Fear for Frances

by Veronica Heley

  ‘Open your mouth, Miss Chard,’ said Maud. Frances opened it to scream. A solid ball of what felt and tasted like wood was thrust far back in her mouth, and her jaws forced further and further apart as Maud twisted a screw at the front of the infernal contraption. Frances’ tongue was forced down, and her cry strangled.

  ‘Reproduced by one of the workmen for my grandfather’s museum of antiquities,’ said Maud. ‘It is supposed to be a copy of the type of gag used by the Spanish Inquisition, and I’m happy to see that it works. You never know when these old things will come in useful.’

  Meakins, the ladies’ maid, entered, carrying a bundle of outer clothing which Frances recognised as her own. The door to the courtyard was shut, and a lamp lit and placed on a rough table.

  ‘You understand what is going to happen?’ Maud asked Frances. ‘You are going to disappear from our lives — or, rather, Meakins is going to stage your disappearance, wearing your clothes — by running off with that delightfully sharp young man Walter Donne. Strip her, Meakins; help her, Lee.’

  Meakins was already busy with the fastenings of Frances’ bodice. The burly man, now identified as Lee, held Frances’ wrists away from her body. She tried to wriggle away from him, but he was too strong for her. She hardly heard what Maud was saying as her black silk dress, petticoat, corsets, shoes and stockings were stripped off her, to leave her standing barefoot in her shift and drawers, with her hair round her shoulders, trembling with fear and cold.

  ‘In a moment or two, when Meakins is ready, I shall return to the music-room with my mother’s bracelet in my hand, and announce that I discovered it hidden in a pocket of your petticoat. Actually, that young toad Agnes had stolen it to play with, and was too frightened to confess that she’d got it when its loss was discovered. I found it in her toy-box, but she’ll have sense enough to say she discovered it in one of your drawers, by the time I’ve finished with her.

  ‘I got in touch with Walter as soon as I heard about the incident at Mrs Palfrey’s, realising how I could turn your past history to good use. Walter has his instructions and twenty-five guineas; he is to make his excuses to the company while we are gone, and be ready to meet you — or, rather, your substitute — in the cloisters in a few minutes’ time. When I return with my mother’s bracelet, I shall say that since no actual offence has been committed, I have decided to take a leaf out of Gavin’s book and allow you to leave. I shall invite everyone to the oriel window overlooking the cloisters, and ask them to watch you depart. You will run across the lawn into your lover’s arms and everyone will see you embrace him, for I have told Walter to be sure to stand in the light from the window.

  ‘At this very moment one of the footmen is bringing down your trunk and bag, and putting them in the trap which Walter hired at the station. You will be driven off beside Walter, with your baggage, and that will be the end of you. Walter will help Meakins tip your luggage into the river by the Long Pool. She will also weight your clothes — the ones she will be wearing in her impersonation of you, I mean — and drop those into the water, too. She has a change of clothing in the trap for herself, and after she has seen your baggage safely disposed of, and Walter has departed, she will return here to assist me in the last and most pleasurable part of the evening’s programme. Ready, Meakins?’

  Meakins revolved in the lamplight. She was wearing Frances’ evening dress with her black winter coat over it. A thick veil had been wound over the small hat on top of her head, obscuring her features.

  ‘Perfect!’ cried Maud. ‘Wait for me to open the oriel window before you start across the lawn.’

  She turned down the lamp. Rain spattered the threshold as Maud opened the door, gathered her skirts and sped away. Meakins took up her position inside the door. Across the courtyard Frances could make out the white shirt-front of a man in evening dress, standing under the cloisters. She lunged forward, and Lee laughed. He dragged her to one of the stone pillars which supported the Oak Gallery above them, and secured her to it.

  Walter moved out into the rain, pulling on an overcoat. Frances threw her weight against her bonds again and again. With eyesight dimmed by tears, she watched Meakins glide over the grass into Walter’s arms; she saw Walter embrace the woman, and then escort her out of the courtyard.

  She fainted.

  *

  Lord Broome lay on his bed, motionless. His eyes were open, but he did not see the anxious faces above him. In his mind’s eye he was still seeing a slender figure in black glide into the arms of another man.

  ‘Drink this,’ urged Theo, holding a sleeping draught to his friend’s lips. ‘For Christ’s sake, man; don’t grieve so. She deceived us all. But we all saw her ... I’ve never been so taken in by anyone in my whole life.’

  Benson was holding a black lace shawl, and tears were running down his cheeks. ‘It was all I could find,’ he said.

  ‘She’s taken everything else.’

  Lord Broome turned away from the proffered sleeping draught, and reached out for the shawl. He put it to his cheek, and closed his eyes.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Frances lay drooping in her bonds against the pillar until long after the light thrown from the music-room had gone out, and noises over her head announced that the company had dispersed to their bedrooms. The stable clock struck eleven, and she came to herself, slowly. The man behind her laughed. He had shut the door on to the lawn and turned up the lamp. He was whittling a walking-stick. She looked at him. He was swarthy, black of hair and moustache. He wore moleskin trousers and a thick flannel shirt. On the floor beside him lay an expensive but vulgar checked overcoat. Frances shuddered, thinking that this man had already committed at least one murder.

  The house was quiet above and around them. The stable clock struck eleven. In a gust of wind and rain the store-room door opened and two figures slipped in. Both wore cloaks, and one carried a heavy carpet bag.

  ‘It’s a nasty night out,’ said Maud, throwing back her cloak. ‘I don’t envy Walter his drive to the station.’ She took a bunch of keys from her pocket. Lee — clear away those wood shavings; we mustn’t leave any traces. Everything has gone splendidly so far. Dr Green has given Gavin a sleeping draught and Benson is so much put out by the wicked Miss Chard’s defection that he’s taken a bottle to bed with him. Both of them are snoring their heads off. I’ve just been up to listen outside their doors. They haven’t bothered to set a guard now that Miss Chard has gone. Isn’t that perfect? Poor Miss Chard. I think I am almost sorry for you. Gavin’s end will be quick and merciful; he won’t know a thing about it. But you are going to have plenty of time to repent crossing my path before you die. You know that this used to be an abbey once? Well, if a nun offended in the old days, she was walled up alive and left to die. I have decided that you deserve the same fate.’

  Meakins took a roll of bandages out of the carpet bag and began to wind them round Frances’ head, binding in her hair, and covering her forehead, cheeks, mouth and neck with thick white folds of cloth.

  ‘You want to know how Gavin will die? I am taking no more chances. I shall go with Lee, this time. I have the key to the dressing-room, just as Gavin guessed. When you have been lodged in your cell, I am going to help Gavin commit suicide. Poor cousin Gavin! What a shock it has been for him to discover that you are false. Naturally, he is prostrated with grief. They had to carry him to bed, did you know that? And he would not speak to anyone, or look at them. I wondered if he’d had a stroke, but Theo — dear, flustered Theo — said no, it was just shock. No one will think it strange when Gavin is found dead tomorrow morning, with his razor open beside him, and his throat cut. A splendid plan, is it not? Hugo will inherit and marry me, and I shall become Lady Broome at last. I suppose Gavin’s original Will has to stand, but I am sure I shall be able to make Isabella see the wisdom of sharing some of her money with me.’

  A coarse white gown with a deep hood now came out of the carpet bag, and was dropped over Frances’ shoulders. She was gratef
ul for its warmth. Meakins pinned the hood over the bandages around Frances’ head, letting it overhang her victim’s eyes.

  ‘What about the noise?’ asked Meakins, as she pulled some heavy, rusty-looking chains from her bag.

  ‘No one will hear anything in this storm,’ said Maud. ‘But perhaps Lee had better muffle the blows with cloth, just in case.’

  Frances was made to sit on the floor with her legs straight out in front of her while her shoulders remained pinioned to the pillar. Lee fitted her bare ankles into heavy metal cuffs and hammered them shut. A short length of chain, no longer than Frances’ forearm, connected the cuff’s and would restrict her steps when she stood up.

  ‘All from my grandfather’s collection,’ said Maud. ‘Some of them are genuine antiques and have been used for these purposes before. No one cares about such things nowadays. They will never be missed.’

  Frances was released from the pillar, but though she tried to fight free, Lee and Meakins were more than strong enough to restrain her. The white gown was pulled down around her, a strong leather belt was set about her waist and buckled at the back; from the front of the belt depended two more short lengths of chain, each of which ended in a metal cuff. It did not take Lee long to hammer these around Frances’ wrists. She could not lift her hands, or part them very far.

  ‘I like to think of you suffering as you have made me suffer,’ said Maud. ‘There is some prayer in the service for the ordination of nuns and priests for preservation from the vanities of the world. I do hope, Miss Chard, that you appreciate going to your death in sackcloth and chains. I wonder how long it will take you to die? Will you pray for Gavin’s soul as you wait for death? I imagine you might. Every hour will seem a day, and every day a year to you in your tomb. I had considered leaving a chink in the wall of your cell, so that I could visit you every night to watch your deterioration, but I decided against it. It would not be prudent. Are we ready? Then let us go.’

  Frances was half carried and half dragged along the cloisters by Lee. Maud led the way, carrying the lamp and her keys. Meakins brought up the rear with the carpet bag and Lee’s things.

  Maud stopped by a door set in the tower below Mrs Broome’s apartments and unlocked it with a large key, to reveal a flight of steps descending into the earth. Frances twisted round to look at the rain-sodden cloisters, and feel the clean air on her face, and then she was thrown over Lee’s shoulder and carried down into the cellar.

  ‘They don’t use these particular cellars nowadays,’ said Maud, as she led the way across a spider-haunted room. ‘They are part of the original monastery buildings, but they’re not supposed to be safe, and no one comes here any more. My grandfather did consider having some work done down here, but he was advised that it would cost too much.’ She consulted a map drawn on a piece of paper, and led the way through a maze of smaller rooms, each one more damp than the last, until the lamp began to dim and the smell of rotting vegetation grew strong around them.

  ‘A bit near the river, Miss,’ muttered Lee, glancing at the fungus which was growing on the ancient brickwork.

  Maud turned two more corners and lifted her skirts to enter a narrow, slimy corridor from which the brickwork was beginning to crumble. A little way along she stopped, and held the lamp high. A small room led off the corridor; no more than a cupboard, it was lined with crumbling bricks and decorated with fungi. The roof was low and the floor of beaten earth. A pile of fallen bricks and some large boulders lay beyond, in the corridor, evidence that someone, at some time, had begun to repair the walls and left the job half done.

  Frances was thrown into the cell, her feet touching one wall and her shoulders another. From Meakins’ bag Lee produced the largest, heaviest and rustiest chain Frances had ever seen. He threaded it through her belt and, driving a large staple between two bricks, tethered her to the wall of the cell.

  Frances managed to get her knees beneath her. Involuntarily her hands clasped in prayer. With every movement her chains rattled, dragging at her wrists and ankles. It was piercingly cold. She could not stop shivering.

  Maud laughed. She held the lamp high while Meakins and Lee laboured to fill in the narrow entry to the cell. Frances could not reach them. She could not move more than a foot away from the back wall of her cell. She watched helplessly as they piled boulders and bricks together, building a wall knee-high, then waist-high, and finally shoulder-high.

  The light in the cell shifted and decreased as the wall grew. It became smaller than the shawl Frances had placed round Lord Broome’s shoulders. Then smaller than his maimed hand.

  ‘God be with you,’ said Maud. The light shattered into tiny points as the last bricks were wedged into the wall. Then Frances heard Maud urge the others away, and the light wavered and went out.

  *

  The long hours of confinement in the sick-room, her recent ordeal and the cold of the cell undermined Frances’ hold on reality. She trembled and her chains shook with her slightest movement. She imagined that she was in bed, awakening from a nightmare, and started up, hitting her head on the roof of her cell. Her chained wrists dragged her down. She prayed disjointedly, while through her overtired mind flickered images of Gavin and Hugo and Theo, and of the red-coated portrait of Richard Broome that hung over the fireplace in the dining-room.

  She thought she heard someone crying behind her, and started in fright, her eyes vainly trying to piece the darkness. Rats! she thought, and in another involuntary movement of terror, twisted and backed away from the direction of the imaginary sound. The chains creaked and bruised her wrists. She found she was holding the rusty chain which tethered her to the wall, and dropped it.

  ‘Rusty ... rusty ... rusty …!’ someone said, way back inside her head. ‘It’s very rusty,’ someone else said, and she thought it was Benson, sitting beside her, only of course it couldn’t be. Her eyes were not giving her reliable service, for there were luminous patches of fungus on the walls and if she allowed herself to imagine things, she would begin to think that there was a little man in brown sitting beside her. He was wringing his hands, just as she was, and saying that she must hurry because the head of the House of Broome was in danger ... danger ... danger …

  ‘A chain is only as strong as its weakest link,’ said Frances to herself. ‘And it is quite true that this chain is very rusty and very old, and that Lee couldn’t put all his weight behind the blows with which he drove the staple into the wall, because he couldn’t stand upright.’

  She struggled up into a stooping position, and managed to get her hands round the chain. She pulled and strained, but nothing happened save that the belt creaked around her waist. Then she began to twist the chain. She lay on the slimy floor and somersaulted over and over until the chain was wound tight and she could not move it any more. Then she threw her weight on it, time and again, until at last something gave, and she was precipitated against the wall, bruised and out of breath. She tried to lift her hands, and found they were still attached to their chains. It was the belt around her waist which had burst open, and not the chain. Tears began to wet the edges of the bandages around her head as she went back to her twisting and pulling.

  Did the staple move? Her strength was giving out. Oh, God, don’t let all this be in vain.

  And the chain snapped off near to the wall, and left her weak and trembling in a heap on the floor.

  She was free of the staple, but her hands were still tethered to the belt which now hung in front of her, weighted down by the remnant of the chain which had held her close to the wall. She felt around until she had located the uneven texture of the wall the conspirators had built, and began to push and prod at it. She wound the chain round her hands and battered at the wall. A stone fell out into the corridor beyond ... then another ... a large section collapsed, and she was crawling out of her cell. She turned left, because she remembered that that was the way she had entered the cell. The floor was slimy, and she slipped and fell and groped her way along the corridor, n
ot daring to think what she should do next, for she had no map to guide her, and no light.

  There! She was out of the corridor, and there was nothing but darkness around her. She did not know which way to go. She lifted her face and prayed, and her prayer was answered, for cool on her skin came the faintest of chills — a breath of fresh air. She did not imagine that Maud would have left the cellar door open, for such carelessness was not in Maud’s nature, but Frances craved fresh air, and went towards it as fast as she could. She did not count the turns she took, or the number of times she stumbled over the chain which hung between her feet, but at last she found herself in a cellar which was not totally dark. Moonlight was entering by a grating set high up in a wall, way above her head. The rain had stopped, and the sky was clearing. She could even see the new moon, rising over the stable clock. The night air smelled marvellously sweet and clean, but it made her shiver. Her struggle to escape from the cell had warmed her, but now she felt the cold again.

  There was no other way out of the cellar, bar the door through which she had come. She did not want to go back into the depths again, which would mean leaving the light and the fresh air. If it had not been for the danger which threatened Lord Broome, she would have sunk to the floor and waited the night out under the grating, and perhaps died of exposure. As it was, she looked around her for some means of attracting attention to her plight. She tried to release herself from the bandages around her head, meaning to cry out for help if she could once remove the gag which held her mouth open. But she could not. Her fingers were bruised and torn and clumsy, and though she did eventually find her way through the bandages to the gag, she could not master the knack of turning the screw to reduce the size of the gag and thus slip it out of her mouth.