Frederica

‘Handsomely said!’ approved Alverstoke. ‘But if you took that for one of my set-downs – !’

‘Well, if it wasn’t I hope you’ll never give me one,’ said Jessamy frankly. ‘Sir, when do we set forward again? I have been thinking, and I shouldn’t wonder at it if we met them on their way back to London. Except that – what becomes of the balloon?’

‘I haven’t the least idea. It’s a nice point, I admit.’

‘It occured to me a minute ago. They can’t carry it, and they can’t fill the bag again, because where would they get the hydrogen? And all those casks couldn’t be brought on the wagon – at least, they could, but it would take them all day to get here, even if they knew where the thing meant to make its descent, which they never do.’

‘Very true. One can only assume that they must have it conveyed by farm-cart, or some such thing, to a place of safety – leaving it there to be recovered later.’

‘Well, if that’s how they manage, doesn’t it prove what a crackbrained thing it is?’ said Jessamy scornfully. ‘A fine way to go on a journey! Getting set down in a field, very likely miles from where you wish to be, and then being obliged to pack the boat, and the bag, and the anchors, and all the rest of the gear, on to a cart, before you trudge off to find some sort of a carriage!’

‘A sobering thought,’ agreed Alverstoke. ‘I fancy, however, that balloons are not intended for mere travel. Are you ready to set forward again?’

Jessamy jumped up at once, and went out into the yard. He was critically inspecting the new team when Alverstoke joined him, exchanging with Curry various disparaging remarks about job-horses. He was surprised when Curry sprang up behind, but beyond saying that he had thought Alverstoke had meant to leave him in charge of the grays, he made no comment. His mind was preoccupied; and he only nodded when, a mile out of Watford, Alverstoke acidly animadverted on leaders which had acquired the habit of hanging off.

No other vehicles than the Mail, and a private chaise, both southward bound and travelling fast, were encountered; and the only pedestrian was a venerable gentleman in a smock, who disclaimed all knowledge of balloons, adding that he didn’t hold with them, or with any other nasty, newfangled inventions; but at the end of the second mile Alverstoke saw a cluster of people ahead, and drew up alongside them. They were mostly of immature age, and they had emerged on to the post-road through a farm-gate opening on to undulating pastures. They were talking animatedly amongst themselves; and (said the Marquis sardonically) bore all the appearance of persons capable of running two miles to marvel at a deflated balloon.

So, indeed, it proved; and they had been richly rewarded. Not that any of them had been in time to see anything; but there were them as had, and (as several voices assured his lordship) a rare bumble-broth it must have been, such as hadn’t happened in these parts, not since anyone could remember. Dicked in the nob they were, surely, for what must they do, with a good three acres of clear ground under them, but bear down on a clump of trees, and get all tangled up in the branches. Oh, it was a terrible accident! for although one of the gentlemen climbed down safe enough, the other, which was trying to help the nipperkin they had with them, made a right mull of it, by all accounts, and broke his arm; while, as for the nipperkin, he came crashing through the branches, with blood all over him, and was taken up for dead. ‘Which,’ a senior member of the gathering told the Marquis, ‘wasn’t so laughable, nor anything like.’

‘Where?’ Jessamy demanded hoarsely. ‘Where?’

‘Oh, you won’t see nothing now, sir! They was all gone off to Monk’s Farm above an hour ago, with the nipperkin stretched out on a hurdle. Well, all of us which came from Watford was too late to get a sight of aught but the balloon, with its ropes caught up in the elm-tree, and there’s no saying when they’ll start in to get it down, which don’t hardly seem worth waiting for. So we come away.’

‘I seen the doctor drive up in his gig!’ piped up an urchin.

‘Ay, so you did, and got a clout from Miss Judbrook for your pains, poke-nose!’

‘Where is the farm?’ asked Alverstoke, interrupting the goodnatured mirth caused by this last remark.

He was told that it was at Clipperfield: a statement immediately qualified by the ominous words, as you might say; but when he asked for more precise information all that he was able to gather from the conflicting, and generally incomprehensible, directions offered by half-a-dozen persons was that the lane leading to the village joined the post-road at King’s Langley.

Cutting short the efforts of a helpful youth to describe the exact situation of Monk’s Farm, he drove on, saying: ‘We shall more easily discover the whereabouts of the farm when we reach Clipperfield.’ He glanced briefly at Jessamy, and added: ‘Pluck up! There’s a doctor with him, remember!’

Jessamy, ashen-pale, trying desperately to overcome the long shudders that shook his thin frame, managed to speak. ‘They said – they said –’

‘I heard them!’ interrupted Alverstoke. ‘He was taken up for dead, and he was covered in blood. Good God, boy, have you lived all your life in the country without discovering that illiterates always invest the most trifling accident with the ingredients of melodrama? Taken up for dead may be translated into was stunned by his fall; and as for covered in blood – ! What the devil should make him bleed but scratching his face, when he missed his hold, and tumbled down though the branches?’

Achieving a gallant smile, Jessamy said: ‘Yes – of course! Or – or a nose-bleed!’

‘Very likely!’

‘Yes. But –’ He stopped, unable for a moment to command his voice, and then said jerkily: ‘Not – a trifling – accident!’

‘No, I am afraid he may have broken a bone or two,’ replied Alverstoke coolly. ‘Let us hope that it will be a lesson to him! Now, my young friend, I am going to do what you have been wishing me to do from the start of this expedition: spring ’em!’

As he spoke, the team broke into a canter, quickly lengthening their strides to a gallop. At any other time, Jessamy’s attention would have been riveted by the consummate skill displayed by a top-sawyer driving strange horses at a splitting pace along a winding road, too narrow for safety, and by no means unfrequented; but, in the event, a dreadful anxiety absorbed him, and his only impulse, when Alverstoke faultlessly took a hill in time, or checked slightly at a sudden bend, was to urge him to a faster speed. It was not he, but Curry, grimly hanging on, who shut his eyes when Alverstoke feather-edged a blind corner, leaving an inch to spare between the phaeton and an oncoming coach; and it was Curry, who, when the first straggling cottages of King’s Langley came into sight, gasped: ‘For God’s sake, my lord – !’

But even as these words were jerked out of him, he regretted them, for the Marquis was already checking his horses. As the team entered the little town at a brisk trot, he said, over his shoulder: ‘Yes, Curry? What is it?’

‘Nothing, my lord! Except that I thought you was downright obfuscated, for which I’m sure I beg your lordship’s pardon!’ responded his henchman, availing himself of the licence accorded to an old and trusted retainer.

‘You should! I’m not even bright in the eye.’

‘Look! There’s a signpost!’ Jessamy said suddenly, leaning forward in his seat.

‘Clipperfield and Sarratt!’ read Curry.

His lordship turned the corner in style, but was forced immediately to rein the team in to a sober pace. The lane was winding and narrow, bordered by unkempt hedges, and so deeply rutted, so full of holes, that Curry remarked, with dour humour, that they might think themselves lucky the month was June, and not February, when the lane would have been a regular hasty-pudding. At the end of two difficult miles, which stretched Jessamy’s nerves to snapping-point, he said: ‘Cross-road ahead, my lord, and I can see a couple of chimneys off to the left. This’ll be it!’