the marquis's memory 19

 

Chapter 19

 

Pip and Geoffrey slept through the excitement in the village, and Geoffrey woke up to find that Pip’s hand had invaded his trouser-fall, and was hanging on to somewhere usually considered rather personal, like a drowning man to a lifeline. His own left hand was clasping her buttock underneath her, and the right, cupping her breast on the top. Geoffrey immediately shifted his own grip, and tried, unsuccessfully, to gently pry her fingers loose, but she only made grumpy noises, and clung tighter.

Not wishing this manifestation to go from remarkably pleasant into painful, Geoffrey gave up the unequal effort, and held Pip close, trying not to let his hands stray in such an unruly fashion again.

 

oOoOo

 

Simon drove south, as fast as he dared on the road, and was horrified to see a huddled figure at the side of the road, in white muslin, and with her usually carefully confined brown curls all awry and spread out across the verge.  He promptly called on the team to halt, reining them in, as James had anticipated that any pursuer must do, treating Effie as wolf-meat.

Simon was out of the curricle in a bound, and kneeling at the side of the woman who had become everything to him. Her neck was not at that awful angle which indicated a break, but she appeared to be unconscious.

“Effie! My darling! Don’t be dead!” cried Simon.

Effie’s eyelids fluttered.

“Oh, Simon!” she breathed. “I am so glad to see you! I am afraid I swooned. I am quite banged about but I do not think anything is broken.”

“Well, that’s a relief, anyway,” said Simon “Can you sit up?”

“Let me have your arm, and get me up into your gig; I will recover whilst you drive on,” said Effie, firmly.

“Really? You don’t want me to drive you home?” asked Simon.

“I want to find out what he’s done with Philippa and the marquis,” said Effie, grimly. “And there’s one road all the way to Ipswich, so we should overtake him. Once you’ve knocked him down a few times, I wager he’ll talk.  Though,” she hesitated, “He said he thought she might have got on the back of his curricle and hung on, and must have been thrown off when he speeded up.”

“That’s a bit of a thin story; what young lady is likely to do that?” scoffed Simon.

“You’re forgetting, Simon! Philippa is Pip, and three parts boy,”

“Of course she is!” exclaimed Simon. “Yes, it would be like her. But to hold on requires a lot of strength.  But we can keep an eye out for her, at the side of the road….”

“Or her body. Yes, it did occur to me,” said Effie. “I was thrown out at a relatively slow pace. Someone being slung off at speed, on a corner….”

“Your eyes seeing if you can see her red hair will be useful, whilst I concentrate on overtaking him. I have no doubt we shall overtake him before we get to Woolveston.”

They drove on, at a spanking pace, on the road to Ipswich, but saw no sign of the fugitive. Nor did Effie see any signs of a crumpled body with red hair.

They got as far as Freston, with its peculiar Elizabethan tower overlooking the Orwell. Here the road divided, with a road to the Stour side of the peninsula.

“He must have drawn off the road somewhere and gave us the slip,” said Simon. “I know I would have overtaken him by now.  I don’t think it’s worth going any further.”

“No, nor do I,” said Effie.  “Of course, if Pip was hurt, someone might have taken her up to care for.”

“And all we can do is to wait for rumour,” said Simon, turning the team around the convenient triangle where the roads met. They drove back in melancholy silence, past the ugly modern building which was Woolverston Hall, through Chelmondiston, with its three inns, and then back to the Haddistons.

Simon was cheered as a hero.

“I lost the dirty little creature, though,” said Simon. “He threw Miss Congreve out of the curricle, and we pursued him half way to Ipswich, but if these nags could not catch him, his horse must have taken wings and flown away, for I cannot imagine where he might have gone.”

Effie was well hugged by Alethea, who had been out of her mind with worry; and the three were provided with a substantial nuncheon by Simeon Pigeon, to help them overcome the horrors of iniquity of the man calling himself Marks.

 

There was a very good reason why Simon had not overtaken James James.  Simon had made the simple, but reasonable, mistake of assuming that his quarry would seek to escape, and hence, turn right, towards the mainland.  James had turned left, to where he had last seen Geoffrey, with intention of impersonating the marquis that evening to kill Simon, and take Geoffrey’s place.

It was a nuisance having to bring his plans forward, but it would have to be done.

He knew that there was a girl who was missing who was the marquis’s ward.  Well, doubtless it would be believable to say that the chit did not like his plans for her, and had fled to Gretna. Or, he could blame Endicott; once he was dead, he could refute nothing. He was courting the Congreve woman but had been overcome by lust for the marquis’s ward and had violated her and then had to do away with her.  Oho, it played in nicely with his plans, because he could then have it seem that he, as Marquis, had chased Endicott and both curricles overturned each other.  Endicott died, and he… bruised and battered… lived. And at least he had not removed the box of Geoffrey’s clothes from his own curricle. He had a man lined up to mark up his face, a man named Moyse, who could be bought with strong liquor, or provoked in his cups with insults, and less likely to speak about that.

Mulling over his plans, James came to the end of his drive, and went into the hut where he had left Geoffrey.

It was with deep shock that he observed that his prisoner was no longer there.  He checked the next hut, in case he had got it wrong, but that was also empty of any prisoner. He went back to the first, and saw short lengths of cut rope on the floor, where Pip had sawed through the rope.

The bird had flown.

James swore, pungently. He felt in his dash for a pistol he kept there, and trudged over the rise to the fishermen’s cottages proper, set back from the exigencies of wind, wave, and weather. He kicked open the door of the first, snarling at the family, demanding to know where his prisoner was.

It is possible that the simple fisherfolk might have considered fighting a sailor or a soldier, or even a gentleman; but being faced by a clergyman and the seeming wrath of God, they meekly denied, and permitted James to search. Finally one small boy piped up that there had been a red-haired girl who took Matt Nunn’s boat with some sort of big bundle, and she rowed off.

James was much relieved.

The bundle was presumably the marquis, who had presumably died of the rough treatment, and the girl would doubtless drown, because a girl could scarcely be expected to row anywhere much, let alone five miles or more to the Haddingtons. Yes, both were doubtless being eaten by lobsters at the moment. If they had made it back to Haddington, the damned villagers would have been all over them like smallpox.

Well, that made his life both easier, and harder.

He must move fast and surely.

 

 

oOoOo

 

Geoffrey woke again with a full bladder and a headache. Pip had let go of him, and, judging by her moving back to the bed from the makeshift curtain in the corner, had had needs as pressing, to make her let go of him. Geoffrey painfully negotiated his way to the piss pot in the corner, and used it.

“I need water,” he said, his voice not seeming to belong to him.

Pip, naked as the day she was born, found him a canteen.

“Sweetness, I have compromised you,” said Geoffrey.

“I think I compromised you first; I woke up holding you,” said Pip, blushing. “I rather liked it, but I hope I did not annoy you.”

“I rather liked it, too,” said Geoffrey. “I want to marry you, but I wanted to give you a chance to meet other people.”

“We’ve rescued each other too often to be wanting anyone else,” said Pip. “Excuse me; I want to see if my clothes are dry.” She went out, and came back, presently, wearing her shift, and carrying her stained gown, stockings, and brogues.

“You are beautiful,” said Geoffrey.

Pip sniggered

“If you think so when I am bedraggled like this, you do love me,” she said.

“I do,” said Geoffrey. “Why did you bring me here?”

“It was a safe haven I could reach,” said Pip. “And I was afraid that not-vicar would kill me if he saw me.  You said his name was James, and that you recognised him; do you remember?”

Geoffrey frowned in thought.

“I… yes, there was something about him, made me think of my mother’s favourite footman,” he said. “He bears a superficial resemblance to my father and to me, but as far as I am aware, he is no connection at all. He’s spent years trying to learn my mannerisms and to look more like me; I suppose he reckons he can get more vails if seeming to be a left-hand member of the family. Unless he’s been planning to replace me for a very long time. Didn’t you say he said he was going to do so?”

“That seemed to be his plan,” said Pip. “Did you think we ought to tell Effie that I’m not dead, or run away with the gypsies or any other sort of thing she’s likely to worry about?”

“Probably, but only if we can find out how safe it is,” said Geoffrey.

“I hid the clothes you gave me as Pip, the boy, here,” said Pip. “If I muddy my hair and put on a hat, I can go up to the inn by the passage and find out how things are.”

“Are you sure? I’m still fuddle-headed after that blow to the head, and I’m not sure I can make it.”

“I don’t want him seeing either of us,” said Pip. “He scares me.”

“If he thought he knew you knew his identity, or had rescued me, I wouldn’t put it past him to kill you,” said Geoffrey.

“He whipped poor Sarey for being in the way,” said Pip, grimly. “You didn’t, when you had your accident, and that was when you were in a temper.”

“I don’t, in general, take out my temper on those who are not responsible for provoking it, though I may be terse or sarcastic to fatuous comments,” said Geoffrey. “I have a horrible temper, my love.”

“I expect if I put my hands in your trouser fall and interested another part of you, it would dissipate,” said Pip.

Geoffrey gave a bark of laughter.

“Yes, very likely!” he said. “I’ve some money on me, if you leave some and bring us back something to eat and drink, I’d doubtless feel a lot better.”

Pip nodded.

She winced a few times, putting on her male attire.

“Did that devil hurt you?” asked Geoffrey, sharply.

“I got a bit rattled on the back of his curricle, and I fell off a barrel when I was cutting you down,” said Pip. “And it was a long row back.”

“Curricle? Back? Back from where?” asked Geoffrey. “We were in a boat! Why were we in a boat?”

“He took you to Shotley Point,” said Pip.

“And you rowed all the way back from there? You are amazing!” said Geoffrey.

Pip blushed.

“I didn’t see any other way of getting home,” she said. “You weren’t in a fit state to walk six miles. Well, to be honest, you weren’t in a fit state to walk six yards. I’m still not sure how we made it from the boat to my sty.”

“Because you are a heroine,” said Geoffrey. “I want to put up the banns as soon as all this is over.”

“I’d be your mistress, if you wanted,” said Pip.

“And I want to marry you,” said Geoffrey. “Go now, before I pull you back into bed to try to convince you how much I want you.”

Pip’s belly gurgled.

“After we’ve eaten,” she said, and slipped out of the sty, and down to the tunnel under the staithe, finding some mud on the way to hide her effulgent locks.