The Shadow of Sin (Bantam Series No. 19) Page 2

  “It is only what?” Celesta asked.

  “So damned expensive!” he answered. “But His Lordship tells me that fortune favours the brave and I believe him.”

  Celesta had not seen Giles again for six months. Then he had come down to the Priory, removed nearly all the pictures, and told her he was shutting up the house.

  “How you can spend so much money I do not know!” he exclaimed angrily when she had shown him the house-keeping bills.

  “We got rid of all the young servants when you wrote to us three months ago,” Celesta said, her eyes worried. “You cannot turn off old Bateson and Mrs. Hopkins. They have both been with us for over forty years.”

  “I am not a Charitable Institution,” Giles snarled.

  Celesta looked at him in consternation. He seemed to have altered in the last year.

  His features had sharpened and there was something almost unpleasant about his eyes and the line of his mouth.

  “Are you very hard-up, Giles?” she asked with some perception.

  “I am practically below hatches,” he snapped. “However the pictures ought to bring in something.”

  “You are selling them?”

  “Of course I am! I have to get some money from somewhere.”

  “But, Giles ... they are a part of our history ... Papa always said so. They have been handed down from father to son for generations. You cannot sell them!”

  “For God’s sake stop nagging, Celesta,” Giles shouted. “I have enough worries without you nattering on about some mouldy old canvasses that have been hanging on the walls where no-one ever notices them. I want money, I tell you. I want to enjoy myself! Is there nothing else in this dump I can sell?”

  He had walked round the house, looking into every room and disparaging everything he saw.

  The Priory was beautiful—to Celesta the most beautiful building in the world—but her father had left it very much as he had inherited it, and the furniture was ancient but not particularly valuable.

  The Jacobean chests-of-drawers, refectory tables, and carved oak chairs, were all in perfect keeping with the ancient mullioned windows, the oak panelling, and the plasterwork on the ceilings, but they were not of fine enough workmanship to be worth much.

  The velvet curtains, damask-covered chairs, and carved four-posters would, Celesta knew, fetch very little money away from the back-ground into which they blended so harmoniously.

  In the end Giles had departed with the pictures and a few gold ornaments which Celesta could remember her father and mother using on very special occasions.

  He also took the silver dishes made in the reign of Charles II which bore the Wroxley coat of arms. They were seldom used because there had not been enough servants to clean them.

  Giles had also given specific instructions before he left: the gardeners were to be dismissed, old Bloss was to retire to a small Cottage at the end of the village.

  Mrs. Hopkins and Bateson were given small pensions, and Celesta and Nana were to move into the Garden Cottage.

  Since that time Celesta had not heard from him again.

  She fortunately had a minute income of her own.

  Her grandmother on her death had left a small sum to both her grandchildren and Celesta’s share brought her in approximately fifty pounds a year.

  It was just enough for her and Nana to live on, if they were not extravagant, as they did not have to pay rent. But it left very little for luxuries such as gowns, hats, shoes, and other clothes.

  “Fortunately I need very little,” Celesta said.

  It was Nana who minded more that she was not fashionably dressed.

  “For whom should I wear the latest fashion?” Celesta asked.

  And for once Nana had no ready answer to that question.

  As she finished her luncheon, Celesta wondered what could be upsetting Nana.

  She had thought to tell her about the stranger who had behaved so badly in the peach-house, but then knew she could not explain her own reprehensible behaviour and therefore it would be better to say nothing.

  Nana came back into the room.

  “I’ve brought you a cup of coffee, Miss Celesta, and I thought you could have a peach to end the meal. Where did you put them?”

  “I left them in the peach-house,” Celesta said quickly. “I had not quite finished picking them.”

  “Oh well, you can have one for your supper,” Nana said.

  She put the cup of coffee down beside Celesta and then stood, her hands crossed over each other on her white apron.

  “Now what is it, Nana?” Celesta asked gently.

  “It’s something Mr. Copple told me just half an hour ago,” Nana answered, “when he delivered the newspaper.”

  Celesta waited with a faint smile on her lips.

  Mr. Copple, the village postman, was an inveterate gossip. There was nothing that went on in Wroxley village that he not only knew but was ready to repeat almost before it happened.

  Although Nana said it was extravagant for Celesta to go on taking the Morning Post as her father had always done, it would have been a sad day if there had been no excuse for Mr. Copple to knock at the Cottage door.

  “What dramatic crisis can have happened in the village?” Celesta asked as Nana did not speak.

  “I can’t believe it’s true,” Nana said, “but Mr. Copple says that a Nobleman with a whole carriage load of servants has arrived at the Priory, and it’s said that the Estate now belongs to him!”

  “A Nobleman?” Celesta repeated in a very low voice. “Who is he? And how can he own the Priory?”

  “Mr. Copple says,” Nana answered, and her voice was low, “that Master Giles has lost it gaming.”

  “I do not believe it!”

  Celesta rose to her feet as she spoke.

  “It cannot be true! It cannot, Nana!”

  “That’s what I said, Miss Celesta, but there’s no doubt that the Gentleman is there and Mr. Copple tells me there are more servants coming this afternoon.”

  Celesta put her hand up to her forehead.

  She could not believe it, and yet something at the back of her mind told her that she had known all along that Giles would dispose of the Priory if he had nothing else left.

  “How could he? How could he?” she whispered to herself.

  The Priory in which the Wroxleys had lived for over five hundred years had always seemed to Celesta the most beautiful place in the world. It was her home and it was also Giles’s.

  How could he have thrown it away at the turn of a card? How could he have thought so little of his inheritance that having stripped the walls he had now dispossessed himself of the Priory itself?

  “There must be some mistake,” she said aloud.

  “I hope so ... I very much hope so,” Nana answered.

  “What is the name of the gentleman who now owns it?” Celesta asked.

  She thought even as she spoke the words she knew the answer.

  “Mr. Copple was not certain,” Nana answered, “but he thinks...”

  She was interrupted by a sudden loud rat-tat on the front door.

  The knocker was being applied forcefully—so forcefully that the whole Cottage seemed to vibrate to it.

  “Now who could that be?” Nana asked. “If it’s one of them pestilential boys who knows that they should come to the back door, I’ll give him a piece of my mind!”

  She hurried from the Dining-Room and across the tiny Hall. Celesta sat down in the chair she had just vacated, her legs feeling curiously weak.

  She knew she had already met the new owner of the Priory, who, mistaking her for a labourers daughter, had treated her with the familiarity her appearance had invited.

  She could hear Nana speaking at the door. When she came back to the Dining-Room she was holding in her hand the basket of peaches which Celesta had left in the peach-house.

  “I don’t understand it, Miss Celesta, and that’s a fact!”

  “Who was that?” Celesta asked,


  “ ’Twas a groom from the Priory. He hands me the peaches, says: ‘His Lordship’s compliments and he hopes he may have the honour of calling on Miss Celesta Wroxley at three o’clock this afternoon.’ ”

  Celesta drew in her breath.

  “No! No! I cannot see him!”

  Her voice seemed to ring out in the tiny room and Nana looked at her in surprise.

  “I don’t understand, dearie, what His Lordship was doing with your peaches,” she said, “but its certain you must receive him, as I’ve told his groom.”

  “I cannot do that!” Celesta cried, “you do not understand, Nana. I cannot ... meet him!”

  “I don’t know what’s come over you,” Nana said sharply as if Celesta were still five years old. “His Lordship is behaving in a very proper manner. It’s only right that he should call on you. If it comes to that, it’s the least he can do!”

  “Did you ask his name?” Celesta asked in a weak voice.

  “Of course!” Nana answered. “I know how to behave! ‘May I ask, young man,’ I says to the groom, ‘the name of His Lordship? We’ve only just heard of his arrival at the Priory.’

  “ ‘My master’s name,’ he answered, ‘is The Right Honourable the Earl of Meltham.’

  “Thank you,’ I says, ‘and will you inform His Lordship that Miss Celesta Wroxley will be pleased to receive His Lordship at the time suggested’.”

  Celesta did not speak. She had been so certain that the new owner of the Priory would bear a different name.

  Nana, accepting her silence as assent to what was suggested, went on reflectively:

  “I’m thinking now that I’ve heard of His Lordship. Surely his name is often mentioned in that newspaper you read so carefully?”

  “He is constantly in attendance on the King,” Celesta said faintly.

  “And one of the raffish Bucks that, as Regent, His Majesty was always entertaining at Carlton House, I shouldn’t wonder!” Nana added.

  “I think His Lordship is very distinguished and very wealthy,” Celesta murmured. “Meltham House in Derbyshire is famous. I have seen pictures of it.”

  “Then what would he be wanting with the Priory?” Nana asked.

  “That is what I do not understand.”

  Celesta paused for a moment and then the words seemed to burst from her.

  “Oh, Nana! Nana! Do you really think it is true? Can Giles have lost the whole Estate at the gaming tables? How could he do such a thing?”

  “There’s no accounting for what Master Giles will do these days,” Nana said bitterly, and added in a low voice, “and he was such a dear little boy.”

  She walked from the room as she spoke and Celesta knew it was to hide her tears.

  Nana had always loved Giles and given him an almost slavish devotion.

  In consequence he had found her extremely irritating.

  “Keep that old woman away from me!” he would say to Celesta. “I am too old to be nannied!”

  But Nana had gone on loving him. He had been “her baby” just as Celesta had been after she was born, but Giles had held first place in her heart.

  ‘It was the same with Mama!’ Celesta thought sometimes when she could bear to think of her mother.

  Even when she was a very small child she had realised that when Mama came into the Nursery her face would light up as she lifted Giles into her arms.

  It was Giles who always had the special tid-bit, the extra chocolate, the final good-night lass. Yet he never seemed to want such affection as Celesta had wanted it.

  Perhaps it was because he was a boy, or perhaps he was not a particularly loving person?

  He had always been restless, he had always craved adventure, always wanted things to happen; while Celesta had been content with life as it was and the happiness of being at home.

  Celesta stood in the Dining-Room for so long that Nana with her eyes suspiciously red came back to see what was happening.

  “Go upstairs and change, Miss Celesta,” she said in her scolding voice which meant she was emotionally upset “You’ll find the new white muslin gown I made for you hanging in the wardrobe. Put it on, and for Heaven’s sake do something with your hair. You look a real romp!”

  “I do not suppose it will matter,” Celesta said.

  “It matters very much,” Nana snapped. “I wish His Lordship to treat you with proper respect. After all, Miss Celesta, remember we are living on his property—he might wish to turn us off!”

  “Turn us off?” Celesta’s eyes were wide.

  That was something she had not considered. But of course, if Giles had lost the Priory with its one thousand acres of land to the Earl of Meltham, the Garden Cottage would have gone too.

  “He will let us stay. I am sure he will let us stay,” she said in a voice that did not sound very convincing.

  “Then make yourself pleasant,” Nana told her. “I can’t believe that any Gentleman would wish to turn you out of the only home you have, but then one never knows with these gamesters!”

  She paused for a moment before she added:

  “Make it very clear, dearie, that I’m not only in the position of being a servant but also your Chaperon!”

  “My Chaperon?” Celesta repeated.

  “That’s what I said and that’s what I meant,” Nana answered. “You know as well as I do, Miss Celesta, that it’s not right for a young lady of your age to live here alone without a Chaperon.”

  “Are you suggesting,” Celesta asked with just a faint twinkle in her eyes, “that you should come into the Drawing-Room and sit with me while I receive His Lordship?”

  “No, I wouldn’t go as far as that,” Nana answered, “but you can tell him that your father considered me in the light of a Chaperon who could be trusted, and that’s what I am!”

  Celesta tried not to laugh. Nana on her dignity could be quite awe-inspiring.

  At the same time she could not credit for a moment that the Earl of Meltham would be in the slightest degree concerned whether Miss Wroxley, who could be mistaken for a village maiden, was conventionally chaperoned or not.

  But because she wished to show him how wrong he had been in mistaking her identity, she took quite an unusual amount of trouble over her appearance.

  The muslin gown that Nana had made her was very simple, but it was crisp and clean and the fact that it was not in the fashion did not worry Celesta unduly.

  At last when she had arranged her fair hair and clasped an enamel locket she had had since a child round her neck, she looked very different from the untidy wind-swept girl His Lordship had surprised in the peach-house.

  She was glad to see that the small Sitting-Room which Nana sometimes called by the grand name of Drawing-Room looked very attractive.

  The sun was flooding in through the bow-window which over-looked the small garden and at the other end of the room there was a window onto the front of the Cottage which stood back not far from the road.

  The bright chintz curtains seemed appropriate to the ship’s beams supporting the ceiling and the open, brick fireplace in which reposed several large logs.

  The sofa and chairs had all come from the Priory. The pictures were small ones which Giles had not thought worth selling, of the Wroxley family, mostly of their children.

  There were two vases of roses which Celesta had arranged the previous day and which filled the room with their fragrance.

  And on the polished wooden floor there were rugs which although worn still retained some of their beautiful Persian colouring and intricate design.

  It was a pretty room and a gracious back-ground for a lady.

  Celesta heard the sound of a carriage and horses drawing up outside and the clock on the mantelpiece showed it to be two minutes before three o’clock.

  “His Lordship has come in style,” she told herself.

  She thought perhaps having discovered her identity he was making a slight apology for what had taken place that morning in the garden.

  Then as
she heard Nana open the door she found unaccountably her heart was beating much quicker than usual and she felt more shy than she had ever felt in her life before.

  She had a sudden impulse to run away, to refuse to encounter again the man who had kissed her for the first time in her life! A man who for some reason she could not explain to herself had hypnotised her into behaving in a very unaccountable manner.

  Without meaning to do so she clasped her slim fingers together as the door of the Sitting-Room opened.

  “The Earl of Meltham, Miss Celesta!” Nana announced impressively.

  He came into the room and Celesta thought he seemed even larger and more over-powering than he had seemed in the peach-house.

  She had not realised that his shoulders were so broad or that he could move with a languid grace which in itself seemed almost insufferably arrogant.

  She had not forgotten the deep cynical lines on his face, or that his eyes with the first penetrating glance seemed to take in every detail of her appearance.

  She swept him a deep curtsy, then found it hard to look up.

  “Your servant, Miss Wroxley.”

  She found it impossible to speak until with an obvious effort she managed to say:

  “Will you not sit down, My Lord?”

  “Thank you.”

  He seated himself in a wing-back arm-chair which seemed particularly suitable for him.

  He looked across the hearth to where Celesta had sat down on the very edge of a chair, forcing herself to look at him in what she hoped was an ordinary manner.

  “I have only just learnt, Miss Wroxley, of your presence on the Estate,” the Earl said. “Your brother somewhat unaccountably did not acquaint me with the fact.”

  “Is it true,” Celesta asked in a breathlessly little voice, “that the Priory is now ... yours?”

  “I won it at cards from your brother two weeks ago,” the Earl answered. “I gather he had little else to wager.”

  Celesta bit back the words which came to her lips. Then the Earl said in a kinder tone:

  “It must have come as a shock to you; for I gather that until we met this morning you were not aware of what had occurred.”

  The colour rose in Celesta’s cheeks.

  “No, My Lord, I have not heard from my brother.”