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It’s quite a commentary on our so-called scientific progress that while we can send men to the moon (well, possibly you can, even if this correspondent can’t), getting stuck on the high fell road between Scotch Corner and Carlisle is just as liable to happen now as it was in the sixteenth century. In some ways it’s worse nowadays, when your carburettor’s flooded, not a call-box in sight, and nothing for it but a ten-mile walk; in the 1590s you could always huddle up in a corner of your satin-lined luxury coach, swathed in silks and furs, beguiling your impatience with peach brandy and sweetmeats o’ Peru, while outside in the raging blizzard your lackeys heaved and whimpered to get the show on the road, and Coachman Samkin clumphed around giving futile instructions to the grooms, like “Keep them nags in low gear, the chestnut’s over-revving!” – assuming, of course, that you weren’t just any old wayfarer, but the pampered and wealthy Lady Godiva Dacre, proud flower of the nobility, owner of half East Anglia, and accustomed to having every whim, let alone crisis, attended to instanter by droves of head-knuckling servitors. There were a round dozen of these floundering knee-deep in slush as they strove to force the great gilded carriage ahead, and Coachman Samkin waved his lantern and vanished in a snowdrift.
Inside, her ladyship tapped dainty foot and drummed slender fingers in Krupa-like crescendo, signs which her companion, mischievous little Mistress Kylie, watched with covert amusement as she waited for Krakatoa to blow, and tried to think of some remark which would get the eruption going.
“Perchance,” she ventured brightly, “the weather will clear ere long, or mayhap some travellers will fare this way, bringing timely succour. Or a road scout, wi’ spanners and gadgets –”
“– and a team of oxen, and wainropes, and a fork-lift truck!” stormed Lady Godiva, finally giving vent. “God’s light!” she seethed, “was ever poor debutante so sorrily served? Twelve reeking fat knaves that have gorged and swilled enough for a regiment since we left London, and cannot shift me a featherweight coach through a pinch of snow! Yeomen of England, yet! How we beat the Spaniards I’ll never know! Can nothing stir them, jelly-muscled churls?”
“Have ’em lashed with horse-whips,” suggested sweet Kylie. “Mind you, they’re probably too numb to feel it by now, but it’s worth a try.”
“And have ’em run whining to an industrial tribunal!” The fine eyes of scornful Lady Godiva flashed like violet detonators. “With my fair name bandied in the gutter press as merciless employer! Thank you, Mistress Thinktank! Who are you working for, me or the Sunday Sport?”
“Marry, ’tis a thought,” admitted Kylie. “Certes, the tabloids would eat it. ‘My Flogging Frolic i’ the snow with Gorgeous Goddy’, by Postillion Tim … And ’twould be just like them to use that kinky picture of you in Ben Jonson’s last masque – remember, Diana chastising the fauns? All right, all right,” she added hastily as her mistress began to gnash pearly teeth, “just speculating. I always said amateur court theatricals were a lousy idea, but you would fancy yourself in tights … Here, have another snifter.”
And while tactful Kylie sets the decanter merrily a-glug, and Lady Godiva extends smouldering goblet, let us cast an eye over these two ladies fair – or rather, in Godiva’s case, let us gaze in stricken admiration, for they’re not making them like that any more. Superbly tall, with the flawless ivory beauty of some Nordic ice queen, and a shape whose curvature could not be concealed even by the voluminous finery of the day, our heroine (yes, it is she) was a breathtaking mixture of Marlene above the neck and Jane Russell below. Her white brow was lofty, her eyes of deepest midnight blue, her nose classically sculpted, her lips an imperious rosebud, and her ears shell-like gems peeping from beneath magnificent fiery tresses which cascaded like glossy red curtains to shoulders of alabaster smoothness. Her chin and teeth were all right, too. Add to this assemblage a mien before whose frigid disdain accountants trembled and barristers fairly grovelled, clothe her in cloth of silver (by Balmain), and let Van Cleef (or Arpels) loose wi’ gewgaws of price wherewith to deck her slim hands and snowy bazoom, and you have a picture of feminine perfection that would take the paper off the wall. Rumour had it that she had been Master Spenser’s original model for the Faerie Queene before wiser counsels led him to ascribe his inspiration to Her Majesty’s person, and that Shakespeare himself had her in mind when he penned that immortal line in Much Ado which begins “Here’s a dishe …”
In short, Lady Godiva Dacre was the ultimate Elizabethan knockout, and if among the sonnets, songs, wolf-whistles and cries of “Gaw!” with which courtiers paid tribute to her peerless oomph, there were occasional murmurs of “Haughty piece”, “Stuck-up icicle”, and “Payne i’ the butte”, this was no matter for wonder.
For, as our description and the foregoing snatch of small talk suggest, our leading lady’s temper was wilful, headstrong, passionate, and proud to busting. Spoiled from infancy by a doting grandsire and squads of devoted nurses, grooms, and hangers-on, our orphaned heiress had realised at the age of about three that beauty, money, and blue blood had placed in her tiny hand the throttle of a steamroller on Life’s highway, and she had been winding it on ever since. Sent to court as a child, she had modelled herself on the Queen’s Grace, to whom she had been maid-in-waiting for several years; hence those outbursts of tantrum when any inconvenience (like having to sit in a coach moving at one mile an hour through a snowstorm) came to disturb the rose-strewn progress of her existence. We see her now aged twenty-two, journeying north to visit the distant estate of her late grandfather, old Lord Waldo Dacre, recently succumbed to a surfeit of reivers. She wouldn’t have come – too far, too rude, and oh, sweet coz, the people! – had she not been commanded away by the Queen who, it was rumoured, had been itching for an excuse to get shot of an attendant who gave herself impossible airs and whose naturally flame-coloured coiffure was a maddening reproach to Her Majesty’s weekly gallon of henna.
So there’s Lady Godiva … sorry? Lovers, you ask? Well, none of your business, really. Yes, granted, a lady with her equipment and ardent spirit, when aroused by Cupid, might well make the Maneaters of the Kumaon look like stuffed mice … and, indeed, there has been talk, but that’s the court for you. Suffice to say that while she has had legions of open admirers with whom she has dallied coolly before giving them the old-sock treatment, we are not prepared to speculate about anything steamier. Don’t worry, her passionate nature will take off before we’re finished … but mum.
Now, if you can tear your eyes away from our heroine, we turn to little Kylie, her attendant, a perfect complement to Lady G. Kylie is petite, blonde, pert, and chocolate-box pretty, with those generous contours common among saucy milkmaids and well described by the modern expression “stacked”. Inseparable since they won the two-woman bob-sleigh title at their Swiss finishing school, they spar almost continuously, for Kylie couldn’t care less about her imperious employer’s outbursts, and needles her freely, a familiarity which Lady Godiva secretly enjoys because she feels such tolerance becomes her aristocracy. Just let anyone but Kylie try it.
Having brimmed her companion’s goblet with the electric soup, Kylie remarked that it would keep out the cold, and got her head in her hands for her pains.
“Cold, quotha!” withered haughty Godiva. “What shouldst thou know of cold, overweight and padded wi’ blubber as thou art! Nay, had I thy surplus tissue I might sit me starkers on an ice floe and be warm as toast, I’ll warrant!”
“Pleasingly plump and eight stone in my pantyhose, I,” murmured Kylie, no whit abashed. “And who tipped the scale at nine stone two last Twelfth Night? Do I hear the name Dacre?”
“But then I’m not a midget, am I?” riposted Godiva with acid sweetness. “I don’t roll for miles when I fall over, like some butter-balls I could mention. Sure, nine-two is nought to one o’ my stately inches; ’tis but sweet proportion. Oh, come on, top me up again, and if it makes me car-sick, what the hell, it’s better than freezing.”
“Aye, let’s get loaded,” sighed Kylie, dispensing joy-juice. “’Twill make our present plight seem the less woeful, and banish fond regrets that we might ha’ been snug at Greenwich, simpering at Her Grace, dancing corantos, and sizing up the Yeoman Warders … if only someone had had the sense to wear a black wig …”
Lady Godiva’s lovely eyes glinted like dangerous sapphires. “If you’re trying to wind me up, dear heart,” she purred, “you’re getting perilously warm. Well ye know that I am up to here, repining this unlooked for voyage to my Cumbrian estate – but what could I do, with Her Grace insistent and Grandpops handing in his bucket untimely?” Moodily she plucked seed pearls from her ruff and flicked them at the decanter, her bosom quivering in a sigh that would have had strip-club patrons clambering over the seats. “Aye, me, I suppose someone’s got to mind the store, and who but the old goat’s heiress? ’Tis the penalty of uncountable riches and social status that they bring Care and Duty in their wake. Ah, sweet Kylie, sometimes I wish I had been born a poor beggar maid, with no cares but ducks and manure. Or whatever,” she added vaguely.
“’Tis hell in the trenches,” sniffed cynical Kylie. “But when her ancestors collar the monosodium glutamate monopoly from Henry the Seventh, what can a girl do but wallow lamenting in the dividends? Heart-breaking, I call it.”
“It keeps you in tights and Chanel,” flashed Godiva, “so knock it not. Skip off the gravy train an ye list, but remember, baby, it’s cold outside. Aye,” she resumed in pensive mood, “this same wild wind will be sighing its plaintive dirge through the battlements of Thrashbatter Tower, where I was born, ’neath the grim shadow of the lonely fells. We’ll be seeing it shortly, assuming these layabouts get us moving before Easter – a stark and lonely hold, gentle Kylie, fronting the grim border. And yet …” Godiva’s marble beauty seemed to soften in creamy-dreamy reminiscence “… and yet ’twas there I played, as tender little child, by rippling beck and oozing bog, and harkened me to the murmuring of butterflies and badgers in the greenwood, all carpeted with daisies … And what the hell do you want, clodpole?” she concluded as the coach window flew open to admit a rush of freezing air and the empurpled face of Coachman Samkin under a thin sheet of ice.
“’Tis of no avail, my lady!” he quavered through chattering teeth. “My big end’s gone!”
A dozen crisp rejoinders jostled for priority on the red lips of quick-witted Kylie, but Lady Godiva ignored the opportunity, so great was her fury.
“Have ye not tried kick-starting, fool?” she railed.
“Aye, mistress, but ’tis vain! Boot their buttocks as I may, they stagger like men stoned! The wheels slip, wi’out purchase, and us wi’ no chains nor grit –”
“Then find something else!” stormed her ladyship. “Where are your wits, looby? Lay two o’ the smaller lackeys ’neath the wheels, so shall ye find purchase enough! Stay, dolt – cover them with blankets lest their liveries be soiled. Jesu, must I think of everything! And close the dam’ window!”
“Oh, kindly mistress! Oh, sweet consideration!” grovelled Samkin. “’Tis done in a moment, wi’ all despatch! I go, see how I … aaargh!”
His fawning protestations ended in a sudden yowl as tender Kylie closed the window on his fingers, and while he is bathing them in snow and calling for volunteers to prostrate themselves beneath the wheels, we pan and zoom dramatically to the night skyline far above the road. You know the shot – usually it reveals Comanches or Riffs gazing down on the unsuspecting wagon train or Legion column, but this is something more sinister by far: a dozen steel-capped border riders sitting their hobblers like black phantoms in the swirling snow, motionless save for the play of their cloaks in the wind and the fidgeting of the man on the end whose chilblains are killing him. A fearsome sight, and worse when you get close and see the gaunt profiles of the long horse-like faces – and the riders are nothing to write home about either, grim and bony villains with wolfish expressions and hungry sunken eyes, for these are Charltons and Milburns of Tynedale, the hardest of hard men on the English side. Plagued by a power cut in their valley, they have been raiding their own countrymen (nothing unusual on the frontier, believe us) for firelighters and primus stoves; now, on their homeward road, heavy with plundered matches and kindling and a-reek with paraffin, they have spotted the stranded coach, and are arguing not about the practicality but – would you believe? – the morality of attacking it.
You see, if we haven’t already mentioned it, the border reivers had eccentric notions of what was fair game. Livestock of any kind, and the contents (what they called the “insight”, a definition probably unknown to C. P. Snow) of farms, crofts, churches, and other people’s peel towers, were legitimate loot, and murder, arson, kidnapping, extortion, and terrorism were simply part of their business – and none of these things did they consider criminal. But there was a line which no respectable reiver would cross, if he could help it: mugging, pocket-picking, fraud, embezzlement, highway robbery, or oath-breaking – these things were out, as the State Papers testify, and if you think the borderers were crazy, well, that was their code. The line got a bit blurred sometimes, admittedly – which was why the Charltons and Milburns were getting all het up as they eyed the great gilded coach with hungry doubt and their extremities froze. They were talking, or rather growling, in Northumbrian, a form of English incomprehensible to outsiders, chiefly because it features a deep guttural noise as of a motor starting up, in place of the consonant “r”. In translation:
“Ye cannut tooch it, man!” The leading Charlton, a gaunt cadaver known as Wor Jackie, was adamant. “The bloody thing hez wheels, sista! Rob that, an’ yer a flamin’ highwayman!”
“If it’s got a roof, an’ isn’t moovin’, it’s a hoose!” objected a Milburn, producing his dog-eared Reiver’s Year-book.“Haud up the lantern, Sandie! Aye, theer y’are … ‘Any immobile dwellin’ or sim’lar accommodation may be visited, ploondered, th’inhabitants assaulted, the thatch boorned –’”
“An’ wheer’s the thatch on that friggin’ thing?” demanded Oor Kid Charlton, who always supported his big brother.
“Haud on a minnit,” demurred an awkward Robson. “Peel towers hezn’t got thatches, an’ we boorn them.”
“Peel towers hezn’t got wheels, ye daft git! A coach isna an immobile dwellin’, neether!”
“It wad be, tho’ if ’twas in a caravan park or trailer camp.” The Milburn shop steward was consulting his index. “Wheer is’t? ‘Pyped watter … refuse disposal … landlord-bashin’ …’ Aye, here it’s! ‘Trailers, albeit wheeled, shall be deemed crofts, cots, or steadings, so they be stationary …’ Weel, that booger’s stationary, so Ah say we’re in business!”
“Naw, we’s not,” snarled Wor Jackie. “Bastard thing’s moovin’. An Ah doobt if that’s a caravan park.”
“Aw, coom on, man! Hoo d’ye ken, wid a’ the snaw?”
“’Ey, we could run-off th’ hosses! They’re livestock, so we’re entitled – an’ then it wadn’t be moovin’! Warraboot that, Wor Jackie?”
A further moment’s debate followed in which a Milburn was unhorsed and two Charltons received flesh wounds, and then Wor Jackie sheathed his broadsword and gave his casting vote.
“We tek th’ hosses, awreet – but if them fellas that’s pushin’ the coach can keep it moovin’ … hands off! An’ they’re not to be strucken, nor tripped neether, thou base football players! But the minnit they stop shovin’, an’ it stops, it ceases tae be a ve-hickle, an’ we can git stoock in! Awoy, Tynedale! Up the Magpies!”
Like a black avalanche the scrupulous freebooters swept down the snow-clad slope, flourishing swords and supporters’ club scarves, lances couched and rattles a-clatter, and before the bewildered grooms knew what had hit them they had been pinioned and dropped in wayside drifts, and the coach horses had been neatly whipped from the shafts and labelled “Spoyle”. But alas for the reivers’ hopes: the coach kept rolling slowly, because the lackeys behind, all unaware of what was happening up ahead, were packed down in three-two-three and putting in a splendid shove, with Coachman Samkin hovering at their heels yelling: “Keep it tight, back row!” The two loose lackeys who’d been under the wheels were receiving attention from the trainer, but soon they too piled into the ruck, and the coach crunched merrily o’er the snow, to the disgust of the reivers, who could only mooch along behind, foiled but still hopeful.
“This lot’ll be weel knackered afore they’re halfway to Alston,” opined Wor Jackie, wi’ vulpine grin. “An’ then – away the lads!”
Meanwhile, within the coach, its evident progress had restored Lady Godiva to her normal petulance, and she was reduced to complaining about the Peruvian sweetmeats (no soft centres), when Kylie, peeping out of the back window, let out a girlish whoop.
“Gosh, Goddy! Clock this lot! Great hairy chaps in black leather and spurs! Wow! Eat your heart out, Schwarzenegger – it’s goose-pimple time! Oh, good mistress, shall we not bid a couple of them in, for refreshments and the like?”
Lady Godiva cast a languid eye astern, and wrinkled aristocratic nostril. “’Tis but the local rough trade, or itinerant bikers, and far ’neath the notice o’ gentlewomen such as we. Stop smirking, wench, you’re not a groupie!”
“I could be,” sighed wanton Kylie. “Regard me those bulging biceps on the gorilla wi’ the tin vest – and talk about designer stubble! Flutter, my maiden heart!”
“Maiden, my foot!” snapped Godiva. “Why, thou randy minx, hast no shame – Godamercy!” she exclaimed. “We’re stopping!”
It had been bound to happen, of course. One of the back-row lackeys, pausing for breath, had glanced behind, and noticed that he was being shadowed by what looked like a dyspeptic Jack Palance, who stropped glittering blade on horse’s flank and inquired wi’ gloating leer: “Gittin’ tired, son?” Three seconds later a dozen lackeys were in screaming flight across the snow, Coachman Samkin had fainted, the carriage was at a standstill, the Charltons and Milburns were pillaging the rear luggage-rack with cries of “We’re in, Meredith!”, and Lady Godiva and Kylie were exchanging wondering glances (not unmingled with excitement in Kylie’s case) and asking each other what this might portend.
Well, we know, don’t we? Here’s beauty unprotected, and a gang of licentious bandits, not one of them in need of vitamins, working up a head of steam on the spare bottles of peach brandy in the boot – and now they tear open suit-cases and goggle in lustful amaze at piles of frilly undergarments and fishnet hose which even their untutored imaginations have no difficulty in filling. In an instant they have put two and two together, and are climbing over each other to get to the coach door, flinging it wide and feasting lewdly bugging eyes on their gorgeous prey, one of whom sinks back all silkenly a-flutter while the other sits bolt upright, ba-boom! in voluptuous indignation. For one stricken instant the principals regard each other, Wor Jackie licking gaunt chops as he lamps Godiva’s vibrating fury, while Oor Kid leers drooling on buxom Kylie. Then, as often happens in unexpected social encounters, everyone speaks at once:
“Aaarrnghhh!” growls Wor Jackie, pawing with his feet. “Broomphh!”
“Are ye doin’ anythin’ the neet, hinny?” inquires Oor Kid.
“Alack, we are undone!” twitters Kylie hopefully.
“Doesn’t anyone north of the Humber knock!” demands Lady Godiva, bosom flashing and eyes heaving. “Mannerless rabble, shalt lose thine ears, and other bits as well, for this rash intrusion! This is a private compartment! Back, I say, and on your bikes! Dost know who I am?”
“The answer to a randy reiver’s prayer!” squeaked a small Milburn at the back, leaping and ogling. At which the whole sweaty mob, beards a-bristle and visors misting up with unholy desire, surged forward with gloating yells of “Gang bang!” “Bags I the redhead!” “Ah’ll bet the little ’un doesn’t half bounce!” and “Keep th’ hosses, who needs them?”, only to be flung back by Wor Jackie’s iron arm.
“Haud oop!” he thundered. “Are ye men or beasts? Two defenceless gentlewomen, ladies o’ birth an’ beauty, an’ ye’d be at ’em like rootin’ stags gone crackers! For shame! Is there nae decency or order among ye?” His dreadful eye rolled from the lovely twain to his panting followers struggling with their buttons, and back again, what time he doffed steel cap, bared snaggle teeth in a hideous grin, and ran a small comb through his beard. “Them as fancies Blondie, line oop behind Oor Kid! All them for Carrot-top, follow me!” He seized Godiva’s horrified wrist in a paw like a hairy shovel. “Your place or mine, duchess? Coach or snowdrift – choose! Har-har!”
His grating laugh ended in a strangled croak as a dainty satin slipper, scientifically driven, smote him in his tenderest spot; not for nothing had Lady Godiva captained the Benenden karate team. And back with him reeled Oor Kid, neatly head-butted by resourceful Kylie, who had repented her wanton flirtatiousness in the face of brutal assault. As the reivers collapsed in a tangle, their two leaders clutching themselves and making statements, the coach door slammed, Lady Godiva’s crisp command of “Drive on, Samkin!” rang clear – little did she realise that Samkin was three fields away, crouched in a ditch with his eyes shut, whimpering: “Take the credit cards, mister, but please don’t hit me!”, and that the coach was without means of propulsion. Our gallant girls have won themselves but a brief respite, the reivers are staggering afoot again, full of rage and frustrated libido, and if we are to avoid the kind of explicit X-Certificate stuff which no romantic adventure can afford (not as early as Chapter Two, anyway), drastic intervention is called for, preferably in the shape of virtuous muscle – which, thank heaven, is e’en now thundering down the highway, snow flying beneath its charger’s hooves, moonlight glinting on drawn broadsword and gleaming teeth, the latter bared in a reckless fighting smile between a pencil-slim moustache and a rakish little chin-beard. Like a thunderbolt he speeds to the rescue, awakening the echoes with his laughing slogan: “Teckle low, Eccies!”, a cry which consternates the startled reivers and brings hope and joy to beleaguered beauty. For only heroes and idiots make that kind of noise when faced with odds of ten to one, and this character’s got hero written all over him.
No, it isn’t Archie Noble, who at this moment is miles away trying to jimmy a larder window. Archie was in rags, remember, whereas this new chap isn’t dressed, he’s positively Attired, in the latest romantic gear of boots, cloak, Mechlin at wrists and throat, gems o’ price in his baldric, and a plumed hat that would make Sir Francis Walsingham gnash and turn green. He spurs among the astonished heavies, scattering them with plunging hooves and darting blade. In the time it takes to leap nimbly from the saddle and cry “Sa-ha, muckrakes! Hev et thee!” he had his back to the carriage door, rapped on the panels, cried: “Knock-knock – who’s thair? – Hatcher – Hatcher who – Hatcher survice, ladies!”, pinked Wor Jackie in the shoulder and Oor Kid in the leg, and was fronting the dismayed remnants of Tynedale Athletic, perfectly poised, point snaking in and out, clean-cut features reflecting the moonlight, ruby earring fairly dancing with glee of combat, and joyous laughter bubbling on his lips and bursting on his moustache.
A rotten prospect for the remaining reivers, who could read the signs as well as we can – six feet plus, immaculately clad, foppish finery belying steely wrist and sinewy speed, handsome, dashing, merry to the point of hysteria, and obviously slated to get the girl in the last reel: the kind of super-gallant for whom they, being expendable extras, were so much rapier-fodder. But they did their best, flinging themselves on him with despairing cries of “Pantywaist!” and “Snob!”, and falling back, gashed and cursing, before a dazzling point which was everywhere at once, or if you prefer it, simultaneously ubiquitous.
You’ve seen Tyrone Power do it often enough – engaging three blades at a time from opponents who stand obligingly frozen in the lunge position while he cries a cheery reassurance over his shoulder to Maureen O’Hara, carves his call-sign on their linen, stoops to let an attacker fall over him, and finally leaps forward with stamp and sweep to drive them off in panic-stricken rout. And not even breaking sweat.
Our boy was like that, only better: within a minute there was a pile of reivers on the deck, bleeding and going “Aarrgh!”, and only the squeaking little Milburn was left, hacking away gamely at that impenetrable guard.
“Kiss my steel!” cried the gallant gaily, and the little Milburn, seeing the chance to deliver the best riposte in the whole encounter, cried: “Kiss my arse!” and died happy.
Frantic stuff, and watched with finger-twisting admiration by our beauteous duo in the coach, respectively gasping with apprehension and emitting squeals of “Wow! Gotcha!” Now, as their saviour wiped his blade on a lace kerchief and louted low, plumed hat in hand, they let down the window, Kylie fairly gushing with girlish congratulation and even Lady Godiva warming the knight-errant with her most queenly smile. Indeed, a hint of blush undercoat appeared ’neath the ivory satin finish of her cheek, and her ruby lips parted with a soft splooch, for if this was not Master Errol Flynn in Elizabethan costume, she’d never seen him. Kylie, less mistress of her emotions, gaped starry-eyed and gasped: “Golly, quel hunk!” The newcomer shot them a brilliant smile and spoke.
“Oll raight, gurls? Ai hope these belly reskals didn’t hurrt you. Ai’d hev hasted to yur aid even fester, but the road’s in a helluva state, simply fraightful. You shoor yur okay?”
Being unprepared for the accent of Glasgow W2 from this Apollo, Lady Godiva was momentarily taken aback, but came off the ropes with speedy aplomb.
“We are much beholden to you, sir,” said she, all peerless dignity, and extended a white hand over which he bowed reverent curly head, the bristles of his lip-cosy sending electric tingles up her arm to her smooth shoulder, whence they dispersed delightfully through the rest of her, a sensation which would have caused her to go “Eek!” had she not been schooled to hide girlish emotion.
Little Kylie knew no such reticence. Proffering eager mitt in turn, and feeling her knuckles nibbled (this gallant can obviously tell top quality from mere talent, and responds accordingly) she exclaimed: “Yikes! Much beholden nothing! ’Tis miracle that sends such dashing champion to our aid – oh, sir, your footwork was brill, and how may we repay you?” As if I didn’t know, thought the wanton hussy, lowering coy lashes o’er worshipping orbs.
“Och, don’t menshn’it – no bother, reelly,” was the modest reply. “Pleez, just sit taight while Ai round up those varlets of yurs, whurrever they’ve got to. Going laike the cleppers when Ai saw them lest. Heff a jiffy, end Ai’ll be beck!”
And with another graceful bow and flash of gum-gear, he sprang lightly on his horse, and with the command: “Come on, Garscadden – away!” cleared the roadside hedge from a standing start and was off across the snowy fields shouting: “Ho there, leckeys! Get yurselves follen in! Where urr you, desh it? Yur mistress ken’t stay heer oll naight!”
A faint furrow did its stuff ’twixt Lady Godiva’s delicately pencilled brows. “Methinks,” said she, “this gentleman should be a Scot, by his tongue.”
“Who cares about his tongue?” enthused glowing Kylie. “Regard me rather those super shoulders, chiselled clock, sexy legs, and the Mephisto-gleam in his tawny eyes! And what a mover – nay, ’a went through those nasties like a dose of Dr Lopez his salts!” She sighed. “Bit of a waste of beefcake, if you ask me, but that’s the way the farl fractures. What makes you think he’s Scotch, Goddy?”
“His speech, dum-dum!” quoth impatient Godiva. “Had ye but marked the dialogue in Macbeth
,’ stead of ogling the husky who played the Bleeding Sergeant, you’d ha’ noted that the nobles of Scotland – you know, Angus, Lennox, McHaggis, whoever – spoke exactly as doth our rescuer. A quaint affected dialect, which they do term ‘toffee-nosed’, for that it apes gentility – sex are what they keep coal in, and a crèche is two carts colliding on Byres Road,” she explained, but with a musing, dreamy look that suggested preoccupations other than nutty slack and vehicle pile-ups. Aware of Kylie’s slantendicular smirk, her ladyship feigned a yawn. “Thus talks he – aye, and plies pretty rapier enough. For the rest,” she shrugged indifferent shoulders, “I marked him not.”
“Get her!” scoffed Kylie. “You marked him ten out o’ ten! Going to offer him a lift, are we?”
Disdain tilted the exquisite nose and squiggled the delectable mouth of the Thrashbatter heiress. “And if I so condescend,” she snooted, “to one that hath done me service, why, what’s it to thee, sauce-pot? He may be mere gentry and talk as if he had a mouse up his nose, yet is he the most presentable thing I’ve seen this side of Watford Gap.”
“Does that mean I have to ride on the roof?” sniffed Kylie. “Or don’t you mind the competition?”
“That,” quoth Godiva, patting complacent coiffure, “will be the day. Bear us company an ye list, sweet child – but try playing footsie with him and I’ll break your leg.”
Thus it was that when the stranger had scooped in Samkin and the perspiring lackeys, with brisk halloo and cries of “C’mon, churrls, move it! Run laike stegs, you aidle shower!” and they had put to the horses and tidied the fallen reivers into the ditch, he found himself bidden to a seat in the carriage, his horse being anchored astern. Kylie, with pretty becks and flutters, proffered a brimmer of peach brandy, which he accepted with a courtly “Gosh, thenks, offly kaind of you, cheers!” while Godiva appraised him ’neath interested lids and concluded that, eccentric accent or no, this gorgeous specimen had the message for the Soroptomists, in spades. And vanity demanding that she exercise her charm on such male perfection, she thought, mm-m, right, we’ll give him the Languid Glow for openers …
“We are deeply in your debt, fair sir,” she drawled, “and agog to know the name and quality of our gallant preserver. I am the Lady Godiva Dacre …” she inclined her regal scone to give him the full colour contrast of flame-tinted hair, creamy complexion, and violet pools “… and this my small companion, Mistress Kylie Delishe.”
“Is thet a fect?” The cavalier paused courteously in mid-swig, and eyed her with a warmth that sent a tremor through her shapely knees. “Whay, you must be the grend-dotter of the old chep who popped his clogs et Threshbetter Tower lest Martinmess – offly sed, mai hurtfelt condolences.” And if you want a stalwart shoulder to cry on, dive right in, was the message in his smoky eyes, at which the love-gremlins let out her knees another couple of notches. Pity he couldn’t talk like a human being, but it could be a gas teaching him received pronunciation …
“You knew my Lord Waldo?” she murmured, all decorative attention.
“Och, heer end there,” was the airy reply. “Ai hendled a few property trensfurs for him … But enough of thet – let’s tock about yew!” Without warning he leaned towards her, masterful elbow on ardent knee, his classic profile cleaving the astonished air and coming to a stop inches from her own. “Mai God, but yur gorgeous! Who gives a tosser for business and ex-grendfethers in the presence of beauty that out-marvels th’exotics o’ the Orient, end would put Fair Helen hurself to the beck of the stove!” He raised his glass in passionate salute. “Ai pledge yur metchless loveliness, Godaiva – nay, Godess-aiva, I should say!” And he took a saturnine shlurp while her senses did the splits, one half bridling at his presumption, the other rendered momentarily legless by his worshipping regard.
Of course, blast-furnace wooing was nothing new to one of her endowments, physical and financial. Raised at a court where they couldn’t even say hello without vowing undying devotion, she’d heard it all, and knew how to cope with supercharged acceleration of the love-god’s chariot. But now, ere her glance could refrigerate in reproof, he had flipped his glass to Kylie, crying “Ketch!”, done a lightning kneel, ’prisoned Godiva’s hand, and locked his eyes with hers, azure amaze tangling with amber yearn.
“Ye spoke of being in mai debt!” he baritoned. “Ah, the gentlest touch of thet sweet mouth on maine, divaine creechur, the teensiest sook of those juicy wee lips, end that’ll take care of thet! For a furst instollment, anyway.”
It needed not Kylie’s exclamation of “Strewth, talk about Speedy Gonzales!” to summon proud outrage to Godiva’s breast – and then, she knew not how, as the hypnotic spell of mischievous dark eyes and tang-fresh dentifrice enveloped her, some reckless imp of mad desire booted proud outrage aside, crying “Go on, why not?”, and yielding to that wild impulse she lowered tremulous lids and submitted parted lips (was it those outlandish words “juicy” and “wee”, so barbarously sensual, that had defrosted her?) to his smouldering munch. And in that moment she was lost, dignity and modesty joining proud outrage in the corner pocket; no longer noble lady but some abandoned jungle groupie in the embrace of her caveman lover, thrilled and helpless as he swung her with muscular expertise from tree to tree while the Match of the Day music rang in her ears, and Kylie’s distracted cry of “Break, break, a God’s name, or you’ll suffocate!” was as the distant mewing of sea-birds o’er the beach of some tropic paradise …
Their mouths parted with a long, lingering squelch, and through a cinnamon mist in which dark eyes and lambent moustache still glowed, Lady Godiva came to herself and saw, in dishevelled bewilderment, that her erstwhile lip-ravisher was back in his seat with a jeweller’s glass screwed in his eye, examining – nay, it could not be! – her priceless necklace (yes, it’s the Dacre Diamonds, that fabulous collar nicked by Sir Acre Dacre from the harem of Suleiman the Improbable in the Third Crusade), her emerald earrings, sapphire fillet, pearl brooch, gold rings, and even her platinum zip-fastener, dammit! Dumbstruck Kylie was giving a creditable impersonation of a Black Hole – and now the gorgeous swine was slipping the lot in his pocket and regarding his victim with heavy-breathing admiration.
“Not bed et oll – and Ai don’t mean the spurklers, eether,” he added, wi’ sexy significance. “Bai jove, yur ladyship hesn’t spent oll her taime on embroidery. What a smecker! Fur a moment there Ai was too kerried away to concentrate on mai wurk.” He phewed respectfully. “But, please, don’t be alurrmed. ’Twas just technique, to save oll thet ‘Hends up!’ end ‘Stend end deliver!’ nonsense. Quaite offen,” he added modestly, “the patient pesses out, end doesn’t come round till Ai’m heff-way down the stair – or ‘oot the windae’, as they say in Paisley.”
Rage, wounded pride, and a savage desire to see the colour of this unspeakable cad’s insides boiled up in Godiva like vengeful molasses, and found furious utterance.
“Dastard! Rotter! Oh, miscreant and toad!” Blue hatred lasered from her eyes, and her Titian tresses cracked like shampooed whips. “To dare – to have the immortal crust to lay polluting lips on mine, and snitch my rocks all surreptitious!” Her dainty manicures were poised to chain-saw him, but ere she could strike he was snogging again, with gentle mastery, and at that magic touch her fury drained away in bubbles of rapture, tingling her from fiery head to gilded toe-nail, the sea-birds did an encore … and heavens to murgatroyd, she was kissing him back! As he desisted, swaying and looking slightly baffled, Godiva sank back all giddy and misty, as one punch-drunk or ensorcelled.
“Ah, me!” she whispered. “Oh, brother! What … who … what art thou? Do I dream, or is it the peach brandy?” She stirred feebly, like a landed salmon trying to think straight. “Why … thou robber, to steal away my senses, my code of conduct – my jewellery yet!” she yipped, as the last effects of his embrace wore off. “Give it back, base handbag artist –”
“Take it easy!” he implored. “Let me get a wurrd in, or Ai’ll hev to smooch you again, end we’ll be here oll naight – you want to get home, shurrly? You esk who Ai em?” He rose to commanding height, hand on swaggering hip, and chuckled à la Fairbanks. “Know then, proud Godaiva, thet Ai – wait for it – em Gilderoy!”
If he’d said “Ichabod Schmultz’ it couldn’t have meant less to Godiva, but Kylie, who kept up with the tabloid broadsheets, went a whiter shade of pale and squeaked like a goosed budgie.
“Gilderoy!” she quavered, her eyes terrified gob-stoppers. “Not … not Bonny Gilderoy! Cripes! Goddy, we are undone! ’Tis the Claude Duval of Newton Mearns, the notorious highwayman and terror o’ the roundabouts, known and feared from Tyne to’ Solway as the Tartan Raffles –”
“Och, away, ye’ve been listening to the bellad-singers –”
“What!” decibelled Godiva, now fully recovered. “Oh, direst shame! I, of my gentility, to be embraced by common criminal –”
“No, heer, heng it oll! Criminal, Ai grent you, but not common –”
“– drugged by his loathsome kisses – aye, for I warrant me his ghastly ’tash is steeped wi’ LSD to space out defenceless ladies –”
“No sich thing!” he protested. “Look, ken Ai help it if mai lip-wurk robs wimmen of their reason? It’s a gift – quaite hendy professionally, but it makes it deshed difficult to esteblish any meaningful relationship, Ai ken tell you!” And his voice was so full of wist that Kylie could not repress a studio-audience “Aw-w-w …”, and even distraught Godiva felt a sympathetic pang. Not for long, though.
“Set it to music, cut-purse! Of all the sneaky snakes –”
“Wait! Nay, hear – and pity me!” He did another swift genuflect and raised entreating eyes, nobly anguished with a touch of spaniel. “For et lest Ai em hoist with mai own petard! Aye, this naight hev Ai found me a she who doth turn me on as Ai do she!” He paused, frowning. “Or her? Or me? Ach, who cares, the point is thet Ai em shettered end fettered bai yur kisses – it was thet lest smecker that did it! Efter years of osculatory immunity, Ai em keptive of thet little bestard Cupid.” He heaved a sigh that lurched the speeding coach. “Peerless Godaiva, mai heart is et yur feet!”
The impulse to tell him to pick it up and stick it trembled on her tongue, but dived off unuttered. Fury told her to kick him in the slats, yet her emotions were cartwheeling before his adoration, and the memory of his embrace sent fire whooshing through her veins. Torn by conflicting passions, she hesitated – and then remembered that she was the scion of one who had conned a monopoly out of Henry the Seventh.
“Fair words!” she sneered. “Enslaved wi’ love o’ me, quotha – that’s a laugh! Prove it, then! Lay me those looted goodies where you say your heart is – at my feet! That’ll do for starters!”
