“I expected it,” Demelza answered, rising to take the tray from her.
“It’s always the same when there’s a big party and more courses than usual,” Nattie went on. “The servants have to wait for their meal and so do you.”
“It has given me a good appetite,” Demelza smiled.
“I chose the dishes I thought you’d like best.” “They look delicious!” Demelza cried, “but whatever they were like, I would not be particular.”
She had been far too excited at the races to eat the sandwiches and small pasties that Nattie had brought for luncheon or even a delicious mousse which Betsy had purloined from the kitchen when the chef was not looking.
All Demelza had been able to think about was Crusader and pray that he would not be beaten by Sir Huldibrand even though she knew Mr. Ramsbottom’s horse was a worthy rival.
When finally Crusader had passed the winning post and a great cheer of excitement had gone up, she had felt the tears prick her eyes at the intensity of her joy.
If she had not overheard the plot against him, the horse might have been lying doped and helpless in his stall and Sir Francis, who would have backed Sir Huldibrand to win, would have been in possession of an illicit fortune.
“There were some strange goings on last night, Miss Demelza,” Nattie had told her earlier that morning.
“What has happened?” Demelza had asked.
“Two men attempted to drug Crusader,” Nattie related, “but his Lordship heard them and, Abbot said, laid them out like a professional boxer!”
“What a terrible thing to have occurred here in our own stables!” Demelza exclaimed.
“Disgraceful!” Nattie agreed. “The criminals have been taken away by the Racecourse Police and one of his Lordship’s guests has left in a great hurry.”
“Who was that?” Demelza asked, knowing she was expected to be curious.
“Sir Francis Wigdon,” Nattie answered. “One can hardly believe that a gentleman and a friend of his Lordship’s would be mixed up in anything so disreputable.”
“No, indeed,” Demelza murmured.
On the way to the Racecourse Abbot could talk of nothing else.
“’Tis my fault, Miss Demelza,” he reproached himself. “I should’ve ’ad that lock on the stable door mended a time ago, but what do we usually keep in ’em which’d attract the attention of felons?”
“We must be more careful in future, Abbot,” Demelza replied. “Supposing someone tried to prevent Firebird from running on Saturday?”
“Anyone as tries’ll do so over me dead body!” Abbot swore.
Then he chuckled.
“’Tis just like his Lordship’s luck to ’ave an instinct which saved Crusader for the race.”
“Was it an instinct?” Demelza enquired.
“That’s what Mr. Dawson, his valet, tells I it were.” Demelza smiled secretly to herself thinking that she had suggested that was what the Earl should say.
“His Lordship’s certainly a very fortunate man,” Nattie interposed.
“Aye, since ’e’s been full grown,” Abbot replied. “But Mr. Dawson were a-tellin’ I that the old Earl were a regular tyrant and ’is son, like everyone else suffered ’cos of it.”
“A tyrant?” Demelza asked with interest. “In what way?”
“Mr. Dawson said everyone in ’is Lordship’s employment went in fear of ’is rages and neither ’e nor ’er Ladyship took any interest in their son.”
“They neglected him?” Demelza enquired.
“Ignored ’im, more like,” Abbot replied. “You be lucky, Miss Demelza, in havin’ a father and mother what fair doted on you. A number of the Gentry and the Nobility ’as no use for their children.”
“That’s true enough,” Nattie agreed. “They put them in the care of ignorant and neglectful servants and I’ve heard of cases where the poor little creatures are half-starved!”
Demelza was silent.
It seemed extraordinary that the Earl, who was so wealthy, envied by his contemporaries for his vast possessions and appeared to be the most fortunate man alive, should have suffered as a child.
True or not she was sure that because, unlike her, he had no brother or sister, he must often have felt lonely. Without having loving parents what would her life have been like? She could hardly visualise it.
At the same time whatever she might feel about him, however much she might commiserate because he had suffered when he was a child and because of the tragedy of his marriage, she knew that she must not see him again.
The circumstances that had led her first to save him from the vengeance of Lady Sydel, then to protect Crusader, were so exceptional that her disobedience of Gerard’s orders and her broken promise to him was excusable.
Now, although she longed to talk to the Earl, and to watch him as she had done before, she knew she must behave as her mother would have expected her to do.
It was what she herself knew to be right.
Accordingly, when they returned from the races, she had put the bolt across the secret door that led to the Earl’s bedroom.
She had then gone quickly upstairs, determined she would not go down them again until the morning, in case she should overhear anything else that was not intended for her ears.
It had, however, been impossible not to think about the Earl.
When she had seen him leading Crusader to the weighing room after the race was over, she thought that no other man or horse could equal them in the whole length and breadth of the country.
She had thrilled to hear all the cheers that accompanied them.
Although a number of people must have lost a lot of money on the race, as sportsmen they cheered the victor, because it had run a brilliant race in the finest traditions of the turf.
“Thank you for a very good dinner,” Demelza said to Nattie now.
She put down her spoon and fork and poured out a little lemonade from the glass jug on the tray.
“I so wish I could tell the chef how much I appreciate his cooking,” she went on.
‘That’s one thing you can’t do,” Nattie said. “And if you want the truth, Miss Demelza, I’ll be glad when you can come out of this stuffy little hole and go back to your own room.”
“After his Lordship and his party have left,” Demelza added in a low voice.
“That’s right!” Nattie agreed. “I feel as if they’d stayed here for a month already!”
“Has it been a great deal of extra work for you?” Demelza asked.
“It’s not the work I mind,” Nattie replied. “It’s all this being on my guard against anyone learning that you’re in the house. Old Betsy almost gave the game away this very morning. Then she catches my eye and bites back the words, but I were only just in time.”
“Never mind, Nattie. It is only for another two days.”
As Demelza spoke she felt as if her own voice sounded dull and dismal at the thought.
When the horses had gone and the Earl with them, how would she ever settle down? How would she ever be content with the quiet uneventful life she had known before?
“I’ll be getting back,” Nattie was saying. “Now don’t stay up all night reading. If you ask me you’ve had enough excitement for one day!”
“It has certainly been exciting,” Demelza agreed. “Goodnight, dearest Nattie.”
She kissed her Nurse’s cheek and lifted one of the lighted candles so that the old woman could see her way more clearly down the narrow stairway.
She held it until she saw Nattie move through the panelled door and heard it close behind her.
Then she carried the candle to the altar and set it down to stand looking up at the Holy picture she had known ever since she had been a child.
“Thank you, God,” she said. “Thank you for letting him win.”
She was sure it was her prayers that not only saved Crusader but had carried him first past the winning post. Her mother had always said one should never receive an answer to a p
rayer without being grateful for it.
“Thank you! Thank you!” Demelza cried again.
As her lips moved, she was seeing not only Crusader but the Earl walking beside him with a smile on his lips as he raised his hat in response to the cheers.
The vision of him was so vivid in her mind that somehow, as she turned her head instinctively and saw him standing in the doorway, she was not startled or surprised. It seemed just inevitable!
They looked at each other for a long moment.
It was as if they found each other after an age-old separation and were reunited.
Then the Earl said automatically, almost as if he was thinking of something else,
“Why did you bar me out?”
“How did you – manage to get – in?”
“I followed your nurse and she left the panel ajar.” “She would be horrified if she knew you were here!”
“I want to talk to you. I have to talk to you!”
Demelza drew in her breath at the insistence in his voice. As if he felt she was going to refuse his request, he added,
“I understand if you feel it is unconventional that we should talk here, but where else can we go?”
For a moment he realised she did not understand what he was saying, then, as if it suddenly struck her that the Priests’ Room was also her bedroom, the blood rose in her cheeks and she said a little shyly,
“I-I had not thought of it – before, but there is – nowhere – ”
She paused, then continued,
“I could – meet you in the herb garden. I can reach – there without – anyone seeing me – leave the house.”
“No one knows I have returned,” the Earl said, “so I will go there at once.”
He looked into her eyes raised to his and asked,
“You will come? This is not just a trick to be rid of me?” “No – of course not! I will come – if you really – want me to.”
“I want it more than I can possibly say. I have to talk to you.”
There was a note of command in his voice and he knew that she responded to it.
“I will come!” she said again simply. “But first you must return the way you came.”
“Will I find the catch?”
“If you take the candle, it is quite clear from this side of the panel.”
She handed him the candle as she spoke and without another word he turned and went down the stairs.
As Demelza had said, the catch which was so invisible on one side of the door was easy to find from the staircase.
The Earl set the candle down on one of the stairs, then went into his bedroom, closing the secret panel behind him.
There was still no one about and he made his way down the secondary staircase and out through the door which led towards the stables. But now he turned in the opposite direction walking past the front of the house.
In the ever-deepening dusk he found his way to the herb garden.
He knew that Demelza would expect him to sit in the arbour and the scent of the honeysuckle which climbed over it made him feel almost as if she was waiting for him there.
He sat down on the wooden seat thinking that never in his life had he had a love affair with such a strange beginning or such an intriguing one.
As he waited for Demelza, he could hardly believe his own excitement.
It seemed to be rising in him, making his heart beat quickly. He might have been a boy of eighteen meeting his first love rather than a blasé cynic who had, he believed until now, tasted all the joys of love and found that they had grown tedious.
It suddenly struck him that perhaps after all Demelza would not come and never again would he be able to enter the secret passage and find his way to her room.
Then he told himself that no one could look so pure, so honest and lie. If she told him she would come, then she would keep her word.
He thought it was fitting that someone so spiritual, with an aura of holiness that he had never before found in any woman who had attracted him, should be housed in a room sanctified by those who had received Mass from an ordained Priest.
He was still alone and now he began to be afraid. Perhaps at the last moment Demelza had thought it too much of a risk to leave her hiding-place.
Perhaps someone had seen her when she emerged from one of the doors which only she could open and no one else had found.
Then, as his fears and apprehensions seemed to taunt him, he saw her.
She was coming towards him like the ghost he had first thought her to be, moving so silently and so effortlessly over the path between the rows of herbs that it was difficult to believe that she was real.
Then at last she was beside him and, as he rose to his feet, she said,
“I am sorry if I kept you – waiting. The bushes had grown so thickly round the secret door into the garden that it was difficult to get – through.”
“But you are here and I want more than I can ever tell you, Demelza, to talk to you again.”
“I want to tell you how glad I was that Crusader won,” she answered, “but I think you would have known that.”
“It was entirely due to you,” he said, “and both Crusader and I are very grateful.”
“It was the most exciting race I have ever watched.”
“That is what I thought,” the Earl agreed, “and it was particularly exciting for me because I knew you were watching it too.”
It was what Demelza had felt herself and she looked up at him. Then, as if she felt shy, she looked away again.
“I want to give you something to commemorate our victory,” the Earl said. “But it is difficult to know what.” “No!” she replied quickly. “You must not do – that!” “Why not?” he asked,
“Because I would have to – explain where the present had come from and that – as you know – is something I cannot do.”
The Earl was silent. And then he said,
“How long do we have to go on with this pretence? I know, Demelza, and you know too, because of the things we have done together, we mean much more to each other than if we were mere acquaintances.”
He waited for her to reply, but she did not do so and he continued,
“Do you really imagine that on Saturday, after the races are over or perhaps on Sunday, that I can leave The Manor and forget everything that has happened here?”
Still Demelza did not speak and after a moment he asked,
“Will you be able to forget me, Demelza, as you know I cannot forget you?”
Now he waited and after a moment she said in a low voice,
“I shall never – forget you and I shall – pray for you.”
“And you imagine that will be enough? I want to see you. I want to be with you, Demelza, and if I am honest, I want more than my hope of Heaven to hold you in my arms and kiss you.”
His voice seemed to vibrate on the air between them. Then he added,
“I cannot remember ever in my life asking a woman if I could kiss her. But I am afraid of frightening you, afraid that you will disappear and I will never find my White Lady again.”
His voice deepened as he said,
“May I kiss you, my lovely little ghost?”
He put out his arms towards her. Demelza did not move, but somehow he stopped before he touched her.
“I think – if you kissed me,” she whispered, “it would be wonderful – more wonderful than anything I could – imagine – but it would be – wrong.”
“Wrong?” the Earl asked.
He waited for an explanation and after a moment Demelza said,
“I heard today how you suffered as a child – and I have thought so often of how you must have suffered because of your m-marriage – but, although I would wish to do – anything you asked of me – it would be wrong, because you belong to – someone else.”
“Are you saying that I belong to my wife?” the Earl asked incredulously.
“You are – married. You took a – sacred vow,” Demelza said in a low
voice.
“A vow that no human being should be required to keep in the circumstances!” he replied harshly.
“I know – I do understand. At the same time – I would feel that I was doing – wrong and that would spoil the – love that otherwise I could – give you.”
The Earl was very still.
He could hardly believe what he had heard Demelza say, and yet he told himself it was what he might have expected she would think because she was so very different from any other woman he had ever known.
Aloud he said,
“What do you know of love? The love you might have given me if you did not think it was prohibited? Tell me!”
It was a command and Demelza clasped her hands together. Then looking away from him across the garden she answered,
“I have thought about – love and, although you may think me very ignorant and foolish – I think it is something you – need in your life.”
“You really believe,” the Earl asked and there was no mistaking the cynicism in his voice, “that I lack love?”
Demelza made an expressive little gesture with her hands.
“I think, and again you may think it foolish of me, that there are different types of love – and the love you have known, which is the – sort the beautiful lady, who would have drugged your wine gave you, is not the same as – ”
Demelza’s voice died away and the Earl knew she had been about to say “as mine” but was too shy.
“Tell me about your love,” he said gently, “the love you would give a man to whom you gave your heart.”
“I know,” Demelza began very softly, “if I loved someone – very much I would never want to – hurt them. In fact I would want to protect them against any kind of pain – not only in the – body but also in the – mind.”
“In fact, mother love,” the Earl murmured beneath his breath.
But he did not wish to interrupt and Demelza continued,
“There would also be my love for the – man I – married and that love is – I believe – a part of God who created everything that is beautiful, everything which grows and is part of – creation.”
She glanced towards him as she spoke, wondering if he was smiling cynically at what she was trying to describe. Then, because she was nervous, she went on quickly,
The Ghost Who Fell in Love Page 10