Chapter 16
“Miss Denleigh! How could I speak of something as mundane as pigs in your presence?” cried Sir Arthur. “I must have had rats in my attic!”
“No, only saddlebacks,” said Lucy, with a gurgle of mirth. “It was not very romantic, but I might not have taken such offence had not Papa laid down law that I was going to marry you and it was all arranged. I was taken aback, and took you in dislike as much from a desire to make up my own mind as anything else, and Papa declaring you to be a steady, older man who would cure my flightiness. I thought you must be much older than you look and cruel into the bargain, but my aunt feels I should give you a chance to explain yourself.”
“Why, Miss Denleigh! All I did was ask your father leave to court you!” said Sir Arthur, indignantly. “I have made no other arrangement with him, and it is your delightful air of being a free spirit which attracts me to you; I cannot imagine what he means by flightiness, or why anyone would wish to ‘cure’ it, which sounds distressingly controlling.”
“Oh!” said Lucy, letting out an explosive breath. “I should have realised it was all Papa. Aunt Agatha calls him a ‘clunch’ and ‘my sister’s cretin’ and ‘wassisname.’ And I can see why.”
“A gentleman does not like to denigrate a lady’s father, but I confess myself to be in agreement with your aunt,” said Sir Arthur. “I fail to see any fault!”
“Mama said that playing Robin Hood and such like in the woods with Toby and Peter would lead to being pregnant, but honestly! I know how rams tup sheep and I wouldn’t be likely to be doing that when having fun, would I?” said Lucy. “Besides, the thought of Toby or Peter in such a situation is too silly for words.”
“It is? I confess myself relieved, if you preferred the though of marriage to either of your two oldest friends.”
“Why, they are like brothers,” said Lucy. “Which Mama can never be brought to understand.”
“Then perhaps you will permit me to get to know you, and persuade you that with humans there are more nuances to romantic and marital love than the rather straightforward act of tupping; and that is a most improper thing to say to a young lady, and I beg your pardon, but I did not wish you to suppose that marriage was as… er…”
“Abrupt?” suggested Lucy.
“Abrupt… good word,” said Sir Arthur.
“I would not want to imagine you would expect me to wear your ring in my nose and wallow in mud,” giggled Lucy.
“I would not wish to mar your lovely face with such an excrescence,” said Sir Arthur. “I believe some people hold hot mud baths to be healthy, but I doubt you are susceptible to rheumatism or gout.”
“I might consider sea-bathing, but only on good sandy beaches,” said Lucy. “Hot mud baths, truly? I know some people consider the waters of such places as Bath efficacious for all kinds of maladies, but I did not sample those in the spa where we stayed for a few days to let you overtake us.”
“Oh, is that what happened!” said Sir Arthur. “What an excellent ruse!”
“Wasn’t it? And Anne is certain to have lost her wicked uncle, too,” said Lucy. “Are you going to escort me out to see the sights of York?”
“If you would like,” said Arthur, who would like nothing more than this delight.
“You know what, Jeeby?” said Lady Corbythwaite, “I suspect someone dropped Daisy on her head when she was a baby. It’s the only explanation I can find for her being so feebleminded in mismanaging Lucy so.”
“Very likely, madam,” said Jeeby.
“They’ll be out for a good two hours. You may take me to bed, Jeeby,” said Lady Corbythwaite.
“Certainly, madam,” said Jeeby, formally. “Is madam giving orders this time, or is she a naughty chambermaid caught misbehaving?”
Lady Corbythwaite giggled.
“Oh, I think I might be a naughty chambermaid,” she said. “You may come and catch me in ten minutes.”
“Very good, my lady,” said Jeeby.
oOoOo
Denver and Wilcox reached York at about the time that Julian and Anne were embarking upon the ‘Stormcrow.’ Questioning elicited that a blond gentleman and a dark-haired lady had asked for directions to the house of Lady Corbythwaite.
“Aha!” said Wilcox. “Corby is what they call crows, rooks and ravens around here; likely she’s some relative of Ravenscar’s.”
This seemed reasonable to Denver, even if he was uninterested in the local vernacular.
Consequently, the pair demanded entrance of Jeeby, and pushed past him rudely to force themselves upon the company at dinner, which included Sir Arthur.
“Hah! Caught you, you naughty girl!” cried Denver. He went to seize Lucy, who cowered back towards Sir Arthur, and Denver paused. “You ain’t Anne,” he gasped.
“How dare you assault my betrothed wife, sirrah?” roared Sir Arthur, coming to his feet and towering over Denver. “I won’t let him touch you, Lucy.”
“Who the devil are you, and what gives you the demmed cheek to invade my home?” demanded Lady Corbythwaite.
“I… I beg your pardon,” said Denver, sweating freely. “I… I heard a blond gentleman and a dark girl came here, and I thought it was my niece and Ravenscar…. Your name being….” He tailed off.
Lady Corbythwaite had got her lorgnettes out of her reticule to regard him with hauteur, which she held in one hand; the reticule being placed on the table, she held a muff-pistol in the other.
“Pray be so good as to vacate my house or I shall shoot you as a common housebreaker,” she said.
“I assure you, I mean you no harm, I was merely…” tried Denver.
Lady Corbythwaite pointed the pistol at his chest. It was held steadily and with resolve.
He fled, dragging Wilcox with him.
“The hell! It wasn’t Anne!” he gasped, mopping his face. “Do you suppose we’ve been chasing the wrong wench all along!”
“Well, how do we find the right one?” demanded Wilcox.
“We can’t,” said Denver, with a snap. “All we can do now is to go back to town, and start spreading rumours that Ravenscar married a mad woman to get his hands on her money, and hope he’ll pay us off from it to get the rumours to stop.”
“Well, I ain’t going any further today,” said Wilcox. “We can stay over. There are plenty of fine inns in York, I dare say. I’m plumb tuckered out with all this gallivanting about.”
Denver did not disagree. He was exhausted, and he was also cold.
“I tell you what,” he said. “We’ll sell the curricle and the nags, and take the mail back; it’ll be hellish uncomfortable, but it will get us back to town a lot quicker.”
Wilcox sighed
Regretfully, he agreed.
“We’ll see about a special licence for you two,” said Lady Corbythwaite. “Demme, I should have thought of it for Ravenscar, but there you go. Too late, now. Neddy Harcourt will oblige; hunted with my Corby. No point knowing an Archbishop if you don’t make use of him.”[1]
“I’m not sure if Miss Denleigh is ready…” expostulated Arthur.
“Nonsense! Threw herself into your arms readily enough when that fellow pushed in on us!” said Lady Corbythwaite. “And didn’t you remember that her name is Lucy? I’d say you want to consider marriage to make sure nobody counts on their fingers after the farrowing.”
Arthur looked at Lucy, who was blushing and giggling.
“Aunt Agatha is very managing,” she said.
“Yes, but damn it! I won’t let her manage you if you don’t want to be managed!” said Arthur.
“He’s a keeper,” said Lady Corbythwaite. “Doesn’t let me push him around; you hang on to him, puss.”
“I was planning to, but I want to get married without it being in a hole-in-the corner way,” said Lucy. “And I want to know Arthur a bit better as well. But I will not object to him setting up the banns.”
“Good girl,” said Lady Corbythwaite. “You don’t let me walk all over you either. Doesn’t do me any good to get my own way all the time, any more than it does you,” she added.
Jeeby ventured to clear his throat as he brought brandy for Arthur.
Lucy wondered why her aunt should suddenly flush!
Arthur was astounded to discover that the two scoundrels who forced their way into Lady Corbythwaite’s home should be staying in the same hotel he was.
“What are you doing here, devil take it?” he demanded. “This is a hotel for gentlefolks, not brigands and ruffians like you, who break into a lady’s house and act like madmen.”
“You misunderstand, I was deceived into thinking that my poor niece, a sadly unstable girl, had been taken there, deceived by Lord Ravenscar,” said Denver. Arthur was ignoring Wilcox.
“Sounds dashed havey-cavey to me,” said Arthur. “What, are you accusing a respectable widow of being some kind of Abbess?”
“Oh, certainly not!” said Denver, hastily, alive to the laws of slander. “But as a relative of Ravenscar’s, I thought he might have gone there with the girl.”
“Whatever gave you the idea that she’s related to Ravenscar? No relation at all as far as I know,” said Arthur.
“My man thought that as Corby means raven around here…” Denver broke off, glaring at Wilcox.
“Well, you’re out of luck there, he ain’t a relative at all. And I’d be careful what you say about him as well,” said Arthur. “Likely to knock you down or sue you for lying about him like that; a lady’s man to be sure, but never a deceiver. And speaking of which, now we’re out of the company of ladies…”
Arthur Fossingdean was not a man who would stand up with Gentleman Jackson, nor would he take on a pet of the fancy, but he was quite capable of administering a scientific drubbing to someone he apostrophised as a ‘mushroom.’
Denver went to bed sore in more ways than one. These damned aristocrats hung together, and in Denver’s opinion, they should all be hanged together. Not so much from any egalitarian or revolutionary zeal, as from honest envy and jealousy that he wished to bring them down for sneering at him. Denver had not realised that it was his manner of trying to ape the aristocracy which made the genuine article sneer at him, rather than his precarious social position per se. Had he known, he would have been genuinely astonished that they found his efforts laughable. He accepted a derisory offer on the curricle and pair from the landlord, who planned to rest the horses and have them well curried, paint the curricle, and double the price at least over what he paid. The luckless Denver had no idea what to ask, and was to later complain about the difference in prices between the north and the south, when he came to replace the team of four he had so cavalierly split and then sold.
In the meantime, he was relatively speaking in funds, and he and Wilcox would board the mail at five in the morning to head for London. His coach, left at Ravenscar House, could stay there for now.
Arthur had no idea what Denver planned, and frankly, he did not care very much. Ravenscar and his lady were safely on the way to Scotland, and Arthur performed a quick jig step, threw up his hand, and ‘heuked’ in the sort of way which would have called down censure upon him at Almack’s. As he was not at Almack’s, all he did was to startle a chambermaid, who had opened the door with fresh linen, and squeaked faintly at the sight of the guest, dancing.
Arthur tipped her over the odds, for being embarrassed, and asked her to pray for his friends at sea on the way to Scotland.
“Ee, that’s intrepid, think on,” said the maid, comforted that the guest merely celebrated a friend’s successful elopement and had not run mad.
Julian and Anne had only a glimpse of the high white cliffs of the coastland, looming out of the evening mist as eerie pale irregular shapes like misshapen trolls or giants guarding the bastion of England looming out of the crepuscular gloom.
“I imagine it’s quite pretty in daylight,” said Anne. “But it looks like the ghosts of dead giant warriors in this light.”
“I believe there are many arches and stacks, and other dangers to navigation; hence the lighthouse,” said Julian. “But imagining ancient warriors turned to stone is more picturesque.”
“A nice word and not suggesting madness, as ‘whimsical’ might,” said Anne.
“My poor love! You will be sensitive to that for many a year, I fear,” said Julian. “For myself, I like whimsical. It suits a Ravenscar, anyway. But I will try to be careful with what I say.”
“Thank you, Julian,” said Anne, with heartfelt gratitude.
[1] Edward Harcourt almost turned down the archbishopric of York, as he was very fond of hunting and was not sure if he would be permitted to hunt as Archbishop; but he consulted various people and was assured he could hunt as long as he did not shout.
