He paused before with a hard metallic note in his voice, he said,
“Branscombe is a snob, so she will come from the gutter. Branscombe wants money, so she will be penniless, Branscombe wants a blue-blooded wife he can be proud of, so she will be a nobody! That will teach him a lesson he will never forget. And nor shall I!”
CHAPTER TWO
“I congratulate you!” Peregrine said as they drove away.
The Marquis, intent on tooling his phaeton, smiled, which told his friend that everything had gone as he expected.
Last night when they had arrived at the Marquis’s country house in Hertfordshire, they had sat up late arguing as to whether they would be able to find the type of girl he had in mind to deceive the Earl with.
Peregrine had been insistent from the beginning that she would have to be an actress, but the Marquis had said firmly,
“If she was acting, it would soon become obvious and that is something we must avoid at all costs. He has to actually marry our fake before we expose her and make him look a fool.”
“I can see your point,” Peregrine replied reluctantly.
“What is more,” the Marquis went on, “I have no intention of laying myself open to an accusation of trickery.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” the Marquis said firmly, “that whatever girl I produce, she will in fact be my Ward.”
Peregrine looked at him in astonishment.
“How do you intend to contrive that?”
The Marquis’s lips twisted in a wry smile.
“If I was in the East, I could doubtless buy her in a slave market, but, as we are in England, we have to acquire her by more subtle means.”
“You are not suggesting employing one of those old harridans who entice young girls up from the country into bawdy houses and sell them to the type of man who likes them young and innocent?”
“I would certainly not sink to that sort of trick,” the Marquis said sharply. “But there must be girls who would be only too pleased to have a rich Guardian.”
“Orphans for instance,” Peregrine agreed.
The Marquis gave an exclamation.
“That is the answer!” he said. “Of course, orphans, and I maintain two orphanages.”
“Then we must certainly visit them,” Peregrine said, “and with no relatives to turn up unexpectedly and make a scene or try to blackmail you, everything should be plain sailing.”
“We first have to choose the orphan,” the Marquis remarked.
At the same time he was smiling and Peregrine had to admit that his idea was a clever one.
All the way driving down to Alchester Abbey they talked of nothing else.
The Marquis’s ancestral home, built before the Dissolution of the Monasteries, had been a Cistercian Abbey and was one of the most beautiful buildings architecturally in the whole of Great Britain.
It had been converted into an extremely comfortable house. At the same time the exquisite cloisters, the great Refectory and the Medieval Chapel were still there.
Peregrine always thought that Alchester Abbey had an atmosphere that was different from that of any other house he stayed in.
He felt that it was not something he could say to the Marquis, although he often wondered why the holiness of it did not soften his whole attitude towards the world outside.
There was no doubt that now the Marquis was determined, where the Earl was concerned, to live up to his reputation of being ruthless and at times extremely hard.
Yet the Earl deserved everything that was coming to him.
This was confirmed when, before they left London the morning after the Derby Dinner, the Marquis was told that his jockey would like to speak to him.
“Do you want me to leave you?” Peregrine asked, as they walked from the breakfast room into the library.
The Marquis shook his head.
“No, I want you to hear what Bennett has to say. It will be useful for me to have a witness, if it is what I suspect.”
Peregrine held up his hands in horror.
“I refuse, absolutely refuse to be involved in your row with Branscombe! He is an unpleasant enemy and I am not up to his weight.”
“I am not asking you to fight him,” the Marquis said, “I will do that. I merely want your moral support, which I have always had in the past.”
“Morally it is all yours!” Peregrine said with a smile. “Physically, I am inclined to run for cover!”
The Marquis laughed.
“I never thought you a coward!”
“I simply know when discretion is the better part of valour!”
They were both laughing as the butler announced,
“Bennett, my Lord!”
The jockey came into the room looking anxious.
Peregrine thought that, without the colours and cap that gave jockeys a certain glamour, in their ordinary clothes they always appeared small and insignificant.
“Good morning, Bennett!” the Marquis said. “I hope as you are here, my secretary has given you the reward you were promised.”
“Yes, my Lord, and I’m ever so grateful, my Lord, considering I were only entitled to half of what you’ve given me.”
“I thought you rode an excellent race, Bennett, and did the best you could in the circumstances.”
“Which is what I wanted to speak about to your Lordship.”
“I am listening,” the Marquis said.
“After the meeting was over Smith was a-drinkin’ with ’is pals and ’aving been watchin’ ’is weight before the race ’e ’as a few over the odds, so to speak.”
“So he was drunk,” the Marquis said.
“Yes, my Lord, and ’e were a-talkin’ free-like.”
“What did he say?”
“That ’e were resentful, my Lord, as ’e’d been told as ’e hadn’t won as ’e’d been instructed to do, ’e’d receive no extra fee.”
The Marquis stiffened.
“Are you seriously telling me, Bennett, that the Earl of Branscombe is not giving Smith anything extra for carrying his horse first past the Winning Post, even though it was a dead heat?”
‘That’s what ’e says, my Lord,” Bennett confirmed. “’E were a-grumblin’ that ’twere a mean action on the part of ’is Lordship considerin’ ’e’d done ’is best to carry out ’is instructions.”
“Did he say what they were?”
“’E made that clear enough, my Lord,” Bennett answered, “as ’e were a-leavin’, ’e comes across to me and says, ’tis your fault, Bennett, that I’m skint. Next time I’ll take me whip, as ’is Lordship tells me, to you and your damned ’orse’.”
“What was your reply?” the Marquis enquired.
“I didn’t get no chance to say anythin’, my Lord. Two of the Branscombe grooms was there with ’im. They realised ’e were sayin’ things in ’is cups ’e wouldn’t say out loud if ’e were sober and they ’ustled ’im away.”
The Marquis was silent for a moment.
Then he said,
“Thank you, Bennett, you have told me exactly what I expected and I am glad to have it confirmed. I shall offer you the choice of the three horses I am entering for the races at Ascot. I feel sure that if things go well you will make certain of the Gold Cup for me.”
Bennett’s grin stretched from ear to ear.
“Thank you, my Lord. Thank you very much! It’s a chance I’ve always wanted. And I’d rather ride for your Lordship than any other owner. You’ve always been fair and square and no rider can ask more than that.”
The jockey was smiling when he left the library and the Marquis turned to Peregrine.
“You heard what he said. Branscombe deliberately told his jockey to prevent my horse winning the race.”
“There is nothing you can do about it now,” Peregrine said. “If Bennett repeated what he just said in front of the Stewards, his word would not be taken against Branscombe’s who would obviously deny it.”
“I am awa
re of that,” the Marquis said. “That is why I have no compunction about playing a trick on him that will definitely not be as unsporting as what he tried to do to me.”
“There I agree with you,” Peregrine replied, “but it is not going to be easy.”
They however, set out from the Abbey to visit the Marquis’s orphanages with the hope that they would find there exactly the right type of young girl who, with careful grooming would be able to deceive the Earl.
On most ancestral estates the owner in some century or another had built orphanages and almshouses.
The Marquis explained that the most recent one, which they were to visit first, had been built by his grandmother.
“My grandfather was an extremely raffish character with a large number of lovechildren. I always felt that my grandmother meant it as some reparation for his sins!”
“If you are expecting to find one of your relations from the wrong side of the blanket, there I think you will be unlucky,” Peregrine remarked. “They would be too long in the tooth to pass off on Branscombe as suitable young women.”
“I know that,” the Marquis replied. “I was just explaining to you why this particular orphanage was built, and it is, I have always understood, a model of its kind.”
It was apparent that the Marquis had not spoken idly.
The orphanage was attractive to look at and the orphans, about twenty of them, seemed healthy and happy.
The Matron, a motherly woman, was delighted and a little overcome by the Marquis’s visit.
She showed them with justifiable pride that everything was clean and tidy and the orphans themselves showed good manners in their bows and curtseys.
There was however, one snag, which both the Marquis and Peregrine realised immediately.
All the orphans were very young and, when he commented on it, the Matron explained,
“As soon as the orphans reach the age of twelve, my Lord, they leave, the boys are apprenticed to a trade and the girls are sent into domestic service.”
“At twelve years of age!” the Marquis exclaimed. “Yes, my Lord. I sent my two eldest girls up to the Abbey a month ago and I understand they are doing well in the scullery.”
The Marquis glanced at Peregrine and they both realised that their visit had been fruitless.
Having pleased the Matron by his expressions of approval, the Marquis climbed back into his phaeton and, as the groom released the horses’ heads and jumped up behind, they drove off.
“It was a good idea,” Peregrine said, “but how were we to know that the orphans are disposed of as soon as they are old enough to work?”
“Do you suppose that is true of all orphanages?” the Marquis asked.
“I expect so,” Peregrine answered.
“We don’t know that for certain,” the Marquis said, as if he resented being deprived of his original plan. “We will therefore visit my other orphanage, which is on the South side of the estate.”
It took them a long time to drive to where the land seemed more thinly populated and the villages they passed through were smaller.
“I cannot remember ever having been here before,” Peregrine remarked.
“We have hunted here,” the Marquis replied, “but the woods don’t give as much sport as those nearer the Abbey. I don’t think that we have ever shot here.”
“You own too much, Linden,” Peregrine sighed. “I am sure it is impossible for you to keep track of everything that happens on this estate and on your others.”
The Marquis laughed.
“I have Agents and Managers to look after things for me and so far there are no complaints.”
Peregrine thought that, if there were any, the Marquis would not be likely to hear them.
He spent a great deal of his time in London and, when he came to the Abbey, it was usually with a large party of amusing people to keep him from being bored.
It was difficult, Peregrine thought a little enviously, to imagine how anyone in the Marquis’s position should ever be bored, when he was rich enough to have everything he ever wanted.
There was not a beautiful woman in London who would not be only too willing to take Isobel Sidley’s place, now that he had finished with her.
“The trouble with you. Linden,” he said aloud, “is that you are too good-looking, too rich and too successful!”
The Marquis laughed.
“Whatever I have done to provoke that outburst I certainly do not intend to dispute it.”
“You are growing more conceited than Branscombe!” Peregrine exclaimed.
“If you say that again,” the Marquis replied, “I shall set you down here in the middle of nowhere and make you walk home.”
“I thought that would annoy you!” Peregrine chuckled.
The Marquis was just about to make some retort when the orphanage came into sight.
It was a long low building set back from the road on the outskirts of a hamlet consisting of a few cottages, a village green and a black and white inn.
The Marquis drew up his horses with a flourish and, as the groom ran to the horses’ heads, he fastened the reins to the backboard before he and Peregrine stepped down.
It struck him as they walked up to the door that it needed painting and the knocker, when he lifted it, was dirty.
“We will not stay long,” the Marquis said, “and, if we are not successful here, we shall have to think of some other way of finding the girl we require.”
“You are not going to be lucky here,” Peregrine warned him. “It looks as if no one is at home.”
He raised the knocker again making a rat-tat that certainly sounded noisy outside the house.
“I am sure if the place is empty that I should have been informed,” the Marquis said vaguely.
Then they heard footsteps on the other side of the door and a moment later it opened.
The girl who stood there was an unprepossessing sight.
She was wearing an apron of sacking that had holes in it, a dress that, although clean, was threadbare and her hair scraped back from her forehead had lank wisps over her ears.
She looked ill and emaciated and the bones of her cheeks seemed unnaturally sharp as she stared firstly at the Marquis and then at Peregrine with an expression of surprise on her face.
Then with an obvious start, as if she remembered her manners, she dropped a curtsey.
“I am the Marquis of. Alchester,” the Marquis announced. “I wish to see over the orphanage. Is Matron here?”
“Y-yes – my Lord.
The question obviously agitated the thin girl.
She spoke with a cultured voice and opened the door a little wider for them to pass through into the hall. It was bare of furniture and at the end of it there was a staircase and Peregrine noticed that a number of the bannisters were broken or missing.
The girl moved towards a door.
“P-perhaps – your Lordships – should – come in here,” she said in a voice that seemed to tremble.
As she spoke, there was a scream from upstairs. It was the scream of a child in pain and it was followed by another and yet another, screams that seemed to echo and re-echo round the empty hall.
“What is happening?” the Marquis asked sharply. “Has there been an accident?”
“N-no – it is – Matron.”
“Matron?” the Marquis enquired. “What is she doing? Why are those children screaming like that?”
It was difficult to make himself heard above the noise.
Now the girl, who had been gazing upwards, said,
“I must – stop her! She will – kill little Daisy if she goes on like – this!”
She did not wait to say anything more, but started to run up the uncarpeted stairs as quickly as she could and, after a moment’s hesitation, the Marquis and Peregrine followed her.
They reached the landing and saw the girl ahead of them hurry down a short passage that obviously led to a room at the back of the house.
The screams
were coming from there and, as they followed the girl through the open door, they saw her run towards a woman at the far end of the room who was hitting the children around her with a heavy stick.
She was holding one, a small child of about five or six and, as the others, cut off between her and a number of beds, were trying to escape, she was striking at them too.
They were all screaming and one was lying on the floor with blood pouring from a weal on her back where a blow from the stick had broken the skin.
“Stop, Mrs. Moore! Stop!” the girl cried.
She rushed down the room just as the Marquis and Peregrine entered it and, seizing the woman’s arm, tried to force it upwards to prevent her from again striking the child she was holding with her other hand.
“Don’t you interfere with me!” Mrs. Moore shouted furiously. “These little varmints have woken me again after I told them to be quiet. I’ll teach them to obey me orders. I’ll beat them until they’re unconscious!”
“No, Mrs. Moore! You cannot do that! And you cannot – hit Daisy again. She is too – ill.”
The woman was just about to shout abuse at the girl when she caught sight of the Marquis and Peregrine standing in the doorway.
Her jaw dropped open and she lapsed into silence so that the girl was able to pull the stick from her hand.
Mrs. Moore found her voice.
“Who’s this?” she asked.
“H-his – Lordship – the Marquis!” the girl stammered.
Dropping the stick down by one of the beds, the girl put her arm round the small child on whom Mrs. Moore had now relinquished her hold and who was sobbing convulsively.
“It’s all right, dearest,” she said. “It’s all right. She will not hurt you anymore.”
The other children had already stopped screaming at the sight of the Marquis and, with the tears running down their thin cheeks, they merely stared at him as if he was an apparition from another world.
The room was a dormitory containing a number of iron bedsteads, most of which were broken and tied up with rope or wire.
The blankets on them were torn and stained and the pillows appeared to be nothing but bundles of rags.
The Marquis, however, looked at Mrs. Moore as she walked towards him and realised, from the unsteadiness of her gait and the heightened colour in her florid face, that she had been drinking.
From Hell to Heaven Page 3