Still the Viscount was silent until she said,
“Oh, Johnny, think of the possibilities! I shall so enjoy helping you do all the things you have wanted to do and which you never had enough money for.”
At last the Viscount found his voice.
“You are making it all sound very easy, Esme,” he said. “But you know as well as I do that women are jealous and Odela may have very strong ideas about being permanently in the company of her stepmother, especially when she is as beautiful as you.”
“It is angelic of you to say I am beautiful,” the Countess said in her cooing voice, “but Odela is very young and, as she loves her father, she will want to be with him.”
She smiled at him before she went on,
“An older woman would not cling to him in the same manner. Also you have forgotten something.”
“What is that?” the Viscount asked.
“You want an heir and nothing ties a woman to the house more than children!”
“You are very plausible, Esme,” the Viscount declared slowly. “But if I have an heir, which, of course, is imperative at some time, I would want it to be your son and mine.”
There was a definite pause before the Countess responded to him,
“And, of course, if it was possible, that would be completely blissful. But, as I have been telling you, Johnny darling, we have to make the best of what we can do and, if you are brave enough, will do.”
“It is not a question of being brave enough,” the Earl said sulkily, “but of having another woman in my arms instead of you. Do you know how much I adore you?”
He spoke harshly.
“As I love you, my strong, handsome marvellous lover,” Esme sighed, “And that is why I cannot lose you.”
“You will never lose me,” the Viscount said passionately. “I would go down to Hell itself rather than that!”
He was kissing her again.
As if she awoke from a dream, Odela moved away.
She walked towards the door that led into the passage and, when she reached it, she looked back at her mother’s portrait over the mantelpiece.
There was a stricken look in her eyes as she did so.
Then she opened the door quietly and let herself out of her father’s bedroom.
She ran to her own room and, finding it empty, locked the door.
She threw herself down on the bed, she was not crying but thinking.
Now she knew why, ever since she had come back, she had not only felt that there was something wrong but also that she was being menaced.
It was as if what her stepmother was plotting and planning had conveyed itself to her.
Somehow she must escape.
Instead of feeling hysterical or that she must cry, however, she suddenly felt cool and detached.
It was as if she was struggling to learn a complicated subject. Or trying to find the solution to a mathematical problem.
There was one thing that she was sincerely grateful for and which she felt was Fate.
It was that she now knew where her enemy lay.
‘I cannot be taken by surprise,’ she murmured to herself.
It was almost as if she was reading a book and the plot was unfolding before her eyes.
She could guess exactly how her stepmother would connive to ensure that she was married to the Viscount.
To begin with her father was a friend of his father.
Secondly, if the Viscount had been a soldier her father could not accuse him of being a ‘waster’. Nor could he say that he hung about gambling in Clubs.
She had the idea that he was older than the usual young man who she would be introduced to at balls.
Her stepmother, she knew, was twenty-seven and the Viscount would doubtless be either the same age or older.
‘Papa will be convinced that he is at the right age to handle my money sensibly,’ Odela thought, ‘also to protect and look after me.’
The horror of being married to a man who loved another woman, especially when it was her stepmother, swept over her.
She recognised that it was degrading and shameful that the Countess should be unfaithful to her father.
At the same time it was appalling that she was planning that her lover should marry her stepdaughter for her money.
‘It is something that will never happen,’ Odela vowed to herself.
Yet she realised that she would have to be very clever not to be caught in the trap that was being set for her.
Because she loved her father she could not tell him what she had overheard.
Although he obviously still loved her mother, he was both infatuated with and very attracted to his new wife.
Odela knew by the expression in his eyes that he appreciated her beauty and, when Esme flattered and touched him, he was as pleased as any man would have been.
‘How can I destroy Papa?’ she asked.
If she was honest, she felt that he had been happier since he had married for the second time.
He had been lost and lonely after her mother died and Esme was very astute in the way that she made him feel important to her.
‘Of course,’ Odela then told herself, ‘I could always tell Papa that I have taken an overwhelming dislike to the Viscount and could not bear in any circumstances to be his wife.’
It was unfortunately not just a question of having only her father to reckon with.
He would not have forced her into a marriage that she did not want.
But she was aware of how subtly her stepmother handled him.
Somehow Esme would persuade him that the Viscount was the one man in London who was not a fortune-hunter and she would be very plausible in saying that love would come after marriage.
There was something else that Odela reasoned.
If her stepmother could marry her off quickly to the Viscount, there would then be no other men who she could choose a husband from.
‘She will make sure of that,’ Odela thought, ‘by telling her friends that the Viscount is in love with me and that I am in love with him. It would soon be known to the other men I meet at dances that I am already secretly engaged.’
She could see it all happening, as if it was a play being enacted before her very eyes.
“What – can I – do? Oh, – God, what can – I do?” she called out aloud.
She thought that her voice sounded desperate and knew that she had to act quickly to save herself.
She looked at the miniature of her mother and picked it up in her hands.
‘Help me – Mama,’ she whispered, ‘help me – otherwise I shall be lost.’
She thought as she said the words that her stepmother, like a dark malevolent witch, was standing over her.
She was willing her, forcing her by supernatural means into a marriage that would mean a life of misery and despair for her.
‘It’s your money, Mama,’ she went on gazing to the miniature, ‘and therefore you must either make it vanish – or I – must!’
As she spoke, she knew that there was a solution.
She must go away at least for the moment.
She must escape from the trap that was closing in on her and, if she did not hurry, it might be too late.
She walked to the window, still holding the miniature in her hand.
The sun was sinking, but it was still shining on the garden in the centre of the square.
The fountain was throwing its water high towards the sky and then it fell sparkling and iridescent like a rainbow.
The flowerbeds in the square were filled with tulips all crimson and yellow and the leaves of the trees were the pale green of the spring.
‘I will go to the country,’ Odela said to herself. ‘At least I shall be able to think there.’
She thought of Dragonfly.
If she could ride him through the woods as she had done so often, she was sure that somehow she could find a way out of her predicament.
‘It’s like facing a very high fence,’ sh
e told herself. ‘If Dragonfly and I can jump it, then I shall find a way of escape on the other side.’
She sighed.
‘If only there was someone I could talk to, someone who would understand what I am feeling.’
It was then, almost like a message from her mother, that she remembered Nanny.
Nanny would understand.
Nanny with the wisdom of years might even have the answers for her.
‘I will go to Nanny,’ she decided there and then.
Now she knew that she was no longer as frightened as she had been before and it was then once again that her brain became cool and she could think clearly.
She unlocked the door and rang the bell for a maid.
The servants she had seen since she came home were all strangers to her and they were obviously not particularly interested in her needs.
After some delay the door opened and it was an older woman who looked at her somewhat coldly.
“You rang, my Lady?”
“Yes, Jones,” Odela replied. “I want to ask you if there is anyone in the house who was here before I went abroad.”
“I don’t think there is, my Lady – ” Jones began.
Then she stopped.
“ – that is, unless your Ladyship remembers Miss Gatesly.”
Odela gave a little cry.
“Miss Gatesly, the seamstress? Is she still here?”
“Yes, my Lady. We’ve found her ever so skilful with the linen and she’s even done some alterations to her Ladyship’s gowns.”
“Ask Miss Gatesly to come to see me at once,” Odela ordered.
“Very good, my Lady.”
Jones left and Odela thought with a little warmth in her heart that ‘Gatesy’, as she had called her as a child, was exactly who she wanted at this moment.
It was not long before the seamstress appeared.
She was now over sixty and the rheumatism in her legs prevented her from moving as quickly as she once had.
She was now smiling with delight at seeing Odela.
As she came into the room, Odela ran towards her.
“Gatesy!” she cried. “I had no idea that you were still here.”
“I were hopin’ to see you, my Lady,” Miss Gatesly said, “but I didn’t want to intrude when you’d only just come back from foreign parts.”
Odela drew her into the room and closed the door behind her.
“Now listen, Gatesy,” she said, “I need your help and I need it desperately!”
Chapter Three
The train moved out of Paddington Station.
Odela sat back in her seat and thought that things had gone far better than she had dared to hope.
When Gatesy had come into her room looking, she thought, very much the same as when she was a child, she had run forward to kiss her.
“Gatesy!” she exclaimed, “I had no idea that you were still in the house. Everybody else is a stranger.”
“Her Ladyship kept me on as she finds me useful,” Gatesy replied, “but it’s so good to see you, my Lady, ’tis indeed.”
“And I need you desperately,” Odela repeated.
She drew Gatesy by the hand across the room to where there were two comfortable armchairs near the window.
“Now sit down,” Odela suggested, “and first of all, tell me how you are.”
“I’m gettin’ old,” Gatesy replied, “and I’d like to retire, but her Ladyship intimated that if I did I’d get no pension.”
Odela stiffened.
“Of course you will have a pension!” she cried, “and you can retire at once if you want to. I will see to that.”
She knew by the expression in Gatesy’s eyes that she was aware she had money.
“I suppose you have heard,” Odela said, “that Mama left me some money?”
“They’ve been talkin’ about it in the housekeeper’s room,” Gatesy told her, “and I’m right glad for you, my Lady, I am that.”
“So am I, Gatesy, but something else has happened and I have to go to the country immediately.”
She paused for a moment before she continued,
“I will be frank, Gatesy, and tell you that I have to escape. And I want you to come with me.”
Odela had the feeling without her explaining it that Gatesy understood.
Nothing went on in the house that was not known and talked about in the housekeeper’s room and doubtless they knew already that her stepmother intended to marry her off to the Viscount.
And they would be very well aware of what his position was.
She thought, however, that there was no need to go into details where Gatesy was concerned.
Instead she said,
“I have to leave secretly or both Papa and my stepmother will stop me.”
“Secretly!” Gatesy exclaimed. “How, my Lady, can you do that?”
“It will be quite easy if you will help me,” Odela replied, “because I know that I should not travel alone.”
“I should think not indeed!” Gatesy exclaimed, “you’re far too young and pretty.”
“What I want you to do,” Odela went on, “is to creep out very early in the morning before anybody else is awake.”
She paused for a moment and dropped her voice.
“I am sure there is a train from Paddington going to Oxford and I will somehow find out the actual time.”
“Mr. Bennett has a timetable in his office,” Gatesy then informed her.
Mr. Bennett was the Earl’s secretary.
“You are already being very helpful,” Odela told her, “and I will let you know exactly what time we will leave.”
She paused before she added,
“What I want you to do is to tell everybody in the house early in the morning, when only the footmen and the lower housemaids are up, that a relative of yours is ill and you need a Hackney carriage to take you to the Station.”
“I’ll do that,” Gatesy nodded.
“You will drive away with the luggage,” Odela went on, “and I will leave the house by the garden door. Tell the coachman to stop at the top of the Mews where you are picking up a friend.”
She stopped to think for a moment and then resumed,
“No one will think for a moment it is me until later in the day when Papa finds my letter telling him that I have gone away to stay with friends.”
She repeated this several times so that Gatesy had it all firmly in her head.
Then the older woman asked,
“I suppose you’ve got some money, my Lady? I’ve not been paid yet this month.”
“I have plenty of money and as soon as we are home I will talk to the Estate Manager and see that he gives you a cottage, if possible one that does not belong to Papa. Then there can be no argument about it.”
She saw tears coming into Gatesy’s eyes.
“You’re ever so kind, my Lady,” she said, “just like your dear mother before you. I’ve been so worried about meself, seein’ that I’ve rheumatism in my hands.”
“I promise you one thing,” Odela stated. “You shall spend your retirement in real comfort and there will be nothing that my stepmother can do about it.”
She could not disguise the bitter note in her voice, but Gatesy did not look surprised.
She merely said,
“Her Ladyship’ll be real angry if she finds out that I’ve gone away with you.”
“When she does know, it will be too late,” Odela asserted.
When Gatesy had left her, Odela sat planning every move she would now make.
It was nearly dinnertime before her stepmother realised that she was in the house.
She came to Odela’s bedroom door just as the maids were bringing in her bath to set down in front of the fire.
“Oh, here you are, dear child,” the Countess said in her most gushing tones. “I wondered where you could be.”
“When I came in, I was told that you were entertaining visitors,” Odela answered, “so I did not like to disturb y
ou.”
“That was very sweet of you,” the Countess cooed, “but I wish I had known.”
She paused for a moment before she carried on,
“Wear one of your prettiest gowns this evening, as we are having a smart dinner party and I have placed you next to the Viscount More who I know you will find most interesting.”
She gave one of her tinkling little laughs.
“I think he is as fond of horses as you are!”
Odela did not reply and her stepmother went to her own room.
After what she had said Odela wanted to choose the ugliest gown that she possessed.
Unfortunately everything she had bought in Florence was in perfect taste and each gown made her look more attractive than the last.
Finally she told herself that, if she was to act the part that was expected of her, all she had to do was to look pretty and say nothing.
She went into the drawing room before dinner.
She found her stepmother embellished with jewels and looking, she had to admit, extremely attractive.
Odela remembered one of the girls at school saying once,
“My father always says that every woman looks beautiful when she is in love.”
Odela thought scornfully that was what her stepmother was, but not to the man she was married to.
When the Viscount came into the room, she knew at once that he was a man for whom she could never have any affection let alone love.
He was indeed good-looking, but she thought that there was something ineffectual about him.
She was quite certain that he would never make a Politician. Nor would he strive to do anything positive in his life.
‘Except of course,’ she added to herself, ‘make love to – another man’s wife!’
She was aware that the Viscount on her stepmother’s orders was trying to make himself extremely pleasant to her.
At the same time, when he was off his guard, he was gazing at her stepmother.
Odela thought that anyone who was particularly observant would guess where his true feelings lay and she wondered if her father had noticed the glances that passed between his wife and the Viscount.
Then she recalled reading somewhere that the ‘husband was always the last one to know’ as well, she added, the last to believe that the woman in whom he trusted was unfaithful.
Princes and Princesses: Favourite Royal Romances Page 65
