‘I shall just see Miss Pym to the door,’ said Belinda, clutching Hannah even harder.
Lady Bellamy jerked the bell-rope twice. The aged butler and two young footmen appeared. ‘Bradfield,’ said Lady Bellamy to the butler, ‘show this lady out. You two, James and Henry, take Miss Earle to her bedchamber and lock her in. You know I have everything prepared for her arrival.’
Hannah was carrying her trusty umbrella. It was a heavy thing, covered in green waxcloth and with iron spokes. She raised it menacingly and stood in front of Belinda. ‘Stand aside,’ she shouted. ‘I am taking Miss Earle with me.’
Lady Bellamy seemed indifferent. ‘Lock them in together,’ she commanded.
The two footmen approached. Belinda darted for the door, wrenched her bad ankle and collapsed to the ground with a cry of pain. Hannah dropped her umbrella and ran to her.
She helped Belinda to her feet. She could not start a fight and risk injuring Belinda further. As long as she was to be locked in with Belinda, they might plan something between them.
Urged forward by the footmen, Hannah, her arm around Belinda’s waist, helped her up the stairs. They were thrust into a room and the door was locked behind them.
Both stood still, looking helplessly around. ‘Mad,’ said Belinda, beginning to cry. ‘She’s gone raving mad.’
Hannah nodded gloomily. There was an old double bed without curtains or posts, covered in a ragged quilt. Apart from that, there was no other furniture except a prie-dieu in the corner. The windows were barred.
‘Now what are we going to do?’ said Hannah Pym.
8
Adventure is to the adventurous.
Benjamin Disraeli
The marquess, reluctant all at once to see his sister and to have to explain his sudden engagement and endure all the questions he knew she would throw at him, put up at the Pelican Inn.
He bathed and washed the powder out of his hair and dressed with great care. He felt a lightness of spirit, an absence of loneliness. Soon he would see Belinda again.
He made his way on foot to Glossop Street. An elderly butler answered the door and said courteously that the ladies were not at home, they were out walking.
The marquess was angry. He had said he would call. ‘I am staying at the Pelican,’ he said stiffly, handing over his card. ‘Be so good as to tell the ladies to send for me when they find themselves available to receive me.’
He walked away huffily, his spirits low. What could have happened?
He returned in the evening and looked bewildered when he was met with the same reply. He noticed the old butler could not meet his eyes. So they were lying. Belinda had changed her mind. A pox on all women.
He returned to the Pelican and ordered a bottle of wine and sat moodily in the tap. And then he saw Colonel Harry Audley bearing down on him. He knew the colonel of old and damned him as the biggest bore in Bath.
‘Just come to the city, Frenton?’ asked the colonel, sitting down beside him without asking permission.
‘Yes, and enjoying my own company,’ said the marquess pointedly.
The colonel ignored him and began to prose on about who was in society in Bath and what they had said to him and what he had said to them. The marquess half-closed his eyes and drank his wine and waited for the colonel to dry up and go away.
Dimly, the colonel’s voice penetrated his worried brain. ‘… and quite mad, if you ask me. When old Bellamy died she came to The Bath and we were all prepared to be kind to her, but she got seized with a sort of religious mania. Then she began to see thieves and burglars everywhere. That house of hers in Glossop Street is like a prison.’
‘Whose house?’ asked the marquess suddenly.
‘Ain’t I been telling you, dear boy? Lady Bellamy.’
‘Tell me again.’
The colonel looked gratified at having secured an interested audience at last. ‘Mad as Dick’s hatband is Lady Bellamy. You should take a walk down Glossop Street and have a look at her house. Bars on every window. She occasionally walks out and has two strong footmen to guard her, just as if she expected one of the invalids of The Bath to savage her. Why, I call to mind—’
‘Good evening,’ said the marquess, got to his feet, and hurried out.
Sharp anxiety stabbed at his heart. He now did not believe for a moment that Belinda was avoiding him.
Hannah and Belinda sat miserably in the cold, dark room that was their prison.
‘She hasn’t come yet,’ said Hannah. ‘I am so hungry and thirsty. Wait until I see that aunt and uncle of yours. When I reach London, if I ever reach London, I am going straight to them and I am going to give them a piece of my mind. How dare they send you here? That woman is mad. It must be well known in Bath. When did you last see her?’
‘Seven years ago,’ said Belinda. ‘She was all right in her head then, but very moralizing. The whole of Sunday was taken up with readings from the Bible and sermons.’
‘And what can Frenton be thinking of?’ demanded Hannah. ‘He will have called. He cannot believe we would not see him.’
Belinda turned her head away. ‘He may prefer the charms of Lady Devine.’
‘Now, don’t start that!’ cried Hannah. ‘Ain’t we miserable enough? Mark my words, he pleasured himself with a willing widow who can’t have had her reputation damned by the liaison because she’s now a duchess. Get some sense in your head and refute everything that madwoman has told you.’
A voice sounded behind the door. It was Lady Bellamy. ‘I hope you are praying for the salvation of your souls,’ she said sonorously. ‘You will be allowed a morsel of bread and water, which will be brought to you in five minutes. My footman will be armed, so do not make any trouble. Tomorrow, I shall come and read to you.’
Belinda and Hannah looked at each other in the gloom.
‘At least we’ll get a drink of water,’ said Belinda.
Hannah’s eyes fell on her trusty umbrellas, propped in a corner. She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘When this footman comes, I will stand behind the door and hit him on the head with my umbrella. It should be easy to stun him. The umbrella has a silver knob.’
‘What if you hit too hard and kill him?’ asked Belinda with a shiver. ‘Or what if you do not hit hard enough and he shoots me?’
‘Quite simple,’ said the ever-practical Hannah Pym. ‘You dart to one side just as I strike him.’
Belinda began to tremble. ‘I am afraid of guns,’ she said.
‘Courage. We must have courage,’ said Hannah firmly, ‘else we shall be kept here and go as mad as that lunatic great-aunt of yours.’
Belinda wrinkled her brow in thought. Then she said slowly, ‘Great-Aunt Harriet is mad, but the footman is not. They are just two strong young men who are being well paid to perform their duties. The footman who is bringing us the bread and water may be armed, but he will not shoot us. He would not dare.’
‘True,’ said Hannah. ‘But I do not think we can risk it. He may just fire without thinking.’
The Marquess of Frenton knocked at Lady Bellamy’s door again. Again the butler opened it, but this time the marquess lifted him up by the elbows and set him aside, then walked past him. ‘Help!’ shouted the butler.
The marquess bounded up the stairs.
At the same time, the footman unlocked the door of Belinda and Hannah’s room and entered, carrying a tray in one hand and a gun in the other.
The room was in darkness and he could only make out the blurred whiteness of a face in the far corner.
‘Now!’ cried Hannah Pym, bringing her umbrella down on his head with all her might. Belinda dived under the bed. There was an almighty crash as the tray and the gun went flying and the footman measured his length on the floor.