Jack Frake (20 page)

He caught sight of the youth again, and followed him on the road through Trelowe. Leith gave himself time to concoct a way of dealing with the stranger, and his mind sloshed back and forth between his desire to beat the boy for dallying with his wife, and the very real matter of Jack Frake, potential witness to the murder of Parson Parmley.

The stranger rode on. A beggar appeared, coming from the direction of Gwynnford. Leith saw him say something to the stranger, who tossed him a coin. Moments later, when Leith came upon the beggar, he brandished his riding crop, and the beggar said nothing but ducked away. A mile or two beyond Trelowe, Leith stopped when he saw the stranger leave the road and cross the moor to the lone tree and Hiram Trott.

Leith dismounted, led his horse to a clump of bushes, and tied it there. Then he crept through the moor brush. In the distance, he saw the stranger shake hands with Trott. The two men then sat down together on the rock, and the youth took a large book and a pencil from the bag that was slung over his shoulder. Trott began to speak, and the youth began to write.

“I see, said the blind man!” said Leith with a chuckle under his breath. He could barely contain the joy of relief rising in him as he watched. Now he had something to tell that bastard Pannell.

O
NE AFTERNOON A WEEK EARLIER, WHEN
J
ACK
F
RAKE RETURNED FROM
the chore of grazing the gang’s livestock in the Villers fields, Skelly had called him into his chamber, pointed to Redmagne, who had just returned from a trip to the Marvel post office, and said merely, “I’m relieving you of your duties so that you may accompany this literary rowdy to London and keep him out of trouble.”

For a moment, Jack Frake was speechless. Then he stammered, “But — what about meeting the
Sparrowhawk
in Guernsey?”

Skelly scoffed amiably. “I’ve been meeting her for years without your help, Mr. Frake.”

Redmagne, in his happiness, had insisted on paying Jack’s fare and expenses for the journey. “It’s my way of thanking you for the name, Jack,” he said as they prepared to leave the caves. “Dawson reports that as many customers inquire about Romney Marsh as buy the book.”

Redmagne already had a wardrobe of gentleman’s clothes, and limited himself to the purchase of a silver-topped sword-cane in Falmouth. Jack Frake wore a suit of clothes he had purchased item by item over the past two years but had never thought he would have a reason to wear: a pair of new shoes with silver buckles, with a pair of spatterdashes to wear over them in the rain; a pair of green velvet breeches; a pair of white silver stockings; a fine green silk coat; a new waistcoat; a white lace-edged shirt, stock
and black tie. In Falmouth, at Redmagne’s urging, he bought an immaculate white pigtail wig, and a new black velvet tricorn with gold edging. At first he did not recognize himself in the tailor’s mirror, once he was attired in these clothes.

In their Falmouth inn room, Jack Frake took the wig from its box, toyed with the ribbon that connected the pigtail with the nape, and made involuntary facial expressions of doubt about its value and comfort.

Redmagne noticed, and felt it necessary to restate the purpose of the wig. “You know that on every excursion beyond the caves, I assume a new name and character. Like Richard the Third, I must ‘… frame my face for all occasions’ — though I do this to preserve my freedom, and not to wield a bloody ax. On this journey, I shall be Squire John Trigg, of Devon. You are to be my precocious nephew, Jeremy Jeamer.”

Jack Frake grinned. “Those are the names of the uncle and nephew from your satire,
Sciron Revisited
,” he said.

Redmagne chuckled. “Thank you for remembering one of my less illustrious efforts. As Squire Trigg and Nephew Jeamer, we are in money. At least, I am, since my imaginary but sprawling estate near Newton Abbot nets me at least two thousand pounds per annum. So we must dress the parts — and act the parts. This is to be your debut as a gentleman. Do not try to upstage me.”

Jack Frake twirled the wig once on his finger. “But
must
I wear this?” he asked with a grimace.

“As a young gentleman, yes. You’ll grow accustomed to it. Soon, you won’t even notice it up there. And for going to Covent Garden and other places I have in mind, a wig is
de règle
.”

From his valise Jack Frake took a pocket pistol, which was already loaded, and a compact box that held balls, flint, powder and wadding. He put the pistol in one ample coat pocket and the box in the other. The tiny weapon had been given him by Charles Ambrose, the deserter, before Jack Frake left the caves. “London thieves and footpads are cowards, Jack. If one accosts you, just wave that powder in his face and see him run.” Redmagne also carried a brace of regular pistols in one of his valises.

They took a coastal packet from Falmouth to Plymouth, then another to Portsmouth, then a coach to Southampton. Redmagne bought fares in the coach inn yard for a flying coach to London, which would travel part of the night and stop at fewer inns en route. At the inn they met their fellow travelers. It was a formal introduction, instigated by Mr. Spencer Neaves
and his wife, Winifred. Mr. Neaves was a portly, blustering man who owned a sailcloth works near Portsmouth. He saw that ‘Mr. Trigg’ was a gentleman of means, and forced himself on the squire. “My father started the business, and I’ve expanded it,” he boasted at length. “Navy contracts, mostly for mizzenmasts and mainsails,” he confided. “They eat so much of my product that I hardly have any left over for those damned commercial ships. The Navy pays better.” Redmagne smiled vaguely at Mr. Neaves’ patter and made some ambiguous remarks which the man took for compliments. Mrs. Neaves was a dour, stern-faced woman who said little and did not like Redmagne.

Next Redmagne was accosted by John Truxton, a farmer who was traveling to London to visit the Admiralty. There he hoped to convince their lordships that a contract for provisioning the Channel Fleet should be wrested from a rival and awarded to him. Redmagne shrugged in frosty indifference, and Truxton bothered him no more.

But throughout these formalities, Redmagne was distracted by a graceful young woman with a comely face and rich, brownish-red hair beneath her bonnet and cap. This was Miss Millicent Morley, a governess who was accompanying her young charge, three-year-old Etain McRae. Redmagne took the liberty of introducing himself, and in an overly proper conversation, learned that the child’s parents were in London, and that the governess was taking her back home after a visit with her aunt and uncle in Southampton. Ian McRae, she said, was a new partner in a firm that supplied Virginians with the necessaries and luxuries of life. When the passengers boarded the coach, Redmagne made sure that he sat opposite the governess. John Truxton deferred to “Mr. Trigg” and made himself comfortable on the roof with the baggage. Jack Frake was squeezed in between Redmagne and Mr. Neaves, while little Etain McRae was ensconced between the governess and Winifred Neaves. As the coach rumbled out of the inn yard, Miss Morley took a small book from her bag and opened it. Redmagne saw that it was the first volume of Samuel Richardson’s
Pamela
. Redmagne opened his copy of Sir Philip Sidney’s
Arcadia
, while Jack Frake leafed through Brown’s
Roman History
, which he regretted bringing because he was too restless with anticipation to concentrate on the gory succession of emperors.

After one hour on the jerking, bumping coach, Redmagne put aside his own book and addressed the woman who sat opposite him.

“Ah! Now there’s a work that can bring a blush to any lady’s cheeks!”

The governess looked up from her book, partly in annoyance, partly in surprise, but mostly from curiosity. “I have not yet blushed, sir, and I am half through this volume. Why would you expect me to?”

Redmagne smiled. “You must confess that there are in it some remarkably humid passages.”

“Humid, sir? What do you mean?”

“I mean those passages which call for the busy flutter of a lady’s fan to cool her brow.”

The governess looked to her left, then to her right. “As you can see, Mr. Trigg, I have misplaced my fan, but my brow is still cool. Please elucidate.”

Redmagne cleared his throat. “I mean having the power to arouse the passions and, at least for a lady, to cause her to wish, perhaps, that she could exchange places with the heroine.”

“I am
not
a lady, sir. I am, as you know, merely employed by one.” Miss Morley wrinkled her brow. “And I do not find any of the passages to which you undoubtedly refer so ‘humid’ nor would I wish to exchange places with the heroine in any situation I have so far read, ‘humid’ or not. In fact, I do not find her much of a heroine. Droll, perhaps, and at times resourceful, but not a heroine.”

Redmagne smiled again. “You do not envy Pamela for being pursued by Squire Blank?”

“Not even in her most perilous moments,” said the governess, shaking her head. “And I find Squire Blank to be uncommonly ordinary, as rogues go, and a man of little inner substance.”

“Then why do you continue reading the work if it so displeases you?”

“I did not say that it displeases me, sir,” answered the governess with patience. “I am reading it so that I may more intelligently converse with my mistress. She is continually assailing me with quotations and morals which she has culled from the novel, a copy of which rests on her toilette-table, next to her Bible.”

“What devotion!” remarked Redmagne. “And a wise stratagem on your part.” He paused. “It has been some years since the novel was the rage, but they say that people still gossip about Pamela almost as much as they gossip about their real friends and enemies.”

Miss Morley sighed and nodded in agreement. “That is much the situation in my mistress’s circle of friends — and enemies.” She paused. “There is another bothersome thing about this novel,” she added thoughtfully.

“And what is that?”

“The heroine, who is a servant, seems to have unlimited leave to write such long letters. Now, I did service as a maid in a large household, before I became a governess, and I can assure you, Mr. Trigg — and you may bear me out on this complaint, for you are a squire and no doubt have a servant or two — that neither I nor any other maid I came to know had so much
time
on her hands, not to mention all the shillings for the paper, ink and quills our Pamela expends!”

Redmagne chuckled. “Fair observation, Miss Morley. But it
is
a chronicle, of sorts, and the author, according to his lights, dim as I think they must be, must needs report events and cogitations somehow.” He paused. “I know of a man who wrote a novel barely half the length of
Pamela
. It took him eight years to complete it, in between duties one hundred times more arduous than Pamela’s. So I can sympathize with your bother — my being a squire with a servant or two.”

Jack Frake glanced up at Redmagne, expecting him to mention
Hyperborea
, and how it was written. But, strangely, his friend did not.

“Thank you, Mr. Trigg. There is another thing,” ventured the governess. “Regardless of what one thinks of the novel, do you not believe it has a positive moral influence on people? If it had not, people would not talk about it so much. Why, there was a time, for a while, when churchmen even read passages from it from their pulpits.”

“Positive?” said Redmagne, after a moment. “I have reservations about its positive moral influence. I would say instead that the novel is popular because it answers in many people their own penchant for the common. It is insipidness dramatized.” He paused. “Why do you say that Pamela is not a heroine?”

“Oh, she is a heroine in the strictest sense, in that she is the subject of the story. But in all other aspects she is, as you say, quite common, and will doubtless come to a common end, irrespective of all the verbiage the author has thought expedient to cram into her otherwise inadequate head.”

Redmagne burst out laughing. Jack Frake grinned in response to Miss Morley’s reply, while Mr. Neaves and his wife frowned.

“What amuses you, Mr. Trigg?” asked the governess.

“You have expressed my own summary estimate of the character — exactly!” said Redmagne. When he recovered, he asked, “What aspects
would
you say constitute a heroine, Miss Morley?”

Miss Morley paused to compose an answer. “She should be a woman
who seeks in her man the practiced virtues that he professes.”

“Which are…?”

“I have not compiled an inventory, Mr. Trigg, so I could not at the moment tick them off for you.”

“But,” said Redmagne, “would you say this, at least, that if Richard Lovelace, the great Cavalier poet, ever encountered Pamela, he would
not
be moved to say ‘I could not love thee, Dear, so much, loved I not honor more’?”

Miss Morley blushed, but held Redmagne’s eyes. “Yes, Mr. Trigg, I would say that, at least, since a lady also can love honor. Someone like Pamela — of whom there are more real examples than I care to think of — could not love a man who actually placed his soul above
her
concern.” A faint smile bent her mouth. “A lady could just as well say that to her man… A lady can be cavalier in character, if not in action.”

Redmagne beamed at her, then said softly, “Only a
lady
could say that, Miss Morley.”

A silence fell on the compartment, and seemed to make the words of the last exchange more audible. Redmagne was an arm’s length and a half distant from Miss Morley, but to Jack Frake it seemed as if he were about to kiss the governess. And Miss Morley looked as though she expected to be kissed.

“Excuse me, sir!” blurted Mr. Neaves.

Jack Frake nearly jumped at the intrusive, demanding sound. Miss Morley’s book fell to the floor. And Redmagne’s head turned slowly, unwillingly to the source. He bent to pick up the book, and handed it to the governess.

Mr. Neaves was saying, “In my company, I will not tolerate references to treacherous Jacobites such as this Cavalier you mention! It would seem that the axing of those two instigators at Tower Hill last summer has not axed treasonable sympathies still at large in this country!”