106. Love's Dream in Peril (17 page)

Jane’s eyes were shining.

“Where by the river?”

“It’s no place for a young lady,” Beth’s mother’s voice trembled. “There’s sailors, stevedores and drunkards of all types roamin’ about.”

Digby stepped forward.

“Please think, Mrs. James. Where would Beth take Adella so they would be safe?”

“Is there an inn or a tavern?” Jane asked.

The old man gave another cackle of laughter.

“Safe? A pretty young lady at the inn? Ha, ha!”

“Pa!” Mrs. James shouted. “Give over!”

He grumbled under his breath and coughed.

“They’ll be at the arches,” he said. “That’s where the waifs and strays go of a night. No one bothers ’em there.”

Digby’s heart gave a great leap of joy.

“She’ll be there, I know it,” he said and headed for the door, as Jane asked the old man for directions.

Lord Ranulph gave him a look of doubt.

“How can you be sure?”

Digby gripped his arm.

“I just have a feeling,” he cried. “Come on! Let’s not waste another moment.”

And the three of them then set off through the dark streets towards the River Thames.

*

Adella did not want to lie down on the damp hard ground under the arches.

But she must have slept, sitting there with her head resting on her knees, for when she looked up she saw there was a faint grey light creeping into the night sky.

Morning was coming. Beth was still fast asleep, curled up on her cloak by Adella’s side.

Something had woken Adella. A shuffling noise.

She shuddered as she saw the outline of a large rat creeping along by the water’s edge.

The shuffling noise was getting louder. It was not the rat, it was something much bigger than that and it was getting nearer, approaching from the entrance to the arch.

Adella shook Beth’s arm, but the little maid just sighed and turned away, lost in a deep exhausted sleep.

There was more movement and then the sound of a match striking.

The flicker of a flame danced over the damp brick walls and Adella’s heart stopped as a shrill unearthly shriek split the air.

She staggered to her feet. A shadowy figure was bending over the pile of rags by the wall.

Someone was trying to wake the old woman who lay there and it was she who had cried out.

A scream flew up into Adella’s throat as well and stuck there frozen, as she was completely paralysed with fear and shock.

Uncle Edgar had come to find her. He would seize her and smash her to pieces, just as he had done to his Fort.

Now more people were coming and she could hear them climbing over the pile of rubble to get inside the arch.

And the shadowy figure had seen her. He was now coming after her, his hands held out to catch her!

There was nowhere for Adella to go but towards the river, where the grey light of dawn showed oily ripples of black deep water.

She caught up her skirts and stumbled as fast as she could towards the muddy shore.

*

Digby’s stomach turned at the smell of this filthy place. To think that people actually spent the night here!

He could just about make out the shapes of bodies lying on the earth.

Lord Ranulph was braver than him. He was boldly stepping over the filth that blocked the entrance to the arch.

His Lordship went up to one of the bodies and then it seemed to Digby that all hell broke loose.

A terrible scream rent the air, as a crazed wild creature, covered in rags that looked like tattered feathers, hurled itself at Lord Ranulph, seizing him by the throat and shaking him.

And a slender ghostly figure rose up from the floor and drifted towards the dark River Thames.

A girl, a young woman. As she moved away, her hood fell back and the candlelight caught her golden hair.

“Adella! Wait!” Digby shouted.

He ran to follow her, but something caught at his legs and knocked him flying, so that his face struck the wet earth with a smack.

“No you don’t! You just leave her alone!” a girl’s voice cried.

“Beth? Stop!” Digby gasped, rolling onto his back as the little maid pummelled him with her fists.

She stopped at once.

“Oh, sir, it be you, ain’t it? Mr. Dryden? I’m so sorry! I didn’t see in the dark it was you. I thought you was tryin’ to kill us!”

“Adella!” Jane’s voice echoed against the domed ceiling as she scrambled inside the arch. “Wait, it’s us. All is well!”

Adella kept on walking towards the river as if she was in a dream.

Beth’s eyes grew wide with horror.

“Miss!” she yelled. “Stop! The mud! It ain’t safe. It’ll take you, miss! Come back.”

But Adella seemed not to hear. She staggered on, a pale figure in the grey dawn light and Digby saw her slip and sway, as if she had lost her footing.

Jane came to Digby’s side and helped him to his feet.

“The mud is like a quicksand,” she warned.

Digby saw that the mud was over Adella’s ankles and was sucking and dragging at her feet as she tried to walk faster.

He called to her and gave every drop of his being to his voice as he cried out,

“Adella! Come back!”

And she stopped and turned her head.

“Adella, I love you!”

She must have heard him, for she made as if to start going back to the arch, but she could not free her feet from the mud. It was almost up to her knees now.

Digby wanted to go her, to pull her free, but Jane grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

“Be careful. The mud will take you too!”

“Adella! I’ve got to help her!”

She was calling to him now,

“Digby, please! I can’t move.”

The mud had reached her knees. She was sinking slowly but steadily.

Lord Ranulph shook off the crazed old woman and ran to join Jane and Digby.

“This is all my fault,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion. “I drove her to this, if I had not asked her to marry me.”

“Stop it!” Jane cried. “If we don’t reach her, she will be gone in a moment.”

“Let me go!” Digby tried to pull free, for he had to go to her.

Jane did not release him.

“Lord Ranulph, find something that we can lay on top of the mud,” she called out. “Quickly!”

There was an old door, broken and full of splinters lying nearby on the riverbank.

Lord Ranulph dragged it over to the shoreline and they pushed it out onto the quivering wet mud.

It was still a few feet away from Adella and, though she struggled to reach it, she could not.

“If I lie flat on top of it,” Digby shook Jane’s hand from his arm and plunged forward.

He then threw himself onto the door and, although the slimy surface of the shore quaked under his weight, the wooden planks held firm beneath him.

He wriggled forward, reaching for Adella, who was now up to her waist in mud.

“Digby,” she whimpered, her teeth chattering with fear. “Help me.”

“I love you,” he called and, with a great effort, he caught hold of her fingers and the door lurched as he tried to drag her towards him.

“Oh, God!” Ranulph exclaimed. “She will pull him in too!”

He walked towards Digby and the wooden door, testing the ground beneath his feet with every step.

“Please, please, be careful,” Jane cried and for the first time since they had come here, tears burned her eyes and she felt herself give in to despair.

She wanted to reach out and catch Lord Ranulph’s coat and hold on to him, but what use would that be?

She was light and slender and weak, how could she find enough strength to keep not only him but Digby and Adella too from the powerful force of the quaking mud?

Lord Ranulph had reached the broken door and he caught hold of it.

Only Digby’s legs were on the planks now. The top half of his body was lying flat out on the mud and he was slipping helplessly towards Adella as she sank deeper and deeper.

Lord Ranulph reached across the door and grabbed Digby’s feet.

“I’ve got him,” he gasped to Jane. “But she is stuck fast and she is dragging him down too!”

Jane’s whole body was trembling.

“Wait,” she said and she took a step towards him.

Wet mud oozed up around her ankles, but she could feel a firm surface beneath it.

The mud must be quite shallow on this part of the shore closer to the arch.

In another moment she was next to Lord Ranulph. His face was drawn into a desperate grimace as he clung to Digby’s feet.

“I can’t move him!” he wailed.

Jane pressed up close to the door and managed to get her hands on one of Digby’s ankles.

“It will be easier with two of us,” she said.

Shoulder to shoulder they pulled, as Digby groaned with pain at the strain on his limbs.

For several long moments nothing happened. And then, with a sinister squelch, the mud heaved round Adella and spat her out, so that she was lying next to Digby, half-on and half off the door.

“Thank God, thank God!” Lord Ranulph muttered, still clutching his friend’s ankle.

Slowly Jane helped him to drag the broken door with its precious burden back to firm ground.

Then, shaking with every muscle aching from the terrible struggle she had just undergone, she turned to him.

Lord Ranulph caught her and crushed her in his arms.

“Thank God,” he repeated. “Dearest, loveliest Jane. Thank God you are here!”

Jane closed her eyes and felt his warm body against hers as he drew long shuddering breaths of relief.

Adella lay on the broken door gazing into Digby’s blue eyes. She had forgotten where she was, this terrible filthy place under the arches.

All she knew was that he was here with her.

She had almost been lost for ever, swallowed up by a terrible foul darkness, but he had come to find her. He had saved her.

Now the sky was turning pink, as the sun began to rise turning the rippling water of the Thames to gold.

“You are so beautiful,” he sighed.

“I cannot be. Look, I am all covered with mud,” she replied. She could see her hands, sticky and black.

And her hair too all spread out over the splintery cracked planks was wet and grimy.

“You are safe,” Digby assured her. “That is all that matters. You are safe, you are beautiful and I love you!”

And before he could say any more, they heard the sound of a whistle and feet clattering at the entrance to the arch.

The Police had now come after them with dogs and lights. And there was Judge Dryden, his face haggard with worry after a sleepless night.

*

“I am completely astounded by your bravery and resourcefulness,” Judge Dryden smiled later that morning.

He was sitting on the sofa in the drawing room of No. 82 and sipping from a large silver tankard containing strong coffee and Irish whiskey.

“You are two most remarkable young men,” he continued.

“Jane alone is responsible for our success,” Lord Ranulph said. “Without her common sense and bravery – we would never have found Adella – let alone saved her.”

He stumbled over his words and fell silent, but his eyes rested on Jane with a look of admiration that made her blush deeply and gaze down at the carpet.

Adella was seated on the sofa wrapped in a satin quilt with both her feet in a bowl of mustard and hot water, while Beth combed the tangles out of her hair.

Digby sat beside her, clad in an old suit of Uncle Edgar’s that was much too large for him, so that his wrists poked out from the sleeves.

“I am so sorry, Adella.” he said in a low voice. “All of this has been my fault. I will never forgive myself for turning away from you and for hurting you again.”

“It does not matter,” she whispered. “You love me. You would have died to save me from the mud. That is all I know and all I care about.”

She slid her hand into his.

Uncle Edgar was watching from the other side of the drawing room and now he came over to Adella.

“I am the only one who should take responsibility for this sorry affair,” he said. “I have not listened to you. I took no time or care to try and understand the nature of your attachment to this young man.”

“I love him,” Adella said simply and quietly. “It does not matter to me one bit that he does not have a penny to his name. He is the man I love.”

“I can only ask for your forgiveness,” Uncle Edgar sighed, looking very downcast.

Judge Dryden now put down his tankard and came to join them.

“Digby will not always be penniless,” he said. “He shows great promise as a lawyer and, if he does fulfil that promise, he may one day earn a great deal of money.”

“Adella, will you wait for me?” Digby asked her, gazing at her with an intense longing. “I will be successful, I know it, but it may take a little time. Forever, if that is what it takes.”

Adella’s eyes were shining.

Then she remembered that there were others in the room besides herself and Digby.

“Uncle Edgar, it cannot be any other way, do you understand?”

She felt a little fearful as she said this, but her uncle simply nodded.

“Of course, my dear.” He looked at her with a shame-faced expression. “I can only say – ”

Uncle Edgar was then interrupted by a whirring and clicking from the clock on the mantelpiece, as the carved bird burst out from its little house with a chorus of eight loud cuckoos.

The sound was so absurd that everyone, including Judge Dryden, burst out laughing and then Uncle Edgar brightened up and looked rather proud that his creation should receive so much attention.

“Enough!” The Judge wiped his eyes and rose. “It is eight o’clock. I should have been in Chambers half an hour ago. Digby, you must, of course, take today off as a holiday after your ordeal.”

Digby got to his feet.

“No, sir,” he said. “Allow me a few moments to go and change into something a little more respectable and I shall follow you. I really must not miss any opportunity to advance my career.”

Judge Dryden nodded.

“Admirable! If Miss May will forgive you.”

“Adella?” Digby squeezed her hand.

“Of course! You must go.”

Adella’s heart was singing, filling her with a golden joy she knew would never leave her now.