Prologue
In Holland
The conspirators were meeting in the late Major Martin’s neat but somewhat denuded front parlour. Mr Martin looked at his sister’s document, and raised his well-shaped eyebrows very high. “Negligible.”
“It’s the other one, Cressida!” prompted Miss Duckett with a giggle.
“What? Oh; yes. I’m sorry, Ricky: it’s this one.” She handed him the other document.
“Yes,” he said slowly, having perused it. “Just as I recalled it.”
“Is it him?” demanded Miss Duckett eagerly.
“No,” he said flatly.
“But then it won’t work!” she gasped.
“Isabelle, he is teasing you,” said Miss Martin with a sigh. “What have you found out?” she demanded of her brother.
Richard Martin eyed her thoughtfully, but apparently decided to tell her the whole. Though neither of the two young women would have taken anything like their dying oaths that he was in fact doing so. “The original fellow did succeed to the title: when I say original, he was the fellow Papa knew before he left England, and to whom this epistle is— I was going to say, is ostensibly addressed. May be said to be addressed,” he murmured.
“And?” prompted Miss Duckett breathlessly.
“Popped off,” he drawled.
“Are you sure?” asked Miss Martin with a frown.
“Of course I am sure: why do you imagine I went to England?” he said crossly.
“To escape your creditors?” suggested Miss Duckett. Mr Martin looked down his straight nose at her. Unmoved, she added: “To escape his creditors?”
“A not unlikely scenario,” admitted Miss Martin sourly.
“To escape an angry husband?” added Miss Duckett dulcetly.
“Several. Only some of them in pursuit of him,” replied Mr Martin blightingly.
Alas, far from subsiding, or appearing crushed, let alone properly abashed, Miss Duckett collapsed in gales of giggles immediately.
Miss Martin smiled feebly. “Don’t, Isabelle.”
Miss Duckett blew her nose. “Why not? Out of respect for him, perchance?” she asked in a hard voice.
Miss Martin winced. “Er—no,” she murmured.
“I should think not! Well, go on, Ricky,” Miss Duckett ordered their relative.
“I shall do so, in the case that I can ever recover my thread. This one,” he said, tapping the document, “has popped off. T’other one now has the title.”
“Are you sure?” demanded Miss Duckett.
“Yes.”
“He is sure,” she reported.
Cressida Martin smiled limply. “So he says. What is he like, Ricky?”
“That has yet to be determined, don’t it?” he said airily. “Well, the word in London is, a man-about-town, not quite a Pink, drives a decent rig-out but not quite a Corinthian; in short, nothing very much.”
“That consorts really well with what Papa said of him!” announced Miss Duckett scathingly.
Her relatives eyed her more or less tolerantly. Miss Duckett was, more or less, their sister. Pace the different surname. And had certainly had both about as much to put up with, and about as much to be thankful for, from their mutual parent.
“I was about to say,” noted Mr Martin, “that there was, of course, no-one to whom I could put a direct question.”
“You mean, no-one who would answer one honestly,” corrected Miss Duckett ruthlessly.
“You certainly do not get that relentlessly logical mind from him, Isabelle: is it on the Duckett side, perchance?” he asked courteously.
Far from appearing wounded at this unkind reminder of her parentage, Miss Duckett collapsed in giggles, shaking her chestnut curls at him helplessly.
“Hah, hah,” noted Miss Martin crossly. “Just tell it, Ricky! Ignore her.”
He shrugged. “The absence, so far as I can determine, of the slightest rumour or speculation about this milord could indicate nothing at all. Or everything,” he added before Miss Duckett could do so.
“Precisely!” she cried. “Do you not think, Cressida?”
“Ye-es,” agreed Cressida slowly.
“Papa said he was possibly the most dangerous man he knew,” Ricky reminded her.
“Mm. If he was right, and this is the same man.”
“Who else? Well, staying in Brussels with the Marquess and Marchioness of Wade, putting in an appearance at the Richmond ball in full dress uniform?”
“I think it would have to be full dress uniform, for a grand ball, wouldn’t it?” asked Isabelle.
“Yes!” said Cressida impatiently. “No, well, not that I have ever attended one, either!” she admitted with a smile.
“Will you two be silent?” cried their brother. “I am trying to say, it must be the same fellow: he has inherited the title; and we should be very, very wary of him!”
“Yes, but Ricky, you could be wrong,” said Cressida dubiously.
“He is never wrong!” Isabelle reminded her with a giggle.
“Shush, Isabelle. Was he actually—I mean, the man Papa knew—was he ever actually with an English regiment, as he claimed?”
“Not as he claimed, no,” said her brother drily.
“You must remember Papa telling us that, Cressida!” urged Miss Duckett.
“Um, I don’t think so.”
“It was that summer she had the streaming hay fever,” said Ricky impatiently. “When we were in Belgium visiting Petite Maman’s cousins.”
“Oh, so it was. The fields were full of poppies: if one could overlook the fact that most of that area of the Lowlands must be sodden with blood, it was a glorious sight,” noted Isabelle.
“I think it may have been the poppies that brought it on,” admitted Cressida.
“Never mind your damned hay fever,” said her brother evilly. “I am convinced it is the same man: half of the damned English gentry went back to their damned regiments in order to fight l’Empereur at Waterloo; and in any case, Papa would never have made a mistake about a thing like that. Therefore,” he noted pointedly, “anything we undertake that might involve him will be a damned dangerous enterprise!”
“Not necessarily,” said Cressida calmly.
Her relatives goggled at her, their mouths a little open.
Cressida smiled a little: the identical expression emphasised the family likeness. They all three had small, straight noses, oval faces, rather wide across the cheekbones, and wide, pale foreheads. But Ricky’s colouring was different: he had his mother’s glowing copper curls and huge, deep blue eyes. The which were fringed with the blackest of lashes: he would have made an entrancingly pretty girl. And, on one or two escapades of the not-too-distant past, in fact had done so. Isabelle and Cressida were very alike: both had odd yellow-brown eyes, almost an amber shade, and curls of a shade between auburn and chestnut. Tumbled, in the case of Miss Duckett.
“It depends on what sort of man he is,” she explained. “Do not tell me he is dangerous, we know that. But is he an English gentleman, imbued with the spirit of noblesse oblige?”
Miss Duckett merely snorted loudly, what time Mr Martin admitted drily: “I have never met one of those, Cressida.”
“No, well, possibly the sort who frequented Papa’s gaming house are not the only type of English gentleman, and it is not all a hum.”
Miss Duckett gave that snort again.
“None of the ones Papa knew in his youth, to hear him tell it, would have known noblesse oblige if it stood up and barked at them,” noted Ricky coldly.
“No, quite!” agreed Isabelle. “Talking of which, where is he, Cressida?”
“Mm? Oh: in the kitchen, with Lise. She’s been flirting with the butcher again, and got him a huge bone. I think he is sleeping it off, Isabelle.”
Undeterred, Miss Duckett opened the door and called loudly. There was a short interval, and then a patter of paws in the passage. And Miss Duckett cried loudly: “Le voilà! Salut, petit chien! Salut, petit toto! Alors, t’as bouffé un grand os, n’est-ce pas?” And scooping up a small, eagerly panting, nut-brown personage, returned to her chair and settled him on her knee.
“The phrase,” said Miss Martin calmly, “must have come from somewhere, after all.”
“The servants?” said Mr Martin, looking down that straight nose again.
“What? I am not talking about Isabelle’s French, grand imbécile! No, the English gentlemen Papa knew and the ones who came to the house to gamble need not be the only examples of their class: the idea of noblesse oblige must have come from somewhere.”
“Yes: from the French,” drawled Ricky.
Miss Duckett immediately collapsed in giggles again.
Cressida’s clever amber eyes twinkled, but she said merely: “You know what I mean. Perhaps this milord will recognise that this letter, if not precisely binding as a legal document,”—she ignored her sister’s spluttering fit—“does impose certain obligations.”
“Which he will immediately assume?” suggested Isabelle, rolling the great, limpid eyes very much.
“Instead of sending for his lawyers, I collect you mean,” agreed Mr Martin sardonically.
“Quite!” Miss Duckett rested her pointed chin on the little dog’s head, rubbing it gently back and forth in an absent way, and looked expectantly at Cressida.
“The letter is offering him the opportunity to show that he can behave like an honnête homme,” she said calmly.
“That is most certainly a concept known only to the French!” said Mr Martin with feeling.
“Nevertheless,” she replied firmly.
“I could re-write it,” he offered.
“Forging both the witnesses’ handwriting as well as Papa’s?” enquired Isabelle blandly.
“Why not?” he replied, equally bland.
“Rubbish,” said Cressida briskly. “There is no need: it is perfectly worded, for it affords every opportunity of interpretation either way.”
“Yes. I will say this for Papa,” conceded Ricky, “when he put his mind to anything, he did a damned thorough piece of work.”
Cressida nodded but added in a hard voice: “A pity he did not put his mind to rather more things, rather more often. Well, do you agree it will do?”
“Excellently well,” he said, re-reading it, his lips twitching.
“Personally, I should have thought a straightforward will—” began Isabelle.
Her relatives turned on her and withered her pretensions utterly.
“Very well, I am not subtle-minded,” she agreed calmly. “So? What else did you discover in England, Ricky?”
“Yes: what about that cousin: is there any hope of getting the property back?” asked Cressida.
“Not immediately: our late unlamented grandfather’s will made very sure of that, damn his eyes,” he said tightly.
“What about the cousin, Ricky?” asked Isabelle.
“A grasping, avaricious fellow, whom I would not arrange to meet in a dark alley,” he said with a turn of the well-modelled lip.
“Are you sure his name be not Martin?” she asked, very puzzled.
Ricky’s deep blue eyes sparkled, but he replied calmly: “Very sure. He has let the property and is reliably reported to have been enjoying the income from it these past twenty years.”
“Did you contact him?” she demanded.
“Not personally, no. I think further investigations in the neighbourhood may be judicious before either Cressida or I put ourselves at risk. –He is the heir, if we both predecease him. You,” he noted brutally, “don’t count.”
Miss Duckett merely shrugged.
“I met the son, having disguised myself as a well-to-do young fellow with nothing apparently better to do but idle about Oxford offering free drinks to fellows encountered in taverns.”
“That must have hurt!” choked Miss Duckett.
“It did. However, it was money well invested. Apparently I am destined to marry one of the daughters, and the son is fully prepared to take Cressida off my hands. Providing of course that we contact the fellow and ask him to take us in.”
“According to our Grandfather Martin’s will, he must take us in, should we request his aid, or lose the income,” said Cressida.
“Aye, but do we know that?” he said with a sneer.
She shrugged. “I take your point.”
“If we never contact him, he is fully prepared to go on enjoying the income from the property for the rest of his life.”
“There must be lawyers,” said Miss Martin dubiously.
“What, Grandfather Martin’s? They will be concerned to trace Papa, ascertain whether he produced lawful offspring, and contact us, will they?”
“Um, well, they should be,” she said weakly.
“Yes, and this damned cousin should be asking them to, not to say, offering to pay them to do it: but will he?”
“Would you, in his place?” asked Miss Duckett artlessly.
Ricky Martin shrugged. “No. I should say, Be damned to the lot of you.”
“There you are, then.”
“Quite. Well, I don’t intend he shall enjoy my inheritance for any longer than the will entitles him to it, but there is nothing to be done about that, for the nonce. For the rest… Why not try it?” he said with the smile that could charm birds down off the trees.
His sisters were not impressed.
“How much preparation have you made?” asked Cressida grimly.
“Yes; and are you prepared really to work at it, Ricky?” asked Isabelle.
“Certainly. We should be made for life, if a grand milord takes us up. And at least one of you,” he said, looking at them drily, “would be off my hands.”
“Yes,” agreed Miss Duckett cheerfully. “Imagine it: a Season in London, sponsored by a grand milord and his relatives!”
“Is he married?” asked Cressida.
Ricky shook his head. “Bachelor. Well, been too busy to marry, I dare say.”
“If he really is the man,” she said uneasily.
“He is the man!” he shouted.
“Very well, he is the man. In that case, marriage would not be impossible,” she said on an airy note.
At this, Isabelle collapsed in delighted giggles.
“Stop laughing!” cried Ricky crossly.
Cressida also collapsed in giggles.
“Will you stop laughing, you silly pair?” he shouted. “Of course marriage is on the cards; did you think I did not envisage that from the outset?”
Eventually—though not for some period—Miss Duckett stopped laughing, blew her nose, apologised to the little dog, who had got rather jolted about during the seizure, and noted airily: “He had envisaged that, all along.”
“Mm,” agreed Cressida drily. Most of the plot was hers. It was not that Ricky had no head for detail; rather, that he was too lazy to apply himself.
Ricky’s sweetly bowed mouth tightened. “It will serve them all out, damn their eyes.”
“What, all those fine English gentlemen who lost all those guineas to you and Papa in the house?” said Cressida feebly, wiping her eyes.
“And who beat the l’Empereur at Waterloo and sent him off to horrid Saint Helena; and who ensured that Papa should not get his rightful inheritance and that Ricky should not be able to lord it at a school for the sons of the aforesaid, subsequently spending our grandfather’s fortune like water before he turned twenty-five!” added Isabelle with a loud giggle.
“Yes,” Ricky agreed grimly.
Cressida blew her nose. “Well, yes,” she admitted, her mouth tightening.
Miss Duckett gulped. “I see. Well, fair enough. Let it be adoption by this milord and launching upon the fashionable world of London at worst, and at best, actual marriage!”
Ricky got up, as there came a loud knock upon the front door. “Yes. –I am not here,” he reminded them, striding out.
“In especial if it be a dun!” squeaked Miss Duckett, going somewhat cautiously to the window. “No, it’s only that idiot Piet Hos,” she reported.
Cressida smiled. “I thought it was his knock. He may come in. But mind, not a word about Ricky’s being back!”
Cheerfully Miss Duckett nodded, adjusted the warm shawl over her half-sister’s knees, and went to admit the caller.
“Alors, viens, petit chien!” said Cressida to the little brown dog, smiling, and assisting him onto her knee.
“A caller, mademoiselle,” announced Miss Duckett deeply.
“Thank you, Isabelle,” said Cressida calmly. “Good morning, Piet: how lovely to see you!”
Beaming, young Mr Hos came in, and though it was a freezing day, presented her with a giant bunch of flowers.
Hot-house, discerned Isabelle disapprovingly, disappearing. What a waste of money! Still, there was no denying it: Cressida, if not as pretty as Ricky—but then, who was?—was certainly a very charming young woman.
… “Well?” she said, having shown the visitor out after quite some considerable time.
“I think we could have told him it all!” said Cressida with a laugh. “He would not betray us!”
“He might not intend to, but he is a terrible idiot, you know, and would allow any spy of this milord to charm him into telling all after the offer of a single glass of beer. Added to which, he tells his mother everything,” she said wisely.
Cressida smiled a little. “Dear Mevrouw Hos would never betray us.”
“I hope not. Because if this milord is indeed that man, he will have any number of spies available to send.”
“Mm.”
“It is all very thrilling!” Miss Duckett then owned with a beaming smile.
“Er—yes.” Cressida eyed her dubiously. “Isabelle, my dear, although any scheme to which Ricky agrees usually comes off well, he will always ensure it is he who comes out of it unscathed. Just remember, he is not to be trusted. He would sacrifice either of us without an instant’s thought, if it meant an advantage for himself.”
“I know that!” she said scornfully. “I would not trust him as far as I could hurl him bodily!”
“Good, well, if we bear that in mind, the thing may work.”
Beaming, Miss Duckett came to bestow a smacking kiss on her cheek. “Of course it will! And you are a complete genius!”
“Mm.” Cressida licked her lips nervously. “Dearest, are you sure you truly want to be in it?”
“Of course I do,” she said firmly. “Besides, it makes it so much better: what if it’s I who manages to capture this milord?” she said with a gurgle. “Can you not imagine how Papa would have laughed? Well, for all his faults, you cannot deny he had a sense of humour.”
Miss Martin would have vastly preferred he had a sense of honour, though as she knew this was a sentiment to which her half-sister did not fully subscribe, she merely nodded, a trifle grimly.
“And you want to get your own back on the English gentry, too, do you not, Cressida?”
There was a short pause. Miss Martin’s sweet mouth might have been seen to tighten, and the neat nostrils to flicker. “Yes,” she said grimly.
“Then this,” said Miss Duckett lightly, “will be the perfect opportunity! And we shall certainly never be offered another. Added to which, while I have no confidence in either Ricky or his plots, I do in yours! You may count on me!”
Miss Martin took a deep breath. “Very well, then. So be it.”
Next chapter:
https://theoldchiphat.blogspot.com/2023/02/enter-old-chip-hat.html