Retracing his steps he found himself in the library and knew instantly that this was the room he would make exclusively his own.
He liked the comfortable leather armchairs and the big flat-topped desk which stood in exactly the right place for the light.
There was still nobody about and, because he was curious about the rest of the house, he did not go towards the kitchen quarters where he was certain he would find what servants there were.
Instead he walked up the staircase, noting that each oak pillar had originally been surmounted by a carved figure although some were missing or damaged.
At the same time he appreciated its age and the way the wood had mellowed.
There were also pictures on the stairs and, as they were mostly portraits, he guessed they represented Langston’s ancestors and thought he recognised a resemblance in some of them to Gerard’s handsome features.
At the top of the staircase he had the choice of going right or left. He chose left and moving down the low ceilinged and narrow corridor saw in front of him a long gallery.
It was the type of gallery which Elizabethans had always built in their houses and into which in the long cold winters they moved their four-poster beds, clustering them round the great fireplace and pulling their curtains for privacy.
In one of the houses he owned the Earl had a gallery rather like it and he would often visualise the householders encamped there, the most important being nearest the fire.
He reached the door of the gallery, to see the sun was glinting golden through the windows on the polished floor.
Then at the far end he saw a woman in a white gown and thought he had at last found someone to tell him what he wished to know.
He moved forward, but even as he did so he realised that she had vanished!
He thought for a moment that, not having heard his approach, she must have sat down on a chair or sofa. Then, as he walked further down the gallery, he saw it was in fact empty.
‘I must have been dreaming,’ he told himself.
As he stood near the place where she had seemed to be standing, he heard a voice behind him say,
“Good afternoon, sir.”
He turned round and saw an elderly woman wearing a grey dress and over it a white apron.
As he looked at her she curtsied and said,
“I think, my Lord, you must be the Earl of Trevarnon who has taken The Manor for Race Week. Sir Gerard told me to expect your Lordship, but you are earlier than we anticipated.”
“I hope that will not inconvenience you,” the Earl said, “but I came ahead of my party to see that everything was in order.”
“I hope it’ll be, my Lord,” Nattie replied, “but we’re very short-handed, as doubtless Sir Gerard informed you.”
“He did,” the Earl answered. “But my Major Domo is on his way with a large number of servants to do everything that will be required.”
“Thank you, my Lord, and would your Lordship like to see the bedrooms?”
“I would!” the Earl replied.
Nattie led him along the corridor in the opposite direction from which he had come to the Long Gallery.
He wondered if he should mention that he had seen a young woman in white, but instead he remarked,
“Perhaps you would tell me who actually is in the house besides yourself?”
“Only old Betsy who’ll help in the kitchen if necessary, my Lord,” Nattie replied. “Then there’s Jacobs, who’s an odd job man and brings in the coals and wood and carries up the bathwater.”
The Earl did not speak and Nattie went on,
“There’s Abbot in the stables and his grandson Jem, who’ll be riding our horse at the races.”
She spoke in a way which told the Earl she was determined not to be intimidated or overpowered by his horses. There was a faint smile on his lips as he replied,
“And perhaps now you will tell me your name and your position in the household?”
“I was nurse to Master Gerard, my Lord, and ever since he was a baby he’s called me ‘Nattie’ because he couldn’t say ‘nurse’ and the name’s stuck.”
“Then Miss Nattie it must be,” the Earl said.
“Thank you, my Lord. This is the room in which we thought you’d be most comfortable. It’s the Master’s room, but Sir Gerard still prefers to be where he slept as a boy.”
The Earl, despite what Demelza had anticipated, appreciated the big four-poster with its faded velvet curtains and cover, the beautifully carved panelling and the vase of pink roses which stood on the dressing table.
“The flowers all over the house are delightful, Miss Nattie,” he said. “Do I thank you for the arrangement?”
There was just a moment’s hesitation before Nattie replied,
“I do them when I’ve the time, my Lord.”
“Then let’s hope you will find time while I am here,” the Earl said.
Nattie told him where he would find the stables and he went downstairs to discover that Abbot had already shown Jem where to put the team.
The Earl inspected the rest of the stables.
They were surprisingly spacious, far better than he had expected to find, except in one of the great houses in this particular vicinity.
While he was in the stables, his horses arrived.
By the time he had watched them bedded down and found that Crusader was in splendid shape, his staff were at The Manor and the Major Domo was directing operations like a General in command of an Army.
Because there was nothing to do until his guests appeared, the Earl walked into the garden to stand looking at the rhododendrons, the flowering shrubs and the laburnum trees which as a child he had called ‘golden rain’.
It seemed to him as he moved towards them that he stepped back into the past and was in a land peopled by gnomes and fairies, dragons and Knights.
As a small boy he had always imagined that fire-breathing dragons lurked in the forests and there were elves burrowing under the mountains or hiding in the trunks of great trees.
He had not thought of such things for years, but now this mysterious house with its overgrown garden seemed hardly to belong to the modern world in which he lived.
It certainly had nothing to do with the men and women of the Beau Monde who would be converging on Ascot to spend a week not only racing but at parties, balls and as far as the menfolk were concerned, riotous drinking and gambling.
But here there was only the sound of the wood pigeons in the trees and the rustle of small animals moving beneath the shrubs.
The fragrance of the flowers was very different from the exotic perfumes used by Sydel and Charis and all the other women he knew.
The Earl walked a long way into the wood before finally he turned back.
Then, when he came again in sight of the house, the same feeling of mystery and magic he had felt when he first saw it from the other side swept over him.
Absurdly for one moment he wished that he could be alone there.
Then he laughed at himself and walked on quickly, feeling certain that by this time his friends would have arrived.
They were in fact waiting for him in the drawing room, sprawling comfortably in chairs, glasses in their hands which were being continuously replenished from the bottles of champagne that stood in the ice coolers on one of the side tables.
“We were told you were here!” Lord Chirn exclaimed as the Earl entered through one of the windows, “but nobody knew where you had gone.”
“I have been inspecting the property,” the Earl replied. “Nice to see you, Ramsgill, and you, Ralph! How are you, Wigdon?”
He spoke last to Sir Francis Wigdon, a man he had not known for long, but found amusing and who was with the cards as expert as he was himself.
“You have certainly found a very attractive house,” Sir Francis replied, “and in my opinion, far preferable to The Crown and Feathers!”
“We all agree on that,” the Honourable Ralph Mear cried. “It is so like you,
Trevarnon, to find something so unique and comfortable, when anyone else who had been burnt out in the same circumstances would be having to put up a tent on the Heath.”
“Thank God we are saved from that!” the Earl replied before pouring himself a glass of champagne. “I imagine the crowds will be worse this year than ever!”
“They increase year by year,” Lord Ramsgill said, “and my grooms tell me there has been the usual number of accidents on the way here.”
Accidents on the road were commonplace and during Ascot week when drivers poured gallons of beer down their throats to sweep away the choking dust there were always deaths through careless driving or merely because the congestion made them inevitable.
Twice the Royal carriages returning to Windsor after the racing had been involved in fatal accidents. The first was a postilion who was unseated and the wheel of the carriage ran over and killed him.
In the second case a Member of the Household in attendance on the King had knocked over and killed a pedestrian.
It was something that had to be expected, but unfortunately it did not make those who drove any more careful the following year.
“What tips have you got for us, apart, of course, from recommending your own horses?” Lord Chirn asked the Earl.
“I think really you should be asking the Duke of York,” he replied. “He told me the night before last that he means to make a killing this Ascot and I cannot think of anyone likely to stop him.”
“That means,” Lord Ramsgill said, “that you and he will be backing the colt Cardenio he has entered for his own selling plate – and Moses.”
“Most certainly Moses!” the Earl said, “nothing short of breaking the tablets of the Ten Commandments over his head is likely to stop him walking off with the Albany Stakes.”
They all laughed and the Earl sat down with his glass in his hand.
*
Upstairs in the Priests’ Room, Demelza wondered how she could have been so stupid as to have been nearly caught unawares by the Earl.
The sound of his footsteps entering the gallery had alerted her.
She had one quick glance at a man handsome, tall, broad-shouldered and extremely elegant, before with a swiftness born of fear she had slipped back through the panel and shut the secret door soundlessly behind her.
She had had no idea that he was expected so early and had, in fact, only just finished arranging the flowers.
She had then gone to the Long Gallery to collect the book she had left there when Gerard had called her on the previous day.
She had already moved everything else she wanted up the twisting narrow stairs. Fortunately her own bedroom was not required for one of the guests so there was no need to hide her special treasures away.
Gerard had come back last night and left again early this morning with last-minute instructions that no one was to be aware of her very existence.
“Why should anyone suspect me of having a sister when they have never seen her in London?” he asked. To Nattie he said,
“You and Betsy look after me here and when I come home I am alone with you. Is that clear?”
“Quite clear, Master Gerard,” Nattie replied, “and I think you’re absolutely right. I don’t want Miss Demelza mixed up with any of those raffish friends of yours.”
“How do you know they are raffish, Nattie?” Gerard asked.
“I’ve heard enough of the goings-on in London to know what I think!” Nattie replied.
Gerard laughed and called her a prude, but as he said goodbye to Demelza, he added,
“Now obey me or I will be very angry. I will not have you meeting Trevarnon or anyone else who is staying in the house!”
“It seems to me that if these friends of yours are so wicked you might find a few better ones!” Demelza remarked.
“They are all jolly fine fellows and excellent sportsmen,” Gerard retorted quickly.
She had known he would spring to the defence of his friends and replied,
“I am only teasing, dearest, but don’t drink too much. You know it is bad for you and Mama always hated men who were hard drinkers.”
“Trevarnon is not a hard drinker,” Gerard said reflectively. “He is far too keen a pugilist for that, besides being the champion fencer at the moment.”
It was not surprising, Demelza felt, as he rode away, that he left her curious about the Earl.
There was apparently nothing at which his Lordship did not excel besides being the owner of the most magnificent horse in the whole of Great Britain.
“Is Crusader better than Moses?” she asked Abbot.
“They’ve not run against each other yet, Miss Demelza,” Abbot replied, “but if they do I’d bet me money on Crusader.”
“Who is he competing against in the Gold Cup?”
“Sir Huldibrand. That’s ’is only real challenge,” Abbot answered.
“The horse belongs to Mr. Ramsbottom,” Demelza remarked. “I do hope he does not win!”
“He’s a good horse,” Abbot said, “and Buckle’s riding ’im.”
Frank Buckle was one of the greatest jockeys of the time and Demelza, who had seen him ride at other Ascot meetings, knew that he rode at only eight stone seven without fasting.
He had, in fact, been one of her heroes for many years and she had heard someone say,
“There is nothing big about Frank Buckle except his heart and his nose!”
His integrity was famous as well as his last spurt at the finish of a race.
Gerard had told her there was a couplet written about him,
“A Buckle large was formerly the rage,
A Buckle small now fills the Sporting page.”
Demelza had laughed and remembered it.
Now he was getting older and although she felt it was disloyal she did want Crusader, because he was staying in their own stables, to win the Gold Cup.
As she walked back to the house she admitted that she was not only thinking of Crusader but also of his owner.
Everything Gerard had told her about the Earl, had, despite his warnings, intrigued her.
“I have to see him!” she exclaimed and remembered it would be easy to do so secretly at any time she wished.
Now she recalled that she had nearly met him face to face and was aware how furious Gerard would have been with her!
‘This is a warning,’ she thought. ‘I must never take such risks again and must always be on my guard.’
At the same time, drawn irresistibly towards the man she longed to see, she crept very quietly down the twisting staircase until the sound of laughter told her that, as she expected, the gentlemen were all congregated in the drawing room.
She had spent as long as she could tidying it, dusting and arranging the flowers.
She stood for a moment in the darkness listening to the different sounds of the gentlemen’s voices and trying to guess which ones belonged to the names that Gerard had given her.
Her brother was not yet back. That meant that there were five men in the drawing room.
She put out her hand to find the tiny peepholes which the monks or the Priests had made in the panelling so that they could look into every room.
It had been placed at eye level for a man, which meant that Demelza had to stand on tiptoe in order to look through it.
It was so small and concealed in the ornamentation in the centre of a flower that it was quite impossible for anyone in the room to notice it. In fact Demelza had often found it difficult to remember where it was when she was in the drawing room.
She put her eye to the minute hole and the first face she lighted on was that of a man of about thirty-five years of age.
He was not in the least good-looking, but had a benign appearance and was laughing uproariously at something that had been said.
She guessed, although she was not certain, that this was Lord Chirn.
Next to him was sitting a man with small dark eyes, a pointed nose and a slightly exaggerated cravat.
“I am sure you think so too, Francis.” When he replied, she knew he was Sir Francis Wigdon.
There was something about him she did not like, but she was not certain what it was. She only thought that while his lips smiled his eyes did not do so.
Then she looked a little towards the centre of the group and knew at once that she was looking at the Earl Trevarnon.
He was exactly as she had imagined him before she saw him in the Long Gallery. Exceedingly handsome with a broad, intelligent forehead, square chin and firm mouth, he had two deep lines of cynicism running from his nose to the corners of his lips.
It was a raffish face, cynical, and had a faint resemblance, Demelza thought, to the picture of Charles II that hung on the stairs.
One of his friends said something which amused him, but he did not smile – he just twisted his lips, but at the same time there was a twinkle in his eyes.
‘He is magnificent!’ Demelza told herself. ‘And whatever Gerard may say – I like him!’
Chapter Three
As soon as Demelza knew that the gentlemen had gone into dinner, she slipped down the secret passage to the ground floor and let herself out of a panelled wall onto a passage that led to the garden door.
She had taken the precaution of putting a dark cloak over her gown just in case anyone should see her moving through the garden.
It would be unlikely, but, as all her gowns were white, she knew that she stood out against the dark green leaves of the shrubs.
Nattie, who made all her gowns, had found that the cheapest material to be found in the small shops at Ascot or in Windsor was white muslin.
She had fashioned them in very much the same shape for the last five years – falling from a high waist they not only became Demelza, but because she was very slender gave her an ethereal look which had an indescribable grace.
Shutting the garden door behind her but making sure that it was unlatched for her return, she moved through the bushes towards the stables.
She was quite certain at this time of night that the grooms, jockeys and apprentices, having put the horses to bed, would all have hurried off to the Heath.
The Ghost Who Fell in Love Page 4