Mademoiselle At Arms, Elizabeth Bailey [bearly read books txt] 📗

turn it on its back.

‘Oh, mon dieu. Jacques, Jacques!’

His face was white, but his eyes were open, if a trifle glazed. He groaned, much to Melusine’s relief.

‘Jacques, where are you hurt?’

But as she asked the question, she saw the wound. It was at his side below the breast, hidden by the dark colour of his close-fitting jacket. Melusine ripped at the buttons of the garment, dragging it open and away, and gasped at the massive red stain on his shirt.

She glanced at the Frenchman, and found him struggling with the portrait that was embedded around his scalp. All at once she became aware of sounds outside. Furious shouting, and the thunder of running feet.

The soldiers! They must not find her here. Nor Jacques. Better they should find the so-called Valade. They would arrest him for the French spy they had thought her at first. What better way to be rid of him?

‘Jacques,’ she uttered urgently. ‘Quickly! You must get up. We will go to the passage and then I shall bind you. Come, mon ami, come!’

Ever faithful, Kimble dragged himself into a sitting position, gasping at the pain this caused him.

‘Parbleu, the bullet is still inside you,’ Melusine guessed, remembering how the Mother Abbess had diagnosed Leonardo’s suffering when he had first come to the convent.

She looked round wildly, as if seeking some source of help, as the boots halted at the front door and the shouting intensified.

But there was only Gosse, still struggling with the picture, looking dazedly towards Melusine and the lad he had shot, then away towards the sounds of pursuit, and back again.

‘Do not think—’ he panted, ‘that I am finished—with you, mademoiselle.’

‘Let’s...go...while we can,’ Kimble managed, and dragged himself onto his knees.

Melusine got to her feet and, tucking her shoulder under his arm on the uninjured side, put her arm about him to hold his waist, and thus contrived to take most of his weight. Together they made their painful way to the door, not even checking, in the effort this cost both, on what Gosse might be doing.

Once they were on the move, Kimble seemed to find strength from somewhere. ‘I’ll make it, miss. Hurry...before them soldiers...get in. The panel in the bookcase...it’s open.’

They passed through a little antechamber, and Melusine sighed with relief as she entered the library next door. Activity in the hall intensified. The militia were in already. They must have a key. She hurried with Jack as fast as she could to the open door to the passage. The lantern was on the ground inside, ready. She let Jack go as he passed through the opening. He went in and leaned, panting, against one wall.

Melusine came in, picked up the lantern, and heard the library door bang open just as the panel clicked closed behind her.

‘Come, Jacques, mon pauvre,’ she uttered, and reached for the lad again, hardly aware of the muted sounds of running feet and much banging and crashing beyond the secret door.

She helped Jack to sit down, and dragged the jacket off him, lifting his shirt to expose the gash that had sliced across his side. Using the shirt, she cleaned away the blood. It was not as bad a wound as she had at first thought, and the blood was only oozing now. Melusine sighed with relief and set to work by the light of the lantern.

Jack seemed glad enough to rest, his back against the wall, and closed his eyes. Melusine ripped strips off her under-petticoats and fashioned a pad, which she bandaged as tightly as she could over the wound, working swiftly, unperturbed by the gore. She had not nursed Leonardo for weeks for nothing. The nuns had no regard for the sensibilities of a “lady” and expected Melusine—for it was her allotted task—to clean and tend the soldier’s wounds even when they festered.

While she worked, Melusine worried over the problem of getting Jack home. First the passage to be negotiated. Then a ride to London on horseback. Could she hold him and manage the reins? If only Gerald had not gone. No, this was imbecile. She had begun alone. She would end alone. Voilà tout.

‘Up, Jacques, up,’ she ordered.

Her faithful servant struggled, with her assistance, to rise. Melusine’s heart ached for him, but she had to force him on.

There was barely room for one, let alone two, in the passage, and Melusine ended up backwards, supporting Jack as best she could as he stumbled along, grasping the rough walls on either side with both hands.

Melusine cursed herself for his injury. Cursed him for his devotion that had made him come back for her, only to get himself shot by the fiendish Gosse. And where was that devil? Had the soldiers found him? She could not think he had escaped, for she had only just made it into the passage as they entered the library. Unless—would he hide from them as he had hidden from her? It was a big house, he said. Catch him, she begged silently.

All at once she realised that Kimble had halted, leaning heavily against the wall.

‘Jacques?’

‘No...good, miss. I can’t...’

He slid slowly down and collapsed to the stone floor, fainting dead away.

‘Jacques!’

Melusine dropped to her haunches beside his inert form, feeling for the wound. It was bleeding again. She tightened her bandage and sat back, biting her lip. They could not go on. Tears sprang to her eyes. What a pig she was. If Jack should die, all though her fault, she could never forgive herself.

She put a hand to the lad’s cold cheek and choked on a sob. ‘Jacques, do not die while I am gone.’

Grasping the lantern, and heedless now of the discomforts of the passage, Melusine flew like the wind back towards the library, the vision of Jack Kimble’s white face driving her on. Reaching the panel, she was able with the aid of her lantern to find the lever at once. Her heart full of dread, she dragged on it.

As the secret door opened, the sounds within the house came at once to her ears: the tramping of feet above, and the hoarse voices echoing through the mansion. Leaving the panel wide, Melusine dashed to the library door and flung it open, racing into the hall.

‘You, soldiers,’ she yelled. ‘To me, quickly!’

There was a brief hush, and then the shouts resumed and several pairs of feet clattered towards her from, as it seemed, several directions. A militiaman came belting down the stairs, another leapt from outside the front door, and a third, stalwart and stolid, came in through the door that led to the rooms to the front of the house. Melusine recognised the burly form of Captain Roding’s sergeant.

‘Ha! It’s you, is it?’ He threw a glance at his two juniors. ‘Cover her, men. That Frenchie, that’s who she is.’

Relief flooded Melusine. ‘You are the one that I have met in London.’

‘That’s right,’ agreed the militiaman, coming forward to stand before her. ‘Sergeant Trodger is who I am. Now then, missie—’

‘Bon,’ said Melusine, interrupting him without ceremony, and paying no attention to the muskets that were pointing at her from two directions. ‘I am glad it is you, because you can help me.’

‘That depends, that does,’ said Trodger guardedly. ‘Now then, where did you spring from?’

‘Do not concern yourself from where I come,’ Melusine snapped. ‘More important is that you help me instantly, as even your capitaine would command.’

‘Capting Roding wouldn’t never command me to help no Frenchie,’ said the sergeant positively.

‘Parbleu, you waste time. Certainly your major—’

‘Ah, now that’s just it, missie. According to what I’ve heard, you oughtn’t to be here. Major said you’d gorn.’

‘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