The Lioness and the Lily Read online

  The Earl digested this information.

  Then he said,

  “You say I have been here for three days. I suppose I have had concussion.”

  “I understands when you fell off your horse you landed on your head.”

  There was just a touch of rebuke in Nanny’s voice which amused the Earl.

  Then he enquired,

  “My horse?”

  “Very lame, sir, but bein’ well looked after in our stables.”

  “I can see that I am incumbent on somebody’s kind hospitality,” the Earl said. “May I know whose?”

  There was a moment’s hesitation before Nanny replied,

  “This was Major Cranford’s house before he was killed last year in India.”

  “And now?”

  “His widow lives here but she’s away at the moment, sir.”

  “I thought when I was semi-conscious,” the Earl said as Nanny said no more, “that I heard you speak to someone by the name of ‘Purilla’.”

  He saw Nanny pursing her lips together and remembered how reluctant she had been to allow Purilla to take her place at his bedside.

  “Miss Purilla,” she said in a somewhat repressive tone, is Major Cranford’s young sister.”

  “I think she has been helping you to nurse me.”

  “You were unconscious when she did so.”

  “Nevertheless I am extremely grateful,” the Earl said.

  It was quite an effort to say so much and, as he lay back against his pillows, Nanny said,

  “I’d like to wash you, sir, and I daresay you could do with somethin’ to eat.”

  Hie Earl smiled.

  “Now I think of it, I am quite hungry.”

  “Then I’ll go and order you some breakfast,” Nanny said. “Then I’ll come back and make you comfortable.”

  She left the room and the Earl wondered if there were servants to whom she would give the order for his breakfast or whether she was telling Purilla that he was awake.

  He wondered what his young hostess was like and thought that, whatever that might be, Nanny obviously intended to be a very conscientious chaperone.

  It was a considerable effort to be tidied up, washed, shaved, have his hair neatly brushed and his pillowcases changed.

  As making any movement, however slight, was so painful the Earl did not talk but left himself in Nanny’s hands almost as if he was a child back in the nursery.

  In fact by the time she had finished with him he felt so weak it was an effort to eat the breakfast when it arrived.

  “Now eat all you can,” Nanny admonished him. “You need your strength after bein’ delirious these past days.”

  “Delirious?” the Earl asked sharply.

  “Yes, indeed, sir. It was to be expected with concussion.”

  “Was I talking nonsense?”

  “Some of the time.”

  “What did I say?”

  “I didn’t listen, sir, but it sounded once or twice as if you were tryin’ to escape from somethin’ or somebody.”

  It was then that the Earl remembered Louise and he wished for a moment that he could lapse back into unconsciousness and be able to forget her very existence.

  But once again she was there menacing him just as she had when she had goaded him into taking a fall while riding a spirited horse.

  ‘Louise!’

  He felt that she was there at the end of his bed jeering at him and making the excellent eggs and bacon that he was eating taste like sawdust.

  Even so, after he had eaten several pieces of toast, butter and honey and had drunk two large cups of coffee, he undoubtedly felt more like himself.

  Nanny took the tray away.

  “Now, sir, I’m sure you’d like to have a sleep before the doctor arrives.”

  “What I would really like is to meet Miss Cranford,” the Earl replied, “and make my apologies for descending on her in such an unconventional manner.”

  “It would be better for you to sleep, sir.”

  The Earl saw as she spoke that she glanced over her shoulder and he had the feeling that she suspected that Miss Purilla was listening outside the door.

  He was right for a moment later the lilting voice that he had heard the first time when he had come out of his unconscious state asked,

  “May I come in?”

  “It’s better for him to be restin’ before he sees Dr. Jenkins,” Nanny said crossly.

  “He has been resting for days,” Purilla answered as she came into the room.

  The Earl looked at her as she approached the bed and was aware that she was curiously like the picture of her that had already formed in his mind after hearing her voice.

  She was very slender as he had seen when she was silhouetted against the sunlight.

  Her hair was fair, the colour of the sun when it first arises over the horizon, and her face tapering down to a small chin was dominated by two very large eyes.

  They were blue and he thought that he would have been disappointed if they had been any other colour, but they had a distinct brightness that took away any possible insipidity which he usually associated with blue eyes and fair hair.

  In fact she had a lovely face and at the same time there was an attractive mischievousness about her which made her not merely a pretty girl but a distinctive one.

  She looked at the Earl and he said with a smile,

  “Now you see that ‘Rip van Winkle’ is awake!”

  She gave the little gurgling laugh that he remembered.

  “Did you hear me say that, sir?”

  “1 heard you say quite a lot of different things, but I was still stunned from my fall.”

  “But you are feeling better?”

  “Much better. Please tell me how I was found.”

  “I found you. In fact I saw you falling off when your horse stumbled. The rabbit holes are very dangerous in that field. I never ride there.”

  “I should have been more careful,” the Earl admitted ruefully.

  “How could you know about the rabbit holes if you are a stranger? And your poor horse is still very lame.”

  “It is my fault.”

  “Tom says that after a strain like that his leg will be weak and it will be over a month before you can ride him again. Even then you will have to be very careful with him.”

  She spoke so anxiously that the Earl said,

  “You can trust me not to ride him until he is fit.”

  “It will be sometime before you are able to ride yourself, sir.”

  Purilla sat down on a chair beside the bed and the Earl, who had heard Nanny going down the stairs while they were talking now heard her coming up again.

  “I am sorry to be such a nuisance to you,” he said, “but I am still waiting to hear why when you saw me fall you had me brought here.”

  “Our house was the nearest,” Purilla replied, “and really there is nowhere else in the village where you could have stayed except at the Vicarage with six very noisy children.”

  “I am grateful that you played the ‘Good Samaritan’ rather than the Vicar!”

  “Since my sister-in-law is away, Nanny was rather shocked at the idea of you staying here. But actually she has enjoyed nursing you.”

  “Enjoyed?” the Earl questioned.

  Purilla’s blue eyes twinkled.

  “She loves having someone to ‘baby’ as she calls it. I think it is because anyone who is ill is in her power and, although you may protest, you have to do as she tells you.”

  The Earl wanted to laugh, but he thought that it might hurt him to do so, so he merely smiled.

  “My Nanny was just the same,” he said. “I tried fighting against her dictates for years without avail and when I went to school I found the Masters not nearly as authoritative as she had been.”

  Purilla gave a spontaneous little laugh that sounded very young and attractive.

  “I think Nannies are the same all the world over,” she said, “and Nanny is very strict with me,
even now that I am grown up.”

  As if speaking of her conjured her up, Nanny came to the doorway.

  “Now, Miss Purilla,” she said, “I won’t have my patient tired out by your chatter.”

  “I am not in the least tired,” the Earl said quickly, knowing that it was not quite true.

  “You just shut your eyes, sir,” Nanny said firmly, “and you’ll find you are asleep almost before you can say ‘Jack Robinson’!”

  The Earl opened his lips to say firmly that he had no intention of sleeping.

  But almost before he realised what was happening Purilla had been shooed out of the room, the blinds were drawn to keep out the light and he found himself, somewhat to his annoyance, drifting away into dreamland.

  *

  It was late in the afternoon before the Earl saw Purilla again.

  The doctor had called and told him that he must rest, Nanny had brought him up an excellent luncheon and told him the same thing.

  It was all rather infuriating because, although he had no wish to do so, he found that when he closed his eyes he did go to sleep and in fact, when he awoke later, he felt more clear-headed and more alert.

  Now when he knew that it must be getting on for teatime Purilla came into the room carrying a small vase of white violets which she set down beside the bed.

  “I was picking violets the day I saw you galloping across the rabbit field,” she said. “There are only small patches of them under the trees and in the woods but, as the white ones are so much rarer than the other kind, I always feel especially lucky when I find them.”

  “I think it was especially lucky that you saw me fall,” the Earl replied, “otherwise I might have lain there for days.”

  “I expect someone would have found you, sir. However as it was, it only took an hour before I could fetch some of the men from the village and they carried you here on a gate.”

  “I can see that I have been a great deal of trouble,” the Earl said.

  “Actually it has been very exciting,” Purilla contradicted. “Nothing much ever happens in Little Stanton and it has given Nanny and me something to do and the rest of the village something to talk about.”

  She paused for a moment before she added,

  “As you can imagine, they are all wondering who you are.”

  The Earl smiled.

  He was well aware that from the way Purilla spoke that she was as curious as the rest of the inhabitants of Little Stanton.

  He was considering if perhaps it would be a wise thing to remain anonymous or perhaps give a false name.

  Then he told himself that, despite what he had said to his valet about no one fussing about him, by this time they would certainly be anxious and it was only right to let them know that he was in safe hands.

  “I expect,” he said, “you have heard of Rock Castle?”

  She looked at him quickly.

  “Is that where you come from?”

  Then she gave a little cry.

  “But of course! How stupid of me! I might have guessed. You must be the new Earl!”

  “I thought that you might have suspected who I might be.”

  “I had heard that a cousin had inherited after the old Earl and his son were killed in a train accident, but somehow I never expected you to be seen in Little Stanton.”

  “Well, here I am!”

  “They must be very worried about you back at Rock Castle.”

  Her voice was serious as she went on,

  “Nanny did look in the pockets of your coat to see if there was anything to identify you in case you were worse than we thought.”

  “You mean in case I died,” the Earl said, “and you wanted to notify my next of kin.”

  Purilla smiled.

  “You seemed so big and strong I could not believe that you were seriously injured.”

  “I am not,” the Earl said firmly, “and I am rather ashamed of being an invalid especially in a strange house.”

  Purilla laughed again.

  “If we had to have an unexpected invalid drop in on us, I would naturally want it to be a ‘tall handsome stranger’, just as Nanny sees in the tea leaves when she reads my fortune.”

  “Does she do that?” the Earl enquired.

  “Only when I insist,” Purilla replied. “She is Scottish and fey, but disapproves of playing about with ‘the unknown’. It is only occasionally that I can get her to tell me my fortune.”

  “I don’t think that it would be very difficult,” the Earl said.

  “Why do you say that?” Purilla asked him curiously.

  “Because it is obvious that sooner or later a ‘tall handsome stranger’, as you put it, will come into your life even in Little Stanton.”

  He spoke teasingly and Purilla retorted,

  “Do you know – that has actually happened.”

  “To you?” the Earl questioned.

  He had a strange feeling of something like disappointment as he asked the question until Purilla replied,

  “Not to me, but to my sister-in-law, Elizabeth.”

  Her reply gave the Earl almost a feeling of relief which he could not explain.

  Then he thought it would be a pity if this pretty child, for she was little more, should be forced to lose her illusions too quickly.

  “Elizabeth has been unhappy since my brother Richard was killed, but a stranger has appeared quite unexpectedly and I do think, although she is being rather coy about it, that she is going to marry him.”

  “Surely that is very satisfactory?” the Earl remarked.

  While he was listening, he was thinking that, when Purilla talked, the words she said were no more expressive than her eyes, which seemed to mirror everything that she was feeling and thinking.

  “I – suppose so,” she said just a little wistfully, “and I want her to be happy – but you see – it is very worrying for me.”

  “In what way?” the Earl enquired.

  “Because Elizabeth and all the people round here seem to think it would be – wrong for Nanny and me to stay here alone at The Manor.”

  “You mean that your sister-in-law would move away?”

  “Yes, of course, because the man who wants to marry her has a very nice house on the other side of the County. He said I could go and live with them until I am married – but I know neither he nor Elizabeth really want me. They want to be alone.”

  The Earl thought that Elizabeth would certainly not want another woman living with her when she was first married and certainly not anyone as pretty as her sister-in-law.

  It was almost as if he could read the truth of what she was thinking in Purilla’s eyes and could understand the problem from her point of view.

  Then, as if she felt that she was being selfish in talking about herself, she said,

  “Do you like being the Earl of Rockbrook? I have always thought it must be a very grand thing to be.”

  “It is,” the Earl agreed with a smile.

  “It must be – a little uncomfortable for you,” Purilla said, as if she was reasoning it all out for herself, “coming into the title because of the deaths of two people who you were related to.”

  The Earl thought that it was somewhat perceptive of her to realise this and he answered,

  “It is in fact a great responsibility. That is why, now I am conscious, you will understand that I must let them know at Rock Castle that I am here and, as soon as I am well enough, I must be taken back to my own house.”

  “There is no hurry,” Purilla assured him quickly, “and if you were moved now it might be very painful.”

  “Then I hope I may stay for a day or two longer,” the Earl said. “But is there anyone who could carry a message?”

  “Yes, of course,” Purilla answered. “I will go myself.”

  “I cannot ask you to do that.”

  “I shall enjoy the ride. Although neither of our horses are nearly as well-bred or as impressive as yours, they carry Elizabeth and me wherever we want to go.”
>
  “I think it would be better for you to send somebody else,” the Earl insisted firmly.

  He was thinking that for Purilla to arrive at Rock Castle and say that he was staying in her house would be to invite a great deal more comment on top of what must have been already engendered by his accident.

  He was quite certain that the fact that she was extremely pretty would not escape notice and he thought it would be better if the servants could learn of his whereabouts from somebody who looked very different.

  “Tom can go if you prefer,” Purilla was saying.

  “I think it would be much better,” the Earl approved. “Now perhaps you would bring me some writing paper and a pen and I will write a letter explaining where I am.

  He thought as he spoke that he would write to his Estate Manager, a man called ‘Anstruther’, who was more or less in charge of everything until he appointed a new secretary, the old one having retired on his uncle’s death.

  There had been quite a number of important posts left vacant at Rock Castle when the holders had decided that a change of Master was a good moment for going into retirement and the Earl had meant as soon as he had the time to go into the matter with his Manager and see who was qualified for the posts.

  Purilla brought him the writing paper and pen he wanted and. because it was difficult for him to write with his left arm in a sling, she held the paper for him and he managed to write a legible letter with instructions as to what he wished to be done.

  Then, as he signed his name, he thought that the best way he could compensate Purilla for the inconvenience of his visit was to provide her with some luxuries that he was certain were unobtainable in Little Stanton even if she could afford them.

  Accordingly he added a short postscript to his letter asking for fruit from the greenhouses and for provisions that he was sure would easily be available such as eggs, butter and cream.

  He also ordered lamb, chickens and a ham from the Home Farm, which, he remembered since he was a child, had provided most of the food required at the Big House.

  He sealed the letter and handed it to Purilla.

  Then he said,

  “I think when Nanny was going through my pockets that she must have found some money and will know where it is now. Will you give Tom a guinea for carrying this for me to Rock Castle?”