Swashbuckling Fantasy

  “It’s alive!” she said, and then added suspiciously, “What is it made of?”

  When supper was over, it was with relief that they followed Hannah to their bedrooms. Members of the Byng family gazed down at them from gilded frames as the children climbed up the sweeping staircase that overlooked the hall with its black-and-white marble floor. What a shame, thought Kate, that in two hundred and fifty years all this will be replaced by a gray linoleum floor, row after row of lockers, and a pile of unclaimed sneakers.

  Alone in his attic room, and with a full stomach for the first time in a week, Gideon pulled off his boots and flung himself on the bed. He stretched out luxuriously and then remembered the letter that Mrs. Byng had given him. He sat on the edge of the bed and read it by candlelight. As his eyes moved down the page, the look of tired contentment drained from face and was replaced by distress, which soon turned into anger. He crumpled up the letter and flung it against the wall.

  Eight

  The Tar Man’s Tale

  In which Peter and Kate plant a cedar of Lebanon and Gideon tells the story of the Tar Man

  At breakfast, melted butter dropped off Peter’s hot muffin onto the old red hunting jacket that had been found for him to wear. He tried to wipe it off surreptitiously with his napkin but only succeeded in smearing the greasy stain over the ruffled cuff of his shirt, too. He tugged repeatedly at the collar that Hannah had fastened with an ornate bow. Through the tall windows he could see the sun beating down onto broad lawns, already scorched by the summer’s heat. Surely they didn’t really expect him to wear this getup on such a day? He was already boiling hot, and his breeches were cutting into the backs of his knees. What was so barbaric about a T-shirt anyway? Neither Sidney nor Jack looked uncomfortable, but he supposed they must be used to it.

  No grown-ups were in evidence around the breakfast table, but Peter counted eight Byng children, not including the infant Byng, whom he had seen the previous evening. He was introduced to all of them but quickly forgot who was who. All these talkative Emmas, Sophies, Elizabeths, and Rachels were a little overwhelming. A small army of maids must have been responsible for all the ringlets and ribbons and cascades of lace. Despite the lavish use of lavender water, an underlying odor of unwashed bodies pervaded the crowded dining room. Peter was beginning to realize that in an age before deodorants and power showers, it was only natural that everyone was going to have their own, individual smell.

  The six Byng sisters greeted Peter kindly enough, asking how he had slept and inquiring whether he had grown up abroad, on account of his strange way of speaking, but they ignored him after a while, preferring to talk about the handsome Mr. Seymour who was to help Mama run the estate while Papa was in America.

  The eldest of the Byng children, Sidney, sat at the head of the table gazing out of the window through half-closed eyes, with an expression on his face that said all the tittle-tattle was of absolutely no interest to him. Young Jack Byng sat opposite Peter but was absorbed in watching motes of dust dance above him in a narrow sunbeam that passed over his head. Every so often he would poke a plump finger into the ray of sunshine and watch how it affected the movement of the dust particles. It put Peter in mind of Dr. Dyer talking to him about dark matter.

  When Hannah and a kitchen maid, no older than twelve or thirteen, came in bearing fresh muffins, the girls demanded to know where Gideon was going to stay. Hannah told them that he would probably stay here at Baslow Hall until Hawthorn Cottage was ready.

  Sidney roused himself to speak for the first time: “I don’t know why you girls”—which he pronounced “gels”—“are making such a to-do about Mr. Seymour,” he said. “He’s not a gentleman. Indeed, he’s scarcely more than a servant. Papa says that people in our position should take care to avoid an excess of contact with our…social inferiors.”

  If one of the elder girls had not blushed with embarrassment and exclaimed “Sidney!” Peter would not have realized that Sidney was staring directly at him. Was Sidney saying that neither he nor Gideon were worthy to mix with the Honorable Byng family?

  Before Peter could work out how to react, Sidney had thrown down his napkin and excused himself from the table.

  “I’ll leave you to the ladies, sir,” he said with a curt nod to Peter.

  Who does he think he is? thought Peter. And why does he speak as if he’s got a Ping-Pong ball in his mouth? I’m not sitting next to him on the way down to London.

  “Please don’t pay too much attention to our brother,” said one of the gels to Peter. “When Papa is away, Sidney feels the responsibility of being the man of the house very keenly.”

  “Sidney is always a terrible prig,” said another. “Whether Papa is here or not.” She was shushed by her sisters.

  “I’m sure Sidney did not mean to be unkind,” Peter lied.

  He was beginning to feel unpleasantly outnumbered by this eighteenth-century crowd and wondered where Kate had got to. The door opened and Hannah bustled in, saying that the girls’ governess was ready to begin lessons, and herded them out of the room.

  “You can finish your breakfast in peace, Master Schock,” she said. “Young Jack can keep you company until Mistress Kate arrives. We’ve been searching the whole house for stays that will fit her.”

  “What are stays?” Peter asked Jack when Hannah had gone.

  Jack sniggered and hid his face in his napkin.

  When Kate arrived, Peter and Jack were sitting at opposite ends of the long table throwing pellets of bread into an empty milk jug. When the twenty-first century children each saw how the other was dressed, they fell about laughing.

  “Look,” said Peter, “they couldn’t find any shoes big enough to fit me, so I’m having to wear sneakers with white stockings and breeches. Have you ever seen anything so stupid?”

  Kate lifted up her long skirts to reveal that she, too, was wearing sneakers. Peter snorted with laughter.

  “Don’t make me laugh. I can’t breathe as it is!” Kate gasped. “They’ve put this leather thing round me and laced me up at the back. I think my ribs are going to break.”

  “Ah, those will be the stays.”

  “How did you know what they’re called?” asked Kate.

  “Oh, everyone knows that,” Peter replied.

  “Is there a mirror in here?” asked Kate. “I want to see what I look like.”

  She looked about the morning room and saw a large gilded mirror above the fireplace. As she drew out a chair to stand on, Jack’s piping voice declared, “You look ravishing, my dear.”

  “Is that what your father says to your mama?” asked Kate, trying to keep a straight face.

  “Yes.” And then, to Kate’s great dismay, Jack’s small face crumpled and he started to cry.

  “I want Papa to come home,” he sobbed.

  Kate put her arms around his shoulders.

  “I understand,” she said.

  “How old are you, Jack?” asked Peter.

  “I am five. I am very ill.”

  “Are you?” said Peter. “You don’t seem too ill.”

  Jack grabbed Peter’s hand and placed it on one side of his throat. It was true that there was a slight swelling.

  “I have the King’s evil,” he said proudly.

  Peter quickly removed his hand and looked at Kate to see if she knew what Jack was talking about. She shook her head.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that’s something,” replied Peter.

  Kate picked up her skirts and balanced precariously on a chair to study her reflection. She wore a dress of soft green silk; pink roses were embroidered on the bodice and it was edged in ivory lace. Her hair had been piled up on top of her head and strands of hair had been curled and artfully arranged around her face. She looked beautiful.

  “I wish I had a camera—I’d love to show Mum; she’s always trying to get me to wear dresses.” Kate’s voice cracked. “Do you think we’ll ever…”

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p; “You will see her again,” said Peter quickly. “We’ll find a way.”

  Peter did not want Kate to start crying—she was actually all right when she wasn’t crying or being bossy.

  Kate nodded and tried to smile. “You must miss your family too.”

  “I do…but my mum and dad are always away on business anyway.”

  “Don’t you get lonely?” Kate asked.

  “I can look after myself.”

  “I’ve been talking to your au pair, Miss Stein,” said Detective Inspector Wheeler. “She told me that Peter was extremely upset the morning he disappeared.”

  He was meeting Mr. and Mrs. Schock for lunch at the Peacock Hotel, where they were staying. This was a mistake, he soon realized, because although he was ravenous, he could hardly wolf down his steak and chips when Mr. and Mrs. Schock had pushed away their plates without even touching their food.

  “It would have been helpful if you could have mentioned the argument you had with your son. In the light of what Miss Stein said, I think we need to consider the possibility that Peter has run away.”

  Mrs. Schock looked at her husband in alarm. “What argument?” she asked. “What is all this about?”

  Peter’s father clenched his jaw in a vain effort to keep calm.

  “There was a meeting I couldn’t get out of. I had to cancel Peter’s birthday treat…again. There was nothing else I could do. Peter didn’t take it too well. He said he hated me…. Don’t look at me like that! If you hadn’t swanned off to work in LA, this wouldn’t have happened!”

  Mrs. Schock dropped her hands onto her lap and let her chin sink to her chest. She closed her eyes. Then her husband put his hands over hers.

  “I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry. All of this is my fault. I know it is.”

  Mrs. Schock shook her head and looked up at Detective Inspector Wheeler.

  “I know my son,” she said. “I don’t believe that Peter would have run away. He gets angry, just like his father, and then he gets upset. But he doesn’t run away. It’s not his style. I don’t believe it.”

  Mrs. Byng had invited Peter and Kate to join them in the gardens after lunch. It was a family custom, she explained, to plant a tree in honor of the birth of each of her children.

  Three-month-old Alexander Byng was held by his nurse to watch the ceremony. Two gardeners held a small evergreen tree level while all the children took it in turns to throw a spade of earth into the hole that had been dug to accommodate the tree’s roots.

  “The colonel got Mr. Powell of Holborn to send up the tree. I have never seen a full-grown cedar of Lebanon, but Mr. Powell assured the colonel that they are long-lived and grow into majestic specimens. He guarantees that this cedar tree will outlive us all.”

  “Yes,” said Kate wistfully, “hundreds of years from now children will still be playing in the shade of its beautiful broad branches. They’ll eat their lunch, leaning their backs on its massive trunk. And if they can manage it without getting caught, they might even carve their initials into its thick bark. I can picture the scene quite clearly.”

  “A pretty speech, Mistress Kate, thank you,” said Mrs. Byng. “And now I must finish the preparations for your journey tomorrow. Hannah will find a change of costume for you to take with you to London. In the meantime I suggest that you take your ease in the gardens—your journey tomorrow will be long and uncomfortable.”

  As Mrs. Byng returned to the house, the children saw Gideon approach her. He took off his three-cornered hat and bowed low. He seemed preoccupied and concerned. They saw Mrs. Byng listening carefully to what he had to say. They could not hear Gideon’s low voice as he had his back to them, but Mrs. Byng’s clear, resonant voice carried toward them on the breeze.

  “Ah, but that is unfortunate, Mr. Seymour. The harvest will soon be upon us and I was counting on your help. Can your business not be delayed?”

  Gideon shook his head and spoke again.

  “Then of course you must go. I would be the last person to counsel otherwise. Hurry back as soon as you are able.”

  Gideon kissed her hand.

  “At least,” Mrs. Byng continued, “I shall rest easier now there is to be another man to accompany the party. My nerves have been quite rattled with all this talk of highwaymen. Parson Ledbury is as brave as a lion, but his bluster is no match, I fear, for a gentleman of the road’s pistol. While Sidney, for all his airs, is still a child.”

  Mrs. Byng disappeared into the house, and Gideon turned and strode over to where Peter and Kate were sitting. There always seemed to be a calmness about Gideon; even when he was rushing, he never seemed in a hurry.

  “I couldn’t help overhearing,” Peter blurted out. “Are you coming to London with us?”

  “Yes, it seems we are to follow the same road once more. Mrs. Byng is happy for me to accompany the party.”

  “Yes!” said Peter, punching the air.

  “Hurrah!” said Kate.

  Gideon seemed pleased. “I am happy to be traveling with you. But are you recovered, Mistress Kate?”

  “Yes, I feel much better, thank you.”

  “I am glad. Mrs. Byng’s dress suits you well. And you, Peter, I scarcely recognized you. You look quite the gentleman, although a pair of decent boots might improve the picture!”

  “I’m glad you think so, because at breakfast Sidney as good as said I wasn’t worthy to sit at the same table.”

  Gideon laughed. “The Byng family is old and respectable, yet they would not appear on the guest lists of half the noble families I had dealings with in London. It is understandable that the eldest son takes pleasure in claiming his superiority when he believes he can.”

  “Don’t you think I’m a gentleman either, then?” asked Peter. He was beginning to feel a bit put out.

  Gideon’s eyes twinkled, but he would only reply, “A gentleman is as a gentleman does. We shall soon find out….”

  “Gideon,” asked Kate, “who is this Tar Man who we must track down in London?”

  Gideon’s smile faded and he sighed as if just the thought of the man cast a shadow over his mood.

  “He is a bad man. But that much you will have worked out for yourselves. Everyone who knows him fears him, and for good reason. He is the henchman of…a powerful man. If someone needs to be found, he will find them. And when he does, just as a cat with a mouse, it is his habit to play with them a little…. And he is persistent. By heaven, he is persistent. Once set on something, he never gives up. You two should have little to fear from him as long as you give him what he demands, but at all costs do not try to double-cross him.”

  “He sounds terrifying!” cried Kate. “And he’s the man we’ve got to find? What if we haven’t got what he wants? What do we do then? Oh, this is not good.”

  “It gives me the creeps just to think about him,” said Peter. “I don’t want to see him again if I can help it.”

  “I know his history,” said Gideon. “It is no surprise that he is angry with the world.”

  “Why? What happened to him?”

  “I do not care to dwell on such a cruel story on this fine, sunny day.”

  “Oh, you’ve got to tell us now!” exclaimed Peter.

  Gideon was reluctant, but Kate, who was pretty persistent herself, eventually convinced him that he might just as well tell them the truth because they’d only have nightmares imagining worse things if he didn’t.

  The three of them sat on the grass at the foot of a yew hedge, and Gideon told them the Tar Man’s story.

  He had lived in a small village, the eldest of a large family, and life had not been easy. In those days he had a name: Nathaniel. His father died when he was still young, and thereafter the only money the family had came from his mother’s skill as a needlewoman. Nathaniel was mostly left to shift for himself, and he was almost always hungry. He soon took to stealing food, and by the time he had reached his teens, he had become a petty thief. He was not greedy and was far too cunning and secretive to ever get ca
ught—a few pennies, an old jacket to keep out the cold, a chicken for dinner—but people were suspicious of Nathaniel, and his dark, sullen looks were against him.

  One January night a stranger was attacked and robbed outside the village and left for dead. When he recovered, he accused Nathaniel of the crime. Nathaniel swore that he had never seen the man before in his entire life. However, despite the lack of evidence, Nathaniel was tried and found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. Anxious to protect his siblings from the shame and horror of such a thing, his mother stayed away from the execution. And so, at the tender age of fourteen, he was to face those last terrible moments of his life alone.

  It was a bitterly cold day in January when Nathaniel was hanged, and the hangman, who had a streaming cold, did not wait the usual thirty minutes before cutting him down. Nathaniel’s body was bound and covered in tar-soaked calico, as was the custom, and taken in a wagon to the village green, where in the early evening he was suspended from a post to serve as a warning to other wrongdoers.

  On the other side of the green, villagers were dancing and making merry in a hall lit by candles. Outside, a fierce cold wind blew and unforgiving rain spattered against the windowpanes. A tired farmer, returning from market on horseback, heard groans as he rode past Nathaniel. The farmer peered into the darkness, and when he caught sight of this ghoulish, slimy creature swaying in a strong gust of wind, he let out a yelp of fright. The farmer was sorely tempted to ride on but decided that the least he could do was to cut the poor wretch down. So, with a heaving stomach, the farmer positioned his horse under Nathaniel and cut the cords that bound him. Nathaniel slithered to the ground, where the farmer loosened the ropes that cut into his hands and feet. Then the farmer lost his nerve and rode home at a gallop.

  Barely conscious and half-blinded by the tar, Nathaniel managed to get to his feet. Drawn by the candlelight and the sound of feet drumming in time to a fiddler’s tune, Nathaniel made his way across the green and staggered into the hall. The music stopped abruptly as did the cheerful babble of the crowd. It was replaced by gasps and screams and finally by silence. Through streaming eyes Nathaniel saw a circle of horrified villagers, most of whom he had known all his life, each one backing away from him, expressions of horror and revulsion on their faces. Nathaniel’s neck, whilst miraculously unbroken, was severely injured, and his head drooped grotesquely to one side. To speak was agony, but still he tried. He opened his mouth to beg for help and reached out to his neighbors with tar-covered arms. Not a single soul was willing to come to his aid, and soon the whole gathering had retreated as fast as their legs could carry them into the wintry night, away from this monster in their midst. Nathaniel was left alone, howling in anguish at a world without pity.