The Shadow of Tyburn Tree (14 page)

Stepping up to her, he jerked her to him with unaccustomed violence. They did not kiss, but stood crushed together, straining their muscles to the utmost; so that her arms held his neck as in a vice, and his her body so tightly that it seemed as if her ribs must crack.

With a sudden gasp, as though by mutual consent, they relaxed. He smiled deep into her eyes, took her hand and kissed it, then turned away.

As the door of the boudoir closed behind him she forced, herself to kneel again beside her husband's body. She no longer felt afraid but terribly excited; yet her brain was clear and she knew exactly what she had to do. She could feel her heart beating but had no sense of breathlessness. She deliberately counted fifty of its beats in order to give Roger ample time to get back to his room. Then she opened her mouth wide and began to scream.

Her piercing cries echoed through the lofty room. For what seemed to her an age they were the only sound that broke the stillness. Fear surged up in her once more. What had happened? Was the house empty or everybody dead, that they did not come? The dead man's face stared up at hers, bloated and unhealthy.

Suddenly, to her stark horror, she thought she saw his eyelids move. Seizing him by the lapels of his coat, she began to shake him violently, screaming in a hoarse voice: ‘Humphrey! Humphrey! Humphrey!'

It was at that moment that Vorontzoff entered the room. She did not hear his approach until he was right upon her. Placing a hand upon her shoulder, he pulled her back as he exclaimed: ‘
Madame! Madame
! What in God's name has happened?'

For a second she stared at him without replying. Then she took in the fact that his being the first person to reach her could mean only one thing. He must have been up and waiting in his room, in the hope of witnessing the
dénouement
of his plot to revenge himself upon her.

Flinging wide her arms she cried. ‘He's dead! He's dead! He told me of the note that brought him here from Goodwood, and it could only have been from you. See what you have done!'

Vorontzoff's dark face flushed. His grip upon her shoulder tightened and he gave her a quick shake. ‘Say nothing of that; for your sake as well as mine. 'Twould embroil us all in a most unsavoury scandal.'

‘I have no wish to tell anything but the truth,' she flared, now on her mettle. ‘He entered my room dead-beat from his ride, and finding me alone thought that I had played a trick upon him. His rage was such that he lashed me with his whip and then was taken with an apoplexy. 'Tis you who are responsible.'

‘He thought you sent the note, eh?' Vorontzoff's dark eyes held hers and she could almost see the thoughts racing behind them as he muttered. ‘I meant but to repay you and Mr. Brook adequately for the slight you put upon me last night. But if your husband thought 'twas
you
who had made of
him
an April Fool I see a way that may save us all from grave embarrassment.'

Both of them caught the sound of running footsteps outside as he went on hurriedly. ‘You have an English proverb, Madame. Where there is smoke there is also fire. If I tell the truth you must realise what everyone will infer from it. Yet if I say that I sent that note at your behest, intenting only to make an April Fool of your husband, 'twill save your name as well as mine!'

Georgina felt hysteria surging up in her. The Russian's attitude was so exactly what Roger had predicted it would be; and his arrival on the scene before anyone else now seemed the dispensation of a Merciful Providence. Fighting down her hystria she dumbly nodded an acceptance of his suggestion, and next moment found herself the centre of a little crowd. Her father, Roger, Selwyn and old Barney had all come running into the room in various states of attire, and the rest of
the household was arriving hard upon their heels.

Colonel Thursby gave one look at the prostrate figure of his son-in-law, then took charge of the situation.

‘Quick Barney!' he said. ‘Send one of the grooms to fetch the doctor; and two of the men to get Sir Humphrey to a bed.'

‘He is already dead,' remarked George Selwyn, who was eyeing the corpse with the morbid curiosity that everything to do with death always aroused in him.

‘I judged as much,' replied the Colonel, ‘but 'tis fitting that a doctor should be called without delay.'

‘He died of a stroke,' Selwyn went on. ‘The suffusion of his face may be largely due to his habits; but he shows all the signs of a seizure brought on either by over exertion or a mental shock.'

‘Or a fit of rage,' added Vorontzoff. ‘I fear this tragedy is to be attributed to a practical joke plotted between Lady Etheredge and myself, last night.'

Georgina was still crouching by the body, her face buried in her hands. As her father took her arm and drew her towards a chair, he raised his voice and said: ‘I beg that everyone will now leave the room, with the exception of his Excellency.'

Concealing their disappointment at being deprived of a firsthand account of this grim occurrence, the guests and several scared-looking housemaids ebbed away. George Selwyn alone ignored the request and closed the door behind the others. The men had all hurried from their rooms wigless, and his bald, polished skull gave him some resemblance to a rather benign-looking vulture.

‘And now, your Excellency,' said the Colonel. ‘Perhaps you will tell us what you meant a moment back, when you said that Sir Humphrey's death came about through some ill-considered jest?'

The Russian shrugged and spread out his hands. I am not well acquainted with your English ways; but I understand that today is the Feast of Fools, and that it is your national custom to play pranks upon each other, most of which are taken in good part.'

‘ 'Tis true,' the Colonel nodded, ‘although nowadays such practices are mostly confined to the rude country folk who still dance round the Maypole and jump the November bonfires. Did you and my daughter seek then to make an April Fool of Sir Humphrey?'

‘Alas, Sir; I fear we did,' Vorontzoff admitted; and he then went on to give a brief account of his note and how he had despatched one of his outriders with it to Goodwood.

When he had done the Colonel turned to Georgina. She was sitting hunched up in an elbow chair with her back to the light, a wisp of handkerchief pressed against her eyes. Her father touched her gently on the shoulder, and said: ‘Can you make an effort, m'dear, and tell us what happened on Humphrey's coming in to you?'

‘There is little to tell,' she replied, choking back a sob. ‘I was asleep when he burst in upon me. He was panting like a grampus from the strain he had put upon himself to get here by dawn. He blurted out the contents of the note he'd had and demanded from me the name of my lover. I told him I had none; and that to teach him a lesson for his ill suspicions of me, had made of him an April Fool. On that his anger suddenly mounted to a monstrous rage and he struck at me with his whip. Look! It caught me here on the neck and seemed to sear half-way through my back. I fainted from the pain and shock. When I regained my senses the room was still, but on sitting up I saw Humphrey lying there on the floor. I jumped out of bed and sought to bring him to by loosening his cravat and throwing a jug of water over him; but 'twas no good. Then the sight of his face sent me into hysterics and my screams brought you all running.'

‘So that was the way of it,' the Colonel mumured. ‘I pity the poor fellow for having met such an end; but he was always of a hot temper and is not the first man to have died from a fit of rage.'

Georgina heaved an inward sigh of relief. She recalled Roger saying that everything would depend on the unquestioning acceptance of her story, and it seemed that matters could not possibly have gone better.

Selwyn had been standing staring at the body. He now pointed to it and remarked. ‘There is a small wound upon his head; see, the skin is broken just above the left temple. 'Tis a vulnerable spot, and 'tis possible that while he might have recovered from a stroke the blow that made the wound may have been the actual cause of death.'

Covering her face again with her hand and handkerchief, Georgina bit her lip. It seemed an interminable time before anyone said anything, and she had a sudden desperate fear that after all, the truth was now about to come out. But, at last, her father replied, ‘He must have struck his head against something as he fell.'

There was a discreet knock at the door, and on the Colonel's calling ‘Come in,' two footmen entered. At his directions they carried Sir Humphrey's body away to one of the spare bedrooms.

On the door closing behind them Vorontzoff suddenly stooped and picked up the cut-glass scent-bottle which, having rolled just under the valance of the bed, had been hidden until a moment before by the dead man's leg. With a sharp glance at Georgina he asked: ‘How did this bottle come to be on the floor, Madame?'

Her mouth seemed to go dry and she swallowed quickly, before replying with a shrug. ‘I do not know, Monsieur. He must have knocked it off the dressing-table—perhaps when he made to strike me with his whip.'

‘That accounts for the room being so heavy with your scent,' remarked her father. ‘But you should go back to bed now, m'dear, and get some rest after this dreadful shock. I'll send Jenny up to you. Come, gentlemen; there is no more to be done here.'

To her immense relief each of them made her a courtly bow and a moment later she was alone. Up till then, although she had been dabbing at her eyes for appearance sake, she had been too wrought up to weep; but now the tears came and when Jenny arrived she found her mistress crying quietly.

Jenny was not only the soul of loyalty but an extremely kindhearted and competent girl. She had maided Georgina ever since her first going to Court and had a deep affection for her. With soothing words and little comforting noises she sponged her mistress's face and brushed her hair, then she remade the bed and tucked her up in it. Having lit the fire she took another look at Georgina and, seeing that she was lying quite still with her eyes shut, went off to make a soothing tizane of lime-flowers.

On her return with the steaming brew she said: ‘Now drink this Milady; 'twill do you good.' Then she pointed at two large white pills in the saucer and added. ‘I met with my Lord Edward Fitz-Deverel in the passage, and his Lordship says his compliments to you Milady, and please to pleasure him by taking these, for they'll send you to sleep and prevent you having the headache.'

‘Thank you, Jenny,' Georgina smiled a little wanly. ‘Mr. Brook tells me that Lord Edward is something of an expert upon strange drugs; so thank him for me please and tell him that I took his medicine gladly. Did you perchance see Mr. Brook when you were fetching this dish of tisane for me?'

‘I did, indeed Milady,' Jenny smiled back. ‘He took me aside to inquire for you, and I was please to tell you that he thinks it more discreet not to come to your boudoir today unless you send a message by me desiring him to wait upon you. I was to tell you, too, that he loves you dearly.'

‘I know it Jenny, and I love him with an equal fondness; but not a word of that except between us two.'

Jenny bridled. ‘I'd liefer have my tongue cut out, and you should know better than to suggest otherwise. Take your pills now, and get to sleep. I'll stay and do some mending by the fire, so as to be here should you need me.'

‘Bless you, Jenny. You're a dear, and I'd be lost without you,' Georgina murmured; then she swallowed the pills, finished the tisane and settled down in her big comfortable bed.

She began to think of Humphrey and cried a little at the remembrance of their early days together. As the beautiful Georgina Thursby she had not only been the reigning toast of the town but a rich heiress to boot. Half a hundred suitors had striven to win her hand; old men and young ones, some with coronets, others with great fortunes, and some with nothing but good looks and a load of debts. Humphrey had been only one out of half-a-dozen that she had seriously considered as a husband. Mentally he was an overgrown child, and the only topic upon which he could talk with fluency was horses; but he had been handsome in a fair, bold way, was well-made, easy to get on with and he owned Stillwaters. It was the last which had made her take him in preference to a good-looking young Earl.

To begin with, their marriage had been successful, as such eighteenth-century marriages went. She recalled the fun that they had had during their first winter's hunting together, when she had been so proud of him as the finest and most daring rider in the field. Then she remembered with nausea his bouts of drunkenness, and the way in which he seduced every maid that she took into the house. It was not his unfaithfulness that she had minded but his lack of taste, and the squalidness of his indulging in those casual amours in the attics under their own roof. But she knew that she too had been to blame. She had soon become impatient of his stupidity and began to amuse herself with more intelligent men.

And now it was all over. Poor, weak, stupid Humphrey was dead; and would never blow a hunting-horn till he got red in the face, any more. She thought of his hearty laugh and the tears came into her eyes again; then she suddenly realised that she was not in the least sorry about his death, but only that they had not been able to remain good friends. Her mind wandered to a dinner service of three hundred pieces with the Etheredge crest that she had ordered to be made in China soon after their marriage. The merchant in the City had said that he
could promise delivery in from three to four years, so it might arrive at any time now.

Then she fell into a dreamless sleep.

When she awoke it was well on in the afternoon. She felt rested and her mind was clear; but the events of the early morning flooded back into it with a terrible reality that precluded any possibility of their having been a nightmare.

Jenny heard her stir and came over to her, carrying a tray with some cold chicken breast in aspic and fruit upon it. As she set it down on the bed-table to tempt her mistress she said: ‘You're looking better already, Milady. Your sleep has done you good. Now eat this up and you'll be as fit as a trivet.'