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

out into the library.

‘Lay him down on a sofa,’ Melusine said, coming out behind them and moving towards the antechamber.

‘You keep a-hold of him,’ Trodger ordered his men.

‘Parbleu, do you think he will run away? He has a bullet inside him, and it must be taken out.’

‘If he has a bullet inside of him,’ said the sergeant stolidly, ‘there ain’t no one can take it out better nor me. Many’s the bullets I’ve dug out of fellows in my time.’

‘But you are not a surgeon,’ protested Melusine.

‘I’m a soldier, missie. Been in the wars with both the major and Capting Roding, I have,’ Trodger informed her loftily. ‘I knows how to do better nor any surgeon.’

‘Then do it,’ Melusine said with impatience. ‘But lay him down.’

‘Ah, but I’m thinking as how this here house ain’t the best spot for an operation of that kind, missie,’ explained the sergeant, and Melusine noted that his men exchanged anguished glances. Trodger laid down their muskets and turned on them. ‘That’s right, you bone idle do-nothings. You can come back for these, for you’ll carry him to the gatehouse, that’s what you’ll do.’

Melusine jumped. ‘The gatehouse? But why must you move him at all?’

‘Listen, missie. If you can’t see as how there ain’t nothing in this barrack of a place to help me do the job, I can. Water I need. Clean water. A handy knife, and a good tot of something sharp to clean out the wound. Blue Ruin will do the job nicely. Ah, and put him under if he wakes up. Now I ain’t saying as how that there Pottiswick—’

‘How you talk,’ interrupted Melusine impatiently. She pushed at the closer of the two soldiers bearing the precious burden. ‘Go then. At once. If it is that you need these things, then of course we will go there.’

‘Get going, then,’ Trodger told his men.

Next moment, he had Melusine by the arm. ‘Now then, missie. You’ll come along of me, for you’re under arrest, too.’

‘Pah! Your major will say something to this. But you need not fear,’ she added, shaking him off. ‘Do not imagine that I will leave poor Jacques. I will go with you.’

‘Can’t say as I’m sorry to hear you say that, missie,’ confessed the sergeant, on a relieved note, as he locked the front door of the mansion and pocketed the key. ‘Couldn’t reconcile it with my dooty to leave you here—’

A thought made Melusine stop dead, turning to him. ‘You did not find Gosse, that is seen, but—’

‘Gosse? Gosse? Who’s this here Gosse then?’

‘He is the Frenchman of whom I told you. You did not find him, but did you find his pistol? In the room beyond the bookroom there—a big room where a table had fallen. And a broken picture that was torn when I hit him with it.’

‘Woof!’ Sergeant Trodger’s eyes fairly popped out of his head, and he seized his prisoner’s arm again. ‘Seems to me, missie, as you’re as dangerous a female as I’m like to see. Pistols and pictures? Now it fair goes agin’ me nature to act rough with a lady, but you’ll come along of me at once. I got to have you under guard in the gatehouse, I can see that.’

Melusine gave it up. There was nothing to be got out of the man. ‘Certainly you may have me under guard. I do not care in the least. Only that you will hurry and help Jacques.’

***

 

In the cosy little parlour that Pottiswick rarely used, Melusine paced restlessly to and fro. She had removed her hat and utterly disarranged her already unruly black locks by running agitated fingers through them. Outside the door stood one of the soldiers. The other was helping Trodger with his operation upstairs.

In truth, she had been quite glad to lose the argument about remaining while the bullet was dug out of Jack’s side. She was not squeamish—although the sight of the sergeant’s ominous preparations had severely tried her fortitude—but Kimble’s white face plagued her conscience. She allowed herself to be ejected, therefore, and retired to the parlour after cleansing the blood from her hands and her own slight wound in the kitchen.

With the immediate necessities in train, Melusine fell to brooding on her situation, which she found insupportable. With Jack so badly injured, how would she get him home? How get herself home, now that Trodger had arrested her. What of Gosse, whom those soldiers had allowed to escape? Hiding—or perhaps gone. Then there was also the horse. Peste, but everything had become difficult. And all to find that picture of Mary Remenham.

The thought of the picture but added to her despondency. The sergeant had not seen it for he understood nothing of what she told him. What had happened to it? She had broken it, certainly. And severely hurt that pig, which was a very good thing. But it was her proof. Had Gosse taken it as he escaped? What could she do? Gosse now knew that she was the daughter of Mary Remenham. If he wished, he could even take this inheritance from her.

For the first time, Melusine heartily regretted her rejection of the major’s services. She cursed herself for a fool. Was not Gerald altogether on her side? He was, even though he played games like an imbecile, a person tout à fait sympathique as she had discovered at the outset. And what did she do? Not only did she cut his hand in her rage, but she refused to let him help her, and then she ran away from him. Of a certainty, she also was imbecile. Or mad, just as the captain had said so many times. For was not Gerald a gentleman? An Englishman, whose services any female—excluding her own self so idiote—would be very happy to have.

Her eyes filled as she thought of him, the image of his laughing countenance coming into her mind, to be swiftly followed by a vision of the blood running from his cut hand. A hollow feeling opened up inside her, and she felt her heartbeat quicken.

She would write to Gerald. He would come swiftly to her aid, she knew it. For she needed him. How she needed him!

Next moment, she had wrenched open the door, and was confronting her guard. ‘You! Tell this fool who is the keeper here to come to me at once.’

‘Miss?’ gaped the soldier.

‘The old man who lives here, idiot.’

‘Pottiswick, you mean, miss?’

‘Yes, yes. Go quickly and call him.’

‘But I can’t leave you, miss.’

‘Pah! Do you think I will run away? Do not be so foolish, and go and fetch him this instant.’

Thus adjured, but mindful of Trodger’s orders, the militiaman went down the hall backwards, his eyes fixed on the prisoner. At the door to the kitchen, he called out, ‘Pottiswick!’

The old man came out, shoving his chin in the air and glaring. ‘Now what?’

The guard jerked his head up the corridor. ‘She wants you.’

Melusine caught the fellow eyeing her with resentment and beckoned as she called out to him. ‘You! Have you pen and paper?’

‘Pen and paper now, is it?’ grumbled the old man as he shuffled down the hall. ‘Ain’t enough as my bed is took, my sheets all bloodied, and my gin took for to waste on that fellow’s wound. Ain’t enough as I’ve got militiamen quartered on me this se’ennight, lazing about all day, eating me out of house and home and drinking my liquor into the bargain. Nor as I’ve to put up with a French spy in my parlour—’

‘Peste, how you talk,’ interrupted Melusine impatiently, barely taking in his complaints. ‘Pen and paper, do you have them?’

‘Danged if I have,’ came the truculent response. ‘What was you wanting it for, may I ask?’

‘You may not ask, for it is none of your affair,’ Melusine snapped. ‘But I will tell you this, mon vieux. The day comes when you shall regret how you have spoken to me.’

Pottiswick sucked at his teeth through the gaps. ‘Don’t rightly know how you make that out, you being a French spy and a prisoner and all.’

‘I will tell you how I make that out,’ Melusine said fiercely. ‘Me, I am Mademoiselle Charvill, the granddaughter of Monsieur Jar-vis Re-men-ham.’

‘You ain’t never,’ gasped Pottiswick. ‘Danged if I ever hear the like! A Frenchie is what you are, and there ain’t no granddaughter Charvill no more. Not these twenty year.’

‘That is what you think? Eh bien. You have a daughter, no? Madame Ibstock, I think.’

The lodgekeeper’s jaw fell open. ‘Who telled you that?’

‘Do not ask me impertinent questions, but only go you and fetch this daughter here to me. At once.’

The old man simply stared at her. ‘Danged if I ever hear the like,’ he repeated blankly.

‘Parbleu, you are deaf perhaps? It is seen that you are very old, certainly.’

Colour suffused the man’s face. ‘Deaf? Deaf? I’ll have you know, miss—’

‘Do not have me know anything,’ interrupted Melusine crossly, and digging into her habit, produced the fateful dagger that had cut Gerald’s hand. ‘To the contrary, I will have you to know something. You will do as I say, or—’

‘Hoy!’ called Trodger from down the hall. ‘You put that thing away now, missie. We don’t want no trouble, do we?’

At sight of him, everything went out of Melusine’s head but the thought of Jack Kimble. She started forward.

‘Jacques? You have done it? He is alive?’

‘Oh, he’s alive, all right,’ confirmed the sergeant, putting the petrified Pottiswick—stockstill and staring in horror at the dagger—firmly out of his way and taking his place before Melusine. ‘Sleeping like a baby, he is. He’ll do.’

Melusine sank against the wall of the corridor, closing her eyes. ‘Merci, dieu.’

‘Now then, missie,’ began the sergeant severely, ‘just you hand over that dagger. Nice goings on. Ladies with weapon’s on ’em.’ He took the thing from Melusine’s listless grasp and went on, ‘Now then, what’s all this here argy-bargy with Pottiswick?’

Melusine opened her eyes and straightened up. She had hardly noticed the loss of her dagger, so strong had been the waves of relief that attacked her on hearing that Jack had returned from death’s door. But this was important.

‘Bon. You will make him get his daughter, if you please. She is called Madame Ibstock, you understand.’

‘Is she now? And what would you be wanting of her, may I ask?’

‘Because she knows something that may make this fool understand that I am the mistress of—’ She broke off. There was no sense in creating further difficulties for herself by arguing with the sergeant over her identity. An admirable alternative presented itself and she sighed, spreading her hands. ‘You see, it is that I am a female, and you all are men. It is not at all comme il faut.’

Trodger frowned, and chewed his lip. ‘Something in that, missie. But I’m thinking as how I’d best report to the major over this here shooting.’

‘Yes, do so,’ rejoined Melusine enthusiastically. ‘En effet, it is for this that I was enquiring of this man if he has pen and paper. I will write to your major, and you will send the letter very quickly. Also, you must send someone to fetch my horse—at least, it is not mine but I have borrowed it to come here—because it will be dark very soon and—’

‘Woof! Hold it, hold it,’ begged the sergeant. ‘One thing at a time, missie.’ He turned to the lodgekeeper behind him, whose shocked fear had given place to a direful frown. ‘Here you, Pottiswick. Get pen and paper for the missie. Then go and fetch this daughter of yourn. Don’t stand gawping, man. And you’d better have her fetch in some food for the missie, an’ all. Get on, do.’

He gave the gaping Pottiswick a shove, passing him on to his junior, who was waiting patiently by the kitchen door. The militiaman at once thrust