‘Like you, Mrs Culver, I have my loyalties and obligations.’
‘I believe you do.’ With this Mrs Culver took Anne to meet her brother. He wasted no time on courtesies, but said, ‘It’s time we went. Now stop your fussing, Sarah—I’ll give your messages to Eliza and the children. If Miss Anne is ready, we shall be off.’
In no time Anne was on her way, following the route James had taken not an hour before. But when they reached the Portsmouth Road her driver turned the gig north towards London, instead of south to Guildford. Each milestone reminded her that she was leaving Hatherton and her life with James farther and farther behind. Mr Cobden was not a talkative man, and the chill of the morning gave her an excuse to huddle inside her shawl, seeking comfort. But the only grain of comfort she could find, and it was small enough, was when she felt the ring through the thickness of her dress. Somewhere in London, she was sure, lay the answer to the mystery surrounding it. And if she solved that, she might solve the other, bigger mystery—the question of who she was.
* * *
Mr Cobden travelled at a good pace, and by mid-afternoon they were in London itself and turning north up Park Lane towards Oxford Street.
Halfway up Park Lane they came to a stop. It was a chaotic scene. A high-perch phaeton had collided with a curricle, and their wheels were immovably locked together. Their two owners were so busy trading accusations and insults that they were quite oblivious to the traffic rapidly building up around them. The road was completely blocked.
‘It’ll be some time before those two have sorted themselves,’ Mr Cobden grumbled. ‘We might just as well sit back and have a rest! There’s not much else we can do.’ Anne looked around her. The gig had stopped just level with a street leading off to the right, and at the end of it she could see a hint of trees. The scene was hauntingly familiar…Her heart started to beat rapidly, and she found she was suddenly trembling. She had to see what was in that street. She couldn’t wait a moment longer. With a muttered apology to Mr Cobden she leapt down from the gig.
‘Miss Anne! What’s wrong?’
‘It’s all right, Mr Cobden,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Henrietta Street. That’s where you’re going. I shan’t forget.’ She grabbed her bag from the back and darted across the road, narrowly escaping being run down by a delivery cart.
‘Miss Anne! Come back! You’ll get lost…’
Mr Cobden’s shouts fell on deaf ears. Once on the other side she gave a brief look back at the gig. The traffic was moving again and Mr Cobden was quite unable to do anything but follow it. She felt a moment’s regret, but the force that was driving her was too strong for her to go back. She walked slowly, looking from one side to the other. It wasn’t long before she was transfixed by the sight of a house with a dark red door…She recognised it instantly. It was the door in her dream.
Everything else was forgotten as she stared at it. After a while she had gathered enough courage to walk up to the door and knock.
It was opened by an elderly man in the dress of a superior manservant, who regarded her dowdy bonnet and shawl, her clumsy boots and her carpet bag with a look of withering scorn. She realised in a panic that she had no idea what to say or whom to ask for, and thought for a moment that he was about to shut the door on her, or fetch another servant to chase her away. But as she looked up his face was suddenly transformed. Scorn changed to recognition, rapidly followed by rejection, then he looked again.
‘Miss Calverley?’ he asked doubtfully. He turned round as someone came up behind him and an anxious voice asked, ‘What is it, Blandish? Is there some news?’
‘My lady, I…I don’t know…I don’t know what to think. It’s a young person at the door. It…it could be Miss Calverley herself.’
‘What? And you’ve left her standing there? Let me see!’ The owner of the voice appeared. It was a woman, tall, and with a cool air of elegance. But, on seeing the girl at the door, her face lit up with joy, she gave a cry of astonished delight and flung her arms round Anne. Drawing her inside she hugged and kissed her over and over again. ‘Antonia!’ she exclaimed. ‘Oh, Antonia, thank God you’re safe! Where have you been? Oh, I can’t believe it! Come in, come in! Blandish, don’t stand there gawping like a fish, take my niece’s bag and shut the door. Oh, this is wonderful news!’
Bewildered and dazed, Anne let herself be ushered into the inner hall. It seemed dimly familiar. She took a step forwards, and suddenly dazzled by a shaft of sunlight coming through the window above the stairs, she could hardly see anything at all for a moment. Then she peered into the semi-darkness as someone at the other end of the hall came running towards her. It was the man she’d seen in her dream lying in a pool of blood…She screamed, and then memory flooded back, wave after wave of it, drowning her, choking her…She felt herself falling…falling, and everything went black.
Chapter Nine
Antonia
Antonia opened her eyes. The room was in darkness except for a small lamp in its opposite corner, and she wondered where she was. Then she saw a familiar figure sitting at her bedside, and realised with a huge sense of relief that she was in her aunt’s house in London. She was safe!
She tried to speak, but her throat was dry. Alerted by the slight sound, Lady Pendell got up and leaned over the bed. ‘Antonia! You’re awake at last! Would you like some water, my dear?’
Antonia nodded. ‘Thank you,’ she croaked, struggling to sit up. She drank deeply and then sank back.
Her aunt eyed her and said, ‘How do you feel?’
‘My head is aching a little, but I’m so happy to see you, Aunt Pendell. How…how did I get here?’
‘We don’t know! You arrived out of the blue last night, came into the hall and then you…you screamed and fell down in a faint. You dropped like a stone. I’ve never seen anything like it.’ She put a cool hand on Antonia’s forehead. ‘You might have given your head a slight bang, but the surgeon didn’t think you were otherwise hurt. We put you to bed and you’ve slept like a baby ever since.’ She added with a shudder, ‘But your scream…it was enough to make one’s hair stand on end.’
Antonia sat up again and clutched her aunt’s hand. ‘Who was the man I saw in the hall?’
‘My dear Antonia, you must know who that is—you’ve known him all your life! He’s your father’s right-hand man.’ Then, as Antonia continued to stare at her blankly, she said, ‘It was Lawson, of course.’
Antonia was absolutely still. After a moment she said, ‘That isn’t possible. Lawson is dead—’ She stopped and swallowed hard.
‘My poor child, I assure you Lawson is very much alive and nearly out of his mind with concern over you. He is so relieved to see you here at last. Where have you been? We were beginning to think we would soon have to tell your father—’
‘Tell Papa what?’
‘That you were missing, of course! But he was so weak after the journey up from Portsmouth that we’ve kept it from him till now. He thinks you’ve been confined to your room with a bad cold since he arrived.’
‘Papa is here in London?’
‘He arrived two days ago.’
Antonia said thoughtfully, ‘It’s taken me two days to get here…’
‘Antonia, it’s been much longer than that! Lawson has been looking for you for over a week! We’ve been getting desperate. I would love to know what happened to you, but we’ve no time to talk about it at the moment. Your father is asking for you. Now that he’s getting stronger it’s been more difficult to put him off. He won’t be satisfied until he has seen you for himself.’
‘I’ll go straight away.’
‘One of our maids will help you dress. There’s been no sign of yours, though the carrier arrived with your trunks some time ago—they are all unpacked.’
‘Martha is with her sister in Marylebone.’
Lady Pendell frowned. ‘Whatever is she doing there? No, there’s no time—you can tell me later.’ As she left the room she said, ‘Remember to be careful when you
talk to your papa, Antonia.’
Antonia scrambled out of bed and ran to the door. ‘How long did you say Lawson was looking for me?’ But she was too late. Her aunt had disappeared.
She sat down on the bed again. She must have misheard. Lawson couldn’t have been looking for her for over a week! Wrinkling her brow, she tried to picture what had happened before she had got to her aunt’s door, but her mind was a complete blank. Then the maid came in and she decided to leave it till later. Her father mustn’t be kept waiting any longer.
* * *
When Antonia tapped on her father’s bedroom door and went in, Sir Henry was sitting in a chair by his bed. Someone had obviously told him to expect her, for he had his eyes fixed on the door and smiled when she appeared. She hurried over and knelt down beside him. ‘Papa!’ she said softly, taking his hand in her own and kissing it.
‘I’m so glad to see you at last,’ Sir Henry said, adding testily, ‘Your wretched aunt and Lawson here have been conspiring to keep you away from me for too long.’
The man standing on the other side of the chair said, ‘That was for your own good, and well you know it. You had enough to cope with. You didn’t need to catch a cold in the head from Miss Antonia as well.’ Antonia could hardly take her eyes off him. In his late fifties, wiry, with grizzled hair and bushy eyebrows, Lawson was her father’s groom, guide, bodyguard and general factotum. He had been part of her life as long as she could remember. She shivered as she remembered the last time she had seen him, lying on the dusty street in a pool of blood. She had been quite certain he was dead…
‘You’re not still ill, are you?’ her father asked. ‘These colds are the devil to get rid of.’
Gratefully, she turned back again and replied, ‘No, I’m quite well now.’
‘Good! What about the papers? Did you manage to deliver them to the right man? I’ll have my ring back, please.’
Antonia fingered the ring, which was hanging round her neck. ‘I can’t let you have it yet, Papa. I still have the papers. But I’ll take them to the Foreign Office very soon.’
Sir Henry looked at her in silence for a moment. Then he said, ‘They should have been with the Foreign Office by now. Croxton is a slippery customer, and he’ll use every moment we give him to make his position with the Prince Regent more secure. Why else would I have taken the risk of sending you to London without me? What held you up?’
Lawson made an involuntary gesture, but before he could say anything Antonia replied swiftly, ‘Some of the…some of the…the depositions had been badly translated and I had to rewrite them. Then I was…I was ill, as they told you. But they’ll be ready and delivered tomorrow.’ She smiled coaxingly. ‘Come, Papa, the Croxton affair is nearly over. You’ve done the major part, and can safely leave the rest to me. Delivering the papers is easily accomplished. Lawson and I will take them the minute they are ready.’
‘You have my ring? You will need it for identification.’
‘Of course…’ She held it out for him to see, and saw with surprise that a piece of ribbon had replaced its chain. She hurried on, ‘It’s time you forgot Lord Croxton and concentrated on my début. I hope you’re fit enough for Lady Carteret’s reception next week—isn’t that when you are planning to present me to the London ton? I hear they’re a formidable lot, highly critical of newcomers, so we must both be in top form. You’ve promised me a husband out of it, remember!’
Her father smiled. ‘As if you couldn’t already have had your pick of Europe’s finest!’
‘Ah, but I want one of those rich English “milord’s” with an eyeglass and a drawl, and acres of English countryside. And a house, no, a mansion, in the centre of it…’ Antonia faltered as a picture of the house was suddenly clear and complete in her mind—a house of creamy grey stone, high on a hill and with an arched bridge over a lake…It had a white-and-gold entrance hall…and a carving of a little mouse…Her heart gave a jump and for a moment she was inexpressibly sad.
She pulled herself together when she saw her father’s stare. ‘Can you think of anyone, Papa? He needn’t be clever,’ she said brightly.
‘Don’t talk such nonsense, child! You wouldn’t survive for two minutes with a man whose wits and interests didn’t match your own, however rich he was. I hope to do better for you than that. There are one or two young men at the Foreign Office…’
She had achieved her object. Her nonsense had distracted him. After a while she saw he was ready to rest again, and, promising to see him the next day, she left. Lawson followed her.
* * *
As soon as the door shut behind them she took Law-son’s arm and marched him down the stairs and into the small room where Lady Pendell was waiting for them.
Here Antonia hugged Lawson, wiped a tear from her eye and said, ‘Oh, heavens, Lawson, never do that to me again. What happened to you?’
With a look and a little nod in Lady Pendell’s direction, Lawson said gruffly, ‘Never mind me, Miss Antonia. I lost a deal of blood, but a bit of a rest soon put that right. As soon as I was on my feet again I asked about in Portsmouth, and found you’d been carried off by a man called Briggs. I caught up with him in Putney. He told me there’d been an accident and that you’d escaped. What happened to you? I searched the length of the Portsmouth Road, but couldn’t find you or the coach.’
‘Lawson tried to tell me he was sure you’d make your own way here somehow or other,’ said Lady Pendell. ‘But I can’t say I was reassured.’
‘Begging your pardon, ma’am, you don’t know Miss Antonia as well as I do. She doesn’t lose her head. You weren’t there to see how she dealt with a couple of brigands in Spain.’
‘No,’ Lady Pendell said faintly, ‘I’m happy to say I wasn’t.’
‘She has always been a capable lass in tight situations,’ Lawson said proudly. He turned back to Antonia. ‘I didn’t stop looking. I searched that road three times. But a week went by and I couldn’t find any trace at all. That was when I started to get worried.’
‘So my aunt did say you were looking for me for over a week?’
‘You were missing for nearer two. I didn’t start straight away.’
Antonia protested, white-faced, ‘But that’s impossible! I came straight here! I suppose I got confused—I seem to remember banging my head after I’d escaped…and I can’t quite remember what happened after that. But I haven’t been anywhere else.’
Lady Pendell looked more concerned. She took her niece’s hand and led her to a chair. ‘My dear, you’ve been missing ever since you left Portsmouth, and that was nearly two weeks ago. You must have been somewhere else. Where?’
Antonia stared at her aunt. ‘I don’t know…’ She looked at them both in bewilderment, then said slowly, ‘I suppose I have to believe you. But all I can remember is that I escaped from the men Lawson told you about and came straight here. In a cart…I remember a cart!’
Lawson shifted uneasily. ‘Er…Miss Antonia…’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s those papers…Sir Henry wants them delivered as soon as possible. We could talk later about the rest. Do you really have them? Or was that just a story to keep him quiet?’
‘Martha has them. I gave them to her to look after while we were still in Portsmouth. Then, when I saw the men catching up with us, I bundled her into the London coach before they came round the corner, and told her to wait for me at her sister’s. So she escaped with Papa’s papers and the men followed me instead. We can go and collect them straight away.’
‘Not before you’ve been seen again by the surgeon,’ Lady Pendell said very firmly.
‘I haven’t come to any real harm, Aunt Pendell. A headache is nothing!’
‘From what I’ve been hearing you’ve been in serious danger from the moment you left Portsmouth. Your father should never have allowed you to travel without him.’
‘He had to! The papers—’
‘The papers, the papers! What are these papers?’
A
ntonia hesitated. ‘They’re very confidential.’
‘Your uncle was a diplomat, too, Antonia. I know how to keep secrets. So while Lawson sees about the carriage you can tell me about them. You are not leaving this house until I know what’s going on.’
Lawson nodded and went and Antonia said. ‘Papa has been working on a special assignment for the past year which involved one of the Prince Regent’s closest friends. The Foreign Office had heard some worrying rumours about the source of his fortune. If they were true, there was a risk that the Prince could be involved in a huge scandal, so Papa was asked to investigate. The rumours proved perfectly true. The Prince’s friend is part of a ring of extortion and corruption all round the Mediterranean, and the proof is in those papers.’
‘But why this urgency?’
‘Because the Prince is planning to confer one of the highest honours in his power on Lord…on this man! It’s very important he knows the truth before he does!’
‘Lord Croxton—he’s the one, isn’t he?—is a very unscrupulous man. Henry should never have let you take such risks, and I shall tell him so.’
‘You mustn’t! Papa isn’t yet well enough to be told I was missing!’
‘Why not? You can’t keep it a secret for ever!’
‘Please, Aunt, please leave it to me to tell him!’
After some persuasion, Lady Pendell agreed to leave it to Antonia to break the news to her father, but the delay caused by the discussion meant that it was early evening before Antonia got away.
* * *
James had also arrived in London. After their disastrous dinner party two nights before, he had spent a sleepless night wishing he could forget his behaviour, and haunted by Anne’s distress. He, who had always prided himself on his detachment, had been totally unprepared for the feelings aroused by the discovery of the ring, his furious jealousy at the idea that Anne might already belong to someone else, be betrothed or even married. He had had to exercise considerable self-discipline to speak at all rationally during the meal, and then, when his worst fears had been confirmed, when Anne had admitted that that accursed ring was important to her, he had forgotten how vulnerable she was and had given way to his own anger, had spoken to her in a manner he had never before used towards any woman. He was ashamed at how deeply he had upset her.
Reawakening Miss Calverley Page 11