‘The young fellows took some of his deer last night, and his keepers were out in force. I heard shots.’
‘The Devil you did?’ cried Jack, and he would have gone on but that the coach was now in the village street and that many of the over-excited youths were still about. They started cheering, and waving, and the horses began to caper. Fortunately General Harte had thought better of his promise to provide an extra pair, but even so Dundas was tempted to take the reins. The determined expression on Diana’s face
* most vividly alive – and the language in which she recalled the horses to their duty checked him, however; and presently the team were steadily climbing the hill before Maiden Oscott.
‘I wish they may not be coming it too high,’ said Jack.
‘Stealing deer may be fun, but it is a very grave matter indeed when you come before a court, above all if you were disguised in any way – and Billy lies, who ran by the coach just now, had a sort of skirt on and the remains of black round his face – or above all if you were armed. You heard shots . .. That Griffiths is a rancorous sort of cove – weak
* you should have seen him quail before Harry Turnbull – and cruel. And there was that damned unlucky omen.’ He jerked his head towards the chaise with poor Bonden in it, and sank into an uneasy train of thought while the coach climbed up and up, the horses well into their collars, warming now.
Near the top he looked back for a last sight of Woolcombe, spread out far, far below, with both broad commons, the villages and the great mere, silver now with the coming day. ‘Oh my God,’ he cried, for there, over beyond Woolcombe, stacks were ablaze, a great pall of smoke drifting westwards,
the bottom lit red. He let down the glass, leant out and called to the groom behind, ‘Is that Hordsworth’s rickyard, John?’
‘It is on Captain Griffiths’ land, sir. The new piece he took in to round the home farm.’
They were over the crest: nothing could be seen on the far side of the hill. Indeed they were well over and on the flat stretch of road before the much steeper descent to Maiden Oscott and the stream; and both Stephen and Jack
heard Diana encourage the horses. There was a dog-cart ahead, drawn by a likely-looking chestnut mare and driven by a young man with a girl beside him.
‘Give him a halloo to pull over, will you, Dundas?’ said Diana, and he let out a fine nautical roar.
The girl nudged the young man, who looked round, flicked the mare with his whip and crouched forward, urging her on.
Gradually the coach overhauled the dog-cart, Diana tense and concentrated, in complete control of the horses: but there was a left-handed corner ahead and not two hundred yards to go. ‘Pull over, sir. Pull over directly,’ called Dundas with all the authority of twenty years at sea. His vehemence, coupled with the pleas of the pale-faced girl, induced the young man to rein in, with his off wheel on the grassy verge; the coach swept by, followed by a look of pure hatred.
‘There was a good two foot to spare, so there was,’ said Stephen, relaxing.
‘It is very well,’ said Jack. ‘Very well. But I dread the Oscott bridge. Does Diana know it, Stephen?’
‘Sure, she has been driving about the countryside day and night: it is her liveliest joy. But tell me, where is young Philip?’
‘Oh, he stayed at home to worship Mrs Oakes. Did you not remark his moon-struck gaze?
No, of course you were sitting next to him. Still, you might have seen him pick up her napkin and press it to his lips. But this bridge is a most damnably awkward one. You come down a wicked steep hill in the middle of the village, and there right in front of you there is the bridge, hard on your left, a blind corner at an angle of ninety or even a hundred degrees, before you are aware of it. You have to turn terribly sharp – a damned narrow bridge with a low stone wall on either side and unless you judge it just so you hit the corner and you are in the river twenty feet below – deep water – with the coach on top.
Don’t you think you might mention it to her?’
‘I do not. She is a very fine whip, you know.’
‘Then perhaps I should,’ said Jack.
Stephen bowed, and after a moment Jack lowered the glass again, leant out, and in a conciliating tone he called, ‘Coz, oh coz.’
The coach slowed perceptibly. ‘What now?’ replied Diana. ‘It is only that I thought, being a native as it were, that I thought perhaps I should tell you about the very dangerous bridge at Maiden Oscott. But perhaps you know it?’
‘Jack Aubrey,’ she said, ‘if you do not like the way I drive this coach, take the bloody reins yourself, and be damned to you.’
‘Not at all, not at all,’ cried Jack. ‘It was only that I thought…’
The horses resumed their fine round pace: Jack sank back. ‘Perhaps I have vexed her,’ he said, ‘though I spoke both meek and civil.’
‘Perhaps you have,’ said Stephen.
The downward slope grew steeper, and even steeper. The first houses appeared and very soon they were in the street itself, Dundas hallooing to clear dogs, cats, asses and children out of the way and the horses going rather faster than Diana would have allowed at another time. She had the tension of the reins just so: her hands were in close touch with the horses’ mouths and her keen gaze was fixed on the left-hand leading corner of the wall that crossed the bridge, a wall scarred by innumerable vehicles in the last four hundred years. With a last glance down at the hub of her near forewheel, she changed the pressure on the reins, clucked to the leaders and swung the coach square on to the narrow bridge, avoiding the stone by half an inch and trotting superbly across to the other side.
Where the Maiden Oscott road, having risen again and fallen again, joined the Exeter turnpike she pulled up at a famous coaching-inn by a delightful stream, and while the others held the horses’ heads she climbed nimbly down. Jack gave her a hand from the lower step and said, ‘I do ask your pardon, Diana.’
‘Never mind it, Jack,’ she said with a brilliant smile – she was in excellent looks, with the fine fresh air arid the
excitement – ‘I have been frightened too, aboard your ships. Now be a good fellow and call for a room, coffee, toast, and perhaps bacon and eggs, if they have nothing better –
Lord, I could do with a decent second breakfast. But for the moment I must retire.’
Jack had given orders for the horses to be watered and walked up and down before their moderate bite, and he was rejoining his friends in front of the inn when he heard his name called. It was William Dolby, followed by Harry Lovage, both old friends (Lovage was called Old Lechery), crossing the road from the stream, both carrying fishingrods, and both looking thoroughly happy – indeed it was a delightful morning, a delightful scene – the water flowing in its smooth green banks, the scent of a late aftermath drifting across, and the air full of swallows.
‘Look what we have caught,’ cried Dolby, opening his bag. ‘Such trouts you might dream of, the glorious day!’
‘My best was still larger,’ said Lovage. ‘You must breakfast with us. The two fishes ain’t in it, nor the five loaves. Dick’ – this to a waiter – ‘lay for us all in the Dolphin parlour, will you?’
They moved slowly across the forecourt, admiring the fish, talking of claret and mallard and the mayfly hatch, and Lovage said, ‘There will be plenty for supper; and if there ain’t we shall make up on the evening rise. Fish suppers make a man skip like a flea, ha, ha, ha. We have Nelly Clapham with us, and her young sister Sue, such a cheerful, jolly…’ He
stopped abruptly, looking appalled, for there in the porch, pausing to join them, was Diana: very clearly not a lady of pleasure.
They broke off to receive her – introductions – and Stephen said, ‘My dear, these gentlemen have invited us to breakfast with them on some of the noblest trouts that ever yet were seen. But it may well be that you are tired after your drive, and would as soon sit quietly with a little thin gruel and perhaps a very small cup of chocolate. I cannot recommend cream or sugar.’