The Saint and the Sinner (14 page)

Pandora did not wait to hear any more. She walked across the Salon and without speaking to anyone went into the hall and closed the door behind her.

She realised that once again the three women had had too much to drink, and Caro was in fact sprawling across a sofa with her eyes closed.

‘How can gentlemen find them amusing when they look like that?’ she wondered.

She had noticed at dinner how much they drank and how each glass seemed to make them noisier and more vulgar in their behaviour.

She could not help wondering what old Burrows thought, but he was too well trained to look anything but impassive.

She saw him rebuke with a steely, glance one of the footmen who sniggered at something which had been said. “If only Chart Hall could be like it used to be,” she said with a sigh.

Then everything was swept from her mind but the thought that in the morning the Earl would be fighting a duel on her account.

She was sure that he would be a match for Sir Gilbert. At the same time, duels could be dangerous, and she remembered stories she had read or heard of tragedies occurring when men were fighting each other and how the victor often had to flee the country for fear of being arrested.

She was certain nothing like that would happen here. But still she was afraid.

It was her fault, and yet what could she have done except not to have been so foolish as to go out alone in the garden?

She might have guessed, she thought now, that Sir Gilbert would follow her even though she thought he would have been too concerned with his gaming.

“It will be all right – I am sure it will be – all right,” she tried to promise herself optimistically, but all the same she felt afraid.

Mary came to help her undress, but for once she was not interested in anything the girl had to tell her. When she was alone Pandora got into bed, but only to lie sleepless in the darkness.

She began to pray frantically that everything would be all right and the Earl would not be hurt.

If he was even scratched in such an encounter, he might be angry with her and blame her for the whole occurrence.

The idea was so distressing that sleep seemed to retreat even further from her.

About an hour and a half later Pandora heard the rest of the party coming upstairs to bed and they were certainly very noisy about it.

She thought that if they were as drunk as they sounded, they might damage the beautiful Staterooms in which they were sleeping.

She thought that the Earl had deliberately chosen such accommodation for his guests because he wanted to shock the Chart ancestors, who doubtless would have felt as contemptuous as she did at the drunkenness of the actresses.

She was also surprised and shocked at a great deal of what they said and did.

She could not help watching wide-eyed when at dinner Caro had kissed Richard passionately.

Hettie had put one arm round Freddie’s neck and her other hand inside his shirt when she was pleading with him to give her a piece of jewellery she had seen in Bond Street.

Pandora kept wondering what her mother would have thought or said in the circumstances. Then, once again, she told herself she had no right to criticise. She had invited herself here, and if the Earl’s guests behaved outrageously, she had been warned that that was what she would find.

At the same time, she resented everything they did, because it proved that Prosper Witheridge was right and the gossiping old women of Lindchester had every justification for feeling outraged.

‘I am sure Norvin will begin to see how terrible they are,’ she thought.

Then she told herself that in the beauty and dignity of Chart Hall no-one could fail to notice the contrast.

There was no need for her to say anything, even if she had the opportunity. Chart itself would point the lesson.

She was sure that the Earl was quite sensitive enough to perceive the contrast between Caro lying drunkenly on the sofa and above her the portrait of the Countess of Chartwood, painted exquisitely by Sir Joshua Reynolds.

She looked so lovely and graceful yet at the same time so dignified and well-bred that one’s eyes were held by the picture.

“He must see, he must,” Pandora whispered to herself, and added some words she remembered from
Paradise Lost:

“’Abash’d the Devil stood, And felt how awful goodness is, and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely.’

“He will see – I know he will see sooner or later,” Pandora consoled herself, but still she could not sleep.

She heard the clock over the stables strike two, then the half hour.

Everything was very still and because she felt wide awake with the thoughts pursuing each other in her mind, she rose to walk to one of the windows.

She pulled back the silk curtains and stood looking out at the beauty beneath her.

The stars were brilliant and there was a half moon high over the great trees in the park.

She thought of what would take place in the morning and once again she was praying that the Earl would not be hurt.

“He must not lose all this now,” she whispered to herself.

The moonlight was shining on the West Wing, which was nearest to her, while the East was still in shadow.

It glinted silver on the long windows that Inigo Jones had designed so symmetrically. Then, as she looked, Pandora saw that a window on the ground floor was open.

‘The servants must have forgotten,’ she thought. She remembered how insistent her grandfather had always been that the lower windows of the house should be securely fastened at night.

“It would be easy for anyone to climb in by them,” he had said often enough, “and it is doubtful if the night watchmen would hear them.”

There had always been two night watchmen at Chart Hall, Underwood and Colby by name, unless they had been sacked. They were both elderly men and their hearing was not as good as it might have been.

‘I will find one of them,’ Pandora decided, and tell him about the window.’

By the light of the moon she put on her dressing gown, a pale blue silk which had belonged to her mother and which was trimmed with lace down the front and on the wide sleeves.

Pandora buttoned it and tied the sash tightly round her small waist. She slipped her feet into the blue slippers which matched the dressing-gown.

She opened the door of her room and went out into the corridor.

Most of the candles in the sconces had been extinguished, but there were enough left for her to see her way, even though she would have been able to find it blindfolded.

She thought Underwood or Colby would be in the hall, which was where they usually ended up their rounds, but there was nobody there.

After looking vainly along the corridor which led to the Library, Pandora walked in the opposite direction, past the rooms which lay between the Salon and the Dining Room.

There was no sign of either of the men. She guessed she would find them in the kitchen-quarters, drinking a glass of ale or having something to eat.

‘They are certainly more slack than they were in Grandpapa’s time,’ she thought.

She passed through the green-baize door which cut off the main part of the house from the kitchen, scullery-larder, still-room, servants’ hall, and the other offices.

Before she reached them Pandora had to pass the pantry.

She suddenly remembered that if she could not find the night watchmen there was always a footman sleeping in the pantry to guard the safe where the silver was kept.

She had often thought as a child that he could not be very comfortable, because he had a bed which shut up against the wall in the daytime and was pulled down only at night.

She had almost reached the pantry, moving silently in her soft slippers, when she heard voices.

‘So this is where the night watchmen are,’ she thought, smiling, ‘gossiping!’

She took a few more steps, then, seeing something lying at the side of the passage, she looked down, wondering what it was.

It was not easy to see clearly. Then, with a shock of surprise, she saw that it was Underwood who was lying stretched out on the floor.

For a moment she thought he was asleep, but then another, more frightening thought occurred to her. Without realising what she was doing, she ran into the pantry for help, then stood in the doorway, transfixed with horror.

Gagged and trussed up against one wall was the footman, the safe door was open, and standing in front of it with a gold ornament in his hand was Dalton.

Another man, who she was sure from the description she had heard of him was Mr. Anstey, was holding a sack open.

She gave a gasp of sheer horror, and Dalton, who had his back to her, turned. As he did so, Mr. Anstey asked:

“Who’s this?”

“His Lordship’s cousin,” Dalton replied, “and I suspect it was her interference that got me dismissed!” As he spoke he moved towards Pandora and too late she realised the danger she was in.

She tried to run away, but he was too quick for her and in a moment had caught her arms behind her back and was tying her wrists.

“Let me go! How dare you!” Pandora began to say; then she screamed. The sound had hardly left her lips before Mr. Anstey gagged her. She tried to struggle but it was impossible.

Then, when she thought despairingly that she was completely in their power, a voice from the doorway asked furiously.

“What is going on here?”

Pandora’s heart gave a leap of relief, for it was the Earl and she saw that in his hand he held a duelling-pistol.

“Release that lady immediately,” he commanded, “or I will shoot you where you stand!”

He had his pistol pointed at Dalton, but Mr. Anstey put his arm round Pandora and holding her against him pulled her back against the door of the safe.

“Not so fast!” he said to the Earl.

Now with a feeling of horror Pandora realised that he had a sharp knife at her throat.

“You may kill Dalton, M’Lord,” he said, “but your cousin’ll be dead too. Then if you wish we can fight it out man-to-man.”

Pandora wanted to give a cry of sheer horror, but she knew that the duelling-pistol held only one bullet, and the point of the knife was sharp against her throat.

Mr. Anstey had command of the situation.

“Pick up the sacks,” he said to Dalton. “And now, M’Lord, you’ll let us pass or you’ll find that I’m not speaking idly when I tell you that this pretty young lady’ll be lying dead at your feet.”

There was something evil in the way he mouthed the words, as if they gave him satisfaction.

“You will not get away with this,” the Earl said. “I think you’ll find I’m better and more experienced at being a thief than you are at being a nobleman,” Mr. Anstey retorted.

Pandora saw the anger in the Earl’s eyes and she thought for a moment he might risk the consequences and shoot either Mr. Anstey or Dalton.

If she died it would be for a worthy cause, for she could not bear to think of these unscrupulous men taking away the historic gold and silver ornaments that had belonged to her ancestors.

“Go ahead!” Mr. Anstey said to Dalton. “His Lordship is powerless, and won’t hurt you, as he well knows. “

With his knife still at Pandora’s throat and holding her so hard against his chest that it was painful, he moved slowly forward, his eyes on the Earl.

“People die very quick when their jugular vein’s been severed,” he said evilly. “Just a slip of the hand, M’Lord, and her blood’ll flow!”

Slowly, as if every step was agony to him, the Earl backed out of the doorway.

Pandora could read his thoughts in that she knew he was wondering if he dared fire at Mr. Anstey’s head.

She wanted to cry out to him to take the risk and if she was killed too it would not matter, but she was propelled forward by the man who was using her as a shield.

Then they were backing away down the flagged passage which led past the kitchen and the Earl could only stand and watch them go.

As they reached the door that led to the kitchen yard Pandora saw him turn and run back the way he had come, and she was quite certain that he was on his way to the stables to get help.

The moment he disappeared, the man who was holding her was galvanised into action.

He took his arm from round her and dragged her out into the kitchen-yard and across it to where outside the tradesmen’s entrance there stood a cart.

Dalton was already there and was dumping the sacks into it. It was a light vehicle drawn by two horses and Pandora knew it could move very fast.

She hardly had time, however, to think of anything besides her own discomfort, for Mr. Anstey picked her up in his arms and flung her on top of the sacks.

Then with a swiftness she would not have believed possible, he and Dalton climbed up onto the high seats in front of the cart and the horses were away.

The cart was very light and the horses moved so quickly that Pandora knew they would be out of the drive and onto the main road long before the Earl would be able to awaken the grooms and have horses saddled with which to follow them.

The rough way she had been thrown on top of the sacks was extremely painful.

As the horses galloped through the lodge gates she was not only propelled from side to side, but the cart rattled in a manner which made her think she would not only be bruised all over but might easily have bones broken.

“We’ll get away,” she heard Dalton say above the noise of the wheels. “We’ve got a good start.”

“What was he doing walking about at this time of night with a pistol in his hand?” Mr. Anstey asked.

“No idea,” Dalton replied.

They had to shout at each other above the noise of the horses’ hoofs, the wheels, and the clatter of their loot.

Pushing against the sides of the cart with her feet, Pandora managed to slip off the sacks and lie beside them instead of on top of them.

That made her more comfortable, but the gag was still biting into her cheeks, and as her hands were tied behind her back it was impossible to prevent her arms from being bruised with every movement.

‘Oh, God, please let Norvin catch us and save me,’ Pandora prayed.