Mademoiselle At Arms (24 page)

‘And so she was able to become my—’ 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 for a moment, and
fell to her knees at his bedside, placing her hands on his slack ones where
they lay on the soiled coverlet.

‘Oh, Jacques, I cannot forgive myself!’

‘Never you fret, miss,’ he uttered at once in a faint voice. ‘Ain’t
no call for you to go a-blaming of yourself.’

‘I thought you were dead,’ Melusine confided. ‘And all to
help me.’

‘Not dead, miss. And I’d do it again for you if needs be.’

‘Do not say so. You are to remain here until you are well. That
capitaine
has arranged it all.
En tout cas
, I will not permit
that you endanger yourself again for me.’

‘I chose to come with you, miss,’ Jack interrupted more
firmly. ‘And I wouldn’t be no sort of a man if I’d heard what I heard, and gone
off and left you.’

That arrested her. ‘You heard Gosse—I mean, the man you know
as Valade?’

‘Clear as day, miss,’ he uttered. ‘Brung the lantern, I did,
and opened the door again in case you was ready. Heard voices. Knew something
was up. You were only one room removed from the library, see. Saw the villain
through the keyhole. So I come round the other way and—Lordy, miss, I’m that
sorry I made a mull of it.’ He shifted unguardedly, and hissed a breath,
wincing.