Diona and a Dalmatian Read online

  “I suppose that is why foreign women are, on the whole, far more intelligent,” he remarked at length.

  “I cannot say that I bother much about a woman’s brain,” his friend replied. “If she is pretty enough I want to make love to her, if she is not, I ignore her!”

  The Marquis laughed, but he found himself thinking of the somewhat banal conversations he had with Lady Sybille on the few occasions when they were not making love.

  Then last night at Carlton House he had been aware that she was talking to the Prince Regent in an intimate manner, which for some unknown reason made him suspicious.

  He could not hear what they were saying, but there was no doubt that it concerned him.

  Inevitably their eyes moved towards him, and although he pretended to be oblivious to the fact, he was very conscious of it.

  Then as the Prince rose to greet some new arrivals that had joined them after dinner, he saw Lady Sybille looking as if she were a cat that had licked the cream.

  It was then that his instinct told him she was up to mischief as far as he was concerned, so he moved quickly to speak to an Ambassador who had been one of the guests at dinner.

  He was determined to find out what was brewing, in case he found himself involved in a manner which he would greatly dislike.

  It was the Ambassador who unwittingly gave him the key to the situation.

  “I suppose, my Lord,” he said, “this is the last party we shall enjoy in this delightful treasure house before His Royal Highness leaves for Brighton.”

  “I expect so,” the Marquis agreed.

  “My wife and I have been invited to the Royal Pavilion,” the Ambassador went on with a note of satisfaction in his voice, “and we are delighted that you and Lady Sybille will be there at the same time. His Royal Highness intimated that you would be his guests.”

  The Marquis looked sharply at the Ambassador, wondering what he was implying.

  Then, wagging his finger playfully, the elderly Diplomat went on,

  “My wife has told me your little secret, but I promise that I am very, very discreet, and of course I am a fervent admirer of Lady Sybille.”

  If the floor had opened to reveal a deep chasm at his feet the Marquis could not have been more surprised and disturbed.

  Now he realised what Lady Sybille was doing, and he told himself he had been very obtuse.

  She was using a weapon that a great number of women had used before her, which was called “public opinion.”

  In her case she had started at the top, with the entourage of the Prince Regent, and now the Prince himself.

  The Marquis had known it to happen before, in the case of a friend who had hesitated on the brink of making a proposal of marriage to a woman who desired him.

  It was, however, too late and he had been pressurised into it, not by the woman herself but by her friends and those who admired her.

  Choosing a moment when his host was busily engaged with a number of his friends, the Marquis said goodnight somewhat briefly and slipped away from Carlton House without speaking to Lady Sybille.

  He had driven back to his house in Park Lane, planning what he should do in the same forceful and deliberate way in which he had planned onslaughts against the French.

  He knew that the first step was to leave London and go to the country.

  On his arrival at Irchester House he had immediately issued instructions to his staff, having his secretary, who had retired to bed, fetched to the study to listen to what he had to say.

  He had then sat down at his desk to write to the Prince Regent to thank him for his hospitality and to say he had been unexpectedly called to the country on family affairs.

  He had not written to Lady Sybille, thinking somewhat cruelly that he would leave her to worry as to what had happened and, he hoped, to be uncertain what she could do about it.

  Immediately after breakfast he had set off for Irchester Park, driving at a great speed because he felt like a fox going to ground while the hounds were not far behind.

  As he reached the country, the beauty of his home and its quiet dignity brought him a feeling of peace that was like a healing hand.

  “Is Your Lordship expecting a party?” his butler asked respectfully after his arrival.

  “Not for the moment, Dawson,” the Marquis replied. “I have a great deal to do on the Estate and I need a rest.”

  “Your Lordship will find that here, and it’s a great pleasure to have you back, my Lord.”

  The man spoke with a sincerity that pleased the Marquis, but once he was alone he began to think about himself, and it made him very cynical.

  He admitted frankly that for the last year he had grown more and more bored with the sameness of the hurdy-gurdy of the Beau Monde, which never changed its tune.

  The same balls, the same receptions, the same assemblies, the same evenings at Carlton House, at Vauxhall and Ranelagh, and inevitably the same women.

  Beautiful, sophisticated, alluring, and desirable, they revealed, as soon as one knew them well, that they were vain, selfish, avaricious, and incredibly brainless, except where it concerned their self-preservation.

  “What do I want? What am I looking for?” the Marquis asked himself, and found depressingly that there was no answer.

  He told himself that he missed the war, the excitement, the danger, and the endless demands upon his attention from his troops.

  But at least, and perhaps most important of all, there had been a goal shining like a guiding star overhead, which was victory.

  The war was now won, but the peace, if he was honest, was disappointing.

  “What do I want?” the Marquis asked himself again.

  It was a question that seemed to be repeating in his mind as he had dinner alone, then walked out onto the terrace to look at the last glimmer of the dying sun behind the ancient oak trees in the Park.

  The stars were coming out in the sky and there was a new moon just visible in the translucence of the dying light.

  Behind him was the great house that had stood on the same foundations for five hundred years but had been completely rebuilt by his great-grandfather early in the last century.

  It was in consequence one of the finest and most outstanding examples of Georgian architecture in the whole country.

  The huge Staterooms were each of them perfect in their own way, and the Marquis was the possessor of paintings envied by the Prince Regent and every connoisseur of art in the country.

  Beyond the gardens, which he had restored to their original design, there were woods that would afford him a great deal of sport in the autumn.

  In the valley on the other side there was a stream that wandered through the lower meadows to create a swampland where there were snipe and duck and which later in the year would be paradise for sportsmen.

  Apart from these there were hundreds of broad acres over which he could hunt in the winter and ride the superlative horses with which he had filled his stables since he had returned from France.

  “I have everything,” the Marquis said firmly. “Why should I want more?”

  Then he knew that something was missing – something to which he could not put a name. But again his instinct, from which he could not separate himself, told him that it was essential.

  Because he was annoyed at his own restlessness he went to bed early, in the huge State bedroom with a magnificent four-poster in which many of his ancestors had been born and died, to think about himself.

  He had always believed that he was completely self-sufficient, and because he had risen rapidly in the army he knew he had the gift of leadership.

  Some woman – she had not been English – had compared him to Alexander the Great, and he wondered if without really meaning to be he had modelled himself on one of the most outstanding men the world had ever known.

  Alexander had been a great soldier but an intellectual, a visionary, a man who was never satisfied but was always seeking what lay out of reach.

&nb
sp; “That is what I am doing,” the Marquis told himself, but it did not make for contentment or, for that matter, happiness.

  Happiness, he felt, involved the need to strive, the desire to win and to achieve victory.

  This, he told himself, was where he came in. The only difficulty was that while in the war he had known exactly what victory entailed, in the peace it was elusive and he could not put it into words.

  *

  The Marquis came down the next morning feeling a little more cynical than usual and at the same time ready to self-mock.

  Only when he went out riding on an extremely spirited and obstinate stallion did he forget everything but the age old fight between man and beast.

  He found then the elation of victory, which gave them both satisfaction.

  He had luncheon alone and spent the time trying to decide whom he should invite to stay.

  There were two or three male friends whose company he knew he would enjoy, and who he was sure would be only too willing to obey a summons to Irchester Park.

  Then, because he thought they would find an all-male party rather dull, he tried to think of which women he should add to his list.

  As was inevitable when he was having a passionate affair with one woman, the others faded into insignificance.

  It would, he thought, seem too abrupt if suddenly without any warning he invited those with whom he had flirted before he met Sybille to stay with him in the country.

  Besides, he had a suspicion, based on previous experience that they would still be angry with him for neglecting them and would doubtless have to be placated by a great number of compliments before he was forgiven.

  “Dammit all!” he said to himself. “Women are a nuisance and for the moment I can well do without them!

  He had not since he had returned to London installed, as was fashionable amongst his contemporaries, a ‘pretty Cyprian’ or what was better described as a ‘bit o’ muslin’ in a house in Chelsea.

  He had at one time considered taking under his protection a particularly alluring little ballet dancer from Covent Garden.

  Then at the last moment, when the words had almost passed his lips, he came to the conclusion that her accent irritated him.

  The Marquis had always been fastidious, and, however alluring a woman might be, it was the small things that he found suddenly repulsive and which on many occasions had made him back away at the very last moment.

  His close friends found it hard to understand why he should be so particular.

  As he never discussed his love affairs with them, the majority assumed he was cleverer at keeping a secret than they were.

  They told themselves that doubtless he had a number of women under his protection as well as picking, as they put it, the “ripest plums off the tree” in the shape of the Social beauties that were as outstanding as Lady Sybille.

  “What do I want?” the Marquis asked himself for the hundredth time.

  Because there was no answer, he sent for a second horse on which to exercise during the afternoon. When he returned at about four o’clock he felt more or less at peace with the world and looked forward to relaxing in the Library, where he usually sat when he was alone reading the newspapers.

  They had arrived by now, and as he picked them up and glanced at the headlines, he was aware that nothing world shattering had occurred since he had left London.

  He therefore turned to the sporting pages with much more interest, then suddenly the door of the Library opened and Dawson announced,

  “Mr. Roderic Nairn, my Lord!”

  The Marquis looked up in surprise as his nephew, dressed in the very height of fashion, came into the room and hurried towards him with an outstretched hand.

  “What are you doing here, Roderic?” the Marquis enquired.

  “Are you surprised to see me, Uncle Lenox?”

  At twenty-two the Marquis’s nephew, who had been given into his care by his eldest sister, a doting mother, was a very prepossessing young man.

  He had, however, been spoilt from the moment he was born, and only because he had persisted in saying he must enjoy himself in London had his mother, shedding floods of tears in the process, begged the Marquis to watch over her “lamb.”

  Lady Beatrice Nairn was a widow, and her husband, a Scotsman, had left her large but unproductive estates in Scotland. She therefore felt it impossible to leave them to sponsor her son’s debut into London Society.

  Lady Beatrice was convinced that in London Roderic would frequent dens of vice and experience all the temptations of St. Anthony once he became a member of the Beau Ton.

  The Marquis, however, had taken his responsibilities very lightly.

  “The boy has to find his feet, Beatrice,” he said to his sister when she beseeched him to prevent Roderic from coming to any harm.

  “But he is so very young, Lenox, and so good looking!”

  “So are a great number of other young men,” the Marquis replied, “and he cannot remain tied to your apron strings forever!”

  “I am so worried about him, and he has no father to whom to turn in time of trouble.”

  “There is no reason why he should get into any trouble,” the Marquis said a little testily, “and if he does, I will get him out of it.”

  “That is what I wanted you to say,” Lady Beatrice cried. “Roderic has not your strength of character or, if you will forgive me for saying so, your ruthlessness, and I am afraid that any wicked or designing woman would twist him round her little finger.”

  The Marquis realised exactly what his sister was saying.

  At the same time, he thought she was fussing unnecessarily since Roderic, like every other young man of his age, must be allowed to ‘sow a few wild oats’.

  Therefore, he had not given his nephew any advice but had merely told him he was there if he needed him.

  He had not been surprised when the previous year he had been obliged to pay Roderic’s debts, which, although he had not said so, he thought were not really as astronomical as they might have been.

  His understanding treatment had resulted in Roderic, who at first had been rather afraid of his distinguished uncle, treating him as if he was a friend and being much more frank than he might otherwise have been.

  The Marquis in his long dealings with men knew that this was the best way to ensure that Roderic did not get into any serious trouble without his being aware of it.

  In fact, although he thought him a somewhat ingenuous and not overly intelligent young man, he would have been glad to have him serving under him as a Subaltern.

  Now as Roderic reached the chair in which his uncle was seated, he said,

  “I am in trouble, Uncle Lenox, and that is why I had to see you!”

  “How did you get here?” the Marquis asked.

  There was a little pause before Roderic replied.

  “In your Phaeton, with your horses!”

  The Marquis’s lips tightened for a moment. Then he asked sharply,

  “You did not drive them yourself?”

  “No, I wanted to, but Sam would not let me.”

  The Marquis relaxed.

  Sam was his Head Groom in London and was exceptionally good with the reins.

  “Well?” the Marquis asked.

  “I did not know you were leaving London,” Roderic said, “and when I went to Irchester House, Mr. Swaythling told me you had come here, and I told him I had to see you at once.”

  “So he arranged for Sam to bring you?”

  “Yes, and I hoped we would break your record.”

  “How long did you take?”

  “Three hours, forty-five minutes.”

  The Marquis’s eyes twinkled.

  “Ten minutes too long.”

  “That was what Sam told me, and I was disappointed.”

  “I am glad I am still ‘top of the form’!” the Marquis said complacently.

  “How could you be anything else?” Roderic replied.

  “Now tell me why
you made this precipitate dash from London,” the Marquis suggested. “Are you in debt again?”

  “No, no!” Roderic said quickly. “It is not money this time.”

  The Marquis looked at him a little apprehensively.

  “It is a bet I made at White’s,” Roderic went on after a short pause.

  “A bet?”

  “ I want to win it, and I cannot think of anyone except you who could help me to do so.”

  The Marquis settled himself more comfortably in the armchair.

  “Suppose you start at the beginning.”

  “It happened yesterday after luncheon,” Roderic replied. “We had all had a great deal to drink – ”

  “Who was ‘we’?” the Marquis interrupted.

  “Oh, my usual friends, you have met them all – Edward, George, Billy, and Stephen.”

  The Marquis nodded.

  They were all young aristocrats who had been at Eton with Roderic, and while the Marquis personally thought they drank too much and did too little, he knew they were the sort of friends his sister wanted Roderic to have, being on the whole what any man would call ‘decent chaps’ without any vice in them.

  “We were laughing and talking,” Roderic continued, “when Sir Mortimer Watson joined us.”

  The Marquis frowned.

  He knew a great deal about Sir Mortimer Watson and none of it to his credit.

  He had deliberately avoided meeting him, although he attended every race meeting, but by some unfortunate mistake Sir Mortimer had been elected as a member of White’s Club.

  There had been some unpleasant stories about him to which the Marquis had not deigned to listen, but he was aware that most decent men went out of their way to avoid him.

  From a young man’s point of view he was bad news.

  “There’s that swine Watson going up to the Card Room to pluck another young chicken of its feathers!” he had heard a fellow-member of the Club say the last time he was there.

  He had stored it at the back of his mind as another black mark against the man he already disliked.

  “He stood us a drink,” Roderic was saying, “and then, and I do not know how it happened, we got into an argument as to whether English Cyprian’s were prettier than foreign ones!”