An Introduction To The Eternal Collection Jubilee Edition (118 page)

“Oh Caroline, I hope so,” Harriet said, “but at the same time I am afraid because you are going to the Castle. It is a strange place and there are rumours about it too. There are supposed to be ghosts there, and none of the villagers will go anywhere near it after dark. They say they have heard wild, unearthly shrieks coming from the old towers.”

“I do not credit there are such things as ghosts,” Caroline said scornfully. “Tell me, what was the last Lord Brecon like?”

“I have no idea,” Harriet replied. “He died when I was quite tiny - sometimes I think there was a mystery about him too. People seem curiously reluctant to talk about him, and if I question Papa, he always changes the subject and talks about the Dowager Lady Brecon. She is, in truth, a lovely person, with nothing sinister or strange about her, but it just seems as if she is hardly living in this world.”

Caroline gave a little sigh of impatience.

“It sounds a sorry tangle to me,” she said, “but at the same time I want above all things to stay at Brecon Castle. Oh, Harriet, suppose I fail to obtain the position.”

She looked across the room at the clock on the mantelpiece.

“It is four o’clock,” she said. ‘One thing is, certain and that is that Maria must have been accepted, otherwise she would have returned here as I instructed her.”

“If she has been fortunate, perhaps you will be fortunate too, dear Caroline,” Harriet, said. “It is a good omen. But oh, I am frightened for you. I wish you weren’t set on this dangerous pretence!”

“No harm can come to me, whatever happens,” Caroline said. “That is so long as we keep Cousin Debby from being suspicious. You must meet the postman every day, Harriet. It would be a catastrophe if your father saw letters addressed to me arriving here and found out who I really am.”

“Let us hope he will never do that,” Harriet cried in alarm, “for although he would not be angry with you, he would half kill me for lying to him. Oh, Caroline, when you told him you had made your dress yourself, I nearly laughed out loud. It is so like a man not to recognise it as the most elegant and expensive gown which must ever have come from Bond Street.”

“Pray Heaven no one else guessed it either,” Caroline said. “I told, Maria, to pack all the most dowdy and drab dresses I possess, and I spent hours taking the feathers and ribbons out of my bonnets to make them look less modish, but even so, I am afraid I don’t look a depressed gentlewoman sadly in need of a salary.”

“Indeed you don’t,” Harriet giggled, “but after all you can always say that Lady Caroline Faye, who is so devoted to you, presented you with her cast-off gowns.”

Caroline clapped her hands.

“Bravo, Harriet, that is a brilliant idea. We shall make an intriguer of you yet and what is more, I promise you one thing when this subterfuge is at an end, I will buy you the most lovely gown that can be procured in the whole of London, and you can have any of my dresses that may please you.”

“Oh, Caroline, can I really?”

Harriet sighed in ecstasy, then added,

“But what is the use? I see no one here from one year’s, end to another. I housekeep and sew for Papa and everything I do for him seems to irritate him the more. He wanted a son, you see, Caroline, and he has no liking for a dutiful, but very dull daughter.”

“Poor Harriet, don’t let it make you miserable,” Caroline said. “We will find you a husband and then you shall forget all this drudgery.”

“Well, he will have to be blind in both eyes and doubtless so halt and decrepit that no one else will accept his offer,” Harriet said, and then, as Caroline would have argued with her, she sprang to her feet with a little cry.

“Look!” she said. “Look who is coming down the road!”

Caroline turned hastily to the window.

“I can only see a groom,” she said in a voice of disappointment.

Somehow for one moment she had expected to see someone very different.

“It is a groom,” Harriet agreed ‘but look at his livery.”

“Purple with crimson facings,” Caroline said. ‘‘Are those the Brecon colours?”

“They are indeed,” Harriet answered. “The groom is calling here. See for yourself.”

The two girls watched while the man dismounted, tethered his horse and walked up the path to the front door, a letter in his hand. Harriet ran downstairs and was breathless when she reached the bedroom and held it out to Caroline.

“
‘
Tis for you,” she said.

Caroline looked down for a moment at the letter and then slowly because her fingers trembled, she opened the envelope. She read it quickly and flung her arms round Harriet.

“Her ladyship will see me,” she cried. “She will see me tomorrow at three o’clock. Oh, Harriet, the first step has been taken. The curtain is rising on the most thrilling and exciting drama.”

Caroline was too excited to sleep much that night, and even if she had not been kept awake by her own thoughts, she might well have lacked sleep through worrying over Harriet.

It was obvious that the girl’s home-life at the Vicarage was one of serfdom and misery. She had been right in saying that her father was irritated with her, for never at any moment was she free from his nagging and fault-finding.

Dinner had been a simple, but well-cooked meal, which Caroline had enjoyed. She was seldom fussy about what she ate but the Vicar, while eating everything set in front of him and swilling it down with several pints of claret, had complained the entire time about the cooking, the dishes selected and the way in which they were served.

“I must apologise, Miss Fry,” he said more than once, “but you see before you a man who is sadly neglected. It was God’s will that my poor wife should be taken from me but I had hoped that my daughter, my only child, would try in some trifling way to take her place. But Harriet has no initiative, no sense, and is indeed but a poor housewife, and it will be my fate - for I see that no man with his wits about him is likely to offer for her - to have her permanently on my hands until my dying day.”

Caroline would have liked to throw her plate at him and tell him exactly what she thought of him, for his continual grumbling amounted almost to a persecution of Harriet instead she could only cast her eyes-down demurely and say that she hoped Harriet would improve as she grew older and that she would do her best to help her.

It was not easy for Caroline, who was used to expressing her opinion forcibly on every possible occasion, to hold herself in check, but she said what she thought in no uncertain-terms when she and Harriet went up to bed.

“Does he always berate you in such a way?” she enquired angrily.

“Who, Papa?” Harriet asked. “Oh, he is more polite since you are here. Most times he boxes my ears and once he threw a dish of ‘stewed’ eels, straight at me. It scalded my arms most terribly and I bore the marks for weeks.”

“He is a brute,” Caroline said. “I will rescue you somehow, Harriet, but first of all I have got to rescue Lord Brecon.”

Harriet, who had tears in her eyes, gave a little unsteady laugh.

“Why, Caroline, you are only a female and yet you talk as if you had the determination and strength of ninety men rolled into one.”

“At times I believe I have,” Caroline answered. “I feel like quoting my mother’s funny old maid, Eudora. She always says things in such a solemn voice which makes them sound as if they were bits out of the Bible, but more than once I have heard her say, “If the cause is right, strength will be given you”. That is what I believe now, Harriet.”

“And I hope your faith will be rewarded,” Harriet answered, “especially where I am concerned.”

She bent to kiss Caroline and then the Vicar’s voice boomed up the stairs, making them both jump.

“Harriet - where is my candle? How often have I to tell you that I want my candle left at the foot of the stairs? Come down and find it for me this instant, you cork-brained idiot.”

“I’m, sorry, Papa I’m coming, – I am indeed – sorry,” Harriet cried, and rushed from Caroline’s roam, shutting the door behind her.

Poor little Harriet! The sweetness in her face and in her eyes reminded Caroline of the wistful expression of the spaniels at home at Mandrake. She curled down in the bed, wishing for the moment that she was safe at home with the sound of the waves in her ears and the gentle peace and security of Mandrake sheltering her. Then she thought of the morrow and her heart beat a little faster as a feeling of excitement rose within her. Tomorrow she would see Lord Brecon again. Harriet had said he was called Vane. Caroline whispered the name to herself.

After breakfast the following morning, while Harriet had innumerable household duties to do, Caroline said she would take a walk. Harriet had told her that at the far end of the village she could see Brecon Castle from the road and she imagined that this must be where the crowds came who, Lord Brecon had told her, gaped at the Norman towers.

It was a sunny, warm morning and Caroline wore a straw bonnet trimmed with bunches of blue ribbon to match her white batiste frock which had a bodice of blue silk ornamented with white fringe. Then as she left the house she put up a sunshade, intending it to be less of a shelter from the sun than a protection against curious eyes.

There was not much likelihood of anyone recognising Lady Caroline Faye in this part of the world, she thought but at the same time she was anxious to take no chances. It was always possible that a coach or phaeton passing-along the road might contain some of her friends, but once she was established in Brecon Castle there would be little need for her to venture outside the grounds.

She walked down the village street, seeing only a few women cleaning out their cottages and an ancient man with a long white beard seated on a bench outside The Pig and Whistle. Caroline guessed that he was the oldest inhabitant, for every village seemed to have one, and wondered, if she got into conversation with him, whether he would tell her anything interesting about Brecon Castle and its inhabitants. She was almost tempted to try this, but decided it might draw local attention to herself, so she walked on demurely until, as Harriet had told her she would, she came to the great iron gates leading to the Castle.

They were very big and were flanked on either side by pillars, which were surmounted by two huge armorial lions holding shields. Beyond the gates was a wall enclosing the park, but after Caroline had walked some way the wall ceased and was replaced by a hedge which ran beside a little stream. The hedge was low and another fifty yards brought Caroline to a place where she could see the Castle in all its majesty.

She was not surprised, as she looked at it, that the people came from a long distance to view such a sight. Two great Norman towers were silhouetted against the sky, and on one of them stood a flagpole, the flag crimson and purple, fluttering out in the morning breeze.

The Castle was very large and it was plain to see that, while this side was of Norman architecture in keeping with the two towers, there were, half hidden by some trees, later additions built, it is true, of grey stone, but of a very different design. The trees made a background for the Castle itself, and it stood partially surrounded by a moat which widened out on the north side to a large lake. There were swans passing to and fro beneath an archway and, to Caroline’s surprise, they were all black. It struck a note which was faintly ominous indeed the whole building had a rather dark and overshadowed air.

Perhaps it was the ivy twining its way over the towers, perhaps the towers themselves, solid and defiant with their arrow-slits, giving an appearance of grim strength in their breadth and height. Perhaps it was the windows of the other parts of the Castle which had not yet caught the sunlight and appeared like dark watchful eyes in the grey surrounding stone.

Whatever it was, the whole picture was illogically and in- explicably sinister, and unaccountably Caroline felt herself shiver. This was not a happy house, she was sure of that. It was magnificent and grand in a cold, autocratic manner, but it was without the soft mellowness of weather-beaten stone and the convivial warmth which seemed to emanate from other houses, as for instance, from Mandrake, her own home, and Sale Park, Lord Melbourne’s lovely residence.

She stood looking at the Castle for a long time and found herself thinking of Lord Brecon as she had last seen him his eyes looking down into hers, his lips seeking her mouth. Once again she could feel that kiss searing itself into her consciousness so that she could never forget it, and could recall again and yet again the sudden leaping of her heart within her breast, the quick intake of her breath.

With an effort Caroline returned to the present and her view of the Castle, and became aware that quite close to her, drawn up on the side of the stream which acted as a boundary to the park, was a caravan. She glanced at it casually, thinking it must belong to gipsies. But the caravan held her interest, being rather more ornate than those used by the ordinary gipsy tribes. It was carved and painted in scarlet and yellow, while its occupants, a woman, a boy and two other children, who were sitting round a fire, seemed surprisingly clean.

Caroline looked at them without much curiosity and after staring once again at the Castle was just about to retrace her steps, towards the Vicarage when she heard a noise. She looked round and saw coming down the dusty highway a man with a large dog. It was the dog which attracted Caroline’s attention, for it darted ferociously at a small fox-hound puppy which emerged from one of the cottages, and without warning bit it fiercely so that the puppy, yelping with pain, rushed back into the cottage from which it had come.

The aggressive dog was large and of a breed which Caroline did not recognise save that she thought it might be in part a mastiff. To her surprise the man with it seemed quite unperturbed by the dog’s savagery in fact he was laughing as he came marching on towards Caroline.

He was a strange sight, dressed in rusty, dingy black with an old-fashioned full-skirted coat which hung nearly to his knees and an outmoded three-cornered hat on his grey wig. The lace hanging over, his large hands, which swung at his sides, was dirty and as he drew nearer, Caroline saw that his back was humped.