CHAPTER THREE

Reluctantly taking leave of her father Eleanor climbed the staircase to the next floor by the dim light of an oil lamp left on a table in the hall below.

    She paused on the landing, listening. The house was very silent. It was strange, she reflected, that in a rooming house of this size there were to footfalls and doors slamming at this time of an evening, when roomers would be returning from their daily activities or going out for evening’s entertainment.

    She could almost believe that she and her father were the only roomers. The idea was disturbing, and she could not feel easy.

    She entered her room with a sinking heart. It was no more welcoming than that of her father’s. She lit the half of a tallow candle she had been given by Mrs Possimer, undressed and got into bed which, she was relieved to see, was quite clean.

    The room was bitterly cold and she felt the chill even under the bedclothes. She was hungry, too.

    Earlier Mrs Possimer had grudgingly supplied her with a meal; cold mutton and a glass of inferior beer. It had hardly satisfied her then, and now hunger gnawed.

    The idea that there were no other roomers in the house continued to disturb her and recklessly, she allowed the tallow to continue to burn as she lay there, sleepless.

    She considered and re-considered all that had taken place that evening. She had never spoken to her father in such a manner before, and felt thoroughly ashamed at her own thoughtless behaviour.

    With her cheek against the cold pillow she reflected that she could not believe her father meant her to marry Mr Granville against her own wishes.

    He had been tired and more than a little desperate. She was certain he would be of a different mind on the morrow, and she decided that she would delay her return to Charnock Park until they could speak again on the matter.

    She felt ashamed, too, that she had not told her father that her letter to Lady Constance Dunstan had contained a plea that Lord Dunstan should assist her father in some way. Was it already too late now that Mr Granville had bought up all his debts?

    The thought that Frederick Grandville should take possession of Charnock Park made her toss and turn fitfully on the narrow bed, and filled her with great anger and despair. These turbulent thoughts kept her awake until the tallow fluttered out and the room dropped into darkness.

Some time later the sound of someone pounding on her door made her wake with a start. For a moment she did not know where she was. A woman’s voice calling her name through the closed door soon brought reality crowding in on her.

    She slipped out of bed into the numbing coldness of the room, and reached out to find the tinder box, remembering then with a despairing groan that the tallow candle was finished.

    ‘Just a moment, Mrs Possimer,’ she called, searching blindly for her wrap to drape over her night-gown. On bare feet she edged her way to the door, turned the key and opened it.

    Mrs Possimer stood on the threshold. By the light of the candle the woman held Eleanor was surprised to see that she was fully dressed in the same high-necked black dress she had worn earlier.

    It occurred to Eleanor that Mrs Possimer had not been to bed at all, and she wondered why.

    ‘Why do you disturb me?’ Eleanor asked haughtily, not a little put out.

    ‘You’d better come down to the parlour,’ Mrs Possimer said brusquely. ‘There is a person asking to speak with you.’

    ‘At this time of night? There must be some error,’ Eleanor answered stiffly, not liking the woman’s manner. ‘I know no one in London. You had better wake my father. It is sure to be some matter of business of his.’

    ‘Sir Edward has not returned,’ the woman said coldly. ‘The man asked to speak with Miss Eleanor Wellesley. I would not delay. I fear it is a matter of some seriousness.’

    Eleanor felt a tremor of alarm strike at her heart. ‘Very well, I will dress,’ she said.

    She hastily slipped into her travelling dress of dark blue kerseymere and placed her woollen wrap around her shoulders. There was no time to dress her hair, so she allowed it to flow loose about her shoulders and over the wrap.

    When she entered the lamp-lit parlour some minutes later she was confronted by an individual of rough appearance who’s ill-fitting and shabby clothes seemed too big for his lanky body. His pallid unshaven face had a livid scar that ran from brow to chin.

    His eyes were shifty and it seemed to Eleanor that he would look anywhere except directly at her. The smell of liquor mixed with the odour of squalor was heavy in the air about him. Eleanor wondered that he had been allowed to enter the house at all.

    She gave Mrs Possimer a questioning look, but the woman’s face was impassive.

    ‘Speak your piece, Jake,’ Mrs Possimer said harshly.

    Jake chose a particular swirl in the pattern of the carpet and stared fixedly at it.

    ‘I comes from the Phoenix Club, St James’ Street,’ he muttered in a guttural accent.

    Mrs Possimer gave a snort of disgust. Jake threw her a quick glance and then continued.

    ‘I was send by a gent as know yer...’

    ‘What gent? I mean, what gentleman? Eleanor interrupted quickly.

    ‘Cove by the moniker of Granville.’

    Eleanor’s hand flew to her throat. ‘Frederick Granville? He knows I am here? What does he want of me?’

    ‘I’m atelling yer, lady,’ Jake said impatiently. ‘He wants yer to know that yer farver is a gonner, miss.’

    ‘What? What do you mean?’

    ‘He was plugged by another certain cove. Taplow’s his moniker, Silas Taplow.’

    ‘Plugged? I don’t understand.’

    ‘Sir Edward is dead,’ Mrs Possimer pronounced brutally. ‘Shot by someone named Silas Taplow. The Phoenix Club is a notorious den of gambling and vice; a wicket evil place. I’m not surprised Sir Edward died there.’

    Eleanor felt the world revolve giddily and she sank onto a nearby chair.

    ‘My father dead? No, that can’t be,’ she whispered desperately. ‘There is a mistake in his identity. My father would not frequent such a place.’

    Mrs Possimer jerked her head at the man Jake and he reluctantly slunk out of the room.

    Eleanor sat with her hands covering her face. Her mind could not take in what she had been told. This was a nightmare from which she would soon wake. She squeezed her eye lids tightly together for a moment and then opened them and looked through the lattice of her fingers.

    Mrs Possimer stood before her, ill-disguised contempt on her face. ‘It’s no mistake, and well you know it,’ she said tersely. ‘Four weeks’ rent he owes. I’ll take his belongings in lieu, though precious little I’ll get for them.’

    Eleanor started up, astonished and angered by the woman’s callousness. ‘This is outrageous!’ she burst out. ‘I’ll not allow it.’

    Mrs Possimer smiled thinly. ‘I have already locked his room, although if you can pay me the four guineas he owes, then well and good.’

    ‘Four guineas!’ Eleanor cried in consternation. ‘I do not have it.’

    Such a sum of money had never been in her possession. She had only enough to post back to Northamptonshire, and a bed and meals at the stops.

    ‘Surely you can wait for the money,’ Eleanor said strongly. ‘Mr Twigg, my father’s man of business will see that you are paid.’

    Mrs Possimer snorted disparagingly. ‘Do you take me for a flatt? I have it on good authority that your late papa was very short of the readies, indeed, some say he was wiped out long since.’

    ‘How dare you speak to me like that,’ Eleanor cried out, flushing deeply with anger.

    She faced Mrs Possimer with a fearless expression of her face, yet inside she felt sorrow grow more piercing with each passing minute, and also a burgeoning despair.

    Her father was dead and now she was alone with no one she could turn to for help and advice at this moment. Mrs Possimer would take possession of her father’s belongings and she was unable to prevent it.

    Mrs Possimer’s thin smile revealed that she was well aware of her own power in the matter. Defeated, Eleanor turned to leave the parlour, determined to pack her own few things and post out of London at the earliest hour possible.

    As she was about to leave the room she heard heavy footsteps on the staircase from the front door below, and a man’s voice called out a sharp order.

    Eleanor turned a questioning glance on Mrs Possimer and was astonished to see a rapid and remarkable change occur in the lodging-keeper.

    A bright flush coloured Mrs Possimer’s otherwise sallow cheeks and her face assumed a simpering expression. Patting her hair, she bustled forward to meet the newcomer, unceremoniously pushing past Eleanor in the doorway.

    ‘Good morning, sir, I trust you are well?’

    Conscious of the hour, Eleanor hesitated to go out into the passage where the unseen stranger stood in murmured conversation with the lodging-keeper.

    Within moments Mrs Possimer came back into the room, the flush still on her face.

    ‘Sir Edward’s arrears of rent have been waived by the gracious condescension of my employer, Miss Wellesley,’ she announced imperiously. ‘Therefore you may take what you will of his belongings.’

    The sense of relief that swept over Eleanor made her legs weak, and she sank onto the chair once again.

    ‘Oh, thank heavens for such kindness,’ Eleanor breathed. ‘Please convey my most heart-felt thanks to the gentleman, your employer, whoever he may be.’

    Mrs Possimer tilted her head in acknowledgement of the thanks as though they were justly hers.

    ‘He would speak with you before you retire once more,’ she said.

    The shock of the tragic news was beginning to take its toll; her growing grief together with lack of sleep had near exhausted her, but Eleanor rallied bravely.

    Her prayers had been answered in a most unexpected manner. It would be churlish to refuse to speak with her benefactor, even though it would be more propitious to do so in the morning.

    Eleanor nodded her consent and Mrs Possimer departed directly, while Eleanor rested her head wearily against the back of the chair.

    A cough from someone who had entered the room brought her eyes open again and she rose to her feet with further thanks on her lips.

    When her astonished gaze fell upon the tall, elegant figure of Mr Frederick Granville standing before her, Eleanor though she would faint away.

    Struggling to retain her senses, she reached for the chair again and lowered herself into it, clutching the wrap around her. Fearfully, she looked up into his face, her heart racing.

    Fate had dealt her a severe blow in the death of her father, but instinct told her she was now in an even worse plight. She was in the hands of a man she believed to be thoroughly evil.