So Sylvia took to her bed, and Peggy looked after her. She fed her, washed her, and combed her hair. Their world narrowed to the confines of the bedroom, but Peggy knew that Sylvia’s mind roamed with more freedom than she had ever enjoyed before; though the purpose of the “visions” remained elusive.
Peggy sighed as she came back to reality. She had done the best she could for her Mistress. If only Sylvia would speak. What had happened to her voice? She bent low over the cherubic face. “Tell Peggy what you see?”
Sylvia’s nostrils widened and narrowed and she snorted like a pig.
“Oh well,” she muttered. It troubled her that her Mistress had lost the power of speech, but not to worry, it was sure to come back. Perhaps the revelation of the “visions’” meanings were about to be understood, and this was a passing-through stage that Sylvia needed to complete before she was able to speak again and make everything clear.
Peggy watched the flickering candle flames. The shadows around them changed. It looked like mist, floating above the tiny lights; a cool evening mist.
Sylvia’s body stiffened, her eyes opened, she bellowed a ferocious grunt, and soiled the bed. Then she relaxed, and beamed a baby smile.
“My little angel’s awake,” chortled Peggy. “Has she had a lovely time? I know you want to tell Peggy all about it, but first, a hungry girl needs to eat.”
She lifted the cover off the first platter. “What scrummy goodness have I got for you today? Open wide, my lovely.” She spooned a generous helping of pheasant casserole into Sylvia’s gaping mouth.
Chapter Sixteen
Isobel rubbed her shoulder. The wound stung, but it wasn’t deep. Her fingertips revealed the faintest smear of blood, nothing to worry about.
She slipped down from Mavis’s back and wound the rope around a branch. She had neglected her riding practice in the last few months, and her legs ached with a banging throb.
She lowered herself against a broken tree stump and stared into the forest. Fewer trees grew this far up the hillside, the sandy earth was too dry and thin, and places to hide were scarce.
Behind her, a steep slope climbed towards a bare crest. Her plan had been to ride over the crest and find the London Road that she knew must be close, but a heavy mist rolled across the empty ground, and she feared that she might lose her way.
It was odd, such a heavy mist for a bright day. The setting sun slanted through the branches and the sky gave no hint of bad weather, but if she took a wrong turning, if she retraced her steps by mistake, well that wasn’t a risk worth taking.
Somewhere in the forest, Terrington hunted her.
She felt hungry now, and suddenly very tired. Her eyelids drooped. She pinched her arm and forced herself awake. But sleeping and waking muddled her head. Was she watching the trees, or dreaming of watching the trees? Dark shadows slid through the gloom. A branch snapped, and she jumped awake.
A little way down the slope stood a man.
Isobel leapt up and fumbled for the dagger in her pocket. She released it from its scabbard, drew it, and thrust it forwards.
The man stepped back, hands outstretched, his body relaxed. She peered hard, her ears thumping with rushing blood.
Most of the man’s face was hidden by the folds of a long black travelling cape. It draped over his shoulder and trailed to the ground. A sword hung at his waist in a bulky and patched leather scabbard. Isobel inched backwards towards Mavis.
“Get away from me!” Her voice cracked into a high pitched treble.
The man stepped forwards, but she thrust the dagger out, and he halted. The cape swamped his short stature. This wasn’t Terrington, an accomplice?
“I know how to use this,” she threatened. “Don’t come one step closer.” Her back brushed against Mavis’s flank.
“Please. I mean no harm.”
Isobel’s heart jumped at the sound of the man’s heavy Russian accent, and she faltered. “This is—is, private property.”
“Yes.”
What was a Russian doing in Parklands? “You shouldn’t be here.”
“That is true.”
“Then leave—now.” She jabbed the dagger towards the dark forest below.
“I cannot leave. I am looking for you. And now I find you, Isobel.”
She gasped and raised the dagger as if to run at him and plunge it into his chest. “How do you know my name?”
“I am here for helping you.” His soothing voice sounded like an adult’s quietening a frightened child.
Could she lose him in the trees? “Helping me?” She felt exhausted.
“I am here for helping you escape; but I late. You escape already.”
He unhitched the cape from his shoulder to reveal his face.
“My name is Gregor. I am friend of James Turney.”
She blushed when she heard James’s name, and her look of surprise made Gregor smile, even when her surprise turned to astonishment at the sight of his face.
A scar stretched from the side of his mouth to the corner of his eye. His cheek contorted into folds and lumps of new-grown puffy skin. When he smiled, he looked like a hellish demon in a picture plate from the Bible.
Bewildered, she lowered the dagger. “You’re a—you’re a friend of James?” she stuttered. She had never heard the name Gregor before. He nodded.
“Have you seen him?” How did this Russian know to find her at Parklands?
“No. But I see girls. They worried. No work, and he missing.”
Her stomach tightened at the remembered fear of Bedlam, and James’s incarceration in that terrible place. Did Gregor really know The Classical Beauties, or did he repeat what somebody taught him, to catch her?
“The girls?”
“Yes—Classical Beauties.”
“You’ve seen the girls?”
“Yes. They ask for you too.”
Of course they did. They must be wondering what had happened? She had just vanished with James after their date at that Soho Club. It must have looked very suspicious. She felt reassured, Gregor knew these facts.
“Girls tell me to look,” Gregor continued. “They say you run off with James, and they have no money.”
She pulled the scabbard out of her pocket and sheathed the dagger. She needed to trust Gregor, or they would be standing talking all night. It was too dangerous to stay in one place for long, exposed and alone in the forest. She dropped the dagger into her pocket. “Well Gregor—James isn’t here.”
Now Gregor looked surprised. His eyebrows shot up and his left eye opened wide, but the scarred side of his face remained unchanged. It seemed as if he was doing one thing but thinking another.
“James not here? The girls say he is with you.”
“Well they are wrong.”
She glanced over Gregor’s shoulder into the darkening forest. “How did you find me?”
“Notice in newspaper. Said you in Parklands for nerves.”
She studied his strange face. “You can read English?”
“My brother showed me a little.”
She glanced behind her. “Is your brother here?”
“No. Only me.”
She stood no chance against two men. “A notice in the newspaper?”
“Yes.”
Well, well, clever William, lock her up as bait, and watch to see who came calling. “How long have you been following me?”
“You sit on hillside, further up. I think you climb to top but you come back.”