A Continuing Relation of the Advent

A Continuing Relation of the Adventures of Belinda, Lady D’Airing, and her faithful servant Groat

Notar bene - although thedramatis personae herebelow included are based upon some real people, living and historical, any resemblance between them and the people of the story is purely coincidental.

You will recall, gentle reader, that in the last part of the relation, we saw the hurried arrival of colonel Duckett and his escort, and their request nay their demand, to be shown to the Lady Belinda.

Part the eighte: Into Bondage?

The colonel’s demand was backed by his corporal and two of his troopers. Groat scanned their faces carefully seeking to determine their mood. After all, he told himself, these were the same boys that had sat in this very yard and drunk the D’Airing ale.
Colonel Duckett hurried them into the house.

Alerted by a chamber maid Lady Belinda had donned a dressing gown and received the colonel and the two men in the great hall. The three soldiers stayed close to their fat commander.

“And pray, dear colonel, what is it that Is so insistent that you must needs see me with three of your common soldiers?”

Groat could see Sir Byron was perspiring despite the coolness of the house, there being few fires lit yet. His own, scarcely concealed, anxiety was growing and it was not helped when the colonel threw himself forwards towards the Lady Belinda. His nerves already stretched to tautness beyond belief Groat almost leapt on the parliamentarian.

Suddenly he realised that the colonel’s tone had changed.

“Dear Lady I beseech you!” The colonel flustered and postured, “Dear Lady such a thing took place last night as I never knew.”

The Lady Belinda turned her most guile-less smile upon the colonel and with a radiance fit to bewitch a saint, she asked innocently, “And what pray, my dear colonel Duckett, was that?”

“A robbery madam, armed and brutal highway robbery!”

Lady Belinda gasped in shock, Groat suppressed a snigger.

“Tell them corporal.” Duckett’s instruction was peremptory, less than Groat would have used to address an animal.

Harcourt cleared his throat, “Milady, as we were escorting the shipment of pay for the garrison at Shrewsbury, we were set upon by rogues. Their leader, a ferocious man with a red beard, ordered his gang to disarm us and relieve us of our bree_”

Duckett coughed, “Just the facts man, just the facts!”

Harcourt blushed, “Sorry ma’am, and then they stole the pay.”

The elegant noblewoman rose from her chair and went to the embarrassed corporal, “And were you hurt, dear corporal?”

Harcourt, faced with Lady Belinda’s concern, blushed an even deeper red. “No ma’am, thank the Lord.”

“Thank the Lord, indeed, corporal, and how many of them were there to have overpowered such brave soldiers?”

Warming to his situation, Harcourt straightened himself a little, and said, “Ten in all, ma’am, well-armed, and well mounted.”

Lady Belinda drew back in shock. “The Dear Lord preserve us, colonel, have we survived the late wars to be terrorised by savage thieves and villains?”

The good humour that Groat had slipped into as he listened to Harcourt cover his own rump evaporated as the fat colonel stood forwards and took the Lady Belinda’s hand. “Fear not sweet lady. My men and I shall provide all the protection necessary.” Unbidden Groat’s top lip curled.

Just then Sir Byron spoke for the first time, “I received the impression that you required something of us when you arrived, colonel. Pray what was it?”

Colonel Duckett stood upright in surprise as he remembered his errand.

“Preserve me, so I did! I forgot me in the sight of such radiance,” he smarmed, Groat felt like vomiting. “I require you to search diligently, among your tenants and servants for some clue as to who might be the villains that committed this felony. Such information as you find, I require you to inform me at the castle in Shrewsbury.” And with that and with not even a by-your-leave, except that he made a point of kissing the hand of the Lady Belinda, the colonel left with his troopers close behind him.

Lady Belinda rose and joined the two men at the window to view his departure.
“Speak freely Groat.” She said.

For a moment Groat struggled to find something appropriate to say, at last he cleared his throat, “The things you see when you don’t have a loaded gun, mistress.”

“Amen to that, Groat, amen!” Sir Byron added.

Parte the nynthe: Furthe Plans and Deceptions

With colonel Duckett on his way Lady Belinda turned to address the others. As she turned she noticed Sir Byron’s appearance. Dressed in a rich wine-red doublet and breeches, with a broad falling band collar, she felt once again the fluttering feeling that welled inside her when she saw him. Curse my femininity, she thought, when all she wanted to do was ... But no, still she had done one masculine thing, when she had dressed as a man and robbed the soldiers, why should she not go further? Another time perhaps, as Groat might say, another time.

Calling for wine, she indicated that the three of them should sit and discuss what had taken place.

“Have either of you given any thought to how we should dispose of the _?” Sir Byron was about to ask.

Groat and Lady Belinda simultaneously placed their fingers on their lips, indicating that certain words should not be said, a house as big and as full as Castle D’Airing always had unfriendly ears. Sir Byron nodded his understanding.

“So?”

“There are people, my Lord, some people I am aware of, that can do these things, they can be contacted and the thing can be altered to be more acceptable.” Groat explained.

“Good!” Lady Belinda said, cheerfully, “Make the arrangements Groat, and I shall do it!”

Groat coughed as his drink went down the wrong way. Sir Byron stood up protesting.
“Mistress, please, this is not a thing for one such as you ...”

“I beg you, dear lady, let last night be the last time that you put yourself at such terrible risk.”

Calmly Belinda raised her hand to silence their protests.

“With Groat here I am at little risk,” Groat struggled to keep his peace, “and besides there are several good reasons as to why it should be me and not either of you two.

“In primis,” she listed, “the description of the villains, as put about by yon poor trooper, is of a fierce fellow with a red beard, I can be fierce, yet I have no beard, so how can it be me they are looking for?

“Item - I have a co-conspirator here at Castle D’Airing, you are alone at Fox Hall, my lord, it is far easier for me to cover my tracks with Groat’s help than it would be for you to excuse yourself.

“Item - Groat, although he is familiar to those that do this sort of thing, may become known to them. Such rogues as they might be may betray him, whereas I am not known. Keep we it that way, how may they betray me?

“With Groat as my sentinel in these things how may harm come to me?” She wanted to add that she relished the prospect of more of these excursions, but felt that at the moment the hand was hers for the winning.

“There are a thousand ways in which harm my come to you, my Lady!” And Groat cannot keep you from all of them!” Sir Byron protested. Groat tried to agree, but once again the fair lady silenced their arguments.

“I am resolved!” Lady Belinda said, her firm tone brooking no more discussion. “Groat shall put things in hand for this next stage, won’t you Groat?”

With his mind full of dire prognostications, but loyal and obedient as ever, Groat grumbled his acquiescence.

Muttering his disquiet, Sir Byron took Lady Belinda’s hand and kissed it farewell, “I beg you my lady, keep me informed of how this progresses. And Groat, I pray you, allow your mistress to do nothing that you would not do yourself.”

Parte the tenth: My Lady D’Airing Enlarges her Schemes

At least Groat had the decency to look embarrassed as Sir Byron left the yard, Lady Belinda remarked to herself. Given Groat’s involvement in this and his willingness to commit such a felony in the first place, Sir Byron’s request sounded just a little hollow. Besides there were things, she reasoned, that Groat could not do that she would do willingly.

“So Groat? What do we do next?”

Repeating a quick little prayer, though given the nature of the business they were now involved in he wasn’t sure that that would do much good, Groat thought rapidly.

In fact he reasoned, things might work out better this way.

“In a day or so, mistress, you’ll go and visit someone that I know and you’ll ask him some questions, what he answers, will determine how we proceed from there. But I suspect he’ll give you the answers we need.”

“And till then?”

“I beg you, please my lady, be at peace. Those soldier boys will be about this county busier than flies about their business. Anything that takes their notice will be scrutinised, so we must behave with the uttermost normality. In fact we should take pains to assist them in their quest_”

“But?”

“Mistress?”

“I sense an unspoken ‘but’, Groat. You may speak freely.”

“Mistress, you have a lot of your father in you, and he’d be at deviltry as soon as you’d drop a hat. I fear me that you’re the same.”

“You will not talk me out of this Groat, I am resolved_”

“Begging you pardon my lady, but that’s not my place to do so.”

“So?”

“All I ask my lady, is that you do naught, but that in which you involve me. I know some things about the way of the world, and I would hang as soon as harm ever came close to you_”

Lady Belinda stood and once again she raised her hand to still Groat’s protests, “I swear upon our martyred king, Groat, that although I am resolved to be a bold highway robber, I shall do nothing without your assistance, beloved, faithful Groat. Now take some of this Madeira and tell me what it is I shall be asking.”

As he drank Groat realised that he had a very, very bad feeling about all of this.

Parte the Elevinthe: A Ruse involving a Horse, a Kerchief and a Visitor in the night

Thus it was that a week later the Lady Belinda and Groat stood quietly in the darkness near George Pickstock’s cottage. Over the last few days as they rode about estates ‘diligently enquiring’ into the robbery, Groat and the Lady Belinda had rehearsed what he wanted her to say.

Groat had used the opportunity to further establish just what the soldiers were looking for. The simple answer to that was he was more confused now than he had been before. Harcourt’s ten had grown to twenty and they were rapidly becoming known as the Committee of the Heath. A popular black pun upon the Committee for Salop, the county’s ruling body, who were largely held to be a body of psalm singing robbers in themselves, the idea of the Committee gave Groat something to build on.

The descriptions of the leader, a fierce red-bearded man were so wide of the mark, that he felt that his mistress might commit robbery in her normal clothes and still be acclaimed as fierce ‘Red Nick’, as he was becoming known, now a man with a price on his fictitious head.

Still although much of the hue and cry had died down, they needed to start moving the money, and Pickstock was the first link in the chain.

Groat had let the Lady Belinda use the mare that he’d bought off Pickstock, the horse was a sound buy, willing and sure-footed, she was quiet and tractable, and she had tremendous stamina. But she’d been bought not twenty yards from where they stood.

“Tis nearly time, mistress. They trimmed the candlewicks about an hour since, I’ll give you a hand up. But first_”

And so saying Groat took a white kerchief from his belt pouch.

“What_?” Belinda asked, puzzled, as Groat tied the kerchief to first the head-band of the horse’s harness and then to the noseband. It formed a blaze of white down the horses’ face.

“George there may look at the horse and he’ll see a horse with a white face. We take this off when we’ve finished with her.”

Belinda nodded, once again Groat’s tricks amazed her.

Mounted, and with her own dark kerchief covering her face, she walked the mare towards the cottage.

“PICKSTOCK!” The lady highwayman roared, “GEORGE PICKSTOCK!”

A white face appeared at the door of the cottage, “Oo is it wants ‘im? I’ve a piece and I’m not afraid to use it!”

For a moment Belinda was non-plussed, this was unexpected, but Groat had told her much about Pickstock and she realised that it was bravado.

“And you do, then my men shall burn this hovel down around you.”

The face glanced around nervously, “So what do you want then?”

Belinda was tempted to walk the horse closer, but then she remembered Pickstock’s eye for a beast.

“I have some business concerning money.”

“Oh no, no, no, no, no! That’s nothing to do with me!” George protested vigorously, “That weren’t me, I wasn’t anywhere near the place, I didn’t see nuffink, I don’t know nuffink and I’ve never heard nuffink! Ever!”

Belinda cocked the pistol she held, the sound of the sear clicking into place was loud in the moonlight.

“Be quiet, little man, and listen. The Committee of the Heath has business for those that would change money, and it is said that you know who they be. Contact them and arrange a rendezvous for a week hence.”

For a second blind panic made a hero of George Pickstock, “NO! That’s not me, I don’t do stuff like that!”

The pistol came up, aimed at George’s face. “I have here the warrant of the Committee that says you will serve as the duly appointed representative, or else.” Belinda remembered what Groat had said about open threats.. Deliberately she couched hers in the same legalistic terms as the real Committee. Faced with such a threat, George had no alternative but to agree, though his weaselly heart rebelled against the coercion.

“Put this business in hand - I shall return.” The rider said turning her mount.

“When will that be?” George asked planning and scheming.

“Expect me when you see me!” The rider said and spurred the horse off under the trees.

As he climbed back into his cot, his nervous sleep disturbed by the rider, George cursed the life that he led, and he cursed the so-called Committee of the Heath. Make George Pickstock their cat’s paw would they, threaten him in his own home? Well, thought George, we’ll see about that.

So Gentle Reader, will George deliver or will the worm turn?

And if so which way will it be?

Will it be to the soldiers and their ten pound reward, or will George turn to a darker society?

Discover more in the next episode of the Adventures of Belinda Lady D’Airing and her faithful servant Groat! That is if you want them, feedback please and let me know if you wish to read more.