“I am glad ... so very glad you did not ... give them any ... money,” Davita whispered. “How did the Prince ... discover I had ... gone?”
“He went to your lodgings to apologise to you, as he had apologised to me, that we should have both been embroiled in anything so unpleasant in his house.”
The Marquis’s voice was hard as he went on: “Mundesley tricked the Prince by pretending it was just a joke that would have no serious repercussions.”
“Lord Mundesley has not ... still got the ... photographs?”
“The Prince took them from him and tore them up,” the Marquis replied.
Davita felt a wave of relief sweep over her that was so intense that she put down the book she was still holding in her hand and steadied herself against a chair.
Then as the Marquis did not speak, she said in a very small, frightened little voice:
“What are ... you going to ... do about ... me?”
“What do you expect me to do?” he enquired.
“I suppose you ... will want me to ... leave,” Davita said dully. “Please ... if so, do not tell your ... Great-Aunt what ... happened.”
“Why should she not know the truth?”
“Because it would upset and shock her, as it ... shocked me.”
“Do you really mind what she thinks?”
“Of course I do!” Davita replied. “She has been so ... kind to me ... so very ... very kind. Only just now she said I was ... like the ... daughter she had ... never ... had.”
As Davita spoke, the tears that had been in her eyes overflowed and ran down her cheeks. She made no effort to wipe them away and merely said in a broken voice:
“If you will say ... nothing, I will make some ... excuse to explain my ... having to ... leave.”
“What excuse will you give?” the Marquis enquired.
Davita made a helpless little gesture with her hands. “I could say I must go ... back to ... Scotland. But as the Countess knows my home is ... gone, I would have to ... think of something very ... convincing, but I am not ... certain what it ... can be.” Now the tears ran from her cheeks down the front of her gown.
Davita groped for her handkerchief which was concealed in her waistband, and she wiped them away, thinking despairingly as she did so that once again she was alone and frightened.
Unexpectedly the Marquis said:
“Suppose we sit down and you tell me a little more about your circumstances.”
Because it was more of a command than a request, Davita obediently followed him to the ornate marble mantelpiece.
There was a sofa and several arm-chairs grouped round the hearth. She sat down on the edge of the sofa, feeling as if her fairy-tale world had collapsed round her in ruins.
“You tell me you have been happy here,” the Marquis remarked.
“Very ... very ... happy.”
“I have already learnt your father was Sir Iain Kilcraig and Violet was the daughter of your Stepmother. Why did you come to London? Did you intend to go on the stage?”
“No, I never wanted to do that,” Davita answered. “Mama would have been ... shocked at the ... idea.”
“Then why did you not stay in Scotland?”
“I had to find employment of some sort, because there was no money after Papa’s debts were paid. I thought it would be easier to find something to do in London than in Edinburgh.”
“So you came to ask Violet to help you?”
“There was no-one else,” Davita replied. “Mama’s relations all lived in the Western Isles and I never met them.”
“I learnt your mother was a MacLeod,” the Marquis said, as if he had spoken to himself.
Davita wondered why he had been interested, and then she thought in a kind of horror that he had made enquiries about her because he believed she was blackmailing him.
“I never ... meant,” she said in a frightened little voice, “to have ... anything to do with the ... Gaiety or ... someone like ... like ... Lord Mundesley.”
The way she spoke made the Marquis look at her sharply.
“Why do you speak of Mundesley like that?” he enquired.
“Because he is horrible ... disgusting, and ... wicked!” Davita answered passionately.
“What did he do to you to make you feel like that about him?”
Davita did not reply, but the Marquis saw the colour rise in her cheeks.
“I asked you a question, Davita, I want an answer!”
She wanted to say she could not speak of it, but somehow because he was looking at her and waiting, she felt that he compelled her to reply to his question.
“He ... offered me a ... house in ... Chelsea,” she said in a voice that was almost inaudible.
“It does not surprise me,” the Marquis said. “Mundesley is a bounder and no decent woman would associate with him.”
It was what Davita felt herself. Because she was ashamed of what she had had to tell the Marquis, she could only sit with her hands clasped together and her head bowed.
“Forget him,” the Marquis said sharply.
“I want to, because he ... frightens ... me.”
It struck her that if she had to leave Sherburn House, Lord Mundesley might find her again!
She thought the only thing she could do would be to go back to Scotland and stay with Hector until Mr. Stirling found her some sort of employment.
Because the idea seemed bleak and depressing, she lifted her head to look at the Marquis as she said pleadingly:
“How ... soon do you ... want me to ... leave?”
“I have not said that you should do so.”
There was just a flicker of hope in her eyes, and then she said, as if it was the other alternative:
“You do not ... intend to tell your Great-Aunt ... about me and ... make her ... dismiss me?”
“I promise you I will say nothing to upset my Great-Aunt.”
“But you still ... mean me to ... go away?”
“Not if you wish to stay.”
Davita’s whole face lit up.
“Do you mean ... are you saying,” she stammered incoherently, “that I can stay here?”
For a moment the Marquis did not answer.
Davita added pleadingly:
“Please ... please let me. I can only say how very ... very sorry I am for what ... happened at the ... party.”
“I believe now that you had nothing to do with it,” the Marquis said kindly.
“As I told you, I had no idea ... what they had ... planned,” Davita answered. “At the same time, I suppose if I had accepted what Lord Mundesley ... suggested, it would not have ... happened. Also, Violet was angry because she ... guessed what he ... felt about ... me.”
She stammered a little over her explanation. She felt somehow she had to be completely honest with the Marquis.
“Forget it,” he said. “One day someone—and I hope it will be myself—will give Mundesley the lesson he deserves. Until that happens, put him out of your mind.”
“That is what I want to do,” Davita replied simply.
“Then do it!” the Marquis commanded.
“And I can stay ... here with the ... Countess?”
“As far as I am concerned. I imagine it is an acceptable arrangement, both for you and my Great-Aunt. She has certainly had a great number of failures with her Companions until now.”
“She said they were like ... frightened rabbits,” Davita said with just a faint smile.
“You are not frightened?” the Marquis asked.
“Not of the Countess, only of you. I thought you would be very ... very ... angry with ... me.”
“I was very angry,” the Marquis answered. “But not particularly with you, especially after I knew you had disappeared.”
“You did realise that I had no intention of taking any money from you?”
“I thought that might be the reason you had gone away.”
Davita gave a deep sigh.
“I am so glad you thought tha
t. In a way, it makes everything much better, even though I never want to think about it or anything to do with the Gaiety again.”
“The Gaiety?” the Marquis said in a puzzled voice.
“It is all part of a ... world and ... people that I do not ... understand,” Davita explained. “Katie, my Stepmother, was kind to me, and so was Violet, but at the same time they ... shocked me.”
As she spoke, she thought of Katie going away with Harry, and of Violet accepting the sables and gowns from Lord Mundesley.
“How old are you?” the Marquis asked.
“Eighteen,” Davita replied.
“And you had never been away from Scotland until you came South?”
Davita shook her head.
“I had just arrived the night you saw me at Romano’s, and everything was very ... strange.”
As she spoke, she remembered that what had been particularly strange had been the way Rosie had behaved. Once again she could not meet the Marquis’s eyes, and the colour rose in her cheeks.
“Forget it,” he said again sharply, as if he knew what she was thinking. “You should never have got mixed up in the world you call ‘the Gaiety.’ I can understand now why you want to stay here.”
“I may really ... stay?” Davita asked, as if she were half-afraid that he would change his mind.
“Certainly, as far as I am concerned!”
“Oh, thank you, thank you. You may think perhaps it is an ... impertinence, but the Countess is like a ... Grandmother to me and I love being with ... her. Every day here has been happier than the last.”
As she spoke, she saw that the Marquis was looking at her penetratingly.
It was as if he found it hard to believe that, being so young, she was as happy as she said she was, living in the house alone with an old woman and no young people of her own age.
Davita’s eyes, however, shone with an unmistakable sincerity.
After a moment he said: ’
“I came here to ask my Great-Aunt if I may stay the night. I only heard yesterday that there are some horses for sale in the neighbourhood, and I wish to see them. I thought too it was an opportunity to pay my respects to someone I have neglected somewhat remissibly for the last three months.”
“I am sure the Countess will be very thrilled to see you,” Davita replied, “but she is resting for another hour.”
“That is what the servants told me,” the Marquis answered. “I was going to read the papers which I understood were here in the Library, and then visit the stables.”
“I was going to do that too,” Davita said. “I love the horses and I feed them every afternoon.”
“Then suppose we go there together,” the Marquis suggested. “I have a feeling my cousin’s horses are under-exercised and under-fed in his absence. If they are, I shall certainly reprimand his Head Groom.”
Davita gave a little cry.
“Oh, you mustn’t do that! Yates is such a conscientious man, and I promise you the horses are exercised every morning.”
“By you?” the Marquis enquired.
“I have been allowed to help him since I have been here. It was been wonderful for me. I have never ridden such magnificent animals before.”
“I see you have made yourself very much at home.” The Marquis’s voice was mocking.
““Perhaps you think I am ... imposing on the Countess ... but I ... swear to you she ... suggested in the first place I should ... ride and do all the ... other things I have been ... allowed to do.” The Marquis did not reply, and Davita wondered apprehensively if he thought she was pushing herself forward, asking favours to which she was not entitled.
‘It is not surprising he disapproves of me,’ she thought miserably.
Then the Marquis smiled as he said:
“Come along. What are we waiting for?”
She felt as if the sun had come out.
Later that evening Davita felt as if once again she had stepped into a dream, and that this time there was no chance of it ending in a nightmare.
It had been the Countess who suggested that she should join the Marquis for dinner.
“I am sure my great-nephew would not wish to dine alone,” she had said. “And it would be a chance for you to have someone young to talk to.”
“Perhaps His Lordship will not want ... me,” Davita said nervously.
“Of course he will want you,” the Countess said positively. “He has a reputation of always being surrounded by attractive women.”
Davita was quite certain that the Marquis did not think she was attractive. She was not surprised, when she compared herself to the beauty of Rosie, even though he had grown tired of her.
However, there was no reason why she should not do what the Countess suggested, and she was supposed to have met the Marquis today for the first time.
She therefore went to change before dinner, feeling uncertain as to whether or not she was looking forward to the evening.
“Suppose he is bored and is contemptuous of me?” she asked herself.
It was, however, a consolation to feel that she could wear a new evening-gown that she had made herself from a sketch in The Ladies Journal.
It was Banks who had found some very pretty material that had been put away years ago in the cupboard and never made up.
It was Banks, too, who had found a sketch of the gown that was described as having come from Paris, and it seemed to Davita as pretty as, if not prettier than, anything that had been worn by the Gaiety Girls.
She had cut it out and made it in the Sewing-Room after the Countess had gone to bed.
Now she was wearing it for the first time and she was glad it looked so very different from the evening-gown in which the Marquis had first seen her.
She could never think of her mother’s wedding-dress of Brussels lace without a little shudder.
But her new gown was spring-green gauze, the colour of her eyes, with chiffon drapes round the low back of the bodice, and a sash of green velvet encircled her tiny waist.
Although she was unaware of it, Davita looked the very embodiment of Spring.
Banks brushed her hair for her until the red lights shone like little flames of fire, and when she was ready she went into the Countess’s bedroom to say “goodnight.”
“Is that the dress you made yourself?” the Dowager asked.
“Banks found the material that you bought in Paris over ten years ago,” Davita answered. “Do tell me if you like it.”
“It looks very attractive,” the Countess replied, “and so do you, my dear. Fetch my jewel-case.”
The Countess’s jewel-case, large and heavy, was made of polished leather and stood on the dressing-table.
Davita carried it to the bed and the Countess opened
Davita thought the flashing jewels that filled it made it look like something out of Aladdin’s Cave.
The Countess searched first the top tray and then the second, until at the very bottom she found what she wanted.
“I wore this when I was your age,” she said. “Put it on. I want to see it round your neck.”
It was a delicate necklace with small emeralds and diamonds fashioned in the shape of flowers.
Excitedly Davita ran to the mirror on the dressing-table and clasped it round her neck. It gave a finish, she thought, to her whole appearance, and also accentuated the whiteness of her skin.
“It is lovely!” she exclaimed. “May I really wear it tonight? I will be very careful with it.”
“It is a present.”
“A present?” Davita gasped. “I cannot take it, it is too valuable! You must not give me any more than you have given me already.”
“I want you to have it,” the Countess said. “I shall be very hurt if you refuse to accept it.”
“Thank you, thank you,” Davita answered. “You are so kind to me. I haven’t any words to tell you how grateful I am.”
She lifted the Countess’s hand as she spoke and kissed it, and then she said:
“One day perhaps I shall be able to repay what you have done for me. I do not know quite how I shall do so.”
There were tears in her eyes as she spoke, and the Countess replied:
“Run along, child, and enjoy yourself, you are making me feel sentimental.”
Smiling, Davita ran downstairs where she knew the Marquis would be waiting for her in the Blue Drawing Room. He was looking magnificent as he had the first night she had seen him in his evening-clothes.
Because he had watched her with the usual rather cynical expression on his face as she walked towards him, he made her feel very shy.
Then because what had happened was too exciting to keep to herself, she said:
“Please look at what your Great-Aunt has just given me. I feel I ought not to accept, but she said she would be very ... hurt if I did not do so.”
Then as she spoke, Davita thought she had made a mistake. Maybe the Marquis thought she was like Violet, getting presents out of men or anyone whose generosity she could impose on.
To her relief, the Marquis merely replied:
“It is certainly very suitable with your green eyes.”
“You do not think it ... wrong of me to accept such a ... valuable present?”
“I think after what my Great-Aunt said about you to me this afternoon, it would be unkind of you not to do so.
Davita’s face seemed to light up as if there were suddenly a thousand lights blazing in the room.
“Now I feel happy about ... accepting it,” she replied. “She is so ... so kind to me, and I do want to make her ... happy.”
During dinner, although Davita had been apprehensive that she might bore him, there were so many things to talk about that time seemed to speed past on wings.
They first talked of Scotland and the Marquis told Davita how he went grouse-shooting every August and how many salmon he had caught the previous year.
“Ours is not a famous river,” Davita said. “But once Papa caught fifteen in a day, and another time I caught ten.”
“I call that a very good catch,” the Marquis said with a smile.
But she knew he was delighted as a sportsman that his best day had been nineteen.
“I wonder what horses you will buy tomorrow?” she asked as dinner came to an end.
“I will be able to tell you that tomorrow evening,” he answered.
A Night of Gaiety Page 12