The Talisman Ring

‘You need say no more; I can see that he is a person of no sensibility,’ said Miss Thane. ‘I am not surprised that you ran away from him to join your cousin Ludovic.’

‘Oh, I didn’t!’ replied Eustacie. ‘I mean, I never knew I was going to meet Ludovic. I ran away to become a governess.’

‘Forgive me,’ said Miss Thane, ‘but have you then just met your cousin Ludovic by chance, and for the first time?’

‘But yes, I have told you! And he said I should not do for a governess.’ She sighed. ‘I wish I could think of something to be which is exciting! If only I were a man!’

‘Yes,’ agreed Miss Thane. ‘I feel very strongly that you should have been a man and gone smuggling with your cousin.’

Eustacie threw her a glowing look. ‘That is just what I should have liked! But Ludovic says they never take females with them.’

‘How wretchedly selfish!’ said Miss Thane in accents of disgust.

‘Yes, but I think it is not perhaps entirely Ludovic’s fault, for he said he liked to have me with him. But the others did not like it at all, in particular Ned, who wanted to hit me on the head.’

‘Is Ned a s– free-trader too?’

‘Yes, and Abel. But they are not precisely free-traders, but only land-smugglers, which is, I think, a thing inferior.’

‘It sounds quite inferior,’ said Miss Thane. ‘Did you meet your cousin Ludovic, and Ned, and Abel on your way here?’

‘Yes, and when he seized me of course I thought Ludovic was the Headless Horseman!’

Miss Thane was regarding her as one entranced. ‘Of course!’ she echoed. ‘I suppose you were expecting to meet a headless horseman?’

‘Well,’ replied Eustacie judicially, ‘my maid told me that he rides the Forest, and that one finds him up on the crupper behind one, but my cousin Tristram said that it was only a legend.’

‘The more I hear about your cousin Tristram,’ said Miss Thane, ‘the more I am convinced he is not at all the husband for you.’

‘No, and what is more he is thirty-one years old, and he does not frequent gaming-hells or cock-pits, and when I asked him if he would ride ventre à terre to come to my death-bed, he said “Certainly not”!’

‘This is more shocking than all the rest!’ declared Miss Thane. ‘He must be quite heartless!’

‘Yes,’ said Eustacie bitterly. ‘He says I am not in the least likely to die.’

‘A man like that,’ pronounced Miss Thane, ‘would be bound to say the Headless Horseman was only a legend.’

‘That is what I thought, but my cousin Ludovic was not after all the Headless Horseman, and I must admit that I have not yet seen him – or the Dragon which was once in the Forest.’

‘Really, you have had a very dull ride when one comes to think of it.’

‘Yes, until I met my cousin Ludovic, and after that it was not dull, because when he discovered who I was Ludovic said I must go with him, and I helped to lead the Excisemen into the Forest. He mounted behind me on Rufus, you see. That was when I lost the other bandbox.’

‘Oh, you had a bandbox?’

‘But yes, I had two, for one must be practical, you understand. But one I dropped just before I met Ludovic, and I forgot about that one. We threw the other away.’

Miss Thane bent over the fire again rather hastily. ‘I expect it was the right thing to do,’ she said in an unsteady voice.

‘Well, it was in the way,’ explained Eustacie. ‘But I must say it now becomes awkward a little because all my things were in it.’

‘Don’t let a miserable circumstance like that worry you!’ said Miss Thane. ‘I will lend you a nightdress, and to-morrow we will decide whether to go and look for the bandboxes (though I feel that would be a spiritless thing to do) or whether to break into your home at dead of night and steal some more clothes for you.’

This suggestion

appealed instantly to Eustacie. While she got ready for bed she discussed with Miss Thane the various ways in which it might be possible to break into the Court. Miss Thane entered into every plan with an enthusiasm which made Eustacie say as she blew out the candle: ‘I am very glad I have met you. I shall tell my cousin Ludovic that he must permit you to share the adventure.’

The excitements of the night had quite worn her out, and it was not long before she fell asleep, curled up beside Miss Thane in the big four-poster.