Call of the Heart Page 16

  The man who had gagged her slammed the door behind him and she heard the key turn in the lock.

  She tried to discern to whom he had spoken and who else was in the cabin.

  It was very small, low-ceiling, and devoid of any furniture, but gradually as her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness she could distinguish what appeared to be bundles lying on the floor.

  Then she knew that, like her, other women were lying there, gagged and bound just as she was.

  Gradually the light from the port-hole grew stronger as the faint shimmer of dawn began to dispel the darkness of the night.

  Edging herself backwards inch by inch, she sat up, and propped herself against a wall.

  Now she could see who else was in the cabin.

  There were eight other bodies, and as the light increased second by second she could see that they all had frightened eyes above their silenced mouths, and their arms were tied as were their ankles.

  ‘Nine women,’ Lalitha thought, ‘and one more to come!’

  Even as she thought of it she heard heavy foot-steps coming down the passage.

  The door was unlocked and the man came into the cabin carrying another woman’s body over his shoulder.

  He threw her down at the other side of the cabin, pulled the cloth from over her head, tightened the rope round her waist, and gagged her.

  She was a very young pretty girl with fair, golden hair, and although she gave a little whimper before the gag was applied she was obviously too frightened to make any noise.

  “We be a-sailing now,” the man said, “an when we be out at sea ye’ll be untied if ye behave yeselves. Oi expect anyhow ye’ll want t’ be sick!”

  He laughed as if at a joke, then went from the cabin, locking the door behind him.

  Overhead was the sound of hurrying feet and the slap of sails being set.

  ‘We are leaving England,’ Lalitha thought. ‘I am being carried over the sea and no-one will ever know what has happened to me. ’

  She wondered if it would be possible to free herself and make one wild dash to the Quay.

  Then she realised that even if it were possible to undo the cords which bound her, there was a locked door to prevent her escape and the only port-hole in the cabin faced out onto the river.

  Lalitha also knew only too well the kind of punishment she would incur for trying to run away.

  She was certain that the man had not spoken idly when he

  had said he would knock her senseless.

  Looking round the cabin, Lalitha saw that two of the girls were lying with closed eyes and appeared to be asleep.

  She was certain that if they were sleeping it was not a natural slumber.

  The others were all staring round as she was; their eyes wide, their pupils dilated with fear.

  Lalitha realised that the majority of the girls were just as Lord Rothwyn had described to her—from the country.

  There was no mistaking the freshness about them or the fact that they were very young, perhaps fifteen or sixteen at the most.

  She could see that they wore solid, hard-wearing country boots, the type purchased by domestic servants, beneath home-made dresses of cotton or coarse wool.

  What was to be their fate—and what hers?

  She heard the anchor being wound up and mooring-ropes cast off. Then there were voices shouting orders and the movement of the ship became more obvious as the wind filled the sails.

  It was very cold and Lalitha shivered in her thin evening-gown.

  They must have now turned from the Quay and into the centre of the river. There was a glimmer of sunshine coming through the dirty port-hole.

  Lalitha wondered if it was shining into Lord Rothwyn’s bedroom and whether it would awaken him.

  Still her heart was calling to him and she wondered if he would realise how desperately she needed him.

  He was so strong, also so perceptive.

  Was it possible to reach him, mentally if not physically? Always she had believed in the power of thought, always she had been convinced that the mind knew no limits, no boundaries.

  But would such ideas work in practice when the moment came for them to prove themselves?

  ‘Come to . . . me! I want . . . you! I need . . . you.

  Save . . . me!’

  She sent out her cry again and again and with it a prayer. ‘Please, God . . . let him . . . hear me . . . let him know I am in danger . . . Make him understand . . . please, God . . . please, God. . . .’

  Then she knew that it was hopeless! The ship was moving with the tide, which was carrying her away from London and downriver to the sea.

  Her cry, like her prayers, had failed!

  Lord Rothwyn had not heard and now there was no hope for either herself or the other wretched girls beside her.

  The girl sitting next to Lalitha, whom she had not noticed before, managed to slip the gag from her mouth and it fell over her chin to her chest.

  “What’s happening? Where are we going?” she asked in a frightened voice.

  She had a country accent and Lalitha, turning her head to look at her, saw that she was pretty in a childlike, somewhat bovine manner.

  She was plump and healthy-looking with rosy apple cheeks, if she had not been pale with fright.

  Because the girl had managed to free herself of the gag Lalitha moved her lips against the dirty handkerchief which covered her mouth and it slipped to her chin.

  The girl who had been watching her said before she could speak:

  “That’s better! ’Tis a bit frightening talking to oneself!”

  “I know!” Lalitha answered.

  “What’s a-going on?” the girl asked. “I dinna understand what’s happening.”

  “Where do you come from?” Lalitha enquired.

  “I come from Somerset,” the girl replied. “I’d a position promised me in London.”

  “What sort of position?”

  “Kitchen-maid to a Nobleman,” the girl replied.

  Her face puckered for a moment as she said:

  “I tells her where she was to take me.”

  “Who did you tell?” Lalitha enquired.

  “The woman who met me at the Coaching-Inn. ‘Where do you want to go?’ she asked. When I told her she said she’d drive me there. She had a nice carriage and I thought I might as well go comfortable like instead of walking.”

  “What happened then?” Lalitha asked.

  “I don’t rightly know,” the girl answered. “She says to me: ‘You must be tired after your journey. Here’s a drink for you. ’ But after I had drunk it I felt all funny like, and I didn’t know anything until I found myself here tied up. What’s the game? What are they a-doing?”

  Lalitha was silent. There seemed no point in upsetting this child unduly.

  “I expect they will tell us sooner or later,” she said, “but I am afraid we have been kidnapped.” “Kidnapped?” the girl exclaimed, “and what would be the point of that? I ain’t got more than 5 pence on me.”

  Lalitha did not answer.

  She could only feel afraid and knew that making the others feel equally afraid would not help.

  She looked at the other girls and realised that they were trying, as she had done, to remove the gags, but either they were not so clever at it or else the gags had been more tightly tied, for they were unable to free themselves.

  The girl from Somerset began to cry.

  “I wants to go home to me mother!” she sobbed. “I thought t’wood be fine to be in London, to be able to send money home to th’ family, but I’m frightened! I wants to go home!” “That is what we all want,” Lalitha longed to reply.

  Instead she said quietly:

  “You must be brave. It will be no help to annoy these people who have kidnapped us. They might be rough or unkind if they thought we did not obey them.”

  “You mean they’d . . . hurt us?” the girl asked.

  Lalitha drew in her breath.

  She remembered Lord R
othwyn saying that the “White Slave Traders” would beat or drug those who did not do as they were told.

  ‘God help us all!’ she thought.

  She knew despairingly that the ship was gathering impetus and they were moving quicker than they had before.

  There was a strong wind, and she reckoned that if it continued they would not take many hours to cross the Channel to Holland or wherever they were going.

  They would be there before evening, and what would await them?

  She looked at the other girls and realised that she must be the oldest present.

  There was no reason, she thought, for her to be included in this human cargo if the Slavers had not been coerced or paid. She knew then as if someone had told her it was her Stepmother who had arranged it all.

  Perhaps Sophie had gone back from Roth Park to say that instead of attending to her as she had expected him to do, Lord Rothwyn had chased after the stagecoach.

  Lalitha could imagine her Step-mother’s fury if she believed that Sophie with all her beauty had lost such a fine matrimonial catch as Lord Rothwyn.

  She doubted, despite what Sophie had said, that Julius

  Verton was still at her feet.

  If he had been, Lalitha was quite certain that, rather than take the trouble to destroy the evidence of her marriage to Lord Rothwyn, Sophie would have contented herself with the man to whom she was already engaged.

  Thinking back over the events of that night it was obvious that Julius Verton had received the note the groom had carried to him at Wimbledon.

  He was a rather stupid, immature young man.

  At the same time he had his pride, and while he might have been broken-hearted at losing Sophie, his blue-blood would have ensured that he would not crawl back to plead for her favours after she had jilted him so heartlessly.

  Besides, he would have been fortified in his resolution by his grandmother and his friends.

  Lalitha was sure that Sophie’s note would have made it clear that she had finished with him.

  Despite her beauty, the marriage from the point of view of a very eligible young man who would inherit a Dukedom was a misalliance.

  His relatives would have expected him to do far better.

  There was no doubt that he would have been welcomed by most match-making Mamas.

  Lalitha was certain now that Sophie had tried to entice back Lord Rothwyn because Julius Verton was no longer available. If she lost him then the only suitor left who had offered her marriage was the dissolute, aged, and unpleasant Sir Thomas Whemside.

  ‘No wonder neither she nor her mother will ever forgive me!’ Lalitha thought humbly.

  And yet despite his chivalrous action in stopping the stagecoach and being ready to take her back to Roth Park, Lord Rothwyn might still have a tenderness for Sophie.

  How could he resist anyone so beautiful, so alluring, that other women paled into insignificance beside her?

  ‘How could I ever expect him to care for me?’ Lalitha wondered miserably.

  Her thoughts had carried her away from the desperateness of her situation and she was jerked back to reality when the girl from Somerset asked with a break in her voice:

  “Can’t we do anything? Can’t we escape from here?”

  “I cannot think how,” Lalitha answered. “Can you undo the cords round your waist?”

  “Not on my own,” the girl answered, “but I might try and undo yours.”

  “How could you do that?” Lalitha asked.

  “If we sat back to back,” she answered.

  “How clever of you!” Lalitha exclaimed. “I never thought of that!”

  They pushed themselves round with their heels until they were sitting with their backs against each other. Then Lalitha felt the girl’s fingers working at the cords which bound her round the waist.

  It took some time, but finally Lalitha managed to squeeze her hands free, then hastily she turned to undo the girl from Somerset.

  “They said they would unfasten us when we are out to sea,” she said. “When they come back we had best pretend we are still tied or we might be in trouble!”

  “I understand,” the girl said. “What about the others?”

  “I think we could loosen their gags,” Lalitha said. “What we must do is to let them down as far as their chins so that they can quickly edge them up over their mouths again.”

  She saw that the girls had understood this and, propelling herself with her bound feet, she moved round one side of the cabin while the girl from Somerset moved to the other to loosen the gags.

  The girls all seemed bewildered as to what had happened.

  “Where are we going?” “Where be they a-taking us?” “What do they want?” “I’m frightened!”

  The same sentences came out one after another, mostly spoken with country accents although there were one or two cockneys amongst them.

  When Lalitha reached the two girls who were insensible, she found them both sleeping so heavily that she guessed they were drugged.

  They must have drunk a stronger dose than the girl from Somerset had been given.

  They were both pretty girls, very young, both fairhaired with strong, well-formed bodies already with the promise of maturity.

  ‘Perhaps they are happier as they are,’ Lalitha thought.

  ‘At least they do not know what lies ahead of them. ’

  “Keep your voices low,” she said to the other girls as they bewailed their fate, while two or three of them wept bitterly and kept crying for their mothers.

  The noise overheard continued or rather it seemed to intensify as Lalitha guessed that the ship was moving into stronger waters.

  Certainly the river was more turbulent and waves began to slap against the sides.

  It was then that she heard men shouting and she thought that there was a note of alarm in their tones.

  Some of them were speaking a foreign language, so it might have been her imagination, but it was impossible for her to hear distinctly.

  Then unexpectedly there was the sound of heavy footsteps running along the passageway outside the cabin.

  Quickly Lalitha and the girl from Somerset pushed up their gags and slipped their hands through the rope which was wound round their bodies. But not before Lalitha had hissed in a low voice to the others:

  “Put on your gags!”

  Her own was rather loose and she kept her head bent.

  Four men burst into the cabin, crossed it, and started to pull at the rough wooden wall opposite the door.

  To Lalitha’s astonishment one long panel about three foot wide slid away and behind it was a dark cavity.

  The men bent down to pick up the girls from the floor.

  But the man who had brought Lalitha aboard, who appeared to be in authority, said:

  “Tighten their gags! Us dinna want them trying to call out!” The man forced Lalitha’s teeth open with the handkerchief and tied it so tightly that it was very painful.

  One girl gave a scream of pain and received a blow on the side of her head which knocked her half unconscious. Unfortunately as a man lifted the girl from Somerset the cord round her waist trailed loose.

  “Blast th’ little bitch,” the man exclaimed. “Her’s gone and loosened ’erself!”

  “Tie ’er up again, ’er’ll be punished later,” came the order. “An’ see th’ others can’t move.”

  Lalitha’s cord was tightened over her waist and the men started to heave the girls through the opening in the cabin’s wall into the darkness beyond.

  Two men swung Lalitha through the opening and she found herself lying on rough wooden struts and knew that they were hidden in what was just a space at the stem of the ship for which there was no other use.

  It was without light and there was very little air and the girls were tumbled one on top of the other.

  When the last one was deposited the man who had brought Lalitha aboard said:

  “One squeak out o’ any o’ ye and Oi’ll kill ye!
Do ye

  understand? Ye’ll die!”

  As he spoke he stepped back into the cabin and the piece of wall was replaced.

  It fitted exactly, in fact there was not even a chink of light to show where it had been.

  There was no doubt that the sails were being lowered. Although Lalitha was not certain, she fancied that she could hear the sound of another vessel coming alongside.

  Men were shouting at each other but again she could not understand what was being said.

  She lay shivering with cold and fear and knew that the girls round her were all trembling.

  After a long time when she had begun to think that she had been mistaken and there must be other reasons why the ship should have lowered sail, there was the sound of foot-steps and voices coming down the passage.

  The door was opened and with a sudden leap of her heart so that she seemed almost to suffocate, Lalitha heard Lord Rothwyn’s voice:

  “What is in here?” he asked.

  “Just an empty cabin, Sir. All th’ cargo, as ye’ve seen, ’as been stowed amid ships.”

  Lalitha struggled frantically against her gag but it was tight. She would have drummed with her feet on the flooring but they were resting on the body of another girl.

  ‘He ... will ... see and ... hear ... nothing!’ she thought despairingly, and cried out in her heart:

  ‘Save ... me ... I am ... here ... save me!’ There was a sudden whining and scraping against the cabin-wall behind which she was hidden.

  It was Royal!

  Lalitha knew the sounds he made when he was excited and when he was trying to get to her.

  Then she heard Lord Rothwyn say:

  “I wonder what is arousing my dog? He seems to sense there must be something behind that wall.” “Rats, Sir!” the man exclaimed, “the ship be riddled with ’em. You have a sporting little beast there.” “Strange that he should be so excited,” Lord Rothwyn said.

  Then he raised his voice.

  “Officer,” he called, “there is something here I would like to show you.”

  “There be nothin’!” the man insisted. “Nothin’ at all! Ye be wasting yer time, Sir.” “I trust my dog’s instinct,” Lord

  Rothwyn answered coldly.