She felt someone tying a rope round her ankles.
Then the man who was carrying her, and he seemed very strong, began to walk away.
Serla knew despairingly that she was out of sight of the house.
It just seemed incredible and impossible that it was happening, yet it was.
The man’s arms tightened and he then went faster.
‘Help me,’ she cried silently. ‘Oh, please God help me!’
*
The Marquis had pushed his horses as hard as he could, but knew, as he turned in at the gates of Darincourt Hall, that it was far too late for him to see his new horses and Serla might even have gone to bed.
He had begun to believe that he would never get away from London and might even have to stay the night.
He had to admit, however, that the Prince Regent had been right in sending for him. It all concerned some trouble with the French over an incident that had occurred when the Army of Occupation was stationed in Cambrai.
At the time when it happened the Marquis had been there and he could explain exactly what had transpired.
The War Office had not been able to get in touch with the Duke of Wellington, who was in Scotland.
To the Prince Regent’s delight he was consulted.
He had been kept out of many things that concerned the governing of the country and he was therefore always thrilled when his advice was asked and he had the answer.
He had realised at once that the one person who in Wellington’s absence could be of use was the Marquis and that was his reason for insisting on his return to London.
The Marquis had been able to tell the War Office what they wanted to know. Yet needless to say it had taken a very long time and he had been asked a great number of questions, which he had thought unnecessary.
As soon as he was free, he jumped into his phaeton and set off at once for Darincourt.
It took a long time, although he did not stop to eat or drink, and it was dark when he finally arrived.
The stars, however, were coming out and there was a full moon and that was no compensation for knowing that it was too late to go to the stables.
He left his phaeton and walked up to the front door.
It was already opened by Desbury, the old butler.
“I thinks you’d forgotten all about us, my Lord,” he said when the Marquis appeared.
“I came as soon as I could. I suppose everyone is in bed.”
“Her Ladyship is, my Lord, but I’m a bit worried as Miss Ashton has not returned.”
“Not returned? What do you mean by that?”
Desbury looked towards one of the footmen.
“A woman called to see her, my Lord, about two hours ago. She said her dog was injured, but Miss Ashton has not come back.”
“A woman, what woman?” the Marquis asked.
The footman came forward as Desbury beckoned.
“’Twas a young woman, my Lord, but no one as comes from the village or I’d have known her.”
“What was she like?” the Marquis asked.
The footman scratched his head before he replied,
“Well, my Lord, I may not be right, but I thinks she be a gypsy.”
“A gypsy and Miss Ashton has not returned?”
“No, my Lord.”
“You are quite certain of that?”
“As it happens, my Lord,” Desbury said, “I have been up to Miss Ashton’s bedroom just in case she’d come in and no one had noticed her, but the maid who’s been looking after her said there’s been no sign of her.”
The Marquis’s instinct told him at once that there was something very wrong.
It was the same instinct which had warned him in the War when things were becoming dangerous.
Without saying anything more, he ran down the steps and walked very quickly towards the stables.
The Head Groom was there as he had been waiting for the phaeton to come back.
The Marquis gave his orders sharply and clearly. It was the way he had given orders before going into battle.
After the first glance when he began speaking, the grooms listened attentively, ran to obey and five minutes later four of them were mounted on horses.
The Marquis swung himself onto the saddle of the one he had chosen to ride.
The Head Groom then handed him a pistol that was always kept in the phaeton for fear of highwaymen.
The Marquis put it in his pocket and he had already told the four grooms that they were to be armed.
Then, as they waited, he said,
“Now you quite understand. You each ride in the direction I have told you to go. At the first sign of a gypsy caravan you make an owl-hoot several times. As it is a clear calm evening, I shall undoubtedly hear it. All the rest of you will be waiting for the signal and when it comes you ride straight in that direction.”
He paused to see if they were all listening to him.
“Whoever sees the gypsies,” he went on, “is not to go near to them. Just continue every four or five minutes repeating an owl-hoot. As you are all countrymen, you can hoot so that the gypsies don’t realise what we are doing. Do you understand?”
“Yes, my Lord, we understand,” they murmured.
“Then, when you join me, I will give you the next orders,” the Marquis said. “Go now quickly.”
The men obeyed him and then he slowly rode down the drive in the direction that the footman told him Serla had gone.
It seemed incredible that this should happen to her.
At the same time he was almost certain that she had been abducted on Charlotte’s orders.
If she was carried far it would be impossible to find her and the only hope was to track her down immediately.
He knew that gypsies would not travel far at night and, if they camped and one of his men discovered her, then he would know exactly what to do.
It was, he feared, only a chance that he had got it right, yet every instinct now told him that this was what was needed if he was to save Serla.
‘It is my fault,’ he chided himself. ‘I should have anticipated that Charlotte would not let her get away with it so easily. As I thought before, Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.’
CHAPTER SIX
Serla felt herself thrown down roughly onto what seemed to be a hard bed.
Then, as wheels began turning underneath her, she knew that she was in a caravan.
It was being driven at a very much faster speed than gypsies usually achieved and, as the road was so rough, she felt herself being bumped from side to side.
She tried to think what could be happening or who was responsible for treating her in such a way.
Then, almost as if a voice was telling her, she knew that it was Charlotte. Of course it was Charlotte, avenging herself because the Marquis had turned the tables on her.
It was difficult to breathe and as difficult to think.
Serla hoped she would not faint from suffocation as the thick cloth over her face made her feel as if she was gasping for breath.
Without her even being aware of it, while he was carrying her, the gypsy had tied a rope round her waist.
When he had thrown her down on the bed, he had tightened the rope so that she could not move her arms and her ankles had already been tied before he started to take her away from the Park.
It was difficult to think or to formulate anything in her mind, until unexpectedly the heavy rug was then taken off her face.
The caravan was still moving at a steady speed and there were no lights inside it.
Serla became aware that it was a woman who was beside her and who had made it easier for her to breathe.
She drew in a deep breath and felt, either from lack of air or fear, that her lips were dry.
“Where am – I?” she asked unsteadily.
The gypsy woman did not reply, she merely put her finger on Serla’s lips to ensure silence.
There was nothing Serla could do but lie still in the darkness,
terrified as to what would happen to her at the end of the journey.
Perhaps Charlotte had told the gypsies to dispose of her in some way. She could be drowned in stream that they were passing.
It was then she began to pray again for help, not only to God but to the Marquis as well.
He had not yet come back when she left the house and perhaps when he did he would not enquire where she was, but would take it that she had gone up to bed.
Every possibility she thought of seemed to be more frightening than the last and she could only send a cry of help towards him.
‘Help me, help me, I am being taken away from you and you may never see me again. Help! Help me!’
It was a cry that came from the depths of her heart.
Serla knew that there was no one else who could save her, no one else would have any idea of the danger she was in.
‘As we made plans together, talked together and thought together,’ she told herself, ‘I am sure that I can make him hear me.’
She remembered how her father had told her that in India the people often communicated with each other by sheer thought. A man who was hundreds of miles away from his family would know when one of them had died and he could be called to their side if they were in trouble.
‘If the Indians can do it, I can too,’ she told herself.
She went on calling out to the Marquis in her heart and begged him to hear her with every nerve in her body.
‘Help me! Help me! Oh, God, make him hear me.’
The caravan must have travelled for nearly an hour and then it seemed to turn off as if leaving the road. It was bumping over what Serla thought must be thick grass.
‘If we are going to camp for the night,’ she told herself, ‘there is a chance of Clive finding me.’
He would be home by now and surely he would ask where she was.
She tried to remember at what time the footmen changed their duties and when the night-footman came on duty. And he would not know what had happened.
The only thing she could do was to go on praying for the Marquis to hear her.
Outside she could hear other caravans near to the one she was in and then, when the sound of their wheels ceased, there were voices talking to each other.
They seemed to be busy about something and Serla wondered what it was.
Then she was aware that there was a light coming in through the sides of the door in the front of her caravan.
She guessed that a fire had been kindled and she was sure of this when later there was a smell of food.
She thought that it must be rabbit as they would have snared them in the woods while they were camping during the day.
She wondered if she would be offered anything to eat, perhaps as a prisoner they would give her nothing.
If they were in a great hurry to go further away from Darincourt Hall, she would probably not be given any food until tomorrow.
It was only supposition, just ideas moving through her mind.
What she longed to do was to scream for help, but she knew that it would do no good. If she made a noise they might throw the heavy rug over her again so that she could not breathe.
Once again she was praying.
‘Help me, Almighty God, please help me. Send the Marquis to me. He is the only one who can rescue me.’
She wanted him so desperately she felt just as if she could see him looking handsome and so sure of himself. So very much the hero he had been in the War.
It was then, as she called again for him in her mind, that she knew that she loved him.
It was hopeless, a love that could never be requited and there was nothing she could do about it.
As she cried out to him for help, she knew that her heart and soul called for him too.
What she was feeling was love.
The love that she had always wanted and the love that she believed was perfect and came from God.
But only if the man she loved could return the love she was offering him with all her heart.
*
Waiting for the cries of the owl, the Marquis was calculating.
Just how long was it now since, according to the footman, Serla had gone away with the gypsy woman. It must be, he thought, nearly two hours.
Now the night had closed in and there was a moon high over the trees and the sky was filled with stars.
He thought, as he waited, that each minute seemed to take an hour.
Above all was the fear that he would not trace the gypsies and Serla would be carried too far from Darincourt for him ever to catch up with her.
‘Gypsies cannot travel very fast,’ he told himself as their rumbling caravans could only move slowly and they would doubtless have spare horses that were usually led.
‘Where can she be?’ he kept asking himself.
At the same time he listened intently, feeling that he must soon hear the sound that he was waiting for.
Then, as he was feeling desperate, he heard it.
It was undoubtedly the sound of an owl far in the distance and to the South.
He had expected the gypsies to go in the direction of London, but they were moving South.
He then sent up his own hoot, hoping that the other grooms who had ridden in other directions would hear it.
He made the cry twice more before he rode towards the hoot he had heard.
As he galloped over the fields, he heard it nearer each time the groom made it.
Then unexpectedly by a small copse he heard it so loudly that it made him start.
He pushed his horse forward and a moment later was with the groom he was seeking.
“You have found her, Henry?” he asked keeping his voice very low.
“Them gypsies be just across the road, my Lord, and campin’ in the field beyond it.”
“Good boy!” the Marquis exclaimed.
As he spoke he glanced back over the field.
He saw in the moonlight two of the other grooms approaching him at a gallop. They were still some distance away and he said to Henry in a whisper,
“How many caravans are there?”
“I thinks five, my Lord.”
The Marquis reckoned that there would be five men at least and perhaps some boys.
But with four of his men fully armed, there should be no trouble if they took them by surprise.
He waited until the other grooms came up to him and fortunately they were to see him in the moonlight.
The Marquis wasted no time in talking.
“Follow me and have your pistols at the ready.”
He had seen that there was a gate out of the field they were in now leading onto the road.
A bit further up was where the gypsies had camped.
When the Marquis reached them, he saw that Henry had been right in telling him that there were five caravans and they seemed hardly enough for the number of gypsies clustered round the fire.
They were all eating out of bowls what had been cooked on the fire.
There was no gate to the field and, as the Marquis rode in, the gypsies looked up in surprise.
Then three of the men sprang to their feet, followed by the others.
The Marquis drew up beside them with the three grooms just behind him.
“I want to speak to your Leader or Chief,” he said.
An older dark-skinned man with lanky black hair hanging down on either side of his face, was, the Marquis thought, a Romany.
“That be me,” he said.
“I wish to speak to you.”
Somewhat reluctantly, he thought, the gypsy moved a little nearer to him.
The Marquis, lowering his voice, asserted,
“You have a young lady you have taken from my house not far away. What were you paid to abduct her?”
The gypsy started and then said quickly,
“No sir, no lady, only gypsies ’ere.”
“That is not true!” the Marquis said. “Tell me what you were paid to take her away and I will double it if y
ou give her back to me.”
He paused and then, as he felt that the gypsy was about to refuse, he added,
“Otherwise we will take her by force. I have three men with me and others on their way.”
As he spoke, he drew out his pistol.
As if it was an unspoken command, all three of the grooms brought theirs out from their pockets and then held them pointing in the direction of the gypsy.
The Gypsy Chief eyed them and in a very surly voice replied,
“Ten pounds, I were given, ten pounds!”
The Marquis put his hand into his inside pocket and drew out his wallet.
He took from it a bank note of that denomination and bending down handed it to the gypsy.
“Now bring me the lady,” he demanded sharply.
The Gypsy Chief took the note and thrust it into his clothes.
Then he snapped his fingers and spoke in Romany to two of the women.
They climbed up into one of the caravans.
While the Marquis waited, the other gypsies stared at him without moving.
He knew that they were scared and they made no attempt to move as if they knew that unarmed they had no chance of winning a battle.
It now seemed to the Marquis that the women were taking a very long time.
And he was not to know that they were undoing the ropes round Serla’s body.
She had, however, heard the Marquis’s voice.
Although she wanted to scream and tell him where she was, she knew because he was speaking quietly that it would be a mistake.
It was almost as if he was telling her to keep silent and not to make a scene unless it was absolutely necessary.
The two women pulled off the rope round her body and undid the one round her ankles.
Then they pulled Serla, who was still lying on the bed, towards the door of the caravan.
Because the ropes had hurt her, it was difficult for the moment to try to walk.
As the women opened the caravan door, she heard the Marquis give a sharp order.
The man who was the Chief and who Serla knew had carried her when she was in the Park held out his arms.
One glance told Serla that the Marquis was still on his horse.
She understood why the man was lifting her from the caravan not onto the ground, but into his arms and then he carried her the short distance to the Marquis.
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