Dorothy Eden (14 page)

‘I’ll go straight up to my room, Lucy. Yes, I would like a cup of tea, if you wouldn’t mind bringing it up. And Lucy, would you take care not to let the master know I’m here? It’s better not. He might think it impertinent, my coming here. Or he might think I expect to come down to dinner.’

‘How could you, with that toothache? What you need, miss, is pap. But I’ll have to tell Mrs Robbins you’re here, miss, if I’m to be carrying things upstairs.’

At that moment from upstairs there came the crash of the front door being banged shut.

‘The master’s gone out!’ Lucy exclaimed. ‘He can’t be going to wait any longer for that caller.’

‘He’s gone out, thank goodness,’ came Mrs Robbins’s voice from the basement stairs. ‘Who do I hear you talking to, Lucy? Not that cheeky grocer’s boy again?’

‘It’s Miss Mildmay, ma’am,’ Lucy squeaked. ‘She’s just come with the toothache.’

Sarah pressed her hand to her cheek.

‘I’m just going up to my room, Mrs Robbins. I’ve asked Lucy not to tell the master I’m here. He might worry about Titus. But I really had to see the dentist. I was suffering so.’

‘You poor thing!’ Mrs Robbins, plump and good-natured, the effects of her inclination for the bottle already showing in her highly-coloured complexion, was full of sympathy. ‘You go right up to bed, my lamb. Lucy will bring you a tray.’

Sarah swayed slightly.

‘I don’t want to worry anybody, particularly the master.’

‘Neither you shall. Though why he shouldn’t be told we’re all human and get our aches and pains, I don’t know. Now he’s gone out leaving strict instructions if anyone calls I’m to keep them until he returns. He’s been expecting someone, but he’s got impatient waiting. Look, how’d it be if we all had a little drop of something?’

‘No, thank you, Mrs Robbins. I’ll go straight upstairs.’

‘It’d do the tooth good. Keep the cold out for me and Lucy, too.’

‘You and Lucy do what you like, Mrs Robbins, but I really must rest. I’ve had a long journey.’

It was unbelievable luck that Blane had just gone out. Now she could slip into the study at once.

Not that she expected to find the important letter there. One would have thought he would have been much too careful to leave it lying about. But he must have expected Mrs Robbins to be too uninterested and Lucy too illiterate to notice it.

For there it was lying on the desk, in the envelope which had been re-addressed painstakingly from this address to Mallow Hall.

It said simply,

Dear Blane,

Fancy, I thought you was dead. But I have just heard about you and all that business. You could have knocked me down with a feather. You never told me all that. So I am coming to London to see you. We have a lot to talk about. Expect me Thursday or Friday this week.

Yours faithfully,

Sammie

The postmark, Sarah noticed curiously, was Liverpool. Liverpool could mean someone just arrived on a ship. From the West Indies? Someone who had only just heard of the celebrated case, and was eagerly expecting some share? Moreover someone who seemed to think that Blane was in debt to him. Was he an old shipmate who thought he had stumbled on to a good thing, or a blackmailer?

Sammie. Sarah’s heart was beating rapidly. Soon she would discover who he was. And the coming meeting between the two men promised to provide her with the vital evidence for which Ambrose was waiting. For if the writer of the letter thought the man who had received his letter was the true Blane Mallow, and he found him to be an impostor, what would happen?

Sarah sat with the door of her room ajar listening. The chilly day had turned to snow. Already there was a thick coating on roofs and pavements so that the sound of the few cabs and coaches abroad was muffled and almost inaudible. She had to listen for the front door bell, not for the sound of cab wheels.

When the jangling peal did come an hour later she jumped convulsively, then ran softly to the head of the stairs. The hall was still out of sight, but there was no difficulty in hearing Blane’s voice. It was loud and jovial.

‘Stoke up the fire in the library, Mrs Robbins, and bring in the whisky. It’s a deuced cold night, my friend here is almost frozen stiff.’

‘Just about, gov’nor,’ came the reply.

‘We’ll soon improve your condition. What are you standing there staring at, Mrs Robbins? Go and do as I say.’

‘Yes, my lord.’

Mrs Robbins hurried away and Sarah, in her extreme curiosity, ventured halfway down the curving stairs. She was just in time to see the two men disappear into the library, Blane’s companion, a short man in a shabby cloak liberally dusted with snow. His voice was cockney and he must have walked here, judging by the snow he had collected. How could a man like that have legitimate business with Lord Mallow?

They had shut the library door. Sarah waited until Mrs Robbins had bustled in with the tray of drinks, and come out again, then she boldly went up to the door and put her ear to the keyhole.

But the late Lord Mallow had, as his wife complained, spent a great deal of money ensuring that nothing but the best materials and workmanship were put into his house. The handsome doors were inches thick and quite soundproof. Even through the aperture of the keyhole Sarah could hear only a confused murmur of voices. But fortunately for her she detected the sound of glasses put down and chairs moved after a surprisingly short time, as if the business had been very brief indeed. She was just able to fly to the stairs before the door opened.

But her curiosity was her downfall. For still looking round as she climbed the stairs her foot caught in the hem of her skirt. She clutched wildly at the stair-rail, failed to reach it, and tumbled ignominiously to the bottom of the stairs.

For a moment she was conscious of nothing but exquisite pain. The gaslight danced above her head in a luminous haze, then was blotted out by the shape of a head. She began to struggle up.

‘Lor lumme! ’as she ’urt ’erself?’ she heard the cockney voice saying.

Then she was aware of Blane leaning over her and the cold furious anger in his face. Her heart turned over with its second shock. She had suspected that he could look like this, that his irritations with his wife and other things had been merely superficial in comparison with this deeply roused anger. But to have that black look bent on her was dreadful. Faintness swept over her again.

‘Is she ’urt?’ the other man repeated.

‘I don’t think so, cabby.’

Cabby! Was that all the stranger was? She had been brought to this predicament merely by trying to overhear a conversation between Blane and a London cabby! Indignation made her head clear. She heard Blane’s tautly controlled voice.

‘Not seriously hurt, anyway. I’ll see to her. You get on your way.’

‘Well, thanks, guv’nor, for the bit of good cheer. Wish all the gentry ’ad your kind ’eart. Sure you don’t want me to stop at a doctor’s with a message?’

‘Good heavens, no! The young woman’s only taken a tumble. Haven’t you, Miss Mildmay? You’re not hurt, are you?’

Sarah at last managed to sit upright.

‘N-not at all. I’m p-perfectly all right. Except for—she gasped—‘the toothache.’

The shabby little man went, albeit somewhat reluctantly, and banged the door shut.

‘I didn’t know,’ said Blane, ‘that the toothache came on from falling downstairs.’

‘I—had to come up to see my dentist. That’s why I’m in London. Ask your wife, Lord Mallow.’

‘And the dentist has applied a remedy that has made you dizzy? Allow me to assist you to your feet, Miss Mildmay.’

He was too close to her. She wanted to shrink away. But he seemed to have controlled that moment of black anger. He was wearing his more relaxed look of ironic amusement again.

‘I can at least look on your pain as a blessing,’ he went on. ‘Now I’ll have someone to eat dinner with me. Why, I believe you are hurt.’

For Sarah, on her feet, found herself quite unable to stand. She had broken several bones in her ankle at the very least! She had to cling desperately to Blane’s supporting arm, and just as Mrs Robbins appeared, full of exclamations, felt herself swung into his arms.

‘Lor, has the toothache taken her again, my lord?’

‘Yes, in a curious place. Her ankle. Bring hot water and bandages, Mrs Robbins.’

She was carried into the library and laid on the leather couch, pleasantly warm from the heat of the fire. The pain was ebbing a little now, although it came back in a fierce spasm as Blane unbuttoned her boot and took it off. His fingers felt the ankle with a searching touch that was almost professional.

‘Not too serious, I think. Just a sprain, Miss Mildmay. But I’ll warrant it’s dispatched your toothache.’

She believed he was laughing at her now: Kneeling beside her, his face was on a level with hers. The blackness of his eyes was full of light. His colour was heightened and there was a faint smell of whisky on his breath. She believed he was a little drunk. Or at least he had been drinking more than he usually did.

‘So you fell down the stairs,’ he said, and now the amusement was evident in his voice. ‘One could enquire what you were doing on the stairs just at that particular moment. Or even indeed why you should be seized with toothache the moment my back is turned.’

Sarah summoned all her dignity.

‘If you must know what I was doing on the stairs, I was coming down to ask Mrs Robbins for something soothing for my tooth. It is still very painful.’

‘But, my dear young woman, you should have come to me for that remedy. I’ve just been dispensing it to the cabby who drove me home from my club. He was almost frozen to his seat, poor devil. I brought him in and gave him a hot rum. Now you shall have precisely the same mixture. Ah, Mrs Robbins, bring the things here. Have you had any experience with sprained ankles?’

‘I can’t really say so, my lord.’

‘Bathing isn’t difficult. You might do that while I prescribe more effectively. Our poor patient is suffering severely both from her wrenched ankle and from toothache. Do you think we ought to take a look at the errant molar?’

‘My lord!’ Mrs Robbins murmured, scandalised.

‘Very well, we can assume Miss Mildmay’s dentist is efficient since she travelled all the way to London to see him.’ Blane, a glass of rum in his hand, stood over Sarah. His face was full of impudence. Now he was playing his familiar part, and the glimpse she had caught of his tension and ruthlessness might have been imagined. But she knew it was not. He was thoroughly suspicious about her.

At the moment Sarah found herself quite unable to care about that last possibility. Her pain and her fury with herself for her stupidity, and with Blane for his sudden extraordinarily intimate attitude, were too much.

‘If that drink is to make me recover, Lord Mallow, I’d better have it at once.’ Then she gasped as Mrs Robbins touched her ankle with a good deal less skill than Blane had showed, and snatched the glass out of his hand. After she had drained the contents, choking a little over the unaccustomed fiery taste, she scarcely cared when Mrs Robbins said primly,

‘May I ask you to be so good, my lord, as to leave the room while I remove Miss Mildmay’s stocking?’

‘Of course. Of course.’ The impudent eyebrows were raised high. ‘And after that we’ll take our dinner in here. It’s the only warm room in the house.’

‘You will please excuse me, Lord Mallow. I would prefer to retire.’

‘The devil you would. But has it occurred to you that you can scarcely get upstairs without being carried. So I fear you will have to wait my pleasure.’

‘Lor!’ Mrs Robbins murmured, as he went out. ‘He is in a playful mood. It’s being away from his wife, if you ask me. And a few drinks, o’ course. Wonderful how cheering a drink can be.’

‘Playful!’ echoed Sarah faintly. ‘Is that how you would describe it, Mrs Robbins?’

‘Well, you wouldn’t think it was anything more serious, would you? Not with Lord Mallow!’

How do you know he is Lord Mallow? Sarah wanted to ask. This man might have no standards of behaviour whatever. And here he was enjoying having her practically at his mercy.

As the rum had its effect the pain at last became tolerable. But her ankle seemed to be the size of two, and there was no doubt she was compelled to stay on the couch until she was assisted elsewhere.

Presently Lucy, wide-eyed and scandalised, came in to prepare the table for dinner.

‘Lawks, Miss Mildmay, is he making you his prisoner?’

‘Don’t be foolish, Lucy!’

‘But how are you going to eat venison with that toothache?’

‘I’m not. I shall simply have a little gruel.’

Lucy scampered out as Blane returned. He had a glass in his hand which he replenished. Then he came over to look down at Sarah.

‘That’s better, Miss Mildmay. You have some colour again. Is the ankle easier? Or the toothache, or both?’

‘I believe the drink has helped, Lord Mallow.’

Unaccustomed to strong liquor, her head was swimming. She felt strangely carefree.

‘Have another.’

‘No, thank you.’

‘I say yes. It’s important on a cold night. Didn’t you see how it cheered my friend, the cabby?’

‘Is it your habit to bring in strange people for drinks, Lord Mallow?’

‘On cold lonely nights, yes. At that time I didn’t know I was to have your company. Now, let me take a look at Mrs Robbins’s bandage.’

Before Sarah could prevent him, he had twitched off the rug which Mrs Robbins had spread over her, and his searching fingers were feeling the wrappings round her ankle.

‘Tch! Tch! It’ll have to be redone. Allow me. Now why are you looking so outraged?’

‘I believe you’re merely enjoying yourself!’ Sarah exclaimed. ‘The bandage is perfectly all right.’

‘On the contrary! It’s giving you no support at all. You and it will part company in the night! See, this is how it should be.’

There was no doubt that he was exceedingly skilful.

‘May I ask where you gained your experience, Lord Mallow? Are sprained ankles a natural hazard to a sailor’s life?’

‘Everything from sprained ankles to broken hearts. And an occasional case of bubonic plague or perhaps a murder.’