Black Hearts in Battersea Page 15

  ‘Sophie! Sophie!’ she sighed. ‘I do not know how it can be, but when we are with you we always contrive to run into such adventures!’

  ‘Come, come, Hettie,’ his Grace said gruffly. ‘Admit that the lass always rescues us, too. It’s thanks to Sophie we aren’t vanishing down the gullets of twenty wolves at this instant. By Jehoshaphat, my child, you’re a well-plucked ’un, and with your wits about you, too; you should ha’ been a boy! I’d a thousand times sooner have you at my side in a pinch than that whey-faced Justin.’

  ‘Thank you, your Grace.’ Sophie curtsied absently, but her expression was worried. She knew they must not remain in the hut much longer, for the wolves might return, and night was not far distant.

  Regardless of the Duchess’s little shriek of dismay, she put aside the corner of the tapestry and slipped out of the hut. Many billiard balls were lying on the grass round about, and she hastily gathered up as many as would go into her skirt and passed them in to the Duke.

  ‘Now, your Graces, I am going to run to the main road for help so do you, pray, peg up the tapestry again, and do not take it down until you hear me call.’

  ‘But supposing you meet with a wolf, my child?’

  ‘I’ll make him regret the day he was born,’ Sophie said grimly, taking another croquet mallet from the carriage. She picked up her skirts and ran like the wind. She met with no wolves along the path, but to her dismay, as she neared the turnpike, she began to hear a sound of howling and snarling, mixed with terrified whinnies. She collected a number of small rocks into her skirt and went on cautiously.

  Coming round a thicket she saw that, although the main body of the wolf pack had evidently gone elsewhere, half a dozen stragglers remained and were attacking the baggage-coach which still stood in the road. The coachman and one of the horses was missing – it was plain that he had followed the example of his cowardly companion and made off. The other three horses, half mad with fright, were rearing and striking out at the wolves with their hoofs. Sophie lost no time in coming to their aid.

  ‘Shoo! You brutes!’ she shouted in a loud angry voice. ‘For shame! Leave the poor defenceless horses alone or it will be the worse for you! Attacking them when they are harnessed, indeed!’ and she followed this up with a hail of rocks, several of which, at such close quarters, found their targets and effectually startled and scattered the wolves. Before they could recover, Sophie rushed among them, whirling the croquet mallet round and round, striking first one, then another, until she won her way through to the coach and jumped up on the box. There, to her delight, she found the driver’s blunderbuss, which in his fright he had forgotten to take. She discharged it among the wolves, and this completed their rout entirely; they made off at top speed. Sophie was so much amused at the doleful spectacle they presented as they fled that she burst out laughing, and then applied herself to soothing and making much of the three horses, who were sweating and trembling with fear.

  After waiting a few moments to make sure the wolves did not return, Sophie mounted the leading horse, unfastened the traces, and made him gallop back along the track. Arriving at the clearing she harnessed him to the light carriage and called to their Graces to come quickly, for the way was clear.

  When the Duchess saw that the wolves were indeed gone she embraced Sophie and allowed herself to be assisted into the carriage. The Duke followed, first taking down the tapestry from the doorway. ‘For,’ said he, ‘it’s odds but it will be needed to save our lives some other time.’

  ‘Now, your Grace,’ said Sophie, ‘if you will but sit on the box with the blunderbuss, I’ve an errand that won’t take a moment –’

  ‘Oh, Sophie! Pray be careful!’

  ‘It’s quite all right, ma’am, I shan’t be gone from your view.’ And indeed, Sophie merely crossed the clearing to a huge hollow oak on the far side, and put her hand into a small cavity halfway up the trunk. She felt about carefully inside, and her face broke into a smile.

  ‘Ah!’ she said. ‘I thought it was possible the thieves might not know about Turvey’s hiding-place. He never kept his treasures in the hut, for fear of fire.’

  She drew out a small bundle, wrapped in leather and tightly fastened. Handing it up to the Duchess, she jumped into the carriage and took the blunderbuss from the Duke, who shook up the reins. The affrighted horse needed no urging to leave the clearing, where the odour of wolf was still strong.

  The Duchess, meanwhile, was exclaiming over Sophie’s find, as she tried to undo the leather fastenings. ‘Only imagine its still being there. How clever of you to have remembered the place, Sophie dear! And how strange that Turveytop’s nephew was not aware of it!’

  ‘That wasn’t his nephew!’ Sophie said scornfully. ‘Turvey never had a nephew.’

  ‘That man was not his nephew? Who was he, then?’

  ‘One of the thieves, I daresay, come back to have another hunt round. That was probably why he was so quick to make off.’

  ‘The wretch!’ exclaimed his Grace in strong indignation.

  As they had now reached the turnpike again, Sophie busied herself with unharnessing the horse and setting him back in the shafts of the baggage-coach. This, being enclosed, would be the safer conveyance in which to complete their journey.

  Sophie offered to drive, but the Duke, who had been a famous whipster in his youth, pooh-poohed this suggestion, telling her that she had done quite enough fire-eating for the time, and must now sit inside, rest, and prevent her Grace from falling into a fit of the vapours which might afflict her when she reflected on the perils they had passed through.

  Her Grace at the moment was far from thinking of vapours; she was still eagerly tugging at the knotted leather thongs of the little packet. ‘How provokingly tight they are fastened! I am so impatient to see what is inside this little bundle, Sophie dear!’

  Sophie, remembering the old man’s treasures, watched with rather a sad smile. At last the knots were undone and the contents poured into the Duchess’s lap. Her Grace stared at them, somewhat dismayed: instead of gold or jewels, they consisted of a knotted root, shaped like a fist, some quartz pebbles, a few dried-up flowers and berries, a stone with a hole in it, and a sprig of white heather.

  ‘But the bracelet?’ exclaimed her Grace.

  ‘Here it is, ma’am.’ And Sophie, with gentle fingers, delved to the bottom of the little heap and brought out something so black and tarnished that it might easily have been thrown away as rubbish.

  ‘Mercy! Is that silver? It does not look like the second-best dinner service,’ the Duchess said, eyeing it doubtfully.

  ‘Indeed it is silver, ma’am, and when I have polished it with hartshorn and spirits of wine you will be surprised at the difference,’ Sophie replied briskly, to cover the slight catch in her voice at the thought of the kind old man who had kept her treasure so carefully.

  Fortunately both hartshorn and spirits of wine were at hand, since the Duchess never travelled without them for fear of a faint, so for the next twenty minutes, while the Duke drove them along at a fast canter, Sophie occupied herself with vigorous polishing.

  ‘Now, ma’am, tell me if it is not much improved,’ she said at last, and held up a slender shining chain, at the end of which dangled a little shield. The Duchess took it with trembling hands. On one side of the shield the name SOPHIE was engraved; on the other side was a coat-of-arms between two names so tiny that it was impossible to read them.

  ‘My quizzing-glass – where is it? Quickly, child! Why, that is the Battersea coat-of-arms!’

  ‘Can you read the names, ma’am?’ said Sophie, trembling.

  ‘Wait a minute, wait – I can nearly see – this coach rocks about so – H – E – N – Hen – what is that next letter, can it be an R? Why yes, Henry! Henry Bayswater!’ the Duchess read out in an astonished voice. ‘And Simone Rivière! Sophie! My child! My own dear husband’s dead brother’s long-lost child!’

  And she enfolded Sophie in a suffocating embrace.

&nb
sp; ‘But ma’am,’ Sophie said in a dazed voice. ‘Do you mean to say – How can this be?’

  ‘Oh,’ said the Duchess impatiently, ‘depend upon it, it is somehow the fault of that wretched, careless Buckle. I thought it had been said that Henry and Simone had two children, but Buckle, when he came back from Hanover with the baby, swore the girl had died. In reality, I suppose, he lost you in the forest on the way to Chippings and was ashamed to confess. Only fancy, so you are Justin’s sister! I declare, you look a thousand times more like the family than he does. No wonder you resemble the girl in the picture – she was your mother, Simone.’

  ‘Simone?’ said Sophie, thinking hard. ‘That was my mother’s name? And she had two children, a boy and a girl? Do you know, ma’am, I believe that Justin is not my brother – I believe I know who my brother is –’

  The two of them had been so absorbed by their discoveries that they had not noticed the coach draw to a halt.

  ‘Well, my lady,’ the Duke said, putting his head in at the window, ‘do you mean to stay chattering all day, or had you not observed that we’ve reached Chippings and our good Mrs Gossidge is waiting to welcome us?’

  But I’m that put about, your Graces,’ declared Mrs Gossidge, a pleasant, rosy-faced woman, dropping a whole series of curtseys, ‘for, the weather being so bad, and not knowing your Graces was on the way, I’ve nothing fit to put on the table, bar a singed sheep’s head and a dish of chitterlings – but there! I see you’ve brought Sophie with you, so I daresay she’ll turn to and help me, having a light hand with the paste, if she hasn’t learnt too many grand London ways.’

  ‘Put anything before us that you’ve got,’ said his Grace good-humouredly, ‘for we are devilish sharp-set – your singed sheep’s head will do famously. Is Master Justin here?’

  ‘No, your Grace, why, should he be?’ Mrs Gossidge looked bewildered. ‘Isn’t he with your Grace, then? Mogg! Hold the horse still, do! And Sophie, bustle about then, girl! Take up her ladyship’s things and then come and help me in the kitchen!’

  ‘Wait a minute, Gossidge, wait –’ the Duchess called. ‘Miss Sophie isn’t – William! Only think what we have discovered –’

  But Sophie, twinkling at her Grace, had jumped down and run upstairs with a load of knitting-wools, while the Duke had hurried off to the stables, and Mrs Gossidge had vanished to re-singe the sheep’s head and get out all her jars of preserved whortleberries.

  14

  AFTER THREE DAYS on the island of Inchmore, Justin was a changed boy. He declared that he had never had such prime fun before, that he would like to stay on an island for the rest of his life ‘out of reach of old Buckle, with his prosings and preachings about the duties of Dukes’. He added: ‘I’d sooner have my ma, any day. She’s a one-er, ain’t she, Simon? And as for being a lord, now I’ve thought it over I reckon it’s a mug’s lay; I never liked it above half, and that’s the truth. You’re welcome to the life, Simon – Buckle and all. I’m only sorry Buckle’s my pa. I’d as lief there was no connection.’

  Simon thanked Justin absently for his good wishes. The island air did not appear to have done Simon so much good as it had Justin; he was thin and pale, and Mrs Buckle clucked over him concernedly. He had, in fact, spent most of the three days in a vain search of the island for Dido, assisted by Dr Field.

  ‘Oh, she’ll be as right as a trivet somewhere, I daresay,’ Justin asserted, and Mrs Buckle said comfortably:

  ‘Now, don’t you worry, my dearie. Depend on it, any child of that tight-fisted, stony-hearted Ella Twite will be all right – she’ll fall on her feet, you may lay.’

  But on the afternoon of the fourth day, when Simon was once again scouring the rocky, cliff-fringed beach, he found, washed ashore, the very broken spar with ropes tied to it which he and Dido had used to help them swim to the rock.

  Now hope was dead indeed. Simon stood staring at the spar for a long time, as if he expected it to speak and tell him what had happened. Justin, who had come running up to exclaim over it, checked himself, and Dr Field quietly drew him away. Simon turned and walked off along the shore at top speed as if he hardly knew where he was going.

  ‘Eh, dearie dear!’ said Mrs Buckle distressfully. ‘Young folks allus takes things so hard. Poor lad. Poor lad. I daresay the little lass was nothing much, wi’ those parents — Still, I’m sorry I said what I did about Ella Twite. Shouldn’t you go after him, Dr Field?’

  ‘Best leave him to get over it by himself,’ Dr Field said, looking after Simon with concern on his kind face.

  Simon was gone a long time; he made the complete circuit of the island, and did not return to Mrs Buckle’s until the rising tide and gathering dark warned him that he must delay no longer. It was bitterly cold; a few flakes of snow stung against his face, and the foam-wreaths on the sand were beginning to be crisp with frost.

  As he approached Mrs Buckle’s hut, crunching over the shingle, Justin ran out and caught hold of his arm.

  ‘Hurry, Simon! There’s another ship in! Mrs Buckle says it’s Dark Dimity – putting in beyond the headland. They’ve lowered a boat!’

  ‘Ah, there you are, Simon, my boy!’ Dr Field was as excited as Justin. ‘I was about to come in search of you. It’s best we all stay together. I daresay the scoundrels want to ask for news of Dark Dew. Maybe we can somehow turn this to our advantage. Do you boys hide behind a rock, for they don’t know you’re here. Mrs Buckle, come with me.’

  He strode down to the landing-place – a natural rock jetty shelving into deep water – and the boys crouched down in the dusk, listening to the splash of oars.

  While they searched for Dido, Dr Field and Simon had exchanged their stories. Simon learned that, as he had guessed, Dr Field had overheard the conspirators in Rose Alley discussing a scheme to murder the Duke of Battersea by setting fire to his opera-box. Full of indignation, he had rushed impetuously into their midst, shouting, ‘Traitors! Assassins! Miserable wretches!’ and had been outnumbered, overpowered, and haled off to the Dark Dew, which happened to be in port at the time.

  ‘I suppose I was lucky to be marooned on Inchmore and not tied into a parcel and dropped into the river off Wapping Stairs,’ he remarked. ‘But I should soon have become devilish bored here – the light in winter isn’t good for painting. And Mrs Buckle, kind soul though she is, I find beyond anything tedious. I’ve been longing for a chat with old Furneaux or a game of chess with the Duke. Only fancy your being his nephew, Simon – though I thought all along you must be related, as soon as I had a sharp look at that Rivière painting. I’m glad to hear you’ve cleaned it, by the way. Bless me – ’ he burst out laughing – ‘bless me, what a shock it must have been to Buckle and the Twites when, no sooner had they got rid of me, than you turned up – an orphan from the Poor Farm at Loose Chippings, spit image of Simone Rivière, and with a gift for painting. Of course they knew I was expecting a boy, but they couldn’t have known who you’d turn out to be.’

  ‘There’s Sophie, too,’ Simon said. ‘I hope she’s not in dreadful danger. If Buckle realizes … We must get back as soon as we possibly can. Who knows what may be happening while we are here?’

  Now the boys could hear the creak of oars in rowlocks, and there came a hail from the boat.

  ‘Is that you, Field? Stand where we can see you and keep your arms raised above your head, or you’ll get a dose of medicine you don’t like and it’ll take the form of lead! You too, Mrs Buckle! We want you to answer some questions.’

  ‘Oh, Elijah Murgatroyd!’ quavered Mrs Buckle. ‘How can you be so wicked, threatening a poor defenceless woman with one o’ them horrid guns. Put it away, now, do! Guns are never allowed in my nurs –’

  ‘Stow your gab, Dolly Buckle!’ the voice said, sounding more human. ‘Now then, Dr Field, speak up, Has the Dark Dew put in here this week?’

  ‘If we tell you, will you give us a passage to the mainland?’

  ‘Not on your Oliphant! Captain Dark would have my guts for garters if
I did.’

  ‘No he wouldn’t,’ Dr Field said calmly. ‘The Dark Dew went down with all hands in the storm four days ago. Burnt out – the crew were drunk at the time – split on a rock, and broke up.’

  ‘Is that the truth?’ The voice sounded incredulous.

  ‘True as I stand here.’

  Simon heard a muttered discussion in the dinghy: ‘Reckon it could be the truth, Cap’n Murgatroyd?’ ‘Could be – dear knows there’s enough liquor and loose-screws aboard Dark Dew – if it ain’t, where in tarnation is the brig?’ ‘Dolly Buckle may have thought up this tale.’ ‘Maybe. I’m not taking any chances yet, that’s suttin. Dr Field!’ the voice went on.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Have you any remedies for quinsy?’

  ‘Quinsy? I usually give ipecac –’ Then the doctor checked himself and asked instead: ‘Who has quinsy?’

  ‘Two of my men on board have it, mortal bad.’

  ‘You’d best let me look at them,’ Dr Field said, while in the same breath Mrs Buckle cried, ‘Beef tea, beaten egg in hot milk, and cocoa! Oh, the poor fellows, lying sick on that nasty ship without a woman’s care! Let me aboard to nurse ’em, Elijah, do!’

  Captain Murgatroyd and his mate conferred in low tones. Presently Murgatroyd said, ‘No harm if you come aboard for the night, I suppose. We was going to heave-to till tomorrow anyway. But no nonsense, mind! You’re not coming away with us. Dolly Buckle can make a quart or so o’ beef tea and cocoa, and that’ll last the men till they’re better.’

  ‘I’d best dose you all while I’m at it,’ Dr Field said. ‘Quinsy is highly infectious. I’ll have to get my medicines.’

  One of the men accompanied Dr Field, the other assisted Mrs Buckle to carry eggs, goats’ milk, and spirits of rhubarb to the dinghy. Presently it pulled away with its cargo and the two boys stole back to Mrs Buckle’s hut and settled down for the night; Justin to sleep peacefully, Simon to toss and turn in wakeful misery, thinking of Sophie and Dido.