The Toll-Gate by Georgette Heyer
John got up to refill the ale jug. ‘What’s Brean’s lay?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know.’
John laughed. ‘A stupid question, Mr Chirk! You wouldn’t tell me, if you did. But I want to find the man.’
‘Hark ’ee!’ said Chirk. ‘If you was thinking, because I stable the mare here now and then, and maybe have a bite o’ supper with Ned, he’s a fence, or a baggage-man, you’re going beside the cushion! He ain’t – not to my knowledge! This ain’t my beat, and I don’t come here in the way o’ business. What brings me here is another matter: private, you may say! If you’re willing I should leave the mare for an hour, well! If you ain’t – well again! I’ll brush!’
‘Oh, quite willing!’ John said. ‘I’m even willing to believe you don’t know what may have befallen Brean, or where to get news of him – if you tell me so, man to man!’
Chirk looked at him with, narrowed, searching eyes. ‘What’s in your mind?’ he asked abruptly.
‘Who is the man who visits Brean secretly, after dark? The man Ben is afraid of?’
Chirk pushed his chair back from the table. ‘What’s this? Trying to gammon me, guv’nor? You’ll catch cold at that!’
‘No, it’s the sober truth. That’s what had Ben in such a sweat of fear, the night I came to this place. Some stranger he’s never seen, nor been allowed to see. Brean pitched him a Canterbury tale to keep him from spying on the pair of them: told him if this mysterious visitor saw him he’d send him to work in the pits. If a tree so much as rustled out there –’ he jerked his head towards the back-door – ‘the boy turned green with fear.’
‘Sounds to me like a bag o’ moonshine!’ said Chirk incredulously. ‘Why, he went off, happy as a grig, to put Mollie through her tricks! He’s not scared!’
‘Oh, not now! I told him no one could harm him while I was here, and he believed me.’
A gleam of humour lit Chirk’s eyes, as they ran over his host. ‘I should think he might,’ he agreed. He stroked his chin thoughtfully. ‘Wonder why the bantling never said a word to me about it? Him and me’s good friends, and he tells me most things. Ned’s a hard man, like I said, and he’s not one to take notice of brats, even when they’re of his own get. A monkey’s allowance is what he gives Ben: more kicks than ha’pence!’
‘How long is it since you were here last?’ John asked.
‘Matter of three weeks.’
‘I’ve a shrewd suspicion it’s happened since then. A pity! I had hoped you might know something. I’ve a notion there’s something devilish queer afoot here, but what it is, or how Brean came to be mixed up in it – if he is – I can’t guess. I shouldn’t think it could be what you call pound dealing, however: this visitor of his seems to be uncommonly anxious he shan’t be seen, or recognized.’
Chirk dived a hand into his pocket, and drew forth a snuffbox. It was a handsome piece, as its present owner acknowledged, as he offered it, open, to John. ‘Took it off of a fat old gager a couple o’ years back,’ he explained, with engaging frankness. ‘Prigged his tatler, too, but I sold that. I’m a great one for a pinch o’ merry-go-up, and this little box just happened to take my fancy, and I’ve kept it. I daresay I’d get a double finnup for it, too,’ he added, sighing over his own prodigality. ‘It’s worth more, but when it comes to tipping over the dibs there ain’t a lock as isn’t a hog-grubber. Now, look ’ee here, Mr Nib-Cove –’
‘I wish you will stop calling me that!’ interrupted John. ‘If it means, as I suspect it may, that you take me for some town-tulip, you’re out! I’m a soldier!’
‘Oh!’ said Mr Chirk, helping himself to a generous pinch of his snuff. ‘No offence, Soldier! Now, maybe I could drop in at one or two kens which I knows of, and where I might get news o’ Ned Brean; but he never spoke a word to me about this cull which comes to see him secret. I’m bound to say it sounds to me like a Banbury story, but you ain’t no halfling, nor you don’t look like one o’ them young bloods kicking up a lark, and I don’t misdoubt you. I don’t twig what any boman prig should be doing in a backward place like this, but I’ll tell you that there’s ways a gatekeeper might be useful to such – if you greased him well in the fist! If so be as you was wishful to take a train o’ pack ponies through the pike, and no questions asked nor toll paid, for instance!’
‘Yes, I’d thought of that,’ John agreed. ‘I’ve seen it done, but not here. Dash it, man, this is Derbyshire!’
‘Just what I was thinking myself,’ nodded Chirk. ‘In the free-trading business, Soldier?’
John laughed. ‘No, only for a week or two! I was picked up at sea once by a free-trading vessel, and made the voyage in her. A famous set of rascals they were, too, but they treated me well enough.’
‘I should think,’ said Chirk dryly, ‘them coves at Bedlam must be looking for you all over! You ain’t got a fancy to go on the rum-pad for a week or two, I s’pose?’
‘Not I!’ John grinned. ‘It’s pound dealing for me! Try it yourself! – I might be able to help you.’
‘Thanking you kindly, I’d as lief stand on my own feet! Nor I don’t see why you should want to help me.’
‘As you please! When you see Rose Durward, give her a message from me!’
This brought Chirk up on to his feet, with a scrape of his chair across the floor, and a dangerous look in his eye. ‘So that’s it, is it?’ he said softly. ‘A man o’ the town, are you, Soldier? Would that be why you’re being so obliging as to keep the gate for Ned? Quite in the petticoat line, I daresay! Well, if you’re to her taste, she’s welcome!’
‘Tell her,’ said the Captain, carefully trimming the lamp, which had begun to smoke, ‘that I’ll be hanged if I know what she finds to take her fancy in a damned, green-eyed, suspicious, quarrel-picking hedge-bird, but I’ll stable his mare for him – if only to please her!’
Considerably taken aback, Chirk stood staring at him, his humorous mouth thinned, and a challenging frown in his eyes. ‘There’s not a soul but her knows why I come here,’ he said. ‘Not a soul, d’ye hear me? So if you know it, it looks uncommon like she told you, Soldier! P’raps you’ll be so very obliging as to tell me how that came about?’ He had thrown off his greatcoat when he sat down to the table, but his pistol lay beside his plate, and he picked it up. ‘I’m a man as likes plain-speaking, Soldier – and a quick answer!’ he said significantly.
‘Are you?’ said the Captain, a hint of steel in his pleasant voice. ‘But I am not a man who likes to answer questions at the pistol muzzle, Mr Chirk! Put that gun down!’ He rose to his feet. ‘You’ll get hurt, you know, if you make me go to the trouble of wresting it away from you,’ he warned him.
An involuntary grin lightened the severity of Chirk’s countenance. He lowered the pistol, and exclaimed: ‘Damme, if you don’t beat all hollow, Soldier! It ain’t me as would be hurt if I was to pull this trigger!’
‘If you were to do anything so mutton-headed, you’d be an even bigger gudgeon than I take you for – which isn’t possible!’ said John. ‘I’ve a strong liking for Rose, but I don’t dangle after women ten years older than I am, however comely they may be!’
‘You’re Quality, and they’re not particular where they throw out their damned lures – just for a bit o’ sport to while away the time!’ muttered Chirk.
‘I shan’t be particular where I throw you out, if you make me lose my temper!’ said the Captain grimly. ‘What the devil do you mean by talking of a decent woman as if she were a light frigate?’
Mr Chirk flushed, and pocketed his pistol. ‘I never thought such!’ he protested. ‘It just put me in a tweak, thinking – But I see as I was mistaken! No offence, Soldier! The thing is, I get fair blue-devilled! There’s times when I wish I’d never set eyes on Rose, seeing as she’s one as is above my touch. She’s respectable, and I’m a hedge-bird, and no help for it! But I did set eyes on her, and the more I make u
‘Nothing of the sort! She never mentioned you,’ interrupted John. ‘It was her mistress who told me the story!’
Much abashed, Chirk begged his pardon. He then eyed him sideways, and said: ‘A regular Long Meg she is, but a mort o’ mettle, that I will say! Much like yourself, Soldier! Not scared of my pops! Did she tell you how it chanced that I met Rose?’
‘She did, and it seemed to me that hedge-bird though you are you’re a good fellow, for you didn’t take their purses from them. Or were you afraid of Rose?’
Mr Chirk chuckled reminiscently. ‘Ay, fit to tear the eyes out of my head she was! And her own sparkling that pretty as you never did see! But, lordy, Soldier, I never knew it was only a couple o’ morts in the gig, or I wouldn’t have held ’em up!’
‘I believe you wouldn’t indeed. Does Rose know that you come to this house?’
‘No. Only you, and Ned, and young Ben knows that – and only you knows what my business is!’
‘Never mind that! Tell Rose you’ve met me! There have been changes up at the Manor since you were last here!’
‘Squire been put to bed with a shovel?’ asked Chirk. ‘Sick as a horse, he was, by what Rose told me.’
‘Not that. But his grandson is at Kellands, with a friend. Name of Coate. What brings him into Derbyshire, no one knows: nothing good, I fancy!’
‘Flash cove?’ said Chirk, cocking an intelligent eyebrow.
‘I’ll cap downright!’ said John, in the vernacular.
The eyebrows remained cocked; Chirk patted his pocket suggestively.
‘No, no!’ John said, laughing. ‘Just try if you can discover what brought him to Kellands, and whether Ned Brean was concerned in it!’ He saw a quizzical look in Chirk’s face, and added: ‘Don’t gammon me you can’t do it! If there’s havey-cavey business afoot, you can get wind of it more easily than another!’
At that moment, the door opened, and Ben slid somewhat warily into the kitchen. Aware of having incurred his friend’s displeasure, he did not venture to address him; but Chirk said encouragingly: ‘Come here, Benny!’ and stretched out a hand.
Much relieved, he bounded across the room. ‘It’s all right and tight, ain’t it?’ he asked anxiously. ‘And I give Mollie –’
‘Never you mind about Mollie! You tell me this, son! Where’s your dad loped off to?’
‘I dunno. She knows me, Mollie does! She –’
‘Don’t you tell me no lies!’ said Chirk sternly. ‘Your dad never loped off without telling you when he’d be back!’
‘Well, he did!’ said Ben, wriggling to shake off the grip on his shoulder. ‘’Leastways, he said he’d be back in an hour, but he never said no more. It don’t matter, Mr Chirk! I got Jack instead, and we has a bang-up dinner every day, and he’s learnt me to play cards. I like him better than me dad, much! He’s a swell cove!’
‘There’s a young varmint for you!’ said Chirk, with some severity. ‘Now, you stand still, Benny, else you don’t give Mollie another carrot as long as you live! Did you ever know your dad go off like this before?’
Ben shook his head vigorously, and once more proffered the suggestion that his dad had been pressed.
‘And all the same to you if he was, I suppose!’ said Chirk. ‘Think, now! Didn’t he ever leave you to mind the gate before?’
‘Ay. He did when he went to market, or the Blue Boar.’
‘Did he leave you all night?’
‘No,’ Ben muttered, hanging his head.
‘Benny!’ said Chirk warningly. ‘You know what’ll happen to you if you tell me any more bouncers, don’t you?’
‘Me dad said I wasn’t to tell no one, else he’d break every bone in me body!’ said Ben desperately.
‘Well, I won’t squeak on you, so he won’t know you whiddled the scrap. And if you don’t, I’ll break every bone in your body, so you won’t be any better off,’ said Chirk calmly. ‘This ain’t the first time your dad’s loped off, is it?’
‘Yes, it is!’ Ben asseverated. ‘Only onct, before, he went off and told me to mind the gate in the night, and if anyone was to ask where he was he said to tell ’em he was laid down on his bed with a touch o’ the colic! And he come back before it was morning, honest he did!’
‘Where did he go to?’
‘I dunno! It was dark, and he woke me up – ’least, he didn’t, ’cos there was a waggon, or something, went through the gate, and that woke me. And me dad said as I was to sit by the fire in here till he come back, and to keep me chaffer close, ’cos he was going out.’
‘How long was he gone, Benny?’
‘A goodish while. All night, I dessay,’ replied Ben vaguely. ‘Nobody comed through the gate, and I went to sleep, and when me dad come in the fire was gone out.’
Chirk let him go. He glanced up at John, slightly frowning. ‘Queer start!’ he remarked.
‘Which way did that waggon go, Ben?’ asked John.
After a moment’s reflection, Ben said that he thought it was going Sheffield-way. He added that they didn’t often get them along the road after dark; and then, feeling that the subject was exhausted, begged for a sugar lump to give to the mare. John nodded permission, and he sped forth once more, leaving the two men to look at one another.
‘It is a queer start,’ said Chirk, rubbing his chin. ‘Danged if I know what to make of it!’
‘What had the waggon to do with it? What was on it?’
‘It don’t make a ha’porth o’ difference if there was a cageful o’ wild beasts on it, I don’t see what call Ned had to go along with it!’ said Chirk. ‘If a party o’ mill-kens have been and slummed Chatsworth, and loaded the swag on to that there waggon, they might grease Ned in the fist to keep his mummer shut, but they wouldn’t want him to go along with them!’ He pulled out a large silver watch, and consulted it. ‘Time I was brushing, Soldier! I don’t take the mare up to Kellands, so if you’ll let her bide in the shed till I come back, I’ll be obliged to you.’
The Captain nodded. ‘She’ll be safe enough. Think it over, Chirk! – and give my message to Rose!’
Eight
It was some two hours later when Chirk came back to the toll-house, and he found the Captain alone, Ben having been sent, protesting, to bed an hour before. The very faintest clink of spurred heels was all that warned John of the highwayman’s return; he caught the sound, and looked up from his task of applying blacking to his top-boots, just as the door opened, and Chirk once more stood before him. In answer to the questioning lift of an eyebrow, he nodded, and, setting the boot down, lounged over to the cupboard, from which he produced a couple of bottles. Whatever suspicions had still lurked in Chirk’s mind, at parting, seemed to have been laid to rest. He cast off his coat, without taking the precaution of removing his pistol from its pocket, and, leaving it over the back of a chair beside the door, walked to the fire, and stirred the smouldering logs with one foot. ‘Where’s the bantling?’ he asked.
‘Asleep,’ John replied, lacing two glasses of port with gin. ‘He wanted to wait for you to come back, but I packed him off – as soon as he’d shown me your Mollie.’ He handed one of the glasses to his guest. ‘A neatish little mare: strong in work, I should think.’
Chirk nodded. ‘Ay. Takes her fences flying and standing. Clever, too. She’s the right stamp for a man of my trade. She wouldn’t do for a man of your size. What do you ride, Soldier?’
‘Seventeen stone,’ John said, with a grimace.
‘Ah! You’ll need to keep your prancers high in the flesh, I don’t doubt.’ He lifted his glass. ‘Here’s your good health! It ain’t often I get given flesh-and-blood: it’s to be hoped I don’t get flustered.’ He drank, smacked his lips, and said approvingly: ‘A rum bub! Rose said as I was t
‘She’s not more set on it than I am, but if you go about the business with your barking iron I’ll break your neck!’ promised John genially. ‘As good take a bear by the tooth!’
‘The old gager – the Squire – saw him tonight,’ said Chirk. ‘Sent for him to go to his room, which has put them all in a quirk, for fear it might send him off in a convulsion. It hadn’t – not while I was there, anyways.’ He drained his glass, and set it down. ‘I’ll pike off now, Soldier, but you’ll be seeing me again. Maybe there’s one or two kens where I might get news of Ned.’ A wry smile twisted his mouth. ‘I’m to take my orders from you, unless I’m wishful to raise a breeze up at Kellands. So help me bob, I don’t know why I don’t haul my wind before that dimber mort of mine’s turned me into a regular nose!’
John smiled, and held out his hand. ‘We shall do!’ he said.
‘You may do! I’m more likely to be nippered!’ retorted Chirk; but he gripped John’s hand, adding: ‘No help for it! Fall back, fall edge, I’ve pledged my word to Rose I’ll stand buff. Women!’
Upon this bitterly enunciated dissyllable he was gone, as noiselessly as he had come.