poetry and perfection 12

 

Chapter 12

                        

Shortly after dawn Stephen and Hugo found themselves pulling up in a hurry as a luridly bloody figure flagged them down by waving his hat.

“Good G-d!  Haselbraid!” said Hugo.

“Bottringham!” gasped Haselbraid. “Your virago of a sister shot me for no reason, and I’m going to have the law on her for it!”

Hugo stared.

“You must be insane,” he said. “When is this phantom attack supposed to have taken place? That wound’s not more than a few hours old, and my sister was brought home from the entertainment she attended by her hostess’s son, and has been in bed ever since. And plenty of witnesses.”

“Well, what the devil are you doing, driving north, then?”

“Racing, old boy, racing,” said Hugo. “I took a wager from my friend, here, that we couldn’t reach Hatfield by breakfast time, and demme, you’re holding us up. Of course, if you had abducted my sister, I’d be putting a ball in you in a far more efficient fashion, and you wouldn’t be reeling about on the highway obstructing the traffic, you’d be taking a long staircase downwards.”

Haselbraid found the hard stares of two young men on him.

“So, what happened to you, apart from being shot?” asked Stephen.

“The little virago drove away on the box of my carriage!” whined Haselbraid.

Hugo and Stephen caught each other’s eyes and roared with laughter.

“Sounds as if you tried to abduct someone who was more than a match for you,” said Hugo. “But it wasn’t my sister, so don’t even try. As if escaping an abductor wasn’t a perfectly good reason to shoot someone, anyway.”

“She got in my coach willingly enough,” said Haselbraid, sulkily. “And I reckon she’s done away with my coachman, for he’s nowhere to be seen, but the chamberpot he was emptying is still here.”

“He’s shabbed off somewhere if you ask me,” said Hugo, still sniggering.

“Well, take me up and at least drive me somewhere vaguely civilised!” cried Haselbraid.

“Hardly, if you thought you were abducting my sister,” said Hugo.  “My phaeton would be outraged at having to deal with your ugly arse sitting on its seat; it would have a fit of the vapours.”

“Lud, yes, he might even fart into it, and the smell would rival his smell of bad manners,” said Stephen.

“But you can’t just leave me here!” wailed Haselbraid.

“Oh, yes we can,” said Hugo. “You ain’t badly enough hurt for me to feel a need to take you to a sawbones, and as you aren’t dead, I don’t feel like making the landscape tidier by picking up your corpse.”

“Damn you!” Haselbraid drew the pistol he had intended to use to cow his captive, if it were needful, and fired wildly at Hugo.

As he was firing at three images which overlapped, he missed, by a considerable margin.

“Well, I’m not about to talk to you any more if you are that crazy,” said Hugo. “Come on, Stephen; breakfast awaits us.”

They drove on, but Stephen pulled off the road in South Mims.

“Hugo…” he said, “He winged me… and I feel light headed.”

“The devil he did! I am sorry, I did not notice,” said Hugo. “Oh, look there’s the vicar… Let us hope he will take you in, and send for a doctor. I’ll go on after your sister.”

“Thanks, Hugo… she took my clothes… she has a startling blue and yellow weskit I used to affect when I was a cub,” said Stephen, swaying, as he got out of the curricle.

Hugo swept him up into his arms, and strode over to the staring cleric.

“It’s a long story, reverend, which sounds most improbable, but there’s a crazy man on the road a mile or two away, and he shot at my friend. It involves abduction of a minor, who is now fleeing from him, and I need to find the child, but can you help Stephen? He can’t go any father, he’s losing blood.”

“Of course,” said the vicar. “Bring him into the rectory.”

Hugo did so, and fished around in his pocket, having lain Stephen down on a sofa.

“I have the blunt to pay for a doctor, Hugo,” said Stephen.

“Are you sure?” asked Hugo.

“I brought all my allowance for next term at Oxford, in case we needed it,” said Stephen.

“Then, good luck! Don’t forget to write to your papa,” said Hugo.

“”I’ll let him know! Thank you!” said Stephen, and gave up the unequal struggle with faintness to subside into the vicar’s sofa, leaving that good man to make a cup of tea for the invalid, and send a boy to get a doctor.

Hugo strode out, hitched Stephen’s team to the church hitching post, and resumed his own seat in his phaeton.

He set off, looking for a small figure with a gaudy waistcoat. With, or without a coach. It was a puzzle whether to drive fast or slowly, looking for signs of a coach abandoned, for plainly Kitty had not attempted to drive it back to London, or they would surely have seen her.

Hugo deliberated over whether to get back on the main road and make a fast passage when he saw something which made him pause. Several farmhands in smocks were dragging a coach with Haselbraid’s crest on the door panels into the village, it looked as though Kitty was without a coach and had abandoned it.

He stopped, and tossed a guinea at the bucolics, one of whom caught it with alacrity.

“That’s a fine carriage you found; would you tell me about it?” he asked.

“Well, milord, it were in a field, like, by itself,” said the man who had caught the coin, stopping to pull his forelock. “No owner, no hoss, no nothin’,” he added.

“Heap o’ clo’es spread about,” said the other, and was kicked.

“Oh, anyone who spreads clothes around plainly means for others to use them,” said Hugo. “Men’s clothing, I take it?”

“Ar, an’ some right fine gowns wot my Betty will like above harf,” said the first.

“And nobody anywhere near this carriage?”

“No, sir, nobody at all,” said the first.

“Small boot-prints in the mud, though,” piped up his companion. “Going away.”

Hugo tossed another coin.

“Ah, the whelp doubtless deserves a good thrashing,” he said.

So, Kitty Worthington might be riding, as there was no mention of horses.

Or two brace of horses might have vanished into a barn somewhere, to be made more anonymous for having been wandering about the countryside unattended.

Hugo was entirely unmoved by the idea of someone stealing Haselbraid’s horses, or his clothes. Female apparel? Well, last time he had provided a valise for his abductee, so presumably he had done so again, and Kitty had discarded it as too much trouble to carry. Or at least, had discarded some of it, thought Hugo. With Kitty, second-guessing was not necessarily a good idea.

And of course, Kitty might be on the way home by now. Perhaps he could find out if a red-haired youth had boarded a coach for London.

He drove on, keeping a sharp look-out.

 

OoOoO

 

 

Kitty was tired after her overnight adventures, despite snatching an hour’s doze here and there; and having once fallen asleep in the coach, all her monies in inside pockets to avoid theft, she stayed asleep when the coach pulled into the yard of the ‘White Horse’ in Baldock, and slept through the change of horses, and the resumption of the road. She sat up with a start at the braying of the yard of tin at a dilatory gatehouse, and sat up with a yell.

“’M awake, ’M awake, don’t you others hog all the hot water!” she managed, before coming fully to her senses, to find herself being gently laughed at by a farmer’s wife with a crate full of hens, and two men who looked like lawyers. She laughed at herself. “Why, I declare, I thought I was back at school,” she said.

“Hot water in the mornings? Luxury!” said the younger of the two lawyers.

“Only if we paid for it,” said Kitty. “Where are we? How long have I been asleep?”

“Temsford toll gate,” said the young lawyer. “You stayed asleep all through the team change at Baldock.”

“Baldock?” cried Kitty. “Why… that’s north of Hatfield.”

“It would be, as we’re going to York,” said the young lawyer.

“Oh, dear!” said Kitty. “I must have got on the wrong coach!  I thought they said it was the York to London coach.”

“It is; except when it’s the London to York coach,” said the older lawyer. “Well, cheer up; the next stage is at Buckden, at the ‘George Inn,’ in a little over an hour. So long as you’ve the blunt to go back the other way?”

“I should have,” said Kitty. “My parents are going to wax most irritable.”

“It’s an easy mistake,” said the younger lawyer. “Especially if you’re tired. What have you been up to?”

“I took the offer of a lift to save money, and the fellow turned out to be a thief who tried to rob me,” said Kitty, translating the abduction into another kind of lawlessness. “I hit him with the utensil and threw him out and drove off. I left the team and equipage though, not wanting to be accused of horse stealing, and walked through the night to Hatfield.  It was a bit more exciting than I might have wanted,” she added.

“Well, if you’ve to go back to school, it should make a heroic tale with an embellishment or two,” said the young lawyer. “I’m David Cocksedge.”

“Kit… Kit Worthington,” said Kitty. “Well, I certainly shall not join the army, you have to be able to read maps for that, and going the wrong way on the stage will not endear me to any senior officer.”

Her fellow travellers laughed, good naturedly.

“On the other hand, keeping your sangfroid when under unexpected attack and managing to pull off a theft from a thief has to be in your favour,” laughed Mr. Cocksedge.

“Well, I’m not sure the military would suit me,” said Kitty. “All that go here, go there, stand still, go to bed, get up now!  Too much regulation for me.”

“Not my cup of tea, either,” said Cocksedge. “I’m happy preparing briefs for barristers for the assizes. You can do worse than study law.”

“I’ll give it serious thought,” said Kitty.

 

 

Hugo came into Hatfield, and went to the ‘Salisbury Arms’ first.

“I’m looking for a lad, mid teens, wearing a blue superfine jacket and a blue and yellow waistcoat,” he said.

“I should have known a lad on his own was in trouble! What’s he done, squire?” said the landlord.

Hugo fished out his quizzing glass and regarded the man through it until the ebullient man quailed.

“What a fool you are to jump to conclusions!” sneered Hugo. “The boy has some news from home which is best broken by a family friend, and is, frankly, none of your business.  Now, you appear to recognise the description?”

“Yessir! Yes, he came in with the passengers from the London Flyer, and he took a room to rest and wash, and ate breakfast, and he settled up all right and tight, and then he got on the ‘Nonpareil’ for York.”

“York? Are you sure?” said Hugo.

“I’m sure, squire,” said a heavily set man, who was devouring meat and pickles with a heavy wet. “I drove un in, and the boy asked if we go between York and Lunnon, so I says, yes, and he says ‘a ticket all the way,’ and didn’t question the price. And it bein’ my time off, I was keen for my vittles. I’m sorry I didn’t check.”

“I knew I should have collected him, not let him loose on the stage,” said Hugo, trying to sound amused. “His first time; well, I shall rag him thoroughly. Please do not blame yourself; he’s as heedless a piece as any girl.”

“Boys, eh?” said the coachman. “I’ve two myself; I know what they can be like! He were neat enough, though, and his valise all right and tight, not bulging like some do.”

“Take your lads to Astley’s and feed them ice cream for me,” said Hugo, tossing a coin. “If he has his valise still, this is a good sign.”

He stopped to sink a heavy wet himself, whilst the landlord made him sandwiches. There was no point being faint from hunger. Silly girl! But then, she was used to being sheltered, being taken one place or another by her parents. A bustling coaching inn could be confusing, and the timetables not always easy to read. Especially when there was a miscommunication with the outgoing coachman. It was tiresome, but the girl could not really be taken at fault.