The Importance of Love (15 page)

‘It must be time for the builders break,' he thought, as he noticed the empty scaffolding and abandoned wheelbarrows.

Within moments, he was driving along the track that ran alongside the gardens.

Suddenly he heard voices.

He stopped the car and got out. Behind a newly built wall, he could clearly hear Luella talking to someone.

Moving slowly forwards, he crept along the wall until he came to a gate.

“Thank you, Johnny. You may go and have your luncheon now,” he heard Luella say.

‘This is my chance,' he thought, as he put his hand on the bottle of chloroform in his pocket. ‘What great fortune.'

He peeped around the garden gate and saw Luella walking away. His heart lurched as he watched her, so happy in the sunshine and then he grew angry.

‘How dare that man steal her from me!' he fumed, working himself into a rage.

He waited for a while to make sure that the coast was clear and then he moved stealthily towards Luella. In his hand he carried a pad soaked in chloroform.

She was kneeling down, pulling at weeds when, all of a sudden, she felt a hand clap around her mouth and then all went black.

Frank Connolly lifted her limp figure up into his arms and headed for the motor car. He pushed Luella into the passenger seat and bound her feet and hands.

“You will not escape from me now,” he muttered covering her with a blanket.

But the Daimler had decided to be temperamental. It took several cranks of the handle before the engine coughed into life. By then he was sweating profusely and his heart was hammering fit to burst.

Further down the garden, he heard the shouts of the builders returning to work.

‘Curse it!' he mumbled. ‘I shall have to be quick otherwise someone might apprehend us.'

Turning round he saw to his delight that the chauffeur had left his cap on the rear seat of the motor car. Immediately, he tore off his own hat and replaced it with the chauffeur's cap.

‘Now, I shall have to make haste to get up enough speed before I reach the front entrance and we can sail past without anyone noticing. They will simply think Luella has gone for a drive with her chauffeur.'

He pressed his foot down hard on the accelerator and the engine roared. Letting out the clutch, it rocketed forwards.

The ground was uneven as they bounced along the drive.

As he rounded the corner, he saw the Viscount standing outside the house with his back to the road.

With a grim expression he pressed the accelerator down further and the motor car gathered speed.

As the Viscount was so preoccupied talking to the builders, he did not at first pay any heed to the vehicle as it sped behind him.

But then one of the builders made a remark that made him turn round.

“That chauffeur o' yorn is in a right 'urry,” he exclaimed with an envious smile on his face.

The Viscount frowned as he had told Bennett to drive with caution along the rough drive. He did not wish to pay for expensive repairs to the suspension – or worse.

Spinning on his heel, he caught sight of the Daimler shrouded in a cloud of dust that obscured both the driver and passenger. It crossed his mind that maybe Luella was in the motor car with Bennett, but did not give it any further thought.

Frank Connolly drove as fast as he could to the shepherd's hut. He was fortunate that he encountered very little other traffic on the road, as he was wary of drawing attention to himself.

‘Everyone will know the Viscount's Daimler,' he thought. ‘And if someone sees a stranger driving it, they might go and raise the alarm.'

But in the blistering August sun, most were either asleep in the hay or inside taking refuge from the hot weather.

It did not take him long to reach the hut. He had returned there that morning to prepare it for his visit.

First he had fixed a padlock to the door of the inner room and had taken the wooden chair inside.

‘I shall have to tie Luella to it,' he thought. ‘Until such time as I have disposed of that Viscount.'

Luella groaned in the seat next to him. She was beginning to come round.

Quickly he picked her up and carried her inside the hut just as she regained consciousness.

“Where am I?” she murmured groggily.

Then she saw Frank Connolly's red face next to hers and she tried to scream, but found that she was too weak to do so.

“Be quiet, Luella,” he demanded. “And do not struggle.”

She could not understand why she could not move her arms or legs, then she realised that he had bound her. He pushed her into the chair and swiftly secured her by winding a rope around her body and the chair.

“Do not try to move and do not give me any trouble,” he warned her, standing back and viewing her tethered and helpless.

“Why are you doing this?” she howled at him beginning to cry.

She felt sick and her mind would not function.

All she knew that it was Frank Connolly who had taken her and now she was his prisoner. She could not even remember where she had been or what had happened after everything had gone black.

“You know why. You are mine!
Mine
, you hear? And you can forget about this ridiculous wedding to this Viscount,” he spat. “We are going to Ireland and we shall be married the moment we reach Kilsharry!”

“But I am marrying David! You cannot make me marry you. He will come looking for me.”

“He does not even know you have gone,” he sneered. “And by the time he does, I will have taken care of him.”

A cold hand of fear gripped at Luella's heart.

“What do you mean?”

Frank Connolly turned his back on her and put his hand inside his jacket. His fingers sought out the hard barrel of the gun and he smiled with satisfaction.

“David will be out looking for me. There is not an inch of this country that his men don't know – they will find me and you will be thrown into jail,” shrieked Luella, her voice rising in sheer panic.

She realised that Frank Connolly was not in his right mind and now she was terrified of what he was going to do next.

“Shut up!” he retorted sharply. “That man is no match for
me
.”

“He will see you put away for a very long time. Of that, you can be certain.”

Frank Connolly turned and laughed in her face – a cruel, hard laugh.

“Not if I get to him first. I shall make certain he does not live to put me into prison.”

He took out his pistol and waved it in Luella's face.

“You –
cannot
,” she whimpered, tears streaming down her face.

Without saying another word, he took out the bottle of chloroform and wetted a lint pad with it.

“Do I have to use this again?” he roared.

Luella shook her head sadly and became compliant.

He left the room and locked the padlock firmly behind him.

The room was dark and windowless and as soon as the door closed, she was plunged into semi-darkness. A thin ray of light penetrated underneath the foot of the door and illuminated the filth on the floor.

Luella hung her head and wept silently. She did not wish to give him the satisfaction of breaking down.

“Oh, David. Help me!
Help me
!” she repeated over and over again, as if by repetition her message would somehow get through to him.

Frank Connolly sat in the driver's seat of the Daimler and silently loaded the pistol. The engine was ticking over and he knew what he now had to do.

‘If that clever Viscount thinks he has got one over on me, then he is a fool!' he said through gritted teeth.

Tucking the pistol back into his jacket, he let out the clutch and the motor car moved forward.

‘I shall put an end to this ‘Wedding of the Year' once and for all,' he growled, as the Daimler made its way slowly to the main road.

*

At Torr House, the Viscount was sitting in the dining room awaiting Luella's arrival so that they could start luncheon.

‘Where is that girl?' he muttered, as Cork brought in the plates.

“Cork, have you seen Miss Ridgeway?”

“No, my Lord. Shall I ask Thomas and Johnny? They are back in the garden again after their break.” “If you would, Cork.”

But Cork returned some fifteen minutes later saying that no one had seen Miss Ridgeway since before their midday break.

“That is very strange. Perhaps that was her I saw in the car with Bennett.”

“That is impossible, my Lord.”

“Why do you say that, Cork?”

“Because Bennett is in the kitchen with Mrs. Cork, my Lord.”

A shot of fear ran through the Viscount's body. Without a word, he leapt up from his seat and ran out of the dining room towards the back stairs.

His heart was beating wildly as he rushed into the kitchen to see a surprised Bennett and Mrs. Cork jump to their feet as he entered.

“Bennett. What are you doing here?” he cried. “I thought I saw you go out in the car not an hour ago?”

“No, my Lord. I brought the Daimler back here, as I was getting low on petrol. I was going to fill her up after lunch.”

“So who was that I saw driving like a bat out of hell towards the front gates earlier then?”

Mrs. Cork and Bennett looked at each other in bewilderment and a terrible sick feeling came over the Viscount.

“Mrs. Cork, have you seen anyone unfamiliar around the house today?”

“No, my Lord.”

The Viscount ran outside to where Thomas and Johnny were talking to the builders.

“I say,” he shouted to them. “Has anyone seen anyone strange around the place today?”

They all shook their heads and mumbled ‘no' apart from one.

“Well, when I was on the roof, I did see someone hangin' around the walled garden, my Lord. But I thought 'e was a surveyor,” piped up an old man in a flat cap known as Old Ben . “At least, that's what I took 'im to be.”

The Viscount moved towards the man with his heart hammering hard.

“This man, what did he look like?”

“About forty years old with a red face, my Lord. Dressed smart, he was.”

Even though the Viscount had never seen Frank Connolly, he knew enough from how Luella had described him to know instinctively it was him.

And who else could it be?

“Connolly – ” muttered the Viscount, as the awful truth hit him.

“Right, everyone. I have strong reason to believe that Miss Ridgeway has been kidnapped and my Daimler stolen.

“Bennett, send one of the gardeners to the Police Station in Bideford at once and raise the alarm. Tell them a Mr. Frank Connolly has abducted Miss Ridgeway and give them Old Ben's description. Everyone else, get out every last horse, carriage and cart in the place and we must go and search for her.”

“They won't have gone far, my Lord. There was barely enough petrol to get to the next town and back,” added Bennett.

Fifteen minutes later, the Viscount was in the gunroom handing out a variety of pistols and shotguns. He had no idea where to begin their hunt, but was relying on the local knowledge of the men around him.

Everyone had downed tools to join in the search.

As the Viscount mounted the horse that had been made ready for him, one of the builders came to him and drew his attention to a series of tyre tracks.

“Look, my Lord,” he called. “I've already followed them from the track alongside the gardens where Old Ben says he saw someone lurking and they go all the way out to the drive.”

“Then, we shall follow them and they will lead us to Luella,” cried the Viscount, signalling to everyone to proceed forwards.

As he rode at the head of the procession of men, he called to his love, wherever she might be. ‘Luella. I am coming,' he prayed, frantic with worry. ‘I will find you.
I promise you
.'

Frank Connolly was like a man possessed as he drove the Daimler back along the road towards Bideford. Over and over again he chanted to himself.

‘He will not have her! This wedding will never take place!' until he was almost delirious with rage.

As the River Torridge came into view, the car spluttered a little as if it might stall, so he pressed down the accelerator hard and it ran smoothly once more.

Approaching the turn for Torr House, Frank Connolly brought the motorcar to a halt for a moment.

It was then that he saw on the other side of the bank the procession of carts, carriages and horses headed by the Viscount.

‘They are out searching for Luella already,' he thought with a mounting sense of frustration.

Taking on one man, face-to-face, was one thing, but this convoy of angry-looking men? Not even Frank Connolly was fool enough to believe that he could engage them all and not be overpowered.

With a snort he reversed the car around the corner and headed back the way he had come.

‘I shall have to take Luella to Ireland without killing the Viscount,' he hissed to himself. ‘Let them scour the country like fools. They shall not find where I have hidden her and we will make our escape.'

With a roar of the engine the Daimler sped back up the road towards the hut.

Luella had long since cried herself to exhaustion that tears no longer came and had resigned herself to hoping and praying that the Viscount would somehow find her.

‘Surely someone will know of this place?' she whispered to herself. ‘I would imagine that this hut was used by farm workers or maybe shepherds in days gone by to shelter during bad weather.'

The ropes that bound her wrists and ankles were rough and chafed her. Although she could not see, she was certain they had rubbed her flesh raw.

‘And to think this morning I had not a care in the world and believed Frank Connolly was no longer a threat!'

The thin shaft of light under the door was beginning to move. Luella had no idea what time it might be, but she was becoming hungry and thirsty.

‘Oh, David, rescue me, help me. I need you desperately,' she prayed over and over again. It was yet another hot day and the temperature was beginning to rise.