Crossed Quills (4 page)

 Kitty’s face was ecstatic. Pippa could not bear to disappoint her little sister.

 Resigning herself to working with the disturbing Lord Selworth, she merely demurred, “Not for me, Mama. My first Season was a disaster and I do not care to repeat the experience at my advanced age, especially before an audience as critical as the
haut ton
.”

 “My love, you are much improved in both looks and address since then, and hardly at your last prayers! Still, I do not mean to carp at you. It is for you decide.”

 Kitty protested, “But it will be horridly unfair, Pippa, if you must work to pay for my pleasure.”

 “I enjoy wrestling with ideas and words, dearest,” Pippa assured her, with a smile, “much more than dancing. And very much more than sewing. If you will engage to spare me the wielding of a needle, I shall gladly wield the pen to enable you to take the Ton by storm.”

Chapter 3

 “She is as kind as she is pretty,” Chubby enthused as they turned their horses’ heads back towards the village.

 “Kind!” Wynn exclaimed. “I hardly think so. She was not at all pleased when her mama invited us to dinner, and her warnings about the inn were obviously designed to drive us away. But as for ‘as kind as she is pretty,’ I daresay you are right, for no one could call Miss Lisle pretty.”

 “Oh, Miss Lisle! It’s Miss Kitty I mean. Didn’t you notice how she went on talking to me even though I couldn’t think of any clever compliments? Not prattling on about hats and gowns, either. She has some very sound ideas on poultry management.”

 Wynn grinned. “Does she, indeed?”

 “And she let me help her with the tea, too, though most young ladies would be ashamed to admit they hadn’t enough servants.”

 “Is Miss Kitty to cook our dinner?” Wynn demanded in mock alarm.

 “I expect she is capable of it, but Sukey, their maid, does that. They have just the one maid, and her husband who is gardener and handyman, and a woman who comes in to do floors and laundry and such.”

 “My dear fellow, you disappoint me,” Wynn teased. “I was ready to allot the laundry to Mrs Lisle and the digging and wood-chopping to Miss Lisle.”

 “Are Mrs Lisle’s hands rough and red?” Chubby asked seriously. “I did not notice that Miss Lisle’s face is weathered at all. You say she is not pretty, but I did not think her ill-favoured.”

 “Lord no, she is no antidote. When animated, her face is quite fetching if rather pale, and that simple style of knotting back her hair suits her, but she would not do as the heroine of a romance, you know.”

 “Oh, your heroines must all be diamonds of the first water, though clad in rags!”

 “One must have rags. How is the hero to discern her beauty—or beauties—if not through the holes?”

 “I think,” said Chubby doggedly, “a neat, plain dress don’t hide a girl’s beauty. Miss Kitty looked very well in that yellow woollen thing she was wearing, without laces or furbelows or holes.”

 “I cry pax, old chap. Pax!” Wynn begged, laughing. “Let us stipulate that Miss Catherine Lisle is a very pretty chit, and have done. Here is our inn.”

 The Jolly Bodger was long and low, built of red brick mellowed by age to a rosy hue, criss-crossed by ancient, crooked beams. In the deepening dusk of the cloudy evening, lamplight shone from small, diamond-paned casement windows. A lantern suspended above the inn sign illuminated a faded picture of a man with an axe over his shoulder. A foaming tankard in his other hand presumably represented jollity, as well as advertising the inn’s wares. His expression was indistinguishable.

 “What’s a bodger?” Chubby asked, dismounting.

 “I’ve not the least notion, except that his trade requires an axe. A headsman, no doubt.”

 “An executioner? Hang it all, Wynn, what a grim name for an inn!”

 “As well call it the Happy Hangman or the Gay Gibbet,” Wynn agreed, smothering a smile as he hitched his hired mount to a post. “By Miss Lisle’s description, it sounds like a grim place. Still, I don’t know that that’s what a bodger is,” he added, taking pity on his easily gulled friend. “No doubt Miss Lisle will know. I’ll ask her this evening.”

 “I’ll ask the landlord tonight,” said Chubby, “before we take rooms. Be damned if I’ll be able to sleep with an executioner hanging outside my window!”

 He pushed open the creaking door, over which was written Prop. Chas. Bucket. Wynn followed him, stepping directly into the taproom.

 It was a cosy place, despite walls and ceiling blackened by centuries of tobacco and wood-fire smoke. A cheerful fire burned in the grate, its ruddy gleam reflecting from the well-polished pewter tankards in the calloused hands of the occupants. The tiny windows which would make the room gloomy in summer now kept out the chill February night.

 “It doesn’t look bad,” Wynn observed, the more convinced that Miss Lisle had done her best to drive him away.

 “Ho, landlord!” cried Chubby.

 A small, spare man in an apron came through a door at the back of the room. “Chas Bucket at your service, sir,” he said genially.

 “What’s a bodger?”

 “A bodger, sir?” Mr Bucket asked in surprise. “Why, bless your heart, sir, a bodger’s a chap what goes out in the beech woods to shape the wood rough-hewn, afore it’s took to the cabinet-makers for a-making of chairs and the like.”

 Listening, Wynn wondered why he had proposed to ask Miss Lisle, in particular, for the information. Unaware that it was a local term for a local craftsman, for some reason he had assumed she would know the answer. He could not recall anything she had said to make him suppose her to be both intelligent and well-informed, yet that was the impression he had of her.

 A false impression, possibly. What he could be certain of was her antagonism. She did not want him to work with Prometheus. In fact, she distrusted him and did not want him to discover the writer’s identity.

 She was downright protective of Prometheus. Could the fellow be a suitor she was in love with? Not the vicar, heaven forbid! Surely she could do better than that prosy bore, even if she was not a diamond of the first water.

 With an odd sense of relief, Wynn realized that whatever Prometheus was, his writings proved him no prosy bore. He didn’t like to think of her tied to Postlethwaite for life.

 If Miss Lisle loved Prometheus, no wonder she was reluctant to entrust his safety to a stranger. Wynn had done his best to reassure her. Though she had surrendered, she had remained deucedly cool, not to say frosty. Best avoid the touchy topic at dinner. What he wanted was a nice, neutral subject.

 Bodgers, for instance. Of course, in hindsight, that must be why he had offered to ask her rather than anyone else.

 The landlord was waving at a settle in the inglenook. “Tom Bowyer, there, he’s a bodger, sir. Mayhap he’ll tell you more.”

 Chubby started towards the inglenook. Wynn reached out and hauled him back.

 “All you need to know is that his trade isn’t going to give you nightmares.”

 “I’m interested,” Chubby said indignantly, “and my father will be too, if you let me find out. We don’t have bodgers in our part of the world, though a fair bit of our timber goes to the furniture workshops.”

 “My humble apologies! I didn’t realize you were in pursuit of enlightenment. Off with you, then, and I’ll sort out our accommodations.”

 “Accommodations, sir?” Chas Bucket sounded distinctly dubious.

 “Yes, we’ll need a couple of chambers for the night.”

 “Well, sir, being as how this here do be an inn, not a hedge tavern, I’m bound by law to offer accommodations to any as seeks ‘em. But the fac’ is, we’ve only got the one chamber, sir, and it ain’t fitting for gentlemen. It’s gen’rally carters and drovers what stops here, sir, and that’s the truth.”

 So Miss Lisle had not been cozening him, though it did not mean she had not been anxious to be rid of him. “Let me see it,” Wynn said cautiously.

 “I’ll call the missus.”

 Mrs Bucket was a stout, red-faced woman beneath whom the narrow stairs squawked alarmingly. She panted to the top and flung open the nearest door, standing back to let Wynn see.

 The chamber was just big enough to contain a vast bed, into which four or five drovers or carters might be fitted nose to toes, and a chest. The ceiling sloped down to a window even tinier than those below. Though not tall, Wynn could only stand upright just inside the door—not that it mattered, since that was the only unoccupied bit of floor.

 “‘Tis a good featherbed,” wheezed Mrs Bucket behind him, “and I s’ll put on clean sheets for your worships.”

 Wynn had no desire to ride on several miles to find a better hostelry, then ride back and forth again for dinner, in the dark, on unfamiliar roads, and under a sky threatening rain. He could always send word to Mrs Lisle that he and Chubby would be unable to accept her invitation after all. Yet he found he very much wanted to dine with the Lisles, to talk to Miss Lisle about matters which would not arouse her protective instincts.

 At least the chamber looked reasonably clean, whatever the state of the sheets beneath the counterpane. But, “No washstand.”

 “There do be the pump out back,” the landlady advised him.

 Wynn shivered. “Sixpence for a basin of hot water in the kitchen,” he bargained. “And another sixpence to press our evening clothes.”

 “Lor’ save you, your worship, you don’t need to dress up for scrag end o’ mutton and cold pease pudden fried up.”

 Wynn shuddered as a long forgotten nursery-rhyme returned to haunt him:

Pease pudding hot,

Pease pudding cold,

Pease pudding in the pot

Nine days old.

 “Thank you, ma’am, but we are to dine with Mrs Lisle,” he said with relief, then another horrid thought struck him. “And we’ll pay extra to have the bed to ourselves.”

 Mrs Bucket chuckled, her vast bosom billowing. “Lor’ save you, sir,” she said again, “I knows better’n to put mucky working men in wi’ gentry. We’ve had gentlemen stay afore, when poor Mr Lisle was alive. ‘Tis late in the day for carters or drovers, but any comes by, there’s allus the hayloft.”

 Coming to an agreement on terms, Wynn followed his hostess down to see the horses stabled, and to retrieve the saddle-bags and his friend.

* * * *

 Shivering in her shift, Pippa doubtfully regarded her reflection in the mirror. She had hoped the curls Kitty had laboured over with a hot iron would make her look less intellectual than her usual severe coiffure. They just made her look like someone else, not herself at all.

 “Very pretty, my love,” said her mother, coming into the small chamber, already dressed in her Sunday-best grey silk.

 “I am not trying to look pretty,” Pippa said crossly. “I just want Lord Selworth to believe I am more concerned about my appearance than my mind. But the curl is already coming out.”

 “Perhaps just one more turn,” said Kitty, reaching for the iron leaning on the grate, where glowing embers battled the draught from the ill-fitting window.

 “No, my hair is incurably straight and that is all there is to it. Thank you for your efforts, Kitty dear. I should have known it was useless. I shall just pin it up, as usual.”

 “Thread a ribbon through the braid before you knot it,” Mrs Lisle suggested. “Which gown are you going to wear?”

 “The green Circassian cloth, I suppose. I refuse to freeze for Lord Selworth’s sake.”

 “Enough of this nonsense!” her mother said sharply. “That gown does very well when we are alone, but whatever your opinion of the viscount, you will dress nicely for guests, my girl. There is a good fire in the dining parlour, and you may wear a shawl. Let me see.” She crossed to the old beechwood wardrobe.

 “Oh, the apricot poplin.” Pippa did not own so many dresses as to make the choice difficult. “I have a bit of ribbon to match. I beg your pardon, Mama, for being prickly. Lord Selworth’s interest in Prometheus has ruffled me a trifle.”

 Mrs Lisle gave her a loving smile. “I know, dearest, but truly I believe all will work out for the best. Lord Selworth seems to me too much the gentleman to give away your secret, should he guess it, and Papa would be very proud of your labour on behalf of the unfortunate. Kitty, go and dress now. I shall finish off your sister’s hair, then come to help with your fastenings.”

 While Mama’s nimble fingers braided the satin ribbon into her hair and pinned the plait into her usual topknot, Pippa pondered what she had said.

 Was Lord Selworth too gentlemanly to betray her? He was a gentleman by rank, though recently risen to the peerage (what had been his profession before?), but Papa had often pointed out the frequent gap between rank and behaviour. His daughters were not to be taken in by a title. Still, the viscount’s concern for the poor argued in his favour, and it was not just talk or he would not have sought out Prometheus.

 Unless he was a Government spy.

 Surely not! That smile which sent shivers down her spine had warmed his blue eyes in a way no spy could feign. Pippa dismissed the possibility with a shake of her head.

 “Ouch!”

 “Hold still, child, or I shall jab you again, and the whole will come down before I have pinned it securely.”

 “Yes, Mama,” Pippa said meekly.

 Her thoughts continued to wander. Assuming Lord Selworth’s stated aims were genuine, Papa would wish her to help him. She had taken up the mantle of Prometheus chiefly in tribute to her dearly loved, much admired, and greatly missed parent. Also, she acknowledged, because she was proud of her ability and enjoyed the work.

 It went without saying that she believed in Papa’s ideals, but she was afraid the plight of the voteless masses had had less influence on her decision than it ought. Without the other spurs to write for Mr Cobbett, she might have satisfied her charitable instincts with carrying soup to sick cottagers.
Not
sewing for the poor-basket.

 “I fear I am sadly selfish, Mama,” she said, chagrined.

 “How can you say so, my love?” Pushing in a last hairpin, her mother enveloped her in a warm embrace. “Your concern about giving away the identity of Prometheus is perfectly understandable, though, I trust, unnecessary. There is perhaps some little risk, but I consider it justified in view of the opportunity for your sister. And the good you may do in helping Lord Selworth, of course.”