Love and the Marquis Read online

  She had read of how Humphrey Repton had come to believe that light was important for plants and had introduced top-lighting, instead of providing light only through the sides of the buildings.

  “I wish we had one here, Papa,” Imeldra had said to her father.

  “I am quite content with the building as it is,” he replied, “and whatever people may say, not only our orange trees but also the orchids and azaleas and all those other unusual plants we brought from Africa are flourishing extremely well.”

  “Yes, they are,” Imeldra agreed, “so why should we be envious of anybody?”

  “I never am,” the Earl had replied and she knew that it was the truth.

  ‘William Gladwin,’ she said to herself now. ‘He was such a kind man.’

  She remembered the hours when she used to sit watching him work and supervising the bricklayers, then the carpenters and the glaziers, checking everything they did with his plans.

  It suddenly struck her that the Marquis of Marizon lived not very far away.

  She had never met him because her father had once said that he was a very serious young man who did not approve either of him or, as he described it, of the ‘goings on of the King’.

  Imeldra had been too young at the time to understand what her father had meant by that.

  She was quite certain, however, that the Marquis must be a bore if he did not approve of her father and therefore dismissed him from her mind,

  Now she thought perhaps she had missed something not as regards the Marquis but in not seeing Marizon.

  She was well aware that it was reputed to be one of the finest houses in the country and often there were references in the newspapers and magazines to the pictures in the Gallery at Marizon and the furniture and silver.

  ‘I ought to have persuaded Papa to invite the Marquis here,’ she thought now.

  She then remembered with a little pang of her heart that, when her father married Lady Bullington, she would be the hostess at Kingsclere and not herself.

  It was then for the first time that it swept over her what it would mean to have her father married and a woman in the place of her mother. And the realisation made her angry.

  ‘How dare any woman aspire to being Papa’s wife?’ she asked herself and knew that a good number of women had done just that, but had then failed in their aspirations while Lady Bullington had succeeded.

  The anger that now seemed to invade her whole body made her feel suddenly defiant and rebellious.

  Because she loved her father so deeply, she had agreed to everything that he had said last night, in fact agreeing with him without making any protest.

  Now she thought that it was intolerable, first that he should leave her, secondly that she should have to go to her grandmother’s and thirdly that in the future her place in her father’s life would be taken over by his wife who would then by right have priority in everything that concerned her home.

  “I cannot bear it!” she almost screamed aloud.

  Then, as she looked down at the newspaper that lay on the table, a daring plan came into her mind.

  It took her a minute or two to think it out and, when she had done so, there was a light in her eyes that her father would have recognised and understood.

  She lifted her chin in a way that, although she did not realise it, was a clear imitation of him.

  ‘I will do it!’ she said to herself. ‘It will be quite easy as there is nobody to stop me.’

  Chapter Two

  Driving along the country lanes, Imeldra enjoyed the beauty of the hedges bursting into bud, the primroses beneath them and the golden cowslips in the fields.

  It was very evident where her father’s extensive estate came to an end and that belonging to the Marquis of Marizon began.

  Her mother had chosen the deep-sea-blue paint that decorated the doors and windows of the thatched cottages that belonged to her father, while those belonging to the Marquis were all painted a dark rather dull olive green.

  At the same time the cottage gardens were bright with spring flowers, the alms-houses appeared quite attractive and the villagers she noticed moving around in the small hamlets were well dressed and there were no ragged children and very few tramps.

  She had been so seldom in England, apart from her last year at school, that she was able to appraise everything with the inquisitive eye of a foreigner.

  She could see that the Marquis’s estate was in excellent order and the woods were well suited for both hunting and shooting.

  She knew that Baker, the old coachman, whom she had known for very many years, was surprised when, after they had left home and had driven for some miles in the direction of her grandmother’s house, she had knocked on the glass that separated her from the driving seat.

  When the footman climbed down to see what she required, she simply said,

  “Tell Baker to take me to Marizon.”

  “Marizon, my Lady?” the footman exclaimed in surprise.

  “Marizon,” Imeldra insisted and added,

  “I am calling on Mr. Gladwin who you will remember once worked for us at Kingsclere. So please take me to the side door and do not mention my name to anyone.”

  She saw that the footman was surprised, but she then felt that Baker would doubtless understand.

  Anyway what the servants thought did not particularly concern her and if she stayed with Mr. Gladwin as she hoped, she would send back a note to Mr. Dutton to explain her change of plans.

  She had with her the letter which her father had written to her grandmother so that at least nobody would be expecting her and it was not for Mr. Dutton to criticise what she did, however strange it might appear.

  ‘Anything is better than having to stay for a long time with Grandmama, who will only complain hour after hour and day after day,’ she told herself.

  She had grown very fond of Mr. Gladwin when he was working at Kingsclere.

  He was an unusual and intelligent man, being the son of a yeoman farmer in the North of England, he had been sent to a good school and then to a University. His father intended him either to follow in his footsteps or else join his uncle who was a well-known Solicitor in the part of Yorkshire where they lived.

  William Gladwin, however, had determined that his real interest lay in design and, when he left University he apprenticed himself to a distinguished architect and so learnt from him everything the man could teach him.

  Because he had a great appreciation of flowers, he soon specialised in orangeries and the Earl, who always liked the best, heard of his success and sent for him to come to Kingsclere.

  By this time he was no longer a young man and his reputation had spread the length and breadth of the country.

  The Prince of Wales, who had talked of employing him, found that the Earl had got there first and. during the three years it took to build the orangery at Kingsclere, Imeldra saw him intermittently and they became friends.

  She thought now that it would be a delight to see him again and she was quite certain she could persuade him to let her stay at Marizon as his assistant, or in some similar capacity, until her aunt came South and she could join her in London.

  It was the sort of plan, she thought, that was so like her father’s way of thinking that it would amuse him.

  At the same time she hoped that he did not hear of it until after he had left England.

  The horses turned down a long drive bordered by huge lime trees and she had her first sight of Marizon. While she had expected it to be impressive, she had not been prepared for the beauty of it.

  It was very different in every way from Kingsclere and much more imposing.

  At the moment illuminated by the pale April sunshine, it had a magical appearance with its pale Greystone silhouetted by a background of dark fir trees, its long windows glittering like diamonds.

  ‘It is lovely!’ Imeldra thought and was sorry that she could not discuss it and its owner with her father.

  The old Marquis had b
een Lord Lieutenant of the County, but he had been a difficult somewhat disagreeable old man.

  He had been friendly with her father and mother, but after her mother’s death, he showed his disapproval of her father’s raffish behaviour.

  He had struck him off his visiting list, refusing to accept him as his Deputy Lieutenant and to all intents and purposes cut off all communication between the two estates.

  Because Imeldra had been so young when all this happened, she had never seen Marizon although it was so near to Kingsclere.

  Now she thought that she had missed a great deal and made up her mind that she would see the pictures and the other treasures the house contained.

  It made her all the more determined that William Gladwin should agree to her plan and invite her to be his assistant.

  The carriage passed over a bridge that spanned the lake and drove not towards the front door with its great flight of Greystone steps but round the side of the house.

  Here there was a secondary entrance used, Imeldra suspected, not by the servants but by those of the household who occupied the middle status.

  “Governesses, secretaries, Teachers of various kinds,” her mother had said, “are betwixt Heaven and Hell and the poor things often, I suspect, have a very difficult and lonely time of it in a house like ours.”

  Imeldra, remembering this, had always been particularly charming to the rather nervous young men who helped Mr. Dutton and her mother had always been kind to the Governesses and Teachers who came to the schoolroom.

  ‘Now I shall be one of them,’ Imeldra thought as she heard her footman asking for Mr. Gladwin.

  The maidservant who had opened the door fetched a footman and Imeldra stepped out of the carriage, knowing that Baker would wait and carry out her instructions not to say who she was.

  The footman took her down the back corridors of the house, then through a magnificent hall, where she had no time to look around, and along more corridors hung with pictures.

  The footman was obviously in a hurry and moved more quickly than if she had come to the front door.

  Eventually when they reached what she saw was the other side of the house, he indicated with his hand a mass of stone and bricks on which a number of workmen were occupied.

  “You’ll find Mr. Gladwin ’ere, miss,” the footman said abruptly.

  He walked away, while Imeldra stepped out through the door over the floor of a building that was being added to the house.

  The walls of the new orangery were about four feet high, but she could already see how impressive the design would be.

  There would be many more windows than was usual, besides, as she now suspected, the innovation of a glass roof.

  For the moment, however, she was not concerned with the building, but with the man who had designed it and she saw his grey head about the piles of bricks as he gave orders to the workmen.

  She hurried towards him unaware that in her pretty spring travelling gown covered with a silk pelisse and wearing a bonnet trimmed with ribbons the colour of the sky, she looked like one of the flowers that would later bloom in the orangery.

  She had reached Mr. Gladwin’s side before he turned and saw her.

  For a moment he stared as if he could hardly believe his eyes.

  Then, as Imeldra’s hands went out towards him, he exclaimed,

  “Lady Imeldra! What are you doing here?”

  Imeldra laughed.

  “I was half-afraid you had forgotten me.”

  “As if I could do that,” William Gladwin replied. “But I had no idea that you were in England. Is your father with you?”

  He looked over her shoulder as if expecting to see the Earl coming from the house.

  “I want to talk to you privately,” Imeldra asked.

  “Yes, of course,” Mr. Gladwin agreed with a puzzled expression in his eyes.

  He led the way to where erected on the lawn was a small wooden hut with a front door and several windows.

  As it was the same sort of hut that he had used at Kingsclere, Imeldra was not surprised to find that it contained not only a large table, on which were strewn his designs and several serviceable chairs, but also a comfortable one beside a stove, which gave out good heat in the winter months.

  “It is just the same as you had at Kingsclere!” she exclaimed. “You always manage to make yourself comfortable.”

  “As I told you then,” Mr. Gladwin smiled, “a man works better when he is warm, well fed and, of course, well housed.”

  Imeldra laughed.

  “I remember that.”

  Mr. Gladwin closed the door and Imeldra then sat down in the comfortable chair while he drew up another beside her.

  “Now what do you want to tell me?” he asked and added quickly before she could reply, “There’s nothing wrong with the orangery at Kingsclere?”

  “No, no, it is just perfect,” Imeldra said. “And the flowers are flourishing.”

  Actually she had not had time to see it yesterday after her arrival, but she knew how it would upset him if he thought that anything had gone wrong with what he considered one of ‘his children’.

  “I am here,” she went on, “because I want to stay with you for a little while.”

  “Stay with me?” William Gladwin exclaimed.

  “Yes, Mr. Gladwin. Papa has to go abroad and he has told me I must go to stay with my grandmother, which I have no wish to do. So please let me come to you. It may only be for a few days until my aunt, the Duchess of Ilminster, returns to London.”

  She saw that Mr. Gladwin was too astonished for the moment to reply and she went on,

  “I suspect you are well aware of the feelings that existed between the late Marquis and Papa, so, of course, I could not stay with you under my own name. But if you think I would be useless as an assistant, you might allow me to be your granddaughter.”

  Imeldra had only just thought of this and, looking at Mr. Gladwin, she thought that, if her grandfathers were alive, she would have liked them to look like him.

  William Gladwin when he was young had been quite a handsome man and in his old age he now looked really distinguished.

  He had a broad intelligent forehead beneath a quite surprisingly profuse amount of silver hair.

  His features were clear-cut and Imeldra suspected that somewhere in his family there was Viking blood from the invaders who came across the North Sea to carry off the cattle, ravage the women and sail away in their strange-looking craft.

  Whatever the source of his good looks, William Gladwin was a man anyone would be proud to acknowledge as a relative.

  She said now with a little smile,

  “Please let me be your granddaughter. I would love you really to be my grandfather.”

  After a moment of incredulous surprise, Mr. Gladwin threw back his head and laughed.

  “Only you, Lady Imeldra, could think of anything so outrageous, but much as I would love to have you with me, you must know it is impossible.”

  Imeldra settled herself more comfortably in the chair and started to argue, confident as she talked that she was being very convincing.

  She was not prepared to go into the details of why her father had reluctantly to leave her but she had the idea that Mr. Gladwin, who was a very perceptive man, would guess why.

  She went on to explain how she had run away from school and had no intention of going back, that she dreaded having to stay with her grandmother and how much she resented being pitchforked against her will into Society as a debutante and having to live with her aunt until she married.

  She had no idea as she talked how revealing her story was, but as Mr. Gladwin listened attentively, Imeldra was sure that she was winning her case.

  “If you will not have me with you,” she finally announced, “I have a good mind to go off somewhere on my own and I am sure Papa would not approve of that!”

  “You are blackmailing me!” Mr. Gladwin exclaimed. “To do that might get you into a great deal of trouble.�
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  He thought as he spoke that it was quite impossible for him to allow this lovely young woman, who had grown spectacularly beautiful since he had last seen her, to be on her own.

  He shuddered at the thought of her becoming involved with some strange men and he was quite certain that, looking as she did, she would be the prey not only of fortune-hunters but of thieves.

  He gave a sigh.

  Then he said,

  “You make it very difficult for me to re – ”

  “You will let me stay? You will really let me stay?” Imeldra interrupted. “It will be such fun! We will be able to talk in the way we used to do at Kingsclere when Papa was busy with his friends and my Governess was bored with me for asking her too many questions that she could not answer.”

  Mr. Gladwin smiled.

  “You were certainly a very inquisitive little girl.”

  “And now I am an inquisitive young woman,” Imeldra added, “and only you can give me the answers I want to hear.”

  “Very well,” Mr. Gladwin said. “I agree to what you suggest but under protest. I suppose you have brought your luggage with you?”

  “Not as much as you might fear,” Imeldra replied, “only the clothes I had at school. Later I shall need wardrobes of new gowns to dazzle London with!”

  The way she spoke made it sound rather less glamorous than her words and Mr. Gladwin sensed that she was rather apprehensive of what her new life would be like.

  He was also well aware of how much Imeldra would miss her father.

  All through his long life he had never known a father and daughter who not only were so fond of each other but who were both such outstanding characters in their own ways.

  He not only liked the Earl but admired him and understood as few other people did that his dashing reputation was inevitable since he was such a handsome man with a magnetic quality about him that made him irresistible to women.

  He felt now that Imeldra, who had been the most entrancing, intelligent and delightful little girl he had ever known, would prove irresistible to men and he could only pray that she would find the right sort of husband to love and protect her.