An Introduction To The Eternal Collection Jubilee Edition (126 page)

She had reached the door when Lord Brecon’s voice made her pause. He stood quite still on the hearth watching her go, keeping such a tight hold on himself that his hands were clenched, his jaw set as a man who fights against overwhelming odds. But now a cry burst from his lips.

“Caroline!” he called, and then he strode across the room towards her. “How can I let you leave me in such a manner?’ he cried. “Oh, my sweet love, I worship you!”

He swept her into his arms, holding her so closely against his breast that she could hardly breathe. For a long moment he just held her there, and as her eyes, misty with tears, looked up into his and her lips trembled, she was conscious of his rising desire for her and of a passion which swept over him like a tempest.

“I love you! God, how I love you!”

His voice was hoarse and once again he was kissing her, kissing her wildly, fiercely, possessively. His kiss seemed to draw her very soul from between her lips, then she felt his mouth on her eyes, on the hollows at the base of her neck and on the little blue veins above her breasts.

For a moment Caroline was too exhausted emotionally either to reciprocate his passion or to repulse it, she could only he submissive beneath the hunger of his kisses, weak beneath a strength such as she had never deemed possible in any man.

“You are mine,” she heard him cry, “mine. I defy fate to take you from me.”

He lifted her off her feet. She lay against his chest, helpless as a baby, and she saw he was transformed, his face alight with triumph and exaltation. At that moment he seemed like a god - a god who has attained his most cherished desire. She felt an inexpressible joy then as if a light had been blown out she saw his expression alter.

Still carrying her, he opened the door of the Library and before she could be certain what he was about, Caroline found herself set down on her feet and left without support. The door closed behind her. She heard the key turn in the lock and she was alone in the dimly lit passage.

For a moment she leant against the wall, too weak to move, too shattered to make any sense from the chaos in which her thoughts, feelings and passions were entangled. Then slowly, very slowly and unsteadily like someone recovering from a very long illness she began to walk down the passage towards the hall.

She heard great bursts of laughter and the sound of noisy voices coming from the drawing-room and the card-room. A footman passed her with a heavily laden tray, but she did not even see him. She moved like a sleep-walker up the broad staircase and along the corridors which led to her room. Only when she reached her own room and had thrown herself face downwards on the bed, her face, buried in the pillow, did she find an expression for her feelings.

“Vane! Vane!” she cried, “I love you! I love you,” and the tears streamed unchecked from her eyes.

It was thus Maria found her the following morning, for she had slept from utter exhaustion after a storm of weeping which had seemed a greater agony than anything she had ever known.

“M’lady,” Maria exclaimed in horror, “you haven’t been to bed. Why are you still in your evening gown? Are you ill, m’lady? Why did you not ring for me?”

“No, I am not ill,” Caroline answered, “at least I think not. My head aches, and – Oh, Maria, I am so unhappy.”

The words came out with a rush before she could prevent them, and Maria looked at her both in astonishment and in horror.

“Unhappy, m’lady? Then ‘tis leaving this moment we are for Mandrake. We will not stay in any place that makes you unhappy, not to save His Majesty himself from being murdered. We will go home, m’lady, and then everything will be all right.”

“But it won’t,” Caroline said miserably, standing up, so that Maria could unfasten the creased and crumpled evening gown. “You are cold, m’lady,” Maria said accusingly as Caroline gave a little shiver. ‘Tis not surprised I am, seeing how you slept this past night. Warm the weather may be, but not warm enough for that. Now put on this wrap, m’lady, and get into bed. Sip your chocolate while ‘tis hot and I will start packing right away.”

“No, – do not do - that, Maria,” Caroline said wearily, “but if you remember, we came for a special reason and that reason still exists.”

Maria sighed.

“I declare, m’lady, I don’t know what to do. If I did my duty as I sees it, I should take you home whatever, you may say to the contrary, but I’ve never been able to gainsay your ladyship, and that you well know.”

“Then do not try to do it now,” Caroline said.

She finished her chocolate and lay back against the pillows,

“Have I time for a sleep, Maria?”

“Indeed you have, m’lady. Miss Dorcas has just informed me that her ladyship will not be requiring your services until noon, having passed an ill night herself. Go to sleep, m’lady, and if you’ll pull the bell when you awake, I’ll bring you some breakfast”

“Thank you, Maria,” Caroline said. “I feel unaccountably drowsy, but before you go, tell me, is there any news?”

“Only one thing,” Maria said. “Mr. Gervase Warlingham comes tonight. I heard Mrs. Miller with my own ears inform the housekeeper of the-fact and what’s more, she instructed that he be given the bedchamber next to her own.”

“Tonight!”

Caroline was wide awake now,

“Yes, m’1ady, for tonight there is to be a big party, guests are invited from the county and there will be over fifty to dine. It’s Mrs. Miller who has invited them in his lordship’s name, for I understand she aches to give parties and play the hostess, especially if Mr. Warlingham is there to watch her do it.”

“I understand,” Caroline said, and gave a sigh of relief. At last she was to meet Mr. Gervase Warlingham.

“I would not leave for Mandrake now, Maria, not if you gave me a thousand guineas,” she murmured.

“You go to sleep, m’lady,” Maria said. “Perhaps you will think otherwise when you awake.”

“There is not a hope of that,” Caroline replied and as Maria pulled the curtains, she turned her face to the wall and dropped into a dreamless slumber.

With the elasticity of youth there was little trace on her face of her stormy, unhappy night when she woke. Gone was the despair she had known during the night, she could only remember that Vane loved her and she loved him. What did secrets, however sinister, matter when the rapture of their love could sweep them into a Paradise where all else was forgotten? Vane’s determination not to marry her was, she thought, equalled by her determination that he should do so and as her heart quickened its beat at the thought of belonging to him, it was easy to believe that time would prove her the victor.

Caroline was smiling when she visited Lady Brecon later in the morning. The fears and terrors, the utter misery she had experienced alone in the darkness seemed exaggerated and unreal now that the sun was shining and the Dowager’s little budgerigars were chirping happily in their cages.

Caroline was certain that there was a way to solve the puzzle, she was sure that eventually she would save the man she loved both from danger and from the despondency of the secret he guarded so carefully.

“It is a glorious day, Miss Fry,” Lady Brecon said.

“Yes, Ma’am,” Caroline agreed.

“Too nice for you to stay indoors,” Lady Brecon said. “I am going to have a sleep this afternoon, child, so I suggest you go into the gardens or visit Harriet at the Vicarage. That reminds me, I believe my son is entertaining this evening. Dorcas tells, me that preparations are going on in the household. It would be a kind action to ask little Harriet Wantage to come for dinner, and she will keep you company.”

“Harriet would be delighted, I am sure Ma’am,” Caroline said.

“Well, go and invite her,” Lady Brecon commanded, “and Dorcas will inform Mrs. Miller that it is at my invitation.”

Caroline smiled at this, for she knew quite well that Lady Brecon was sparing her an unpleasant moment with Mrs. Miller who would doubtless make trouble at an extra guest whom she had not included in her own list.

“Her ladyship is sweet,” Caroline thought as she returned to her own room, “but pitiably weak. Personally I could not bear to let a woman such as Mrs. Miller rule my household.”

But she was beginning to suspect that Lady Brecon had a definite object in excluding herself from the world. She might have been a nun, so divorced was she from any interest outside her own room. Dorcas sometimes related scraps of gossip to her, but Caroline was sure that Lady Brecon listened more for Dorcas’ sake than because of her own curiosity. It was a strange behaviour for the chatelaine of a great Castle and even stranger on the part of a mother, especially one as devoted as Lady Brecon was to her son, and yet doubtless, Caroline thought, she had a good reason for her refusal to battle with the trials and difficulties of ordinary, everyday life.

Caroline went to her wardrobe to search for a suitable dress for Harriet to wear that evening. She found one, a gown of pink sarsnet trimmed with bunches of moss roses and forget-me-nots which, as it happened, had never suited her, for her hair was too brilliant for such a colour but she knew it would be an admirable frame for Harriet’s dark brown hair and trusting brown eyes.

She was just about to ring for Maria and tell her to pack the gown into a parcel when she glanced out of the windw, and saw an elegant figure strolling across the lawns towards the stone gazebo which stood at the far end of the formal garden. It was Mr. Stratton, and as Caroline watched him she remembered, their conversation of the night before.

He had been amusing about his present circumstances, and yet a real bitterness lay beneath his jesting. He did in truth find that his fortune had deprived him of much of his belief in human nature when it thrust him unexpectedly into high Society. Underneath his dandified posturing he still held to the simple standards and unaffected virtues he had known in his days of poverty. And Caroline could understand his almost childlike yearnings to be loved for himself alone. She sighed for him, because she found an echo of such an aspiration in her own heart. Even now there was a tiny lingering doubt whether Lord Brecon might not change his mind about marriage when eventually he learnt her real station in life. And although she told herself firmly that she was being unfair and disloyal to the man she loved and that he was too fine a person, too strong a character to be swayed by such superficialities, the poisoned thought recurred.

Impatient and angry with herself, Caroline concentrated her attention on Mr. Stratton. And as she watched him seat himself in the gazebo, she gave a little exclamation. She had an idea! She ran across the room and tugged at the bell-rope.

When Maria came hurrying in response to her summons, Caroline said to her,

“Pack up that pink dress, Maria, and also that striped cambric with the fichu. Do you remember it? It was a dress I wore in a masque when I had to appear as a simple village maid. I told you to pack it in case it proved useful.”

“Yes, indeed, m’lady,” Maria answered. “It is here and I have laid it in the bottom drawer of the chest. But why should your ladyship require it now?”

“Because I have a plan,” Caroline said. “Take it, put it with the evening gown and hurry as quickly as you can to the Vicarage. Speak with Miss Wantage alone, tell her I have sent you to dress her in the striped cambric, arrange her hair as modishly as you can, Maria, and tell her to expect me within the next twenty minutes. When she sees me, she is not to mention that I have sent her the gowns, make that quite clear.”

“Oh dear, m’lady,” Maria moaned, “what new scheme is afoot? I declare my head whirls with your ladyship’s plottings.”

“Cease chattering, Maria, there is no time,” Caroline commanded. “Hurry to Miss Wantage and tell her exactly what I have told you. I am saving someone else, but this time not from death but from a lonely spinsterhood.”

Caroline, smiling at Maria’s gaping mouth, went downstairs and out into the garden. She strolled across the lawns, obviously deeply engrossed in the flowers. Mr. Stratton rose as she approached the gazebo. Caroline, who was looking very attractive in a chip-straw bonnet trimmed with bunches of lilies-of the-valley and leaf-green ribbons, gave a pretended start.

“Lud, sir, but you surprised me. I was not expecting to find anyone lurking in this secluded spot.”

“I sought it for that very reason,” Mr. Stratton answered, and then he added hastily, “‘Do not misunderstand me Miss Fry. I value your presence here, it is the rest of the party from whom I would escape. Blister it, a more noisy, uncouth collection it has seldom been my misfortune to encounter. Brecon, must, be crazed to invite such company.”

“Oh, Mr. Stratton, then you are not enjoying yourself?”

“I never seem to do that these days,” he replied gloomily.

Caroline seated herself beneath the gazebo.

“It is obvious sir, that you have too great sensibility for the society in which you move. It is not of course for me, a poor dependent, to criticise but I did not think his lordship’s guests last night were greatly distinguished for their brains.”

Mr. Stratton laughed.

“You put it most genteelly, Miss Fry, but I agree with you, they are a bacon-brained crowd. Those of them who weren’t too foxed gamed until the dawn and when I left them just now they were sitting down to the tables again. Try as I may, I cannot bring myself to pay a serious attention to gaming.”

“And why should you, sir?” Caroline asked. “But now I must leave you to your reading. I envy you the enjoyment of that book I see beneath your arm.”

She rose to her feet

“Must you leave me, Miss Fry?” Mr. Stratton asked.

“Alas I must,” Caroline sighed, “though I assure you, sir, I would far prefer to linger in such congenial company. But I have to carry a message for her ladyship to the Vicarage and I vow I am scared to death to take it.”

“Scared?” Mr. Stratton asked. “May I enquire why?”

“It is the Vicar, sir,” Caroline said, lowering her head as if in embarrassment, her voice very low. “He is indeed a most unpleasant gentleman.

“Makes himself unpleasant to you, does he?” Mr. Stratton said grimly “Well, we’ll soon settle that, for I will accompany you on your errand, Miss Fry, if you will permit me ”