The Talisman Ring Read online

  ‘Well, truly, I think it was wrong of me to save him from the riding-officer,’ confessed Eustacie, with a great air of candour, ‘but you must understand that I was under an obligation to him. One pays one’s debts, after all!’

  ‘Such a sentiment does you credit,’ said the Beau affably. ‘What was the debt?’

  ‘Oh, the most exciting thing!’ she replied. ‘I did not tell you the whole yesterday, because Sarah’s brother is a Justice of the Peace, and one must be careful, but I was captured by smugglers that night, and but for the man I saved I should have been killed. Murdered, you know. Conceive of it!’

  ‘How very, very alarming for you!’ said the Beau.

  ‘Yes, it was. There were a great many of them, and they were afraid I should betray them, and they said I must at once be killed. Only this one – the one I said was my groom – took my part, and he would not permit that I should be killed. I think he was the leader, because they listened to him.’

  ‘I never till now heard that chivalry existed amongst smugglers,’ remarked the Beau.

  ‘No, but he was not a preux chevalier, you know. He was quite rough, and not at all civil, but he had compassion upon me, and that led to a great quarrel between him and the other men. Then the riding-officers came, and my smuggler threw me up on to my horse and mounted behind me, because he said that the Excisemen must not find me, which, I see, was quite reasonable. Only the Excisemen fired at him, and he was wounded, and Rufus bolted into the Forest. And I did not know what to do, so I went to the Red Lion and asked Nye to help the smuggler, because it seemed to me that I could not give him up after he had saved me from being killed.’

  The Beau was listening with his usual air of courteous interest. He said: ‘What strange, what incredible things do happen, to be sure! Now if I had heard this tale at second-hand, or perhaps read it in a romance, I should have said it was far too improbable to bear the least resemblance to the truth. It shows how easily one may be mistaken. I, for instance, on what I conceived to be my knowledge of Nye’s character, can even now scarcely credit him with so much noble disregard for his own good name. You must possess great influence over him, dear cousin.’

  Eustacie felt a little uneasy, but replied carelessly: ‘Yes, perhaps I have some influence, but I am bound to confess he did not at all like it, and he would not by any means keep the smuggler in his house.’

  ‘Oh, the smuggler has departed, has he?’

  ‘But yes, the very next day! What else?’

  ‘I am sure I do not know. I expect I am very stupid,’ he added apologetically, ‘but there do seem to me to be one or two unexplained points to this adventure. I find myself quite at a loss to understand Tristram’s part in it. How were you able to persuade so stern a pattern of rectitude to support your story, my dear?’

  Eustacie began to wish very much that Tristram and Sarah would finish their search and come to her rescue. ‘Oh, but, you see, when it was explained to him Tristram was grateful to my smuggler for saving me!’

  ‘Oh!’ said the Beau, blinking. ‘Tristram was grateful. Yes, I see. How little one knows of people, after all! It must have gone sadly against the grain with him, I feel. He has not breathed a word of it to me.’

  ‘No, and I think it is very foolish of him,’ returned Eustacie. ‘Tristram does not wish anyone to know of my adventure, because he says I have behaved with impropriety, and it had better immediately be forgotten.’

  ‘Ah, that is much better!’ said the Beau approvingly. ‘I feel that he may well have said that.’

  This rejoinder, which seemed to convey a disturbing disbelief in the rest of her story, left Eustacie without a word to say. The Beau, seeing her discomfiture, smiled more broadly, and said: ‘You know, you have quite forgotten to tell me that your smuggler was one of Sylvester’s bastards.’

  Eustacie felt the colour rise in her cheeks, and at once turned it to account, exclaiming in shocked tones: ‘Cousin!’

  ‘I beg your pardon!’ he said, with exaggerated concern. ‘I should have said love-children.’

  She threw him a reproachful, outraged look, and replied: ‘Certainly I have not forgotten, but I do not speak of indelicate things, and I am very much émue to think that you could mention it to me.’

  He apologized profusely, but with an ironical air which made her feel rather uncomfortable. Luckily an interruption occurred before he could ask any more awkward questions. Miss Thane and Sir Tristram came into the room. Sir Tristram wore an expression of long-suffering, but in Miss Thane’s eyes there peeped an irrepressible twinkle.

  The quick, anguished glance thrown at him by Eustacie was enough to warn Shield that all was not well. He gave no sign of having noticed it, however, but waited for Miss Thane to come to the end of her eulogies and thanks. The Beau received these with smiling civility, and when they ceased, turned to his cousin, and said in a languid voice that he had been hearing more of her adventure from Eustacie. Sir Tristram quite unwittingly bore out the character bestowed on him by Eustacie by saying curtly that the sooner the adventure was forgotten the better it would be.

  ‘You are too harsh, my dear Tristram,’ said the Beau. ‘But we know how kind-hearted you are under your – er – severity.’

  ‘Indeed!’ said Shield, looking most forbidding.

  ‘Yes, yes, I have heard all about Eustacie’s smuggler, and how you helped to protect him from the riding-officers. I have been much moved. A – a connection of Sylvester, I believe?’

  Sir Tristram replied coolly: ‘Just so. I thought there would be less noise made over the affair if he were allowed to escape.’

  ‘I expect you were right, my dear fellow. How quick of you to recognize one of Sylvester’s – ah, I must not offend Eustacie’s sensibilities again! – one of Sylvester’s relations.’

  Sir Tristram was not in the least put out by this. He said: ‘Oh, I knew him at once! So would you have done. You remember Jem Sunning, don’t you?’

  ‘Jem Sunning!’ There was just the faintest suggestion of chagrin in the Beau’s voice. ‘Is that who it was? I thought he went to America.’

  ‘So did I. Apparently he found free-trading more to his taste, however. Eustacie, if you are ready to return to Hand Cross, I shall do myself the honour of escorting your carriage.’

  Bearing in mind her avowed dislike of him, Eustacie thought it proper to demur at this suggestion, and some time was wasted in argument. Miss Thane enacted the rôle of peacemaker, and finally the whole party took their leave of the Beau, and set off for Hand Cross.

  When he had handed the ladies into their chaise, and seen it drive off with Sir Tristram riding beside it, the Beau walked slowly back to the house, and made his way to the library. His face wore an expression of pensive abstraction, and he did not immediately occupy himself in any way. He wandered instead to the window and looked out over the neat beds of his formal garden. His gaze seemed to question the clipped hedges; his eyebrows were a little raised; his hand went as though unconsciously to his quizzing-glass, and began to play with it, sliding it up and down the silk ribbon that was knotted through the chased ring at the end of the shaft. At this idle employment he was found a few minutes later by his valet, a discreet, colourless person of self effacing manners and unequalled skill in all details concerning a gentleman’s toilet. He came into the room with his usual hushed tread, and laid a folded journal on the table with a finicking care that seemed to indicate the handling of some precious and brittle object.

  The Beau, recognizing these stealthy sounds, spoke without turning his head. ‘Ah, Gregg! That riding-officer.’

  The valet folded his hands meekly and stood with slightly bowed head. ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘He described mademoiselle’s groom to you, I think?’

  ‘Imperfectly, sir. He was struck by a resemblance to the late lord, but I could not discover that thi