The Toll-Gate Read online

  Slightly mollified, she said: ‘It seems absurd, but do you suppose Brean’s disappearance may be connected in some way with whatever it is those two are plotting?’

  ‘Certainly I do – though in what way I must own I have not the smallest conjecture! However, it will not do to be applying the principles of commonsense to a situation which we clearly perceive to be something quite out of the ordinary, so do not tell me, ma’am, that it is fantastic to suppose that your cousin and his friend can have anything to do with a gatekeeper!’

  She smiled, but absently, saying, after a moment: ‘I thought I was indulging my fancy only, but – the thing is, Captain Staple, that I am persuaded my cousin is suspicious of you! I don’t know who told him that there was a new gatekeeper at the Crowford pike, but he knows it, and has been asking me who you are, and what has become of Brean.’

  ‘Well, that does not encourage us to think that Brean is working with him,’ John admitted. ‘On the other hand, he might be cutting a sham – making it appear, you see, as though he knew nothing of Brean. Or even being afraid of what Brean may be doing.’

  ‘No, I don’t think it is that,’ she replied, knitting her brows. ‘Coate seems not to care about it. He came into the room when Henry was questioning me, and all he said was that he had fancied you were not the man who had opened to him before, but for his part he had paid very little heed to you.’

  ‘Well, before he is much older he will be paying a great deal of heed to me,’ observed John. ‘However, you were very right not to tell him so! He is too set in his ways, and a surprise will be good for him. For anything we know, of course, he and Brean may have decided to tip Cousin Henry the double. Or – But the possibilities stretch into infinity!’

  ‘Are you funning again?’ she demanded. ‘I collect that you think it all incredible!’

  ‘Not a bit of it! You will allow, however, that in this prosaic age it is certainly unusual to find oneself suddenly in the middle of what promises to be an excellent adventure! I have spent the better part of my life looking for adventure, so you may judge of my delight. The only thing is, I wonder if I was wise to turn myself into a gatekeeper? I can’t but see that it is bound to restrict my movements.’

  ‘I must say, I can’t conceive what should have induced you to do anything so whimsical!’ she said frankly.

  ‘Oh, it wasn’t whimsical!’ he replied. ‘After I had seen you, I had to provide myself with an excuse for remaining at Crowford, and there it was, ready to my hand!’

  She gave a gasp. ‘C-Captain Staple!’

  ‘On the other hand,’ he went on, apparently deaf to this interruption, ‘I could scarcely hope to escape remark, were I to revert to my proper person, and that might put our fine gentlemen on their guard. No: setting the hare’s head against the goose-giblets, things are best as they are – for the present.’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed uncertainly, stealing a sidelong look at him.

  He urged the cob to a trot again. ‘What I must first discover is the precise nature of Coate’s business here. To tell you the truth, I can’t think what the devil it can be! If this were Lincolnshire, or Sussex, I should be much inclined to suspect the pair of them of being engaged in some extensive smuggling, and of using your house as their headquarters; but this is Derbyshire, and sixty or seventy miles from the coast, I daresay, so that won’t answer.’

  ‘And hiding kegs of brandy in the cellars?’ she asked, laughing. ‘Or perhaps storing them in one of our limestone caverns?’

  ‘A very good notion,’ he approved. ‘But my imagination boggles at the vision of a train of pack ponies being led coolly to and fro, and exciting no more interest than if they were accommodation coaches!’ They had come within sight of Crowford village, and he gave back the reins and the whip into her hands, saying: ‘And we shall excite less interest, perhaps, if you drive, and I sit with my arms folded, groom-fashion.’

  In the event, this precaution was superfluous, since the only two persons to be seen on the village street were a short-sighted old dame, and Mr Sopworthy, who was standing outside the Blue Boar, but seemed to recall something needing his attention, and had disappeared into the house by the time the gig drew abreast of it. Miss Stornaway was still wondering why he had not waited to exchange a greeting with her when she drew up before the toll-gate.

  The Captain alighted; the merchandize was unloaded, and his debts faithfully discharged. Joseph Lydd reported that only strangers had passed the gate during his absence, and got up beside his mistress. The Captain went to hold open the gate, and Miss Stornaway drove slowly forward. Clear of the gate, she pulled up again, for he had released it, and stepped into the road, holding up his hand to her. Hesitating, she transferred the whip to her left hand, and put the right into his. His fingers closed over it strongly, and he held it so for a moment while her eyes searched his face, half in enquiry, half in shy doubt. There was a little smile in his. ‘I meant what I said to you,’ he told her. Then he kissed her hand, and let it go, and with considerably heightened colour she drove on.

  Six

  Mr Lydd, observing these proceedings out of the tail of his eye, preserved silence and a wooden countenance for perhaps two minutes. Then, as the gig, rounding a bend, passed the entrance to a rough lane, leading up to the moors, he gave a discreet cough, and said: ‘Fine young fellow, our new gatekeeper, miss. I disremember when I’ve seen a chap with a better pair of shoulders on him. Quite the gentleman, too – even if he is Ned Brean’s cousin.’

  ‘You know very well that he is not, Joseph,’ said Miss Stornaway calmly. ‘He is a Captain of Dragoon Guards – or he was, until he sold out.’

  ‘A Captain, is he?’ said Joseph, interested. ‘Well, it don’t surprise me, not a bit. He told me himself he was a military man, miss, and that didn’t surprise me neither, him having the look of it. In fact, I suspicioned he might be an officer, on account of the way he’s got with him, which makes one think he’s used to giving his orders, and having ’em obeyed – and no argle-bargle, what’s more!’

  ‘When did he tell you he was a military man?’ demanded Nell.

  Under the accusing glance thrown at him, Mr Lydd became a little disconcerted. He besought his young mistress to keep her eyes on the road.

  ‘Joseph, when has Captain Staple had the opportunity to tell you anything about himself, and why did he?’

  ‘To think,’ marvelled Mr Lydd, ‘that I should have gone and forgotten to mention it to you, missie! I’m getting old, that’s what it is, and things slip me memory, unaccountable-like.’

  ‘If you have been at the toll-house, prying into Captain Staple’s business –’

  ‘No, no!’ said Joseph feebly. ‘Jest dropped in to blow a cloud, being as I was on me way to the Blue Boar! Yesterday evening, it was, and very nice and affable the Captain was. We got talking, and one thing leading to another he jest happened to mention that he was a military man.’

  ‘You went there on purpose!’ said Nell hotly. ‘Because he – because you thought – I wish to heaven you and Rose would remember that I am not a child!’

  ‘No, Miss Nell, but you’re a young lady, and seeing as Sir Peter can’t look after you no more, like you ought to be – and Rose being an anxious sort of a female,’ he added basely, ‘it seems like it’s me duty to keep me eye on things, as you might say!’

  ‘I know you only do it out of kindness,’ said Nell, ‘but I assure you it is unnecessary! You have no need to be anxious about me!’

  ‘Jest what I says to Rose, missie! Them was me very words! “We got no need to be anxious about Miss Nell,” I tells her. “Not now, we haven’t.” That, out of course, was after I come home from the toll-house.’

  Miss Stornaway, fully and indignantly conscious of the unwisdom of attempting to bring to a sense of his presumption a servitor who had held her on the back of her first pony, extricated her from difficulties in an a