Red Sky at Night, Lovers' Delight Page 20

  It was dark. Her head hurt. She hurt all over. Her hands were stiff. From shifting the brushwood? No, more than that. They were tied, and so were her feet. She was trussed, helpless. Jewkes. She had recognised him, and, idiot, said so. Trying to move made her head hurt more, and was useless. She lay very still and tried instead to think.

  Total darkness. Not a glimmer, not a hint, not the faintest streak of light. A cellar? The air was fresh and cool. Thinking made her headache worse. There were no cellars at Tidemills: the ground was too swampy. Hard to imagine a room in any of those shoddily built houses that would be totally impermeable to moonlight.

  The air was fresh and cool. Something familiar about it. Of course. The tunnel. They had not gagged her. Scream? If that would have helped her, she would have been gagged. They would have thrown her in at the lower end of the tunnel, too far either from the house or from the lane for her voice to carry. How did they know about the tunnel? Why had they done this to her? How did she threaten them? And—what did they intend?

  Absurd even to ask herself that question. Obvious what they intended. She had been left here, helpless, to die. It concentrates the mind wonderfully, Dr. Johnson had said. So: concentrate. Look for hope. Hope? The children. They knew about the tunnel, too. When she was missed, in the morning, might they not think of it? In the morning? How long had she been here already? And why should they look here? Boney would be found somewhere else, somewhere miles away. It would look as if she had had an accident. Search would concentrate there. What would her mother do? Oh, poor mother! Would she tell them that it was a young man they must look for? She writhed a little in her bonds. Had Jewkes, tying her up, recognised her for what she was? Or had he known all the time? Should she be grateful that she was lying here, unviolated, merely to die, at her leisure, of starvation? Or would he come back? Would one of them come? On the thought, she heard something. The stone at the tunnel’s mouth being moved? Jewkes? The throbbing in her head beat a wild crescendo. Footsteps. Very quiet, careful … still no light. She tried not even to breathe. Useless, of course. They knew she was here. Very close now. Something struck her head and the pain of it exploded her into unconsciousness once more.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Kate! Kate!” The voice came from far away. And long ago? Impossible. She must have slipped from unconsciousness into dream. A happy dream; let it continue. Christopher’s voice. “Kate! Wake up! There’s no time!”

  Her hands and feet were free. What kind of a dream was this? She stirred a little and opened her eyes. Light. The flickering light of a candle. And, bending over her, holding it, unmistakable, Christopher.

  “Chris!” Hardly more than a breath, but he heard it and bent closer.

  “Kate! Thank God! I was afraid for a moment. How do you feel?”

  “My head aches. It’s nothing. Nothing compared to this! Chris, you’re alive! It wasn’t you! That body—oh, Chris!” The thoughts battered against each other in her aching head. Chris alive. How wonderful. But how strange. And yet it explained so much. Chris and the smugglers … It was for him they had taken her. So— Chris and the revolutionaries: Chris and Ned Ludd. She put a hand to her throbbing brow.

  “Christopher, what have you been doing?”

  “Earning my living.”

  Bravado, and yet a note of constraint in his voice. And no wonder. Her thoughts were clearing now. Clearing painfully. “And left us to mourn you all this time? Poor mother! How could you?” She struggled a little and let him help her up to sit, her back against the cold wall of the tunnel. “Chris, why?”

  “No time for that! Not now. It’s not safe. They might change their minds. Come back to finish you off. Jewkes is capable of anything.”

  “Jewkes!” This was stranger and stranger. “You know?”

  “I saw them riding away. Him and his brother. Heard them coming, luckily. Hid in the bushes up where the path turns off to Tidemills. Heard that brother of Jewkes’ say they should have made a job of it. Didn’t know what he meant of course. Not till I fell over you.”

  “But what were you doing? How did you know about the tunnel?”

  “There’s no time, Kate. And, look, the candle’s almost burned down. We’ve got to get out of here. Can you stand, do you think?”

  “I’ll try.” With his help, she struggled to her feet, and stood, shivering all over, one steadying hand against the tunnel wall.

  “That’s right.” Holding the candle in his left hand, he supported her with his right arm and began to help her forwards.

  “But that’s the wrong way!” She held back. “Why not to the hall, Chris? So much safer.”

  “Not for me. Not for either of us, if we are seen together. Kate, you must trust me, do what I tell you. I’ve not hidden, all these years, for nothing. I can’t let it go now. Besides, it would be death. For us both. Come.” As he spoke, he had been urging her down the slope of the tunnel.

  Still she held back. “You promise you’ll explain? Word of a Warrender?” Strange to find the childhood oath come so readily to her lips. With it, the full truth came home to her and tears of happiness filled her eyes, “Oh, Chris!”

  “Ah, Kate! You’ve no idea how I have suffered through the long silence.”

  “How you’ve suffered! But you knew! What do you think it has been like for mamma and me?” She stopped, faced him. “Chris, I must have your promise that you’ll explain.”

  “Oh, I mean to,” he said. “I need your help. But first we must get away from here. Ah—” They had come to the tunnel entrance and he reached, down to feel for the hinged stone.

  “You’ve done that often! Why?”

  “Hush!”

  The stone had swung outwards to show the priory ruins, still and strange in the moonlight. Judging by its angle, she could not have been unconscious for long. But by what miracle had he come to find her? The cool night air was reviving her by the moment, and with strength, the questions came flooding. But not to be asked. Not now. He was right about that. She let him lead her silently to where a horse stood tethered to a tree, and help her into the saddle. She swayed a little and he put a steadying arm around her, holding the reins in the other hand. “It will have to be the gap, I’m afraid,” he whispered. “Can you manage so far?”

  It seemed an eternity before they got to the gap, but at least this was still unblocked and Chris was able to lead the horse through and turn its head towards the short cut to the Dower House. They had never been in Hawth Park as children, but now he seemed to know the way as well as she did. Knew about the gap. Knew Jewkes. Knew altogether too much, She made her plan, decided the vital questions and let him lead her on, still in total silence, still swaying a little in the saddle, until they came to the edge of a copse, and a moonlit view of the Dower House.

  She leaned down to him from the saddle and spoke quietly. “If I scream,” she said, “they will hear it in the house. If you don’t want to be discovered, you will explain. Now.”

  “Kate!” She had surprised him. “But you’re hurt, you’re tired. What you need is your bed.”

  “And what you need is time to decide what lie to tell me. So, hurt I may be, tired I may be, but you are going to make a round tale of it now, Chris Warrender, or, word of a Warrender, I’ll scream and rouse the house.”

  “You wouldn’t?”

  “Oh, wouldn’t I!” Strange, and despite everything pleasant to feel them slipping back into the old relationship of older sister and wayward young brother. “Chris! I’m afraid it’s, a scrape, a bad one. I helped you out of enough before. Won’t you trust me now?”

  “I suppose I’ll have to,” he said ruefully. “But it’s a long story, Kate. You ought to be in your bed.”

  “So the less you argue, the better. Besides, you don’t want dawn to find you here. They get up early in the stables, and there will be a hue and cry after Boney. What are we going to say, Chris? I don’t suppose you know what they did with him?”

  “No.” It had been the right
appeal. They were conspirators together, as they had been so often in their childhood. “How many set on you, Kate?”

  “Three.”

  “That’s it, then. I only saw the Jewkes brothers. The third man must have taken care of Boney. I’ve been glad to hear you rode him, Kate.”

  “Don’t flannel me, love.” But she said it lovingly. “What do you think they will have done with him?”

  “It depends what they want thought, doesn’t it?” He too had obviously been thinking hard during the silent return. “But, first, why did they do it, Kate? What happened?” They had halted there in the dark verge of the copse.

  “I was riding down to Tidemills. I go out at night sometimes. Dressed like this.”

  “I know.”

  “You know a great deal!”

  “Yes. But the question. What happened that made you a threat to them?”

  This was not the little brother she had protected. This was a man, and he must be answered. “I met someone,” she said. “A stranger. As I came back from Tidemills, just before the shift changed. He recognised me, called me Mr. Warrender.”

  “Ah! And then?”

  “Said something about the General, whoever he is. Coming tomorrow. There would be a message for me—for you, I suppose—at the Bell. And then, as we parted, something about, ‘Not long now.’“

  “And told Jewkes of course. About meeting you. And he knew I hadn’t landed yet.”

  “Landed?”

  “From France.” Impatiently. “I’ll tell you about that later. No time now. I was afraid Jewkes might have guessed there were two Kit Warrenders. I’d been wondering what to do. Hoped you would have the sense not to risk it again. Crazy thing to do!”

  “How was I to know it was a risk?” She began, sadly, to feel how much he had changed, this beloved, freakish brother of hers.

  “By using, your wits! Surely, that first time, when Ned Ludd—General Ludd, he calls himself now—when he got you a hearing down at Tidemills. It must have made you think. Wonder. Lord, I laughed when I heard about that. And very well you did, too, by all accounts, and very useful you’ve been all winter. Confusing things, giving me cover. But you must have wondered.”

  “Of course I did. I thought it must be one of grandfather’s …” She hesitated.

  “Bastards,” he said cheerfully. “I knew you weren’t stupid. Let’s just hope that’s what Jewkes thinks you are. He certainly lost no time in coming after you tonight. Where did they catch you?”

  “Inside the park wall.”

  “That’s bad. And then?”

  “I called him by name. That did it. I suppose. They knocked me out. When I came to, I was in the tunnel-left to die.”

  “Horrible. And they must know, too, if they carried you there. Who you are. What you are. Thank God it was no worse. But—” he seemed to shake himself—“that settles it. What they did to you. Murder, or as good as. Bad as.”

  “Settles what?”

  “Kate.” He reached up to gather both her hands in his. “I need your help more desperately than you can imagine. Can I trust you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. But I’ve been leading such a shabby life. Kate, you’re not going to like it.”

  “I know. I saw that at once. But I still don’t understand. Just explain, and I’ll try to. After all, you’re the only brother I’ve got, and, oh, Chris, I’m so glad you’re alive.”

  A tear dropped on the hands that held hers, and he bent to kiss them. “If we can only spare mamma.”

  “Yes. So, tell, Chris.”

  “It was a game at first. Almost. And one that paid. That was it, you see. Father kept me so short. You remember! All of us. Skint on food, on clothes, on everything, while he dropped thousands at the gaming tables. So when I joined the Volunteers and got the offer, I … I jumped at it, Kate.”

  “What offer?”

  “There was a man sitting by when we were sworn in. Watching. Said nothing. Afterwards, he met me, by chance, in the Bell. Asked if I was game to take on dangerous work for extra pay.”

  “And you said?” This was not what she had feared.

  “ ‘Yes,’ Of course. He gave me his name and an address—not his name, in fact, as I learned later. Said I was to send him reports. The behaviour of my fellow recruits, anything out of the way that went on in the district. That kind of thing.”

  “A government spy.” She had heard of them, had hardly believed they existed. Did not much like the thought of them now. But at least it was for the government that he had worked.

  “Well, yes. It was good money, Kate. Made all the difference. And useful work. They needed to know. At least that’s what I thought. At first.” “Oh?”

  “Then … he sent for me. The first man. Mr. Smith. To London. All expenses paid. You remember that time I went?”

  “Yes.” She and her mother had wondered, anxiously, how he had afforded that first trip to town.

  “He put it to me then. More money. Much more money. And a future safe for me afterwards. If—”

  “If what?”

  “If I would disappear. Join the radicals, who, they began to suspect, were revolutionaries. Find out, from within, what they planned. A chance to serve my country, he said. Maybe to save it from the kind of blood-letting they had in France.”

  “You took it, of course.” It would have been irresistible to the young man, half boy still, kept dangling idle at home.

  “Yes. Kate, I honestly believed I’d be able to let you and mamma know. It was only after we’d carried out the ‘drowning’—they were waiting in a boat, of course, to pick me up—that they told me I must tell no one.”

  “Whose was the body?”

  “I don’t know. Some dead French prisoner I imagine, from the gaol, who looked enough like me. That wasn’t my business. My job was to get in with the radicals.”

  “And you did.”

  “It was easy. I was Kit Warrender, you see. A bastard. With a grudge against society. They approached me. Welcomed me. Twisted me in. And then—”

  “Yes?”

  “I began to realise that I had got a grudge against society. That they were right, and my masters in London wrong. They were brothers. Stood for each other through good times and bad. Wanted nothing but their rights. The right to a living wage, Kate, and a decent existence. ‘Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ They were good to me, talked to me, gave me books to read. Trusted me. Not Jewkes and his kind. The leaders, up in London.”

  “So what did you do?” She was shivering now, not with cold.

  “Joined them. In heart as well as in show. Oh, I didn’t tell them about the other thing. Went on sending in my reports, but harmless ones.”

  “And taking the pay?”

  “I had to live!”

  “How did you live?”

  “Smuggling mostly.” He said it with bravado. “It’s their cover, you see.”

  “Cover for what?”

  “That’s just it. Kate, you must try to understand. See it as I did. Their plans were so reasonable. At first, they thought they would be able to keep the Prince, make him King, with a real Parliament, freely elected. But then, when he became Regent at last, had his chance to throw out the Tories and did not take it, they saw that would not do. Had to change all their plans. It’s to be Princess Charlotte now. Queen Charlotte, when they take over.”

  “But she’s only a child!”

  “Young enough to be taught. The radicals have always backed her mother, as you know. Once they had young Charlotte in their hands, they would educate her as a true constitutional monarch. Lord knows, she’s been taught little enough so far, by all reports.”

  “But her father? The Prince Regent? All his brothers? And sisters! They come first in line.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Impatiently. “That wasn’t my business.”

  “I see.” She saw enough to freeze her blood. “So when is this to happen, this fine, bloody, democr
atic revolution of yours? Soon, I take it. That’s what the man meant by ‘not long now.’ That’s why I was a danger to them.”

  “Yes. I don’t know what will start it. I don’t think anyone does but the General himself. He’ll be Prime Minister, of course.”

  “Very democratic,” she said. “That’s settled already?”

  “Well, yes. That’s it. That’s just what I began to see. And then, they sent me to France. That’s where I got back from tonight.”.

  “France?” It was all extraordinary.

  “To arrange for a shipment of arms. Naturally, the French said they’d help, to have an end to this wretched war that’s draining the lifeblood from both countries. Only, when I got there, I began to see there was more to it. You remember how well I speak French? Our people had always used interpreters before. I heard things I wasn’t supposed to. And then began to see things … to put two and two together. Kate, if it starts here, the French will come. In the general chaos. Take over. Oh, the Emperor’s making a great noise about attacking Russia, but what do you think he was doing when he went to the Netherlands last autumn? His invasion fleet’s still there, ready, waiting. Part of General Ludd’s plan is for mutinies in the army and navy, don’t you see? Has to be.”

  “Dear God! And then the French will come! Chris, what are you going to do?”

  “I hadn’t decided, till I found you, killed, as I thought, by Jewkes and his brother. I’d even thought of telling them. Trying to make them see their danger. No use. Not now. I’d be a dead man, and nothing achieved.”

  “The General then? When you see him tomorrow?”

  “Kate, he wouldn’t believe me. He’s … I don’t know who he is in real life … I suppose it doesn’t matter. But as General Ludd, he’s a man of one idea. He couldn’t be shaken in it. Not now. Not after he’s got so far. He’d just brush me aside, and go on. You’ve got to help me, Kate.”

  “How?”