The Captain's Daughter (10 page)

“You met Henri? Yes he’s a French
businessman. He’s here to discuss some matters of trade with me. As you know,
my family’s deeply involved in trade. But of course, we never engage in it
here, but he was in some rush over an urgent matter and I sent him a message to
meet with me at Hillfield House. Which reminds me, I must be going now to meet
with Henri.”

As Ben rode off at a gallop, she
rounded the corner and walked towards the front door. Amy had many questions.
Foremost was why Ben lied to her.
Who is the Frenchman
? With the horrors
going on in France and Madame Guillotine claiming a tragic army of victims that
was a question that was most pertinent. Frenchmen and Frenchwomen too, came in
but two kinds, the butchers and those who fled the butchery.
Which kind is
the Frenchman, and what is he doing at the country house of Benjamin
Anstruther? Who is the Frenchman? What is the Frenchman? Why does Ben have him
at Hillfield House, and what is the Frenchman’s real name
?

So wrapped in thought was Amy as
she mounted the front steps that she was startled back to reality by a familiar
voice.

“Well, sister Amy, I see you are
feeling better. Mother noticed you were missing at lunch, and so I explained to
her that you were feeling a little out of sorts and could not come down to eat.
Mother hoped it was nothing serious. I am glad to see you have apparently
recovered. Now, we will go to your room and talk.” Emma hesitated. “But we must
talk quietly. Someone is looking for me.”

The next day
, just after lunch, found Hubert rescuing
his beloved marigolds from intruders. He was dressed better than normal and
kneeling on a leather apron because the ground was still damp. Beside him lay
three sad little skinny weeds that had just ventured upon life and found
themselves yanked out of the ground before they had any chance to grow.

The marigolds, because Hubert was
again saving his beloved marigolds, did not look as if they needed saving.
Having recovered from their ordeal of the last two days, they stood robustly
with their shining faces looking ready to deal with any puny little weed on
their own.

“Good afternoon, could you take the
reins of Ganges.”

The voice was that of Sir Benjamin
Anstruther. Old Hubert looked around and seeing Ben he struggled to get to his
feet.

As Ben looked on, his attention was
drawn by a girl’s voice from the front door of Sibbridge House.

“Sir Benjamin!”

The lilting voice belonged to
Mattie, who had just emerged from the house followed by the gangly youth. Ben
handed his horse’s reins to Hubert and waited as Mattie avoided the coach
parked in front of the house and approached him with dainty little steps and
the youth stumbling along behind her. Ben marveled at how uncoordinated her
companion was.

She looked up at Ben with a smile
and then seemed to see Hubert for the first time.

“Hubert! You should not be working
on a Sunday,” she reprimanded and immediately turned back to Ben with a smile
that exuded a hint of triumph.

“Sir Benjamin, this is Lazarus
Throckmorton.”

“I am pleased to meet you, Mr.
Throckmorton,” said Ben with great charm.

Mattie looked pleased and then
introduced Lazarus to Ben, who had the impression that she was trying to imply
that she had landed a specimen that was superior to a Benjamin, which was fine
with him as he found her a nice but simple girl.

“P...Pleased to meet you, Sir
Benjamin,” stuttered Lazarus. “D...Didn’t we meet at the ball.”

Ben wondered if the youth really
didn’t remember that Ben broke into his dance with Amy.

“I believe we did, Mr.
Throckmorton,” said Ben with an enhanced formality.

Then Ben turned and smiled at
Mattie. There was something about the smile she didn’t understand.

“I am showing Mr. Throckmorton our
spring flowers. Mr. and Mrs. Throckmorton are kindly paying us a visit after
church.”

As she turned to leave, a thought
seemed to occur to her. “I did not see you at church this morning, Sir
Benjamin.”

“That is indeed true.”

Then a serious expression wafted
over her face.

“You are not a follower of Mr.
Wesley?”

“No I did not attend church with
the followers of the Reverend Mr. Wesley.”

“You’re not a...”

“No I am not. I did not attend
church with anyone this morning. Please forgive me if I seem rude but if you
would excuse me Lady Mathilde, I wish to have a brief visit with your family.”
And looking at the gangly youth, who did indeed appear to have a tiny drop of
drool escaping his lips, Ben smiled.

“I will be delighted, Mr.
Throckmorton, to meet your parents.”

At his knock, the front door was
opened by someone he had not seen before.

“I am here to visit the Sibbridges.
I don’t mean to be impolite but I have not seen you before.”

“I am Branson, the butler. I have
been absent for the last few days. Sir Anthony and Lady Sibbridge kindly
allowed me a few days to visit Hull because of the passing of a family member.”

“Please accept my condolences on
your loss. Could you inform the Sibbridges that Sir Benjamin Anstruther is
here?”

“Ah sir, you wish to see Lady
Amaryllis. I will tell her right away.”

Why did he say that, Ben asked
himself?

“I am here to visit the entire
Sibbridge family.”

“As you say, sir,” agreed Branson,
“please wait here sir. I will return immediately.”

As he turned to leave, Amy
appeared.

“That is all right, Branson, I will
take care of things.”

The butler looked disappointed and
left.

“We
have
to talk, Sir
Anthony. Since my mother and father are entertaining the Throckmortons in the
drawing room, we will talk in the sitting room.”

“Aww,” said Ben with mock
disappointment, “I was looking forward to meeting them. I met their charming
son who was accompanied by your sister.”

There were three things he didn’t
like about the present situation. The first was that whenever Amy addressed him
as Sir Anthony it was not good. The second was that whenever Amy said We
have
to
talk it was not good. And the third was more ephemeral, but there
appeared to be a vapor of not-goodness floating in the atmosphere of Sibbridge
House this afternoon.

As soon as they entered the sitting
room she turned and coldly said: “I did not see you at church this morning.”

“Others have commented on my
absence, also. It is most gratifying that so many are concerned with my eternal
welfare.

“I am not interested in your
eternal welfare at this time,” said Amy through clenched lips, “I just wanted
to have a serious conversation with you and it would have been more convenient
this morning outside the church while mother was occupied with charming young
Reverend Howley. But that does not matter now. I just hope we are not interrupted.”

By the looks of things Ben thought
that being interrupted would not necessarily be a bad thing.

“You have a question you wish to
ask,” said Ben innocently.

“Yes, Benjamin Anstruther.”

Ben wondered what it meant that he
had been stripped of his title.

“Explain yesterday afternoon.”

“I...I don’t understand.”

“At your house, yesterday
afternoon, I met a Frenchman who told me his name is Pierre and he is your
secretary. Later, you told me that the Frenchman visiting you is named Henri
and that he is a man of trade. Does your visitor change his name every day as
well as his occupation, or perhaps you have two Frenchman at Hillfield House?
Maybe you have an entire army of Frenchmen at your house. Perhaps the Frenchman
I met in Stockley yesterday is one of your legion of Frenchmen and was making
his way to join your army. Or maybe you are all suffering from the affliction
of that young poet at Oxford, Mr. Samuel Taylor...”

“Coleridge?” he interrupted.

“One of the young men at the ball
was telling of him. He said Coleridge was addicted to Laudanum and was always
having strange visions.”

“I assure you Lady Amy,” said Ben
more amused than angry, “I have but one lonely expatriate from France, Henri
Pierre. Forgive me if I do not tell you his last name. And he is a man of trade
who is aiding me in some matters that deeply concern me, and I suppose in that
sense he could be called my secretary. You must understand that you took him by
surprise. He did not know who you were and why you were there. For all he could
tell you might have been on a mission. Henri Pierre has to be very wary of
strangers. But I explained to him that you are quite harmless.”

Amy wasn’t sure that she liked
being harmless, but could not think of any objection that wouldn’t look petty.

Ben suddenly looked serious.

“Did you say you met another
Frenchman in Stockley?”

Amy briefly told of the encounter.

“Perhaps he was just there to
stretch his legs or eat while they changed horses,” suggested Ben.

“I am pretty sure he had his
baggage unloaded from the coach.”

“Was he staying at the inn?”

“I don’t know. He marched into the
inn. He seemed annoyed at me.”

“You told him about Henri Pierre.
Did you tell him where he was residing?”

“I...I don’t think so.”

“Amy,” said Ben gravely, “I cannot
tell you anything about Pierre, and yes, that
is
his name. There are
things it is not safe for you to know. Someday, I will explain it all, but not
right now. That knowledge could expose you to great danger.”

“That is the same words as the
letter.”

“The same words as what letter?”

“The letter I told you about
yesterday. The one that was in the pouch the old sailor brought to me.” She
paused. “Wait here, I will be right back.”

After Amy left, Ben sat in a plush
chair with arms, to await her return. In the silent room he could hear sounds
from around the mansion. The great clock in the hall tick-tocked time as it
marched along, and he could hear the soft muffled sound of Lady Sibbridge and
her guests in the drawing room across the hall.

Then he thought he heard something
else that was nearer. He listened silently. There was a gentle scratching sound
from behind his chair.

“Ha! The Sibbridges have a mouse,”
he mused as he swung on to one knee on the cushion of the chair and looked over
the back to see if he could spot the small rodent and see what it was up to.”

Looking up at him was a bright
face, with two blue eyes and blonde hair.

“Aha, they do have a mouse,” he
grinned.

“H...hello, Sir Benjamin,” said
Emma.

“And what exactly are you doing
back there Miss Mouse.”

“I’m studying.”

“You know, I never can guess what
the Sibbridge sisters are going to say when I ask them a question. I find one
of them on the London road in wet clothes and she tells me she is after an old
sailor. I find another one behind a chair in the sitting room and she tells me
she is studying. What could she be studying behind a chair?”

“Upholstery,” was the hurried
reply. “I was reading about upholstery in Monsieur Diderot’s Encyclopedia of
Crafts and Trades, which Sir Frank and Lady Ramsay recently brought to my
father. I wanted to compare what he said with the upholstery work on our
chairs.”

She then launched into a
dissertation on the subject. She was cut short by a loud, penetrating voice
coming from the stairs.

“Emmaline! Emmaline Sibbridge!”

“Please don’t tell Mrs. Parkhurst
I’m here,” said Emma dropping behind the chair once again.

Having descended to the front hall,
Mrs. Parkhurst went to the drawing room, and after a few words with Lady
Sibbridge and her guests, she came over and looked in the open door of the
sitting room.

“Oh, Sir Benjamin, good afternoon.
You haven’t by any chance seen that Emmaline Sibbridge,” she asked looking
around the room with her usual severe expression.

“All I’ve seen is a little mouse,”
he replied with a hint of a smile.

“If you see her, tell her that Lady
Sibbridge just said that she must return to her lessons.”

Mrs. Parkhurst stomped out into the
front hall and the mouse started to emerge from her hiding place behind the
chair, when the sound of Mrs. Parkhurst and Amy exchanging words heralded Amy’s
return.

“Don’t tell Amy I’m here,” said
Emma dropping behind the chair again.

“Why not? I thought you and her
were best friends and confidantes,” asked Ben.

“We are normally, but I don’t want
her to think I was spying on her and her young man. I wasn’t.”

“What do you mean by
her young
man
,” said Ben indignantly. “Your sister and I are not even friends. We
almost dislike one another.”

Their conversation was cut short
when Amy entered the room.

“Did I hear you talking to
someone,” asked Amy.

“Only a mouse,” Ben replied.

Amy gave him a strange look, but
since it was Ben she saw no need of further inquiry.

“I just met Mrs. Parkhurst in the
front hall. She’s looking for Emma.”

“So I heard,” said Ben. “I wonder
where that miscreant child could possibly be now.”

“There’s no telling,” said Amy. She
gave Ben a puzzled look. She felt there was something about his manner that she
couldn’t quite pin down. And he had a knowing smirk on his face. “Anyway,” she
continued, “this is the pouch and its contents.”

Ben sat back down on the padded
chair. He landed on it as hard as possible in order to scare away any mice, or
at least surprise them. Amy handed him the pouch and he took out its contents
and examined them, first glancing over the newspaper and looking at its inside
pages. Then he read the short letter.

“None of this can be warning of the
same dangers that I warned you about. These are quite old. I’d say the letter
appears as old as the newspaper.”

“But it must be there for a reason.
Both Emma and I agree that the letter writer obviously stopped writing
abruptly. Something or someone caused that.”

“Let’s stop and think about that,”
said Ben. “If an enemy had attacked the letter writer, the attacker would have
destroyed the letter. But why did the writer stop suddenly? I can’t think of
any reason. I admit it is strange.” Ben gave the newspaper another quick
perusal. He was about to comment when Amy interrupted.

“Emma and I have examined the
newspaper closely and we see nothing in it that has any meaning to us.”

“The problem is, you don’t really
know what you’re looking for,” said Ben. “May I borrow the newspaper for a few
days to see if I can come up with something?”

“I would like you to, Ben. It is
meaningless to me. Perhaps it has no meaning. Maybe it meant something
once—twenty years ago—but means nothing today.”

He looked up at her and shook his
head.

“But somebody put out considerable
effort to deliver it to you. Why now? Why not years ago?”

So far they had ignored the locket
lying on the small table.

“Open the locket, Ben, and take a
look inside.”

He complied with Amy’s request.
When he tried to open it the front came off.

“Don’t worry,” she reassured him,
“you didn’t break it. The cover is removable as Emma and I found out. Look at
the picture.”