21 The Mysterious Maid-Servant (The Eternal Collection) Page 2
The Earl had met the Colonel in the hunting field and they had become close friends with a common interest in sport.
Colonel Berkeley, who had his own pack of harriers at the age of sixteen, now at thirty hunted his hounds in the Cotswold and Berkeley country alternately.
He had made the Berkeley Hunt staff abandon their historic tawny coats and instead wear a scarlet coat with a black velvet collar and a flying fox embroidered in silver and gold.
The Colonel was very popular as a Master and was always ready to pay liberally for poultry destroyed or any damage done by his hounds.
At the moment he was at the Castle, which was why the Earl was staying alone at German Cottage, but the twenty-five minutes from Berkeley to Cheltenham meant nothing to him and he would ride far further when he was hunting.
It was the fashion in Cheltenham to refer to the magnificent and impressive mansions with which the town abounded, as “cottages”. They were in fact nothing of the sort, and the Earl found the luxury with which he was surrounded very much to his taste.
He was well aware that the best hotel in town, The Plough, would not have provided him with anything like the comfort he could enjoy as the Colonel’s guest.
It did not strike him in the least reprehensible that he should steal one of his host’s servants because he required her services for himself.
He sent for the housekeeper and told her of his plans. Because the woman was used to the ways of her master and found the ‘quality’ invariably incomprehensible in their behaviour, she merely curtsied and told the Earl that although it would be difficult she would try to find someone else to replace Giselda.
“Why difficult?” the Earl enquired, looking around him at the lavish furnishings.
“Well sir – girls are not always willing to work at the Castle or house,” Mrs. Kingdom replied with a little cough of embarrassment.
The Earl suddenly remembered that one of his friend’s chief preoccupations was the begetting of illegitimate Berkeleys. Incorrigible where women were concerned, he had been told that there were thirty-three children within a radius of ten miles of the Castle.
It was therefore all the more surprising that Giselda should be working at German Cottage, but he fancied that she was not aware of her employer’s reputation.
“What do you know about the girl?” the Earl asked the housekeeper.
“Nothing, my Lord – but she is nicely spoken and obviously a better class than most of the applicants for the job, which were not many. I took her on, hoping she’d turn out satisfactorily.”
“You must have noticed that she seemed rather frail for the type of work you assigned her?”
Mrs. Kingdom shrugged her shoulders.
She did not say in so many words, but she implied that either a domestic servant could do the work or she could not. In the latter case there was only one remedy – to be rid of her.
The Earl, who was used to dealing with both men and women in his position of command, sensed all that Mrs. Kingdom did not say.
“Giselda will by my servant and I will pay her wages,” he said. “As she does not sleep in the house, she will require a room in which to change her clothes if she wishes to do so.”
“That’ll be seen to, my Lord.”
Mrs. Kingdom curtsied politely and left the room.
The Earl shouted for his valet.
“Food, Batley! Where is the food I ordered?”
“It’s coming, my Lord. It’s unlike you to eat so early.”
“I will eat when I please,” the Earl said sharply, “and tell the butler I want a bottle of decent claret.”
“Very good, my Lord.”
The Earl watched the two footmen bringing in the table, which they set beside his bed. Then they carried in a tray of cold meats that would have stimulated the appetite of an epicure.
Colonel Berkeley, unlike many of his contemporaries, was as interested in food as in drink, and the Earl, when he had been abroad, had learnt to appreciate the more subtle flavours of Continental cooking.
‘Tonight I will order a different sort of meal,’ he thought.
He realised he was interested in his experiment to see how a starving person would react to a sudden abundance of food.
How often in Portugal had he wished he had a hundred bullock carts full of grain to distribute among the women and children?
But as it was, the troops often went hungry and there was nothing to spare.
He had never expected to find starvation in England, which even after the long years of war with Napoleon seemed to be a land flowing with milk and honey.
Giselda came into the room looking very different from the way she had left it.
She was wearing a plain blue gown, which the Earl recognised was slightly old-fashioned. At the same time it was by no means the type of garment that would have been worn by a servant.
A small muslin collar encircled her neck, tied with a bow of blue velvet ribbon and the same in the shape of small muslin ruffles encircled her wrists.
They hid the prominent bones on her arms, but nothing could disguise the taut lines of her chin or the shadows beneath her cheekbones.
Now that she had removed the large mobcap, the Earl could see that her hair was fair and brushed back from an oval forehead.
It was arranged in imitation of a fashionable style, but he had the feeling that, like its owner, the hair had grown thinner and was limp and lacked buoyancy through lack of nutrition.
She stood just inside the door and after a quick glance at the table and the silver dishes piled high with food she looked only at the Earl.
“I am waiting for you to join me,” he said, “and because I think under the circumstances you would prefer it we will wait on ourselves – or rather you will wait on me.
“Yes, my Lord.”
“I would like a glass of claret and I hope you will join me.
Giselda lifted the decanter from a side table and filled the Earl’s glass, then she looked at the glass set for her and hesitated.
“It will do you good,” the Earl said.
“I think it would be – unwise, my Lord.”
“Why?”
Even as he asked the question he knew it was a stupid one and substituted another.
“When did you last eat?”
“Before I left here yesterday evening.”
“Did you have a big meal?”
“I thought I was hungry, but I found it difficult to swallow.”
The Earl knew this was inevitably the result of malnutrition.
“I suppose you took home what you could not eat?” he remarked in a practical tone.
“I could not do – that.”
“They would not give you the food?”
“I asked the chef if I could have a half chicken, which was left from your dinner and which he was about to drop into the waste bin.”
She paused before she went on,
“He did not answer me, but threw what was left of the chicken to a dog which had already eaten too much to be interested in it.”
She told the story without any emotion in her voice. She was just stating a fact.
“Sit down,” the Earl said. “I want to see you eat and let me say before we start that anything that is left you can take home with you.”
He saw Giselda stiffen.
Then she said,
“You make me feel ashamed. I was not begging when I told you that story.”
“I had already decided before you told it to me what I intended to do,” the Earl said. “Now eat, child, and for God’s sake stop arguing with me! If there is one thing that infuriates me it is when someone argues with everything I suggest.”
There was just a suspicion of a smile on Giselda’s lips as she seated herself.
“I am sorry my Lord – and I am in fact very – grateful.”
“Then show it by putting some food inside you,” he said. “I do not like thin women.”
She smiled again.
If he had been expecting to enjoy the spectacle of someone very hungry making up for long weeks of want, he was to be disappointed.
Giselda ate slowly and daintily and long before the Earl had finished she could eat no more.
The Earl persuaded her to drink a little claret, but she would only take a few sips.
“I have grown used to being without,” she said apologetically, “but now with the money you have given me, we shall fare better.”
“I imagine it will not go far,” the Earl said dryly. “I am told that prices have increased enormously since the war.”
“That is true, but we will still – manage.”
“Have you always lived in Cheltenham?”
“No.”
“Where did you live?”
“In a small village in – Worcestershire.”
“Then why have you come into town?”
There was a moment’s silence and then Giselda replied,
“If your Lordship will excuse me, I would like now to go home and collect the ointment you will need for your leg. I am not certain that my mother has enough. If not, she will make some more and that will take time. I would not wish you to be without it tonight.”
The Earl looked at her.
“In other words, you don’t intend to answer my questions!”
“No – my Lord.”
“Why not?”
“I would not wish your Lordship to think me impertinent, but my home life is private.”
“Why?”
“For reasons that I am – unable to tell – your Lordship.”
Her eyes met the Earl’s and it seemed as if there was for a moment a battle of wills between them.
Then the Earl said in an exasperated tone,
“Why the hell must you be so secretive and mysterious? I am interested in you and God knows I have little enough to interest me lying here day after day with nothing but my blasted leg to think about!”
“I am – sorry that I should – disappoint your Lordship.”
“But you do not intend to assuage my curiosity?”
“No – my Lord.”
The Earl could not help being amused.
It seemed so extraordinary that this frail creature with her thin face and prominent bones should defy him, even though she must know that he was prepared to be her benefactor.
However, since for the moment he had no wish to bully her, he gave in with good grace.
“Very well then, have it your own way. Pack up what you want and be off with you and do not be late coming back or I shall imagine that you have absconded with my money.”
“You must realise it is always a mistake to pay in advance.”
And although he was surprised at her reply he found himself smiling at it.
She packed the cold meats from the dishes in white paper, folded them neatly into a parcel and picked it up in both hands.
“Thank you very much, my Lord,” she said softly.
Then, as if she suddenly recalled herself to her duties, she added,
“You will rest this afternoon? And if possible you should sleep.”
“Are you ordering me to do so?”
“Of course! You have put me in the position of nursing you. I must therefore tell your Lordship what is the right thing to do even if you refuse to do it.”
“Do you anticipate that I might?”
“I think it unlikely that anyone could make you do anything you did not want to do and I am therefore appealing to your Lordship’s better judgement.”
“That is very astute of you, Giselda,” the Earl said. “But you know as well as I do that ‘when the cat is away the mice will play’ so if you really care about my well-being, I suggest you are not away for too long!”
“I shall return as soon as I have the ointment, my Lord.”
Giselda curtsied with a grace that was indefinable and left the room.
The Earl watched her go and picking up his glass of claret drank it reflectively.
For the first time for a year he had an interest outside his own health.
An active man, a man who for the past ten years had been occupied in either the field of battle or the field of sport, he found the inaction imposed upon him since being wounded an intolerable condition.
He violently resented his ill health. It was a weakness he despised and he fought against it, as if it was an enemy he must wear down and vanquish.
There was no reason for him to be alone.
Cheltenham was full of people who were well aware of his Social importance and of Officers who had either served under him or who admired him as a military leader.
They would have been only too pleased to visit him and when it was possible, entertain him in their houses.
But the Earl was not only in bad health – he was also bad-tempered. He had been outstandingly fit all his life and he loathed now being an invalid.
He decided quite unreasonably that Society bored him, especially a Society where he could not for the moment enjoy the favours of attractive women.
Like his Commander, the Duke of Wellington, the Earl liked the society of women, especially those with whom he could indulge in a freedom of speech and manner that was not permissible amongst the refined ladies of the Beau Monde.
His affaires de coeur therefore ranged from the glamorous opera singers of Drury Lane to the most attractive and fashionable beauties of St. James.
It was difficult for any of them to refuse him. Not only was he important by birth and extremely rich, he also had that indefinable attraction that women found irresistible.
It was not simply that he was tall, broad shouldered and handsome. In uniform he made a picture that was enough to make any female’s heart beat faster, but he also had an additional something in his manner that women found fascinating.
It captivated them to a point where they lost not only their heads but also their hearts.
It might perhaps have been the lazy indifference with which he regarded them that was very different from the alert commands that he gave when dealing with his men.
“You treat me as if I were a doll or a puppet – just a plaything that has no other function in life except to amuse you,” one charmer had said petulantly.
It was a statement that was echoed in various ways by almost every woman who had preceded or followed her.
The truth lay in the fact that the Earl did not take women seriously.
With his soldiers it was different.
The men he commanded adored him because he treated them as individuals and, although he expected implicit obedience, he was never too busy to listen to a man’s grievances or his personal difficulties.
It was not conceit that made the Earl bolt his door against the lovely women who would have been only too thrilled to sit at his bedside and hold his hand after Mr. Newell had operated on him.
Nor was it frustration at being unable to make love to them physically.
It was in truth that he found the company of women boring, unless he was actively pursuing them and indulging in the cut and thrust of a flirtation, which inevitably ended in bed.
So, of his own free will, the Earl had confined himself to the conversation of Batley and the interchange of pleasantries that took place every day between himself and Colonel Berkeley’s Comptroller of the Household, Mr. Knightley.
Now, unexpectedly, entirely by chance, a woman had brought him a new interest and, if she had planned it, Giselda could not have aroused him more effectively than by being elusive, secretive and mysterious.
The Earl was used to women who told him everything about themselves long before he asked them to do so, and who were only too willing to talk interminably to him so long as they were the subject of the conversation.
It was not only pity that he felt for Giselda because she
was so undernourished, she positively interested him as a person.
How could it be possible that a girl who was obviously a lady, well educated and of a refinement that showed that she had come from a good home, been brought to the point of starvation?
And not only deprived herself, but also her mother and her young brother.
How could they suddenly have been reduced to such poverty? How, if her father’s death had brought about a financial crisis, had there been no relations to help? How was it possible to have no one to give them a roof over their heads?
The Earl did not sleep as Giselda had suggested he should. Instead he laid thinking about her, wondering how he could persuade her to talk about herself.
‘I dare say when I learn the story it will be a very ordinary one,’ he thought. ‘Cards, drink, other women! What else is there that ensures that when a man dies, his family is left without support?’
Although he laughed at himself for being interested, there was no doubt that he was intrigued and insatiably curious and the afternoon seemed to pass remarkably slowly.
He had just begun to wonder if Giselda had other reasons for not returning, when the door opened and she came in.
She had changed her gown, he noticed at once, for one that was more attractive although it was definitely as dated as the other had been.
She carried a shawl over one arm and on the other a basket.
The plain bonnet that framed her thin face was trimmed with blue ribbons, which matched the colour of her eyes. For the first time it crossed the Earl’s mind that she would be beautiful if she were not so thin.
“I am sorry, my Lord, to have been so long,” she said, “but I had to buy the ingredients my mother required for the ointment and it took a little time to make. However, I have it with me now, and I am sure you will be much more comfortable once I have applied it.”
“I was wondering why you were so long.”
“May I do your leg now?” Giselda asked. “Then perhaps, if you do not want me any more, I could go home.”
“I expect you to dine with me.”
Giselda was still for a moment, then she said quietly,
“Is that really necessary? You gave me luncheon and I was grateful. I guessed, before they told me downstairs that you do not usually eat so much at midday, that you were being kind.”