The Saint and the Sinner (16 page)

The first rays of the sun were showing golden in the East. The sky was still purple overhead but the stars were fading.

‘It must be five o’clock,’ she thought, but when she peered at the clock on the mantelshelf she found it was after half-past.

She looked out of the window. There was no-one about.

She was aware that women never attended duels, but she told herself that this was an exceptional case because she was involved.

‘I will not let anyone see me,’ she thought, ‘but I must watch what happens.’

She dressed quickly, then thought that it would be more difficult for anyone to notice her in her light summer gown if she wore over it the green cape in which she had arrived at Chart Hall.

Now she was ready and she went again to the window to wait.

About ten minutes later she saw the Earl, accompanied by Freddie and Richard, come out from a side door which was situated beyond the Library.

She knew they had not used the front door so that the footman who was on duty would not be aware that they had left the house.

They walked across the court-yard beneath Pandora’s window and she thought how elegant they all looked.

The Earl, who was walking between the other two men, seemed in her eyes outstanding, a man, she felt, who would be noticed wherever he might be.

‘It is because he is a Chart,’ she thought triumphantly, and she felt he would laugh at her if he knew what she was thinking.

Then as they reached the bridge she saw a Phaeton coming down the drive and realised that Sir Gilbert was arriving.

She felt a sudden agony of apprehension in her breast which swept away the thoughts of everything else.

A duel was to be fought because of her, and now she was afraid with a terror which seemed to strike through her as if it were forked lightning.

She ran from her room and down the stairs to let herself out through a different door from the one the Earl had used, one that did not involve her passing through the Hall.

She realised that the duellists were making for a glade that stood on the left side of the bridge, which, she had been told, had in ancient days been used as a bowling-green.

It had now lapsed into disuse, but the gardeners automatically cut the grass because they always had done so.

Surrounded by shrubs, it was concealed and could not be overlooked and was in fact an excellent site for a duel.

There was no chance of those from the house who had gone ahead, or of Sir Gilbert, who had followed them, seeing Pandora cross the bridge. Knowing the way, she kept to the shadows of the bushes until she heard voices.

Then, moving very, very cautiously, she approached through the shrubs until she had a sight of the seconds standing in the centre of the bowling green and beside them a man she recognised as Sir Edward Trentham and another man.

She guessed that Sir Gilbert had brought a friend with him as a referee.

There was no doubt that that was his office, for as soon as Pandora was within ear-shot she heard him intoning:

“Five-six-seven-”

She could see now by moving the leaves a little that the Earl was walking away to her right and Sir Gilbert to the left.

“Eight-nine-ten!”

The two men turned and fired simultaneously. It was impossible to be certain which pistol fired first. For a moment Pandora felt everything swim dizzily before her eyes and it was difficult to see what had happened.

Then she saw the Earl put his hand up to his head and as he did so he fell to the ground.

She gave a little cry and burst through the bushes, and as she ran towards him, Freddie was beside her.

The Earl was lying on the ground and she could see blood pouring down the side of his face from his temple.

For one terrifying second, Pandora thought that he was dead.

“He has only been grazed,” Freddie said in tones of satisfaction.

Then as the horror of it swept over her she thought she knew that she loved him.

It was all an incredible muddle, her love, her feeling of terror, and her relief in one part of her mind as she understood what Freddie had said.

Then as she slipped her arm under the Earl’s head and lifted him against her, Richard came running up to say,

“He got Gilbert in the arm. We should have thought of having a doctor here.”

“We must get Norvin back to the house,” Pandora said.

“Yes, of course,” Freddie agreed. “Shall we carry him?”

Pandora looked down at the Earl’s closed eyes.

“I think it would be better if we put him on a gate.”

She remembered it was what her father always did when there were casualties in the hunting-field. “Yes, of course,” Richard agreed. “But where will we find one?”

Pandora thought quickly.

“Beyond the shrubs there,” she said, pointing to the far end of the bowling-green. “There is a gate into an orchard.”

Freddie and Richard ran off without her saying any more, and now she tried to stanch with her handkerchief the blood that was still running down the Earl’s cheeks.

It made a crimson stain on his shirt and she was suddenly afraid, with a fear which seemed to pierce her, that he was mortally wounded.

A bullet in the arm could easily be extracted, but an injury to the head could be very serious indeed, for she was well aware that the doctors knew little or nothing about injuries to the brain.

Then she told herself reassuringly as she wiped away the blood that the bullet was not lodged in the Earl’s head but must have swept along the side of his temple, searing its way through his hair.

Sir Gilbert aimed deliberately at his head,’ she thought.

As an experienced shot, it would have been impossible for him to have missed the Earl’s left arm, which had been turned towards him, or for the bullet to have passed so high unless he had aimed it so.

Even as she thought of it she looked up to find Sir Gilbert walking unsteadily towards her, his uninjured arm round the shoulders of Sir Edward Trentham.

His wounded arm was tied roughly with a handkerchief through which the blood was already spreading in a crimson tide.

“Norvin is all right, I hope?” he’ asked as he reached Pandora.

She looked up at him with furious eyes.

“You tried to kill him!” she said accusingly. “You are too good a shot to have hit him in the head unless you intended to do so.”

She saw by the expression in Sir Gilbert’s eyes that what she had said was true.

“Now that is a ridiculous suggestion,’ he began, but Sir Edward interrupted, saying,

“It is certainly unlike you, Gilbert, to be so far off the mark.”

“Pandora is right,” Clive exclaimed, who had been listening, “and by God, if Norvin dies I will see that you swing for it!”

“You are all hysterical,” Sir Gilbert said sourly.

“Take me home, Edward. I have no wish to listen to such absurd accusations.”

“Are they so absurd?” Sir Edward questioned as he helped Sir Gilbert walk away.

“Damn him!” Clive exclaimed. “I have always heard that he is a killer, and it is true.”

He dropped down on his knees beside the Earl and asked,

“He is not really bad, is he?”

“I hope – not,” Pandora answered, but her voice was uncertain.

She went on holding the Earl and tried to mop away the blood, accepting Clive’s handkerchief as hers was already saturated.

Freddie and Richard came back with the gate. Very gently they lifted the Earl onto it, then all three men started to carry him back to the house. Pandora started to run ahead of them.

“Take him to the front door,” she said “It will be easier to get him up the Great Staircase, and I will go ahead and see that his room is ready and send a groom for the Doctor.”

She ran as swiftly as she could, to find the front door already open and two maids in mob-caps scrubbing the steps.

To her relief, Mrs. Meadowfield was in the Hall. “His Lordship has been injured,” Pandora said breathlessly.

“Mr. Burrows was certain something strange was going on,” Mrs. Meadowfield exclaimed. “What’s happened to His Lordship?”

“He has been shot in the head in a duel,” Pandora explained. “Send a groom immediately for Dr. Graham.”

“Yes, of course, Miss!” Mrs. Meadowfield cried. “He’ll know what to do.”

‘It certainly was a relief,’ Pandora thought, when half an hour later the Doctor arrived.

She had not changed since they had brought the Earl back to the house, and her cotton gown was marked with blood, but she had no intention of doing anything about it until she heard what the Doctor had to say.

It seemed to her as if a century passed while she waited, but all the time she was aware of how much the Earl meant to her in a way that she had never envisaged for one moment she could feel for him.

She thought now it was inevitable, seeing he was so different from the other men she had known.

Yet he was also part of her blood and part of everything she had ever cared for, so it was natural that she should fall in love with him like any infatuated schoolgirl.

‘I am a fool!’ she told herself. ‘He has Kitty, and all those other fascinating women to give him the gaiety and the amusement that he really enjoys. It is impossible that he should look at anyone like me.’ Now as she stood outside in the corridor, the mere idea of Kitty sleeping next door to the Earl in the bed-room that had been her grandmother’s hurt her in a way that she knew was jealousy.

‘How can I be so absurd? So idiotic?’ she questioned. ‘Tomorrow I have to go back to Lindchester and perhaps I will never see him again, nor will he want to see me.’

The idea was an agony in itself, then she told herself that her feelings were quite unimportant so long as he got well and was not permanently injured in any way by Sir Gilbert’s treachery.

Dr. Graham came from the Earl’s room and Pandora ran towards him.

“What do you – think? Has he been hurt – seriously? Will he – get well?”

The questions tumbled out of her lips one after the other and Dr. Graham put his arm round her shoulders.

“Now, Pandora, this is very unlike you,” he said. “You are always so brave and sensible.”

“Yes, I know,” Pandora said, “but this… ”

“Is unpleasant, of course,” the Doctor finished,

“But I think with careful nursing there will be no complications and we will soon have His Lordship back on his feet.”

“Do you mean that?” Pandora asked breathlessly.

“You have always trusted me in the past,” Dr. Graham replied.

“And I trust you now,” Pandora said, “and I am so very glad you are here.”

“His Lordship will want careful nursing for the next forty-eight hours or so,” the Doctor said. “He may run a high temperature, and he will most likely be delirious. He just needs to be watched so that he does nothing stupid, and I will be back again in an hour or so.”

“I will nurse him,” Pandora said quickly.

“I thought you would say that,” the Doctor said with a smile. “Well, I have seen you being very efficient in the sick-room when your father was laid up after a hunting accident, and you and your mother have done more than anyone else for the people of the village.”

“You must tell me what I am to do,” Pandora said.

“I have told Mrs. Meadowfield,” the Doctor replied. “You can take it turn and turn about to sit with him, and his valet seems to be a sensible chap as well.”

Pandora was silent for a moment. Then she said: “Do you think the – wound will in any way – affect his – brain?”

“That is such an unlikely contingency that I think there is no reason to worry about it,” the Doctor replied.

He paused, then added,

“Whoever shot His Lordship was either inexperienced or else was doing his best to commit murder.”

“That is what I think too,” Pandora said.

“Why must these young men risk their lives?” Dr. Graham asked.

Then he smiled.

“I suppose,” he continued, “it is an honourable way of deciding an argument, but as far as the professional man is concerned, I often think it is a pity we have progressed further than bows and arrows.” Pandora tried to laugh.

She was used to the Doctor’s rather droll sayings. They reached the top of the staircase and he patted Pandora on the shoulder.

“Now you go and change your dress and have a rest,” he said. “You can leave the Earl safely in Mrs. Meadowfield’s hands for the next few hours.”

He glanced at the grandfather-clock ticking in the Hall below them.

“I will be back about noon,” he said, “but I expect him still to look very much as he does now, so do not get upset about it.”

“I will try not to,” Pandora said. The Doctor smiled at her.

“That sounds more like your mother’s daughter,” he said, and walked down the stairs.

Pandora sped back to the Earl’s bedroom.

She entered it quietly to find Mrs. Meadowfield tidying the room.

The Doctor had bandaged the Earl’s head, and he was lying still on his back with his eyes closed and appeared very much as he had before, except that he was paler.

Pandora looked at him with a prayer in her heart that the Doctor was right and there was no real damage.

‘I love you!’ she said to him silently. ‘I love you and you must hurry and get well because there are so many things that need your attention.’

Chapter Six

Pandora changed her gown, but she did not rest as the Doctor had suggested. Instead, she went downstairs to the Dining Room where she knew the gentlemen would be having breakfast.

They rose as she entered and Burrows hurried forward to offer her a number of dishes. Although she was not hungry she accepted a little to eat and waited until the servants had left the room.

“What did the Doctor say?” Freddie asked as if he could bear the suspense no longer.

“He said,” Pandora answered, choosing her words carefully, “that Norvin must be carefully nursed and have complete – quiet for the next – few days.”

She looked directly at Freddie as she spoke and he understood at once what she had left unsaid.

“We will leave before luncheon.”

“What you really mean is, as soon as we can get the women out of bed and packed up,” Richard remarked.