Delsie Read online

  Without another thought, she scrambled out the window, clinging desperately to the main branch of the vine, and started her descent. It was really miraculously easy. It was strong enough to take a full-grown man. Only a few leaves, sere and dry in this season, tore loose from her hands and fluttered silently to the ground to tell the tale of her passing. Within a minute her feet hit the soft earth around the foundation plantings. She realized then that she should have worn some protection from the cold. The wind was piercing, but she had not far to go.

  Off like a shot down the road to the Cottage. She knew she could save time by cutting through the spinney, but was unsure of the way. Approaching the bottom of the private road that led into the post road, she felt she could find her way now through the thinning woods, and this route would offer some concealment too. She turned into the woods, picking her way stealthily, running from tree to tree. Reaching a clear space, she stopped, then decided to dart to the next group of trees, perhaps a hundred feet away. After catching her breath, she ran forward.

  She was suddenly aware of heavy footsteps behind her. With her heart in her throat, she ran faster, faster, but still her pursuer gained on her. She could not spare time to look over her shoulder, but knew it to be a man, a big man, and very likely a dangerous one, bent on killing her. She wished, futilely, that she were safely locked up in the room at the Hall. That she were back at Miss Frisk’s rooming house, that she were anywhere but in a dark forest alone with a vicious smuggler.

  * * * *

  DeVigne had not gone more than two paces before he realized he was being foolish. He had his full share of the Englishman’s sense of property. He resented that his land was being used, criminally at that, by outsiders, but as this was the last trip for the smugglers, he decided to let them continue. He stopped and stepped behind a tree to let the man pass. When he discerned the outline of a skirt fly past him, he knew at once who he had to deal with. He did not know how she had escaped Mrs. Forrester, but from her direction, he was not in the least doubt where she was heading.

  The time was approximately midnight. He gave chase immediately, wanting to call her name, but afraid of drawing attention to them. He assumed he could overtake her in a minute, but was surprised at her agility, and in those clinging skirts too. He ran on, pushing himself faster, till at last he reached her. She was about to enter the next growth of trees. Beyond them was the thicket into the orchard. Impossible to let her barge in there at this time. He lunged forward and got his arms around her waist, but in a poor grasp. She wrenched free and plunged forward again. His hand flew out, barely getting a hold on her skirt. She jerked to a stop, then toppled forward.

  “Delsie, for God’s sake...” she heard her pursuer say, and recognized the voice. Then the blackness came over her in great, floating waves.

  DeVigne heard the hard thump as her head hit some obstacle in her path, and was aware at the same instant of the telltale sounds of approaching men and donkeys. Not a word did they utter, but the surreptitious tinkle of the harnesses and the soft clop of hooves revealed all.

  On the ground now he edged nearer to see if Delsie was badly hurt. She moaned, and he clamped a hand over her mouth. He was aware of strange sounds in the orchard beyond, but he did not dare to leave the unconscious woman for a moment to see what was going forth. She might come to in a moment and shout. He peered at her in the darkness to try to gauge her condition. It did not seem possible she could be badly hurt. Her face was pale in the wan moonlight, with a black smear on the forehead that he took for a strand of hair. Touching it lightly with his fingers, he felt the warm softness of blood.

  “Oh my God!” he muttered to himself, bending closer. The blood was flowing freely down her temples into her hair. The mood of the night changed suddenly. It had been an adventure, a diversion in life’s routine, a pleasure really, and a challenge to discover the ingenious hiding place Andrew had contrived for the brandy.

  All thoughts of brandy and hiding places were swept from his mind as he pulled out his handkerchief and bound it around her wound, with his fingers trembling. His chief thought now was to get her to a doctor as quickly as possible. Not even a horse or a carriage—his mount in the stable at the Cottage. He’d have to carry her to the Hall, and the Cottage was so much closer! She made no move. Torn with indecision, he slipped as quietly as possible to where his footman stood peering through the thicket into the orchard.

  “Hicks, go at once to the Hall and bring my closed carriage down the lane. Mrs. Grayshott is hurt. I’ll carry her through the spinney and meet you there.”

  “They’re doing it now!” Hicks objected. “Gor blimey, they’re moving the trees!”

  “Go!” deVigne said in a voice loud enough to alert one of the smugglers, who looked up sharply toward the thicket, but fortunately to the wrong end. With a muffled imprecation and a last look over his shoulder, Hicks sprinted off. Having lived at the Hall since he was ten, he spurned the road and took the shortcut through the woods.

  DeVigne hastened quietly back to where Delsie still lay on the ground. He was relieved to see no blood showed through the bandage. He picked her up gently in his arms and walked silently towards the lane to meet the carriage. She stirred once and said “Bobbie!” in a hysterical voice, trying to lift her head, then it fell back against his chest.

  “She’s all right. Bobbie’s all right,” he assured her, in a calming voice, as he quickened his steps. Of Mrs. Grayshott’s own condition he was less sure. He did not feel it could be fatal, but a blow on the head might engender some mental disorder, possibly even of a permanent nature. There was no point in blaming her. It was his fault. Trying to save her from something of this sort by removing her from the Cottage, he had hurt her himself.

  Remorse was added to his anguish. She was cold as ice. Why had she come out without a wrap? His quickened pace was of no use. He had to wait ten minutes for his carriage. Ten minutes that seemed an eternity, with the unconscious burden in his arms, not stirring, while his impatience mounted to alarm, and finally panic.

  At last the wheels were heard coming down the drive, and while an openmouthed groom looked on, deVigne managed with some difficulty to get himself and Delsie into the carriage. From the door he directed, “Go down to the road and turn around. You’ll never manage a turn here. The minute you get to the Hall, go for the doctor at once. Take a mount, it will be faster. Close the door now, and don’t waste any time.”

  He held the insentient widow on his knee, her head resting against his chest as they were driven to the road and back to the Hall. He tried to rouse her, saying softly, urgently, “Delsie. Delsie, can you hear me?” once or twice, but no response came. He cradled her in his arms, laying his cheek against the top of her head, silently cursing himself and fate for this ill-timed occurrence. Mrs. Forrester had already discovered the escape, and was anxiously pacing the hallway when deVigne carried Mrs. Grayshott in.

  “I sent a boy out to tell you she’d got away,” she said, “but I didn’t know exactly where you were.”

  “He’ll likely walk right into Clancy’s boys and have his head cleaved open,” he answered. “I told you to watch her, Mrs. Forrester. How did she get out?”

  “It must have been by the window. Whoever would have thought she would—oh, my! She’s hurt. Is it bad?”

  “I don’t know. Her color is not gone off too badly,” he replied, examining her, relieved to see in the better light that she was not so pale as the darkness had indicated. “Get some hot water and bandages—brandy. In the study,” he added, hurrying in that direction. “And a blanket. She’s cold.”

  She was laid on a settee in the study. Mrs. Forrester returned with water and bandages, and was promptly sent off again for basilicum powder, and to find a boy to light the grate, while deVigne untied his makeshift bandage and examined the wound. It did not appear deep to his unpracticed eye. The skin was open, but the blood had stopped flowing. Why did she remain so long unconscious? As he began dabbing at the drying
blood with a cloth, Delsie opened her eyes. She looked at deVigne, said “Oh, no!” in accents of deepest disgust, closed her eyes, and turned her head away.

  “You know me?” he asked brusquely, fearing he hardly knew what. That her brain was disordered, or worse.

  “Where’s Bobbie?” she asked in a weak voice.

  “In her bed.”

  “I shouldn’t have left her—”

  “Indeed you should not!” he answered, anger rapidly replacing fear as he saw her wits to be intact, but the anger was truly directed against himself.

  “It was you—in the woods,” she accused.

  “Yes, yes. All my doing. Delsie, I’m damnably sorry.”

  She closed her eyes, and they remained closed till the doctor arrived not so much later. During the interval, deVigne first sat beside her, directing a few disconnected comments to her unresponding form, then pacing the room, still talking at random. The doctor’s ministrations roused her thoroughly, especially when he probed her cut. She wailed in a loudish voice that grew no weaker when she noticed deVigne glancing worriedly over the doctor’s shoulder. After some uncomfortable minutes, the doctor closed his bag and pronounced her safe, with only a probable headache, which was to be relieved by a sleeping draught.

  “No!” she declared firmly.

  “Mrs. Grayshott has already had a—sedative,” deVigne explained.

  “The pupils are not dilated,” the doctor pointed out. “That must have been some time ago. I recommend a few drops—”

  “No!” she repeated, more firmly than before.

  The poor doctor looked quite surprised at her lack of cooperation, and said that if she had the devil of a headache in the morning, she must not blame him.

  “You may be sure I shan’t blame you, Doctor!” she declared in a meaningful voice, looking over his head to him whom she did blame. DeVigne shook his head slightly, to indicate she should hold her peace till the doctor was gone.

  He soon left, and with a wary look, deVigne came toward the settee. “That feel better?” he asked.

  She sat up and glared at him. “No doubt you are concerned that I be perfectly comfortable, after drugging me and locking me up in your house, and hitting my head with a rock!”

  “I did not! Hit your head I mean. I had to stop you from barging in on the smugglers. Delsie, what in God’s name possessed you to—

  “Oh, no, I am not the one who has to explain the night’s actions. You are the one who has broken half a dozen laws. I shouldn’t be in the least surprised to hear that moving smuggled brandy was included in your crimes either.”

  “I wish you will lie down and relax,” he essayed placatingly.

  “I have been relaxed to the point of unconsciousness for several hours already this night. What time is it anyway?”

  “It is one-fifteen. Why?”

  “You must hurry and find out where they’ve hidden it! Oh, do rush, Max, or they’ll be gone,” she urged, forgetting to be angry with him in her eagerness, and forgetting as well her vow never to use his Christian name.

  “They’ve been gone an hour. They were there when you—you fell.”

  “Was pushed!” she corrected.

  “I didn’t push you. I had to stop you from dashing into the orchard. They were coming then.”

  “And you there to meet them! It is no more than I expected. I daresay it is you who has been littering up the Cottage with bags of guineas.”

  He dismissed this charge with no more than a baleful stare, deeming it beneath contradicting. “If you hadn’t... And how the deuce did you get out the window?” he demanded.

  “I climbed down the vine.”

  “You didn’t even wear a wrap. It will be a wonder if you haven’t caught your death of cold.”

  “A mere wisp of pneumonia will be nothing after the rest of it.” At last she could contain her curiosity no longer, and gave over being angry with him. “Do tell me where they have been hiding it.”

  “I don’t know,” he confessed shamefully.

  “You don’t know? You mean we are never to discover how they did it? Oh, if I were a man I’d shoot you.”

  “If you were not a foolish, stubborn, headstrong woman, we would know.”

  “This beats all the rest! For you to be calling me stubborn after the way you have persisted in having you own way throughout this entire affair. Making me marry Andrew, making me leave the Cottage instead of helping me, and then not to discover the hiding place. Talk about foolish!” She stopped, too overcome to continue.

  He looked a little shamefaced at these charges, and urged her once more to lie down and be calm. “We’ll know the secret of the hiding place by morning. I left a footman there to watch and discover how it is done. He hasn’t returned yet, but—”

  “And likely never will!”

  “There is no danger. Watling can handle himself. They were just beginning whatever it is they do, when you got hurt. Hicks said something—but I must have heard him wrong, in my anxiety. I thought he said they were moving the trees.”

  A tinkle of laughter rang out. “He thinks he is playing Macbeth, with Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane. I doubt if even Andrew could contrive that. And the trees were not men in disguise. I hope I know a tree when I see it, and a man.”

  “I am happy to see your spirits recovering. When you take to bragging, I know you must feel better.”

  She was beginning to feel worse from the exertion of talking, however, and sank back on the pillows.

  “It is time you were in bed,” he said. “I’ll call Mrs. Forrester. Is it safe to put you back in the Rose Suite? Now that they are gone, you won’t go clambering down the vine again, I trust. You are not here under compulsion now. If you wish to return to the Cottage, pray tell me, and I shall take you in the carriage. The servants have all left, incidentally,” he added.

  “I’ll stay here,” she answered with indifference.

  She tried to walk, with the help of Mrs. Forrester and deVigne, but after a few unsteady steps, he lifted her into his arms, saying impatiently that he didn’t have all night to show her to her room. She was asleep before Mrs. Forrester extinguished the lamp and closed the door.

  Chapter Nineteen

  With a heavy gray sky and her curtains drawn, Delsie’s room remained dark till late the next morning. It was ten-thirty before she was up and dressed, and eleven before she had breakfasted. DeVigne was not in evidence, and at such a late hour, Bobbie was in the nursery having her lesson with Miss Milne. Queries of the servant giving her breakfast revealed only that his lordship was not in, which angered the widow unreasonably. Before she walked home in high dudgeon, he came in at the door, obviously excited.

  “Good morning, ma’am. I hope you slept well,” he said cheerfully, regarding the plaster Mrs. Forrester had replaced, for she had no opinion of a doctor who covered up half a lady’s forehead for a tiny scratch.

  “Why should I not, with half a bottle of laudanum inside me,” was her uncivil reply.

  “Good, then it is time to go to the orchard.”

  “Have you been there already? Do tell me all about it,” she pleaded.

  “I have just returned this minute. The thing almost defies description. It will be easier to show you how it operates.”

  She forgot her resentment in the exciting prospect of seeing her trees move about, and dashed to the door before him.

  “You will want a coat,” he pointed out.

  “I didn’t bring one with me.”

  He sent a servant for one of his driving coats, and with a very long, many-caped drab coat thrown over her gown, she was ready to go. “Oh, we must take Bobbie with us,” she remembered, just at the door, causing a further delay. She remarked that there were several footmen accompanying them, standing up behind the carriage, and inquired the reason for this. “I haven’t seen such an entourage since the first day you came to see me at the school,” she roasted.

  “I have been wondering when you would find an opportunity t
o throw that in my face. The trees do not move under their own steam,” he said mysteriously.

  Her hardest questioning revealed no more than this meager fact. Before long they were all, including the footmen, gathered around the two runted trees in the orchard, where chains and ropes lay on the ground.

  “It was Watling who actually saw the thing being done, and he will direct the men,” deVigne explained.

  A lanky, lantern-jawed individual in livery stepped forward with great importance and picked up the end of a chain. “Take an end there, Hicks,” he commanded, as though he had been issuing orders all his life. Two men were ordered into position at either end of the long chain, which was wound around one of the small trees. The men then walked to a position about six feet behind the tree, and Watling gave the order to “heave.” As if by magic, the tree tipped up out of the earth and was soon lying on its side. Its root system was seen to be encased in a large wooden-frame box filled with earth. Under the tree there was a stone-lined cavity large enough to hold several barrels of brandy, with a stone lip at the top to prevent the box holding the root from falling into the cavity.

  “Voilà,” deVigne said to Mrs. Grayshott, who stood dumbfounded at this show.

  “How? But this is impossible...” she began.

  “You underestimate your late husband. The other small tree moves on the same principle. Watling tells me both trees were lifted last night. Their being boxed in wouldn’t allow the roots to spread, which accounts for their being smaller than the others in the orchard. A very neat engineering feat, I must confess.”

  “How was it possible for Andrew to have had this done without anyone knowing about it?” she asked.

  “It is in a well-concealed spot—the other trees afford a good curtain. He did tell Jane at one time that two of his trees died and he was replacing them. It must have been done then. It wouldn’t take much work, once the holes had been dug. Just to make the excavation a little deeper and line it with stones. That was the biggest part of the job. It is beautifully done too. Very regular. I wonder he took such pains when it was never to be seen in daylight.”