Текст книги "A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh"

Автор книги: Russell Thorndike

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at the conclusion she gave way to the most extraordinary capers of excitement, literally tripping round and round the table, exclaiming that nothing could have been more fortunate. “La, sir,” she cried, “this little affair is truly a Godsend to me.”

“In whatever way?” asked the amazed lawyer.

“Why, you disproportionate dullard! Who is head of the press gang, eh? Answer me that now, and you’ve got it.”

“Captain Tuffton, isn’t it, my love?” said the lawyer.

“Captain Tuffton, of course it is,” said his wife, “Captain Tuffton of a truth. That insufferable coxcomb, that atrociously obnoxious scent-smelling profligate on whom I shall now be able to pay off old scores.”

“Old scores, my love? Old scores?”

“La, sir, have you utterly forgotten how he snubbed me at Lady Rivers’s card party and again at his lordships’s water picnic? Has that slipped your

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memory, too? How he got that appallingly painted besom of a Parisian actress to imitate me to my face? Lord love you, Mister Whyllie, I have long sworn to get even with that young idiot. Why, it was only this morning that I was puzzling out a thousand schemes all through church for his undoing, and here comes a direct answer to my prayers, and you seem to have covered yourself with the blues about it. Why, Mister Whyllie, here is not only a chance to humble him to the dust, but a most admirable occasion for his disgrace as well.”

“I am truly glad to hear you say so,” was the husband’s comment. “But I’m danged if I can see how you are to set about it.”

“Through the help of this girl here, stupid, and by the bewitching charms of your handsome niece from India, who has returned to England with her large fortune inherited from the British East India Company.”

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The lawyer stared at his wife blankly, then genuine concern for that lady’s health getting the better of his amazement, he said: “Can I fetch you your salts or anything, my love? Your pounce box or your vinaigrette? For I declare that you are wandering in your mind, my poor dear. I never had a niece in all my life, my love, and as for the British East India Company—well, I have heard of it, of course, but little else indeed—very little else.”

“Well, for to-day you will have to know a good deal about it,” said Mrs. Whyllie, “so you had better step into the library and read up its history, and as to your niece, your favourite niece, you will please do me the favour of remembering that you possess her, too, sir. Now, then, Mistress,” addressing Imogene, “as soon as this husband of mine has taken himself off, I’ll tell you your part in this affair.” Taking the hint, the lawyer beat a retreat to the library, gladly leaving the difficult business in the hands of his wife. “Now, girl,” she went on when they were alone, “I suppose I shouldn’t be very far wrong if I

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surmised that you are head over ears in love with this young man that the press

gang has taken, eh?”

“Yes, I love him,” said the girl quietly.

“Ah!” sighed the lady, “that’s all right, and I suppose I’m also not far out if I suppose that you would do a good deal to save him from being shipped off to the wars, eh?”

“I will do anything to save him from that danger,” said the girl.

“Good!” replied the old lady. “Then come upstairs with me.”

Out of the room and across the little hall they went, and so up the broad white staircase to the dearest little bedroom imaginable, with a small four-posted bed with chintz frills and hangings, and a dressing-table set with bright silver ornaments.

“Now this room is for you, my dear, for my handsome niece from India, you understand? And now I must ask you to change your clothes and get into some

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pretty frock or other, and I must have you to know, my dear, that I have been married twice, and by my first marriage I must tell you, my dear, that I had a daughter, a really beautiful daughter. This was years ago, of course, but she was just about your age as I remember her— By the way, what is your age, my dear?”

“About sixteen, or I might be seventeen perhaps,” said Imogene.

“Ah, well, my daughter was nineteen when she died,” went on the old lady. “She was all I had in the world, for her father had died when she was quite a child. Yes, she was all that I had to love for fifteen years, and when she was taken I was so desperately lonely that in a weak moment I married that foolish Mister Whyllie, who is really very kind-hearted and quite a good man, but oh! how dull! Indeed, my dear, he would never have been in the position he is now if I hadn’t pushed him there. You see, my dear, he hasn’t much brain. Why, he cannot boast a third of my power, but on the whole I am glad that I married

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him, because he has given me such a lot to do helping him deceive other people that he isn’t a born fool. But I really must not talk such a lot, for we have a deal to do, my dear. But I must just explain this: I spent a good deal of money upon pretty frocks for my daughter, and, oh! how sweet she used to look in them. Well worth the money it was, my dear, to see her look so pretty. Now every one of these dresses I have kept, and kept carefully, too. If the sweet child came back to me now, she would find all her things as well cared for, as clean, and as fresh as when she left me, for this was her room (this house belongs to me, my dear, not to that fool downstairs), and in these chests and in that oaken tallboy there I have kept everything that reminds me of my darling. See!” And taking a key from a casket upon the chimney-piece she unlocked the tall oak cupboard, displaying to Imogene’s gaze a sight to make her stand entranced. The daintiest dresses were there, and in the brass-bound coffer at the end of the bed the most costly laces and fine linen, and all kept sweet and pure in a strong scent of

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lavender. From these sacred treasures the old lady made selections, and by the time that the gong had sounded for the three o’clock dinner, instead of the handsome, dashing fisher-girl, there sat before the mirror, having the finishing touches put to her beautiful hair, done in the height of the fashion then existing, a beautiful young girl in a gown of country splendour, jewels glistening in her hair, and a diamond brooch of great beauty clasped into a lace fichu which set off her shapely neck to great advantage.

While she had been dressing the girl the old lady had with great tact got all of Imogene’s history out of her, at least as much of it as she knew, and just before they stepped from the room, as she surveyed her protégée with admiration, she held up her quaint little face and requested Imogene to kiss her, which she did.

“And now, my dear, we will go down to dinner, and the while we are eating I will tell you exactly what we are to do, and,” she added with enthusiasm, “if

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that squire’s son, whom I regard as a fortunate young fellow, does not marry you—well, I’ll horsewhip him myself, aye, both him and his father, and adopt you as my own daughter, for what a relief it would be to have you in the house to look at, for you know, my dear, you are vastly prettier than my foolish Mister Whyllie,” saying which she tripped lightly down the stairs followed by the dazzling Imogene.

Had Imogene been in reality the old lady’s daughter, returned to her from the dim side of the veil, she could not have been shown more kindly love and attention. Even Mr. Whyllie got a happy time of it, for the little old lady was in the best of tempers, entirely at peace and light-hearted. Indeed at the conclusion of the meal the lawyer found himself pushed into a comfortable chair with a small table at his side upon which stood a fine old bottle of port, and to his utter astonishment his wife standing near with a churchwarden pipe filled with tobacco and a lighted paper spill all ready for him. So he also began to bless the

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coming of his niece from India, wishing that she had been invented sooner and that she was going to remain in the house to the end of the proverbial chapter.

Then Mrs. Whyllie, over a dish of tea with Imogene, unfolded her plan of campaign for the rescue of young Denis, and the manner in which this plan was carried out is set forth in a following chapter.

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Chapter 34

A Military Lady-killer Prepares for Battle

That insufferable coxcomb Captain Tuffton was in the act of sprinkling his lace handkerchief with the scent that old Mrs. Whyllie found so atrociously obnoxious when his valet entered the room with a note. The insufferable one went on with his sprinkling and languidly inquired who the note was from. “I really cannot say, sir,” returned the valet. “Cannot say?” repeated the insufferable, lifting his pencilled eyebrows into the higher regions of astonishment. “Indeed, my good Transome—and you call

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yourself a valet, don’t you now? It is not a bill, I trust, strayed in upon the Sabbath out of cunning, for I have not seen a bill these many years now, and the sight, I feel convinced, might upset my stomach.”

“I think, sir, that there is no valet in Europe so quick to smell out a bill or so nimble at tearing them up as your humble servant.” Transome could be tremendous upon occasions and he certainly was when he added: “And under your livery, sir, I venture to suggest that my practice of bill nosing has been unlimited.”

“Now, come, my good Transome, you disrespectful dog, I’ll not have you chiding me, upon my soul I won’t, for I have a most damned head on me this forenoon. I generally do get a damned bad head on me o’ Sundays. All a-buzz, I declare, and it’s those damned exasperating church bells. I never met anything so persistent in my life. They go on, they go on, and there’s no stopping them, now is there? As plentiful as bills are church bells and just as taxing to the

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nerves. If ever I have to oblige the blasted Parliament by sleeping in it, I shall endeavour to keep awake to vote for the abolishment of church bells.”

“And you might, sir, at the same time do away with bills. It would be most convenient, wouldn’t it, sir?”

“Well, I suppose it would. If I ever do get in, which I think extremely unlikely, for which I most heartily thank my Maker, knowing how unutterably bored I should become, but if ever I do get in, I will most certainly abolish bills and bells, and if there should be any other little thing that you think might sensibly be abolished, why, you must jog my memory, Transome, and jog it hard, won’t you, my dear fellow, for you know what a memory I have? Damned bad, upon my soul it is!”

“Ah, sir,” sighed the valet, “you will become a great orator, a very great orator.”

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“I might, my dear fellow, I really might, although I am positive that I shan’t, because, you see, I know that I shall go most damnably to sleep. I shan’t be able to help myself.”

“You must really make an effort, sir, to keep awake, for the sake of your country, you really must, sir, for you will make as great a statesman as you have a soldier. You cannot help it, sir. Talent such as your, genius such as yours, is like murder, sir—it will out.”

“No, I am a lazy good-for-nought, upon my soul I am, and a statesman I shall never become, for even if I do get pushed into a seat, what shall I lay on my sleeping in it all the time? A pack o’ dogs, sixteen fighting cocks, and a blasted nag? Will you take me?”

“Against what, sir?”

“Against nothing, you damned, disrespectful dog! Upon my honour, against nothing but my sleeping. What are you flashing that deuced silver tray about

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for? It catches the light in a most exasperating manner and causes the most acute suffering to my wretched eyesight. Have you no feeling at all, my good Transome, or have you lost it as well as your respect? Have you never suffered the spasms of the damned? I declare that my poor wretched head is executing positive manoeuvres this morning. Musket drill and cavalry charges are going on inside it the whole time. Oh, dear, oh, dear! How I wish you would open that note, instead of flourishing it about again. You surely don’t expect me to open it, do you?”

Accordingly, the valet opened the letter and announced to his master that it was a lady’s handwriting.

“Then you had better give it to me,” drawled the captain with a resigned air, “for if you pry into the contents of the poor thing’s soul, it will be all over the town in an hour or so, and another woman’s reputation will have disappeared. Why, Lord love us,” he added as he glanced at the note in question, “if it isn’t

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from that she-dragon herself, that most terrible and alarming Missus What’shername, Missus—Missus—oh, what the devil is her name, eh?”

The valet suggested humbly that the lady in question would most probably have signed her name at the end of the letter.

“Oh, yes, of course, what a downright sane fellow you are, to be sure. Now with all my brain power I should never have thought of that. Perfectly ridiculous of me, I know, but I really shouldn’t have, you know. Ah! I remember who the woman is now, without looking. She’s the wife of that perfectly idiotic lawyer fellow who always fastens up his fat stomach in a white waistcoat a cut or two too small, but I’m blamed if I can remember even his name, so you see we are not much nearer to it, are we now?”

Again the valet repeated the brilliant suggestion of looking to the end of the letter, and the master, having graciously accepted his suggestion, announced to

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the valet that the mystery was solved at last and that the name was nothing

more nor less than Whyllie.

“And I wonder what the devil she can want with me, Transome?”

The valet again made a brilliant suggestion that if he would take the pains to read the letter he would in all likelihood discover. So with a very bored air the perfumed soldier read the note right through, and threw it down upon the dressing-table with a great smile of self-complacency.

“She desires me to wait upon her this afternoon, my good fellow. She wishes positively to let bygones be bygones, and desires that I will bury all past differences by partaking of an hour’s hospitality from their house. She also states that she has a wealthy niece but just returned from India, and she desires that this same niece may have the privilege of meeting the cream of the Rye bachelors. My dear fellow, what a truly terrible age we do live in! I have never heard of such daring and unblushing matchmaking. Well, I suppose it is a thing

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that we must expect in a Godforsaken little hole of a place like this, where the available bachelors are few indeed and possess not the smallest knowledge of how to decently deport themselves, much less their clothes.”

“Besides, sir,” the valet ventured to remark, “the red cloth of the military has a great attraction for matchmakers. It is always so very respectable, and it carries a most remarkable tone with it, to be sure, sir.”

“Well, I think I will go, at all events,” went on the insufferable, “and throw my eye over the niece, though I really cannot expect much in the beauty line, for she will probably be forty if she’s a day, judging by the ancient aunt. However, it will not be such a bad sport leading her on a bit. Have you ever practised the amusing art of exciting elderly spinsters? If not, do, my dear fellow, for it has its humour, and, really now, humour is about all that is left to us nowadays, isn’t it? Hurry up, my good fellow! No, you dolt, I am not on duty. What do I want my sword for? Swords get most damnably between your legs at

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the wrong moment. They really are positively useless lumber. I cannot think why they are not abolished. Damned clanky things, always in the wrong place, and tripping one up when least on one’s guard. I’ll take my cane. No, no, you positive Judas, the one with the scarlet tassle of course. And my perfume box— no, no, that’s a snuffbox. I hate snuff. You know that I always endeavour to leave it behind whenever possible, for it has a most damnable habit of getting up my nose and bringing on the most acute attacks of sneezing. Now my hat and—no, perhaps not the cloak. A cloak, my good fellow, has a most annoying habit of hiding the curve of the waist. And I really do think that even my most bitter detractors must own that my waist curve is entirely and absolutely right. Now how are we, eh? Has the most criticising valet in the world got anything to remedy, anything to suggest? I think we can do little else with the cravat?”

“It would be passed by Mister Brummel himself.”

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“Then we are ready, are we? Au revoir, therefore, my estimable friend! Keep your spirits up, and don’t forge my name to a check in my absence!” With which piece of jocular raillery Captain Tuffton, the military lady-killer, swaggered out of the room, swinging the red-tasselled cane, and humming in well-modulated tenor a Spanish love song in very bad Spanish; but that didn’t matter, as nobody was any the wiser, and literally tripping into Watchbell Street, he approached the little white front door behind which were waiting three good people, preparing a most superb ambuscade for the insufferable captain to walk into, an ambuscade that was going to very effectually put an end to the military swagger of this scent-breathing officer. He rang the bell languidly, little thinking it a tocsin of battle and of sudden death.

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Chapter 35

Scylla or Charybdis

Captain Tuffton could certainly not complain of his reception, for the lawyer was positively nervous in his endeavours to please, while Mrs. Whyllie, in her anxiety to let bygones be bygones, positively basked in the sunshine of his glory, and as to Imogene—well, she at least had the speedy satisfaction of knowing that her appearance had caused havoc in the heart of the lady-killer. “And so you are back from India?” he said to the beautiful niece. “So it appears, sir,” answered Imogene, with a roguish smile.

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“Ah, yes. Of course it is only too obvious,” answered the military one, “for here you are, aren’t you now? It’s a beastly place out there, I suppose, now isn’t it? I never could abide elephants or snakes!”

“La, sir, then you must not venture there, for they abound most vastly,” answered Imogene. Mrs. Whyllie by this time was tittering behind her fan, and old Whyllie looked greatly troubled at the whole proceedings.

“A devilish climate, too, for the complexion, isn’t it?” stroking his smooth, weak chin.

“La, sir, indeed if you say that, I must take it as a poor compliment to myself.”

“Do not mistake me, I beg,” urged the officer, “for in your case the Indian sun has been most gentle. He has kissed you with a light hand—er—a light mouth, indeed. Lucky sun, lucky sun!”

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“You are being vastly gentle with my complexion, sir, but I perceive you to be a most accomplished courtier and a turner of beautiful compliments.”

“Madam, I speak from my heart, I assure you.”

“Whoever heard of Captain Tuffton possessing one?” tittered Mrs. Whyllie.

“You wrong me, Madam, I assure you,” declared the glorious one with conviction. “My poor heart is too large for my scarlet tunic, I assure you. It was an empty shell this morning, I confess, but the beauty of your accomplished niece, which it has been drinking in with rapture, has filled that poor receptacle and made it swell and stretch with the very throes of deep emotion.”

“La, sir, how prettily you turn the English tongue! How the Indians would adore you, sir!”

“Poohpooh, indeed,” said Mrs. Whyllie with a great show of decorum, “you must not take for gospel what the captain says. He is a very prince of dandies;

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indeed, he is second only to the Regent and Mister Brummel in all manners of

deportment. I never trust dandies myself entirely.”

“Oh, Madam, pray, pray, make me the exception.”

“No, Captain, for you are not only a dandy, but a soldier, and soldiers are another class I distrust.”

“Ah, Madam,” lisped the officer, “you are cruelty itself.”

“I cannot help it, my dear sir. Soldiers are not to be trusted, and well you know it. They walk about with gay apparel, appearing the most gentle of creatures, but we know how dangerous they are, aye, dangerous both morally and physically, with their minds full of most terrible conquests planned against poor women, and their pockets stuffed to the bursting point with explosives and weapons.”

“La, Madam, you are mistaken, upon my soul. Take my case now as an example: I came here, I confess it, with thoughts of conquest in my mind, but I

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am conquered, I am vanquished, I am beaten most damnably myself. The eyes

of your niece have sown my very foundations with salt.”

“Indeed, sir, that’s bitter!” exclaimed Imogene, blushing.

“And as to the belief that soldiers—officers, that is—are loaded with explosives and weapons, why, pish! Madam, it is a fallacy, I assure you. We leave explosives to the sergeants and our weapons to our orderlies. It is not only most damnably dangerous to carry firearms on our person, but it is most damnably damaging to the set of one’s clothes. Indeed, I declare that the cream of the army would retire if carrying weapons was insisted upon.”

“And you mean to say, sir, that you, a captain, walk abroad in your uniform unarmed?”

“And with the place infested with French spies?” added Imogene, shuddering.

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“Why, yes, Madam, I assure you it is so. When I walk abroad I rely entirely for my personal safety upon my tasselled cane, and I venture to suggest that I could put up a very pretty fight with it.”

“But it would not be of much service against pistols, would it, Captain?” asked Mrs. Whyllie.

“Perhaps not, Madam, but who would want to put a pistol to my head?”

“You must have many enemies surely, Captain,” suggested the old lady, “for are you not in command of the press gang?”

“Yes, and a poor job it is for an army officer,” said the soldier. “I take no interest in the sea at all, and the authorities are endeavouring to transfer me to the marine service.”

“The press gang does most cruel work, too, I hear,” went on the old lady.

“Well, you see, that really cannot be helped, Madam. War with France is a certain thing, and if our navy is not able to smash Napoleon on the sea—well,

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we shall not be able to sing ‘Rule Britannia’ any more, now shall we? And if young men won’t joint the navy—well, we have to make ’em, don’t you know? If you cannot get a thing done for love, you know, you must get it done by force. Do you follow me?”

“Perfectly, my dear Captain,” said Mrs. Whyllie. “That little maxim of yours is most admirable, I declare, and we shall put it to most instant practice.” Thereupon the old lady got up from her chair and pointed a pistol at the captain’s head. “And it’s most fortunate, I vow, that your tasselled cane is reposing safely in the hall.”

“What does this mean, Madam?” spluttered the captain. “Are you joking?”

“My dear niece,” said the old lady, “this admirable captain really asks us if we are joking.”

The captain turned his terrified eyes to Imogene only to discover that she also held a pistol at his head.

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“What is the cause of this terrible behaviour?” he stammered.

“You are going to pay your debts, my dear Captain,” said the old lady. “To pay your debts in full. You have owed me apologies for a long time which you have taken no pains to tender to me. You made me a laughing-stock in public— well, I am now going to return the compliment, and heaven shield you from the scorn of your brother officers, the anger of your superiors, and the scathing and greedy wits of the neighbourhood. I say, heaven shield, for I shan’t. Antony, my dear, get the paper out of the drawer in the desk there.”

Old Mr. Whyllie moved behind the captain and went to the desk. The captain moved toward Mrs. Whyllie.

“Stay where you are!” she ordered. “If you move again I shall fire.”

“A likely tale!” he spluttered. “You wouldn’t dare!”

“I can easily contradict you on that score,” quickly remarked the old lady, and she pulled the trigger. The captain fell back upon the sofa, his pale face

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blackened with powder, his eyes blinded with smoke, and a sharp, pricking

sensation in his left shoulder.

“My God!” he cried. “You’ve hit me.”

“And shall do so again if you give me any more trouble,” said the old lady, “and,” she added, “next time I may aim to kill,” and she took up another pistol from the mantelpiece. “You see, we were quite prepared for you.”

Then the lawyer set a table before him with pen and ink and requested him to sign a certain paper that he had already drawn up. This paper was addressed to the petty officer in charge of the press gang, and commanded that the young man of the name of Denis Cobtree should be driven immediately in a hired coach to the house of Antony Whyllie, attorney-at-law, Watchbell Street, who would give them further commands. To this paper Captain Tuffton signed his name. Indeed, he could do nothing else; and a servant was sent off to the castle to deliver it.

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In half an hour or so the noise of a coach was heard rattling over the cobblestones, and Antony Whyllie left the room to see if Denis was safe. In the meantime the captain had signed another paper declaring Denis free to return over the Sussex border into Kent, and this paper having been shown to the petty officer and a guinea piece having been put into his dirty hand by the lawyer himself, the seadog saluted respectfully and swung off down Watchbell Street whistling a tune. The lawyer explained the situation hurriedly to Denis and then went to take Imogene’s place as guard over the wretched soldier. But the captain was suffering acute spasms in his left shoulder, and this being his first experience with bullet wounds, he was nearly unconscious at the horror of it. So Mrs. Whyllie was able for a moment to lower the pistol in order to kiss Imogene, and having recommended her to Denis’s care, bade them urge the coach quickly out of Rye and into Kent. over the Sussex border into Kent, and this paper having been shown to the petty officer and a guinea piece having been put into his dirty hand by the lawyer himself, the seadog saluted respectfully and swung off down Watchbell Street whistling a tune. The lawyer explained the situation hurriedly to Denis and then went to take Imogene’s place as guard over the wretched soldier. But the captain was suffering acute spasms in his left shoulder, and this being his first experience with bullet wounds, he was nearly unconscious at the horror of it. So Mrs. Whyllie was able for a moment to lower the pistol in order to kiss Imogene, and having recommended her to Denis’s care, bade them urge the coach quickly out of Rye and into Kent.

“Shall I change my clothes first or send them back to you?” asked Imogene.

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“Neither, my love,” answered the old lady, again levelling the pistol at Captain Tuffton’s head; “for when we have packed this ridiculous soldier back to his place in an hour or so, I am going to see to it that Mr. Whyllie draws up all legal forms for adopting you as our daughter—that is, providing of course you raise no objection—but I shall do myself the honour of calling upon Sir Antony Cobtree himself within the week,” saying which she dismissed the young people to the coach, and when the driver had received a handsome fee from the lawyer and been promised a further one if he made good pace for Dymchurch, he touched up the horses, and with great rattling clattered the cumbersome coach through the great gate of Rye and so out on the smooth highroad, where the long whip cracked and the wheels began to spin. But for a whole hour the wretched captain stayed a prisoner in the white house until he beseeched the old lady to let him go home and have the surgeon dress his wound. So at last she consented, and another coach having been hired, he was

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lifted into it and in a few moments reached his rooms, where the most criticising valet in the world pulled from his shoulder a steel pin. With the exception of this deep pin prick, there was no mark of a wound, as indeed why should there have been? for Mrs. Whyllie had fired only a blank charge, and the old lawyer, according to careful instructions, had got behind the captain and dug in the pin at the crucial moment.

And while the valet administered brandy as a restorative, a boy and a girl sat hand in hand in a great old coach which swayed and jolted as they dashed along the Romney Road toward Dymchurch. Useless, indeed, to follow that coach from Rye, for the necks of the four horses were stretched in tensioned gallop, the harness pulling near to breaking-point, the wheels tearing round the axles, and the busy driver’s long whip cracking like pistol shots above the pounding thunder of the swift-flying hoofs.

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