‘Where are they now?’ asked Richard intently. ‘My grandmother?’
‘She’s ridden back to Eaton to have everything there looking just as it should. Her hermit went back to his cell in the night. It wouldn’t do if anyone knew he’d been away.’
‘And your father?’
‘He’s out and about among his tenants here, but he’ll not be far away. He took his clerk with him. There’ll be dues unpaid that he wants collected, I daresay.’ She was indifferent to her father’s movements, but she did feel some curiosity as to what was going on in this child’s head, to sharpen his voice into such hopeful purpose, and brighten his disconsolate eye. ‘Why? What is there in that for you? Or for me!’ she added bitterly.
‘There might,’ said Richard, beginning to glitter, ‘be something I can do for you, something good, if you’ll do something for me in return. If they’re both out of the house, help me to get away while they’re gone. My pony’s there in the stable, she told me as much. If I could get to him and slip away, you could bolt the door again, and no one would know I was gone until evening.’
She shook her head decisively. ‘And who would get the blame? I wouldn’t put it off on to one of the servants, and I’ve no great appetite for it myself. The troubles I already have are enough for me, I thank you!’ But she added warily, seeing that his hopeful fire was by no means quenched: ‘But I would be willing to think out the best means, if I thought it would solve anything for me. But how can it? For a fair deliverance I’d venture anything Father could say or do. But what’s the use, when we’re tied together as we are, and no way out?’
Richard bounded up from his bed and darted across the room to settle confidingly beside her on the broad sill. Close to her ear he said breathlessly: ‘If I tell you a secret, will you swear to keep it until I’m safely away, and help me to get out of here? I promise you, I promise you it will be worth your while.’
‘You are dreaming,’ she said tolerantly, turning to look at him thus closely, and seeing his secret brightness undimmed by her disbelief. ‘There’s no way out of marriage unless you’re a prince and have the Pope’s ear, and who cares about lesser folk like us? True, we’re not bedded, nor will be for years yet, but if you think your old dame and my father would ever let it come to an annulment, you waste your hopes. They’ve got their way, they’ll never let go of their gains.’
‘No, it’s nothing like that,’ he persisted, ‘we need nothing from Pope or law. You must believe me. At least promise not to tell, and when you hear what it is, you’ll be willing to help me, too.’
‘Very well,’ she said, humouring him, even half convinced now that he knew something she did not know, but still doubting if it would or could deliver them. ‘Very well, I promise. What is this precious secret?’
Gleefully he advanced his lips to her ear, his cheek teased by the touch of a lock of her hair that curled loose there, and breathed his secret as though the very boards at their backs had ears. And after one incredulous instant of stillness and silence she began to laugh very softly, to shake with her laughter, and throwing her arms about Richard, hugged him briefly to her heart.
‘For that you shall go free, whatever it cost me! You deserve it!’
Chapter Eleven
ONCE convinced, it was she who made the plans. She knew the house and the servants, and as long as there was no suspicion of her subservience she had the entry everywhere, and could give orders to grooms and maids as she pleased.
‘Best wait until after they’ve brought your dinner and taken away the dish again. It will be a longer time then before anyone comes in to you again. There’s a back gate through the pale, from the stable out into the paddock. I could tell Jehan to turn your pony out to grass, he’s been shut in too long to be liking it. There are some bushes in the field there, round behind the stable, close to the wicket. I’ll make shift to hide your saddle and harness there before noon. I can get you out of here through the undercroft, while they’re all busy in hall and kitchens.’
‘But your father will be home then,’ protested Richard doubtfully.
‘After his dinner my father will be snoring. If he does look in on you at all, it will be before he sits down to table, to make sure you’re safe in your cage. Better for me, too, I shall have sat out my morning with you gallantly, who’s to think I’ll change my tune after that? It might even be good sport,’ said Hiltrude, growing animated in contemplating her benevolent mischief, ‘when they go to take you your supper, and find the window still shuttered and barred, and the bird flown.’
‘But then everyone will be harried and cursed and blamed,’ said Richard, ‘because somebody must have drawn the bolt.’
‘So then we all deny it, and whoever looks likeliest to be suspected I’ll bring off safely, saying he’s never been out of my sight and never touched the door since your dinner went in. If it comes to the worst,’ said Hiltrude, with uncustomary resolution, ‘I’ll say I must have forgotten to shoot the bolt after leaving you the last time. What can he do? He’ll still be thinking he has you trapped in marriage with me, wherever you run to. Better still,’ she cried, clapping her hands, ‘I’ll be the one who brings you your dinner, and waits with you, and brings out the dish again?then no one else can be blamed for leaving the door unbolted. A wife should begin at once to wait on her husband, it will look well.’
‘You’re not afraid of your father?’ ventured Richard, open-eyed with startled respect, even admiration, but reluctant to leave her to sustain so perilous a part.
‘I am?I was! Now, whatever happens, it will be worth the pains. I must go, Richard, while there’s no one in the stable. You wait and trust me, and keep up your heart. You’ve lifted mine!’
She was at the door when Richard, still thoughtfully following her light and buoyant passage, so changed from the subdued, embittered creature whose cold hand he had held in the night, said impulsively after her: ‘Hiltrude?I think I might do worse than marry you, after all.’ And added, with barely decent haste: ‘But not yet!’
Everything that she had promised she performed. She brought his dinner, and sat with him and made desultory, awkward talk while he ate it, such talk as might be expected to a stranger, and a child at that, and one forced upon her and reluctantly accepted, so that however much he might be resented, there was no longer any point in being at odds with him. Less from guile than because he was hungry and busy eating, Richard responded with grunts rather than words. Had anyone been listening, they would certainly have found the exchanges depressingly appropriate.
Hiltrude carried the dish back to the kitchen, and returned to him as soon as she had made certain that everyone else about the house was occupied. The narrow wooden stair down into the undercroft was conveniently screened from the passage that led to the kitchen, they had no trouble in skipping hastily down it, and emerging from below ground by the deep doorway where Hyacinth had sheltered, and from there it was just one dangerous dart across open ground to the wicket in the fence, half hidden by the bulk of the stable. Saddle and bridle and all,
