the pirate's hoard 6 cliffie bonus

 

6

 

“I... I don’t know what to say,” said Lucy, in hushed awe. “One full of silver coins, one of gold coin and items, and one of what I suspect are uncut emeralds, as there are a few that are cut.”

“Shut the lids; it’s making me giddy,” said Arabella. “I found a pair of worn velvet curtains in the linen press which I believe were about to be discarded for being too worn to mend, and made over into cushion covers. There’s enough cord with them as trim, with a pillow put over each of these, and a circular top cut with a ruched frill falling from it, they will look quite different.”

“Yes, you are wise, Arabella,” said Lucy. “No wonder Luke was prepared to be so ruthless, if he suspected this!”

“The difference being, my darling Lucy, that you would not be ruthless to deprive him of it if the tables were turned,” said Henry, dryly. He had taken Lucy’s hand. “I am glad I already asked you to marry me, so you know my feelings are not dependent on all... all this excess of bijouterie.”

“What a good way to put it,” said Lucy. “I know you aren’t marrying me for pirate treasure. It’s all very much too much.  I’m inclined to take enough of it to make the estate good, and put the rest back, and the commonplace book, and leave for another member of the family in the future.”

“Or hard times,” said Henry. “I think that’s a good idea; but not until you have unequivocally won the house.”

“I will stay to my room, though,” said Lucy. “If Arabella will bring meals to me, so Mrs. Henderson can tell Luke she has not seen me; she might even believe Arabella to be covering for me being missing.”

“And I can attest that you are not,” said Henry. “And perhaps I will send Henderson up; he has a shrewd idea which of you will do best by him!”

“I think I will have to eschew my hot bath, however,” said Lucy. “Still, I am less stiff for having moved about, but I believe I will seek the comfort of a feather mattress and a pile of pillows to rest my aching legs whilst sewing.” She grimaced. “It will keep me occupied whilst I play least-in-sight. Arabella, if you will cut out one, I can be sewing whilst you cut out others, and secure pillows over the trunks.”

“Indeed, and then I can come to help you finish up,” said Arabella.

“If you ladies are busy at that, I will fetch and carry meals,” said Henry. “Unlike a good servant, however, I will knock.  I can also carry the slop bucket down to the Bramah closet.”

“Thank you, Mr. Jermyn,” said Arabella.

Henry went one better, and brought up a hot brick for Lucy, tucked under one arm, a pot of tea and some bread-and-butter for both of them on a tray,  and he produced from his pocket a paper poke of chestnuts to roast on the shovel.

“I’ll just pop down for more wood and coal for the fire to make it hot enough for the chestnuts,” he said. “I’m glad there was enough to get it going.”

Lucy lay back on a pile of pillows in bed, and sighed in happiness.

“Henry, you are the best of fiancées,” she said.

Henry laughed.

“Can I beg some chestnuts, then?” he asked.

“Roast them for us, and I think we’ll say yes,” said Lucy. “I know it’s most improper for you to be in my bedroom, but we are going to be married, and the circumstances are extraordinary.”

Henry ran off for fuel, and came back with a big hod of coal, and a sack of logs.

“I think we have enough here to sit out a siege over Christmas,” said Arabella.

“That was rather the idea,” said Henry. He got a nice glowing centre of coals on which to balance the shovel, and used his penknife to cut off the sharp, pointed ends of the chestnuts before setting them on the coal shovel.  “If you put a hole in them, it stops them jumping into the fire from the pressure of water vapour expanding within, or exploding,” he explained.

“So much for the St. Catherine’s eve divination games,” laughed Lucy. “Nothing to do with true love if two nuts named for lovers jump closer, or jump apart, or explode from passion, only steam power.”

“The best way to divine about one’s future true love is to list what things one has in common, and what things one does not like, and if you have three or more of the first and no more than one of the second, then you have friendship at least to work with, which is more durable than sudden infatuation,” said Henry. “I hope that is not too prosaic for you, Lucy.”

“Prosaic is a man who knows where to search for someone abducted, and then procures her a hot brick and chestnuts,” said Lucy. “I like prosaic. And pirate treasure may be romantic, but I look at those pieces of eight, and I see the hiring of men to manage the north wood, and plant new trees to replace old, the mending of the farm buildings of the lower farm and getting in tenants to till the land, and pensioning off the old couple in the home farm, with younger tenants to run it, and letting the old folk have a cottage and a cottage garden for their own needs as well as a pension.”

“I am glad we do still think on the same lines,” said Henry. “You have a passion for this land, as I do.”

“Lucifer was a pirate bold, but he came home to the land,” said Lucy. “He sailed the furrows of ploughed land for his final years.”

“Beautifully put,” said Henry, softly. “I may be prosaic, but I can appreciate a poetic thought.”

 

 

Henry carried up dinner when it was prepared, which was a fricassee of chicken with rice, onion soup, and raised pies.

“Mrs. Henderson said she hoped I and the former governess would not go hungry with so much between us,” he said.  “She knows Lucy was supposed to be kidnapped. Henderson is bringing wine so he can say he has seen you... ah, here he is.” Henderson scratched at the door and came in. His sly fensman’s face broke into a broad smile.

“You ain’t missing, Miss Lucy!” he said.

“No, Henderson, Luke left me and plainly expected me to stay where I was left,” said Lucy.  “But I didn’t, and I was met halfway home by Mr. Jermyn and Miss Bellington looking for me. But I am not going to show myself to Mrs. Henderson, and perhaps you would say nothing – in case Luke tries to kill me.”

“Gawdelpus, miss, I do-ant say as how he mightn’t,” said Henderson. “Poweful unhinged he can be, when things do-an’t go his way.”

“Exactly,” said Lucy. “I expect he will come on the morrow to try to solve the puzzle of the sundial, and he’ll be out of luck as the key is in my reticule, and he thinks I am six miles away, and my reticule with me.”

“He’ll be in a taking when you ain’t,” said Henderson.

“Which is why I am staying in my bed with a cold,” said Lucy.

“And why I am carrying a pistol from Mr. Fenwick’s collection,” said Arabella.

“Arabella! Do you know how to use it?” gasped Lucy.

“Oh, yes,” said Arabella. “I am a governess because my father was a gambler and a duellist, and he made Britain too hot for himself. But he did teach me to culp a wafer at a dozen paces.”

“That makes me feel much better,” said Lucy.

 

 

oOoOo

 

Lucy and Arabella were eating a rather late breakfast, having slept in after a late night sewing,  when the doorbell tolled through the house.  Arabella was dressed, but Lucy wore a dressing-gown over her nightdress, to add verisimilitude to the story of being unwell, in case Luke did force his way into her bedchamber.

“Luke,” said Lucy.

“I had better receive him and act cagey about you being indisposed, and indignant if he wants to see you in your bedroom,” said Arabella.

“At least we finished the chest-dominos,” said Lucy.

“The what?”

“Well, they are masquerading as footstools; and if you can’t think of a clever costume for a masquerade, you wear a domino-cloak,” said Lucy.

“I suppose that makes sense,” said Arabella, standing, and brushing a few toast crumbs from her dress into the fireplace. Both women had been curled up in comfortable chairs which Henry had brought into the bedroom, with an occasional table between them for the chinaware needed to make tea, the urn standing on the hearth, on a trivet, so that there was room to put the teapot under its tap. They had partaken of coddled eggs with thin bread-and-butter in ‘soldiers,’followed by kedgeree, and toast and jam to finish up. Arabella picked up the tray.

“I’ll leave the teapot, but take the rest down,” she said.

She met Henderson on the stairs, and he relieved her of the tray.

“It’s Mr. Luke, Miss Bellington, I put him in the boudoir,” he said.

“Thank you, Henderson,” said Arabella. She tripped into the boudoir, and dropped a neat curtsey to Luke Fenwick.

“Mr. Fenwick, I fear you find Lucy indisposed and in bed with a nasty cold,” she said.

“Indisposed? That’s a good fiction for her not being here to win the inheritance,” said Luke, sneering slightly. “So, you’re her dresser now? A long fall in consequence, Belly.”

“I never answered to that ungentlemanlike soubriquet before, Luke Fenwick, and I will not now,” said Arabella, tartly. “My name is Miss Bellington; and Lucy is most certainly here. You can ask Mrs. Henderson about the meals she has eaten.”

“To be sure, to be sure; but food can be burned, or two portions eaten,” said Luke.

“What a waste of good food,” said Arabella. “I would invite you to see Lucy for yourself, but of course it is most ineligible for you to see her in her bedroom. Meanwhile, you had come visiting for a reason?”

Luke sneered.

“I intend to be on the roof of the porch at midday, to see the fall of shadow,” he said. “And if Lucy is not there, I will know she is not in residence.”

“She is not well enough to go gallivanting about outside up ladders,” said Arabella. “I, however, as her witness, will accompany you.”

He snarled.

“I suppose that damned solicitor will complain if I do not let you,” he said.

“Assuredly; and hark, the doorbell; that will be him now,” said Arabella.

 

Mr. Death joined Arabella and Luke in the boudoir.

“Are we ready for an excursion to see where the key goes?” he said.

“Yes,” said Luke.

Henry, as gardener, had hauled ladders round, and Arabella, not without some trepidation, had followed Luke and Mr. Death up onto the roof.

The day was providing some hazy sunshine, and Arabella had to admit that even so thin an illumination showed the holes for the wards fairly dramatically.

“Ah!” cried Luke. “Give me the key, woman!”

“I don’t have it,” said Arabella, calmly.

“What, is it still in the secret panel?” demanded Luke. “I know it exists, I found it!  I should have kept it!” he hastened down the ladder and ran into the house.

Arabella opened the door onto the gallery.

“Please come with me and ascertain Miss Fenwick’s presence in the house,” she said, leading Mr. Death to Lucy’s room. “A solicitor, like a doctor, is a privileged person.”

Lucy had gone back to bed, and was reading a novel.

“Dear me!” said Mr. Death. “I am sorry to see you laid up on so exciting a day, Miss Fenwick.”

“I was abducted, yesterday, by Luke’s agents and taken to an old cottage, where he expected me to stay,” said Lucy, calmly. “I escaped but at the expense of aching legs and a chill.”

“Good G-d!” said Mr. Death. “Unbelievable!”

“Nevertheless, true,” said Lucy. “I doubt it can be brought to his door in law, though. But such dirty tricks do not surprise me.”

“But my dear girl! He is about to attempt to get the treasure and steal a march on you!” said Death, upset. “Your uncle wanted you to be the one to find it!”

“Who says I haven’t done so already?” said Lucy. “Let Luke play out his hand.”

“I cannot like it,” said Mr. Death.

“I didn’t like it myself,” said Lucy. “But perhaps you will stay in a guest room whilst Luke foists himself upon us?”

“Indeed, yes, I believe I might,” said Mr. Death.

Arabella ushered him out, and into a guest room.

“I will see to lighting a fire, and seeing to a warming pan,” she said.

“Most kind!” Mr. Death was gratified, and followed her downstairs, where Luke seized her by the wrist, and shook her. Arabella screamed.

“Where is it? What have you done with the key?” he demanded.

“Mr.Fenwick! let go of my client’s companion at once!” said Mr. Death. “Do you want to be had up for assault?”

“She’s taken the key! It isn’t where it should be!” yammered Luke.

“Of course it isn’t,” said Arabella. “But you never gave me time to tell you where it is.”

He looked at her, eyes bulging in their sockets, a tic in the veins of his forehead.

“Well, then, where is it?” he hissed.

“It’s in Lucy’s reticule; she does not let it out of her sight,” said Arabella.

“Hell!” said Luke, and ran out of the house.

“Dear me!” said Mr. Death. “Where do you suppose he has gone?”

“To find Lucy in the derelict cottage where he left her, I suppose,” said Arabella. “Perhaps you will come to the library; I have something particular to show you, and then we might bespeak a light nuncheon.”

“Very well,” said Death.

 

Ten minutes later, he was drinking one of Lucius Fenwick’s fine old brandies, to recover from the display of bijouterie disguised as footstools.

Miss Lucy had pulled it off, though she still had to stay the requisite time.