Mademoiselle At Arms (21 page)

‘Yes, but I have not gone,’ Melusine said impatiently.

‘That’s just it. Why ain’t you gorn? Seems to me I had ought
to arrest you.’

‘You may arrest me later. Now it is—’

‘What are you doing still here, missie, that’s what I’d like
to know?’ demanded the man Trodger, sticking to his guns.

‘Oh,
peste
. What matters it? My servant, he is wounded—and
by a Frenchman, if you wish to make an arrest.’ She frowned suddenly. ‘And why
have you not arrested him? Do not tell me you have allowed him to escape you.’

Trodger eyed her with suspicion. ‘What Frenchman would that
be, missie? We ain’t let no one escape.’

‘But if you have not seen him, then he has certainly escaped.’
Disappointment flooded her. Gosse had hidden himself successfully then. ‘That
is the man who tries to kill me, but he wounded instead my servant. Did you not
hear the shot?’

‘I ain’t saying as I didn’t hear no shot,’ Trodger said
carefully, peering at her out of eyes narrowed with interest, ‘but what I do
say is, it’s mighty peculiar you saying as how there’s a Frenchman in the case,
when it’s as plain as the nose on your face that you’re a Frenchwoman yourself.
And you know all about that shot.’

Melusine threw her hands in the air. ‘But you are
idiot
.
I tell you, if you do not help me this instant, you will find that your major
he will very likely shoot you.’

‘Woof!’

The sergeant appeared nonplussed, and Melusine pressed her
advantage. ‘While you are making me this interrogation, my poor Jacques bleeds
to death.’

‘Who’s bleeding to death?’ demanded Trodger.

‘But I have told you. My servant. He is in the secret
passage.’

‘Secret passage, is it?’ The sergeant seemed to brighten at
this. ‘Well, we’ll just go on up and have a look at this here passage, missie,
shall we?’

‘Have I not been saying so?’ snapped Melusine, exasperated. ‘
En
tout cas
, it is not up at all, but down.’

Trodger had started towards the stairs, signing to his men to
get behind the lady. But at this, he halted, turning his frowning gaze back on
her.

‘Now see here, missie. The major himself told me that this
secret passage started upstairs. And if you’ve any notion—’

‘Yes, it is upstairs,’ Melusine agreed, crossing to the
library door. ‘But so also it is downstairs. There are two ways to go in, you
understand. But you must come this way now.
Vite
, I pray you. Jacques is
very bad, and I am afraid he may die.’

Upon which, she darted through the library door, galvanising
both the sergeant and his two militiamen into action. She heard them diving
after her, and noted their starting eyes as they spied the opened panel. She
did not wait, but grabbed up the lantern and slid into the passage, calling to
them to hurry.

Her heart in her mouth, hoping against hope, Melusine made
her way back to where she had left the boy. Jack was lying so still, for a
moment she panicked.

‘Jacques, are you dead? Jacques, do you hear me?’

Melusine put her cheek to his lips, and felt the faint warmth
of his breath. Relief flooded her.

‘
Grace à dieu
, he breathes still.’

Looking round, she found the little coterie of soldiers
crowded into the passage behind them. ‘Why do you stand there? Take him up, and
bring him out at once.’

But she reckoned without the fellow Trodger.

‘If you’ll have the goodness, missie, to move yourself out of
the way,’ he said aggrievedly, ‘and let us at him, we might have a chance of
doing just that.’

She was obliged to acknowledge the justice of this complaint,
and moved further into the passage to allow the men access. But her temper
almost flared again when the sergeant spoke.

‘Now then, my lad, you’re under arrest you are. But I suppose
as I’ll have to wait until you can hear me to tell you again. Now then.’

Melusine had to bite her lip to stop herself from interfering
as, under Trodger’s direction, the two militiamen gave up their muskets into
his keeping and lifted Jack. With some difficulty, they managed to negotiate
the passage with their burden and carry him out into the library.

‘Lay him down on a sofa,’ Melusine said, coming out behind
them and moving towards the antechamber.

‘You keep a-hold of him,’ Trodger ordered his men.

‘
Parbleu
, do you think he will run away? He has a
bullet inside him, and it must be taken out.’

‘If he has a bullet inside of him,’ said the sergeant
stolidly, ‘there ain’t no one can take it out better nor me. Many’s the bullets
I’ve dug out of fellows in my time.’

‘But you are not a surgeon,’ protested Melusine.

‘I’m a soldier, missie. Been in the wars with both the major
and Capting Roding, I have,’ Trodger informed her loftily. ‘I knows how to do
better nor any surgeon.’

‘Then do it,’ Melusine said with impatience. ‘But lay him
down.’

‘Ah, but I’m thinking as how this here house ain’t the best
spot for an operation of that kind, missie,’ explained the sergeant, and
Melusine noted that his men exchanged anguished glances. Trodger laid down
their muskets and turned on them. ‘That’s right, you bone idle do-nothings. You
can come back for these, for you’ll carry him to the gatehouse, that’s what you’ll
do.’

Melusine jumped. ‘The gatehouse? But why must you move him at
all?’

‘Listen, missie. If you can’t see as how there ain’t nothing
in this barrack of a place to help me do the job, I can. Water I need. Clean
water. A handy knife, and a good tot of something sharp to clean out the wound.
Blue Ruin will do the job nicely. Ah, and put him under if he wakes up. Now I
ain’t saying as how that there Pottiswick—’

‘How you talk,’ interrupted Melusine impatiently. She pushed
at the closer of the two soldiers bearing the precious burden. ‘Go then. At
once. If it is that you need these things, then of course we will go there.’

‘Get going, then,’ Trodger told his men.

Next moment, he had Melusine by the arm. ‘Now then, missie. You’ll
come along of me, for you’re under arrest, too.’

‘Pah! Your major will say something to this. But you need not
fear,’ she added, shaking him off. ‘Do not imagine that I will leave poor
Jacques. I will go with you.’

‘Can’t say as I’m sorry to hear you say that, missie,’
confessed the sergeant, on a relieved note, as he locked the front door of the
mansion and pocketed the key. ‘Couldn’t reconcile it with my dooty to leave you
here—’

A thought made Melusine stop dead, turning to him. ‘You did
not find Gosse, that is seen, but—’

‘Gosse? Gosse? Who’s this here Gosse then?’

‘He is the Frenchman of whom I told you. You did not find
him, but did you find his pistol? In the room beyond the bookroom there—a big
room where a table had fallen. And a broken picture that was torn when I hit
him with it.’

‘Woof!’ Sergeant Trodger’s eyes fairly popped out of his
head, and he seized his prisoner’s arm again. ‘Seems to me, missie, as you’re
as dangerous a female as I’m like to see. Pistols and pictures? Now it fair
goes agin’ me nature to act rough with a lady, but you’ll come along of me at
once. I got to have you under guard in the gatehouse, I can see that.’

Melusine gave it up. There was nothing to be got out of the
man. ‘Certainly you may have me under guard. I do not care in the least. Only
that you will hurry and help Jacques.’

In the cosy little parlour that Pottiswick rarely used,
Melusine paced restlessly to and fro. She had removed her hat and utterly disarranged
her already unruly black locks by running agitated fingers through them. Outside
the door stood one of the soldiers. The other was helping Trodger with his
operation upstairs.

In truth, she had been quite glad to lose the argument about
remaining while the bullet was dug out of Jack’s side. She was not squeamish—although
the sight of the sergeant’s ominous preparations had severely tried her
fortitude—but Kimble’s white face plagued her conscience. She allowed herself
to be ejected, therefore, and retired to the parlour after cleansing the blood
from her hands and her own slight wound in the kitchen.

With the immediate necessities in train, Melusine fell to
brooding on her situation, which she found insupportable. With Jack so badly
injured, how would she get him home? How get herself home, now that Trodger had
arrested her. What of Gosse, whom those soldiers had allowed to escape? Hiding—or
perhaps gone. Then there was also the horse.
Peste
, but everything had
become difficult. And all to find that picture of Mary Remenham.

The thought of the picture but added to her despondency. The
sergeant had not seen it for he understood nothing of what she told him. What
had happened to it? She had broken it, certainly. And severely hurt that pig,
which was a very good thing. But it was her proof. Had Gosse taken it as he
escaped? What could she do? Gosse now knew that she was the daughter of Mary
Remenham. If he wished, he could even take this inheritance from her.

For the first time, Melusine heartily regretted her rejection
of the major’s services. She cursed herself for a fool. Was not Gerald
altogether on her side? He was, even though he played games like an
imbecile
,
a person
tout à fait sympathique
as she had discovered at the outset. And
what did she do? Not only did she cut his hand in her rage, but she refused to
let him help her, and then she ran away from him. Of a certainty, she also was
imbecile
.
Or mad, just as the captain had said so many times. For was not Gerald a
gentleman? An Englishman, whose services any female—excluding her own self so
idiote
—would
be very happy to have.

Her eyes filled as she thought of him, the image of his
laughing countenance coming into her mind, to be swiftly followed by a vision
of the blood running from his cut hand. A hollow feeling opened up inside her,
and she felt her heartbeat quicken.

She would write to Gerald. He would come swiftly to her aid,
she knew it. For she needed him. How she needed him!

Next moment, she had wrenched open the door, and was
confronting her guard. ‘You! Tell this fool who is the keeper here to come to
me at once.’

‘Miss?’ gaped the soldier.

‘The old man who lives here,
idiot
.’

‘Pottiswick, you mean, miss?’

‘Yes, yes. Go quickly and call him.’

‘But I can’t leave you, miss.’

‘Pah! Do you think I will run away? Do not be so foolish, and
go and fetch him this instant.’

Thus adjured, but mindful of Trodger’s orders, the militiaman
went down the hall backwards, his eyes fixed on the prisoner. At the door to
the kitchen, he called out, ‘Pottiswick!’

The old man came out, shoving his chin in the air and glaring.
‘Now what?’

The guard jerked his head up the corridor. ‘She wants you.’

Melusine caught the fellow eyeing her with resentment and
beckoned as she called out to him. ‘You! Have you pen and paper?’

‘Pen and paper now, is it?’ grumbled the old man as he
shuffled down the hall. ‘Ain’t enough as my bed is took, my sheets all
bloodied, and my gin took for to waste on that fellow’s wound. Ain’t enough as
I’ve got militiamen quartered on me this se’ennight, lazing about all day,
eating me out of house and home and drinking my liquor into the bargain. Nor as
I’ve to put up with a French spy in my parlour—’

‘
Peste
, how you talk,’ interrupted Melusine
impatiently, barely taking in his complaints. ‘Pen and paper, do you have them?’

‘Danged if I have,’ came the truculent response. ‘What was
you wanting it for, may I ask?’

‘You may not ask, for it is none of your affair,’ Melusine
snapped. ‘But I will tell you this,
mon vieux
. The day comes when you
shall regret how you have spoken to me.’

Pottiswick sucked at his teeth through the gaps. ‘Don’t
rightly know how you make that out, you being a French spy and a prisoner and
all.’

‘I will tell you how I make that out,’ Melusine said fiercely.
‘Me, I am Mademoiselle Charvill, the granddaughter of Monsieur Jar-vis
Re-men-ham.’

‘You ain’t never,’ gasped Pottiswick. ‘Danged if I ever hear
the like! A Frenchie is what you are, and there ain’t no granddaughter Charvill
no more. Not these twenty year.’

‘That is what you think?
Eh bien
. You have a daughter,
no? Madame Ibstock, I think.’

The lodgekeeper’s jaw fell open. ‘Who telled you that?’

‘Do not ask me impertinent questions, but only go you and
fetch this daughter here to me. At once.’

The old man simply stared at her. ‘Danged if I ever hear the
like,’ he repeated blankly.

‘
Parbleu
, you are deaf perhaps? It is seen that you
are very old, certainly.’

Colour suffused the man’s face. ‘Deaf? Deaf? I’ll have you
know, miss—’