There was a startled silence in the audience.
Then the Colonel rose to his feet.
“Good God! That pistol was loaded with a real bullet!” he exclaimed.
His voice rang out and for a moment there was no reply.
Then the actor, his face pale as death, replied,
“I had no idea of it – I swear I had no idea. I was told it was just a wager – a jest between two gentlemen.”
“You would have killed him!” the Colonel roared.
Now the whole audience was rising to their feet shouting and pointing at the box.
Giselda’s arms dropped to her sides and she felt the Earl’s arms go round her.
She laid her head against his shoulder, fighting for breath.
She was gasping like a man who is drowning and goes down for the third time, her heart felt as if it would burst.
As the Earl held her close against him, he shouted urgently to Henry Somercote
“Find Julius and get him out of England immediately! I will give him one thousand pounds a year so long as he does not set foot on these shores again. If he returns, he will be charged with attempted murder!”
Henry Somercote with the quickness of a man used to receiving and obeying orders turned and left the box without a word.
Now the Colonel was yelling at the actor on the stage and the actor was screaming back, their voices almost lost in the uproar of the audience, who were all shouting advice or exclaiming at the danger that was passed.
Without even looking into the auditorium, the Earl drew Giselda out of the box and down the short passage towards the side door.
She managed to walk, although she was still finding it hard to get her breath and might have fallen to the ground if his arms had not supported her.
Outside in the street the Earl’s carriage was waiting, although the servants, not expecting their master to leave so early, were lounging around comfortably.
But as soon as they saw the Earl they became alert and a footman opened the carriage door and helped Giselda inside.
The Earl followed her, moving a little stiffly because of his leg.
As the door closed, he put his arms round her again and drew her against him.
“You saved my life, Giselda!” he cried. “How did you learn that Julius intended to have me shot?”
It was some seconds before Giselda could answer him.
Then she gasped,
“He – he – boasted that by – half after nine – he would be the – Fifth Earl of – Lyndhurst.”
She gave a little cry, which seemed to come from her very heart, and whispered,
“I – thought I would be – too late – and that you would – die.”
“Thanks entirely to you I am alive.”
She had hidden her face against him and he could feel her tremble.
It was only a short distance to German Cottage and they drove in silence, Giselda gradually finding it easier to breathe and the Earl still holding her in his arms.
Only when the horses drew up outside the Cottage did he relinquish her and she stepped out while the footmen helped him to alight.
In the hall there was a rush-backed armchair, seated in which three footmen carried the Earl up the stairs to his own sitting room.
It was the Colonel who had suggested that it was quite needless for the Earl to exhaust himself by climbing up the stairs, even if he found it easy to descend them.
By the time Giselda reached the sitting room, moving slowly from sheer exhaustion, the Earl had completed his ascent and was already filling two glasses on a side table with champagne.
“You wish for supper, my Lord?” the butler asked.
“Not at the moment,” the Earl replied. “I will ring if I require anything later.”
“Very good, my Lord.”
The servants left the room and the Earl, having taken a sip of the glass of champagne, set it down on the table and turned towards Giselda.
“I think we are both in need of a drink – ” he began and then stopped.
She was standing looking at him, her eyes very wide in her pale face and there was an expression in them that made the Earl hold out his arms.
She ran towards him like a child who seeks comfort and security.
As he drew her close, he realised she was still trembling, but not now with the effort of breathing.
“It is all right, my darling!” he said tenderly. “It is all over. There is no more danger. We shall neither of us ever see Julius again.”
“I was so – afraid,” Giselda whispered, “so desperately – terribly afraid.”
There was a throb in her voice that could not be misunderstood and very gently the Earl put his fingers under her chin and turned her face up to his.
“Why did you want to save my life?” he asked.
There was no need for Giselda to reply.
He could see the answer in her eyes and the softness of her lips and feel it in the manner in which her whole body quivered against his like a bird in the hands of its captor.
For a long moment the Earl looked down into her eyes and then he said quietly,
“I love you, my precious!”
Giselda was still.
Then, as his lips found hers, she gave a little sob, her body seemed to melt against him and her mouth surrendered itself to his.
The Earl thought he had never known anything so sweet, so innocent and so pure. Then as he felt Giselda respond to his kiss he drew her closer and his lips became more demanding and more insistent.
Finally, when he raised his head, he said in a voice that was curiously unsteady,
“I love you, my beautiful one! I love you more than I can ever say in words and I think perhaps you love me a little.”
“I – love you with – all of me,” Giselda answered. “I love you with my heart, my mind and my soul – there is no one in the whole world but – you.”
Her words seemed to vibrate on the air and the Earl drew her close again and his kisses were more passionate and almost fierce in their intensity.
Giselda felt as if the whole universe was filled with music and with a light that came from Heaven itself.
She had no idea that the touch of the Earl could evoke sensations she had not known existed and that his arms around her could make her feel safe from everything, even fear.
Her love for him seemed to invade her whole body like a warm tide.
“I love you – I love you.” she heard herself murmur against his lips.
Then he was kissing her eyes, her cheeks and the tip of her small nose and the softness of her neck.
She knew she aroused him and she wished she could die at this moment when they were so close that it was difficult to believe that they were two people but had become one.
“I did not know that any woman could be so adorable, so utterly desirable and at the same time so sweet, so unspoilt, so perfect in every way,” the Earl said in his deep voice.
His lips lingered on the softness of her skin.
Then he said quietly,
“How soon will you marry me, my darling?”
To his surprise he felt Giselda stiffen. Then somehow, he was not certain how it happened, she was free of his arms and had moved away from him.
His words had broken the spell that held her, the spell that had made her forget everything but her love and the fact that he loved her.
Now, as if a glass of cold water had been thrown in her face, she was back to reality and in a voice that strove for control she said,
“I – have something to – tell you.”
The Earl smiled.
“Your secrets? They are not important, my precious one. All that matters is that you love me. You love me enough to risk your own life to save mine. I am not interested in anything else you may have to say. You are you, and it is you I want for my own, to be with me and beside me for the rest of our lives.”
He saw tears come into her eyes and looking at him she sighed v
ery softly,
“Could any man be more wonderful – more magnificent?”
The Earl held out his arms again.
“Come here!” he said. “I cannot bear you not to be close to me.”
Giselda shook her head.
“You have been standing long enough. You must sit down and I have to – talk to you – even though it is – hard.”
“Are words so important?” the Earl asked.
But he knew by the expression on her face that she meant what she said. Because he thought it would please her and also because his leg was indeed aching a little, he sat down in an armchair.
Once again he held out his arms in a gesture towards Giselda.
She went towards him, but when she reached his chair she knelt down beside it and raising herself against his knees looked up into his face.
“I love you,” she said. “I love you so completely and absolutely that I can think of nothing else. Every moment that I have been with you has been a joy beyond words. At night I have fallen asleep thinking of you – and sometimes dreamt that you were – with me.”
“That is where I always shall be, my darling.”
She shook her head slightly and he felt a sudden fear invade him, even though he told himself he was being nonsensical.
“What are you trying to say to me, Giselda?” he asked her.
Now there was a different note in his voice, as his eyes looked searchingly down into hers.
“I have been waiting for this moment,” she began, “waiting for when I must tell you about myself – but I kept believing – because I wanted to believe it – that there was still time – time to be near you – time to talk to you – time to go on loving you – even though you did not know it.”
“It took me a little time too,” he added, “to realise that the feelings I had for you were love. I know now, Giselda, that I have never been in love until this moment.”
He smiled before he went on,
“I have been amused, attracted, fascinated and even infatuated by women, but they have never meant to me what you mean. They have never been part of myself so that I have known I must protect and care for them and that I could not live if they were not in my life, as you will be.”
Again he thought there was that almost imperceptible little shake of Giselda’s head and fiercely he asked,
“What are you trying to tell me?”
She drew a deep breath and asked,
“Will you do something if I ask it of you?”
“I will do anything you ask me,” the Earl replied.
She raised herself a little further and said,
“Will you – kiss me? Will you hold me close against you – and when you have kissed me – I will tell you – what you have to hear.”
The Earl put his arms around her and drew her close, cradling her against him as if she was a child.
Then his lips came down on hers to hold her completely captive.
He kissed her passionately in a different manner from the way he had kissed her before until the breath came fitfully from between her lips and she felt a flame rising within her to echo the fire she sensed in him.
When finally he raised his head, both their hearts were beating violently and he said aggressively as if he defied some unknown fate that made him afraid,
“You are mine! Nothing and nobody shall take you from me! You are mine, my darling, now and for ever!”
For one moment Giselda lay still against him, her eyes looking up into his.
Then she moved away from his arms to stand looking at him for a second before she walked behind his chair to put her hands over his eyes.
“I do not want you to – look at me. I want you to – listen.”
“I am listening, Giselda.”
“Then I want you to know that I love you for all Eternity – there will never be – could never be – another man in my life – and I shall think of you every moment and pray with all my heart for your – happiness.”
Her voice broke on the last word.
Then, when the Earl would have spoken, he felt her fingers tighten for a moment across his eyes before she said in a very low voice,
“My – real name is – Giselda Charlton! My father was Major Maurice – Charlton – now do you understand?”
The Earl was rigid with astonishment and he felt Giselda take her hands from his eyes.
Then, as he tried to collect his thoughts and a second later turned his head to speak to her, he heard the door of the sitting room close softly and knew she had gone. For a moment he could hardly credit what had happened or what he had heard, but he rose with an effort and walked to the mantelshelf to reach for the bell-pull.
Even as his hand went out towards it the door opened and Henry Somercote came in.
“It is all right! Everything has been done as you told me, Talbot. I paid off the bailiff and Julius is on his way to the coast, although God knows the young swine – ”
He stopped suddenly and looked at the Earl in anxiety.
“What is the matter, Talbot? What has happened?”
“Stop Giselda!” the Earl cried. “Stop her before she leaves this house!”
“I think she has already left,” Henry Somercote replied. “As my carriage drew up at the door, I thought it was Giselda I saw running down the street, but I was sure I must be mistaken.”
“Oh, my God! She has gone and I don’t even know where she lives,” the Earl exclaimed.
“What has occurred? Why did she leave like that? Have you quarrelled?”
“Quarrelled?” the Earl repeated in a strange voice. “She is Maurice Charlton’s daughter!”
“Good Heavens!” Henry Somercote exclaimed. “How did you discover that?”
“She told me so, and that is why she has left me. I must find her, Henry, I must!”
“Of course – and here we have been searching for him all this year – without any success!”
It was true that, ever since they had returned to England from Brussels, the Officers of the Regiment had done everything in their power to find Maurice Charlton, but he seemed to have disappeared into thin air.
The only hope was that by some lucky chance they would come across some trace of him.
And now incredibly, completely unexpectedly, the Earl had found Charlton’s daughter.
It had been a disastrous episode, which in retrospect they all realised should never have occurred. But feelings were high and emotions were uppermost immediately before the Battle of Waterloo.
The Officers of the Earl’s Regiment were all stationed in the centre of Brussels and the evenings they were off duty were spent in amusing themselves in ways that were most skilfully catered for by the Belgian population.
One of the most attractive of the many poules de luxe only too willing to entertain English Officers was Marie Louise Rivière. She was considered superior to, and indeed far more attractive, than the other sisters of her profession.
Almost everybody in the Earl’s Regiment knew Marie Louise, and Major Maurice Charlton, who was an Intelligence Officer on Wellington’s staff, was no exception.
Charlton was an experienced soldier and getting on towards forty, but a very attractive man.
Everyone liked him and he was exceedingly popular, not only with his brother Officers but also with the rank and file.
The Earl had seen him once or twice in Marie Louise’s salon where she entertained almost every evening and then, with the capriciousness of a Princess, chose as the evening ended who should be honoured to stay behind after the others had left.
The Earl suspected that Charlton was one of her favourites, but he was not sure.
Then on the afternoon of the eve of Waterloo a patrol on the outskirts of the City arrested a young Belgian, who they thought was acting suspiciously.
He admitted to being a servant of Marie Louise and on his person they found a rough map, which was identified as one drawn by Wellington himself as a suggested plan for the order of
battle.
It was something that had been discussed by him only with the Commanders of the different Regiments, the Earl amongst them.
The Duke remembered quite clearly having given the sketch after the conference was over into the hands of Maurice Charlton.
The ensuing enquiry had made all those present, including the Earl, feel embarrassed and extremely sorry for the culprit.
Henry Somercote, Wellington’s aide-de-camp, was present, besides two other Officers who, like the Earl, were in the same Regiment as Charlton.
He was horrified when the plan was produced, and protested over and over again that he had put it away in a despatch box, which always stood by the Duke’s bed.
The only thing he admitted was that he could not exactly remember whether he had locked the box when he had left the room.
No one else could have had access to it, and when it was brought in it was locked, but Charlton was the key holder.
There was nothing Wellington could have done at the time, the Earl recalled, but send the Major back to England under armed guard.
He had left within the hour with instructions that he should be taken back to Barracks where he was to await a Court Martial when the troops returned from the battlefront.
What happened next was not known to the Earl or indeed to the Duke until the Battle of Waterloo was over.
It was then they learnt that on arrival in London Maurice Charlton had evaded his guards, escaped from the Barracks and disappeared.
But before they knew all this, an Orderly who had been wounded in the battle confessed as he was dying that he was responsible for the theft.
He had taken the keys from Charlton’s pocket while he was having a bath, unlocked the despatch box, extracted the plan and returned the keys to his master’s pocket. Marie Louise had paid him well and he had been promised even greater reward if Napoleon found the plan useful.
The Earl, Henry Somercote and every other Officer in the Regiment had returned to England determined to right the wrong, but they could not find Maurice Charlton.
“Where does Giselda live?” Henry Somercote asked now. “I have a carriage downstairs.”
“I don’t know,” the Earl answered plaintively
“You don’t know?” Henry echoed.
The Earl shook his head.
“She would never tell me and I thought that sooner or later she would trust me with the secret I knew she was hiding.”
21 The Mysterious Maid-Servant (The Eternal Collection) Page 14
