'What is it?'
'I have been thinking about----'
A knock at the door interrupted her. 'Come in,' called Marion, bending
over her paper. A subdued exclamation from Simone made Marion turn her
head. Zacchary and Reuben stood together in the doorway. Reuben was
stepping forward, but Zacchary caught his sleeve.
''Tain't but me, Mistress Marion,' began Zacchary, his free hand
touching his forehead. 'There bain't no gainsaying this 'ere young man.
Her's some set on travelling wi' we to-morrow.'
'By your leave, Madam,' said the Cockney youth, 'it would give me the
greatest pleasure.'
'A did say,' put in Zacchary, with a sidelong withering look at the man
who borrowed the speeches of the great, 'a did say as 'tweren't no use
nohow. Stands to reason a Lunnon man knows nothing o' country going.
But if you'm so minded, Mistress, as to allow un, a might serve to hold
the horses' heads--'lowing her knows head from tail--ony roads her'll
run back fast enough when the highwaymen start on we.'
'Zacchary, Zacchary!' said Marion. 'And 'twas yourself told me of
Reuben's valiant fight with footpad at Knightsbridge yonder, two years
ago.'
'A don't deny as a be a fule sometimes,' said Zacchary meditatively,
scratching his head, 'but it bain't the same----'
'I'm busy now,' interrupted Marion. 'Take Reuben downstairs and tell
him as much as you can of the journey up to prepare him for the journey
down. I shall be very glad of your company, Reuben. You may ride on the
coach seat with Zacchary. Are your carbines ready, Zacchary?'
'Ay, Mistress, but a were saying----'
'And plenty of shot?'
'Us 'as enough shot to fight the battle o' Sedgemoor all over again,'
declared the Cornishman.
'Then 'tis highly likely you won't pull the trigger once, Zacchary.
But, Reuben, you need not fear these tales. The roads have been
quieter, I think, since the coming and going of the King's men these
months. My father and I came up to Kensington without being murdered on
the coach steps. And, in any case, Captain Beckenham's servant is
coming as outrider. From what I hear,' added Marion, 'he shoots three
men at once.'
'Presarve 's!' said Zacchary. 'Like as not her'll shoot we, Mistress.'
Marion took up her quill. 'Be ready to start at eight o'clock,' she
said briefly.
'Can't think what have come to the little maid,' mused Zacchary, as he
lumbered downstairs in the wake of the delighted Reuben. 'Her's growing
more like the Admur'l every day.'
Meanwhile Simone waited, sadly noting how soon the grave expression had
overrun the smile with which her young mistress had talked to Zacchary.
'You had something to say, Simone?'
'Mademoiselle, have you thought about money?'
Marion laid down her pen again with an exclamation of dismay. 'I had
quite forgotten money!'
'I had been wondering. You'll want a good deal, Mademoiselle.'
Marion counted out her purse. 'And there are two guineas in my jewel
box.'
'Madame Romaine has the little money I have saved,' remarked Simone. 'I
never thought of asking her for it. But it is very little.'
'It is kind of you to think of that, Simone. What can I do? Oh, if
only Colonel Sampson had not gone away on that sudden journey! What can
I do?'
'Mademoiselle,' said Simone after, a pause, 'when ladies find themselves
in need of money, they generally borrow on their jewellery.'
With her forehead resting on her hand Marion thought awhile.
'There is no other way that I can see,' she said in a low tone, 'and she
would not mind. We shall have to sell the pearl necklace, Simone.'
'There is no need to sell, Mademoiselle,' explained Simone. 'The
goldsmith will lend you the money, and you can leave it with him and get
it again later.'
'But,' said Marion in dismay, a new thought striking her, 'that means
delay. What is the hour now?'
'Close on ten o'clock, Mademoiselle. Impossible, of course, to-night.
But if Mademoiselle will trust me, I will go up to Lombard Street
to-morrow morning, and seek a man I know of there.'
'How will you go?'
'My lady left the small coach, and there are plenty of horses. I will
be back with the money by the time Mademoiselle is ready.'
Marion turned with a sigh to her letter. 'Be sure to take a servant
with you in the coach. I cannot think what I should do without you,
Simone.'
Simone dropped on one knee, and laid her cheek against Marion's idle
hand. 'Je ne cherche aucun plaisir que de vous servir, Mademoiselle.'
'Tais-toi!' said Marion huskily, her fingers touching the glossy head.
'I have not time to weep.'
With her mouth in set lines, Marion wrote her letters. When they were
directed and sealed, she found Simone waiting to undress her. Her jewel
box, a present from Lady Fairfax, was by the bed. Marion took from it
the case containing the pearl and turquoise necklace, and handing it to
Simone, dismissed her for the night.
She sank on her knees by the high, canopied bed. 'Our Father,' began the
tremulous whisper. Then the golden brown head fell on the coverlet. 'O
Roger, Roger!' she sobbed.
*CHAPTER XIV*
*A HALT ON THE ROAD*
Marion sat in the corner of the coach, wondering why the roads had
become so much more uneven, the vehicle itself so comfortless, the
sturdy greys so slow seeming, since she had travelled that same course
with her father not more than two months ago. And she had not the
consolation that pleasanter riding lay ahead; ruefully she thought of
the waggon tracks of the west country, compared with which the narrow
lanes, deeply rutted, through which the coach now rocked and jolted,
made easy going.
On the first day, after Beckenham had left the party, and the coach had
settled down to a steady pace, the sense of slowness had been
intolerable to the girl. Her fear and dread sped backwards and forwards
between Roger in his gaol and herself crawling snailwise over the
intervening space, and taunted her with her helplessness. The enforced
inaction left her a prey to mental maladies that otherwise she would
have shaken off. Moody and irritable, she had words for none.
At the outset, she had been forced to recognise one drag on her speed:
she dare not press the greys beyond their strength, nor dare she leave
them at some posting-house and take fresh horses for the succeeding
stages of the journey. That she risked her father's displeasure in any
case, in returning thus, she was certain. She saw her position from his
point of view: merely because she could not bear to stay behind, she had
come home; but that was no reason why she should ruin the horses.
Therefore it was needless for Zacchary to preach rest and caution. At
the inn where they stopped for the night, Marion saw to it that the
weight of her purse and the new-born authority of her manner ensured the
best stabling and food the house afforded. She had done all she could.
Everything now depended on the coach and the animals. But in the
meantime only some few hours had passed since she left London, and long
days lay ahead during which she must perforce sit idle.
The morrow found her in the same gloomy condition, her desperate fancy
dwelling on each coming stage of the interminable road. One day pressed
on to another without any incident to ease her unhappy mood. Slowly the
sun rose, and slowly sank to rest; the young moon over her casement
mocked her restless sleep; and for Marion the incomparable beauty of the
green summer turned into the spite of prison walls.
Simone, unobtrusively watching her young mistress, began to be concerned
for her state, and would have almost welcomed an accident, a stray
highwayman, if only the face in the corner would lose its set look.
But so far no such ill hap had occurred. Travelling only by daylight,
and so well guarded, and, as the men on the box averred, protected by a
special fate, the coach had gone on its way unmolested. Tony the
valiant, as Simone had dubbed him, was indeed worth the three men of his
master's boast, and his splendid horsemanship and elegant livery had
called for no few admiring glances from the farm lads and rosy-cheeked
wenches who stood at times to watch the coach and its outrider go by.
The travellers had done almost half the journey before Simone found out
that while Zacchary and Reuben slept in a hayloft above the horses'
stalls, Tony chose for his bed the boards of the landing outside the
ladies' bedchamber. Simone herself, water jug in hand, had come
suddenly upon this unexpected barricade one morning when Master Tony had
overslept himself. She had all but fallen headlong over the prostrate
body, and her exclamation finding its way into his dreams, the young man
had become aware of a slippered foot within reach of his hand. At once
his fingers closed on the foot, while he wriggled into a position that
would enable him to see who was daring to pass so close to the door
behind which his fair charges were sleeping. Scarcely had he brought
his drowsy eyes to rest on Simone's dainty face before the few drops of
water left in the ewer trickled on to his own. Her foot released,
Simone stood back with a smile. 'So 'tis thyself who snores so loudly
that my mistress and I have feared our walls were but thin boards!
Snore on, valiant warrior,' said Simone over her shoulder, as she went
along the passage. 'Henceforth the sound of thy slumbers shall be music
to our ears.'
In the late afternoon of the fourth day the coach was making a rather
slow progress along the Ilminster Road. Zacchary had discovered, or
imagined, as Marion asserted, a slight lameness in the inside leader.
Nothing would induce him to hurry his pace, and Marion had been obliged
to bow to his will.
To Simone's unbounded relief, Marion's attack of depression had worn
itself out. The consciousness that in a few more days, granted no ill
fortune, she would cross the boundary into Cornwall, lent an added
buoyancy to her reacting mood.
The sound of the broad Dorset speech, which had induced a home-coming
sensation in Marion, had greatly diverted Simone. Marion, giving her a
lesson in west country dialect, did not notice the narrow lane, deep
ditched at one side, into which they had passed, and was unaware of any
danger until, with a sickening heave, the coach slanted down into the
hollow, and rested there.
'Bide where you be, Mistress,' came Zacchary's call. 'Us'll shift un
all right!'
For a few seconds the men struggled at the horses' heads, the
Cornishman's cries to the struggling greys running into a high falsetto
and an affectionate reviling that made even Marion smile.
''Tis nothing,' she said to Simone, as the two balanced themselves
against the list of the coach floor. 'We toppled into a ditch coming
down, and were soon on the road again. Zacchary must have been careless
for once. There! 'Twas a splendid pull. Ah--stay! What was that?'
The coach, almost balanced, had fallen back slanting-wise, and with the
movement had come the sound of a snap, and a struggling of horses' feet.
The voices of the men ceased.
'Something has happened,' said Marion, 'and I can't open this villainous
door! Reuben!' she called.
The footman was already climbing on to the coach step, which appeared to
be poised in mid-air, and in a moment the two girls were lifted to the
ground.
Zacchary was bending over a broken trace.
'Oh!' said Marion in a relieved tone, 'I thought the pole had gone.'
Zacchary's mouth twisted under his beard. 'My lady would sing a
different song by and by, when she saw the time it would take to mend
the break.'
'You have all your tools, have you not?' asked Marion.
Zacchary straightened himself. 'There bean't nawt in yonder box at all,
Mistress. A wor that struck at the sudden hurry of coming away a' clean
forgot.'
Marion stood in silent dismay.
Meanwhile, Tony had been scouting ahead, and now trotted down the lane
with the news that a likely inn was perched in a hollow over the next
hill.
'Didst see aught of a cobbler's bench perched by un?' demanded Zacchary,
his wrath rising. 'Streak off now, tha girt gawk! And if thou should
light on a few sheep up over--and us allows tha'll be some scared--there
bean't no call to trot back to tell the Mistress. A body would ha'
thought--but thy head's too full o' Lunnon impidence for aught else.'
Not waiting to hear the end of the speech, Tony wheeled round.
'Will it take long to mend it, Zacchary?' inquired Marion.
'Maybe, maybe. 'Tis a bad split. Easy, now there,' called Zacchary,
watching Reuben freeing the wheelers. 'So. Let un graze quiet-like.'
Marion sighed. 'Do your best, Zacchary,' she said gently. 'We will
walk on a bit, and wait at the inn till you come.'
After a short walk between the steep flower-grown hedges, the two
reached the little hostelry which Tony had espied from the crest of the
hill. A smiling, rosy-cheeked innkeeper, with a smiling, rosy-cheeked
wife at his side, stood on the steps as the two came up, their approach
having been noted from the kitchen windows. The woman smoothed her apron
and dropped a series of curtseys as her husband greeted the travellers.
'Thank you,' said Marion. 'We should like to wait awhile, but 'twould
be more pleasure to walk about in the garden yonder than to sit indoors.
We have had over much sitting in the coach these days past. But,' she
added, rather anxiously, 'did not our man come up to ask for an awl and
some leather for mending the trace?'
'He has but now gone up over, Madam,' said the innkeeper. 'The
cobbler's cottage is that you see yonder, next the blacksmith's.'
As he spoke, the man pointed out the few dwellings of a tiny hamlet
across the fields.
'If you would see that the cobbler comes himself,' began Marion:--then
she broke off, smiling. 'Tony is indeed worth three men,' she said to
Simone. 'See yonder where he comes with the cobbler riding behind.'
'A don't allow but that his horse be tired some,' remarked the innkeeper
as, in a few minutes, Tony's chestnut went by at a canter with her
double burden. 'Would it not be best to lie here and go on to-morrow?'
Here the wife chimed in. 'There be a dish o' trout from the brook,
caught this morning, a fine ham up the chimney ready for cutting,
Mistress, and sheep's kidneys, and a venison pasty, and a good fat fowl
hanging yonder. Killed yesterday, 'twas.'