The Pretty Horse-Breakers Read online

  She wheeled round as the door opened and gave a cry of astonishment.

  “Silvanus! Why are you here?”

  Lord Manville walked across the room and gripped her by the shoulder.

  “How much did Foxleigh pay you,” he asked sharply, “to keep me engaged in the garden while he took Candida away?”

  “You’re hurting me,” Lais complained.

  Lord Manville’s grip only tightened as he shouted,

  “Tell me the truth!”

  “Very well then,” Lais snapped. “I did not want paying. I was piqued because you did not seem to care that Foxy had chosen me to ride in the competition. You left me alone in London, you did not seem pleased to see me when I arrived at Manville today!”

  “So you planned it between you!” Lord Manville interrupted. “You planned the whole thing.”

  “You are hurting me,” Lais repeated and then with a little cry of pain, “Very well then, I did. You belong to me and you have no right to treat me as you did.”

  “That is all I wanted to know,” Lord Manville said, releasing her. “I will send you a cheque in settlement. I have no wish to see you again.”

  He had left the room, but Lais sprang up from the dressing table and ran after him.

  “Silvanus, you cannot leave me like this! I love you.”

  “Love me?” he ejaculated and added contemptuously, “you don’t know the meaning of the word.”

  “Nor do you,” she retorted losing her temper. “You have no heart. You take everything from a woman and give her nothing – nothing, do you hear?”

  But Lord Manville had not waited to listen to what she had to say. Already he was running down the stairs, passing without speaking the gentlemen talking amongst themselves in the hall and swinging himself into the saddle he set off for home.

  It was not yet four o’clock as he entered his own house and proceeded upstairs to bed.

  When he reached the landing at the top of the grand staircase he paused for a moment outside Candida’s room. Should he go in, he wondered, and assure her that she would never see Sir Tresham Foxleigh again?

  He was ruined socially and forever, for cowardice was something the gay set in which he liked to move could never stomach or forget. The only course left for him would be to take his fortune and his boastful personality abroad.

  Lord Manville listened, but there was no sound from behind Candida’s door.

  ‘She will be asleep,’ he thought, ‘it is the best thing that can happen after all she has gone through.’

  In the morning he would tell her what had happened, he decided, and with a smile of satisfaction on his lips Lord Manville went to his own room.

  Perhaps it was his footsteps, perhaps his mere presence that awoke Candida. She had slept after Mrs. Hewson and a housemaid had sponged the dirt and blood from her face, arms and neck and undressed her.

  She had been too tired and exhausted even to open her eyes, knowing the utter relief of having to do nothing for herself, merely letting Mrs. Hewson and the housemaid minister to her. Then obediently drinking the warm milk and honey that was held to her lips, she drifted away into a dreamless sleep.

  Now, as she awoke, her brain was clear and though she felt stiff and her arms were sore and painful, she knew then that no real hurt had been done to her body.

  It was her crinoline that had saved her and she knew too that, because she was young and strong through so much riding, the physical wounds she had suffered would soon disappear.

  As she awoke, she recalled in an agony that seemed to pierce her heart Lord Manville’s voice denouncing her from the top of the steps. She had not really understood all he had said, but enough to know that he loathed her for her deception, hated her for what he thought she had done, but most of all despised her for the lies that she had told.

  It was not quite clear to Candida what crime she had committed She only knew that he hated her and that his love for her had gone. This was a misery beyond anything she had suffered the night before when she had striven in terror to escape Sir Tresham.

  With difficulty she rose from her bed and, walking across the room, drew back the curtains and opened the window. Already there was an opaque dawn creeping up the sky, the stars were receding and soon it would be morning.

  ‘I have to go away,’ Candida thought.

  As she moved about she still felt a little stupid and giddy. There was still some of that terrible exhausting weakness left which made every step back to the house last night seem as though she walked through quicksand that was pulling her down and down into some deep abyss.

  The only thing she was sure of in her own mind was that she must leave. She could not see him again, could not bear to hear him speak to her with that cruel cynical note in his voice – a voice that had finally seemed to break her so that she had fallen forward into a darkness, which had swallowed her up.

  ‘I must go away – go away!’ she repeated to herself.

  Feverishly, although she knew she was being unaccountably slow, she dressed herself and then going to the wardrobe pulled open the doors. There was a flutter of chiffons and laces, a sudden kaleidoscope of colour as she revealed all the pretty expensive gowns Mrs. Clinton had bought for her.

  There in one corner was what she sought, the dark riding habit she had used at the livery stable in the early morning when no one was there to see her. Mrs. Clinton had called it contemptuously ‘your working habit’.

  She put it on, finding her riding boots were excruciatingly painful over her bandaged feet, but knowing that the suffering was necessary if she was to get away.

  When dressed, she pulled open a drawer of an elaborate inlaid chest with gold handles, which stood against one wall of the room. In it was a white bundle, the one thing she had placed there herself and which she had told the housemaids not to unpack.

  Consisting of a white shawl, which had belonged to her mother, it held everything she really possessed in the whole world, the only personal effects she had left.

  Ned had brought all her clothes to London the following day after she had arrived, as Major Hooper had promised he should do. But Mrs. Clinton had thrown everything away, allowing her to keep her bundle of treasures, her precious mementoes of the past.

  She took the bundle now to the wide windowsill where she could see what it contained. She opened it. There was the miniature that had been done of her when she was a child. There was a little silver heart-shaped box that contained a few fourpenny pieces. There was one of her father’s cufflinks. There was a silver button-hook and a comb engraved with her mother’s initials.

  The only other things in the bundle were books – her father’s poems, six slim volumes in green leather which her mother had read and read again and which had always stood by her bed. Beside them was a Prayer Book.

  That too was well worn, for her mother had carried it every Sunday to Church and ever since she had been small Candida had learnt the collect for the week. She could remember them all.

  Now as she touched the book she said almost beneath her breath the collect her mother had always added to her prayers ever since she was tiny,

  “Lighten our darkness we beseech Thee, O Lord, and by Thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night – ”

  As Candida murmured the beautiful words that were so familiar, so much a part of her childhood, she felt the tears start into her eyes. She could go no further. She covered her face with her hands.

  “Oh, Mama! Mama!” she cried. “Help me! Where am I to go? What am I to do? I love him – I love him – but he hates me! He no longer wants me here. Help me. Mama! What will happen to me? I am so alone.”

  Candida’s prayer died away in her tears and then suddenly it seemed as if her mother was beside her.

  She felt as though it was no longer so desperate, that she was no longer lost. She could not explain it, she only knew that she was no longer frightened. She wiped her eyes.

  Already the sky was much brighter
.

  ‘Perhaps I will find somewhere to go,’ she thought to herself.

  She put the Prayer Book back against the other books and lifted up the corners of the silk shawl to tie them all together. It was then she saw beside her father’s poems another volume, one she did not remember. It was in red leather, in contrast to his, which were bound in green.

  Curiously she looked at it and then picked it up. She recalled that she had found it in the very back drawer of her mother’s dressing table just as the furniture was being moved by the dealer who had given Candida a few pounds for the contents of the whole room, money which had gone to pay their debts.

  ‘I have never seen this before,’ Candida thought and remembered pushing it into the bundle with her father’s books at the very last moment.

  Now she turned it over and saw that it was Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. There was a little smile on her lips as she read the title. She understood now why her mother had kept the book, because she could remember her saying,

  “I was very young, Candida, when I met your father, but I loved him with my whole heart. We were not too young to know how much our love meant to each other. Like Romeo and Juliet we knew that we were meant to meet.”

  Candida opened the book. On the flyleaf was written in strong upright writing,

  “To my dear daughter, Elizabeth, on the occasion of her seventeenth birthday from her affectionate father.”

  ‘So that is why Mama kept it hidden!’ Candida said to herself and then she looked at the bookplate inside the cover.

  It was a very elaborate, impressive bookplate. As she stared at it, Candida drew in her breath.

  Her mother had answered her prayer!

  Chapter Eleven

  Adrian was sitting at the breakfast table, a faraway look in his eyes and a piece of paper in his hands, when Lord Manville entered the room.

  “Good morning, Adrian,” he said as his Ward rose to his feet, hastily thrusting the piece of paper he had been holding into the inside pocket of his coat.

  At any other time this obvious gesture of deception would have annoyed Lord Manville, but he was in a good temper this morning.

  “It’s a fine day,” he announced cheerily as he seated himself at the table and Bateson hurried forward with a silver dish of kidneys cooked in wine and cream. As Adrian did not reply, his Lordship continued,

  “How do you feel after all the gaieties of yesterday?”

  “I feel well enough,” Adrian answered, “but then I retired early. I thought I heard you come to bed very late, about four o’clock in the morning, but maybe I was mistaken,”

  “You were not mistaken,” Lord Manville replied, “but by that time I had ridden over to The Towers to teach its owner a lesson he will not forget in a hurry.”

  “You had ridden where?” Adrian ejaculated. “I thought you had sworn never to go near the place.”

  “We shall not be seeing Foxleigh again,” Lord Manville said with satisfaction, helping himself to another dish. “In fact, my prediction is that The Towers and its estate will soon be up for sale – in which case I shall buy it.”

  “What has happened?” Adrian asked. “What did I miss last night?”

  Lord Manville glanced over his shoulder to ascertain that the servants had left the room.

  “You missed,” he answered slowly, “Candida returning to the house bruised and bleeding after she had thrown herself from the carriage of the swine who was attempting to abduct her.”

  “Good God!” Adrian almost shouted. “But whenever did this happen? When Candida left me, she went to bed.”

  “I think that is what she intended,” Lord Manville said, “but Foxleigh persuaded her to go and look at one of his horses which he alleged was injured. It was a trap, of course, and she walked into it unsuspectingly.”

  “Damn it! That this should happen to Candida,” Adrian exclaimed. “She hated the man, she was afraid of him. She told me he had forced himself into the house when she was in London and had attempted to kiss her.”

  “So that is how she met him,” Lord Manville murmured reflectively.

  Bateson and two footmen returned to the room with other dishes. Lord Manville looked at the empty place at the breakfast table and said to his Major Domo.

  “I expect Miss Candida is breakfasting upstairs. Convey my respects to her, Bateson, and say I should be glad to know how she is feeling this morning.”

  He paused and added,

  “If she is asleep, of course, tell Mrs. Hewson not to wake her.”

  “I will make enquiries myself, my Lord,” Bateson answered.

  He left the room and, when the footman had also retired, Adrian continued,

  “I cannot believe that this really happened. Was Candida very upset?”

  “As I have told you, she threw herself from the coach,” Lord Manville replied. “Had she not had the courage to do so, God knows what would have happened to her.”

  “If only I had escorted her to her bedroom,” Adrian said rather bitterly, “I might have known that something like this would happen with the sweepings of Piccadilly in the house.”

  “Is that how you view my guests?” Lord Manville said with a lift of his eyebrows.

  “If you want to know the truth, they made me feel sick,” Adrian replied aggressively.

  Lord Manville said nothing but continued eating in silence.

  After a few moments the door opened and Bateson returned.

  “Mrs. Hewson asked me to inform your Lordship that Miss Candida is not in her bedroom.”

  “Not in her bedroom?” Lord Manville ejaculated. “Then where is she?”

  Mrs. Hewson has already ascertained, my Lord, that Miss Candida went to the stables at about five-thirty. She asked for Pegasus to be saddled and rode off alone.”

  “Alone?” Lord Manville said angrily. “Why did no groom accompany her?”

  “She wished to be alone, my Lord, in fact she insisted on it.”

  There was silence and then Bateson added,

  “I think you ought to know, my Lord, that Mrs. Hewson noticed that Miss Candida took a white bundle with her.”

  “A white bundle!” Lord Manville repeated questioningly.

  Adrian jumped to his feet.

  “I know what that is! This means she has left!”

  Lord Manville glanced at his Ward’s face and signalled to Bateson to leave the room.

  When they were alone he asked,

  “What do you mean? What was in that bundle?”

  “Everything Candida possessed in the world,” Adrian answered, “everything she treasured. She has gone, can you not understand, and she will not be coming back!”

  “How do you know?” Lord Manville began, only to be interrupted by Adrian saying furiously,

  “Something else must have happened last night, something you have not told me about. Foxleigh may have insulted her, but that alone would not have made her leave here.”

  Lord Manville looked embarrassed.

  He rose from the table and walked towards the mantelpiece to stand looking down into the empty fireplace.

  “I did not know at first that she had gone with Foxleigh – unwillingly,” he said slowly, almost as if the words were being drawn from his lips. “When she returned, I was somewhat incensed. But afterwards I thought she understood.”

  “You were incensed?” Adrian repeated slowly. “You mean that you frightened her with one of your refined rages! How could you have treated her in such a manner when she loves you?”

  “How do you know she loves me?” Lord Manville asked quickly.

  “She did not tell me so, but it was obvious,” Adrian replied. “Even you must have realised that.”

  Then, his voice rising a little higher, he continued,

  “So you were incensed at her and I daresay that, speaking in your icy sarcastic voice, which bites through your victim, you tore her in pieces. Candida, of whom you know so little that you thought she had gone off willingly wit
h a man whom she loathed and who made her tremble at the very sight of him!”

  Lord Manville did not answer and Adrian, almost beside himself, carried on,

  “Well, I daresay you are happy! You have driven Candida away and, unless I am very much mistaken, you have broken her heart – the sweetest, gentlest person I have ever known. But as a professional ‘heartbreaker’ you have done it again! You have added another scalp to your collection and I hope it gives you satisfaction.”

  Lord Manville glared at his Ward with a fury that seemed almost to contort his face. Then he turned on his heel and strode from the room, slamming the door behind him.

  *

  Adrian did not see him again until it was dark.

  It was long after dinnertime when he came into the library and flung himself down into a big armchair. His riding boots and breeches were covered in mud and it was easy to see that he was almost on the point of exhaustion.

  Bateson was hovering solicitously behind him.

  “Have you dined, my Lord?”

  “No, and I am not hungry.”

  “I think you would be wise to have some nourishment, my Lord. Alfonse has everything ready. He has been keeping various dishes until your return.”

  “I am not hungry!” Lord Manville snapped. “But you can bring me a drink.”

  Bateson brought him a glass of brandy and he drained it off like a man whose throat was dry and parched.

  “You had best try some soup or something,” Adrian advised, speaking for the first time from the other side of the fireplace. “You look all in. Have you eaten since breakfast?”

  “I have not and I don’t care,” Lord Manville answered. “Bring me anything you like, but don’t fuss me.”

  Bateson instructed a footman in a low voice to remove his Lordship’s boots. Another flunkey brought him a smoking jacket and he pulled his crumpled stock from his neck.

  When the food came he took a few mouthfuls and then pushed his plate aside.

  “I am not hungry,” he muttered.

  Adrian waited until the servants had left the room.