The Toll-Gate

Chapter 4

“WHAT makes you say that?” she asked quickly, her eyes fixed with great intentness on his face.

He looked a little amused. “Well, ma’am, when a man does his visiting at night, and takes the most elaborate precautions against being seen, he’s not commonly engaged on honest business!”

“No. No, he cannot be, of course. But what could he be doing here? It is absurd!—it must be absurd!”

He turned his head. “That sounds as though you have been thinking what I have said,” he remarked shrewdly.

She glanced at him, and away again. “Nonsense! You must let me tell you that you are a great deal too fanciful, Captain Staple!”

He smiled very warmly at her. “Oh, I would let you tell me anything!” he said. “You are quite right, of course, not to confide in strangers.”

She gave a little gasp, and retorted: “Very true—if I had anything to confide! I assure you, I have not!”

“No, don’t do that,” he said. “I don’t mean to tease you with questions you don’t care to answer. But if you think, at any time, that I could be of service to you, why, tell me!”

“You—you are the strangest creature!” she said, on an uncertain laugh. “Pray, what service could I possibly stand in need of?”

“I don’t know that: how could I? Something is troubling you. I think I knew that,” he added reflectively, “when that would-be Tulip of Fashion put you so much out of countenance this morning.”

Her chin lifted; she said, with a curling lip: “Do you think I am afraid of that counter-coxcomb?”

“Lord, no! Why should you be?”

She looked a trifle confounded, and said in a defiant tone: “Well, I am not!”

“Who is he?” he enquired.

“His name is Nathaniel Coate, and he is a friend of my cousin’s.”

“Your cousin?”

“Henry Stornaway. He is my grandfather’s heir. He is at this present staying at Kellands, and Mr. Coate with him.”

“Dear me!” said John mildly. “That, of course, is enough to trouble anyone. What brings so dashing a blade into these parts?”

“I wish I knew!” she said involuntarily.

“Oh! I thought I did know, “said John.

She threw him a scornful look. “If you imagine that it was to fix his interest with me, you’re quite out! Before he came to Kellands, I daresay he did not know of my existence: he had certainly never seen me!”

“Perhaps he came into the country on a repairing lease,” suggested John equably. “If he teases you, don’t stand on ceremony! Give him his marching orders! I’m sure his waistcoat is all the crack, but he shouldn’t sport it in the middle of Derbyshire.”

“Unfortunately, it is not within my power to give him his marching orders.”

“Isn’t it? It is well within mine, so if you should desire to be rid of him, just send me word!” said John.

She burst out laughing. “I begin to think you have broken loose from Bedlam, Captain Staple! Come, enough! I am sure I do not know how it comes about that I should be sitting here talking to you in this improper fashion. You must be thinking me an odd sort of a female!”

She rose as she spoke, and he with her. He did not reply, for Ben chose that moment to appear upon the scene, with the announcement that Farmer Huggate said he was welcome to stable Beau in the big barn.

“Well, that’s famous,” said John. “You shall show me where it is presently, but first go and see if you can prevail upon Mrs. Skeffling to come up to the toll-house tomorrow. Promise her as many pig’s babies as you think necessary, but don’t take no for an answer!”

“What’ll I say?” demanded Ben. “She’ll think it’s a queer set-out, gov’nor, ’cos what would anyone want with her coming to clean the place every day?”

“You may tell her that your cousin, besides being the worst cook in the Army, has picked up some finical ways in foreign parts. Off with you!”

“Wait!” interposed Miss Stornaway, who had been listening in considerable amusement. “Perhaps I can help you. I collect you wish Mrs. Skeffling to come to the tollhouse each day. Very well! I daresay I can arrange it for you. Go and ask her, Ben, and if she says no, never mind!”

“Admirable woman!” John said, as Ben went off down the road. “I’m much in your debt! What will you tell her?”

“Why, that you seem to be a very good sort of a man, but sadly helpless! Have no fear! She will come. Did I not tell you that they call me the Squire? I shall ride down the road directly, to visit her, which is a thing I frequently do. She will tell me, and at length, of your summons, and certainly ask my advice. You may leave the rest to me!”

“Thank you! Will you assist me in one other matter? I must contrive somehow to ride to Tideswell tomorrow, to make some necessary purchases, and the deuce is in it that I’ve no notion of what, precisely, I should ask for. I must have some tolerable soap, for instance, but it won’t do just to demand soap, will it? Ten to one, I should find myself with something smelling of violets, or worse. Then there’s coffee. I can’t and I won’t drink beer with my breakfast, and barring some porter, the dregs of a bottle of rum, and a bottle of bad tape, that’s all I can find in the place. Tell me what coffee I should buy! I’ll make a note of it on my list.”

Her eyes were alight. “I think I had better take a look at your list,” she decided.

“Will you? I shall be much obliged to you! I’ll fetch it,” he said.

She followed him into the toll-house, and he turned to find her standing in the kitchen doorway, and looking critically about her. “Enough to make poor Mrs. Brean turn in her grave!” she remarked. “She was the neatest creature! However, I daresay Mrs. Skeffling will set it to rights, if she is to come here every day. Is this your list?”

She held out her hand, and he gave it to her. It made her laugh. “Good heavens, you seem to need a great deal! Candles? Are there none in the store-cupboard?”

“Yes, tallow dips. Have you ever, ma’am, sat in a small room that was lit by tallow dips?”

“No, never!”

“Then take my advice, and do not!”

“I won’t. But wax candles in a kitchen! Mrs. Skeffling will talk of it all over the village. Soap—blacking—brushes—tea—” She raised her eyes from the list. “Pray, how do you propose to convey all these things from Tideswell, Captain Staple?”

“I imagine there must be a carrier?”

“But that will not do at all! Conceive of everyone’s astonishment if such a quantity of goods were to be delivered to the Crowford gatekeeper! Depend upon it, the news would very soon be all over the county that an excessively strange man had taken Brean’s place here. It must come to the ears of the trustee controllers, and you will have them descending on you before you have had time to turn round.”

“I am afraid I am quite corkbrained,” said John meekly. “What must I do instead?”

She glanced at the list again, and then up at him. “I think I had best procure these things for you,” she suggested. “That, you see, will occasion no surprise, for I very often go shopping in Tideswell.”

“Thank you,” he said, smiling. “But I must buy some shirts, and some shoes and stockings, and you can hardly do that for me, ma’am!”

“No,” she agreed. She considered him anew, and added candidly: “And it will be wonderful if you can find any to fit you!”

“Oh, I don’t despair of that! There are bound to be plenty of big fellows in the district, and somebody must make clothes for ’em!” said the Captain cheerfully. “As a matter of fact, I saw a fine, lusty specimen not an hour ago. Cowman, I think. If I’d thought of it, I’d have asked him the name of his tailor.”

She gave a gurgle of laughter. “Oh, if you can be content with a flannel shirt—or, perhaps, a smock—!”

He grinned at her. “Why not? Did you take me for a Bond Street beau? No, no! I was never one of your high sticklers!”

“I take you for a madman,” she said severely.

“Well, they used to call me Crazy Jack in Spain,” he admitted. “But I’m not dangerous, you know—not a bit!”

“Very well, then, I will take my courage in my hands, and drive you to Tideswell tomorrow, in the gig—that is, if you can leave the gate in Ben’s charge!”

“The devil’s in it that I can’t,” he said ruefully. “The wretched boy has informed me that he must muck out Mr. Sopworthy’s hen-houses tomorrow!”

“Oh!” She frowned over this for a moment, and then said: “It doesn’t signify: Joseph—that’s my groom!—shall keep the gate while you are away. The only thing is—” She paused, fidgeting with her riding-whip, the crease reappearing between her brows. Her frank gaze lifted again to his face. “The thing is that it is sometimes difficult for me—now—to escape an escort I don’t need, and am not at all accustomed to! But I fancy—I am not perfectly sure—that my cousin and Mr. Coate have formed the intention of driving to Sheffield tomorrow. You will understand, if I should not come, that I could not!” He nodded, and she held out her hand. “Good-bye! I will ride to Mrs. Skeffling’s cottage now. Oh! Must I pay toll? I have come out without my purse!”

He took her hand, and held it for an instant. “On no account!”

She blushed, but said in a rallying tone: “Well for you it is not thought worth while to post informers on this road!”

She picked up her skirts, and went out into the road. Captain Staple, following her, unhitched her horse from the gate post, and led him up to her. She took the bridle, placed her foot in his cupped hands, and was tossed up into the saddle. As the hack sidled, she bent to arrange the folds of her skirt, saying: “I mean to visit one of my grandfather’s tenants, so don’t look for me again today! My way will take me over the hill.”

A nod, and a smile, and she was trotting off down the road, leaving John to look after her until the bend hid her from his sight.

She was not his only visitor that day. Shortly before eight o’clock, the wicket-gate clashed, and a heavy knock fell on the toll-house door. Ben, who was engaged in whittling a piece of wood into the semblance of a quadruped, in which only its creator could trace the faintest resemblance to the Captain’s Beau, jumped, but showed no sign of the terror which had possessed him during the previous evening. Either he did not connect his father’s mysterious visitor with an open approach to the office-door, or he placed complete reliance on Captain Staple’s ability to protect him.

John went into the office. He had left the lantern on the table, and by its light he was able to recognize the man who stood in the open doorway. He said: “Hallo! What can I do for you?”

“Jest thought I’d drop in, and blow a cloud with you,” responded Miss Stornaway’s groom. “Stretching me legs, like. The name’s Lydd—Joe Lydd.”

“Come in!” invited John. “You’re very welcome!”

“Thank’ee, sir!”

“The name,” said John, pushing wide the door into the kitchen, “is Jack.”

Mr. Lydd, who was both short and spare, looked up at him under his grizzled brows. “Is it, though? Jest as you please, Jack—no offence being meant!”

“Or taken!” John said promptly. “Sit down! Saw you this morning, didn’t I?”

“Now, fancy you remembering that!” marvelled Mr. Lydd. “Because I didn’t think you noticed me, not partic’lar.”

John had gone to the cupboard, but he turned at this, and stared across the kitchen at his guest. Mr. Lydd met this somewhat grim look with the utmost blandness for a moment or two, and then transferred his attention to Ben. “Well, me lad, so your dad’s hopped the wag, has he? What sort of a fetch is he up to? Gone on the spree, I dessay?”

“Gone up to Lunnon, to see me brother,” said Ben glibly. “ ’Cos he heard as Simmy ain’t in the Navy no more.”

“Fancy that, now!” said Mr. Lydd admiringly. “Made his fortune at sea, I wouldn’t wonder, and sent for his dad to come and share it with him. There’s nothing like pitching it rum, Ben!”

John, who was drawing two tankards of beer at the barrel beside the cupboard, spoke over his shoulder, dismissing his imaginative protégé to bed. Ben showed some slight signs of recalcitrance, but, upon encountering a decidedly stern look, sniffed, and went with lagging step towards the door.

“That’s right,” said Mr. Lydd encouragingly. “You don’t want to take no risks, not with your gov’nor looking like bull-beef, I wouldn’t!”

John grinned, and handed him one of the tankards. “Is that what I look like? Here’s a heavy wet for you! Did you come to discover where Brean is? I can’t tell you.”

Mr. Lydd, carefully laying down the clay pipe he had been filling, took the tankard, blew off the froth, and ceremoniously pledged his host. After a long draught, he sighed, wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, and picked up his pipe again. Not until this had been lit, with a screw of paper kindled at one of the smouldering logs, did he answer John’s question. While he alternately drew at the pipe, and pressed down the tobacco with the ball of his thumb, his eyes remained unwaveringly fixed on John’s face, in a meditative and curiously shrewd scrutiny. By the time his pipe was drawing satisfactorily, he had apparently reached certain conclusions, for he withdrew his stare, and said in a conversational tone: “Properly speaking, Ned Brean’s whereabouts don’t interest me. If you like to set it about he’s gone off to visit young Simmy, it’s all one to me.”

“I don’t,” John interrupted.

“Well, it ain’t any of my business, but what I say is, if you’re going to tell a bouncer let it be a good ’un! However, I didn’t come here to talk about Ned Brean.”

“What did you come to talk about?” asked John amiably.

“I don’t know as how I came to talk about anything in partic’lar. Jest dropped in, neighbourly. It’s quiet up at the Manor, these days. Very different from what it used to be when I was a lad. That was afore Sir Peter ran aground, as you may say. A very well-breeched swell he was, flashing the dibs all over. Ah, and prime cattle we had in the stables then! Slap up to the echo, Squire was, and the finest, lightest hands—! Mr. Frank was the same, and Master Jermyn after him—regular top-sawyers! Dead now, o’ course. There’s only Miss Nell left.” He paused, and took a pull at his beer, watching John over the top of the tankard. John met his look, the hint of a smile in his eyes, but he said nothing.

Mr. Lydd transferred his gaze to the fire. “It’s not so far off forty years since I went to Kellands,” he said reminiscently. “Went as stable-boy, I did, and rose to be head-groom, with four under me, not counting the boys. Taught Master Jermyn to ride, and Miss Nell too. Neck-or-nothing, that was Master Jermyn, and prime ’uns Squire used to buy for him! He wouldn’t look at a commoner, not Squire! ‘Proper high bred ’uns, Joe!’ he used to say to me. ‘Proper high bred ’uns for the boy, if I drown in the River Tick!’ Which he pretty near did do,” said Mr. Lydd, gently knocking some of the ash from his pipe. “What with his gaming, and his racing, it was Dun Territory for Squire, but he always said as how he’d come about. I dessay he would have, if he hadn’t took ill. He had a stroke, you see.

Mr. Winkfield—that’s his man, and has been these thirty years—he will have it that was Master Jermyn being killed in the wars that gave Squire his notice to quit. I don’t know how that may be, because he wasn’t struck down immediate: not for some years he wasn’t. But he wasn’t never the same man after the news came. He don’t leave his room now. Going on for three years it is since I see him on his feet. A fine, big man he used to be: not as big as you, but near it. Jolly, too. Swear the devil out of hell, he could, but everybody liked him, because he was easy in his ways, and he laughed more often than he scowled. You wouldn’t think it if you was to see him now. Nothing left of him but a bag of bones. He sends for me every now and then, just to crack a whid over old times. Mr. Winkfield tells me he remembers what happened fifty years ago better than the things that happened yesterday. Always says the same thing to me, he does. ‘Not booked yet, Joe!’ he says, for he likes his joke. And, ‘Take good care of Miss Nell!’ he says. Which I always have done, of course—so far as possible.”

John rose, and carried both empty tankards over to the barrel. Having refilled them, he handed one to Mr. Lydd again, slightly lifted his own in a silent toast, and said: “You’re a very good fellow, Joe, and I hope you will continue to take care of Miss Nell. I shan’t hinder you.”

“Well, now, I had a notion that maybe you wouldn’t,” disclosed Mr. Lydd. “I’ve been mistook in a man, in my time, but not often. You may be what they call a flash cull, or you might have come into these backward parts because you was afraid of a clap on the shoulder, but somehow I don’t think it. If I may make so bold as to say so, I like the cut of your jib. I don’t know what kind of a May game you’re playing, because—not wishing to give offence!—you can’t slumguzzle me into thinking you ain’t Quality. Maybe you’re kicking up a lark, like. And yet you don’t look to me like one of them young bucks, in the heyday of blood, as you might say.”

“In the heyday of blood,” said John, “I was a lieutenant of Dragoon Guards. I came into these parts by accident, and I am remaining by design. No shoulder-clapper is on my trail, nor am I a flash cull. More than that I don’t propose to tell you—except that no harm will come to your mistress at my hands.”

Mr. Lydd, after subjecting him to another of his fixed stares, was apparently satisfied, for he nodded, and repeated that there was no offence meant. “Only, seeing as I’ve had me orders to mind the pike tomorrow, while you go jauntering off to Tideswell with Miss Nell—let alone Rose getting wind of it, and talking me up to find out what your business is till I’m fair sick of the sound of her voice—”

“Who is Rose?” interrupted John.

“Miss Durward,” said Mr. Lydd, with bitter emphasis. “Not that I’m likely to call her such, for all the airs she may give herself. Why, I remember when she first came to Kellands to be nursemaid to Miss Nell! A little chit of a wench she was, too! Mind, I’ve got nothing against her, barring she’s grown stoutish, and gets on her high ropes a bit too frequent, and I don’t say as I blame her for being leery o’ strangers—Miss Nell not having anyone but Squire to look after her, and he being burned to the socket, the way he is.”

It was by this time apparent to John that orphaned though she might be Miss Stornaway did not lack protectors, and it came as no surprise to him when, shortly after eight o’clock next morning, he sustained a visit from Miss Durward. He was enjoying a lively argument with a waggoner when she came walking briskly down the road, this ingenious gentleman, recognizing in him a newcomer, making a spirited attempt to convince him that the proper charge for the second of his two vehicles, which was linked behind the first, was threepence. But Captain Staple, who had usefully employed himself in studying the literature provided by the Trustees of the Derbyshire Toll-gates for the perusal of his predecessor, was able to point out to him that as the vehicle in question was mounted on four wheels it was chargeable at the rate of two horses, not of one. “What’s more, it’s loaded,” he added, interrupting an unflattering description of his personal appearance and mental turpitude, “so it pays double toll. I’ll take a horde and tenpence from you, my bully!”

“You’ll take one in the bread-basket!” said the waggoner fiercely.

“Oh, will I?” retorted the Captain. “It’ll be bellows to mend with you if you’re thinking of a mill, but I’ve no objection! Put ’em up!”

“I seen a man like you in a fair onct,” said the waggoner, ignoring this invitation. “Leastways, they said he was a man. ’Ardly ’uman he was, poor creature!”

“And now I come to think of it,” said the Captain, “didn’t I see you riding on the shaft? That’s unlawful, and it’s my duty to report it.”

Swelling with indignation, the waggoner spoke his mind with a fluency and a range of vocabulary which commanded the Captain’s admiration. He then produced the sum of one shilling and tenpence, defiantly mounted the shaft again, and went on his way, feeling that his defeat had been honourable.

The Captain, shutting the gate, found that he was being critically regarded by a buxom woman who was standing outside the toll-house, with a basket on her arm. Her rather plump form was neatly attired in a dress of sober gray, made high to the throat, and unadorned by any ribbons or flounces. Over it she wore a cloak; and under a plain chip hat her pretty brown hair was confined in a starched muslin cap, tied beneath her chin in a stiff bow. She was by no means young, but she was decidedly comely, with well-opened gray eyes, an impertinent nose, and a firm mouth that betokened a good deal of character. Having listened without embarrassment to John’s interchange with the waggoner, she said sharply, as he caught sight of her: “Well, young man! Very pretty language to be using in front of females, I must say!”

“I didn’t know you were there,” apologized John.

“That’s no excuse. The idea of bandying words with a low, vulgar creature like that! What have you done to your shirt?”

John glanced guiltily down at a jagged tear in one sleeve. “I caught it on a nail,” he said.

She clicked her tongue, saying severely: “You’ve no business to be wearing a good shirt like that. You’d better let me have it, when you take it off, and I’ll mend it for you.”

“Thank’ee!” said John.

“That’s quite enough of that!” she told him, an irrepressible dimple showing itself for an instant. “Don’t you try and hoax me you’re not a gentleman-born, because you can’t do it!”

“I won’t,” he promised. “And don’t you try to hoax me you’re not Miss Stornaway’s nurse, because I wouldn’t believe you! You put me much in mind of my own nurse.”

“I’ll be bound you were a rare handful for the poor soul,” she retorted. “If you are going to town this morning, see you buy a couple of stout shirts! A sin and a shame it is to be wearing a fine one like this, and you very likely chopping wood, and I don’t know what beside! What your mother would say, if she was to see you, sir—!”

Concluding from this speech that he had been approved, John said, with a smile: “I will. I’ll take good care of your mistress, too. You may be easy on that head!”

“Well, it’s time someone did, other than me and Joseph—though what good he could do it queers me to guess!” she said. “I don’t know who you are, nor what you’re doing here, but I can see you’re respectable, and if you did happen to fall out with a nasty, bracket-faced gentleman, with black hair and the wickedest eyes I ever did see, I don’t doubt he’d have the worst of it. With your good leave, sir, I’ll step inside to have a word with Mrs. Skelling, if that’s her I hear in the kitchen. I’ve got some of our butter for her, which Miss Nell promised she should have. And I was to tell you, Mr. Jack—if that’s what you’re wishful to be called—that Miss Nell will be along with the gig just as soon as those two gentlemen have taken themselves off to Sheffield!”

With these words she marched through the office to the kitchen, where she found Mrs. Skeffling, a widow of many years’ standing, zestfully engaged in turning out the contents of the cupboard, and scrubbing its shelves: a thing which, as she informed Miss Durward, she had long wanted to do. After both ladies had expressed, with great frankness, their respective opinions of the absent Mr. Brean’s dirty and disorderly habits, Mrs. Skeffling paused from her labours in order to enjoy a quiet gossip about the new gatekeeper.

“Miss Durward, ma’am,” she said earnestly, “I was that flabbergasted when I see him, which I done first thing this morning, Monday being my day for lending Mrs. Sopworthy a hand with the washing, and Mr. Jack stepping up to the Blue Boar to buy a barrel of beer! Even Mr. Sopworthy was fairly knocked acock when Mr. Jack says as he was Mr. Brean’s soldier-cousin, come to mind the gate for him for a while. ‘Lor’!’ he says, ‘I thought it was the Church tower got itself into my tap!’ Which made Mr. Jack laugh hearty, though Mrs. Sopworthy was quite put out, thinking at first it was a gentleman walked in, which Landlord shouldn’t have spoke so free to. Then they got to talking, Mr. Jack and Landlord, and I’m sure none of us didn’t know what to think, because he didn’t talk like he was Quality, not a bit! And yet it didn’t seem like he was a common soldier, not with them hands of his, and the sort of way he has with him, let alone the clothes he wears! Miss Durward, ma’am, I’ve got a shirt of his in the wash-house this moment, with a neckcloth, and some handkerchers, and I declare to you I’ve never seen the like! Good enough for Sir Peter himself, they are, and whatever would a poor man be doing with such things?”

“Oh, he’s not a poor man! Whatever put that into your head?” said Rose airily. “Didn’t Mr. Brean ever tell you how one of his aunts married a man that was in a very good way of business? I forget what his name was, but he was a warm man, by all accounts, and this young fellow’s his son.”

Mrs. Skeffling shook her head wonderingly. “He never said nothing to me about no aunts.”

“Ah, I daresay he wouldn’t, because when she set up for a lady she didn’t have any more to do with her own family!” said the inventive Rose. She added, with perfect truth: “I forget how it came about that he mentioned her to me. But this Mr. Jack—being as he’s got his discharge, and not one to look down on his relations—took a fancy to visit Mr. Brean. He’s just been telling me so.”

“But whatever made Mr. Brean go off like he has?” asked Mrs. Skeffling, much mystified.

“That was where it was very fortunate his cousin happened to come to visit him,” said Rose, improvising freely. “It seems he was wanting to go off on some bit of business—don’t ask me what, because I don’t know what it was!—only, being a widower, and not having anyone fit to mind the gate for him, he couldn’t do it. So that’s how it came about—Mr. Jack, being, as you can see, a good-natured young fellow, and willing to do anyone a kindness.”

This glib explanation appeared to satisfy Mrs. Skeffling. She said: “Oh, is that how it was? Mr. Sopworthy took a notion Mr. Jack was gammoning us. ‘Mark my words,’ he says, ‘it’s a bubble! It’s my belief,’ he says, ‘he’s one of them young bucks as has got himself into trouble.’ What he suspicioned was that maybe there was a fastener out for him, for debt, very likely; or p’raps he up and killed someone, in one of them murdering duels.”

“Nothing of the sort!” said Rose sharply. “He’s a very respectable young man, and if Mr. Sopworthy was to set such stories about it’ll be him that will find himself in trouble!”

“Oh, he wouldn’t do that!” Mrs. Skeffling assured her. “What he said was, however it might be it wasn’t no business of his, and them as meddled in other folks’ concerns wouldn’t never prosper. Setting aside he took a fancy to Mr. Jack. ‘Whatever he done, he ain’t no hedge-bird,’ he says, very positive. ‘That I’ll swear to!’ Which I told him was sure as check, because Miss Nell knows him for a respectable party, and said so to me with her own lips. So then,” pursued Mrs. Skeffling, sinking her voice conspiratorially, “Mr. Sopworthy stared at me very hard, and he says to me, slow-like, that if so be Mr. Jack was a friend of Miss Nell’s it wouldn’t become no one to start gabbing about him, because anyone as wished her well couldn’t but be glad if it should happen that a fine, lusty chap like Mr. Jack was courting her, and no doubt he had his reasons—the way things are up at the Manor—for coming here secret. Of course, I don’t know nothing about that, which I told Mr. Sopworthy.”

She ended on a distinct note of interrogation, her mild gaze fixed hopefully on her visitor’s face. Miss Durward, who had been thinking rapidly, got up with a great show of haste, and begged her not to say that she had ever said such a thing. “I’m sure I don’t know what Mr. Sopworthy can have been thinking about, and I hope to goodness he won’t spread such a tarradiddle! Now, mind, Mrs. Skeffling! I never breathed a word of it, and I trust and pray no one else will!”

“No, no!” Mrs. Skeffling assured her, her eyes glistening with excitement. “Not a word, Miss Durward, ma’am!”

Satisfied that before many hours had passed no member of a small community affectionately disposed towards the Squire’s granddaughter would think the presence in her gig of the new gatekeeper remarkable, and reckless of possible consequences, Miss Durward took leave of Crowford’s most notable gossip, and departed. She found John passing the time of day with the local carrier, and concluded, from such scraps of the dialogue as she was privileged to overhear, that he was making excellent progress in his study of the vulgar tongue. She told him, as soon as the carrier had driven through the gate, that he should think shame to himself, but rightly judging this censure to be perfunctory he only grinned at her, so endearing a twinkle in his eye that any misgivings lingering in her anxious breast were routed. She then put him swiftly in possession of such details of his genealogy as her fertile imagination had fabricated, and adjured him to drum these well into Ben’s head.

“I will,” he promised, enveloping her in a large hug, and planting a kiss on one plump cheek. “You’re a woman in a thousand, Rose!”

“Get along with you, do, Mr. Jack!” she commanded, blushing and dimpling. “Carrying on like the Quality, and you trying to hoax everyone you’re Brean’s cousin! You keep your kisses for them as may want them!”

“I don’t know that anyone does,” he said ruefully.

“Well, I’m sure I can’t tell that!” she retorted tartly. “Now, don’t forget what I’ve been telling you!”

“I won’t. What is my father’s name, by the by?”

“Gracious, I can’t think of everything!”

“Didn’t you give him one? Then I think I’ll keep my own. I daresay there are many more Staples in England than ever I heard of. Tell me this! In what way can I be of service to your mistress?”

The dimple vanished, and her mouth hardened. She did not answer for a minute, but stood with her gaze fixed on the gate post, her face curiously set. Suddenly she brought her eyes up to his face, in a searching look. “Are you wishful to be of service to her?” she demanded.

“I never wished anything so much in my life.”

He spoke perfectly calmly, but she was quick to hear the note of sincerity in his deep, rather lazy voice. Her lip quivered, and she blinked rapidly. “I don’t know what’s to become of her, when the master dies!” she said. “She and Mr. Henry are the last of the Stornaways, and it’s him that will have Kellands, not her that’s looked after it these six years past! Long before the master was struck down it was Miss Nell that was as good as a bailiff to him, and better! It was she that turned off all the lazy, good-for-nothing servants that used to eat master out of house and home, let alone cheating him the way it was a shame to see! Scraping, and saving, breeding pigs for the market, leasing this bit of land and that, and bargaining for the best price her own self, like as if she was a man! And when master took ill, she sold the pearls her poor mother left her, and every scrap of jewelry she had from Sir Peter in the days when he was still in his prime, and there wasn’t one of us knew how deep he was in debt. Everything she could she sold, to keep off the vultures that came round as soon as it got to be known Sir Peter was done for! All Sir Peter’s lovely horses—and I can tell you he had hunters he gave hundreds of guineas for, and a team he used to drive which all the sporting gentlemen envied him—and her own hunters as well, with her phaeton, and Sir Peter’s curricle, and the smart barouche he bought for her to drive in when she went visiting—everything! There’s nothing in the stables now but the hack she rides, and the cob, and a couple of stout carriage-horses which she kept for farm-work mostly. There wasn’t a soul to help her, barring old Mr. Birkin, that lived out Tideswell way, and was a friend of the master’s, and he’s been dead these eighteen months! Mr. Henry never came next or nigh the place. He knew that there was nothing but the title and a pile of debts to be got out of it! But he’s here now, Mr. Jack, and it seems he means to stay! If he’d more heart than a hen, I’d call him a carrion-crow—except that I never saw a crow hover round where there was nothing more to be picked over than a heap of dry bones! I don’t know what brings him here, nor I wouldn’t care, if he hadn’t got that Mr. Coate along with him! But that’s a bad one, if ever I saw one, sir, and he’s living up at the Manor like he owned it, and casting his wicked eyes over Miss Nell till my nails itch to tear them out of his ugly face! Miss Nell, she’s not afraid of anything nor of no one, but I am, Mr. Jack! I am!”

He had listened in silence to what he guessed to be the overflowing of pent-up anxieties, but when she paused, unconsciously gripping his shirt-sleeve, he said quietly, lifting her hand from his arm, and holding it in a warm clasp: “Why?”

“Because when the master goes she’ll be alone! And not a penny in the world but the little her mother left her, and that not enough to buy her clothes with!”

“But she has other relatives, surely! She spoke to me of an aunt—”

“If it’s my Lady Rivington you’re meaning, sir, it’s little she’d trouble herself over Miss Nell, and nor would any of poor Mrs. Stornaway’s family! Why, when she was a bit of a girl, and the master persuaded her ladyship to bring her out, it was him paid for all, and I know the way her ladyship, and the Misses Rivington, looked down on her, because she was so tall, and more like a boy than a girl!”

“I see.” John patted her hand, and released it. “You go home now, Rose, and don’t you fret about Miss Nell!”

She thrust a hand into her pocket for a handkerchief, and rather violently blew her nose. “I shouldn’t have said anything!” she uttered, somewhat thickly.

“It’s of no consequence. I should have discovered it.”

She gave a final sniff, and restored the handkerchief to her pocket. “I’m sure I don’t know what possessed me, except for you being so big, sir!”

He could not help laughing. “Good God, what has that to say to anything?”

“You wouldn’t understand—not being a female,” she replied, sighing. “I’ll be going now, sir—and thank you!”