The Toll-Gate (8 page)

John rose, and carried both empty tankards over to the barrel. Having refilled them, he handed one to Mr. Lydd again, slightly lifted his own in a silent toast, and said: "You're a very good fellow, Joe, and I hope you will continue to take care of Miss Nell. I shan't hinder you."

"Well, now, I had a notion that maybe you wouldn't," disclosed Mr. Lydd. "I've been mistook in a man, in my time, but not often. You may be what they call a flash cull, or you might have come into these backward parts because you was afraid of a clap on the shoulder, but somehow I don't think it. If I may make so bold as to say so, I like the cut of your jib. I don't know what kind of a May-game you're playing, because—not wishing to give offence!—you can't slumguzzle me into thinking you ain't Quality. Maybe you're kicking up a lark, like. And yet you don't look to me like one of them young bucks, in the heyday of blood, as you might say."

"In the heyday of blood," said John, "I was a lieutenant of Dragoon Guards. I came into these parts by accident, and I am remaining by design. No shoulder-clapper is on my trail, nor am I a flash cull. More than that I don't propose to tell you—except that no harm will come to your mistress at my hands."

Mr. Lydd, after subjecting him to another of his fixed stares, was apparently satisfied, for he nodded, and repeated that there was no offence meant. "Only, seeing as I've had me orders to mind the pike tomorrow, while you go jauntering off to Tideswell with Miss Nell—let alone Rose getting wind of it, and talking me up to find out what your business is till I'm fair sick of the sound of her voice——"

"Who is Rose?" interrupted John.

"Miss Durward," said Mr. Lydd, with bitter emphasis. "Not that I'm likely to call her such, for all the airs she may give herself. Why, I remember when she first came to Kellands to be nursemaid to Miss Nell! A little chit of a wench she was, too! Mind, I've got nothing against her, barring she's grown stoutish, and gets on her high ropes a bit too frequent, and I don't say as I blame her for being leery o' strangers—Miss Nell not having anyone but Squire to look after her, and he being burned to the socket, the way he is."

It was by this time apparent to John that orphaned though she might be Miss Stornaway did not lack protectors, and it came as no surprise to him when, shortly after eight o'clock next morning, he sustained a visit from Miss Durward. He was enjoying a lively argument with a waggoner when she came walking briskly down the road, this ingenious gentleman, recognising in him a newcomer, making a spirited attempt to convince him that the proper charge for the second of his two vehicles, which was linked behind the first, was threepence. But Captain Staple, who had usefully employed himself in studying the literature provided by the Trustees of the Derbyshire Toll-gates for the perusal of his predecessor, was able to point out to him that as the vehicle in question was mounted on four wheels it was chargeable at the rate of two horses, not of one. "What's more, it's loaded," he added, interrupting an unflattering description of his personal appearance and mental turpitude, "so it pays double toll. I'll take a horde and tenpence from you, my bully!"

"You'll take one in the bread-basket!" said the waggoner fiercely.

"Oh, will I?" retorted the Captain. "It'll be bellows to mend with you if you're thinking of a mill, but I've no objection! Put 'em up!"

"I seen a man like you in a fair onct," said the waggoner, ignoring this invitation. "Leastways, they said he was a man. 'Ardly 'uman he was, poor creature!"

"And now I come to think of it," said the Captain, "didn't I see you riding on the shaft? That's unlawful, and it's my duty to report it."

Swelling with indignation, the waggoner spoke his mind with a fluency and a range of vocabulary which commanded the Captain's admiration. He then produced the sum of one shilling and tenpence, defiantly mounted the shaft again, and went on his way, feeling that his defeat had been honourable.

The Captain, shutting the gate, found that he was being critically regarded by a buxom woman who was standing outside the toll-house, with a basket on her arm. Her rather plump form was neatly attired in a dress of sober grey, made high to the throat, and unadorned by any ribbons or flounces. Over it she wore a cloak; and under a plain chip hat her pretty brown hair was confined in a starched muslin cap, tied beneath her chin in a stiff bow. She was by no means young, but she was decidedly comely, with well-opened grey eyes, an impertinent nose, and a firm mouth that betokened a good deal of character. Having listened without embarrassment to John's interchange with the waggoner, she said sharply, as he caught sight of her: "Well, young man! Very pretty language to be using in front of females, I must say!"

"I didn't know you were there," apologised John.

"That's no excuse. The idea of bandying words with a low, vulgar creature like that! What have you done to your shirt?"

John glanced guiltily down at a jagged tear in one sleeve. "I caught it on a nail," he said.

She clicked her tongue, saying severely: "You've no business to be wearing a good shirt like that. You'd better let me have it, when you take it off, and I'll mend it for you."

"Thank'ee!" said John.

"That's quite enough of that!" she told him, an irrepressible dimple showing itself for an instant. "Don't you try and hoax me you're not a gentleman born, because you can't do it!"

"I won't," he promised. "And don't you try to hoax me you're not Miss Stornaway's nurse, because I wouldn't believe you! You put me much in mind of my own nurse."

"I'll be bound you were a rare handful for the poor soul," she retorted. "If you are going to town this morning, see you buy a couple of stout shirts! A sin and a shame it is to be wearing a fine one like this, and you very likely chopping wood, and I don't know what beside! What your mother would say, if she was to see you, sir——!"

Concluding from this speech that he had been approved, John said, with a smile: "I will. I'll take good care of your mistress, too. You may be easy on that head!"

"Well, it's time someone did, other than me and Joseph—though what good he could do it queers me to guess!" she said. "I don't know who you are, nor what you're doing here, but I can see you're respectable, and if you did happen to fall out with a nasty, bracket-faced gentleman, with black hair and the wickedest eyes I ever did see, I don't doubt he'd have the worst of it. With your good leave, sir, I'll step inside to have a word with Mrs. Skeffling, if that's her I hear in the kitchen. I've got some of our butter for her, which Miss Nell promised she should have. And I was to tell you, Mr. Jack—if that's what you're wishful to be called—that Miss Nell will be along with the gig just as soon as those two gentlemen have taken themselves off to Sheffield!" With these words she marched through the office to the kitchen, where she found Mrs. Skeffling, a widow of many years' standing, zestfully engaged in turning out the contents of the cupboard, and scrubbing its shelves: a thing which, as she informed Miss Durward, she had long wanted to do.

After both ladies had expressed, with great frankness, their respective opinions of the absent Mr. Brean's dirty and disorderly habits, Mrs. Skeffling paused from her labours in order to enjoy a quiet gossip about the new gatekeeper.

"Miss Durward, ma'am," she said earnestly, "I was that flabbergasted when I see him, which I done first thing this morning, Monday being my day for lending Mrs. Sopworthy a hand with the washing, and Mr. Jack stepping up to the Blue Boar to buy a barrel of beer! Even Mr. Sopworthy was fairly knocked acock when Mr. Jack says as he was Mr. Brean's soldier-cousin, come to mind the gate for him for a while. 'Lor'!' he says, 'I thought it was the Church tower got itself into my tap!' Which made Mr. Jack laugh hearty, though Mrs. Sopworthy was quite put out, thinking at first it was a gentleman walked in, which Landlord shouldn't have spoke so free to. Then they got to talking, Mr. Jack and Landlord, and I'm sure none of us didn't know what to think, because he didn't talk like he was Quality, not a bit! And yet it didn't seem like he was a common soldier, not with them hands of his, and the sort of way he has with him, let alone the clothes he wears! Miss Durward, ma'am, I've got a shirt of his in the wash-house this moment, with a neck-cloth, and some handkerchers, and I declare to you I've never seen the like! Good enough for Sir Peter himself, they are, and whatever would a poor man be doing with such things?"

"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 gate post, 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.