A Duke in Danger (8 page)

It was all so primitive that the Duke felt it was an insult that anyone who was refined and educated, as Miss Richardson obviously was, should have to live in such a place.

Yet, if the previous Duke had turned her away, as Walton had said, and she had nowhere else to go, it at least constituted a roof over her head.

He could hear voices in the next room, although he could not hear what they were saying.

Then the door opened and Miss Richardson said in a quiet, controlled voice:

“Would Your Grace come in?”

The Duke rose and again had to lower his head to enter what he thought was the smallest Sitting-Room he had ever been in.

It was so tiny that there was only just room for two very ancient armchairs and a desk which looked as if it might have come out of the School-Room, with a small chair in front of it.

Again, the windows had curtains that had once been of expensive material, and the paintings on the walls were amateur water-colours.

These he suspected had been done by Miss Richardson’s pupils, one of them of course being Alvina herself.

His cousin rose as he entered. He saw that she had been crying and her eyes were enormous in her small face.

Because she looked so woebegone and very young, the Duke suddenly felt he had been unjustly brutal, in fact, unsportsmanlike, to someone so vulnerable and defenceless.

As he heard the door close behind him he said, and his voice was very quiet and sincere:

“I have come to apologise.”

It was obviously something she had not expected, and for a moment she looked at him incredulously, but she did not speak.

“How could I have known—how could I have guessed for one moment,” the Duke asked, “that your father did not leave you with any money, and that the staff in the Castle should have been reduced to what it is now?”

As if she felt embarrassed, Alvina looked down, her lashes dark against the whiteness of her skin, and he suspected they were still wet.

“Let us sit down and talk about it,” the Duke said. “There is so much I want you to tell me, and I can only ask you to forgive me for upsetting you.”

He spoke in a way that both men and women found irresistible when he was being diplomatic, and as if she felt her legs could no longer support her, Alvina sank down onto the chair she had just vacated.

The Duke sat a little gingerly in the one opposite. “Suppose we start at the beginning,” he said, “and you tell me why your father would not give you any money when there is in the Bank a very large sum which I have now inherited.”

“A large ... sum?” Alvina asked in a voice little above a whisper. “Do you ... mean that we are not ... bankrupt?”

“Of course not,” the Duke replied. “Your father died a very rich man. Surely the Solicitors told you that?”

“We have no Solicitors.”

“What do you mean, you have no Solicitors?”

He felt that once again he was asking questions too sharply, and he added quickly:

“Forgive me, but I am completely bewildered as to what has happened, and there appears to be no-one but yourself who can tell me anything.”

“Papa was so ... sure that we were absolutely ... penniless.”

“Walton has told me that your father was not at all himself after Richard died,” the Duke answered, almost as if he was making excuses.

“That was true,” Alvina agreed. “At the same time, even before that Papa had become very alarmed. He kept on talking about economy, and I think perhaps he had always been very cautious where money was concerned. Only Mama insisted on making everything so happy and comfortable for us at the Castle.”

“That is how I remember it,” the Duke said, “and there were certainly no economies at Richard’s twenty-first party.”

“Mama planned that,” Alvina said, “and when Richard was
k
illed I was so very ... very glad he ... had enjoyed it so ... much.”

“I always think of him enjoying life to the full,” the Duke said. “When we were at Oxford together he never worried about his studies, although he did quite well. But he took part in every sport, and no party was complete without him.”

He saw the expression on Alvina’s face and added:

“I saw him just before he was killed, and he was laughing then and made a rather facetious bet with me about the length of the war.”

There were tears in Alvina’s eyes, which she managed to control before she said:

“Had Richard come ... home, things would have been very ... different, but when he died ... I think Papa ... died too.”

There was silence until the Duke said:

“Tell me what happened.”

“As I have said, Papa was already making many economies before that, and afterwards, now that I think about it, he was not himself ... almost like a stranger ... and he refused to give me any money.”

She paused, then said:

“
I know you are angry with me for pawning all those things, but I could not let the pensioners starve or go to the Workhouse. He would not pay the Waltons their wages or even give me enough money to feed them.”

The Duke was frowning as he asked:

“Surely there was someone who could have helped you, even though you had no Solicitors? Walton tells me that there is no Estate Manager, and what happened to the Trustees?”

Alvina made a helpless little gesture with her hands. “One had died before Richard went to France, another lived until last year and was very old and deaf, and the third, Sir John Sargent, lives in Scotland and never comes South.”

“So there was no-one to help you?”

“No-one. I thought of appealing to the family, but Papa had quarrelled with most of them, and when the rest no longer received the allowance he had always given them, they wrote him furious letters, which he refused to read.”

The Duke put his hands to his forehead as if he found it hard to credit before he said:

“As you really had no money, I can understand that you did the only thing possible, but I am still finding it difficult to credit that in your position there was no-one who could have helped you.”

“I thought and thought of everyone,” Alvina replied, “but after Mama died, Papa quarrelled with so many people, not only our relations but everyone in the County. He refused to entertain and just sat reading the newspapers, hoping the war would end and Richard would come home.”

As if she thought the Duke did not understand, she added:

“Richard was the only person who could have persuaded Papa to look after the people on the Estate and the family who depended on him. He also would have prevented him from dismissing all the old servants. Papa would not listen to me.”

She gave a deep sigh and continued:

“He always blamed me because Mama was not very strong after I was born, and he had so much wanted me to be a boy.”

Her voice trembled for a moment and then she said:

“After Richard was killed he hated me, because he had no son to inherit.”

She did not say any more, and in some strange way the Duke could almost read her thoughts.

He knew almost, as if she had said it aloud, that she was remembering how her father had shouted at her to get out of his sight because she was alive while Richard was dead.

For the first time since he had come into the room, he looked at what she was wearing and was aware that her gown was worn and threadbare.

Although she may have deliberately worn something old because she had been cleaning the Library, he had the feeling that it was many years since she had spent anything on herself.

Almost as if she, similarly, could read his thoughts, she said as if he had asked her the question:

“I have not been able to spend anything on myself for years, and when my own dresses became too small for me, I wore Mama’s. But as I had so much work to do in the house when Papa had sent all the servants away, I would have been almost naked had it not been for Miss Richardson!”

She glanced toward the door into the kitchen and went on:

“She mended my gowns and even made me a new one from material that had been bought when Mama was alive, to be used for muslin curtains.”

She tried to smile as she spoke, but the Duke knew it was an effort.

“What gave you the idea of pawning the things instead of selling them?” he asked.

“I am not so stupid as not to realise that everything in the Castle is entailed,” Alvina replied, “just as it is in Harlington House in London.”

She drew in her breath before she said:

“To be honest, I went through the inventories very carefully, to find out if there was anything that could be sold, but I could find nothing.”

“So you went to that man Pinchbeck. How did you hear of him?”

“I often think,” Alvina answered in a low voice, “that there is no such thing as chance in life and that everything is meant.”

“I have thought that myself,” the Duke agreed. “When Richard, was at Oxford he had got into debt, and when he came home to ask for money, Papa was in one of his bad moods and gave him a tremendous lecture on extravagance. He paid up, but Richard found to his consternation one bill he had overlooked by mistake.”

Alvina’s voice softened as she went on.

“He brought it to me and said:

“ ‘Look ’Vina,’ ... that was what he used to call me ... ‘I am in a mess and dare not ask Papa for any more, and these people are pressing me.’

“I had no money of my own then, for I was just a child, and then almost as if someone told me what to answer him, I said:

“ ‘I was reading a book the other day about some shops in London with three golden balls outside them, and Miss Richardson told me they were what are called pawn-brokers.’

“When I said that, Richard jumped up and said:

“ ‘How could I have been so stupid? You are a clever girl, ’Vina, and that is where my gold cuff-links, my gold watch, and quite a number of things I have of value will be resting tonight.’

“He kissed me,” Alvina went on, “swung me round in his arms, and said:

“ ‘I have the cleverest sister in the world, and a very pretty one, too.’ ”

“So that is how you know of Emmanuel Pinchbeck,” the Duke remarked.

“Richard told me,” Alvina replied, “what he had managed to borrow on all his things, and afterwards, when Papa was in a good temper and gave him quite a large sum, he got them all back.”

“Well, fortunately enough, you chose an honest pawn-broker,” the Duke said. “Pinchbeck has not disposed of anything you left with him, even though he had been tempted to. As soon as I arrived this morning at Berkeley Square he came to see me.”

“So that is ... how you ... knew,” Alvina whispered.

“Yes.”

“And it made you ... very angry.”

“Very angry indeed,” the Duke said, “because I did not understand.”

“And now you ... do?”

“I can only apologise for misjudging you and for making you more unhappy than you must have been already.”

She gave a little sigh which seemed to come from the depths of her heart, then she said:

“Now there is some money in the Bank. What do you intend to do?”

“I intend,” the Duke said slowly, “to make the Castle look exactly as I remember it when I last saw you, but I am sure you will tell me that first we have to see to the pensioners, the relations, and anyone else who has suffered since your father, or rather Richard, died.”

Alvina gave a little exclamation and clasped her hands together, and once more the tears were glittering in her eyes.

“Do you ... mean that?” she asked almost in a whisper. “Do you really ... mean it?”

“Of course I mean it,” the Duke answered, “but I cannot do all that has to be done, and quickly, unless you help me.”

“Do you ... really want ... me?”

He smiled.

“You know the answer to that question, and, quite frankly, I do not know how to begin until you show me the way.”

“I have written down in a book everything that I have spent,” Alvina said. “You will see, when you read it, that
it is not only the pensioners and relations who have suffered, but also the farmers and everyone else on the Estate.”

The Duke looked puzzled.

“When the farmers could not pay their rents, Papa wanted to turn them out,” Alvina explained.

“So you sold something and let him think the rents had been paid,” the Duke said quickly.

She nodded.

“He also wanted to shut up the whole Castle and said that as he was bedridden there was no need for him to keep any of the servants except for his valet. All the rest could leave.”

The Duke looked at her incredulously.

“And who was to cook and clean the house?”

“Papa said I could do that.”

Seeing the size of the Castle, the Duke could hardly believe that what he was hearing was the truth, and he exclaimed:

“Your father must have been quite mad.”

“I suppose he was,” Alvina agreed. “He used to get into terrible rages with me simply because I was not the second son he had wanted.”

As if the Duke felt it was a mistake for her to think about how the late Duke had hated her personally, he said:

“What happened to his valet?”

“He died two months ago,” Alvina replied. “He was very old, and I think he just kept going for my sake and because, like the Waltons, if he left the Castle he would have had to go to the Workhouse or starve.”

“I cannot believe it,” the Duke said again.

He thought of the value of the paintings, the statues, the furniture, and all the other incredibly rare treasures the Castle contained.

Yet, because the last Duke had obviously been crazy, so many people in it had actually been near to death simply for want of food.

“Of course,” Alvina said, “you can understand that I
dared not repair the pensioners’ cottages, which are in a very bad state, and I also could not increase their pensions, because I really believed, since Papa kept on saying so, there was no money in the Bank.”

She gave a deep sigh and went on:

“But at least they managed on the few shillings I gave them each week, and Papa was not aware that the farmers were begging me every month to help them when they had leaking roofs, cow-sheds which were tumbling down, and implements which they had no chance of replacing.”