The Toll-Gate Read online

  ‘Oh, he’s not a poor man! Whatever put that into your head?’ said Rose airily. ‘Didn’t Mr Brean ever tell you how one of his aunts married a man that was in a very good way of business? I forget what his name was, but he was a warm man, by all accounts, and this young fellow’s his son.’

  Mrs Skeffling shook her head wonderingly. ‘He never said nothing to me about no aunts.’

  ‘Ah, I daresay he wouldn’t, because when she set up for a lady she didn’t have any more to do with her own family!’ said the inventive Rose. She added, with perfect truth: ‘I forget how it came about that he mentioned her to me. But this Mr Jack – being as he’s got his discharge, and not one to look down on his relations – took a fancy to visit Mr Brean. He’s just been telling me so.’

  ‘But whatever made Mr Brean go off like he has?’ asked Mrs Skeffling, much mystified.

  ‘That was where it was very fortunate his cousin happened to come to visit him,’ said Rose, improvising freely. ‘It seems he was wanting to go off on some bit of business – don’t ask me what, because I don’t know what it was! – only, being a widower, and not having anyone fit to mind the gate for him, he couldn’t do it. So that’s how it came about – Mr Jack, being, as you can see, a good-natured young fellow, and willing to do anyone a kindness.’

  This glib explanation appeared to satisfy Mrs Skeffling. She said: ‘Oh, is that how it was? Mr Sopworthy took a notion Mr Jack was gammoning us. “Mark my words,” he says, “it’s a bubble! It’s my belief,” he says, “he’s one of them young bucks as has got himself into trouble.” What he suspicioned was that maybe there was a fastener out for him, for debt, very likely; or p’raps he up and killed someone, in one of them murdering duels.’

  ‘Nothing of the sort!’ said Rose sharply. ‘He’s a very respectable young man, and if Mr Sopworthy was to set such stories about it’ll be him that will find himself in trouble!’

  ‘Oh, he wouldn’t do that!’ Mrs Skeffling assured her. ‘What he said was, however it might be it wasn’t no business of his, and them as meddled in other folks’ concerns wouldn’t never prosper. Setting aside he took a fancy to Mr Jack. “Whatever he done, he ain’t no hedge-bird,” he says, very positive. “That I’ll swear to!” Which I told him was sure as check, because Miss Nell knows him for a respectable party, and said so to me with her own lips. So then,’ pursued Mrs Skeffling, sinking her voice conspiratorially, ‘Mr Sopworthy stared at me very hard, and he says to me, slow-like, that if so be Mr Jack was a friend of Miss Nell’s it wouldn’t become no one to start gabbing about him, because anyone as wished her well couldn’t but be glad if it should happen that a fine, lusty chap like Mr Jack was courting her, and no doubt he had his reasons – the way things are up at the Manor – for coming here secret. Of course, I don’t know nothing about that, which I told Mr Sopworthy.’

  She ended on a distinct note of interrogation, her mild gaze fixed hopefully on her visitor’s face. Miss Durward, who had been thinking rapidly, got up with a great show of haste, and begged her not to say that she had ever said such a thing. ‘I’m sure I don’t know what Mr Sopworthy can have been thinking about, and I hope to goodness he won’t spread such a tarradiddle! Now, mind, Mrs Skeffling! I never breathed a word of it, and I trust and pray no one else will!’

  ‘No, no!’ Mrs Skeffling assured her, her eyes glistening with excitement. ‘Not a word, Miss Durward, ma’am!’

  Satisfied that before many hours had passed no member of a small community affectionately disposed towards the Squire’s granddaughter would think the presence in her gig of the new gatekeeper remarkable, and reckless of possible consequences, Miss Durward took leave of Crowford’s most notable gossip, and departed. She found John passing the time of day with the local carrier, and concluded, from such scraps of the dialogue as she was privileged to overhear, that he was making excellent progress in his study of the vulgar tongue. She told him, as soon as the carrier had driven through the gate, that he should think shame to himself, but rightly judging this censure to be perfunctory he only grinned at her, so endearing a twinkle in his eye that any misgivings lingering in her anxious breast were routed. She then put him swiftly in possession of such details of his genealogy as her fertile imagination had fabricated, and adjured him to drum these well into Ben’s head.

  ‘I will,’ he promised, enveloping her in a large hug, and planting a kiss on one plump cheek. ‘You’re a woman in a thousand, Rose!’

  ‘Get along with you, do, Mr Jack!’ she commanded, blushing and dimpling. ‘Carrying on like the Quality, and you trying to hoax everyone you’re Brean’s cousin! You keep your kisses for them as may want them!’

  ‘I don’t know that anyone does,’ he said ruefully.

  ‘Well, I’m sure I can’t tell that!’ she retorted tartly. ‘Now, don’t forget what I’ve been telling you!’

  ‘I won’t. What is my father’s name, by the by?’

  ‘Gracious, I can’t think of everything!’

  ‘Didn’t you give him one? Then I think I’ll keep my own. I daresay there are many more Staples in England than ever I heard of. Tell me this! In what way can I be of service to your mistress?’

  The dimple vanished, and her mouth hardened. She did not answer for a minute, but stood with her gaze fixed on the gatepost, her face curiously set. Suddenly she brought her eyes up to his face, in a searching look. ‘Are you wishful to be of service to her?’ she demanded.

  ‘I never wished anything so much in my life.’

  He spoke perfectly calmly, but she was quick to hear the note of sincerity in his deep, rather lazy voice. Her lip quivered, and she blinked rapidly. ‘I don’t know what’s to become of her, when the master dies!’ she said. ‘She and Mr Henry are the last of the Stornaways, and it’s him that will have Kellands, not her that’s looked after it these six years past! Long before the master was struck down it was Miss Nell that was as good as a bailiff to him, and better! It was she that turned off all the lazy, good-for-nothing servants that used to eat master out of house and home, let alone cheating him the way it was a shame to see! Scraping, and saving, breeding pigs for the market, leasing this bit of land and that, and bargaining for the best price her own self, like as if she was a man! And when master took ill, she sold the pearls her poor mother left her, and every scrap of jewelry she had from Sir Peter in the days when he was still in his prime, and there wasn’t one of us knew how deep he was in debt. Everything she could she sold, to keep off the vultures that came round as soon as it got to be known Sir Peter was done for! All Sir Peter’s lovely horses – and I can tell you he had hunters he gave hundreds of guineas for, and a team he used to drive which all the sporting gentlemen envied him – and her own hunters as well, with her phaeton, and Sir Peter’s curricle, and the smart barouche he bought for her to drive in when she went visiting – everything! There’s nothing in the stables now but the hack she rides, and the cob, and a couple of stout carriage horses which she kept for farm work mostly. There wasn’t a soul to help her, barring old Mr Birkin, that lived out Tideswell way, and was a friend of the master’s, and he’s been dead these eighteen months! Mr Henry never came next or nigh the place. He knew that there was nothing but the title and a pile of debts to be got out of it! But he’s here now, Mr Jack, and it seems he means to stay! If he’d more heart than a hen, I’d call him a carrion-crow – except that I never saw a crow hover round where there was nothing more to be picked over than a heap of dry bones! I don’t know what brings him here, nor I wouldn’t care, if he hadn’t got that Mr Coate along with him! But that’s a bad one, if ever I saw one, sir, and he’s living up at the Manor like he owned it, and casting his wicked eyes over Miss Nell till my nails itch to tear them out of his ugly face! Miss Nell, she’s not afraid of anything nor of no one, but I am, Mr Jack! I am!’

  He had listened in silence to what he guessed to be the overflowing of pent-up anxieties, but when she paused, uncons