06.The Penniless Peer (The Eternal Collection) (18 page)

“I do not think that would be at all wise,” Fenella agreed.

“It certainly would not, for our nest-egg is getting low,” Lord Corbury said. “We have wasted too much on this last disaster. £1,500 is a hell of a lot of money! If you ask me, Renshaw should have warned us that the odds were against getting a boat into Hellingly. I have been hearing now that they have a whole armada of ships patrolling that part of the coast and the Dragoons are out every night.”

“I did tell you they were making a special effort to stop the smuggling traffic across the Channel,” Fenella reminded him.

“It is no use crying over spilt milk! “ Lord Corbury said with a characteristic change of voice. “We have had the good fortune to hear about this particular horse and we would be fools not to take advantage of such knowledge.”

 He paused and then he said,

 “£40,000 ! I like the sound of it!”

“Would you — then be able to — offer for — Hetty?” she enquired hesitatingly.

“I should certainly feel more in a position to do so,” Lord Corbury replied.

He rose to his feet as he spoke and said casually,

 “Are you coming over to the Priory this afternoon?”

“I would like to,” Fenella answered, “but I doubt if Anna will let me. I will come tomorrow.”

“I have missed you.”

“Have you — have you really?”

She looked up at him but he was not looking down at her as she had hoped. Instead he was staring across the lawn with a rather strange expression on his face.

“£40,000 ! “ he said again almost beneath his breath.

She knew with a little pain in her heart that he was not thinking of her.

Chapter Eight

“Can I speak to you, Papa?”

The Honourable Lionel Lambert looked up from his book and replied irritably,

 “You can see I am busy!”

“I am sorry, Papa, but I must interrupt you.”

Fenella closed the door behind her and walked towards her father. He was seated at his big desk which was covered with books.

There were in fact books everywhere. Books lining the walls, books piled on the side-tables, books stacked on the floor. There was no room for doubt to anyone entering the room where its owner’s interests lay.

“I have no time for conversation at this moment,” the Honourable Lionel said positively, “and I suspect that once again, Fenella, you have come to ask me for money.”

“Yes I have, Papa, and please understand I would not worry you if it were not of great import.”

“You always say that,” her father retorted.

“Periquine and I are going to Ascot to stay with Uncle Roderick for the races,” Fenella said, “and, Papa, I really have nothing to wear! I cannot go to Ascot like this, can I?”

As she spoke she held out the skirt of her cotton dress then looked at her father with a pleading expression on her face.

“Clothes! clothes! That is all women ever think of!” he said crossly. “If ever there was a waste of money it is expending it on gowns which are out of fashion before they are worn out, or on frills and furbelows which do little to enhance real beauty. The Greeks found them unnecessary.”

“All the same, I expect Greek women wished to look their best for the Games, or whatever it was they went to,” Fenella replied.

Her father did not answer and coaxingly she said,

 “If I were a boy, Papa, I would be far more expensive, you know that! “

“If I had had a son,” the Honourable Lionel Lambert said, “that would have been very different. He would have gone to Eton and then to Oxford, as I did. He would have taken his degree and then we would have been able to travel together. We would have gone to Greece and seen where Homer wrote ‘The Iliad’ and ‘The Odyssey’. We could have admired together the perfection of the Parthenon and the Propylaea built by Pericles to proclaim his ‘full democracy’.”

He gave a deep sigh.

“There would have been many things which would have been of interest to us both. But then I never had a son!”

There was so much feeling in his voice that Fenella could not answer.

She realised for the first time how deeply disappointed her father must have been when she had been born and he had learnt afterwards that her mother could never have another child.

All these years, she thought to herself, he must have resented the fact that she was of the wrong sex.

The reason he grudged her new gowns and anything that appertained to femininity was that he would have so willingly spent a hundred times more on the education and upbringing of a son!

Impulsively Fenella bent forward and kissed her father’s cheek.

“I am sorry I am such a disappointment,” she said softly.

“You are nothing of the sort,” her father replied rather unconvincingly.

He put his fingers in his waistcoat pocket and brought out some sovereigns. He counted them out on the desk. There were five of them.

“That will get you what you need, Fenella.”

Then as if he was no longer interested in her, his eyes went back to his book.

Fenella had opened her lips to say that five pounds would not be enough for what she required, but realised she could not plead any more with him.

She understood now so much that had bewildered her before: the manner in which her father had always been ready to expend money on horses and books, on the upkeep of the house and the estate, but invariably cheese pared and grumbled at anything that was necessary where she was concerned.

She was a girl and he had wanted so desperately that she should be a boy !

As she went from the Library with the sovereigns in her hand, Fenella was thinking not of herself and the problem of what she should wear to go to Ascot, but of her father finding his only solace and happiness in reading, while her mother expended all her energy and interest in the garden.

It was a strange marriage, she thought, and yet in some ways they seemed content with each other. It was only where she was concerned that they both seemed to have a blind spot.

She gave a little sigh and then because, as Anna would have said, ‘What can’t be cured must be endured,’ she tried to think how she could manage to buy almost an entire wardrobe with five pounds.

The very least she required was a dress with a light silk coat to wear over it, a bonnet, gloves and shoes to wear at the races, and an evening gown for dinner.

How could she manage? How was it possible to procure all those things with just five golden sovereigns?

Then she could hear Periquine’s voice saying enthusiastically,

“‘Crusader’ is unknown and they expect him to start at ten to one, if not longer odds!”

If she wagered £5 at ten to one, she would win £50! Here, Fenella thought, was the solution to her problem.

With £50 she could buy clothes that for once would make her look attractive, which would make Periquine proud of her. She could not go to the races feeling that girls like Hetty were looking at her with contempt, or fearing that Periquine would have to apologise for his poor shabby little cousin.

£5o! It was a fortune, and just for once perhaps Periquine would look at her with that glint of admiration in his eyes which he invariably reserved for Hetty.

The road into Ascot was crowded with every sort of vehicle.

There were phaetons, chaises, landaus, barouches, tilburys, gigs, large coaches packed with noisy and enthusiastic race-goers, and crowds of pedestrians on foot, all making their way in a holiday mood towards the Stands gleaming white in the summer sunshine beside the smooth green track.

Sitting beside Lord Corbury in his phaeton, Fenella felt more excited as every minute passed.

She was well aware that many people looked at them admiringly and it was true that they made a singularly handsome couple. Moreover Lord Corbury’s horse-flesh was also beyond criticism.

Fenella had felt that her cup of happiness almost overflowed when he fetched her from the Hall at a very early hour. She had seen as she came down the steps to where he was waiting, an undoubted expression of admiration before he ejaculated,

 “Good Heavens, Fenella, you are so smart I did not recognise you!”

She would not have been honest with herself if she did not realise that she was in fact looking unusually attractive in a gown of daffodil yellow with a silk coat to match, trimmed with pearl buttons and white braid.

Her chip-straw bonnet was decorated with yellow kingcups and it tied under her small chin with satin ribbons of the same colour.

It accentuated the purity of her skin and brought out the red lights in her hair. But it was in fact the excitement and look of happiness in her green eyes and the smile on her lips which made people who looked at her turn to look again.

Lord Corbury himself was not to be outdone in splendour.

When Fenella had gone to Brighton and bought her gowns at a shop where, because they knew her mother, she could obtain credit, she had expended some of her precious money in buying a new cravat for him.

Starched and frilled, it was snowy against his sun-burnt chin, and with his exquisitely cut coat fitting without a wrinkle across his broad shoulders, his Hessian boots shining so brightly that passing traffic was reflected in them, and with his high hat worn at an angle, Fenella was sure that every woman on the Race course who saw him would envy her for being in his company.

Lord Corbury had transferred the gold from the Priest’s Hole into notes and received a good price for it.

That had put him into a good temper, and when Fenella asked him a little hesitantly if he would mind wagering her humble £5 at the same time as his own, he had agreed without the arguments she had expected.

She did not tell him that it was all she possessed or that she had not paid for her clothes. She thought if she did so he would feel obliged to offer her some of his winnings and that she would not accept.

‘He is doing all this for Hetty,’ she told herself, ‘and I would not touch that money, not if I was starving in the gutter!’

She told herself, as she had done so often before, that it was small and petty of her to be jealous of Hetty.

Yet when they walked across the green lawns and saw Hetty coming towards them, it was impossible for Fenella to feel anything but her usual helpless inferiority.

If she was pretty in her new daffodil yellow gown, Hetty was looking radiantly beautiful in a soft strawberry pink ensemble that showed up the fairness of her skin and hair, and made her look like a rosebud.

“Periquine! How delightful to see you!” she said to Lord Corbury holding out the small white gloved hand and raising her china-blue eyes to his with a gesture which was calculated to send any impressionable young man into a fever of delight.

Fenella looked away. Somehow she could not bear to see the expression on Periquine’s face.

She felt the happiness and elation that had been hers ever since they left home, ebb away from her.

‘Perhaps after today,’ she told herself, ‘Periquine will be in a position to ask Sir Virgil for Hetty’s hand in marriage!’ Then it would not matter what she wore or what she did, Periquine would be lost to her!

It was with a slight feeling of comfort that she saw Sir Nicolas approaching.

“I was not expecting to see you here today,” he said as he reached her side, “you did not tell me you were coming.”

“Periquine made up his mind only at the last moment,” Fenella answered uncomfortably.

She knew that Sir Nicolas would think it strange when she appeared at Ascot, but she had not warned him of their intention to be present lest Periquine should think she was betraying his interest in the horse they were to back.

Looking up into Sir Nicolas’ s face she wondered if in fact Periquine’s information was correct.

Could it be possible that Sir Nicolas’s stable of all stables would do anything that was even slightly crooked, or arrange a race so that an outsider won rather than the favourite?

Then she told herself that it was too late to ask questions or to do anything but acquiesce in Periquine’s plans.

 “Come and look at the horses in the paddock.” Sir Nicolas suggested.

Fenella knew it was because he wanted to talk to her alone. She glanced at Lord Corbury to see him deep in conversation with Hetty and her escort. Because she felt forgotten, Fenella said quickly ,

“I would like that.”

“Did you get my letter?” Sir Nicolas asked as they moved away.

“I have had three letters from you,” Fenella answered, “since you left the Hall.”

“And you have not answered one of them.”

“I have been meaning to, but I have had so much to do these last few days.”

“Looking after Corbury, I suppose,” Sir Nicolas said bitterly.

It was the truth and Fenella did not deny it.

She had been getting Periquine’s clothes ready, tidying the Priory and finding that because her arm still hurt her a little, she grew tired rather easily.

When she returned home she had been glad to flop into bed and be fussed over by Anna rather than sit down and answer letters.

Besides it was very difficult to know what to say in answer to Sir Nicolas’s protestations of love.

She had not imagined he would be so romantic or indeed so poetical, but she had learnt now that, while he found it difficult to say the things he felt in his heart, he could pour them out on paper and be in fact very eloquent.

“My letters do not bore you?” he asked suddenly, and she saw by the expression on his face that he was afraid of her answer.

“No of course not,” she said gently, “I am proud that you should want to write to me and I value your letters.”

“Is that the truth?” he enquired.

“I promise you one thing,” Fenella answered, “I will never lie to you.”

Even as she spoke she felt a little guilty. She was not lying to him, but she was keeping something from him that she thought he ought to know.

Then she knew that she could not under any circumstances betray Periquine’s secret.

She changed the subject and discussed the horses. Sir Nicolas was very knowledgeable on the subject and when they strolled back from the paddock towards the lawns below the Royal Box he said,