The Goddess and the Gaiety Girl Read online

  He found himself wondering if her hair was as long as Katie King’s, then told himself he was too busy to have time to think about young women, however attractive they might be.

  “I must get back to work, Miss Braintree,” he said. “Forgive me for bringing you such bad news. I only wish I could be optimistic and tell you that your father will recover.”

  “He must never know,” Larentia said, almost in a whisper. “I shall tell him you are certain he will soon be back on his feet again and when you next call on us, you must say the same thing.”

  “You are your father’s daughter,” Dr. Medwin said. “I admire you as I admire him, and I will do anything in my power to prevent him from suffering.”

  “Thank – you.”

  There was just a little sob in her voice and her eyes were moist.

  She blinked the tears away and saw the Doctor to the door before she went into the kitchen to make her father the coffee he enjoyed when he was working.

  Now as she picked up the piece of paper he had dropped she put it in front of him, then sat down in a chair looking at him as if she saw him for the first time.

  No one, she thought, could have a more distinguished looking father. His grey hair brushed back from a square forehead and his fine features seemed to belong to another age and always entranced her.

  She could understand how her mother had fallen in love with him when they first met and knew her father had felt the same.

  “Your mother was very beautiful,” he had said to Larentia hundreds of times when they had been talking about the woman they had both loved. “She had Hungarian blood in her, which I suppose accounts for the beauty of her hair which was like yours, but a little deeper in colour. I used to tell her she should have been painted by Boucher.”

  “She always seemed to me to be like a Fairy Princess,” Larentia said. “I remember sometimes when you were going out to dinner together that I used to think that wherever you went people would stop talking just to look at you both.”

  Her father had laughed.

  Then he had said with a serious note in his voice,

  “Can you imagine what it meant to me possessing nothing of value but my brain when your mother said she would marry me?”

  “I remember her telling me that,” Larentia said, “and she told me that the only thing that mattered in the world was love, and she was a millionairess a million times over because you loved her.”

  She saw how much her words pleased her father.

  “I have done some good work today,” he said now, “but I do feel a little tired, Larentia.”

  “Drink your coffee, Papa, then try to rest. It has been a lovely afternoon and I want to sit in the garden, but I will not be long in case you need me.”

  “You are not to go out into the street alone at this time of the evening,” the Professor said.

  “Of course not, Papa. You know I promised you I would never do that.”

  “You should have somebody with you always,” the Professor murmured, almost beneath his breath, “but how can we pay for a servant at the moment?”

  His eyes were anxious as he added,

  “When this book is finished I am sure it will make more than any of my others. My new research on Arthur is quite different from what I have done before. In fact, I feel it important that Alfred Tennyson should know what I have recently unearthed.”

  “I believe Mr. Tennyson has been living in the Isle of Wight ever since he married,” Larentia said coldly.

  She did not wish her father to know how deeply she resented the fact that twelve years ago when Alfred Tennyson was working on ‘The Idylls of the King’ he had consulted her father and visited him continually.

  Then, when the book had been published, he had forgotten all about the assistance he had received from the greatest expert on that subject.

  Because her father had been hurt by the indifference of the man whose work he admired, they had never spoken of Alfred Tennyson. But now it flashed through Larentia’s mind that she might ask for his assistance.

  ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ must have brought Mr. Tennyson in a fortune, she told herself.

  She knew that ‘The Holy Grail’ and other poems had been published this year, but she could not afford to buy her father a copy, so she did not mention it to him in case she made him curious.

  “I expect Alfred Tennyson has completely forgotten Papa’s existence,” she told herself bitterly.

  Then looking at the serene, handsome face of her father she thought she would not have him upset or worried by the treachery of his friends or enemies.

  “When you have had a rest, Papa, I will bring up your supper, and while you are eating it, I will read aloud what you have written today. I am sure it will be very exciting, and I shall enjoy every word.”

  “You always encourage me, my dearest,” the Professor replied.

  Then as she took the empty cup from him to lay it down on the tray she thought he was, in fact, very tired and the effort of writing grew heavier for him every day.

  “You are not in – pain, Papa?” she asked, finding it difficult to say the words.

  “Only a little, a very little. It is nothing,” the Professor replied testily.

  Larentia did not say any more. She walked across the room to pull down the blind a little and shut out the evening sun.

  Then as she walked carefully down the stairs, carrying the empty coffee cup on a tray, she heard a knock on the front door and wondered who it could be.

  “Suppose,” she told herself, “it is a letter from the publishers telling Papa that unexpectedly they have sold a great many more copies of his last book!”

  But she knew that it was just a fancy.

  The book he had written on King Arthur, translated from the Welsh poem ‘Y Gododdin’ had not sold for over a year, which meant that the libraries already had all they needed and the public were not interested.

  As she reached the foot of the stairs the knock came again and as she walked towards the door she wondered who could be in such a hurry that they could not wait for her to answer their summons.

  Chapter Two

  Larentia opened the door and to her surprise saw a gentleman she had never seen before.

  Most of her father’s friends were elderly, but this man, although not young, was certainly not in that category. Then because she was observant she noticed that while he appeared outwardly smart there were signs of poverty. The over-polished shoes to hide the cracks, the starched cuffs of his shirt trimmed at the edges, and a tie that was definitely worn at the knot.

  Then she realised that the caller was staring at her in astonishment.

  It was something she was used to, but not in quite such an obvious manner.

  Then as she waited he found his voice.

  “You are Miss Braintree?”

  “Yes.”

  “I wonder if it would be possible for me to speak to you for a moment, privately? I am a friend of Dr. Medwin’s.”

  Larentia gave him a little smile.

  “Dr. Medwin is an old friend of my father’s.”

  “I am aware of that, and it is about your father I wish to talk to you.”

  Larentia opened the door wider and Harry Carrington stepped into the hall.

  She appeared to hesitate for a moment, and then she said in a low voice,

  “My father is resting and if he hears us talking here he may not sleep. I was going into the garden.”

  “Then I should be very glad to accompany you,” Harry said.

  She smiled at him again and he told himself that never in his life had he seen anyone so beautiful, and with the same colour hair as Katie’s, but which embellished Larentia in a different way.

  He found it difficult to put into words, but there was about this girl, he thought, something he had never found in a woman, and as he followed her into the garden he tried to think what it was.

  ‘Katie must have looked like this when she first came to Londo
n,’ he told himself and found the word he was seeking. It was ‘pure’.

  He thought that garden was a rather pretentious name for what was little more than a plot of ground bordered by a wall which protected it from being seen from the road, containing one acacia tree and a few rather tired-looking shrubs.

  But there was a wooden seat with its back to the house and when Larentia sat down on it the sunshine illuminated her hair and gave the whole garden a beauty that had not been there before.

  Harry seated himself beside her.

  When he took off his hat and put it down on the ground beside him, she noticed that his hair was greased back from his rather low forehead and that it had the same kind of shine as his shoes.

  She wondered what he could possibly have to say to her and whether, as he was a friend of Dr. Medwin, he also belonged to the world of medicine.

  Then as if he had been feeling for words, Harry began,

  “You must not think me impertinent, Miss Braintree, when I say how deeply sorry I am to hear of your father’s illness.”

  He noted the stricken look in Larentia’s eyes, but she only replied in a low voice,

  “Thank you. If you speak to my father please do not mention it. He has no idea how – ill he is.”

  “I know Dr. Medwin’s methods too well to do that,” Harry answered. “He gives his patients hope up to the last moment.”

  “I am sure that is the right thing to do.”

  “I think Dr. Medwin will have told you,” Harry went on, “that if you could afford it there might be a chance of saving your father’s life by being operated on by Mr. Sheldon Curtis.”

  He saw unhappiness in Larentia’s eyes, although she merely replied,

  “That is what he said, but it is – impossible.”

  “Just as it is impossible for a friend of mine who should be treated in the same way.”

  “Your friend has – cancer?”

  The question was almost inaudible, as if Larentia was afraid to speak the word.

  “So Dr. Medwin has found,” Harry replied. “But he offered me, as I know he has offered you, the choice of two alternatives, either to go into hospital, or to find the money for the only surgeon who could save her life.”

  Larentia drew in her breath.

  “That is exactly what he told me about Papa, but I cannot think how we could possibly find such a sum and so – there is nothing I can do but look after him and hope he does not – suffer – too much.”

  Her voice broke on the last words and she clenched her hands together as if with an effort at self-control.

  Harry nodded his head.

  “My friend is in exactly the same position. Her name is Katie King, and she was an actress, or rather a dancer, at the Gaiety.”

  “I am very sorry for her.”

  “She is only twenty-three, and she does not want to die!”

  “It is cruel! Surely someone someday will find a cure for this ghastly – disease.”

  “We must hope so,” Harry said gravely. “In the meantime, I want to save Katie King, and you want to save your father. I have an idea, with your help, how it could be done.”

  Larentia’s eyes widened.

  “I would do anything – anything to – save Papa.”

  “That is what I hoped you would say,” Harry replied, “but I have to ask you, Miss Braintree, if you can act.”

  “Act? Do you mean on the stage?”

  “Not exactly on the stage, but nevertheless pretend that you are another person and play the part so cleverly that you can make people believe that you are whom you pretend to be.”

  “I do not – think I – understand.”

  “Have you ever acted a part at school or anywhere else?”

  “I am afraid not. But I have read my father’s lectures for him when he has had a sore throat to which he is prone in the winter.”

  “Good!” Harry exclaimed. “That means you are not nervous.”

  “Not really, although it is rather frightening to read to scholars or students who are very critical of how one pronounces the more obscure words, especially when they are written in Latin or Welsh!”

  Harry looked surprised, but he did not wish to deviate from what she was saying, so he merely went on,

  “I think we have established, Miss Braintree, that you could, especially if you were determined to do so, play the part of a woman who has been wronged.”

  He paused as if he expected Larentia to speak, and after a moment she said a little hesitatingly,

  “Will you – please explain what – you are – asking me to do?”

  “What I am really asking is that you should obtain enough money to pay for an operation that will give both your father and Katie King a chance to live out their lives normally rather than dying in agony.”

  He heard Larentia draw in her breath as if the very thought of it hurt her, and taking heart he went on,

  “Six years ago, when she was only seventeen, the Duke of Tregaron married Katie King because he thought she would give him the son he was so desperately anxious to have.”

  He looked at Larentia and realised she was listening intently before he continued.

  “When she did not produce a child he left her, and because their wedding had been secret, he paid her a certain sum of money every year never to reveal that the marriage had taken place.”

  Harry gave an exclamation of exasperation, before he said,

  “Of course, because she was young and foolish, she agreed to his terms, which were far from generous. In fact, the Duke being a very unpleasant man, they were extremely mean. But because she is honourable and straightforward she has never gone back on her word, and it is only recently that I, who am closer to her than anybody else, learned that she is, in reality, the Duchess of Tregaron.”

  “Surely in that case she can afford to have the operation! “ Larentia exclaimed.

  “It is not as easy as that,” Harry answered. “You see, the Duke has been ill for some time, in fact the papers say he is dying, and in consequence Katie’s money has not arrived and she is uncertain as to whether she will ever receive any again.”

  “But that is wrong!” Larentia said. “Surely she can apply to the Duke’s lawyers?”

  Harry shook his head.

  “I told you, Katie is a very honourable person. She gave the Duke her word of honour – or rather he extracted it from her that she would never speak of their marriage to anyone except himself. Because she has accepted the money for the last six years she feels that even in her extremity she must not betray him now.”

  “That is very noble of her,” Larentia remarked.

  “I thought you would think so,” Harry replied.

  “But – what are you asking – me to – do?”

  “I am asking you,” Harry said, “to go to Tregaron Castle and ask a member of the family for the money that is rightfully Katie’s.”

  “But surely she could do that herself? Or if she is not well enough, you could do it for her?”

  “I am asking you, Miss Braintree, because you and Katie have the same colour hair and look somewhat alike, to pretend that you are in fact the Duchess of Tregaron!”

  Harry spoke very quietly, but to Larentia it was as if he had set off a bomb at her feet.

  She stared at him incredulously.

  Then she said in a voice that was hardly audible,

  “You are – asking me to – claim I am the – Duke’s wife?”

  “By the time you get there he will be the late Duke,” Harry replied, “so there is no chance of his recognising you are not the woman he married.”

  “I could not – do that – how could l?”

  There was silence.

  Then Harry said in a rather different tone of voice,

  “Perhaps I was mistaken, but I thought you loved your father.”

  “I do! Of course I do! He is everything I have in the whole world!”

  “Then this is the only way you can save his life.”r />
  “But – I would not be able to – act a lie – I would be – unconvincing – I could not do it – it is impossible!” Her words came out in a hurried jumble.

  Harry bent forward to pick up his hat from the ground.

  “You must forgive me, Miss Braintree,” he said, “for wasting your time. I had just a forlorn hope that you might be brave enough to save two people from dying. I regret having troubled you.”

  He would have walked away, but Larentia gave a little cry.

  “No – please – please – sit down and let me – think! What you have suggested is a – shock!”

  With what appeared to be reluctance Harry seated himself again, but he held his hat in his hand as if at any moment he was prepared to put it back on his head.

  After a moment Larentia said in a voice that trembled,

  “How could I – convince the Duke’s relatives – or whoever I speak to, that I am the – Duchess?”

  “You can take with you Miss King’s Marriage Certificate, and a letter from the Duke which refers to their marriage. In it he says how much he hopes that she will give him a son.”

  “How – how old is Miss King – now?”

  “As I told you, she is twenty-three, but she looks very young and I am sure it will not be difficult for you to appear to be the same age.”

  “No – I suppose not.”

  “I will of course, tell you of the Music Hall where Katie was performing when she met the Duke, and I will give you the names of the restaurants where they had supper and the shows in which she has appeared since at the Gaiety Theatre. But there is no need to tell you, Miss Braintree, that it would be a mistake to talk too much about yourself.”

  “Yes – Yes – of course.”

  “What I want you to do is to go to Tregaron Castle and ask to see the oldest of the Duke’s many relatives. I will look up their names for you but I happen to know that one of his sisters is the Dowager Marchioness of Humber. I can’t remember any others at the moment.”

  Harry frowned a little as he concentrated, then as if it was of no consequence went on,

  “You will show the Marchioness the papers I will give you and I am certain she will be shocked and horrified by the fact that the Duke had a secret life of which none of them were aware.”