Annabelle (17 page)

Just when he felt he could stand the strain no longer, he heard the blessed sounds of answering shouts. Soon he was surrounded by a crowd of guests and footmen. Willing hands helped him to support Annabelle, ropes were brought to tie up the Captain, and ladders were brought to place across the hole. All the while Lady Emmeline teetered and squawked, “It can’t be true. Not Jimmy. It can’t be true.”

Annabelle was wrapped in blankets, hot fiery drinks were poured down her throat, and slowly her large eyes fluttered open.

The watching members of the
ton
gave a great sigh. Was it relief? Or was it disappointment?

After all, it would have made a far better piece of gossip had she died.

On the same evening a more international drama was taking place.

At the Congress of Vienna the tinkling sleigh parties drove nightly home from the Wienerwald, and the music of a succession of balls, concerts, tableaux vivants and masques kept the reelected statesmen in their powdered wigs and silk-covered calves too busy to pay any attention to the threatening rumors from France.

On March 7 while Vienna prepared for another great ball and the Czar of All the Russias spent a pleasant afternoon judging which of two ladies could dress the quickest—one managing the process in a minute and a quarter and the other in a minute and fifty seconds—a courier arrived at Metternich’s house with dispatches from Genoa. The Chancellor was too tired from the exhausting combination of business and revelry to open them directly.

After resting for a while on his couch, he felt once again strong enough to deal with affairs of state. And he opened the dispatch.

Napoleon had escaped from Elba. The Sovereigns of Europe, assembled in Vienna, had been too busy to pay
attention to that one ever-present threat. And they had let the Corsican ogre escape from his cage.

I
N
Berkeley Square, while Annabelle Quennell tossed and turned in a feverish sleep upstairs, Lord Varleigh paced Lady Emmeline’s drawing room and dealt with a diplomatic problem of his own.

Lady Emmeline had hysterically protested that Annabelle’s near drowning had been an accident. Lord Varleigh’s servants had placed the bound Captain in Lady Emmeline’s cellars while their master tried to make the Dowager Marchioness see sense. Lord Varleigh did not know of the Captain’s other attempts at murder or that he had been responsible for Caroline Dempsey’s death. He only knew that Captain Jimmy MacDonald, for some inexplicable reason, had tried to stop him from rescuing Annabelle. In his opinion the Captain should stand trial for attempted murder.

Lady Emmeline wept and pleaded. She had no son of her own, she said. Jimmy was like a son to her. She would die if anything happened to him.

In despair Lord Varleigh sent a footman to rout out the Captain’s Colonel.

Colonel James Ward-Price was a clever man on the field of battle and incredibly stupid in peacetime. He loved and admired Captain Jimmy MacDonald as standing for everything the perfect soldier should be. Lord Varleigh could not have sent for a worse judge.

The Colonel insisted on hearing Captain Jimmy MacDonald’s version of the story.

The Captain was led into the room with his hands behind his back. He looked as if he were about to face a firing squad and he indeed thought the game was up.

The first glimmer of hope he had was when Lady Emmeline rushed to him and threw her pudgy arms round his great body and smeared rouge and gray powder on
his chest. She was weeping and exclaiming over his bound hands and blaming Lord Varleigh for his “inhuman treatment.”

Then his Colonel ordered the footmen to unbind him and told him in a kindly gruff voice to sit down and tell them what it was all about because Miss Quennell was in a heavily sedated and feverish sleep.

That sulky, brooding, almost childish look that Lord Varleigh remembered came over the Captain’s face and he leaned forward in the chair provided for him, his hands on his knees and began to talk earnestly.

“Look, it’s like this. There’s no use me trying to say I haven’t behaved badly because I have. Annabelle had just told me finally that she was going home and didn’t want to have anything to do with me. I had seen her earlier kissing Varleigh and taxed her with it. She laughed in my face and said Varleigh was another rake and she had been leading him on just in order to tease him but that it didn’t matter anyway because she was quitting London and she would never see him again either. Seems she’s got a tendre for some chap in Yorkshire and she prefers him to all of us.”

“Go on,” said Lord Varleigh. His face was very white.

“Well…she fell backwards into this hole in the ice. I was as mad as fire with her, and I thought I would let her have a dunking to teach her a lesson. Then right at that moment, you arrived on the scene, Varleigh, and I was jealous of you. I could still see you and Annabelle kissing and caressing in my mind’s eye. Oh, God!” The Captain groaned and buried his head in his hands. There was a shocked silence.

Both Lady Emmeline and Colonel Ward-Price were convinced that he was telling the truth. Lord Varleigh thought that if he weren’t, then it was a consummate piece of acting.

But Captain Jimmy MacDonald had just remembered
that the broken window and deed box would be discovered in the morning when Lady Emmeline’s lawyers returned to work—hence the realistic groan.

The Colonel cleared his throat. “Don’t take on so, my boy,” he said, placing his hand awkwardly on the Captain’s shoulder. “You behaved disgracefully, of course, and apologies are certainly the order of the day. But I don’t think any of us in this room could find it in his or her heart to prosecute. I … what is it, man?”

An officer had bustled unceremoniously into the room and handed him a sealed letter. The Colonel broke it open and gave an exclamation.

“Napoleon has escaped!” he said. “He is even now believed to be in France marshalling his troops.

“Come, my boy,” he said, helping the Captain to his feet. “Your duty is clear. You will fight for your country once more. I am sure, my lord, you would not wish to see one of England’s finest soldiers in chains at a moment like this. Come, my lord, you have served with distinction yourself!”

Lord Varleigh looked thoughtfully at the Captain. After all, all the criminal riffraff of the taverns and gutters would once more be marching to war as well. Most of them were better employed on the field of battle.

“Very well,” he said.

“I say … thanks awfully, old man,” said the Captain boyishly. “I can’t…”

“You must not see Miss Quennell again,” said Lord Varleigh, “or communicate with her in any way.”

“Of course.
Of course
!” cried Captain MacDonald, jumping up and wringing Lord Varleigh’s hand enthusiastically.

“Come, my boy,” said the Colonel. “We have work to do!”

Lady Emmeline clung to the Captain, crying and sobbing and had to be pried loose.

For the hundredth time the old lady wondered if Annabelle realised the prize she had let slip through her hands.

What a man!

The brave soldiers marched to war, and one of them at least went away with a light heart.

Captain Jimmy MacDonald could not believe his luck. The lawyers had obviously not reported the break-in to Lady Emmeline. Now the prospect of a glorious battle and possible promotion lay in front of him. And when it was all over, there would be plenty of time to seek out Miss Quennell and put a period to her irritating existence.

Lord Varleigh sat in his town house and listened to the fifes and drums and trumpets of the soldiers. He himself had seen enough of the horrors of war and had fought bravely in the Peninsular Campaign. But it was not the sound of the marching armies which depressed him so. It was MacDonald’s remarks to the effect that Annabelle had only been teasing when she had let him kiss her so warmly.

Women were the devil! Heartless, fickle, and avaricious. At least Lady Jane had only wanted his money to play with. Annabelle Quennell had wanted his heart, and she had very nearly managed to secure it. Damn her! He would never see her again.

And, Annabelle, weak and listless after her fever, tossed and turned on her bed and wondered why Lord Varleigh had not called or even left a message.

For the first time Lady Emmeline was beginning to find Annabelle a bore. With her splendid looks faded with her illness and her listless air, Annabelle no longer fed Lady Emmeline’s aging spirits with her air of ebullient youth. Lady Emmeline dreamed frequently of the handsome Captain and sighed pleasurably over his outrageous behavior. If
she
had been the one who had been kidnapped and taken to Chiswick … ah, then, what a different story! As Lady Emmeline entered into another bout of prolonged eccentricity, she once again dressed herself in debutante clothes and greedily studied all the cases she could where an older woman had married a younger man.

By the time Annabelle was well enough to venture downstairs, she was met with a chilly reception. In Lady Emmeline’s mad mind Annabelle was now a rival for the Captain’s affections.

That’s why I wasted all this time and money on the chit! thought Lady Emmeline with a rare burst of sane honesty. I’m in love with Jimmy myself!

Annabelle’s quiet request that she should be allowed to go home was met with enthusiasm by her hostess. Arrangements were made for Annabelle to use Lady Emmeline’s travelling chariot but no mention was made of any money to be given to her for her journey. Annabelle could only be glad that she had had the foresight to furnish Madame Croke with a whole folio of spring designs.

Annabelle quickly recovered her glowing looks and good health but that only sufficed to add fuel to Lady Emmeline’s growing dislike and jealousy.

One day shortly before Annabelle was due to journey North, Lady Emmeline had abruptly ordered her to go to Bond Street and had furnished her with a shopping
list and the reluctant Horley as escort.

Lady Emmeline watched until Annabelle’s sickeningly jaunty bonnet had turned the corner of Berkeley Square and then ordered her town carriage to be brought round. The Dowager Marchioness was going to pay a visit to her solicitors, Messrs. Crindle and Bridge. Annabelle Quennell with her missish airs should not have her money. It should go to Captain Jimmy one way or the other. If the Captain married her—oh, blissful thought! —then he would have her money anyway. And if she died … Lady Emmeline looked round the sunny streets from the darkness of her carriage and shuddered. Impossible thought! She felt as if she would live forever.

Mr. Robert Crindle, the senior partner, did not look as honored and delighted to see the Dowager Marchioness as he usually did. In fact, thought Lady Emmeline in surprise, he looked furtive and guilty.

No matter. “I want to see my will,” said Lady Emmeline.

Mr. Crindle put his chalky nails together and sighed. “Then you have heard,” he said. “A most regrettable incident. I did not report it because I thought it was some felon searching for jewels. Some of these uneducated criminals seem to think we keep our clients’ jewels in our deed boxes.”

“What on earth are you drivelling on about?” snapped Lady Emmeline.

Mr. Crindle gave an even deeper sigh. “So you did not know after all. But I had better tell you just the same. Someone broke into this office on Wednesday night and cracked open the box containing your documents. Whoever it was left the copies of your ladyship’s will lying crumpled on the floor, but mark my words, the fellow was looking for jewels. Of course I reported the
matter to the Runners and I…”

His voice faded in Lady Emmeline’s ears as her old mind worked furiously. One thought piled on top of the other. Annabelle’s insistence that Jimmy had been trying to kill her so he could inherit. Annabelle’s fevered babblings about the death of Caroline Dempsey. Annabelle’s horror of learning that the Captain had been forgiven. Annabelle’s scream that they had all gone mad. All put down to the feverish ramblings of a sick girl. And now this! That Wednesday had been the night of the skating party. What she was thinking was dreadful. It could not be true!

“… left no clues,” went on Mr. Crindle’s voice, suddenly breaking into Lady Emmeline’s tortured thoughts, “except this. It shows the felon must have been robbing other places earlier in the evening.”

He held out something which winked and glittered in the dim light of the musty office. Lady Emmeline stared at it and bit back an exclamation.

It was the diamond stickpin she had given Jimmy as an engagement present.

“Enough of this matter,” Mr. Crindle was saying. “Did you wish to alter your will, my lady?”

“Yes,” said Lady Emmeline hoarsely, getting unsteadily to her feet. “Leave the lot to m’parrot. See you about it another time. Not well. Not well at all.”

Lady Emmeline sat helplessly in her carriage, bitter tears cutting through the paint and powder on her cheeks. If only she were a man! She wanted revenge. She thought of the way the Captain had led her along and fooled her and groaned aloud. She prayed for a quick and merciful death for herself and a long and painful one for the Captain.

Varleigh! That was it. He should revenge her. He would see justice done. Lady Emmeline directed her carriage to Lord Varleigh’s town house and then leaned
her head back against the squabs, feeling as if she would die from humiliation.

She was to receive another blow. Lord Varleigh had left for Varleigh Court only that morning. She gave a groan and the footman looked at her anxiously and asked her if she would care to leave a message.

“Message, that’s it,” said Lady Emmeline faintly. “Show me to a room; bring me brandy and writing marterials—in that order.”

The footman went off to fetch them, shaking his powdered head. He was new to service which was why he had been left in London with a skeleton staff while his more important colleagues journeyed to Varleigh Court. His name was John Ferguson, a Scot of almost ridiculously handsome looks. He returned with the brandy decanter and paper and ink to find Lady Emmeline standing over at the fireplace of Lord Varleigh’s study, looking at herself in the looking glass and scrubbing the paint from her withered features with a dirty pocket handkerchief.