Wintercombe, page 52
part #1 of Wintercombe Series
He was at least four inches shorter than the Colonel, and several stones lighter, even allowing for the weight that Ridgeley had lost during his sickness. As he pushed and kicked at the obstinate planks, one of the soldiers shouted, ‘There, sir! At the window!’
Ridgeley, looking up, had a brief glimpse of a pale face peering down through a gap in the shutters of the first-storey window. At last! Delighted, he pushed forward to the door. ‘Come on, man, put your back into it!’
And suddenly, under their combined weight, there was the sound of splintering wood, and the battered door gave way. The two men almost fell into the dark room beyond: Ridgeley recovered his balance first, and carefully drew his sword.
It took some time for his eyes to adjust to the lack of light. He looked around at the poorly furnished chamber, seeing the rough table, half-a-dozen stools, a crudely made bed in the corner, a heap of cold ashes in the hearth, above which an iron cooking-pot hung on its chain. There was no sign of the St. Barbe girl, but above his head something moved.
Ridgeley’s lip curled upwards, exposing his teeth. He turned to the two troopers, who were standing at the door, peering curiously within. ‘You, men. Stay there — and if that Hell-spawned wench tries to escape, you’re to hold her — but don’t kill her, understand? Leave that to me — I want her unharmed, for the moment.’
The stairs, a primitive affair little better than a ladder, led upwards to his quarry. With greedy anticipation, the Colonel began to climb them, Hellier at his back. He emerged breathless into the half-lit upper chamber, and peered eagerly about in the gloom.
There was no sign of the girl. Instead, three large, menacing figures rose from bed and stools, and moved a little way towards him. Astonished, Ridgeley swore angrily. ‘God’s death, what’s this? Who are you? Where’s the girl?’
‘She isn’t here,’ said Nick Hellier. He stood behind his Colonel, between him and the stairs. ‘She has never been here. The face you saw belongs to Flower Churchhouse, over there.’
Ridgeley stared in fury and disbelief at the girlish, unfortunately named young man standing nearest to the half-shuttered window. He did not know that it was Flower’s sister Elizabeth whom his men had nearly raped at the Mill in March: but the look of utter loathing on the smooth, fine-featured face gave even the Colonel pause. He swung back to Hellier, his rage rising inexorably. ‘You — you’ve lied to me! Why have you led me here? By God, I’ll have you flogged for this — or shot, that’s more like it, you traitor — I’ll see you before a firing-squad if it’s the last thing I do.’
‘I am no traitor,’ said Nick. Although slighter by far than Ridgeley, the look of purpose on his face, the taut watchfulness of his body, poised at the head of the stairs, lent him a power that dominated everyone in the room. ‘I have done this for the ultimate good of the King’s cause in the West, as well as for less lofty reasons. While at Wintercombe, Colonel, you have offended all the laws of God, and of man. You have indulged in brutality and debauch, you have planned and threatened murder, and the rape and torture of a girl fifteen years old. For her sake, and for the lives and peace and prosperity of the people of Wintercombe and Norton, I call you to account.’
Ridgeley stared at him, as if he could not believe the effrontery of what he heard. ‘You, you insolent hypocrite — you call me to account? God’s bones, you’ll answer for this outrage. Draw your sword, you ignoble coward, and I’ll spit you here and now.’
‘No,’ said Nick. He added, in conversational tones, ‘If I were you, Colonel, I would turn and look behind you.’
With a speed surprising in such a heavily built man, Ridgeley whipped round, his sword stabbing at the air. Young Edward Walker, brother to Leah, stood just out of its reach, his broad hands grasping a long-tined pitchfork. He said viciously,
‘You’ve debauched my sister, fornicated with her — and don’t ee dare deny it.’
‘Your sister?’ Ridgeley glared at the young man, his head thrust aggressively forward. ‘She didn’t struggle — in fact, it was she who made the first advances, and I can tell you, you stupid prudish peasant, that she knows a whorish trick or two, so she’s not the innocent you think.’
‘You bastard!’ Edward cried, and lunged. In the confined space, there was no room to dodge, and the Colonel’s sword was useless, far outreached by the pitchfork. He stared in horrified disbelief as the great curved tines impaled his body, with the ease of a skewer thrust through meat. His mouth opened, but no sound save a frantic gurgling came out.
With a practised, easy twist, Edward Walker pulled the pitch-fork back and out, and suddenly there was blood, bright, flowing, soaking the broad buff jerkin, dribbling from the sharp, wicked tines onto the dirty floor. Ridgeley’s face had turned a ghastly grey, and his eyes bulged. Nick drew his sword and moved to face him, calm, sure, ruthless, his face as impassive as an executioner’s. The Colonel staggered but did not fall, his hands pressing frantically against the double wounds, blood pouring between his fingers. ‘Help me!’ he gasped. ‘For God’s sake, man — help me!’
‘You’ll have no aid from me,’ said Nick Hellier. ‘Save one dispensation only. You will assuredly die from your present hurts, Colonel, although the process will probably take some hours, if not days, of agony. You were not prepared to allow Rachael the benefit of a swift and merciful death, but I am going to give you that blessing. This, sir, is for Wintercombe, and Philip’s Norton, and the St. Barbe family, and all the pain and horror and suffering which you have inflicted. This is your reckoning — and may you burn in Hell for what you have done!’
The bright sharp sword drew back, and lunged. For an instant Ridgeley stood, still living, gazing down at the blade which had transfixed his heart. Then, as Nick wrenched his weapon free in a torrent of blood, the Colonel’s heavy body shuddered, his breath rattled in his throat, and he fell backwards through the stair-hole. There was the sound of breaking wood and a massive crash, and nothing more.
Nick looked at the blood on his rapier, the puddles and splashes across the floor, the frozen, exultant faces of the men with whom he had arranged this ambush. Then he turned, as much to conceal his shaking hands as for any other reason, and walked to the top of the stairs.
Below, in a welter of gore and splintered wood, Lieutenant-Colonel John Ridgeley, the terror of north Somerset, lay staring up at the rafters with blank, amazed eyes.
‘“The rest is silence”,’ said Nick, smiling with bitter satisfaction, and sheathed his bloody sword in its scabbard.
Chapter Twenty
‘The flowery way that leads to the broad gate and the great fire’
(All’s Well That Ends Well)
The body of Lieutenant-Colonel Ridgeley was buried, in some haste, in the churchyard at Philip’s Norton that afternoon.
By then, the early sun had been covered by cloud, and a light, chilly drizzle was falling. The few mourners were composed entirely of the Colonel’s officers: Captain Hellier and Captain Bull, Lieutenants Byam and Combe, Cornet Wickham, Ensign Parset and sundry lesser men. In the tall elms lining the churchyard, a great, gaunt, black crow sat and croaked throughout the brief ceremony, while the curious, gloating villagers peered over the wall and commented with great satisfaction on the suitably unsavoury end of the man they had all hated so much.
As soon as the first clods of red earth smacked down upon the rough, hastily constructed coffin at the bottom of the grave-pit, the crow arose with an evil-sounding ‘kaark!’ and flew away with ponderous wingbeats. It was said by the superstitious, gossiping in the Fleur-de-Lys later, to be the incarnation of the Colonel’s undoubtedly black and Hell-bound soul: and for many years after, the rebellious children of Philip’s Norton, not to mention Wellow and Hinton, were told threateningly that Black Jack Ridgeley would snatch them away if they did not behave themselves.
No one from the Wintercombe household attended the funeral: as Diggory commented, the sight of them all a-dancing on Ridgeley’s grave would probably have sent Parson into a seizure. The prevailing mood in the house was one of overwhelming, delighted relief: who cared how the evil and ungodly man had met his end, so long as they were now for ever free of him?
There were others, in Bath and Bristol, who would care, and Nick Hellier had given much thought to it. That was one reason why he had planned to have the Colonel ambushed within the close confines of the tenement, rather than in the highway or the streets of Norton. Only he, and the three men he had enlisted to help him, knew the truth of Ridgeley’s death, and who had struck the fatal blows. All three had ample reasons for wishing him dead: Flower Churchhouse’s sister had been attacked, Edward Walker’s corrupted, and Thomas Coxe’s eleven-year-old son Francis had died, and the rest of his family suffered sorely during the winter, after the Colonel had ruthlessly appropriated most of their stored food. There had been many in Norton eager to strike a blow against the wicked Cavalier Colonel: Nick had been able to pick and choose his accomplices.
Ned Walker had dealt the first blow, but he himself had delivered the coup de grâce, and he was well aware that if that fact ever became known to the Governor of Bath, he would face a firing-squad, the inevitable penalty for murdering his superior officer. It was an ugly word for a reprehensible, appalling act: and yet he had chosen to do it, and in cold blood, for Silence’s sake.
So in the aftermath of that gory deed, he acted with the same cool sense of purpose. There was no hiding the cause of Ridgeley’s death from the two troopers left outside the tenement: they had rushed in with drawn swords, to find his bleeding carcass lying on the floor. But it was easy to persuade them to keep their mouths shut: neither man had approved of the Colonel’s grosser activities, and Nick was able to exploit their instinctive revulsion over Ridgeley’s plans for Rachael’s rape and murder. Nor of course would Churchhouse, Walker and Coxe divulge their part in the Colonel’s slaughter.
It was Margery Parsons, the sister-in-law of the Fleur-de-Lys’s landlord, who came to lay out the body, stripping off the buff coat and doublet, stiff with congealed blood, pierced by three significant holes, and washing the pale, flaccid corpse beneath. Thomas Stent, who lived in North Street and was the nearest of the village carpenters, was summoned to measure the body for a hasty coffin. And Cornet Wickham, his pleasant face puzzled and thoughtful, was despatched to Wick Farm, to bring the St. Barbe children back to Wintercombe.
Their arrival, just before dinner-time, was the first intimation that Silence had of Ridgeley’s demise. For hours, she had waited in her lonely chamber, hungry and apprehensive. She had passed the time at first by tidying it, restoring order to her world. She dared not ponder the events of the past twenty-four hours, and would not speculate on what was to come. Whatever the future held, there was danger: from Ridgeley, or from Nick.
It was no use any longer denying it: she was infatuated by him. The thought of his kiss raised the hair on her flesh, and made her shiver with…what? Fear? Longing? She had never dreamed it possible to feel for any man like this. Her husband had aroused nothing in her, no more than affection, and she had submitted with wifely duty to his brief, energetic desires. She had expected no more, and had not been disappointed. Her children, inevitable result of those perfunctory, night-time couplings, were the light of her life, ample rewards of an activity which she had always found inexplicable and tedious. There was the man’s pleasure, that went without saying: but surely only a whore was supposed to enjoy it too?
She was no whore, but if she gave way to this temptation, she would become one. She must not think of it: she must reject all his advances, even the offer of friendship, because that was the primrose path that led to ruin. To avoid blighting her whole life, she must turn as cold a face towards him as a stranger. She was too frightened even to think of the consequences, if she did not.
It was a poor return for the help he had given her, for the risks he had taken for her sake. But she had fallen in almost too deep, and now, in panic, she was struggling back to the safety of an ordinary, loyal, dutiful wife.
She sat pensively in the oriel, looking out of the window down to the courtyard. Pye, temporarily deserting her kittens, lay curled in her lap, having her head gently rubbed between the ears. Doubtless she was as hungry as her mistress, neither having eaten since dinner the day before, but at least the kittens had their food-supply close to hand. Silence wondered about Lily, whether she was being looked after in the kitchen, and above all about the children. Were they safe at Wick? Had they coped successfully with the two-mile walk across the cold, moonlit countryside?
Movement caught her eye. She turned her head, and saw a two-wheeled tumbril cart, of the sort usually employed to take dung to the fields, being driven in under the gatehouse. It was crammed with bobbing heads, and driven by a man whom she recognised as one of Mistress Baylie’s farm workers. Behind it rode a couple of troopers, and the young Cornet who was Nick’s closest friend amongst the officers of the garrison.
She needed to see no more. Her heart beating wildly, she set Pye down on the window-seat and ran to the door. It took a few precious seconds to turn the key: then she was hurtling down the twisting stone stairs, through the garden room, across the Hall, still strewn with the squalid debris of last night’s carouse, to the front door. She flung it open and plunged out into the courtyard just as the tumbril drew up outside, and spilled out a crying, laughing, jubilant mass of children.
Breathlessly, she hugged them all, and Mally, listening to their joyous and confused accounts of escape.
‘We walked and walked and walked and walked, and my feet hurt!’
‘William fell in a ditch and got soaking wet!’
‘We met Captain Hellier in the garden,’ said Tabby, her face serious. ‘And he is our friend, Mama, you needn’t worry any more — he said he had a secret plan to get rid of Colonel Ridgeley, and now he’s dead and I’m not sorry, I’m glad!’
‘Dead?’ Silence stared at her in astonishment. ‘Who’s dead? Ridgeley?’
‘Aye, the Colonel have got his come-uppance at last, m’lady,’ said Mally: even her hair seemed brighter with her delight. ‘We be quite safe, all on us be safe — and now maybe we can carry on our business without they soldiers a-sticking their noses and swords into what bain’t theirs.’
The nightmare had gone: it was as if the terrors of this morning and the previous day had never really existed, had achieved instead a curious, remote quality, like the miseries she had endured in childhood. There was much to do, and to ponder, but for the moment all she wanted was to exult in the company of all her children, and their freedom from fear.
Eventually, of course, reality must intrude. Eliza peered round the front door as if she thought that Ridgeley would pounce on her, and then emerged hesitant and blinking into the light, evidently hardly able to believe that the terror was finally ended. ‘Oh, my lady, m’lady, you be free — and the children, oh thank the dear Lord, you all be safe!’
After her, like frightened deer, crept the other household servants: Doraty, Hester, the three scullions, the Turbers, Bessie Lyteman, and, shepherding them all out of the porch, the massive figure of Darby. Leah was conspicuous by her absence: Silence wondered hopefully if she had already gone from Wintercombe. She did not relish the confrontation and dismissal that must surely follow, if she had not.
Mally spread the news of Ridgeley’s death jubilantly, and Silence knelt to welcome small pale Lily, wriggling with delight, her tail wagging her body in her joy. All, it seemed, were safe: and with William, thumb in mouth, clinging to her skirts as if he feared ever to let go of her again, she turned to Wickham, who was obviously about to leave. ‘Please, Cornet, wait — tell me, is Ridgeley truly dead?’
The boy — he was no older than Sam had been — looked down at her from the back of his rather squat, brown gelding. There was a curious expression on his face, composed of apprehension, relief, and the marks of a confused and troubled mind. He hesitated, and then said slowly, ‘Yes, Lady St. Barbe. I did not myself witness his death, but I have seen his corpse. He is undoubtedly dead.’
She closed her eyes for a moment, so intense was her relief. Save that the Colonel had not been so subtle, she had feared that this might be a ruse to draw the children out of hiding. But Wickham was one of the more decent officers, and Nick liked him: she had seen no trace of deceit on his open, plain and honest face. She looked up at him and said carefully, ‘Forgive me, Cornet Wickham, but — how did he die?’
The boy’s brow creased, as if his conscience troubled him greatly, and he did not answer for a moment. Then, with difficulty, he said, ‘I — I believe he was killed, madam.’
‘Killed? By whom? Where?’
‘I believe — I am not sure — some villagers who bore a grudge against him,’ said the unhappy Wickham. ‘Captain Hellier knows more than I do, my lady, but he is likely to be absent for a while, arranging for the burial. There is a great deal to be done, the men must be informed, and Sir Thomas Bridges — I do not know who will be in command here now. Forgive me, madam, but I must go.’
She watched him trot out of the courtyard, and felt sorry for him. There was no doubt in her mind, and evidently none in his, that Nick Hellier had played a considerable part in Ridgeley’s death. Hence, presumably, Wickham’s moral confusion. The boy, like all decent-minded people, must have detested his Colonel and often wished him to the devil, but was unable to accept the manner of his death.
Murder. Nick had lured Ridgeley to the tenement behind the Fleur-de-Lys, in the belief that Rachael was hiding there — and Ridgeley had been struck down, ostensibly by some villagers. But she remembered suddenly, chillingly, Nick standing on the terrace, his smoking pistol in his hand, and the dead man lying in the orchard grass. And she knew that, whatever the circumstances of Ridgeley’s slaying, it was likely that Nick had borne most of the responsibility, even if he had not actually struck the fatal blow.
