21 The Mysterious Maid-Servant (The Eternal Collection) Read online

  “Would it not be best for you to have dinner there?”

  “We are dining here,” the Earl said firmly, “and I understand that you have chosen a special menu for the occasion. You must have been clairvoyant, Giselda.”

  He spoke mockingly and she knew that he was well aware why she had taken so much trouble over dinner.

  “Sit down,” she suggested hastily. “Do not stand unless you have to. I know Mr. Newell would not wish you to do that.”

  The Earl obliged by seating himself in a high-backed armchair and Giselda also sat down.

  “I had no idea that you intended to be up and dressed,” she remarked after a moment.

  “I planned it after I heard that the Duke was calling on me,” the Earl replied. “But I have in fact been thinking of it for some days and now my time for being an invalid is over or nearly so.”

  The thought came to Giselda’s mind that in that case he would now dispense with her services. But there was no chance of saying any more for at that moment the servants entered bringing with them the dinner on big silver dishes emblazoned with the Berkeley crest.

  Giselda fancied, as they ate, that the Earl was putting himself out to be an amusing companion and to make her laugh.

  He told her stories of the war and talked of his house in Oxfordshire and the improvements he intended to make as soon as he was well enough to go there.

  “My father died when I was in Portugal,” he said. “I came home for a short time and left an excellent agent in charge, but there are a number of things which need doing that only I can attend to.”

  “It will be exciting because it is now your own,” Giselda commented.

  “That is true,” the Earl admitted, “and I suppose I have always looked forward to the day when I could live at Lynd Park and put my own ideas of farming into operation, besides making alterations to the house.”

  “Does it need it, my Lord?”

  `I think so, but then every Earl of Lyndhurst has thought the same thing – or perhaps it was their wives who thought of it for them!”

  He went on talking, but Giselda could not help wondering whom the Earl would marry.

  She felt there must be a number of lovely ladies only waiting for him to offer such a position to them and that after all the years he had spent in war service he would be happy to settle in the country with a wife, his horses and his farms to occupy him.

  They had nearly finished dinner before the Earl asked her,

  “Have you any plans for this evening?”

  “Mr. Lynd wished me to go with him to the Assembly Rooms, but I thought I would really rather go to bed.”

  “The new Assembly Rooms?”

  “Yes, the ball is taking place tonight.”

  “You are thinking of refusing to be present on such an occasion?”

  “I will go if you think I ought to, but I would much rather – stay here.”

  “How can you possibly say such a thing?” the Earl enquired. “When dinner is over, I suppose I shall have to go to bed whether I wish to or not, and because I am tired I will doubtless fall asleep. But you, Giselda, are young, you will want to dance and to see the excitement.”

  “There will be such a crowd,” Giselda said nervously. “one thousand people are expected and – ”

  She paused.

  She wanted to say that she had no wish to go with Julius Lynd, then she thought the Earl would think that an extremely affected remark.

  After all, she was only a servant whom he had appointed as his nurse and she had already incensed him by refusing to meet the Duke of Wellington.

  How could she possibly explain that she did not wish to be present at an occasion when all the personages of distinction not only of Cheltenham but also from the whole county would be congregated together?

  As the Earl seemed to be waiting for her to say something, Giselda finally murmured,

  “Mr. Lynd said he would – call for me soon after nine o’clock. The Duke and Duchess are due to appear at ten.”

  “Then you must certainly be ready for Julius when he arrives,” the Earl said sternly.

  “I wish you could come with me, my Lord,” Giselda murmured softly.

  He looked at her searchingly, as if he was questioning whether she was speaking politely or if she really meant what she said.

  “I am too old for such frivolities.”

  “That is ridiculous, as you well know,” Giselda answered, “and may I tell you it is what invalids always feel when they become convalescent.”

  “Of course, you speak from experience,” the Earl countered sarcastically.

  “I do,” Giselda said earnestly. “Everyone when they have been very ill feels that it is an effort to go back into everyday life. They shrink from it. They cling to the privacy and quiet that they have enjoyed in the sickroom and hesitate to take the first step back into the world outside.”

  “You think that is what I am feeling?”

  “I am sure you are! When you start talking about being old and not wishing for frivolities remember it is only a sign that you are getting better.”

  The Earl laughed.

  “I accept your most logical conclusions, nurse.”

  “It is true – I promise you it is true!” Giselda declared. “In a short time now you will be longing to get away from Cheltenham, to do all the things you want to do at home and perhaps you will take on a number of important positions in the county to make up for the fact that you have no longer Regiments of soldiers to command.”

  “At least I shall be free of being bullied and restrained from doing all the things I really want to do.”

  “Have I bullied you, my Lord?” Giselda asked almost wistfully.

  “Abominably!” the Earl relied, but his eyes were smiling and, when she looked at him to see if he was really serious, he laughed.

  “You have behaved exactly as a nurse should, but I am not yet ready to dispense with your services.”

  He saw a light come into her eyes and knew without being told that she had been afraid of this.

  “We will talk about it tomorrow,” he said. “As a matter of fact I do feel rather tired.”

  “Of course you do, my Lord, and if you had listened to me you would have had your dinner in bed.”

  “I have enjoyed the novelty of sitting at a table and of dining with a very attractive lady.”

  He raised his glass as he spoke in a silent toast, then rose a little awkwardly to his feet.

  “Your leg is hurting you!” Giselda said accusingly.

  “A little,” he admitted, “but it is to be expected.”

  “Not if you had not been so foolhardy,” she retorted.

  She moved nearer to him and put her arm round his waist so that he could rest his on her shoulders.

  She could not help feeling a rather strange sensation, because she was touching him so closely and their bodies were against each other’s as they moved across the room to the bedroom.

  Batley was waiting and, as they appeared, he came forward, saying,

  “Now come along, my Lord, you’ve been up for far too long and you’ll get Miss Giselda and me in trouble with the doctor and that’s a fact!”

  “Stop nagging me, Batley, and get me into bed,” the Earl demanded.

  There was a note in his voice that told both Batley and Giselda that he was in fact exhausted.

  Giselda left him to Batley’s ministrations and, when a quarter of an hour later she peeped into the room, he was almost asleep.

  However, as she went nearer to the bed, he put out his hand and took hers.

  “You are to go to the reception,” he said, “I want you to enjoy yourself – it is an occasion you may never see again.”

  “I will go – if you want me to,” Giselda answered in a low voice.

  “Promise me!”

  “I – promise.”

  Almost before she said the last words, she knew the Earl was asleep.

  Very gently she took her hand from hi
s.

  His eyes were closed, at the same time she knew as she looked at him that it was not that he looked different, but that something different had happened between them since he had left his bed.

  For the first time Giselda was thinking of him, not as an invalid, but as a man.

  For the first time he was not someone who needed her care and evoked her pity, but a man, handsome and masculine and who she had dined with on equal terms.

  For some seconds she stood beside the bed, then she turned and slipped quietly away.

  *

  The new Assembly Rooms were filled to suffocation and Giselda was thankful that she had no need to be ashamed of her appearance amongst the beautiful gowns and the glitter of jewels and decorations with which all the guests seemed to be adorned.

  At ten o’clock exactly the Duke of Wellington, accompanied by the Duchess, appeared in the Rooms to be greeted with cheers and claps.

  “Cousin Talbot ought to be here to introduce us,” Julius whispered in Giselda’s ear.

  She did not tell him that she had refused to meet the Duke that afternoon.

  Instead she moved around the Rooms, admiring them and realising that the Colonel had not exaggerated when he said that new better and bigger buildings were needed in Cheltenham.

  She thought she must remember everything she saw so that she could describe it to the Earl.

  The exterior she had thought when they arrived was austere and undistinguished, but the ballroom was magnificent and the Duke led the dancing with his wife as his partner.

  After that everyone took the floor, but having danced once with Julius, Giselda suggested that they move out of the crowd to look at the rest of the building.

  They had not proceeded far when they came upon the Colonel looking exceedingly distinguished in his knee-breeches and wearing a number of glittering decorations on his satin evening coat.

  He greeted Giselda by kissing her hand and then he turned to Julius,

  “I wonder, dear boy, if you would be kind enough to dance with Lady Dennington who is staying with me at Berkeley Castle? There is not time for me to take the floor this evening and, as she is an exquisite dancer, I know you will enjoy waltzing with her.”

  Before Julius could reply, he introduced him to Lady Dennington and Giselda found herself alone with the Colonel.

  “I want to talk to you,” he said.

  Putting his hand under her elbow he led her across a crowded anteroom into a smaller one, which seemed to be practically deserted.

  “Let us sit down for a moment,” the Colonel suggested. “I have been on my feet since early this morning and I am glad of a rest.”

  “This must have taken a great deal of arrangement, Colonel.” Giselda remarked.

  “It did, and I am proud to say that it is a success,” the Colonel answered. “It is in fact the best advertisement that Cheltenham could possibly have.”

  “I am sure it is,” Giselda agreed.

  “However, I do not want to talk about Cheltenham at the moment,” the Colonel said, “but about you.”

  “About me?”

  Giselda’s eyes widened.

  “I have been watching you these last few days and I think you are a natural actress.”

  Giselda stared at him wide-eyed as he went on,

  “Have you thought what you will do when the Earl no longer requires your services as a nurse?”

  Giselda was still. It was a question that had haunted her, but she had not expected her thoughts to be repeated in words by the Colonel.

  “I am sure I will find – something,” she answered.

  “You will need employment?”

  “Yes – of course.”

  “I thought that was the truth. You would hardly be working in German Cottage as a housemaid unless you were poverty-stricken.”

  Giselda said nothing.

  She felt it was rather unkind of him to remind her at this moment, when she hoped she was looking attractive, of her position before the Earl had rescued her.

  “When the Earl leaves,” the Colonel went on, “I have a place for you, Giselda, in the theatre.”

  She looked at him incredulously.

  “In the theatre?” she repeated.

  “That is what I said,” he answered. “My players are amateurs, but I recompense them liberally and I will see that you are not without money when you are no longer performing this part.”

  There was something in the way he spoke that made Giselda look at him questioningly.

  As if he understood what she asked without words, he said,

  “You are very attractive! More attractive than I can tell you at the moment whilst you are still, as it were, under the protection of my friend. But I shall have a great deal to say on the matter, Giselda, as soon as you are free.”

  Because suddenly Giselda understood what he was insinuating, the colour rose in her cheeks.

  “I-I cannot listen. I don’t think – ” she stammered.

  The Colonel interrupted her,

  “There is no need for you to say anything. I realise the position in which you find yourself, and of course your loyalty for the time being is to the Earl. But my dear, you can trust me to be very kind to you, and the position I will offer you in the future would certainly not be that of maid-servant in my house.”

  He bent a little nearer to her as he spoke and instinctively Giselda recoiled, then she rose to her feet.

  “I think, sir – I should go – home,” she said in a frightened voice.

  “Leave everything to me, Giselda,” the Colonel said, and he was not speaking of her leaving the Assembly Rooms. “Your future is assured and I shall be only waiting for the moment when we can discuss it together.”

  Without answering, Giselda turned away from him and moved towards the anteroom through which they had just come.

  She did not know if the Colonel was following her for she did not look back.

  She just walked steadily towards the ballroom, and when she reached it she saw to her relief that the dance had ended and Julius was coming towards her, Lady Dennington leaning on his arm.

  He escorted his partner to the nearest chair and, when she had seated herself, he bowed and came immediately to Giselda’s side.

  “Of all the impertinence!” he said. “The Colonel fobbing me off on that boring woman! She could talk of nothing but her ailments which have brought her here.”

  “I would like to go home,” Giselda told him.

  “And I will gladly take you,” Julius replied. “If you ask me, these Social crushes are always too hot and a dead bore!”

  Giselda was inclined to agree with him.

  There was a long line of carriages for hire waiting outside the Assembly Rooms and luckily it was too early in the evening for them to be in short supply.

  Julius handed her into one and, as they drove off, he took her hand and said,

  “I regret that we wasted this evening in that crush, the Colonel’s behaviour is indefensible.”

  “I am sure he meant it kindly,” Giselda managed to say.

  In reality she agreed that the Colonel had behaved extremely badly in more ways than Julius realised.

  ‘How dare he?’ she thought. ‘How dare he suggest such things to me?’

  Then she remembered what she had asked the Earl to do for her when she had been desperate to find the fifty pounds for Rupert’s operation.

  ‘Is this what I have sunk to – ?’ she asked herself and felt ashamed and somehow unclean.

  It was not a long drive to German Cottage and, although Julius was talking, she found it impossible to listen to what he was saying.

  Only as the horses drew up outside the door did, she hear him say,

  “You promise? You really promise me that?”

  “What did I promise?” Giselda asked startled back to the present.

  “You just said you would dine with me one night,” Julius answered, “ – alone.”

  “Did I?”

 
“Of course you did, and now you cannot take back your word once you have given it. I shall hold you to that, Mrs. Barrowfield! For I wish to talk to you alone, where we shall not be disturbed.”

  He spoke with a passionate intensity that made Giselda feel embarrassed. Then to her relief the footmen came down the steps to open the carriage door.

  “I will think about it,” she said.

  “And I may call for you at ten o’clock tomorrow morning?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  At least, she thought, they could not be alone walking down the avenue of elm trees to the Pump Room and waiting with a hundred other people for the glass of water to be poured by Mrs. Forty.

  “Then you must give me a date on which you will keep your promise,” Julius persisted.

  Giselda did not reply and he kissed her hand.

  Then she was free of him, but not, she told herself as she went up the stairs, free of the Colonel and his proposition, which the more she thought of it, the more it shocked and horrified her.

  ‘I hate him!’ she thought. ‘I hate him and I hate Julius Lynd – in fact I hate all men!’

  Then, as she passed the Earl’s bedroom, she knew that was untrue, for there was one man she did not hate – one man who did not shock or frighten her.

  One man whom she wanted to tell now at this very moment what had happened.

  ‘But that,’ Giselda told herself sternly, ‘is something I must never do.’

  The Colonel was his friend and not only had she no wish to be a disruptive influence between the two men who were fond of each other, but more than that, the last thing she must ever do was to accept charity from the Earl.

  ‘I must be strong and resolute about that,’ Giselda said to herself, as she went into her own bedroom.

  When she thought of the future without the Earl she was afraid – desperately and agonisingly afraid.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The sunshine came in through the open windows of the breakfast room and glittered blindingly on the silver coffee pot.

  There was, Giselda noticed as she sat down, a new honeycomb and a pat of golden Jersey butter from Colonel Berkeley’s farms at the Castle.

  It was a thrill to realise as the Earl sat opposite her, how well he looked. Even in the bright morning light the pallor on his face was much less noticeable, in fact his skin seemed quite brown against the whiteness of his cravat.