The Talisman Ring

The Runner, seeing ‘Lucy’ driven towards the staircase, heaved a sigh of relief. Mistress and maid vanished from sight; Clem, at a nod from Nye, went away to draw a pail of water; and Nye turned to his unwelcome visitor, and said with a wry smile, and a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder: “Them Frenchies!”

“Unchristian, that’s what I call ’em,” responded Mr Stubbs severely. “I fair compassionate that wench.”

“She’ll be turned off,” said Nye with a resigned shrug. “That will make the third in as many weeks. Miss has the temper of the fiend, as I know. What can I do for you?”

Above, in Miss Thane’s bedchamber, Eustacie, from whom stifled giggles had escaped all the way up the stairs, sank down upon the bed, and with her handkerchief pressed to her mouth, gave way to inextinguishable laughter. Ludovic, twisting the shawl more securely round his arm, said: “Of all the spitfires! I wouldn’t be a maid of yours for any money. Now what’s the matter?!”

“You l-look so rid-ridiculous!” gasped Eustacie, rocking herself to and fro.

Ludovic looked critically at his reflection in the mirror. “A fine, strapping girl,” he said. “But what beats me is how you females ever contrive to dress at all. I couldn’t do up the plaguey hooks and eyes on this gown. That’s why I took the shawl. I don’t care for Sarah’s scent much, do you?”

Indeed, the room reeked of heavy scent. Eustacie raised her head to say unsteadily: “But of course not, a whole bottle of it! It is affreux!

Open the window! Those Runners have come for you, Ludovic. What are we to do?”

He had thrust open one of the casements, and was leaning out to breathe the unscented air, but he turned his head at that. “How many of them are there?”

“Two. There is one on guard over the backstairs. I think it is Basil who must have told them to look for you here.”

“I saw the one on the backstairs. If there are no more than two, and Nye can’t fob them off, we’d better lock them up in the cellar, I think. Just until I’ve found my ring,” he added reassuringly, seeing Eustacie’s face of disapproval.

“But no, for if we lock them up we shall be put in prison for it!”

“There is that, of course,” agreed Ludovic. “Still, if only I could clear myself of this murder charge I shouldn’t mind taking the risk. Ten to one we’d get off with a fine.”

They were still arguing the point when Clem appeared with a pail and a scrubbing-brush. They pounced upon him for news, and he was able to tell them that Nye had the situation well in hand, and had already gone far towards convincing the Runners that they had been sent to look for a mare’s nest. At the moment he was regaling them with brandy, after which he had promised to conduct them personally all over the inn. Hearing this, Eustacie was at once struck by the notion of spreading a few pieces of female apparel about Ludovic’s room. She went off to do this, leaving Ludovic with instructions to start scrubbing the floor the instant he heard the Runners ascending the stairs.

By the time Mr Stubbs, fortified by brandy, did come up, Eustacie had returned to Miss Thane’s room, and no sooner did Nye tap on the door, asking whether the officer might come in, than she broke forth again into indignant repinings. Both the Runner and Nye were adjured to come in and judge for themselves whether the smell of the perfume would ever be got rid of. When Nye asked permission for the Runner to search her room, she first stared at him with an expression of outrage on her face, and then flung open the door of the cupboard and said tragically that it needed only this, that a great rough man should pry into her wardrobe. She begged Mr Stubbs not to consider her feelings in the least degree, but to pull all her dresses out, and throw them on the floor if he pleased. Mr Stubbs, acutely uncomfortable, assured her that he had no desire to do anything of the kind. She said that she wished she were back in France, where ladies were treated with civility, and, covering her face with her handkerchief, burst into tears. Ludovic, inexpertly scrubbing the damp patch on the floor, sniffed dolefully over the pail of water, and the Runner, casting a perfunctory glance into the wardrobe and another under the bed, beat a somewhat hasty retreat.

It was not long before Nye returned, this time alone. He found Eustacie peeping out of the window at the receding forms of the two officers, and Ludovic, the mob-cap and shawl already discarded, trying to extricate himself from Miss Thane’s gown. Characteristically, the first words he addressed to Ludovic were of decided reproof. “And who might those clothes belong to, my lord, if I may make so bold as to ask?”

“To Miss Thane, of course. Help me to come out of this curst dress!”

“And that’s a nice thing!” said Nye. “Couldn’t you find nothing else to break but a flask of scent that don’t belong to you? For shame, Mr Ludovic!”

Eustacie came away from the window. “Enfin, they are gone. Do they believe that my cousin is not here, Nye?”