The Fire of Love Read online

  Carina’s voice was passionate and her fingers were clenched together with the intensity of her feelings.

  “Now, now, my darlin’,” Nanny said soothingly. “We’ve been over this before and you’ve made your decision. Is it a nice position you have with someone respectable?”

  “I think you would hardly call my employer that!” Carina said with a hint of laughter in her voice, although there were tears in her eyes. “But at least it’s a job, Nanny. She has paid me already. She has given me twenty pounds.”

  “Twenty pounds!”

  The old nurse was obviously taken aback.

  “Yes, twenty pounds,” Carina said. “It seems a fortune, doesn’t it, after what we have had to manage on these last few months.”

  She pulled the money out of her handbag and extracting two of the five pound notes, gave them to her old nurse.

  “Take this, Nanny. We owe you much, much more and I shall be sending you every penny I can spare, but at least it will get you safely to your brother in Hertford and give you a little something to be going on with.”

  “I can’t take it. Miss Carina. You’ll want it yourself!” Nanny said, trying to push Carina’s hand with the five pound notes in it away from her.

  “I insist, Nanny,” Carina said, slipping the notes into the pocket of her apron. “Don’t be tiresome. We have always shared everything together – and I spent all your savings years ago, you know I did.”

  “Well, if you promise to write and ask me if you want anythin’, I’ll save it for you.”

  “I am going to send you pounds and pounds – every month,” Carina said lightly. “You wait and see. Now that I am the breadwinner of the family, you and I will be able to start saving for a house of our own.”

  “But where are you goin’?” Nanny asked. “You haven’t told me that yet.”

  “There’s no time to talk about anything,” Carina said hastily. “Is David downstairs? He must bring down my boxes. You have packed them, haven’t you?”

  “They are all packed,” Nanny answered, “and your beloved mother’s things, too, every one of them. After all they might come in useful.”

  “I wouldn’t leave them behind,” Carina said fiercely, “not for Cousin Emma to paw over. You know how she always said Mama was extravagant and sniffed at her pretty clothes. It was only because she was jealous.”

  “That she was!” Nanny cried. “And jealous of you too ever since you were a baby.”

  “Now, where’s David?” Carina asked. “I’ll go and call him.”

  She ran from the room and her voice, sweet and musical even when it was raised, sounded over the empty house,

  “David! David!”

  “I be a-comin”, miss.”

  An old man, wearing a stained apron, came hurring up from the basement.

  “Can you bring down the boxes, David? There is a cabby outside. Perhaps he will give you a hand”

  “’E’ll ’ave to,” David replied laconically. “I can’t manage them big ones meself.”

  He moved towards the front door and Carina ran upstairs.

  On the first floor the doors of the reception room were open, showing bare floors and curtainless windows.

  She climbed up the uncarpeted stairs again and there in a big front room were her boxes packed and waiting with the exception of one, which still stood open, the tissue paper rustling a little from the breeze from the window.

  This room was partly furnished. A magnificent gilt Louis XIVth bed stood in an alcove flanked on either side with satinwood side tables, which matched the ornate dressing table with a triple mirror and ormolu candlesticks.

  Carina stood for a moment looking about her.

  “It’s a good thing you’re goin’ today, dear,” Nanny remarked, having come more slowly up the stairs behind her. “That man came again after you left and said he was collectin’ the bed and the last of the furniture tomorrow mornin’ at the very latest. I told him as how you were expectin’ relations and he said he was not interested in relations – only money.”

  “Let him take them away!” Carina said defiantly, but a little sob broke her voice.

  “I will put the rest of your things in the trunk,” Nanny said, taking a dress from the wardrobe and a few simple toilet articles from the dressing table.

  “You haven’t told me yet where you’re goin’,” she said as she knelt on the floor.

  “Moreton-in-the-Marsh,” Carina replied.

  “That’s in Gloucestershire, I believe,” Nanny said. “It’s a long way and you may be late gettin’ there. It be chilly now it’s nearly September. You had best have your mother’s fur to put round your shoulders. I’ve packed it, but it won’t take a moment to get it out.”

  Carina did not answer.

  She walked to the window and looked out on the street below. She could see the cab waiting outside the front door. The horse had its nosebag on and she guessed the cabby was already following David up the stairs.

  This was the end – the end of everything she had known. The end of everything that had meant anything in her life

  She could hear their footsteps now coming nearer and nearer. She could hear David in the room giving sharp instructions,

  “Steady there! Mind ’ow you tips the end as we starts down the stairs.”

  She did not turn round – she knew because of the tears in her eyes she would not be able to see them. She was remembering how much this house had meant to her. She could see her mother now, crossing the room, holding out her arms and she could see her coffin being carried slowly downstairs.

  Then Nanny’s voice recalled her to the present,

  “It’s all done now, my darlin’ and here’s your fur. Put it round your shoulders in the train. There’s terrible draughts in them trains, as I knows full well.”

  Carina turned at last. Nanny saw her tears and hurried towards her.

  “There, there, my baby, don’t cry! It’ll be all right. You’ve had a bad time, but it’ll all come right now. God will look after you, I knows that.”

  Just for a moment Carina rested her cheek against her nurse’s wrinkled one and felt the comfort of the love and affection that had been hers for twenty-one years.

  Then with a little sob she said,

  “I must go. The child – the child I am looking after is downstairs.”

  “You have left him downstairs?” asked Nanny, a disapproving note in her voice. “That was unkind of you. Why couldn’t you bring her in for a glass of milk and a biscuit?”

  “It’s not a ‘she’, it’s a ‘he’,” Carina replied. “His name is Dipa.”

  “What a strange name!” Nanny exclaimed. “It sounds outlandish to me.”

  “Yes, I suppose it does,” Carina answered. “He comes from Java.”

  She saw the sudden concern in the old woman’s eyes.

  “Now, Miss Carina, what are you lettin’ yourself in for?” she asked. “You are not being employed by foreign people?”

  Carina knew only too well Nanny’s horror of what she called ‘those darkies’, and so there was an irrepressible smile on her lips as she answered,

  “Yes and no, Nanny. I am taking Dipa to his father who is Lord Lynche of Lynche Castle.”

  “Lord Lynche!”

  Nanny repeated the name as if it had some meaning for her and she was trying to remember what it was.

  “Lord Lynche, I seem to know the name. Now where have I heard it? And they live in Gloucestershire? Strange, for I seem to remember that there was somethin’ – ”

  She stopped murmuring to herself and said sharply,

  “It’s an English name and his Lordship, whoever he may be, lives in an English Castle. You’ll be all right, my darlin’, I’m sure you will!”

  Nanny had been going to say something very different, Carina was aware of that. But she had remembered, just in the nick of time, to bite back her words, to say nothing that might make the journey more difficult or the anticipation of what lay ahead unpleasant
.

  ‘Oh, Nanny, Nanny,’ Carina longed to say, ‘you are as transparent as a glass of spring water!’ but, instead, she did not dare trust her voice.

  She took the sables Nanny was holding on her arm and picked up her handbag.

  “I must go,” she said, “otherwise we might miss the train.”

  Without a backward glance she ran down the stairs, hearing Nanny following her.

  In the hall David and the cabby were carrying out the last of the boxes onto the pavement before they started the arduous task of lifting them up onto the cab. Some would go behind, some on the coachman’s box and the smaller ones would be piled inside.

  Dipa was hanging out of the window jabbering to them in his funny little Eastern voice,

  “One, two, three – very big to lift. You like me help?”

  “You stay where you are, Sonny!” the cabman answered. “If you get underneath me feet, you’ll be squashed flat as a beetle.”

  “What is a beetle?” Dipa asked. “I know, same as little bee. I not beetle, I big boy!”

  “Is that the child?” Nanny asked.

  She was looking at Dipa, Carina realised, with something like horror in her eyes.

  There was no doubt that he did not look like the conventional child a Governess would be expected to tutor.

  In the mistaken idea of making him look English, Mrs. Bagot had dressed him for the journey in a blue serge sailor suit with a wide naval collar and he had a little sailor cap to wear with it. It made him look ludicrous and accentuated the yellow of his skin and the strangeness of his cropped head.

  “He has a velvet suit in his case with a real lace collar for best,” Mrs. Bagot explained, “but I thought you wouldn’t want him to wear it in the train, he might be sick over it.”

  “No – no – of course not,” Carina had agreed, thankful not to have to make a decision about Dipa’s clothes. But now she was wondering if the velvet suit would not have been more becoming.

  Dipa saw Carina standing in the doorway and waved to her.

  “Hurry, hurry!” he called, “or we miss train!”

  “That child is Eastern!” Nanny murmured in a low voice so that Dipa could not hear.

  “It’s all right, Nanny,” Carina said hastily. “Don’t worry.”

  Now the moment of parting had come.

  The old woman clasped Carina and the tears ran down her cheeks.

  “My baby, my darlin’!” she said. “I will be thinking of you and prayin’ everythin’ will be all right. You’ll write to me? Promise you’ll write to me? You have my brother’s address, I put it in your bag.”

  “Yes, of course I will, Nanny,” Carina answered, her own eyes full of tears. “I can never thank you for all you have done for us and for all you have meant to me.”

  Then, because it was impossible to say more, she rushed to the cab, pausing only to press a pound into David’s astonished hand.

  The cabby whipped up the horse. Dipa waved hurriedly out of the window, but Carina put her handkerchief to her eyes and could not look.

  She could not think of anything now without a lump coming into her throat.

  How was she ever going to manage without Nanny? she wondered. She had always been there, she had been everything to them all. Not only had she loved Carina and looked after her since the moment she was born, but later she had been lady’s maid to her mother.

  Then, when things had grown difficult, Nanny had been cook, housekeeper, butler, kitchen maid and everything else.

  Never once had she complained as she had toiled up the highest stairs of the house, which had once required twelve servants. But there was only her and old David, who was too simple to worry about wages.

  The only thing that Carina had asked of Cousin Hubert was that he should take David.

  “He has been with us all his life,” she had written. “He is the son of my grandfather's groom, but not intelligent enough to be able to look after the horses and so, ever since he has been a little boy, he has always done the odd jobs around the house.”

  Cousin Hubert had written back that he supposed something would have to be done about David and Carina knew that this would be another stick to beat her with. Not only had they to feed and house her but also to take on her father’s dependants for whom he had made no provision!

  Carina wondered what Cousin Hubert would say when he arrived tomorrow morning to find that she had gone, leaving only a letter.

  She had written that letter this morning before she had gone out to look for a job, certain with the irrepressible hopefulness of youth that she would find one.

  ‘Whatever happens now,’ she told herself, ‘I will never crawl back – never – never – never – ’

  The horse’s hoofs seemed to beat the words into her brain and she realised that now at last she had burnt all her boats and was completely and absolutely on her own. At last she need think only of herself.

  Nanny had not gone completely empty-handed to her brother and David would have a bed to sleep on and food to fill his stomach at Cousin Hubert’s – even if he was begrudged every mouthful.

  “One day,” Carina whispered, “one day I shall have a home of my own and Nanny and David can come and live with me.”

  It seemed to her in that moment as if she had made a prayer and the Heavens had answered her.

  Because through the clouds the moon suddenly appeared and everything was bathed in silver light.

  They had emerged from the trees of the drive and in front of them Carina saw The Castle, huge and awe-inspiring silhouetted against the sky, while the moonbeams turned the lake in front of it to molten silver.

  They were passing over the bridge. Carina, bending forward, stared up at the great edifice rising higher and higher until at the very top was the castellated tower itself with an empty flagstaff.

  It was then, with a frightened throb in her heart, that she realised there were no lights in any of the windows.

  It was too late to do anything about it. She could only hope that somehow they could rouse a servant from his bed to let them in.

  She felt a slight movement and heard Dipa murmur a few words in a strange language, which Carina guessed was Javanese. Then he rubbed his eyes with the knuckles of his small hands and let out a tremendous yawn.

  He jabbered something, awoke properly and said in English,

  “Where am I? Is it still night? It’s very dark.”

  “We have arrived,” Carina said. “Look, there’s The Castle – The Castle where your father lives.”

  She had talked to him in the train about where they were going and Dipa had been interested, although he had not seemed to understand the word ‘father’.

  “Who this man – Lord Lynche?” he asked, having repeated the name after her several times.

  “He is your father,” Carina explained. “His name is Lynche, like yours.”

  “I Dipa,” the small boy had said with an irrepressible grin and Carina had given up the unequal task.

  She had realised that he had only recently begun to learn English. In fact he had told her about a lady in Paris who had come to teach him every day and taken him for walks while she did so.

  Carina had the impression that, after Lord Lynche had left Dipa’s mother, she had reverted to her native tongue when she had been with the child.

  At any rate Dipa’s knowledge of English was very limited. Sometimes he said the right word, but had no knowledge of its meaning. At other times he had no idea what something was called other than in his own language, which Carina could not understand.

  Now after all she had told him, he seemed to be excited at their arrival.

  “We’re here, we’re here!” he repeated like a small parrot, jumping up and down on the seat and standing at the window as the cab came to a standstill in front of the high stone steps leading up to an enormous nail-studded door.

  The cabby climbed down slowly from the box and went up the steps. He pulled at the bell and, Carina letting down
the window of the cab listened, hoping she would hear it ring.

  But there was only silence and then to her surprise before a minute had passed the front door was opened and a warm glowing light streamed out onto the stone steps.

  Carina could see that a footman in livery with silver-crested buttons was standing there and behind him there was another footman and yet another.

  The cabby opened the door, she stepped out and, turning, lifted down Dipa who wanted to run ahead. She caught him by the hand.

  “Wait for me,” she said. “Take off your cap when we go inside the door.”

  They reached the top step and entered a huge baronial hall with a floor of black and white marble and great marble pillars supporting an arched roof.

  The light came from dozens of candles in silver sconces and, as Carina moved into the light, holding Dipa by the hand, an elderly butler with white hair came forward to meet her.

  “Is Lord Lynche at home?”

  Carina was surprised to hear that her voice was clear and firm.

  “Is his Lordship expecting you?”

  Carina shook her head.

  “No,” she replied, “but it is of great importance that I should see him immediately. Will you please inform him that I have come a long distance or I would not disturb him at this hour of the night.”

  “I will inform his Lordship that you are here. Will you come this way, madam?”

  His eyes had not once turned towards Dipa, but Carina had the uncomfortable feeling that, although his training prevented him from showing it, he was both astonished and curious.

  They followed him down the great hall into another smaller one where there was a beautifully carved staircase winding upwards with newels on the banisters.

  The butler seemed to hesitate for a moment and then turned towards a door on the right hand side of the staircase, but as he did so another door opened in front of them.

  There was a sudden chatter of voices and a roar of laughter as a man came out into the hall.

  Carina had a quick glimpse of a number of men sitting at green baize tables. There was an atmosphere of smoke and there were wine glasses beside the hands that held cards. It was a sight that she had seen all too often before she thought with a sudden stab in her heart and then the door was closed.