Suki, page 47
‘Stand where you are, sir!’ the leader yelled. ‘Stand still, damme, or the girl is dead!’ And Sir George stopped as though he had been frozen to the spot, and was instantly and totally in control of himself and the situation.
‘Very well, sir,’ he said. ‘You may take what you please. You’ll not be hindered, if the ladies are not molested.’
‘In that case, I’ll trouble you for your purse, sir,’ the leader said equally coolly. ‘You will all be bound, sir, that’s understood, but pervidin’ you do as you’m told, you’ll come to no other harm. You have my word as a gentleman of the road. Stop the cart!’
Now Suki could see that the four men were not identical black shapes at all. They were all different and they all had different jobs to do. The one tying Ariadne’s hands was young and fair-headed, with awkward bony wrists like her brother John; the one pulling the carthorses to a halt was tall and skinny with long angular limbs; the one sitting astride Melissa was the shortest of the four and wore bottle-green breeches and a green cocked hat; while the leader was a stocky man, with an undeniable presence, a watchful man, his wits as quick as his movements and his voice familiar to her, although in the panic of the moment she couldn’t think why. She was noticing so much, but in a disjointed way, and without effort, as if her vision were no longer capable of sustained sight, but was fragmented, so that she saw events in a series of sharp brief glimpses. They passed so quickly they were gone before she could understand them, and yet they were hard edged and indelible and in the sharpest focus.
Melissa lying on the road where she had fallen, with Fair Hair sitting astride her, the barrel of his awful pistol jammed against her throat. There was a red hand mark on her cheek, and she was struggling to cry without making a sound. Fair Hair binding her hands behind her back, tying her into a squirming bundle, rolling the bundle into a ditch as if she was of no more consequence than dirty washing.
Ariadne tied to a tree, her face totally withdrawal, and her expression as mild as the saints in the church window.
Sir George stripping off his coat and tossing it to the leader, skimming his hat after it as if he were throwing pebbles across water. Green Breeches behind him, pulling his wig from his head and hurling it into the nearest tree, where it hung, like a huge dead duck. Sir George smiling as though he found it amusing. And there, on his bald pate, the dull red scar where she’d hit him.
The coach rolling backwards, as the horses scrambled and slipped, trying to turn sideways to recover their balance, then set free and slithering down the hill, foam-flecked and showing the whites of their eyes, with the traces trailing behind them. The coach tipping over slowly and gracefully, grinding as it came to rest in the ditch, with one wheel still spinning uselessly in the air.
Jessup and the coachman back to back against a single slender tree, bound with grey rope and trembling like leaves. Jessup coughing.
Skinny climbing the sides of the fallen coach, all straggling arms and legs, making a grab for the postilion’s fowling piece.
Benjy scrambling from the upturned coach, growling. His jaws clamped about Skinny’s legs. A sudden blow, the pistol descending. The dog twitching in the road, dark blood trickling from his ear.
The master handing over purse, rings, watch. Brown hands grabbing. Lace torn from a pink sleeve. White face at a window.
Black mask before her. Hard eyes. Hard familiar eyes. William burrowing into her neck, clinging to her hair with both hands, ‘Mamma! Mamma!’
‘Your hands! Quick! Show me your hands.’ Holding up one hand, then the other, stupidly. ‘Purse?’
‘No. I haven’t any money.’ She only possessed one article of any value and that was Jack’s silk kerchief. She’d taken to wearing it tucked into the top of her bodice like a fichu and it was so creased and crumpled that it no longer looked the part. With luck, he wouldn’t notice it.
‘Buttons?’ How vilely he smelt! His sweat strong and hot and acrid, reminding her of the Spring Gardens.
‘No.’ And then realisation, spoken at once, before she could think how dangerous it was. ‘I know who you are! You’m the one they call Spider.’
Then fear, filling her throat, and making her heart leap and struggle as he pulled her to her feet, baby and all, and pushed her ahead of him, to where his leader was standing, bouncing the breath out of her body with every step. She was aware that there were black legs following them along the ruts of the road and then, breathlessly, she was in a grassy clearing and surrounded by sweaty black clothes, hard limbs and harder eyes. Four fine horses were tethered to a bush, their fat rumps like polished chestnuts and there was a black boy standing beside them, his blue eyes wide. Blue eyes!
‘She knows who we are,’ Spider said.
Green Breeches spat. ‘Shoot her,’ he said. ‘She’ll peach, sure as fate. Shoot her, Quin.’
‘She’m Captain Jack’s wench, Charlie,’ Quin Cutpurse said, considering her. ‘We can’t shoot the Captain’s wench.’
‘She’ll peach.’
‘Bind her legs!’ Quin Cutpurse ordered, and Green Breeches bound her, very roughly indeed, and sat her beside a bramble bush, with William still in her arms, still burrowing into her neck, but miraculously not crying.
She could see the wide valley below her, stretching back and back until the detail was lost in a blue vagueness of distant hills. Ploughed fields as brown as ginger, shimmering lakes of winter wheat, pasture dotted with the small humped shapes of cattle, a vast, wade reassuring landscape, patched into comfortable irregularity by dark hedges and darker copses. She gazed as though she were sitting in the Spring Gardens and had nothing to fear and, as she gazed, an odd quiet courage grew in her breast like an opening rose, so that her heart steadied and her mind cleared.
‘You need have no fear of me,’ she said and her voice was calm. ‘I shan’t peach. You’ve only to tell me one thing an’ you have my vow, I’ll not breathe a word of this to any livin’ soul.’
‘Do she mean it, Quin?’ Green Breeches said, wiping his nose on Sir George’s fine brocade. ‘What do ’ee think?’
‘Tell me what you want,’ Quin Cutpurse said. ‘There’s money a-plenty. Your master keeps a fine fat purse.’
‘Not money,’ she said. ‘Just tell me where the Captain is. That’s all I want.’
‘And that will buy silence?’
‘Yes.’
‘Tell her, Quin, in heaven’s name,’ Green Breeches urged. ‘We’ll not have control of ’em much longer.’ He had his foot in the stirrup of his horse and was watching Fair Hair who was covering the prisoners with his pistol, standing legs astride in the middle of the road below them.
‘Mount!’ Quin Cutpurse called, untying his horse.
There was a scramble of feet and hooves and all four were on horseback and the horses were wheeling and snorting and as eager to be off as their riders. Quin swung the boy up into the saddle before him, and then they were galloping out of the clearing and across the fields, and he was calling back to her, ‘Bedlam. That’s where you’ll find un. Bedlam-in-Moorfields.’ Then they were gone.
She realised that she was exhausted and that her legs were shaking. But she knew where to find the Captain at last! At last!
‘Gorn!’ William said, looking for the horses. Now that they were on their own, he was perfectly cheerful. She answered him automatically. ‘All gorn! Horses all gorn!’ as if they were back at Twerton and he had been watching the cows come in for milking. My hands are free, she thought, watching them as they patted the baby’s back. I’d best go and untie the others. But she didn’t have the energy. The Captain was alive and in London, in Bedlam-in-Moorfields. That was all that mattered. She knew where he was and now she could find him.
She set William down on the rough grass and slowly untied her legs, stopping halfway through to remove an ant that was climbing on her petticoat. After the noise and speed of the attack, everything was extremely slow and peaceful. She strolled back down the hill like a member of the ton languidly taking the air and untied the master, slowly and painstakingly, without saying a word. Then she was exhausted again and had to sit against the tree because all she really wanted to do was to crawl into bed and sleep for hours.
She was aware that the master was running about untying ropes and giving orders in a quick clipped voice that she hadn’t heard him use before, but none of it was really interesting. Jessup mounted one of the recaptured horses and trotted off downhill, Barnaby was untying the cook, Melissa was crying, Lady Bradbury eased herself out of the upturned door of the coach and walked past the dead body of her pet and didn’t even notice him. Her face was a terrible grey-white, her left sleeve was stained with blood and she tottered as she walked, but Suki was too tired to feel any sympathy for her.
The cart was turned round and the ladies climbed into it and sat with their feet on the dirty straw and didn’t complain. Then they all went down the hill, slowly and without speaking, with the master and Jessup walking behind them, and the postilion leading the horses, down to the river and the abbey and the gentle human society of Laycock. The warblers were still singing.
Chapter 33
The landlord of the Red Lion was most concerned by their bedraggled return, and ran out into the road to assist the ladies from the cart with his own hands.
‘’Tis a scandal!’ he said to Lady Bradbury, sympathetically, spurred on by altruism and hope of profit. ‘Highwaymen in broad daylight! And on Bowden Hill! I thought we were rid of ’em. My poor dear lady, how you must be suffering. Come in! Come in! We are here to serve you!’
The lady held up her blood-stained sleeve so that everybody could see the cuts she’d sustained when the coach overturned. ‘Fiends!’ she said, raising her eyes to heaven as if the highwaymen were already there and being judged. ‘Heartless fiends! Look ’ee here. See what they’ve done!’
‘They will end at Tyburn on the triple tree,’ the landlord promised. ‘Have no fear!’
The lady turned to her husband. ‘Did I not particularly warn you of this very eventuality, my love?’ she asked. ‘Oh, how right I am proved!’
‘No more of that!’ Sir George said mildly, handing Melissa out of the cart. ‘The danger is past and no life lost.’
‘But consider what is stolen!’
‘Money. Trinkets. Nothing of consequence,’ Sir George said, dismissing them. ‘We can soon replace ’em. I’ve done it once, damme. I daresay I shall do it again.’ And ignoring his deshabille, and Melissa’s protest that her pearls were not trinkets, he herded his ladies through the front door. Then he gave instructions, in a voice of such massive authority that smeared, bald and half-naked as he was, he was obeyed without question. He would require a private room, in the front of the house, grooms were to be dispatched to find his horses, and a boy to retrieve his wig, the coach was to be mended, a surgeon sent for, he would need warm water, mulled wine, aqua vitae, tobacco. He stood in the middle of the room radiating energy. Even Suki had to admire him.
Soon bellows were being pumped into the kitchen fire and black coals were glowing into life, all three mullers were in use and every kettle in the house had been filled with water and set to heat. The family were ushered into a side room, with Jessup, Mrs Sparepenny and Hepzibah to attend them. Lady Bradbury was provided with cushions and a footstool, and the wise woman arrived, in lieu of a surgeon, and was soon administering sage tea to her blood-stained patient, and cleaning her cuts with a distillation of hound’s tongue and moonwort, binding the torn edges together with newly gathered gossamer.
‘’Twill do well enough, milady,’ she promised as she gathered her simples ready to leave, ‘do ’ee but consent to rest and keep ’ee warm. Take only soothing foods for a day or two. Honey an’ arrowroot, a chicken broth. But no red meat nor wines, nor spices, vinegars, strong sauces. I give ’ee good day.’
‘We will send payment to ’ee as soon as we arrive in London,’ Sir George told her. ‘We are, as you will understand, a trifle discommoded at present.’
As she took curtsying leave, there was a clatter of hooves outside the window and presently a newcomer was introduced into their privacy. He headed straight for Sir George, who looked up and scowled at him to indicate that his intrusion was not welcome.
He wasn’t the least abashed. ‘My dear sir,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘I’m uncommon sorry to hear of your misfortune. I came post haste expressly to prevent it, but I fear I am too late. John Melluish, sir, thief-taker. Pray allow me to serve you.’
‘We’ve met before, I think,’ Sir George said, squinting at the man’s old-fashioned jacket and his brown bob wig.
‘We have, sir,’ Mr Melluish agreed as they shook hands, ‘but more of that later. You were attacked nearby, I believe. Did you get a good look at the villains, sir? If they are to be caught and your goods returned to ’ee, a description would be of inestimable value and, I need hardly point out, the sooner and more accurate it can be given the better.’
‘They were masked, sir,’ Sir George told him, ‘and wore black.’
‘Their usual habiliment, I fear. Did you see more, ma’am?’
‘I was in the coach, sir,’ Hermione said, ‘and positively torn to shreds as you see. I fear I was too distressed to take cognisance of any man’s appearance.’
‘Quite so,’ Mr Melluish said soothingly. ‘What of the servants? Would any of them have had a closer look, think ’ee?’ He looked round at the three in the room, all of whom shook their heads.
‘You could try the wet nurse,’ Sir George suggested. ‘They carried her off. Spent quite a while conversing with her as I recall.’
‘An’t please you,’ Hepzie put in, ‘whatever they spoke on, ’twas to some purpose, for they forbore to tie her hands the way they did to us. She was the one what came down and untied the master when they’d ridden away.’
Her information had the desired effect. ‘Did she so?’ Mr Melluish said. ‘Then pray let her be sent for.’
Suki was in the stable yard, holding William out over the dung heap so that he could empty his bowels without soiling his petticoats. ‘They’ll have to wait till he’m finished,’ she said, when Hepzie came to fetch her. ‘This aren’t no job to be rushed, is it my ’andsome?’ She knew from Hepzie’s smug expression that, whatever they wanted her for, it wouldn’t be pleasant. And when she arrived in the private room and was introduced to ‘Mr Melluish, the thief-taker’, she remembered him from the quayside at Bristol and knew she’d been right.
‘You were taken away by the highwaymen, I believe,’ the gentleman said.
She stood at the centre of the room with all eyes watching her and had to admit it.
‘You spent some time conversing with ’em.’
That had to be admitted, too.
Mr Melluish gave her a shrewd look. ‘Why was that?’
She had to find an explanation for him and it had to ring true, so why not tell him part of the truth? A little truth wouldn’t be peaching. ‘I recognised one of ’em,’ she said, ‘an’ told un so. ’Twas a man called Spider. He tried to pick my pocket once in the Spring Gardens in Bath. I’d have knowd un anywhere. He took me up the road to where the others were on account of he wanted ’em to shoot me, but they wouldn’t.’
Mr Melluish wrote it all down in his green chapbook. ‘What else did they want of ‘ee?’
‘Little else,’ Suki said. ‘They were after money an’ jewels an’ such like.’
‘They did not tie your hands, I believe.’
‘No, sir. They couldn’t on account of I was holding William, as I am now. I s’ppose they thought to leave me a fair way off from the rest, to give theirselves time to escape.’
The interrogation went on. Had she recognised any of the others? No indeed, sir. What could she remember about them? They were dressed in black and wore masks. Were any other names mentioned? Oh, no, sir. Eventually she was dismissed.
‘She could be an accomplice,’ Mr Melluish said as soon as she’d gone. ‘’Tis my opinion she should be watched and noted.’ Lady Bradbury rolled her eyes to heaven. ‘I cannot credit such a thing!’ she said. ‘She is my wet nurse.’
‘What are your plans, sir?’ Mr Melluish asked Sir George.
‘We must travel on,’ Sir George said, ‘as soon as the coach is repaired. This afternoon if possible. We have a four-day wedding toward.’
‘Then I must trouble you no further,’ Mr Melluish said courteously. ‘If you would be so kind as to provide me with an address to which I may write, I will report progress to you.’
The address was given with the assurance that he would be welcome there at any time and the hope that he would be successful in his endeavours.
The thief-taker bowed. ‘Your servant, sir.’
‘Send all thieves to the gallows,’ Sir George told him cheerfully. ‘That’s my opinion on’t. And accomplices too, damme.’ But as soon as the man was gone he turned to his daughters with a very different expression on his face. ‘Take a turn in the air, me dears,’ he ordered, dismissing the servants with a wave. ‘I’ve a word to say to your mother.’
They went obediently, Ariadne empty-faced, Melissa frowning, the servants curious. Hermione held a kerchief to her forehead and closed her eyes against whatever was to come.
‘Your wet nurse, ma’am,’ he said, ‘is a fraud. I’ve found her out, damme. I thought her face looked familiar when she climbed into the cart this morning, and now I know the reason of it. ’Tis the wench that hit me with the clyster.’
Hermione sighed heavily and held up her right arm so that her injuries were towards him, but she didn’t argue.
‘I gave strict orders, as you will recall, ma’am, strict orders that she was to be dismissed on the spot. On the spot. And what do I find? She is still here. Still a member of our household and an accomplice to highwaymen to boot. ’Od’s bowels! What is the world coming to?’
‘She is a good nurse, my love,’ Hermione said weakly, ‘and good nurses are hard to come by. I could not find another and thought… I am sure you would not have wished to put your son at risk.’
