“Now that is the strangest thing, Cousin Debby. There was another girl at school with me who was in fact my only friend – with the exception of course of this girl of whom we are speaking – and Harriet, for that is my other friend’s name, lived at Cuckhurst, I have only just recalled it, but her father was the Vicar of Cuckhurst and her fees at the school had been paid through the kindness of his patron. I never bothered to find out who the patron was, but now I am sure it must have been the Dowager Lady Brecon or even Lord Brecon himself.”
“But what has your friend to do with this other girl?” Mrs. Edgmont asked, bewildered.
“The girl I wish you to recommend is living at the moment with Harriet at Cuckhurst,” Caroline exclaimed triumphantly.
“I understand, at least I think I do,” Mrs. Edmont said, “It all seems somewhat of a tangle.”
“Not really, Cousin Debby. All I beg is that you will be vastly obliging and write at once to your friend Fanny saying that you are recommending a very suitable person for the position, while I will write to my friend and tell her of your kind recommendation.” Caroline paused and then added breathlessly, “And yes, I know - I will drive over and stay the night with Harriet and then I can take your recommendation in person.”
“Really, Caroline, I cannot think such extreme measures are necessary,” Mrs. Edgmont said. “I am sure the Vicar of Cuckhurst would be embarrassed by your visit and the letter can quite easily go by post.”
“But I would love to see Harriet again, I swear I -would,” Caroline said. ‘Pray do not put obstacles in my way, Cousin Debby. It is all settled and you will be doing a real kindness.”
“Well, I do not know what to think,” Mrs. Edgmont said. ‘I wonder Caroline, if I really ought to recommend someone I have not actually met. It is all very well for you to speak for the girl, but what does anybody else know of her -your mother for instance?”
“Oh, but Mama knows her,” Caroline said hastily. “She knows her well and likes her very much.”
Mrs. Edmont smiled.
“That, dear, is different. Why didn’t you say so at the beginning?” Then she added, “Perhaps it would be wise to write to your mother on the matter and ask her for a personal letter of recommendation.”
“Cousin Debby, how could we wait for that?” Caroline asked in dismay. “Why, the position might be filled a thousand times over before Mama could reply.”
“Yes, yes, of, course! Well, if you assure me that your mother knows this girl. Has she stayed here?”
“Yes, of course she has,” Caroline said, “and both Mama and Papa are devoted to her, in fact they treat her like one of the family –-she might be their own daughter. Now sit down and write to your dearest Fanny while I send a groom off to tell Harriet I am arriving on a visit.”
“Do you wish me to accompany you, dear?”
“Oh no,” Caroline replied. “I will take Maria with me. They might not have room for more than one guest.
“Well, it seems a long journey when the post could easily take the letter,” Mrs. Edgmont said. “But, if it gives you so much pleasure, Caroline dear, I dare say there is no harm in it.”
Caroline hurried towards the door.
“Write the letter now,” she pleaded. “Please, Cousin Debby.”
“Yes, of course, at once,” Mrs. Edgmont said, feeling for her lorgnette. Then, as Caroline had almost shut the door after her, she gave a little cry. ‘Caroline! Caroline!”
“What is it?”
“You have omitted to tell me the girl’s name.”
“Oh, how silly of me,” Caroline said. “It is Caroline Fry.”
“Why, she has the same name as you,” Mrs. Edgmont said.
“Yes, isn’t it strange?” Caroline answered, “but then I have always said that mine was a monstrously common name.”
Caroline sped upstairs to her own room where she penned a letter to Harriet Wantage. Then having stuck a wafer on the envelope, she carried the note with her own hands to the stable yard.
“What can Oi do for, ye, m’lady?” old Harry asked.
“I want a groom to take this at once to Cuckhurst,” Caroline said. “It is for the Vicarage and tell him, Harry, that he is not to wait for an answer.”
The old groom scratched his greying hair.
“Them seem queer instructions to Oi, m’lady. ‘Tis usual for a groom who has travelled all that distance to have his glass o’ ale and put his horse in the stable for a rest.”
“I care little what is usual,” Caroline said. “You are to tell the messenger, Harry, that he is to leave the letter and turn about forthwith. Here’s half a guinea. Tell him from me that he can go to the nearest inn and get his ale, but he is not to wait at the Vicarage. Is that clear?”
“Very good, m’lady. Oi suppose this one o’ them new-fangle’d ways a’ be’aving as ye have learned up in London Town but blessed if Oi can see the sense on it.”
Leaving the old groom grumbling to himself, Caroline went back to the house. Although he might argue with her, she knew her commands would be carried out and that now she ran no risk of receiving a refusal to the suggestions she had made in her letter to Harriet.
There was a rising sense of excitement within her. The night before she had lain awake worrying, trying to find a way to help Lord Brecon, and now miraculously things were happening. The plan she had in mind was a dangerous one, and yet she believed she could carry it through. Just for a moment she thought of her mother.
“But I am not doing anything wrong,” Caroline argued, “I am helping someone I am being kind and unselfish, and besides, in the position of companion I shall certainly not be able to be anything but subdued, well behaved and very, very womanly.”
She had reached her own room by this time and she made a grimace at her reflection in the mirror. She certainly did not look very like a companion. There was something very aristocratic about her lovely face, and something rather wild and untrammelled, too, in the way her red-gold curls danced around her forehead and over her tiny ears. Caroline seized a brush and tried to smooth them down, but they defied her, and after a moment she threw down the brush on the-dressing-table and going across to the bedside, pulled the bell rope violently.
It was only a few seconds before she heard Maria’s feet come running down the passage. She came quickly into the room.
“Lawks, m’lady, but I thought you were taken ill. The bell rang so violently as almost to startle me out of my skin.”
“Start packing, Maria,” Caroline said.
“Is your ladyship going away?” Maria asked.
“Yes, and I am taking you with me.”
Maria clapped her hands.
“Oh, m’lady, how glad I am! I have been humiliated at your being maided in London by that stiff-necked old hag at Vulcan House. “Tis my place to attend to Lady Caroline,” she told me. “I was here before she was born.” “If you told me ‘twas before the house was built, I would believe you,” I says, and she hated me from that moment, m’lady. I was rude, I grant you, but I couldn’t abide her taking you off my hands like that after you had chosen me as your very own maid.”
“Yes, yes, Maria,” Caroline said absently, “but we are not going to London.”
For how many nights shall I pack, m’lady?”
Caroline walked across to shut the door which was slightly ajar.
“Listen, Maria,” she said. “Can you keep a secret?”
“You know I can, m’lady.”
“Will you do me a service then?” Caroline’s tones were grave.
Maria’s eyes opened wide, her smiling, chattering mouth was still and solemn. She was silent for a moment and then in a voice quiet and strangely unlike her usual tone, she said,
“I would give my life for you, m’lady. You know that.”
“Thank you, Maria, I know I can trust you,” Caroline said. ‘Well, we are going on a journey of vast import. It is to help someone - a man who is in grave danger.”
Maria clas
ped her hands together.
“Oh, m’lady, ‘tis, then – a journey of love.”
For a moment Caroline looked startled. She stood very still and there was a sudden loveliness in, her face and, in the depths of her eyes which had never been there before.
“I believe you are right, Maria,” she said softly. “It is a journey of love.”
4
Caroline bent forward and looked out of the window of the coach. It was travelling fast, for Lord Vulcan had his coaches specially built for speed and the new roads invented by Macadam made journeying both smooth and swift.
“We shall be there soon,” she said to Maria who was sitting beside her. “The last milestone said “Three miles to, Cuckhurst” and we must have done over half that distance by now.”
“Oh, m’lady, I am so frightened,” Maria quivered.
“Try not to be so chicken-hearted, Maria,” Caroline answered. “It is quite simple, as I have told, you. Immediately we arrive I am sending the coach on to Brecon Castle with two letters, one the recommendation from Mrs. Edgmont, the other from myself asking for an interview. You can travel in the coach until it reaches the drive, then you must get out and walk. You go to the back door, enquire for the housekeeper and present the reference that I have given you. Do not forget that I signed it with my mother’s name, and you had better ask for the position of an under-housemaid ”
“Oh, m’lady, supposing they have a suspicion that the reference is forged?”
“Really, Maria, you are too nonsensical,” Caroline exclaimed. “Who would imagine any such thing? You promised to help me, Maria, and this is the one-way you can do it. You are likely to hear far more in the servants’ hall than I am in the dining room, and if I get the position of companion to Lady Brecon, you can put in a good word for me with the other servants, say that I am continually staying at Mandrake and that Lady Caroline Faye is devoted to me, for indeed I dote upon myself.”
Maria giggled for a moment, and then her face grew serious again.
“I don’t know what to think of it all, m’lady, indeed I don’t, for ‘tis heading for trouble you are, as sure as I’m sitting here.”
“Stop croaking, Maria, and remember that this is no prank, we go to save a man’s life.”
“Well, ‘I’ll do my best, m’lady, because I promised you I would, but if you asks me - ”
Caroline interrupted her with a cry.
“We are arriving, Maria! See, this must be Cuckhurst village. There is the church, and yes – that must be the Vicarage. Slip well into your corner, for I have no wish for you to be seen.”
“Oh, m’lady, m’lady – ” Maria started, but at that moment the carriage door opened and a footman let down the steps. Caroline stepped out. As soon as she reached the ground, she turned and spoke to the coachman on the box.
“Boddle !”she said in a low voice.
“Yes, m’lady.”
He touched his hat and bent down to hear what she was saying.
“You are to take the two letters I have given you straight to Brecon Castle. You are not to rest there or here in the village. Is that understood? You are to start immediately on the return journey to Mandrake. If you need to put up the horses, do so in the next village or when you get to Maidstone.”
“Aye, m’lady, but-”
But Caroline did not wait to hear his protestations. She knew it was essential to her plan that, the servants from Mandrake should not gossip in Cuckhurst. She turned and walked towards the Vicarage. It was a small, grey-gabled stone building set in an untidy, uncared for garden. As she passed up a narrow walk between, flower beds, the front door suddenly opened and a girl stood there with a startled expression on her face. She stared at Caroline and then began to run down the path.
“Caroline!” she exclaimed. “Caroline! But I was not expecting you. You wrote that a Miss Fry was arriving.”
Caroline put out her hand and drew the girl close to her.
“Listen, Harriet,” she said quickly, her voice hardly above a whisper. “Is your father within?”
“Yes, Caroline, I believe so, but – ”
“Then hear me! He is on no account to know who I am. I am Miss Fry. Do you understand, Harriet? I am Caroline Fry, who was at school with you.”
“But Caroline I fail to understand. What does– ”
“I will explain everything to you later,” Caroline interrupted. ‘Just remember for the moment that I am Caroline Fry, the girl you were expecting. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, Caroline, and I will do my best, but ‘tis all bewildering. I – don’t know what to think.”
“Then pray cease thinking,” Caroline answered. “Do precisely as I tell you, Harriet. It is vastly important, I assure you, or I wouldn’t ask you to utter a falsehood. But, please, make no mistake it is of the greatest importance to me!”
“Then of course I will help you,” Harriet said, and smiling, Caroline bent to kiss her.
She was small in height with a sweet expression and trusting brown eyes, and she might have been pretty except that her hair was badly arranged and her dress of striped cambric was ill-fitted and outmoded.
Caroline remembered that at school Harriet had always been kindly and unselfish, eager to help other people and grateful for any small favours the richer and more distinguished pupils would condescend to show her. She hoped that Harriet would also be staunch and reliable, but as she looked down into her brown eyes wide with astonishment and at the vulnerability of her thin, rather pinched little face, Caroline was half afraid.
“Shall we go into the house, Harriet?” she asked, as her hostess, bemused and astonished over what she had heard seemed to have forgotten her duties.
“Oh, but of course, be pleased to enter, Caroline,” Harriet said, a wave of colour sweeping up her face at the thought of her negligence.
They stepped through the stone porch into the hall of the Vicarage. It was oak panelled, the ceiling was dark with age and was damp with mildew, and everywhere there were signs of poverty. The rugs were threadbare, the chair by the empty fireplace was sadly in need of being upholstered and the other furniture was in no better condition.
Caroline pulled off her gloves and waited for Harriet to show her the drawing-room, but at that moment a door opened and the Vicar came into the hall. Elderly and red-faced, Adolphus L Vantage was both a snob and a bully. He had never wished to be ordained to Holy Orders, but as the youngest son of a none too prosperous country squire, it was the only career open to him.
He had but one real passion in life and that was hunting. The two horses which he kept in his stables were well fed and well groomed, however meagrely his household fared in consequence. He came into the hall at a leisurely pace, not putting himself out unduly to greet a guest whose position in life was such a lowly one as Miss Fry’s, but when he saw Caroline, her beauty and her deportment instinctively made him bow a little deeper than he would have done under ordinary circumstances.
“I must bid you welcome, Miss Fry,” he said in a deep, rather hoarse voice which sounded as if he suffered from a perpetual cold in the head.
Caroline dropped him a curtsey.
“Thank you, sir. It is exceeding kind of you to offer me your hospitality.”
“Harriet tells me that you have come from Mandrake. Surely the coach is not returning forthwith. I have made arrangements to put them up in the stables for a few hours at least.”
How exceeding kind of you, Reverend Sir,” Caroline replied, “but by Lord Vulcan’s orders they must be back to Mandrake as swiftly as possible.”
“A pity! A pity!” the Vicar exclaimed. “I would not like his lordship to think we could not accommodate his coach and servants. You left his lordship well, I hope?”
“Very well,” Caroline answered, and realising by the glint in the Vicar’s eye that he was interested in the doings of nobility, she added, “‘Lady Caroline Faye sent her love to Harriet and her best respects to you, sir. ”
“Indeed!
Indeed!” the Vicar said. “Harriet was at school with her I believe.”
“Yes, sir, and she often speaks of Harriet and swears she was the nicest girl in the whole Academy.”
Harriet blushed, but the Vicar looked at his daughter with distaste.
“Her grand friends pay little attention to her,” he said in a grumbling voice. “Although it is not surprising when she is dull-witted and seldom makes the best of her appearance. Look at Miss Fry, Harriet! Why do you not furnish yourself with a driving dress and hat of such distinction? It is not impossible, surely, for Miss Fry, as we know, has her living to make, and so cannot be riotously extravagant.”
“Oh, sir, you flatter me,” she said, throwing the Vicar a languishing glance. “It is but a simple little garment that I made myself. You must allow me to assist Harriet in the choice of her wardrobe. She always looked charming at school.”
“And well she might,” the Vicar replied, “for the Dowager Lady Brecon paid both for Harriet’s schooling and her gowns while she was being educated. Now things are different, and Harriet has to economise, as we all have. But I must not bore you with these squalid details of our daily existence.”
“You would never do that, sir,” Caroline answered swiftly, “but pray speak to me of the Dowager Lady Brecon, for I expect Harriet has told you that I am to apply for the post of companion to her ladyship.”
“You will find her, as might be expected a true lady of quality,” the Vicar replied pompously, but Harriet interrupted quickly.
“Oh, Caroline, she is so sweet, so gentle, so gracious!”
“You have indeed reassured me,” Caroline said. “I only pray that my application will be successful.”
“Indeed we must hope so,” the Vicar said, “and if you do go into residence at Brecon Castle, perhaps you can contrive that Harriet is asked there more often than she has been this past year or so. Goodness knows what the stupid chit did to muff her welcome, but she hasn’t been invited there half as frequently as I might expect.”
“Oh, Papa, must you tell Caroline things like that?” Harriet said, crimson with mortification.
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