The Talisman Ring

“But I must warn you that there is a great deal of danger.”

“Nothing could be better!” declared Miss Thane. “You must know that I have hitherto led the most humdrum existence.”

“Do you, too, like adventure?” asked Eustacie, looking her over with a more lenient eye.

“My dear ma’am, I have been looking for adventure all my life!”

“Well,” said Eustacie darkly, “this is an adventure of the most romantic, and it is certain that my cousin Tris —that people will come to search for me. You must promise not to betray me, and in particular not my cousin Ludovic, who is not permitted to set foot in England, you understand.”

“No power on earth shall ring a syllable from me,” Miss Thane assured her.

“Then perhaps I will let you help me to conceal my cousin Ludovic,” said Eustacie handsomely. “Only I think it will be better if I do not tell you anything at all until I have spoken with him, because I do not know him very well, and perhaps he would prefer that you should know nothing.”

“Oh no, don’t tell me anything!” said Miss Thane. “I feel it would almost spoil it for me if you explained it. You’re not eloping with your cousin, by any chance?”

“But, of course, I am not eloping with him! Voyons, how could I elope with him when I have only just met him? It would be quite absurd!”

“Oh, if you have only just met him, I suppose it would,” agreed Miss Thane regretfully. “It is a pity, for I have often thought that I should like to assist an elopement. However, one can’t have everything. You know, I feel very strongly that we ought to see what can be done for that wound of his. Not that I wish to interfere, of course.”

“You are entirely right,” said Eustacie. “I shall immediately go up to him. You may come with me if you like.”

“Thank you,” said Miss Thane meekly.

Joseph Nye had carried Ludovic to a little bedchamber at the back of the house and laid him upon his side on the chintz-hung bed. The tapster was kindling a fire in the grate, and Nye had just taken off Ludovic’s coat and laid bare his shoulder when the two women came into the room.

Eustacie shuddered at the sight of the ugly wound, still sluggishly bleeding, but Miss Thane went up to the bed and watched what Nye was about. In spite of their size, his hands were deft enough. Miss Thane nodded, as though satisfied, and said: “Can you get the bullet out, do you think?”

“Ay, but I’ll want water and bandages. Clem! leave that and fetch me a bowl and all the linen you can find!”

“You had better bring some brandy as well,” added Miss Thane, taking the bellows out of the tapster’s hands and beginning to ply them.

Eustacie, standing at the foot of the bed, watched Nye draw from his pocket a clasp-knife and open it, and somewhat hastily quitted her post. “I think,” she said in a rather faint voice, “that it will be better if it is I who attend to the fire, mademoiselle, and you who assist Nye. It is not that I do not like blood,” she explained, “but I find that I do not wish to watch him dig bullets out of my cousin Ludovic.”

Miss Thane at once surrendered the bellows into her charge, saying that such scruples were readily understandable. Clem came back in a few minutes with a bowl and a quantity of old linen, and for quite some time Eustacie kept her attention strictly confined to the fire.

Miss Thane, finding that the landlord knew what he was about, silently did what he told her, offering no criticism. Only when he had extracted the bullet and was bathing the wound did she venture to inquire in a low voice whether he thought any vital spot had been touched. Nye shook his head.

“I’ll get some Basilicum Powder,” said Miss Thane, and went softly away to her own room.

By the time the powder had been applied and the shoulder bandaged, Ludovic was showing signs of recovering consciousness. Miss Thane’s hartshorn held under his nose made his eyelids flutter, and a little neat brandy administered by Nye brought him fully to his senses. He opened a pair of dazed blue eyes, and blinked uncomprehendingly at the landlord.

“Eh, Mr Ludovic, that’s better!” Nye said.

Ludovic’s gaze wandered past him to Miss Thane, dwelt on her for a frowning moment, and returned to the contemplation of Nye’s square countenance. A look of recognition dawned. “Joe?” said Ludovic in a faint, puzzled voice.

“Ay, it’s Joe, sir. Do you take it easy, now!”

Remembrance came back to Ludovic. He struggled up on his sound elbow. “Damn that Exciseman! The child—a cousin of mine—where is she?”

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