Hannah noticed that hand was so thin, it was almost transparent. Her eyes were black and glittering, as if she had a fever.
‘So the fallen one has come,’ said Lady Bellamy in a deep voice that had a hollow ring to it, as if sounded from the depths of a tomb.
‘Miss Earle is here, yes,’ said Hannah.
‘And who are you?’
‘I am Miss Hannah Pym of Kensington,’ said Hannah, meeting that black, glittering gaze with a steady one of her own. ‘Unfortunately, Miss Earle’s companion has fallen from grace. She is run off with a Methodist preacher. Miss Earle has requested that I stay with her for a few days.’
‘That you may not.’ Lady Bellamy’s glance dismissed Hannah and fastened on Belinda. ‘I shall soon teach you the error of your ways, young miss. Running off with a footman, indeed! Too much food. Nothing like starvation to purge the soul.’
Belinda flashed a scared look at Hannah, and then said, ‘My lady, I have good news. Lord Frenton, the Marquess of Frenton, has done me the honour to offer me his hand in marriage and I have accepted. He is to call upon you this afternoon to ask leave to pay his addresses.’
‘Frenton? Frenton of Baddell Castle?’
‘The same.’
‘You poor child. Do not worry. I shall keep you pure.’
‘Mad,’ Hannah mouthed to Belinda.
Aloud, she said to Lady Bellamy, ‘Your great-niece has secured a fine match for herself. Surely congratulations are the order of the day.’
‘Never!’ cried Lady Bellamy. ‘What is this year?’
‘Eighteen hundred,’ said Hannah impatiently, wondering how soon she could get Belinda away from this madwoman.
‘Then let me see … it was in ninety-two that Frenton caused such a scandal in our fair city. Lady Devine had been widowed but two years when he dragged her into his bed. They lived together quite openly.’
Belinda turned pale. ‘And where is Lady Devine now?’
‘She married the Duke of Minster. The wicked flourish like the green bay tree.’ She looked at Hannah. ‘Miss What’s-your-name, take yourself off.’
‘I shall just see Miss Pym to the door,’ said Belinda, clutching Hannah even harder.
Lady Bellamy jerked the bell-rope twice. The aged butler and two young footmen appeared. ‘Bradfield,’ said Lady Bellamy to the butler, ‘show this lady out. You two, James and Henry, take Miss Earle to her bedchamber and lock her in. You know I have everything prepared for her arrival.’
Hannah was carrying her trusty umbrella. It was a heavy thing, covered in green waxcloth and with iron spokes. She raised it menacingly and stood in front of Belinda. ‘Stand aside,’ she shouted. ‘I am taking Miss Earle with me.’
Lady Bellamy seemed indifferent. ‘Lock them in together,’ she commanded.
The two footmen approached. Belinda darted for the door, wrenched her bad ankle and collapsed to the ground with a cry of pain. Hannah dropped her umbrella and ran to her.
She helped Belinda to her feet. She could not start a fight and risk injuring Belinda further. As long as she was to be locked in with Belinda, they might plan something between them.
Urged forward by the footmen, Hannah, her arm around Belinda’s waist, helped her up the stairs. They were thrust into a room and the door was locked behind them.
Both stood still, looking helplessly around. ‘Mad,’ said Belinda, beginning to cry. ‘She’s gone raving mad.’
Hannah nodded gloomily. There was an old double bed without curtains or posts, covered in a ragged quilt. Apart from that, there was no other furniture except a prie-dieu in the corner. The windows were barred.
‘Now what are we going to do?’ said Hannah Pym.
8
Benjamin Disraeli
The marquess, reluctant all at once to see his sister and to have to explain his sudden engagement and endure all the questions he knew she would throw at him, put up at the Pelican Inn.
He bathed and washed the powder out of his hair and dressed with great care. He felt a lightness of spirit, an absence of loneliness. Soon he would see Belinda again.
He made his way on foot to Glossop Street. An elderly butler answered the door and said courteously that the ladies were not at home, they were out walking.
The marquess was angry. He had said he would call. ‘I am staying at the Pelican,’ he said stiffly, handing over his card. ‘Be so good as to tell the ladies to send for me when they find themselves available to receive me.’
He walked away huffily, his spirits low. What could have happened?
He returned in the evening and looked bewildered when he was met with the same reply. He noticed the old butler could not meet his eyes. So they were lying. Belinda had changed her mind. A pox on all women.
He returned to the Pelican and ordered a bottle of wine and sat moodily in the tap. And then he saw Colonel Harry Audley bearing down on him. He knew the colonel of old and damned him as the biggest bore in Bath.
‘Just come to the city, Frenton?’ asked the colonel, sitting down beside him without asking permission.
‘Yes, and enjoying my own company,’ said the marquess pointedly.
The colonel ignored him and began to prose on about who was in society in Bath and what they had said to him and what he had said to them. The marquess half-closed his eyes and drank his wine and waited for the colonel to dry up and go away.
Dimly, the colonel’s voice penetrated his worried brain. ‘… and quite mad, if you ask me. When old Bellamy died she came to The Bath and we were all prepared to be kind to her, but she got seized with a sort of religious mania. Then she began to see thieves and burglars everywhere. That house of hers in Glossop Street is like a prison.’
‘Whose house?’ asked the marquess suddenly.
‘Ain’t I been telling you, dear boy? Lady Bellamy.’
‘Tell me again.’
The colonel looked gratified at having secured an interested audience at last. ‘Mad as Dick’s hatband is Lady Bellamy. You should take a walk down Glossop Street and have a look at her house. Bars on every window. She occasionally walks out and has two strong footmen to guard her, just as if she expected one of the invalids of The Bath to savage her. Why, I call to mind—’
‘Good evening,’ said the marquess, got to his feet, and hurried out.
Sharp anxiety stabbed at his heart. He now did not believe for a moment that Belinda was avoiding him.
Hannah and Belinda sat miserably in the cold, dark room that was their prison.
‘She hasn’t come yet,’ said Hannah. ‘I am so hungry and thirsty. Wait until I see that aunt and uncle of yours. When I reach London,
‘Seven years ago,’ said Belinda. ‘She was all right in her head then, but very moralizing. The whole of Sunday was taken up with readings from the Bible and sermons.’
‘And what can Frenton be thinking of?’ demanded Hannah. ‘He will have called. He cannot believe we would not see him.’
Belinda turned her head away. ‘He may prefer the charms of Lady Devine.’
‘Now, don’t start that!’ cried Hannah. ‘Ain’t we miserable enough? Mark my words, he pleasured himself with a willing widow who can’t have had her reputation damned by the liaison because she’s now a duchess. Get some sense in your head and refute everything that madwoman has told you.’
A voice sounded behind the door. It was Lady Bellamy. ‘I hope you are praying for the salvation of your souls,’
