She felt no guilt at the prospect of this elaborate deceit,
at allowing Alex to worry over her, at taking advantage of the lover's concern
when it came to defeating the enemy in the person of that lover. A coldness had
entered her soul when she had seen and heard Alex's refusal to save Peter. His
reason had been, "It is war." Very well, then. So be it. She would
manipulate every string she had to her bow without even the slightest pang that
had afflicted her in the past.
Events conspired in Ginny
'
s
favor, and with the same coo
l
detachment,
she accepted the advantage fate had dealt heras if it were her due.
They stopped earlier than usual for the night in the village
of Wimbledon, which boasted a substantial inn. Alex had debated whether to
continue marching the last fifteen miles into London, but they would arrive
late, and there was no knowing what accommodations could be found at that hour.
Ginny was looking so pale and wan and dispirited, so much in need of featherbed
comfort, hot baths, and good food,
that
he decided the delay was necessary. They would reach the city by noon tomorrow.
Ginny showed no reaction at all when they halted, merely
dismounted and stood idly by Jen, staring into space while Alex talked with the
innkeeper. In fact, her mind was racing. In a village of this size, she was
bound to find those whom she sought.
"
Ginny."
Alex came over to her, his voice gentle. "You need to rest before dinner.
I have managed to arrange a room of your own for tonight."
"My thanks," she said dully,
"
but I am not hungry
."
"You have not eaten since early this morning," he
reminded her. "If you wish for a tray in your chamber, we shall all
respect your need to be alone."
She acquiesced with a tiny shrug and allowed herself to be
escorted to a ground-floor chamber at the back of the inn, with a low window
overlooking the garden. "My daughter's chamber, mistress," the
innkeeper told her. "She'll bed with
the
maids tonight."
"Pray thank her for the sacrifice," Ginny said,
smiling with
an effort. "I would not normally
ask it—"
"It is nothing at all. Pray do not mention it
,
" the landlord said hastily. The poor young woman
looked more dead than alive, as he told his wife in the kitchen a few minutes
later. There was no knowing how those soldiers had been treating her, although
the colonel was showing some concern for her well-being and had insisted that
she was to be attended upon most scrupulously.
Ginny lay down on the bed to think how best she was to
accomplish her self-imposed task. A tentative knock at the door brought a young
girl bearing a posset that, she informed Ginny, her mother had made up for the
mistress, hoping it would give her strength. "I wish to talk with the red
fox," Ginny said directly. "Do you know how I may do
s
o?"
The girl almost dropped the cup, her eyes widening as she
looked nervously at the half
-
open door
behind her. "I don't know, I'm sure," she stammered. "We keep
our noses out of trouble, mistress —
s
o
close as we are to London."
"
Yes,
I understand," Ginny said instantly. "I will not cause you trouble.
If you cannot answer me, then I must find someone who can."
The girl bobbed a curtsy and left. Ginny sipped the posset
thoughtfully. The red fox was obviously known in these parts; the girl had
shown no puzzlement at what, to an innocent, would have been an odd statement.
It was possible, of course, that the inn was owned by fervent supporters of
Parliament, in which case Alex would know of her compromising question
forthwith. But it would take rack and thumbscrew to pry anything else out of
her, Ginny was quietly resolved. If the inn's inhabitants were simply neutral
and genuinely afraid of trouble, men she had neither lost nor gained. If they
were Royalists, she had made the first approach. For the moment, she could only
wait.
A sudden commotion outside her door brought her off the bed.
Voices and booted feet, spurs jangling under hasty strides, sounded. She heard
an order to "saddle up
,
" then
Alex saying, "Diccon, if you wish for action, you may have it. We leave in
five minutes." There was a loud rap on her door, and Ginny leaped back on
the bed, bidding entrance in a plaintive voice.
"It is the very devil
,
"
Alex said without preamble. "I have to leave you here until morning."
"Why? Where do you go?" Ginny forgot to sound weak
for a minute at the thought of what this could mean.
"Urgent business for Parliament," he said,
uninformatively. "A patrol that I must lead. You will be quite safe here.
Major Bonha
m
will be in command in my absence,
a
nd I shall leave three other officers with him. You
would prefer to remain in your chamber anyway, I daresay?"
"Have I not said so?" Ginny returned, falling back
on the pillows. "I do not wish to be entertained, so you may leave me to
my own devices with a good conscience."
Alex frowned and came over to the bed. "I do not like to
leave you when you are unhappy, chicken. And I do not like to feel that you
hate me."
Ginny turned her head away, and he caught her chin, bringing
her face round toward him again. "Do you hate me, sweetheart?"
"I hate what you do," she said in the low voice of
truth. "And at the moment I am unable to separate what you do from what
you are."
He sighed and straightened, releasing her chin. "It is
to be expected, of course, but somehow it does not make it any easier. We will
talk about it at length when we reach London, where we will have to come to
some decisions, you and I." He left her then, making no
a
ttempt to kiss her in farewell, and Ginny felt a stab
of desolation, men fear. What was his mission this night? Would he be in
danger? Would he return whole in the morning?
They were not questions to be dwelt upon. What was important,
was that she was alone with only the inscrutable Major Bonham to contend with.
He would have orders to guard her, of course, but if even Alex had not seen
through her act, she had little to fear from others. She would not be
disturbed, maybe a check at bedtime, but that was all, and her chamber window
opened directly onto the garden.
She remained where she was, listening to the bustle of
departure, then the sudden silence. Major Bonham and Ensign Bryant were talking
in the garden, outside her window—
s
omething
about the disposition of sentries at the camp. nothing was said about guards at
the inn. Presumably they thought their own presence obviated such a necessity.
The innkeeper called them in for dinner, and Ginny waited to see whether
anything of interest would arrive with her own meal.
It was brought to her by an anxious-looking woman with wispy
brown hair escaping from her cap, faded blue eyes, and a thin, stooped frame.
The resemblance to the innkeeper's daughter was unmistakable, however.
"
Hetty
said you wish to meet with someone," she whispered, placing a tray on the
gate-legged table by the hearth.
"
We
don't know anything, but if you go to the Black Cock at the end of the village,
there may be someone who can help you."
"
What
time?" Ginny asked as her reluctant informant scuttled for the door.
"Any time after dark and before dawn
"
she was told. Then the door opened
and closed.
Ginny remembered that they had passed the tavern on the way
into the village. An uninviting-looking place, with flaking p
l
aster, disheveled match, and glassless windows. A
haven for rogues and vagabonds most like —
a
nd
rebels, too. These days,
there
was little to choose between any of
the groups who lived outside Parliament's law.
With excitement and a plan came hunger. The tray contained
broth, a rather scrawny chicken leg, and boiled potatoes. Not exactly a feast,
but beggers were hardly in a position to be choosers, and Ginny ate
purposefully, if not with enthusiasm. The ale at least was tolerable and
fortunately not as strong as the October ale in Newbury.
Having completed her meal, Ginny decided to show herself to
the major and anyone else who might be interested in knowing that their charge
was as monosyllabic and enfeebled as she had been all day, and that she was on
her way to an early bed. A last visit to the privy would provide an
unimpeachable reason for her appearance.
The major and his companions were smoking an after-dinner
pipe in the garden when Parliament's ward passed them on her way to the
outhouse. She acknowledged their distinctly awkward greeting with a small
curtsy and a mumble that they could interpret how they pleased. On her return,
she bade them a low-voiced good-night, which was politely given back to her. On
regaining her chamber, she wasted no time in extinguishing her candle, knowing
that they would see the sudden darkness in the window and draw
th
e conclusion that their charge was innocently abed,
nurs
in
g her spiritual wounds.
For two hours, Ginny lay in darkness, her ears straining for
the slightest sound, her mind reaching to interpret every freak and squeak. At
last, she was convinced that all she
co
uld
hear were the night noises of the settling house. Remembering a trick she and
Edmund had employed as children when they had wanted to go and watch badgers in
the moonlight, Ginny pushed the bolster down the middle of the bed, bundling up
her shift into a headlike shape on the pillow, drawing the sheet over it. It
had satisfied the cursory checks of their nurse, so maybe it would work with
soldiers, who, if they did check, would hopefully feel so awkward about
intruding on her in the first place that they would not examine too closely.
She slipped a dark, hooded cloak over her habit. She would swelter in the warm
night, but it hid the white collar that might show up in the dark, and the hood
covered the chestnut hair that could gleam inconveniently in the moonlight. The
window
had a broad sill, inside and out, and
it was an easy matter to swing herself through and land soundlessly on the soft
earth of the flowerbed beneath.
On her trip to the privy, she had noticed a gate leading out
of the garden into the lane behind the inn. Would it be guarded? Ginny was
almost positive that there would be a sentry posted at the front of the inn, as
much for general security reasons as to keep her within doors. She slipped down
the path between the fragrant ranks of wallflowers, came to the low gate, and
paused. For as long as she remained in the garden, she could be accused of
nothing
.
The minute she put her hand on the
latch of the gate, she was engaged in subversion. The only sound, apart from
her own breathing, was the persistent, willful, trilling song of a blackbird
denying that it was night. No sentry stood with pike and halberd in the lane
outside the garden gate. Closing her mind to the possibility of discovery,
Ginny raised the latch and stepped outside her loosely guarded prison.
Clinging to the shadows of the ivy-clad stone wall, she ran
in the direction of the main village street. If there was a guard outside the
inn, he would be facing that main stre
e
t,
but in order to discover a route to the Black Cock that would circumvent the
street, she had to be able to pinpoint
t
he
tavern. There had been little rain in recent weeks, and th
e
lane was fortunately dry, the muddy tracks of horses
and oxen caked in hard, ridged peaks. The only light came fro
m
the quarter moon as the village of Wimbledon slept.
At the end of the lane, Ginny peered around the corner into
the wider thoroughfare. The inn was on her right and, as she had suspected, a
sentry stood at ease in front of the door. The Black Cock was to her left, at
the far end of the village. She would not have to go past the sentry, but any
unusual movement in this sleeping village would attract his attention. It would
be safer to make her way through the back gardens of the cottages fronting the
main street. Of course, her chances of setting every village dog in full cry
were then dangerously high.
Chapter 12 $207
T
he
cottage gardens were separated by low stone walls, which presented little
diff
i
culty, although moving with ste
al
th and in silence was not easy as Ginny's skirts
became sna
g
ged on bushes and the sharp thorns of
climbing roses. O
nc
e or twice, a dog began barking
furiously, and she crouched in a shadow, hardly daring to breathe. A voice bell
owed,
something crashed, the dog yelped, and then there was
silence again.