The Talisman Ring

Eustacie at the first sound of his voice had dropped the bellows and flown to the bedside. “I’m here, mon cousin!” she said, dropping on her knees beside him.

He put out his sound hand and took her chin in it, turning her face up that he might scrutinize it. “I’ve been wanting to look at you, my little cousin,” he said. A smile hovered round his mouth. “I thought as much! You’re as pretty as any picture.” He saw a tear sparkling on her cheek, and said at once: “What are you crying for? Don’t you like your romantic cousin Ludovic?”

“Oh yes, but I thought you were going to die!”

“Lord, no!” he said cheerfully. He let Nye put him back on to the pillows, and drew Eustacie’s hand to his lips, and kissed it. “You must promise me you’ll not go further with this trip of yours to London. It won’t do.”

“Oh no, of course I shall not! I shall stay with you.”

“Egad, I wish you could!” he said.

“But certainly I can. Why should I not?”

“Les convenances,” murmured Ludovic.

“Ah bah, I do not regard them! When one is engaged upon an adventure it is not the time to be thinking of such things. Besides, if I do not stay with you, I shall have to marry Tristram, because I have lost both my bandboxes, which makes it impossible that I should any longer go to London.”

“Oh well, you can’t marry Tristram, that’s certain!” said Ludovic, apparently impressed by this reasoning.

Nye interposed at this point. “Mr Ludovic, what be you doing here?” he demanded. “Have you gone crazy to come into the Weald? Who shot you?”

“Some damned Exciseman. We landed a cargo of brandy and rum two nights ago, and I’d a fancy to learn what’s been going forward here. I came up with Abel.”

Nye laid a quick hand across his lips and glanced warningly in Miss Thane’s direction.

“You needn’t regard me,” she said encouragingly. “I am pledged to secrecy.”

Ludovic turned his head to look at her. “I beg pardon, but who in thunder are you?” he said.

“It’s Miss Thane, sir, who’s putting up in the house.”

“Yes,” interrupted Eustacie, “and I think she is truly very sensible, mon cousin, and she would like infinitely to help us.”

“But we don’t want any help!”

“Certainly we want help, because Tristram will search for me, and perhaps the Excisemen for you, and you must be hidden.”

“And that’s true, too,” muttered Nye. “You’ll stay where you are tonight, sir, but it ain’t safe for longer. I’ll have you where you can slip into the cellar if the alarm’s raised.”

“I’ll be damned if I’ll be put in any cellar!” said Ludovic. “I’ll be off as soon as I can stand on my feet.”

“No, you will not,” said Eustacie. “I have quite decided that you must stop being a free trader and become instead Lord Lavenham.”

“That seems to me a most excellent idea,” remarked Miss Thane. “I suppose it will be quite easy?”

“If Sylvester’s dead, I am Lord Lavenham, but it don’t help me. I can’t stay in England.”

“But we are going to discover who it was who killed that man whose name I cannot remember,” explained Eustacie.

“Oh, are we?” said Ludovic. “I’m agreeable, but how are we going to set about it?”

“Well, I do not know yet, but we shall arrange a plan, and I think perhaps Miss Thane might be very useful, because she seems to me to be a person of large ideas, and when it is shown to her that she holds your life in her hands, she will be interested, and wish to assist us.”

“Do I really hold his life in my hands?” inquired Miss Thane. “If that’s so, of course I’m much interested. I will certainly assist you. In fact, I wouldn’t be left out of this for the world.”

Ludovic moved on his pillows, and said with a grimace of pain: “You seem to know so much, ma’am, that you may as well know also that I am wanted by the Law for murder!”

“Are you?” said Miss Thane, gently removing one of the pillows. “How shocking! Do you think you could get a little sleep if we left you?”

He looked up into her face and gave a weak laugh. “Ma’am, take care of my cousin for me till morning, and I shall be very much in your debt.”

“Why, certainly!” said Miss Thane in her placid way.

Ten minutes later Eustacie was ensconced in a chair by the fire in Miss Thane’s bedchamber, gratefully sipping a cup of hot milk. Miss Thane sat down beside her, and said with her friendly smile: “I hope you mean to tell me all about it, for I’m dying of curiosity, and I don’t even know your name.”

Eustacie considered her for a moment. “Well, I think I will tell you,” she decided. “I am Eustacie de Vauban, and my cousin Ludovic is Lord Lavenham of Lavenham Court. He is the tenth Baron.”

Miss Thane shook her head. “It just shows how easily one may be mistaken,” she said. “I thought he was a smuggler.”

“He prefers,” said Eustacie, with dignity, “that one should call him a free trader.”

“I’m sorry,” apologized Miss Thane. “Of course, it is a much better title. I should have known. What made him take to s—free trading? It seems a trifle unusual.”

“I see that I must explain to you the talisman ring,” said Eustacie, and drew a deep breath.