The Earl Escapes Read online

  Mrs. Brooke spoke as if it was something so scandalous that she could hardly talk about it and so it was with great difficulty that Valencia prevented herself from laughing.

  She knew it was usual for everybody, in even the most fashionable houses, to breakfast downstairs at about nine to nine-thirty. As did the Queen and the Princess of Wales.

  Only if someone was ill did they expect to have breakfast taken upstairs to them. However there were occasions in the past when some of the Earl’s more aged relatives had asked for breakfast upstairs.

  This had caused quite a stir as they had not any breakfast sets that Burrows, the old butler, considered good enough to be used for the guests in question.

  Only after complaints to the Earl were two sets purchased from London to sit on one side in a cupboard and there they remained until there was a further demand for them.

  Because she could not contain her curiosity, Valencia now enquired,

  “How many ladies breakfasted upstairs, Mrs. Brooke?”

  “Three of them, miss,” she replied. “Three! And us with only two breakfast sets and Mr. Burrows in a tizzy tryin’ to arrange for a third tray, which never looked right ’owever ’ard he tried to make it.”

  “I quite understand it being a surprise to you,” the Vicar said, “but I expect the ladies were tired after their journey and perhaps tomorrow things will be different.”

  “I very much doubt it, sir,” Mrs. Brooke said. “Already I’ve been told one lady will require coffee durin’ the mornin’, another has a special concoction she’s brought with ’er as ’as to be ’eated up, and the third was asleep when she was called and hasn’t yet given ’er orders, but doubtless I shall get them!”

  She drew in her breath and then carried on,

  “I’m too old, Vicar, and that’s the truth, for this sort of commotion. I was a-thinkin’ of retirin’ afore ’is Lordship came ’ome and now it’s very much in me mind that it’s somethin’ I should do afore I’m run orf me feet and in me grave even before I’m aware of it.”

  “Now, you know, Mrs. Brooke,” the Vicar said consolingly, “that The Priory could not do without you. I suggest, therefore, that while his Lordship is here that you engage Gladys Bell, who is a very nice girl and a willing worker.”

  He stopped speaking to smile at her before he went on,

  “It might be an idea to ask her mother, who is an excellent woman, to give you a hand temporarily. I feel sure that she would be only too willing to oblige.”

  Mrs. Brooke then looked at the Vicar with an expression of satisfaction on her face.

  “There now, sir. I never thought of that. I knowed if I came ’ere you would ’elp me and make it all right with ’is Lordship’s Manager, who’s always tellin’ us there’s too many on the payroll as it is. But I can’t manage with the two I ’as in the kitchen at the moment and that’s a fact.”

  “I appreciate that, Mrs. Brooke,” the Vicar said. “Leave it to me. I will speak to Mr. Rawlins sometime today. I am sure that he will understand and knows like me that The Priory would never be the same if you left.”

  “I only ’opes ’is Lordship feels the same as you do, sir,” Mrs. Brooke said.

  She rose with a little difficulty, as she was very fat, and added,

  “I’d better be gettin’ back now, but I’ll ask if a groom can take a message to Gladys Bell and her mother.”

  “Yes, do,” the Vicar said. “I’ve known Gladys all her life since I christened her. She will do her very best, although it is always difficult for you to teach anyone when you have so much to do.”

  “That’s the truth, every word of it,” Mrs. Brooke exclaimed. “Thank you, sir, thank you very much. I knowed you wouldn’t let me down.”

  She went from the room and, as she closed the door behind her, Valencia gave a little laugh.

  “Oh, Papa, can you not imagine the commotion? The ladies asking for tisanes, things Mrs. Brooke has never heard of and, of course, she is horrified!”

  “If you ask me,” the Vicar said, “she is making it sound rather worse than it really is because she has had her eye on Gladys for some time now.”

  He sighed before he went on,

  “But Rawlins was firm that nobody now should be engaged at The Priory until he could talk over such matters with the Earl.”

  “Well, anything would be better than losing Mrs. Brooke.”

  “I agree with you,” the Vicar said, “and I am sure that Rawlins will feel the same. At the same time we must not forget that the new Master may have ideas of his own.”

  “Then I only hope they are the same as ours,” Valencia said sighing.

  But she felt very curious.

  She knew that it would a great mistake for her to go up to The Priory.

  Yet she could not resist walking through their own orchard to where there was some high ground at the end of it.

  From there she could look over the garden surrounding the house and down to the lake.

  Because the sunshine was turning the water to gold and there were still some late daffodils under the trees in the Park, it looked very beautiful.

  She thought that no man who had inherited anything quite so lovely could be anything but content.

  Then, as she looked, she was aware that somebody was riding from the house over the bridge that spanned the lake.

  She saw that there were two men on horseback.

  With a little leap of her heart she was sure that one of them was the new Earl.

  There was something about him that reminded her of George and William.

  It was perhaps the breadth of his shoulders, the way he held his head high and the experienced manner way that he sat on his horse.

  ‘That is the Earl, I am sure of it,’ she told herself.

  She watched as he and the man with him had reached v the Park and started to move quickly beneath the trees.

  Beyond the wood there was some flat ground on which they could gallop their horses.

  She longed to be with them, but knew that she dare not take any of the horses out of the stable without the new Earl’s permission.

  She had regularly ridden the Earl’s horses which, as several of the grooms were growing old, needed the exercise she could give them.

  The horses would be waiting for her as she entered the stable to see them in the morning and when they nuzzled their noses against her she felt that the ones she was not riding were jealous of the one being saddled for her.

  There was no need to have a groom accompany her as would ordinarily have been correct.

  She knew every inch of the land around the house and everyone in the village as well as those who worked on the estate.

  They would tell her all their joys and sorrows and sometimes their complaints and she would listen to them and suggest that they see her father in the evening.

  Sometimes they did, but sometimes they would say,

  “I feels better now I’ve talked to you, Miss Valencia. I just had to get it off me chest, so to speak.”

  “I do understand,” Valencia would tell them.

  Then she would ride off again, knowing that none of the troubles at Dolphin Priory were very big ones.

  Later on in the day they had a visit from the Earl’s secretary, who looked after the London house. He was a middle-aged man who had served the late Earl and was an old friend of the Vicar.

  “It is lovely to see you, Mr. Stevenson,” Valencia said when she found him in her father’s study.

  “And you are looking prettier than ever, Miss Valencia,” he replied.

  “What is happening at The Priory?” Valencia asked eagerly.

  Mr. Stevenson hesitated for a moment.

  Then he thought that what he could say to the Vicar and Valencia might be indiscreet.

  “Well, things are a little difficult because it is all new to his Lordship and he has had a great deal to do at the War Office, which has prevented him from coming to the country until now.”

  “So
that was the reason,” Valencia exclaimed.

  Mr. Stevenson nodded.

  “The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs thinks very highly of his Lordship and, although I kept asking him when he would like to come down here, it has been impossible for him to leave London.”

  “How will he be able to see everything if he has a party with him?” Valencia asked.

  She knew as soon as she spoke that Mr. Stevenson did not wish to answer this question.

  Then the Vicar, as if he also was interested, asked,

  “Who are in the party, by the way? Anyone who has been here before?”

  “No, nobody, but you may have heard of Lady Hester Stansfield.”

  “I don’t think so,” the Vicar answered.

  “She is acclaimed as one of the most beautiful women in all of London,” Mr. Stevenson explained, “and it is not at all surprising that she has a great number of admirers.”

  He did not sound as though he admired Lady Hester and Valencia asked him,

  “Is she really very beautiful?”

  “Very!” Mr. Stevenson affirmed. “At the same time I do find her Ladyship very difficult and very demanding.”

  “In what way?” the Vicar enquired.

  “Well, she has made so many changes in the London house,” Mr. Stevenson said. “In fact she behaves just as if she owns it and, although it is well known that his Lordship says he has no wish to marry, I would not be surprised, Vicar, if you are not shortly going to be asked to officiate at his Wedding.”

  “Goodness gracious me,” the Vicar cried. “I had no idea there was anything like that in the air!”

  “I do hope Lady Hester will not make a lot of changes here,” Valencia said in a small voice.

  “I am afraid that you will have to be prepared for them, Miss Valencia,” Mr. Stevenson replied. “I understand that when she was married to Mr. Stansfield, who died of a heart attack last year, she was continually redecorating and rearranging his house in Hampshire and everybody was at odds over her constant demands.”

  Valencia gave a little cry of horror.

  “But – she cannot alter The Priory! It is lovely as it is. All it needs is for the Earl to live here.”

  “If he was married and had a family, then I am sure that things would be quite different,” the Vicar pointed out.

  Valencia knew that her father was soothingly putting the best complexion on the situation. But she knew Mr. Stevenson too well not to realise that Lady Hester had upset him.

  She could imagine nothing worse than for everything to be changed at The Priory

  Perhaps old servants would be replaced with new and younger ones.

  Then, almost like a ray of hope, she said,

  “Has the Earl really said that he has no wish to be married?”

  “It is something I have always heard talked about in London,” Mr. Stevenson said, “but since his return to England there have been quite a number of ladies trying to persuade him differently.”

  “Why should he wish to remain unmarried?” the Vicar asked.

  “Someone who served with him has told me that he said he travelled faster without any encumbrances, but I think that actually he had an unfortunate love affair when he was a mere Subaltern and it has put him against women.”

  He thought that Valencia looked surprised and he explained,

  “As he is so busy, his Lordship has allowed Lady Hester to arrange parties at the house in London and she has taken it upon herself to introduce him to the Social world.”

  “So it is her Ladyship’s friends, who have come with him here and who are upsetting Mrs. Brooke,” the Vicar interposed.

  “Why? What on earth can she have done to Mrs. Brooke.”

  The Vicar explained and Mr. Stevenson said,

  “I am only thankful that you have been able to arrange things so well, Vicar. I don’t mind telling you, I have had great trouble with the staff in London.”

  He sighed before he continued,

  “Her Ladyship complained about chef after chef whom I engaged and found fault with other members of the household until I have not known whether I was on my head or my heels.”

  ‘She sounds very tiresome indeed,’ Valencia thought.

  But she also hoped that she would have a chance to see her Ladyship.

  She knew that her father would not approve if she went anywhere near to The Priory without being invited.

  Then she had an idea.

  After Mr. Stevenson had left and the Vicar returned to his study, she went into the underground passage that led to the Chapel.

  She carried with her some extra flowers which she had picked from the garden to place in the vases near the Altar.

  There were some already there, but, while she had arranged the flowers in the drawing room and the other rooms, she had neglected the Chapel simply because it was only Friday.

  She always did the flowers there on Saturday so that they were fresh for the Vicar’s Service on Sunday.

  Now, she thought, if he found her arranging the flowers on the Altar he would only think that she was making the Chapel look attractive.

  He would not suspect that she had any other idea in her mind.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Valencia thought, ‘after I have done the flowers, I could slip into the house and, if I went up to the third floor and looked down into the hall, I would see her Ladyship and some of the other members of the house party.’

  It was just a thought and because she knew the house so well, she knew that she could see and not be seen. And no one would have the least idea that she was there.

  She opened the door that led from the passage into the Vestry of the Chapel.

  As she expected, because it was so seldom used, she had to push it quite hard to get it to open.

  In the Vestry was her father’s surplice and a pile of dusty old hymn books.

  There were also the Registers that noted the births, deaths and marriages that had taken place amongst the family and household staff since the Chapel had first been built in 1553.

  It was some time since Valencia had read them.

  She thought now that, if the Earl married, her father would perhaps be adding a Christening of an heir to the Earldom.

  ‘He might have a daughter like me,’ Valencia told herself with a little smile ‘and she would not be half so important.’

  She put the flowers down on a table in the Vestry and was just going into the Chapel when she heard somebody speaking.

  Instantly she stiffened and stood very still.

  There were heavy curtains over the doorway that led from the Vestry into the Chapel.

  Her father had had the door removed because he had said it was cumbersome, inconvenient and invariably creaky whenever he opened it.

  Now, standing still behind the curtain, Valencia was aware that there were three people in the Chapel.

  “So we will carry him in here,” the man’s voice said, “and put him as near as possible to the Altar. Then and not before I will fetch his Chaplain. I have found out where he lives.”

  “I suppose there will be no difficulty in getting him to perform the Marriage Service?” another man asked.

  “Why should there be?” a woman’s voice questioned. “After all he is only a paid servant to his Lordship and, if he argues, you can threaten him.”

  “I think that would be a mistake,” the first man replied, “unless it is absolutely necessary.”

  “What is absolutely necessary,” the woman said, “is that he should marry me. Otherwise, my dear Edward, your debts will never be paid and neither will mine!”

  “I am very well aware of that,” said the man who had spoken. “At the same time, as Roger says, the Chaplain might be difficult even though we have a Special Licence.”

  “What are you saying,” the woman snapped, “is that he might not be able to make the responses. Well, I will make them for him and, once we are married, there will be nothing anyone can do about it, as you very well know.”
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  So stunned by what she was hearing, Valencia very gently moved the curtain in front of her just a fraction to one side.

  She bent forward so that she could see into the Chapel with just one of her eyes.

  Standing in the centre of the small aisle of the Chapel itself, which had been built to hold, at the outside, thirty people, she could see a lady.

  She then thought that she was the most beautiful woman imaginable.

  Glittering with jewels, she was in a red gown, which accentuated the darkness of her hair.

  She just seemed to glow like a precious stone against the ancient walls of the Chapel.

  The two men standing near her were dressed in the height of fashion.

  As one of them distinctly resembled her in a very masculine manner, Valencia was sure that this was her brother.

  He was the ‘Edward’ whose debts had to be paid. Then, as she looked again, the woman, whom she knew must be Lady Hester Stansfield, said,

  “It is all planned and, as soon as dinner is over, you carry him in here while the others keep watch so that the servants don’t interfere.”

  She paused, pointing her finger and then went on,

  “You, Edward, fetch the Chaplain or, if you prefer, Roger will go with you. I hear there is an underground passage from here to the Chaplain’s House, so no one will see you.”

  Valencia gave a little gasp.

  She was suddenly afraid that they might decide to look for it, in which case they would discover her standing there listening to them.

  But to her relief, when she was just wondering if she should hurry away, she heard Lady Hester say,

  “Well, that being settled, I am going upstairs to rest. Now, listen, Edward, I will go up to my room after dinner and I will not come down until the Chaplain is here and you have persuaded him that all he has to do is to perform the Ceremony.”

  “Would it not be better for you to wait with Dolphinston?” Edward asked.

  “No, it would not!” Lady Hester snapped. “You have both seen what all the servants are like in this place, nosing about and looking at us as if we were animals from the Zoo. If we are not careful, they will take it upon themselves to interfere.”