CHAPTER EIGHT
Grace stared at the bed, which Jemima had remade and upon which, so short a time ago, she and Henri had been sitting together, talking. The approach of Sir James’s phaeton had been hastily discussed, and Grace had gone down with the intention of putting him off.
“What is it, my dear?”
Grace turned. “He is not in his room.”
A frown creased his brow. “Had he been in the habit of remaining in here?”
“For the most part, especially after the Frenchmen caught us unawares on Saturday.” A faint stirring of relief was beginning to make itself felt, but Grace ignored it. “He must have come down.”
Sir James crossed to the window and looked out, peering this way and that as if he sought Henri in the lane. The conviction grew on Grace that Henri was not in the house, and she went out on to the landing, calling down the stairs.
“Jemima!”
She had to call twice more before the maid popped out of the kitchen. She was looking absurdly conscious, and Grace’s certainty grew.
“Yes, miss?”
“Have you seen Mister Henry?”
Silence. Jemima looked away, and her fingers twisted in one of her frizzed locks. Sir James joined Grace on the landing, and she began her dot-and-carry tread down the stairs. Behind her, the voice of authority was beginning to sound displeased.
“Dear me, Grace, this doesn’t look at all promising.”
Grace did not answer. She reached the bottom and caught Jemima by the arm. “Where is he?”
The maid flicked a glance at Sir James, standing on the last step, and her eyes came back to Grace. “He’s gone, Miss Grace.”
A flood of feeling cascaded into Grace’s bosom, but she gave it no name. Her control did not falter. “When?”
Jemima shuffled a little. “It were when Sir James and you was talking in the parlour. He come down quiet, like, and I seen him listening. Then he turned round and — and winked at me, miss. He put his finger to his lip, like, meaning as I shouldn’t say nothing.
And then he upped and left by the back door. ”
“You let him go?”
The maid began to sniffle, fidgeting with her apron.
“I didn’t know as he was going, miss, not at first. I followed him after a bit.
Then I seen he took his greatcoat as was hung on a hook to one side after I cleaned up the mess — for Mister Henry had laid on it when he were hiding.
I rushed out then, Miss Grace, truly I did.
But though I looked up and down and sideways, I couldn’t see nor hide nor hair of him. ”
“But he had only been gone a couple of minutes, girl,” protested Sir James. “Surely he must have left some trace.”
“Nothing, sir. I think he must’ve gone by way o’ the wheat fields, for they’re ready for harvest, and them Frenchies had trodden ’em down Saturday, so’s none could tell if Mister Henry went the same way. He could’ve gone into the copse or round back of them bushes and none the wiser.”
It struck Grace that Henri might merely be hiding out until Sir James should have left. That he had gone, without a word of farewell to her, was impossibly wrong. Except that she ought to be glad if it was so. She was spared the misery of begging him for answers and hearing only lies.
Sir James was heading for the front door. “I’d best set Mayberry and Wooferton to send out a search party. He can’t have got far. They’re awaiting me at South Hall, so it won’t take long to set the men off after him.”
In spite of all, Grace jumped instantly to the most important defence. “You will not tell those Frenchmen he has escaped, will you?”
For the first time, Sir James showed anger. “What do you take me for, Grace? The fellow may be a damned revolutionary, but this is English soil. I’m hanged if I let a set of French upstarts dictate to me on my own ground!”
The door was tugged open, and with a brief word of farewell, he was gone. In a moment, they could hear the sound of his horses, speeding away down the lane.
Ignoring the twittering emanating from her maid, Grace stumped slowly back into the parlour and slumped down into the chair at her bureau. Sagging, she dropped her face into her hands.
“Oh, Miss Grace, don’t be downhearted! I’m sure as Mister Henry will be safe. He won’t let hisself be taken, for he ain’t no fool.”
No, indeed. He was rather a man keenly intelligent, who knew exactly how to avoid revealing the most incriminating truths.
“I’ll get you some tea, Miss Grace,” said Jemima briskly. “That’ll put heart into you, that will.”
Grace thanked her, glad only that it gave the girl something to do and kept her away. She desperately needed time to think.
In the event, she had too much time.
The sound of the hunt had died away in the little house at Wonts.
Grace had listened to the calling of the men across the fields as the steady search went on into the evening.
In her imagination, she followed Henri as he kept just sufficiently ahead, dropping out of sight every time any one of them threatened too close for safety.
Almost she could see him tiring, and visualise the slowing down of his weakened frame, the ache that must be setting up in his shoulder.
She was glad she had not told Sir James of Henri’s declared scheme of heading north.
Reuben, who might have done so, was not among the searchers.
Nor had Mab arrived. Had her stepson told her Henri had gone?
Or had the news of his disappearance and the subsequent search not filtered as far as East Hall?
Both Mayberry’s farmhands and Wooferton’s own men, brought from Rainham, had joined the hunt, which presupposed the inevitable end expected to Sir James Levisham’s visit.
They had been in readiness to take Henri the moment he gave the word.
Whatever he had done, whatever his past actions in France, Grace could not make it any easier for the authorities.
Had she not been numb with shock, she knew she would have done all in her power to prevent Sir James from meeting Henri.
As it was, he had taken matters into his own hands and she was spared the guilt of having betrayed him.
She felt as if she had been sitting at her bureau for hours.
Her eyes strayed frequently to the shelf behind which the hidden cache held its secret.
When her head had cleared, she had taken the first opportunity to check.
The papers were all there. When the time was propitious, she meant to look at them again. Before Henri came back.
Jemima had come and gone with cups of tea or coffee, accompanied once by a buttered scone, and later by a slice of bread and jam, both of which she had taken away again untouched, tutting and shaking her head.
Grace had no excuses, nor could she find words to allay the maid’s distress.
Her own was too acute, too deeply etched into the well of anxiety that possessed her. She wanted only to be left alone.
Dusk was gathering, and Grace had lit the candles in the candelabrum that stood upon her bureau, when a faint rhythmic sound in the distance proved to be the trotting of horses and the jingle of harness.
It grew louder, in rhythm with the rising patter at her heart, and came to a halt outside her door.
Sir James! Was he come to tell her Henri had been captured?
She waited, motionless, her eyes turned towards the parlour door. His features were grim as he entered, the grizzled brows drawn close together. “No sign of him.”
A faint breath sighed out of Grace, but she said nothing.
“Wooferton has been back to Rainham, and he reports the Frenchmen have been out all day. We’re returning to the Black Horse now, in hopes of their return. It’s to be hoped the fellow has not fallen foul of them in his haste to escape us, my dear Grace.”
Her stomach hollowed out, and it was all Grace could do to refrain from groaning aloud. She clung to the belief Henri had been one step ahead of all his enemies, the Frenchmen included.
She managed to find a response. “You will send me word?”
“The moment I hear anything.” The severity in his features relaxed, and he crossed the room, dropping a hand upon her shoulder. There was a rough kindness in his voice. “Try to sleep, my dear. There is nothing to be gained by worrying.”
“You are very good, sir,” said Grace mechanically.
She made to rise, but he stopped her. “Don’t get up. I’ll let myself out.”
Grace bade him goodnight. His departure brought Jemima into the room, her candle held aloft.
“You’ve ate nothing, Miss Grace. Can’t you fancy a bite o’ supper?”
“I’m not hungry.”
The maid sighed. “Well, shall I lock up then?”
Grace stared at her, blank with incomprehension. “Why ask me?”
Jemima fidgeted with the candlestick, prising off bits of stuck wax. “I was only thinking, if — if Mister Henry do come back, he won’t be able to get in.”
Her heart jerked. How had Jemima guessed it?
The question shot out. “What makes you think he will come back?”
The maid sidled a little. “I dunno. Could be as he ain’t as best healed as he thinks for. Might’ve not gone far enough afore them lot went a-searching of him.”
Grace eyed her as she shrugged. The girl was being uncharacteristically evasive.
She could not know what her mistress knew.
Henri needed those papers. Unless he was depending upon Grace to take them to the authorities, should it become necessary?
It was what he had said to her days since, when he had given them back into her keeping.
But how would she know, were he taken outside this area?
No, it made no sense. He would be back for them.
If not tonight, then tomorrow. Only she hoped he did not mean to spend the night in the open.
It was hot still by day, but the nights were chill.
Then again, Grace needed time alone to re-examine the papers. Break the seals on those important ones, if need be. Let Henri signal his coming. There was nothing to stop him knocking to be let in.
She made up her mind. “Lock up. He is not coming back.”