The Mysterious Maid-Servant (18 page)

“Are words so important?” the Earl asked.

But he knew by the expression on her face that she meant what she said. Because he thought it would please her and also because his leg was indeed aching a little, he sat down in an armchair.

Once again he held out his arms in a gesture towards Giselda.

She went towards him, but when she reached his chair she knelt down beside it and raising herself against his knees looked up into his face.

“I love you,” she said. “I love you so completely and absolutely that I can think of nothing else. Every moment that I have been with you has been a joy beyond words. At night I have fallen asleep thinking of you – and sometimes dreamt that you were – with me.”

“That is where I always shall be, my darling.”

She shook her head slightly and he felt a sudden fear invade him, even though he told himself he was being nonsensical.

“What are you trying to say to me, Giselda?” he asked her.

Now there was a different note in his voice, as his eyes looked searchingly down into hers.

“I have been waiting for this moment,” she began, “waiting for when I must tell you about myself – but I kept believing – because I
wanted
to believe it – that there was still time – time to be near you – time to talk to you – time to go on loving you – even though you did not know it.”

“It took me a little time too,” he added, “to realise that the feelings I had for you were love. I know now, Giselda, that I have never been in love until this moment.”

He smiled before he went on,

“I have been amused, attracted, fascinated and even infatuated by women, but they have never meant to me what you mean. They have never been part of myself so that I have known I must protect and care for them and that I could not live if they were not in my life, as you will be.”

Again he thought there was that almost imperceptible little shake of Giselda’s head and fiercely he asked,

“What are you trying to tell me?”

She drew a deep breath and asked,

“Will you do something if I ask it of you?”

“I will do anything you ask me,” the Earl replied.

She raised herself a little further and said,

“Will you – kiss me? Will you hold me close against you – and when you have kissed me – I will tell you – what you have to hear.”

The Earl put his arms around her and drew her close, cradling her against him as if she was a child.

Then his lips came down on hers to hold her completely captive.

He kissed her passionately in a different manner from the way he had kissed her before until the breath came fitfully from between her lips and she felt a flame rising within her to echo the fire she sensed in him.

When finally he raised his head, both their hearts were beating violently and he said aggressively as if he defied some unknown fate that made him afraid,

“You are mine! Nothing and nobody shall take you from me! You are mine, my darling, now and for ever!”

For one moment Giselda lay still against him, her eyes looking up into his.

Then she moved away from his arms to stand looking at him for a second before she walked behind his chair to put her hands over his eyes.

“I do not want you to – look at me. I want you to – listen.”

“I am listening, Giselda.”

“Then I want you to know that I love you for all Eternity – there will never be – could never be – another man in my life – and I shall think of you every moment and pray with all my heart for your – happiness.”

Her voice broke on the last word.

Then, when the Earl would have spoken, he felt her fingers tighten for a moment across his eyes before she said in a very low voice,

“My – real name is – Giselda Charlton! My father was Major Maurice –
Charlton
– now do you understand?”

The Earl was rigid with astonishment and he felt Giselda take her hands from his eyes.

Then, as he tried to collect his thoughts and a second later turned his head to speak to her, he heard the door of the sitting room close softly and knew she had gone. For a moment he could hardly credit what had happened or what he had heard, but he rose with an effort and walked to the mantelshelf to reach for the bell-pull.

Even as his hand went out towards it the door opened and Henry Somercote came in.

“It is all right! Everything has been done as you told me, Talbot. I paid off the bailiff and Julius is on his way to the coast, although God knows the young swine – ”

He stopped suddenly and looked at the Earl in anxiety.

“What is the matter, Talbot? What has happened?”

“Stop Giselda!” the Earl cried. “Stop her before she leaves this house!”

“I think she has already left,” Henry Somercote replied. “As my carriage drew up at the door, I thought it was Giselda I saw running down the street, but I was sure I must be mistaken.”

“Oh, my God! She has gone and I don’t even know where she lives,” the Earl exclaimed.

“What has occurred? Why did she leave like that? Have you quarrelled?”

“Quarrelled?” the Earl repeated in a strange voice. “She is Maurice Charlton’s daughter!”

“Good Heavens!” Henry Somercote exclaimed. “How did you discover that?”

“She told me so, and that is why she has left me. I must find her, Henry,
I must
!”

“Of course – and here we have been searching for
him
all this year – without any success!”

It was true that, ever since they had returned to England from Brussels, the Officers of the Regiment had done everything in their power to find Maurice Charlton, but he seemed to have disappeared into thin air.

The only hope was that by some lucky chance they would come across some trace of him.

And now incredibly, completely unexpectedly, the Earl had found Charlton’s daughter.

It had been a disastrous episode, which in retrospect they all realised should never have occurred. But feelings were high and emotions were uppermost immediately before the Battle of Waterloo.

The Officers of the Earl’s Regiment were all stationed in the centre of Brussels and the evenings they were off duty were spent in amusing themselves in ways that were most skilfully catered for by the Belgian population.

One of the most attractive of the many
poules de luxe
only too willing to entertain English Officers was Marie Louise Rivière. She was considered superior to, and indeed far more attractive, than the other sisters of her profession.

Almost everybody in the Earl’s Regiment knew Marie Louise, and Major Maurice Charlton, who was an Intelligence Officer on Wellington’s staff, was no exception.

Charlton was an experienced soldier and getting on towards forty, but a very attractive man.

Everyone liked him and he was exceedingly popular, not only with his brother Officers but also with the rank and file.

The Earl had seen him once or twice in Marie Louise’s salon where she entertained almost every evening and then, with the capriciousness of a Princess, chose as the evening ended who should be honoured to stay behind after the others had left.

The Earl suspected that Charlton was one of her favourites, but he was not sure.

Then on the afternoon of the eve of Waterloo a patrol on the outskirts of the City arrested a young Belgian, who they thought was acting suspiciously.

He admitted to being a servant of Marie Louise and on his person they found a rough map, which was identified as one drawn by Wellington himself as a suggested plan for the order of battle.

It was something that had been discussed by him only with the Commanders of the different Regiments, the Earl amongst them.

The Duke remembered quite clearly having given the sketch after the conference was over into the hands of Maurice Charlton.

The ensuing enquiry had made all those present, including the Earl, feel embarrassed and extremely sorry for the culprit.

Henry Somercote, Wellington’s
aide-de-camp,
was present, besides two other Officers who, like the Earl, were in the same Regiment as Charlton.

He was horrified when the plan was produced, and protested over and over again that he had put it away in a despatch box, which always stood by the Duke’s bed.

The only thing he admitted was that he could not exactly remember whether he had locked the box when he had left the room.

No one else could have had access to it, and when it was brought in it was locked, but Charlton was the key holder.

There was nothing Wellington could have done at the time, the Earl recalled, but send the Major back to England under armed guard.

He had left within the hour with instructions that he should be taken back to Barracks where he was to await a Court Martial when the troops returned from the battlefront.

What happened next was not known to the Earl or indeed to the Duke until the Battle of Waterloo was over.

It was then they learnt that on arrival in London Maurice Charlton had evaded his guards, escaped from the Barracks and disappeared.

But before they knew all this, an Orderly who had been wounded in the battle confessed as he was dying that he was responsible for the theft.

He had taken the keys from Charlton’s pocket while he was having a bath, unlocked the despatch box, extracted the plan and returned the keys to his master’s pocket. Marie Louise had paid him well and he had been promised even greater reward if Napoleon found the plan useful.

The Earl, Henry Somercote and every other Officer in the Regiment had returned to England determined to right the wrong, but they could not find Maurice Charlton.

“Where does Giselda live?” Henry Somercote asked now. “I have a carriage downstairs.”

“I don’t know,” the Earl answered plaintively

“You don’t know?” Henry echoed.

The Earl shook his head.

“She would never tell me and I thought that sooner or later she would trust me with the secret I knew she was hiding.”

He put his hand up to his eyes.

“How could I have imagined – how could I have dreamt even for a moment that she was Charlton’s daughter?”

“It seems inconceivable,” Henry Somercote agreed.

“Now I understand why she was so poor,” the Earl surmised. “We learnt that Charlton had collected his family from his house in London and taken them away with him – he must have run out of money and when he died they were left to starve. Oh, God, Henry, we have to find her!”

He tugged at the bell-pull as he spoke and Henry Somercote said,

“I told you I have a carriage outside.”

“I am not ringing for a carriage but for Batley.”

The door opened as he spoke.

“Batley,” the Earl said in a tone his valet had never heard before. “I have lost Miss Giselda and I have to find her. I know I told you to make no further enquiries, but have you the slightest idea where she lives?”

Batley hesitated for a moment.

“I obeyed your Lordship’s orders, but as it happens it was quite by chance that I learnt Miss Giselda’s address.”

“You know? Splendid, Batley – I knew I could depend on you! Where is it?”

“It’s in a very low part of the town, my Lord. I happened to see Miss Giselda walking that way and I thought it might be dangerous for her if she was not aware of the type of neighbourhood she was in. So I followed her just in case there was any trouble.”

Batley paused to say uncomfortably,

“I saw her go into a house, my Lord – in a road where no lady should stay.”

“Take us there, Batley! For God’s sake, take us there!”

“Are you well enough for all this?” Henry asked with a note of concern in his voice. “Let Batley and me go and bring her back to you.”

“Do you imagine I could wait here?” the Earl demanded sharply.

Henry did not answer him and Batley, picking up the Earl’s cape, which he had flung on a chair when he came up to the room, put it over his Master’s shoulders.

The Earl could only go down the stairs more slowly than he would have wished and, by the time he had reached the hall, Henry’s carriage was outside. The two gentlemen sat inside while Batley perched on the box beside the coachman.

“How can we ever make reparation for what Charlton’s family has suffered because we did not trust him?” the Earl muttered bitterly.

“The evidence seemed completely conclusive,” Henry Somercote said. “I remember thinking to myself that it was really impossible for him to be innocent or for the plan to have been stolen without his being aware of it.”

“We were wrong,” the Earl said.

“Yes, we were wrong,” Henry agreed with a sigh.

They drove until the Earl saw they were no longer in the newly laid out part of town with its fine buildings, but passing along narrow streets where in the doorways of dingy houses there stood some extremely unsavoury looking characters.

He could not bear to think of Giselda moving amongst such people or of the dangers she might have encountered. Yet all he was concerned with at this very moment was finding her.

Finally after twisting through a labyrinth of lanes almost too narrow to admit the carriage, they drew up outside a dilapidated house, which had lost a number of panes of glass from its windows and whose door seemed to hang precariously on its hinges.

Batley descended from the carriage and knocked on the door.

A slatternly-looking woman, who glared at him suspiciously, opened it after some minutes.

“What d’you want?” she asked uncompromisingly.

“We wish to speak to Miss Chart,” Batley said.

“Nice time o’night for gentlemen to be callin’.” the woman said scathingly.

Then, as she looked at the Earl and was obviously overcome by his appearance, she said abruptly,

“Back room!”

She jerked her thumb over her shoulder, then disappeared through an adjacent door, slamming it noisily behind her.

The narrow passage held a flight of steep stairs, some with broken boards, smelt of age, dirt, and damp, and the Earl moved behind the stairs to where there was a door.

He knocked and heard a voice murmur something in a tone of alarm. Then the door was opened and he saw two people staring at him with consternation and fear in their eyes.