The Fire of Love Read online

  Chapter 1

  1901

  “You have your references with you?”

  The voice was sharp with none of the ingratiating sweetness that Mrs. Macey used to the employers who visited her Agency.

  There was just a moment’s hesitation before the girl on the other side of the table replied,

  “Yes, I have one here.”

  She held it out across the desk, her fingers trembling a little on the thick, expensive white writing paper with a crest emblazoned above the address.

  Mrs. Macey took it in her fat none-too-clean hand and read it slowly. Then she made a faint sound that might have been one of approval.

  “Lady Judith seems to have thought a great deal of you, Miss Warner!”

  The girl watching her flushed, the colour rising up her tiny pointed face.

  “Y-yes,” she agreed, a slight stammer in her voice. “Lady Judith has been very kind.”

  “Well, it seems quite satisfactory,” Mrs. Macey said. “The difficulty is that at the moment we have few, if any, jobs on our books of the type you are seeking.”

  “Oh, but please, I was sure you would find me something.”

  There was a hint of panic in the young voice.

  “You are very anxious to be suited?” Mrs. Macey asked, the expression in her eyes one of suspicion.

  “Yes, very anxious. I-I cannot remain where I am and, besides – I have to earn some money.”

  Mrs. Macey put a wealth of meaning into what was almost a snort through her thick pug-like nose.

  She rang a bell that stood on her desk. The door was opened by a thin middle-aged woman who sat in the outer office and made sure that those who required jobs were in the proper state of humility before they reached the all-powerful director of their fate.

  “The register, Miss Cruickshank!” Mrs. Macey commanded.

  Miss Cruickshank, in her turn humble, flurried and anxious to please, ran to obey her employer’s order.

  “You look very young,” Mrs. Macey remarked critically, staring at the slim figure of the girl opposite her as if she had hardly noticed her before.

  “I-I – I am older than I look,” was the apologetic answer.

  “Well, Miss – Miss – ” Mrs. Macey looked down at her papers.

  “W-Warner,” the applicant supplied. “Carina Warner.”

  “Carina!” Mrs. Macey repeated the name distastefully. “A fanciful name for a Governess. Catherine is more usual.”

  “I was christened Carina.”

  There was a hint of pride in the voice now. The little chin went up. The big grey eyes, which had looked so desperate a moment before, had a touch of fire in them.

  “Parents make odd choices!” Mrs. Macey said disapprovingly but as if she was not really interested in pursuing the matter.

  Miss Cruickshank staggered in with the register, a large imposing-looking book with well-thumbed pages and a cracked cardboard cover.

  “Now, let me see, Miss Cruickshank,” Mrs. Macey said. “Have we any posts for Governesses or nursery Governesses at the moment?”

  “There is one that came in this morning,” Miss Cruickshank answered.

  She bent over her employer’s shoulder and turned over the pages rapidly.

  “Lady Lynche the name was, but – ”

  She bent down and placed her mouth close to Mrs. Macey’s ear. Carina made an effort not to overhear what was being said, and yet two words were unavoidable – ‘strange’ and ‘common’.

  “Oh! Oh, indeed!” Mrs. Macey murmured as Miss Cruickshank finished whispering. “Still, if there is nothing else – ”

  She looked across at Carina.

  “Someone called here this morning on behalf of Lady Lynche,” she said. “I am not personally acquainted with her Ladyship, but it appears that she requires a Governess or someone trustworthy to take her child on a journey.”

  “Abroad?” Carina asked quickly, a sudden light in her eyes.

  Mrs. Macey glanced at Miss Cruickshank who shook her head and said,

  “No, I think it was to the North or it may have been the West of England. I am not really sure. There were so many applicants in this morning asking different questions.”

  “It is immaterial,” Mrs. Macey said briskly. “Lady Lynche requires someone and I presume, Miss – Warner, you consider yourself trustworthy.”

  “Yes, yes – I hope so,” Carina replied.

  “Very well, then. I will give you our card with the address on it and you may call on Lady Lynche. Our fee, of course, is payable before we give you the address.”

  “Fee!” Carina faltered. “I did not know that I had to pay anything.”

  “Well, naturally,” Mrs. Macey retorted. “In some low class Agencies I believe only the employer is charged for the introduction. But here, where we are most careful and no one is taken on our books without proper references and thorough investigation, we also charge the employee. That will be ten shillings, if you please.”

  Mrs. Macey did not miss the look on Carina’s face. It was, she thought, almost one of despair.

  Carina opened her handbag and brought out a very small and very thin purse. At the same time Mrs. Macey’s experienced eye did not fail to note that the handbag was an expensive one and the purse of real leather.

  ‘What has brought her to this?’ she wondered and experience supplied the answer. ‘A man, for a certainty!’

  The girl’s clothes were also good and just for a moment Mrs. Macey wondered whether she was wise in sending this unknown person to Lady Lynche.

  Then she remembered in her own words that she was not acquainted with her Ladyship and Miss Cruickshank had made it quite clear that there was something peculiar about the application. There could therefore be no harm in the girl trying to obtain the appointment.

  “Now run along,” she said decisively, taking the five florins that Carina had handed to her and putting them in the drawer in front of her. “But, if you don’t get this position, it’s unlikely we shall be able to find you anything else.”

  She saw Carina’s eyes widen in fear. Something cruel and unpleasant in her feline nature made Mrs. Macey glad that she had frightened the chit.

  ‘She looks innocent enough,’ she thought, as she watched Carina go through the door into the outer office. ‘But then one never knows with young women these days.’

  In the office there were rows of men and women of varying ages seated on hard benches that ran along both sides of the walls. Miss Cruickshank had put the heavy ledger down on her high desk and her lips had already formed the words, ‘next, please’, when she realised that Carina was standing beside her, holding out her hand.

  “Thank you very much for helping me,” Carina said in a soft voice.

  Miss Cruickshank took Carina’s hand in surprise. No one who came to Mrs. Macey’s Agency ever bothered to thank her. Because she was touched, she was brusque.

  “That’s all right,” she said, her voice over-loud. “I hope you get the position.”

  “I hope I do too,” Carina smiled. “And thank you again.”

  She walked across the room, her skirts swishing with a little silken sound against the bare boards and disappeared down the narrow, dirty stairway that led to the street below.

  Outside, she stood for a moment bewildered by the crowds and the noise of the traffic.

  Horse-drawn omnibuses rattled by slowly, being passed by closed carriages drawn by beautifully groomed horses, their silver bridles each topped with a waving plume, while they were outshone in their turn by the dog carts driven by dashing young gentlemen with their shiny top hats at an angle, their grooms sitting behind them with folded arms ready to run to the horse’s head at the first stop.

  Carina paused for a mo
ment and looked at the card she carried. On one side was Mrs. Macey’s name and address, on the other was written her destination – 187 Eaton Terrace.

  She remembered that the terrace was off Eaton Square and realised that it was too far for her to walk there. Accordingly, she moved a little way down the street until she came to an omnibus stop and climbed aboard the first one that came along.

  She refused the conductor’s invitation of room inside and climbed to the top. It was windy, but she felt she wanted to breathe and she wanted too the feeling of being alone.

  She found a seat to herself and, closing her eyes tightly, she fought back the tears that threatened not only to run down her cheeks but to sap her self-control.

  The omnibus, wending its way around the fashionable streets, into which such vulgar vehicles were not allowed to go, arrived by devious routes at Victoria, where Carina got off.

  By this time, she was fully in control of her emotions.

  She walked quickly down Ebury Street, avoided a man, who came staggering from a public house, obviously intent on picking her up, and reached Eaton Square. From there it was only a short walk to her destination.

  She arrived on the doorstep of Number 187, her cheeks glowing from the speed at which she had travelled and feeling somehow brighter than she had done before.

  ‘I will get the job, I will get it!’ she told herself beneath her breath. ‘I have to!”

  She pulled the bell determinedly and heard it clang somewhere far away in the basement. She noted, as she did so, that the knocker on the door was dirty and in need of a clean and the doorstep itself had not been scrubbed recently.

  Then, with a sudden start, she saw a card in the window propped against a dirty lace curtain – “Rooms to Let”.

  ‘There must be some mistake,’ she thought, and hastily searched her handbag for the card Mrs. Macey had given her.

  Before she could find it, the door opened and a maid, in a dirty apron and a cap that slipped over one ear, stood there.

  ‘I-I think I must have come to the wrong place,” Carina said. “I was looking for 87.”

  “That’s ’ere,” the maid answered laconically.

  “But I was told to ask for Lady Lynche.”

  The maid jerked her thumb towards the darkness of the passage behind her.

  “’Er’s down there,” she said. “Be she expectin’ you?”

  “I-I don’t think so,” Carina answered, moving into the house almost automatically and conscious, as she did so, of the pungent smell of onions and tobacco.

  The maid closed the door behind her.

  “I’ll go and find out if ’er’ll see you. What’s your name?”

  “Miss – Miss Cla – ” Carina dragged back the name she was about to say – “Miss Warner,” and added hastily, “Miss Warner from Mrs. Macey’s Agency.”

  “Oh, then they be expectin’ you if that’s who you are!” the maid answered. “I ’eard as ’ow the old girl ’ad gone there this mornin’. Come on!”

  Bewildered beyond words, Carina did as she was told and followed the maid in her down-at-heel shuffling shoes along a scruffy passage towards the back of the house.

  Stopping abruptly, the girl rapped sharply on a door and, without waiting for anyone to answer, opened it.

  “’Ere she is,” she announced. “Someone from the Agency. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

  She moved aside to let Carina pass into the room and then closed the door behind her with a noisy bang that seemed to vibrate round the walls.

  It was dark because the blind was drawn and for a moment Carina could see nothing. Then she perceived that lying in a bed there was a woman.

  “So they have sent someone. I thought they would.”

  The voice was very low and breathless and had too a peculiar accent that Carina could not place.

  “Are – are you Lady Lynche?”

  Carina found it almost difficult to say the words, it seemed so improbable.

  The woman in the bed stirred herself a little.

  “Raise the blind,” she commanded, still in that low breathless voice, “and give me something to drink and then I’ll be able to talk to you.”

  Carina did as she was told. The blind went up with a slap, faster and noisier than she intended. Now light percolated into the room through the dirty panes of glass and despite a tree growing outside in the small garden with its branches almost touching the window.

  She turned back towards the woman in the bed, only to hear again the request,

  “Something to drink! There’s brandy in the bottle.”

  There was a bottle of brandy on the washstand beside a white basin and cracked ewer, a soap dish that had lost its lid and a tooth glass that needed washing.

  Distastefully, Carina tipped a little of the brandy into the glass and looked round for some water to add to it.

  “No water!” the voice called from the bed.

  She carried the glass across the room. A thin hand, with the wrist bones standing out vividly from a yellow arm, took it from her. She heard the glass rattle against the woman’s teeth as she drank and, looking down, realised why the accent of the low breathless voice had sounded strange.

  The woman was not English. She was Eastern.

  There was no mistaking the long slit-like dark eyes or the jet-black hair drawn back from the rounded yellow fore-head.

  ‘She must have been beautiful once,’ Carina thought involuntarily and then realised that the woman was very ill and yet the undiluted alcohol seemed to give her momentarily more life.

  She held out the empty glass, which Carina took from her, and raised herself a little on her pillows.

  “Have they told you what I want you to do?” she asked.

  “Mrs. Macey said something about taking your child on a journey,” Carina replied.

  “Yes, yes, you must take him, for I am too ill,” the woman on the bed answered.

  Carina looked round the room as if she expected to see the child hidden somewhere amidst the pile of untidy clothing that seemed to have been thrown everywhere, on the chairs, at the end of the bed, over the towel rail.

  She saw there was a big round-top trunk against one wall and guessed that someone must have attempted to unpack it and then found in this small dingy room without a wardrobe that there was nowhere to put all the things it contained.

  But there was nothing dingy about the clothes. They were indeed a kaleidoscope of rainbow colours, crimson, mauve, emerald-green and peacock-blue, mingled with gold lame and silver brocade. There were coats and blouses embroidered with diamanté and sparkling stones and shawls with deep silk fringes, which sprawled unexpectedly over the threadbare carpet. Clothes –clothes – clothes, but no sign of the child.

  Then, as if she knew what Carina was thinking, the woman on the bed explained,

  “He is downstairs with the landlady. She brought the doctor. I shan’t live to get him there!”

  “Get him where? “ Carina asked.

  The woman on the bed shut her eyes as though she was attacked by a sudden pain. Her face seemed to screw itself into lines and she looked for a moment like a small sick monkey.

  “To his father,” she replied and the words were almost shouted with a sudden burst of energy. “You are to take him to his father.”

  Her fingers came out and entwined themselves around Carina’s hand.

  “Promise you will take him and say what I want you to say?” she asked desperately, as if everything depended on Carina’s answer.

  “I don’t understand,” Carina said quietly. “Where does the child’s father live and is he Lord Lynche?”

  The yellow fingers seemed to tighten their grip.

  “Yes, that is his name – Lord Lynche,” the woman replied. “Always he said to me, ‘we have no money. We can do nothing until my father dies. We are poor! Poor! I can give you none of the things you ought to have. But when my father dies, it will be different’.”

  She gave a little c
ry, almost a sob, and then her voice sank away again to the low breathless murmur it had been when Carina entered the room.

  “He is dead, dead at last, and now there will be money, position, parties, all the things he promised me and I shall not be there to enjoy them!”

  “I am sure you will,” Carina said, moved by a sudden pity, for now she realised that the woman was not as old as she had thought she was when she first came into the room. Twenty-nine, thirty – or perhaps a few years older. But there was no doubt at all that she was very ill.

  “No – no, I know the truth. I cannot live. I would not want to, for I can no longer dance. But the child – the child must be looked after and his father must be made to pay.”

  The weak breathless voice broke off as a sudden fit of coughing shook the woman’s whole frame. Now beneath the bed-coverings Carina could see how thin she was.

  “Yes, damn him, he shall pay!”

  Lady Lynche’s voice was almost a snarl, as the coughing passed, leaving her with beads of sweat on her forehead.

  “He shall pay for his heir, for all he denied me and for all the promises he never kept. You will take my son to his inheritance?”

  Now she was pleading, the snarl had gone from her voice and the dark almond-like eyes deeply lined with pain were staring up at Carina.

  “Yes, of course, I will take him,” Carina answered gently.

  She had seen people die before and she knew that this woman was speaking the truth when she said she would not live very long.

  “Thank you – thank you. That’s all I wanted to know. Go to the door, call for Mrs. Bagot and tell her I want her.”

  Carina picked her way amongst the gaudy piles of silk and satin, opened the door and went out into the passage.

  It seemed deserted and then she heard the murmur of voices from the basement below and saw that there was a stone stairway running down to what were obviously the kitchens. She went to the top of them and called a little nervously, feeling that Mrs. Bagot might well resent being summoned in a peremptory manner by a stranger.

  “Mrs. Bagot!” Her voice seemed to be thrown back at her and there was a strong smell of onions. “Mrs. Bagot!”

  “Mornin’,” cried a cheerful Cockney voice and a large buxom figure appeared at the bottom of the stairs and started to climb slowly up them.