The Mysterious Maid-Servant (17 page)

Shortly afterwards she began her famous career on the London stage and many other great actors such as Charles Kemble, Dorothy Jordan and Harriet Mellon had played in the converted malt house where the ‘tiring room’ was a hayloft.

The
Theatre Royal
, although small, was elegant and airy and the architecture and colouring were only exceeded by the blaze of splendour that adorned Drury Lane.

There were two rows of boxes, one in the form of a gallery behind which in the most ingenious manner was erected another gallery for the servants.

The seats here only cost one shilling and sixpence, while the price for boxes was five shillings.

The Earl did not enter the theatre by the main door, but by a private entrance used by Colonel Berkeley leading almost directly into the stage box.

The auditorium was already filled and, as he seated himself in the centre of the box with Henry Somercote at his right, leaving a seat for the Colonel to occupy later, he looked around and saw a number of people he knew.

Sitting in what was known as the Royal Box was the Duc d’Orléans, with two extremely attractive ladies, one of who waved excitedly to the Earl. In other boxes there was a flutter of handkerchiefs and fans and red lips parted with a smile, for this was the Earl’s first appearance in public since he was wounded.

He bowed an acknowledgement to their greetings, then opening his programme settled down to discover who the players were besides the Colonel himself.

As the Colonel had told him, the part of the heroine was to be played by Maria Foote.

“She is not really much of an actress,” Henry Somercote had said, knowing what the Earl was thinking, “but she is exceedingly popular on account of her dancing. I am quite certain that we shall have plenty of that in the play.”

As soon as the curtain rose and Maria Foote appeared, the Earl could understand why the Colonel was infatuated with her.

Of medium height, her oval face, light brown hair and lissom figure made her one of the most attractive women he had ever seen on the stage.

She had a charming voice too and, if her acting ability would never equal that of Sarah Siddons, she at least looked the part of the innocent girl who was seduced by the dashing Rake played by the Colonel.

The Earl found the First Act extremely amusing, while Maria’s stage father as a Parson declaimed in stentorian tones against the wickedness of men who indulged in duels and who took their revenge in violence on their fellow creatures.

When the curtain fell, there was tumultuous applause from the packed theatre and the Earl, leaning back in his chair remarked,

“The Colonel obviously has a success on his hands.”

“If you ask me,” Henry added, “the audience are equally amused by the drama they suspect is taking place off stage. I understand one of the Colonel’s other
cheres amies
is making extremely vocal protests against his new obsession with Maria.”

“Only the Colonel could contrive to keep so many women in play simultaneously like a juggler,” the Earl mused.

They both laughed.

Then the box was invaded by the Earl’s friends, most of them extremely beautiful women who told him eloquently with their eyes, as well as with their lips, how pleased they were to see him again.

“Now you are well we must be together,” was the message they conveyed to him one way or another.

When there was banging to notify the audience that they should return to their seats, the Earl remarked in an aside to his friend,

“I think it will soon be time for me to leave Cheltenham.”

Henry grinned.

He knew only too well how the Earl managed to prove elusive even to the most ardent of the ‘Fair Amazons’ who hunted him.

The Second Act was more emotional.

Maria as the innocent maiden was seduced by her villainous lover and then because he would not provide for her was forced to earn her living as a dancer in the theatre.

She kept her guilty secret from her father until, as the Act drew towards the end, he discovered her perfidy and the fact that she had been seduced.

It was then, as he stormed on to the stage during a performance, he started to declaim against the wickedness of the man who had started her on the road to hell.

As he did so the box door opened and the Colonel came in to sit down in the empty seat.

He was looking very resplendent in the colourful embroidered full-skirted coat of the early eighteenth century. The white wig became his somewhat sardonic features and the glitter of diamonds in the lace at his throat made it easy to understand why any maiden would find it hard to refuse his blandishments.

On the stage Maria Foote knelt and wept as her father cursed her for losing her purity and her hope of reaching Heaven.

“As for your paramour,” he said, “he shall not escape my vengeance, for such creatures as he are not fit to live!”

He turned round as he spoke, drawing a pistol from the pocket of his long black coat.

The attention of the audience was on the Colonel as he sat in the stage box and the aggrieved father, pointing his pistol at him, cried,

“I will kill you, for it is not right that you should continue to soil the earth with your wickedness and destroy the purity of the innocent. Die then and may God have mercy on your black soul!”

He gesticulated with the pistol towards the stage box, but strangely enough it was not pointed at the Colonel but at the Earl.

“Die, villain!” the actor cried, “die, and may you rot in the hell from which you came!”

At the last word he should have pulled the trigger, but even as his finger tightened the door of the stage box was flung open and a woman flung herself forward to stand in front of the Earl with her arms outstretched.

It took the actor by surprise and, although it was too late to withdraw his finger from the trigger, the pistol jerked as he pressed it.

The explosion was followed by a bang as the bullet hit the gilded angel surmounting the centre of the box and poured a shower of plaster onto the heads of those beneath it.

There was a startled silence in the audience.

Then the Colonel rose to his feet.

“Good God! That pistol was loaded with a real bullet!” he exclaimed.

His voice rang out and for a moment there was no reply.

Then the actor, his face pale as death, replied,

“I had no idea of it – I swear I had no idea. I was told it was just a wager – a jest between two gentlemen.”

“You would have killed him!” the Colonel roared.

Now the whole audience was rising to their feet shouting and pointing at the box.

Giselda’s arms dropped to her sides and she felt the Earl’s arms go round her.

She laid her head against his shoulder, fighting for breath.

She was gasping like a man who is drowning and goes down for the third time, her heart felt as if it would burst.

As the Earl held her close against him, he shouted urgently to Henry Somercote

“Find Julius and get him out of England immediately! I will give him one thousand pounds a year so long as he does not set foot on these shores again. If he returns, he will be charged with attempted murder!”

Henry Somercote with the quickness of a man used to receiving and obeying orders turned and left the box without a word.

Now the Colonel was yelling at the actor on the stage and the actor was screaming back, their voices almost lost in the uproar of the audience, who were all shouting advice or exclaiming at the danger that was passed.

Without even looking into the auditorium, the Earl drew Giselda out of the box and down the short passage towards the side door.

She managed to walk, although she was still finding it hard to get her breath and might have fallen to the ground if his arms had not supported her.

Outside in the street the Earl’s carriage was waiting, although the servants, not expecting their master to leave so early, were lounging around comfortably.

But as soon as they saw the Earl they became alert and a footman opened the carriage door and helped Giselda inside.

The Earl followed her, moving a little stiffly because of his leg.

As the door closed, he put his arms round her again and drew her against him.

“You saved my life, Giselda!” he cried. “How did you learn that Julius intended to have me shot?”

It was some seconds before Giselda could answer him.

Then she gasped,

“He – he – boasted that by – half after nine – he would be the – Fifth Earl of – Lyndhurst.”

She gave a little cry, which seemed to come from her very heart, and whispered,

“I – thought I would be – too late – and that you would – die.”

“Thanks entirely to you I am alive.”

She had hidden her face against him and he could feel her tremble.

It was only a short distance to German Cottage and they drove in silence, Giselda gradually finding it easier to breathe and the Earl still holding her in his arms.

Only when the horses drew up outside the Cottage did he relinquish her and she stepped out while the footmen helped him to alight.

In the hall there was a rush-backed armchair, seated in which three footmen carried the Earl up the stairs to his own sitting room.

It was the Colonel who had suggested that it was quite needless for the Earl to exhaust himself by climbing up the stairs, even if he found it easy to descend them.

By the time Giselda reached the sitting room, moving slowly from sheer exhaustion, the Earl had completed his ascent and was already filling two glasses on a side table with champagne.

“You wish for supper, my Lord?” the butler asked.

“Not at the moment,” the Earl replied. “I will ring if I require anything later.”

“Very good, my Lord.”

The servants left the room and the Earl, having taken a sip of the glass of champagne, set it down on the table and turned towards Giselda.

“I think we are both in need of a drink – ” he began and then stopped.

She was standing looking at him, her eyes very wide in her pale face and there was an expression in them that made the Earl hold out his arms.

She ran towards him like a child who seeks comfort and security.

As he drew her close, he realised she was still trembling, but not now with the effort of breathing.

“It is all right, my darling!” he said tenderly. “It is all over. There is no more danger. We shall neither of us ever see Julius again.”

“I was so – afraid,” Giselda whispered, “so desperately – terribly afraid.”

There was a throb in her voice that could not be misunderstood and very gently the Earl put his fingers under her chin and turned her face up to his.

“Why did you want to save my life?” he asked.

There was no need for Giselda to reply.

He could see the answer in her eyes and the softness of her lips and feel it in the manner in which her whole body quivered against his like a bird in the hands of its captor.

For a long moment the Earl looked down into her eyes and then he said quietly,

“I love you, my precious!”

Giselda was still.

Then, as his lips found hers, she gave a little sob, her body seemed to melt against him and her mouth surrendered itself to his.

The Earl thought he had never known anything so sweet, so innocent and so pure. Then as he felt Giselda respond to his kiss he drew her closer and his lips became more demanding and more insistent.

Finally, when he raised his head, he said in a voice that was curiously unsteady,

“I love you, my beautiful one! I love you more than I can ever say in words and I think perhaps you love me a little.”

“I – love you with – all of me,” Giselda answered. “I love you with my heart, my mind and my soul – there is no one in the whole world but – you.”

Her words seemed to vibrate on the air and the Earl drew her close again and his kisses were more passionate and almost fierce in their intensity.

Giselda felt as if the whole universe was filled with music and with a light that came from Heaven itself.

She had no idea that the touch of the Earl could evoke sensations she had not known existed and that his arms around her could make her feel safe from everything, even fear.

Her love for him seemed to invade her whole body like a warm tide.

“I love you – I love you.” she heard herself murmur against his lips.

Then he was kissing her eyes, her cheeks and the tip of her small nose and the softness of her neck.

She knew she aroused him and she wished she could die at this moment when they were so close that it was difficult to believe that they were two people but had become one.

“I did not know that any woman could be so adorable, so utterly desirable and at the same time so sweet, so unspoilt, so perfect in every way,” the Earl said in his deep voice.

His lips lingered on the softness of her skin.

Then he said quietly,

“How soon will you marry me, my darling?”

To his surprise he felt Giselda stiffen. Then somehow, he was not certain how it happened, she was free of his arms and had moved away from him.

His words had broken the spell that held her, the spell that had made her forget everything but her love and the fact that he loved her.

Now, as if a glass of cold water had been thrown in her face, she was back to reality and in a voice that strove for control she said,

“I – have something to – tell you.”

The Earl smiled.

“Your secrets? They are not important, my precious one. All that matters is that you love me. You love me enough to risk your own life to save mine. I am not interested in anything else you may have to say. You are
you
, and it is you I want for my own, to be with me and beside me for the rest of our lives.”

He saw tears come into her eyes and looking at him she sighed very softly,

“Could any man be more wonderful – more magnificent?”

The Earl held out his arms again.

“Come here!” he said. “I cannot bear you not to be close to me.”

Giselda shook her head.

“You have been standing long enough. You must sit down and I have to – talk to you – even though it is – hard.”