Signpost To Love Page 3

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  She looked at him and for the first time she smiled and he saw that she had two dimples as she asked,

  “Would you – like to see my back?”

  “I will accept your injuries without visual proof!”

  “Very well. As I have already said, I think Papa is a little – mad. He was always – strange in many ways, but when Mama left him, he became very much worse.”

  “When did your mother leave?”

  “Nearly three years ago and since then I have felt that he was watching me and hating me because I grew more and more like her. Then a month ago he met this ‘Priest’.”

  “You call him a Priest. Is he a Roman Catholic?”

  Baptista shook her head.

  “I don’t think so. He calls himself a Priest, but his religion is very strange and rather horrifying.”

  “You say your father met him – where? And how did he meet you?”

  “Papa had been away in London – I think to speak in the House of Lords – and when he came home, he brought this Priest with him. He calls himself Father Unctuous and because he wore a cassock I thought he must be a Roman Catholic.”

  She sighed before she went on,

  “I was wrong, he and Papa kept saying how people should be punished for their sins – and that wickedness could only be expunged by driving the devil – out of them.”

  Baptista gave a little shudder and went on,

  “At first I did not listen. I was used to Papa going on and on about sinners burning in hellfire and the terrible punishments that women who had left their husbands would receive.”

  She sighed again.

  “Of course he was talking about Mama, although he did not mention her by name. Then he would say, ‘I must save you! I must save you from the bad blood that runs in your veins – from the inclinations that will rise up within you so that you too will become a disciple of the Devil!’”

  “It must have been very frightening,” the Earl remarked.

  “I had almost become used to it in a way – except when he beat me,” Baptista said honestly, “until the Priest came. Then I realised that he was encouraging Papa to become more and more – fanatical on the subject.”

  She was silent for a moment, before she said,

  “When I came into the room, they always stopped talking, and I knew that they had been discussing me. Father Unctuous used to look at me in a manner that made me think he was imagining – how he could torture me.”

  She made a little movement with her hands that told the Earl without words that she was finding it difficult to express what she felt.

  Then she went on,

  “I began to grow frightened – very very frightened. I don’t know why, but I knew – something was going to happen that – would concern me – so I ran away.”

  “Where did you run to?”

  “I did not get very far the first time. I slipped out of the house after I had supposedly gone to bed and found Papa and the Priest waiting for me. I thought afterwards that one of the maids must have told him that I was collecting a few things to carry with me in a parcel.”

  “What happened?”

  “Papa dragged me back and beat me and all the time he was doing it – I was quite certain that the Priest was outside the door listening to my screams because he enjoyed the sound of them.”

  Baptista gave a little sob and the Earl said,

  “Where were you going?”

  “I was trying to get to London – to my mother’s sister. I was not quite certain where she lived or even if she would be pleased to see me, but I thought she might be able to tell me where I could find – Mama.”

  “You know where your mother is?”

  “She went to Paris and I know the name of the – person she was – with.”

  This obviously came reluctantly to her lips and for a moment the Earl did not press her further.

  He merely said,

  “So you tried to escape again.”

  “Yes, twice more and the last time I got nearly to London in the stagecoach – but, when we reached the very last stop before Islington, Papa was there waiting for me and he was very very angry. He took me home and he beat me until I fainted, then he told me what he had – decided to – do with me.”

  There was no mistaking the terror in Baptista’s voice now as she went on,

  “I was to spend the – rest of my life in a House of Penitence and my money – I have a lot left to me by my grandmother – was to be made over to the – Order. The Priest had said that he was one of the founders – after that I should never be allowed – in Papa’s words – ‘to contaminate the world again’.”

  “Can that really be the truth!” the Earl exclaimed. “How could your father be allowed to do such a thing?”

  “I am only just eighteen,” Baptista answered, “and as my Guardian – he can do anything he likes with me. That is the law!”

  The Earl was well aware that this was true and he said,

  “Surely there is somebody in your family you can appeal to for help?”

  “There is – nobody on Papa’s side,” Baptista replied, “and naturally, I have not been allowed to see any of Mama’s relations since she left us.”

  “How could she leave you with a man like that?” the Earl asked sharply.

  “Papa used to beat her too,” Baptista said. “He said that she was too beautiful and was a – temptation from which he must – purge himself.”

  “He really is mad!” the Earl said violently.

  “Yes, I know,” Baptista agreed, “but what can I do about it?”

  The Earl was aware that it would be impossible for her to bring her own father to justice or, for that matter, to escape from him in the first place.

  “What happened in the accident?” he asked.

  “We were driving along in the post chaise that we engaged at Calais. Papa and I were sitting on the back seat and the Priest on the opposite one.”

  She shivered and said in a low voice,

  “He was watching me in that horrid manner that made me want to scream. Then suddenly, as we went round a corner, we heard the man driving us shout, ‘look out!’ There was a dreadful crash and there seemed to be a lot of people all screaming at once before I was thrown out of the carriage – and onto the side of the road.”

  She paused and then went on,

  “There was thick grass and, although I was stunned for a moment, I was not hurt. Then, as I sat up, I saw that we had hit a diligence and there were people thrown into the road – and the poor horses were down on their knees. There also seemed to be a lot of blood everywhere.”

  Baptista drew in her breath as if at the horror of it before she continued,

  “Then I saw that Papa had half-fallen out of the carriage and was lying still with his eyes closed. The Priest who was lying on the road had a gaping wound in his forehead which was bleeding and it looked to me as if he was dead.”

  “What did you do?” the Earl asked.

  “I could only think that this was my chance to get away. I looked to one side of the road – and saw there were fields stretching into the distance. There were no hedges where I could hide and I thought that Papa when he regained consciousness would see me and I would be brought back and – beaten.”

  Baptista paused and the Earl had a fleeting glimpse of her dimples as she said,

  “Then a little way up the road I saw your wonderful horses and your smart carriage!”

  She paused before she added,

  “I felt that it was Elijah’s chariot from Heaven come to deliver me!”

  The way she spoke made the Earl laugh.

  Chapter Two

  They drove for a little while in silence.

  Then the Earl asked,

  “You expect to find your mother in Paris?”

  There was a distinct hesitation before Baptista replied,

  “I – hope she will be there. I knew when she ran away – tha
t was where she was going.”

  “Why?”

  Again there was a silence before Baptista replied,

  “Mama went – away with – the Comte de Saucorne.”

  The Earl raised his eyebrows. He thought he knew the name but he could not put a face to it.

  “And you have heard no more since she left?” he asked after a moment.

  Baptista shook her head before she said,

  “Because it made it worse for Papa that Mama should prefer a Frenchman to him – he chose France as the place where I should do penance for her ‘crime’.”

  The Earl thought that in a mad sort of way he could understand the twisted manner in which Lord Dunsford’s brain worked, but he found it difficult really to credit all that Baptista had told him.

  She was so small and exquisite, so flower-like in her appearance, that it was hard to believe that any man who was supposed to be a gentleman would beat anything so fragile or indeed want his own child to be punished for another person’s sins.

  And yet from all he had heard of the ‘Preaching Peer’ his whole attitude towards wickedness was concerned not with saving people but punishing them.

  Sitting comfortably at his ease against the heavily padded cushions of the carriage the Earl could see Baptista’s profile and thought that her beauty in one way or another would always cause trouble.

  Although he knew little about very young women, he was aware that she was not only exceptionally lovely but also had an elegance and a grace of movement that he would have expected only in a far older woman.

  He also suspected that despite her childlike appearance she was intelligent.

  This he found to be true when two hours later they stopped for luncheon.

  As they drew into a Posting inn, which the Earl knew in the past was, if not good, at least one of the best on the main route to Paris, Baptista looked apprehensive.

  As if he could read her thoughts, the Earl said,

  “You are quite safe. Even if your father is now in hot pursuit of you, it is doubtful if any post chaise, and I imagine that he has had to procure himself another, could catch up my team of four and we shall not stay here longer than is necessary.”

  “You are – so kind,” Baptista murmured, “but I was really wondering if you would want me to – leave you now and find my – own way from here.”

  “Suppose we talk about that over luncheon?” the Earl suggested. “I think it constitutes a problem that we should give our full attention to.”

  He saw her eyes light up and knew it was because he was concerning himself with her rather than with being rid of her at the first opportunity as he had suggested earlier.

  When she had gone upstairs to tidy herself and he had been shown into a small private dining room, he told himself that, although he had no wish to be brutal, he must rid himself of Baptista as soon as possible.

  There was no reason why Lord Dunsford should connect him with her disappearance from the scene of the accident.

  At the same time if he made enquiries it was likely that someone might tell him that there had been an impressive-looking travelling carriage there and, although the odds were against it, somebody might have seen Baptista stepping into it.

  After the narrow escape he had just had in London, he had no wish to find himself caught in another trap and he therefore decided firmly that when they reached the town to which he had sent a Courier ahead to make arrangements for the night, he would say goodbye to Baptista.

  It passed through his mind that perhaps, having run away with the Comte de Saucorne but being unable to marry him, Lady Dunsford by this time might be in very different circumstances from what her daughter expected.

  Then once again he thought that it was not his business and, if Baptista did not like her mother’s way of life, she could always return to her father.

  At the same time he was in fact shocked by what she had told him about the place she was being sent to.

  The Earl had heard that there were many fanatical sects in France at this time, ranging from Anarchists to the followers of ‘The Rosy Cross’ and he presumed a House of Penitence would come within the category of religious extravagances that were bound up with Louis Napoleon’s reign.

  It sounded to him rather sinister and he thought it was more than likely that the so-called Priest had been excited at the idea of Baptista’s fortune being used to further their work.

  ‘Dammit all, the whole thing is unpleasant and unhealthy!’ the Earl said to himself.

  But there was nothing he could do about it and the sooner he stopped thinking about it the better.

  The door of the room opened and Baptista came in.

  She had tidied herself and her hair gleamed gold in the sunlight coming through the window and her eyes were very blue.

  She looked so young, so spring-like and so lovely that the Earl had a sudden vision of her being humiliated and beaten and felt himself shudder.

  “I hurried,” Baptista said with a little lilt in her voice, “and I am sure that luncheon will be delicious. French food is so good!”

  “You prefer it to English?” the Earl asked.

  “The food we have at home is very austere since Mama left,” Baptista replied, “and, when Papa has a fast day, which is once a week, we have only dry bread to eat and water to drink.”

  “I wonder your father considers that sufficient sustenance to enable him to continue his preaching,” the Earl commented sarcastically.

  “Papa likes doing penance although what for I cannot imagine,” Baptista answered. “He never commits any sins, although he constantly refers to himself as ‘a miserable sinner’.”

  She smiled and the dimples were very prominent as she added,

  “I find it difficult to be miserable unless somebody is punishing me and I never have a chance to commit any sins – unless you count running away as one.”

  “I would have thought it very wise of you to run away if you had somewhere to go,” the Earl remarked.

  He saw by the expression on Baptista’s face that she knew he was not speaking lightly and she said quickly,

  “I have always been determined – somehow that I would join Mama. I am sure that she would – miss me and I have – missed her.”

  There was a little note of doubt in Baptista’s voice that told the Earl she might be scared that her mother would not want her.

  “I am sure she will be delighted to see you,” he said reassuringly. “Now let me give you a glass of madeira. I think you have earned it, after such a dramatic morning.”

  “It was certainly that,” Baptista agreed. “At the same time think how lucky I was to find you!”

  She smiled at him before she continued,

  “You might have been a disagreeable old man who would refuse to give me a lift – or a thief who might have abducted me for my money.”

  The Earl thought that she was much more likely to have encountered a man only too ready to carry her off for her beauty, but aloud he asked,

  “Have you any money with you?”

  He asked the question casually, thinking from the way she had talked that Baptista was likely to have provided herself with funds just in case she had a chance to escape from her father.

  He was not therefore prepared for the blush that suffused her face or the way she turned her head aside in what was an obvious movement of embarrassment.

  “I was going to – talk to you about – that,” she said after a distinct pause.

  The Earl was about to speak when the landlord came bustling into the room followed by two mob-capped maids with a number of dishes, which they set down on a table that was laid near the window and on a side table near it.

  There was also a bottle of champagne, which the Earl had ordered, in an ice bucket and the landlord said,

  “If you will be seated, monsieur and madame, the meal may commence.”

  “Merci bien,” the Earl replied and did as he requested.

  Baptista came slowly to the
table and he knew from the way she did not look at him that she was still embarrassed.

  They were served with the first course, champagne was poured into their glasses and, after he had taken a few mouthfuls and found as Baptista had anticipated, the food was excellent, the Earl said,

  “I feel it somewhat surprising that although we have now been in each other’s company for most of the morning, you have not enquired as to my identity. It appears to me to be a strange lack of curiosity.”

  “It is not that,” Baptista replied. “I am, as a matter of fact very curious as to who you are, but I felt perhaps as you had no wish to be – involved with me, you would prefer to remain incognito so that I could quite truthfully say, if questioned, that I had no – idea who you – were.”

  The Earl was surprised.

  “Do you really think I would be ashamed of offering you a helping hand?” he enquired.

  Baptista looked at him seriously.

  “You have been very kind – so very kind, but I am well aware that, if Papa knew that you had helped me to escape, he would be extremely angry not only with me but with you and he might make – trouble for you when you – return to London.”

  The Earl did not speak and she went on,

  “I can see you are somebody of great importance – and it will always be tantalising to know that while your chariot appeared to have come from Heaven I shall not be able to pray for you by name.”

  The Earl laughed.

  “Is that what you intend to do?”

  “Of course. I shall always say a very special prayer for you that you will find what you want in life, which I expect is happiness.”

  “Most men need something more tangible than that,” the Earl replied teasingly.

  “A lovely lady?” Baptista questioned. “I am sure you will find one in Paris.”

  “What do you know about Paris?”

  “Not very much,” she admitted, “because Papa always considered it a cesspool of wickedness – not only because Mama went there, but because he disapproves both of the Emperor and the Empress.”

  “Why should he disapprove?” the Earl asked in surprise.

  “I am not quite certain,” Baptista answered, “but one of my Governesses told me that Papa had forbidden her to teach me any history appertaining to the Kings who were immoral in their behaviour, like Charles II and of course Louis XIV and Louis XV.”