It was true, Jerry admitted to himself, that they had very few neighbours.
When he and Aspasia rode together on the horses they broke in themselves and which were their only means of transport they often journeyed for two or three hours without seeing a soul.
They kept well away from Grimstone House and the part of the estate that was cultivated and farmed by the Duchess. But there were the woods and the wide-open country where there was only bracken and gorse bushes with no sign of human habitation and they might, as Aspasia had often said, have been riding on the moon.
“I don’t like it,” Jerry said now. “I am sure it is wrong and that I should stop you from going.”
“I am going!” Aspasia said firmly. “If she says no, well, we shall be no worse off than we are now, but I might be able in some way to change her mind. After all she is a woman. She must realise that an elderly man like Uncle Theophilus would find it impossible to start a new life somewhere else.”
She saw the expression on her brother’s face and added,
“I am aware, dearest, what it would mean to you to leave Oxford and you know that above all things Mama wanted us to have a good education. She said so a hundred times and when she was dying she said to me,
“‘You and Jerry must be properly educated, darling, so that if you use your intelligence, I am sure that however difficult it may seem now you will find a place in the world where you will both be very happy.’”
“A place in the world,” Jerry repeated beneath his breath. “It would be easier to find something to do if I had a Degree.”
“You have to go back to Oxford.” Aspasia said. “You have to! And nobody and nothing shall stop you. I will make the Duchess see sense.”
She spoke almost as if she was inspired as she went on,
“We have always believed in what is right and good and I am sure now that God will help us and you will one day have everything that is yours by right.”
“You are daydreaming!” Jerry declared.
“No, I am saying what is in my heart and in my mind,” Aspasia cried, “and more than that, it is almost as if I am being directed, perhaps by Mama. The first step is to go to Grimstone House and nothing you can say or do will stop me.”
“Very well,” Jerry agreed, “but you know as well as I do that I dare not be seen anywhere near the house.”
“No, of course not,” Aspasia replied. “We will ride our usual way East of the woods until we are parallel with the house and then I will go on alone. You don’t need to wait. I will find my own way home.”
“I would much rather wait for you.”
“That might be unwise if you are seen hanging about. And apart from that, supposing she thinks it wrong for a lady to ride without a groom and sends one with me?”
“I am sure that is very unlikely.”
“I am only pointing out the possibility.”
“Very well,” Jerry conceded. “I will leave you as near to the house as is safe, then I will come back here and kick my heels until you appear. But make no mistake, I will be extremely anxious and worried as to what is happening.”
“I will not be exactly looking forward to it,” Aspasia said in a small voice, “but I know in my heart that it is something I have to do if only to prove to myself that I have tried my best to save Uncle Theophilus.”
“And me,” Jerry murmured.
CHAPTER TWO
When Aspasia had left Jerry and was riding through the woods alone she began to feel nervous.
Because she was so determined to get her own way and try to persuade the Duchess to be merciful, she had not told her brother of her fears and had tried to keep him from realising that she was in fact very frightened.
However, because as twins they were so closely attuned to each other, Jerry, although he was not in other respects very perceptive, said when they had pulled their horses to a standstill outside the wood,
“Change your mind, dearest. I know it is a mistake for you to walk into the lion’s den. We will manage somehow.”
“On what?” Aspasia enquired.
There was silence and she knew that even Jerry, who was always carefree and optimistic, was thinking how very little money they had left and that without their uncle’s stipend it would be impossible for them to live without some other source of income.
“All right, have it your own way,” he accepted, “but promise me that when you have talked to the Duchess you will come home immediately.”
“I certainly will,” Aspasia promised, “but don’t wait. As I have already said, she might decide to send a groom with me.”
“I will go back to the Vicarage and wait. But you know that I will be worrying about you.”
“I doubt it,” Aspasia smiled. “I have never known you worry about anything particularly.”
They both laughed.
Aspasia had spoken the truth when she said that Jerry never worried. It was because he took life as it came and made the best of whatever situation he found himself in.
It was a gift that she wished she had herself, for like her mother she worried about many things, especially lately, wondering what the future would be when the money that they had been living on and which had paid so far for Jerry to go to Oxford came to an end.
At any other time Aspasia knew that she would have enjoyed riding through unfamiliar woods and knowing that the sun shining through the fir trees making a pattern of gold on the mossy ground was very beautiful.
She followed a small twisting path that wound between the trees until suddenly the wood came to an end and in front of her was Grimstone House.
She had never seen it before. Although the descriptions that other people had made her of it had given her some idea of what it was like, it was far more magnificent and far more imposing than she had expected.
It was very old, having been built by the family long before they were made Dukes and added to by every succeeding generation.
Standing on high ground with green parkland in front of it where there were herds of spotted deer it looked to Aspasia like something out of one of her dreams.
Slowly she rode on, thinking that it would be impossible for anybody to be really bad or wicked if they lived in such beautiful surroundings and trying to convince herself that the stories she had heard about the Duchess were baseless.
As she had said to Jerry, she was sure that the cruel actions that were carried out in the Duchess’s name on the estate were performed without her knowledge and that her Agent, a man called Bollard, was entirely responsible for them.
She reached the main drive that cut through the Park and led directly to the house and, as she rode on, Aspasia felt her heart beating in a frightened manner. She knew only too well that Jerry’s future depended on the outcome of this visit to the Duchess.
‘Perhaps she will not see me,’ she mused nervously.
Then, because there was nothing else that she could do, she began to pray to God, as she believed her uncle would pray if he knew what she was doing.
Then she spoke to her mother,
‘Help me, Mama! Help me!’ she breathed in the depths of her heart. ‘Wherever you are I know that you will still be loving Jerry and me and at this moment we need your help desperately.’
She was still praying when she reached the front door.
There were a number of grey stone steps leading up to it and she sat for a moment looking round a little helplessly, wondering how she could leave her horse and reach the door.
Just then a groom came running from the side of the house and, as he went to her horse’s head, she smiled at him and said,
“Thank you, but will you wait a moment before you take my horse to the stables? I have no appointment and perhaps Her Grace will be unable to see me.”
The groom was young, but he looked at Aspasia with admiration as he touched his forehead and replied,
“I’ll wait, ma’am.”
She slipped from the saddle onto the ground and walked
up the steps, but before she could look for a bell or raise the knocker the door opened.
At the first glance she saw that there were three footmen in attendance in a Great Hall with a marble floor, Ionic pillars and exquisitely executed paintings on the walls.
Aspasia walked forward another step and was just wondering whether she should speak to the footmen when an elderly butler appeared and came towards her.
“Good morning, madam,” he greeted her in a respectful tone that also implied a question.
“If it is possible,” Aspasia said in a voice that she felt was commendably calm, “I wish to see Her Grace – the Duchess.”
“Her Grace is not expecting you, madam?”
“No, but would you please inform Her Grace that – it is of the utmost importance.”
“If you will come this way, madam,” the butler suggested, “I will enquire if Her Grace is available.”
He walked ahead of Aspasia who followed him through the Great Hall until he opened a door and she was shown into what she thought must be an anteroom.
It seemed large and impressive to her, but she guessed that the main rooms in the house would be larger still.
“May I enquire your name, madam?” the butler asked politely.
“Miss Aspasia Stanton.”
The man bowed and left the room and Aspasia stood looking around her.
She had never seen such impressive furnishings or such magnificent pictures before and she stared at them with interest recognising many of the artists from the lessons that her mother had arranged for her to have on art, a subject that she told Aspasia every educated person should be knowledgeable about.
“Although I shall never see such beautiful pictures myself,” Aspasia had said once, “at least I can dream about them and imagine what they look like.”
“Nobody can prevent us from dreaming,” her mother had replied.
But while her lips had smiled there had been an inexpressible pain in her eyes that Aspasia understood.
As she looked eagerly about her, she realised she must tell Jerry that she had actually seen a Rubens.
Then on the other side of the room she saw a Poussin and wondered how she could explain to him how beautiful it was and how impossible to imagine unless one actually saw it.
She had time to look at only two more pictures before the door opened and the butler came back into the room.
For the moment Aspasia felt that her heart had stopped beating.
If he reported that the Duchess would not see her, there was nothing she could do but go away.
“Will you come this way, madam?” he said. “Her Grace will give you a few minutes of her time, but you will appreciate that you are very fortunate to be given an audience at such short notice.”
“Yes, indeed, and I am – very grateful,” Aspasia said humbly.
She had the feeling that the butler was repeating what he had been told to say, but she was too grateful to be in any way critical.
At least she had a chance of putting her case in front of the Duchess and she must concentrate on her uncle and what it would mean to him to be turned away from his beloved Parish.
The butler led the way down a broad corridor where again there were a number of pictures that Aspasia longed to look at and beneath them five pieces of furniture, some of which she was sure were French and had been made in the Louis XIV period.
Another door lay ahead of them and outside stood two footmen on duty. As they threw open the door, the butler announced in a voice that sounded like a fanfare of trumpets,
“Miss Aspasia Stanton, Your Grace.”
For a moment because she was nervous everything seemed to swim in front of Aspasia’s eyes.
Then she saw that she was in a large room with the sunshine coming in through diamond-paned windows that reached high up the walls.
It flashed through her mind that this must be a very old part of the house.
Then she could think of nothing but the woman she had come to see.
The Duchess was standing in front of an ornately carved fireplace and she was taller than Aspasia had expected and very much more impressive.
Dressed in the latest fashion, which was very much more elaborate than anything that had reached Little Medlock, she was wearing several strings of huge pearls, diamonds in her ears and around her wrists and a number of rings on her long thin fingers.
It was then that Aspasia looked at her face and found it impossible to look away.
Never had she imagined that any woman could look so beautiful and at the same time so evil.
She could not explain to herself exactly why she knew that the woman facing her was as wicked as she was reputed to be.
But the vibrations that came from her were so positive that Aspasia felt something within herself recoil as if they had struck her physically.
Then, as she moved slowly towards the Duchess, she could not help admitting that, though in some way she looked old, she was still beautiful.
Her hair might once have been fair, but now it was dyed red, an artificial red, but still a compellingly attractive colour that made her skin look very white.
Her features were almost perfectly classical, her eyes, which were naturally large, had mascaraed eyelashes and her eyelids were coloured green.
The whole effect was fantastic yet compelling and Aspasia’s eyes were still on the Duchess’s face as she drew near and yet nearer.
“You wanted to see me?” the Duchess asked sharply and her voice was hard.
Belatedly Aspasia, because she was so bemused, remembered to curtsey.
“I am very grateful to Your Grace,” she began, “for – allowing me to – do so.”
Her voice trembled, but when she rose she held her head high and her chin went up.
‘I must not be frightened,’ she thought. ‘There is too much at stake.’
“Who are you and what do you want?”
“I am the niece, Your Grace, of the Reverend Theophilus Stanton – who has received a letter from Your Grace’s secretary telling him that because he is now sixty-five – he must leave his Parish of Little Medlock.”
“Yes, that is right,” the Duchess replied. “I have no use for old people on the estate. I am getting rid of them all. I want young people around me with ideas. People with vitality. Old age is a disease and it is infectious!”
Aspasia felt that she could not have heard aright.
And then she said,
“I thought Your Grace might not be aware how loved my uncle is in Little Medlock and – how much he has done for the people there. He would find it difficult to find another Living and not only will he be lost without his parishioners – but they will be lost and unhappy without him.”
Aspasia’s voice was very soft and pleading.
“I am not interested in what the people of Little Medlock feel or do not feel,” the Duchess retorted harshly. “They will do as I tell them. Your uncle is too old and I will find a young man to replace him.”
Aspasia gave a little cry.
“Please – please – Your Grace – ” she started to plead.
Quite suddenly there was an interruption.
The door opened and a woman came hurrying into the room.
She looked, Aspasia thought, liked a superior servant.
She was plainly dressed and yet the way she walked towards the Duchess and the way she spoke seemed to have a certain authority about her that seemed out of place in someone in a subservient position.
She reached the Duchess’s side and spoke in a low voice as if she did not wish Aspasia to hear what was said and yet every word was quite audible.
“It’s no use, Your Grace. She’s running a high temperature and there’s no chance of her coming down for dinner this evening.”
“Damn the little fool! This is a nice time to be ill!” the Duchess blurted out furiously.
Aspasia was astonished.
She had never thought is possible that a lady of the Duchess’s
standing would swear.
“There’s nothing I can do, Your Grace,” the woman went on. “If I got her on her feet, she’d be worse than useless in the state she’s in.”
“Then what the devil are we to do?” the Duchess asked. “We cannot switch any of the other girls. You know as well as I do Lord Dagenham always expects to have Gracie and Lord Wilbraham will not look at anybody but Nina.”
“I know, I know!” the woman replied, “but there’s no time to bring another girl down from London.”
“I suppose Louise might do at a pinch.”
“Oh, no, Your Grace. Louise is all right for the unsophisticated, a young boy who needs encouraging, but with an experienced man she’s far too blatant.”
“I told you that this evening was important,” the Duchess said angrily, “and if there is one thing that makes me lose my temper it is when my plans go wrong.”
“I know, Your Grace, but no one can prevent illness and I assure you the girl’s really ill.”
“She will be even more ill by the time I have finished with her!” the Duchess growled.
She spoke in such a sinister way that Aspasia shuddered and the slight movement she made attracted the Duchess’s attention.
She turned to look at her and she said in a voice still reverberating with anger,
“As for you – you can go back and tell – ”
Suddenly she stopped and it seemed to Aspasia that her eyes narrowed, her green lids giving her almost the expression of a tiger.
Aspasia thought that she had failed miserably in her mission. Jerry had been right. It had been quite hopeless coming here and she had been foolish to expect mercy from a woman who would swear or talk in such a violent and unpleasant manner.
She told herself that at least she would go with dignity, thank the Duchess for receiving her, curtsey and leave the room.
“Take off your bonnet!”
It was an order and Aspasia looked bewildered.
“You heard what I said,” the Duchess said when she did not move. “Take off your bonnet so that we can see your hair.”
In the Arms of Love Page 3
