72. The Impetuous Duchess Read online

  The inn was not full and she found that her bedchamber was very different from the one she and the Duke had occupied the night before.

  It was not in the attic for one thing. There was other furniture in the room beside the bed and, although the wooden floor was bare, it was polished and clean and there were several small mats.

  There was also a washstand and Jabina took off her black serge gown and sponged herself all over.

  Then she put on the only other dress she possessed, which was the thin cotton one she had been told a femme de chambre would wear in the morning when she had rough work to do.

  Jabina might be reversing the process, but the gown was cool, clean and very much more becoming than the black dress she had worn all day.

  It had a full skirt over a coarse cotton petticoat and the neck was cut low and tied with a drawstring. It had short sleeves and there was a high-fronted apron to wear over it.

  A mop cap in which she could conceal her hair completed the outfit.

  Because she felt, now that they had almost reached the end of their journey, it was unlikely that she would be dismissed, Jabina brushed the remaining dark powder from her hair so that it glistened and shone in the fading light coming through the casement window.

  Far from dismissing her Madame Delmas had actually expressed some words of approval when Jabina had been massaging her back.

  “Your hands are soft,” she said, “I cannot imagine that you have done much hard work, Maria.”

  Jabina had stiffened, wondering if Madame Delmas was suspicious, but the Frenchwoman had gone on,

  “I want you to keep your hands like that. I hate being touched by rough fingers. My own skin is so sensitive.”

  “It is indeed, madame,” Jabina murmured.

  “I shall therefore inform the household when we each Le Havre that you are attending exclusively to me,” Madame Delmas said. “I will get housemaids to see to the cleaning, the lighting of fires and the washing. I want you to concentrate only on me and my clothes. Can you sew?”

  “Yes, madame.”

  “That is good. Even if we are away from Paris, there is no need for me to lose my chic or to degenerate, as so many Army Officers’ wives do, into proverbial scarecrows.”

  “I am sure you could never look like that, madame,” Jabina said knowing that the compliment would please her employer, which it did.

  But nothing anyone could do could alter the fact that Madame Delmas’s hair was sparse and an unattractive colour.

  ‘No amount of brushing could make it glisten with fiery tongues like mine,’ Jabina thought.

  Then she remembered that the Duke would be waiting for her and, hastily stuffing her red hair into the mob cap, she went downstairs to find him.

  She had not realised that it was so late and discovered him in the kitchen trying to hurry an old woman into getting the General’s dinner ready.

  “Come and help me!” he said to Jabina. “The General is becoming impatient. The innkeeper is serving drinks to other travellers and I cannot get this old woman to bestir herself.”

  “I will help her,” Jabina said.

  She politely proffered assistance, which was gratefully accepted, and soon the old woman, who she discovered was the innkeeper’s mother, had handed over to her the making of an omelette, while she herself prepared a coq au vin and the cold meats which were to follow on the menu.

  “Go and lay the table!” Jabina said to the Duke. “Give the General plenty of drink to keep him in a good temper.”

  “I have been doing that already,” the Duke said with a smile.

  But he obeyed Jabina and when he came back the omelette was ready.

  Jabina turned it out onto a plate and said,

  “Hurry! Make him eat it while it’s still hot. I will dish up the chicken and you can come back for the cold meats.”

  Because on his return the Duke was laden with a pigeon pie, roast of veal and some large garlic-flavoured sausages, Jabina found herself carrying the dish containing the coq au vin into the private parlour where the General was waiting.

  It was quite an attractive little room, she noticed, with a huge Breton cabinet against one wall, an oak dresser on the other and a long carved settle with a cushioned seat in front of the open fireplace.

  The ceiling was heavily beamed and the flagged floor was liberally covered with rugs and indeed the whole scene was very picturesque.

  The General was seated at a small refectory table and there were several empty wine glasses near his elbow.

  Turning to Jabina he said,

  “Jacques tells me, Maria, that you cooked the omelette.”

  Jabina nodded.

  “It’s very good. I can see that we shall have to promote you to a place in the kitchen when we reach Le Havre.”

  “I am afraid Madame will not agree to that, monsieur,” Jabina replied. “She has already told me that she wishes me to attend to her exclusively. But at the same time, monsieur, I would not wish you to go hungry.”

  “There appears to be no chance of that tonight at any rate,” the General smiled.

  The Duke piled dishes on the table around him and Jabina offered him the coq au vin.

  He helped himself generously and then Jabina remembered the salad that had been prepared and hurried to the kitchen to collect it.

  There were no puddings to follow since the old woman was quite incapable of preparing such delicacies, but there was cheese and fresh fruit. The General expressed himself well satisfied and no longer hungry.

  He commanded the Duke to fetch him some cognac from the bar and Jabina piled the dirty dishes onto a tray to carry them away to the kitchen.

  “You require coffee, monsieur?” she enquired.

  “Yes, I would like coffee,” the General replied, “and see you make it yourself.”

  “Of course, monsieur.”

  Jabina went back to the kitchen and met the Duke in the passage carrying a bottle in his hand.

  “I have something to tell you,” he said in a low voice, “as soon as you have finished.”

  “The General wants coffee,” Jabina told him.

  “Well, hurry and take it to him,” the Duke ordered, “and if he wants anything further, then he can fetch it himself!”

  “Are you prepared to tell him so?” Jabina teased.

  She hurried to the kitchen to brew the coffee, set a cup and saucer on a tray, find a bowl of sugar and finally to carry it all back down the passage to the private parlour.

  The Duke was still with the General, who with a glass of cognac in his hand was standing with his back to the fireplace discoursing on some tactic he had employed in a battle, which had obviously been extremely successful for him.

  “Ah! My coffee!” he exclaimed as Jabina came in. “That will be all, Jacques. Take my sword and see that it is cleaned by the morning. I thought today that the hilt was not as bright as it should be.”

  “I will do it at once, mon General,” the Duke answered deferentially.

  He picked up the sword from the side-table where the General had discarded it, attached to his brightly coloured sword belt.

  Putting down the coffee, Jabina would have followed him, but the General stopped her by saying,

  “Pour my coffee for me. I take two spoonfuls of sugar.”

  “Oui, monsieur.”

  Jabina did as she was told and carried the coffee cup to the General.

  He was looking at her, but made no effort to take the coffee cup from her.

  “You have a very white skin, Maria,” he said after a moment.

  “So I have been told, monsieur.”

  “Are you happy with your husband?”

  “Yes, monsieur.”

  “He is kind to you?”

  “Yes indeed, monsieur.”

  “And he appreciates your white skin?”

  There was something in the General’s voice that made Jabina feel nervous.

  She put the cup down carefully on the small table that s
tood beside the hearth.

  “If there is nothing else you require, monsieur,” she said, “I must go and help my husband.”

  “He can clean a sword without your assistance,” the General answered. “Lock the door!”

  The order made Jabina jump.

  She looked into the General’s eyes and knew a sudden fear she had never experienced before.

  “Lock the – door, monsieur?” she faltered.

  “You heard what I said.”

  “I-I think I must – go to my – husband.”

  She started to move away, but almost as she reached the door, the General said quietly,

  “Jacques appears to me to have recovered remarkably well from the wounds inflicted upon him. I think tomorrow it would be wise for me to have him examined by the Medical Officer in Le Havre. If he is well enough, he should be fighting for France.”

  “Oh no! You cannot do that!” Jabina said and then remembered that by tomorrow she and the Duke might not be there.

  As if he almost sensed her thoughts, the General added,

  “Of course on the other hand, if I thought he was scrimshanking, I could, having warned you of my intention, have him put under arrest tonight. There are soldiers stationed in Quillebeuf. I saw them as we entered the town.”

  “Why? Why should you want to do this?” Jabina asked almost frantically.

  “Lock the door and I will tell you,” the General replied.

  Trying desperately to think of what to do and at the same time terrified lest the General should put his threat into action and call the soldiers to take the Duke away, Jabina went slowly to the door.

  She thought perhaps that she could pull it open and run to the Duke, but she knew that to do so would be to put him in danger.

  “Lock it and bring me the key,” the General said and now there was no doubting the command in his voice.

  The lock was a large one and so was the key.

  Jabina began obediently to turn it as she had been told, then an idea came to her that she must pretend to do what the General had ordered, yet leave the door unlocked so that she would be able to escape.

  She rattled the key in the lock without turning it, pulled it out and walked across the room with it in her hand.

  Her eyes were very wide and frightened in her small face and somehow her brain seemed to have been turned into wool and would not function.

  She held out the key to the General and he put out his hand not to take it from her but to pull the mob cap from her head.

  Because she had merely stuffed her hair into the cap and not pinned it up the glittering red tresses fell down over her shoulders.

  It seemed to her as if the colour was strangely reflected in the General’s eyes.

  He looked at her for one moment and then he picked her up in his arms and threw her down on the settle.

  For a moment her breath was knocked out of her body at the surprise and roughness of his action.

  Then, as she gave a scream, he threw himself on top of her.

  She expected him first to try to kiss her and turned her face away against the hard wooden back of the settle, but instead she felt his hands tear at the neck of her cotton dress ripping it first from one breast and then the other.

  Jabina screamed again.

  She felt as if the sound had died in her throat both from her own paralysing fear and the fact that the General was lying on top of her and he was very heavy.

  His hands were rough against her bare skin and, as she felt him dragging at her full skirt, she tried to scream again.

  Even as she did so, he slumped forward heavily, his forehead hitting hers and knocking her for the moment almost senseless.

  A second or so later, she felt the General being dragged from off her body and turned her face to see that the Duke was pulling him onto the floor.

  Protruding from the very centre of his back, thrust deep into his body was his own sword.

  “Drue! Drue!” Jabina cried.

  Now the General’s legs were dragged to the floor with a thump.

  Jabina tried to sit up, feeling that her muscles would not obey her and aware that she was trembling all over as if with a sudden ague.

  Then she was conscious of her naked breasts and felt that she was going to burst into tears.

  But before she could do so, the Duke’s voice rang out sharply – so sharply that it was almost like a dash of cold water in her face,

  “Get up and help me! Lock the door in case someone tries to come in.”

  For a moment Jabina could hardly realise what he was saying until, as he dragged the General away from the settle, trembling she rose to her feet and picked up the key of the door where she had dropped it on the floor.

  “Lock it and hurry!” the Duke ordered, “and then open that cupboard.”

  Jabina found it surprising that she could walk.

  Somehow she reached the door, turned the key and looked around to see that the Duke was dragging the dead or unconscious General towards the Breton cabinet.

  She reached it before him and opened the cabinet door.

  It had obviously been used as a receptacle for coats, because apart from a small shelf at the top, there were only wooden pegs inside it.

  The Duke pushed the General in face downwards and then he bent his legs upwards and backwards so that the door could be closed.

  He locked it and threw the cupboard key into the fire.

  “Let’s hope they will not find him there too quickly,” he said in what appeared to be a quite normal voice.

  Because he seemed so matter of fact, Jabina felt her own panic subsiding a little. She still trembled, but not so violently.

  The Duke took one look at her face and, picking up the bottle of cognac that stood on the table, poured some of it into a glass.

  “Drink this!”

  “No!” Jabina tried to say, but he held the glass to her lips and literally forced it down her throat.

  She found herself spluttering as the fiery spirit seared its way into her body.

  But she no longer trembled and, taking her by the arm, the Duke pulled her across the room to the door, unlocked it, looked outside and then pulled her quickly after him.

  He locked the door of the parlour and pushed the key under the door so that it was inside the room.

  “That ought to puzzle them!” he said in a low voice. “Come along! We must leave at once.”

  Jabina was watching wide-eyed, her hands holding up the torn remnants of her cotton bodice.

  The Duke looked round.

  Hanging in the hall was the General’s overcoat and beside it, because Jabina had not thought to take it upstairs, was the cape edged with sable that Madame Delmas had worn the day before when they left Paris.

  It had been too hot today for her to need it and had been left in the carriage when she had entered the inn and proceeded upstairs.

  The Duke took the cape down and put it over Jabina’s shoulders as he said quietly,

  “Take my arm. If anyone sees us they will think we are just going out for a breath of air.”

  They walked down the passage side by side but, as it happened, encountered no one.

  The old woman was busy in the kitchen and with her was a young girl, who she had told Jabina was expected to come in later to wash up.

  The landlord was still serving drinks in the public part of the inn.

  They reached the yard and now the Duke, looking round quickly, saw an open cart such as farmers used drawn by one horse which was tethered to a post.

  He moved quickly towards it – so quickly that Jabina had difficulty in keeping up with him. He lifted her up into the cart and then, untying the horse, he led it out from the yard.

  There was the sound of laughter and voices.

  And through the windows of the inn Jabina could perceive a number of men clustered round the bar, but the noise they were making precluded their hearing the wheels of the cart and she knew that, while she could see them, they c
ould not see her.

  As soon as they were clear of the inn and out onto the open road, the Duke climbed into the cart and, picking up the reins, whipped the horse into action.

  “We have not far to go,” he said. “I have already found out that the smugglers come right up the mouth of the river. There is a place about a mile and a half away where they pick up their contraband.”

  Jabina did not answer and after a moment he said,

  “That is what I was going to tell you.”

  “I-I thought you – would not hear – me scream,” Jabina said with a sob.

  “It was my fault,” the Duke said briefly. “I should not have let you wait on him. These damned Frenchmen are all the same – lecherous swine!”

  There was so much violence in his tone that Jabina looked up at him in surprise.

  As she did so, the Duke pulled the patch from his eye and threw it away.

  “Thank God I can be rid of that thing!” he said, “but it did not prevent me seeing the exact place in a man’s back where he can be killed with the sharp point of an instrument.”

  “You – killed him with his – own sword!” Jabina said in a wondering tone.

  “I wish I could have shot him with his own pistol and blown a hole in him with his own cannon!” the Duke said savagely.

  “I think I knew all the time that you would – save me,” Jabina said in a low voice. “At the same time it was – horrible! I did not think a man who is supposed to be a gentleman would do that sort of thing.”

  “You have a lot to learn.”

  “I know that now,” she answered solemnly. “You were right! I-I could never have travelled across – France alone.”

  The Duke did not answer and she had the feeling that he did not want to talk.

  Now that they were through the village, he was moving a little more cautiously in the darkness. However it was not too dark for them to be able to see the narrow road that ran along the side of the Seine.

  They must have travelled for over a mile when the Duke brought the horse to a standstill.

  “We are going to walk from here,” he said. “I have not forgotten what the Duc de St. Croix told us about the sentries.”

  “Would it not be better to try and get in touch with the Royalist agents?” Jabina asked. “They know better than we do where the smugglers are likely to be.”