He looked out, but there was nothing to be seen except for the kitchen-garden below them and Lord Cheriton thought it extremely unlikely that anyone would be watching the first floor windows from there.
He climbed out onto the flat roof which creaked ominously beneath his weight and from there onto the ground.
It was easy to move through the gardens and in the shadows of the wall to reach the stables.
There was always the chance that Farlow had thought that the horses were worth watching and once again Lord Cheriton’s boyhood memories were of use.
There was a way into the stables from the field behind, and once they were inside the building it was merely a long walk through the empty stalls and under roofs through which they could see the sky until they found where their horses had been stabled.
Lord Cheriton knew that, unlike the days when the grooms slept in the stables and Pender had a house in the yard, the place was now empty.
It took him and Nickolls very little time to saddle their horses and only when they were ready were they both aware that it was going to be difficult to move without being seen.
It was most important, Lord Cheriton knew, not to alert Farlow’s men and he had no idea how many might be watching.
He knew there was at least one and the sound of a horse galloping or even trotting at this time of night would alert them as clearly as a clarion call.
Accordingly, they left the stable by the back, and with Lord Cheriton leading Samson, followed by Nickolls leading his horse, they walked across the first three fields, keeping close to the hedges.
Only when they were some distance from the house and away from the village did Lord Cheriton spring into the saddle.
Without haste, still avoiding the centre of any field and keeping to the hedgerows, they were some miles North of Larkswell when the first fingers of the dawn appeared in the East.
Chapter Five
Wivina awoke with a feeling of happiness, then remembered suddenly what had happened.
For a moment she thought the grey darkness was in herself, then she realised that there was a sea mist outside, and as she had left the windows open last night it was swirling into the room, making everything damp.
She hastily got out of bed to close the casements. Looking out, she saw that it was impossible to see more than a few yards in front of her and the lake and the Park were completely obscured.
Instinctively she wondered if it was dangerous for the man she loved, then she knew that if he was still in the vicinity, which she doubted, it would be a protection against those who were watching for him.
She dressed and when she opened her door she found the note that Lord Cheriton had told her he would leave outside.
She picked it up, feeling a thrill because she was touching something he had written, even though she knew it would merely be a formal letter, intended for her to show in particular to Jeffrey Farlow.
She decided she would not demean herself by showing him the letter herself, but would leave it in the hall where she was quite certain that if he entered the house he would read it.
She knew his prying and suspicious nature only too well and as she opened the note she saw that Lord Cheriton had written,
“Dear Miss Compton,
May I thank you for your kindness in giving my servant and me accommodation for the night. We have been most comfortable and are sincerely grateful.
Would you be kind enough to give the enclosed guineas to your cook and to Pender, who has looked after my horses.
Again, my most sincere thanks for your hospitality and with all best wishes to you and your brother,
I remain,
Yours gratefully, Stuart Bradleigh.”
Wivina read it through, thinking not of what Lord Cheriton had written but all that he had said to her last night.
If she shut her eyes she could still feel his lips on hers and hear his deep voice telling her that he loved her.
It seemed impossible that it could have happened so swiftly and yet she knew it was what her mother had always said would occur when she met the man who was meant for her – the man to whom she belonged.
‘I love him!’ she whispered beneath her breath.
Then, taking the coins from the envelope, she went down to the kitchen with them in her hand.
“A guinea, Miss Wivina!” Mrs. Briggs exclaimed in astonishment. “Well, I never! Who’d have thought that the gentleman would be so generous? Especially after he had provided his own dinner!”
“It was certainly very kind of him,” Wivina said.
“It were indeed, and I’m sorry I didn’t meet the gentleman, and a real gentleman he was. That man of his spoke very well of him.”
Wivina smiled.
“As I hope you would speak well of me, Mrs. Briggs.”
“Is it likely as I'd do anything else?” Mrs. Briggs replied hotly, then realised that Wivina was teasing her.
“Get along with you!” she said. “You know what I feels about you and Master Richard. Where would I be without you, I often thinks.”
Wivina smiled and then she asked,
“Is breakfast ready? I must call Master Richard. You know as well as I do that if he starts reading while he is dressing he will be late for his lessons.”
“He’ll wear his eyes out, that’s what I tells him,” Mrs. Briggs said sharply. “If he likes his eggs cold, you don’t, Miss Wivina, so hurry!”
“I will,” Wivina replied.
She ran up the stairs, thinking, as she did so, that, while she was worried and apprehensive about Lord Cheriton, she could not repress the springing joy she felt in her heart because she loved and was loved.
Richard was, as she expected, half-dressed but sitting on his bed reading as he pulled on his stockings.
Wivina bent forward and slapped the book shut.
“Hurry, Richard,” she said. “Breakfast is ready and the delicious eggs you bought from the farm will be spoilt.”
“I do not want to miss those!” Richard said. “And there will be a turkey coming today or tomorrow.”
“A turkey!” Wivina exclaimed in surprise.
“I paid for it with the money Captain Bradleigh gave me yesterday. He told me to spend the lot, and I did! There will also be some more chickens and a leg of lamb when you want them.”
“Richard, you did not tell me!” Wivina said. “I thought that the chickens you brought yesterday, besides the eggs and cream, were all he had bought.”
“You can buy a lot with two sovereigns,” Richard said, tying his tie.
Wivina drew in her breath to expostulate, then she told herself it was part of the leopard’s consideration for her and she loved him for it.
“Shall we have the turkey today for luncheon or for dinner?” Richard enquired.
“We can hardly eat it all by ourselves,” Wivina replied.
“Do you mean he has gone?”
Richard’s voice sounded unnaturally loud.
“Yes,” Wivina answered. “He has gone.”
“Then I will not get my ride,” Richard said disgustedly. “I thought he was too brave to run away just because Farlow told him to get out.”
“He is brave,” Wivina said, “and he has not run away.”
“Then why has he left?” Richard asked truculently.
Wivina was just about to say that Captain Bradleigh was coming back to take her and Richard to safety, but her instinct told her that it would be unwise.
Richard was often indiscreet and over-impulsive in what he said, and she was well aware that if he was questioned by Jeffrey Farlow or fell into an argument with him he might say something which would prove dangerous.
“I expect Captain Bradleigh thought discretion was the better part of valour,” she said, and went from the room, but not before she had heard Richard say in a carping voice,
“He is a soldier. He ought to be able to stand up to that swine Farlow.”
As she walked down the passage, Wivina told hersel
f that he would stand up to him, she was sure of it in her heart.
At the same time, she was desperately, agonisingly afraid.
She knew only too well how ruthless the smugglers could be. They pursued, tortured, and murdered their victims in a way that made her tremble to think of it.
Every month there was some new tale of horror circulating in the village, and, try as she would to avoid it, sooner or later it reached her ears.
‘Oh, God, help us!’ she prayed in her heart.
She went into the dining room to find a dish of eggs standing on the side table where Mrs. Briggs had put them.
She helped herself and a few minutes later Richard joined her.
He was sulking because he had lost the chance of having a ride and, while Wivina longed to comfort him, she knew it would be unwise.
They ate in silence and then dragging his leg, Richard left the room without saying goodbye.
When he was in one of these moods Wivina knew it was best to leave him alone.
He would soon recover and she was quite certain that by luncheon-time he would be his usual cheerful, enthusiastic self.
All the same, because he was depressed she felt her own spirits drop and, when she went from the drawing room to the salon to dust and tidy it, she felt an ache in her heart because she was so alone.
She looked at the chair where Lord Cheriton had sat, and thought that when she had found him standing in the room as she came through the window her whole life had changed.
Until then the future had seemed so dark and impossible that she had felt as if Jeffrey Farlow had a stranglehold on her and there was no escape from him except by death.
Then incredibly, unexpectedly, her prayers for help had been answered, and she had felt when Lord Cheriton put his arms around her that she had found the security and protection she had craved and that she need never be afraid again.
But it was not as easy as that. The fears had come back and perhaps in a way they were even worse because she was now fearful not only for Richard and herself but also for him.
‘Stuart!’ She whispered his name to herself and thought it sounded strong and masculine.
But she preferred to think of him as a leopard, her leopard – one of the fiercest and strongest animals in the wild.
She found she had been daydreaming and hastily went on with her dusting, polishing the tops of the tables and noting that some of the flowers needed replacing.
She would wait, she thought, until the mist had cleared.
But when she looked out the window it seemed to be more impenetrable than it had been before. It must have come from the sea with the dawn tide, and needed, she knew, a good strong wind to blow it away.
She finished the salon, then went to the library which she remembered she had not shown to the leopard when she took him round the rest of the house.
It was a room which she had never liked particularly and which even after her father had blessed it, it still seemed to retain some imprint of its late owner.
She had moved the furniture to make it more comfortable, but she noted there were many gaps in the bookshelves from which Richard had taken the volumes he wanted to read and had, of course, left them upstairs in his room.
‘What this room needs is new curtains and a new carpet,’ Wivina thought to herself.
Then it would seem different and perhaps the last lingering atmosphere of the man everyone hated would be eradicated forever.
Then she smiled at her own fancy of asking for new curtains. It was as wildly unlikely as that the fallen ceilings would be put back and the roof repaired.
The leopard had said he would take her away to safety, but even though she told herself it would be Heaven to be with him anywhere in the world, she could not help feeling that one part of her heart would always remain at Larks Hall.
There was something about the house that made her feel as if it reached out to her, asking her to save it, to restore its former glory and make it, as it had once been, important not only in the village but in the County as well.
‘I suppose it is stupid to love a house,’ Wivina told herself, as she went from the library into the hall.
But she knew the curve of the old staircase thrilled her to look at and the pictures on the walls seemed to have a special message for her.
‘I must talk about it to the leopard,’ she thought.
She remembered how little time they had had to speak of anything and she longed to tell him her thoughts and feelings, which she was sure somehow would be in many ways identical with his.
Then suddenly she asked herself what she knew about him.
How could she feel as she did about a stranger, a man she had seen for so short a time? No-one would believe for one moment that they could even have begun to think of love, let alone express it.
Then she remembered that that was what her father had felt about her mother, and she knew that it was not time that counted but what their hearts, their minds and their souls said to each other and perhaps had said before in previous lives.
‘He is my fate,’ she said to herself with a little smile, ‘and I have no wish to change it.’
She heard a horse draw up outside the front door and with a sudden leap of her heart thought that perhaps it was the leopard returning.
Then she knew that was most unlikely and, guessing who it might be, started to climb the stairs.
She was halfway up when the front door opened and Jeffrey Farlow came into the hall.
“Wivina!” he exclaimed, looking up and seeing her.
“I am busy,” she answered hastily, “and I have no time to talk to you now.”
“You’d better make time,” he said, “because there has been an accident.”
“An accident?”
Wivina could hardly breathe the word, then feeling as if the hall swum round her, she put out her hand to hold on to the banisters.
It was as if an icy hand had taken hold of her heart and was squeezing it. She knew only too well what an “accident” meant in the village of Larkswell.
“Yes, an accident,” Jeffrey Farlow said, “and Richard is asking for you.”
“Richard?”
Wivina said the word almost beneath her breath and looking up at her Jeffrey Farlow asked sharply,
“Who else did you expect to have one?”
“Richard is at the Vicarage.”
“No, he did not get there.”
“What happened? Was he run over?” Wivina asked frantically.
She had a sudden vision of Richard being bowled over by a phaeton in the narrow village street. It had happened last year to a child. One of the wheels had passed over him and he died in agony.
“You had better come and see for yourself,” Jeffrey Farlow said.
“Yes – of course,” Wivina answered.
She started to descend the stairs, wondering why her legs felt as if they did not belong to her.
Jeffrey Farlow watched her come and, as she reached the last step, he said,
“You will want your cloak. It’s damp outside and it looks as if it might rain.”
“My cloak?” Wivina repeated rather stupidly.
“I’ll get it for you.”
With the familiarity of one who knows the house, he went to the oak cupboard in the hall to take down from a peg the dark cloak that Wivina wore in the winter. It was threadbare, but she had no other.
She was just about to take it from him automatically when she said:
“We will be bringing him back here. I will tell Emma to get his room ready for him. I have not had time to tidy it.”
She turned and ran towards the kitchen quarters even as Jeffrey Farlow put out his hand to stop her, saying:
“No – wait, Wivina – it’s unnecessary.”
She did not stop, and, realising she was out of earshot, he stood waiting for her return, her cloak in his hand, a dark brooding look on his face.
Wivina came running back.
“I hav
e told Emma,” she said. “It is not his bad leg, is it?”
“You had better come and see for yourself,” Jeffrey Farlow said.
He put the cloak over Wivina’s shoulders. When she went outside she saw to her surprise that there were two horses, their bridles being held by old Pender.
She had expected a chaise or the smart phaeton which Jeffrey Farlow had recently purchased and which he drove through the village at a quite unnecessary speed.
There was, however, no time for questions and she let Jeffrey Farlow help her into the saddle even while she hated the touch of his hands.
She noticed he had had time to procure a horse with a side saddle for her and wondered how long ago the accident had happened. She knew it could not be more than an hour since Richard had left the house.
The mist was very thick and Jeffrey Farlow rode ahead of her so that all she had to do was to follow behind, keeping his back in sight.
He took immediately to the fields, which surprised her as she had expected Richard to have been knocked down, or whatever had happened to him, in the village.
There was no point, she thought, in asking questions, especially as the mist, damp and thick against her face, would have made anything she said seem lost in the choking greyness.
They rode on and on, and now Wivina began to wonder almost frantically what could have happened.
She told herself that Richard must have played truant, being angry at not being able to ride the leopard’s horses.
Instead of going to the Vicarage for his lessons he must have gone to Jeffrey Farlow’s house, perhaps to ask if he could borrow one of his horses. It was something he had done in the past until she had stopped it, knowing that Jeffrey Farlow was only too anxious to bribe his way into Richard’s good graces because he thought it would influence her.
‘I shall be very angry with Richard if he did that to annoy me,’ Wivina thought.
It was still impossible to see where they were going, but Jeffrey Farlow appeared to know the way.
He did not turn his head to look at her nor make any effort to speak, and because the mist was so wet and uncomfortable Wivina pulled the hood over her eyes and just let her mount follow blindly where the other horse led.
Love and the Loathsome Leopard Page 10