Herald of Joy by Pamela Belle

Author:Pamela Belle [Belle, Pamela]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 2016-08-03T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

‘Concealment, like a worm’

(Twelfth Night)

The four St. Barbe children and Patience had ridden out, as was their habit, immediately after dinner. They returned, flushed and laughing, perhaps two hours later, to a house that, in the middle of a warm afternoon, was quiet and peaceful. Nat had gone to Bath, and Rachael was walking in the garden, where Silence was consulting with the ancient gardener, Diggory, on the best place to plant the new tulip bulbs which she had asked her brother to send her from London. Most of the servants were busy in their quarters where, with luck, they would be clearing up after their own dinner. Patience looked round the empty hall, and smiled with rich satisfaction. So far, all was well.

William had been delegated to lead the ponies round to the stable, and to keep the grooms occupied with some tale of temporary lameness. It was essential not to have anyone’s eyes too often on the gravelled courtyard in front of the house. It did not much matter if the two fugitives were seen to enter Wintercombe, but no one must be given the chance to realise that they had not left.

The one stumbling-block might prove to be Carpenter, the officious butler. Patience, however, had given strict instructions to the two men, to be acted on should he open the door.

It sounded a hare-brained scheme, but Nick had heard worse. He knew, moreover, that anything unusual could be made to seem ordinary, if the actors in the drama could carry it off with confidence and aplomb. Certainly, trying to smuggle them into Wintercombe in secret would be very difficult. What could be easier than walking straight up to the front door?

He put on his new clothes. Like all the rest he had borrowed on his journey from Worcester, they were an indifferent fit, being made for a man rather heavier, but the quality was good, and the shoes were almost the right size, for which he was profoundly grateful. Touchet did not grumble, even though the garments provided for him, with apologies from Patience, were slightly too small, and rather more worn than those given to Nick.

‘You won’t have horses, of course,’ Patience had said, admiring them as they stood before her in all their glory. ‘But if Carpenter does open the door, he’ll think that the grooms have already taken them to the stables, and of course if William plays his part, the grooms won’t even notice any visitors.’

They had followed the children from the shelter, down through the trees to the warm sunlit line of the Wellow Lane. Ahead, perhaps a mile away, Nick could see the tower of Philip’s Norton church, jutting up out of the trees and the hill that lay between. He had not travelled this road for six years, and it seemed passing strange to be walking along it now, in the wake of Silence’s children and Silence’s sister, returned without her knowledge to the place that had once meant so much to him.

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