Voices in a Haunted Room

Oh, what a cruel world this had become.

There were riots in some parts of the country due to the high price of food. I wondered if Leon Blanchard had helped to rouse the mobs. Jonathan was right. Agitators must be eliminated-even young men like Alberic.

There was some consternation when Spain made peace with France; and it seemed that all our allies were deserting us because they realized that France, led by this adventuring Corsican Napoleon Bonaparte, war-torn though it was by revolution, was a power to be reckoned with.

It was afternoon. I had been in the garden and as I came in I saw Grace Soper on the lawn with the babies. Jessica was now a year old, Amaryllis a little younger.

They were both crawling all over the place and could now take a few staggering steps.

Soon they would be running about.

“That’s the time we shall have to watch them,” said Grace Soper. “My word, that Miss Jessica, she’s a little madam, she is. She wants this, she wants that and I’ll tell you this, Mrs. Frenshaw, she won’t be happy till she gets what takes her fancy. Miss Amaryllis is such a good little girl.”

My mother took as much pride in Jessica’s waywardness as I did hi Amaryllis’s docility; they were both perfect in our eyes.

I looked into the little carriage hi which they slept side by side. Jessica with her dark hair and long sweeping lashes, cheeks faintly tinted, was beautiful in a striking way; I thought she might be like my mother except that her eyes were dark and my mother’s a brilliant blue. “She must get them from some of her fiery French ancestors,” my mother said.

“The Eversleighs can be somewhat fiery too on occasions,” I replied.

She admitted it. “Amaryllis looks like a little angel,” she said; and so she did with her fair hair and blue eyes and a certain air of fragility which alarmed me sometimes but which Grace Soper said was due to small bones, and that my Amaryllis was in as perfect health as her robust nursery companion Jessica.

I left them slumbering side by side under the shadow of a sycamore tree on that peaceful August afternoon and went into the house.

It must have been about half an hour later when I heard shrieks coming from the garden.

I hastily ran downstairs. Grace Soper was there with my mother and they were both distracted. All my mother could say was: “It can’t be ... How can it be? What does it mean?”

Grace was shaking so much that she could scarcely speak.

“The babies ...”

My mother cried: “Jessica ... she’s not there ...”

I looked into the baby carriage. Floods of relief swept over me, for Amaryllis was lying there fast asleep. But then the horror of what had happened dawned on me. Jessica was missing.

“How ... what has happened?” I cried.

“They were asleep,” stammered Grace. “I went into the house. I was only gone five minutes ... When I came out ...”

“She can’t be far,” said my mother.

“Could she have got out of the carriage?”

Grace shook her head. “They were both strapped in. I always see to that.”

“Oh, God help us,” I prayed. “Someone has taken Jessica.”

Fortunately Dickon was at home and he took charge in that calm efficient way of his.

“The strap could have been loose,” he said. “She might have undone it.”

“It wouldn’t have been easy for her to get out even then,” said my mother. “Someone’s taken her. Oh ... Dickon ... who? Who? We must find her.”

“We’ll find her,” said Dickon. “Now first of all we must have a thorough search of the garden and all around. It is possible that she could have got out. She could have crawled into the bushes somewhere. That’s where she’ll be. We’ll waste no more time.”

The servants had come running out of the house. Everyone was deeply shocked. The search began; but although the gardens were thoroughly checked there was no sign of Jessica.

I took Amaryllis from the carriage. I couldn’t bear to let her out of my sight. Poor Grace Soper was in a state of collapse, blaming herself, which we assured her she should not do. She was an excellent nurse and I had been assiduous in her care for the babies. She had left them for only five minutes asleep in their carriage.

The straps were examined. There was nothing wrong with them and that brought us to the only conclusion.

Jessica had been kidnapped.

Dickon said that there would almost certainly be a demand for ransom.

“I hope so,” said my mother. “I hope so ... soon ... anything, just anything, to get my baby back.”

Dickon himself led a party and searched and questioned everyone on the estate.

The news spread.

I don’t know how we lived through the rest of that day. My mother was distracted.

I think we all were. It was so unexpected.

Dickon immediately had posters set up in the town offering a reward for any news of his daughter. He sent messengers out to all the neighbouring towns and to the ports.

By the end of the day we were all exhausted with anxiety. Night had fallen and there was still no sign of the child. There was nothing further we could do. We all knew it. We sat in the punch room-silent and desperate.