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

Melusine did not say it, for wet-nurse no longer seemed appropriate. Martha had been more to her than that.

‘It was a good chance for a new life,’ Joan explained, venturing to face Melusine again, ‘and Martha took it. Small blame to her. But we were both pledged to secrecy, and I couldn’t reveal my part for fear that I would lose my place. For Mr Jarvis was beside himself when the letter come from Mr Charvill and he knew he’d lost you as well as Miss Mary.’ Tears glistened in her eyes. ‘He’d have been that happy if he’d known how you’re the spit of her, miss.’

Melusine jumped up, full of new hope, all the earlier clouds vanishing from her horizon. ‘But this is altogether a chance of the luckiest. You will be my witness, Madame Joan. When I shall go to the lawyers that have the interest of this estate Remenham, you will come with me.’

‘Me, miss?’ uttered Mrs Ibstock doubtfully. ‘Who’d believe me? And I’d have to tell my part in it all, too.’

‘What matters it?’ cried Melusine impatiently. ‘Who is to be angry with you now?’

‘Miss Prudence, that’s who,’ stated Joan bluntly. ‘What’s more, I wouldn’t blame her.’

Arrested, Melusine eyed her with interest. ‘Prudence? This name I have heard it spoken. It is a very good English name, no? But who is she?’

‘Mrs Sindlesham, I should say,’ said Mrs Ibstock, correcting herself. ‘And she’s—’ She broke off, a sudden light in her eyes. ‘Why, that’s it. That’s who you ought to go and see, miss.’

‘Who, Joan, who? Of whom do you speak?’

‘Mrs Sindlesham. Mr Jarvis’s sister, that was. Leastways, she’d be your great-aunt, wouldn’t she?’

Astounded, Melusine was just about to demand further information, when a commotion outside the room interrupted her. She turned towards the door, and had taken a pace towards it when it was flung open.

Captain Roding strode into the parlour. He was no longer in military uniform, and it was evident from his suit of brown brocade that he had been disturbed while preparing for an evening engagement.

Without preamble, in a voice of extreme exasperation, he demanded, ‘Now what the devil’s to do? What in God’s name do you mean by sending Gerald such a ridiculous letter? Never read anything half as crazy. What do you mean by it, eh?’

‘But I did not send it to you,’ Melusine rejoined instantly. ‘Where is Gérard?’

‘Out of town,’ Hilary said briefly. ‘And I’d like to know what the devil—’

‘Out of town?’ repeated Melusine, stupefied. ‘Parbleu, is this a moment to be out of town? What is the matter with him that he is out of town when I need him?’

‘Famous!’ uttered a new voice from the doorway. ‘I knew you would be furious. Did I not say so, Hilary?’

Melusine’s glance shot across to the newcomer, and found a petite blonde standing there, very fashionably attired in a velvet mantel over an apple-green robe, the furred hood framing a face alive with mischief. She came quickly into the little parlour, which now seemed inordinately crowded, and coming up to Melusine, seized her hands in a warm clasp.

‘How do you do? I am so happy to meet you. I am Lucilla Froxfield, you must know. I am betrothed to Captain Roding, which is why you can’t have him, you see.’ She smiled on the last words, adding, ‘Oh, I don’t blame you for trying. He is delightful, is he not?’

‘That will do, Lucilla.’

Melusine found her tongue. ‘If you mean this capitaine, he is on the contrary altogether the least delightful person I have met.’

‘What, even less delightful than Gerald?’ enquired Lucilla, her eyes dancing.

‘As to that, I am at this moment altogether displeased with Gérard, you understand,’ Melusine temporised.

‘I rather gathered as much,’ said Miss Froxfield, releasing her hands. ‘And I do understand. Quite trying of him not to be there when he is wanted. But that is men all over.’

‘Yes, and it seems to me a very strange thing that he interferes all the time in my affairs when I do not want him to do so,’ Melusine said aggrievedly, ‘and the very first time that I wish him in truth to rescue me, he is not there. Parbleu, but I will certainly kill him this time.’

A peal of delighted laughter greeted this threat. ‘Yes, do,’ approved Lucilla. ‘Will you—what was it?—“blow off his head”?’

Melusine eyed her, a little uncertain. ‘You make a game with me, I think.’

‘No, no,’ the other lady assured her with a twinkle. ‘I can’t tell you the times I’ve wished for a gun to point at Hilary’s head. Perhaps I may borrow yours one day?’

‘Lucilla, you wretch,’ burst from the captain.

‘But she will not shoot you,’ Melusine told him flatly. ‘One does not blow off the head of a man with whom one is in love, en effet.’

‘Don’t be too sure,’ said Miss Froxfield darkly, with a mischievous glance at her betrothed.

‘I can’t help but be sure,’ he returned shortly. ‘You wouldn’t know one end of a pistol from the other.’ He turned to Melusine, ignoring the indignant protest that greeted his words. ‘And it may interest you to know, mademoiselle, that the first thing Gerald must needs do on reaching town is to rush off to that convent of yours to make sure you were safe.’

‘Truly?’ asked Melusine, warmth lighting her bosom. ‘But I was not there.’

‘Of course you weren’t there,’ snapped Hilary. ‘Knew you had the lad with you, and thought you were merely delayed. So he made his dispositions and went off on some other fool’s errand.’

‘But what dispositions?’

‘Posted the men I had brought back with me all about Golden Square to watch for Valade.’

‘Ah, that was well done of him,’ exclaimed Melusine. ‘In this case, I will not kill him at all, even that he should have remained to wait for my letter.’

‘Well, I am glad he did not,’ intervened Lucilla, forestalling another withering comment from the captain. ‘For your messenger was obliged instead to come and find Hilary, and it has given me the opportunity to meet you. And I have wanted to so very much.’

‘But why?’ asked Melusine, astonished, and somewhat overwhelmed by the other girl’s volubility.

‘Don’t be silly. Such a mystery as you have set up. Anyone would be intrigued.’

‘Yes, but I do not wish to have a mystery.’

‘It cannot be helped now. Oh, and only look at those stains,’ cried Miss Froxfield, gesturing at the blood on the ruffles to the sleeves of Melusine’s riding-habit, and on the chemise she wore under it.

Melusine shrugged. ‘It is nothing. One little minute with soap and water, voilà tout.’

‘Glad you’re so sanguine,’ interrupted Captain Roding. ‘Gerald had to change both shirt and breeches.’

The reference to Major Alderley’s wounds reminded Melusine all at once of the fight they’d had, and its consequence. Peste, she had forgot the sword. What was to happen now? She turned to Roding quickly.

‘You have come to me in place of Gérard? But how is it you will help me?’

‘That’s all right and tight. We’ve brought a carriage to take you back to London, and I’ve settled with Trodger, who has just given me a coherent account of the affair. You’re neither of you any longer under arrest.’

‘Ah, then indeed I thank you,’ said Melusine on a sigh of relief, moved for once to smile at the captain. ‘But my poor Jacques is wounded and—’

‘All taken care of,’ interrupted Hilary. ‘There’s a surgeon on his way, and my men are under orders to do whatever is needful. When the lad is fit to be moved, we’ll bring him home.’

Melusine blinked at this competence. ‘But—’

‘Nothing at all for you to worry your head over,’ said the captain, moving to try and usher her forth. ‘You’ll come with us and get yourself safe back home to your convent, understand?’

‘But wait,’ begged Melusine, hanging back. ‘First I must see Jacques, and—’

‘No need for that,’ intervened Roding, grasping her arm and trying to drag her to the door. ‘Come along. Where is your hat?’

‘Parbleu, is this a way to rescue me?’ Melusine demanded, digging in her heels and wrenching her arm out of his hold. ‘I have first some affairs to finish.’

‘Yes, Hilary, do stop hustling the girl,’ put in Miss Froxfield, much to Melusine’s relief and approval. Shoving between them, she confronted the captain herself. ‘For my part, I am in no hurry to end this exciting little adventure.’

‘Adventure!’

But this sally was not attended to, Lucilla turning at once to Melusine. She put back her hood in a determined way. ‘Go on up to the boy, my dear. I will hold Hilary in check, never fear.’

‘Merci.’

About to hurry from the little parlour, Melusine remembered Mrs Ibstock. She whipped round suddenly, and discovered the woman wedged into the corner by the window, keeping out of the way.

‘Ah, Madame Joan. This woman knows me—’ throwing the remark at Lucilla ‘—and that I am the daughter of Mary Remenham. It is very important because I have lost my proof. She will tell you all the story while I am gone.’

Then she whisked from the room, hearing Lucilla utter a delighted squeal as she closed the door behind her. This Joan would hold them for a little. Enough to let her find out a piece of information most urgent.

Trodger was lying in wait at the bottom of the narrow stairs. ‘Now then, missie, where do you think you’re going?’

‘I must see Jacques only for one little minute,’ Melusine told him prettily, fluttering her lashes. ‘It is to say goodbye, you understand.’

‘Is it, now? Well you won’t, then, for he won’t hear nothing, missie. Fast asleep, he is.’

Melusine spread her hands and sighed. ‘But you do not understand, mon ami. Even that he sleeps, I must give to him my thanks, for he has been excessively brave for me.’

The sergeant’s air became positively avuncular. ‘Ah, trying to be the young hero, I take it, which is why he near got hisself killed. Many’s the young ’un I’ve seen get hisself into just such a knuckleheaded mess all on account of a pretty wench.’

‘But I find it was extremely kind of him,’ protested Melusine, ‘and since it is that he is not any more under arrest—’

‘No, he ain’t,’ interrupted Trodger in some dudgeon. ‘And I don’t mind telling you it goes agin’ the grain with me to let you go free and all, missie.’

‘But I have told you that your capitaine would not like it that you arrest me.’

‘Now that’s where you’re wrong. Left to Capting Roding, as he told me hisself, you’d be in prison this moment. Only the major won’t have it, and we’ve to bide by what the major says.’

‘Merci, Gérard,’ Melusine muttered under her breath, adding aloud, ‘And the major, he will also wish that you let me go to see Jacques. Please to let me go there.’

Grudgingly, the sergeant shifted aside and allowed her access to the stairs, grumbling to her retreating back, ‘If I’d me way, missie, I’d send you back to France where you ought never to have come away from, if you arst me.’

Melusine might have responded that she had not asked him, but she was too intent on her mission. She must speak to Jack. If he was asleep, then she much regretted that she must wake him up.

In fact, Kimble was drowsily awake when she entered the little bedchamber, the state of which left a good deal to be desired, even without the added debris arising from tending a wounded man. It was dusty, with dirty clothing strewn about, a cracked basin thick with grime on the rickety dresser, and a film of grease on the leaded casement.

Melusine, intent on the luckless Kimble, did not care. At sight of his wan features, she forgot the urgency of her need