Sally James (11 page)

The interior of the caves was quite as impressive as Mary had anticipated. They clambered down steep, uneven steps, through lofty chambers where the light from the lanterns their guides carried did not penetrate to the roof, and along mysterious passages hewn out of the rocks in the years gone by as the river had forced its way.

The river was still there, deep and quiet in places, rushing and gurgling in others as it fell to a new level, and the sound seemed to pervade the whole place. The guides pointed out the features of the caves, and Mary smiled when she saw the stalagmite named for the witch, for one could easily imagine the shape of it to be that of a bent old woman with a great hooked nose, and when the guide held up his lantern, the shadow cast on the wall behind was frighteningly realistic.

They explored as far as a deep, wide cavern, where the river formed a still pool to one side before flowing over a smooth ledge to fall several feet into a narrow, rock strewn passage that led it on its way. The lights from the lanterns were reflected eerily on the damp, glistening rock faces, and Belinda shivered.

“I would not like to have lived here,” she commented. “Is there much more?”

“They say the caves stretch for miles,” one of the guides replied. “There are several passages leading from this chamber,” he went on, swinging his lantern so that its beams showed the yawning entrance to one of them, “but it is not safe for you to venture further. We must return now.”

They retraced their steps for a while in silence, and then came to a narrow passage where they must go singly. One of the guides went ahead with one lantern, but as the first members of the party joined him, after squeezing through the narrowest part, he had to move further along to give them room so that the remainder were left with only the illumination of the lantern at the rear.

Teresa uttered a gasp, quickly suppressed, as the lights dimmed. She reached out and her hand came into contact with another, to which she clung tightly as she negotiated the passage.

“Can you see, Teresa?” Matthew’s voice came to her, distorted by the echoes in the enclosed space, and the pressure on her hand increased.

“Yes, thank you,” she whispered. “For a moment I was stupidly apprehensive.”

She emerged from the narrowest part, to find the way ahead illuminated only very faintly as the first guide moved on round a bend. The centre of the path they were following was worn smooth, but there were uneven, rough edges, and the occasional loose stone. Hurrying to catch up with the dimly perceived figures in front of her, Teresa stumbled as she caught her foot on a projection, and would have fallen had it not been for the helping hand which still held hers.

She recovered her footing, and looked ahead into a blackness lightened only by a faint reflection from the lantern behind. She took a hesitant step forward, and then her companion edged alongside her. Teresa looked back. She could not distinguish the figures immediately next to her, but could hear Sir Ingram speaking and Belinda’s reply. In the glow from the rear lantern she saw the faces of Paul Ward and the guide.

“The way is very narrow here,” the guide commented. “Careful how you go, Sir, the passage we want swings to the right.”

“Go ahead to give us a better light,” Sir Ingram suggested, and stood to one side in the entrance to what appeared to be a narrow, deep cave gouged out of the rock face.

The man stepped forward to come past, treading carefully on the rough edges of the passage floor, but before he reached Teresa at the front of the group he gave a grunt of mingled pain and surprise, doubled up, and collapsed senseless to the ground, his lantern falling and its light being extinguished, leaving them in utter darkness. Belinda screamed, and Teresa bit back a cry.

“Hold me tightly, I am following the wall,” a voice whispered in her ear, and a firm, steady arm caught her round the waist and gently urged her forward.

Some yards ahead, as the rest of the party waited in a small circular chamber for the others to catch up with them, Belinda’s scream erupted suddenly, startlingly, into the cave, and for a few seconds no one moved.

“Wait here, please, ladies and gentlemen,” the guide with them said. “I will go back with the lantern.”

He set off, but before he had disappeared with the light, Mary found her arm grasped roughly by Matthew.

“Teresa - she is back there!” he told her urgently, and plunged after the guide.

Startled, Mary took several steps after him, halting when the disappearing light left her in total darkness.

As she hesitated, trying to feel her way cautiously with outstretched hands, another scream, abruptly bitten off, reached them.

“Has none of you a light?” she demanded, and as she spoke the flicker of a spark answered her. In a few seconds one of the men, the brother of Teresa’s friends, had lit the stub of a candle with his flint.

His cousin produced another candle stub, and Mary took it from him, smiling briefly, and before he could utter a protest, turned and followed Matthew back along the passage.

Now the sound of terrified sobbing, interspersed with less terrified screams, came to her, and she rounded the bend in the passage to find Matthew before her, blocking the way. Peering over his shoulder she saw Belinda huddled against the wall, while Paul Ward and Mr Morris bent over the recumbent figure of the fallen guide. His dropped lantern had been relit and illuminated the scene, but the other guide was nowhere to be seen.

“Matthew, what has happened? Where is Teresa?” she queried anxiously, but he did not appear to have heard her. He moved forward quickly as the sobbing continued, and Mary looked, puzzled and afraid, about her. Belinda was moaning slightly, but the sobs came from further away, and then Mary saw an eerily faint glow to one side, and realised that there was a further opening, which Matthew was heading for, and she ran after him.

It was another small passage, very short, and opening onto a narrow platform which ended abruptly in a jagged ledge, with a deep blackness beyond it. The second guide was there, holding his lantern aloft, and Mary could see Teresa crouched on the edge of the platform, sobbing violently as she struggled with Sir Ingram, who was having some difficulty in preventing her frantic movements from sending them both over the edge into the void below.

Above the sound of Teresa’s crying there was a dull roaring sound, and it took some moments before Mary’s shocked senses grasped that it was the voice of the river, and the platform looked over a deep drop into its turbulent depths.

“Teresa, my love!” Matthew exclaimed, moving towards her.

She looked up, and her sobs increased as she stretched her arms towards him. With a couple of strides he reached her, and as Sir Ingram was able to use the distraction to drag her away from the dangerous edge, Matthew bent to gather her into his arms.

“Can you persuade her to walk?” Sir Ingram enquired coolly. “I have no fancy to carry her all the way out of here!”

“I will carry you, Teresa,” Matthew declared swiftly, throwing a glance of hatred at Sir Ingram.

“No, no, I can contrive, now you are with me,” Teresa gasped, struggling to her feet and attempting to control her sobs.

With Matthew’s arm about her, she went slowly back along the passage. Sir Ingram gestured to the guide to follow, and looked quizzically at Mary, offering his arm.

“Unless you are afraid to remain at the rear with me?” he said softly.

“Why in the world should I be? What happened? How did Teresa come to be here?” she asked in bewilderment as she took his arm.

“She thinks I was trying to kill her,” he replied unemotionally, “hence her terror as I tried to hold her safely.”

“No, she could not believe such!” Mary replied, instinctively rejecting the notion. “But how did she come to be in such a place?”

Before he could answer they had reached the others, and Teresa was being bombarded with exclamations and questions from the rest of the party.

“Let us defer the explanations until we are out of here,” Sir Ingram said crisply. “How is the guide?”

The man was sitting up, supported by Paul, and he looked up at Sir Ingram, a weak smile on his face.

“I shall be better in a moment, Sir,” he said slowly. “Just a moment of blackness as I hit my head. But how came I to fall?”

No one answered him, for Teresa, surrounded by the others, turned and dramatically flung out her arm, pointing at Sir Ingram, while with her other hand she stroked her neck.

“He tried to strangle me!” she cried. “And push me into the river!”

Aghast, Mary stepped in front of her.

“Teresa, you are out of your mind!” she exclaimed. “How dare you make such a wicked accusation!”

“It is true,” Teresa insisted. “Keep him away from me!” she added as Sir Ingram took a step towards her, and drew back into Matthew’s protective embrace.

“As I have indicated,” Sir Ingram intervened smoothly, “this is no time to discuss it.”

“Indeed, let us remove from here,” Mary said briskly. “Matthew, will you and Caroline take Teresa out first, the guide can light you. No, Sir Ingram, leave it to them,” she ordered as he moved to pass her.

He glanced at her, his eyebrows raised, and then grinned.

“A managing female, I collect,” he murmured softly so that only she could hear, but obediently stepped back.

She flushed, but raised her head higher. “The rest of us have several candles. Paul, can you and Mr Morris help the other guide? Are you ready to try and move?” she went on, smiling encouragingly down at him.

He was gingerly feeling a large bruise on the side of his face, but he nodded, and with Paul’s help staggered to his feet.

“Sir Ingram, be so good as to take the other lantern,” Mary continued, looking at him challengingly, and then, at the expression on his face as he smiled down at her, turned hastily away and moved after the others who were already going along the passage.

The rest of the way out of the caves passed without mishap. They all breathed sighs of relief to feel the fresh air and see the sunlight. The girls were plying Teresa with questions, but Mary took charge and firmly bade them to leave her in peace, and sent them on their way to the inn at the bottom of the valley. When they reached it she bore Teresa off into a small private parlour the landlord quickly made ready for her, permitting only Matthew to accompany them.

“Teresa must rest in peace for a while,” she declared. “Order drinks for yourselves. We will have some tea, if you please,” she added to the maid hovering by the door of the parlour.

“And a brandy for me,” Matthew said to the girl.

When they had been supplied, and the maid had left the room, Mary looked at Teresa. She had recovered to a great extent, but lay limply back in the deep, brocade covered armchair while Matthew sat beside her on a stool and comfortingly held her hands in his.

“Do you feel able to talk about it?” Mary asked gently.

Teresa looked up at her.

“I was so terrified,” she said slowly, and shivered. “It was so dark, and suddenly his hands were about my neck, and he was forcing me backwards! This was no accident, Mary! Look at my neck!”

She twisted herself to show Mary the long bruises on both sides of her neck, feeling them tenderly.

“How ever did you come to be there?”

“It was dark, the first guide had disappeared, and as the second one came past Ingram, he tripped him up.”

“Did you see him?” Mary asked quickly.

“No, it was too dark, I only knew he was next to me because I heard him speak,” Teresa replied. “It must have been him! He was holding my hand - I had thought it was you, Matthew, for when he first took it to help me in that narrow part, you spoke, and it seemed to me you were next to me.”

“Well?” Mary asked, deciding to ignore this point of Teresa’s behaviour.

“When the guide fell, or was pushed, he - Ingram, whispered that he was following the wall, and led me on, but he took me down the other passage. Then he tried to murder me!”

“He could not have done!”

“But the marks are plain enough on Teresa’s neck,” Matthew put in. “Someone tried to kill her, and if not Sir Ingram, who could it have been?”

Mary stared at them for a moment. “Who else was at the back?” she said slowly. “Your friends were all with Matthew and me at the front, for they lit the candles. Caroline was there, which leaves Paul and Belinda, Sir Ingram, and Mr Morris.”

“You see!” Teresa exclaimed. “They could not have done it!”

“They were all by the guide when I reached the place,” Matthew reminded Mary. “Only Sir Ingram could have been with Teresa.”

“It is impossible,” Mary declared, but with a slight hesitation in her voice. It must have been one of the three men, and neither Paul Ward nor Mr Morris could have the slightest possible motive for attacking Teresa. “I cannot believe it,” she added to herself.

“Because he has been treating you courteously, enslaving you as he knows how to do only too well!” Teresa said bitterly, and Mary flushed, partly in anger, but also because she recognised the truth in what Teresa said. It was because she found Sir Ingram attractive that she found it difficult to believe ill of him.

“I shall take you away from him,” Matthew promised. “He shall not harm you. We will do without his permission!”

“Matthew, how can you!” Mary exclaimed. “Whatever the rights and wrongs of this matter, I cannot believe that Sir Ingram would allow Teresa to touch her money if he disapproved of your marriage. You have not enough income to keep yourself in more than moderate comfort, so how could you support Teresa as well?”

“I’ll live in a cellar with Matthew!” Teresa declared passionately.

“You cannot know what you say,” Mary told her sharply. “However, this is not the occasion to discuss it. How do you feel?”

“Much calmer, Mary, and thank you for protecting me.”

“I do nothing of the kind,” Mary replied crossly. “Are you able to ride, or should we send for a carriage from Wells?”

“I can ride,” Teresa said, standing up. “Let us go, for suddenly I am excessively hungry, and dinner is bespoken at the inn where we are to stay the night.”