The Pretty Horse-Breakers Read online

  She was not to know until later that the gardens had been there for centuries or that the house had been built by Lord Manville’s grandfather in 1760, just one hundred years earlier. But the lilacs, purple, mauve and white, the trees covered in pink almond blossom and the lawns, smooth as green velvet, were the result of care and toil over generations of devotion.

  The Park was ablaze with daffodils stretching down to the lake, blowing golden in the breeze and the bushes of fragrant white syringa and the laburnum trees weighed down with golden blossom were lovely beyond words.

  “How can you ever leave such a place?” Candida asked.

  “You make me feel that I should come home more often,” Lord Manville replied and she knew that he too was moved by the beauty of the spring at Manville.

  The horses drew up at the front door. Footmen in claret-coloured livery came hurrying to help Candida to the ground and greet their Master.

  “Nice to see you, Bateson,” she heard his Lordship say to a very imposing Major Domo. “Everything all right?”

  “Yes, my Lord. Mr. Adrian is in the library, shall I fetch him? I don’t think he will have heard your arrival.”

  “No, I will go and find him,” Lord Manville replied. “Come, Candida.”

  He led her through an imposing hall with its marble floor, life-size statues of Greek Gods and the walls in pale apple-green, before they proceeded down a wide passage on which were hung many fine portraits.

  She and Lord Manville were reflected in the mirrors that stood above gilt console-tables. She thought how tall he looked and how tiny she was in comparison.

  He walked swiftly and without speaking. At the far end of the passage were double mahogany doors. The footman following them was too late. His Lordship opened the door himself and they passed into the most amazing room Candida had ever seen.

  There were books from floor to ceiling, books as colourful and beautiful as the painted ceiling or the valuable furniture with which the room was embellished. In the centre of it was a large desk and seated writing at the desk was a young man, his fair hair falling forward over his forehead as he wrote.

  “Good afternoon, Adrian,” Lord Manville began. “I want to present you to Miss – ”

  Before he could finish the sentence his Ward had risen to his feet behind the desk, staring at him angrily.

  “I will not have it,” he said. “I know just what you are about and I will not meet her. Take her away, take her away immediately!”

  As he spoke, he flung his quill pen down on the desk and, walking across to the window, stood with his back to the room looking out on the sunlit garden.

  Candida stared at him in astonishment and Lord Manville stepped forward towards the desk.

  “Adrian!” he called out and his voice was like a whip. “You will oblige me by turning round immediately and allowing me to present you to Miss Candida Walcott. This is my house and, while you are here as my guest, you will behave with propriety to a lady who has honoured me by her company.”

  Lord Manville’s voice seemed to ring out round the great room and then slowly, with a reluctance that Candida thought was very obvious, Adrian turned to look at her.

  Chapter Seven

  Adrian stood staring at Candida for a moment.

  Then the expression on his face changed and with a smile he came from the window saying,

  “My apologies, I did not realise. I thought you were – ”

  “Adrian!” Lord Manville interrupted in a voice of thunder and then added in a quieter tone, “Candida, may I introduce my somewhat eccentric Ward, Mr. Adrian Rushton? Adrian – Miss Candida Walcott.”

  Adrian bowed, Candida curtseyed and then there was a moment of embarrassing silence until Lord Manville, moving towards the mantelpiece, said,

  “Perhaps, Adrian, you would care to explain to me why you have been rusticated from Oxford.”

  “I was caught climbing in at two o’clock in the morning,” Adrian answered.

  “Careless of you to be caught,” Lord Manville said good-humouredly. “I only hope the party justified it or should I say the lady?”

  “You should say neither,” Adrian replied in a somewhat sulky voice. “I had been alone.”

  “Alone!” Lord Manville ejaculated. “And what in Heaven’s name could you have been doing at two o’clock in the morning?”

  Adrian did not answer and his Lordship continued,

  “Well, where had you been?”

  “I was in the churchyard, if you must know,” Adrian replied.

  His Guardian stared at him incredulously.

  “You never fail to surprise me, Adrian,” he remarked at length. “However, we can discuss it on another occasion. Now, I shall be obliged if you will entertain Miss Walcott. I know that my agent is waiting to see me and at least half a dozen people will be insisting that I give them my full attention after so long an absence. I expect you young people will have a great deal to say to each other.”

  Lord Manville went from the room while he was still speaking.

  Candida stood a little shyly in the centre of the room, her pale pink dress and elegant bonnet making her appear even younger than she was.

  Adrian, however, was not looking at her. He was staring at the door through which his Guardian had disappeared and said in an exasperated tone,

  “There! Is that not just like him? If I had said that I was at some drunken party, had beaten up the Beadles or smashed half the windows in the College, he would have been delighted! Or if I had told him what he really wanted to hear, that I had been with some – ”

  He suddenly seemed to realise who he was speaking to. The words died on his lips and he turned petulantly towards the desk, covering over the paper he had been working on as if he thought Candida would read what he had written.

  “It may seem rather impertinent of me,” Candida said in her soft voice, “but I am curious to know why you were in the churchyard.”

  “Do you really want to know?” Adrian asked somewhat aggressively. “Very well then, I will tell you. I was writing a poem.”

  He did not wait for Candida’s reply, but continued in the same hostile voice,

  “Now laugh! You will think that a really despicable foolish thing to be doing, when I might have been dangling after some flashy female or proving myself to be a drunken fop. But, as it happens, that is the truth.”

  As he spoke the last words, he stared at Candida as if he was ready to bear the brunt of some cynical comment or a peal of laughter.

  “But, of course, I understand,” Candida said gently. “When one is writing a poem, one becomes lost to everything – the time, one’s surroundings, hunger, even the need for sleep.”

  “How do you know that?” Adrian asked in a very different tone.

  Candida smiled.

  “My father was a poet,” she said simply.

  “Your father?” Adrian exclaimed.

  Candida nodded.

  “Yes,” she said. “He was Alexander Walcott. I don’t suppose you have heard of him.”

  “Not the Alexander Walcott who translated The Iliad?” Adrian asked incredulously.

  “Yes – he was my father,” Candida smiled.

  “He was at Christ Church College,” Adrian cried, “where I am now. My tutor told me only last term to read Walcott’s edition of The Iliad – he thought it might help me.”

  “I am so glad Papa is not forgotten there,” Candida said softly.

  “Forgotten? Of course he is not forgotten! We are very proud of him at Oxford,” Adrian replied.

  Candida clasped her hands together.

  “Oh, I wish he could have heard you say that.”

  Adrian walked from behind the desk towards her.

  “You mean your father is dead?” he asked.

  “Yes, he died only last month,” Candida answered with a little break in her voice.

  “I am sorry,” Adrian said quietly. “Of course I did not realise that he was alive until now. I mean – I had
no idea what age he was. I just know that I enjoyed reading The Iliad.”

  “He did translate it beautifully, did he not?” Candida asked. “Have you read any of his other books?”

  “No, but you must tell me about them,” Adrian replied.

  “And you must tell me about your poetry,” Candida said shyly.

  “Of course I will,” Adrian agreed, a new light in his eyes.

  Then he glanced towards the door.

  “But promise me that you will not mention it to my Guardian.”

  “Why not?” Candida asked.

  “He would not understand,” Adrian explained. “You see, he wants me to be a fashionable young blood. He wants me to take an interest in what he thinks are the right occupations for someone in my position, someone, in fact, who is his Ward.”

  “Surely he would not mind your writing poetry?” Candida said.

  “He would be furious,” Adrian declared, “and would despise me even more than he does already.”

  Candida was about to protest when she remembered what Lord Manville had said to her at the inn while they were having lunch. The writing of poetry certainly did not fit in with the pursuits in which he had asked her to interest his Ward – the casinos in London, the other resorts of which she had never heard and the Cremorne Gardens which she had once seen described in a newspaper.

  Adrian was undoubtedly right. Lord Manville would not approve of his preoccupation with poetry,

  “You will not tell him, will you?” Adrian asked again.

  “No, of course not,” Candida promised.

  “And you will let me read you what I write?” Adrian went on.

  “Perhaps I will be able to help you,” Candida said tentatively. “I used to help my father.”

  “In what way?” Adrian enquired.

  “Well, I know a little Greek.”

  “You can read Greek?” Adrian exclaimed.

  “Not as well as he did,” Candida replied. “But he used to say two heads were better than one when he found it difficult to find the word he wanted or to scan a line. And I too have read a great deal of poetry.”

  “This is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me!” Adrian declared. “I never believed I would find anyone who would be interested in what I was doing, let alone help me.”

  “Well, I expect there are lots of books that will be of assistance in this magnificent library,” Candida said, looking around.

  “I expect there are,” Adrian said indifferently, “but what I really want to do is express my own ideas. I know it’s a good exercise to translate the classics, but there is so much I want to say which I feel can only be expressed in verse.”

  “That is right!” Candida said, clapping her hands together. “Papa always used to say ‘A poet must bring out what lies dormant inside him’.”

  “Did your father really say that?” Adrian asked. “I thought I was the only person who had discovered what poetry could mean.”

  “I think many people,” Candida suggested, “have found it can help them as nothing else can.”

  “I have quite a number of my poems upstairs,” Adrian said. “I will not bring them down now in case my Guardian comes back; but if we can get away somewhere alone, then I will read them to you.”

  “I should like that,” Candida said. “It will almost feel like being at home with Papa again.”

  “It’s very queer that you, being a girl, should like poetry,” Adrian went on. “Lucy does not care for it at all, although she tries to understand it for my sake.”

  “Lucy is – ?” Candida asked, a little hesitatingly.

  “The girl I want to marry,” Adrian explained, reverting to his hostile tones. “I expect my Guardian has told you about that.”

  “And are you going to marry her?” Candida enquired, ignoring the reference to Lord Manville.

  “He will not let me,” Adrian said crossly. “Oh, he pretends I am too young and all that sort of thing, but what he really means is that she is not grand enough. Besides, ‘the heartbreaker’ is not interested in marriage as an institution.”

  “What did you call him?” Candida asked curiously.

  Adrian had the grace to look ashamed.

  “I ought not to have said that,” he replied apologetically, “it just slipped out. It’s his nickname. Everyone calls him ‘the heartbreaker’.”

  “Does he break so many hearts?” Candida asked innocently.

  “By the dozen,” Adrian said extravagantly. “You can see how good-looking he is. And since he is also rich and important, the women flutter round him like stupid moths round a lighted lamp. And then, when he will not marry them, when he is tired of their hanging round his neck, they go away weeping bitterly with broken hearts.”

  “How pathetic!” Candida exclaimed. “I did not think of him like that – he seemed so awe-inspiring and rather frightening.”

  “I am frightened of him too,” Adrian said confidingly. “That is why I don’t want to annoy him any further. He is annoyed enough already. Please promise me you will not say anything about my poems.”

  “No, of course not,” Candida agreed. “I have given you my word and I will not break it. But why do you not do what Lord Manville wants?”

  “Because I want to marry Lucy,” Adrian insisted. “I don’t want to go to London. I don’t want to rush about with a lot of stupid young dandies, whose only idea is hunting a fox, shooting game birds or riding a breakneck race blindfolded in their nightshirts or something equally nonsensical.”

  “Do you not like riding?” Candida asked quickly.

  “Of course I like riding,” Adrian asserted, “but I don’t want to do it in the middle of the night or for a bet or to hurt my horses by taking them over jumps that are too high for them.”

  “Of course you don’t!” Candida said enthusiastically. “Gentlemen who exploit their horses just to amuse themselves are as thoughtless and horrible as the women who use their spurs so severely.”

  “I see we agree on a lot of things,” Adrian said. “You will help me, will you not?”

  “With your poems?” Candida asked. “You know I will.”

  “Not only with my poems,” Adrian explained, “but to make my Guardian understand me a little better. You see, the trouble is that he controls all my money until I am twenty-five, which means that if I don’t do exactly what he wants, he can cut me off meanwhile without a farthing.”

  “But I am sure he would not do that,” Candida said.

  “He would,” Adrian answered grimly. “He has already threatened to do so if I marry Lucy.”

  “But that seems wrong!” Candida cried impulsively and then remembered that her task was to try to prevent Adrian from making a marriage of which his Guardian disapproved.

  “Of course it is wrong,” Adrian said hotly, “but he knows he has the upper hand and there is nothing I can do about it. I cannot ask Lucy to marry me without a penny-piece on which we can live. And she is such a pretty girl – if I don’t marry her there are dozens of other chaps at the University who would only be too willing to engage her affections.”

  “I don’t think that is likely,” Candida interposed.

  “Why, what do you mean?” Adrian enquired.

  “Well, if Miss Lucy really cares for you,” Candida explained, “surely she would not fall in love with someone else just because you have to wait a little while!”

  “Do you really think that?” Adrian demanded.

  “I am sure of it,” Candida said. “If one really loves another person, then it does not matter what difficulties are in the way or how long one has to wait.”

  Adrian was silent for a moment before he said in a low voice,

  “Lucy did not seem very pleased when I came back from London after having talked about our marriage to my Guardian. I think she expected me to offer for her and when I did not – ”

  His voice trailed away and Candida said quickly,

  “I expect she felt piqued or just disappoint
ed. I daresay you let her believe that everything would be all right once you had spoken to Lord Manville.”

  “I suppose I did,” Adrian admitted.

  “Perhaps he will reconsider his decision,” Candida said comfortingly, “when he realises how serious your intentions are.”

  Adrian gave a short unhappy laugh.

  “That does not sound at all like his Lordship,” he said. “He is as hard as nails and, once he has made up his mind, nothing anyone might say could make him change it.”

  He paused and looked at Candida.

  “You might do it,” he suggested. “You are very pretty and naturally ‘the heartbreaker’ likes pretty women.”

  “Don’t call him that,” Candida suggested.

  “Why not?” Adrian asked.

  “I don’t know,” Candida replied. “It just sounds rather cheap and unpleasant. I think that if you are a poet you ought not to say or think unkind things about anyone. It must affect what you write.”

  “You do know so much about it,” Adrian said admiringly. “You are right, of course, you are right! I don’t want my poetry to be tarnished with the resentment that I feel towards my Guardian or the jealousy that I cannot help feeling about Lucy.”

  “Papa used to say that a poet should be like a Priest – dedicated to his profession and untainted in any way by the world he has to live in,” Candida said. “But, of course, he did not live up to that – he loved my Mama and they ran away together.”

  “Did they really?” Adrian asked. “How thrilling! That is what I thought of doing.”

  Once again he looked over his shoulder.

  “I should not tell my Guardian about your parents,” he warned her. “He thinks it is utterly and completely despicable that any gentleman should persuade a lady to elope with him.”

  “He has no good reason to think that,” Candida said stiffly, feeling suddenly angry that anyone should say something that could impugn the honour of her father.

  Then, quite sensibly, she realised that Lord Manville had very likely said this to discourage Adrian from eloping with the Vicar’s daughter. Remembering the task that had been laid upon her she said hastily,