the pirate's hoard 7

 

7

 

Luke was lucky not to overturn himself, so recklessly did he drive out to the old cottage. He frowned to see that no smoke rose from the chimney.  If the stupid wench was too feeble to light a fire, she might have frozen to death. Still, at least he could take the key from her reticule if she had died.

He let himself into the house, and searched assiduously for Lucy, who was not there. He even went into the loft room.

Surely she had not tried to walk home?  No, he would have seen her body where she had collapsed...

He drove back slowly, looking in ditches, to no avail.

Plainly, she had tried to escape and had died and that encroaching governess was hoping to get her hands on some pirate treasure, and was maintaining the fiction that Lucy was alive.

Well, he would see about that. He would denounce her when she came to try to claim that she had stayed the specified time.

He banged back into the house and informed Mrs. Henderson that he would be staying.

“She’s dead; she must be, but they are all hanging together,” he snarled.

Mrs. Henderson gave a little scream.

“Dead! Oh, Master Luke, I can’t bear it! I didn’t think there’d be no killin’ nowise!”

“Hold your tongue, woman!” Luke slapped her, hard. “There’s no killing involved! But Miss Lucy got lost, going out walking, and I think she must have died of cold. Nothing to do with me, do you understand?”

“Oh, Master Luke! I heven’t sin her since yes’dy brekkfas’ time, but Miss Bellington say she du be in her room.”

“She can’t be,” said Luke. “She can’t have walked six miles back yesterday... can she? Well, if she has, she will be too late. To hell with the house, but the treasure is mine.”

“Of course, Master Luke,” quavered Mrs. Henderson.

Luke bit his lip.

“They’re a bit too cheerful for people whose employer is dead,” he mused. “I know what happened! The foolish wench set off to walk back the six miles, and fell by the wayside, and people who had been to market picked her up; doubtless they are hanging on to her until she is fit, and they are paid a finder’s fee; I’d demand as much for any stray wench I put myself out for, and the governess is doubtless bargaining over the amount, and needs the solicitor to arrange to pay it.”

“Why would she fall by the wayside, Master Luke?” asked Mrs. Henderson. “Six mile be-ant so far tu walk.”

“Oh, it might not be for you, but you’re a peasant,” said Luke. “Ladies are feeble.”

Mrs. Henderson was finding her loyalty to her nursling somewhat shaken, but she was shrewd enough not to say anything. He went out again, and she slipped upstairs to scratch on Lucy’s door, and go in.

“Oh, Miss Lucy! You are here and alive, and not being ransomed off by other people,” she said.

“I am alive and well, yes,” said Lucy.

“I do-ant know what tu du,” said Mrs. Henderson, pleating her apron in her hands in agitation. “Master Luke, he wuud have ut that yew be-ant capable o’ walkin’ six moile....” her accent grew thicker in agitation. “He reckon as how yew was taerken up boi some folks wass wantin’ tu be paid tu give yew back.”

“Doubtless what he would do,” said Lucy.

“Ar,” agreed Mrs. Henderson.

“Arabella, find a salve for Mrs. Henderson’s face; my horrid cousin has hit her and you can see every finger mark,” said Lucy.  “I appreciate you telling me.”

“Oh, Miss Lucy, he be-ant roight in the hid!” opined Mrs. Henderson.

Lucy privately thought that this was too charitable a view, and that Luke was nothing but downright nasty; but she held her tongue. A good salve bought more goodwill from the foolish housekeeper, who was beginning, in her own way, to turn aside from support of the young man whom she still saw as the little boy she had adored, ignoring his faults. She mentioned that he had gone out again, but where, she could not say, not knowing.

“I suspect he will try something tonight,” said Lucy, when Mrs. Henderson had withdrawn. “And I fear he might try to burn the house down or something, hoping to kill us all, and get at the treasure, because he’s intemperate like that.”

“What do we do?” asked Arabella.

“We go into the master chamber, and take a burlap sack or two into the library and put some of the treasure in sacks, the fancier pieces of jewellery, and the emeralds, sneak down the secret stair, and put the sacks in Feathers’s stall with some oats on top,” said Lucy. “I know we can’t hide it all, but that should at least give us some. And we shall have truckle beds in the boudoir, and creep down there, so we can escape; Henderson and Mrs. Henderson sleep on the ground floor, as does Henry... dear me, Mr. Death must be apprised of possible danger, and as he is just across from the muniments room, he can go down the chimney stair into the kitchen. The stable block is at least separate from the house, and we can all occupy the quarters intended for grooms if the house is burned. But having buckets and tubs of water cannot hurt.”

“I will apprise Mr. Death of our suspicions, and tell the Hendersons to prepare for fire-raising, whilst you sort out the treasure,” said Arabella.

 

Lucy discovered that she could lower the sacks on a rope slung over one of the sturdy hooks in the closet with the secret stair, and managed thereby to remove quite two thirds of the treasure, especially as Henry saw her struggling with a sack.

“What, making off with the treasure?” he asked.

“Yes, I am, Henry, to hide in plain sight again, in case Luke fires the house,” said Lucy. “I think he might hope the treasure would fall for him to get his hands on, as the rest of us died.”

“Henderson said he’d settled in, and I don’t put it past him,” agreed Henry. “The house is the real treasure, to my mind, but at least with gems and precious metal we could build somewhere to live; and your life is the most precious treasure of all, and I’d rather have you hiding precious things on speculation than risking your life for it in a fire. Why don’t I carry that for you?”

“Put it in with Feathers with some oats or straw on top,” said Lucy. “If I lower sacks down the secret stair, and you carry them, we can get a lot more stowed away.”

Henry approved of this idea, and they worked hard until Henry saw Luke’s curricle turn in at the gates, and ran up the stair to warn Lucy.

He stole a kiss at the same time, and she clung to him.

“Your silly beard tickles,” she complained.

“I will be without it soon,” he said. “Let me take this last sack and leave it in a corner in the shed, and I will take out tools to work on the garden.”

“Thank you,” said Lucy, and went to straighten out the library and its hidden chests.

 

 

Luke had driven into King’s Lynn to try to procure gunpowder.

He found buying any quantity of gunpowder for more than the filling of a few cartridges to be difficult; with rick-burning still occurring, and the fear of Chartists, gunsmiths were suspicious.  Had he had more imagination, and as an obvious gentleman, he might have claimed to want to blow up the stumps of old trees in queachland he wanted to open to cultivation, this being one of the few ways to clear land fettered by roots and old stumps. As it was, he succeeded only in looking suspicious.

Luke managed to procure a few pounds from a crooked supply sergeant in the militia, which would have to do for his needs, packed well in a butter barrel, a half-firkin, and with a length of slow-match.

Luke had once seen an old oak tree brought down with gunpowder, and had been very impressed by how it had fallen without danger to life or limb of those who had been blowing it up. What Luke had not realised was that much of the gunpowder had been inside the rotten hollow bole, and that all of it, inside and out, had been well tamped with sandbags to direct the blast in the direction required by the retired artilleryman who was doing the removal of the tree. Luke knew how to load a pistol or shotgun, and how to fire it, but he could not have answered any questions on why a gun was designed as it was, or how firing happened, and he had no idea what tamping was, or why it was desirable. He had a small barrel of gunpowder, and that made him feel invincible.

After all, the figurehead was no larger than the tree he had seen felled; and undoubtedly the cavity from the sundial opened into it. Therefore, if he could not unlock the door to it, he might go in the back way, as one might say. That he would probably destroy the figurehead of his ancestor’s ship, he cared not.

It would make a noise, of course, but he intended to shoot down anyone who interfered; they were all superfluous to him now. Including Mrs. Henderson.

 

Luke claimed the master suite, and Lucy was glad that she and Arabella had dismantled the traps in order to remove the treasure. He retired to his room to brood, which allowed the two women to manhandle down the feather tick, with its sheets and blankets and pillows to the boudoir, and make up a bed on the floor rather than search for truckle beds. It was dry, and Lucy suggested just pushing everything out of the window, and pulling it in the French door below.

“It’s lazy, but it gives us less chance of being caught by him,” she said.

Arabella frowned.

“I have to say, slovenly as it seems, it would be better,” she said.

“And we’ll take the Jordan as well, though it’s just across the vestibule to the Bramah closet, for we might feel a need to be locked in,” said Lucy. “But I’ll carry that; I don’t think the chinaware would stand to be dropped.”

“Indeed, not!” said Arabella.

As two of the comfortable chairs from the boudoir were in the bedroom, there was plenty of room to set up a bed, with a little moving of furniture out of the way.

“Well, my love, I hope you are wrong about a need to escape in a hurry, but I would rather be prepared and have you mistaken than the other way about,” said Arabella.  “We can have water to drink, and Henderson is filling buckets to place in the Bramah closet, as he says it’s most likely that if anyone should set a fire, it will be in the vestibule, where the stairs will act as a chimney. And if Luke asks, he plans to say that the flush has been giving trouble.”

“How clever of Henderson! I will add a bonus to his wage for that,” said Lucy. “And I must, as promised, gift him from the pirate treasure. I wonder if he would like a tie pin of one of those small gold coins, or if he would prefer an emerald; and he must have some pieces of eight to boast to his friends in the inn, of course. I do not wish to be stingy, but I don’t want him to feel oppressed either.”

“You might ask him to pick something from the chests from what we left, if it is not consumed in fire,” said Arabella. “Put it all together.”

“A good idea,” said Lucy. “Even what is left piled on the library table would be impressive. After I have won it clearly and fairly. And Mr. Death must have a memento, too. And as she has seen sense, Mrs. Henderson. You shall have something to be a conversation piece in jewellery, as well as living here with its benefits.”

“Why, thank you, Lucy; I did not expect that,” said Arabella, flushing.

“Of course you must benefit; you were a part of finding it,” said Lucy. “And it should be something substantial.”

“I confess that the idea of owning something from pirate treasure is wildly exciting,” said Arabella flushing. “I know that is perhaps a foolish level of sentimentality...”

“Even former governesses are permitted to be foolishly sentimental at times,” said Lucy, giving her an affectionate kiss on the cheek.

 

Arabella ate dinner with Mr. Death, as was only polite. Luke demanded to eat in his room, which pleased both Arabella and Mr. Death.

“I can only hope that Miss Fenwick’s belief that Mr. Fenwick will set a fire or similar is merely a result of the agitation of her spirits owing to her unfortunate experience, yesterday,” said Mr. Death. “Indeed, being abducted seems so unlikely...”

“I was pushed and fell over as the fellow bundled her into the coach,” said Arabella, tartly. “Are you going to tell me that I imagined it?”

“Indeed, no, my dear lady, and I had no idea!” said Mr. Death. “I... I supposed she might have gone for a walk and been misdirected and became lost, and....”

“Lucy is not foolish,” said Arabella, with some asperity. “I cannot think how you can imagine that any person could conflate becoming lost with being abducted; why, one would have to be quite feeble-minded to do so, and to assume another person would think that way throws doubt upon your own faculties.”

Mr. Death coloured.

“I apologise,” he said, hastily. “I... I do not know much about young women and girls, only that it is said that they are prone to imagination of romantic situations, and... and....” he tailed off.

“I don’t see anything romantic about being forced by main strength into a carriage, and left in a derelict cottage and told to wait there until collected,” said Arabella. Her tone was tart. “Nor were the crop of chilblains she got walking towards home romantic, nor the sore stiffness of her legs from fighting through ice and mud. Fortunately, the gardener and I came upon her before she had had to walk more than three miles, and she was all but crying in pain. You have a very strange idea of young ladies and girls, and I, as a governess, who has experience with them, can tell you so. You would not like it if I started assuming that you would place in this clause or that to a will, would you? That is your profession, and I thank G-d profoundly that you never married and had children, or I can see you cross-examining any child who has been hurt to see if they imagined it, even if pouring blood from a wound. I pity you, but I would pity any family you had even more.”

“I... I am sorry. Lucius always said I should spend more time with young people,” said Death.

“Any young people in your vicinity are to be congratulated that you did not avail yourself of that advice,” said Arabella. “If there is no fire, we will be profoundly grateful; but I confess, I half wish I had left you to burn in your bed if there is one. I believe I have had enough; I will leave you to the brandy.”

She got up and stalked out.

 

“You look like a hen in a stiff breeze,” said Lucy.

“Oh, that man!” said Arabella. “Thought you might have romanced being abducted. I put him rightabout on that, the silly old fool.”

“Is he accusing me of lying? And why did he not say anything to me?” said Lucy.

“I suspect he is as bad as Luke in thinking your reasoning to be limited,” said Arabella. “Though it was you who found the treasure. I was not pleased.”

“I should think not!” said Lucy. “But come; let us play a hand of lottery tickets, so you do not go to sleep in wrath.”

“A good idea,” said Arabella. “But only one hand, for we did say, did we not, that we should sleep early, and hope to remain awake through the darkest part of the night.”

 

The two women had slept for several hours, when a detonation split the night and awakened them very thoroughly.