The moment Guy had gone, Stella suddenly whirled about to face Miss Hart, her eyes flashing with defiance. “I won’t stay here, I won’t!” she cried, stamping her foot. “I’ll run away, do you hear me? I’ll run away back home, while that Longhurst creature’s away, and I’ll
make
Uncle Guy take me back!”
Miss Hart’s eyes narrowed coldly. “You’ll do as you’re told, missy,” she said icily.
“I won’t!” cried Stella again. She rushed to the table and swept the dish of calling cards to the floor. It fell with a loud clatter that brought two maids hurrying from the direction of the kitchens. Joseph gaped in amazement at this display, but Stella was unrepentant, “I won’t do anything you tell me to, I shan’t stay here! I hate you all!”
“Indeed?” Miss Hart’s eyebrow was raised. “Perhaps an hour or so on the reclining board will cool your tantrums. Joseph, have Mlle. Clary come here immediately.”
Stella stamped her foot again. “I won’t go to any reclining board! I won’t do anything you tell me to, I’m going to run away tonight and there’s nothing you can do about it!”
“I can certainly see that you’re punished in the meantime,” warned Miss Hart, almost; beside herself with fury. “And I can make your escape as difficult as possible by seeing to it that you are guarded. Miss Ross will sleep with you.”
Leonie stared at her. Miss Ross? But everyone knew that she slept like the proverbial log! The Battle of Hastings could take place outside her door and she’d sleep through it, so why on earth set her to guard someone like Stella? The answer came almost immediately. Miss Hart wanted Stella to try to escape, for it would enable her to send a first poor report to Guy!
Mile. Clary arrived at that moment and, assisted by a very reluctant Joseph, bore a kicking, screaming Stella off to the punishment room.
Leonie turned hesitantly to the headmistress, knowing that she must voice her opinion, even though it would hardly be well-received. “Miss Hart?”
The headmistress held her gaze. “Miss Conyngham?”
“About Miss Ross. She sleeps so soundly that—”
“I do not require your opinion, Miss Conyngham.”
“But—”
“It isn’t your business, missy. Go to your duties immediately, and never again presume to question my actions.”
Leonie fell silent. Miss Hart had laid a trap and Stella was going to fall straight into it.
Stella wasn’t chastened by the punishment, and emerged only to create another astonishing scene, this time in the dining room before the entire school. It was another amazing display of furious defiance, accompanied by a great deal of screaming and foot-stamping, and it prompted a rather faint Miss Ross to recall tales she’d heard of Lady Caroline Lamb, or Ponsonby as she then was, when she’d been sent to Miss Frances Rowden’s seminary in Hans Place, Kensington. Miss Rowden, it was rumored, had never fully recovered from the experience. Miss Hart, however, was made of sterner stuff. Apparently totally unmoved by the rather public tantrum, she promptly dispatched Stella back to the punishment room, under Mlle. Clary’s continuing supervision. She remained there until it was time to go to bed.
Miss Hart allocated Leonie’s former bedroom to Stella. It had remained unexpectedly vacant since the beginning of the new term because there were no less than three young ladies of equal rank and seniority who all aspired to occupy it. Since they could not all be obliged, the headmistress had decided to deny it to all of them. It had then been set aside for Stella, because the headmistress was mindful of the child’s connection with Imogen, and therefore, somewhat tenuously, with Nadia and Dorothea Lieven. Imogen’s subsequent secret request concerning the child had come too late to prevent arrangements being made, and so the rather chagrined Miss Hart had had to leave the seminary’s most disruptive and difficult pupil ever in possession of the school’s finest bedroom. Those who had been denied the coveted room did not like such apparent favoritism, especially as Stella’s subsequent conduct had been so appalling, and so in the whole school, only Leonie felt any sympathy for the new arrival.
Miss Ross, who had not been taken into the headmistress’s confidence about Stella, was only too aware of her shortcomings as a jailer, and was very unhappy indeed as she escorted the girl to the bedroom. Taking her unwanted responsibilities seriously, she decided not to take any chances, and so locked the door once they were both safely inside. She then put the key on a ribbon around her neck, and thus felt certain that Stella could no longer carry out her threat to run away that night.
Undressing and climbing into the spacious bed, Stella maintained a surly and resentful silence. She curled up into a little ball, her back toward the teacher’s side of the bed, and she ignored an instruction to put on her night bonnet. Miss Ross sighed and did not press the point, for at least the wretched child was quiet for the time being. The teacher felt very hard-done-by as she too prepared for bed. Shortly afterward, the candle was extinguished and silence descended first over the room, and then over the entire building. Outside in Park Lane the traffic became gradually more quiet, until at last there was only the occasional carriage driving past. Somewhere the watch was calling, their cries echoing through the freezing fog.
A solitary light glowed in the seminary as Leonie sat by the fire in her room. She couldn’t relax enough to go to sleep, and she hadn’t even changed into her nightclothes. Her copy of
The Bride of Abydos
lay unopened on her lap, and she gazed into the smoking fire, thinking about Stella. The child’s unhappiness reached out to her, and she knew that if Stella could possibly escape from the seminary tonight, then she would do it. The thought was unsettling and worrying, and after a long while Leonie got up and went to the window, gazing out at the misty darkness.
On the floor below, Stella lay awake, listening to Miss Ross’s deep, steady breathing. As the teacher sank into a sounder sleep and began to snore, the child sat up carefully beside her. Miss Ross didn’t stir at the movement, nor was she aware of the girl slipping from the bed and going to the dressing table to take a small pair of scissors from the reticule lying there. By the faint glow of the dying fire, Stella succeeded in cutting the ribbon around the teacher’s neck. The key slipped easily into her waiting fingers.
Stella dressed quickly and silently, putting on her warmest clothes and not making a single sound. Miss Ross slept on, her snores loud and rhythmic, and she knew nothing as the door was stealthily opened and then closed again.
Stella slipped silently toward the top of the stairs, but she didn’t see Mrs. Durham’s cat in the shadows, and she trod on its tail. It gave a loud, pained yowl and fled spitting into the darkness. Stella froze, her heart pounding, but miraculously the building remained silent. After a moment she hurried on down the stairs.
Leonie heard the cat and ran swiftly from her room, instinctively snatching up her cloak, knowing that the noise had had something to do with Stella. She looked over the stair balustrade just in time to see Stella’s fleeing figure at the bottom. The child disappeared from view then, running not to the main doors, but toward the school wing at the back of the house.
Tying on her mantle, Leonie hurried down after her, and as she reached the school wing, she heard a sound from the direction of the dining room. “Stella?” There was silence then, and she went into the dining room. A sweep of bitterly cold air passed over her and she saw that the French windows were open. As she ran out into the dark night, she saw Stella running toward the narrow path which led between the adjoining gardens and out into South Audley Street. She must have noticed the path earlier and decided then to escape that way!
Stella ran like the wind down South Audley Street toward Curzon Street, and she paused briefly by the wall of Chesterfield House on the corner, looking back to see if anyone was following. Her breath caught on a dismayed gasp as she saw Leonie running toward her.
“Stella! Please stop!”
With a cry, Stella ran on, turning into Curzon Street and fleeing east in the direction of Berkeley Street. She ran past Longhurst House, in darkness now because both Imogen and her brother were away from home. It was a handsome white building with a pillared porch beneath which carriages could drive and their passengers alight under cover in bad weather, and it commanded a prime position in the much-sought-after street, but Stella didn’t even glance at it. It wasn’t of any interest to her when her hated enemy was out of town.
She was nearing the eastern end of the street now, and she peered ahead for the entrance of Lansdowne Passage, the dangerous subterranean way which led between the gardens of Lansdowne House and Devonshire House, and which connected Curzon Street directly with Berkeley Street.
Behind her a dismayed Leonie realized which way the girl intended to go, Lansdowne Passage was the haunt of footpads and pickpockets, and had been used by highwaymen as an escape route until railings had been placed at the top of the steps at each end.
“Stella!” she called desperately. “Stella, don’t go that way! Please!”
Stella hesitated, her face pale in the dim light of a streetlamp, but then she disappeared into the entrance of the passage.
Leonie reached the entrance a moment later. Her heart was thundering with fear and from the exertion of running. She was afraid to go into the dark tunnel. Overhead the bare branches of the famous Devonshire House elms loomed starkly into the night, and she could hear the echoing sound of Stella’s fleeing footsteps. Taking a deep breath, Leonie went down the steps, and soon the faint light from Curzon Street had faded behind her.
The Tyburn River passed beneath the tunnel, and the paving stones rang hollow at one point. She could hear the sound of flowing water. Ahead of her Stella’s footsteps had suddenly stopped. Leonie halted too, listening for any sound. She could see the steps leading up into Berkeley Street, their damp surfaces shining in the light from a streetlamp. As she gazed toward it, she saw a tall figure standing in the middle of the passage. It was far too tall and burly to be Stella! Then she saw Stella, pressing back terrified against the tunnel wall as several other figures gathered menacingly around her. Leonie’s heart almost stopped. Then, unbelievably, she heard the watch calling in Berkeley Street. She began to scream for help, and the figures around Stella all whirled about in the direction of the screams. The watch had heard as well, and they appeared at the top of the steps, the welcome light of their lanterns swaying wildly down into the passage. The men by Stella fled then, their steps pounding on the paving stones as they ran toward Leonie, thrusting her roughly aside as they made their escape to Curzon Street.
Winded, she stumbled against the damp wall, pressing back as the watch gave chase, their whistles shrilling deafeningly in the confined space. One of them had stopped to assist Stella, who had almost collapsed with terror now. Leonie hurried to her. “Stella? Stella, are you all right?”
The girl gave a glad cry and ran to her. Leonie held her close as the watchman raised his lantern suspiciously, his quick glance taking in Leonie’s tousled silver-fair hair, so vivid in the lantern light and so strangely uncovered by hat or bonnet.
“Right,” he said gruffly. “Let’s be having your names and addresses, then.”
“I am Miss Conyngham of the seminary in Park Lane, and this is Miss Stella de Lacey, the niece of Sir Guy de Lacey.”
His eyes narrowed. “Oh, yes? And I’m the Queen of Sheba. Ladies don’t go out alone at night, especially not in Lansdowne Passage. Let’s have the truth now. Who are you, and where do you live?”
“I’ve already told you,” replied Leonie.
“You expect me to believe that? One of your customers get out of hand, did he? Want more than he’d paid for?”
Leonie gasped indignantly. “How dare you speak to me like that! Do I look like a streetwalker?”
Stella clung to her. “Please,” she whispered, “please take me to Uncle Guy’s house.”
The watchman looked uncertain then, but he still wasn’t entirely convinced. “Right,” he said after a moment. “Right, I’ll take you to Sir Guy’s house, and then we’ll see if you’re telling the truth, won’t we? Come on.” Holding his lantern high to illuminate the way, he escorted them to the steps into Berkeley Street.
Guy’s house lay almost opposite the entrance to the passage. It was a dignified brick house, austere and beautifully proportioned, with pedimented second-floor windows and stone balustrades. Its round-headed door was approached by three shallow steps, and Guy’s name was on the brass plate which shone very brightly in the lantern light as the watchman knocked loudly. The sound echoed up through the house.
At first there was no response, but as the watchman continued to knock, they at last saw flickering candlelight within. A footman, his wig not quite straight and his dressing gown tied hastily around his waist, looked out cautiously. “Yes? Who is it?”
Stella pushed inside. “It’s me, James! Where’s Uncle Guy?”
“Miss Stella?” The footman stared at her in astonishment.
Leonie and the watchman followed her into the square entrance hall, which led through to an inner hall from which rose a magnificent double staircase. The walls were pale blue and contained gilded niches in which stood beautiful statues, but the first entrance hall, in which they now gathered, was dominated by a solitary painting hanging above the marble fireplace. It was a portrait of Imogen. She looked ethereally beautiful, her red hair twisted up into a loose knot and twined with tiny strings of pearls. She wore a very décolleté white gown which displayed her charms to the best advantage, and it seemed to Leonie that the portrait was watching her, its magnificent blue eyes haughty and scornful.
Guy’s voice came from the staircase then. “What is it, James? Is there a disturbance?” He appeared at the entrance to the inner hall, wearing a floor-length dressing down made of green shot silk. Beneath it his frilled shirt was unbuttoned, and he still had on the tight-fitting trousers he had worn during the evening. His hair was disheveled and his dark eyes angry.