06.The Penniless Peer (The Eternal Collection)

by Cartland, Barbara

  “The basket!” Fenella said as she jumped down to the ground. Lord Corbury handed it to her, while the dogs slobbering with excitement danced around her.

  She gave them some food which they gobbled up with such speed that it was obvious they were both very hungry.

  “Come over,” she said, “I will not let them hurt you.”

  “I hope you are sure of that,” Lord Corbury replied a little dryly. “I have a great objection to forming part of a dog’s dinner.”

  “There is plenty for them here,” Fenella said, “and I will protect you.”

  Lord Corbury put his leg over the fence and waited. One of the dogs looked towards him and gave a little growl in his throat.

  “It is a friend,” Fenella admonished him, patting his head as she spoke.

  She gave him another large piece of meat and an equal portion to the other dog.

  “All right!” she said.

  Lord Corbury rather apprehensively lowered himself down to the ground.

  “Keep near to me,” Fenella commanded. “They have accepted you or they would have sprung at you by now.”

  “That is undoubtedly re-assuring,” Lord Corbury remarked.

  He stood close to Fenella while she finally took two large bones from her basket and handed one to each dog.

  “That will keep them busy,” she smiled.

  She threw the empty basket back over the fence and led the way towards the house.

  It was certainly in a bad state, Lord Corbury noticed. The wood was crumbling away from the windows and the garden that had been there in the Mill-Keeper’s time was non-existent. A chimney-pot had been blown down and lay smashed on the path that led to the front door.

  “I cannot believe that Mr. Goldstein is a particularly good tenant,” he said.

  “He is a miser,” Fenella answered.

  When they reached the front door, Fenella looked up and Lord Corbury followed her glance.

  There was a fanlight over the top of the door which had rusted away and which he could see was broken at the sides. The glass from it had gone and it was stuffed with old rags.

  The aperture however looked very narrow and he wondered if anyone, even as slim as Fenella, could squeeze through it.

  As if she read his thoughts she said,

  “I am sure I can do it. Let me get on your shoulders.”

  Lord Corbury bowed his back and she climbed up on him as she had done so often when she had been a child, and as he straightened himself holding on to her ankle he realised that she was very little heavier than she had been last time he had supported her.

  On that occasion they had been climbing over the wall at the Lord Lieutenant’s garden to steal his peaches. Lord Corbury could only hope that this raid was to be equally successful.

  Fenella had pushed the fanlight to one side. Now she started to squeeze herself through it while Lord Corbury watched her anxiously.

  As her legs in her tight pantaloons disappeared inside, he wondered what would happen if they were discovered, but after that he had no time for being introspective.

  He heard Fenella reach the floor with a little thud.

  “I shall not be able to open the door,” she called. “I will open one of the windows.”

  A moment later Lord Corbury saw her at a casement and she pushed it out with some difficulty.

  He helped her pull it wide, then stepped into the room.

  “I have brought a candle,” Fenella said feeling inside the pocket of her jacket. “Pull the curtains.”

  The curtains were heavy and dark. Having lit one candle Fenella found two others and lit those too.

  It was an extraordinary room. As Lord Corbury looked round it he realised it must be furnished with things which Isaac Goldstein had extorted from his creditors when they could not afford to pay him in cash.

  There were arm-chairs covered in expensive brocades, none of which matched. There was an inlaid table which was undoubtedly valuable on which all sorts of strange objects were crowded together.

  There was a small marble statue, a bronze dog, a beautiful piece of Dresden china, a Chelsea angel with its head broken and quite a number of snuff boxes on some of which the initials of their previous owners were encircled in diamonds.

  “Good Heavens - Aladdin’s Cave!” Lord Corbury ejaculated.

  He saw a pile of pictures standing against the wall, and in another corner a suit of armour beside a stuffed bear.

  “We cannot take any of those,” Fenella said in a practical tone. “They could be easily traced if we tried to sell them.”

  She was down on her knees as she spoke pulling back the hearth-rug. Then her small hands were trying to lift one of the floor boards.

  “Let me do that,” Lord Corbury said.

  He raised the board, then gave a whistle.

  In the flickering light of the candles it was easy to see there were a large number of canvas bags piled into a small aperture.

  “I brought a pillow-case with me,” Fenella said, pulling it out from the inside pocket of her black jacket.

  “You are obviously very experienced,” Lord Corbury remarked. “Do we take all these bags?”

  “As many as we can carry,” Fenella replied. “It is no use stopping to investigate but they may only contain silver, in which case we shall want a large number to find a thousand pounds for Joe Jarvis.”

  “You are right,” Lord Corbury agreed. “What is more, let us be quick about it and get out of here.”

  The pillow-case was made of strong linen but even so when it was nearly full with the canvas bags, Fenella looked at it a little anxiously.

  “I hope it will not burst.”

  “So do I,” Lord Corbury agreed. “It is monstrously heavy.”

  He put back the floor board and Fenella adjusted the hearth-rug. Lord Corbury carried the pillow-case to the window, pulled back the curtains and leaning over the sill set it down on the ground outside.

  He found himself being watched benignly by the two dogs wagging their tails.

  “Your friends seem to approve of our action,” he said, “whatever their owner may say.”

  “Let us hurry,” Fenella pleaded, “but first I must put back the fanlight.”

  There was a tremor of fear in her voice which Lord Corbury did not miss.

  “I will do it,” he said.

  He took a chair from the room, and carrying it into the narrow, hall he climbed on it and pushed the fanlight back into place. He then stuffed the rags into the holes where they had been before.

  When he came back Fenella was already outside patting the dogs.

  He blew out the candles, climbed out after her and pulled the window to.

  “Will Goldstein notice it is not clasped?” he asked.

  “When he gets as far as discovering that it will not matter,” Fenella replied.

  Lord Corbury bent and picked up the pillow-case. It was, as he had already said, extremely heavy, so heavy it was almost impossible for him to walk upright as they progressed towards the fence.

  They had almost reached it when they heard in the distance the sound of wheels. For a moment Fenella thought she must be mistaken. But then there was no doubt. There was not only the noise of wheels but echo of horses’ hooves. They were coming down the rough drive from the road towards the house!

  “Quickly,” she began to say to Lord Corbury, then realised that his hearing and instinct were as quick if not quicker than hers.

  Already he had thrown the pillow-case over the fence and now without even speaking he picked her up in his arms and deposited her on top of it.

  Then as she slithered down on the other side he followed her.

  They had only just put the fence between themselves and the Mill House when they heard the cart and horse come to a standstill.

  At the same time the dogs barking at the tops of their voices ran towards it. If she had been doubtful before as to who was arriving, Fenella knew as she heard the sound the dogs were making tha
t it was Isaac Goldstein.

  It was true they were barking, but they were barking with the welcoming sound a dog makes when someone comes home, not the ferocious menacing tones with which they greet an intruder.

  In the darkness she put out her hands to touch Lord Corbury.

  “I thought you said he never came home at night,” he said with a mocking note in his voice.

  “I am — sorry, Periquine,” she murmured humbly.

  “No need to be sorry,” he said. “We are safe at any rate for the moment! I do not think I have ever been quite so near to having a rope round my neck.”

  Fenella shuddered. For the first time the adventure seemed foolhardy and yet they so far had succeeded.

  She knew that Lord Corbury was searching on the ground for any bags which might have fallen from the pillowcase when he had thrown it over the fence.

  He found them and slung the heavy burden once again over his shoulder.

  “Come on,” he said in a low voice, “the sooner we get away from the scene of the crime the better.”

  It was not very easy to find their way back through the wood. Fenella walked ahead and after a little while Lord Corbury put his free hand on her shoulder.

  “I used to rather fancy my night eyes in the war,” he said, “but here I feel as blind as a bat.”

  “I know the way,” Fenella answered confidently.

  Nevertheless there were moments when she put out her hands as if to make quite sure they were on the path and not walking directly into the trunk of a tree.

  Finally they emerged onto the side of the stream, crossed the bridge and went back through the gardens towards the Priory.

  The stars were coming out, and as they moved across what had once been a smooth lawn Fenella could smell the scent of stocks. She threw back her head to look up at the sky and said a little prayer of thankfulness.

  It might have been wrong to commit a robbery, but she was sure that in this case the end justified the means.

  The casement-window of the Salon was still open, the candles were still glowing golden against the mellow wood of the old panelling. It looked very cosy and secure.

  Lord Corbury dumped the pillow-case down on the hearth-rug and threw a log onto the smouldering ashes.

  Fenella sat down on the floor and the flames, startled into life, shimmered on the curls of her red hair.

  For a moment there was silence. Then she looked up at Lord Corbury, her eyes sparkling with excitement, her lips smiling.

  “We have done it! Oh, Periquine, we have done it! “

  “By the skin of our teeth,” he said soberly. “Do you realise, Fenella, if they do not hang you for your part in what we have just done, you will certainly be transported.”

  “Stop moaning and let us see what we have brought back with us,” Fenella said.

  “You are a hopeless case of lawlessness!” he replied.

  As his hands went out towards the pillow-case, Fenella jumped to her feet.

  “Wait a moment!” she warned him.

  She crossed the room to pull the curtains.

  “I am not taking any chances,” she explained. “That was how I saw where Isaac Goldstein hid his money. I was in the garden feeding the dogs when he came home unexpectedly. It was late afternoon, not yet dark, and he would have seen me if I had climbed over the fence. So I hid behind an elder-bush. I saw him carry these little bags into the house from his cart and because I was so curious I crept a little nearer to see what he was doing with them.”

  “Taking a quite unwarrantable risk,” Lord Corbury observed with pretended severity.

  “A risk which has turned to our advantage,” Fenella replied. “Open the bags, Periquine, I cannot wait to see if we have a thousand pounds for poor Joe.”

  Lord Corbury opened a bag. He looked inside, then emptied the coins onto the hearth-rug between them. They were of gold!

  “Start putting them into stacks of ten,” he suggested. “It will be easier to count at the end.”

  Fenella did as she was told and Lord Corbury kept emptying the bags.

  Four which he had noticed when he had lifted them from under the floor-board were lighter than the others, contained mostly bank-notes. Notes between one to five pounds in denomination. There was no silver, no copper coins, they were all gold.

  By the time they reached the last canvas bag, both Lord Corbury and Fenella were working in silence. Then as she got to the last of her little stacks of ten golden sovereigns, Lord Corbury sorted out the notes.

  “In this bag they are all fivers,” he began. Then he gave a cry. “Good God!”

  “What is it?” Fenella asked.

  “These are not worth five pounds as I first thought,” Lord Corbury replied, “but fifty pounds each!”

  “It cannot be true!” Fenella said.

  “It is,” he answered. “Our friend Goldstein must have some very large borrowers amongst his clientele.”

  “Count them, count them all quickly!” Fenella cried in an excited voice. “. . . And the sovereigns!”

  Lord Corbury began to count. Finally in a tone of astonishment he said

  “I might be mistaken, Fenella, but I think there is over six thousand pounds.”

  “Periquine! Is that — true?”

  “I will count again.”

  “But it is wonderful, too wonderful for words!” Fenella exclaimed. “It is everything we wanted and more.”

  There was silence. Then Lord Corbury said heavily,

  “I cannot keep all this money.”

  Fenella sat back on her heels and looked at him across the hearth-rug.

  “It is one thing to take a small sum from a man,” he went on, “but this is almost a fortune.”

  There was silence for a moment and then Fenella said,

  “I think there are two things you have forgotten.”

  “What are they?” Lord Corbury enquired.

  “First that Isaac Goldstein has extorted this money from people who I am quite certain could not afford it, who got into his clutches and could not escape from him and whom he has treated like Joe Jarvis. And secondly we cannot possibly put it back!”

  “No that is true,” Lord Corbury agreed. “But I feel a cad.”

  She rose to her feet and looked up at him.

  “Is that not slightly better than feeling a bankrupt?” she asked.

  His eyes were serious as they met hers and then he began to laugh.

  “Fenella, you are incorrigible! It was just the same when we were children. You always pushed me into danger and yet somehow you got me out of it.”

  He laughed as he spoke. Then he put his arms round Fenella and hugged her.

  “You are an imp of mischief,” he said, “but, oh God, I am grateful for you!”

  “It was fun! Say it was fun now the danger is over!” Fenella insisted.

  He squeezed her even tighter, then released her and said,

  “All right, it was fun, and now what do we do with our ill-gotten money.”

  “I have thought of everything,” Fenella said in a breathless voice. “I shall tell Mrs. Buckle - which means she will tell the whole village, that just before you left London you won some money gaming. I am quite certain Swayer will have informed everyone that you have not a penny, so it is quite obvious that you will have to have a windfall from somewhere.”

  “That sounds sense!” Lord Corbury agreed. “Go on.”

  “Then you will send for Joe and tell him that as you have been lucky you want to refund his losses. And you will give Simon Buckle £100 to pay off Goldstein ! At least he will get that amount back although he does not deserve it.”

  “I cannot help thinking your ideas on justice are slightly unbalanced,” Lord Corbury replied, “but so far I am with you all the way. What do we do with the rest?”

  There was silence for a moment and then Fenella said,

  “You pay off all the tradesmen, you take out just enough to repair the farms so that you can let them - a few
hundred will do that - and what is left is of course — the fund for — Hetty.”

  She spoke the last words in a low voice and did not look at Lord Corbury as she spoke.

  “The fund for Hetty,” he replied softly, “and we might hide it in the Priest’s Hole. For the time being at any rate, it would not be wise to pay too much into the Bank.”

  “It will be quite safe in the Priest’s Hole,” Fenella said. “No-one knows of its existence beside you and me. Your father told no-one else and he only learnt it from his father.”

  “Then we are agreed,” Lord Corbury said lightly.

  He bent to pick up some of the sovereigns before he said,

  “Unless of course you would like some of it. It is yours just as much as mine, Fenella, and I would like to buy you a present.”

  “No!” Fenella retorted sharply. “I would not touch a penny of it!”

  She spoke so violently that he looked at her in astonishment, and seeing the surprise in his eyes she added,

  “You have stolen it for — Hetty, we must never — forget — that.”

  Chapter Three

  Fenella came downstairs with her work-basket in her hand and went into the Salon.

  She had watched Hetty and Lord Corbury walk across the lawn and knew they were going where they had hidden themselves for the last two afternoons, in the arbour down by the lake where no-one would see them.

  She had been upstairs tidying Lord Corbury’s bed-room when she heard Hetty arriving.

  She had gone to the top of the stairs and, being able to see without being seen, she had watched a Vision of loveliness step out of the chaise which was driven by a smartly liveried groom.

  Hetty was wearing a diaphanous frock of pale blue which suited her fair beauty, and her bonnet was trimmed with tiny rose-buds which also graced the minute sunshade she held above her head.

  The whole ensemble was extremely elegant and, as Fenella knew, fabulously expensive. But Sir Virgil was a rich man who grudged no expense which contributed to his daughter’s famed beauty.

  It was not surprising, Fenella thought with a little ache in her heart, that Lord Corbury hurrying from the Salon to greet his guest had stood staring down at her as if he was spellbound.