Red Sky at Night, Lovers' Delight Page 15

  But Joe was too much surprised at not finding his mistress alone to do more than gawp at her as he announced that young Mr. Penfold was asking if he might see her.

  John Penfold was a badly frightened young man. “I’m right glad you’re here, sir,” he told Kate, after the first greetings. “You’ve got some influence with those madmen down at Tidemills! Can you persuade them to lay off me? Just till Lord Hawth gets back and I can try and get him to let me settle on some other part of the estate. Without his good word, no parish will have me, but if I stay at Tidemills, I’m a dead man, and then what will happen to my mother and poor Lucy?”

  “A dead man?”

  “Yes, sir. Could I speak with you alone, sir? Excusing me, ma’am?”

  “Come into the next room.” Ignoring her mother’s horrified expression, Kate led the way into a little book-room that opened off the drawing-room. “Yes?” She leaned negligently against the back of a chair, grateful for the half darkness of the room, which was lighted only from the drawing-room door.

  “They want to twist me in, sir! To make me one of them. They’re all in it, down there! Blood-red revolutionaries, with smuggling as a cover. And they need the shop, see, to stow the run goods. There’s nowhere else down at Tidemills. They’ve been at me and at me since I took over the shop, but, lucky for me, the weather’s been too bad for any goods to be landed. They’ve given me one more week, and then it’s join them or die. They mean it all right, sir.” Kate had given a little exclamation of disbelief. “Look!” He held his right hand into the stream of light from the door, and Kate, leaning forward, could see the red weal of a burn across its back. “They did this to convince me, they said. Took me to the forge. Held it against a red-hot ploughshare. Promised me a slow death if I wouldn’t join them. They surely mean it. And what they’d do to my mother and Lucy don’t bear thinking of. Please, will you speak for me, sir?”

  “Not to them,” said Kate. “It would be to sign your death warrant.”

  He groaned. “You’re right. I hadn’t thought!”

  “But I’ll send a messenger to Lord Hawth.”

  “No need!”

  Kate started at the sound of Hawth’s voice from the doorway. Entirely occupied with John Penfold’s alarming story, she had not noticed the stir in the room next door. “I seem to have arrived pat on my cue,” Hawth went on. “Good evening, Mr. Warrender. You pay your calls at odd hours.”

  “Well—” Kate instinctively withdrew a little further behind the sheltering chair—“come to that, my lord, so do you. And I, after all, am of the family. Besides, Mrs. Warrender sent for me.”

  “So she tells me.” Hawth’s tone was dry. “What I do not rightly understand is why.”

  “It’s John Penfold.” Kate hurriedly told him the young man’s story.

  “Twisted in!” Hawth interrupted at one point. “The whole secret society rigmarole? Did they tell you how it was done?”

  “No, my lord.” Penfold sounded more frightened than ever. “That was for next week.”

  “A pity.” He listened in silence to the rest of the story, and said at last, “Well, it’s clear you can’t go back there. Unless I can persuade you to let them twist you in, and then keep me informed of their plans?”

  “I couldn’t, sir! I plumb couldn’t!” Penfold held out his burned hand in mute witness. “Besides, there’s my ma and Lucy. What would become of them, happen I was caught? Or if I don’t go back tonight, for that matter.”

  “That’s easily answered.” Hawth was at his most decisive. “I’m having you arrested, right now—let’s think—for poaching? Caught in the park, what else could you be doing? Who caught you, I wonder? Did you, Mr. Warrender?”

  “No,” said Kate hurriedly. “I did not!”

  “Then I must have. On my way home. What a fortunate thing I chose to drive myself and leave my man to bring on the baggage. Single-handed I arrested you, brought you here to the Dower House as the nearest place, and was very much surprised at finding Mr. Warrender paying too late a visit to his cousin. Convenient, though. You can help me escort my poacher over to the hall, Mr. Warrender.”

  Good God, what next? “I’m sorry!” Kate racked her brains for an excuse.

  “Impossible.” Mrs. Warrender had appeared in the doorway. “My cousin and I still have business to discuss. Family business.”

  “Family fiddlestick!” Hawth’s temper snapped. “And talking of family, where’s that daughter of yours who should be here chaperoning you?”

  “Kate is unwell, my lord,” said Mrs. Warrender with some dignity. “And I am long past needing a chaperone.”

  “Balderdash,” said Lord Hawth. “And why in the name of God are we standing here talking in the dark? There’s something very odd about this whole business, and I mean to find out what it is.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Kate cut in. “It’s time someone did. And took a little care for my kinswomen, and those children of yours you so cheerfully leave unprotected over at the hall, with God knows what revolutionary hellbroth brewing down at Tidemills.” She laughed. “I’ve a better idea than poaching for you. Did you not catch young Penfold in the act of setting fire to one of your hayricks?”

  “Of course I did. An excellent notion. That will fox our radical friends down at Tidemills.”

  “But that’s a hanging matter,” protested John Penfold. “Or transportation at the very least.”

  “Well,” said Hawth thoughtfully, “I’m not entirely sure that transportation is not the answer to your problems. Don’t look so scared, man. Not to Australia. But what of America? I had thought to smuggle you away to one of my other estates, but you and your mother and sister are something of an unmistakable trio. What do you say to a few comfortable days safe in Glinde gaol, while I get Mr. Warren to help in arranging your passage to America?”

  “The three of us, my lord?”

  “Of course, fool. Didn’t I say so?” And then: “Good God! Another caller. What kind of a house do you keep, Mrs. Warrender?”

  “Yours,” she replied succinctly and retreated into the other room to welcome George Warren.

  “I was riding late,” he explained. “I was anxious about you. Is all well here?”

  “Well!” exclaimed Mrs. Warrender. “It depends what you mean by well. My daughter’s ill. I’ve a house full of unexpected company. And it’s very late.”

  “Miss Warrender ill—” began George Warren, but Lord Hawth had emerged from the book-room to greet him.

  “The very man. I need your help.” As he began to explain John Penfold’s predicament, Kate saw her chance, and took it. Penfold had followed Hawth into the drawing room. She slipped behind the curtains of the book-room’s long window, pulled it silently upwards and climbed out into the darkness. “A very unorthodox young man,” she told herself as she made her way quietly round the side of the house, praying that Joe had been too busy with visitors to lock up. She was in luck. The side door had not been bolted.

  Ten minutes later, after the Quickest change ever, she made her entrance into the drawing room, every inch the demure young miss in dotted muslin. Nobody noticed her come. John Penfold was standing awkwardly in a corner of the room, while Hawth and Warren loomed furiously one on each side of her mother’s low chair.

  “The insolence of it!” said Lord Hawth.

  “Young whippersnapper,” said George Warren.

  “Without so much as saying good-bye to his hostess, apologising for his late visit!” Hawth, it seemed, was still harping on the late visit

  “Gentlemen,” said Mrs. Warrender with some dignity, “I beg you will let me look after my own affairs. If I do not care to take affront at my young cousin’s behaviour, I fail to see why you should do so on my behalf. No doubt he had … affairs of his own.”

  “A wench, no doubt.” Hawth gave his short bark of laughter. “One last meeting with Lucy Penfold. The young dog.”

  “My lord!”

  “I beg your pardon, ma’am.”


  “Mother!” exclaimed Kate reproachfully, and all eyes turned on her. “What in the world? Three gentlemen, at this time of night?” And then, “No. Two gentlemen and—it’s young Penfold, isn’t it? But it’s after ten o’clock!”

  “There’s trouble, dearest. Oh, but I’m glad to see you,” said her mother with complete conviction. “Are you really better? Lord Hawth and Mr. Warren are about to be so good as to take young Penfold away.”

  “Take him away? But they were shouting at you, mamma.” She looked reproachfully from one abashed gentleman to the other. “I don’t understand.”

  “They’re a little put out,” explained Mrs. Warrender. “Your Cousin Kit was here and did not stay to give Mr. Warren the meeting.”

  “Another gentleman! You amaze me. And it past bedtime, too. As for Cousin Kit, we all know he’s a law unto himself.”

  “A very ill-mannered one,” said Lord Hawth.

  “He has some excuse.”

  “We’re keeping the ladies from their beds.” George Warren took the hint. “I’ll walk over to the hall with you, my lord, to give colour to your ‘arrest.’ Though I must say he looks a timid enough arsonist.”

  “Arson?” exclaimed Kate. “John Penfold? Nonsense!”

  “Hush, dearest,” said her mother. “I’ll explain later.” She rose to her feet. “I’m most grateful to you gentlemen for coming to my help, and poor young Penfold’s, but it is late and my daughter’s unwell. I will bid you goodnight.”

  The story of John Penfold’s arrest, caught in the act of firing a rick and by Lord Hawth himself, was a nine days’ wonder, and if there were people down at Tidemills who thought Penfold had done it on purpose, preferring transportation to the risks he was already facing, they kept their thoughts to themselves. Since Lord Hawth chaired the bench that tried him, the sentence of transportation was a foregone conclusion. The neighbourhood said it was good of Lord Hawth to arrange for Penfold’s mother and sister to pack up and follow him to London, and after that everyone forgot about him.

  “They’re safe off to America.” George Warren called on Mrs. Warrender and Kate a few weeks later. “A cousin of mine will look out for them in Philadelphia.”

  “I’m so glad,” said Mrs. Warrender.

  “Lucy Penfold will be missed,” said Kate.

  “The village Circe. To tell you the truth—” George Warren turned from Kate to her mother—“I’m relieved to see the last of that girl. Since she moved down to Tide-mills, my men servants seem to have had constant reasons for visiting the village. And bad blood among them, too, I’m afraid.”

  “Poor child,” said Mrs. Warrender.

  “Poor child! Poor young men, I think. I like a happy household, ma’am, and I had one, until that minx moved in. I shudder to think of the swathe she will cut through our simple Philadelphia young men.”

  “You consider yourself simple, Mr. Warren?” asked Kate.

  He laughed. “Not so simple as I was, Miss Warrender. I flatter myself I am learning, a little at a time, slowly. You’ve all been wonderfully patient with me. I suppose, in five years or so, I may have some real idea of how to go on in British society.”

  “You mean to stay and give it the trial, war or no war?” asked Kate.

  “I believe so. Will you speak up for me, Miss Warrender, if there is talk of throwing me into prison as my friends back home seem to expect?”

  “Into prison?” exclaimed Mrs. Warrender. “Whatever made them imagine that?”

  “They seem unable to distinguish between British behaviour and French, ma’am. Because Bonaparte still holds the unlucky British tourists who were in France when the war broke out again in 1803 they think you will behave the same.”

  “What nonsense,” said Mrs. Warrender, “and with Lord Hawth on the bench, too.”

  “You think Lord Hawth can do no wrong, mamma?” asked Kate teasingly.

  “I think he has a great deal of sense,” said Mrs. Warrender.

  “I wish it would bring him home,” said Kate.

  “You’re anxious about something?” George Warren asked.

  “About Sue, a little.” She was surprised to find herself telling him. “She’s been moped since Christmas, and worse still since Lord Hawth’s last visit. Miss Lintott says she spends hours reading in his study.”

  “Well,” said George Warren, “if you had to spend your evenings with Miss Lintott, what would you do?”

  “I know,” Kate agreed wholeheartedly. “It’s just like Lord Hawth to send us down that pattern of dullness and then leave us to endure her.”

  “Poor woman,” said Mrs. Warrender. “She can’t help being a dead bore.”

  “She doesn’t try,” said Kate. “If she tells me about her ‘cousin the Archbishop’ once more, I shall go into strong hysterics.”

  “She thinks me beneath contempt,” said George Warren cheerfully. “I must confess, it is the greatest comfort to me.”

  “What a delightful young man he is,” said Mrs. Warrender when he had taken his leave. “I would never have thought that dreadful day when he first arrived that I would grow so fond of him.”

  “He seems to be bearing Lucy Penfold’s departure with a good deal of philosophy,” said Kate.

  “I always thought that a parcel of rumour and malicious gossip.”

  “You’re so charitable, mamma!”

  “I try to be, but I must confess that Miss Lintott puts me quite out of patience from time to time.”

  “And no wonder! You’d be a saint else. Do you think Cousin George knows she talks of him as the American boor?”

  “I expect so. He and Lord Hawth don’t have many secrets from each other these days.”

  “I know. Is it not surprising!”

  She would have been even more surprised if she had known that George Warren had ridden home and begun immediate preparations for a trip to London. He had been thinking of going for some time, but it was what Kate had said about Sue that had decided him. Something, he thought, was going on at Hawth Hall, and it was high time its owner came back and took charge.

  Welcomed as a valued client at Fladong’s Hotel, he changed quickly into the rather casual evening dress he favoured and strolled round to Lord Hawth’s townhouse in Piccadilly. But his lordship had gone down early to the House, the butler told him. He rather thought he had an appointment before the session began.

  “I’ll join him there,” said George Warren.

  “You’ll let me order you out the carriage, sir?”

  “For that distance? Ridiculous.”

  “Then not across the park, sir. Not in the dark. Not after those bloody murders before Christmas.”

  “Oh, very well.” He knew it was good advice. The days of the Mohawks might be long past, but there was always a risk of footpads in parks and quiet streets at night, and only the other day, on the Home Secretary’s bill for a nightly watch in London, Parliament had debated the alarming rise of violent crime in the country.

  Arriving safely at Westminster, he found the lobby of the House unusually crowded. “What’s to do tonight?” he asked the usher who took his message for Lord Hawth.

  “It’s Lord Byron, sir. His maiden speech is expected tonight, on Mr. Secretary Ryder’s bill.”

  “Capital punishment for frame-breakers, eh? I’d like to hear that.”

  “You’ll be lucky to get in, sir. He’s drawn quite a crowd, has Lord Byron.”

  Lord Hawth, hurrying out to greet his friend, confirmed this, but managed in the end to find him a corner where he could hear but not see the famous Lord Byron make an impassioned plea against the hasty introduction of capital punishment for this new crime. Describing the distressed state of the poor in his own district, the poetlord turned on his fellow peers: “When a proposal is made to emancipate or relieve, you hesitate, you deliberate for years, you temporize and tamper with the minds of men; but a death-bill must be passed off hand, without a thought of the consequences!”

  “It won’t do any good
.” Hawth met George Warren after the bill had been adjourned over the week-end on the motion of Lord Lauderdale. “Government will push it through in the Lords as they have in the Commons.”

  “You’re against the bill?” asked George Warren, surprised.

  “We Whigs all are. It will only inflame passions that are hot enough already. Besides, faced with the death sentence, magistrates are hesitant to find defendants guilty. It defeats its own end.”

  “I wish I had heard Lord Liverpool speak for the bill. Are things really so bad in Nottingham?”

  “It’s almost a state of war. There are more troops serving there than on the Peninsula. I was with Ryder before the session. He is afraid of the infection spreading south. God knows, there are enough agitators here in London.”

  “And young Penfold’s experience at Tidemills is hardly encouraging. He and his family are safe on board ship, by the way.”

  “Good. And what’s the news from Glinde?”

  “Nothing to signify. And yet, I don’t know … There’s a feeling in the air. What in the world induced you to let Jewkes at the Ship install that brother of his at the Tide-mills shop? They’re two ruffians together if ever I saw such.”

  “Better the devil, you know,” said Hawth cheerfully. “After young Penfold’s experience, I did not want to put another innocent man at risk. We know all about those two Jewkes brothers.”

  “So the smuggling will continue?”

  “Oh, yes. For a while. Until we’re ready.”

  “We?”

  “A manner of speaking.” Hawth changed the subject. “Have you visited the Dower House lately?”

  “Yesterday. I took the ladies the news of the Penfolds’ safety. To tell truth, that visit is partly why I came to town.”

  “Oh?”

  “I wish you would come home. It’s not only Tidemills that troubles me. I think there’s something going on at the hall.”

  “Something going on? What can you mean?”

  “I don’t rightly know. It’s since you were last down—since that business of young Penfold—Mrs. Warrender don’t look well, and Miss Warrender is anxious about your Susan. Says she does nothing but mope in your study. I said anyone would with that whey-faced cousin of yours loose in the rest of the house.”