Edwardian Candlelight Omnibus

by Beaton, M. C.

  Ginny became increasingly conscious of Barbara’s constant and fussy presence at her elbow. Barbara had developed an irritating habit of helping Ginny to generous platefuls of food and drink.

  “I shall be quite tipsy if you keep on filling up my glass,” protested Ginny. And indeed, she did begin to feel very strange. Her head began to swim and the colors of the spring day began to reel in front of her eyes.

  “What is the matter?” Barbara’s solicitous voice seemed to come from a long way away.

  “I-I feel ill,” said Ginny faintly.

  “Come and rest in the carriage,” said Barbara in a soothing voice. “That’s the thing. Lean on old Barbara.”

  Ginny murmured her thanks and allowed Barbara to lead her from the table, glad of the other woman’s surprisingly strong arm.

  The carriage seemed to be well away from the others but she could only concentrate all her energies on reaching it without falling down. Barbara opened the carriage door and Ginny sank down on the seat and gratefully closed her eyes.

  “I shall be all right in a minute, Barbara,” she said, sighing. “It must have been the sun.” She opened her eyes to smile thankfully at Barbara, who was closing the carriage door.

  It was then that Ginny saw the straw on the floor and the scars on the woodwork by the window, where she had struck at it blindly with her umbrella on that night some months ago.

  “This is not my carriage,” was all she could say stupidly as Barbara’s fat face swam in the sunlight. “Not my carriage at all…”

  Ginny recovered consciousness and stared around. She must have had an accident when they were exploring the caves. That was why she was lying on the hard floor gazing up at the stalactites. They had found lanterns after all. There was faithful old Barbara standing there holding one. But what on earth was she doing with a pistol in her other hand?

  Memory came flooding back. The scarred woodwork of the carriage… Barbara pouring the drink that had made her feel ill… Lady George saying that Barbara could drive a four-in-hand.

  Ginny’s senses reeled and all she could say was, “But the telegraph boy said it was a man.”

  “He was too busy looking at the sovereign to study me closely,” said Barbara. “I had been waiting and watching for him for two days. All I needed to do was put on a man’s coat and hat and muffle myself up to the eyebrows. Thank goodness you are awake. I thought I would have to sit in this damp, cold cave forever. I hope you can walk now,” she added anxiously.

  “Oh, yes,” said Ginny, staggering to her feet. Warm hope flooded back. Barbara looked so motherly, so anxious, so normal. Her next words made Ginny’s heart sink like a stone.

  Barbara picked up the lantern and, holding the pistol very steadily, said, “Well, you can start marching back into the caves.”

  “Why?” asked Ginny.

  “Why? Because I want you dead, that’s why,” said Barbara patiently. “You didn’t think I was going to sit back quietly and watch an upstart like you queening it at Courtney. Move!”

  “Where?” asked Ginny, trying not to panic and wondering all the while if this was some practical joke.

  Barbara was dressed as she had been for the picnic, in her lace tea gown and enormous hat. But the hand holding the pistol never wavered.

  Barbara moved around behind Ginny and jabbed the pistol in her back, compelling her to move forward into the chill blackness of the caves.

  The wavering lantern threw grotesque shadows over the walls and made the stalactites and stalagmites throw long shadows on the rocky floor and then shine with an eerie phosphorescence as darkness fell on them once the strange couple had passed.

  “You can’t get away with this,” cried Ginny desperately, and the mocking echoes threw her voice back at her from all sides—“Get away with this… away with this… with this… this… this… this…”

  “Oh, but I can,” said Barbara. “After you were knocked out with the drug I returned to Courtney ahead of the picnic party and told them that you were still feeling sick and didn’t want to return. Then I ordered your horse to be saddled and brought round. I told the servants that you lost some jewelry and had ridden over to the caves to find it. Then I put on one of your cloaks and hats and rode off. Nobody saw me close to. Anybody who saw me would think it was you.”

  “They’ll know a lot better when I’m found with a bullet wound in my back,” said Ginny.

  “There won’t be a mark on you,” replied Barbara with an awful giggle. “Not a mark.” She prodded Ginny harder in the back and said, “Move!”

  And Ginny moved on through the nightmare world of leaping shadows and strange twisted forms. Sometimes the way became extremely narrow and she had to bend her head to avoid scraping it on the roof and at other times they would enter a new cave, where the ceiling rose cathedral-like up into the blackness.

  Ginny bent her head through a narrow archway and then stopped. Ahead of her stretched a natural bridge arching over a deep chasm below. It was a grotesque, narrow crooked bridge, a Hieronymus Bosch bridge, a bridge leading straight across hell. “Move!” came Barbara’s voice again and in one split second Ginny thought she knew how she was to be killed so that there would be no bullet hole in her body. She ran nimbly to the center of the arch and turned slowly to face Barbara. She was sure that Barbara had meant to prod her to the middle of the bridge and then trip her over.

  And Barbara Briggs, looking quite her normal self, made a little clicking sound of irritation and then ordered, “Jump!”

  “No,” said Ginny, her face a blank, pale oval in the flickering light. “You’ll need to shoot me first.”

  Barbara gave a little resigned sigh and started to move slowly toward Ginny on the bridge.

  Ginny began to shiver and shake and she felt her eyes beginning to blur with tears. Barbara would not shoot her. She, Ginny, would have to try to shove Barbara over before Barbara managed to do it to her.

  It was all a horrible dream from which there was no awaking. The fat woman edging toward her in the ridiculous garden-party dress, the great yawning gulf below and the hundreds of little red eyes on the roof above.

  Eyes!

  Ginny took a deep breath and gathered her swimming senses together. She slowly began to unpin a large agate brooch in an antique silver setting from the throat of her blouse.

  Barbara was nearly upon her. Sending up a hurried prayer Ginny threw the brooch straight up toward the roof and then covered her face with her hands.

  Bats! Hundreds and hundreds of bats, startled from their resting places, swooped down on the two women. Ginny had been expecting it. Ginny had been praying for it.

  Barbara had not.

  Barbara Briggs gave one great scream of terror and wildly thrashed her plump arms around. There was a great descending scream and then a sickening crrrump.

  Ginny sank to her knees, slowly, so very slowly, and then lay flat on her stomach on the thin rocky bridge.

  She lay there in the blackness for a very long time while the sweat soaked her thin blouse and ran down her white cheeks and wave upon wave of shuddering seized her body.

  Then painfully, inch by inch, she began to pull herself across the narrow chasm, trying not to rush, trying not to scramble to her feet and run.

  After what seemed an age she felt on either side of her. Stone walls. She was safe! But how was she ever to find her way out of the caves? The lantern had gone plunging down into the depths with Barbara.

  She could only feel her way forward and hope that somehow she would reach the entrance to the caves.

  Suddenly she started and nearly fell down as a voice cried “Ginny!”, setting the echoes ringing. Ginny stood very still. Perhaps Barbara had had an accomplice. She would keep moving forward toward the sound of the voice and hope she would be able to recognize a friend. The echoes distorted the voice so much. Then she heard the voice shouting, “Harvey! Bring these men over here with the lanterns!”

  Ginny could have wept with relief. It was a s
earch party. She began to shout and scream and yell until she was hoarse, not pausing to hear if there was any answering shout.

  Suddenly a great light sprang up in front of her, blinding her, and then she felt strong arms around her and Gerald’s voice crying, “Ginny. Oh, Ginny!” over and over again.

  And Miss Ginny Bloggs raised her tear-streaked face and murmured, “Unromantic as usual, Gerald. You’re supposed to rescue me, you know,” and then fainted dead away.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The wedding of Miss Ginny Bloggs and Mr. Gerald de Fremney had been put off. Ginny had spent several days in bed after her adventure in the caves with a feverish cold that left her dull-eyed and listless.

  Both servants and masters alike had joined together to persuade the police that Barbara’s death had been an unfortunate accident. At all costs, scandal must be kept from Courtney.

  The day of the picnic Lord Gerald had recovered consciousness and had ridden hard to Courtney to inquire if the picnic party had returned. They had, and an anxious Barbara had informed him that Ginny was lying down in her room, as she had taken ill at the picnic.

  Lord Gerald had taken his leave but had felt unaccountably restless. He had decided to walk over to the rotunda and see if the workmen had finished. The pillars were standing, tall, straight, and elegant in the twilight and he had stood, admiring the view. That was when he had seen a figure that looked like Ginny riding hell for leather from Courtney.

  He had listened in dismay to Harvey’s explanation. The figure on the horse had been wearing Ginny’s clothes but had been riding like the very devil and Ginny, as he knew, would not ride faster than a gentle canter and would certainly not have gone out with the light falling to search the caves by herself.

  He had rounded up the servants and ridden hard to the caves.

  He would never forget his fear, never forget the awful sight of Ginny’s white, tear-stained face as she had stumbled toward him.

  He could hardly believe even now that fussy little Barbara Briggs had stage-managed such a murder attempt. His own servants had been holding a poacher, who they had accused of tying the wire across the drive. The man was released when Gerald returned, his pockets still full of rabbits.

  The effect of the whole thing on Jeffrey, Cyril, and Tansy had been strange. They had all seemed to be more shocked than Ginny. Cyril had surprisingly accepted a very minor position in the Bengal and British Bank and had set sail for India, leaving a short and callous note for Annabelle to say that the engagement was at an end. Jeffrey had taken his leave of Courtney for good and had returned to town and no one had heard of him since, and Tansy had moved her belongings back to her mother’s estate.

  That had left Ginny virtually alone at Courtney for the first time since her arrival. She had seen Gerald on several occasions, when she had been more empty-eyed than he had ever known and had deftly turned the conversation away from any discussion about the wedding.

  Gerald, who had at first been puzzled and saddened by the change in her, ended up by forgetting the Ginny he had loved so much and, not realizing he was suffering from a bad fit of premarital nerves, heartily began to wish the engagement was at an end. After all, if she did not want to spend any time with him, then the least she could do was to release him from the engagement. It was with this bitter thought in mind that he rode over one day to find Miss Bloggs had left for town. “Going to see a show,” said Harvey. He added that he thought Madam had mentioned something about seeing the new musical, The Roving Prince, at the Empress.

  Lord Gerald shuddered. Then he thought nastily to himself that anyone with Ginny’s common background would naturally have a common taste in theater.

  Now, just perhaps—just perhaps—Ginny had a male escort. That would give him a chance to make a jealous scene and force Ginny to give him up.

  Some little sensible part of his brain told him he was behaving badly but the main part raged for revenge on her for her cold treatment and assured him that freedom would be the only way to be comfortable with himself again.

  The musical was very successful and he found he had to buy a whole box to himself in order to get a seat. Now, he thought grimly, looking around the house as the orchestra hammered out the tinny overture, where is Miss Ginny?

  But it was only when the curtain had risen to show the cast roistering in front of a cardboard inn in Tyrolean dress and quaffing air out of gold cardboard cups that his eye was caught by the movement in the box opposite.

  Ginny Bloggs had arrived!

  Not only had she arrived but she was being escorted by an even greater matrimonial catch than Lord Gerald de Fremney. Her escort was none other than the young and very wealthy Scottish Earl of Mark, Lord Ian Struthers. Lord Ian was as dark as Gerald was fair. He had the reputation of being the wildest young man-about-town and Lord Gerald detested every bit of him from his smart military mustache to his patent-leather pumps.

  The dreary first act wailed on, where some damned mountebank in tights roared across the footlights that he was the lost Prince of Slobonia while some silly blonde, who looked remarkably like Ginny, sighed and simpered her love for him in twenty different attitudes.

  Ginny and her earl seemed to be enjoying the show immensely. The curtain closed on the first act and still Lord Gerald did not move. He sat well back in the shadows of his box and nursed his fury. He would wait till the next interval. But the next interval found him reluctant to move. He spent the last act rehearsing in his mind what he would say and what Ginny would say and what the earl would say when the show finished. It was with blank fury that he realized as soon as the house lights went up that Ginny and the earl had gone.

  There was nothing for it but to return home. He did not feel like staying in town to sulk in his club. He knew Ginny’s town house was closed. Then he would drive to Courtney and wait for her return.

  And if she did not return… ?

  Did it not seem feasible that a girl who had lain so readily in his arms and had lately shown so little interest in him would look for another man to seduce? He remembered that she did not wish to marry him after the nights in the inn. He forgot she had told him that it was because he had not said he loved her. He forgot everything pleasant and appealing about her. He became convinced that Ginny was an empty-headed slut and he had been about to bestow his ancient name on a heartless baggage.

  The rain was falling with increasing ferocity as he ploughed along the Maidstone road and, as a last straw, his headlamps flickered and went out, leaving him moving slowly along through a black wall of water.

  The lights of The Eagle, a large coaching inn, now catering mainly to motorists and situated on the outskirts of Maidstone, twinkled in the river of water running down his windscreen and with a sigh of relief he crawled carefully into the courtyard. He would stay the night. Perhaps he would not even call on Ginny Bloggs in the morning. Leave her a note and leave the country, that was the answer. Just like that weakling, Cyril, said the nasty voice of conscience in his brain, but he fought it down as he made a dive through the deluge to the entrance of The Eagle.

  The Eagle was warm and comfortable and redolent of all the welcoming smells of good food and good wine.

  It also boasted a reception desk with an efficient young gentleman in tails in charge.

  The receptionist bowed low before the magnificence of his lordship’s evening dress and opera cloak lined with scarlet silk. Of course The Eagle would be honored to find him accommodation for the night. If he would just sign the register?

  Lord Gerald looked down at the page and dipped the steel pen in the inkwell and prepared to sign his name. Then he stared at the book as if he could not believe his eyes. For there in neat copperplate was the previous entry—“Lady Gerald de Fremney.”

  “What is this?” he demanded, his face very white and set.

  The puzzled receptionist looked from his lordship’s strained face to the entry. “Oh, her ladyship arrived about half an hour ago,” he said.

 
“And his lordship?” demanded Gerald in a voice that did not sound at all like his own.

  “Her ladyship said that his lordship would be joining her presently. Now, about your own rooms, sir—”

  “I,” grated Gerald, “am Lord Gerald de Fremney.”

  “In that case,” said the receptionist, polite but puzzled, “I will show you to her ladyship’s room.”

  “Do,” said Gerald grimly. “Just you do that very thing. And could you give me the passkey? I do not wish to disturb my wife. She has had a long day and is probably asleep.”

  What an unconscionable length of time it seemed to take to negotiate the winding corridors of the old inn, now carpeted in flowery Wilton.

  He stood outside the door, his heart beating hard. Ginny had probably made arrangements for the earl to join her later. But to use his name!

  He turned the large key in the old lock and swung open the door. Ginny was sitting beside the fire reading a book, those ridiculous steel spectacles of hers held together with ginger-beer wire perched on the end of her nose.

  She stared at Lord Gerald’s furious face for a long moment with eyes remarkably bright and shrewd and then, remembering her glasses, took them off.

  “Good evening, Gerald,” she said mildly, “I wondered when you would get here.”

  “You wondered! You wondered!” he said wrathfully. “You had not the least idea I was going to be here. You are quite obviously waiting for Lord Ian.”

  A smile lurked in Ginny’s blue eyes and she said, “Were you at the musical then? I would have thought Wagner was more your style.”

  “Yes, I was at that stupid musical,” he said, slamming the door behind him and marching to the fire. “But I am going to call your bluff, my girl. I am going to stay here until the so-called Lord Gerald arrives.” He plumped himself down in an overstuffed armchair on the other side of the hearth. “And while we’re at it,” he went on, “I wish to inform you our engagement is at an end.”