Authors: Georgette Heyer
"Sure an' I do, Molly. 'Tis none other than Jack Carstares of whom ye've often heard me speak!"
She turned round eyes of wonderment upon my lord.
"Can it be–is it possible that you are my husband's dearest friend–Lord John?"
Jack flushed and bowed.
"I was once–madam," he said stiffly.
"Once!" she scoffed. "Oh, if you could but hear him speak of you! But I'll let you hear him speak
to
you, which perhaps you'll enjoy more. I know you've a prodigious great deal to say to one another, so I shall run away and leave you alone." She smiled graciously upon him, blew an airy kiss to her husband and went quickly out of the room.
Carstares closed the door behind her and came back to O'Hara, who had flung himself back into his chair, trying, manlike, to conceal the excitement he was feeling.
"Come, sit ye down, Jack, and let me have the whole story!"
My lord divested himself of his long cloak and shook out his hitherto tucked-up ruffles. From the pocket of his elegant scarlet riding coat he drew a snuff-box, which he opened languidly. With his eyes resting quizzically on O'Hara's face, he took a delicate pinch of snuff and minced across the room.
Miles laughed.
"What's this?"
"This, my dear friend, is Sir Anthony Ferndale, Bart.!" He bowed with great flourish.
"Ye look it. But come over here, Sir Anthony Ferndale, Bart., and tell me everything."
Jack perched on the edge of the desk and swung his leg.
"Well really, I do not think there is much to tell that you do not already know, Miles. You know all about Dare's card-party, for instance, precisely six years ago?"
"'Tis just exactly what I do not know!" retorted O'Hara.
"You surprise me! I thought the tale was rife."
"Now, Jack, will ye have done drawling at me? Don't be forgetting I'm your friend—"
"But are you? If you know the truth about me, do you feel inclined to call me friend?"
"There never was a time when I would not have been proud to call ye friend, as ye would very well have known, had ye been aught but a damned young hothead! I heard that crazy tale about the card-party, but do ye think I believed it?"
"It was the obvious thing to do."
"Maybe, but I fancy I know ye just a little too well to believe any cock-and-bull story I'm told about ye. And even if I had been fool enough to have believed it, do ye think I'd be going back on ye? Sure, 'tis a poor friend I'd be!" .
Jack stared down at the toe of his right boot in silence.
"I know something more than we guessed happened at that same party, and I have me suspicions, but 'tis your affair, and whatever ye did ye had your reasons for. But, Jack, why in the name of wonder must ye fly off to the devil alone knows where, without so much as a good-bye to anyone?"
Carstares never raised his eyes from the contemplation of that boot. He spoke with difficulty.
"Miles–in my place–would you not have done the same?"
"Well—"
"You know you would. Was it likely that I should inflict myself on you at such a time? What would you have thought of me had I done so?"
O'Hara brought his hand down smartly on the other's knee.
"I'd have thought ye less of a young fool! I would have gone away with ye, and nothing would have stopped me!"
Jack looked up and met his eyes.
"I know," he said. "'Twas the thought of that—and–and–I could not be sure. How should I know whether you would even receive me? Last night—last night—I was horribly afraid. . . ."
The hand on his knee tightened.
"Ye foolish boy! Ye foolish boy!"
Bit by bit he drew the story of the past six years out of Carstares, and though it was a very modified version, Miles understood his friend well enough to read between the lines.
"And now," said Jack, when the recital was over, "tell me about yourself. When did you marry the attractive lady whom I have just been kissing?"
"Ye rogue! I married Molly three years ago. 'Tis a real darling she is, isn't she? And upstairs there's a little chap–your godson."
"You lucky fellow! My godson, you say? Could you not find anyone more worthy for that? I want to see him."
"So ye shall presently. Have ye seen Richard?"
"A year ago I held up his coach. 'Twas dark, and I could scarce see him, but I thought he seemed aged."
"Aged! Ye wouldn't be afther knowing him! 'Tis an old man he is. Though I swear 'tis no wonder with that hussy about the house! Lord, Jack, you were well out of that affair with her ladyship!"
Carstares nursed his foot reflectively.
"Lavinia? What ails her?"
"Nought that I know of, save it be her shrewish temper. 'Tis a dog's life she leads poor Dick."
"Do you mean to say she does not love Dick?"
"I cannot say–sometimes she's as affectionate as you please, but at others she treats him to a fine exhibition of rage. And the money she spends! Of course, she married him for what she should get. There was never anything else to count with her."
Jack sat very still.
"And anyone but a young fool like yourself would have seen that!"
A gleam of amusement shot into the wistful blue eyes.
"Probably. Yourself, for instance?"
O'Hara chuckled.
"Oh, ay, I knew! 'Twas the money she was after all along; and now there's not so much, it seems, as Dick won't touch a penny that belongs to you."
"M'm. Warburton told me. Foolish of him."
A grunt was the sole response.
Jack's eyes narrowed a little as he gazed out of the window.
"So Lavinia never cared? Lord, what a mix-up! And Dick?"
"I'm afraid he still does."
"Poor old Dick! Devil take the woman! Does she bully him? I know what he is–always ready to give in."
"I am not so sure. Yet I'll swear if 'twere not for John his life would be a misery. He misses you, Jack."
"Who is John?"
"Did not Warburton tell you? John is the hope of the house. He's four and a half, and as spoilt a little rascal as you could wish for."
"Dick's child? Good Lord!"
"Ay, Dick's child and your nephew." He broke off and looked into the other's face. "Jack, cannot this mystery be cleared up? Couldn't ye go back?" He was clasping Jack's hand, but it was withdrawn, and the eyes looking down into his were suddenly bored and a little cold.
"I know of no mystery," said Carstares.
"Jack, old man, will ye be afther shutting me out of your confidence?"
A faint, sweet smile curved the fine lips.
"Let us talk of the weather, Miles, or my mare. Anything rather than this painful subject."
With an impatient movement O'Hara flung back his chair and strode over to the window with his back to my lord. Jack's eyes followed him seriously.
"If ye cannot trust me, sure I've no more to say, thin!" flashed O'Hara. "It seems ye do not value your friends too highly!"
My lord said never a word. But the hand that rested on the desk clenched suddenly. O'Hara wheeled about and came back to his side.
"Sure, Jack, I never meant that! Forgive me bad temper!"
Carstares slipped off the table and straightened himself, linking his arm in the Irishman's.
"Whist, Miles, as you'd say yourself," he laughed, "I know that. 'Tis not that I don't trust you, but—"
"I understand. I'll not ask ye any more about it at all. Instead, answer me this: what made ye come out with unloaded pistols?"
The laugh died out of Carstares' face.
"Oh, just carelessness!" he answered shortly, and he thought of the absent Jim with a tightening of the lips.
"'Twas that very same reason with meself thin!"
Jack stared at him.
"Miles, don't tell me yours were unloaded, too?"
"'Deed an' they were! Ecod, Jack! 'tis the best joke I've heard for a twelvemonth." They both started to laugh. "Sure 'twas bluff on my part, Jack, when I told ye yours was unloaded And me lady was determined to set you free from the moment I told her all about it this morning. We were sure ye were no ordinary highwayman, though I was a fool not to have known ye right away. But now I have found ye out, ye'll stay with us–Cousin Harry?"
"I cannot thank you enough, Miles, but I will not do that. I must get back to Jim."
"And who the devil is Jim?"
"My servant. He'll be worried nigh to death over me. Nay, do not press me, I could not stay here, Miles. You must see for yourself 'tis impossible–Jack Carstares does not exist; only Anthony Ferndale is left."
"Jack, dear man, can I not—"
"No, Miles, you can do nothing, though 'tis like you to want to help, and I do thank you. But–oh well! . . . What about my mare?"
"Plague take me if I'd not forgotten! Jack, that scoundrel of mine let her strain her fetlock. I'm demmed sorry."
"Poor Jenny! I'll swear she gave him an exciting ride, though."
"I'll be trying to buy her off ye, Jack, if I see much of her. 'Tis a little beauty she is."
"I'm not selling, though I intended to ask you to keep her, if—"
A quick pressure on his arm arrested him.
"That will do! I'm too heavy for her anyway."
"So was that devil of a groom you put on her."
"Ay. I'm a fool."
"I always knew that."
"Whisht now, Jack! Ye'll have to take one of my nags while she heals, if ye won't stay with us. Can ye trust her to me for a week, do ye suppose?"
"I don't know. It seems as though I must–oh, I retract, I retract. You are altogether too large, the day is too hot, and my cravat too nicely tied—Egad, Miles! I wish–oh, I WISH we were boys again, and— Yes. When may I see your son and heir?"
"Sure, ye may come now and find Molly, who'll be aching for the sight of you. Afther you, Sir Anthony Ferndale, Bart.!"
LATE that afternoon Carstares left Thurze House on one of his friend's horses. He waved a very regretful farewell to O'Hara and his lady, promising to let them know his whereabouts and to visit them again soon. O'Hara had extracted a solemn promise that if ever he got into difficulties he would let him know:
"For I'm not letting ye drift gaily out of me life again, and that's flat."
Jack had assented gladly enough–to have a friend once more was such bliss–and had given Miles the name of the inn and the village where he would find him, for O'Hara had insisted on bringing the mare over himself. So Carstares rode off to Trencham and to Jim, with the memory of a very hearty handshake in his mind. He smiled a little as he thought of his friend's words when he had shown himself reluctant to give the required promise:
"Ye obstinate young devil, ye'll do as I say, and no nonsense, or ye don't leave this house!"
For six years no one had ordered him to obey; it had been he who had done all the ordering. Somehow it was very pleasant to be told what to do, especially by Miles.
He turned down a lane and wondered what Jim was thinking. That he was waiting at the Green Man, he was certain, for those had been his orders. He was annoyed with the man over the incident of the pistols for he had inspected them and discovered that they were indeed unloaded. Had his captor been other than O'Hara, on whom he could not fire, such carelessness might have proved his undoing. Apart from that, culpable negligence always roused his wrath. A rather warm twenty minutes was in store for Salter.
For quite an hour Carstares proceeded on his way with no mishaps nor adventures, and then, suddenly, as he rounded a corner of a deserted road–little more than a cart-track–an extraordinary sight met his eyes. In the middle of the road stood a coach, and by it, covering the men on the box with two large pistols, was a seedy-looking ruffian, while two others were engaged in what appeared to be a life-and-death struggle at the coach-door.
Jacked reined-in his horse and rose in his stirrups to obtain a better view. Then his eyes flashed, and he whistled softly to himself. For the cause of all the turmoil was a slight, graceful girl of not more than nineteen or twenty. She was frenziedly resisting the efforts of her captors to drag her to another coach, further up the road. Jack could see that she was dark and very lovely.
Another, elderly lady, was most valiantly impeding operations by clawing and striking at one of the men's arms, scolding and imploring all in one breath. Jack's gaze went from her to a still, silent figure at the side of the road in the shadow of the hedge, evidently the stage-manager. "It seems I must take a hand in this," he told himself, and laughed joyously as he fixed on his mask and dismounted. He tethered his mount to a young sapling, took a pistol from its holster, and ran softly and swiftly under the lea of the hedge up to the scene of disaster, just as the man who covered the unruly and vociferous pair on the box made ready to fire.
Jack's bullet took him neatly in the neck, and without a sound he crumpled up, one of his pistols exploding harmlessly as it fell to earth.