How the Hangman Lost His Heart (12 page)

Hew was now deathly pale but Mrs. Ffrench's composure never faltered. “Have you quite finished?” she asked in voice far too ordinary for the occasion. “I think you have caused enough damage. I am fixing the lining of that wig. It belongs to one of the king's cousins. The king himself sent it.”

The major was hopping with rage. He had been beaten for now and he well knew it. “We live in treacherous times, ma'am.” He ground out the words through his teeth, his fury almost uncontrollable. “Two traitors escaped when your son was supposed to have them cornered. If we have been a trouble to you, you should blame him. Now I'll bid you good day. Come, Captain Ffrench. We've wasted enough time here.” With that, he stamped out and Hew had no choice but to follow.

When the door slammed, Mabel began to get up but her mother shook her head. They waited five whole minutes and Mrs. Ffrench inspected the house front and back before she finally sank down in her chair. “I suppose that was one good thing to come out of your father's hopeless life,” she said. “I learned that people who want something you don't give them often leave a spy behind. Anyway, I think we are all clear now.”

Mabel humphed and shifted her skirts, under which, neatly wrapped in a white pillowcase, was the unmistakable shape of Uncle Frank's head. “It was lucky you didn't obey Hew's instructions not to open that beastly wig bag, Mother,” she said. “Just fancy if you hadn't.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Ffrench, settling her cap straight with hands that were not quite steady, “I saw those
uniforms at the end of the street from the upstairs window and I just knew that wig bag must be responsible. I must say, though, Mabel dear, I hardly expected a head, but, frankly, the man's expression when I pulled him out was so beseeching that it was not really too much to wrap him in a pillowcase.” She gave Mabel a watery smile. “I hope the pillowcase will survive. At least it's used to heads, I suppose, even if they are usually snoring rather than dead.” It was a pathetic joke, but it was all Mrs. Ffrench could manage.

“Oh, I expect it will be none the worse for wear,” said Mabel crisply, staring at the lump in front of her. For all her bravado, she found she really did not want to pick Uncle Frank up. Mrs. Ffrench saw Mabel's expression and, trying not to hesitate herself, grasped the pillowcase, unfolded it, and propped the head on the floor while she made the wig bag comfortable for it once again. She tidied the horsehair and was just cutting a piece of new ribbon when she glanced at Uncle Frank and screamed loudly. Mabel leaped at once onto a chair. “What is it?” she cried.

“Nothing, nothing.” Her mother calmed herself. “The poor man winked at me. That's all. It is probably just the muscles in the eye sockets beginning to deteriorate. Nothing else. Really,” she added, trying to
be perfectly matter-of-fact, “the head looks very cheerful, all things considered, and the pitch has preserved it very well.” Nevertheless, she quickly dropped Uncle Frank back onto his horsehair berth and tied up the ribbon in a double bow. Whatever happened, she did not wish to be winked at again. “Now we have to decide what to do with him.”

“Well, whoever he is—was—I don't think he should remain here,” said Mabel. “Major Slavering could return.” She thought for a moment. “Maybe I should take him to Lincoln's Inn Fields, then slip him in with the Cantankerings' baggage tomorrow. At least he will be out of London, which will be best for everybody. When we can, we'll let Hew know what we've done and make some arrangement to get the wretched thing to where it is supposed to be going. I really think that's what we should do, Mother, don't you?”

Her mother looked worried but nodded. She didn't like involving Mabel in all this skulduggery, but it did seem a sensible suggestion. Mabel, braver now, put the wig bag back in the workbasket. “Goodness, how heavy it is!” she exclaimed. “What a clever man he must have been! All those brains!” Her mother did not look amused. Mabel changed the subject. “Aren't you curious, Mother, about the mystery girl Hew spoke of?”

“Very,” said Mrs. Ffrench, “but Hew only said that she lives in the north. I could tell she meant something to him, though. She must,” she added as an afterthought, “or he would never have risked our lives by bringing that head here.”

“Which he had absolutely no business to do, girl or not!” exclaimed Mabel, cross at her mother's indulgence.

“Don't be horrid, Mabel.”

“I'm not being horrid, Mother, but Hew should have thought.”

Mrs. Ffrench sighed. Her daughter was always so quick to judge.

Mabel went back to the workbasket. “Now what are you doing?” cried Mrs. French, whose nerves were too frayed for any further excitement.

Mabel pulled the wig bag out and looked at it as if she might open it up and give Uncle Frank himself a telling-off. But she didn't. Instead, she headed for the stairs. “I'll have to move the head from the wig bag into a hatbox,” she said, “because, while I do own a few hats, I don't own any wigs at all and it would be too dreadful if the Cantankering servants mistakenly delivered this to Lady Cantankering's room.” Her lips twitched. “Although I'd love to see that woman come face-to-face with a head that is more attractive dead than hers is alive.”

Mrs. Ffrench sighed. She hoped Mabel did not say such things to Lord Trotting. Then she fell to wondering again about Hew's friend. “A girl I met,” he had said. But what kind of girl did you meet through mutual acquaintance with a head? The question was not one Mrs. Ffrench had ever expected to ask and so she was not surprised when she found herself quite unable to supply the answer.

If only Alice and Dan had been able to witness those scenes in Chelsea, much of what happened next would have been avoided. Still, Alice's determination to retrieve her uncle's head could not but lead to trouble, and trouble came quickly.

Since they had left the head outside the Duke of Mimsdale's house, it was there that Dan and Alice, having slipped away from the main body of the dragoons, first went. Their troopers' disguise was perfect and Alice held the horses while Dan knocked boldly on the front door to ask where the laundry basket had gone. The striking red-and-yellow uniform enhanced Dan's charms and the Mimsdale maidservant needed little persuasion to tell him everything he wanted to know.

“I'll keep the uniform once this escapade is over,” Dan said to Alice. “That girl would never have looked at me in my real clothes.”

Alice, as usual, tossed her head. “You can do better than a maidservant, Dan Skinslicer,” she said.

Dan tossed his own head right back. “Maybe I don't want to.” He remounted with a determined and not unbecoming bounce, enjoying Alice's discomfiture. “Now,” he said, serious again, “the girl told me where to find the laundry basket, so we must hope the wig bag's still inside it and that the laundryman hasn't opened it.” More confident of his horse, and conscious of the servant girl peeking at him from the kitchen window, he led the way out of Grosvenor Square. Alice followed but Dan did not like the look in her eye. “You and this horse are both laughing at me now,” he accused her.

“Not at all,” said Alice just a touch too demurely as she deliberately blocked the servant girl's view. “You sit very well and look very dashing. If I didn't know you were a hangman, I'd think you were an officer at least.” Dan made a disbelieving face but swung along in finer style than ever before.

It was a bitter disappointment to both of them when the visit to the laundry drew a complete blank, but a relief to learn, through the laundryman's curses as he hopped up and down, bleating about persecution, that at least Major Slavering did not have Uncle Frank either.

“Somebody must have taken the wig bag out before it ever got here,” Alice said as they rode away. “But who could it be and what would they have done with it?”

“Maybe Captain Ffrench took it,” Dan suggested, and instantly regretted it, for Alice's face lit up. “Of course!” she exclaimed so loudly that people looked around.

“Now then, missy,” Dan warned. “Keep quiet or you'll get us both arrested.”

Alice brushed his worries aside. “We'll go to the barracks,” she declared, “and follow Hew—I mean, Captain Ffrench. If he did save Uncle Frank's head from Major Slavering, he's bound to lead us to it sooner or later, and what's more, Dan Skinslicer, I'm sure he'll be only too delighted to hand it back.”

“But,” Dan pointed out, trying to dampen the sparkle in Alice's voice because he didn't like it, “I doubt he did save Uncle Frank, because if he got caught, he'd be dead meat. And why would he do it? Uncle Frank's nothing to him.”

“He won't be caught,” Alice stated after a small pause. “We've been lucky so far. Honestly, we only need to be lucky once more before we can get safely on the road to Towneley and be forgotten by everybody down here.” She kicked Marron into a trot and Dan's horse, without bothering to wait for Dan's instructions, immediately followed suit.

They arrived at the barracks just in time to see Hew and Major Slavering returning from their trip to Chelsea in thunderous silence. Hew could think
of nothing but the terrible fright his mother must have gotten when she had found Uncle Frank in the wig bag, and Slavering was so angry he could scarcely think at all.

Alice pushed Dan around the corner. “We'll just wait until Captain Ffrench comes out again,” she whispered. But it was not until the morning that Hew emerged on yet another borrowed horse, and when Dan and Alice, having spent the night huddled under a wall, taking turns to keep watch, hauled themselves back onto their own horses, they had no idea where he was going.

Hew was heading straight to find Mabel. She would, by now, have returned to Lincoln's Inn Fields, and while Hew could not go back to Chelsea, he felt he could visit his sister without undue suspicion. Anyway, so he believed, and Major Slavering would be snoring.

But Major Slavering was not snoring. In fact, dressed for anonymity in a buckskin coat and without a hat, he was trotting not far behind his captain, for he had determined not to let Hew out of his sight until Alice and the head were apprehended. Neither Alice nor Dan noticed the figure that appeared and disappeared in Hew's wake. They were too busy keeping up and keeping out of sight themselves.

As soon as Hew reached the Cantankerings' house, he dismounted and pulled the large bell, tapping his foot impatiently until Mabel came to join him. At once, he slipped his arm around her and drew her close as they promenaded across the grass.

Mabel was in a mood. She had arrived at six A.M., as bidden by the duchess, so that she could organize the loading of the children's school books into the traveling cart. Although this meant rising at four, Mabel did not mind, but ever since she had set foot in the house, Lord Trotting had followed her about like a lovesick puppy, too shy to speak the words of love pulsing through his heart, but unable to leave her alone. What was worse, Lord Trotting's sisters and Mabel's charges, Lady Alicia Walker and Lady Araminta Walker, being young and wicked, had imitated their brother's sighs and found it highly amusing to recite, at full volume, the drippiest poetry they could find.

It was with relief that Mabel had made her excuses when the maid called up that her brother was downstairs. “Now,” she said when they were out of earshot, “what are you doing here?”

As she knew he would, Hew rose at once to the bait. “Don't be an ass, Mabel. You know just why I have come.”

Seeing real anxiety in Hew's eyes, Mabel relented, but only a little. “Mother nearly died of shock when
she saw that head. Honestly, Hew, you could have killed her. And in case you're wondering, we hid it under my skirts.”

“Under your skirts?” Hew sounded faintly shocked.

“Lord help us! Don't be such an old nanny. The man was dead! Did you not notice that I never stood up?” Hew looked stricken. “The danger—”

Mabel pinched his arm to hurt him. “A bit late to think of that.” Her voice was sour. “Mother said you got carried away by some girl. Who on earth is she?”

“She's called Alice Towneley and she helped me climb off Temple Bar. I was stuck—well, you know how I am with heights. Anyway, that's not important. Where's the head now?”

Mabel looked sideways at her brother. “It's in a hatbox,” she said. “I'm by way of taking it to Cantankering, from where, if you like, you can collect it and give it back to this ridiculous Alice whoever-she-is.”

“Towneley,” said Hew automatically.

“Well then,” said Mabel. “Look. They're bringing the boxes out now. The head is in the painted one Lord Trotting gave me last Christmas, the one with hideous flowers and pudgy cherubs. It is wearing one of my hats. I think it looks rather fetching.”

“How can you joke about this?” Hew sometimes itched to slap his sister.

Mabel made a face at him and they walked back to the house.

Alice, who had not been able to take her eyes off the two of them since Hew folded Mabel into the crook of his arm, now watched this unknown woman lean against him, clearly confiding some intimate secret or other. She felt as though somebody had punched her. Hew already had a sweetheart. Who else but a sweetheart would be drawn so close? All her stupid daydreams had been just that. She slumped a little in her saddle. She had been duped. No. She had duped herself. Hew had just been doing what he saw as his duty, helping her with Uncle Frank because she had helped him get down off Temple Bar. A tear scalded her cheek. She could not tell if it was from humiliation or disappointment, but whichever it was, it was horrid.

Dan had a somewhat different reaction. At first, he wanted to crow, but his initial surge of satisfaction at the sight of Hew's affections so evidently bestowed elsewhere quickly evaporated when he saw Alice's face.
For all her bravado, she's just a little girl
, he thought to himself.
Girls dream, especially of raven-haired captains in uniform. It's natural
. As he saw Alice's tear drop off her chin, a vision of his wife inconveniently popped up. He supposed that even
she had once dreamed and briefly wondered what she would be dreaming now.
About my head in a wig bag
, he thought with a pang, and scratched his stubbled chin. He did not know what to say to Alice, so said nothing for the time being.