As he spoke he thought, although he was not sure, there was a somewhat startled expression in the man’s eyes.
Then he told himself that he was being imaginative and, as the door closed, he said to Charlie,
“By the way, how old is the Duchess now?”
“She must be getting on a bit,” Charlie answered, “forty-five or more, but still, I expect, playing ‘hard to get’. There are always fortune-hunters, whatever a woman’s age, if she is rich enough.”
“I have always known you to be truthful, at least to me,” the Marquis said, “but I think your whole tale is a lot of moonshine. The thing however that astonishes me is that not only you speak of her as if she was a Dragon incarnate, but so does Jackson.”
Charlie laughed.
“It will certainly be an anti-climax if she turns out to be a quiet little woman with greying hair who has taken to knitting. After all it can hardly be her fault that a girl of fifteen has disappeared.”
“Bad Masters make bad servants,” the Marquis said quietly, “and what Jackson tells me makes me think that she has become a bogey who frightens everyone on my estate.”
“Well, set off on your voyage of discovery and I will certainly keep the house warm until you return. Meanwhile, may I write notes to the friends I intend to invite here this evening?”
“Of course,” the Marquis agreed, “and I presume it will be an all-male party?”
“If I had known that you were going to leave me like this,” Charlie replied, “I might have brought a pretty Cyprian down with me from London. I cannot believe that there is much to choose from in Newmarket.”
“Most of the women I have seen so far,” the Marquis said dryly, “would make quite good-looking horses!”
Charlie laughed.
“They always say one grows like one’s pets, but for a woman to look like a horse is a disaster!”
“From your description of the Duchess she should look like a snake.”
“Any sort of monster will do,” Charlie laughed, “but remember she was, according to reports, very beautiful when she was young.”
“I must polish up my compliments,” the Marquis smiled, “and seriously, Charlie, I believe in living amicably with one’s neighbours. A feud between two neighbouring landlords is, I am certain, a great mistake.”
“Of course it is,” Charlie agreed. “That is the sort of thing my father thought.”
He paused before he added mischievously,
“You know, Mervyn, I am beginning to think you are ageing rather rapidly. I shall miss the daredevil Officer who was always prepared to crawl round the enemy’s defences and take him by surprise.”
“The way you are speaking makes it sound extremely foolhardy,” the Marquis remarked, “but if you remember, we discussed every move, planned every step and the reason why we were successful when we captured those guns was that we had left nothing to chance.”
“You are right,” Charlie agreed, “but what you are doing now is walking straight into the enemy’s hands and I have a feeling, although I may be wrong, that you will find it a hornet’s nest.”
“If it is, I shall withdraw in the face of superior odds!” the Marquis shrugged his shoulders.
*
The Reverend Theophilus Stanton rose from the breakfast table and, closing carefully the book he had been reading so as not to lose his place, walked towards the door.
As he reached it, his niece called after him,
“Uncle Theophilus, you have forgotten to open your letter.”
“It’s sure to be a bill,” her uncle replied, “but I have not the time nor the money for it at the moment.”
He left the room closing the door behind him and Aspasia looked across the table at her twin brother and laughed.
“That is just like Uncle Theophilus. He always avoids unpleasantness, if he possibly can.”
“He is very wise,” Jerome Stanton replied.
He was always called ‘Jerry’ by everybody who knew him and was an extremely good-looking young man, tall broad-shouldered with fair hair and blue eyes.
He had a broad forehead, which not only denoted brains but also gave him a frank and open look that made people he met like and trust him.
“You are as irresponsible as he is!” Aspasia teased.
Although they were twins, she was very unlike her brother. She was small, slim and very lovely, but instead of fair hair, hers had a touch of fire in it that made it almost red and her eyes were a far darker blue so that looking at them together it would have been difficult to guess they had been born at the same time.
“Will you have some more coffee?” she asked.
“No, thank you,” her brother replied. “But you had better open Uncle’s letter and learn the worst. I hope it is not for a very large amount.”
His sister looked at him sharply.
“You are not hard up again, Jerry?”
“Of course I am,” he replied. “You have no idea how expensive Oxford University is.”
“You knew when you went there that you would have to economise in every way because the money Mama had left us has almost run out.”
“I know! I know,” Jerry exclaimed. “But it is difficult when I am with a lot of fellows who are richer than I am to keep accepting hospitality without giving any.”
Aspasia was silent.
Then their uncle who they lived with had only a very small stipend and, as she had just said to her brother, the money that her mother had left them when she died five years ago had been spent over the years on their education until there was practically nothing left in the Bank.
As Jerry knew the position as well as she did, there was no point in saying anything more and Aspasia reached out her hand towards the letter and picked it up.
To her surprise it did not look like a bill and was written on a thick white parchment that was so expensive that Aspasia stared at it before she turned it over.
Then she gave a little cry of sheer astonishment.
“What is it?” Jerry asked her at once.
“This letter is from the Duchess,” she said. “Look! Here is her coronet on the back.”
Brother and sister looked at each other meaningfully before Aspasia said in a frightened voice almost beneath her breath,
“Why should she be – writing to – Uncle Theophilus?”
“Open it and find out,” Jerry proposed. “It is a good thing, if you ask me, that he did not notice who the letter was from. It would have upset him.”
“Yes, of course,” Aspasia agreed.
For a moment she sat staring at the letter as if she could not force herself to learn its contents.
Then meaningfully with a silver butter knife she slit open the top of the envelope.
As she drew out the thick sheet of paper inside, she felt perceptively that it was bad news and it was almost as if there was a vibration of evil coming from the paper itself.
She did not speak, but she was aware that Jerry was watching her as she opened the letter.
She read what was written without speaking until Jerry was unable to contain his curiosity any longer and demanded,
“What does it say? Read it to me.”
“I cannot believe it! It cannot be true,” Aspasia cried.
“What does it say?” Jerry asked again.
Aspasia drew in her breath and in a voice that trembled she read,
“To the Reverend Theophilus Stanton.
On the instructions of Her Grace the Duchess of Grimstone, now that you have reached the age of sixty-five, you are retired from your Living and you will vacate the Vicarage within a month of this date.
Yours faithfully,
Erasmus Carstairs,
Secretary to Her Grace.”
As Aspasia finished reading, her voice broke and her eyes were filled with tears, while Jerry brought his fist down violently on the table so that the plates and cups rattled.
“Curse her!” he exclaimed. “How can she do a thing
like this to Uncle Theophilus? It’s inhumane! Brutal!”
“How can he leave here?” Aspasia asked. “The people in the village love him and he loves them. Besides, where can we go?”
She stared across the table at her twin as she asked the question, seeing her brother through her tears and knowing that he was as perturbed as she was.
“Uncle Theophilus has been here all his life,” Jerry pointed out as if he spoke to himself. “Just as we have.”
They were both thinking that the Vicarage was so much their home that they had never thought of it as belonging to anybody else.
Grimstone House, the Duchess’s ancestral home was five miles away, but it might to all intents and purposes have been in another world.
Here in Little Medlock life was slow and easy. The villagers came to Church because they wished to worship God and they brought their troubles and their joys to the Vicar because he belonged to them. What happened on other parts of the estate did not concern them.
“How can we tell Uncle Theophilus?” Aspasia asked her brother.
“It will not be easy,” Jerry said, “and you realise this means that I will not be able to go back to Oxford?”
Aspasia gave a little cry.
“Why not?”
Then even as she spoke she knew the answer.
If the little money they had, and it was indeed little enough, had to be spent in finding somewhere else to live, they both knew that it was very unlikely that at sixty-five the Reverend Theophilus would be given another Living.
Of course he could apply to the Bishop but, even if another Parish was found for him, it would still break his heart to leave his flock who he looked upon as his children and to whom he was certainly their Pastor and shepherd.
Aspasia looked down at the letter again.
‘This was not written by the Duchess,” she said, “but by her secretary.”
“She instructed him to write it,” Jerry answered.
Aspasia looked at her brother.
“You don’t think that she suspects in any way?”
“Why should she?” Jerry asked.
But there had been a pause before he answered and a flicker in his eyes that his sister did not miss.
“Martha was saying a few days ago that people in the village had remarked on your likeness to a certain person whose name we do not mention.”
“It is nothing that I am ashamed of,” Jerry said defiantly.
“No, of course not, dearest,” Aspasia agreed, “but we are both well aware that it is dangerous.”
She paused for a moment before she went on,
“Perhaps it would be wise for us to go away. I am always afraid from all the things we hear about her that somebody will make her suspicious about you.”
“Why should anybody do that?”
“I was looking at the miniature Mama had of him and you are very very like him, the same forehead, the same eyes and the same coloured hair! And, of course, you are tall as he was and everybody always says how magnificent he was.”
Jerry looked over his shoulder almost as if he thought that somebody might be listening.
“It is wisest not to talk about him, we both know that.”
“It is wrong, I know,” Aspasia said, “but just lately I have been feeling afraid.”
“Why particularly lately?”
Aspasia gave her brother a smile that seemed to illuminate her face.
“Because, Jerry, dearest, you grow more handsome and more attractive every time I see you. You have grown up in the last year and that is when you have become so like him.”
“As a matter of fact, Aspasia,” Jerry said, “one or two of the older people at Oxford have said that I reminded them of somebody, but they could not think who it was and it puzzled them.”
“Oh, Jerry, you must be careful and that is why I think perhaps it is a good idea – for us to go away.”
“Where could we go? You know we have no money.”
Aspasia looked down again at the letter in her hands.
Then the door opened and instinctively, as if she had not made up her mind what to do about it, she put it quickly in her lap under the table.
But it was not her uncle who came into the room as she had expected, but Martha, the maid who had been with her mother and who had looked after the twins ever since they were born.
“Oh, Miss Aspasia,” she cried, “I’ve had bad news!”
Jerry jumped to his feet.
“What is it, Martha? What has happened?” he asked.
Martha put her hands up to her eyes and sat down in the nearest chair.
“It’s knocked me right over,” she said, “comin’ so early in the mornin’.”
“What has?” Aspasia enquired.
“It’s Flo, my sister Flo. She’s – dead!”
As she said the word, Martha’s voice broke and she sobbed into her handkerchief.
Then determinedly she blew her nose sharply and wiped her eyes and said,
“It was to be expected, but it’s just the shock that has got me for the moment. I’ll ask your uncle if he’ll drive me over in his gig and perform the Burial Service.”
“When did she die?” Aspasia asked her.
She knew all about Martha’s sister Flo, who had been ailing for years and was always on the point of death, and yet invariably revived just when they had made up their minds that nothing could save her.
“Three days ago,” Martha replied, “and you’d think they’d have let me know afore now.”
She sniffed indignantly as she added,
“I daresay as they wouldn’t have told me at all if it hadn’t been that they wanted the Reverend. They couldn’t bury her without him.”
“I will go and tell Uncle Theophilus that you want to go over to Greater Medlock at once,” Aspasia said, “and Jerry will put Bessy in the gig while you are putting on your cloak and bonnet.”
As Aspasia spoke, she slipped the letter from her lap under the tea tray in front of her and rose to walk to Martha’s side and put her arm around her shoulder.
She bent and kissed her cheek saying as she did so,
“I am sorry, Martha. It must be a great shock to you. I know how kind and loving you always were to Flo.”
She could not help thinking as she spoke that it was a merciful release.
Flo had been the whining sort and Martha, although always busy, would often walk the three miles to Greater Medlock and back again just to listen to her sister’s complaints, which half the time were imaginary.
“There be some cold meat for your luncheon, Miss Aspasia,” Martha said in her usual crisp tone as she rose to her feet, “and I’ve got the salad ready. If you put the potatoes in the oven in about two hours’ time, they’ll be nice and hot when you and Master Jerry wants them.”
“Don’t worry about us,” Aspasia said, “and I will pick some flowers from the garden for your sister’s grave.”
“That’s ever so kind of you,” Martha replied. “And don’t worry about the breakfast things. I’ll wash them up when I comes back.”
She hurried away as she spoke, her momentary weakness gone, ready now to take charge of the situation as she had done at every crisis that had arisen ever since the twins could remember.
It was only when Aspasia and Jerry had seen their uncle drive off in his gig with Martha beside him that Aspasia remembered the letter on the breakfast table.
As she and Jerry went back into the house, she said,
“I have an idea!”
“What is it?” he asked.
“I am going to see the Duchess and ask her to reconsider her decision.”
“You are going to do nothing of the sort!” her brother answered, his voice rising.
“There is just a chance, just a chance that she might be kind and understanding if she learns just how much Uncle Theophilus means – to the people in the village.”
“Kind?” Jerry asked. “You must be raving! We know what she is like. What a
bout Albert Newlands?”
Aspasia shrugged her shoulders.
“We don’t know the Duchess did that.”
“But there was no doubt that it was done on her instructions.”
“How do we know? Bollard would say so, of course he would, but she may have no idea of the things he has done and I just don’t believe that any woman could be so cruel.”
“I forbid you to go and see her,” Jerry insisted.
“What have we to lose?” Aspasia said. “Uncle Theophilus has been told that he has to go, which means that we have to find somewhere else to live and you will have to leave Oxford. In fact, if you do not find work of some sort, we shall doubtless starve. I personally prefer to go down on my knees and beg for mercy.”
“If you do, she will doubtless kick you.”
“We have heard all these stories about her ever since we have been children,” Aspasia said. “We have never seen her and you know as well as I do how village people exaggerate because they have nothing else to talk about.”
“I have heard a lot of things that you have not,” Jerry said.
“What sort of things?”
“About the parties she holds up at the house.”
“I have heard of those too and you know the people in this village think that any party where there is drinking and dancing is a feast of Satan. They are still very primitive in this part of the world. Because most of them cannot read they have to rely on gossip which they exaggerate and exaggerate as storytellers have done since the beginning of the world.”
Jerry laughed.
“You are very convincing, Aspasia, but I still cannot allow you to go.”
“One thing is very certain,” Aspasia said. “You cannot go yourself.”
“No, of course not.”
“But you will leave us to be thrown out into the street without a penny, without making some sort of protest?”
Her brother walked restlessly across the room.
“I am sure that Grimstone House is not the place for you.”
“How do you know? You have never been there.”
“No, of course not. But the things I have heard – ”
“The things you have heard!” Aspasia mocked him. “The people here in Little Medlock have blown the Duchess up into a kind of female devil just because they have nothing else to talk about. If she does hold Bacchanalian orgies I wonder who takes part in them? There are few people living around here who would know what it was even if they saw one.”
In the Arms of Love Page 2
