Alternative Bride 19

 this one was written when I wasn't feeling too great and was force written; my editor thinks it needs a lot extra work so any suggestions gratefully accepted

Chapter 19

 

With the side trip, Jane and Gerard must settle for an overnight stay in Loughborough; and would have been relieved to know that Frith had settled in Leicester, on finding their exit from Leicester difficult to trace, and knowing that there were more than one ways one might head for Gretna Green. Frith decided to stay on the main road, which was his good luck; and as Jane and Gerard rolled into Derby for nuncheon, Frith had found a roadsweeper in Loughborough who recalled the black faced man and the merry girl with brown hair, who had tossed him a coin and went on their way singing some song about a minstrel boy. It proved how vulgar that Franklin boy was, doubtless because of his mother, dragging Lucy down to be as vulgar as him in singing in public. Disgusting! Well, he would give the [epithet] a good thrashing when he caught up with them. And he was getting closer; only a few hours ahead now.

 

At that moment, Jane and Gerard were improvising words to Handel’s second horn concerto, the rondo and allegro, as it mimicked the ‘tantivy’ notes called on a post horn to warn gatekeepers to open their gate.

“We’re coming we’re coming now clear the way, tantivy, tantivy tantivy we say,” sang Jane. Such nonsense helped to while away the time, and the tiring bumping of travel. Star yipped happily, and had another ham bone as a gift from Mrs. Jevvins, who knew a nice little dog when she met one.

They ran alongside the Derby canal for a while, and the bargees waved and laughed at a young couple singing lustily as they drove along.

“The ‘George’ is the busiest inn, it serves the mail and stage for Nottingham,” said Gerard. “I’m more inclined to stop at the ‘Bell.’ It’s been there time out of mind. We only have to be seen.”

“You know, I do wonder if we should let Frith catch up with us, and then lead him a chase just out of reach,” said Jane.

“What, let him have a ‘view halloo,’ and then dodge like old Sarah and Tod combined?” said Gerard.

“I’m not so sure you can make the curricle jump out of a circle like the hare or run along a stream bed like the fox, but yes, something along those lines,” said Jane. “It would be hilarious to be just far enough ahead to pull into a field behind a hedge, and then go on a different road so that just as he thinks he’s lost us, he glimpses us again.”

Gerard sniggered.

“I know this countryside like the back of my hand. Let’s do it.”

“There’s one small snag, though,” said Jane. “We don’t know what vehicle Frith is driving or what he looks like.”

“That is a small snag,” said Gerard. “I tell you what, I know the owner of the ‘Swan,’ and I reckon he’d do us a favour or two if I drop enough blunt and lay out a plan.”

Jane bounced on the seat beside him, and Star yipped happily. Jane gently pulled his silky ears.

 

 

oOoOo

 

“So, Preston, my wife and I want to stay here incognito, but there’s gold for any stable lad in any inn in town who can bring a description of an intemperate fellow asking for a black man and a brown haired lady, and to then take him news of that couple leaving.”

“I can arrange that, my lord,” said the landlord. “My lad is chief groom, he’ll drop the word about, and as to you and your lady wife, well, I keep a personal guest room set aside in the family part, it isn’t so well-appointed, but it has back stairs, and a way to the family stabling if you would condescend to have Davy put your rig and horses there....”

“Sounds ideal, Preston,” said Gerard. “And my wife and I will be happy to eat in the kitchen.”

“My lord, you and your wife will surely be pleased to use my own parlour and the wife and I will eat in the kitchen!” said Preston, scandalised.

“Suppose we eat with you and your good lady in your parlour?” said Gerard. “We have perfectly good table manners, and should not offend.”

“My lord! I should hope you would never think...” Preston began.

“Don’t tease the poor man when he’s doing us a favour, Gerard,” Jane chided.

Gerard laughed.

“I should not,” he said. “Forgive me, Preston, for taking the wind out of your eye with jocularity.”

“My lord has nothing to forgive!” said Preston. “I was slow on the uptake.”

“I blame it on my honeymoon mood,” said Gerard.

“And a fine honeymoon it must be for the lady, my lord,” said Preston, with the stern familiarity of one who has long known a man.

“I’m enjoying almost every minute,” said Jane. “But the idea of lying over for a day and then playing fox and hounds when the horses are fresh and so am I has its attractions. Will Star be expected to eat in the kitchen? We haven’t had him long so we don’t know what habits he was trained to, we rescued him from a wreck where the driver was killed. We couldn’t find any relatives, and someone had to care for him.”

“He’s a nice little chap,” said Preston, who had solemnly shaken the paw offered to him by Star. “He ain’t valuable, being cross-bred with a terrier, I should think.  My Davy will take him into his rooms, if you’d like time alone.”

“Well, if you’re happy to let Star wander, he can go ratting if he wants, or come and join us,” said Gerard. “He’s well-mannered enough in the bedroom and asks to go out if he needs to.”

It might be said that Star endeared himself to the stablehands by presenting them with four plump rats which he caught in the stables and coach house. He managed the ladder into the hay loft and deposited several more, and then whined to be collected. His minor bites treated, he was a hero to be petted, and thereafter stalked around, said Gerard, as if he thought he was Bonaparte.

Gerard and Jane did not emerge often from their simple, but comfortable room, up under the eaves. Gerard was more pulled than he liked to admit, and Jane was tired from unaccustomed travel, and both spent a lot of time just sleeping.

 

oOoOo

 

“Your quarry’s arrived, my lord,” said Davy Preston. The chief groom was a florid man with sandy hair, a few years older than Gerard, stocky, said to be a good bruiser, good-looking, and a reputation for comforting the bored wives of gentlemen travelling into the region for the hunting. He cast an eye over Jane, almost out of habit, and discarded any idea that she might entertain an affaire. As he later told his fellows, “His lordship and her ladyship are in love; drink to it m’boys, it’s a rare enough thing amongst the nobs!”

“What does this Frith look like?” asked Jane.

“Blond enough not to show the odd grey hair except at the temples, wears long sidewhiskers and an imperial broad enough to be a cavalryman, which he ain’t by a long stretch,” said Davy. “I went to have a good look at him myself.”

“Sounds like a man who thinks a lot of himself,” said Gerard. “An imperial, really? No beard with it?”

“No, just a moustache full enough to be a declaration of war, and curled up at the ends as if permanently saluting him,” said Davy. “He has a phaeton and four. Well-enough chosen team of bays, bright bays, not light enough to be chestnuts. He’s put into the ‘George’ overnight.”

“Well, we’ll be on our way in the morning, and you can let him know we have left,” said Gerard, slipping largesse to Davy.

 

oOoOo

 

“Excuse me, master, weren’t you after information about a dark man and a brown-haired lady?” asked Davy.

“Yes! Have you seen them? Where are they?” demanded Frith, moustaches a-quivver with hunting verve. He had just started his breakfast, and Davy smiled to himself in unholy glee that doubtless he would leave a perfectly good meal to be on the road.

“My brother works at the ‘Swan Inn,’ said Davy, with, as it happened, perfect truth. “He mentioned he saw them.”

“Yes, yes, but where? When did they leave? By what road?” demanded Frith.

Davy hummed to himself, and scratched his right palm.

“Couldn’t rightly say I recall all my brother says... why, thank you, sir, they were staying over at the ‘Swan.’”  Davy was not going to impart more for a meagre half-crown. “My memory is so unreliable when I’m feeling low....”

“Here’s a guinea, you impudent rascal, but if you make May game of me, be sure I will thrash you,” said Frith.

“You and the army you carry with you,” scoffed Davy. “Well, for gold, they left on the road to Leeds about half an hour ago.”

“Damn you, if you hadn’t dragged that out, I’d be less far behind.”

“Well, master, if you hadn’t been skinflint enough to make me skin a flea for its hide and tallow in the telling of it, you’d of been forrader,” said Davy, but he was speaking to himself as Frith was off, demanding his horses be put up, frantically paying his shot.

As he had paid for the breakfast being left to get cold, Davy sat down and finished it for him. He could have food any time for the asking of it at home, but he could not abide good food going to waste.

And it added insult to injury, which was sweet. Being family in the ‘Swan’ and the rule ‘family hold back’, eggs were on short commons at home, being reserved for paying guests, and here he was with two coddled eggs, and scrambled eggs with his bacon, sausage, black pudding, mushrooms, and bubble and squeak. Not to mention toast and butter and jam. That would save ma the cost of a nuncheon for him. Davy was well pleased.

 

oOoOo

 

Mackworth, Langley, and Brailsworth were passed by Gerard and Jane, the horses well rested and happy to go a steady eight miles an hour, and no sign of pursuit until they were out onto the flat land of Shirley Common, five miles to go over its expanses.

Jane glanced over at a group of gypsies camping on the common.

“Gerard,” she said, “Don’t gypsies have farriers?”

“They do, but we’re not in need of one. Did you want to pretend to throw a shoe? I’d as soon not, it’s a large band, and they look rough.”

“And they have some sort of chimney over a forge of some kind, and I don’t recall seeing gypsy farriers with so much equipment,” said Jane.

“Oh!” said Gerard, in comprehension.  “You are thinking that they might need extra equipment for coining.”

“It crossed my mind,” said Jane. “They have the freedom to travel all over, and to accost the huntsmen, be available as farriers, mend leather, and so-on.”

“Bold rogues,” said Gerard. “Now you come to mention it, there are no women at the site, they might not even be gypsies at all, but a party posing as gypsies. Which makes more sense, as they’d have to be more knowledgeable than gypsies, and perhaps have some more legitimate outlets too.”

“Well, we can pass the information on to Mr. Langcostard,” said Jane. “Right now, I’ve been peering over my shoulder, and there’s a vehicle on the road, just on the common, I’d guess, throwing up dust about three miles behind us.”

“It’s reasonable to suppose it to be Frith, and he will see our dust too, for sure,” said Gerard. “There’s a toll-gate at the other side of the common. We’ll go through there, and pay, and a mile further on there are crossroads each way. But there’s also a cart track across land I own and rent out. We’ll take the cart track, and let him puzzle at the crossroads. Get out the ninepence to throw.”

“Oh, it will be memorable if I toss him a shilling,” said Jane.

“A lot of toll-keepers rely on people in a hurry to do that sort of thing,” said Gerard. “Of course, it might make him truculent to Mr. Frith unless he’s equally generous.”

“Should I throw more as bribe to forget us?” asked Jane.

“No, we want him behind us, remember?” said Gerard.

“I suppose we can’t get from the cart track to one of the cross-roads, can we?” asked Jane.

Gerard chuckled.

“I like the way you think,” he said.

 

oOoOo

 

Frith found the toll-keeper truculent, and berated him, and received the sullen reply that the curricle he was behind was indeed driven by a man with a black face, and the girl had brown hair. Frith gripped his whip tightly, with a savage smile. He was going to enjoy flogging that impudent fellow!

He drove on, and found himself in something of a quandary as he came to a staggered cross-roads. It was at the start of a village, and it must be reasonable to suppose they had gone on. He slowed slightly; villages were dangerous places, where pigs and peasant brats ran about heedlessly and were stupid enough and inconvenient enough to do things like run under your wheels and maybe break an axle when the wheels went over them. No consideration for others at all.

He wondered what the peasants were doing laughing at him.

“Ar, you’m been given the slip, squire!” called one worthy. They seemed to be looking behind him.

Frith pulled up and turned in his seat, in time to see the curricle slip right across the staggered crossing and out of sight, and the young couple waving cheekily.

He lashed out at the worthies who had been laughing, and went to work to turn his equipage. This was easier said than done, as Frith favoured the long-bodied swan-neck phaeton. He had an encounter with the village pond, and slid gracelessly down the mud, and into the water, where several geese scolded and hissed menacingly. The worthies laughed, and when Frith threatened them with the beating of their lives, retreated into the ale house. Frith disembarked, grimacing as he squelched down into mud, and went to his horse’s heads to lead them and the phaeton out of the pond. It was another thing he owed that Peter Franklin.

 

Gerard and Jane had turned off sharply, and right into the field, to stand behind the hedge until Frith had gone past. Gerard uncoupled the team, and Jane held them whilst he rotated the light-weight curricle, and re-attached the traces, easier than turning the whole equipage.  And once Frith had gone past, blithely unaware that they hid almost in plain sight, they trotted up the drive, Gerard showing his face as a man stepped forward, looking irate.

“This ain’t a road, and it don’t go nowhere... my lord!” he added. “Sorry, my lord, thought you were some blasted eloping couple looking for a short cut.”

“Hush! I’m using your farm as a cut-through to irritate someone,” said Gerard. “You’re making excellent use of the land, I’ll mention you to my steward for a small rent reduction for your good husbandry.”

With that, his tenant could scarcely protest, and Gerard swung past the solid stone farmhouse and out on another lane, and set off at a stiff trot.  They passed over the main road to see the back of Frith’s carriage, and Jane waved after the manner of royalty. Gerard joined in her salute, slowing to a walk, to give Frith enough time to recognise that some kind of dumb play was going on behind him. His infuriated shriek was balm to the ears, and Gerard picked up the pace again.