Memoirs of a Hoyden Page 2

  “It’s a title,” the groom replied. “Kestrel’s a lord, one of the Corinthian set.”

  Oddly enough, Ronald had been urging me to ingra­tiate myself amongst the nobility. There was some dis­cussion the other night about my receiving an order for meritorious public service. Were I a gentleman, Moore felt, I would certainly have been knighted. I would have been well pleased with a lesser token of recognition. Not anything so exclusive as the Most Noble Order of the Garter, but some sovereign recognition of my accomplishments. My being a female was all that pre­vented it, according to people who know more about such things than I. Only strong noble connections could induce Prinney to reward a lady. It seems the only honor a lady may receive is a pat on the head, unless the sovereign decides to go whole hog and create her a peeress in her own right. This is about as likely as the sky falling in. In any case, I had scotched any possi­bility of Kestrel’s setting up a lobby to gain me a meritorious order.

  “How far are we from civilization?” was my next concern.

  “Chatham’s ten miles ahead.”

  “There must be something closer than that.”

  “There’s a stretch of hop farms hereabouts. You must have seen the oasthouses—them with the pointed roofs.”

  I had noticed this feature during the latter part of the afternoon. “We’ll go to one of the farms if the gentle­men can’t recover the team.”

  “They’ll not catch Maggie and Belle. Them mares like their freedom too well. Pity it’s raining so hard.”

  Mr. Wideman and Reverend Cooke joined us, and the discussion turned on their loss. Mr. Wideman fig­ured he had lost five guineas worth of toys, and the reverend lamented the loss of his book (i.e., pictures). In actual cash, he had lost only a couple of guineas.

  “How much did you lose, ma’am?” Cooke asked me.

  “I lost nothing,” I announced, and retrieved my ret­icule from behind the groom, where it had gotten wedged in below the squabs.

  “You’re lucky you had on your gloves, or they’d have pulled off that dandy ruby ring,” Wideman mentioned.

  “I have twenty-five guineas in my reticule, too,” I said, congratulating myself on its deliverance.

  “It’s strange they didn’t demand our watches,” Wideman said, massaging his generous chin. “I’ve lost two watches to the scamps.”

  “They didn’t seem to notice my reticule was missing either, but it’s my ruby ring, a present from Emir Beshyr, chief of the Druses, that I’m especially glad to have safe.”

  “Would it be amiss if I asked what a Christian lady was doing amidst such foreigners?” Wideman asked.

  I mentioned a few of my milder exploits, and at length Ronald and Lord Kestrel returned, empty-handed. “I knew how it would be,” the groom said, shaking his head. “They’ve bolted to Chatham on me.”

  “You might have told us, my good man, and saved us a highly uncomfortable slog through the mud,” Kes­trel suggested, still bored.

  The rain hadn’t let up. As the carriage was full, the new arrivals stood at the door, with their heads in out of the wet. We discussed for a moment what was best to be done. Ronald spoke of walking to the closest farm and trying to borrow a team. The groom thought the closest place likely to have horses was three miles ahead.

  “It would take hours!” I pointed out. “The rest of you may do as you please, but I intend to walk to the closest house and seek refuge.”

  Without further ado, I had Ronald unfasten my small case from the top of the rig, put my pelisse over my head like a blanket to protect my bonnet, and was ready to go. The others grumbled themselves into agreement with my idea, and together the six of us lit out into the teaming rain, peering into the shadows for a sign of more attackers.

  * * *

  Chapter 2

  There are many sorts of people in the world, and the sort with whom Ronald and I had fallen into company were the sort who hug their misery to their breasts in silence. In vain did I urge our companions to sing, and alleviate the discomfort of plodding through the dark, wet night.

  “There is a season for all things, Miss Mathieson,” Reverend Cooke said, in a damping way.

  “And this is not the season for merry song,” Lord Kestrel added, rather conclusively.

  After an hour Mr. Wideman finally opened his lips. “I’m starved,” he muttered.

  “You can afford to lose a few pounds,” I told him. The man could drop two stone and be the better for it.

  “It’s perishing cold,” Reverend Cooke added half a mile later.

  “I’m soaked through” was Kestrel’s addition to the lament. “I fear Weston’s jacket is beyond repair.”

  Even Ronald turned pessimist on me. “I haven’t been this wet since we were shipwrecked off Rhodes,” he said.

  I said nothing, but as with our shipwreck, which en­dured eight hours, my own major concern was food. In a last effort to brighten the journey, I turned to the groom. “You must be our saice, our guide, sir. How much further do you figure we must go?”

  “A long ways yet” was his uninformative reply.

  The rain was so heavy that I felt it seeping through my pelisse to dampen my shoulders. The last thing I wanted was a feverish infection, with my lecture tour set. When I spotted a dark hulk ahead of us, I pointed it out. “What is that?”

  “It looks like a hop-picker’s hut,” the groom replied.

  As we drew nearer, it proved to be slightly more than a hut. It was a small cottage, not at all prepossessing, and with no outbuildings hinting at horses, but it had a roof over it, and we all turned as one toward it. I felt a moment’s pity for the poor farmer’s wife who would have to spread her meager hospitality over so many of us. Kestrel’s concern for his jacket finally shook him out of his lethargy. He took the lead. He advanced and knocked so loudly, the door rattled. Then we waited. A moment later he knocked again, if kicking a door with a booted foot can be called knocking. Still there was no reply.

  “Are they deaf!” he exclaimed, and took hold of the handle to rattle the door loose. He strode in and bel­lowed ‘Hello’ a couple of times. There was no reply. “It’s empty,” he told us.

  This seemed to be the case. We all straggled into the pitch black, and still there was no sign of life. “We need a light,” he decided.

  “Ronald, go out and see if you can detach one of the carriage lamps,” I suggested.

  The groom went with him, and they soon returned, each carrying a lamp, which by good fortune were of the old detachable sort. The room we stood in was a combination dining and sitting room. It had a dusty deal table and two lopsided chairs, a lumpy horsehair sofa with half the stuffing on the floor, a sideboard, and a grate with a half-empty basket of wood beside it. “Does anyone know how to light a fire?” I enquired.

  The gentlemen exchanged startled looks at the sug­gestion that they should lift a finger for their own com­fort. The faces soon turned toward the groom. “John Groom is wounded. Surely one of you knows how to start a fire!” I scolded. “Ronald?” He went to the grate and dumped the container of wood in.

  “You need room for a draft, and a bit of kindling or paper to get her started,” the coachman suggested. He directed Ronald to build the wood up in a certain order. I found some old newspapers which I formed into balls while the gentlemen looked on, and with a light from the lamps, we eventually got a small, smoky fire going. We received very little heat from it, however, as we all hung our coats on the chairs to dry in front of it. This left the horsehair sofa, holding three at the most, for our only seating.

  The noble gentleman was the first to avail himself of a seat, with the vicar not a step behind him. Wideman took a look around and soon legged it to grab the other spot. I cast a disparaging glance at the three rude brutes and said to Ronald, “It is a great comfort to be sur­rounded by gentlemen at this time of difficulty. Reassuring to know their high opinion of ladies goes beyond failing to defend her during a holdup.”

  Kestrel stared at me from his c
old gray eyes, still drooping in boredom, and shuffled to his feet. “Would you care for a seat, Miss Mathieson?” he asked wear­ily.

  “Thank you, sir,” I replied, and with a frosty look, sat down, shivering and rapidly becoming weak from starvation.

  My companions seemed to have taken the notion that I was in charge of affairs, and asked what should be done. “We’ll need more firewood before long. And as this rain shows no sign of letting up, someone ought to go and see if there are any bedrooms or blankets in this shack.’’

  The cottage was only one story high. It had one bed­room in the back, empty save for a roll of tattered, foul-smelling blankets on the floor. Ronald brought them for my inspection. “Goat blankets,” I said, waving them away. I recognized the odor from Damascus. Kestrel’s nostrils quivered in distaste, and he fanned the air be­neath his nose with his curled beaver hat. Only John Groom, whose name was in fact Mostly, availed him­self of the blankets.

  “If we had some boiling water, I’d cleanse that wound properly for you, Mostly,” I told him. The gentlemen looked around the room, everywhere but to the black pot sitting by the grate. “Would someone care to see if there’s a pump in the kitchen?”

  I directed this civil request to Kestrel, who gave a silent sneer, but he went forward stiffly and took up the pot. I feared he would not clean it first, and went after him, taking a lamp with me. The kitchen was a dis­couraging sight. There was a pump in the corner and an open hearth, but they were the extent of its facilities. “That pot should be scoured before you fill it,” I told him.

  “What would you suggest I use to scour it? My bare hands? There’s no brush here.” His languid tone was becoming testy.

  “Is your handkerchief clean?”

  He pulled out an immaculate handkerchief, wet it from the pump, and rubbed it around the inside of the pot before filling the latter. He then carried the pot and hung it over the fire, which by this time was petering out. “We need more wood for the grate,” I said.

  He looked at the empty wood basket. “There doesn’t seem to be any more. Perhaps those chairs—”

  “They don’t belong to us. There must be a woodshed attached to this cottage. Let us see if they left any wood behind.”

  Kestrel leapt to attention, surprising me by the quick movement. “Aye, aye, sir!” he exclaimed, and saluted. Wideman emitted a chuckle from the sofa. I paid no heed to this puerile attempt at humor, but went back to the kitchen, Kestrel following me. We found a low door leading into a woodshed. Unfortunately, the roof leaked, so that the top wood was quite sodden.

  “No doubt you have a plan for me to dry this soaking wood?” he asked. “I’m eager to hear it.”

  His sarcasm was ignored as thoroughly as his poor attempt at humor. “That won’t be necessary. It will be drier below, if you would be so kind as to remove the top couple of layers.”

  A muscular spasm around his mouth was the only sign of revolt. Kestrel pulled away the top layer to dis­cover dry logs beneath. They were enormous pieces of tree trunk.

  “We’ll need a team of horses to get these into the living room.”

  “They’ll have to be chopped,” I pointed out reason­ably.

  “Of course,” he said, all fight gone. His elegant shoul­ders sagged to consider the chore in front of him. He inhaled slowly, looked around the shed, and found, to his dismay, a rusty axe leaning against the wall. He took it clumsily in his hands and began battering at the tree trunk. When he finally made contact with the stump, he imbedded the axe so firmly in it that he couldn’t get it out. “What now?” he asked, with a gleam of satisfac­tion, thinking he had made the job impossible of comple­tion.

  “I suggest you remove the axe blade and try again.”

  He straightened up, arms akimbo, puffing from his exertions. “My name is Lord Kestrel, ma’am, not King Arthur.”

  With one hand I gently pushed him aside and showed him how to hold the stump steady with one foot while applying pressure upward on the axe handle with both hands and jiggling to extricate the blade. This done, I passed the axe to him. “Excalibur awaits your pleasure, sir.”

  He took it without a word and raised the axe to repeat his error.

  “Excuse me,” I said, and took the axe from him. “I spent a month one winter in the Syrian desert, which to my surprise, had six inches of snow and was extremely cold. It was very pretty in summer, however, with mountains, hills, and green plains, dotted with flowers and herbs. By ‘desert’ the Syrians mean only a place without houses. In any case, I have seen the na­tives chop wood and learned how to do it.” I placed a stump in the ground, leaned the smallest log I could find against it, and aimed not for the middle of the top log, but a point a few inches in from the outside. It split with a satisfying snap, and a piece of wood flew across the room. That it happened to hit Kestrel was an accident.

  “You’d best stand back a little,” I advised, and raised the axe again. When I had chopped the first trunk into burnable pieces, I handed Kestrel the axe. “Do you think you have the knack of it now? We shall need half a dozen more logs chopped up.”

  “An impressive performance, Miss Mathieson.” He bowed, and took the axe. I collected up my pieces and went to build up the fire. From time to time Kestrel came and deposited an armful of chopped wood at my feet, like a magpie bringing chips of glitter to its mate. I did the civil thing and said, “Thank you” on each oc­casion.

  When the pile was higher than necessary, and when Kestrel was gasping from exhaustion, I said, “That will be enough for tonight. You’d best sit down or you’ll have a stroke. My, you’re not as hardy as you appear. Have you been ill, Lord Kestrel?”

  “I was feeling fine till tonight,” he said through clenched teeth. Then he went to the door and looked out. The rain was still coming down in buckets. Despite this, he took his steaming coat from in front of the fire and put it on.

  “You’re not leaving!” I exclaimed.

  “Sorry I can’t remain to kill a wild boar or a bear for dinner, or perform whatever other chores you de­sire, but I am in rather a hurry. I have every confidence you will manage without me. Good night, Miss Mathieson. It has been . . . educational meeting you.”

  He clapped his curled beaver on the side of his head and left. I figured his fit of pique might get him the length of a city block. I underestimated his stubborn­ness. He wasn’t back for half an hour, by which time he was soaked through and sneezing, and I had cleansed Mostly’s wound and got more water on to boil. “I must have walked in a circle. I ended up here again,” he said with a sheepish glance.

  “It’s difficult to navigate when the stars aren’t out,” I conceded, and took his coat to place by the fire with the others.

  The subject of dinner was at the back of all our minds. It was Wideman who gave it voice. “I wonder if there’s any food in the pantry,” he said, casting a hopeful glance at myself.

  “Why don’t you have a look?” I suggested.

  He was still looking five minutes later, by which time impatience won and I went to join him. Kestrel wan­dered out behind me. He wore an expression of doubt­ful curiosity.

  “What we’ve got is a tin of coffee and half a tin of flour,” Wideman announced. “Can you do anything with that, Miss Mathieson?”

  “Pity it weren’t a loaf and fishes,” Kestrel said. “But I have no doubt Miss Mathieson will contrive a meal from that inauspicious beginning.”

  “We can have coffee at least.”

  “With no milk and sugar?” Wideman asked, of­fended.

  “If you would care to run along to Chatham and do some shopping, sir, we can have milk and sugar with it. You might as well pick up some bacon and eggs while you’re there.”

  I took the tin of coffee and rattled through the cup­boards, looking for cups and a coffeepot. I found an old enameled pan, put the coffee in it and poured the boiling water from the grate on top. That was our din­ner, served in wretched old chipped cups without han­dles. It tasted very good, too.
I was accustomed to taking my coffee straight in my travels. At least it was hot.

  “I could go for a beefsteak right about now,” Mr. Wideman said, licking his lips.

  Kestrel nodded in sympathy. “I had some hope Miss Mathieson could bake us up a few loaves from that tin of flour, as I’m sure is done in the deserts of Arabia.”

  “Of more importance,” the vicar announced, “is how we are to spend the night. I suggest we give Miss Mathieson the bedchamber, and we gentlemen roll up here in these smelly blankets before the fire. That weather isn’t fit for man nor beast.”

  “Very kind of you, Reverend,” I said, “but you may take the freezing bedchamber. I’ll sleep on the floor by the grate with the rest of them.”

  “But you’re a lady!”

  “And you all, I trust, are gentlemen?” My scathing glance included even Mostly, who sat on the floor like a dog, scratching his ear.

  “We are none of us brave enough to molest Miss Mathieson,” Kestrel announced, with an unnecessarily sly grin at my predicament. “I suggest we give her the sofa, while we all roll up in our coats and sit out the storm. If anyone is able to sleep under such conditions, more power to him. I shall be awake, and will under­take to guard Miss Mathieson’s honor—with axe, if necessary.’’

  “Take note of that, gentlemen. I promise you, if once Lord Kestrel imbeds the blade in your head, it is there forever.’’

  We were all too tired and hungry to argue. I lay down on the sofa with my damp pelisse over me, and soon the men gathered around the grate, trying to get com­fortable. For an hour I lay awake, wondering why I couldn’t sleep in the relative comfort of this cottage. I had slept under worse conditions, often on the ground, surrounded by Arabs who would as soon slit your throat as steal your gold. What I mean is that it wasn’t the discomfort, and certainly not fear of being molested by any of these tame fellows, that kept me awake.

  I kept thinking of the highwaymen, and the lackadai­sical way they had robbed us. Surely professional ban­dits would have taken our watches and rings. They would have remembered my reticule. They wouldn’t have kissed my hand, and called me mam’selle. That “mam’selle” hinted at French attackers.