“And finding them,” her father had finished mockingly.
He put his arm round his wife as he added,
“The truth is I have never seen anyone as beautiful as you are or met anybody I would rather talk to than you.”
Her mother had put out her hand to touch his cheek.
“Is that true – really true?”
“You know it is, my precious,” her husband had replied, “and you are quite right, darling, nobody could be luckier than we are and to be poor is a very small price to pay for it.”
As she was thinking over this conversation, Cledra watched the Earl ride ahead of them over the bridge as if he was leading the way.
She was aware as he did so, how brilliantly he rode, how handsome he looked on his stallion, which, with the exception of Star, she told herself was the finest horse that she had ever seen.
‘That is the sort of love he needs to find,’ she thought, ‘and because he is an idealist he will never be content with anyone or anything that is not perfect.’
Her thoughts were interrupted by the Countess who was saying,
“It is so exciting for me to be coming home. The Hall will always really be home to me because I was so happy here.”
Because she spoke wistfully and Cledra sensed that she was thinking of her husband who was dead, she slipped her hand into hers.
“Please, let me try to make you happy again, ma’am,” she said. “It is my fault that you have been put to so much inconvenience and I want to try in every way I can to make it up to you.”
The Countess smiled.
“Thank you, child, and let me say that I am enjoying the inconvenience because it is an adventure and something I have not been part of for a long time.”
Nevertheless by the time the Countess had been carried out of the carriage, greeted the servants who welcomed her in the hall and had been carried up the great staircase escorted by the Major Domo, the housekeeper, the Earl, Eddie and Cledra, she was beginning to grow tired.
They carried her along the corridor filled with furniture and pictures that made Cledra want to stop and admire them until, after walking for what seemed a very long way, the Earl said,
“I have not put you in your usual rooms, Grandmama, because I want you near me.”
His grandmother did not miss that there was a meaning in what he said.
But she merely smiled as she was carried into a very beautiful room, which was next door to the Master suite that she and her husband had always occupied until he had died and his son had then come into the title.
“Queen Charlotte’s Bedroom!” she exclaimed. “I have always thought it a very pretty room.”
“I hope you will be comfortable, Grandmama,” the Earl said, “and your boudoir as you will know is next door. Cledra will be just across the passage.”
He did not add that her room also was near to his, but Cledra, who was listening, was aware that this was the reason why she had been put there.
She was not surprised to learn that Eddie was next to her.
“A very sensible arrangement,” she heard the Countess say and knew that she was shrewdly aware of why they were sleeping so close together in a house so large that it could accommodate a Regiment of soldiers.
Emma bustled in to say that the Countess must go to bed immediately and rest after all the excitement and shooed them out of the bedroom.
Then Cledra went into her room to find that Hannah was already there.
It was a lovely room, not quite as impressive as the one where the Countess was sleeping, but larger than any bedroom that Cledra had ever occupied and very luxuriously furnished.
Without saying anything Hannah went to the wardrobe and opened it and Cledra gave a little cry of astonishment.
There were at least half-a-dozen gowns hanging there, all of them in the very latest fashion and so pretty that she could only stare at them spellbound for a few moments.
Then she asked,
“How can his Lordship have bought all these for me and – how did he know that they would fit me?”
“I gave his Lordship your measurements,” Hannah replied, “when you arrived at the Dower House.”
“He must have been very quick.”
“His Lordship’s had plenty of practice in choosin’ pretty gowns for pretty women!”
Hannah spoke proudly as if it was an achievement like winning a race or bagging the largest number of game birds.
Cledra was puzzled.
As the Earl was not married, she could not understand how he should ever be in the position of buying pretty gowns for pretty women.
Then she thought perhaps he was kind to his poorer relatives who would certainly appreciate a gown or a bonnet as a Christmas present rather than chocolates or objets d’art.
‘However he acquired such knowledge,’ she thought, ‘I am certainly very grateful.’
She had thought the muslin gown that Hannah had made her was very attractive, but, when she put on one of the gowns that came from London, she knew that it gave her a better figure and was more flattering than anything she had ever worn before.
The only difficulty in changing her gown was that any movement of that sort was inclined to hurt her back.
It was still bandaged, but the scars, which had bled, were now healing although sometimes at night they were very painful or itched in a manner that made it impossible to sleep.
But she knew that every day she grew stronger.
“Now don’t you go doin’ too much, miss,” Hannah admonished her in much the same way as her Nanny would have done. “You can go down to tea with his Lordship, then you must come back and rest afore dinner.”
“Do you – suppose that his Lordship will ask me to dine – with him?” Cledra asked.
“I expect so, miss, as you’re a guest here,” Hannah replied.
Cledra was doubtful however, feeling that the Earl might think she was too young or else that it would be best for her to have a tray in his grandmother’s room as she had done at the Dower House.
She went to see how the Countess was before she went downstairs, but Emma whispered that her Mistress was having a little nap and it would be best for her to come back later.
Cledra went downstairs feeling excited at the beauty of the house, stopping on almost every stair to look at the pictures in the Great Hall and the flags that hung on either side of the stone mantelpiece.
She guessed that these had been worn by ancestors of the Earl in the battles that they had fought in.
The butler was waiting to tell her that the Earl was having tea in the Orangery and he then led her through the house to where, attached to a side wall, was an Orangery, which had been built a hundred years ago and was architecturally one of the finest in the country.
All the windows, which could be closed in the winter, were opened on both sides of it and the building was not only filled with orange trees that had been imported specially from Spain, but there were also flowers of every description. These included many species of orchids that Cledra had never seen before.
Tea was laid out so near to one of the windows that they might have been actually sitting in the garden and the Queen Anne silver, which had been presented by the Queen herself to one of the Earl’s ancestors, glittered in the sunshine.
There was every sort of sandwich and various cakes set out on a service of Crown Derby.
There was also the Earl standing gazing out over the lawns, so much a part of the magnificence of the house, Cledra thought, that he seemed to blend into it almost as if he had been there for as many years as the building itself.
He turned at her approach and watched her coming towards him through the flowers and when she reached his side he said,
“You look exactly as I hoped you would in the gowns I chose for you.”
“How – could you give me – anything so marvellous – and what can – I say?” Cledra asked.
“There is no need for you to say anything.”
“I cannot believe that I have such lovely gowns to wear and they are really mine! Mama and I used to make lists of what we would buy if we could ever afford it.”
She drew in her breath.
“Sometimes I would draw the sort of gown I would want if Papa suddenly became a millionaire – but they were only – dreams.”
“Now your dreams have come true,” the Earl smiled, “and that is very satisfactory, Cledra, and exactly what I would want you to feel.”
“And you could – only be in a – dream, just as this house is a Fairy Palace, which I am afraid may vanish – at midnight.”
The Earl laughed.
“I sincerely hope it will not do so, especially as it has survived for so many centuries already.”
He was, however, touched by the way she spoke and thought that few women would express their gratitude so prettily or indeed be so grateful.
He had given so many presents in his life, but had always been expected to give more.
He had sometimes imagined that when a woman saw him she not only lifted her lips to his before he invited them, but at the same time she had her greedy little hands in his pocket.
Now he thought that it was Cledra’s youth that not only made her so grateful but made everything that was happening to her seem to be part of a Fairytale.
‘Soon, because she is very lovely,’ he thought, ‘she will become spoilt, blasé and inevitably a bore like every other woman I have known.’
He heard footsteps coming into the Orangery and knew that it was Eddie coming to join them.
Then, as he approached, the Earl felt Cledra move closer to him and thought for one second that she was becoming possessive like other women who also resented a tête-à-tête with him being interrupted.
To his astonishment, as Eddie reached them, he saw that Cledra’s eyes held an undoubted look of fear.
For one moment he did not understand.
Then it suddenly struck him that, because of the way she had suffered at her uncle’s hands, she was now, strange though it might seem, frightened of men!
For the moment he thought that he must be imagining things, but as they sat down at the tea table and he saw Cledra deliberately take a chair as far away from Eddie as possible, he knew that his intuition had been right and she was afraid.
To change her thoughts he suggested,
“I think, as you are the only lady present, Cledra, that pouring out the tea falls to you.”
She looked at him a little shyly and then, obeying him without any arguing, changed her chair for the one in front of the silver tray with its large and beautifully chased silver teapot.
Eddie, helping himself to a sandwich, then said,
“Well, so far, so good. I am sure it is an anxiety off your mind, Lennox, that your grandmother and Miss Melford are now safely at The Hall.”
The Earl frowned.
“It is my fault that I have forgotten to tell you, Eddie, although I have told all the servants, that the young lady staying with my grandmother is one of my cousins and is addressed as ‘Miss Poyle’.”
“You did forget me,” Eddie complained, “but I certainly think it is a good idea for the name ‘Melford’ to be forgotten.”
“You don’t mind assuming my name?” the Earl asked, turning to Cledra.
She smiled at him.
“I am very – very honoured, but I hope you will tell me something of the history of my new – ancestors and especially about the flags that hang in the hall.”
Before the Earl could reply, she added quickly,
“But perhaps you would find that boring. So instead could you tell me if there is in your library a history not only of the house but also of all those who have lived in it.”
“I wonder if that would really interest you or if you are just being polite to its present owner?”
“I think history that is the most fascinating subject that anybody could possibly study,” Cledra replied. “Mama and I used to read lots of history books together and Papa and I used to ‘travel’ all over the world with an Atlas and sometimes he would find pictures of the places on our route.”
The way she spoke made the Earl aware that everything she had learnt in that way had been vividly real to her.
He thought it might be intriguing to take somebody who was so interested, but who had never travelled except in her mind, to the places that he himself had visited and enjoyed.
When he was young, he had travelled extensively because his father had felt that it was good for his education.
He wondered what Cledra would think of Venice, of Athens and of the Pyramids of Egypt, which he had climbed with his Tutor when he was only sixteen.
Then he told himself that her interest was only that of a schoolgirl who had nothing else to occupy her mind and, once she had discovered the Social world, the parties, the balls, Receptions and Assemblies, her horizons would be confined to Mayfair.
Because he was so silent, Cledra looked at him a little apprehensively and said in a very small voice,
“H-have I – said anything – wrong?”
“Why should you think that?” the Earl asked.
“You – you were looking scornful – and perhaps I am mistaken – cynical.”
Eddie laughed.
“You will find when you know our host better, Miss Poyle, that this is his habitual expression and if he is bored he shows it!”
Cledra’s eyes searched the Earl’s face before she said,
“I am – sorry if I am being boring. Mama always told me that I should not – talk about myself – but you did ask me.”
“I asked you and I wanted an answer,” the Earl replied, “and I was not in the least bored with what you said. On the contrary it interested me enormously.”
He glanced at Eddie on the other side of the table defiantly before he went on,
“I was in fact thinking how interesting it would be to take somebody like yourself who has been abroad only in her imagination to, let us say, Venice and watch their reaction.”
“I think in most cases,” Cledra said as if he had asked her a direct question, “the reality would be much more thrilling and satisfying than anything one could possibly imagine.”
“Then you are admitting that there are limitations to one’s imagination?”
“That entirely depends on the person,” Cledra replied, “and then, of course, on how descriptive the books were they had read, or how well the place in question had been explained by somebody who had actually been there.”
The Earl smiled.
He liked the logic behind Cledra’s reasoning.
He also appreciated that she could think quickly and answer his questions in the same way that Eddie might have done when they were alone having dinner together.
Then aloud he said,
“I would like to make an experiment.”
Cledra looked at him as he went on,
“I am wondering what you imagine my stables are like where a horse called ‘Winged Victory’ is housed at this moment. We might go now and see if the picture in your imagination is true to life.”
A light came into Cledra’s eyes that was almost dazzling.
“Can we really go and see St – Winged Victory now?” she asked, stumbling over the name. “I was longing to ask you if I could do so – but I was afraid you might think it – presumptuous of me to suggest it.”
“I should have thought it very unnatural if you had bottled up your feelings very much longer,” the Earl replied, “and shall I say that my intuition told me that was what you were longing for?”
She gave him a smile that was more expressive than anything she could have said and he rose to his feet.
“Come along then and as, I have no wish, if you are tired, to get into trouble with Hannah, I shall expect you to lie down before dinner.”
“That is what Hannah said,” Cledra answered, “but I did not think that you would ask me to dine with you.”
“Eddie and I wou
ld be very disappointed if you did not do so,” the Earl said, “but we can, of course, wait for another night.”
“I will rest and please – please – may I dine with you? It will be very – very exciting for me – as I have never been to a dinner party before.”
“Then Eddie and I will entertain you and I only hope you will not be disappointed.”
“Nothing that – concerns you – could be – disappointing,” Cledra answered.
Chapter Six
They walked the short distance to the stable yard and the Earl deliberately went slowly so that it would not be too much for Cledra.
When they passed under the arch, surmounted by the Poynton Coat of Arms in stone, that led into the stables, Cledra saw that the buildings were architecturally unusually fine.
As she had expected, everything was meticulously clean and the cobbled yard seemed to glitter in the sunshine.
The Earl would have led the way to the first stable on the right, but Cledra paused, held up her hand and asked,
“May I show you how I can call – Winged Victory without using my – voice?”
The Earl replied,
“Of course. I am prepared for surprises from your horse!”
She gave him a little smile before she said,
“Then please would you ask one of the grooms just to open his stall and leave him to come out on his own?”
A groom had appeared as soon as the Earl had walked through the arch and now he received the directions that Cledra had asked for with some surprise, but hurried away to obey them.
They stood waiting and the Earl realised that Cledra was concentrating her thoughts on her horse, sending them towards him almost he thought like live vibrations.
Then from the door some way from them Winged Victory appeared.
He was not rushing out, as another horse might have done on being set free, but moving with dignity.
Without pausing he came straight towards Cledra.
She moved a few steps forward to greet him, her arms going out to him and he nuzzled his nose against her.
The Earl said nothing, but Eddie remarked in a low voice,
“They ought to be painted like that. I have never seen such an attractive picture.”
Winged Victory Page 10
