poetry and perfection 18

 

Chapter 18

 

Pringle was feeling the financial pinch of this impetuous decision, but there was a price on the heads of the Hardcastles, and he had hoped to get it, and the glory of bringing them in.

He was forced, however, to sit and smell the evening meal without partaking; and Hugo, seeing this, called out to him.

“Pringle, join us for dinner and entertain my cub with tales of your derring do,” he said. He would have a quiet word with the landlord, and see that the poor man was provided with three square meals on Hugo’s own reckoning. It was a thankless task, and resented by many.

 Pringle was much appreciative of a good large meal he had expected to have to miss, and became quite expansive about his work. Kitty listened, fascinated.

“I don’t hold with people who use other folks the way these Hardcastles do,” he said. “Gettin’ honest folk stirred up and liable for arrest, pulling the constables away to deal with that, and they goes gallivantin’ off, to rob people at their leisure,” he reiterated, having come back to the case in hand after a couple of amusing anecdotes of a violent house-breaker, reported by neighbours, who turned out to be a goat; and a sneak thief who stole only silk stockings, who was found to be a cat, which took them to the stable where she lived, as bedding for her kittens. Kitty had laughed at both stories of larcenous animals, and gasped in horror over the callousness of Pringle’s current quarry.

“What evil men these Hardcastles are!” said Kitty. “Can you set them a trap?”

“What sort of trap might I set?” asked Pringle.

“Oh, dear, that is hard, without knowing the sort of people they might rob,” said Kitty. “But suppose you were able to let it be known that… oh, the nearest magistrate, whom you must know for him having deputised him, gave all his servants the day off for a fair or market day?”

“You’re right, young sir, they could not resist robbing a magistrate, and probably beating the poor old man, too,” said Pringle. “And I might hope to catch at least one of them.”

“I am sure Hugo would help,” said Kitty. “I should like to, but I am only just up to moving around. Though I might help guard the magistrate, for I am adept with a pistol.”

“I will go and talk to him, if Mr. Bottringham is, indeed, so inclined…,” said Pringle.

“Well, it promises to be a good mill,” said Hugo. “Kit, I promised your father I would keep you out of trouble.”

“I promise to try to stay out of trouble,” said Kitty. “How much trouble can I get into, if I am staying with a magistrate?”

“I’d rather not answer that,” said Hugo. “You’re a hell-born babe.”

“Oh, Hugo! That’s not fair; I don’t go out of my way to get into trouble, I do things to try to help people and it becomes a tangle,” said Kitty.

Hugo laughed.

“I concede that,” he said. “A hell-touched babe then; some are born to trouble, some achieve trouble, and some have trouble thrust upon them.”

“Shakespeare. Twelfth Night, about greatness,” said Kitty. “And I think I do have trouble thrust upon me.”          

“You accept it, however, with rare aplomb,” said Hugo, smiling at her.

Pringle nodded to himself. Yes, she was a girl, and it was none of his business. A friend of Mr. Bottringham’s sister she might well be, and Quality, if he made no mistake about it, and if Mr. Bottringham was speaking with her father, presumably there was less havey-cavey about it than met the eye.

“Miss was dressed as a lad incidental-like and was hurt by that drunkard that you have to continue the imposture?” he asked.

“Well, I’m damned,” said Hugo. “You are a peevy cove, as I believe your idiom runs. Yes, she impersonated my sister, fled the abductor dressed as a boy, and caught the wrong coach, and here we are. Unofficially I have her father’s permission to wed her, but  it would have been a scandal. It doesn’t have to be official, does it?”

“No, no, sir, of course not! But that foolish wench, Minnie, noticed affection between you, and would have it that if you weren’t the Hardcastles, you must be… engaging in the love that dares not speak its name.”

“She’s plainly not worked hard enough,” said Hugo. “One of these days, she’ll guess something too accurate about someone and will doubtless end up strangled in a ditch. I wish you’d put the fear of Bow Street into her about bearing false witness; it might save her life one day.”

“I’ll do that,” said  Pringle.

 

“Minnie, my girl, what have you got against Mr. Bottringham that you keep telling lies about him?” asked Pringle.

“Well, there’s something wrong with him; he don’t want to bed me,” said Minnie.

“I don’t want to bed you either; you’re a slattern,” said Pringle.  “Also, you ain’t half as good looking as Mr. Bottringham’s fiancée in London, who’s a real looker. That’s her brother who’s wounded,” he added, with his fingers crossed.

“Are you sure?” asked Minnie. “He could say anything.”

“Now, don’t give me that, my girl,” said Pringle. “You can tell neither of them is one of the Hardcastles from the way they speak; nobody has those plummy tones but the upper classes, and so that was your first lie! Trying to make yourself look big, and that’s called ‘wasting police time’ that is, and you can be taken to court and fined for it.  Not to mention taking away the characters of two gentlemen – that’s slander, and they can have you whipped at the cart’s tail for it.  And if you persist in making up lies, they’ll likely press charges, so you go about your duties, my girl, without any romancing and lying about honest folks!  Honestly, you’re lucky not to be turned off, they being tolerant, but Mr. Bottringham asked me to warn you what the law is about slander.”

“It ain’t slander if it’s true,” said Minnie.

“And as it ain’t true, it is slander.”

“How can you be sure it ain’t true?” burst out Minnie.

“Good Lord, woman!  a man of Bottringham’s reputation ain’t about to change his preferences, is he?” said Pringle.

“He ain’t got a reputation, he’s a stranger,” said Minnie.

“You little idiot provincial,” snapped Bottringham. “He’s well-known in London, as a famous whip, sportsman, and wivaht bein’ a womaniser, ʼe’s a ladies’ man through and through. And you’re lucky he’s tolerant, and so help me, if you don’t stop making my life harder in searching for the Hardcastles, by lying and making up irrelevancies about a man just because he considers you unappetising, I’ll take you in charge myself.”

Minnie gave a screech, and burst into tears.

Pringle ignored her tears, and went to advise the landlord to find more jobs for her, preferably grimy ones which kept her away from the customers, before she got his inn a bad name for making up stories about paying guests.

Mine host promptly relegated Minnie to the kitchen where she would be washing crockery and glasses for the foreseeable future.

 

“How are you feeling, Kit?” asked Hugo, as they ate with Mr. Pringle.

“Oh, much better,” said Kitty.

“Well, I was hoping Mr. Pringle would be constructively deaf, while I ask if you want to go to a mill which should be a bit more full of science than the one Stephen took you to.”

“Oh, I should like that,” said Kitty. “And Mama cannot have hysterics, not being here.”

“None of my business unless the magistrate calls me in,” said Pringle. “Stands to reason, nobody makes a pugilist fight, it’s dangerous, yes, but they go into it with their eyes open. More healthy for the general public than rioting, and satisfies their needs to be involved with a bit of mayhem, blood and gore. Lets out the beast within us all. Leastways, I don’t know if ladies have it,” he added.

“There are people to whom I should like to plant a facer,” said Kitty, demurely.  Mr. Pringle laughed. “Well, then, Miss, unofficially, I hope you enjoy yourself.”

“I expect I shall,” said Kitty.

“I can’t come, of course,” said Mr. Pringle.

“Of course you can,” said Hugo. “You’re looking over the crowd for the Hardcastle brothers. And acting as groom on my Phaeton, you can see further.”

“Ah, now that’s a nice piece of circular argument for me,” said Pringle. “I do have jurisdiction; I applied to Sir James Ambleside, who is local magistrate here. So, if I see them, I can make an arrest,” he added.

“And you can second me to aid you,” said Hugo. “And Kit will not get involved. At all.”

“No, Hugo,” said Kitty.

 

The fight was between a man named Peters, a pet of the fancy of some of those at the edges of society, and the local bruiser, named Blunt. The venue was a field, not far out of town, and it rapidly filled. The contestants appeared. Peters was a black man, comparatively slight, but wiry. Blunt was a big ox of a man, with a thatch of straw-coloured hair whose style no thatcher would lay claim to, let alone any barber. He had close-set, cruel eyes, and he sneered and made a racial slur.

“Peters is said to be an ex-slave like Molyneaux,” said Hugo. “He’s also served in the navy and boxed for his ship. I’m assuming his ship is laid up in ordinary now the war is over. Either that, or he was extracted from the navy by some shenanigan or other to allow him to fight.”

“I wouldn’t be in the shoes of the local man if Peters knows science, not after calling him names like that,” said Kitty. “Most embarrassing of him to be so uncouth.”

“Well, it’s about to start,” said Hugo.

Blunt came in, jabbing with each hand, and accompanying each jab with the same racial slur.

“It just becomes noise after a while,” said Peters. “A bit like the braying of a donkey, hee-haw, hee-haw.”

Kitty was not the only member of the audience to laugh at that.

Blunt, angered, managed to clip Peters, on the ear, but the pet of the fancy swayed out of the way of the worst of it, used that over-reaching blow to get inside Blunt’s arms, and landed two uppercuts on the big man’s chin. The local man went down.

Kitty clapped.

Blunt was up before the count was ended, and the fight pressed on. Basically, it was a question of Peters using science to avoid the pile-driving blows of Blunt.  Blunt won a couple of rounds, but Peters was unquestionably the better fighter, with seven rounds to Peters, and three to Blunt.

“Smart money is on this round,” said Hugo, who had bet around several touts. “Peters has been holding back; we should see something rather special in this coming round.”

Blunt came in again, hard, and Peters danced out of the way, ducking and weaving, and managed a blow round Blunt’s body to drive into his kidneys. Kitty winced; the big bully in the bar had done the same to her, and she knew how it hurt, and how humiliating it was to lose the contents of the bladder involuntarily.

Blunt stumbled, but managed not to put his knee down, swinging a vicious blow at Peters, which caught the smaller man on the arm. There was an audible ‘crack!’ as the arm broke.

“Oh, bad luck!” cried Hugo.

Peters tucked the hand of his broken arm in his trousers, and moved in close. A flurry of movement, and a straight left to the bigger man’s chin, and Blunt went down to a knockout.

The crowd went wild.

“It wasn’t fixed, was it?” asked Kitty, anxiously. “Knowing this would be the round?”

“No, I don’t believe so,” said Hugo. “Peters knows how to give a show, he usually finishes things between the ninth and the twelfth. I’ll just collect my winnings; I’m glad to say we are definitely in funds.”

“Well, I shall be glad to go back to the inn; I ache in a lot of places,” said Kitty, when Hugo returned.

“See your men at all, Pringle?” asked Hugo.

“Er… no,” said Pringle, shamefaced. “I did start out looking, but the action got rather exciting.”

Hugo laughed and slapped him on the shoulder.

“We’re all human,” he said.

Pringle gave a rueful grin.

“Well, I’m glad you look at it that way, sir,” he said.

“I’m not sure how easy it would be arresting them in a crowd, in any case. I think still that trapping them is best; do you really think they would be able to resist robbing an elderly magistrate, whose servants have the day off for the local fair next week?  I already wrote to Kit’s parents that we are assisting Bow Street, and she should be well enough to drive for many hours by then.”

“I am glad he is mending well,” said Pringle. “And I think you are probably quite correct; these bouts are interrupted often enough, and the crowd would be against me, without waiting to find out what my quarry was inclined to do.  I have heard rumours of them around, though, while I’ve been staying at the inn, lying low whilst Billie Hardcastle heals up as they don’t dare see a doctor.”

“And if he was hurt about the same time as me, you have something of a comparison,” said Kitty.

“Yes, indeed,” agreed Pringle.