Lace for Milady (20 page)

“I’m for bed,” Slack said after a short musical interlude. “I feel a touch of the headache. Not that I’ll sleep with that storm going on outside. I’ll just tidy up that welter of books and close the parson’s bench.”

“That is why we have servants, Slack,” I told her, and convinced her to leave it to Sally, for she was holding her head, and this indicated one of her bad headaches, which come to trouble her once or twice a year. “Why don’t you take a few drops of that sleeping draught the doctor left for me? It will give you a good night’s sleep.”

“I think perhaps I will. A good thing I didn’t throw it away."

We both went up to bed early, but as we had been doing so all week, I was not at all tired. I lit a brace of candles and read till close to midnight, and was still not sleepy. Even after I blew out the candles and lay for some three-quarters of an hour, sleep did not come. I became quite vexed with myself. The longer I lay there, staring fixedly into the darkness, the less did I feel like sleeping.

My mind roamed over all the past weeks since coming to Seaview, and as I reviewed it, it seemed people had been trying to push me into doing things I had no desire to do since the moment I had arrived. First Lady Inglewood trying to push me into marrying George, then Clavering trying to make me sell him Seaview, Slack trying to make me into a lover of antiquity, and even myself, making me ride a horse I despised. And now trying to sleep when it was perfectly obvious my body was saturated with sleep. I would get up and do something. No matter if the clock was approaching one. I could stay in bed as long as I chose tomorrow.

And I wouldn’t bother reading about any more Roman ingenuity, either. I would find myself a good, romantic novel and indulge in a bout of emotion. Between the storm and my old Gothic mansion, I was in a mood for Mrs. Radcliffe tonight, and regretted my old friend had remained behind as a gift to the circulating library at Wilton. There was no proper library at Seaview, but in the morning parlour there were a few bookshelves built in under the window, and I remembered seeing the tell-tale marble-covered books denoting the Minerva Press.

I lit my candelabrum and slipped into my dressing gown and houseslippers to go down to the morning parlour. My saloon is to the right of the staircase as one descends, and I took a peek in to see if the embers had burned themselves out so that I might close the flue, for it was still raining, but more gently now.

I neither heard nor suspected a thing amiss till I took up the poker to stir the embers, now cold. Then I heard it, the old familiar rattling of the grate. Not loud, but definite, and it was no fire nor howling wind that caused it. Certainly nothing but a human voice that produced that echoing laugh. My hair did not stand on end, but it lifted. I could feel a strange prickling sensation on my scalp, feel it move along my neck and spine, right down to my toes. My arm, extended beyond its sleeve in reaching with the poker, was covered with gooseflesh. I stood frozen to the spot, with my ears stretched.

It came again, quite distinctly audible in the silent, sleeping house—came, it seemed, from a different quarter. Glancing in its direction, I noticed we had left the lid of the parson’s bench open after getting out our music, and strange and impossible as it was, the second burst of laughter came right out of the parson’s bench. Naturally I hurried to it, looked in at an innocent varnished chest-bottom, with one magazine lying there.

I lifted out the magazine and examined the floor of the bench carefully. It had an indentation, a groove large enough for four fingers along the left end. My taper trembling in my left hand, I put my fingers of the right hand into the groove, and it lifted as silently and easily as though it were on oiled hinges, though in fact it was not attached at all. It was a loose piece of wood, varnished, and resting on a protruding framework beneath.

Without a sound I took it out and laid it on the floor, and knelt down with the taper above my head to examine what was revealed below the now-bottomless bench. There was a pair of narrow steps leading into pitch blackness, and there was quite distinctly the sound of more than one voice coming in a muted fashion up from the blackness. I could see no more, but obviously there was something between the voices and me, a wall or a closed door. And equally obviously, the voices were coming from under the ground outside my Roman wall. They were in some excavation just outside the walls of my house. So I had found my secret passageway at last, right where Pickering thought it was. All the heavings at the bench had been unnecessary—the passage was right through it.

I sat back on my heels, breathing in light, fearful gasps. Who was it? The foolish thought of long-dead Roman centurions or soldiers gamboling there flashed into my head. Ghosts of Caesar’s legions, trapped inside their fort, which was not and never had been a fort. Why they should be gamboling their way through eternity I knew not, but there was a sound of merrymaking, of laughter and happy voices, suggesting a party, with wine and possibly even women. No surly, sullen ghosts in any case. I was torn by the conflicting desires to dash upstairs to my room as fast as my legs could carry me, and to summon up my courage and descend the stair.

I don’t know how long I knelt there, but when I finally stood up the blood rushed through my legs, causing pins and needles to prick, and when I tried to take a step my feet were numb and cramped. The voices finally died out—in my mind I pictured legionnaires wearing metal armour and plumed helmets taking a ceremonial leave of each other. And still I stood on, craning my ears, imagining impossible scenes. I should call Slack and Wilkins, I thought when it became totally silent and my imagination had settled down. And what would I tell them? I heard ghosts laughing behind a closed door?

For an eternity I stood thinking, listening, trying to decide what to do; then I remembered Slack had taken a sleeping draught, and really I could not like to go to Wilkins’s door in the middle of the night in my dressing gown. It would have to wait till morning for a thorough investigation, but my curiosity would not let me leave without just taking a peek into the blackness. Whoever had been there was gone now—for a long time I had not heard a sound. I would venture down the stairs, just a little way to see if I could discover a door. Just a quick peek, and come right back up. There was definitely a barricade there. I would not be seen, even if there was someone still there.

I held my skirts up with one hand, my candelabrum in the other, rather wishing I had a third for the poker, and walked daintily down the narrow little staircase. Before I was halfway down I saw a door. Just an ordinary door; it was even panelled, which gave a sense of security, ordinariness to the bizarre affair. It might have been a door into a bedroom or cheeseroom, and had quite plainly come from some such place. It looked so harmless, so completely innocent that I was emboldened to try the knob. A plain white porcelain knob, much as those abovestairs. I tried it. It turned half a revolution, then stopped. The door was locked, and still no sound came from beyond it, so whoever had been there had left, and it would be an ideal time to enter, if only the door weren’t locked.

Sufficient sense had returned to me that I no longer thought of Roman centurions, but English desperadoes of some kind. I rattled the knob harder, turned and rattled it several times, but it held. As I was about to turn and go back up the stairs, it pulled suddenly, noiselessly, into the black cavern beyond, and a short dark stranger with an evil face stood pointing a gun at my eyes.

He wore a black toque, dark and rough clothing. He was short, wiry, very strong looking.
Entrez, ma'mselle,”
he said in a velvet, deep, calm voice, standing back, but always keeping his muzzle pointed at me.

A Frenchman! What on earth was one of Boney’s men doing in my Roman fort? A Roman soldier would hardly have surprised me more. But this man was no soldier, nor was he a dream. He was very solid flesh and blood, and he did not mean to be disobeyed.

Chapter Thirteen

I didn’t say a word, or try to. Nor did I risk trying to scramble back up the stairs. I knew perfectly well the gun was loaded and didn’t doubt for a minute he would use it. Neither did I accept his invitation to enter his parlour. I stood immobile, staring.

Quick as a lizard he had a steely hand on my wrist and was dragging me beyond the door, roughly and with determination. I opened my mouth to scream, to direct one desperate appeal up the stairway, and felt a hand clamped over my mouth, even as he kicked the door shut behind us. The candelabrum went hurtling to the floor, narrowly missing my skirt in the process. One taper remained burning, and with a flash of his black arm, the man had the one candle pulled out and held up to examine me.

“Silence”
he decreed, in French, and using a voice I was not inclined to argue with. He took one step backward and slid a bolt on the door. It didn’t make a sound, which accounted for my not having heard him slide it open a moment before; but this time he was sliding it shut, barricading me into a dark, dank room with him, this Frenchman with the wicked eyes. Curious as I was to examine the chamber, I couldn’t tear my eyes from his face. I didn’t dare. He no longer had a hand on me. He stood perhaps two feet away, looking, moving the candle up and down to allow a view of my face, and dressing gown. This done in a bold and deliberate and leisurely way, he stood back and smiled.
“Charmante”
he decided.

Whatever I had feared prior to this—beating, being tied up, killed perhaps—my fears took a sudden jolt in a different direction. He looked lecherous, eyeing me hungrily.

“Asseyez-vous rna’mselle,”
he said, and stepped back to reveal two barrels lined up against a stone wall. A certain odour emanated from them, a pungent smell— brandy, of course. The man was a smuggler. Odd it hadn’t occurred to me sooner. It was his being French that had fooled me, but the two warring nations could always work in harness for criminal profit, and he must have English allies. I made no move to accept the proffered seat. I stood watching him, mesmerized like a moth by a flame, or a mouse by an attacking snake would be a more appropriate comparison.

While these discoveries were being made, already I was thinking of escape. The parson’s bench—the lid was open. If anyone chanced into the saloon he would see it, come down the stairs. And be confronted with a locked door. Why had I not tried to rouse Slack, or called Wilkins? Too late. And no one would enter the saloon before morning. Oh, God—morning—hours away, while this black-eyed reptile devoured me.

“Asseyez-vous, ma’mselle,”
he repeated, more sharply now, the velvet beginning to scratch.

I thought it best to sit, and did so, fearfully on the edge of the barrel nearer me. He immediately took up a seat on the other, making me realize it was closer than I liked.

“Parlez-vous français?”
he asked, the voice calm again.

I had a nodding acquaintance with the language.
"Un peu,”
I answered, hearing the fear making my voice shake and trying to steady it.

“Ah, bon! Vous êtes toute à fait charmante.”
A hand came out and stroked my cheek. I lifted my head quickly away, and the fingers took ahold of my chin, forcing it back. He looked into my frightened eyes and laughed, a deep, anticipatory chuckle.

“Les anglaises,”
he said mockingly, almost caressingly.

A million thoughts jumbled through my poor brain. Fear was uppermost, fear of what would come next. Escape was not far behind it. To make a dash for the door to the stairway was the most simple means, but the delay of sliding the bolt would allow him time to catch me. He was agile, moving like quicksilver. He wouldn’t be a split-second behind me. I next began to examine the room for other means of exit. He certainly hadn’t entered by the door I had, and a different means of escape might be more practical.

The lone taper gave only a very weak illumination. I saw stone walls about, with one on the far side that looked to be of some other material, smoother, lighter; but of more interest, on my right, was a yawning black hole. Escape—but by what means? Was it a tunnel? And if so, how long, and where did it exit? Would I meet the rest of the band if I tried that exit? It might lead directly to the sea, for there was a mystery as to how the men got brandy here without being seen by either Officer Smith or Clavering’s patrol.

Fear and indecision kept me where I was, and, of course, only a very short time had elapsed in any case, though to me it was an eternity. I half worried that other smugglers would come, and half wished they would, for there was something ominous in being alone with this amorous Frenchman. I recalled, too, the various tales I had heard about these “Gentlemen”—so wrongly named. Officer Smith had played down their ferocity, but still their little prank of pushing his head into a rabbit hole and pinning him there had never seemed very humourous to me, and with a woman I feared the treatment would be quite different—worse. Besides, this smuggler was French, and at the height of a war with France, I had heard many tales of the rapacity and viciousness of the French. Clavering had said they would be likely to single out two unprotected women. He had been right all along. The smugglers were using our doorstep for their activities, and I regretted Burne had not gone ahead with his excavation and found them out.

This brought to mind Lazy Louie, and I found myself wondering if I would have to deal with him, too, before the night was over. That “unsavoury character,” there would be no help from him, though he had saved my life once. Oh, how I wished I had thanked him, had ingratiated myself. But to claim friendship with him might delay my fate, and I decided to try it. I cleared my throat nervously and began, ascribing to him his formal name.

“Monsieur FitzHugh, Monsieur Louis FitzHugh est
mon ami. Je le connais très bien,”
I said.

He threw his head back and laughed raucously. This gave him a very poor idea of my character, indeed, and before I knew what was happening, one black arm had shot out to encircle my waist and pull me to my feet. Simultaneously, I heard heavy footsteps approaching, and before long my good old friend Lazy Louie hunched through the yawning black hole that I had hoped would be my exit. I stared at him in horror. Like the Frenchman, he wore a black toque and dark clothing. He looked at us, struck dumb momentarily. I didn’t know what to expect, but I knew that if that bull had in mind the same fate for me as his friend, I would rather be dead.