Joy V. Sheridan writes

Charity Amour

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE, part 2

She came to - out of her wild and terrifying nightmare, cradled in the arms of her own dear spouse.  “Seyton, say it was all a dream...” her voice choked with unspilt sobs, “Oh, say it was all a dream!” “Charity, my love. What was it? Were you having bad dreams?” “Bad dreams....Yes, that must have been it. Tell me, we have not left our chamber have we?” “No, my darling. We have been abed since a little after eight. There was no expecting Mellors to come tonight, not in weather like this.” “And Molly? And John?” 

“Gone to their separate rooms long ago, dear heart. Now, come, come. Do not let your frayed nerves get the better of you. Shush: you must away to slumberland again, my dearest heart.”

He kissed her lovingly upon the forehead and, reassured, Charity soon drifted back into a more peaceful sleep. His Lordship stared hard and long into the night. He had not slept a wink. The most uncanny thing was, he had thought he had seen a woman’s form shivering and swaying about the room. She looked like the temptress who had seduced him, and probably Charity, too, back in the Château des Amourettes. Finally he tired too and was soon asleep, his arms thrown protectively around the shoulders of his dearest bride.

Madame d’Esprit, for her part, moved away from the crystal ball which she had been gazing into, the pool of water unbroken now beside it. She pha-ed her impatience and disgust, and removed the elaborate head-dress of jewels from her head. She had been able, she knew, to transmit scenes so disturbing to Charity. But she had met a hard wall of resistance from His Lordship. She smiled grimly ... he would have been the very man for her, under happier circumstances. That she did so believe! However, they would be away soon now....

Mellors appeared forty eight hours later than his anticipated arrival, for so fierce had been the weather that he had not dared attempt the journey. Lord Seyton Clover, assessing on that morrow that the weather was changing for the better again, had instructed Fibbins to ride towards an out-lying harbour. That was situated in the general vicinity of Bordeaux. He had been bidden to make enquiries there, about their passage to England and to arrange for and to pay for the same, if such seemed a possibility.

Fibbins’s journey was two-fold. If he was successful in his mission, he had also the task of hiring a local coach and driver and was destined to send them back to the rented accommodation which housed His Lordship and his party. 

Things worked out propitiously and the character, somewhat ill-educated and buffoonish, was dispatched by Fibbins to the house which he had that morn vacated. This fitted in with the proposition which Mellors had brought with him. Lord and Lady Clover, accompanied by Molly Fibbins, were to journey by a specific route to rejoin their companion. Only, they should not travel in the covered coach - as was explained by Mellors - but by horse-back via a different route.

Mellors informed His Lordship that he had spun a neat little web of intrigue and fabrication and that on that very morrow, some three days since he had renewed his acquaintancehip, Lord Rispian’s cut-throats would be secreted along the highway, awaiting (or so they thought) their easy prey. Thinking that their prey was to be transported in the chaise.

“Ah, dear me, no,” Mellors had enthused, taking with gratuitous greed the further handful of gold coins which His Lordship passed him, “You three shall be on mounts and far removed from that passage of danger.

They simply had to trust in his sincerity and integrity, though Charity’s heart fluttered with immaterially-graspable forebodings. Mellors bade them a safe journey back to England and passed the plan of their secret route to them before doffing his cap and telling them “Adieu”. “We shall see, we shall see," Lord Seyton Clover had mumbled under his breath. Clover had turned a full and confident smile towards his feminine company. With some pains, the plan was explained to Molly, who seemed unsure herself about the man's - Mellors - true colouration.

That night, she sharpened her blades so that they would have sliced a hair in two and then thrice again. One could never tell, what with the duplicitous happenings of recent times ......  

Charity slept poorly that night, although there was hardly a breath of wind to rattle the window-panes. She had to relieve herself during the night, and taking a small glowing stub of candle, she had left the bedroom without disturbing her husband. She completed her task - and started: for she thought that she heard voices, speaking in the French tongue: three musical voices, all male, then they had drifted away and she was reminded of those ghostly helpers who had come to her aid in that direst extrimity which had beleagured the Château des Amourettes. 

Three cavaliers of a bygone age, whose imperfect English had nonetheless persuaded her of the mortal peril she and her companions were in: and the same three it was, who had guided them to safety. Did this manifestation bode more evil was afoot? 

She trembled as she climbed in beside the slumbering warmth of her beloved husband's body. He turned and searched sleepily for Charity’s form, his lips making the soft semblance of her name, “Charity, amour, Charity...” 

Did she dare awake him and tell him of what she had intuited? Or would he call it but yet another fragment of shock off that disintergrating web of shock and horror which had enmeshed her recently? Perhaps, she thought, as at length she drifted off into a light sleep, she should say nothing: merely await events. Yes, she would do that: wait upon events. 

It was a beautiful morning as they closed the house and left the key with the watchman in his cottage. His Lordship had paid the required sum and he tipped the man a few francs. The ladies were already jogging ahead, at a relaxed and happy pace. The winter sunshine streamed upon their swaying backs and Lord Seyton Clover, noting that whilst they were not skilled horsewomen, admired what a pretty picture they formed. 

The faint golden colouration which remained on some bushes and the deep verdant glossiness of holly bushes and the softer hues of evergreens blended them and their mounts into a wistful tapestry of delicate tints. Charity once more was attired in the grey outfit and she had added a bright red plume to the darker maroon hat she wore - a three-cornered affair - which, like her, sat side-saddle upon her shining golden hair. Molly Fibbins, more modestly toned, was roan with roan, the cinnamon of her cloak throwing highlights of chestnut into the sombre brown tones of her hair. She too had opted for a gay plume to place into her rounded head-gear and this green feather bobbed and swayed, as she, preferrring the masculine mode of riding, sat astride her nag.

Whistling jauntily, the few possessions strapped in bags to their saddles, the trio cut a delightful moving vignette through the late morning strident but chilly sunlight.

The sunlight, being so bright in their eyes, meant that they did not perceive the party of armed villains - for such can only describe loiterers in quiet, out-of-the-way places, who wait upon unsuspecting groups of travellers - until it was too late. 

With a blood-curdling gurgle lifting from his puritanical throat, Monsieur D’Eath and his gang descended upon the trio. Rounding up the ranks was the fleshy silhouette of ‘Darko’ Jarvis. The ladies wheeled their mounts together, Lord Seyton Clover joining them and bidding them to dismount and use their horses as cover. Molly, unperturbed by any distracting or spine- chilling cries, was already busy with her knives. 

Lord Seyton Clover had his weapon unsheathed and was then in the process of leaping in courtly defiance against the rabble. Charity, a little slower than her companions, had unhooked her own knives from their gartered compartments, when she noticed something which made her pose motionless. 

Through the trees, wavering in colourful lines, were the unmistakable figures of her three cavalier friends. She was not alone in her sightings and this remarkable apparition caused the knife which Molly had thrown to seek one sound and deadly result. 

Jarvis, open-mouted, sat askance upon his steed; Monsieur D’Eath, for all his zeal, seemed unable to encourage his brethern to charge and slaughter the three travellers. 

The mob ran, rode, or fell, in their haste to be out of the path of the on-riding musketeers. Standing his ground, Monsieur D’Eath brandished a pistol towards them. They rode through him, the heels of their polished thigh boots spurring him onto the barren, ice-riven ground. 

Jarvis, a cautious campaigner, saw from the vantage point of a broad-trunked oak that there was no point in trying to break through what was actually a barrier of ghosts. Monsieur D’Eath, swearing obscene oaths, moved from off the ground and backed away from the encircling spectral protectors, until the stout fingers of 'Darko' Jarvis hauled him onto his own mount and the same horse transported its burden, likewise, stepping slowly, face towards the phantoms, as it left the environs. 

Slowly, the cavaliers drifted into thin air and the quiet of the afternoon was not disturbed by as much as a robin’s scarlet speckled song. Another observer, and mayhap one with more spirit and native cunning, had watched this performance. Filled with an admiration of the fighting spirit which he had seen Mistress Molly Fibbins display, Ebenezer Hinches desired her to be his own dame. He had now shelved any hopes of carrying out the plans - which had seemed so well-laid by Mellors and his lordship, Lord Rispian. He would campaign no longer, arm and arm, with those of his own gender. He did not care an iota what became of the quarrels and death-wishing of the upper orders. 

He knew only that he wanted one thing and that thing was none other than the cinnamon-cloaked wench who had pinned his heart onto the point of her dagger: as that same piece of steel had pinned another fellow’s heart onto the unforgiving ground. 

The trio, once they had recovered from their miraculous rescue, continued on their way and at an eager rate. Hinches travelled with them, but at sufficient distance so that they should not be aware of his tracking them. 

Mist was swirling in packets along their route now and he would periodically lose one or other of them. He was given to uttering a relieved exclamation once he saw, that for some reason, Molly Fibbins had taken the rear of the small cavalcade and he spurred his mount forward.

Like the hand which grasped Excalibur, Molly Fibbins was bundled, no sound issuing forth from her, into the tight hold of Ebenezer Hinches.

On into the early lilac and grey of the December twilight rode good Lord Clover and Charity, his sweet, young wife, neither realising until it was too late, that Molly was no longer of their party.