The Toll-Gate Read online

  ‘I am afraid I am quite corkbrained,’ said John meekly. ‘What must I do instead?’

  She glanced at the list again, and then up at him. ‘I think I had best procure these things for you,’ she suggested. ‘That, you see, will occasion no surprise, for I very often go shopping in Tideswell.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, smiling. ‘But I must buy some shirts, and some shoes and stockings, and you can hardly do that for me, ma’am!’

  ‘No,’ she agreed. She considered him anew, and added candidly: ‘And it will be wonderful if you can find any to fit you!’

  ‘Oh, I don’t despair of that! There are bound to be plenty of big fellows in the district, and somebody must make clothes for ’em!’ said the Captain cheerfully. ‘As a matter of fact, I saw a fine, lusty specimen not an hour ago. Cowman, I think. If I’d thought of it, I’d have asked him the name of his tailor.’

  She gave a gurgle of laughter. ‘Oh, if you can be content with a flannel shirt – or, perhaps, a smock – !’

  He grinned at her. ‘Why not? Did you take me for a Bond Street beau? No, no! I was never one of your high sticklers!’

  ‘I take you for a madman,’ she said severely.

  ‘Well, they used to call me Crazy Jack in Spain,’ he admitted. ‘But I’m not dangerous, you know – not a bit!’

  ‘Very well, then, I will take my courage in my hands, and drive you to Tideswell tomorrow, in the gig – that is, if you can leave the gate in Ben’s charge!’

  ‘The devil’s in it that I can’t,’ he said ruefully. ‘The wretched boy has informed me that he must muck out Mr Sopworthy’s hen-houses tomorrow!’

  ‘Oh!’ She frowned over this for a moment, and then said: ‘It doesn’t signify: Joseph – that’s my groom! – shall keep the gate while you are away. The only thing is –’ She paused, fidgeting with her riding whip, the crease reappearing between her brows. Her frank gaze lifted again to his face. ‘The thing is that it is sometimes difficult for me – now – to escape an escort I don’t need, and am not at all accustomed to! But I fancy – I am not perfectly sure – that my cousin and Mr Coate have formed the intention of driving to Sheffield tomorrow. You will understand, if I should not come, that I could not!’ He nodded, and she held out her hand. ‘Goodbye! I will ride to Mrs Skeffling’s cottage now. Oh! Must I pay toll? I have come out without my purse!’

  He took her hand, and held it for an instant. ‘On no account!’

  She blushed, but said in a rallying tone: ‘Well for you it is not thought worth while to post informers on this road!’

  She picked up her skirts, and went out into the road. Captain Staple, following her, unhitched her horse from the gatepost, and led him up to her. She took the bridle, placed her foot in his cupped hands, and was tossed up into the saddle. As the hack sidled, she bent to arrange the folds of her skirt, saying: ‘I mean to visit one of my grandfather’s tenants, so don’t look for me again today! My way will take me over the hill.’

  A nod, and a smile, and she was trotting off down the road, leaving John to look after her until the bend hid her from his sight.

  She was not his only visitor that day. Shortly before eight o’clock, the wicket-gate clashed, and a heavy knock fell on the toll-house door. Ben, who was engaged in whittling a piece of wood into the semblance of a quadruped, in which only its creator could trace the faintest resemblance to the Captain’s Beau, jumped, but showed no sign of the terror which had possessed him during the previous evening. Either he did not connect his father’s mysterious visitor with an open approach to the office door, or he placed complete reliance on Captain Staple’s ability to protect him.

  John went into the office. He had left the lantern on the table, and by its light he was able to recognize the man who stood in the open doorway. He said: ‘Hallo! What can I do for you?’

  ‘Jest thought I’d drop in, and blow a cloud with you,’ responded Miss Stornaway’s groom. ‘Stretching me legs, like. The name’s Lydd – Joe Lydd.’

  ‘Come in!’ invited John. ‘You’re very welcome!’

  ‘Thank ’ee, sir!’

  ‘The name,’ said John, pushing wide the door into the kitchen, ‘is Jack.’

  Mr Lydd, who was both short and spare, looked up at him under his grizzled brows. ‘Is it, though? Jest as you please, Jack – no offence being meant!’

  ‘Or taken!’ John said promptly. ‘Sit down! Saw you this morning, didn’t I?’

  ‘Now, fancy you remembering that!’ marvelled Mr Lydd. ‘Because I didn’t think you noticed me, not partic’lar.’

  John had gone to the cupboard, but he turned at this, and stared across the kitchen at his guest. Mr Lydd met this somewhat grim look with the utmost blandness for a moment or two, and then transferred his attention to Ben. ‘Well, me lad, so your dad’s hopped the wag, has he? What sort of a fetch is he up to? Gone on the spree, I dessay?’

  ‘Gone up to Lunnon, to see me brother,’ said Ben glibly. ‘’Cos he heard as Simmy ain’t in the Navy no more.’

  ‘Fancy that, now!’ said Mr Lydd admiringly. ‘Made his fortune at sea, I wouldn’t wonder, and sent for his dad to come and share it with him. There’s nothing like pitching it rum, Ben!’

  John, who was drawing two tankards of beer at the barrel beside the cupboard, spoke over his shoulder, dismissing his imaginative protégé to bed. Ben showed some slight signs of recalcitrance, but, upon encountering a decidedly stern look, sniffed, and went with lagging step towards the door.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Mr Lydd encouragingly. ‘You don’t want to take no risks, not with your guv’nor looking like bull-beef. I wouldn’t!’

  John grinned, and handed him one of the tankards. ‘Is that what I look like? Here’s a heavy wet for you! Did you come to discover where Brean is? I can’t tell you.’

  Mr Lydd, carefully laying down the clay pipe he had been filling, took the tankard, blew off the froth, and ceremoniously pledged his host. After a long draught, he sighed, wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, and picked up his pipe again. Not until this had been lit, with a screw of paper kindled at one of the smouldering logs, did he answer John’s question. While he alternately drew at the pipe, and pressed down the tobacco with the ball of his thumb, his eyes remained unwaveringly fixed on John’s face, in a meditative and curiously shrewd scrutiny. By the time his pipe was drawing satisfactorily, he had apparently reached certain conclusions, for he withdrew his stare, and said in a conversational tone: ‘Properly speaking, Ned Brean’s whereabouts don’t interest me. If you like to set it about he’s gone off to visit young Simmy, it’s all one to me.’

  ‘I don’t,’ John interrupted.

  ‘Well, it ain’t any of my business, but what I say is, if you’re going to tell a bouncer let it be a good ’un! However, I didn’t come here to talk about Ned Brean.’

  ‘What did you come to talk about?’ asked John amiably.

  ‘I don’t know as how I came to talk about anything in partic’lar. Jest dropped in, neighbourly. It’s quiet up at the Manor, these days. Very different from what it used to be when I was a lad. That was afore Sir Peter ran aground, as you may say. A very well-breeched swell he was, flashing the dibs all over. Ah, and prime cattle we had in the stables then! Slap up to the echo, Squire was, and the finest, lightest hands – ! Mr Frank was the same, and Master Jermyn after him – regular top-sawyers! Dead now, o’ course. There’s only Miss Nell left.’ He paused, and took a pull at his beer, watching John over the top of the tankard. John met his look, the hint of a smile in his eyes, but he said nothing. Mr Lydd transferred his gaze to the fire. ‘It’s not so far off forty years since I went to Kellands,’ he said reminiscently. ‘Went as stable-boy, I did, and rose to be head-groom, with four under me, not counting the boys. Taught Master Jermyn to ride, and Miss Nell too. Neck-or-nothing, that was Master Jermyn, and prime ’uns Squire used to buy for him! He wou
ldn’t look at a commoner, not Squire! “Proper high bred ’uns, Joe!” he used to say to me. “Proper high bred ’uns for the boy, if I drown in the River Tick!” Which he pretty near did do,’ said Mr Lydd, gently knocking some of the ash from his pipe. ‘What with his gaming, and his racing, it was Dun Territory for Squire, but he always said as how he’d come about. I dessay he would have, if he hadn’t took ill. He had a stroke, you see. Mr Winkfield – that’s his man, and has been these thirty years – he will have it it was Master Jermyn being killed in the wars that gave Squire his notice to quit. I don’t know how that may be, because he wasn’t struck down immediate: not for some years he wasn’t. But he wasn’t never the same man after the news came. He don’t leave his room now. Going on for three years it is since I see him on his feet. A fine, big man he used to be: not as big as you, but near it. Jolly, too. Swear the devil out of hell, he could, but everybody liked him, because he was easy in his ways, and he laughed more often than he scowled. You wouldn’t think it if you was to see him now. Nothing left of him but a bag of bones. He sends for me every now and then, just to crack a whid over old times. Mr Winkfield tells me he remembers what happened fifty years ago better than the things that happened yesterday. Always says the same thing to me, he does. “Not booked yet, Joe!” he says, for he likes his joke. And, “Take good care of Miss Nell!” he says. Which I always have done, of course – so far as possible.’

  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, recognizing 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 Tollgates 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 borde and tenpence from you, my bully!’

  ‘You’ll take one in the breadbasket!’ 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 gray, 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 gray 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,’ apologized 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 Skeffli
ng, 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 washhouse this moment, with a neckcloth, and some handkerchiefs, 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?’