Джорджетт Хейер - The Talisman Ring

“You’d best be careful,” said Mr Bundy gloomily. “You never had no sense and never will have.”

Ludovic had got up behind Eustacie by this time, and settled her in the crook of his arm. “It beats me how you can ride with a saddle like this,” he remarked, wheeling Rufus about. “And what in thunder is this thing?”

“It is a bandbox, of course!”

“Well, it’s devilishly in the way,” said Ludovic. “Do you mind if I cut it loose?”

“No, certainly I do not mind. I, too, am quite tired of it,” replied Eustacie blithely. “Besides, I have already lost the other one.”

The bandbox was soon got rid of. Eustacie watched it bounce to the ground, and remarked with a giggle that if Tristram found it he would be sure to think she had been murdered.

Ludovic had urged Rufus to a canter. He seemed to Eustacie to be heading straight in the direction of the pursuing Excisemen. She pointed this out to him, and he replied: “Of course I am. I told you I was going to lead them off the trail. If I can get them to chase me Abel will have time to reach a hiding-place he knows of. We’ll lead them into the Forest.”

“And when we have done that what shall we do?”

“Oh, give ’em the slip!” said Ludovic carelessly. “I shall have to think what’s to be done with you after that, but there’s no time to waste on that now.” He reined in as he spoke, and Eustacie saw that they had retraced their steps almost to the thicket where she had first encountered the train. She could hear movement somewhere near at hand, and the faint sound of voices. Ludovic rode softly forward, off the road into the shelter of the trees. “I thought as much,” he said. “They’re searching the thicket. Mustn’t give ’em time to find the pony tracks. Now keep quiet, and hold on to that pommel.”

His gyrations after that were bewildering, but apparently purposeful. It seemed to Eustacie, dutifully grasping the pommel, that they were circling round the thicket to the north. She could now hear plainly the sound of trampling hooves and snapping twigs.

“We must give the poor devils something to think about,” said Ludovic in her ear. “Don’t screech now!”

It was as well that he uttered this warning, for the immediate explosion of his pistol made Eustacie jump nearly out of her skin. She managed by the exercise of heroic self-control not to scream, but when a shot almost at once answered Ludovic’s she could not forbear a gasp of fright.

“I thought that would tickle them up,” said Ludovic. “Now fork!”

He wheeled the snorting, trembling Rufus, and let him have his head. Rufus plunged forward, crashing through the undergrowth with the maximum amount of noise and alarm; a shout sounded somewhere in the rear; another shot was fired; and Eustacie had the satisfaction of knowing that she was now fairly embroiled with His Majesty’s Excise Office. She removed one hand from the pommel and took a firm grasp of Ludovic’s coat, which seemed to her to afford a safer hold. He glanced down at her, smiling. “Frightened?”

“No!”

“Well, we’re going to have a trifle of a gallop now, so cling tight!”

They came out from the cover of the trees as he spoke on to a tract of more open ground. The moon was momentarily obscured by a drifting cloud, but there was light enough for the flying horse to be seen by its pursuers. Two shots cracked almost simultaneously, and Eustacie felt the arm that cradled her give a queer jerk, and heard her cousin catch his breath sharply. “Winged, by Gad!” he said. “Now, who’d have thought an Exciseman could shoot as straight as that?”

“Are you hurt?” Eustacie cried.

“Devil a bit!” was the cheerful response. He looked fleetingly back over his shoulder. “Four of ’em, I think. Riding hard, too. You can always trust an Exciseman to follow his nose ... That’s better.”

They were under cover again, and he let Rufus slacken his pace to a trot, bending him easily this way and that through the outskirts of the Forest. Eustacie, after a very little of this erratic progress, began to feel quite lost, but it was evident that her cousin knew the Forest like the palm of his hand, for they steadily penetrated farther into its darkness. Behind them the pursuit sounded as though it were in difficulties, but they had not yet outstripped it, and once Ludovic reined in altogether to give it time to come nearer, and, since it showed signs of abandoning the chase, fired his second pistol invitingly. This had the required effect; the Forest reverberated with shots, and they moved forward again, heading northward.

It was fully half an hour later before they finally lost the Excisemen, and Ludovic was swaying in the saddle.

“You are hurt!” Eustacie said, alarmed.

“Oh no, only a scratch!” he murmured. “Anyway, we’ve led them in such circles they’ll be hunting one another till daylight.”

Eustacie put her hands over his, and pulled Rufus up. “Where are you hurt?” she demanded.

“Left shoulder. I think we’d better take the risk and make Hand Cross.”

“Yes, but first I will bind up your shoulder. Are you bleeding very much?”

“Like a pig,” said Ludovic.

She slid to the ground, stiff and somewhat bruised, and said imperatively: “Get down! If you bleed like a pig you will die, and I do not at all want you to die.”

He laughed, but dismounted, and found himself steadied by two small but capable hands. He reeled and sank on his knees, saying: “Damme, I must be worse hit than I knew! You’d best take the horse and leave me.”

“I shall not leave you,” replied Eustacie, busily ripping the flounce off her petticoat. “I shall take you to Hand Cross.”

Receiving no answer, she looked closely at him and found to her dismay that he had fainted. For a moment she was at a loss to know what to do, but when she touched him and brought her hand away wet with blood, she decided that the most urgent need was to bind up his wound, and promptly set about the task of extricating him from his coat. It was by no means easy, but she accomplished it at last, and managed as well as she could for the lack of light to twist the strips of her petticoat round his shoulder. He regained consciousness while she was straining her bandage as tight as possible, and lay for a moment blinking at her.

“What in—oh, I remember!” he said faintly. “Give me some brandy. Flask in my coat.”

She tied a firm knot, found the brandy, and, raising his head, held the flask to his lips. He recovered sufficiently to struggle up and to put on his coat again. “You know, you’d be wasted on Tristram,” he told her. “Help me into the saddle, and we’ll make Hand Cross yet.”

“Yes, but this time it is I who will take the reins,” said Eustacie.

“Just as you say, my dear,” he replied meekly.

“And you will put your arms round me and not fall off.”

“Don’t worry, I shan’t fall off.”

Eustacie, finding a conveniently fallen tree trunk, led her weary horse to it, and by using it as a mounting-block contrived to get into the saddle. She then rode back to Ludovic, and adjured him to mount behind her. He managed to do this, but the effort very nearly brought on another swooning fit. He had recourse to the brandy again, which cleared his head sufficiently to enable him to say: “Follow this track; it’ll bring us out on to the pike road, north of Hand Cross. If you can wake old Nye at the Red Lion he’ll take me in.”

“What shall I do if I see an Exciseman?” inquired Eustacie.

“Say your prayers,” he replied irrepressibly.

No Exciseman, however, was encountered on the track that led through the Forest, and by the time they came out on to the turnpike road, a mile from Hand Cross, Eustacie was far too anxious about her cousin to have much thought to spare for a questing Excise-officer. Ludovic seemed to stay in the saddle more by instinct than by any conscious effort. Eustacie dared not urge Rufus even to a trot. She had drawn Ludovic’s sound arm round her waist, and held it there, clasping his slack hand. It seemed an interminable way to Hand Cross, but at last the lonely inn came into sight, a dark huddle against the sky. It was by now long after midnight, and no light shone behind the shuttered windows. Eustacie pulled Rufus up before the door and let go of Ludovic’s hand. It fell nervelessly to his side; she realized that he must have swooned again; he was certainly sagging against her very heavily; she hoped he would not fall out of the saddle when she dismounted. She slid down, and was relieved to find that he only fell forward across Rufus’s neck. The next moment she had grasped the bellpull and sent an agitated peal ringing through the silent inn.

It was answered so speedily that Eustacie, who had heard rumours that Joseph Nye, of the Red Lion, knew more about the free traders that he would admit, instantly suspected that he had been waiting up for the very convoy she had met. He opened the door in person, fully dressed, and holding a lantern, and looking a good deal startled. When he saw Eustacie he stared as though he could not believe his eyes, and gasped: “Miss! Why,”

Eustacie grasped his arm urgently. “Please help me at once! I have brought my cousin Ludovic, and he said you would take him in, but he is wounded, and I think dying!” With which, because she had been through a great deal of excitement and was quite worn out by it, she burst into tears.

The landlord took an involuntary step backward.

“Miss, have you gone mad?”

“No!” sobbed Eustacie.

He looked incredulously out into the moonlight, but when he saw the sagging figure on Rufus’s back he gave an exclamation of horror, thrust his lantern into Eustacie’s hand, and strode out. He was a big man, with mighty muscles, and he lifted Ludovic down from the saddle with surprising ease, and carried him into the inn, and lowered him on to a wooden settle by the fireplace. “My God, what’s come to him? What’s he doing here?” he demanded under his breath.

“An Exciseman shot him. Oh, do you think he will die?”

“Die! No! But if he’s found here—!” He broke off. “I must get that horse stabled and out of sight. Stay you here, miss, and don’t touch him! Lordy, lordy, this is a pretty kettle of fish!” He took a taper from the high mantelpiece, kindled it at the lantern’s flame, and gave it to Eustacie. “Do you light them candles, miss, and keep as quiet as you can! I’ve people putting up in the house.” He took up the lantern as he spoke and went out of the inn, softly closing the door behind him.

A branch of half-burned candles was standing on the table. Eustacie lit them, and turned to look fearfully down at her cousin.

He was lying with one arm hanging over the edge of the settle, and his face alarmingly pale. Not knowing what to do for him, she sank down on her knees beside him and lifted his dangling hand, and held it between her own. For the first time she was able to see him clearly; she thought that had she met him in daylight she must have known him for a Lavenham, for here was Sylvester’s hawk-nose and humorous mouth, softened indeed by youth but unmistakable. He was lean and long-limbed, taller than Sylvester had been, but with the same slender hands and arched feet, and the same cleft in his wilful chin.

He seemed to Eustacie scarcely to breathe; she laid his arm across his chest and loosened the handkerchief about his neck. “Oh, please, Cousin Ludovic, don’t die!” she begged.

She heard a slight movement on the stairs behind her, and, turning her head, beheld a tall woman in a dressing-gown standing on the top step with a candle in her hand, looking down at her. She sprang up and stood as though defending the unconscious Ludovic, staring up at the newcomer in a challenging way.

The lady with the candle said with a twinkle in her grey eyes: “Don’t be alarmed! I’m no ghost, I assure you. You woke me with your ring at the bell, and because I’m of a prying disposition, I got up to see what in the world was going forward.” She came down the stairs as she spoke, and saw Ludovic. Her eyebrows went up, but she said placidly:

“I see I’ve thrust myself into an adventure. Is he badly hurt?”

“I think he’s dying,” answered Eustacie tragically. “He has bled, and bled, and bled!”

The lady put down her candle and came to the settle. “That sounds very bad, certainly, but perhaps it is not desperate after all,” she said. “Shall we see where he is hurt?”

“Nye said I was not to touch him,” replied Eustacie doubtfully.

“Oh, he’s a friend of Nye’s, is he?” said the lady.