The Highwayman Came Riding

THE
COUNTERFEIT CAVALIER, EPISODE ONE:

THE
HIGHWAYMAN CAME RIDING

Copyright
2012 Lydia M. Sheridan

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THE
COUNTERFEIT CAVALIER, EPISODE ONE:

THE
HIGHWAYMAN CAME RIDING

The bullet exploded from the pistol in a shower of sparks, shattering the
calm of the peaceful spring night. The heavy coach lurched to a halt, tossing
the four ladies inside hither and thither.

They shrieked. The horses reared. On the box, Smithers swore fluently,
shocking John Coachman more than the pistol shot. The Countess nodded
reassuringly to her daughter, Lady Jeanne. Mrs. Kendall smiled, trembling, at her
daughter, Miss Letitia. Materializing out of the fog, the highwayman
shouted, "Stand and deliver!”

Everyone froze.

Once more the ladies screamed. Uncaring of torn muslins or disheveled locks,
bumps or bruises, they disentangled themselves, sat up, and hastened to unclasp
necklaces, unpin brooches, and pull off rings.

The girls whimpered in fright, near tears. The Countess muttered under
her breath. The earl had ridden ahead instead of protecting his family against
road bandits. Already she was grimly planning the tongue when next they saw
each other.

John Coachman emitted only a grunt as he struggled, his arms full of a
furious ladies maid.

“Are ye daft, Smithers? Jump at him and he’s like to blow your brain box
to bits!”

When the highwayman rode up to the circle of light caused by the carriage
lamps, it was clear why the coachman had failed to use his blunderbuss.

To his victims, the bandit seemed to float on a legless horse in a sea of
low, swirling fog. It was hard to discern where the man began and the mist
ended. He was the color of mist, all in grey, from the dancing plumes on his
hat to the leather boots on his feet. His eyes and nose were hidden by a silk
scarf, his shoulders were broad and straight. The grin above his pointed beard
was merry, and his hand, with the pistol aimed directly at the Countess’ heart,
never wavered.

“Dear ladies, tragic circumstance has compelled me here tonight, not as I
should wish, that of the gallant to enjoy your charming company, but rather a
recipient of your gracious charity. Would that it were otherwise, but still I
throw myself upon the generosity of your good nature,” he declaimed all in one
breath.

John Coachman scratched his head. Smithers snorted. The ladies,
relieved that the rogue seemed disinclined to fire or claim their virtue,
warmed toward him. But Smithers, raised in a family of smugglers, didn’t give
a brass farthing for such a frippery fellow, and went so far as to bellow,
“Don’t you be a'feared of this barstid, milady. Do you need help wi’ yer lid?”

The highwayman made a sound which in a more social situation might have
been a laugh, and sidled his enormous horse close to the carriage window. He
had recognized the crest on the door. Felon he might be, but foolish he
wasn’t. He had no intention whatever of trying to pawn so famous an entailed
piece as the Malford tiara.

“Dearest lady,” he cried in a low, raspy voice. “Only the veriest
dastard would see fit to steal such a beloved piece of jewelry. Though, alas,
my present circumstances have brought me low as the dust under your dainty
feet, I ask only to relieve you of those pieces which you shall not miss.”

At this gallant speech, the Countess turned pink enough to glow in the
darkness. Abandoning the tiara so that it rested rakishly over her forehead,
she unpinned the brooch at her bosom instead.

Moments later, several hands, seemingly disembodied in the mist, thrust
out the windows, full of glittering gems. With a gracious bow, the highwayman
magnanimously accepted a necklace of coral and one of pearls, a diamond and
ruby brooch, a stomacher with emeralds the size of pigeon eggs, and a ring of
gold and seed pearls. This trumpery affair he handed back with exquisite
grace.

“Your ring, madam?” He returned it to Lady Jeanne. "Never shall
circumstances, no matter how tragic, compel me to take that which is nearest to
your heart!” Thrusting the rest of the loot in his saddlebag, the gentleman
plucked off his hat and pressed it to his chest.

The girls giggled, casting looks at his wide shoulders. The ladies
sighed over his gallantry.

“How
did he know it was my birthday ring from Papa?” whispered Lady Jeanne, awed.
She couldn’t tear her gaze away from the dashing blade. Getting robbed was so
romantic!

The highwayman clapped his hat back on his long, guinea-gold curls, so
different from modern fashions, gestured thrillingly with a hand too small for
one of his size, and turned his horse to depart.

“Oh, please to wait, sir!”

He paused, turning in the saddle to see Mrs. Kendall’s face at the
carriage window. “Madam, you may command me,” he bowed once more.

"The locket,” she whispered huskily. “My locket. It has a
miniature of my mother. I’ve not had it from around my neck since the day she
died. I beg of you, sir--”

“My lady,” he cried gallantly, pulling the hitherto unnoticed piece from
his bag. “You have but to ask and I am your slave! This precious object I
return to you. In exchange, I ask only to kiss the hand of the lovely lady who
wears it.”

So saying, he leapt from the saddle, presented to locket to Mrs. Kendall,
and took her hand in his, gracefully kissing the air above it.

“Kind sir,” called Miss Letitia. “May we not know your name?”

The rascal grinned, causing a flutter in the bosoms of all save Smithers.

“My name is of no import, madam. Know only that I am forever in your
gracious debt.”

The highwayman swept off his hat, made them a magnificent leg, winked
cheekily at Smithers, then swung up in the saddle. One last tip of his hat and
he was gone, vanished into the swirling fog.

Over the sound of retreating hoof beats, a hollow shout was heard: “For
King and for country!”

As was typical, it was the Countess who first recovered.

“Drive on,” she hollered out the carriage window. The coach started with
a jerk. From up top the box, there were anxious squawks from Smithers.

“Yes, Smithers, we are quite unhurt, thank you. No, John Coachman is not
a pudding heart. He did quite right not to fire. Who knows what violence we
might have suffered at that villain’s hand had he felt threatened.”

At her mention of the word “hand,” the women’s gaze flew to Mrs. Kendall,
whose hand, saluted with such courtesy by the bandit, was now pressed to her
cheek. She had a dreamy look in her eyes.

“Matilda,” began her ladyship awfully, "There is no need to become
totty-headed about some common criminal--”

Mrs. Kendall smiled serenely. “Gladys, he was far from common. And
there is no need for you to be jealous. He complimented you on your dainty
feet.”

"True.” Mollified, the Countess allowed herself a moment of romance
before she snapped back to reality. Uncertainly, she said, “He had very small
hands, don’t you think? Almost--well, almost like a woman’s.”

Mrs. Kendall frowned, unwilling for her dream to end. “He was utterly
masculine. I could tell the moment his lips touched my hand.”

“Matilda, I was right beside you the entire time, and if his lips came
within a foot of your hand, my name is Napoleon Bonaparte.”

The girls, meanwhile, had been suspiciously quiet. Letitia thoughtfully
bit her nails. Jeanne absently twirled a ringlet about her finger. Suddenly,
they turned as one and squealed.

“The Grey Cavalier! T’was the Grey Cavalier come back from the grave!”

This intriguing line of thought was brought to an abrupt halt as the coach
once more stopped, this time in the light spilling from the open doorway of
Appleby Manor. By dumb luck it chanced to shine through the coach window and
Mrs. Kendall and the Countess finally saw, in all their snowy white glory, the
very low décolletage of their daughters’ attire.

“Jeanne!” her mother snorted terribly. “Your bosom!”

For the moment, the Grey Cavalier was forgotten.

*****

This
most recent incarnation of the Grey Cavalier was the first in thirty years.
Napoleon had been dispatched for the second, and everyone hoped, last time, the
villagers of Oaksley perhaps most of all. The local economy had been shattered
by poor crops, cattle disease, and the return of men from the war with no jobs
in sight. The reappearance of the Cavalier was seen as a welcome diversion at
first, and a lifeline after that.

The first robbery was in April. By May, children played Highwayman,
filching black stockings from their mothers’ mending baskets and denuding the
local fowl of feathers for their hats.

By June, the entire county was in the throes of a vulgar passion for the
engaging scamp. Young girls swooned and giggled, wearing ribbons of grey as a
token of their gallant hero. Young men, anxious to be all the crack, tied
their cravats in unsightly knots they proudly dubbed The Highwayman’s Fall. A
few even went as far as to stick large grey plumes in their curled beavers.

In July, though the debate had not been settled as to whether he was
truly the Cavalier’s shade or simply a talented opportunist, the villagers had
ceased to care. Shopkeepers, quick to capitalize on the revitalized legend,
had begun to turn a healthy profit. Parents, devouring every morsel of news
about the popular fellow in the newspapers, forgot to complain about the
shocking influence he had brought to bear upon their offspring. And the
clergy, the staid Church of England Vicar Ramsdell and the hugely popular, but
papist, Father Flannery, saw the prosperity of their flock, the renewed spirit
of hope, and the money flowing into the church’s coffers, and kept their
sermons focused on the goodness of charity, rather than the evils of theft.

By August, the tiny village of Oaksley had become the most popular
tourist attraction north of London. Even a few of the swells in the highest
reaches of the Ten Thousand had abandoned their usual jaunt to Brighton to
spend a few days touring the area inhabited by the most beloved highwayman
since Claude Duvall.

*****

And thus it was one fine September morning that the Honorable Frederick
Dalrymple strolled out of the village’s only inn. The sign proclaimed it The
Lady and the Scamp and sported a pleasing depiction of a woman kneeling before
a corpse in a gibbet. It caused him to wince slightly, as if the sight made
his breakfast repast of steak, eggs, and ale roil in his stomach. However, Mr.
Dalrymple was made of stern stuff. After managing to escape the overweening
ministrations of his valet, the painting of a decaying corpse was child’s play
to him. He was come to learn about the local hero, and learn he would.
However, he was nonetheless unprepared for the glories of a High Street devoted
to nothing but the celebration of a thief.

The local worthies, on the other hand, were also unprepared for the
London dandy.

They were most unused to the sight of a tall blond man, lean though
well-muscled, picking his way daintily down the cobblestones in coat and
trousers of a delicate lavender hue and a waistcoat of the palest jonquil.
When he frowned at the sun and unfurled a precious parasol, even Squire
Appleby, widely known as the kindest man in the parish, couldn’t repress a
snicker. The less said about the Douglas twins and their prowess with
spitballs, the better.

Mr. Dalrymple grandly ignored the rabble, tipped his hat to the pretty
girls on the corner, and tripped up the street, regarding the populace with a
seriousness at distinct variance to his dress.

As he walked, he idly read the shop signs hanging at right angles into
the street. One caught his attention, and he paused, stared, jammed a quizzing
glass in his eye, and stared again.

It was a tobacconist’s, where Mr. Dalrymple could, if he chose, purchase
the same blend of snuff used by The Late, Great Cavalier, presumably when that
gentleman was amongst the living. As an added inducement, a favored customer
might also gaze upon a genuine relic of the gentleman: a snuffbox stolen by the
highwayman and carried, so the sign grandly proclaimed, to the scaffold by
"Ye Cavalier upon the Tragick Occasion of His Death By Order of an Unsympathetic
Jurye.” Already there were a number of men, tourists by the look of them,
lined up at the counter inside, purses in hand.

Unaccountably annoyed, for it was none of his affair how the rubes wasted
their blunt, Mr. Dalrymple crammed the glass back in his pocket and toddled on,
reading the signs more carefully.

Hanging above the millinery shop was one proclaiming, in execrable
French, to be La Chapeaus du Cavalier, where the discerning lady could purchase
any and all accessories for her wardrobe, including a hat in the latest mode:
The Highwayman’s Chapeau, a frothy confection consisting of nothing more than a
bunch of lace and yards of grey ribbon, accessorized by a passel of plumes in
that exciting new shade, Silver Ghost.

Mr. Dalrymple frowned. Now that he thought of it, half the village
seemed to be sporting grey hats, grey cravats, grey ribbons and laces.

Half mourning. How cheerful.