A Nightingale Sang Page 4

  “And very wisely,” Harry retorted. “If he had not done so, he would have gone under, as so many chaps in my Regiment have done. Benson shot himself last week.”

  “Oh – no!” Aleta cried in horror.

  “He just could not get a job, so his wife left him. He was always a rather hysterical sort of fellow.”

  “It is so wrong – so cruel,” Aleta said passionately, “that men who fought for this country are now penniless and unable to fend for themselves. The Government should do something about it.”

  It was a cry that the newspapers echoed every day, but nothing seemed to be done and, although it was difficult to find out the facts, Aleta gathered that there was vast unemployment over the whole country.

  ‘Perhaps, after all, we should be grateful to the Americans,’ she thought.

  At the same time it seemed unfair for, although they too had suffered heavy casualties, they had come out of the war richer than when they went into it.

  She finished off her glass of champagne and said,

  “Thank you for that, Harry. Now I think that I should go upstairs. I don’t want Mr. Wardolf to arrive and find me sitting here.”

  “Certainly not!” Harry agreed. “I’ll join you in a few minutes.”

  Aleta walked from the drawing room into the hall and saw four footmen wearing the Wayte livery with its large crested silver buttons standing rather self-consciously by the front door.

  They grinned at her in a slightly familiar manner because they were all lads from the village. They had been drilled every day by old Barlow, who had been butler at Kings Wayte before the war and, although nearly seventy-five, he was delighted to be back.

  “You leave everything to me, Miss Aleta,” he said. “I’ll get these young lads into shape and we’ll have no trouble with them as we might with them Cockneys. I never did care for the footmen we had in London.”

  This was a reference back to Aleta’s grandfather’s time when there had been Wayte House in Curzon Street, but which had been sold years ago as premises for a Club.

  “I see you are ready to receive Mr. Wardolf and his party,” Aleta said to the footmen as she reached the bottom of the stairs.

  “That be right, miss,” one of them answered.

  “Now don’t forget, whatever you do, that you must never refer to me or Mr. Harry by our real names. We are Mr. and Miss Dunstan, if anyone asks you. But it would be best not to mention us at all unless you have to.”

  “We understands, miss,” the footmen said, almost as a chorus and Aleta went on up the stairs.

  They had talked over for ages over what name they should use, most of the names seeming either too common for Aleta’s liking or too fussy for Harry’s.

  Finally they agreed to pick out the first name that came in a book and hope it was appropriate.

  It had been ‘Dunstan’.

  “That will do,” Harry said. “It sounds middle class, which we are supposed to be.”

  Aleta laughed.

  “You certainly don’t look it.”

  She thought that Harry looked not only aristocratic but also exceedingly handsome, especially in his riding clothes with his boots polished under Barlow’s supervision, until as she said, she could see her face in them.

  Because she was so tired, she climbed very slowly up the steep narrow stairs that led from the first floor to the second and the second to the third.

  The nurseries looked quite attractive with pieces of furniture brought up from down below and some new curtains and covers for the chairs that Captain Cosgrove had insisted on supplying for them.

  “If you are uncomfortable,” he said to Aleta when she protested, “you will not be able to do your job well and that would be disastrous from all our points of view.”

  She felt a little guilty at taking anything for themselves from their tenants, but the bright chintz that hung on each side of the windows and which covered the two comfortable armchairs and the small sofa made the room seem very inviting.

  Because she thought it would cheer both her and Harry up, Aleta had arranged a big bowl of roses on the table, which had a new tablecloth, and another vase in a corner of the room was filled with blue delphiniums.

  “Quite a home from home,” Aleta said mockingly as she entered it, “and now, Miss Dunstan, remember you are employed to be efficient and it is something you just have to be.”

  As she spoke aloud, she walked across the room to one of the windows, which looked out over the front of the house.

  For a moment she could only see the glimmer of gold on the lake in the afternoon sun and as always it carried her mind away to the fairy stories that she had loved as a child.

  Then she realised that coming down the drive was a large car followed by half a dozen others.

  “They are arriving!” she exclaimed and wondered apprehensively if Harry had had time to move himself and the half-empty bottle of champagne out of the drawing room.

  Then she was sure that he had done so and stood a little nervously watching the cavalcade cross the bridge and drive into the courtyard beneath her.

  ‘Mr. Wardolf is certainly arriving in style!’ she told herself.

  Just for a moment she felt an irrepressible resentment that he should be so rich and an American and then she told herself that she was being childish.

  “We are grateful to him, very grateful!” she said severely. “He is benefiting us and everyone on the estate, people like old Barlow and Mrs. Abbott are going to have better wages than they have ever had in the whole of their lives.”

  By craning her neck forward she could see that the first car had drawn up outside the front door.

  Two of the footmen had already reached the car. One had opened the door and the other was standing to help the passengers out.

  It was a woman who came out first and Aleta, although she could only see the top of her head, realised that she was thin and elegant and thought that this must be Mr. Wardolf’s daughter, the one who was to marry a Duke.

  “What is her name?” she had asked Charles Cosgrove.

  “Lucy-May,” he had replied.

  “Two names?”

  “No, they are hyphenated.”

  “That’s funny!”

  “Americans often put two names together like that,” Charles Cosgrove explained. “It usually means that Momma wanted one name and Poppa another, so they compromised by joining the two together.”

  Aleta laughed.

  “And supposing the Godparents have other ideas?”

  “Then they incorporate them in some way or another,” Charles Cosgrove said. “They love names and Mr. Wardolf’s are typical. He is Mr. Cornelius Fiske Wardolf Junior.”

  “Junior?” Aleta questioned.

  “His father would also have been called Cornelius, so he became Cornelius Wardolf Junior, which strangely enough, even when his father is dead, he will doubtless continue to call himself.”

  “It sounds very complicated.”

  “Not half as complicated as they find our titles.”

  “That I can understand,” Aleta replied. “When the Head of the Family has one name, his first son another and his other sons a third, it must drive them nearly crazy!”

  “It does!” Captain Cosgrove agreed gravely and it was impossible for her not to laugh.

  ‘That will be Lucy-May,’ she thought now.

  Then she saw that the girl was followed from the car by a tall man with grey hair.

  He was carrying his hat in his left hand and now with his right he solemnly shook hands with both the footmen.

  Aleta gave a little gurgle of laughter.

  She knew how surprised the men would be, for this was something that they would certainly not have expected.

  Then the first car was driving away and it seemed as if a whole army of young people were descending from the others.

  Because she was so interested, she opened the window and, as she did so, she could hear their high-pitched voices chattering away as the
y ran up the steps into the house.

  They had expected a large party and a large party had certainly arrived.

  Aleta began to worry if everything was in order and nothing had been forgotten. Then she told herself that if there was, there was nothing she could do about it now.

  She would just have to sit and wait until the problems, if there were any, were brought to her.

  *

  Harry, riding back over the Park, thought with satisfaction that so far everything had seemed to go well.

  He had decided with Charles Cosgrove that it would be quite safe for him to describe himself as the manager of the estate and for Mr. Wardolf to be told that anything he wanted outside the house itself should be ordered through him.

  Cornelius Wardolf had therefore sent for him within an hour of his arriving at Kings Wayte.

  “I wanna shake you by the hand, Mr. Dunstan,” he said, “and tell you how delighted I am with this magnificent mansion that’s been procured for me by Captain Charles Cosgrove.”

  “I am glad you are pleased, sir,” Harry replied.

  “Captain Cosgrove gave me a short summary of its history,” Mr. Wardolf said, “and he told me to ask you anything I wished to know about it, so I hope when we have time, you’ll relate all you know on the subject.”

  “I will do my best,” Harry replied, wondering how he could condense nearly four centuries of history.

  “Now, I want you to tell me what’s bin arranged for the amusement of my guests,” Mr. Wardolf went on.

  He sat down as he spoke, saying,

  “Take a seat, young man, and smoke, if you like. We won’t stand on ceremony, you and I, considerin’ we’ve gotta work together.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Harry said.

  He liked what he saw of the American with his grey hair and slim figure and he guessed him to be about fifty. Also he had a kind of aura about him, which Harry had recognised as belonging to a man who knew where he was going in life and allowed no obstacle to stand in his way.

  He told him briefly about the horses and the cars that were waiting in the stables.

  Mr. Wardolf listened and then asked sharply,

  “Ballroom?”

  For a moment Harry did not understand and then he asked,

  “Do you mean, do we have one? Yes, certainly. There is a large ballroom, and the floor has recently been polished and everything is in order.”

  “That’s great!” Mr. Wardolf trumpeted. “We’ll give a ball in the next few days. Where can I get a list of the local people who should be invited?”

  Harry looked surprised.

  “You intend to ask your neighbours, sir?”

  “Why not? It’s the best way of getting’ to know them.”

  Harry hesitated for a moment.

  He knew the County families would think it odd that a stranger to the district should invite them to the house before they themselves had called on him.

  Then he told himself that perhaps he was being old-fashioned. He was quite certain that the young, at any rate, would be only too delighted that there was to be a ball at Kings Wayte and any lack of ceremony would certainly not deter them from attending.

  “I’ll let you have a list tomorrow morning, sir,” he said aloud.

  “Thanks. And I suppose you can arrange for someone to send out the invitations?”

  Harry thought quickly that Aleta could do that and nodded.

  “Good! Good!” Mr. Wardolf exclaimed. “I’ll want a band, the very best, so you’d better get that from London and, if the cooks can’t cope with the supper, get caterers to do it.”

  “You mean me to arrange it, sir?”

  “Of course! My secretary should be here in a day or two but he’s got some business arrangements to attend to in London before he can join me. But you can see to everything in the meantime.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  This was something Harry had not expected and he thought that Cosgrove should have let him know. But there was nothing he could do now but agree and, when he went upstairs to tell Aleta what was expected, she merely smiled.

  “At least he’s not complaining about the comforts of the house,” she said, “and think of a ball here at Kings Wayte! How wonderful! It’s what I’ve always longed to see.”

  “It’s something you won’t see,” Harry said quickly. “We must both be very careful not to be seen by the neighbours or they will spill the beans as to who we are.”

  “Yes, of course, I realise that,” Aleta said. “But it would be fun to dance in the ballroom where there has not been a party, according to Mrs. Abbott, since before I was born.”

  “Father and Mother could not have afforded to give a ball in their day,” Harry said, “although I remember they had a lot of dinner parties.”

  “That’s different,” Aleta said. “A ball is something very special.”

  She found herself thinking of the first one she had ever attended – the ball in Berkeley Square and the women dancing in their ankle-length dresses draped over the hips.

  Now the dresses were shorter and she had learnt from Charles Cosgrove that there were new dances.

  ‘It’s lucky I am not going,’ she thought to herself. ‘I should be sadly out of date.’

  She wondered if the man she had talked to in the Temple in Berkeley Square was dancing every night in London and if he ever thought of her as she thought of him.

  Perhaps after he had left her he had never given her another thought even though he had kissed her.

  Aleta felt a little thrill go through her.

  Even after two years she could still feel the wonder of that kiss and remember how it had seemed to lift her up into the stars, so that she had become part of the beauty of the night and then had heard the song of the nightingales.

  Harry put his arm around her.

  “You’re looking wistful,” he said. “I know you’d like to go to the ball. Of course I wish you could but, as you well know, it is impossible.”

  “Of course it is,” Aleta said, “but it will be fun to hear the music and know that Kings Wayte is entertaining as it used to do.”

  “You must keep well out of the way,” Harry said firmly, as if he thought that she had forgotten. “And that reminds me, you have to sit down and make a list of everyone local that Wardolf should invite. I suppose you can remember them? I have been away so long that I have almost forgotten the names of the people we used to know.”

  “A lot of them have moved,” Aleta said, “or have been killed in the war.”

  She was thinking as she spoke of the children who had come to parties at Kings Wayte and whose parties she had driven to with her mother.

  It had been so exciting travelling in the closed brougham with a woollen shawl over her party dress and her hair tied up with two bows, one over each ear.

  As she thought of it, she could hear the horses’ hoofs as they travelled through the narrow lanes and then up a long drive to where there was a huge house with all its windows ablaze with light.

  Inside she would find all the children whom she had known ever since she was tiny. They would play ‘Musical Chairs’ and ‘Oranges and Lemons’ and sometimes there would be a cotillion with favours that the boys were too shy to present and afterwards a large tea with jellies to eat and crackers to pull.

  Then there would be the drive home when she would often fall asleep with her mother’s arm around her.

  ‘The girls may be there still,’ she thought, ‘but many of the boys will have lost their lives in Flanders.’

  Or some of them, like their nearest neighbour, would be crippled from their wounds, so it might be tactless to invite them.

  A thought suddenly came to her.

  “It’s not only I who cannot go to the ball, Harry,” she said, “but neither can you and you are such a beautiful dancer.”

  “We’ll dance together up here,” Harry suggested. “Or better still, we will dance in one of the rooms that are not being used where we can hear
the music.”

  Aleta clapped her hands together.

  “Oh, Harry, you are wonderful! I would love that and no one could have a more handsome partner. But you’ll have to teach me to ‘shimmy’.”

  Harry groaned.

  “I am not certain if I am very good at it myself.”

  “But you have danced it?”

  “Yes, of course, although I prefer to foxtrot.”

  “I’m sure Mr. Wardolf s guests are very very up to date. I wish we could watch them dancing then we would know how to do it.”

  “Now, Aleta,” Harry said warningly. “No peeping, no prying! You know as well as I do it’s not worth risking being exposed.”

  “No, of course not,” Aleta agreed. “I am only teasing. Besides, even if I was asked to the ball, like Cinderella, I have nothing to wear.”

  “That’s the best thing I have heard,” Harry said, “because I know that in those circumstances nothing could tempt you to appear!”

  He was mocking her and Aleta threw a cushion at him.

  He caught it and threw it back and she put it back tidily on the chair.

  “You are not to spoil anything,” she grinned. “All these new things have to last us a very long time, unless of course, you marry an heiress, like Lucy-May.”

  Harry laughed.

  “I admit to having thought of that myself, but I am too late.”

  “Why too late?”

  “She’s already snared her Duke. Mr. Wardolf told me just now.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said, ‘I want you to make quite sure, young man, that the Duke of Stadhampton, when he arrives tomorrow, is properly looked after. I guess your servants know how to treat a Duke? Make sure he’s accorded every courtesy and that he has everythin’ he requires.’

  ‘I’ll speak to the butler, sir and also to the housekeeper to make certain that His Grace will have no complaints.’

  ‘He comes of a very old family, I believe? Mr. Wardolf said.’

  ‘Yes, indeed, sir. The Stadhamptons are one of the oldest families in England.’

  ‘So I was told, Mr. Wardolf said. I’m glad to hear you confirm it. I want him to marry my daughter.’