The Talisman Ring Read online

  ‘Free-traders, my dear, free-traders!’ replied the young man cheerfully. ‘At least, I am. Ned here is only what we call a land smuggler. You need not heed him.’

  Eustacie was so intrigued that for the moment she forgot all about the mail-coach. She had heard a great deal about smugglers, but although she knew that they were in general a desperate, cut-throat set of outlaws, she was so accustomed to her grandfather and most of his neighbours having dealings with them that she did not think their illicit trade in the least shocking. She said: ‘Well, you need not be afraid of me, I assure you. I do not at all mind that you are smug – free-traders.’

  ‘Are you French?’ asked the young man.

  ‘Yes. But tell me, why are you hiding here?’

  ‘Excisemen,’ he replied. ‘They’re on the watch. You know, the more I think of it the more it seems a very odd thing to me that you should be riding about by yourself in the middle of the night.’

  ‘I have told you: I am going to London.’

  ‘Well, it still seems very odd to me.’

  ‘Yes, but, you see, I am running away,’ explained Eustacie. ‘That is why I have to catch the night mail. I am going to London to be a governess.’

  She had the impression that he was laughing, but he said quite gravely: ‘You’ll never do for a governess. You don’t look like one. Besides, you’re not old enough.’

  ‘Yes, I am, and I shall look just like a governess.’

  ‘You can’t know anything about governesses if that’s what you think.’

  ‘Well, I don’t, but I thought it would be a very good thing to become.’

  ‘I dare say you know best, but to my mind you’re making a mistake. From all I’ve heard, they have a devilish poor time of it.’

  ‘I wish I could be a smuggler,’ said Eustacie wistfully. ‘I think I should like that.’

  ‘You wouldn’t do for a smuggler,’ he replied, shaking his head. ‘We don’t encourage females in the trade. It’s too dangerous.’

  ‘Well, I do not think it is fair that just because one is a female one should never be allowed to have any adventures!’

  ‘You seem to me to be having a deal of adventure,’ he pointed out. ‘I might easily have choked the life out of you – in fact, I may still if you don’t behave yourself. You’re in a mighty tight corner.’

  ‘Yes, I know I am having an adventure now,’ agreed Eustacie, ‘and, of course, I am enjoying it, but I should like to continue having adventures, which is a thing not at all easy to arrange.’

  ‘No, I suppose it’s not,’ said the free-trader thoughtfully.

  ‘You see, if I were a man I could be a highwayman, or a smuggler like you. I expect you have had many, many adventures.’

  ‘I have,’ said the young man rather ruefully. ‘So many that I’m devilish tired of ’em.’

  ‘But I have had only this one small adventure, and I am not yet tired. That is why I am going to London.’

  ‘If you take my advice,’ said the young man, ‘you’ll give up this notion of being a governess. Try something else!’

  ‘Well, perhaps I will be a milliner,’ said Eustacie. ‘When I get to London I shall consider carefully what is best for me to do.’

  ‘Yes, but you aren’t going to London to-night,’ he said.

  ‘I am going to-night! You don’t understand! If I do not go to-night I shall be found, and then I shall have to go to Bath to play backgammon, and be married to a person without sensibility!’

  He seemed to be much struck by this, and said seriously: ‘No, that would be too bad. We must think of something. You’ll have to stay with me, at least till Abel reports all clear, of course, but there’s bound to be a London coach through Hand Cross in the morning.’

  ‘And I tell you that in the morning it will be too late!’ said Eustacie crossly. ‘I find that you are quite abominable! You spoil everything, and, what is more, I think you are excessively impertinent, because you have taken my horse away and stolen my pistol!’

  ‘No, I haven’t,’ he replied. ‘I’ve only had your horse tethered so that he can’t stray. As for your pistol, you can have that back now if you wish,’ he added, diving his hand into his pocket and pulling out the weapon. ‘Though what in the world you want with an unloaded duelling pistol –’ He stopped suddenly, feeling the balance of the gun, and stepped into the moonlight to examine it more closely. Eustacie saw that he was very tall and fair, dressed in a common frieze coat and breeches, with a coloured handkerchief round his neck, and his pale gold hair loosely tied back from his face. He looked up from the pistol in his hand, and said sharply: ‘How did you come by this?’

  ‘Well, it is not precisely my own,’ said Eustacie. ‘It –’

  ‘I know that. Who gave it to you?’

  ‘Nobody gave it to me!’

  ‘Do you mean you stole it?’

  ‘Of course I did not steal it! I have just borrowed it because I thought it would be a good thing to take a pistol with me. Du vrai, it belongs to my cousin Ludovic, but I feel very certain that he would not mind lending it to me, because he is of all my family the most romantic.’

  The free-trader came back to her side in two quick strides. ‘Who the devil are you?’ he demanded.

  ‘I do not see what concern it is –’

  He put his hands on her shoulders and shook her. ‘Never mind that! Who are you?’

  ‘I am Eustacie de Vauban,’ she answered, with dignity.

  ‘Eustacie de Vauban…Oh yes, I have it! But how do you come to be in England?’

  ‘Well, my grandpapa thought that they would send me to the guillotine if I stayed in France, so he fetched me away. But if I had known that he would make me marry my cousin Tristram, who is not amusing, I should have preferred infinitely to have gone to the guillotine.’

  ‘I don’t blame you,’ he said. ‘Is he at the Court? If you’re running away from him I’ll do what I can to help you!’

  ‘Do you know him, then?’ asked Eustacie, surprised.

  ‘Do I know him! I’m your romantic cousin Ludovic!’

  She gave a small shriek, which had the effect of making him clap his hand over her mouth again. ‘Fiend seize you, don’t make that noise! Do you want to bring the Excisemen down on me?’

  She pulled his hand down and stood clasping it between both her own. ‘No, no, I promise I will be entirely quiet! I am so enchanted to meet you! I thought I never should, because Tristram said you could not set foot in England any more.’

  ‘I dare say he did,’ replied Ludovic. ‘But here I am for all that. You’ve only to breathe one word and I shall have Bow Street Runners as well as Excisemen on my trail.’

  She said fiercely: ‘I shall not breathe any word at all, and I think you are quite insulting to say that!’

  He put his other hand over hers. ‘Did they tell you why I can’t set foot in England?’

  ‘Yes, but I do not care. Did you kill that person whose name I have forgotten?’

  ‘No, I did not.’

  ‘Bon! Then we must at once discover who did do it,’ said Eustacie briskly. ‘I see now that this is a much better adventure than I thought.’

  ‘Do you believe me, then?’ he asked.

  ‘But certainly I believe you!’

  He laughed, and pulling her to him, kissed her cheek. ‘Well, save for Basil, you’re the only person who does.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Eustacie. ‘But me, I do not like Basil.’

  He was about to answer her when Ned Bundy loomed up through the darkness and twitched his sleeve. ‘Abel,’ he said laconically.

  Eustacie heard the crunch of a pony’s hooves on the snow and the next moment saw the pony, with a short, thickset man sitting astride the pack-saddle. Ludovic took her hand and let her up to the newcomer. ‘We