She pressed him. “But rumors, perhaps? You might think it wise not to pass on any rumors to me. I beg you to tell me anything you may have heard, however fanciful.”
Gustav looked down at the floor. “There may be no truth in it …”
“What did you hear?”
“That they have him in prison. There is a rumor that Beaufaire was recently seized and imprisoned somewhere near Paris.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“I didn’t want to cause you unnecessary pain. It may not be true, after all.”
Enid’s eyes blazed. “Don’t try to make it easier for me!” she protested. “We both know there has been scant word from him as it is. Something dire must have happened to him!”
“I will keep on trying to learn the truth,” he promised.
“If he has been imprisoned, he is likely to be dead by now. Today in France it is a short distance from prison cell to the guillotine!” Her voice cracked with the weight of her despair.
“You must not give up hope!” Gustav begged.
“I dare not,” she said dully.
Gustav was embarrassed that she had dragged this sorry news from him, and he left soon after.
When Enid had dressed and taken some breakfast, she went up to speak with Susie but found that the actress had gone out. Perhaps to an early rehearsal. So she decided to pay a visit to her father’s bank in order to establish herself for credit.
She went down to the street, hailed a carriage and made the short trip to the bank. After she had chatted with the manager and withdrawn some cash, she stopped by several of the better shops to select a few thing she needed. She especially wanted a beige Irish linen tablecloth and matching napkins.
As she emerged from the last of the shops, her purchases tucked under one arm, she came face to face with a dandy who sported long curls and an extravagant cerise greatcoat. It took her only a moment to realize the man was Vicomte Robert!
He graced her with a low bow. “Dear Lady Blair, I had no idea you were back in London!”
“Nor did I expect to meet you here.”
He made a foppish gesture with his left hand and declared airily, “I have left France. It is no longer safe for one of noble rank to remain there.”
“I see,” she said inanely, wishing she had never met him and wondering how she would get away from him.
He smiled mockingly. “I’m living with Andrew. He has been so lonesome without you.”
“I would expect the absence of some of his lads would disturb him more. But you must be a great consolation to him.” Her tone was grim.
“How kind you are to suggest that.” The vicomte paused. “Do you wish to send him any message? He will be interested to know you are here in London.”
“I have no message for Andrew other than that I wish my freedom.”
“I will tell him that,” the nobleman promised with a smile. Then he added, “I trust all goes well with your friend and my countryman Count Beaufaire?”
“I have nothing to tell you,” Enid said sharply. “And now, if you will excuse me.” She turned and hurried down the street.
The meeting upset her more than it should have. A little while later she took a carriage back to her flat, and all the while she had the feeling that she was being followed. She paused on her doorstep to look up and down the street, but saw no sign of anyone. Nevertheless, her fear was real enough.
In the flat she unwrapped the things she had bought and continued to feel nervous. She wondered if Gustav had been ill-informed about Esmond’s leaving London. Whether perhaps the master spy was still about and having her followed as a prelude to taking her prisoner. The possibility of this was chilling. Her depressing thoughts had started with her running into the hateful Vicomte Robert, and she could not seem to shake them.
The hour came for her to keep her supper engagement with John Philip Kemble. And still Susie and Gustav had not returned. She lingered in her flat after she’d changed into a suitable navy wool dress and worried about venturing out alone into the evening to find a carriage. However, her fears were put to rest when a driver appeared at her door and announced he had been sent by Kemble.
The man was known to her, and so she accompanied him with no misgivings. Within a short time she reached the familiar surroundings of the actor’s flat. But things had changed. It was Jenny who now resided in Kemble’s bed and in his apartment. The red-haired girl greeted Enid warmly and took her in to Kemble, who was seated by the fireplace reading the manuscript of a play.
He rose immediately and gave her a warm kiss. “Sit down, my dear.” And then he told Jenny, “Wine for all of us. Bring glasses and a decanter.”
“It was good of you to send your carriage for me,” Enid said.
“I could do no less.”
“I’ve been nervous ever since I met that French agent Esmond at your party.”
The melancholy-faced actor sighed. “I must apologize for that. He took me in completely, though it’s easy to understand why. I hear he is a master spy.”
“He’s head of the revolutionists’ spy service.”
Jenny returned with the wine and served Enid and Kemble first, then took a glass for herself. She sat down meekly on a stool near them, listening to their talk but adding little to the conversation. Enid smiled at her often and was again impressed by her beauty. A pity the girl doesn’t have more intelligence to go with that face, she thought.
Kemble sipped his wine. “The conditions in France are growing much more serious,” he said, frowning. “Now that the king and queen are bound to be captives, I am told that the British government is very uneasy. Better to have a Bourbon still on the throne than a tribunal of extremists. Diplomatic relations with the French have been brittle enough when their government was stable, but now there is little or no contact.”
“And small hope it will change,” Enid added.
“The French leaders are also enraged that we have given haven to so many émigrés,” the actor continued. “The underground, of which Gustav and your Count Beaufaire are members, has done a fine and courageous job, but its success has maddened its opposition.”
“Only a small percentage of the nobility has actually been saved, and men like Armand and Gustav have risked their lives to accomplish even that.”
Kemble sighed. “It is only a matter of time until King Louis and Marie Antoinette will be guillotined, and then Heaven help both France and England!”
Enid thought bleakly of Armand. What are his chances? she wondered for the hundredth time.
“Well, it’s a sorry business,” Kemble said. “What is the news from the count?”
“There has been no recent word.” She did not mention Gustav’s report that Armand might be in prison.
“Are you concerned?”
“Very.”
Kemble gave her a knowing look. “I offer my sympathy. But perhaps I would be able to offer you more if anything should happen to him.”
She gazed at him with fear in her eyes. “Please do not consider that possibility!”
“It is always there,” he said gently.
“Yes, I know.”
Kemble hesitated. He didn’t wish to give Jenny any hint of the meaning behind his and Enid’s conversation. He didn’t want to upset his lovely protégée. He cleared his throat and said, “We both realize he changed things when he arrived in London.”
“He will always have the same place in my heart,” Enid vowed.
Kemble raised his eyebrows. “And what about your husband? What about dear Andrew?”
“He continues to try to hold me despite the fact that my father’s lawyers have proved he is not fit to be a husband.”
“I’m sure Lord Andrew has some friendly ears among those who preside over the courts. His is an old title that carries a great deal of influence.”
“I met Vicomte Robert today,” Enid said with a shudder of disgust. “The man we visited in Paris on our honeymoon.”
Kemble smiled grimly. “When they capped the ceremony with an orgy?”
“I shall never forget it! How I despise them both!”
Jenny rose from her seat. “Perhaps we should have our meal now. I have it warm and ready.”
Kemble stood up and placed an arm around her, exclaiming jovially, “Is she not a paragon? She let us talk without once interfering!”
“How could I?” the young actress murmured. “I didn’t understand what you were talking about.”
“It’s just as well,” the actor laughed.
They went to the oak table and sat down to a pleasant supper. And to make Jenny happy, Kemble had her declaim some lines from the role of Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew. He carelessly fed her cues, and Jenny responded well enough. It was evident that Susie had been right, Enid thought—Jenny was best in comedy.
After this entertainment and some more talk, Kemble called the driver to take Enid home. He kissed her tenderly in farewell, and she knew that he would not linger long over discarding Jenny if she, Enid, showed a willingness to be his mistress again. But she would never do that. Not while there was any hope that Armand was alive. And even if her beloved count were dead, she doubted that she would be faithless to his memory.
At her building, the driver helped her out of the carriage and bade her good night, and she stepped inside the dark front hallway. She was in a somewhat relaxed frame of mind, with Armand’s fate the only thing worrying her.
Lost in her thoughts, she started for the stairs. Too late she heard a movement behind her, and in the next instant a hood of some sort was thrown over her head and tied tightly about her throat. She tried to scream, but only a gasp and a choking sound could escape her lips.
At the same time she was taken roughly in hand and shoved back out into the cool night. She felt herself float somewhere between consciousness and oblivion. Her weak struggles made no impression on her captors, who, uttering oaths, tossed her onto the floor of a carriage and held her there as the vehicle rattled over many cobblestoned streets.
Enid no longer struggled as she lay there. Now she merely fought to breathe. Every minute that she was forced to remain smothered by this hood, with its taut cord secured tightly around her neck, was unendurable to her. She moaned a little and prayed that her ordeal would soon be over. Then she reached the brink of her endurance and descended into a void of darkness.
15
Something had changed. Enid slowly opened her eyes and realized the hood was no longer over her head. She could see; she was able to breathe again. She tried to move and discovered that her ankles and wrists were tightly bound. She was in a candlelit room that smelled of dampness, dirt, and gin.
As her senses returned, she raised her head a bit. She was lying on a rough cot in a miserable little hovel. There was only one other piece of furniture in the room: a plain chair on which rested the pewter candleholder. Then she heard the sound of an accordion being played somewhere below and the occasional bursts of drunken male laughter.
She tried to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Tried to think back to what had happened and how she had come to this vile place. The laughter sounded again, intruding on her thoughts. And then she remembered. She had entered the front hall and been attacked and taken prisoner.
Esmond! The master spy had no doubt spread a false rumor of his departure to put them off guard. And now he had taken her as a hostage. He might do anything to her. Surely he would try to balance the debt he felt was owed him! Enid’s mind whirled dizzily.
The door of the room creaked open, and a hunched-over, elderly crone peered in. The sunken eyes studied Enid to see if she was awake. The old woman did not attempt to speak, but made a chewing motion with her dried-up mouth. Then she vanished in the same silence with which she had entered.
Enid surmised that the old woman was some derelict who had been given the task of watching her. Her head ached and her ankles and wrists had begun to throb. She had the unhappy conviction that she had run out of luck. That the danger she had managed to elude for so long had finally caught up with her. She asked herself bleakly if this was to be the end of her great romance with Armand. He was either rotting in prison or dead by the guillotine, and she was a prisoner of the master spy, the vilest of all the revolutionists!
The door creaked open again, and this time an enormous woman came in. She wore a bright yellow dress with a dirty white shawl tossed over her shoulders. Her many-chinned face was both cruel and none too clean. Her hair was a dark, frizzled mess. The woman came over and gazed down at Enid with cold venom in her beady eyes.
“So you’re a lady!” she sneered. “That’s what they tell me!”
“Please!” Enid cried. “I’m in pain! Please free me!”
The fat woman laughed hoarsely. “That’s not why I’m here, dearie, not by any chance. Don’t snivel at me! I have small use for genteel ladies like you who think you’re better than the rest of us. Well, we’ll see about that!”
From the folds of her dress she withdrew a half-empty bottle of gin. She pulled out the cork and took a generous swig of the colorless liquid. Then she bent over Enid and forced the mouth of the bottle between her lips.
Enid tried to move her head away, but the woman was surprisingly agile for her size. She managed to keep the bottle in Enid’s mouth, allowing the burning gin to pour down her throat and choke her. Only when Enid began to gag did the woman remove the bottle. By that time a goodly quantity of gin had involuntarily been swallowed by the helpless Enid.
“Don’t choke on it, dearie!” the fat woman chided her. “The likes of me was brought up on gin. Good for you, it is. Brings out the woman in you. That’s what all my girls say, and they should know!”
Enid’s throat was afire, and her head was reeling from her fear and from the beginning effects of the liquor. She sobbed, “Don’t torture me!”
The woman roared with laughter, every pound of flab jiggling in unison, and applied the bottle once more to Enid’s lips. Enid bit the woman’s fingers and received a stunning blow for her deed. She had the choice of having her teeth bashed in or accepting the bottle again. She allowed some more gin to enter her mouth and slide down her throat. Again she gagged, and again the bottle was drawn away.
“How do you feel, dearie?” the woman asked.
The room was careening wildly around. Enid gasped, “I’m ill! I’m going to be sick! I’ll choke if you don’t release me!”
“The gin is beginning to warm you, dearie,” the woman gloated. “Time has come to cool you off.”
She finished the remaining gin, threw the bottle away, and then began systematically to rip all the clothing from Enid’s body. Enid felt her navy wool dress being torn roughly away, then her lace décolletage insert, then her petticoats—until at last she lay there completely naked, totally exposed.
“Well, my lady,” the enormous woman cackled, “you look much like the rest of us! Slim enough, to be sure, and good-sized above! You have a pair, no doubt of that!”
As she finished speaking, the door creaked open again. With eyes slightly blurred, Enid turned to see a delighted-looking Andrew and his simpering friend Claude enter the room.
Andrew exclaimed, “Excellent, Mother Mag! Is everything ready?”
The woman turned to him and shook with laughter. “Whenever you like, sir!”
Andrew came over to the cot and bent down close to Enid so that she could clearly see the scar on his face.
“Did you think I’d let you off so easily?” he sneered. “Not bloody likely!”
“You!” she managed thickly. She was sickened by the thought that she had been so wrong. It hadn’t been Esmond—it was Andrew!
“Claude had you followed. The rest was easy. And tonight I shall have my revenge. My witnesses will testify that you came to a brothel, got drunk on gin, and indulged in the debauchery to which you are so addicted. We’ll see then if the courts will grant you your freedom! Especially when I inform them of my distress and my desir
e to keep you for my wife and reform you!”
Enid moaned and closed her eyes.
“Did she get plenty of gin?” Andrew asked Mother Mag.
“More than a third of a bottle! She’s drunk as a turnip!” The fat woman shook again with cruel glee.
Andrew leaned over Enid and hissed, “You are so anxious for men, I shall stand by and see you supplied with a dozen or so!”
Terror cut through her fuddled brain and she opened her eyes. “No! Please!” she begged him.
“Too late for pleading,” he said. “I have neglected my husbandly duties, so you claim. Now I shall have the great delight of standing by and watching you be well served.”
The vicomte concurred. “It is the very epitome of justice, dear Andrew!”
“Bring them in!” Andrew told Mother Mag.
She waddled to the door and shouted hoarsely, “Ready, boys? A shilling a turn! Pay as you take your place!”
There was a moment’s pause, and then a tall, gaunt man stepped hesitantly into the room, followed by a short oldster in a dirty jacket and breeches and a greasy periwig. Behind him was a young seaman whose vacant face bore a wide grin. The last man to enter was a burly brute with a broad, ugly face.
Mother Mag took a stand at the foot of the bed and crowed. “There she is, boys, and she’s ready for you! A real lady! All right, you vagabond, give me your shilling and get to it.”
The gaunt man at the head of the line hesitated. “Is there to be no screen? Nothing to make it private?”
“All in the open, that’s the way it’s to be,” Mother Mag told him. “Look at those rosy breasts and the cut of those thighs! Now, enough stalling. Give me the shilling!” She held out her hand.
He passed it to her, and there were titters and some rude jests from the men waiting behind him. Still the gaunt man hesitated. He approached the cot awkwardly and then gave Andrew and the vicomte a worried look.
“Why are they here?” he asked Mother Mag. “Why should they be allowed to watch?”
Andrew spoke up. “It is our wish to see you at your manly work! Get on with it, fellow!” The vicomte giggled and placed a forefinger in his mouth, his eyes greedy for the carnal scene about to be played for them.
Vintage Love Page 46