"Sated, my dear? Excellent! Now we will all pay our reckonings and resume our journey, what?"
There was no coachman for Sir Pulteney to pay off, for once he had handed Lady Imogene and Caroline into the coach, he sprang to the coachee's bench and the reins most lithely, and got the team moving with a few clucks, a whistle, and a shake of the reins.
Lady Imogene crossed herself as they got under way once more "Pulteney adores playing coachee… though I fear he's not as talented as he imagines himself, and he rushes on much too fast sometimes."
"Good Christ," Lewrie said, shaking his head in dread.
Sir Pulteney got the coach on the road and began to set a rapid pace, whipping up like Jehu, the Biblical charioteer, putting the wind up Lewrie, who'd had his share of harum-scarum whip-hands like Zachariah Twigg and his damned three-horse chariot. Twigg was in his sixties, for God's sake, usually aloof, staid, and cold, but hand him the reins and he'd turn into a raving lunatick, screeching like a naked Celtic warrior painted in blue woad, revelling in how close he came to carriages, farm waggons, and pedestrians, as if re-enacting Queen Boadicea's final charge against the Roman legions.
Sir Pulteney took the eastern road from Pontoise, following the north bank 'til reaching a crossroads that led north towards the smaller towns of Mйru and Beauvais, slowly climbing into a region of low and rolling hills that were thickly forested… and the roads were windier.
Did it matter a whit to that fool? Like Hell it did, for their coach sometimes swayed onto two wheels, and those inside were jounced, tumbled, and rattled like dice in a cup. Lewrie's testicles, it must be admitted, drew up in expectation of the grand smash to come.
At long last, and at a much slower pace, Sir Pulteney steered the coach off the road to a rougher and leaf-covered forest track, some few of those new-fangled Froggish kilomиtres short of Mйru, or so the last mile-post related, before they drew to a very welcome stop, deep in a forest glade.
"What now?" Lewrie had to ask, easing the kinks in his back from keeping himself as stiff as rigor mortis the last few hours, as he and Sir Pulteney went into the woods in one direction, the ladies another, to tend to the "necessities."
"Why, we become other people before we reach Mйru, sir," their rescuer told him, beaming with pleasure as he took a pinch of snuff on the back of his hand. "Then, once there, we change our mode of travel. Ten years ago, during the height of the French Revolution's bloodiness, there were more than a few residents there, Royalist in their sympathies, who aided our endeavours at spiriting the blameless to safety. In such a rural place, I rather doubt the Committee for Public Safety, or the later Directory, even bothered to root out so-called reactionaries, or hold their witch-hunts. No no, I'm certain there are still many of our old allies ready to speed us on our way. Ah-ah-achoo!" Sir Pulteney paused for a prodigious sneeze into a handkerchief, with all evident delight. "You will partake, Captain Lewrie?" he said, offering a snuff box. "Zounds, but that's prime!" he said, sneezing again.
"Never developed a liking for it, thankee," Lewrie said. "You say we're t'become other people?"
"Your trail goes cold at the Gantelet Rouge in Pontoise. Now, it will go even colder at Mйru," Sir Pulteney confidently told him as they went back to the coach. "My trail, and Lady Imogene's, as well. We will openly sup in Mйru after obtaining a much humbler conveyance, then travel through the night to put as much distance between us and Paris, and any pursuit, before tomorrow's dawn. That will require new aliases, and some, ah… costume changes, to transform us into a most unremarkable party of travellers… French travellers, Begad!"
"I'm t'play a Frenchman?" Lewrie gawped in dis-belief. "Me, sir? That's asking rather a lot!"
"I took that into consideration, Captain Lewrie," Plumb replied, "just as I noted that your wife's French, though not fluent, is much better than yours, which suggested to me the very personas which must be assumed, haw haw! Imogene and I shall do most of the talking."
"Wouldn't we need new documents or something?" Lewrie wondered.
"For foreign visitors, of a certainty, but for innocent and up-standing Frenchmen? Hardly! Aha!" Sir Pulteney exclaimed, hurrying them to the boot of the coach, "my lady has already begun the alteration of your wife's appearance!"
The leather covering of the boot had been rolled up, revealing several large trunks, one of which was open, whilst a second served as a seat for Caroline as Lady Imogene fussed over her, now and then having a good dig down through the open trunk's contents. There were some gowns, many scarves and shawls, a heap of various-coloured wigs, and a smaller box of paints and makeup.
Caroline had changed into a sobre and modest, drab brownish wool gown, with a cream-coloured shawl over her shoulders and a dingy white apron. White silk stockings had been replaced by black cotton, and her feet now sported clunky old buckled shoes instead of light slippers.
"Good God!" Lewrie gawped again, noticing that Carolone's fair hair was now covered by a mousy brown wig, and atop that, there now sat a nigh-shapeless old straw farmwoman's hat. Lady Imogene had done something with her paints and powders, too, for Caroline looked at least ten years older, of a sudden.
"Lud, but that's subtle, m'dear!" Sir Pulteney congratulated.
"Merci, dearest," Lady Imogene sweetly replied, beaming. "What is necessary for theatregoers twenty rows back would be much too much for those we will deal with face-to-face. Artifice, as you say, must be subtle. Oh, I apologise for making you seem so careworn, Mistress Lewrie, but your natural beauty must notbe remembered," Lady Imogene said, finishing up the additions, or slight enhancements, of furrows or crow's-feet darkening the merry folds below Caroline's eyes as if she possessed weary, sleepless bags. Et, voilа! Done," she cried.
"Now, should any pursuers ask if anyone has seen a fair-haired Englishwoman, they can honestly say non, d'ye see, Captain Lewrie?" Sir Pulteney said with an inane titter. "Your turn, now, sir." He removed his own clothing and began to dig into another trunk. "I will now become Major, ah… Pierre Fleury, a retired officer of foot, now too lame to serve. I will be a very disappointed man, haw haw! Lady Imogene is to be, oh hang it, Imogene Fleury… a disappointed woman in her own right, because… because… aha, I have it!" he said as he paced in a small circle.
"You, Mistress Lewrie, are the widow of my eldest son, Bertrand, who found you in the Piedmont during Bonaparte's Italian Campaign, an Italian, of all things, and not the sort of match we had arranged for him. Being foreign, of course, your less-than-fluent French is plausible. M'dear?" he asked Lady Imogene.
"I simply adore it, mon cher!" Lady Imogene cried, clapping her hands in delight.
"I see… I think," Caroline said, sounding a bit dubious.
"You, Captain Lewrie," Sir Pulteney said, whirling to face him and already feigning the stiff fierceness of a retired officer and a disappointed father, with a strict martinet's snap to his voice. "You are my youngest son, our last hope of grandchildren and the continuation of our family's name, but you… Armand, yes, that'll do… you, Armand, tried to be a soldier. You can remember your name? Trиs bien. You enlisted as a private soldier in the cavalry, but proved so clumsy that you ended by getting kicked in the head by your horse, before you had a chance to go on campaign, and have recently been invalided out. We shall have papers to that effect… Well, we will shortly. You will have to play a dummy."