The Ruthless Rake

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The Ruthless Rake Page 18

by Barbara Cartland


  He was delivering his lines with the same exaggerated sincerity as Mr. Daniel Neame.

  “I was shocked and appalled, yes appalled,” he continued, “to discover that when my aunt fell into a coma that Miss Melton had forged a will in her own favour.”

  “You have a copy of this document?” the Judge asked.

  “Yes, my Lord,” Counsel replied.

  Something was passed up to the Judge, who perused it for a moment and then said,

  “Continue.”

  “I confronted Miss Melton with the document which your Lordship has in front of him,” Captain Witheringham went on. “She realised that the game was up and that very night slipped away from my aunt’s house, taking with her some clothing to which she was not entitled and various other objects which I am quite convinced my aunt had never given her.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” Counsel said. “That, my Lord, concludes the case for the Prosecution.”

  There was a pause while the Judge read his notes, passed a document back to the Prosecuting Counsel and then looked towards Syringa.

  She tried to clear her swollen throat.

  “My Lord – ” she began.

  “You have not taken the oath,” the Clerk interposed sharply.

  He handed Syringa the Bible and made her repeat the oath after him. It seemed to her as she spoke that her voice was very weak and frightened.

  ‘I must be calm,’ she thought. ‘I have to make them understand.’

  “Your name is Syringa Melton?”

  That the Counsel for the Prosecution’s voice now had a bullying note in it was very obvious.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I have only two questions to ask you, Miss Melton. The first is, were you or were you not caught by the Bow Street Runners last night with the first witness’s gold watch, purse and wallet in your hands?”

  “Yes, sir – but I can – explain.”

  “Just answer the question. Yes or no?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “My second question,” his voice boomed. “Is this your handwriting or not?”

  He waved a document in front of Syringa’s eyes and she saw her own signature in the centre and the name Elizabeth Witheringham in her hand at the end of the paper. There had been a great deal of writing added.

  She only had time to read the words, “My last Will and Testament – ” before the Counsel asked again.

  “Yes or no? Are the words Syringa Melton and Elizabeth Witheringham in your handwriting?”

  “Y-yes,” Syringa faltered, “but I am innocent – innocent. If I can explain I – ”

  “I submit, my Lord,” the Counsel interposed, turning to the Judge, “that the prisoner is convicted out of her own mouth. She has admitted, my Lord, to robbery, she has admitted to forgery with attempt to swindle. There is no point, my Lord, in continuing this case and I ask for Judgement.”

  “Very well,” the Judge agreed in a bored tone. “Syringa Melton, you are found guilty of the crimes of robbery, forgery and an attempt to swindle. For the first crime you are ordered to be hanged by the neck until you are dead. For the second you shall be stripped naked from the middle upwards and whipped until your body shall be bloody.”

  “I am – innocent!” Syringa cried. “Innocent – ”

  Her voice seemed lost in the noise and chatter that arose in the Court.

  Two Warders pulled her roughly from the dock. She was taken down the stairs and hustled towards the door.

  As she went, she looked at the crowd as if for help or perhaps mercy and as she did so she saw at the far end of the Court Room a familiar face.

  It was Ninian Roth!

  He was watching her with a smile on his face – a smile of satisfaction. Beside him a lady, veiled but still recognisable, was smiling too.

  It was then, as she had one fleeting glimpse of them before she was pushed through the door and taken to the prison wagon with the other prisoners from Newgate, that Syringa knew who was responsible for all that had happened to her!

  Despite her terror and her horror of what lay ahead, she knew that something within herself was glad. Glad because she now knew that it was not the Earl who had plotted against her.

  As she was rattled back towards Newgate in the swaying wagon, she tried to think coherently of what had occurred. But the headache she had been suffering from seemed to clamp down on her as if bands of steel were crushing her brain into insensibility.

  She could not think, she could not really understand what had happened.

  How could it be possible that she, Syringa Melton, was to be hanged for a crime she had not committed and whipped until the blood ran down her back?

  She remembered now with a kind of sick horror that, as they had been taken through the courtyards of Newgate towards the wagon that would carry them from the prison to the Old Bailey, she had seen the whipping post erected in the middle courtyard.

  She had thought at first that it was just the ordinary stocks, such as would be found in every village. And she had wondered why such an old-fashioned form of punishment should exist in what was known as the ‘New Prison’.

  Then she had seen that a couple of iron clasps were fixed to the upright post which supported a crossing wood to take the culprit’s hands and hold him securely while he was being lashed.

  The whipping post stood in the middle of the yard almost like a cross and Syringa, realising that several of the prisoners looked away from it as they passed, had felt that it was in fact a type of crucifixion.

  Now it was to be hers!

  She was to stand there, naked above the waist and be lashed with the many-tailed whip that she had read about in books. She had learnt that strong men would faint from the pain of it.

  ‘I shall die,’ she thought, ‘die under the whipping and perhaps that will be better than dying on the gallows.’

  They were hustled out of the coach at Newgate and led back the way they had come, the men clanking their chains desperately as they passed through the middle yard and past the whipping post.

  Syringa saw the women in the party glance at her and knew that she of all the prisoners was the only female who had been sentenced to such a punishment.

  They entered the prison amid a chorus of jeers and shrieks and questions concerning their sentences.

  Men stretched out their hands towards Syringa making lewd suggestions as how she should spend her remaining time on earth.

  The Turnkey took the prisoners to their various cells.

  Syringa found the Wardress waiting for her and they walked towards the State room that she had occupied the night before.

  Remembering what the woman had said about being moved to the condemned cell, Syringa asked,

  “Can I stay here?”

  “No, you’ll ’ave to go with ’em that’s condemned,” the Wardress replied. “But as you’re to be whipped almost at once, I thought you’d like to let me ’ave our gown.”

  “Have my gown?” Syringa questioned in surprise.

  “You might as well let I ’ave it as the ’angman,” the Wardress replied. “’Tis pretty and it’ll just about fit me sister’s gal. She be only fifteen, but it’ll make a nice present for ’er.”

  Syringa tried to focus her eyes on the fat red face of the Wardress.

  She felt a strange buzzing in the head and it was hard to understand what was being said.

  “If I part with my gown,” she asked, “what shall I wear?”

  “They’ll ’ave it off you anyway in the condemned cell,” the Wardress said, “besides it be part of the ’angman’s perks and ’e be no friend of mine.”

  “I want to get a message to the Earl of Rothingham,” Syringa said. “I will give you my gown and all the rest of my money if you will carry a note telling him what has happened to me.”

  The Wardress laughed.

  “There bain’t no flunkeys ’ere, me fine lady, to go carryin’ notes to Earls or anyone else. If you wants to get in touch with your relations, you can
ask the Chaplain when ’e comes to preach the last sermon to you. That is, if ’e turns up as ’e be very irregular in ’is ’abits.”

  “I must send a note to the Earl of Rothingham – I must,” Syringa insisted desperately.

  “You could ask one of the visitors, I suppose,” the Wardress said grudgingly, as if she disliked giving the information, “but there’s no knowin’ if they’ll carry out your biddin’. Besides why should I give you good money to throw away on a lot of cheats who’ll more than likely spend it on drink?”

  “Please – please try and get in touch with the Earl,” Syringa begged. “I know he will reward handsomely anyone who tells him where I am.”

  The Wardress gave an ugly laugh.

  “Do you really expect me to believe you?” she asked. “I expect that’s as good a lie as you tellin’ me you was innocent. You ’aven’t been able to prove that in the Courts, ’ave you? Well, I’m not one to be gulled easily. I’ve been ’ere too long.

  “Come on now, give me your gown. I’ve got more use for it than you and the money I still ’as for you simply because I’m honest, you can spend on gin. They say if you’re drunk enough you don’t feel the noose.”

  Syringa stood irresolute.

  Roughly the Wardress turned her round and started unbuttoning her gown at the back.

  There was something about the woman’s thick dirty fingers touching her bare skin that made her want to scream.

  “Perhaps I shall – die,” she said speaking to herself.

  “No, they don’t kill you,” the Wardress said. “They beat you until you’re insensible, then carry you back and throw you on the ground at me feet. Extra work this whippin’ business gives me, I can tell you.”

  She had undone Syringa’s gown by now and began to pull it from her shoulders.

  It was one of the pretty gauze gowns that the Dowager had bought from Madame Bertin. The skirt was edged with pleated frills of tulle and there was tulle around the shoulders.

  The waist was very small and embellished with pale turquoise blue satin that had matched the stones in her flower brooch.

  The gown slipped to the floor and now Syringa wore only the silk petticoats that had kept the gown full and over her breasts was a thin muslin shift edged with lace.

  It was transparent and feeling naked she crossed her hands over her breasts.

  The Wardress looked at her shift appreciatively.

  “They’ll pull that down when they whip you, dear,” she said. “Don’t let ’em splatter it with too much blood. I’d like to ’ave that too when you’ve gone.”

  Syringa closed her eyes.

  There seemed no point in arguing.

  “They’ll be fetchin’ you soon,” the Wardress said, putting her gown over her arm. “It may be an hour, it may be more. What I always say is, the sooner the better. Thinkin’ about a whippin’ be almost as bad as havin’ it.”

  She went from the cell. For a moment Syringa stood holding onto the table as if for support.

  Then she fell on her knees and started to pray.

  Her head felt as though it was bursting open. The pain was almost unbearable.

  Her whole body ached intolerably and now the glands in her neck were so swollen that she felt as if her breath was constricted.

  Yet she knew that she must pray.

  At this moment only prayer could help her.

  ‘I must pray to be – brave,’ she told herself. ‘How degrading – how humiliating if I scream – cry and beg for mercy – mercy I know I shall not – receive. I must be – brave – I must!’

  And yet in front of her eyes she could see only the whipping post, its arms standing out like a cross in the centre of the yard.

  ‘Help me – oh God – help me!’

  Her lips moved, but there was no sound.

  ‘Help me to be brave – help me to face what lies ahead – help me not to – scream.’

  She thought of the Earl and knew that in such circumstances he would be brave.

  His pride would not let him humble himself.

  The mere thought of him seemed to bring some solace to her fear.

  ‘I love – him,’ she told herself, ‘I love – him!’

  Then, in an agony that seemed to come from the very depths of her being, she prayed.

  “Oh, God – let him – save me – Save me, Lord Jupiter! Save me!”

  Even as she whispered the words inaudibly, she heard the key turn in the lock of the cell and there was the sound of men’s voices.

  They had come for her!

  They had come to take her outside to the whipping post and she knew that nothing now could save her.

  The door was open, someone was standing inside.

  Fearful she opened her eyes and saw in the doorway –

  The Earl.

  Somehow she scrambled to her feet and tried to cry out her joy at the sight of him, but the sound would not come.

  Then, as she struggled towards him, the darkness seemed to come up from the floor and envelop her.

  As the Earl caught her in his arms, he thought for one agonising moment that she was dead.

  Chapter Nine

  Everything was very dark.

  Somewhere far away in a long endless tunnel a woman was crying aloud, her voice weak and piteous but persistent.

  ‘Help me – Oh, God help me – send him to save me – I am to be hanged by the neck until I am dead – hanged by the neck – they are going to whip me – I must not cry – I must be brave as he would be brave. I must not scream – they will whip me until the – blood flows – Oh, God save me – Jupiter – Lord Jupiter!

  ‘He is angry with me – he will not come – how could he think such things of me – when I love him – I love him – he is angry – he does not understand. Save me! – they are clutching at me – I am afraid of their hands – save me – save me – ’

  “You are safe!” a deep voice was saying. “Do you hear me, Syringa, you are safe.”

  “He does not – understand – he does not know that – I love him – ”

  “He knows and he understands. Go to sleep, Syringa, go to sleep.”

  *

  “Well, Miss Melton, there is nothing more I can do for you!”

  Dr. Gresham stood by the bedside looking down at Syringa. She had known him since she was a child and she had always sent for him when her father was beyond her control.

  “I can go downstairs?”

  “Whenever you wish. You are quite well again.”

  “I have been well for days.”

  “We had to be quite certain,” the doctor replied. “There is always the fear of a relapse and then you might carry the infection to other people.”

  “Yes, I realise that.”

  “But your Nanny tells me that you have been very sensible. You have walked about the room. You have done exercises so that now when you are allowed out into the fresh air, you should not feel unnaturally fatigued.”

  “All I want to do,” Syringa said with a smile, “is to ride Mercury.”

  “I expect you will find him waiting for you,” Dr. Gresham said. “Send for me if I am needed, but I don’t expect to hear from you.”

  “Goodbye doctor and thank you.”

  Nanny showed the doctor to the door. As it closed behind him, Syringa sat up in bed.

  “I can get up! I can go out!” she cried. “Oh, Nana, if you only knew how much I have been looking forward to seeing Mercury again!”

  “Now wait a minute, Miss Syringa,” Nanny said. “His Lordship has given me his instructions.”

  “His Lordship?”

  Syringa said the words almost beneath her breath and then she added,

  “He is – here?”

  “Of course his Lordship’s here!” Nana replied. “He has been here all the time, ever since you have been ill.”

  “I had no – idea,” Syringa answered.

  She did not tell Nanny that she had been afraid to ask for the Earl.

&n
bsp; When she came back to consciousness from a delirium that she knew now had lasted for weeks, she had remembered that the Earl had been angry with her. And she was afraid, as she had never been afraid before, of seeing him again.

  Her first thought, when she had realised that she was at King’s Keep and still alive, had been of him.

  But in her weakness she had known that she could not face his anger and could not endure it if he was still incensed with her as he had been that terrible night when Lady Elaine had sent her to Newgate Prison.

  Her love of him made her so apprehensive that she could not bring herself to speak of the Earl to Nanny, in case the answers to her questions were unbearable.

  Supposing he never wished to see her again?

  He had said that she disgusted him. He would know now, because Nana would have told him, that she had not been meeting a man as he had suspected!

  But had he still any fondness for her?

  He loved Lady Elaine.

  Would his feelings change if he learnt of her cruelty and treachery?

  Perhaps there would be no one to tell him and he would never know.

  Then Syringa’s heart dropped and she thought miserably that, even if the Earl became aware of the truth, he would forgive Lady Elaine if he loved her enough.

  “What are his Lordship’s – instructions?” she asked Nanny.

  “His Lordship wishes you to go downstairs at six o’clock,” Nanny replied. “Until then he asks that you should rest.”

  “I am tired of resting,” Syringa protested. “I have been resting for days – even though I have felt well enough to go out.”

  “We have had to take great care of you, dearie,” Nanny said. “You have been very ill, very ill indeed.”

  “And gaol fever – is often fatal,” Syringa sighed. “I am lucky, am I not, Nana? Men and women die of it every day in that horrible prison.”

  “Don’t speak of that wicked place!” Nana said with a suspicion of a sob in her voice. “His Lordship has said it’s all to be forgotten.”

  “It will not be – easy to – forget,” Syringa murmured.

  “I know, dearie,” Nanny answered, “but now you are well again, you will have other things to think about.”

  “What other things?” Syringa asked. “And what are we going to do in the future, Nana, you and I?”

 

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