Creeping along the dark narrow passage, with lantern held well ahead to keep her step steady on the uneven stones—and to warn her of the advent of rats—Melusine kept her long petticoats fastidiously clear of the dirt with an efficient hand, a habit she had learned in the convent.
‘Parbleu, I hope that I do not have many more times to come in this way to the house,’ she muttered fretfully.
‘What, miss?’ asked Jack Kimble from behind her.
‘This journey I do not like,’ she said more loudly. ‘And if it was not for that imbecile of a Gérard, who has put his soldiers to watch for me, it would not need that I make it.’
‘Even if they militiamen weren’t there, miss,’ cautioned her cavalier, ‘you couldn’t go marching into the house open like. That there gatekeeper would’ve called them out again.’
‘Ah yes. He will be sorry when he knows who I am,’ decided Melusine with satisfaction.
There was some justification for her annoyance, for negotiation of the secret passage demanded either a stout heart, or a desperate one. The original passage, Martha had told her, had led only from an upstairs room to one downstairs. But the Remenhams in the days of Charles the First, with the need for an escape route from Cromwell’s increasingly victorious forces, had cut a trapdoor through its floor into the cellars below, and thence hewn the long rough passageway that led underground right outside the boundary of the estate. The entrance was concealed between two huge boulders within a clump of trees, and was now so overgrown that no one who did not know of its existence could ever hope to find it.
Even Melusine, armed with special knowledge, and the enthusiastic assistance of Jack Kimble’s strong arm, had taken almost half a day to locate the place. She had known that Remenham House would be deserted, for Martha—released, as she had carefully explained to her charge, by her vows to God from servitude and obedience to Nicholas Charvill, a mere mortal—had begun a correspondence with a friend of her youth, Mrs Joan Ibstock, née Pottiswick. That good woman, although astonished to hear of Martha’s conversion to Catholicism and embracing of a religious sisterhood, responded with the news of Jarvis Remenham’s death.
Martha had been careful to make no mention of Melusine, and did not reply to Mrs Ibstock’s enquiry about the fate of the little babe. When she confessed all this to her charge, telling the now grown up babe that there was no hope in the world of establishing any claim, she very soon discovered her mistake. Rebellious and resentful, Melusine decided there and then that she would do exactly that, come what may. Once in England, she made all haste to visit Remenham House.
On that first occasion, the delay in locating the entrance to the secret passage meant that she had to wait until morning to make her search. She had been obliged to spend the night in that fateful bedchamber, the faithful Kimble—who had foraged at a nearby inn, bringing back a large pie and a jug of porter for his mistress—guarding the door outside. In the early hours of the morning, unable to bear the suspense any longer, Melusine had ventured to explore the mansion, the lantern she had brought in hand, commenting to herself all the time on the state of the place and the difficulties of her task, and having no idea of the consequences she was bringing on herself thereby.
To her intense disappointment, she discovered that all papers had been removed from desks and cupboards. Not the most stringent search, conducted all morning, turned up one solitary sheet. There was nothing to replace the all important letter from her father. But she found an unknown lady’s discarded garments, and selected some of those that she tried on, sending Kimble off down the secret passage to load them onto the horse she had borrowed—unbeknownst to its owner—from Father Saint-Simon. Kimble had bedded the animal down at the local inn. And then she had been disturbed by the eruption into the room of Major Gerald Alderley and his companion, Captain Hilary Roding.
On this second excursion, forewarned, she would use no light and keep as quiet as a mouse, she vowed, and thus refrain from attracting the attention of the militia at the gates. Arrived at the secret door, she grasped the lever that opened it and placed the lantern on the floor.
‘This we will leave. I do not wish that the soldiers there will see it shine.’
A panel slid open and she stepped into the relative light of the little dressing-room, Kimble close behind her. Coming from the gloom of the passage, even the corridors seemed sufficiently illuminated for them to see their way. And the bedchamber, for which Melusine instantly headed, was almost bright.
‘That is good. There is light enough from the sun,’ she said, relieved.
‘What are you after this time, miss?’ asked Jack.
‘A thing Marthe told me of,’ Melusine answered, her attention on the garments that were still lying higgledy-piggledy, just as she had left them. She saw her discarded nun’s habit still on the floor and scooped it up. Martha had not been pleased to find her spare one borrowed for that expedition when the major had found her outside the ballroom. Besides, it did not fit her well, which was why the loose wimple had slipped. She would take this one back with her. One never knew when it would be necessary to resume her disguise.
‘Jacques,’ she said, turning to the lad, and holding the habit out, ‘take this for me and leave it in the passage where we have left the lantern. I do not know if I will have to escape quickly once more.’
‘Aye, miss,’ Kimble agreed, taking the garments, ‘but where will I find you?’
‘I do not know. I must go perhaps in all the rooms. Not up here, I think. I shall start at the bottom. Oh, wait!’ She seized Jack’s arm as he was about to go out of the room. ‘Go you through the passage and find the other door. Martha said to me that it must come to the bibliothéque.’
‘The what, miss?’ asked Kimble, frowning.
‘I do not know the word in English. The place for reading.’
‘You mean the bookroom, miss. Will I meet you there?’
‘Yes, yes, I shall await you. Now go.’ She thrust him out of the room and made for the stairs.
The library was on the ground floor, Melusine recalled from the previous visit, for she had searched through a desk in a room filled with bookshelves of leather-bound volumes. But she was not sure just how to reach it. It had been brighter than the rest, for dawn light had come in through high unshuttered casements above the bookshelves.
Melusine glanced at the walls as she sped down the four flights of stairs, and noted with relief that some paintings remained. Here and there, a rectangular patch, darker than the rest, showed that some had been removed. Well, one must hope, that was all.
In the flagged entrance hallway at the bottom, where extra light came in from a window above the double doors, it was easy enough to distinguish a family group, and a landscape which clearly included Remenham House in the distance. But, moving through into the first of the large main rooms that led one into another around the house, with here and there an antechamber between, it was obvious that the task was not going to be easy.
If only one might open the shutters and let in the light. This gloom was impossible.
Moving to the shuttered window, Melusine dragged the heavy drapes back. Yes, this was a little better. Parbleu, but must she do this all through the house? Evidently she must, for not only could she not properly see the paintings and portraits that hung on the walls, but she was in imminent danger of bumping into the sheet-shrouded furniture.
She had just passed into a little antechamber beyond when she suddenly heard a faint knocking.
Her heart thudded. Dieu du ciel, what was it? She turned slowly, listening for the direction of the sound. It came again. It seemed to emanate from the back of the house. She looked about and discovered a door partially hidden by shadow.
Melusine crossed to open it, and immediately the knocking intensified in volume. The room behind was another small antechamber, presumably linking the back rooms. Swiftly following the sound of knocking, she crossed right and passed through a door near the windows—and found herself in the bookroom. Suddenly remembering Kimble, her heart thudded with excitement. Had he found the secret door?
Running to the centre, she tried to judge where the knocking came from. There was a huge desk of heavily carved ebony at one end, and at the centre, a couple of straight-backed chairs stood before a great fireplace at the outer wall, flanked by two bookshelves with casement windows above. Over the mantel, set into an ornately carved panel with fluted columns at each end, was a portrait of a man on horseback. Every other wall comprised bookcases, except where the doors appeared. The entire place was a masterpiece of wooden carving, a design of interleaving carried throughout.
Melusine turned and turned, unable to imagine just where the secret door could be. Upstairs, in the little dressing-room, the panel was opened by means of tugging a small candlesconce in the wall. Here, it might be anything at all. And nothing to tell her where to begin.
‘Jacques?’ she called out, forgetting the need for silence.
‘Here, miss,’ came faintly from somewhere close at hand.
‘Can you not open it?’ she cried.
‘I dropped the lantern,’ Jack’s muffled voice told her. ‘Can’t see a thing.’
‘Oh, peste,’ exclaimed Melusine, and louder, ‘Where are you? Call, that I may find you.’
She moved quickly to the nearest bookcase, and listened intently to the sound of Jack’s voice. She could not judge its direction, and began to move swiftly along the bookshelves, her hand running behind her across the spines of the calf-bound volumes.
