Love Drives In (14 page)

I will probably be away for a week. I command you to rest and do as little as possible until I return.

Gerald.

Dorina's first thought, on reading this, was dismay. He had vanished and left her alone just when she longed to see him.

But then she saw that she had been given a wonderful chance. Now she had the time to visit Birmingham, set things in order and return to London before the Earl did.

Everything seemed to be working to help her.

Before she had even finished breakfast, Mr. Johnson arrived to see her.

"I had some things to see to in London," he said, "and I called to urge you to come to Birmingham as soon as possible."

"Then I will come today," she replied eagerly.

She spoke to Henly, telling him that she too, like the Earl, had been unexpectedly called home, but would return soon.

"But where shall I tell his Lordship you are?" Henly asked, worried. "He will want your address."

A cab arrived to take them to the station. In a short time her luggage was loaded onto it and the two of them were on their way.

Dorina could not help looking out of the window as the house disappeared. If things went badly, she knew she might be saying goodbye to everything that had made her happy.

When they were settled into the train and it had started its journey, Mr. Johnson said,

"I thought that, before you speak to your father's people and tell them that you have taken his place, you would want to see where he is buried."

"Where have you put him?" Dorina asked.

"The doctors told me that it was impossible for them to go on hiding him. The only thing was for him to be buried, without anyone knowing."

"And you managed to do that?"

"He was buried next to your mother at midnight. And no one in the village had the slightest idea what was happening.

"Those who had nursed him were told that they must keep his death a secret until the newspapers were informed and they kept their word."

There was silence for a moment. Then Dorina said,

"I'm glad you buried him next to my mother. It's where he would want to be. Did anyone pray over him?"

"I found a vicar who lives at the other end of the county. He had never met your father and knew nothing about him."

"Was he curious?" Dorina asked.

"You've been very kind and very helpful," Dorina said.

"Tell me, have you used your time to good advantage?" he asked. "Have you learned anything with the Earl?"

Dorina gave a deep sigh.

"Oh yes," she said. "Many things."

It was true that she had learned many things, some of them had been about his work, but she had learned much about herself and her own heart.

'I love him, I love him,' she thought as they drove on. 'But what can the future hold for us? When he learns the truth he will think the worst of me and everything will be over between us. How naïve I was to think that it could be otherwise.'

It was late in the afternoon before they reached her home. It was a grand old house, beautiful and luxurious, but very lonely.

She had a sudden feeling that it was almost too much to see it again, to know it was empty of everyone she loved.

'I may have to live here alone, completely alone,' she told herself and wanted to cry.

"Stay and dine with me tonight," she asked Mr. Johnson. "I'll return soon."

"Thank you. While you're gone I'll write some letters."

She took the carriage and drove to the little church. There she found the family vault and knelt before it, weeping.

'Help me,' she prayed. 'I don't know what to do.'

It was late when she left the church and went back to the great house that was now hers.

Mr. Johnson had just finished his letters, and despatched a footman to post them urgently.

As they sat down to dinner he said,

"You have not yet told me what you learnt from Lord Kennington?"

Dorina drew in her breath.

'If I told him the truth,' she thought, 'he would certainly be surprised. But I cannot tell him everything.'

"Really very little," she said. "He had so many letters, which had nothing to do with business."

"Did you manage to discover if he really is advanced with his horseless carriage?"

"It's very hard to say," she replied cautiously, "since I do not really understand what you would consider advanced. And, of course, I have no way of comparing his invention with our own design."

"You'll see ours tomorrow," he assured her. "And you'll meet a lot of your workforce. Then, the day after, I'm hoping to put the horseless carriage on display.

"Those letters I've just sent were to potential customers. They should arrive first post tomorrow, and I think people will abandon any other plans and hurry here to see the sensation of the age."

"The sensation of the age," Dorina murmured, thinking of the beautiful carriage that the Earl had shown her.

"I think we'll get ahead of our rivals," said Mr. Johnson with glee. "I'm sure Lord Kennington has not yet shown his carriage to customers."

"That would certainly put us in an advantageous position," Dorina said carefully.

She was caught in a trap. In the next few days she would be challenging the man she loved and in a way that could destroy his dreams.

And there was nothing she could do to prevent it. If she held back on her own carriage, she would be betraying the faithful men who had worked so hard for her father and whose work had brought success so close.

When Mr. Johnson had left, Dorina went up to her room and found it cold and empty.

"Oh, but you're not in here any more, miss," said the housekeeper. "You're in the master's old room."

So she knew that he was dead. Of course, all the servants must know. But they had said nothing and loyally kept the secret.

The housekeeper formally escorted Dorina to her father's old room, which she found freshly cleaned with a fire in the grate as the evening was chilly.

"Thank you, Hannah," she said. "This was very thoughtful of you."

"It was only right and proper, miss," Hannah said. "This is the master's room. And you're the master now."

'Master' Dorina noted. Not 'mistress'.

And that was right, for it was a man's work she had to do here. In their own way her servants had let her know what they expected of her. Tomorrow her work force would let her know the same.

And this was their right for they depended on her. Her own feelings did not matter.

Mr. Johnson had evidently had the same idea, for he too was dressed in black when he arrived at the house to collect her.

"I've ordered your entire Birmingham workforce to congregate in the Hatton factory," he said. "Are you ready?"

"Ready for anything," she replied.

They drove to the Hatton factory, which was the largest of the three Birmingham establishments. The place was already buzzing with life when they arrived.

Both men and women were arriving, for John Radford had employed many females in the offices of his factories.

They turned their heads at the sound of the carriage arriving, and smiled at the sight of Dorina. But their smiles faded when they saw how she was dressed.

At last she stood before them on a platform in the main workshop. Now a hush had fallen, as they had begun to suspect what they were about to hear.

"The secrecy was necessary in order not to alert our rivals. They might think that his demise heralded a period of weakness in this company. If so, they were mistaken. We may no longer have John Radford, but we have his heir and his chosen successor, Miss Dorina Radford."

There was a moment of shock, for it was unheard of to have a woman taking charge of a commercial enterprise. But most of the people here knew her, at least by sight, and she was a link to the man they had admired. So, after that first quiet moment, they burst into applause.

Mr. Johnson stood back and indicated to Dorina to come forward. The applause increased, but at last there was silence.

This was it, the moment she had known must come, when she must assume her inheritance and her responsibilities, whatever the cost.

She spoke movingly of her father and the great industrial empire he had created. Then she turned their thoughts to the future.

"My father would have wanted us to carry on in the pioneering spirit with which he inspired us," she cried. "I shall do my part, but it rests with you, whether we gradually die away, or go forward and bring great new inventions to our country like the horseless carriage, which is going to lead a revolution. I believe that we will be at the head of that revolution – where we ought to be."

One or two people began to clap but Dorina raised her hand and went on,

"We will increase our production year by year with new ideas and new inventions. You have been marvellous so far in keeping us ahead in engineering in this country. I can only beg of you to go on getting better and better every year, as you have done in the past."

It was done. The die was cast. Now all the world would know that John Radford was dead and the torch had passed to his daughter. From this moment there was no going back.

There were more speeches as the senior members of staff welcomed her and pledged their loyalty. Then with enormous pride, they led her to the place where the horseless carriage stood waiting.

Dorina braced herself, but it was still a shock to see a machine that looked so similar to the one she had seen in the Earl's workshop. With every eye on her, she tried to remember that she was supposed to be seeing such an invention for the first time.

They showed her how it worked, and she exclaimed with wonder, while all the time she was noticing how exactly alike it was to the Earl's. The differences were tiny.

She was introduced to the company driver, a man called Jeremiah Conway. He got behind the wheel and began to drive the machine around. There was applause and, to everyone's satisfaction, Miss Radford applauded harder than anyone.

Mr. Conway leaned down to her.

"Would you like to sit beside me?" he asked, reaching out a hand to her.

She took it, climbing into the passenger seat, and suddenly she was back in an earlier time, when she and the Earl had sat side by side behind the wheel of his carriage.

She sat there while the carriage went around again and then she said,

"I would like to drive."

She could not help observing that the steering was not quite as smooth as that on the Earl's vehicle. But there was nothing she could say.

'How can I bear this?' she asked herself. 'I deceived him and now I'm deceiving them. But I never meant to deceive anybody.'

At last the occasion was over. Dorina left to the accompaniment of cheers, and went home to prepare for the great dinner Mr. Johnson had organised for that night at Birmingham's most prestigious hotel.

For that dinner she wore black again, but this time it was a black evening gown, adorned with diamonds. She looked stately and magnificent and conveyed an impression of prosperity, which she knew was what her workers needed to see.

At eight o'clock she made her entrance into the Grand Hotel, sweeping into the great banqueting hall on Mr. Johnson's arm. Eighty of her senior staff rose to greet her with more applause.

This time it had a slightly different sound. Earlier that day they had been unsure of her. Now they had transferred their trust to her. They accepted her.

There were more speeches, but this time they came from the senior workers, welcoming their new employer and promising her their loyalty.

Then the speeches altered slightly in tone and became a hymn of praise to the horseless carriage and what it would mean for the future of the world.

"Others have sought to get ahead of us," one speaker said. "The Earl of Kennington is our greatest rival, but he has not achieved what we have achieved. Our technology is superior to anything he has."