Chapter Twenty-five
TWENTY-FIVE
HERO, FLUNG UP into the post-chaise with so little ceremony and jolted and bounced over the streets of Bath, had not the smallest notion whither she was bound, or why Sherry had not entered the chaise with her.
She pulled a rug, which she found on the seat, over her knees; settled herself in a corner of the vehicle, holding on to one of the straps which served as armrests; and awaited eventualities in a state of pleasurable expectation.
Had she but know it, her abductor, not so far gone in romance that he had lost quite all his common sense, had had a very fair picture of what would be the result of trying to make love in a form of vehicle nicknamed, not without good reason, a bounder.
The road from Bath to Wells, particularly at this season of the year, was pitted with holes: Mr Tarleton thought that romance would have a better chance of surviving if he postponed his love-making until Wells was reached.
This cathedral town lay rather more than eighteen miles from Bath, across the Mendip Hills.
Mr Tarleton had booked a room for his prospective bride at the Christopher, and another for himself at the Swan, for although his anxiety to bring adventure into Hero’s drab life might have led him to an act which he did not like to think about very closely, his naturally staid disposition made him paradoxically careful not to incur any more scandal than might be necessary.
Indeed, he had prudently hired his chaise and pair from a hostelry where he was unknown, and was sometimes conscious of a craven hope that the truth about his marriage might never be made public property.
This consideration made him decide to change horses at the little village of Emborrow, lying at the foot of the Mendips, rather than at Old Down Inn, which, lying twelve miles beyond Bath, was the usual stage.
By the time they had reached this place, the moon was coming up brightly, and the going was consequently easier.
The chaise pulled up in the small yard belonging to the one hostelry of any size, and an ostler shouted for the first turnout.
At the same moment, one of the windows of the chaise was let down, and Hero looked out, her eyes dancing in the mingled lantern and moonlight, her lips parted in a roguish smile.
‘Of all the absurd, delightful starts!’ she began, her voice quivering with amusement.
Then she broke off short as her gaze encountered, not Sherry’s beloved features, but Mr Tarleton’s wholly unexciting countenance.
A look of startled dismay entered her face; the colour receded from her cheeks; she uttered in repulsive accents, one word only: ‘You!’
Mr Tarleton had been prepared for maidenly indignation, but not for this, and he was slightly staggered. He stepped up to the chaise and said, looking up at the blanched face at the window: ‘But, my sweet love, whom else should it be?’
‘Oh!’ wailed Hero, her face puckering like a baby’s. ‘Oh! I thought you w-were Sh-Sherry!’
Mr Tarleton’s brain reeled. ‘Thought I was whom?’ he said numbly.
‘M-my husband!’ wept Hero, tears rolling one after the other down her cheek. ‘Oh, how could you play such a c-cruel trick on me?’
If the floor had heaved under Sherry’s feet, the universe fairly rocked about the unfortunate Mr Tarleton. For a moment he could only gaze up at Hero in uncomprehending amazement. He repeated in bemused accents: ‘Your husband?’
Only heart-broken sobs answered him. He became aware of a post-boy at his elbow, and pulled himself together with an effort. ‘I beg of you, ma’am –! Pray, do not –! Here, you, what’s the figure?’
The post-boy who had driven the chaise from Bath told him eighteen shillings, reckoning the hire of the chaise-and-pair at the rate of one-and-sixpence a mile, and Mr Tarleton, anxious to be rid of him, dived a hand into his pocket.
It was then that he discovered that not only his purse, but his wallet also, was missing, and that all the loose cash he carried in the pockets of his breeches amounted only to six shillings and ninepence.
Never was an eloping gentleman in a worse predicament!
Never had he expected to regret with such bitterness having hired his coach from an inn where his name was unknown!
One glance at the post-boy’s face was sufficient to inform him that he would not be permitted, without a most unseemly brawl, to travel upon tick.
He was not even known at the inn. There was nothing for it but to turn to his weeping victim, and as he did it the sense of the ridiculous threatened to overcome more poignant emotions.
‘My dear, pray do not cry so! I promise you I will set all to rights! The only thing is – Miss Wantage, it is the most absurd of predicaments to find oneself in, but I have been robbed of my purse, and here is this fellow expecting to be paid for his services. Are you able to lend me a guinea?’
Hero raised her head from the window-sill to reply: ‘Of c-course I am not! I have not my p-purse with me!’
‘Oh, my God!’ muttered Mr Tarleton. ‘Now we are in the basket!’
‘I wish I were dead!’ responded Hero.
‘No, no, don’t do that! Heavens, what a coil!
But how could I have guessed – My dear child, you cannot stay there!
Do, pray, come down, and into the inn! Really, I don’t know whether I am on my head or my heels!
’ He mounted the steps, which the ostler had helpfully let down, and opened the door of the chaise, only to have his entrance to the vehicle hotly disputed by Pug.
He recoiled, exclaiming: ‘Good God, what possessed you to bring that creature?’
‘It was your fault!’ Hero said, from the folds of her handkerchief. She blew her nose defiantly. ‘I did not want to bring him, and oh, I thought it was j-just l-like Sherry to throw him in on t-top of me!’
‘Don’t, pray don’t begin to cry again!’ implored the harassed Mr Tarleton. ‘We shall have the whole stable-yard about us in a trice! Only come inside the house, and I will set all to rights!’
‘No one can set all to rights, for I am utterly ruined!’ declared Hero. ‘My husband was c-coming to dine with me, and I shall not be there, and he will never, never speak to m-me again! And if he finds out this dreadful scrape you have put me into it will be worse than all the rest!’
Mr Tarleton took her hand and helped her to alight from the chaise.
‘He shall not discover it. We will make up some tale that will satisfy him. But who – why – No, come into the inn, where we can be private! As for you, fellow, you must wait! Go into the tap-room and order yourself a glass of flesh-and-blood at my expense! And here’s a crown for you to keep your mouth shut! ’
The post-boy pocketed this douceur, but warned his client not to try to lope off without paying him for the hire of his horses.
Mr Tarleton somewhat testily demanded to be told how he could do any such thing in his present pecuniary circumstances, and led Hero into the inn.
Here he peremptorily ordered the landlord to show the lady into a private parlour.
When this had been done, and the landlord had rejoined him in the deserted coffee-room, he explained, with what assurance he could muster, that he had been robbed of his wallet and purse.
The landlord was civil, but palpably incredulous, so Mr Tarleton haughtily said: ‘Here is my card, fellow!’ Almost immediately after this he was obliged to correct himself.
‘No, curse it, that’s gone with the rest!
But my name is Tarleton – of Frensham Hall, near Swainswick!
You will have heard of it! I am escorting a – a friend to Wells – at least, I was doing so, but it so chances that she has discovered that she has left behind her in Bath a most important – er – package, and we are obliged to return there with what speed we can muster.
Do me the favour of paying off that post-boy – or no!
Better still, let one of your own boys or their cads lead the horses back leer, and let my post-boy drive us back to Bath with a fresh pair.
You and he may thus be assured of receiving your money. Meanwhile –’
The landlord, who had been thinking, interrupted at this point. ‘Begging your honour’s pardon, if you live at Frensham Hall, how do you come to be travelling to Wells in a hired chaise?’
‘What has that to do with you, fellow?’ said Mr Tarleton, colouring in spite of himself.
‘I don’t know as how it has aught to do with me, sir, but what I was thinking was that it seems a queer set-out to me that a gentleman wishful to travel only to Wells wouldn’t drive in his own carriage – ah, and at a more seasonable time o’ day, what’s more!
Not being wishful to give offence, sir, you understand. ’
‘I am well known in Bath,’ Mr Tarleton said stiffly. ‘Yes, and they know me at the Old Down Inn, so you may satisfy yourself only by sending to enquire there if a Mr Tarleton has ever changed horses with them.’
‘Yes, and when I’ve sent one of my boys a mile and a half up the road to make them enquiries, who’s to say you are this Mr Tarleton?’ retorted the landlord. ‘And if you’re so well known in Bath, how comes it that post-boy don’t seem to reckernise your honour? That’s what I’d like to know!’
Mr Tarleton had the greatest difficulty in maintaining his control over his temper.
After a moment’s struggle, he succeeded in choking back the angry words which rose to his lips, and managed, after a most wearing argument, to persuade the landlord to have a fresh pair harnessed to the chaise, and to prevail upon the post-boy who had brought him from Bath to take him back there as soon as he should have had time to refresh himself, which the landlord assured him he would certainly insist upon.
Mr Tarleton then gave up his gold timepiece and his signet-ring as pledges, ordered coffee to be sent immediately to the parlour, and made haste to rejoin Hero.