Страница 40 из 56
Half-way down the stairs Aunt Agatha whispered to Cicely behind her fan: ‘Doctor Syn is looking so handsome now that I vow I shall steal some of your dances with him, for my other two beaux will never attend. Perhaps it is as well, for I never told your dear Mamma that I’d invited them and one could hardly expected poor Tony to approve.’
Cicely whispered back: ‘Then you are the only other woman who shall dance with him tonight. Even so, ma’am, I am not sure that I shall trust you.’ She gave her aunt’s hand a squeeze as they reached the foot of the stairs. The old lady returned it like the arch conspirator she was and then was claimed by the company.
Since this was merely an informal di
Cicely, sitting between Major Faunce and Sir Henry, wished that the Major would pay more attention to Maria and that old Sir Henry would not tell her so many anecdotes of his young days. Across the table through the branches of the silver candelabra she could see Christopher, neatly dodging her mother’s domestic barbs and concentrating his attention on Aunt Agatha, which lady directed across the table to her favourite niece a wink worthy of Mr. Mipps himself.
With the dismissal of the servants after each course the conversation became easy and natural, and unhampered by necessary caution, since the chief topic was the strange happenings in the cells that morning. Sir Antony was in fine fettle, cock-a-hoop taht he was to ride to London the next morning to visit Mr. Pitt. He became so naughtily pompous that one might have thought he had done the whole thing single-handed. He even so far forgot himself as to round on Doctor Syn and to expound to him the very theory which he himself had laid down that morning. The Vicar could not help laughing when Sir Antony, booming his arguments across the table to Sir Henry, ended up with: ‘Much as I disapprove of him I think I’m right in saying that he has struck here a blow for England.’ Having delivered this piece of borrowed oratory, he infuriated Lady Caroline still further by monopolizing the conversation and the wine, giving vivid descriptions the while of what he would or would not say to Mr. Pitt. In point of fact he knew quite well that when he eventually did see Mr. Pitt he would as usual be completely tongue-tied, so he took this glorious opportunity of airing the views he knew he would forget. He pardoned the Scarecrow a dozen times and then condemned him again, until Sir Henry, also a Justice of the Peace, cried out: ‘But you can’t condemn the rascal, Tony. Don’t you see the Crown must have him for a witness, and ex necessitate rei, if you follow me?’
‘Of course — of course,’ put in Tony, who didn’t at all. ‘Then he must and will be pardoned.’
Here, much to everyone’s astonishment and Aunt Agatha’s delight, the quiet voice of Cicely broke in upon the gentlemen. ‘Has it occurred to any of us that he may not want a pardon? For my part I do not think he does. Nor do I think he will come forward.’
But Major Faunce was inclined to agree with Cicely. ‘Though,’ he said, ‘I have a theory that my brother shares with me, that the Scarecrow is none other than the famous Captain Clegg, believed by some to have been hanged at Rye, and buried in the churchyard here.’
Cicely knew that she dared not move lest she betray herself. Nor did she trust herself to look at Christopher, but sat, her heart contracted in the grip of deadly fear, while Faunce beside her went on doggedly: ‘If this is true then it will be worth his while to stand as witness, for then his pardon would be doubled. But can they do it? Can they pardon a high-seas pirate?’
Sir Antony was emphatic on this point. ‘The Crown can pardon anyone it pleases — but they’ve got to prove he was Clegg and how would you set about that?’
The calculating voice of the soldier answered. ‘Because, me dear sir, the mark of Clegg is on his arm, an old tattoo mark. A picture on his right forearm of a man walking the plank with a shark beneath.’
Here Maria broke in excitedly: ‘But that was the picture on the arm of the man who rescued us from Paris and —’
There was a sudden sharp splintering of crash and Cicely’s glass shattered against the candelabra, spilling its red wine over the table. She was profuse in her apologies, but she had achieved her object, for by the time all was quiet again after the dabbings and the moppings-up, people were wondering what they had been talking about, and started afresh. All but Faunce, who sat silent and stubborn beside her.
Cicely was pale, but the set of her chin was determined and she now looked round as though challenging anyone to reopen the subject. Two people alone noted this and loved her the more. Aunt Agatha and Christopher Syn. But Maria would not be put off, and turning to her sister, continued: ‘You seem to forget what I saw in Hythe this morning, Cicely. I don’t think the Scarecrow is as wonderful as all that, since there is one spy he has not caught.’ Now everyone was all attention to Maria she glanced triumphantly at her sister and went on: ‘I know he is a spy and a very dangerous one, since it was he who forced my poor Jean to do all those terrible things, and then betrayed him. And then you know what happened.’ Here she became tearful and was about to tell Major Faunce how her young foolish husband had been denounced and guillotined when Doctor Syn, as though to change the painful subject, spoke to her across the table. ‘Dear me, I wish I had known you were going into Hythe, Maria, dear child. I would have asked you to do a little errand for me. To call in at Mr. Joyce the saddler for a pair of blinkers that I ordered for my churchyard pony. I fear she is getting beyond my control — she actually unseated me the other day — having caught sight of the Beadle.’ Cicely alone noticed the gleam in his eye and hurriedly looked away for fear of laughing outright. The Squire was about to say that he quite agreed with the pony — but the Vicar continued, ‘But there, I beg your pardon. You were telling us something interesting. What you saw in Hythe, was it not?’
Maria was delighted that the Vicar had for once deigned to notice her, and broke off, without so much as asking the Major’s pardon, to answer him: ‘Oh, dear Doctor Syn, did I not tell you? ’Twas while Mamma and Cicely were in the Bo
It was at that moment that Lady Caroline, thinking that her daughters had taken too much license in the conversation, and seeing a restive look in Sir Antony’s eye, which meant one thing only — port — rose to her feet, and the other ladies followed suit and accompanied her to the drawing-room.
Aunt Agatha’s eagle eye had not missed any of Cicely’s reactions, and she felt strangely protective towards her now she knew what the girl was faced with. She applauded the deliberate action that Cicely had taken in silencing Maria, and vowed she would not rest until she had probed this disquieting problem further. For what at first had seemed to her the Overture to an ordinary though charming Romance, now took on an almost menacing air and her fey Scots instinct told her that something vital was unfolding before her very eyes.
So she waited opportunity to draw Cicely aside, and taking both her hands in a surprisingly firm grip told her to be of stout heart, and that she was with them whatever might befall. Her Highland home was at their disposal, and, if they had to take the journey hurriedly, why, then, Gretna Green could be taken on the way. From the strong fingers of the little old lady into Cicely’s hands, then through her very veins, there seemed to flow some of the virile fighting spirit of the Gordons, for her chin went up and her eyes lost the haunted look that had clouded them during that period at di