The Society Catch

‘Move yer arse!’ he was abruptly ordered when he stood too far into the yard of the Moor’s Head as the stage swung in through the low arch, then, as he sidestepped out of the way, he was buffeted by a swaggering postilion with his iron-shod boots and aggressive whip. ‘Shift yourself, bloody swell cove!’

He swung round to meet the man eye to eye and the postilion backed off, hands raised defensively, muttering, ‘Sorry, guv’nor, no offence meant.’

Giles looked him up and down without speaking until the man was reduced to stuttering silence, then said with a hint of steel in his pleasant voice, ‘You will oblige me by telling me the inn for the Lincoln coaches.’

‘This one, guv’nor. Let me show you the office, sir!’

Giles allowed himself to be shown the way. He was taking a gamble, but close questioning of a tearful Mrs Fulgrave by her niece and both men had elicited the fact that her sister Grace was the most likely refuge for Joanna. ‘Then there is her schoolfriend Lady Brandon in Wisbech,’ her mother had said, showing a greater awareness of Joanna’s correspondence than her daughter had given her credit for. ‘And, of course—’ She had broken off, looking guilty.

‘Who, Aunt?’ Hebe had probed. ‘We have to think of anyone she could have gone to.’

‘Oh, dear. You must not tell your uncle I mentioned this.’ Mrs Fulgrave took a deep breath. ‘My sister-in-law Caroline near Norwich.’

‘I have never heard of her, Aunt Emily.’

‘I know, dear.’ Emily had looked round imploringly at her audience. ‘You will promise not to tell Mr Fulgrave that I told you? His youngest sister Caroline…’ she blushed and went on bravely ‘…she lived with a married man as his wife. They fell in love, and then it transpired that he had a wife living who had run off with another man. So Caroline and Mr Faversham could never marry. It was impossible, of course, but she went and moved in with him. The family cut her off, even after his wife died, ten years later, and he married her, only to die himself within six months.’

‘Oh, poor lady,’ Hebe cried. ‘How sad!’

‘I thought so,’ Emily said stoutly. ‘And so I told Mr Fulgrave. I have written to her every year, but he would never relent because he says it nearly killed his poor father. But it is foolish of me even to consider Caro—Joanna could not know of her.’

‘Are you sure?’ Giles pressed. ‘Where do you keep her address?’

Mrs Fulgrave had removed her remembrancer from her reticule and held it out, open at the right page. Giles studied the address, then delicately lifted one long black hair from the crease in the page. Silently he held it up, dark against Mrs Fulgrave’s own light brown hair. ‘I think she knows.’ Only Hebe noticed that as he noted the address in his own pocket book he carefully laid the hair in its folds.

However, their supposition that Grace was the most likely choice for Joanna to make appeared to be confirmed at the stage-coach office. Not only did the book keeper assure Giles that this was the right departure point for Lincoln, but he remembered Joanna. ‘If you mean the young lady governess, sir? Least, I suppose that was what she was. Remarkable handsome young woman, that I do know. But anxious somehow—that’s why I recall her, sir—that and her looks, if you’ll pardon me saying so. All dressed so demure-like and those big eyes…’

‘Where did she buy a ticket to?’ Giles demanded, coming to the conclusion that if he took exception to every man who offended him that day he would not get far.

‘Lincoln, she said. At least, first she asked about Peterborough, then she looked confused and said she wanted Lincoln, sir.’

‘And what would be the town to change for Wisbech?’

‘Peterborough, sir.’

‘And what are the stops between here and Lincoln?’ Giles dug his hand in his pocket and began to sort coins. The man brightened at the chinking noise.

‘I’ll make you a list, shall I, sir? All of the stops or just the junction points, like?’

‘All of them,’ Giles had replied, tapping a gold coin suggestively on the counter.

Within half an hour his curricle, with the matched greys in the shafts and his groom left behind, faintly complaining, swung out on to the Great North Road heading towards Stevenage. Joanna had a full day’s start on him and he could not risk simply assuming she was going to Peterborough; he was going to have to check at every stopping place on the list. But then, there were French colonels—some of them still alive to remember it—who had had similar starts on Giles Gregory and who had still found themselves tracked down, outmanoeuvred and defeated. One chit of a girl was not going to elude him now.

Joanna parted with some reluctance from the comforts of the White Hart the next morning. She was anxious to be on her way and to reach Georgy, but the inn and its motherly landlady, Mrs Handley, had seemed safe; although she would never have admitted it, Joanna was feeling lonely and not a little frightened.

Still, she was taken up by the stage without any problem and Mrs Handley had come out herself to see her off and to remind her which inn in Peterborough to get off at in order to pick up the Lynn stage, which would drop her in Wisbech.

She eyed her new travelling companions from under the brim of her modest bonnet and was reassured by the sight of a stout farmer’s wife with a basket, a thin young man who promptly fell asleep and a middle-aged gentleman in clerical collar and bands who politely raised his hat to her as she got on.

‘I trust I do not intrude,’ he ventured after a few moments, ‘but I heard the good landlady directing you to the Crown and Anchor and I wonder if I might be of assistance? My name is Thoroughgood, Reverend Thaddeus Thoroughgood, and I am changing at that point myself as I do very frequently. I would be most happy to point out the stage office and so forth when we arrive.’

Joanna thanked him politely, somewhat nervous that he might want to continue talking to her, for conversation with a strange man, even a most respectable-looking clergyman, on a public stage was not what she had been brought up to regard as ladylike behaviour. However, the good reverend did not say any more and she thanked him and leaned back, feeling happier now she knew she had a guide should she need one.