The Miser's Sister (8 page)

From the smell of his vehicle, the grinning carter had taken a load of fish to market. Letty wrinkled her nose, but accepted a helping hand to climb up. Ruth would far rather have walked, only she could not leave her sister alone. She scrambled in and settled herself between a pair of brand new lobster pots.

“Thank you,” she said. “We are going to visit a Mr Polgarth. Do you know him?”

“Oh aye. Him and his hot air balloons and Crazy Auntie.”

Ruth, who had heard all about Auntie from Oliver, was undismayed.

“Ye’ll be relatives?”

“No, we are just going to stay for a few days until a friend comes to fetch us.”

“Come from Camelford, have ye? Well, ye must’ve, for that’s the only
...
” Taking his eyes from his huge horse, the carter scrutinised them. “T’ain’t, either,” he said slowly, shaking his head. “Zo ye’ve finally up and left, little lady. Nay, don’t be afeard, I’ll not tell.”

He turned back to guiding his horse, who seemed to know the way well enough. From time to time he could be heard to mutter such things as “zin and a shame”, “mad miser”, and “Trelawney’s curse.” Ruth took the latter to be a reference to the first earl’s part in hanging the Cornish hero after the Monmouth Rebellion.

Letty soon recovered from her unwonted exertions and began to grumble,
sotto voce
, about the smell, which seemed indeed to grow overpowering. She suggested that they resume their walk, but Ruth was anxious not to offend the carter who had recognised them.

“You have made your bed, now you must lie in it,” she whispered sharply.

“It’s none of my making,” retorted Letty. Fortunately, at that moment they rounded a bend and below them spread the grey slate roofs of Port Isaac and the stormy green sea. Absorbed in the sight, Letty dropped her quarrel.

Soon they pulled into the courtyard of the Scrimshaw Inn. The carter, it appeared, was the son of mine host, a spry old fellow with crabapple cheeks.

“Gave these young women a ride from Camelford, Pa,” he announced, with a heavy wink at Ruth. “Boy! Show the way to Auntie’s, and mind you’m polite!”

“Thank you very much,” said Ruth gratefully. He winked again with a conspiratorial grin, and she managed a creditable wink in return, which sent him into guffaws.

As she turned to follow Letty and the boy, Ruth heard him say to Pa, “She’m a proper lady, the little brown un.”

“How can you be so familiar with an odious yokel!” hissed Letty as they hurried after the urchin.

Ruth did not trouble to answer, and Letty was soon too busy wondering at the maze of Port Isaac to say more. They were breathless when they drew up before a neat, whitewashed cottage. Their guide banged heartily on the door, and then dashed off the way they had just come. Before Ruth had time to do more than wish she had been able to give him a penny, the door opened.

A buxom maid in a white cap and apron scrutinised them. She was evidently about to ask their business, when over her shoulder appeared an elderly face, spectacled and crowned with thick grey braids.

“You’re come at last!” cried Auntie, delighted. “Well, Martha, move aside and let them in, girl. My dear children, welcome.”

She hugged and kissed the bewildered and overwhelmed sisters.

“You know who we are then, ma’am?” asked Ruth shyly.

“Of course, my dear, of course. A certain gentleman, who shall be nameless, told me all about you. And that same gentleman intimated that you might wish to remain incognito, so I have been at some pains to think of suitable aliases. You, my dear, shall be Miss Priscilla Cholmondsley-Smythe, and your sister, Miss Arabella. Is not that clever?”

“It is indeed, ma’am
...
”

“Auntie, Auntie, pray call me Auntie!”

“Those are excellent names, Auntie.” Ruth’s shyness had by now been overcome by amusement. Letty, meanwhile, had seated herself by the window and was looking out sulkily into Dolphin Street. “Only do you not think,” suggested Ruth, “that we should perhaps have less aristocratic aliases? I should happily call myself Mary Smith.”

“That would never do,” said Auntie decidedly. “There is nothing, simply nothing, so liable to arouse suspicion as a person named plain Smith. I take your point though, my dear. Here, I have a list of possibilities. Pray peruse it and make your choice.”

Auntie had apparently discarded a score of names before settling on Priscilla Cholmondsley-Smythe. Ignoring her sister’s crotchets, Ruth called her over to help choose. Soon they were giggling over such gems as Persephone Arbuthnot and Ekaterina Dachikoff.

“In case you should wish to be thought foreign,” explained Auntie, not in the least offended.

Letty rather fancied herself as Lavinia Streathamstead, but in the end Ruth prevailed and they were newly christened ‘Jane and Louisa Bailey’.

“Very good,” Auntie approved. “A step above Mary Smith yet not likely to draw attention. We will tell people you are my nieces. I am always happy to discover new nieces, you know.”

Martha was heard to snort in the kitchen.

By the time Bob Polgarth returned from the barn he rented to house his balloon, ‘Jane’ and ‘Louisa’ had long been settled in his chamber. Letty was reconciled to her strange hostess, whose humble abode she was honouring with her presence. Ruth felt some qualms about having displaced their host, and wondered if he would be very angry. She apologised as soon as the introductions had been made.

“Pleasure to help a friend of Oliver’s,” he muttered, his face scarlet, and dashed into the kitchen to wash for dinner.

The meal was a simple one, consisting of a pea soup, grilled mackerel, lamb chops with mint sauce, and apples, with plenty of fresh baked bread. To Ruth and Letty, it seemed a veritable feast, used as they were to the skimpiest of fare, and badly cooked at that. The company was an equally great improvement, as even Letty later acknowledged.

Auntie, always cheerful, continually confused their new names, but Ruth suspected that she would have done the same with the originals. Far from asking inquisitive questions, she ignored the unexplained reasons for their arrival, and entertained them with a caustic commentary on the ways of Cornish fisherfolk.

“However,” she admitted with a sigh, “I am very fond of all of them.”

Bob was silent until Ruth tactfully introduced the subject dearest to his heart. Both young ladies found the idea of flying through the air fascinating. Letty lost interest when their host entered upon technical matters, but Ruth, remembering Oliver’s penchant for engineering, eagerly absorbed the details and requested elucidation. In fact, she found she had a genuine interest in the subject, which Mr Polgarth was unable to satisfy. He could describe the apparatus by which inflammable gas was to be produced to fill his balloon, but was ignorant of the theories behind it.

“Daresay Oliver knows,” he told her, and she resolved to find an opportunity to ask that gentleman.

The spring flight in which the Pardoes were investing was to be an attempt to fly from Land’s End to John o’ Groats. Bob explained that he actually intended to ascend from the summit of Brown Willy, which was both closer to home and higher.

“Also,” he added, “there is less chance of being swept out to sea, as happened to Zambeccari in Bologna in ‘03. If there is any mishap we shall come to earth on the moor, an ideal place to land, as it has no trees to entangle the balloon.”

“It sounds monstrous dangerous,” said Letty with a shudder.

“Who will make the journey with you?” asked Ruth.

“Oliver insisted on coming as the price of his investment. He does not believe in the future of balloons as transportation, but he viewed Mr Sadler’s ascent in London last year and is anxious to try it for himself.”

Ruth was silent. It sounded like a very hazardous undertaking.

* * * *

By the evening of their third day in Port Isaac, Letty was feeling decidedly offended that Godfrey had apparently not set up a search for them. Ruth was beginning to worry that Oliver had not yet arrived.

All sorts of possibilities flitted through her head. The letter might not have reached him. Perhaps he was not at home when it arrived. Had her uncle refused to give them a home? Could it be, horrid thought, that Oliver no longer wished to come to her aid? Worst of all, perhaps he had set out and had met with some dreadful accident.

She did not confide her fears to Letty, trying as usual to protect her sister from distress. However, she mentioned some of her thoughts to Auntie, in the course of apologising for their prolonged stay. She had already grown very fond of the old lady, but besides being tiny, the household was not oversupplied with money, and she could not help but feel that they were imposing on their kind hosts.

Auntie brushed aside her apologies and her worries.

“The mail is always delivered on time,” she declared, firmly if over-optimistically. “Remember, child, that it is a good two hundred miles from London to Launceston, and thirty more to Port Isaac. I daresay your sweetheart will spend tonight in Launceston and be here on the morrow.”

Ruth blushed and disclaimed.

However, at least part of this speech was proven correct, for the next day at noon there was a hammering at the door, which generally betokened the arrival of the boy from the Scrimshaw Inn, and in stepped Oliver.

Even as he bowed over Auntie’s hand and kissed the cheek she proffered, his eyes sought Ruth’s face. She was standing with her back to the window, and he was unable to make out her expression.

“My lady
...
I hope
...
I am sorry
...
” he began, with an unwonted lack of assurance.

“No ladies here,” scolded Auntie, interrupting. “Permit me to present you to my nieces, Miss Louisa Bailey and Miss Jane Bailey. Oh dear, now should it be the other way about?”

“I am Louisa,” corrected Letty as the others laughed. Jane was far too common a name for her. She pushed forward past Ruth. “How do you do, Mr Pardoe. How delightful to see you again. When shall we go to London?”

Oliver was unable to greet Ruth properly, but conversation flowed easily. He assured Letty that they should start the very next morning, and told them that he had left his chaise in Launceston and ridden over so as to arrive early.

“I shall stay tonight at the Scrimshaw Inn,” he explained, “and hire a vehicle there tomorrow. Lady
...
Miss Bailey, might I have a word with you?”

Auntie would not permit them to retire to a bedchamber, and Letty balked at being exiled above stairs, so they strolled together down to the harbour. In spite of his words, Oliver was silent at first, and Ruth wondered what it was he wanted to say.

He spread his coat on a low stone wall in the sun, and they sat down.

“Lady Ruth,” he opened, “I am sorry to have to tell you that your uncle and aunt are gone to Paris until February. Do not be uneasy, I have an alternative to propose. Pray read this.”

The letter, signed by both his mother and his sister, expressed an earnest wish that Lady Ruth and her sister should regard the Pardoe house as their refuge for as long as it should prove convenient. A postscript, signed by Rose, assured Ruth that it was her dearest wish to meet the heroine who had shared Oliver’s adventure.

Ruth looked up with tears in her eyes.

“You are not offended?” asked Oliver anxiously. “It is not fitting that the sisters of an earl should live in the City, but it will be only for a few weeks. I did not tell my family anything that might embarrass you, I promise. Do you feel able to tell me what persuaded you to leave Penderric? Your letter did not specify.”

“Mr Pardoe, I have been wishing to meet your family since you told me about them. It is amazingly kind of your mother to invite us. We have no conceivable claim on her hospitality, but what else can we do? I cannot return to the castle.”

“What happened, Ruth?”

“He
...
he attacked me with a knife.” She displayed her scarred palm. “And then I think he tried to drop a block of stone on me. Why is he doing this, Oliver?”

He took her injured hand in both his.

“I don’t know his reasons, but I feared something like this. I cannot tell you my suspicions now, they are not founded on any solid evidence. Come with me to London, leave all this behind you, at least for now.”

“Thank you,” she said, with the trusting look he remembered from the cave. “We will come.”

Chapter 8

Letty was in alt.

“Only think of all the parties, Ruth, and balls and ridottos and masquerades!” she cried. “You are not such a disagreeable sister after all, I vow. Let us leave at once!”

“Mr Pardoe has been on the road for days,” chided Ruth. “We will go when he is ready. I shall be sorry to say goodbye to Auntie and Mr Polgarth. They have been so very kind to us.”

“Indeed, Lady Laetitia, London is not going to run off if we keep it waiting,” pointed our Oliver. “I must go to Boscastle this afternoon, but as you are so anxious for it, we shall depart tomorrow.”

“We can perfectly well wait another day,” Ruth assured him. “You must be tired after travelling such a distance.”

“You must think me a poor, weak creature,” he teased. “If I am unable to stand up to a week or so in a well-sprung chaise, however shall I manage six hundred miles in a balloon?”

“It would be an excellent idea if you did not try,” she answered with asperity.

“I doubt if it will go farther than twenty miles,” put in Bob gloomily. He was having trouble with the envelope.

That afternoon Oliver rode over to Boscastle to repay Mr Trevelyan’s loan. The elderly justice and his wife were delighted to see him and asked after Lady Ruth.

“She is looking very well,” he told them. “She says that a few days of Auntie’s care and Martha's cooking have accomplished wonders. After our mutual experiences I have a high opinion of her strength and endurance, but in spite of young Letty, there is no hurry to reach London, and we shall go by easy stages. What news of the smugglers’ trial?”

“The old man laid evidence against the two we didn’t pick up, and we nabbed them,” said Mr Trevelyan. “Five of them were sentenced to transportation, and Jem Blount, as the leader, was to be held over till Assizes. When he found out it was a hanging matter, he changed his mind and told us all about Captain Cleeve. He was the only one who ever saw the captain, who was the mastermind, it seems. So Jem will be held a while longer, to see if this Cleeve is caught, and then he’ll be off to Botany Bay with the rest.”