the marquis's memory 21

 

Chapter 21

 

James had actually forgotten about the damning evidence against him of the commonplace book and the letter left in his room; he only remembered it in the evening, as he made his way through the still bright, soft pre-twilight which is the highlight of English summer, when the land has cooled enough to permit activity, and where long convivial games of one sort or another may be played, lubricated with real ale, cider, or Darjeeling tea.

When James recalled, suddenly, what he had left in his room, he split the gentle evening with an oath, and decided that, when he had killed Simon Endicott he might go and retrieve them; or, failing that, burn the inn down.

That idea pleased him mightily.

He had left his own curricle off the road, and made his way on foot, past an impromptu game of some hybrid between cricket and rounders on the part of village children, and down the lane past the doctor’s house, risky, but it must be a risk taken, and into what became Haddington St. Martin, the home of sundry fishermen, longshoremen, smugglers, and ne’er-do-wells, where there was an ale house of the kind which would never be granted the soubriquet of ‘inn,’ known as the Cockspur, since cock fighting was wont to take place.  At the moment, however, the local worthies were engaged in the more peaceable sport of horseshoe hurling, which was some kind of local hybrid with the south Suffolk game of quoits, with a cheer being heard for any ‘ringer’ when the horseshoe hit the metal spike. Ragged Robin, the goat, was one of the audience, moderately quiescent at the moment for having stripped out most of the doctor’s dahlias on the way down this way.

James regarded the goat with disfavour. Animals ought not to be allowed to ramble freely, and impede traffic. They should be kept in cages like in a menagerie, he thought, and fattened, or milked, or whatever their purpose was. He aimed a savage kick at Robin’s back hock.

Robin was a canny goat, and sensed somehow that he was in danger of pain, and moved rapidly enough for James to lose his balance; and with help from the business end of the goat, sat down hard on the road.

This attracted attention from the game to his person, and the amusing spectacle of a toff – James had discarded his beard, and dressed in Geoffrey’s clothes, which must also be mussed and blood stained. The goat was making a good start, though James had hoped to buy a bloody face, not bloody buttocks, which were Robin’s target as James attempted to rise.

James was rescued from Robin, and glared at Moyse who was laughing at him.

“I don’t know what you’re laughing at, you have a face like a goat’s bollocks,” he said, rudely.

Moyse was more than half-cut; he had come out to brood on his wrongs when the boy in the inn turned out not to be his errant son, as he thought of Pip, and being insulted by more gentry was more than he could stomach.

He sank a fist in one of the three noses of the stranger that he could see, and by some miracle, actually hit James’s face. James cried out; it hurt a great deal. Moyse followed up, before he was dragged off the stranger.

“Yew’d better be orf,” said one of the other locals. “Thass a foine ow’ shoiner yew’ll be gittin’ ar, an’ a mouse on yor cheek too, wass gwine tu hurt. Yew du be roight lucky Jeb be foive sheets in the wind, dew he’d of hurt yew bad.”

It did hurt, and James needed no translation to tell him that he had a black eye and a bruise on his cheek, possibly accompanied by a broken cheekbone. If that was not ‘hurt bad,’ James wondered what would have happened if Jeb Moyse had not been inebriated. Not that James knew enough to recognise any lack of adverbial clause in the sentence to deplore in the description.

It was what he wanted; a face bruised enough to hide his identity just enough to make him plausibly Calver.

 

Cautiously, blessing the final falling of dusk on the long evening, James made his way towards the Priory. Ragged Robin followed him, curiously, and with malevolence in his caprine heart towards a man who kicked. It was why Ragged Robin harboured an enmity for Dr. Gooding, who had tried to use his feet to push away the goat when Robin was caught red-handed eating his way through the doctor’s flower garden. Ragged Robin had been on the way to being a prize buck until he was kicked by his former owner’s brother, when he was just a buckling.  He had had a reprieve from being on the menu when Widow Spalding bought him, but he still did not like feet. Widow Spalding had nursed him back to health, and Robin lived pretty much in goaty heaven, with a nice garden, and a harem of does, the widow owning more goats than the wayward Poppy and Marigold, and the chance to wander and satisfy his curiosity in the world. He liked Geoffrey, who fed him carrot, and had no quarrel with anyone who did not quarrel with him, and most people had learned to provide some sacrificial plants in their gardens to attract him away from anything they prized. This generally took the form of sunflowers, and many gardens sported tall, proud sunflowers to keep goats occupied until they could be collected and taken home. Robin was in demand to deal with weeds, and was accounted by most people as ‘mostly harmless.’

James did not notice that he was being followed, but made his way to the Priory, and with a gulp, walked right in the front door, which had not yet been locked. He went into the room where he had seen candles lit.

“Endicott!” he said, fishing out a snuff box and opening it, taking a pinch, and shutting it. “I’ve had a terrible time – you must come and see for yourself!” he emphasised with a shaken pointing gesture with the snuff box in his hand, classic of Geoffrey’s mannerisms.

He had not noticed that Simon had rung the bell when he came in.

“How extraordinary,” said Simon.  “You appear to have gone through a looking-glass. That must have been truly uncomfortable, Jeffy.”

“Why, what do you mean?” asked James, nervously, making sure to scratch behind the ear.

“Why, your hair is parted the wrong side, you opened your snuff box with your right hand, and scratched the scar behind your right ear with your left hand,” said Simon. “Is your heart now on your right, for when I shoot you, James?” he added, softly. “Noah-Nelson, take him.”

James realised that the door had opened behind him, to reveal the burly Noah-Nelson Keeble, and it impinged on him that the jig was up, and that Endicott knew who he was.

He saw no other choice, and made a flying leap through the window, open for the heat.

He narrowly missed landing on the curious Ragged Robin, who was on his hind feet trying to peer in at the window; but it was enough to irritate the buck. Simon was later to say that the dratted goat cost them the capture as James fled with a banshee wail, pursued by a goat, before Tiberius and Danny might capture him in the grounds.

“Well, we aren’t likely to capture him now,” said Simon. “Very well, Noah-Nelson, you can spread it around, now, that the false clergyman was wearing whiskers, and is, indeed, an imposter trying to kill the marquis and take his place, but that he does everything as if in a mirror. Spread it around in the Running Buck; it’ll soon go around the village.”

Noah-Nelson was not averse to dropping in on the inn for a late heavy wet, and a bit of gossip.

He was able to assure the habitués that the marquis was safe and sound, despite being hit on the head and expecting to wake up a bit at a time inside lobsters, but was now expected to make a full recovery, unmenaced by crustacea. He embroidered a little to say that Miss Effie had hidden Miss Philippa, who had seen the marquis abducted, to keep her from harm’s way.

He saw no reason for the girl’s reputation to be damaged, after all.

 

oOoOo

 

Unaware that she had been supposedly spirited away by Effie, Pip had taken off her male attire, once Simon had safely left, to resume her nightgown.

“You could undress to your shirt,” she said, to Geoffrey.

“I… but I would be almost naked,” said Geoffrey.

“It’s warm enough,” said Pip. “I thought we might go up into the gorse fortress, with a blanket, and enjoy the late afternoon.”

“You know, that would be pleasant,” said Geoffrey. “I should, perhaps, keep my drawers on….”

“I’ve held a chamberpot for you,” said Pip. “I know what you have down there. And I know where it’s supposed to go, because you told me.”

Geoffrey blushed.

“And what a singularly inappropriate conversation that was,” he said.

“Not at all; it enabled me to find out who I really am,” said Pip. “Come and listen to the skylarks.”

Geoffrey let himself be tempted, and sat on a soft rug on the short, rabbit-cropped turf inside the circle of the ancient gorse bush, protected from wind, and from the gaze of anyone on the outside. They lay there together, holding hands, on their backs, looking up into the blue of a sky which seemed infinite and limitless.

“I give thanks that you were up, and came to rescue me,” said Geoffrey. “I have given thanks to the Lord for sending you to me, at a time when I most needed you.”

“And I, too, am grateful for you,” said Pip.

“I want to marry you out of hand,” said Geoffrey. “I know it’s selfish not to give you a season as I promised, but I want to live with you, and be with you.”

“Oh, good, because that’s what I want, too,” said Pip. “But you must give Alethea a season, because you did promise.”

“I did, and I shall,” said Geoffrey.

Pip sat up, and moved to straddle him, leaning forward to kiss him.

Geoffrey groaned, and kissed her back, taking possession of her lips, and running his hands over her body. She pushed against him.

“Are you sure about this?” he asked. “We can be married soon….”

Pip fidgeted to get into the right position.

“Is this right?” she asked.

“Oh… yesssss….”

They made love under the sky, and the skylarks sang for them. As the blue of the sky deepened when the sun set over Ipswich, they went back inside, and loved and slept through the night, content to cuddle up against each other when exhausted from their exertions. And if Geoffrey woke at dawn, having got into the habit, he did not disturb a deeply-sleeping Pip, but dozed off again, waiting for her to start waking before teasing her with a finger so that she shifted to let him wake her with shared pleasure.

 

oOoOo

 

James was not having anything like so pleasant an evening and night as Geoffrey and Pip. In fact, he was having a most unpleasant night.  Robin gleefully chased him through a midden, into the village pond, where he was set upon by irritable geese, hissing and pecking at him, and down the lane towards the shore.  He dared not try knocking on any doors with lighted windows associated with them, for fear of being taken up and arrested; and was glad of a cottage with unlighted windows. This was Gaffer Nelson’s cottage, as that worthy was eating supper at the Running Buck, on Geoffrey’s tab. He had, however, locked the doors, front and back.  James leaped over a low, enclosing wall to escape Robin, and stumbled over something large, soft, and warm.

James had discovered Napoleon, the boar who serviced Sarey once a year. With an eldritch screech, he jumped out of the pig pen faster than he had gone in, but not until after he had slipped and sat in Napoleon’s wallow.

Ragged Robin gave a bleat which sounded like a laugh.

James gave a whimper which was almost a sob.

“Why did I listen to that crazy woman?” he demanded.

Ragged Robin had no answer to this; he neither knew, nor cared.  He was having fun with a quarry who knew how to play the game, by running. James set off again, as Robin advanced on him, and found himself at the shore. He could not swim, and had no intention of being chased all along the staithe by a goat quite capable of propelling him into the water.  Fortunately, there was a large oak tree on the shore, and James went up it with an agility he had not known he possessed.

Robin settled down at its base, lipping the succulent long grass which grew in its shade.

Strange cries in the night kept James from dozing off; some kind of night bird or animal, he supposed.  If he did not know any better, he would have said it was the sound of people having sex, but that was plainly absurd. He shuddered, having thought he heard someone say ‘Oh, Geoffrey, Geoffrey!’ and whimpered to himself that he was having awful memories of having pleasured Ann Calver. He was going to get out of the country, somehow, if that ruddy goat would only leave him alone.