An Introduction To The Eternal Collection Jubilee Edition

by Cartland, Barbara

  The Vicar merely looked at her, snorted and turned towards his study.

  “I will see you at dinner, Miss Fry,” he said, and Caroline in reply dropped him a little curtsey.

  Upstairs, sitting in her bedroom overlooking the garden, she related to the wide-eyed Harriet the real reason for her visit. Caroline had considered carefully whether it was wise to take Harriet into her confidence, but she had decided that it was essential for her to have someone in the neighbourhood to assist her. There were letters for one thing. Mrs. Edgmont must have some address at which she could write to her, otherwise she would become suspicious, and if Harriet was to intercept the postman, as she planned, she must be given a reason for Caroline’s disguise.

  After thinking it over Caroline decided to tell Harriet everything of what had occurred, save the true reason why she was at The Dog and Duck on the night of the murder. It was easy to omit all mention of Sir Montagu and merely say that she had been forced to pull up at the inn owing to trouble with the wheel of her carriage.

  Her explanation of her being in the wood was that she went in search of a lap dog which had got lost, and she told Harriet that she had hired a post-chaise to take her back to Mandrake because she was too frightened to return to the inn in case she should be involved in the investigations regarding the dead man.

  As it happened, Harriet was not likely to notice any flaws or discrepancies in Caroline’s tale. She sat listening with an expression of the utmost astonishment upon her face, her hands clasped together, her mouth a little open, and only when Caroline had finished and had explained the part that she wished Harriet to play in helping her, did her hostess take a deep breath and cry out,

  “But, Caroline, ‘tis the wildest, most intriguing romance I have ever heard. I can hardly believe ‘tis true, and yet, if you say so, then I must believe it but oh, how can you venture into Brecon Castle after all you have learned? Why, you may be murdered yourself.”

  Caroline laughed.

  “Nonsense, Harriet. No one has anything to gain from my death! Besides, what would you have me do? Stand aside, say nothing, and let a good man be hanged by such treacherous, dastardly means.”

  “If he is a good-man,” Harriet said enigmatically.

  “What do you mean?” Caroline asked. “Are you speaking of Lord Brecon?”

  Harriet nodded.

  “Tell me about him,” Caroline said. “Tell me everything you know.”

  “Tis little enough!” Harriet replied. “I have known him, or course, since I was a child but he is much older than I. He seemed a very nice boy. He always smiled at me and once, when he was coming back from hunting, he gave me a lift on his horse. His mother was always been kindness itself and because Mama was a very, very distant cousin of hers, she sent me, as you know, to Madame d’Alber’s Academy.”

  “Yes – Yes,” Caroline said. “Go on.”

  “Well, Lord Brecon - his intimates call him Vane - was at Eton when I was a little girl and afterwards he went up to Oxford. Everyone liked him around here although they only saw him in the holidays. Papa liked him too and used to say what charming manners he had, what a good seat he had on a horse and how well he went to hounds. They all hoped that, when he was old enough, he would take over the Mastership and then – well, then he altered.”

  “Altered?” Caroline repeated. ‘In what way?”

  “Tis hard to explain,” Harriet answered. “You see, I have not been asked to Brecon Castle very often since I left school, it angers Papa, but really there is no reason why they should invite me. I am too young to be friends with Lord Brecon and besides, he has many friends of his own who certainly have nothing in common with the local Vicar’s daughter and Lady Brecon is bedridden. She never leaves her bedchamber.”

  “I had no idea of that,” Caroline exclaimed.

  “Oh, did I not tell you?” Harriet said. “I suppose it never occurred to me. She has been ailing for years. She never goes out or sees anyone. She just lies in her room with her books and her birds. They are the only things which interest her except her son. She adores him.”

  “You were saying that he had altered,” Caroline reminded her. “Continue, Harriet.”

  “It is so difficult to put into words,” Harriet said, knitting her brows. “Everyone talks about it in a sort of way, but there is nothing that they can actually say, if you understand what I mean. It began - this alteration - after he was twenty-five and took over the management of all his estates and wealth himself - there were trustees before that - I don’t know who they were, but Papa could tell you.”

  “That is immaterial,” Caroline muttered.

  “At twenty-five Lord Brecon became his own master,” Harriet continued. ‘From that moment - so they say - he seemed a changed person. He became wild and reckless. He was always risking his life in the most idiotic ways, for instance, they had a steeplechase blindfolded one night through the Park, along the river bank and across the Common, which is above five miles up the road. There are quarries there and it is very broken ground, and Papa says it is a miracle that no one was killed, although one rider broke his back and another his collarbone.”

  “What else did he do?” Caroline enquired.

  “Some of the things Father will not mention in front of me, but I hear that his friends changed,” Harriet said. “All kinds of strange people were asked to the Castle who had never been there before. These were not only raffish Society from London, but men and women of other classes too. I think Papa must have protested to Lord Brecon on one occasion when they had a rout at the Castle which lasted all through Saturday night and continued until after midday on Sunday when the villagers were going to Church. I don’t know what happened, because Papa would never speak of it for he was so angry, but I believe Lord Brecon was very autocratic and told him to mind his own business. Anyway after that Papa has always been against him, saying that he will come to a bad end, that he will break his neck or end in prison.”

  Caroline gave a little exclamation.

  “The village gossip about him too,” Harriet continued, “and being the Vicar’s daughter I hear them. The old people shake their heads and seem worried. You know how, when they have lived on an estate all their lives, they consider themselves part of the family. They are always talking about Lord Brecon more or less under their breath. There is nothing exactly that one can get hold of, it is just a feeling that things, are wrong and getting worse. Oh, Caroline, what a dolt you must think me, but I vow I cannot explain it better than that.”

  Harriet threw out her, hands with a little gesture of helplessness, and Caroline bent forward and kissed her.

  “You explained it exceeding well,” she said, “and it is indeed helpful.”

  She rose from the bed on which she had been sitting and walked to the window.

  “I have a feeling,” she said, “that I shall be able to help Lord Brecon.”

  “Oh Caroline, I hope so,” Harriet said, “but at the same time I am afraid because you are going to the Castle. It is a strange place and there are rumours about it too. There are supposed to be ghosts there, and none of the villagers will go anywhere near it after dark. They say they have heard wild, unearthly shrieks coming from the old towers.”

  “I do not credit there are such things as ghosts,” Caroline said scornfully. “Tell me, what was the last Lord Brecon like?”

  “I have no idea,” Harriet replied. “He died when I was quite tiny - sometimes I think there was a mystery about him too. People seem curiously reluctant to talk about him, and if I question Papa, he always changes the subject and talks about the Dowager Lady Brecon. She is, in truth, a lovely person, with nothing sinister or strange about her, but it just seems as if she is hardly living in this world.”

  Caroline gave a little sigh of impatience.

  “It sounds a sorry tangle to me,” she said, “but at the same time I want above all things to stay at Brecon Castle. Oh, Harriet, suppose I fail to obtain the position.”

 
She looked across the room at the clock on the mantelpiece.

  “It is four o’clock,” she said. ‘One thing is, certain and that is that Maria must have been accepted, otherwise she would have returned here as I instructed her.”

  “If she has been fortunate, perhaps you will be fortunate too, dear Caroline,” Harriet, said. “It is a good omen. But oh, I am frightened for you. I wish you weren’t set on this dangerous pretence!”

  “No harm can come to me, whatever happens,” Caroline said. “That is so long as we keep Cousin Debby from being suspicious. You must meet the postman every day, Harriet. It would be a catastrophe if your father saw letters addressed to me arriving here and found out who I really am.”

  “Let us hope he will never do that,” Harriet cried in alarm, “for although he would not be angry with you, he would half kill me for lying to him. Oh, Caroline, when you told him you had made your dress yourself, I nearly laughed out loud. It is so like a man not to recognise it as the most elegant and expensive gown which must ever have come from Bond Street.”

  “Pray Heaven no one else guessed it either,” Caroline said. “I told, Maria, to pack all the most dowdy and drab dresses I possess, and I spent hours taking the feathers and ribbons out of my bonnets to make them look less modish, but even so, I am afraid I don’t look a depressed gentlewoman sadly in need of a salary.”

  “Indeed you don’t,” Harriet giggled, “but after all you can always say that Lady Caroline Faye, who is so devoted to you, presented you with her cast-off gowns.”

  Caroline clapped her hands.

  “Bravo, Harriet, that is a brilliant idea. We shall make an intriguer of you yet and what is more, I promise you one thing when this subterfuge is at an end, I will buy you the most lovely gown that can be procured in the whole of London, and you can have any of my dresses that may please you.”

  “Oh, Caroline, can I really?”

  Harriet sighed in ecstasy, then added,

  “But what is the use? I see no one here from one year’s, end to another. I housekeep and sew for Papa and everything I do for him seems to irritate him the more. He wanted a son, you see, Caroline, and he has no liking for a dutiful, but very dull daughter.”

  “Poor Harriet, don’t let it make you miserable,” Caroline said. “We will find you a husband and then you shall forget all this drudgery.”

  “Well, he will have to be blind in both eyes and doubtless so halt and decrepit that no one else will accept his offer,” Harriet said, and then, as Caroline would have argued with her, she sprang to her feet with a little cry.

  “Look!” she said. “Look who is coming down the road!”

  Caroline turned hastily to the window.

  “I can only see a groom,” she said in a voice of disappointment.

  Somehow for one moment she had expected to see someone very different.

  “It is a groom,” Harriet agreed ‘but look at his livery.”

  “Purple with crimson facings,” Caroline said. ‘‘Are those the Brecon colours?”

  “They are indeed,” Harriet answered. “The groom is calling here. See for yourself.”

  The two girls watched while the man dismounted, tethered his horse and walked up the path to the front door, a letter in his hand. Harriet ran downstairs and was breathless when she reached the bedroom and held it out to Caroline.

  “‘Tis for you,” she said.

  Caroline looked down for a moment at the letter and then slowly because her fingers trembled, she opened the envelope. She read it quickly and flung her arms round Harriet.

  “Her ladyship will see me,” she cried. “She will see me tomorrow at three o’clock. Oh, Harriet, the first step has been taken. The curtain is rising on the most thrilling and exciting drama.”

  Caroline was too excited to sleep much that night, and even if she had not been kept awake by her own thoughts, she might well have lacked sleep through worrying over Harriet.

  It was obvious that the girl’s home-life at the Vicarage was one of serfdom and misery. She had been right in saying that her father was irritated with her, for never at any moment was she free from his nagging and fault-finding.

  Dinner had been a simple, but well-cooked meal, which Caroline had enjoyed. She was seldom fussy about what she ate but the Vicar, while eating everything set in front of him and swilling it down with several pints of claret, had complained the entire time about the cooking, the dishes selected and the way in which they were served.

  “I must apologise, Miss Fry,” he said more than once, “but you see before you a man who is sadly neglected. It was God’s will that my poor wife should be taken from me but I had hoped that my daughter, my only child, would try in some trifling way to take her place. But Harriet has no initiative, no sense, and is indeed but a poor housewife, and it will be my fate - for I see that no man with his wits about him is likely to offer for her - to have her permanently on my hands until my dying day.”

  Caroline would have liked to throw her plate at him and tell him exactly what she thought of him, for his continual grumbling amounted almost to a persecution of Harriet instead she could only cast her eyes-down demurely and say that she hoped Harriet would improve as she grew older and that she would do her best to help her.

  It was not easy for Caroline, who was used to expressing her opinion forcibly on every possible occasion, to hold herself in check, but she said what she thought in no uncertain-terms when she and Harriet went up to bed.

  “Does he always berate you in such a way?” she enquired angrily.

  “Who, Papa?” Harriet asked. “Oh, he is more polite since you are here. Most times he boxes my ears and once he threw a dish of ‘stewed’ eels, straight at me. It scalded my arms most terribly and I bore the marks for weeks.”

  “He is a brute,” Caroline said. “I will rescue you somehow, Harriet, but first of all I have got to rescue Lord Brecon.”

  Harriet, who had tears in her eyes, gave a little unsteady laugh.

  “Why, Caroline, you are only a female and yet you talk as if you had the determination and strength of ninety men rolled into one.”

  “At times I believe I have,” Caroline answered. “I feel like quoting my mother’s funny old maid, Eudora. She always says things in such a solemn voice which makes them sound as if they were bits out of the Bible, but more than once I have heard her say, “If the cause is right, strength will be given you”. That is what I believe now, Harriet.”

  “And I hope your faith will be rewarded,” Harriet answered, “especially where I am concerned.”

  She bent to kiss Caroline and then the Vicar’s voice boomed up the stairs, making them both jump.

  “Harriet - where is my candle? How often have I to tell you that I want my candle left at the foot of the stairs? Come down and find it for me this instant, you cork-brained idiot.”

  “I’m, sorry, Papa I’m coming, – I am indeed – sorry,” Harriet cried, and rushed from Caroline’s roam, shutting the door behind her.

  Poor little Harriet! The sweetness in her face and in her eyes reminded Caroline of the wistful expression of the spaniels at home at Mandrake. She curled down in the bed, wishing for the moment that she was safe at home with the sound of the waves in her ears and the gentle peace and security of Mandrake sheltering her. Then she thought of the morrow and her heart beat a little faster as a feeling of excitement rose within her. Tomorrow she would see Lord Brecon again. Harriet had said he was called Vane. Caroline whispered the name to herself.

  After breakfast the following morning, while Harriet had innumerable household duties to do, Caroline said she would take a walk. Harriet had told her that at the far end of the village she could see Brecon Castle from the road and she imagined that this must be where the crowds came who, Lord Brecon had told her, gaped at the Norman towers.

  It was a sunny, warm morning and Caroline wore a straw bonnet trimmed with bunches of blue ribbon to match her white batiste frock which had a bodice of blue silk ornamented
with white fringe. Then as she left the house she put up a sunshade, intending it to be less of a shelter from the sun than a protection against curious eyes.

  There was not much likelihood of anyone recognising Lady Caroline Faye in this part of the world, she thought but at the same time she was anxious to take no chances. It was always possible that a coach or phaeton passing-along the road might contain some of her friends, but once she was established in Brecon Castle there would be little need for her to venture outside the grounds.

  She walked down the village street, seeing only a few women cleaning out their cottages and an ancient man with a long white beard seated on a bench outside The Pig and Whistle. Caroline guessed that he was the oldest inhabitant, for every village seemed to have one, and wondered, if she got into conversation with him, whether he would tell her anything interesting about Brecon Castle and its inhabitants. She was almost tempted to try this, but decided it might draw local attention to herself, so she walked on demurely until, as Harriet had told her she would, she came to the great iron gates leading to the Castle.

  They were very big and were flanked on either side by pillars, which were surmounted by two huge armorial lions holding shields. Beyond the gates was a wall enclosing the park, but after Caroline had walked some way the wall ceased and was replaced by a hedge which ran beside a little stream. The hedge was low and another fifty yards brought Caroline to a place where she could see the Castle in all its majesty.

  She was not surprised, as she looked at it, that the people came from a long distance to view such a sight. Two great Norman towers were silhouetted against the sky, and on one of them stood a flagpole, the flag crimson and purple, fluttering out in the morning breeze.

  The Castle was very large and it was plain to see that, while this side was of Norman architecture in keeping with the two towers, there were, half hidden by some trees, later additions built, it is true, of grey stone, but of a very different design. The trees made a background for the Castle itself, and it stood partially surrounded by a moat which widened out on the north side to a large lake. There were swans passing to and fro beneath an archway and, to Caroline’s surprise, they were all black. It struck a note which was faintly ominous indeed the whole building had a rather dark and overshadowed air.