Hiding from Love (7 page)

“No, Leonora,” Mama stipulated firmly, “I am not going without you.  I just cannot leave you to the mercy of your stepfather.”

Leonora had to think quickly.

It was not her nature to lie, but she was convinced that this was a matter of life and death.  She
had
to get her mother away.

“You must not worry about me, Mama.  I've – just received a letter inviting me to stay with – with my friend Isobel's aunt.”

“You have?”

She drew out Isobel's letter and waved it under her mother's nose.

Mama wavered.

“Well, I'm sure it's very kind of this aunt.  You must give me the address so I can write and thank her.”

“You are not to worry, Mama.  Isobel's aunt is now on her way to her estate in – in Wiltshire.  She will send a carriage for me and as soon as I arrive I'll write to you and – give you the address.”

Mama sank back on her pillows sleepily.

“Well, if you promise to do that, dear, then I shall be able to go to Cromer with a light heart.”

Feeling relieved Leonora tiptoed from the room.

She was making a list of what she should pack for her mother's journey when Mr. Schilling appeared.

“Lord Merton is calling after tea,” he growled.  “I don't want any excuses from you – you are to come down and be civil to your future husband.  And I want you to wear one of those gowns he sent you.”

Leonora's face set like stone, but she said nothing.

When Lord Merton did arrive for tea, Mr. Schilling summoned Leonora by means of the brass handbell on the hall table.

Leonora regarded herself in the mirror with grim satisfaction before leaving her room.

She had not donned one of the gowns sent to her by Lord Merton, as to have done so would, she believed, have signalled her acquiescence to his unwelcome suit.

Instead she put on one of her oldest and shabbiest skirts with an ugly patched blouse and she did not trouble to arrange her hair either.

She walked swiftly to the stairs and stared down.

Lord Merton was below.

The light was behind him and he carried such a big bouquet of flowers that his face was barely visible.

Mr. Schilling was nowhere to be seen – obviously leaving the field clear to Lord Merton to exert his charms.

“Good afternoon, Lord Merton,” she began.  “My stepfather advised me that you intended to pay a visit.  All I have to say is this – I do not wish to entertain you.  I bear you no ill will, nor do I have any interest in you as a suitor.

“Though I
do
find it astonishing that you persist in attempting to see me when you know full well that my dear mother – the only one in the world who may demand my devoted attention – remains indisposed.”

Without waiting for a reply, Leonora turned on her heels and fled to her mother's room.

A few minutes later Mr. Schilling burst in.

He was carrying the bouquet and his furious face seemed yet another scarlet bloom amidst the many.

“How dare you,” he spluttered, vainly attempting to keep his voice low.  “You have insulted Lord Merton.”

“I have merely made my position perfectly clear.”

“You are not entitled to
any
position,” he hissed.

He threw the bouquet onto the chest at the foot of the bed and pointed at it.

“Those were for your mother.  Tell her when she awakes.  You can also tell her that her daughter is confined to the house until she obeys my demands.”

He then stormed from the room, barely preventing himself from slamming the door.

It was a half hour or so before Leonora heard the front door open, indicating that Lord Merton was leaving.  She moved to the window and looked out, just in time to see him mount his horse and ride away.

She had to admit that his bearing was manly though his features remained as unknown to her as ever.

When Finny returned from his daily errands in the village, Mr. Schilling sent him up with a letter for Leonora.

The letter was from Lord Merton.

“
I am sorry that you misunderstood the meaning of
my visit today.  I only came to enquire after your mother's
health and bring her some flowers.  I hope that she
will recover soon.

Meanwhile I look forward to the time when you will
feel more disposed to see me.
”

‘That will be
never
,' thought Leonora scornfully, crushing the letter in her grip.  ‘I will
never
ever agree to the wishes of my odious stepfather – a man who has made my darling Mama so unhappy!'

*

Two days later Mama left for Norfolk.

Leonora remained cheerful, helping with all the last minute preparations.

Then as she and Finny half-carried Mama down the stairs, Mr. Schilling looked on with a disgruntled air from the parlour window.

Leonora waved her goodbye brightly, but even as the trap disappeared along the road, her mind was racing.

She had told Mama that she was leaving the next day too and she felt that she somehow had to make that little white lie come true.

Though utterly relieved that her mother would gain respite from the tensions of Schilling House, she was only too aware that she herself was now left unprotected from the machinations of her stepfather.

Who knew what he would do to attain his goal?

She soon found out the answer to that question.

Tidying up Mama's room, she was suddenly made alert by the sound of a key turning in the lock behind her.

Spinning round, she raced to the door and shook the handle.

Too late!

Sensing somehow that Leonora intended to fly the coop, Mr. Schilling had decided to take no chances.

She was now a prisoner at Schilling House!

“Finny!  Finny!”

Finny put down the pail of water he was taking to the horse and listened.  He was
sure
he had heard someone softly calling his name.

“Finny!  Up here.”

He lifted his head and blinked as he saw Leonora leaning out from a bedroom window.

“Miss Leonora!” he called out in loud surprise.

“Sssh.”  Leonora put a finger to her lips.

She mouthed her next few words.

“Is – is Mr. Schilling around?”

“No, miss, he ain't and I thought the house empty – till I sees you.”

“Is the horse still in harness?”

“Yes.  I was just takin' him some water.”

“Good.  Give him some oats as well and while he is eating, fill the trap with hay from the stable.”

“Fill the trap with hay?”

“Yes, then bring it here beneath the window.”

Finny shook his head, wondering if Miss Leonora had not gone a little mad.

“But – what are you goin' to do, when I brings the trap round?”

“I'm going to jump out of the window, Finny, into the trap.  So make sure there's plenty of hay to cushion my fall!  I am depending on you.”

Finny picked up the pail, grumbling.

“I'll do it.  But it's beyond me why you don't use them stairs.”

“Oh, Finny!”

Leonora, amused despite everything, drew her head in from the window.

Finny had been away for two days and had no idea of what had transpired in his absence.

It had been two days of hunger and humiliation for Leonora.  Two days when her odious stepfather wheedled and finally threatened her from outside the door.

He threatened her with starvation if she would not agree to marry Lord Merton and as she continued to refuse, even Mr. Schilling grew alarmed.

Last night in her sleep, she had been half aware of the sound of a key turning, the door opening and closing –

This morning she had awoken to find a tray on the floor with a jug of water and two slices of bread and jam.

It had tasted like a breakfast fit for a King and, as she was eating, Leonora had formulated her plans.

The only person in the whole world who could help her escape was Finny and she prayed that Mr. Schilling would go off on one of his many mysterious errands.

Leonora was becoming convinced that he gambled, which would explain his need for large sums, such as her mother told her he extracted weekly from his chest.

She crossed to the bed, where a sheet lay open over the quilt, and began to throw onto it the few items she had chosen for her flight.

She was not in her own room and had of necessity been forced to ransack her mother's wardrobe.

Leonora stepped back and took one last look at the room.  She seized her mother's hairbrush and then extracted two necklaces from her jewellery box.

She closed the lid and thought.

Then she picked up the box and carried it through to the bathroom, where she hid it in an aperture she had noticed near the rafters.

At least Mr. Schilling would not get his hands on it!

She returned to the bedroom and surveyed the sheet with satisfaction before knotting its four corners together to form a makeshift bag.

She hauled it to the window and hoisted it onto the window seat.  Then she turned and went to the chest at the foot of the bed.

She rapidly found what she was seeking – a brown leather pouch with the letter ‘
F
' embroidered onto it.  Why ‘
F
' and not ‘
S
' for Schilling she had no idea.

The pouch contained close on fifty pounds.

She weighed it on her palm and then tucked it into her reticule.

She knew her action would be construed as theft, but she refused to feel guilty.  As far as she was concerned, this sum of money represented the sum that Mr. Schilling had stolen when he sold her mother's investment bond.

There was a whistle from outside the window and Leonora ran over and leaned out.

Finny waited proudly below.  The trap beside him was drawn up under the window, its passenger-box packed high with golden hay.

“Finny, you are an angel,” whispered Leonora.

Lifting her bundle, she threw it down onto the hay.

She tightened the strings of her reticule round her wrist and then clambered out onto the sill herself.

Finny covered his eyes with his hands.

She swallowed, took a deep breath and pushed off.

She landed very safely in the middle of the hay and began to laugh elatedly as Finny rushed across.

“I've escaped, Finny, I've escaped.”

“Escaped?”

“Escaped from Mr. Schilling.  He locked me in my mother's room.  I've been there for two days.”

Finny's eyes were as round as full moons.

“Locked you in?  Two days?”

“Finny, stop repeating everything, please.  There is no time to be lost.”

She looked round her anxiously, half expecting Mr. Schilling to appear at any minute.

“I must get away.”

“I'm comin' too,” insisted Finny quickly.

“Finny – I do need you to drive me to Bristol.  But you'll have to leave me there and bring the trap back.”

Finny's lip trembled a bit, but he said nothing and began to brush wisps of hay from the passenger seat.

Leonora waved him away.

“No, leave it.  I'll ride beside you on the driver's seat.  You don't want Mr. Schilling to see hay on the path.”

“Don't want to come back at all if there's only Mr. Schilling here.  He locked you in, I don't like him.  I'll beat him with an egg whisk!”

“I rather hope you do, Finny, except I don't want you to get into trouble on my account.  But come on – it would be dreadful if he caught me now.”

Finny tied Leonora's bundle securely to the back of the trap, then leaped into the coachman's seat.

The poor old horse, which ten minutes ago had been dreaming of the shade of his stable, found himself setting out again on a long journey.

Finny set him almost at a gallop.

They went the long way round, avoiding the village and taking side roads, encountering no one until they came out onto the Bristol road, where they fell in with a flow of coaches, hay carts and lone riders on jaded steeds.

Leonora clutched her reticule, her mind afire.

Her mother would be shocked to hear that she had run away and she must write to tell her that she was safe.

She would have to admit that she had told a white lie, but she hoped Mama would understand that it had been for a serious purpose.

She would also have to admit to her mother that she had taken Mr. Schilling's money and explain why.

Finny broke in on Leonora's thoughts.

“Why you goin' to Bristol, miss?  Why aren't you goin' Norfolk way, where your mother be?”

Leonora wondered how much she should tell Finny.

“There's no room where my mother's going,” she replied at last, “and anyway I want to go somewhere where I can work and pay back anything I have borrowed – ”

Finny looked concerned.

“If you need more, miss, I've got five shillings.”

Leonora looked at him gravely.

“Thank you, Finny.  I shall not need it, however.  I have enough for my – immediate purposes.”

“And what's that, miss?”

“I intend to find a ship at Bristol that is sailing for Brazil,” she replied.  “I'm going to visit my friend Isobel.”

Finny looked alarmed.

“Cross an ocean, what's full of whales and water?  What would you want to do that for, miss?  Why?”

“Because I don't want to marry Lord Merton – ”

“But any girl would want to marry a Lord!”

Leonora turned and regarded him.

“Have you ever seen Lord Merton, Finny?”

“I've seen his horse, though, tied to the gate when Lord Merton a-came visitin'.”

“Well, let me tell you, Finny, I'd rather marry the horse.  It's not so
old
and
grizzled
as its Master!”