Love and the Loathsome Leopard Read online

  The wall was in a sad state of disrepair, and the gate, which was of wrought-iron and had once been supported by two stone pillars surmounted by griffons, was off its hinges.

  One of the griffons had fallen from its pillar and the other was overgrown with ivy.

  Lord Cheriton rode his horse up the drive, which was covered with moss, the oak trees that had bordered it lying with rotting branches on the grass beneath them.

  In the distance there was a house and anyone watching Lord Cheriton perceptively would have thought that his face was grim and more than usual he resembled a leopard.

  The house, built of red brick, was a patch of colour against the surrounding trees.

  As he rode towards it, Lord Cheriton was remembering how early one morning he had crept away down the drive when the sea mists made everything seem grey and insubstantial.

  It also afforded him protective cover, which was what he needed in order to get away.

  His back was hurting him intolerably from the thrashing he had received the night before. The whip that had been used on him had opened the scars from other beatings, and he knew that in climbing out of his bedroom window and shinning down the drainpipe, he had started them bleeding again.

  But the only thing that mattered at that moment was to escape, to be free of a situation that was so intolerable, so unbearable, that he could no longer endure it.

  He had meant never to come back.

  Yet he was here, riding towards the house that he had loathed and hated with a violence that had made it seem menacing even when he had reached India and put two Continents between himself and his father.

  He drew nearer, and now he saw with satisfaction that there were holes in the roof and that many of the windows were empty of glass.

  He could remember as if it was yesterday his feelings when in 1805 he had returned with his Regiment to England. General Sir Arthur Wellesley had sailed with them at the same time in H.M.S. Trident.

  How strange England had seemed to him then after spending nine years in India.

  He had been fifteen when he ran away, a boy knowing little of life, but he had learnt – yes, he had learnt – and it had been the hard way.

  He had learnt to be a man in the thick jungles of Mallabelly amid the shell-shattered Forts of Seringapatam and the heat and fever of Mysore.

  He had often wondered how he had ever survived those years, pretending for the purpose of enlisting that he was three years older than he really was, consorting with men who were so rough that he was often more afraid of them than he was of the enemy.

  But any of it, however hard, had been preferable to the tyranny and cruelty of his father.

  In a strange way in his own life that he had chosen for himself, he had found as the years went by a happiness that a man knows when he becomes his own master.

  By the time he was twenty-five, he told himself that the past was the past, and he had no existence outside that of Stuart Bradleigh, the name he had chosen when he had enlisted in the Army.

  Then one day at Deal, where Sir Arthur was waiting for instructions to leave for the Continent, he was told to report to the General’s office.

  He wondered why, knowing that his only ambition was to follow the man under whom he had served for eleven years.

  He knew, as did all those who had returned from India, that Sir Arthur wanted to be sent where there was fighting, and they were all of them certain that when he went he would ask for his picked men to go with him.

  “Sergeant Bradleigh,” Sir Arthur had said as he had entered the office and saluted.

  “Sir!”

  “Is it true that you enlisted in the Army under an assumed name?”

  It was the last thing Lord Cheriton had expected to hear and for a moment he felt it impossible to reply.

  He had grown so used to the name of his choice that he had almost forgotten he had another one.

  “Yes, sir!” he said finally, and thought his voice sounded strange to his own ears.

  “And your real name is John Heywood?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Then I must inform you, Sergeant, that your father is dead!”

  It had been impossible to speak because all he could have said was how glad he was and that it was the best bit of news he had ever received.

  “This means,” Sir Arthur said quietly, “that you are in fact, I understand, Lord Cheriton!”

  For a moment it had been impossible to realise it.

  He had never thought of the title. He remembered only as a child might have done that his father was an ogre, a tyrant, a brute whom he hated with every fibre of his being.

  “Lord Cheriton?” he replied stupidly beneath his breath.

  “In the circumstances,” Sir Arthur went on, “do you wish to leave the Army?”

  “No, sir! Of course not, sir!”

  “I understand that you inherit a considerable property.”

  He did not answer and Sir Arthur continued,

  “Your Solicitor is here, and, of course, I will grant you leave if that is what you wish.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  There was a pause, then Sir Arthur said quietly,

  “I think, Cheriton, in the circumstances, it would be best for you to buy yourself a Commission. I will assist you in every way I can, and, of course, you will have my recommendation without reserve.”

  There had been nothing to do but salute and murmur a somewhat incoherent expression of thanks.

  Then, rising, Sir Arthur had held out his hand.

  “I shall welcome you, Lord Cheriton, to my staff.”

  He could remember now, Lord Cheriton thought, the glow of pride which had swept through him.

  He somehow anticipated instinctively that he would be in the confidence of the man who was, as the Duke of Wellington, to become the greatest hero of the age.

  At the moment, however, he left the office somewhat apprehensively to find the grey-haired Solicitor, who was waiting for him.

  “I had a great deal of trouble tracing you, my Lord,” the elderly man remarked reproachfully.

  “Was it important that you should do so?”

  The Solicitor looked shocked.

  “Extremely important! Here is a list of your father’s properties and another showing his Securities in the Bank. Your Lordship will note that you own a considerable fortune.”

  He had realised he was now a rich man, but somehow at that moment it gave him little pleasure.

  He would have liked, if possible, to accept nothing from his father, not even his title, but this he knew could not be avoided.

  The life he had led had made him quick-witted and he found no difficulty in making decisions.

  He instructed the Solicitor to look after the estates his father owned in London and collect the rents.

  Cheriton House in Berkeley Square was to be closed and kept in good order until he required it.

  The tenant farmers in Sussex were to be asked if they wished to buy their farms, and if they declined, the buildings and land were to be administered in proper fashion.

  “And what about the house, my Lord?” the Solicitor asked respectfully. “What do you wish done with Larks Hall?”

  There had been a pause, then the new Lord Cheriton, his voice ringing out with a strangely violent note, replied,

  “Let it fall to the ground!”

  As he now drew nearer to the house he realised that it had not fallen, not yet, but he was sure that the nine years in which it had remained empty had taken their toll.

  He wanted to see it a crumbling ruin, and then, only then, he told himself, the ghosts of the past would be laid to rest and he would no longer hear his father’s voice shouting at him and feel the sting of a whip across his shoulders.

  He passed the lake, remembering reluctantly a few happy hours when he had caught a trout or swum in the clear water and felt it take some of the pain from his burning, inflamed flesh.

  He had reached the front door when to h
is surprise he saw that it was open.

  He told himself it was all the better, for if the wind and the rain could beat in and the snow accumulate, the sooner the floorboards would rot.

  He swung himself down from his horse, a spirited stallion he had ridden on the battlefields of Europe and had brought back with him to England.

  Fixing the reins to the horse’s neck, he left him loose, knowing he would come at his whistle as he had been trained to do.

  Then reluctantly, almost as if he hated to step back into the past, he went in through the open door.

  To his astonishment there was not the dirt and desolation he had expected.

  He had thought to find The Hall thick with cobwebs, pictures fallen from the walls, the carpets grey with dust, but instead everything was clean.

  Lord Cheriton looked round in surprise.

  The oak furniture even seemed to have been polished and there was a bowl of roses on the table at the bottom of the stairs where he remembered that callers, and there were few enough of them, would leave visiting-cards which his father never read.

  Pensively he walked towards the door of a room which in his mother’s time had been her drawing room.

  It was the only room in the house which he could ever think of with tolerance. The library where he had been whipped had been a dark purgatory of pain, the dining room where his father had ranted through every meal was a place of terror.

  He opened the door and stood for a moment speechless, staring about him as if he was dreaming.

  The room was full of sunlight and for a moment nothing seemed to have changed from the way he remembered it since he was a child. Then he realised that the curtains were very faded but had been patched and mended skilfully.

  The sofas also had mellowed and the softness of their colour reminded him of the bricks of the house itself. Their covers too had been repaired.

  The furniture shone and there were flowers everywhere – roses, honey-suckle, blue delphiniums, and even lilies, such as had always been grown in the greenhouses for the altar of the small grey Church his mother had attended on Sundays.

  ‘It’s incredible! Unbelievable!’ he said to himself.

  He had thought he would find a ruin, not this.

  As Lord Cheriton stood just inside the door, his eyes taking in every detail of the room, someone came through the open window and with her back to the sunshine it seemed as if her head was haloed in light.

  He did not move and for a moment the woman who had entered did not see him.

  She was carrying still more flowers in her arms, white roses, and she looked down at them so that he could see the darkness of her long eyelashes against the clearness of her skin.

  Then, as if she sensed that she was not alone, she looked up, and her eyes seemed to fill her whole face as she gave a startled exclamation.

  “Forgive me,” Lord Cheriton said, “but the door was open and I understood the house was empty.”

  “Who – who told you it was – empty?”

  There was a little tremor in her voice that was almost one of fear.

  “I had no idea anyone was living here.”

  “Why should you – expect there would–not be?”

  “This house is called Larks Hall?”

  “Yes – that is – right.”

  “And it belongs, I think, to Lord Cheriton?”

  “Yes, but he never comes here and we heard, although it may not be true, that he wished the house to – fall down.”

  There was silence, then Lord Cheriton said,

  “I am, as it happens, acquainted with the owner.”

  “You know him?”

  The words were almost a cry and now the girl, for she was little more, put the roses down on an adjacent table almost as if they had become too heavy for her to carry.

  “Yes, I know him,” Lord Cheriton said carefully.

  “He is not – thinking of – coming here?”

  There was no mistaking now that there was an expression of fear in the blue eyes and that there was a note almost of horror in the young voice.

  “I don’t think so,” Lord Cheriton replied, “but why should that perturb you?”

  The girl looked away from him and he saw that she was clasping and unclasping her fingers in an agitated way.

  “Do you intend to – tell him that you have – been here?”

  “Is there any reason why I should not?”

  “Every reason.”

  “I don’t think I understand.”

  She made a little gesture of helplessness.

  Then she looked at him gravely, searching his face as if considering whether he was trustworthy and she could confide in him.

  “May I say,” Lord Cheriton said quietly, “that I will not tell the owner of this house anything you would not wish me to. At the same time, I would like to understand myself why the idea of his knowing that you are here should perturb you.”

  “I suppose you were bound to ask that,” she said with a little sigh.

  “I admit to feeling curious.”

  She looked at him again and he told himself with just a touch of amusement that it was the way he would look at a new recruit or an Officer who wanted promotion, searching for something deeper than the man’s external appearance, looking rather into his heart or perhaps his soul.

  There was a vague smile on his lips and after he had endured her scrutiny for some seconds he asked,

  “Well? Do I pass?”

  “It’s not that,” she said quickly. “It’s just that the future happiness of so many people depends on what you might say.”

  “Many people?”

  “The people who live here.”

  “May I beg you to explain?”

  “I must try to do so,” she said. “But I am afraid, desperately afraid, that if Lord Cheriton learns of what I have to tell you, he will turn us out.”

  “I think you can trust me not to tell him anything which might prove disastrous to you at any rate.”

  “That is kind of you, especially as you are promising before you know the truth.”

  “I feel that anything you have to tell me could not be entirely reprehensible,” Lord Cheriton said. “If you will trust me, I am prepared to trust you.”

  He was used to dealing with men, but he knew that the manner in which he spoke reassured her.

  As if she suddenly realised that he was standing just inside the door, she said quickly,

  “Forgive me. I have been very rude in not asking you to sit down, but you took me by surprise. I never thought – I never dreamt that anyone strange would come here. They never do.”

  “No strangers?”

  “No – never. They are too – ”

  She stopped suddenly and he felt she had been about to say something which might have been indiscreet.

  With her hand she indicated a chair by the fireplace and he walked towards it.

  As he did so, he looked at her more closely and realised, now that she no longer had her back to the window, that she was in fact very lovely.

  It was an unusual face, not in the least like that of any woman he could remember seeing before.

  Her eyes were blue, the colour of the delphiniums which stood in a vase beside the chair she had indicated to him, and her hair was very fair, so fair that it was, he thought, the colour of the dawn creeping up the sky to dispel the night.

  She was very slender and now that he could look more closely, he saw that her gown, like the furniture, was old and darned and had lost its colour, doubtless from frequent washings.

  And yet it did not disguise the soft curves of her body or the smallness of her waist.

  Lord Cheriton seated himself in the wing-back armchair and tried not to remember his father occupying it, and his mother pleading with him with a sob in her soft voice.

  He saw that the girl standing beside him was choosing her words with care and before she could speak Lord Cheriton said,

  “We have not introduced ourselves. M
ay I tell you that my name is Stuart Bradleigh and I am in fact only passing through the village on my way to Dover.”

  He thought that her eyes seemed to light up at the information, and she answered,

  “I am Wivina Compton.”

  Lord Cheriton bowed.

  “May I say that I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Miss Compton.”

  She did not reply, but seated herself opposite him and he thought that she moved gracefully and held her head proudly in a manner which would have graced any of the ballrooms he had attended since his return to England.

  She looked at him in silence until he said,

  “I am waiting, Miss Compton, and in case you are worried, may I assure you that anything you tell me will be in confidence, complete confidence, unless you give me leave to repeat it.”

  She flashed him a little smile, but her eyes were still worried.

  “You will perhaps think that what I have to tell you is very – reprehensible.”

  “I can only answer that when I hear what you have to say.”

  “Yes – of course.”

  She drew in her breath and then she began,

  “When the late Lord Cheriton died nine years ago, there was no provision made for his servants.”

  “His servants?” Lord Cheriton exclaimed.

  This was something he had not expected to hear.

  “They had all been here for many years,” Wivina explained. “Mrs. Briggs, the cook, was nearly seventy, and naturally it would have been impossible for her to find another position at her age.”

  “I can understand that.”

  “And there was old Rouse, the gardener, who had come to Larks Hall as a boy and had never known any other place.”

  Wivina’s voice dropped as she said,

  “He was told to vacate his cottage. Although he was given a small pension, as was Mrs. Briggs, it would not have provided him with a roof over his head.”

  Lord Cheriton’s lips tightened, but he said nothing.

  “And there was Pender, the Head Groom, who was getting on for retirement, and he had hoped that he would not only have a pension but also a cottage provided for him in the village.”

  “Did they speak to the Solicitor about this?”