The Blue Diamond (27 page)

“Hermione! Tante, I am here!” she called, gasping with relief.

“There, I told you so!” the Countess said to her companion, and charged forward to throw open the door and rush in. A log had rolled from the fuel basket directly into her path. She tripped over it, sending the lamp flying from her hand, to land with a crash. In a mad dash to retrieve it before it should set the room ablaze, Shutz pushed the Countess aside, to collide with the stove. She was an aging lady, neither agile nor strong. The jolt jarred her, sent her dropping to the floor in pain, with a shriek that rivaled a wounded buffalo’s.

“Oh—Oh I have surely broken something!” she moaned. “Maria—are you all right?”

“I am tied hand and foot,” Maria answered. “Never mind me, Shutz. See to the Countess first.”

“No, untie Maria first. Let her come to my aid. I don’t want this clumsy oaf trying to help me up, or he will tear me limb from limb. How do you come to be here, Maria? What on earth happened to you?”

“Mademoiselle Feydeau did it,” Maria replied, and gave the outlines of her story, while Shutz groped about the kitchen for a knife to cut her bonds.

“What a sly conniver she is,” the Countess said. “She is gone to meet Bonaparte of course. Ah—you would not have heard he is escaped!”

As soon as she was free and in control of her limbs, which took a few moments due to her cramped confinement, Maria went to her aunt’s aid. This caused such a cry of pain when she tried to help Hermione stand that it was decided to leave her where she lay till the doctor should arrive.

“Bring blankets and wine as soon as you have sent a boy off for the doctor, Shutz,” Maria ordered. “I am going to look for more lights, Auntie. I can’t see a thing by this dim lamp.”

Between comforting her aunt, pouring her wine and adding details to her story as they occurred to her, there was little chance for Maria to hear the Countess’s tale. The sharp pain in her left hip made the elder lady little inclined to speech in any case, but during a silence, she said, “I thought it very odd Moncrief did not come to look for you when I told him you had not arrived at the party. I daresay he was busy trying to catch Chabon.”

“What did he say? Was he worried?” Maria asked.

“Likely he was, only he did not show it as I thought he should.”

“He cannot have been greatly worried, or he would have sent a servant off to look for me in any case,” she said, with a certain stiffening of the jaw muscles that boded ill for him.

* * * *

There was much coming and going at the Kruger mansion in the late evening and early morning of March seventh and eighth. It was well after midnight when Herr Kruger arrived with news of Moncrief’s injury. This was nearly, but not quite, sufficient to pardon him in the daughter’s eyes. “What had he to say?” Maria asked.

“His hope of course is that Chabon will stop her—prevent her escape. He went after her, but was slow in getting started, due to Moncrief’s accident. Had it not been for the announcement of Bonaparte’s escape, she would have been stopped by the men Moncrief had stationed all about, but the French messenger told them of it, and there was so much excitement that she seems to have got away. We have heard nothing of her yet, nor of Chabon either.”

At one-thirty, Gentz, the Austrian Secretary to the Congress, passed by, and seeing the lights on, thought perhaps there was yet another party to be visited. “What is the word on Napoleon’s escape?” he was asked.

“It is a hoax,” he answered. “No such a thing. Not that it would surprise anyone, but it seems it was all a prank. Palgrave, you know, is not too bright. I daresay it is his notion of a joke. The English—they have a bizarre sense of humor.”

“They have no humor at all,” Kruger informed him. “They have excellent horses and good writers, but they have no humor, and no music worth the name.

“How is the Countess?” Gentz inquired. “Maria says she had an accident.”

“The doctor is abovestairs with her now,” Kruger replied.

Gentz soon took his leave. Not long after, the doctor came downstairs, wearing a frown. “There is no point putting a good face on it,” he began. “The lady is seriously hurt. The hip, I believe, is broken. At her age, you know, there is no saying it will ever mend properly. I don’t say she will be limited to a Bath chair, but the greatest care must be taken. No jostling, no long walks, no waltzing I fear. She will miss her dancing, poor old girl. I have given her a draft to ease the pain and put her to sleep.”

Kruger shook his head sadly, knowing what a strain the coming inactivity would be on his old friend. “She shall remain here with us till she is better,” he decided, not entirely happy.

“She must not be moved for a few weeks at least,” the doctor said. “She will be bedridden for a month. You must try to keep up her spirits. In such cases as this, the will to live—to recover—is of the greatest importance.”

“We shall do everything in our power,” Maria said. “It is my fault. If she had not come looking for me . . ." Maria began, but she was interrupted by some consoling objections from her father.

“How is Moncrief?” Kruger asked, before the doctor left.

“He is young and healthy. He will recover. He ought to have gone to his bed, but he would not take a draft. He got up and went galloping off somewhere. Well, not actually galloping. He went in his cousin’s carriage, but he ought to have been in bed.”

“How long ago was this?” Maria asked hopefully, thinking that perhaps the carriage was even then wending its way towards her.

“A few hours ago,” the doctor replied, dashing her hopes.

“I see,” she said quietly, then excused herself to go to tend her aunt’s bedside.

Chapter Twenty-seven

One would think if a gentleman cared for a lady at all, he would be at some pains to discover, before three in the afternoon, why she had not attended a party to which she had accepted an invitation the night before. When the young lady’s aunt, besides, had hinted pretty strongly to him that some ill fortune had befallen her, when there was unfinished and unexplained business that involved them both deeply, the failure to pay a call can take on so strong a hue of offense that the lady might even develop the migraine. Certainly something was causing this thumping ache in Maria’s temple, as she sat with her Aunt Hermione, assuring her she would be up and about in no time, in that hearty, earnest manner adopted by well-wishers in the sickroom, particularly when they know they lie.

The doctor had just left, after performing some painful manipulations on the Countess’s hip. “Of course I shall walk again,” the lady admitted, “but as for other functions . . ."

“If you can walk, you can waltz,” Maria assured her.

“Waltz? My dear, that was not what I meant. That was not my meaning at all. I referred to—other functions.”

“But you have not ridden for two years.”

“To be sure, I have not,” the Countess admitted, fingering the bedspread in a distracted fashion.

“Well then,” Maria said, with incorrigible optimism.

“Oh damme, Maria, I refer to making love!” the Countess exclaimed, then blushed and looked away quickly.

“Oh!” was all Maria could find to reply. Even that much was barely audible. “I see,” she added foolishly, and cleared her throat in embarrassment.

“You know your Papa and I have been friends for years. A sort of understanding has grown between us. . . . Not that an actual settlement has been made, but recently Peter has been agreeable. . . . That is, he actually suggested himself . . . Not to say he made an offer in so many words. . . .”

“Yes, I quite understand,” Maria said hastily, hoping to forestall further unwanted explanations.

“It is all over now. He would never marry an—an incomplete woman. He is too virile for that. It is all over,” she said, and lifted a handkerchief to her eyes, which were dry but grieving.

“I don’t think that would make any difference to Papa,” Maria said.

“Ho, you don’t know much about men!” the Countess scoffed.

“Could I bring you a book, Auntie?” Maria asked, to bring this conversation to an end.

“A Bible, if you have one in the house,” Hermione requested, with a despondent sigh.

On her way to the library, Maria bumped into her father. “Oh Papa, you must go upstairs and cheer up Hermione!” she begged. “She is in such a mood, and asking for the Bible.”

“I shall go up and gossip her into humor,” he agreed readily.

“It will take more than gossip today. You may find her lament a trifle obscure at first. I did. The fact is, the doctor has told her she is no longer able to indulge in the rites of the conjugal bed. She is afraid it will turn you against any match with her.”

“The poor old girl! Dear me! Well, this is hard news for her indeed,” he said, shaking his head in surprise.

Maria turned and looked after him as he went down the hall to the staircase. He took some eight or nine steps before he came to a halt. She watched as he stood stock-still, but for a certain jiggling of the head that was habitual with him when he was thinking. Which was very odd, for that jiggling usually accompanied happy thoughts. Then he proceeded on his way, his gait a great deal livelier than before. Almost running, in fact.

A caller was announced before Maria reached the morning parlor. It was Gentz, come again to contradict the news of the night before. “He has escaped! Bonaparte has really done it this time.”

“You cannot mean it! Where is he gone?” Maria asked, turning pale.

“Who knows? We had an express dispatch early this morning—the Austrian Consul General in Genoa sent word to Metternich. Napoleon is missing from Elba. No one knows where he might be, or be headed.”

“He’ll go to France, surely.”

“Metternich thinks so. Talleyrand has the notion he will go to Switzerland and seek asylum. I don’t think it at all likely myself. He hasn’t escaped one prison to pitch himself into another.”

“What will happen to the Congress?”

“Oh it is all at sixes and sevens. Metternich called and was received by the Tsar for the first time in three months. There is nothing like a common enemy to patch up minor differences. What happens must depend on Napoleon’s destination and plans. And of course his degree of success. Well, I must be off. You may imagine how busy I am, but after misinforming you last night, I thought I would tell you the news. All officialdom is buzzing with it, but it is a great secret of course. How is von Rossner?”

“Not too well. Have you time to go up to her for a moment? She would appreciate it.”

“I can spare a minute,” he said, and nipped quickly upstairs.

At this crucial moment in history, Miss Kruger went into the saloon and wondered if this new development meant Lord Moncrief would be leaving Vienna. Gentz, on his way to the Chancellery, stayed only long enough to deliver his news abovestairs, then took his leave. Maria ran after him to the door, asking, “What had Wellington to say of all this? What will the English delegation be doing?”

“Mustering their troops in the Low Countries to meet Bonaparte I expect. Ah—here is the chap can tell you,” he said, as the butler opened the front door to reveal Lord Moncrief with his right hand just raised to lift the knocker, and his left arm done up in a black sling.

A searching look was exchanged between the two gentlemen, each wondering if the other knew the secret. “Shocking thing, isn’t it?” Gentz said, then he lifted his hat and left.

“You know then,” Moncrief said to Maria, as he stepped in and handed the butler his hat.

“Gentz just told us.”

“So much for diplomatic secrecy. It was agreed we would not speak of it—Metternich particularly asked it. Personally, I think he only wanted folks in a good mood for the performance at the Court Theatre tonight.”

“Surely it will be canceled!”

“Not at all. It makes spying and eavesdropping on each other so much easier than finding excuses to pop around to all the headquarters,” he replied, entering the saloon and taking up a seat. “I can only stay a minute,” was his next highly unsatisfactory remark.

“Kind of you to bother dropping in at all,” she answered curtly.

“I thought you would be interested to hear how the great affair of the Blue Tavernier turned out.”

"Oh, and here I thought you called to see how I am, after being kidnapped and tied up, and how my Aunt Hermione goes on, with her hip broken.”

“What are you talking about!” he shouted, leaping to his feet.

“It is nothing so startling after all. Merely Mademoiselle Feydeau—and I know she is the culpritess, if that is what you have come to tell me—kidnapped me, had that female bruiser who keeps her company hit me over the head, and tied me up in the kitchen, while they ran off somewhere. My catching them all packed up for flight, with the jewels in a case by the door made it necessary, I suppose.”

“So that’s why you weren’t at the party. And what were you doing at Feydeau’s place?”

“I was going to sneak her into the masquerade party. So much for Christian charity. I only did it out of pity for her, the wretch.”

“A wasted effort. She took pity on herself and went without even a secondhand invitation.”

“Papa said she was there.”

“Oh yes, sold my cousin what she chose to call the Blue Tavernier for fifty thousand pounds. Got clean away too.”

“So much as that! Fifty thousand pounds! But how does it come no one caught her? Papa said Chabon went after her.”

“She had a great many unforeseen accomplices, you see. Cousin Palgrave for one, provided her with a footman’s suit and mount, to facilitate her escape past the guards I had posted all round the chateau and down the roads. He showed her some secret path past the orangery, to evade capture.”

“Why would he do such a thing?”

“Because he is a fool. She convinced him her arrest would mean he must turn over the blue diamond. Then her other accomplice, Chabon . . ."

“Chabon! He never had a good word to say about her! There were times I confess when I did not know which of them . . . When did you discover all this?”

“I discovered it at various times. First, when a Monsieur Castonguy’s name turned up in Eynard’s books as having commissioned a job of which I suspected Chabon. Then I realized Chabon was Castonguy, which of course made him Mademoiselle’s husband, if we were to believe that wedding certificate she had hidden in her room. It was imperative to their plan we not tumble to it they were working in tandem, and that is why they were forever accusing each other of everything in front of us. He ranted and raved on against her, right till the last gasp. At the end, he convinced me, once again, that they were at odds, working against each other, despite being man and wife. Right while he had the loupe in his eye authenticating the nice piece of strass glass as the Blue Tavernier, he was warning Harvey not to buy it. A beautiful piece of acting. He counted on my cousin’s greed to carry the day, as it did,” he said, while a little smile hovering at the corner of his lips suggested the evening had not been such a total fiasco as he was painting.