should kiss me and then refuse to marry me. I am quite mortified.’
‘I wish to God I could ask you to marry me!’
‘It doesn’t signify,’ said Eustacie, handsomely waiving this formality. ‘If it is against your honour you need not make me an offer. We will just be betrothed without it.’
‘No, we won’t. Not until I have cleared my name.’
‘Yes, but if you cannot clear your name, what then are we to do?’ she demanded.
‘Forget we ever met!’ said Ludovic with a groan.
This Spartan resolve did not commend itself to Eustacie at all. Two large tears sparkled on the ends of her eyelashes, and she said in a forlorn voice: ‘But me, I have a memory of the very longest!’
Ludovic, seeing the tears, could not help putting his arm round her again. ‘Sweetheart, don’t cry! I can’t possibly let you marry me if I’m to remain an exile all my life.’
Eustacie stood on tiptoe, and kissed his chin. ‘Yes, you can. It is quite my own affair. If I want to marry an exile I shall.’
‘You won’t.’
‘But yes, I have thought of a very good plan. We will go and live in Austria, where my uncle the Vidame is.’
‘Nothing would induce me to live in Austria!’
‘Bien, then we will live in Italy, at Rome.’
‘Not Rome,’ objected Ludovic. ‘Too many English there.’
‘Oh! Then you will choose for us some place where there are not any English people, and Tristram who is a – is a trustee will arrange that you can have some money there.’
‘Tristram is more likely to send you to Bath and kick me out of the country,’ said Ludovic. ‘What’s more, I don’t blame him.’
But Sir Tristram, when the news of the betrothal was broken to him, did not evince any desire to resort to such violent methods. He did not even show much surprise, and when Ludovic, half defiant, half contrite, said: ‘I ought never to have done it, I know,’ he merely replied: ‘I don’t suppose you did do it.’
Eustacie, taking this as a compliment, said cordially: ‘You are quite right, mon cousin: it was I who did it, which was not perhaps comme il faut, but entirely necessary, on account of Ludovic’s honour. And if we do not find that ring we shall go away to Italy, and you will arrange for Ludovic to have his money there, will you not?’
‘I expect so,’ said Shield. ‘But if you are determined to marry Ludovic I think we had better find the ring.’
Miss Thane, who had come into the parlour in the middle of this speech, thought it proper to assume an expression of astonishment and to say incredulously: ‘Do I understand, Sir Tristram, that this betrothal has your blessing?’
He turned. ‘Oh, you are there, are you? No, it has not my blessing, though I have no doubt it has yours?’
‘Of course it has,’ said Miss Thane. ‘I think it is delightful. Have you discovered when the Beau means to go to London?’
But this he had been unable to do, the Beau having apparently decided to postpone the date. Shield had come to inform Ludovic of it, and to warn him that this change of plan might well mean that the Beau’s suspicions had been aroused. When he heard from Nye that Gregg had visited the inn on the previous day for the ostensible purpose of purchasing a keg of brandy for his master, he felt more uneasy than ever, and said that if only Ludovic had not entered upon an ill-timed engagement he would have had no hesitation in forcibly removing him to Holland.
Miss Thane, to whom, in the coffee-room, this remark was addressed, said that the betrothal, though perhaps a complication, had been inevitable from the start.
‘Quite so, ma’am. But if you had not encouraged Eustacie to remain here it need not have been inevitable.’
‘I might have known you would lay it at my door!’ said Miss Thane in a voice of pious resignation.
‘I imagine you might, since you are very well aware of having fostered the engagement!’ retorted Shield. ‘I had thought you a woman of too much sense to encourage such an insane affair.’
‘Oh!’ said Miss Thane idiotically, ‘but I think it is so romantic!’
‘Don’t be so foolish!’ said Sir Tristram, refusing to smile at this sally.
‘How cross you are!’ marvelled Miss Thane. ‘I suppose when one reaches middle age it is difficult to sympathize with the follies of youth.’
Sir Tristram had walked over to the other side of the room to pick up his coat and hat, but this was too much for him, and he turned and said with undue emphasis: ‘It may interest you to know, ma’am, that I am one-and-thirty years old, and not yet in my dotage!’
‘Why, of course not!’ said Miss Thane soothingly. ‘You have only entered upon what one may call the sober time of life. Let me help you to put on your coat!’
‘Thank you,’ said Sir Tristram. ‘Perhaps you would also like to give me the support of your arm as far as to the door?’
She laughed. ‘Can I not persuade you to remain a little while? This has been a very fleeting visit. Do you not find it dull alone at the Court?’
‘Very, but I am not going to the Court. I am on my way to Brighton, to talk to the Beau’s late butler.’
She said approvingly: ‘You may be shockingly cross, but you are certainly not idle. Tell me about this butler!’
‘There is nothing to tell as yet. He was in the Beau’s employment at the time of Plunkett’s murder, and it occurred to me some days ago that it might be interesting to trace him, and discover what he can remember of the Beau’s movements upon that night.’
This scheme, though it would not have appealed to Eustacie, who preferred her plans to be attended by excitement, seemed eminently practical to Miss Thane. She parted from Sir Tristram very cordially, and went back into the parlour to tell Ludovic that although he might still be unable to do anything towards his reinstatement, his cousin had the matter well in hand.
As she had expected, Eustacie did not regard Sir Tristram’s errand with much favour. She said that it was very well for Tristram, but for herself she preferred that there should be adventure.
But upon the following morning, when Miss Thane had gone out with her brother for a sedate walk, adventure took Eustacie unawares and in a guise t
hat frightened her a good deal more than she liked.
She was seated in the parlour, waiting for Ludovic, who was dressing, to come downstairs, when the mail-coach from London arrived. She heard it draw up outside the inn, but paid no attention to it, for it was a daily occurrence, and the coach only stopped at the Red Lion to change horses. But a minute or two later Clem put his head into the room, and said, his face as white as his shirt: ‘It’s the Runners, miss!’
Eustacie’s embroidery-frame slipped out of her hands. She gazed at Clem in horror, and stammered: ‘The B-Bow Street Runners?’
‘Yes, miss, I’m telling you! And there’s Mr Ludovic trapped upstairs, and Mr Nye not in!’ said Clem, wringing his hands.
Eustacie pulled herself together. ‘He must instantly go into the cellar. I will talk to the Runners while you take him there.’
‘It’s too late, miss! Whoever it was sent them knew about the cellars, for there’s one of them standing over the backstairs at this very moment! I never knew they was even on the coach till they come walking into the place, as bold as brass!’
‘They may be searching the house now!’ exclaimed Eustacie in sudden alarm. ‘You should not have left them! Oh dear, do you think my cousin will shoot them? If he does we must bury them quickly, before anyone knows!’
‘No, no, miss, it ain’t as bad as that yet! What they wants is to see Mr Nye. They daren’t go searching the place afore ever they tell him what they’re here for. They think I’ve gone to look for him, but what I’ve got to do is to hide the young master, and lordy, lordy, how can I get upstairs without them knowing when one of ’em’s lounging round the backstairs, and t’other sitting in the coffee-room?’
‘Go immediately, and find Nye!’ ordered Eustacie. ‘He must think of a way. I will talk to these Runners, and if I can I will coax the one in the coffee-room to come into the parlour.’
With this praiseworthy resolve in mind, and an uncomfortable feeling of panic in her breast, she sailed forth from the parlour and made her way to the coffee-room. Here, at a table in the middle of the room which commanded a view of the staircase and the front door, was seated a stockily-built individual in a blue coat and a wide-brimmed hat, casually glancing over the contents of a folded journal, which he had extricated from one capacious pocket. Eustacie, surveying him from the open doorway, noticed that his figure was on the portly side, a circumstance which afforded her a certain amount of satisfaction, since it seemed improbable that a stout, middle-aged man would have much hope of catching Ludovic if that young gentleman were forced to take to his heels.