The Fire of Love Read online

  “Perhaps he likes it,” Carina suggested.

  “Well, if he does, he oughtn’t to,” Mrs. Barnstaple replied. “He has changed, has his Lordship. You would not believe what a nice young man he was. ‘Hello, Barnie,’ he used to say when he came back from school. That’s what he and his brother used to call me. ‘Hello, Barnie. Have you got lots of strawberry jam for me?’ We used to have a joke about my strawberry jam being better than the cook’s. It was just a bit of his fun. And now there’s hardly a smile for me or anyone else.”

  “Why is that?” Carina asked, not because she was interested, but because she did not like to seem unfriendly and unresponsive.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a woman at the bottom of it,” Mrs. Barnstaple said.

  She smoothed her silk apron with her hands and made her keys jangle.

  “Well, I must be getting along. Is the little Prince all right? I gather you would have told me if he had a temperature.”

  “He is quite all right, thank you,” Carina smiled.

  “I tell you what,” Mrs. Barnstaple said, “I’ll send one of the housemaids to sit in the nursery for a little while so that you can have a walk outside before it gets dark. You look a bit pale as though you need some air. It’s a lovely evening, the wind’s gone and the sunset will be beautiful over the Park. You go out and get some roses into your cheeks.”

  “Please don’t worry – ” Carina began, but Mrs. Barnstaple had already gone, bustling away to rouse the housemaids into doing their duty.

  She made up her mind to remain upstairs, but when a housemaid arrived, a jolly rosy-cheeked girl, Carina thought it would seem churlish to refuse Mrs. Barnstaple’s kind gesture.

  She put on her coat and, thinking that she would see nobody, did not bother to put on her hat.

  “I will not be long,” she said to the housemaid.

  “Oh, don’t hurry, miss,” the girl answered. “It’s nice to have a chance to sit down and give me feet a rest.”

  Carina went down the back staircase and, avoiding the main hall, found a way into the garden through a side door.

  As Mrs. Barnstaple had said, it was a warm evening. It was very quiet and peaceful in the gardens. The birds were going up to roost and she could hear them chattering in the shrubs and watched them wending their way across the sky towards the high trees.

  She tried to enjoy the beauty of the autumn flowers and not to think of her problems, but somehow they seemed to encroach upon her insidiously, like a mist rising from the water.

  What was she to do? How was she to make it clear to Sir Percy that he was to leave her alone? How was she to find it possible to live in a house with Lord Lynche, who dared to think that she could seek out or enjoy the embraces of such a roué as Sir Percy Rockley?

  It was all too complicated. Carina longed to run home to Nanny and to be a child again so that she could lay her troubles in someone else’s arms and know that she personally need do nothing about them.

  The gardens were deserted, the gardeners had gone home, and after a while the peace and quiet began to make her feel soothed.

  ‘These gardens were made for love,’ she thought and wondered at her own fantasy.

  ‘But The Castle,’ she went on in her own thoughts, ‘has a hostility about it that makes me believe that no one has ever been very happy here.’

  She heard a Church clock strike and thought that it was time she returned.

  She found the door through which she had come into the garden, but when she turned the handle it was locked.

  “How stupid of me,” she said aloud. “I should have told somebody that I was going out this way.”

  But she remembered that there had been nobody there to tell.

  She was not anxious to go into The Castle through the main door. She did not want to encounter either Sir Percy or Lord Lynche and even less did she wish to see their guests.

  She moved round the back of The Castle, feeling that sooner or later she must come to the servants’ quarters.

  There were various doors, but they were all locked and finally she came to what were obviously the kitchens and decided that it would be better to go in that way.

  There were two or three servants moving about, but they took no notice of her. She found an open door and a long stone-flagged passage leading straight into the centre of the house, with the kitchens, sculleries, game larders and dairies leading off on each side of it.

  There was a chatter of voices from what was obviously the big kitchen and the fragrant smell of cooking, and through a half-open door Carina could see the white shape of a chef’s hat and a number of great copper saucepans sizzling on the stove.

  She moved past. She had almost reached the staircase at the end of the passage which she had decided to climb when a man wearing the dark high-cut coat of a valet came out of one of the rooms with a pair of shoes in his arms.

  As he stood back to let her pass, Carina said politely,

  “Good evening.”

  She thought that he stared at her curiously before, after a moment’s hesitation, he said,

  “Good evening, my Lady.”

  With a little smile Carina reached the stairs, wondering how soon he would learn his mistake to find he had been addressing someone of as little importance as a Governess.

  She glanced back at the man, saw that he was quite elderly and was staring after her as if in perplexity.

  ‘I expect he wonders what I am doing in the kitchen quarters,’ Carina told herself and, amused by the brief encounter, she ran up the stairs and by using her sense of direction found her way without much difficulty back to the nurseries.

  The housemaid was almost asleep, her cap slipping a little as her head nodded against the high back of the chair.

  When she saw Carina, she jumped up with a start.

  “Sorry, miss. I was a-dozin’ off.”

  “Don’t apologise,” Carina answered. “I am sorry I have been so long. It was lovely out in the gardens.”

  “Well, as you’re back,” the girl said reluctantly, “I suppose I’d better go and see what that Mrs. Barnstaple wants me to do now. I bet it’s somethin’ unpleasant.”

  “Perhaps you had better,” Carina agreed. “And will you thank her for letting you help me.”

  “I’ve liked doin’ it, miss,” the girl said and then, as she reached the door, she gave a start. “Oh, I quite forgot. Miss Matthews came up and said her Ladyship wants to speak to you. Perhaps I’d better wait while you go down to her?”

  “If you are not in a hurry,” Carina said, “although I am sure the Prince is asleep.”

  She opened the door of Dipa’s room gently, only to hear his quiet breathing.

  “I will not be long,” she told the housemaid and with a sinking heart went down to the Dowager’s room.

  She felt certain that Lady Lynche, with her knowledge of everything that went on in the house, must have already learned of her encounter with Sir Percy.

  There was no other reason that she could think of why the Dowager should send for her and she wondered what she should say if she was questioned about what had happened.

  It was all so embarrassing, so unpleasant, and yet, in a way, she would rather deal with it herself.

  She felt suddenly timid.

  As she knocked on the door, she hoped, almost against hope, that a lady’s maid would come and say that Lady Lynche was too tired to see her.

  But her hopes were not realised. She heard an alert voice bid her enter and she found the bedroom a blaze of light and the Dowager wearing a new and even more magnificent assortment of jewels.

  “Good evening, Miss Warner,” she said as Carina entered. “I heard that the Prince was not well this afternoon or I would have sent for you earlier.”

  “He is quite all right again now, thank you, my Lady” Carina replied, wondering whether, if she had said that Dipa was very ill, it would be a moment for rejoicing.

  “I sent for you,” the Dowager said, “
because my son has suggested that you might care to dine downstairs this evening.”

  “Lord Lynche has suggested that!” Carina exclaimed.

  The Dowager nodded.

  “I told him that such an idea was unusual, to say the least of it,” she said, her voice sharpening, “but he was insistent that I should convey to you his invitation. It will be a big dinner party and, of course, you might enjoy it.”

  Carina did not answer for a moment. She tried to fathom what lay behind the invitation.

  Had Lord Lynche taken his own words seriously in suggesting that she was not finding enough amusement in The Castle? Or was it, in a way, an apology?

  She thought perhaps in some strange manner of his own he wanted to show her that, to him at any rate, she was not just a mere Governess to be treated with indignity but a lady to whom he could proffer an invitation for her to meet his friends.

  Which way had he meant it? she wondered, and then realised that the Dowager was waiting to hear her decision.

  “Will you please thank Lord Lynche,” Carina said quietly, “but I should prefer to dine upstairs. I am afraid I am not a very sociable person.”

  She saw a glint of triumph in the Dowager’s eyes and realised that mother and son had argued this point.

  “You have made a sensible decision, child,” she said. “I told Justin it was not the right thing to suggest and something I should certainly have never done when I employed a Governess for my sons.”

  “It was very considerate of Lord Lynche to think of it,” Carina said conventionally.

  She saw the Dowager looking at her in a speculative way and felt an urgent desire to be free of her sharp tongue.

  “If there is nothing else,” she said hastily, “perhaps I had better go back to Dipa.”

  “Yes, go back to him,” the Dowager agreed.

  Then, as Carina opened the door, she asked,

  “Do you, by any chance, fancy yourself in love with anybody?”

  For a moment Carina felt that she could not have heard aright.

  Then she answered quickly,

  “No, of course not, why should I be?”

  “I was interested,” Lady Lynche replied, “that was all.”

  There was a note of dismissal in her voice and Carina went from the room, closing the door behind her.

  Outside she stood in the passage, puzzled.

  What did Lady Lynche mean by that? And why did she ask the question?

  She could not have heard about Sir Percy or Carina was certain that she would have come straight out with it. It was certainly not the Dowager’s way to dissemble or to find some questions too delicate to be asked.

  Then a thought struck her.

  Could Lady Lynche possibly be imagining – even for a moment – that she was falling in love with Lord Lynche?

  No, it was too ridiculous even to contemplate such an idea!

  And yet the question haunted Carina as she went upstairs to the quiet and peace of the nursery.

  “Do you, by any chance, fancy yourself in love with anybody?”

  Chapter 7

  A footman brought in one of the heavy oil lamps.

  It made the room seem suddenly full of golden light and dispensed a momentary feeling of depression that Carina had on entering the nursery.

  Carina smiled at the footman. He was not one she had seen before, but a young boy who was handling the lamp anxiously.

  “It’s beginning to get dark early,” Carina said.

  “Yes, the summer’s over, miss,” he answered. “Shall I bring the other lamp now for your bedroom?”

  “Yes, please,” Carina replied.

  The footman hurried away and he had not been gone a second before Carina heard a raised voice upbraiding him and then Mrs. Barnstaple stepped into the room.

  “That dratted footman’s late again,” she said. “I’ve told him to have the lamps up here before sunset. If they can get out of doing their duty, they will.”

  “It is hardly dark yet,” Carina said.

  “No, but when it’s a grey day you need light,” Mrs. Barnstaple said with irrefutable logic. “Besides I see no reason for you to strain your eyes just so that those lazy good-for-nothing flunkeys can sit with their feet up in the pantry.”

  Carina thought this was very unlikely with so many people in The Castle, but she guessed that the laziness of the footmen was one of Mrs. Barnstaple’s pet hobby horses and she let her carry on.

  “We should not be having all this fuss over oil lamps,” Mrs. Barnstaple continued, “if his Lordship had his way.”

  “What does he want to do, then?” Carina asked.

  “Have acetylene gas, of course,” Mrs. Barnstaple said. “I heard as how everyone’s got it these days.”

  “Well, certainly in London we had it,” Carina answered, “but most people in the country stick to their old ways and prefer oil lamps. I was surprised to see candles in the hall and in some of the bedrooms.”

  “Only in her Ladyship’s room,” Mrs. Barnstaple corrected, “and, of course, in the drawing room. Her Ladyship’s always said that what was good enough for her ancestors is good enough for her. She can’t bear any changes in The Castle!”

  “She is very proud of it, isn’t she?” Carina said.

  “There’s proud and proud,” Mrs. Barnstaple replied cryptically, “but her Ladyship won’t have anything changed. Although she lies in bed and never goes downstairs, I swear she would know if I as much as moved an ashtray from one table to another.”

  “The candles are very pretty,” Carina commented, “but I would be frightened of fire.”

  “I don’t believe they are as dangerous as these oil lamps,” Mrs. Barnstaple replied. “I have told the footmen over and over again to be careful in handling them, but there, what I say goes in one ear and out the other.”

  Mrs. Barnstaple was off again and Carina felt that it was time to change the subject.

  “I am wondering if there are some lesson books that the Prince and I can use?” she asked.

  “There’s those what you see on the shelf,” Mrs. Barnstaple replied before she hustled away.

  Carina felt the information was not very helpful. Early in the day she had found a book with children’s pictures in it. She showed them to Dipa, trying to tell him a story about them.

  As she did so, she began to plan what lessons she would give him.

  At the moment he could neither read nor write and she felt that her task was going to be a formidable one. It was obvious even on the small acquaintance she had with him that he was like a piece of quicksilver, bored very easily, rushing like a butterfly from flower to flower and making no effort to be stable and serious about anything.

  “Look, Dipa, a horse,” she said, pointing to a picture in the book. “Isn’t that pretty? A big horse like your father was riding yesterday.”

  Dipa glanced at it perfunctorily, but he was not interested because the picture was not in colour. He turned over several pages and then pushed the book away.

  “Soldiers,” he said firmly, gathering the tin soldiers that were lying all over the floor into his arms.

  “It is time to put them away,” Carina said, but Dipa had no intention of parting with his toys.

  He screamed when Carina tried to take them away and hid them from her under the chairs.

  Tonight there had been another scene when she put him to bed because he wanted his soldiers in bed with him. Finally Carina gave in and let him go to sleep with them beside him, even though she was certain that he would lie on them during the night and find them most uncomfortable.

  She kissed him good night, but he paid little attention to her, concentrating on his soldiers, and when he thought that she was not looking slipping two of them down the front of his nightshirt.

  Carina gave up the struggle and, having opened the window and pulled the curtains, she left him, knowing that because he was tired he would fall asleep almost immediately.

  ‘How am I ever going
to teach him all the things that other boys of his age know already?’ she wondered now.

  ‘I am a bad Governess,’ she told herself severely and had thought somewhat guiltily that she should be sewing instead of sitting with idle hands.

  But, after starting to look for some clothes to mend, she realised then how unaccountably exhausted she was. It was with a sense of relief she remembered that she did not have to change into a smart dress and go down to dinner.

  ‘Whatever could have put the idea into Lord Lynche’s head?’ she pondered.

  He certainly did not seem the type of person who would consider the feelings of an insignificant Governess!

  ‘It must be another trick of Sir Percy’s,’ she thought.

  She rubbed her lips with her handkerchief. They were still bruised and tender from his brutality and she remembered with a kind of horror the touch of his hands and the things he had said to her.

  She wondered what would have happened if she had not felt so faint that it was obvious even to someone of his lack of sensibility.

  And then, resolutely, because her thoughts troubled her, she rose from the chair and went to stand at the open window gazing out over the Park.

  So much had happened – and yet she had an unaccountable feeling that all these fantastic and in some ways crazy things were only the prelude to something even more frightening that was waiting round the corner.

  ‘I am imagining it,’ she thought.

  But she knew that some fundamental instinct was warning her and setting her on her guard.

  She looked out into the shadows of the great trees that had stood there for so long.

  Perhaps it was her mother’s voice that was guiding and helping her through the terrible pitfalls that seemed to lie in wait.

  She felt then her whole being go out in a wordless prayer of concentration to her mother to help and protect her.

  “Oh, Mummy, Mummy,” she whispered and felt the tears prick her eyes because she was so alone and because there was no one she could turn to for advice.

  How long she stood there she did not know. She was aware only that the stars had begun to come out in the darkening sky and it was no longer possible to discern anything in the garden below or beneath the trees.