The Marlows

by Rosalind Laker

  “I’m sure every one of the horses will have been fetched out to safety,” she said reassuringly, smoothing the fold of the sheet over Tansy. “There are always stable lads sleeping on the premises. They would have acted at once. Try to keep calm. Why not take one of those sleeping powders that the doctor left you?”

  “I don’t want to sleep with that terrible fire blazing!” Tansy cried, clutching at her hand. “I must know all that has happened as soon as Nina returns. Oh, Judith! That poor horse who screamed! Do you think —?”

  “No, I don’t,” Judith replied quickly. Then, as Amelia let out another shriek at a fresh burst of flame, she rounded on her sharply. “Be silent! It’s not a sideshow — it’s a tragedy. And you’re making everything that much worse with your foolish noise.

  “Well, really!” Amelia jumped up from the chair. “I won’t be spoken to like that in my own — in this house! I’ll watch in another room!”

  Nina came home at dawn. The aroma of smoke hung about her and she was white-faced and exhausted, having spent the night helping Sarah to dispense tea and ale to the firemen and others at work on the blaze, every male servant having been recruited into the struggle while the women servants filled urns, ran with trays, and struggled to set up the heavy casks.

  “There were no serious causalities among men or horses,” Nina said, sinking down wearily on the edge of Tansy’s bed.

  “Thank God for that!” Tansy breathed. “Is the fire completely quenched?”

  “The ruins are still smoking and the firemen are checking everywhere, but those awful flames are out at last. People came from all around to help. Roger was there. I served him a tankard of ale at the height of the fire and he told me that all the stable lads from Ainderly Hall, except those on guard, had come with him. Some of them risked their lives to get the horses out.”

  “On guard?” Judith inquired, not understanding.

  Nina gave a nod. “Apparently it would never do to empty a stable of all personnel at such a time in case a fire-raiser moved on to start up another blaze. Roger has learned that these things happen sometimes before an important race.”

  Judith gasped. “Do you mean that arson is committed to stop horses taking part?”

  “Not horses. Usually one particular horse that represents a threat to a runner from another stable, which has been heavily backed to win.”

  “Does Edward suspect that this fire was not accidental?”

  “He told me that the captain of the fire brigade had his suspicions. It looked rather as if it had been ignited in the saddle room and it spread quickly from there.”

  Judith exclaimed again and asked more questions. In the bed Tansy listened, but her eyes were not on either of her sisters. She was watching with a troubled, unfocused gaze the rosy-golden light of the rising morning that was tinting the white ceiling between the oaken beams. Finally she spoke.

  “Will Wild Wind be fit to race at Newmarket?”

  Nina answered. “No, he won’t. He was due to leave here tomorrow and be transported by train, but he went almost crazy in the fire and was singed by some blazing straw. To race him until he is fully recovered from his fright is out of the question.”

  Tansy watched the pattern on the ceiling. She was certain she knew who would win the race instead of Wild Wind. It would be Dominic’s Merry Day.

  The following week Roger brought her the racing newspaper that she had asked for. She read first an account about the fire at Cudlingham Manor, which included the information, known to her and the rest of the village several days before, that the remains of an unidentified man had been found in the burnt-out stables. The police held to the belief that an arsonist had himself been trapped and burnt to death through his own hand, the fire being similar to others deliberately started in racing stables at various times throughout the country. Then she turned to the page devoted to Newmarket.

  There had been rowdy scenes when it was discovered before the first of two important races of the day that a four-year-old colt had been falsely entered for a three-year-olds’ race, the switch having been made most cunningly between the two horses concerned during the previous autumn. A phrase, which she had last made contact with when she had heard it used by Dominic’s racing acquaintance in the darkness of a roadside at night, leaped from the print at her: a four-legged impostor. Worth the risk, the stranger in the night had said. Well, risk or no, the horse’s mouth had been examined and the ruse spotted in time, but inexplicably the horse had disappeared without trace and no charge could be brought without evidence. She caught her breath, a single telling sentence confirming everything for her. The jockey, Bill Jemmy, expressed his indignation that such deceit should have been used and was thankful that the fraud had been exposed before the weighing in, because it would have gone against his good name to ride a four-legged impostor past the winning post.

  She lowered the newspaper and leaned back in her chair. No matter how much Bill Jemmy had protested his innocence he must have been in the plot as deeply as Dominic and the unknown stranger, who had brought the news that the switch had been made. The three of them had planned to make a deal of money out of their knavery, but fortunately the plan had gone wrong. There could be no charge without evidence, the report said, but she had evidence. Enough to get Dominic brought to trial for it. She would send for Edward, who was the local magistrate, and tell him all she knew. But would he believe her? She had no proof to offer, except that she had heard two voices in the night and knew one to have been Dominic’s. But Dominic was Edward’s friend. Edward would accept his denial and think her mistaken. It would all be in vain.

  Wearily she lifted the newspaper again and looked for the news item for which she had originally wanted it. She read that in the race that followed the one involving the attempt at fraud, Merry Day had won by three lengths at such long odds that those who had backed the filly to win must have made themselves a small fortune. She folded the newspaper. What Dominic had lost on the roundabouts he had apparently won on the swings, but it must have been a disappointment to him not to have pulled off the swindle in the previous race and doubled the amount. Some day — and somehow — she would see that justice caught up with him.

  8

  On the evening of the April Ball at Cudlingham Manor the Marlow sisters with Judith and Amelia, who was aglitter with jet on black satin, arrived early by arrangement. The great house had never looked more welcoming. Hundreds of candles danced in the crystal chandeliers, creating waterfalls of light from the ornate ceilings, garlands entwined the banisters of the huge sweeping staircase, and there were sweet-scented floral displays everywhere. Nina, exquisite in honey-coloured tulle with silk rosebuds in her hair, took her place at Edward’s side at the entrance to the ballroom, ready to receive with him the first guests when they should arrive, and after initial greetings all round Sarah chatted to Amelia while Tansy gave a supporting hand to Judith as they crossed the wide, shining floor, her iris-blue crinoline blending harmoniously with Judith’s sprigged green silk. They were making for an alcove seat where Judith could sit comfortably and watch the dancing without her view being impeded. In the gallery the musicians struck up a lilting waltz.

  Hardly had they seated themselves when Dominic arrived. After speaking to the others he came straight across to the two sisters and bowed. “Good evening to you both. Pray allow me to put my name on your dance programmes.”

  Judith gave a surprised little laugh, having already put hers away in her reticule as a souvenir, knowing it would not be used. “Tansy’s dance programme, you mean. You know I cannot dance.”

  “Have you ever tried?”

  “Oh, yes. Papa always taught us the latest steps and dances but with him it didn’t matter about my being — er — a trifle clumsy on my feet, because he always held me tight about my waist to keep me from falling.”

  “Would you be kind enough to allow me that privilege?”

  Tansy was eyeing him watchfully, prepared — should he be teasing Judith
— to intervene promptly, but she saw that he was serious. Judith flushed uncomfortably.

  “That’s most kind of you, but dancing with family at home is very different from making a dreadful exhibition of myself before hundreds of people.”

  With raised eyebrows he surveyed the huge room and returned his gaze to her. “I don’t see hundreds of people here. Only four persons whom you know well.” He smiled and bowed deeper than before. “May I have the pleasure of this dance?”

  Judith’s colour deepened painfully and she looked as if she did not know whether to laugh or cry, but she edged forward on the seat in preparation to rise. He was quick to take the hand she reached out toward her stick, letting her use his support instead to stand and gain her balance. Then his arm went about her waist and he drew her into the steps of the waltz.

  Tansy watched them, torn between joy that her sister was dancing and anguish whenever she clumsily missed a step, which was due sometimes to her disability and at others to her extreme nervousness. At the door other guests were announced, but al-though Judith said something to Dominic in frantic appeal, he shook his head smilingly, spoke some word of encouragement that made her nod, the wild rose colour flooding her cheeks again, although less tormentedly than before, and their dancing continued. A few enthusiastic dancers among the new arrivals took to the floor at once, encouraged by the sight of one couple already ahead of them, and within minutes Dominic and Judith were in the midst of dozens of other rotating couples, the ladies’ crinolines swaying like multicoloured bells, the men’s coattails flying out.

  When a final chord announced the end of the waltz Dominic held firmly both of Judith’s hands, which enabled her to give a closing curtsy gracefully without fear of falling. On his arm she returned to the alcove seat, excited and breathless and triumphant. Tansy, who had been joined by a group of people whom they all knew, turned to give her a swift little hug.

  “You’re the real belle of the ball!” she exclaimed warmly.

  “But didn’t you see all those blundering mistakes I made?” Judith bubbled, seeking solace in talking about the misplaced steps that had caused her much embarrassment. “I stepped on Dominic’s toes a dozen times.”

  “You’re so feather-light I didn’t notice,” he declared gallantly. “Now if I may have your dance programme?”

  Shyly but willingly she opened the drawstrings of her reticule and took it out and handed it to him. With the tiny pink pencil attached to it he wrote his name down for another dance before supper. Even as he would have returned it to her one of the young men in the group, who had been writing his name on Tansy’s dance programme, reached out his white-gloved hand for it.

  “May I?” he asked Judith.

  “Er — yes,” she stammered in confusion, “but you do realize that you have to hold me tight about the waist, don’t you?”

  The young man’s eyes twinkled and his mouth twitched. “I cannot imagine anything more delightful, Miss Collins.”

  Everybody laughed and Judith joined in the laughter, the last shreds of her awkward self-consciousness dispersed. Tansy thought happily that she had been right in declaring that the evening was Judith’s, no matter that later Nina would capture the limelight. Seeing that Dominic was waiting to take her programme from an older man now writing on it, she decided, considering what he done for dear Judith, that he deserved one dance.

  “The first Mazurka, the third Gavotte, or the second Polonaise,” she said with a tilt of her head, secure in the knowledge that the supper-dance was already promised.

  He glanced under his brows at her, the little pencil poised in his hand to write, and answered without a smile. “The second Polonaise will be most agreeable.”

  When he had written his name down he handed the dance programme straight to another man who had come forward to ask for it, and with a slight bow he departed, lost to her sight among the fast-gathering throng milling about the ballroom on all sides. Her first partner of the evening claimed her, and she was swept into the dancing. Later, when she had a chance to draw breath and glance at her programme, she saw that when Dominic had written his name down for the second Polonaise, which happened to be the first dance after supper, he had scrawled it at such an angle that it covered all the remaining dances of the evening. After that she gave him a cool look when they met in a quadrille, angry at the dark throb that pulsated through her at the thought of being in his arms for the whole of the second half of the ball.

  Once she came face to face with Nina in a chain dance of linking hands and her sister uttered a thrilled whisper in her ear. “After supper is over Edward wants to speak to me in the conservatory. You know what that means!”

  “I do indeed,” Tansy managed to whisper back before her radiant sister passed her by.

  The chain dance ended. Even as Tansy’s partner would have escorted her off the floor a strong male hand seized her wrist and a voice she had not heard for six months spoke to her. “I don’t know to whom you have promised the supper waltz, but on the basis of old friendship I claim it from him.”

  She turned to the man in evening clothes who had addressed her and gasped her astonishment. Before her, tall and broad and smiling, was Adam Webster, his impudent eyes twinkling at her, his narrow lips set wide in a show of strong white teeth. Her whole heart welcomed the sight of him. “Adam! What on earth are you doing here?”

  Before answering her, he drew her arm through his and hastened her away to another part of the ballroom, seeking out one of the anterooms where they could talk undisturbed.

  “I’m here at Edward Taylor’s invitation,” he said, glancing over his shoulder to make sure that Tansy’s rightful partner was not in hot pursuit of her. “I’ve set up in my own business just outside of Epsom and have landed myself work for months. Can you guess what it is?”

  They had passed through a draped archway into a deserted anteroom, softly lit for the benefit of those wishing to sit out dances romantically. “Not rebuilding Edward’s burnt-out stables!” she exclaimed incredulously, sitting down in one of the delicately armed brocade chairs.

  He gave a nod, standing with his back to the fireplace. “The greatest stroke of luck that could have befallen me. He was impressed with the way I approached him with immediate, practical advice after the fire and later he approved the ideas I laid out for the new stable buildings. Finally he accepted the competitive figure I quoted and the work commenced.”

  “But the fire was some time ago. Why didn’t you call on us at Rushmere? You knew the address. I gave it to you myself.”

  His face held a stiff look. “Have you forgotten? You surely knew that Nina never wanted to see me again.”

  She lowered her head. “I knew it was all over between you. But you had no quarrel with Judith or Roger or me.”

  For a moment he stared at her blankly as if it had never occurred to him to call on any member of the Marlow family except Nina. “It’s good to see you now anyway,” he said, seeking to make amends and moving restlessly. “I can’t say I miss anyone from home, but there’s nothing like seeing an old friend.”

  She leaned forward, showing her interest. “What made you decide to part company with your father?”

  “We had one almighty row. I knocked him down and broke his nose.”

  “Adam!”

  He threw himself down in the chair opposite her. “You know my temper — or maybe you don’t. We Websters are an unforgiving tribe, old quarrels and ancient grudges are not forgotten until avenged. My father and I have always clashed. This blow I gave him was the last straw, needless to say. I packed my belongings, took the horses and wagons that were my own property, and left the same day. I had already decided that the Epsom area was a good one. Just the spot for a man of business like me. I intend to make a great deal of money. One day I’ll live in a house like this.” He made a circling gesture from his wrist to indicate their surroundings.

  She put her head to one side, watching him closely. “There are many such mushrooming are
as to choose from. Small villages along the coast are expanding into popular seaside resorts. The cotton-mill industry in the northeast has brought a boom. You had a wide choice and yet you came here. May I ask why?” With every fibre of her being she longed for him to say that it was to pick up those snapped-off threads with her, to take up from that moment on the hill when the die had been cast in Nina’s favour, but there was nothing in the way he looked at her, no special eagerness in his voice, and no extra warmth in his attitude toward her to suggest that he was more than ordinarily glad to see her. The sharp sweet hope that had soared within her at that first sight of him was sinking back into the sad, dark depths from whence it had sprung.

  He answered casually. “I had been in this district before and had seen its possibilities, but” — here his whole expression sharpened, matching his change of tone—”I cannot deny that knowing Nina was in Cudlingham was the real reason why I wanted to start up in this part of England.”

  “Oh, why didn’t you make an attempt at reconciliation as soon as you came into the area?” she exclaimed compassionately, knowing that he must be suffering the same pangs of yearning for Nina as she felt for him.

  His eyes narrowed to slits, flinty and hostile. “Nina is greedy and selfish and avaricious to the core. Do you think she would have done anything but turn her back if I’d come to her empty-handed? The first months were hard. I knocked on office doors and went from one site to another. The first work I got was repairing a barn wall, and I did it in my shirt sleeves with my own hands and was proud to do it. It was a start. After that I dug ditches and laid water pipes and reslated a roof. It was then that my luck began to change. I took on two men and then a third. Soon I had half a dozen working for me. Then on the night I saw the fire engines driving out of Epsom and heard where the fire was I decided to step in before anyone else did. Taylor has already recommended my name to others. Now I can face Nina on the first rung of the ladder and show her that I’m on the way to making that fortune I once predicted would be mine.”