Джорджетт Хейер - The Talisman Ring

“Of course I’m serious! It’s the very place for it. Where else would he be likely to put it?”

“If I help you to get into the house, can you find the panel?”

“I can try,” said Ludovic hopefully.

“Yes, no doubt,” returned Shield, “but I have assisted in one aimless search for it, and I’ve no desire to repeat the experience.”

“Once I’m in the house you can leave it to me,” said Ludovic. “I’m bound to recognize the panelling when I see it.”

“I hope you may,” replied Shield. “The Beau spoke of going to town one day this week, and that should be our opportunity.”

Miss Thane coughed. “And how—the question just occurs to me, you know—shall you get into the Dower House, sir?”

“We can break in through a window,” answered Ludovic. “There’s no difficulty about that.”

She cast a demure glance up at Shield. “I am afraid you will never get Sir Tristram to agree to do anything so rash,” she said.

He returned her glance with one of his measuring looks. “I must seem to you a very spiritless creature, Miss Thane.”

She smiled, and shook her head, but would not answer. Her brother, who had been following the conversation with a puzzled frown, suddenly observed that it all sounded very odd to him. “You can’t break into someone’s house!” he objected.

“Yes, I can,” returned Ludovic. “I’m not such a cripple as that!”

“But it’s a criminal offence!” Sir Hugh pointed out.

“If it comes to that it’s a criminal offence to smuggle liquor into the country,” replied Ludovic. “I can tell you, I’m in so deep that it don’t much signify what I do now.”

Sir Hugh sat up. “You’re never the smuggler my sister spoke to me about?”

“I’m a free trader,” said Ludovic, grinning.

“Then just tell me this!” said Thane, his interest in house breaking vanishing before a more important topic. “Can you get me a pipe of the same Chambertin Nye has in his cellar?”

It was agreed finally that Ludovic should attempt nothing in the way of housebreaking until his cousin had discovered which day the Beau proposed to go to London. Ludovic, incurably optimistic, considered his ring as good as found already, but Shield, taking a more sober view of the situation, saw pitfalls ahead. If the Beau, like his father before him, were indeed in the habit of using the priest’s hole as a hiding-place for his strong-box, nothing was more likely than his keeping the ring there as well. Almost the only point on which Shield found himself at one with his volatile young cousin was the belief, firmly held by Ludovic, that the Beau, if he ever had the ring, would neither have sold it nor have thrown it away. To sell it would be too dangerous a procedure; to throw away an antique of great value would require more resolution than Sir Tristram believed the Beau possessed. But Sir Tristram could not share Ludovic’s easy-going contempt of the Beau. Ludovic persisted in laughing at his affectations, and thinking him a mere fop of no particular courage or enterprise. Sir Tristram, though he had no opinion of the Beau’s courage, profoundly mistrusted his suavity, and considered him to be a great deal more astute than he seemed.

The circumstance of the Beau’s butler and valet having seen part at least of the search for the secret panel Sir Tristram found disturbing. That the Beau was already suspicious of Eustacie’s supposed groom was apparent; Sir Tristram believed that if he got wind of his cousin’s odd behaviour in his library he would be quite capable of putting two and two together and not only connecting Ludovic with the episode but realizing that he himself had at last fallen under suspicion. And if the Beau suspected that Ludovic, who knew the position of the priest’s hole, had come into Sussex to find his ring he would surely be very unlikely to leave it where it would certainly be looked for.

Some part of these forebodings Shield confided to Miss Thane, enjoining her to do all that lay in her power to keep Ludovic hidden from all eyes but their own.

“Well, I will do my best,” replied Sarah, “but it is not an easy task, Sir Tristram.”

“I know it is not an easy task,” he said impatiently, “but it is the only way in which you can assist us—which I understand you to be desirous of doing.”

She could not forbear giving him a look of reproach. “You must be forgetting what assistance I rendered you at the Dower House,” she said.

“No,” replied Sir Tristram, at his dryest. “I was not forgetting that.”

Miss Thane rested her chin in her hand, pensively surveying him. “Will you tell me something, Sir Tristram?”

“Perhaps. What is it?”

“What induced you ever to contemplate marriage with your cousin?”

He looked startled, and not too well pleased. “I can hardly suppose, ma’am, that my private affairs can be of interest to you,” he said.

“Some people,” remarked Miss Thane wisely, “would take that for a set-down.”

Their eyes met; Sir Tristram smiled reluctantly. “You do not seem to be of their number, ma’am.”

“I am very thick-skinned,” explained Sarah. “You see, I have not had the benefit of a correct upbringing.”

“Have you always lived with your brother?” he inquired.

“Since I left school, sir.”

“I suppose that accounts for it,” he said, half to himself.

“Accounts for what?” asked Miss Thane suspiciously.

“Your—unusual quality, ma’am.”

“I hope that is a compliment,” said Miss Thane, not without misgiving.

“I am not very apt at compliments!” he retorted.

Her eyes twinkled appreciatively. “Yes, I deserved that. Very well, Sir Tristram, but you have not answered my question. Why did you take it into your head to marry your cousin?”

“You have been misinformed, ma’am. The idea was taken into my great-uncle’s head, not mine.”

She raised her brows. “Had you no voice in the matter then? Now, from what I have seen of you, I find that very hard to believe.”

“Do you imagine that I wanted to marry Eustacie for the sake of her money?” he demanded.

“No,” replied Miss Thane calmly. “I do not imagine anything of the kind.”

His momentary flash of anger died down; he said, less harshly: “Being the last of my name, ma’am, I conceive it to be my duty to marry. The alliance proposed to me by my great-uncle was one of convenience, and as such agreeable to me. Owing to the precarious circumstances to which the upheaval in France has reduced her paternal relatives, her grandfather’s death leaves Eustacie alone in the world, a contingency he sought to provide against by this match. I promised Sylvester upon his deathbed that I would marry Eustacie. That is all the story.”

“How do you propose to salve your conscience?” asked Miss Thane.

“My conscience is not likely to trouble me in this instance,” he answered. “Eustacie does not wish to marry me, and it would take more than a promise made to Sylvester to make me pursue a suit which she has declared to be distasteful to her. Moreover, had events turned out otherwise, Sylvester would have given her to Ludovic, not to me.”

“Oh, that is famous!” said Miss Thane. “We can now promote her betrothal to him with clear consciences. But it is vexing for you to be obliged to look about you for another lady eligible for the post you require her to fill. Are you set on marrying a young female?”

“I am not set on marrying anyone, and I beg that you—”

“Well, that should make it easier,” said Miss Thane. “Very young ladies are apt to be romantic, and that would never do.”

“I certainly do not look for romance in marriage, but pray do not let my affairs—”

“It must be someone past the age of being hopeful of getting a husband,” pursued Miss Thane, sinking her chin in her hand again.

“Thank you!” said Sir Tristram.

“Not handsome—I do not think we can expect her to be more than passable,” decided Miss Thane. “Good birth would of course be an essential?”

“Really, Miss Thane, this conversation—”

“Luckily,” she said, “there are any number of plain females of good birth but small fortune to be found in town. You may meet a few at the subscription balls at Almack’s, but I dare say I could find you a dozen to choose from whose Mamas have long since ceased to take them to the ‘Marriage Market’. After a certain number of seasons they have to yield place to younger sisters, you know.”

“You are too kind, ma’am!”

“Not at all; I shall be delighted to help you,” Miss Thane assured him. “I have just the sort of female that would suit you in my mind’s eye. A good, affectionate girl, with no pretensions to beauty, and a grateful disposition. She must be past the age of wanting to go to parties, and she must not expect you to make pretty speeches to her. I wonder—Would you object to her having a slight—a very slight squint in one eye?”

“Yes, I should,” said Sir Tristram. “Nor have I the smallest desire to—”

Miss Thane sighed. “Well, that is a pity. I had thought of the very person for you.”

“Let me beg you not to waste your time thinking of another! The matter is not urgent.”

She shook her head. “I cannot agree with you. After all, when one approaches middle age—”

“Middle—Has anyone ever boxed your ears, Miss Thane?”

“No, never,” said Miss Thane, looking blandly up at him.

“You have been undeservedly fortunate,” said Sir Tristram grimly. “We will, if you please, leave the subject of my marriage. I do not anticipate an immediate entry into wedlock.”

“Do you know,” said Miss Thane, with an air of candour, “I believe you are wise. You are not cut out for matrimony. Your faith in females was shattered by an unfortunate affair in your youth; your eyes were opened to the defects of the female character; you are—”