AUTHOR'S NOTE
The viper is in a general sense any venomous snake and is usually restricted to members of the family of Viperidae.
These are found in Europe, Asia, and Africa. The ten genera vary greatly in size and are of danger to man. Some have prehensile tails and are arboreal. Others are called mole snakes and are burrowers.
All these snakes can swim if necessary and some species frequent the banks of streams and lakes. Their venom is introduced at the base of the fang and discharged into the wound.
The quantity of venom and the depth of penetration vary with the size of the snake and some small species are extremely dangerous.
All the dangerously venomous snakes in Europe are vipers of the Genus Vipera. The best known is the Common Viper, the only venomous snake found in Great Britain.
Chapter one ~ 1818
“No, Grandpapa, it’s absolutely impossible! I cannot do it!”
“You will do as I say,” Sir Robert Sullivan roared. “If you think I am going to allow my money to be squandered by some smarmy fortune-hunter, you are very much mistaken!”
“Not every man who approaches me – need be a fortune-hunter,” Gytha said quietly.
“Do you think anyone would marry you for anything else?” Sir Robert retorted. “I am having no more arguments. You have your choice. You can marry Vincent or Jonathan, whichever you like, and the sooner the better.”
With that he signalled to his valet, who was standing behind his wheelchair, and he was taken from the room.
Gytha watched him go and then sank down onto the sofa.
‘What can I – do?’ she asked herself despairingly. ‘What can I – do?’
It seemed incredible, but she had realised in the last two months that her grandfather was deeply concerned about the disposal of his huge fortune.
The doctors had told Gytha privately that it was unlikely he would live more than two or at the outside three months.
She had not repeated their confidential report to anyone.
But, with what was often the uncanny perception of the old, Sir Robert was aware that his days were numbered.
He had often discussed the question of who would inherit his fortune, which he had accumulated in India during the last century.
No one knew exactly how much he owned except himself, his Solicitor and his accountant.
The few remaining members of his family were very conscious that it was an enormous sum.
Gytha knew that his two nephews, Vincent and Jonathan, the sons of his younger brother, were counting the days until they could inherit his wealth.
Sir Robert had been unfortunate in that he had only one son from his marriage.
He was killed at the Battle of Waterloo, before which he had produced just one daughter, Gytha.
Alex Sullivan was an exceptionally charming man who had enjoyed life enormously and he had proved himself an outstanding leader in the Duke of Wellington’s Army.
When he was killed, it had been a tragedy not only for his Regiment but also for his father.
He had relied on him to carry on the Sullivan name and ambitions.
Gytha had often thought that her father was not particularly interested in money.
He enjoyed being with people and found his pleasures in far more simple things than striving for wealth.
And her mother had been the same.
Coming from a County family, she loved the country.
She had no wish to go to London and appear at balls, assemblies and Receptions.
These continued to be given, glamorous and luxurious as ever, all through the War.
Instead, when her husband’s Regiment left for Belgium, she had moved from the smaller house that they occupied on the estate.
The huge mansion that her father-in-law, Sir Robert, had rebuilt and continually enlarged became her home.
Sometimes her mother said laughingly to Gytha,
“I feel sometimes as if we are very small peas rattling in a very large pod!”
But after her husband, the charming Alex, had been killed, the great house seemed darker and gloomier than ever.
It was almost as if she moved like a ghost among the huge high-ceilinged rooms and up the enormous carved and gilt staircase.
Gradually Mrs. Sullivan seemed to loosen her hold on life and to fade away and Gytha thought that it was not just the shock of her father’s death.
It was that her mother could not believe that it had really happened.
Soon she found herself alone with her grandfather.
Because he was growing very old, he offered no one any hospitality and she seldom saw anyone of her own age.
It was a really miserable existence for any young girl.
Gytha found some solace in the horses that filled the large stables and which she thought were never exercised enough.
She used to ride every minute of the day that she was not doing lessons with her Governesses. They came and went in monotonous succession, for Sir Robert always found fault with them.
They either resented his interference or found their existence so confining that they quickly looked for employment elsewhere.
Gytha, however, managed to teach herself very much better than they could do.
She was always in the enormous library, which was filled with books from floor to ceiling.
Many of the books had surprisingly only recently been published as her grandfather wished to be regarded as a well-read man.
He had always resented the fact that as a boy he had not been sent to one of the top public schools.
His one extravagance was to buy books.
Not only was his vast library filled with them, but they overflowed into other rooms, where the estate carpenter hastily provided shelves for them.
Books were, in fact, the one close contact Gytha managed to have with her grandfather.
When she went to see him after riding, she would quickly gloss over the fact that she had not been doing the lessons that he intended her to do.
Instead she would begin telling him about some new book and she found that his mind was immediately diverted by what she could tell him about it.
Sometimes she would read aloud to him, but mostly he preferred her to give him a synopsis in her own words of what she had read.
His eyes had grown weak and he was unable to read for long and then only in a large print.
He therefore made Gytha into a storyteller and, although she was not aware of it, this improved her English, her knowledge of literature and the world, besides her elocution.
It was a strange life.
By the time she reached her eighteenth birthday, it was doubtful if any other girl had lived such a sheltered existence. Unless the girl had been incarcerated in a Convent.
Then the blow had fallen.
Sir Robert suddenly realised that, if he died soon, Gytha would be left alone.
Also if, as he intended, she inherited most of his wealth, fortune-hunters like vultures would descend on her and she would not have the experience or the intelligence to cope with them.
The only possible alternative, he decided, was that she should marry one of her cousins.
They were the sons of his younger brother, Jason, whom he had never liked.
Actually he had not spoken to him for ten years before he was killed in a carriage accident.
Jason’s sons, however, were too sensible not to realise where their interests lay.
They had then proceeded during the last six months to be constant visitors at Sullivan Hall.
Gytha, somewhat to her surprise, found herself disliking them both.
Vincent was, she supposed, a buck when he was in London.
He affected the fashionable drawl, which sh
e found not only irritating but also made her feel small and insignificant.
He was thirty-five years of age and very much a ‘man about town.’
Vincent set himself to make her aware of his standing in the social life of London.
His valet, who was greatly disliked by the elderly servants in The Hall, boasted continually about his Master’s love affairs with the most beautiful women in London.
The maids then relayed to Gytha everything that he had said.
They had all known her since she was a child and consequently they were more outspoken than they would have been if they had not forgotten that she was now grown up.
“If you ask me,” one of them said to Gytha, “it ain’t anythin’ to boast about that you’ve broken some poor lady’s heart! I couldn’t see your father, God rest his soul, behavin’ in such a manner.”
“No, indeed,” Gytha agreed, “Papa would never have behaved like that.”
She disliked her cousin Jonathan even more than his brother.
Vincent was condescending and obviously contemptuous of a girl who knew nothing of the world that he shone in and she was sure that he considered her dowdy and unattractive.
Jonathan, however, was a toady.
She watched him sucking up to her grandfather and he did it so obviously and obsequiously that she felt embarrassed even to look at or listen to him.
When they first came to The Hall after her father’s death, they paid her no attention.
In their eyes she was only a child.
They assumed also that Sir Robert would leave her, being a female, only a small share of his money. Perhaps he would leave enough to constitute a reasonable dowry.
The rest would go to them, because their name was Sullivan.
It was only in the last six months that they had grown suspicious.
Now, instead of more or less ignoring Gytha, Jonathan fawned on her and Vincent paid her a few quite obviously insincere compliments.
Gytha was scornfully aware of what they were thinking.
Finally, after they had both returned to London, her grandfather had announced that he intended to make her his heir.
She had stared at him in astonishment.
“But you cannot do that, Grandpapa!”
“Who is to stop me?” the old man growled. “You need money and who I give it to is my affair. While I have no liking for either of my nephews, they are Sullivans and perhaps, if you have any sense in that head of yours, you will be able to improve them in one way or another.”
“But Grandpapa – I could not contemplate marrying – either Vincent or Jonathan.”
“You will do as I tell you,” her grandfather shouted.
After that the same argument was repeated day after day.
The only fortunate thing about it was that neither Vincent nor Jonathan knew about it.
They did not guess that her grandfather had finally made up his mind as to who should be his heir.
Now the altercation had flared up even more intensely because he had told her that he had sent for both his nephews.
He expected them to arrive in two day’s time.
Gytha felt as if she was caught in a trap from which there was no escape and it was impossible to think clearly in the house.
After her grandfather had left her for his own room, she jumped up and ran into the hall.
Picking up a thick coat that she had left lying on one of the chairs, she put it on before a footman could help her.
“You’re goin’ out, Miss Gytha?” he asked.
“I am going to the stables, Harry,” Gytha replied. “If Grandpa asks for me, say you do not know where I am.”
Harry, who had been at The Hall for some years, grinned.
“You can trust me, miss.”
Gytha was too perturbed to smile back at him.
She merely waited impatiently while he opened the front door and she stepped out into the cold air, which had intensified since the sun had set.
It made her feel that it was something she needed at this particular moment.
She ran across the gravel courtyard to where on the left of the house there was a large archway that led into the stables.
The horses had already been shut up for the night, but she opened the stable door.
The animals she loved so much were all in their comfortable stalls.
They were either eating at the manger or already lying down on the fresh straw. Alex, the Head Groom, was most particular in having it changed every day.
Gytha opened the stall of one of her favourite horses, Dragonfly.
As she patted him and he nuzzled his nose affectionately against her, she said,
“Oh, Dragonfly, what am I to do? Help me because there is – no one else and I cannot and will not – marry someone I do not – love.”
She thought as she spoke how supremely happy her father and mother had been together.
When her father had been killed, it was as if the light had gone out in her mother’s world and there was only darkness.
“I want to love – someone like him – Dragonfly,” Gytha murmured.
As the horse twitched his ears, she knew that he was listening to her and she thought that he understood.
Then she heard footsteps in the passage outside the stall.
It was Hawkins, who had been her father’s batman in the Army.
He had come with her and her mother to The Hall when the War was over.
“I hears you be here, miss,” Hawkins said, “and I comes to see if there be anythin’ I can do for you.”
Hawkins had known Gytha ever since she was ten years old.
He was well aware that when she was upset, she always turned to the horses for comfort.
For the moment, however, she could not speak even to Hawkins about what she was feeling.
But she was certain that the valet who pushed her grandfather in his wheelchair would talk as the whole household would already be aware what had occurred to upset her.
Hawkins came into the stall and, seeing the tears in Gytha’s eyes, said,
“Now, don’t you go upsettin’ yourself, Miss Gytha. I was awaitin’ to tell you, there’s a treat in store for us tomorrow.”
“What is – that?” Gytha managed to ask him.
She was thinking as she did so that Vincent and Jonathan might be arriving tomorrow afternoon.
There would certainly be no treat in that.
“I happens to know,” Hawkins replied, “there’s a steeplechase takin’ place next door on his Lordship’s estate. If we slip away in the mornin’, we’d have a real good view of it.”
Gytha was instantly interested.
“A steeplechase, Hawkins? Do you mean to say that his Lordship is back? I thought he was abroad.”
“They tells me he’s come ’ome,” Hawkins said, “and the first thing he arranges be a steeplechase with his friends a-comin’ down from London with the finest horses as have ever been seen in these here parts.”
“Oh, Hawkins! Who told you all this?”
“I only hears about it today, miss,” Hawkins replied. “When I goes down to The Green Man, one of the grooms from Locke Hall comes in for a pint of ale.”
He paused and, seeing Gytha’s interest, went on,
“Talkin’ big he be about the parties his Lordship’s been givin’ in London and now the Park’ll be full of them Corinthians and the stables overflowin’.”
Gytha laughed.
“Oh, Hawkins, how exciting! And, of course, we must go to watch the steeplechase. But don’t say anything to the rest of the household or that nasty valet of Grandpapa’s will tell him what I am doing and he will make me stay at home.”
“I wouldna tell that man the time of day if I could help it!”
Gytha laughed again.
She knew of the bitter feud between her grandfather’s valet, who had been with him for years, and the rest of the staff.
They thought, and quite rightly, that he was a spy. H
e did repeat to his Master everything that was said and done.
“What we will do, Hawkins,” Gytha said, “is say that we are just going for a short ride, as we usually do, and will be back for luncheon.”
She looked at him as she added,
“But we may have to go hungry, unless you can get some sandwiches out of cook without her knowing the reason why you want them.”
“You leave it to me, Miss Gytha,” Hawkins replied. “And I don’t mind bettin’ you his Lordship’ll win the steeplechase and no doubt about it.”
“I expect he will,” Gytha agreed, “and it will be lovely to see him riding again. I wonder if he has altered much in the last two years.”
“Got older,” Hawkins said, “but the groom at The Green Man were a-boastin’ that he went round the course and cleared every fence with a foot to spare!”
Gytha gave a little sigh of pleasure.
She remembered the last time that she had seen Lord Locke out hunting and she had thought then that no man could ride more magnificently.
He looked as if he was part of the horse he was riding.
Although Lord Locke’s estate marched with that of her grandfather, she had never met him nor had he ever set foot inside The Hall.
This was due to a long-standing and bitterly waged war over a boundary wood.
Lord Locke’s father had claimed that it belonged to him, while Sir Robert had asserted that it was his wood.
Both gentlemen had raged at each other.
Then they summoned their Solicitors, who consulted ancient maps, but they found no satisfactory answer to the question.
It ended with them snarling at each other like dogs and refusing to meet. Even when it concerned County activities.
Lord Locke’s family had lived at Locke Hall for several generations longer than the Sullivans had been in the County.
Lord Locke was patron of the local Horse Show and of several commendable charities, while Sir Robert was patron of the agricultural show and a supporter of several other local charities.
Their neighbours had preferred Lord Locke to Sir Robert, although there were a number who contrived to make themselves pleasant to both the elderly gentlemen and inevitably they fell between two stools.
When the present Lord Locke inherited, he had already distinguished himself as a soldier.
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