Annabelle fell prey to the most terrible pangs of jealousy. She could not help noticing that when Lord Varleigh paused beside her to ask her quietly how she was, Lady Jane did not even seem to mind. Now the evening might have continued quietly had not Annabelle been a very human girl.
Lord Varleigh was complimenting Annabelle on her appearance with his usual expertise, and she smiled dazzlingly up at him and then, on impulse, flashed a triumphant look across the room full into the eyes of her rival. With feminine satisfaction Annabelle watched Lady Jane’s thin-pencilled brows snap together.
“It is a trifle warm, my lord,” said Annabelle.
She looked in ithe direction of the terrace, and he smiled down at her in a way that did something peculiar to her heart. Taking her small gloved hand in his own, he said lightly, “Then shall we promenade outside? You can tell me whether you and the Captain have been taking any more interesting drives.”
Annabelle did not want to talk about the Captain, but as they walked out onto the terrace, she became aware of Lady Jane’s efforts to catch their attention, and moved closer to Lord Varleigh, smiling up at him in a bewitching way from under her long lashes.
There was a sound of breaking glass from the room behind them as Lady Jane’s glass fell from her trembling fingers.
She erupted onto the terrace in a flurry of silks and confronted the pair while the society that filled the rooms behind stopped talking and turned to view the drama with avid interest. There hadn’t been a really good scandal in weeks.
“Has he mounted you yet?” she demanded of Annabelle, her magnificent eyes flashing with fury.
“No,” replied Annabelle and with what she hoped was the gentle answer which turneth away wrath, “I do not horse ride.”
“I’m talking about another kind of beast—the one with two backs,” shrilled Lady Jane while the watching guests gasped and exclaimed in fits of delicious horror.
Annabelle’s puzzled, innocent stare would have driven Lady Jane to further vulgarity, but to the audience’s immense disappointment, just as Lady Jane was opening her mouth wide to let fly the next salvo, Lord Varleigh stuffed his lace handkerchief into it and, clipping the infuriated Lady Jane’s arms behind her back, marched her off into the shrubbery.
Her cheeks pink with mortification, Annabelle turned with relief to the ever-present Captain and accepted his offer of refreshment. Lady Jane was not seen again that evening, but Lord Varleigh rejoined the party much later. Tables and chairs had been pushed aside as the guests clamored for waltzes. the musicians struck up a lively air, and Annabelle found herself being swept into the steps of the waltz while the Captain, who had been about to ask her himself, looked on with a baffled air.
“I am sorry you were subjected to such a vulgar scene,” said Lord Varleigh, looking down at Annabelle’s embarrassed face.
“Your affairs are no concern of mine, my lord,” said Annabelle quietly.
“Lady Jane has made our late affair your concern. I am sorry for it,” he said simply. “Come, smile at me, Miss Quennell, and let us be friends.”
Annabelle gave him a reluctant smile and then realised he had referred to his late affair. Her smile grew wider and her little feet seemed to float across the floor.
Captain MacDonald leaned against a pillar and watched them, one large finger playing with his luxuriant side-whiskers. He did not like the uncharacteristic warmth in Varleigh’s eyes any more than he liked the high color on Annabelle’s cheek or her shining eyes.
Something would have to be done—and quickly!
THE following day was warm and misty although the leaves were beginning to change color to red and gold, and the fruit hung heavy in the apple trees in the orchard.
The Captain appeared in a smart phaeton and pair and cunningly solicited Lady Emmeline’s permission to take Annabelle for a drive before asking that young lady herself. Annabelle was strangely reluctant to go, but Lady Emmeline’s pleasure at seeing her once more in the company of Captain MacDonald was obvious, and Annabelle did not have the heart to disappoint the old lady.
Annabelle exclaimed in surprise at the trunks corded up behind the phaeton, and the Captain explained he was to visit the mother of one of his fallen comrades in Chiswick and perform the melancholy duty of handing over her son’s effects.
Annabelle wondered why she felt nervous. She was, after all, used to driving out with the Captain. Perhaps it was because he seemed to be secretly excited about something. The mist coiled through the trees at the edge of Kensington High Road, turning pale yellow as a tiny sun appeared very far above.
When they stopped at a toll gate, Annabelle had an impulse to ask the Captain to turn back. Then she put her fears down to the strangeness of the weather. The lamps on the toll gate were still lit and shone through the coiling mist. An old and torn recruiting poster flapped against the wall of the toll in a sudden puff of wind. It was urging new recruits to repair “to Mr. Bigg’s Hibernian, jovial, overflowing punch bowl, North-side, Old Dock: where an officer waits with impatience and British guineas to receive those heroes that are emulous of glory. God save great George our King. Huzza! Damn the French!”
Well, the great King George was now mad and raving, locked behind the walls of his palace while the Prince Regent enjoyed the British public’s contempt.
The phaeton jerked forward, and Annabelle let down her veil as the dust began to swirl around them as the Captain sprang his horses.
The countryside seemed to flash past at a great rate. The sun rose higher, burning away the mist, and the fields spread out on either side under a pale blue sky.
Annabelle forgot her fears and settled back to enjoy the scenery. They flew past the Bath stagecoach which did the London-to-Bath journey in “three days if God permits.” Annabelle was glad that she had never had to endure a journey by stagecoach. On fine days such as this it looked splendid, bowling along with a spanking team with the tootling of the guard on his yard-long horn. But in bad weather Annabelle knew that the passengers inside almost died of the smell while the passengers outside often died of exposure. Coaches often lost the road or capsized or sank into it, and a fine day like today was not even free from peril. If the coachman drove too fast, there was danger of fire, for the wheels created a perilous friction on the axles.
Soon they had slowed to a trot and were proceeding decorously along Chiswick Mall. The Captain swung off the Mall and then through a bewildering network of small roads, finally coming to a stop outside a pair of fine wrought-iron gates.
An evil-looking gatekeeper came limping out in answer to their summons.
“Fine day, Cap’n” he said, tugging his forelock. “Missus ain’t home and sarvents is out, but missus says her’ll be back drecktly and youse is to make yesselfs comfortable.”
The Captain threw the man a piece of gold, and the gatekeeper caught it as deftly as a monkey and bit it with the stumps of his blackened teeth.
They moved slowly up a pitted and unkempt driveway past mossy statues, obviously relics of some ancestor’s Grand Tour. The house was Palladian with a great central dome and porticoed entrance.
It was all very dismal, reflected Annabelle, and somehow sinister, wrapped in its atmosphere of autumnal decay. I am becoming too fanciful, she thought and allowed the Captain to escort her into the house.
He led the way into a drawing room on the ground floor, and then, muttering something about having to have a word with the gatekeeper, he left Annabelle alone.
The room smelled musty and damp, and the faded pink and green of its walls showed great stains of damp moisture near the ceiling. Someone had been recently and inexpertly dusting, for great cobwebs still hung from the cornices and there was at least half an inch of dust under the silent clock on the mantelshelf. A tarnished silver tray rested on a low table containing decanters and a plate of biscuits. There was no other sign that they were expected or even that the house was inhabited.
There came a furtive scurrying sound from behind
the walls.
Rats.
Annabelle began to feel cold despite the day outside. She wondered if the house was haunted by the dead soldier’s ghost. Out in the garden the statues bordering the drive stared back at her with their blind stone eyes. The day was very still and quiet apart from the sinister rustling in the wainscoating.
There was no sign of the Captain returning, and Annabelle began to feel increasingly uneasy. She decided to search the house and see if she could find some servant who might tell her where the lady of the house was. One by one she pushed open the doors of the downstairs rooms and stood and stared in amazement. They were thick with dust, their furniture shrouded under holland covers. In a green saloon the dust stretched in an unbroken gray sea on the uncarpeted floor.
A cold hand of fear clutched at her stomach. She walked slowly upstairs and pushed open door after door; at last she found one room prepared and ready. It was a vast bedroom which had been recently swept and cleaned by an inexpert hand. A fire was made up on the hearth, and clean sheets had been put on the bed. Annabelle breathed a sigh of relief. The lady of the house had obviously fallen on hard times and could only afford to live in two rooms and probably only had one or two servants.
Feeling more cheerful, she returned to the drawing room where the Captain was toasting his boots in front of the fire.
“No sign of anyone yet,” he said cheerfully. “Have some wine, Annabelle, and relax. Her name’s Mrs. Creedy, and the gatekeeper said she should not be too long.”
They sat for a long time, watching the statues’ shadows lengthening on the uncut lawns and talking in a desultory fashion.
The sun went down in a blaze of gold and crimson, and the mist uncoiled itself from the dew-soaked lawns, and still Mrs. Creedy did not return.
LORD Varleigh had called in at White’s in St. James’s Street. The harvests were in on his estates. He had assisted the farmers—hence his healthy tan—and now felt he owed himself an evening’s relaxation.
But for him the glamour of the famous club had gone. Beau Brummell and his cronies held court at the recently constructed bow window overlooking the street. Bloods and bucks, Corinthians and Dandies crouched over the gambling tables, and an almost religious silence prevailed.
He wished he had not come to Town and wondered if he should forego an evening of cards for the calm pleasure of a visit to Kensington Gore. What an incalculable, impertinent girl was Annabelle Quennell! At times he was not even sure that he liked her. But he would go after all. The girl was never boring and one never knew what she might say.
With a sinking heart he saw the club bore, Mr. Garforth, edging towards him. He rose to leave, but it was too late.
“Thought you knew all the gossip in town,” said Mr. Garforth petulantly, by way of an opening.
“What don’t I know?” asked Lord Varleigh, resigning himself.
“Didn’t know the Creedys were in residence?” said Mr. Garforth. “In fact, after old Creedy’s cheating at cards and unpaid debts over half of London, I never thought he would dare to show his face this side of the Channel again.”
“He obviously has,” yawned Lord Varleigh, “if that is what you are trying to tell me.”
“Well, I didn’t see the Creedy fellow,” said Mr. Garforth, “but they’re receiving callers. Drove past Chiswick—you know that deserted barn of a place they’ve got—and who should I see driving in to call but Captain Jimmy MacDonald and that girl, Miss Quennell. Know her, don’t you? Well, you might drop a word in her ear that it ain’t quite the thing to know the Creedys. Surprised at Jimmy MacDonald. He’s wild, that one, but he’s up to snuff when it comes to who one ought to know and who one oughtn’t.”
Lord Varleigh sat very still. “Are you sure the Creedys are back in residence?” he asked. “I saw them in Paris surrounded by a lot of fellow wastrels a month ago.”
“Stands to reason they must be,” said Mr. Garforth, pleased with the rare interest he was eliciting. “People don’t go calling on empty houses. I say, I haven’t finished yet.”
But Lord Varleigh had gone.
ALL Annabelle’s nervousness had returned. The Captain had nearly finished the contents of the decanters and resolutely and stubbornly turned aside all suggestions they should leave.
Annabelle at last came to a decision.
“I cannot remain under this roof with you for much longer, sir,” she said severely. “I feel I am being sadly compromised as it is.”
The Captain surveyed her from heavy-lidded eyes. “What a stubborn girl you are,” he remarked. “We ain’t going anywhere, so make up your mind to that.”
“What!” cried Annabelle, outraged. “Take me home this instant, sir!”
“No,” said the Captain, refilling his glass.
Annabelle got to her feet. “Then I shall have to walk,” she said, resolutely turning towards the door.
A large hand pulled her back. “Unhand me, sir!” cried Annabelle while a corner of her brain marvelled that she had actually used those words, so beloved of fairy-tale heroines.
The Captain pushed her into a chair. “Don’t ask me to use force,” he said quietly, and Annabelle realised with a start of surprise that he was not drunk at all although his eyes glittered strangely.
“I have no taste for rape,” went on the Captain calmly as if he were discussing some new dish. “But yes, my dear, you are going to be compromised. I am going to keep you here for as long as it takes London to find we have gone off together. That prime bore, Garforth, saw us entering here and saw you going with me willingly.”
“But Mrs. Creedy…” began Annabelle.
“Mrs. Creedy,” interrupted the Captain with great good humor, “is, I believe, in Paris with her card-sharping husband.”
“And the son”
“Haven’t got one, Those trunks are full of any clothes we may find necessary, although if you behave like a sensible girl, we should not find clothes necessary at all.”
Annabelle went as red as a beetroot. A vivid picture of the cleaned and prepared bedroom upstairs sprang into her mind. And even if the should escape the Captain, the gatekeeper must be in his pay and would stop her before she reached the road.
“How could you bear to be married to someone who has to be forced to go to the altar with you?”
“Easily,” said Captain MacDonald, getting to his feet. “If she’s as pretty as you.”
He jerked her out of the chair and pulled her to him and forced his mouth down on hers. Annabelle felt her senses reeling from lack of oxygen rather than passion.
To the Captain’s surprise she went limp in his arms and, feeling that the battle was won, he relaxed his hold before bending to her mouth again.
She leaned round him, and her fingers groped for the Captain’s snuffbox. With a dexterity which would have drawn praise from Petersham himself, she flicked up the enameled lid and then freed her mouth from the Captain’s embrace.
“Darling,” she said huskily.
The Captain drew back and looked down at her in surprise and triumph.
She whipped round the snuffbox and threw the entire contents straight into his face. While the Captain clawed his face and coughed and spluttered, Annabelle picked up one of the decanters and, closing her eyes tightly, brought it down with a crrump on the Captain’s head. He sank to the floor and lay motionless.
With trembling fingers Annabelle felt for his pulse but, as always happens on these nerveracking occasions, could feel or hear nothing but the tumultuous beating of her heart. She drew a small steel mirror from her reticule and tried to keep her hands from shaking as she held it over his mouth, bringing a sharp memory of doing the same thing to her godmother. The glass misted, and the Captain let out a stentorian snore.
Annabelle fled out into the grounds and stood irresolute. A loud voice hailing the gatekeeper made her nearly jump from her skin. Friend or enemy? Probably enemy.
She looked wildly round for a place to hide, and then as she heard the sound
of shouts and blows from the gatehouse, plunged headlong into the tangled shrubbery and lay still.
Carriage wheels rattled up the drive and swept past her hiding place, but Annabelle was too frightened to look out.
Resplendent in a many-caped driving coat and with his long riding whip clutched in his hand, Lord Varleigh sprang lightly down from his carriage and, tilting back his curly brimmed beaver, stared up at the house which seemed to stare back at him with a sad and deserted air. Then he noticed a light burning in one of the downstairs windows.
With an oath he strode into the dark hallway and with a great crash swung open the double doors of the drawing room.
One look at the villainous gatekeeper had been enough to convince Lord Sylvester Varleigh that Captain MacDonald was up to no good. The wretched little man had tried to bar his entry and had gone down under Lord Varleigh’s punishing left. What he expected to find, he did not know, but the last thing he expected was the scene that met his eyes.
Of Annabelle there was not the slightest sign. But Captain MacDonald was sitting up in the middle of a large pool of Burgundy, nursing his head and groaning.
Lord Varleigh seized him by the lapels and dragged him to his feet. “Where is she?” he demanded, giving the groaning Captain a shake.
“Gone,” moaned the Captain. “Hell cat! Threw snuff in my face and crashed me on the head with the Burgundy decanter. Gone!”
“What did you do it for? Why?” said Lord Varleigh, shaking him again.
“Don’t do that!” said the large Captain crossly, jerking himself free. “I’m in love with her, that’s why.”
“It’s a funny way of showing love,” said Lord Varleigh. “You must have terrified her out of her wits.”
Annabelle Page 9
