25 Pursuit #2
But within an hour, their pursuit ground to a halt. Somewhere between one toll gate and the next, at the very darkest point of the night with no one around to see, Richard’s carriage had turned aside into a smaller road.
The trail had gone cold.
***
Cora had been awake for some time when the door abruptly opened and two women came in.
One placed a tray on the floor while the other emptied the chamber pot into a bucket.
Outside the room, she could see two men standing watchfully.
In moments, before Cora had had time to rise to her feet or even to speak, the women withdrew and the door clanged shut again. She heard bolts sliding into place.
The tray bore a bowl with some brown stuff, stew, perhaps, a piece of bread and a wooden cup of what might be water.
She thought to check her pocket watch — two o’clock, so this was her dinner, at the old-fashioned time.
A little different from the array of exotic dishes at Staineybank, or even Cal’s simpler meals.
What was Cal doing now? Had Richard given him some story to explain her absence?
Had he believed it? Was he calmly working at his lathe, or weeding his vegetable beds, not worried about her at all?
Or was he even now frantically searching for her?
Even if he was, she could not depend on being found, for she was some distance from Staineybank, she knew that much.
It would be necessary to effect her own escape, and to do that she needed her strength as well as her wits.
She ate the stew, unappetising as it was, mopping up every last drop with the bread. Then she drank the water, and waited to see if it had been laced with some sleeping draught. There was no effect. She set herself the task of walking around her tiny room as many times as she could, for exercise.
She was on her seventeenth round when the door opened and a well-dressed man entered, bearing a plain wooden chair. Outside, the two men watched, as before. Guards, she suspected. The man placed the chair carefully and sat down.
“Well, dear, how are you?” he said, beaming at her. “Ate your food, I see. Good, very good. Feeling better, are you?”
“Are you addressing me?” Cora said in some astonishment.
He removed his spectacles and looked at her curiously. “There is no one else here.”
“If you want to talk to me, you had better learn some manners.”
“Ah, interesting. Haughty. I see, I see. And you dress the part. Very good, dear. Yes, I can play, too, if you like. Are you a lady? How do you like to be addressed?”
“You may address me as ‘madam’ and you bow when you enter the room. Also, you do not sit when I am standing.”
He chuckled. “Oh, you do this very well. It shall be as you wish, madam.” He rose and bowed to her. “Now, let us proceed.”
Just then, a male voice from outside the room could be heard, calling, “Dr Hooper, Dr Hooper! Dr Hooper! Ah, there you are.” A young man with red hair appeared in the doorway. “A mistake… a mistake has been made. Mrs Merrington is to go upstairs.”
“Oh! Upstairs! Then you really are a lady.” He chuckled again. “This way, dear… um… madam.”
He ushered her out of the room, past the impassive guards and along a dark corridor lined with closed and barred doors.
The guards moved silently behind them. Up a narrow staircase and then up again to a brighter passageway, lit by a small window and lined with cheap carpeting.
There was a strange smell about the whole place, a mixture of sweat and stale food, together with other odours which she could not identify.
A door was thrown open and she was ushered inside. The two men conducted a low-voiced discussion outside, but clearly some agreement was reached, for the door was closed, bolted on the outside and she was alone again.
The new room was certainly more commodious than her previous quarters.
Quite apart from its much larger size, with windows on two sides overlooking pleasant greenery, it was properly furnished in the manner of a room in a third-rate inn.
The windows even opened, allowing her to take welcome deep breaths of clean air, but bars precluded any thought of escape.
Cora dragged a chair to one of the windows, and sat, her forehead resting against the bars of her prison, and wept.
***
For three days, Cora remained in her new room.
Breakfast arrived at eight in the morning, dinner at two in the afternoon and supper at eight at night, and although the quality was an improvement on the indeterminate stew of her first day in captivity, and the quantity was greater, the food was still not appetising.
A maid came twice a day, once to help her into a thin cotton night gown and once to help her dress in the same clothes she had worn on arrival.
She was offered tepid water in which to wash, but no bath.
All attempts to engage the woman in conversation were met with stony silence.