A Steeplechase For Love

by Barbara Cartland

  Then he breathed softly,

  “I love you, my beautiful darling, and I believe that you love me.”

  “I love you,” Helsa whispered, “but I did not know that love – could be so perfect and so overwhelming.”

  The Duke raised his head.

  Very gently he put his fingers under Helsa’s chin and turned her glorious face up to his.

  “You are so incredibly lovely, my darling. At the same time so clever and so intelligent that I am finding it hard to believe you really exist.”

  “How could you love me – like this?” Helsa asked him. “When we hardly know each other?”

  “I have been searching for you ever since I grew up and became a man and I could never understand why every woman I met, however beautiful and however charming eventually disappointed me. I know now it was because she was not you.”

  His voice was quiet and tender.

  Helsa looked up into his eyes and she realised that every word he spoke was true and came from his heart.

  “In all my dreams,” she whispered, “I believed that one day I would find a man like you. But as I walked back here this afternoon and knew that I loved you – I thought I would never see you again.”

  “What we were talking about just now was that you should look after me and protect me from Lady Basset and all predators like her.”

  “You know I want to – ” Helsa murmured.

  “Then the sooner we are married, the better,” the Duke sighed.

  Helsa’s eyes opened wide.

  The Duke smiled at her and he knew exactly what she was thinking before she posed the question.

  “I am asking you in a rather roundabout fashion to be my wife. My darling Helsa, I know that we will be the happiest couple there has ever been.”

  Because she could not find a single word to reply to him, Helsa would have hidden her face again.

  But the Duke prevented her.

  He found her lips with his and kissed her until they were both breathless.

  Then they stood still, the Duke holding Helsa close in his arms.

  Suddenly there was the sound of footsteps and the study door opened.

  For a moment it was impossible for Helsa to come back from the enchanted world the Duke had taken her into.

  Then with an effort she disentangled herself from his arms.

  And as her father came into the room, she managed to splutter,

  “I – was waiting for you – Papa.”

  “So I see,” the Vicar smiled faintly.

  Then he looked towards the Duke and exclaimed,

  “You must be Victor. You have grown a lot since I last saw you, but you are very like your father.”

  Helsa had reached her father’s side and was holding up her face to kiss him.

  Now she stared in astonishment as he walked over to the Duke holding out his hand.

  “I had no idea you were to be a guest at The Hall, Victor, and I am certain that you came here to win the steeplechase.”

  The Duke looked bewildered, took the Vicar’s hand and then he cried,

  “But, of course, you are my father’s great friend, Alfred Irvin, but somehow I just never connected you with Irvin Hall!”

  “That is not really surprising, as I cannot afford to live there, and it was not mine when your dear father was alive.”

  “Yours?” the Duke asked incredulously, “but Lady Basset told me it belonged to her.”

  The Vicar smiled.

  “She was obviously trying to impress you, Victor, But she was only a tenant, whom I might say I was very grateful to have as there was no chance after the war of my ever being able to afford to take my father’s place.”

  “I remember now my father talking about you,” the Duke said, “and telling me you had come into the title.”

  “For what it is worth,” the Vicar replied. “But, as everyone here knows me as ‘the Vicar’, it would only have complicated matters even more if I had taken up the title. So Helsa and I let things remain as they always had been.”

  The Duke was silent as if with surprise and then her father glanced at Helsa and remarked,

  “I thought when I came into the study that you and my daughter must be well acquainted with each other!”

  The Duke smiled.

  “I was actually asking someone very beautiful, who has just saved me from an unbelievable nightmare to be my wife.”

  The Vicar stared at him.

  “Your wife!” he repeated. “My dear boy, I cannot think of anyone I would rather have as a son-in-law than your father’s son!”

  “And I cannot imagine anyone,” the Duke replied, “lovelier, more ethereally beautiful or more adorable than your glorious daughter.”

  He took Helsa’s hand in his as he was speaking and realised that she was trembling.

  At the same time her eyes were shining.

  The Duke thought no one could look more radiant than she did.

  With difficulty Helsa managed to say,

  “I think we must now tell Papa – exactly what has happened. He will think it most strange that you did not know my surname when you came here just now.”

  The Vicar looked from one to the other in surprise.

  “What has been happening?” he asked. “I thought that, as Helsa was staying at The Hall, you must have met each other there.”

  Helsa gave a little laugh.

  “It’s all so complicated, Papa. We must start at the beginning. Although you may be angry with me for doing so, I must tell you why I stayed to The Hall.”

  Her father was listening intently and she went on,

  “It was not just to see that all was going well, but to act as lady’s maid to Lady Basset.”

  “Lady’s maid! Why on earth should you have to do that, Helsa?”

  “Because Mary Emerson, who had promised to do so, had to go to the deathbed of her grandmother at the last moment.”

  “Oh, is the old lady dead? I am sorry about that, but she has been very poorly for years.”

  “Yes, I know, Papa, but as there was no one else we could trust to look after Lady Basset, I took her place.”

  “We met by chance,” the Duke intervened. “The moment I saw Helsa I thought she was the most beautiful girl I have ever seen in my whole life.”

  The Vicar smiled.

  “Exactly what I thought about her mother when we first met.”

  “Then I saw her riding,” the Duke went on as if the Vicar had not spoken. “I thought that she must have come down from Heaven and was an angel on horseback. There are no other words to describe the way she looked.”

  “So you fell in love – ?” There was a pause before Helsa suggested,

  “I think that Papa should know – exactly what did happen. It will help us to decide what you can do about it.”

  The Vicar then looked quizzically from one to the other.

  “What has been going on?” he demanded.

  “You will find it hard to believe,” said Helsa, “but every word of the story we are going to tell you is the truth and the whole truth.”

  “I should hope so,” the Vicar added.

  “I will tell you my part, Papa.”

  “Well, at least let us sit down while you do so, my dear.” The Vicar seated himself in one of the armchairs by the fireplace, as Helsa slipped her hand into the Duke’s, drawing him down beside her on the sofa.

  She told her father in as few words as possible how she had climbed up to the roof of the tower for a good view of the start of the steeplechase.

  How Lady Basset and the man called Silas Tybolt had come into the room below and it was then that she had overheard the plot they had concocted, to kidnap the Duke when he reached the top of Monk Wood and take him into the slate mine.

  There to be drugged by a drink he would take in ignorance to relieve the dryness of his throat because of the slate, and he would then be married to Lady Basset by a genuine Priest and their marriage would be witnessed by two men.

/>   Helsa went on to relate how she had rushed down from the roof as soon as Lady Basset and her accomplice had left.

  How she had taken the Duke’s second stallion, the only one left in the stables.

  How she had galloped as quickly as she could the shortest way to Monk Wood to warn him.

  The Vicar had remained silent all the time she was talking and now he exclaimed,

  “I have heard quite enough of such a disgraceful and tortuous plot. You were lucky that when Victor heard your story, he actually believed you.”

  “I found it difficult,” agreed the Duke. “But I knew that no one as really lovely and so obviously good as your daughter would ever tell a lie.”

  He smiled at Helsa before he continued,

  “So I did as she told me and rode back pretending my horse had sprained a leg. Then, collecting everything I had at The Hall, I came straight here to the Vicarage to wait for Helsa.”

  “I thought he had driven back to London,” Helsa added. “But I found when I returned to The Hall that Mary had arrived to take over from me. So I came to find you, Papa, to tell you all that had happened.”

  “I really find it the most incredible story I have ever heard,” said the Vicar, “and, of course, that woman had no right to pretend to be a relation of ours. At the same time I can understand, Victor, that you were impressed by Irvin Hall even though it is in a pretty poor condition.”

  “Is it really impossible for you to live there?” the Duke then asked.

  The Vicar threw up his hands.

  “It is difficult, my dear boy, for me to live here, let alone in a place of that size. The men my father employed on the estate went off to the Crimean War. As you know very few returned. Thus the land has been neglected and the house needs extensive repairs. So I could only keep on hoping against hope that things would improve.”

  “Because Papa could not afford the stipends of the Parsons he has been looking after three Parishes,” Helsa came in, “and it is far too much for him.”

  For the first time since he had been sitting there, the Duke released her hand.

  He bent forward and turned to the Vicar,

  “I think, Uncle Alfred, as I always called you when I was a boy, that if you will forgive me for saying so, you are being very stupid.”

  The Vicar raised his eyebrows.

  “In what way?” “If you have a slate mine, which I understand was quite a large and profitable one in the past, it could now be a gold mine to you.”

  The Vicar stared at him.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “You must realise if you have visited London lately that there has been a huge explosion of rebuilding and new construction. Slate, I happen to know personally, has risen enormously in price and is most difficult to obtain.”

  Helsa gave a cry of excitement.

  “You mean we can sell our slate?”

  “I have a small mine on my own estate which I am trying to develop,” said the Duke. “Every ton that comes out of it is in demand from half-a-dozen builders. You will have more demand than I have as you are nearer London.”

  “I must say that it never struck me that anything I owned was saleable,” the Vicar observed. “The pictures, furniture and everything else of any value at The Hall are naturally entailed.”

  The Duke smiled.

  “Of course they are and you are very lucky it has all been reasonably well preserved. When I was taken round The Hall by Lady Basset I was, as it happens, exceedingly impressed by everything she told me her ancestors had left her!”

  “Her ancestors are entirely part of her imagination,” the Vicar replied. “Meanwhile the house, and I just cannot believe that one slate mine can really save it, will go on decaying as it was doing before it was hastily put in order, apparently to impress you, Victor!”

  “I am glad to have been of service,” the Duke said cynically. “But now I have an even better idea and I hope you will agree to it.”

  The Vicar looked at him questioningly.

  “I am listening, Victor.”

  “I have been thinking for some time that I need a place for my racehorses near London. Mervinston Castle is too far North and I have been looking for a site near Newmarket. But this would be far more convenient.”

  The Vicar stared at him.

  “What are you suggesting, Victor?” “I am suggesting that you take over half the house as your own and let Helsa and me have the other half. I have a feeling that you will be asked to run the whole place when we are not with you.”

  He smiled at Helsa before he continued,

  “We will enlarge the stables and then make a local Racecourse, which is definitely needed near London, out of the present paddock and the fields beyond it.”

  The Vicar was staring as if he could hardly believe what he was hearing.

  “Are you seriously suggesting this?” he asked.

  “On one condition – which is that you give me your daughter as my wife as quickly as possible. Quite frankly I cannot live without her and I need her to protect me from harridans like Lady Basset!”

  “I promise I will, Victor,” cried Helsa.

  She looked up at the Duke and for a long moment neither of them could look away.

  Watching them the Vicar was silent. And then he said, “I wonder if I am going to suggest something you will not like. In which case you must say so at once.” “What is that?” the Duke wanted to know.

  “It is that, if you really love each other, as I believe you do, then you should be married immediately. Neither of you is going to be happy if you are so concerned about Lady Basset’s intentions. She may wish to avenge herself, as the plan she spent so much money on has failed.”

  “I am sure that is absolutely true,” responded the Duke. “What do you think, my darling?”

  He turned to Helsa as he spoke and, as she looked up at him, there was no need for words.

  They both knew how much they needed each other.

  “Very well,” he said, “the answer is ‘yes’. My only other question is, ‘when will you marry us?’”

  “I was thinking that it could be either this evening or tomorrow morning, Victor.”

  Helsa drew in her breath.

  “As quickly as that! Perhaps, Victor, you will want time to consider and to think again – ”

  The Duke laughed and interrupted her.

  “Now you are talking nonsense, Helsa. You know what we feel for each other is something so wonderful, so fantastic and unbelievable that we must not play about with anything so perfect.”

  “Then what do you want?” Helsa asked him coyly.

  “You! Now! At once. I will not feel safe until the ring is on your finger.”

  Again they were gazing into each other’s eyes and the Vicar had been forgotten.

  He rose to his feet.

  “I will marry you,” he announced, “this evening in my Church. You had better stay here tonight and leave for London tomorrow morning.

  “It will be too late then for Lady Basset to conceive any more dastardly plots against you. She will not imagine for a moment that having set off for London you and your horses are actually here in my stables.”

  “Papa is entirely right,” said Helsa. “Having been frustrated because you did not turn up at the top of Monk Wood, she may well have sent the Priest and the other two men to The Hall to look for you. Finding you are not there, they might go straight to London to find you.”

  “It sounds rather far-fetched. Equally I do think it would be a terrible mistake, Victor, for you to take any risks at this particular moment.”

  “I agree with you,” the Duke replied, “and I will be very honoured if you will marry your daughter to me this evening.”

  “If I may suggest something else, for I think you should leave England immediately on your honeymoon. By the time you return Lady Basset will have doubtless vanished from the Social world and what has occurred here will be forgotten.”

  He looked though
tful before he added,

  “I will move into The Hall as soon as she leaves and try to make it as it used to be when my father and my grandfather were alive.”

  “That is all I ask and, of course, start work on the Racecourse.”

  “Now you are making one of the dreams of my life come true,” sighed the Vicar. “It is something I have often thought about and a Racecourse at Irvin would be the most exciting venture I have ever planned or attempted to carry out.”

  “What is more, Papa, if we could make money from the slate mine, you will be able to afford to recruit other Priests for the three Parishes and you can retire. You have often said that is what you really want to do.”

  “That is true, my dear, I am really too old to run about from Parish to Parish and do what must be done for all those who need God’s help.”

  He spoke simply and the Duke knew how much it meant to him and he then declared,

  “Where I am concerned, I want you to understand that from now on money is no object. As soon as you can find them, you can pay the best Parsons available to take over the work you have done so brilliantly. What is more I want our Racecourse to be one of the best in the whole of the South of England!”

  The two men smiled at each other and then Helsa exclaimed,

  “If I am really to be married this evening, I have to find myself a dress to wear and also to tell Bessie we will be three for dinner. I am sure she will make us something very special.”

  “Now I know that as well as having a very lovely wife, I will have a very capable one,” the Duke chuckled.

  “She will look after you, Victor, as she has looked after me – with love and understanding and no woman can give you more. “That reminds me, I must go and tell George when he has put away my horse not to go home. He will need to help your men find accommodation if they too are staying the night.”

  “There is plenty of room in the attic,” said Helsa. “Also, Papa, it will be a bit of a squeeze in the stables, and you must tell George that your horse as well as Golden Arrow can be put out in the field.”

  “I will tell him, my dear, and he had better go and collect Victor’s men.”

  “They are not far up the road,” the Duke chipped in, “and I told one of my grooms to be loitering near your gates in an hour, which should be nearly up by now.”