Colleen McCullough - The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet

He knew Miss Mirabelle Maplethorpe very well, and had no doubt that she would be up to the task of caring for Lydia. It had taken some shifting to procure her the position of Lydia’s lady companion, but he had succeeded and none the wiser, including Fitz.

Miss Maplethorpe opened the door herself. “Ah, Ned.”

“I have your charge, Mirry.”

“We are ready. Bring her in,” said Miss Maplethorpe, a tall, strapping woman of about forty whose face was debatably the reason why she was still single; it resembled the Judy in a Punch-and-Judy show. Poor Mirry! Rarely had face and occupation been so perfectly reconciled.

“She’s out to it. The only way I could get her here without binding her hand and foot was to give her a bottle of cognac.”

“I see.” Her glacial eyes surveyed him ironically. “You are quite big enough to carry her, Ned.”

“True. But I do not fancy wearing a coat of puke all the way home. It’s due to come up-she’s a puker.”

“Then wait a moment.” She left him on the step while she went somewhere deeper into the house, reappearing with two men who looked more like boxers than footmen.

“Come on, boys.” And he led them to the carriage, opened its door. “You are here, Mrs. Wickham. Hop to it!”

If she did not do that, she did move off the seat, put a foot on the step down, and fell in a heap, giggling. As Ned had prophesied, up came the cognac together with the contents of a hamper. The two men stepped back hastily.

“A hand under either arm, boys-look sharp!”

When Ned Skinner commanded, he was obeyed, puke or no puke. Still giggling and gagging, Lydia was half-dragged, half-carried into her new home, Miss Maplethorpe watching grimly.

“Best of luck, Mirry,” said Ned. “Return the carriage and men to us tomorrow. Mr. Darcy’s orders.”

He went to Jupiter and remounted.

“Cheer up, old boy,” he said to the horse as he rode away. “Just ten miles to Leek, then we’ll put up for the night.”

Shortly after dawn he was on the road again, not to ride toward the north and Pemberley, but cross-country, keeping well clear of main roads and even, when possible, side roads too. He knew exactly where he was going; it lay some twenty miles from Leek, on the outskirts of Derby.

In no hurry, he let Jupiter choose their pace, a treat for the big black horse that it relished.

At the prescribed spot beneath a signpost, he found his informant, a groom at a shady sort of hostelry in Sheffield, and a man who looked horsey enough to be instantly at ease among others of the same calling. Occasionally he did this kind of job for Mr. Skinner, whom he had known for a long time, and feared, and respected.

“Well, Tom?” Ned asked, reining in alongside him.

“No trouble, Mr. Skinner. His name is Ezekiel Carmody-Zeke for short. He works six days a week at the coach station, sleeps in the barn there. Sundays he goes home. His dad’s got a farm outside Nether Heage-big place, breeds coach horses.”

“The name of the farm?”

“Carmody.”

“Thank you, Tom.” Five guineas changed hands. “Go home now.”

And off went Tom, well satisfied.

The news was better than Ned had hoped for. With a name like Ezekiel, the groom was obviously a Methodist; to spend Sundays at home would have been mandatory. But I doubt, thought Ned, that the family knows their church-going son Zeke is hand-in-glove with a highwayman. Well, and who could blame a young fellow? No money to call his own with such a father, I’ll be bound; dad’s horses sold to the coach companies and Zeke’s wages garnished for family and church. No hope for a pint or a penny light-skirt. It’s a story I chance upon time and time again.

Gauging his progress accurately, Ned approached the Carmody farm at one o’clock-dinner hour. He found the main gate down the fourth lane he tried, with the name written upon it proudly: CARMODY FARM. Using his eyes to best advantage, he decided there was no other entrance worth taking if the farmstead itself was the goal; yes, this was the way Zeke Carmody would come. What kind of transport the groom would use Ned could not know; very likely he cadged a ride with someone going this way from Nottingham. But Ned took a bet with himself that Zeke walked the last quarter-mile of his weekly trip home.

On Saturday, while Jupiter dozed in its stall with oats in its manger, Ned worked very privately on a curious device: a post to which was attached a horseshoe of a size worn by light draughts, the kind of horse drew the extremely heavy public coaches.

On Saturday evening at ten o’clock he mounted Jupiter and set out for Carmody Farm, at first on the main roads, deserted at this hour. It was fifty miles as Jupiter went, but many a horseman rode a hundred and more miles in a day-couriers, ministers with a widely scattered flock, commercial travellers, those going in a hurry to a sickbed or a deathbed. There was no moon to speak of, but dense clouds of stars lit his way, and Jupiter was sure-footed.

They made good time; he reached his destination before dawn, and settled down to wait in the shadows beneath trees with pendulous leafy branches, not far from the farm’s main gate. His post-and-shoe untied from the saddle, Ned put that and some other things beside him. He was very much on his mettle, blaming himself for the loss of Mary Bennet, and determined that he would leave nothing for any nosy constable to unearth.

Zeke Carmody knew whereabouts Captain Thunder’s house was located, and his tongue wagged. Though the part of Ned that understood Zeke’s needs pitied his lot, which had to be death, not for a millionfold such pity would he have stilled his hand. Fitz was in danger through his, Ned’s, bungling, and that was all that mattered.

A cheery whistle from the end of the lane alerted him. Ned rose to his feet, stretching, and waited in the lee of the bushy trees for his quarry. As the groom passed, Ned swung the post and struck him on the side of his head. He fell without a whimper to sprawl in the lane. Moving quickly, Ned pulled the body under the trees, where he had spread out a sheet of canvas. Once the body was arranged on the canvas to his satisfaction, he put the horseshoe against the wound with accuracy and deliberation, and hammered the end of the post with a stone purloined from Farmer Carmody’s field. One imprint of the shoe was enough; looking at the pulped mess, he judged that anyone would deem the injury the result of contact with a big horse. Then he wrapped the body in the canvas, picked it up, carried it some distance down the lane, and emptied it out of its wrapping and into a field where four light draught horses grazed, their hooves and hairy skirts above muddied from a recent shower of rain.

No one had come out of the house, no dog barked. Breathing quite normally, Ned folded the canvas carefully to contain the very little blood, and dismantled his instrument of murder. The shoe was flung far into the field, the post tucked inside the canvas. He kept to the shadows until he reached the little road that led to Nether Heage; there he straightened and walked swiftly to Jupiter, grazing nearby. After saddling a horse delighted to see him, he mounted and rode away. In the far distance a church bell was tolling, but no one saw Ned Skinner, now cantering toward the road to Chesterfield.

Undoubtedly there were other grooms Captain Thunder used as sources of information-post house inns were ideal-but they could not matter. It was Ezekiel Carmody who had spoken to the gigantic fellow on the gigantic horse, told him whereabouts the Captain lived. With Zeke the victim of a shocking accident, no one was left who could connect Ned Skinner to the highwayman. It was always best to tidy up. The shire constables were a dozy lot, but…