A Night of Gaiety

by Barbara Cartland

  The lady’s-maid looked at her critically, but she did not say anything. As the footman walked away, Davita entered a small vestibule with several doors leading out of it.

  “Wait here!” the maid commanded.

  She went through the centre door and Davita heard her speaking to somebody. Then she opened it, saying:

  “Come in! Her Ladyship’ll see you.”

  Feeling as if she were a School-Girl who had been sent for by the Head Mistress, Davita walked into a large room full of light from the afternoon sunshine.

  To her surprise, it was a bedroom with a huge four-poster bed against one wall.

  Sitting in the centre of it propped up by pillows was an old lady who seemed to Davita quite fantastic in her appearance.

  Her white hair was elegantly arranged on top of her head, and beneath it was a face that had once been beautiful but was now lined and very thin.

  But what was so extraordinary was the amount of jewellery she wore.

  There were ropes of magnificent pearls round her neck, there were diamond ear-rings in her ears, and above her blue-veined hands her slim wrists were weighted down with bracelets.

  The bed-cover was of exquisite Venetian lace and she wore a lace dressing-jacket to match it, but it was almost obscured by her jewels.

  Davita stood just inside the door.

  Then the Dowager Countess said sharply:

  “What have they sent me this time? If you are another of those nit-wits who have been popping in and out of here like frightened rabbits, you can go straight back on the next train!”

  The way she spoke sounded so funny that Davita instead of being frightened wanted to laugh.

  “I hope I will not ... have to do ... that,” she said.

  Then quickly she remembered to add “Ma’am” and to curtsey.

  “So you have a voice of your own. That is something!” the old lady said. “Come here, and let me have a look at you.”

  Davita obeyed, moving closer to the bed.

  The Countess stared at her. Then she said:

  “You are nothing but a child! How old are you— sixteen?”

  “I told Mrs. Belmont at the Domestic Bureau that I was nearly twenty-one,” Davita said.

  “And how old are you really?”

  “Eighteen ... but I desperately wanted ... employment.”

  “Why?”

  “For one reason ... because I wanted to get ... away from ... London.”

  “What has London done to make you feel like that?”

  “Things I would rather not ... speak about, Ma’am,” Davita replied, “but I only came ... South three days ago.”

  The Countess looked down at something that lay on her lace cover and Davita realised it was a telegram.

  “Your name is Kilcraig,” she said, “so I suppose you are from Scotland?”

  Davita nodded.

  “My home was near Selkirk, which is not far from Edinburgh.”

  “And why did you leave?”

  “Both my father and mother are ... dead.”

  “And have left you with no money, I suppose?” Davita did not think it was strange that her whole life story was being extracted from her in a few words.

  “That is why I have to find employment,” she said. “Oh, please, Ma’am, let me try to do whatever you want. I will make every effort to be satisfactory.”

  “You are certainly not what I expected,” the Countess remarked.

  “I can only hope I will not be another ... rabbit to be sent back on the ... next train.”

  “I think that is unlikely,” the Countess said. “Now, suppose you let Banks show you to your room, and then you can come back and tell me all about yourself, as I am certain you are anxious to do.”

  There was something a little sarcastic in the way she spoke, and Davita said quickly:

  “I would much ... rather hear about you, Ma’am, and this enormous ... exciting house.”

  “From the way you speak,” the Countess said, “I imagine your own home was much smaller.”

  “It is a crumbling old Castle,” Davita replied, “but very, very old.”

  The Countess laughed.

  “I get the implication. Sherburn was built only forty years ago. I suppose that is what you are hinting at.”

  “I would not have been so ... impertinent as to ... hint at it,” Davita answered, “but I am glad to think I was not ... mistaken when I first ... saw it.” The Dowager put out her hand and picked up a small gold bell that stood on a table beside the bed.

  She rang it and the door opened so quickly that Davita suspected Banks had been listening outside.

  “Take Miss Kilcraig to her room, Banks,” the Countess commanded. “She can come back when she has taken off her travelling-things.”

  “Very good, M’Lady.”

  Davita remembered to bob a curtsey before she followed Banks from the room, and she was almost certain that the Countess smiled at her.

  As they walked down the corridor she said to the lady’s-maid:

  “Please, help me. I would like to stay here, but I am very afraid I shall be too ignorant and inefficient.”

  Banks looked at her in surprise.

  “Most of them thinks they knows everything!”

  “I know nothing,” Davita replied, “and I am quite prepared to admit it!”

  There was just a faint smile on the elderly woman’s thin lips.

  “Her Ladyship’s not easy,” she said, “and if you ask me, she doesn’t need a Companion. I can do all she wants, if it comes to that.”

  Davita understood that this was a bone of contention, and she suspected that Banks had had a great deal to do with the Companions being dismissed almost as soon as they arrived.

  “I promise you I will not get in your way,” she said, “and perhaps I could help you if you would tell me if there is anything you want me to do. I can sew quite well, and I have always pressed my own clothes.”

  The maid looked at her with what Davita thought was a far more pleasant expression.

  At the end of the corridor she opened a door and Davita saw it was a nice bedroom with a high ceiling.

  It was well furnished. Already her trunks had been brought upstairs and placed on the floor, and there was a young housemaid starting to unpack them.

  “Emily’ll help you to unpack,” Banks said, “but she’s too much to do to give you much attention otherwise.”

  “I can look after myself,” Davita said quickly, “and it is very kind of Emily to help me.”

  She paused before she added:

  “I am afraid there is rather a lot in the trunks. They contain everything I possess in the world now that my ... father is ... dead.”

  She could not help there being a little quiver in her voice on the last words, and Banks asked:

  “Has he been gone long?”

  “Just over a month,” Davita replied. “And my mother died some years ago.”

  “You just have to be brave about it,” Banks remarked. Then, as if she felt she was being sentimental, she said sharply to Emily:

  “Now hurry up, Emily. Get everything straight for Miss Kilcraig.”

  She would have left the room if Davita had not said: “One thing I would like to ask ... although it may seem rather ... an imposition.”

  “What is it?” Banks asked in an uncompromising voice.

  “Would it be possible for me to have something to eat? Just some bread and butter would do. I did not like to leave the Waiting-Room at Paddington Station before the train came in, and I have had nothing to eat since breakfast.”

  “Good gracious! You must be starving!” Banks exclaimed. “What you want is a cup of tea and something substantial with it.”

  “I do not want to be a bother.”

  “It’s no bother,” Banks answered. “Nip downstairs, Emily, and see if you can find something for Miss Kilcraig to eat. Don’t be long about it. Her Ladyship’s waiting for her.”

  Emily sprang to her feet to do
as she was told, and as she left the room Davita said:

  “Thank you very much. You are very kind to me, but I do not want to be a nuisance and keep asking you for things.”

  “You ask,” Banks replied. “I’ll tell you when you’re a nuisance, and it may be a long time before you are.”

  She actually smiled before she left the room, and when she had gone Davita went to the window to look out at the view over the Park and the lake.

  Then she gave a little exclamation of pleasure.

  She had escaped! She was free. She had left Violet, Lord Mundesley, and the Gaiety behind her, and she was here!

  Because it was in the country, even though it was very different from Scotland, it seemed like home.

  She could see stags moving under the trees in the Park, there were birds flying overhead, and the sun was shining on the lake as it did on the river near the Castle.

  It was all so different from London, and she clasped her hands together.

  “Oh, please, God, let me stay! Please, God, do not let the Countess send me away.”

  It was a cry that came from the very depths of her heart.

  Then, because she realised time was passing, she hurriedly untied her bonnet and began to take off her travelling-gown.

  CHAPTER SIX

  DAVITA shut the book with a snap.

  “How could she have died at the end?” she asked, and there were tears in her eyes.

  The Countess smiled.

  “Most women like a good weep at the end of a story.”

  “I am sure that isn’t true,” Davita replied. “I want everyone to live happily ever after.”

  “I know you do, dear,” the Countess said, and her voice was soft. “Perhaps one day you will find happiness.”

  “I hope so,” Davita answered. “Papa and Mama were very happy until she died.”

  There was a little tremor in her voice because it was always hard for her to speak of her mother, and to think of what had happened when Katie had left her father always upset her.

  She did not realise that her eyes were very expressive, and the Countess said quickly:

  “Anyway, you have made me happy.”

  “Have I really?” Davita asked.

  “Very happy,” the Countess replied. “I feel sometimes that you are the daughter I never had.”

  Davita gave a little cry of delight.

  “You could not say anything which would please me more, because I feel that you are like the Grandmother I never knew. I would have loved to have had a Grandmother!”

  “Then that is what I am quite content to be,” the Countess replied.

  Davita smiled at her radiantly, but before she could say anything the door opened and Banks came in.

  “Now, M’Lady,” she said briskly, “time for your rest, as you well know, and Miss Davita should be outside in the sunshine putting roses into her cheeks.”

  Davita laughed.

  “If they were there, I am sure they would clash with my hair.”

  Banks did not reply but she was obviously suppressing a laugh.

  “Before I go out,” Davita said to the Countess, “I intend to choose a book in the Library with a happy ending. That is what we both want to listen to.”

  She did not wait for an answer but hurried from the bedroom.

  When she had gone, the Countess began to take off her strings of pearls and said:

  “That is a very sweet child, Banks. I am so glad she came here.”

  “She’s one of the nicest young ladies I’ve ever met, M’Lady,” Banks replied. “None of those other complaining women ever offered to help me as Miss Davita does.”

  Running down the stairs, Davita thought with delight that she had nearly an hour and a half to do all the things she wanted to do.

  As soon as she had chosen a book in the Library—she was determined she would not read the Countess another unhappy one—she would walk down to the lake, and she wished as she had wished before that her father could watch the trout with her.

  ‘Perhaps one day I might suggest that I fish for them,’ she told herself.

  Then she decided she would not wish to kill anything, not even a trout.

  After that she would go to the stables. She drew in her breath with excitement as she remembered that the Countess had offered to give her a new riding-habit. It should be arriving any day now.

  Ever since she had come to Sherburn House three weeks ago, every moment had seemed more thrilling than the last.

  Davita sometimes thought it was as if she had come home and Sherburn House belonged to her.

  Then she knew she felt this because in her dreams she, or her fanciful heroines who were a part of herself, always had a background which only a grand house could provide.

  The paintings, the furnishings, the miniatures, the painted ceilings, and the huge State-Rooms were all part of her dreams, and sometimes she wandered through them pretending that she was in fact a Countess of Sherburn, and the history of the family was her history too.

  She had seemed to fit in from the very moment she arrived. Not only did she amuse the Countess, but the servants liked her, and, although she was quite unaware of it, everyone treated her as if she were an entrancing child whom they wished to spoil.

  “The Chef has made this pudding especially for you,” the Butler would say at luncheon or dinner.

  The housemaids would tidy her room and press her dresses and the grooms would keep carrots and apples ready in the stables for her to give to the horses.

  “I am so happy,” Davita would say to herself when she went to bed.

  In her prayers she would thank God not only that she was happy but that she was safe.

  “No-one can find me here,” she would say reassuringly to herself, almost every hour during the first week after she arrived.

  Then, because there were so many new things to occupy her mind, she began to forget about Violet and Lord Mundesley and even the Gaiety.

  In retrospect it became a dream that had ended in a nightmare, and even her thoughts shied away from recalling the terrible night when she came out of a drugged sleep to find the Marquis on the bed beside her.

  The Library of Sherburn House was very impressive, most of the volumes being old and very valuable.

  But the Countess’s eldest son, to whom the house belonged, had collected quite a large number of modern books when he was at home, and Davita felt grateful to him for affording her such a choice.

  The Countess had had two sons, one of whom had been killed fighting in what she described as “one of Queen Victoria’s little wars.”

  The elder, the Earl of Sherburn, was now Governor of Khartoum in the Sudan. Because he was so often abroad, having been Governor in other places before this appointment, he had persuaded his mother to live at Sherburn House and “keep it warm” for him.

  “The servants have all been with us for years,” she told Davita. “We really would not know what to do with them if my son closed the house, and quite frankly I am happy to live in what was my home for so many years.”

  “It is a very lovely home,” Davita replied, “even though it is a modern building.”

  “Built onto an ancient foundation,” the Countess said sharply.

  Her eyes were twinkling because the age of Sherburn House was a joke between her and Davita.

  Now Davita ran to the far end of the Library where the modern books had been neatly arranged and catalogued by the Curator.

  She took one down from a shelf and put it back again. Then she pulled out another one by Jane Austen, wondering if it would amuse the Countess or if she already knew it too well.

  She was turning over the pages when she heard someone come into the Library and thought it must be Mr. Anstruther, the Curator.

  She was just going to ask him if the Countess had read Pride and Prejudice recently, when she looked round and was suddenly rigid.

  It was not Mr. Anstruther who was walking slowly from the doorway towards the mantelpiece
, but the Marquis!

  For a moment she thought he could not be real and she was imagining him, because he looked just as handsome, imperious, and cynical as he had been in her thoughts.

  Then he saw her, and he was obviously as surprised as she was.

  After a silence which seemed to last a long time, in a voice that did not sound like her own Davita asked:

  “Can you ... are you ... looking for ... me? Why ... are you ... here?”

  The Marquis did not reply, he merely walked nearer to her until he was standing facing her.

  “I should be asking that question,” he said. “Why are you in the house of my Great-Aunt?”

  “Your ... Great-Aunt?”

  Davita repeated the words under her breath, and then she said almost frantically:

  ‘Please ... please do not ... tell her about ... me. If you do, she will ... send me ... away. I am so happy ... here and ... safe. Please ... please!”

  Even as she pleaded with him she thought it was useless and she would have to leave. Yet she knew that if he made her go, it would be like being turned out of Paradise.

  “I heard you had disappeared,” the Marquis said slowly, “but I certainly did not expect to find you here.”

  “Who ... told you I had ... disappeared?”

  “The Prince, as it happens. I am sure your friend Violet was waiting to accept my money on your behalf.”

  Davita gave a little cry.

  “How could you think ... how could you ... imagine I would ... touch any of your ... money?” she asked passionately. “I swear to you I had no idea what they had ... planned or what they ... intended to do. It was horrible ... degrading! That is why I ran away ... hoping they would never ... find me, and therefore they would not be able to ... to ... blackmail you.”

  She said the dreaded word, and added:

  “Perhaps ... because I was a ... party to their ... plot, you will ... want to send me to ... prison.”

  Now she was trembling. Her eyes as she looked up at the Marquis were piteous.

  “I think you must be well aware,” he said coldly, “that I have no wish for the Police to be involved in this very reprehensible affair. The Prince discovered you had vanished, and I have not communicated with either Violet Lock or Lord Mundesley since the night of the party.”