A Loving Family (24 page)

She crept past the kitchen door and almost bumped into a footman who was carrying a crate of wine. ‘Good afternoon,' she said boldly.

He eyed her curiously. ‘I don't know you, do I?'

‘I'm new here. I've got to report to Mrs Kendall. Can you direct me to her office?'

He pointed to the end of the corridor. ‘You look like a drowned rat, miss. I should get out of them damp clothes quick or you'll catch your death.' He grinned and winked. ‘I'll be pleased to give you a hand.'

She resisted the temptation to give him a sharp set-down. ‘I'll bear that in mind, ta.' She marched off towards the housekeeper's office, pausing outside the door to shake some wet leaves from the hem of her skirt. She was scrubbing at a splash of mud when she felt a hand clamp on her shoulder.

‘We haven't taken on any staff since the old master died, so who are you and what are you doing here?'

GERVASE RIVENHALL LEANED
his shoulders against the mantelshelf as he glared from Stella to Spike, who had been found wandering in the grounds by a gamekeeper and brought to the master's study. ‘Who sent you to spy on me?'

‘We're not spies,' Stella said hotly. ‘We came looking for Mr Christopher Rivenhall.'

‘And what makes you think you'll find him here?' Gervase narrowed his bloodshot eyes, peering at her intently. ‘If you've come to importune me for money you're going to be unlucky.'

‘We don't want your dibs,' Spike said sulkily. ‘We want to know what you done with Mr Kit.'

Stella nudged him in the ribs. ‘Shh.'

‘So that's it, is it? You're my nephew's creatures.' Gervase straightened up, taking a step towards them, his brow darkening. ‘I know his game. He's trying to get the better of me, but he won't succeed.'

‘We made a mistake coming here, sir.' Stella backed towards the doorway. ‘We'll go now and leave you in peace.'

‘Will you? I don't think so.' Gervase signalled to the servant who had caught Stella. ‘Take them to the caves, Hinckley. Let them cool their heels there for the night and I'll decide what to do with them in the morning.'

Despite their protests, Stella and Spike had their hands tied behind their backs. There was nothing that Stella could do other than to follow Hinckley's curt directions as they left the house and progressed through the stable yard, emerging into open parkland where deer grazed placidly beneath the trees. Clumps of daffodils nodded their golden heads in a gentle breeze, but once again the rain clouds were gathering, promising another heavy shower. As they approached a wooded area Stella inhaled the scent of damp earth, but as they walked through the trees she was aware of a different smell. The odour of charred wood and paraffin emanated from cressets mounted on poles which lined a pathway leading deeper into the ancient woodland. She glanced at Spike but he had his head bent and was openly sobbing. She wanted to reach out and comfort him, but the ropes that bound her wrists cut into her flesh and she could only make soothing sounds.

‘Shut up.' Hinckley gave her a shove that sent her stumbling on ahead. He strode after her and caught her by the shoulders, dragging her to a halt outside a heavy oak door set into the near vertical cliff face. ‘Open it, Jed,' he said through clenched teeth. ‘This 'un is slippery as an elver. She'll make a bolt for it if I let her go for a second.'

The gamekeeper lunged forward, taking a large metal key from his belt and unlocking the door. It opened with a groan, as if awakened from a deep sleep, and he entered, dragging Spike in his wake. Stella could do nothing but follow on, with Hinckley bringing up the rear. Jed lit a lantern and held it high above his head as he led the way down a narrow passage carved out of the flint: gashes left by medieval workmen were still clearly visible after the passage of several hundred years. The air was dank and very cold, and Stella's teeth began to chatter uncontrollably. ‘Wh-where are you t-taking us?' she demanded angrily. ‘Y-you can't k-keep us prisoner. We'll b-be missed.'

‘Shut your face.' Hinckley drew her to a halt. ‘This one will do, Jed. Let them spend a night here and we'll see how cocky they are in the morning.'

Jed uttered a mirthless laugh and used his keys to unlock the door. Hinckley pulled a knife from his belt and for a terrifying moment Stella thought he was going to slit their throats, but with a deft flick he severed their bonds. ‘You can't escape so there's no point in leaving you trussed up. I ain't a monster, girlie.'

‘Don't leave us in the dark,' Spike sobbed as Jed moved to close the door. ‘Please, mister.'

Jed put his hand in his pocket and produced a couple of matches. ‘There's a few candle stubs in there somewhere. You just got to find one afore it goes dark, which it will when I shut the door. Sleep well.'

The thud of the wooden door crashing against the rock echoed round the cavern, causing Stella to clamp her hands over her ears. Spike whimpered with fear as the inky blackness enveloped them in a thick, airless cloak. ‘I'm afraid of the dark.'

Stella reached for his hand. ‘Hold on to me, Spike. I can't see a thing, but let's work our way round the walls together. We can feel for things and we might find a candle.'

He was trembling violently and his breathing was erratic. ‘Let me strike a match. We can see then.'

‘No. You've only got two. A candle won't be any good if we can't light it. We'll try my way first.' She held on to him, squeezing his fingers gently in an attempt to give him some comfort, but she had seen very little of the chamber in the feeble glow of Jed's lantern. Slowly and methodically she guided Spike round the walls, feeling for niches and using her feet to test the ground for objects in their path. Eventually and with a cry of triumph, she found the stub of a candle. She took a match from Spike and struck it on the flint wall. It fizzed, and with a strong smell of sulphur it burst into flame, illuminating the small cavern for just long enough to enable Stella to light the candle. ‘Keep the last match safe,' she whispered, hardly daring to breathe in case she blew out the flickering flame. ‘Let's look round and see if we can find some more candles. This one won't last the night and I'm afraid they intend to leave us here for a long time.'

‘Perhaps they'll leave us here till us dies of hunger and thirst,' Spike said with a whimper. ‘No one knows where we are.'

‘Rosa does, and if Mr Kit has returned home she'll have told him where we went. They'll come looking for us.'

Spike brightened visibly. ‘If Mr Kit comes here he won't rest until we're released. I trust him with me life, miss.'

‘Yes, you do, don't you?' She stared at him in surprise. ‘Why is that, Spike? What makes you so sure that Mr Kit is the man you obviously think he is?'

‘You should have seen him stand up to Mr Ronald. He would have knocked his block off given half a chance, but he's too clever to do that. Mr Kit is a toff. I'd do anything for him, miss.'

Stella uttered a cry of delight as she spied another stub of a candle. She picked it up and set it on a stone ledge. ‘We'll light this one later. Keep looking, Spike. Let's see if there's anything we can sit on. We might as well try and make ourselves comfortable.'

After a brief search it was obvious that there was nothing that would make their incarceration more bearable and they huddled together, sitting on the cold chalk floor and hardly daring to breathe in case they extinguished the candle. Stella racked her brains trying to remember the stories that she had told Freddie and Belinda when she had been left to put them to bed, but tales of fairies and goblins were of no interest to Spike and his attention lapsed. He was growing restive when she recalled her mother's accounts of her time in the Crimea and Spike was suddenly alert. She told him all she knew, adding in pieces of information about the fighting that she had overheard in the servants' quarters at Portgone Place, but Spike did not seem to care whether or not the information was first hand; he listened with a rapt expression on his face until eventually Stella's throat became dry and her voice hoarse. She was thirsty, but there was nothing to drink and her belly growled like a hungry tiger. She leaned back against the rough wall, closing her eyes. If only sleep would come and release her temporarily from this torture, but it was cold, and despite the fact that she held Spike in her arms they were both shivering violently.

‘Are we going to die, miss?' Spike murmured, sounding suddenly like a small frightened child.

She held him closer. ‘Of course not, Spike. They'll let us out in the morning and they'll have to allow us to go home. They can't imprison us forever.'

‘I'm scared, miss.'

‘And so am I, but we won't let them beat us.' Stella stroked his lank hair back from his forehead. ‘Tell me about yourself, Spike. How old are you?'

‘I dunno, miss. The workhouse master said I was eleven so that he could sell me as a pauper apprentice.'

‘Were you born in the workhouse?'

‘I don't think so, miss.' He leaned his head on her shoulder. ‘You smell nice. I think my ma smelled like you, but I don't remember her very well. Her face is pretty but it's blurry and sometimes I think I'm forgetting her altogether. She's getting further and further away from me.'

‘What was her name, Spike?'

He was silent for a moment as if trying to conjure up a long-forgotten past. ‘I think it was Meg, and she had brown eyes with long black lashes. Her hands was rough but her voice was gentle and she used to sing me to sleep. Can you sing, miss?'

Stella swallowed hard as the lump in her throat threatened to bring a sob to her voice. She shook her head. ‘Not very well, Spike.'

‘Ma taught me to count, learning me the song about the green rushes. D'you know that one, miss?'

‘My ma used to sing it to me and my brother and sister,' Stella said, smiling. ‘My voice won't be like your ma's, Spike, but I'll try.' She cleared her throat. ‘I'll sing you one, ho . . .' She went through the verses, but before she had counted to ten she realised that Spike had fallen asleep and was snoring gently.

How long they remained huddled together she had no way of knowing, but the original candle stub dwindled and guttered and she lit the second one from it, taking care not to extinguish the flame of either by a sudden movement. She grew cramped and sore but did not want to wake Spike from the pleasant place of his dreams. His wide mouth was curved in a grin and he made small puppy-like noises as if returning to the happy time when he had a mother who loved him and a life before the workhouse stripped him of his innocence and robbed him of his childhood. Ronald Clifford had done the rest, but Stella had seen the boy behind the crippled gnome-like exterior of the beaten creature whom she had come across in the funeral parlour.

Her feet and legs had grown numb and now they burned with pins and needles. She was forced to move and in doing so knocked the candle over. It guttered and went out. Spike woke up and began to howl in fright. She tried to calm him but having awakened to darkness he was beyond reason. There was another match somewhere in one of his pockets but her attempts to find it only made him more hysterical and his cries reverberated off the walls, creating a deafening chorus of despair. She broke away from him to hammer on the door. ‘Let us out,' she screamed. ‘Somebody take pity on us and let us out.' She turned on Spike, her nerves shattered by his keening. ‘Be quiet, Spike. Shut up.' She lashed out in the darkness and her hand made contact with his face. The slap echoed round the room and he was shocked into silence. ‘I'm sorry,' she murmured. ‘But I can't stand that noise any longer.' She beat on the door in desperation. ‘Please let us out.'

Suddenly, as if by magic, the sound of a bolt shearing back into its socket made them both take a step backwards. The latch lifted and the door opened slowly. A shaft of lamplight flooded the room and Stella wrapped her arms around Spike's trembling body. ‘Who's there?' she demanded in a voice that quavered with fear. ‘Who are you?'

A slight figure slipped into the chamber. The woman's dark hair formed a cloud around her head and her eyes were inky pools in a pale oval face. She held the lantern high. ‘Who are you? Why are you here?'

Stella felt as if the ground was coming up to engulf her in its cold embrace. She might not be able to see the woman's features clearly but she knew that voice. It had haunted her dreams since she was sent into service all those years ago. She had longed to hear it again and to be near her beloved mother, but now she was seized by a mixture of disbelief and wonder. She clutched Spike for support. ‘Ma?' Her voice broke on a sob. ‘Ma, is it really you?'

The lantern swayed erratically in the woman's hand. She moved closer, dazzling Stella with the light as she peered into her face. ‘No. It can't be. You can't be my little girl.'

‘It is me, Ma. It's Stella.'

Spike snatched the lamp from Jacinta's hand. ‘Don't drop the bloody thing, ma'am. I'm getting out of here. This is a madhouse.' He made for the doorway but Stella caught him by the scruff of the neck.

‘Don't take the light away,' she said angrily. She studied her mother's features, taking in each one greedily and yet still unconvinced. ‘It really is you, Ma, isn't it? I'm not dreaming.'

‘Stella, my own little girl.' Jacinta threw her arms around her daughter, holding her as if she would never let her go. Their tears mingled as they clung together. ‘Stella, my baby.'

‘I had a feeling that you were close by, Ma,' Stella sobbed. ‘I could feel it in my bones when we arrived at Heron Park. But why are you here in these dreadful caves?'

‘I might ask the same of you.' Jacinta released her just long enough to take her by the hand. ‘Come with me, and you, boy, give me the lantern, and I'll take you to my room. It's warmer there.'