Authors: E.V. Thompson
M
ISS GRIMM BROUGHT
Albert Trevelyan to dinner that evening and seated him at the head of the long
dining-table
, in a high-backed Carvers’ chair which reminded Alice of the Bishop’s throne in her father’s cathedral.
The reason he had not put in an appearance earlier was
immediately
apparent. Seemingly unaware of anyone in the room, his vacant expression was that of a man whose mind was far away from all things temporal.
Following the instructions given to her by Miss Grimm, Eliza placed a soup plate in front of the master of the house without saying anything and the ancient butler carefully ladled soup out for him.
The aroma rising from the soup succeeded in bringing Albert Trevelyan back to the world occupied by the others in the room and, looking around him, he seemed to be seeing them for the first time, although his mind was still pathetically muddled.
Frowning at Hugo, he shifted his glance to Alice and his expression underwent an amazing transformation. Showing uninhibited joy, he cried, ‘Isabella! Nobody told me you were here. What a delight it is to have you home!’
Turning his attention to the butler, he said, ‘Jenkins, why did
you
not tell me?’
The deaf butler never heard him properly and, before he
could reply, Hugo cast a brief glance in Alice’s direction before saying, ‘Isabella arrived unexpectedly this afternoon, Father, and you were sleeping. We thought we would keep it as a surprise for you.’
‘I have no need of any of
your
surprises.’ Raising his voice he shouted, ‘Jenkins, fetch some of that French wine from the cold room, half-a-dozen bottles. It’s high time we had something to celebrate at Helynn.’
‘I’m not certain we have six cases of champagne there, sir.’
‘I said bottles, you fool and of course we have them!’ Albert Trevelyan bawled, irritably, ‘Go and fetch them – and be quick about it.’
When the aged butler hurried from the room in a short-paced shuffle, Albert Trevelyan beamed at Alice. ‘Make a start on your soup, my dear, you must be tired after your long journey. We can leave talk of what you have been up to until after the meal, you must be hungry after travelling all that way.’
Still beaming, the master of the house began spooning soup into his mouth with a liberality which ensured that his patterned silk waistcoat was not excluded from the first course.
While his father was so engaged, Hugo leaned across the table towards Alice and said softly, ‘Don’t worry about anything my father says. He thinks you are Isabella but that was a rare moment of near-rationality, sadly it will not last. By the time dinner is over he will have forgotten you are here, let alone who he thinks you are.’
Alice found it upsetting to be mistaken for Albert Trevelyan’s dead daughter but she resigned herself to accepting the incident as yet one more bizarre happening in her disastrous visit to Helynn Manor. But she soon had more serious concerns.
When the champagne arrived the ancient butler was carrying only five bottles and not six but, true to Hugo’s prediction, Albert Trevelyan had already forgotten why they had been brought to
the dinner table and he did not query Hugo’s explanation that they were celebrating his own homecoming.
Hugo wasted no time in getting the ‘celebration’ underway and by the time the meal came to an end there were only two full bottles of champagne remaining.
By this time the son of the house had become loud-voiced and not only leered openly at Alice across the table, but was also beginning to make thinly-veiled insinuations about how the evening’s ‘celebrations’ should progress.
When the three diners moved to the sitting-room, the East India Company cavalry officer continued his heavy drinking but by now had moved on to brandy.
Suddenly, Albert Trevelyan rose to his feet and left the room without a word of explanation. Taking advantage of his departure, Hugo rose from the armchair in which he was seated and moved unsteadily across the room to sit down heavily upon the settee occupied by Alice.
‘You have hardly touched your drink, Alice, is there something you would prefer. A port, perhaps, or a gin?’ His voice was slurred and, although Alice had met with few drunken men in her lifetime, she realised Hugo had already drunk far more than was good for him – or for her.
‘No thank you, I am not used to strong drink and I had a glass of champagne with my dinner.’
‘It was only the one glass, as I recall, Alice, and we are celebrating your visit to Helynn and an opportunity to really get to know each other. What will you have to drink?’
‘I am quite content with what I have, thank you – and I think we can talk more easily if we are facing each other across the room.’
‘Come now, Alice, surely you are not going to behave all prim and proper with me, after all, I
did
save your life.’
‘For which I have expressed my gratitude, as has my brother.’
‘Expressed with words only, Alice, surely I deserve something more than that? I think …’
Before Hugo was able to give Alice the benefit of his thoughts the door opened and Albert Trevelyan returned to the room
carrying
two pistols and closely pursued by Miss Grimm.
Leaping unsteadily to his feet, Hugo demanded, ‘Father! What are you doing with those pistols? Be careful!’ He hastily pushed aside one of the weapons that was pointed in his direction. ‘Are they loaded?’
‘Of course they’re loaded, you don’t go on guard with an unloaded weapon!’
‘On guard? What are you on guard for – and against whom?’
‘I don’t expect you to understand, you have never put family before self. Had
you
looked after your sister the way a brother should I wouldn’t have to sit up night after night in the hallway making certain Kendall never again comes near her, but I can’t stay here talking to you, I have a father’s duty to perform. You can sleep well tonight, Isabella, there will be no Kendall coming anywhere near you.’
With this, Albert Trevelyan turned and left the room.
Hugo made as if to follow him, but he found his way barred by a determined Miss Grimm. ‘Leave him, he’ll come to no harm seated in the hall in the darkness.’
‘He’s a totally confused old man with two loaded pistols, anything could happen. If one were to be fired accidentally….’
‘Nothing will happen. He has the pistols with him most of the time “in case Kendall comes to the house”, but within
half-an-hour
or so he will fall asleep. I’ll gather up the guns then wake him and lead him up to his bedroom, by which time he will have forgotten all about Isabella and Kendall and will be grumbling because I have let him fall asleep downstairs and not made certain he was safely tucked up in bed.’
‘I think I will take Eliza to help me and go up to bed too,’ Alice
said, welcoming the unexpected opportunity to escape the unwelcome attentions of the son of the house.
‘You can’t go to bed yet,’ Hugo protested, ‘We have much to talk about and the evening is still young!’
‘There is also a great deal of washing-up to be done and the kitchen put to rights …’ This from Miss Grimm. ‘… Your servant girl will be busy for an hour or so yet.’
‘As I have said before, Eliza is my personal maid, not a kitchen servant,’ Alice retorted. ‘Please tell her she is needed upstairs in my room – or do I need to go to the kitchen and tell her myself?’
Before the housekeeper could reply, Alice turned to Hugo Trevelyan. ‘Thank you for your hospitality, Hugo, I will see you in the morning, before I return to Trethevy.’
Leaving Hugo still protesting, Alice pushed past the indignant housekeeper and hurried upstairs, taking with her the lighted candle in a holder that had been the sole light in the passageway outside the sitting-room.
I
T WAS ANOTHER
ten minutes before Eliza came to her employer’s bedroom and Alice was greatly relieved to see her, saying, ‘I feared that every sound I heard was Captain Trevelyan coming up to the room. He is drinking very heavily and was quite angry when I left him to come upstairs. I do not trust him, he is certainly no gentleman and I am seriously concerned lest the bolts were deliberately removed from the door. Do you think we should move some of the furniture against it?’
‘I can do better than that!’ reaching into the large pocket of the kitchen apron she was wearing, Eliza pulled out a
sharpening-steel
. ‘I took this from the kitchen, it will serve in place of the top bolt and we can use the poker from the fireplace for the bottom one. It’s a very stout door and with these in place we’ll have nothing to fear from Captain Trevelyan.’
‘You are an absolute wonder, Eliza. I would never have thought of replacing the missing bolts in such a fashion. You don’t know how very relieved I am. What would I do without you?’
Pleased by Alice’s praise, Eliza said, ‘Lieutenant Jory says I’m “resourceful”.’
It was a word that had made her feel important at the time and she had carefully stored it in her memory, but quoting the source of such praise proved to be a mistake.
‘I do not think I want to hear anything about Lieutenant
Kendall, Eliza, he would seem to be no better than Captain Trevelyan. Perhaps all so-called “gentlemen” are the same.’
‘You don’t really believe that,’ Eliza protested, ‘and you can’t believe anything Captain Trevelyan says, especially if it’s about someone he thinks means something to you.’
‘It is not only the captain who has spoken of how badly Isabella Trevelyan was treated by him, Captain Trevelyan’s father and Miss Grimm have also mentioned his name.
They
have no reason to lie about him.’
As Alice was talking she was forcing the poker firmly into the bolt fittings at the bottom of the bedroom door frame. Eliza had already performed the same task at the top of the door with the sharpening steel and the door was now secured as efficiently as if the original bolts were in place.
Greatly relieved, Alice relaxed a little and asked Eliza, ‘Did you see Mr Trevelyan in the hallway when you came upstairs?’
‘I came up the servants’ staircase,’ Eliza replied, ‘Miss Grimm warned me to keep away from the hallway because Mr Trevelyan is on guard there. She says he is really quite harmless but not always responsible for his actions and there
could
be a nasty accident.’
‘This visit to Helynn has turned out to be an absolute
nightmare
, I will be greatly relieved to be away from it, Eliza. We will leave for Trethevy as soon as possible in the morning.’
‘At least we will be able to sleep soundly knowing that no one can get into the room,’ Eliza replied, ‘and hopefully Captain Trevelyan will get himself so drunk he’ll forget all about you.’
Hugo Trevelyan did become
very
drunk but, far from forgetting about Alice, he became more obsessive about her with every drink and eventually determined to do something about it.
The two women were just dozing off, Alice in the bed and Eliza on a chaise-longue, when they heard a sound from the passageway
outside the bedroom, as though someone had fallen against a piece of furniture.
A faint sliver of yellow light appeared in the narrow gap between door and floor and in the darkness of the bedroom they both held their breath in fearful anticipation of what was about to happen. They heard the sound of the door handle being turned and the door was forced against the makeshift bolts, then pushed again … and again.
After a lengthy pause, there came a knock on the door and Hugo Trevelyan’s soft but drink-affected voice called, ‘Alice, what have you done with the door? Open it, I wish to talk with you.’
Both women remained silent in the darkness and Hugo’s plea was repeated, this time louder than before. He knocked again, the sound reflecting his growing anger.
His attempt to provoke a response continued for some minutes before the patience of the drunken son of the house was finally exhausted. After hammering on the door with both fists, he charged at it, using his shoulder as a battering ram.
Both women inside the room were terrified and Eliza rose from the chaise-longue to check that the makeshift bolts were holding firm.
They were and Eliza whispered to Alice ‘The poker and the steel haven’t budged. He’s not going to be able to get in at us.’
Hugo Trevelyan realised it too and, making no attempt to keep his voice down now, he shouted, ‘You are a stupid and ungrateful little nobody, Alice, and you will end your days as a dried-up spinster. I should never have bothered to save your life.’
His outburst was followed by moments of unintelligible mumbling before he banged on the door for the last time, shouting, ‘Very well, we’ll see if your maid has more life in her than her mistress. You can stay cowering in your room imagining how much
she
is enjoying me … Damn!’
The oath came as the sliver of light disappeared from beneath
the door and the women realised Hugo had dropped the candle. Fortunately, it had gone out.
After muttering about getting another drink first, he could be heard crashing his way along the dark passageway in the direction of the main staircase and both women breathed huge sighs of relief.
‘Thank the Lord you had the brainwave about the makeshift bolts, Eliza, I shudder to think what would have happened had he …’
Alice never completed the sentence. There was the sound of a shot from the direction of the main staircase and they heard Hugo shout furiously, ‘You bloody old fool! You could have killed me. Give me the other gun before you do it again.’
‘Come near me and I won’t miss again. I’ll teach you to come here in my house after Isabella.’
This time it was Albert Trevelyan’s voice, followed by that of Miss Grimm, then everyone seemed to be talking at once, although it was not possible for the two women in the bedroom to discern what was being said.
‘Do you want me to go out and find out what has happened?’ Eliza asked tremulously, hoping Alice would not say ‘Yes’.
‘No, if Captain Hugo has been shot it is no more than he deserves. If he has not,
you
would be the one in danger. Miss Grimm is there with them, she can sort things out, but I doubt if we will be able to sleep now, not after all that excitement. See if you can find a light for the candle, Eliza. We will pack our things and leave Helynn at first light. Captain Trevelyan will be in a drunken sleep by then, although we might have trouble sneaking past his father if he remains in the hall.
I
don’t want to be shot!’
‘We don’t need to go out of the house that way. We’ll use the servants’ staircase and leave through the kitchen, it’s closer to the stables anyway, but do you think you can harness the pony to the
trap? I’ve seen both old Percy and Tristram do it quite a few times, but I’m not sure I could do everything by myself.’
‘It should pose no problem. When I was a young girl I would sometimes help the servants to harness the horse to our dogcart. It was a long time ago, but I feel certain we will be able to manage it between us. We
have
to, Eliza, I do not intend remaining in Helynn manor for one minute more than is absolutely necessary. I feel I have been a guest in a lunatic asylum!’