Джорджетт Хейер - The Talisman Ring

The jagged fragments of glass were relinquished into her keeping, and with them, slid into the palm of her hand, a great ruby ring.

A torrent of impassioned French smote the Runner’s bemused ears. He stared, quite aghast, at Eustacie, who had changed in a flash from a pleasant-spoken young female into a raging virago. She snatched the jagged fragments of glass from the abigail’s hand, broke into English for one moment to implore Mr Stubbs to look at what the wicked clumsy creature had done, threw the fragments into the grate, shook the abigail, and in French said rapidly: “He means to search the house. Have you taken your clothes out of your room? Answer yes, or no!”

“Oh, yes, miss, indeed I took them to Sir Hugh’s room, like you told me!”

Mr Stubbs began to feel sorry for the hapless abigail, whose sobs grew more and more shattering. This suddenly terrible little Frenchwoman seemed to have what he would call a real spiteful temper. Nothing appeased her; he was not at all surprised to see the abigail so frightened; he wouldn’t put it beyond the young lady to box the poor girl’s ears at any moment.

In the middle of this spirited scene Nye came into the coffee-room with Clem at his heels, and stopped upon the threshold, transfixed by astonishment. For a moment he did not connect Ludovic with the great gawky girl, noisily weeping into her shawl, but before he had time to speak, Eustacie whirled round to face him, and poured forth a string of complaints about her supposed abigail. She desired him to tell her whether she had not sufficient cause to hand the girl over to the Law, and indicated with a sweep of her hand the presence of a Bow Street Runner.

Nye, who had caught the glint of pale-gold hair peeping from under the gawky female’s mob-cap, now observed that her left arm seemed in some odd fashion to be wound up in the voluminous shawl. The puzzled look vanished from his face; he came farther into the room, and joined with Eustacie in reproaching ‘Lucy’ for her carelessness. Mr Stubbs, quite overwhelmed by so much loud and confused talk, withdrew to the other end of the room, and mopped his brow. He gazed at Eustacie in growing consternation, and took a hasty step backward, when she suddenly rounded on him and demanded why he stood there doing nothing, instead of instantly arresting ‘Lucy’.

“Oh come, miss! Come, now!” said Nye soothingly. “It’s not as bad as that! The wench meant no harm. I’ll have Clem take up a pail of water and a scrubbing-brush, or we’ll have the whole house reeking of scent.”

“And in my room!” exclaimed Eustacie. “It is an outrage! It must be at once scrubbed, and I will tell you that it is Lucy herself who shall scrub it, for it is not at all Clem’s fault. Up, you!”

The Runner, seeing ‘Lucy’ driven towards the staircase, heaved a sigh of relief. Mistress and maid vanished from sight; Clem, at a nod from Nye, went away to draw a pail of water; and Nye turned to his unwelcome visitor, and said with a wry smile, and a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder: “Them Frenchies!”

“Unchristian, that’s what I call ’em,” responded Mr Stubbs severely. “I fair compassionate that wench.”

“She’ll be turned off,” said Nye with a resigned shrug. “That will make the third in as many weeks. Miss has the temper of the fiend, as I know. What can I do for you?”

Above, in Miss Thane’s bedchamber, Eustacie, from whom stifled giggles had escaped all the way up the stairs, sank down upon the bed, and with her handkerchief pressed to her mouth, gave way to inextinguishable laughter. Ludovic, twisting the shawl more securely round his arm, said: “Of all the spitfires! I wouldn’t be a maid of yours for any money. Now what’s the matter?!”

“You l-look so rid-ridiculous!” gasped Eustacie, rocking herself to and fro.

Ludovic looked critically at his reflection in the mirror. “A fine, strapping girl,” he said. “But what beats me is how you females ever contrive to dress at all. I couldn’t do up the plaguey hooks and eyes on this gown. That’s why I took the shawl. I don’t care for Sarah’s scent much, do you?”

Indeed, the room reeked of heavy scent. Eustacie raised her head to say unsteadily: “But of course not, a whole bottle of it! It is affreux! Open the window! Those Runners have come for you, Ludovic. What are we to do?”

He had thrust open one of the casements, and was leaning out to breathe the unscented air, but he turned his head at that. “How many of them are there?”

“Two. There is one on guard over the backstairs. I think it is Basil who must have told them to look for you here.”

“I saw the one on the backstairs. If there are no more than two, and Nye can’t fob them off, we’d better lock them up in the cellar, I think. Just until I’ve found my ring,” he added reassuringly, seeing Eustacie’s face of disapproval.

“But no, for if we lock them up we shall be put in prison for it!”

“There is that, of course,” agreed Ludovic. “Still, if only I could clear myself of this murder charge I shouldn’t mind taking the risk. Ten to one we’d get off with a fine.”

They were still arguing the point when Clem appeared with a pail and a scrubbing-brush. They pounced upon him for news, and he was able to tell them that Nye had the situation well in hand, and had already gone far towards convincing the Runners that they had been sent to look for a mare’s nest. At the moment he was regaling them with brandy, after which he had promised to conduct them personally all over the inn. Hearing this, Eustacie was at once struck by the notion of spreading a few pieces of female apparel about Ludovic’s room. She went off to do this, leaving Ludovic with instructions to start scrubbing the floor the instant he heard the Runners ascending the stairs.

By the time Mr Stubbs, fortified by brandy, did come up, Eustacie had returned to Miss Thane’s room, and no sooner did Nye tap on the door, asking whether the officer might come in, than she broke forth again into indignant repinings. Both the Runner and Nye were adjured to come in and judge for themselves whether the smell of the perfume would ever be got rid of. When Nye asked permission for the Runner to search her room, she first stared at him with an expression of outrage on her face, and then flung open the door of the cupboard and said tragically that it needed only this, that a great rough man should pry into her wardrobe. She begged Mr Stubbs not to consider her feelings in the least degree, but to pull all her dresses out, and throw them on the floor if he pleased. Mr Stubbs, acutely uncomfortable, assured her that he had no desire to do anything of the kind. She said that she wished she were back in France, where ladies were treated with civility, and, covering her face with her handkerchief, burst into tears. Ludovic, inexpertly scrubbing the damp patch on the floor, sniffed dolefully over the pail of water, and the Runner, casting a perfunctory glance into the wardrobe and another under the bed, beat a somewhat hasty retreat.

It was not long before Nye returned, this time alone. He found Eustacie peeping out of the window at the receding forms of the two officers, and Ludovic, the mob-cap and shawl already discarded, trying to extricate himself from Miss Thane’s gown. Characteristically, the first words he addressed to Ludovic were of decided reproof. “And who might those clothes belong to, my lord, if I may make so bold as to ask?”

“To Miss Thane, of course. Help me to come out of this curst dress!”

“And that’s a nice thing!” said Nye. “Couldn’t you find nothing else to break but a flask of scent that don’t belong to you? For shame, Mr Ludovic!”

Eustacie came away from the window. “Enfin, they are gone. Do they believe that my cousin is not here, Nye?”

“That’s more than I can tell you, miss,” replied Nye picking up Miss Thane’s dress from the floor. “Nor I don’t think they’ve gone far. They would have put up here for the night if I hadn’t shown them that I haven’t a bed to spare. It’s my belief they’re off no farther than to the alehouse down the road.”

“Do you mean to tell me those fellows are going to hang around this place?” said Ludovic, himself again in shirt and breeches. “Who set them on?”

Nye shook his head. “They wouldn’t say. The fat one don’t seem to me to set much store by the information. But for all that, I’ll have the cellar made ready for you, sir.”

“Make it ready for the Runners,” said Ludovic briskly. “We’ll have to kidnap them.”

“There’ll be no such foolishness in this house, Mr Ludovic, and so I’ll have you know!”

Some twenty minutes later Miss Thane, accompanied by her brother, came back to the Red Lion, and was at once met by Eustacie, who drew her upstairs to her room, her story tripping off her tongue.

“Runners in the house, and I not here to see them?” exclaimed Miss Thane, suitably impressed. “I declare I am the most ill-used creature alive! How I should have liked to have helped to hoodwink them!”

“Yes, it was very sad for you to be out, but you did help us, Sarah, because Ludovic put on one of your dresses, and pretended to be my maid.”

They had by this time reached Miss Thane’s bedchamber. Eustacie opened the door and Miss Thane took one step into the room and recoiled.

“It’s only the scent,” said Eustacie kindly. “And indeed it is already much fainter than it was. Ludovic thought that it would be a good thing to break the bottle, pretending that it was mine. In that way, you understand, he was able to hide his face, because he made believe to cry, and to be frightened. And I scolded him—oh, a faire croire!”