The Fire of Love Read online

  She turned back to the brightness of the room somehow feeling that, whatever happened, she would not be lost or entirely abandoned.

  “Mummy, Mummy,” she whispered to herself, as if the word were some kind of talisman.

  She saw that, while she had been standing with her back to the room, her supper had been brought upstairs.

  It was very different from the meal that she would have eaten had she gone down to the dining room. Downstairs there would have been quails and truffles and perhaps grouse sent all the way from Scotland to be followed by great joints of meat and elaborate desserts.

  Carina knew that the food would have been served on silver plates with the crest of the Lynches emblazoned upon them. There would be orchids in the centre of the table and huge peaches in Sèvres dishes for dessert and a different wine for each course.

  On Carina’s tray was one dish of cold chicken served without any elaborations, a sturdy slice of bread and a small dish of butter flanked on one side with a plain china plate and on the other by a pot of tea with a cup and saucer that did not match the set.

  It was all quite adequate, quite neatly set up and not in the least something to complain about. But noting the contrast, Carina could not help smiling a little and wondering if many Governesses resented the fact that they were, as the Dowager had implied all too clearly, balanced between Heaven and hell and getting the best of neither world.

  Carina sipped the tea, but she was not hungry.

  She decided that it would be a good opportunity for her to wash her hair. She looked and saw that the fire was laid in the grate and she set a match to it, knowing that by the time she had finished washing and rubbing her hair she would need the help of a fire to get it really dry before she could go to bed.

  She wished now that she had had the sense to ask Nanny to wash her hair before she set off on this adventure. She had seldom, if ever, done it herself and she knew that it was going to be quite a task to manage alone, but at the same time it was something that she would have to learn.

  The smoke from the train, the dust from the Stations and the roads along which they had come to The Castle made her feel that she could not put it off any longer.

  ‘Goodness knows what I shall be asked to do tomorrow night,’ she thought with a little smile. ‘It might be a request to go to the opera or to swim in the lake – nothing would seem fantastic in this place!’

  She felt somehow as if the very idea of having something to do swept away her tiredness and made her feel gay.

  She went to the little cupboard on the landing where the housemaids kept their utensils and, finding a big brass can such as was carried upstairs with the hot water both in the morning and in the evening, she thought that she would go downstairs and find someone to fill it for her.

  She ran down the flight of stairs to the first floor and then hesitated. If she turned right, she would find herself going towards the main staircase that led down into the hall and, if she went left, it was towards the Dowager’s rooms.

  Then she remembered that there was another corridor leading to the left just before one reached the Dowager’s room.

  She hurried along this and found herself in deserted corridors that seemed, because she was unfamiliar with them, to lead in every direction at once.

  ‘If I keep straight on,’ Carina thought, ‘I must come to the staircase I climbed this morning when I came up through the kitchens.’

  But The Castle was so big and so bewildering that after twisting and turning she suddenly found herself at the wing that she had visited once before and which she recognised as being Tudor.

  Here she had seen the ghost and here also Lord Lynche had asked her what she was doing and escorted her to Mrs. Barnstaple’s apartment.

  ‘If I go back to where he took me, I think I can remember the way,’ Carina told herself.

  Even as she turned towards the staircase, which now she recalled quite clearly, Mrs. Barnstaple appeared in the opposite direction and came towards her hurriedly and in what seemed to Carina almost an agitated manner.

  “Whatever are you doing here, Miss Warner?” she enquired.

  “I am sorry, I am afraid I have lost my way,” Carina said. “I was going to ask for some hot water so that I can wash my hair.”

  “You won’t find hot water in this direction,” Mrs. Barnstaple said firmly.

  To Carina’s surprise she put out her hand and, taking her by the arm, led her away from the top of the stairs.

  “I was lost here once before,” Carina said, “but Lord Lynche found me and took me to your room.”

  “Found you here?” said Mrs. Barnstaple in what seemed to Carina a tone of some astonishment. “And what did his Lordship say?”

  “He also seemed surprised to see me,” Carina said. “Is there anything wrong about this part of The Castle?”

  Mrs. Barnstaple hesitated a moment.

  “Not exactly wrong, Miss Warner,” she said, “but everyone is told not to come here because of the ghosts, you see.”

  “The ghosts!” Carina cried.

  She opened her lips to say, ‘and I have seen one’, but thought better of it.

  “Yes, the ghosts,” Mrs. Barnstaple repeated. “We don’t want the maids upset. You know what servants are these days. They won’t stay a moment if there’s anything to frighten them and though I says it I shouldn’t, I’ve got some very good little girls under me and I don’t want to lose them.”

  “But what are the ghosts like?” Carina asked.

  “Oh, really, I don’t know,” Mrs. Barnstaple said hurriedly. “Some says one thing and some says another, but ghosts there are and there’s no need denying it, so his Lordship has given orders that this part of the house is not to be used. The Tudor Wing, they call it.”

  “How very strange,” Carina said and meant it, because she was thinking of the way she had seen the valet disappear into the wall. And yet she could have sworn that he was no ghost.

  There was something about the way he was walking, the manner in which he carried the tray, the smudge on the sleeve of his shirt that she could remember noticing, which made him seem very much flesh and blood and nothing disembodied from some ethereal plane.

  “Have you ever seen a ghost, Mrs. Barnstaple?” Carina enquired.

  “No, indeed,” Mrs. Barnstaple said almost angrily. “I don’t hold with such nonsense. As I said to his Lordship, there’s so much talk that it would be a good thing if the wing was closed up and no one need go in it. I’ll do the dusting myself.”

  “But who saw the ghosts?” Carina asked.

  She felt instinctively it was a question that Mrs. Barnstaple would not want to answer.

  There was a distinct pause before the housekeeper replied,

  “There’s things that are best left unmentioned, Miss Warner.”

  It was a definite rebuke, but Carina was not annoyed.

  Instead, as they reached a familiar part of The Castle and she found herself climbing the staircase to the nursery, she said,

  “Thank you for rescuing me. I had only come to look for some hot water and I still have not found it.”

  Mrs. Barnstaple made a tut-tutting sound with her mouth as if in exasperation with herself.

  “I’ll send a housemaid up straightaway with a can,” she said. “Goodnight, Miss Warner.”

  She moved away before Carina could thank her.

  As Carina went back into the nursery, she found herself wondering curiously what all this mystery was about.

  Why should Mrs. Barnstaple be so upset to find her on the stairs? Why should she be so reluctant to talk about the ghosts if there were none? And if nobody went there except Mrs. Barnstaple to dust, why was Lord Lynche on the stairs and apparently as surprised and upset at seeing her as the housekeeper had been?

  ‘I bet they are hiding something,’ she thought irrepressively.

  And then, because she guessed that the hot water would be upstairs far quicker than she could have fetched it, she bus
ied herself with getting a basin and towels ready.

  It was almost midnight before she had finished washing her hair and she knelt in front of the fire, the coals glowing red and inviting.

  She dried the long fair hair that reached below her waist piece by piece, rubbing it with a towel, holding it up to the warmth of the fire and then bending forward so that the top of her head could be dried too.

  “Never go to bed with wet hair. It’s dangerous, that’s what it is,” she could hear Nanny admonishing her ever since she had been small.

  How impatient she had been with her long hair, with the tangles and the interminable brushing that made it shine and the hours she had to spend getting it dry when it was washed once a week.

  But now it felt clean and smelt fresh and she threw the long tresses back over her shoulder with a sigh of relief.

  ‘Perhaps next week I will ask one of the housemaids to help me,’ she thought and wondered at the same time whether she would still be here.

  Anything might happen in a week. Perhaps the Dowager would have her way and send Dipa back to Java. Perhaps more frightening and sinister things might happen – an accident!

  ‘Oh, no!’ Carina thought and jumped up suddenly.

  She was not even going to think of such things – there was no possibility of them, none.

  She lifted the oil lamp from the nursery table and carried it into her bedroom, put it down and then turned up the second oil lamp, which the footman had left just inside the door. After that she went to look at Dipa to see if he was well tucked in.

  He was sleeping peacefully and his skin was cool.

  Carina closed the window a little more, feeling that having come from an Eastern country he would not be used to the English way of sleeping in a cold bedroom with as little covering as possible.

  Then she went to her own room. She was just about to take off her dressing gown when she remembered what Mrs. Barnstaple had said the first night about locking her door.

  She turned the key, thankful as she had been the night before to see how strong the lock was and that the door itself was of heavy oak.

  ‘Extraordinary what a sense of security it gives one,’ she thought.

  She turned out the light and, with a little yawn that seemed to come from the very depth of her being, she slipped between the cool lavender-scented sheets and put her head down on the pillow.

  She must have fallen asleep almost immediately, because she woke with a start, wondering what had happened and then realised that she had, in fact, been asleep.

  As she opened her eyes, she saw with a sense of guilt that she had been so weary as she had climbed into bed that, while she had turned out the lamp by her bedside, the one the footman had brought her was still alight.

  It stood on the chest of drawers just inside the door and now it was flickering low, giving only just enough light to enable her to see the outlines of the furniture nearest to it.

  Suddenly, as she looked across the room, Carina realised that the handle of the door was moving.

  As she watched, it turned very slowly, very silently, to the right.

  She felt her heart leap with fear and she guessed what it was that had wakened her. It must have been the click of the latch being drawn back inside the lock.

  She lay still, breathless and unable to move.

  Again the handle turned and this time some pressure was put on the door from the other side. But there was no question of the lock giving way, it had been made by a locksmith who knew his job.

  And someone must have relinquished the handle, because the latch went back with a click.

  For a moment there was silence.

  Then Carina thought that she could hear someone breathing heavily on the other side of the door.

  There was a knock, a faint insistent knock, the sound that was made by someone who wished to gain admittance, but who did not wish anyone else to know what was happening.

  For a moment Carina felt terrified and then, quite suddenly, she was no longer afraid. She was safe, safe behind the lock, which would need a Herculean strength to break it.

  She turned her face round to the pillow and pulled the bedclothes high over her head.

  ‘Let him knock! Let him wait there until daylight!’

  It would, she felt, teach him a lesson!

  It was inconceivable that Sir Percy could imagine for one moment that she would let him in. But she knew that despite the fact that everything about him was repulsive there was no doubt that many women would have been attracted by all he could offer.

  A house in St. John’s Wood, a carriage, a few years, at any rate, of luxurious living, of being waited on, of having fashionable and expensive clothes, of being able to go to theatres and restaurants where such women were permitted as long as they were escorted by their ‘protectors’.

  Carina wanted to laugh aloud at the word. To be ‘protected’ by Sir Percy – could anything be more a contradiction of fact?

  ‘I hate him,’ Carina thought. ‘I hate him. But I don’t believe that I need be afraid of him anymore.’

  She sounded brave, even to herself. And, because her body had less courage than her mind, she found herself sitting bolt upright in bed and listening.

  The knocking had ceased.

  There was no longer, she thought, anyone outside the door, and the oil lamp had finally gone out. Now she was alone in the darkness.

  It was then she felt terror sweep over her, terror not particularly of Sir Percy, but of all men, every man.

  She felt as if she was running – running away – and they were just behind her, gaining on her, catching up with her, capturing her – and she could not escape.

  She knew what the fox must feel with a pack of hounds behind him. She was like a stag speeding over the moors and yet conscious all the time that his lifespan was limited.

  She raised her head. There was still only silence and the darkness of the room.

  Carina threw herself down and buried her face in the pillow.

  “Leave me alone,” she whispered. “Please, please, leave me alone – ”

  She thought in the night that she would never sleep.

  *

  But the housemaid knocking on the door at eight o’clock woke her from a deep slumber that made her feel that it was a tremendous effort to cross the room and unlock the door.

  “Good mornin’, miss, it’s a lovely day,” the housemaid said cheerily. “It rained a bit in the night, but the sun’s out now.”

  ‘It must have rained after he had gone away,’ Carina thought and wondered how she could have fallen asleep, even though she had known that it was impossible for him to enter the room.

  “Thank you,” she managed to say with a smile to the housemaid as she set an early-morning cup of tea by the side of the bed.

  As soon as the girl had gone, Carina jumped up and slipped on her dressing gown and went into the next room.

  Dipa was sitting cross-legged on his bed surrounded by soldiers, bricks and books, in fact almost everything that was movable from the toy shelf.

  “Dipa wake, but not wake Missie!” he crowed triumphantly.

  There was something in the ease with which he said this sentence that told Carina all too clearly that it had been impressed on him very forcibly that, while he could do whatever he liked, he was not to wake other people.

  She had a sudden vision of the sick woman, dragging this child half across the world in search of his father.

  Chi-Yun had been ill. She had either to work or to find men to pay for her and the one thing that had been important was that she should have been able to sleep.

  Dipa had learned this lesson well, if none other.

  “You are a very good boy,” Carina told him. “Now let’s hurry and get dressed. Your breakfast will soon be ready.”

  Dipa was content to let her wash and dress him. Then, telling him to take his toys into the nursery, Carina went into her own room.

  The housemaid had brought up s
ome hot water in a brass can. While Carina washed, she wondered what they should do during the day. Perhaps it would be a good idea if she took Dipa off on a picnic. That at least would keep them out of Sir Percy’s way and tomorrow, if he was to be believed, he was going back to London.

  She wondered if Sir Percy would accept the rebuff of the night before and cease to be interested in her, but she had the uncomfortable feeling that he was the type of man who could not accept defeat.

  He wanted something and if it was denied him he would be all the keener. That, she felt, was the real danger in her way of dealing with him.

  “And yet what alternative is there?” she asked her reflection in the mirror – and had no idea how lovely she looked as she asked it.

  Breakfast was on the table when she went into the nursery and the footman who had carried it upstairs was setting down a large jug of milk for Dipa by his mug.

  It was a typical English breakfast, two big bowls of porridge, a dish of eggs and bacon, a comb of honey and pats of butter as golden as the buttercups in the spring.

  Dipa was looking at it with distaste. Carina remembered the trouble that she had experienced the day before trying to get Dipa to eat what an English boy would have gobbled up greedily.

  “Do you think we could have some fruit?” she asked the footman.

  He looked surprised, but replied,

  “I should imagine so, miss. What would you prefer, grapes or peaches?”

  Carina thought that grapes were something that Dipa might have had in his native country. She ordered some and set to work to persuade him at least to taste the porridge and the eggs and bacon.

  “What did you eat with your mother in Paris?” she asked him in exasperation as he chewed some porridge round and round in his mouth and finally spat it out.

  “Nasty food,” he replied.

  She knew that he would not be able to remember anything he had eaten so long ago.

  “Well, drink your milk,” she suggested.

  But he did not like that either.

  The footman came back with some grapes and several oranges. These Dipa fell on with alacrity and Carina realised that he must have had them before.