Love and the Loathsome Leopard Read online

  Then the sunshine pouring in through the windows dispersed the expected darkness and he saw instead of the Devil’s Chamber a very pleasant room with a painted ceiling.

  It had been done by Italian craftsmen on his great grandfather’s instructions at the end of the seventeenth century. The carved four-poster bed was of an earlier date and had a beautiful embroidered satin cover.

  There were roses standing on the carved dressing table, and the curtains, which had originally been crimson, were a soft warm pink.

  Lord Cheriton stood looking round him.

  Was this the room which, like the library, had haunted him for so many years until the only solace he could find in the memory of it was to envisage it in ruins, the ceiling crumbling on a dirty floor, the windows pane-less, the four-poster broken?

  “This was the Master bedroom,” Wivina was saying, “and is in fact in better repair than any other room. I think you will be comfortable here.”

  “I am sure I shall,” Lord Cheriton replied. “Have you taken such trouble with the other eighty rooms you told me this house possesses?”

  “The top floor is uninhabitable,” Wivina answered, “and because the rains come in, the ceilings of a great many of the bedrooms on this floor have fallen.”

  She gave a little sigh.

  “We have tried to move the best furniture out of them, but we never know which one will go next.”

  There was a pain in her voice which he had perceived before and Lord Cheriton asked curiously,

  “Why does it mean so much to you?”

  “It is my home,” Wivina said simply, “and I love all things that are beautiful.”

  She glanced at him a little nervously before she added,

  “Perhaps you will think it very reprehensible of me, but I sleep in what was Lady Cheriton’s room. It is so lovely. Every day I pray that I can go on sleeping there and it will not be taken from me.”

  “And you are afraid Lord Cheriton might do that?”

  “Not only – Lord Cheriton,” she said with a little throb in her voice.

  She turned away as she spoke and moved towards the door.

  Then, as she reached it, she said,

  “You asked to see the house. There is very little else to show you on this floor except for my room and Richard’s.”

  “Then may I see them?”

  He thought she hesitated a moment as if she thought he was intruding on something personal.

  Then she seemed to decide he had the right to do so and waited for him.

  They went out into the passage and she opened the door of the room that had been his mother’s.

  The sunshine made it for a moment difficult for him to see. He almost expected to hear his mother’s voice speaking to him and to see her rise from the chair by the fireplace where she had always sat and hold out her arms.

  It was decorated in blue, which he thought now was the same colour as Wivina’s eyes, and he saw at once how carefully she had repaired the curtains at the sides of the windows and those that fell from a corona over the bed.

  It had always been a room of perfect taste, the furniture delicately inlaid, the gilt mirrors carved with flowers and cupids.

  “It is so lovely,” he heard Wivina say beside him, “that when I am here I can shut the door and forget all the things that – worry and – frighten me.”

  “Are there many of them?” Lord Cheriton asked.

  He saw the darkness in her eyes and knew that she was like a small animal frantically trying to escape from its pursuers and yet anticipating that it might be impossible.

  Because he had no wish at the moment to frighten her further by trying to force her confidence, Lord Cheriton said,

  “You also promised to show me Richard’s room.”

  “Yes, of course,” Wivina answered.

  There was off the same passage another State room. It had always been referred to as the King’s room because Charles II was supposed to have stayed there, although it was very doubtful that he had ever done so.

  It was a large room with a carved oak bed and furniture which matched it. There were also more books than Lord Cheriton ever remembered seeing in a bedroom before.

  There were cases packed with them. They were piled on tables, in the corners of the room, on the floor, on chairs, and there were two lying open on the dressing table.

  “There is no need to ask where your brother’s interests lie,” Lord Cheriton said in an amused tone.

  “Richard loves books and horses,” Wivina answered, “but, as it is impossible to provide him with the latter, he has to live through what he reads.”

  “As you have already said, it is a pity he cannot go to University,” Lord Cheriton remarked.

  She gave a deep sigh.

  “He is so clever and the Vicar is sure he would get a First Class Degree at Oxford if he had the chance, but the only chance he has is – ”

  She stopped what she was saying and walked across the room to the window to look out on the lake and the Park.

  “Do you – think,” she said in a low voice, “that if one – loves someone, one should be prepared to make any – sacrifice however hard – however unbearable – for them?”

  It was a question Lord Cheriton knew must have turned over and over in her mind for a very long time.

  “I believe,” he said after a moment, “that it is a mistake to think that what we want for someone else must be obtained at all costs, or, as you suggest, by an unbearable and intolerable sacrifice.”

  As if his answer surprised her, she turned round to look at him, waiting, he knew, for him to continue.

  “What you have to ask yourself,” he said, choosing his words with care, “is whether it would be right for Richard to accept such a sacrifice as you suggest. He has to live his own life, he has to make his own way. Perhaps it would be intolerable and indeed humiliating for him to profit at your expense or anyone else’s.”

  Wivina looked at him wide-eyed.

  “I never thought about it like that.”

  She gave a little sigh as if part of the burden that had weighed her down fell from her shoulders.

  “Above all,” Lord Cheriton went on, “you should never do anything you know in yourself to be wrong, impulsively, without thought, without calculating every aspect very carefully. I believe from very long experience of life that, contrary to the Jesuit teaching, the end does not justify the means.”

  Surprisingly, he realised that Wivina understood exactly what he was saying.

  She was so young and he thought that most women of her age would have found it hard to follow his train of thought.

  “The end does not justify the means,” she repeated to herself.

  She thought it over and then said,

  “I have always believed it did, especially when the end meant helping someone weaker or younger than oneself.”

  “You cannot mother the whole world, Wivina, or even your brother, if he is the one you are thinking of. A man should learn to stand on his own feet. If you sacrifice yourself for Richard, he might in later life hate you for retarding his development, for preventing him from finding his own way. That is what he has to do.”

  There was a light in Wivina’s eyes that had not been there before and she said aloud,

  “If – only I could – believe you.”

  “You can believe me,” Lord Cheriton replied, “and let me tell you something else which I myself have found to be true, although it is a cliché.”

  “What is that?” she asked.

  “The darkest hour comes before the dawn.”

  “You mean there might be another – solution for Richard – and for me?”

  “But of course!” he answered. “You told me you believed in prayer. Surely you have prayed about this?”

  “I have prayed,” she answered. “I have prayed and prayed, sometimes nearly all night, but there seems to be – no answer.”

  “Then go on praying,” Lord Cheriton said. “I have
a feeling that the answer might come when you least expect it.”

  “I – hope so,” she said doubtfully. “Oh, I hope you are right!”

  She looked up at him, their eyes met, and Lord Cheriton knew she was trying to believe him, trying almost to draw strength from the firmness with which he had spoken.

  Because she looked so fragile and insubstantial and he was beginning to realise exactly what she was up against, he found himself wanting to protect her.

  He wanted to take her away from something that he knew was not only menacing but far more dangerous than ever his father had been.

  Chapter Three

  Handing Lord Cheriton a newly starched and pressed white cravat, Nickolls said,

  “I hear, sir, that this house belongs to a Lord Cheriton. Can there be another Lord Cheriton?”

  Lord Cheriton paused before he answered,

  “I believe so, Nickolls, but it is of the utmost importance, as you realise, that we should have no knowledge of the name and that it means nothing to us.”

  “Of course, sir. But they were talking in the kitchen and saying how strange and almost crazy the gentleman were before he died.”

  “I am not interested, Nickolls,” Lord Cheriton said firmly. “What concerns us at the moment is, as you know, the smugglers in the neighbourhood. Have you heard anything of interest?”

  “There’s a great deal going on, sir, that’s difficult to put a finger on, but there’s no doubt they’re all frightened, scared stiff, as you might say, and they’ll certainly not open their mouths to a stranger.”

  “That is what I thought,” Lord Cheriton said. “Is there any chance of your getting a look at the cellars?”

  “Funny you should say that, sir. Miss Wivina said she was going down to the cellars to fetch a bottle of claret for your dinner tonight, and when I offers to help she refused in a manner which made me feel she thought I was prying.”

  Remembering the huge cellars that existed under the house, Lord Cheriton had thought they would be too good a hiding place for contraband to be neglected, though he knew that where possible the smugglers got their goods well away as soon as they were brought ashore.

  With little to fear from the Riding Officers or the Coast Guards, it would be easier to take a cargo straight to its destination than to store it locally.

  Aloud he said,

  “Be very careful not to arouse suspicion in anyone’s mind, Nickolls, but just keep your eyes open.

  “I’m doing that, sir.”

  Lord Cheriton looked at himself in the mirror and thought that, considering he and Nickolls had carried everything they needed in a roll at the back of their saddles and in the capacious pockets of the saddles themselves, he looked surprisingly well dressed.

  His tight-fitting champagne-coloured pantaloons and cutaway coat became him well, as did the high white cravat contrasting with his sunburnt skin.

  ‘I look more like a Beau than a soldier,’ he thought.

  At the same time, it was with a sense of amusement that he realised he could never get away from his resemblance to a leopard, and his eyes had the same steely glitter as the animal had when stalking its prey.

  As he went slowly down the stairs, he wondered what it would be like if he returned to Larks Hall and lived there in the same style as his father and grandfather had done.

  Then there had been half a dozen tall footmen in the Cheriton livery in the hall and many housemaids in mob caps to keep everything clean and polished.

  When his mother was alive, there had been carriages of friends arriving for dinner, the women exquisite in their full skirts, the men extremely decorative in their wigs and knee-breeches.

  He walked into the salon to find Wivina waiting for him.

  She was wearing a very simple gown, which he was sure she had made herself, of white muslin. It was cheap and plain but it seemed to accentuate her beauty rather than detract from it, and as he walked towards her he saw her large blue eyes widen and realised that she was impressed by his appearance.

  “I did not expect you to be able to change!” she exclaimed.

  “Nickolls and I are old campaigners,” Lord Cheriton replied with a smile, “and we pride ourselves on being able to rise to any emergency, even that of dining with a beautiful lady.”

  Wivina blushed and he realised that she was not used to compliments.

  As she looked away from him shyly, he thought how lovely she was and what a success she would be in London, even among the sophisticated beauties of the Beau Monde.

  “Shall we go in to dinner?” Wivina asked as if she was afraid that he might embarrass her further.

  They walked down the passage, and when they entered the dining room where Lord Cheriton had endured so many miserable and unpleasant meals in the past, he thought the room now seemed quite different.

  The furniture was the same, and the pictures on the wall, though they had faded and needed cleaning, were unchanged. But the atmosphere of gloom and suppressed anger which had been so much a part of his father had vanished.

  Instead, the evening sun coming through the windows cast a golden glow on the polished floor and he saw with some surprise that there was a candelabra on the table bearing the Cheriton crest.

  “Mrs. Briggs was delighted with the birds that Richard bought from the farm,” Wivina said in her soft voice. “She is only hoping that she will have cooked them to your liking. I am afraid the stove is very old fashioned and in need of repair.”

  There were two roasted chickens ready on a side table, and she added,

  “Will you please carve? I am afraid Richard is late, as usual.”

  Even as she spoke there was the sound of Richard coming down the passage and a moment later he came into the room, hurrying as quickly as his crippled leg would allow him.

  “Sorry, Wivina,” he said, “I was reading a book and forgot the time.”

  “That is nothing new,” Wivina answered with a smile. “I imagine it was very interesting.”

  “It was one of Papa’s, as it happens, but one I have never read before.”

  He walked to his place at the table, then, seeing the Earl carving the chickens, he asked in an afterthought,

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  “I suggest your sister sits down,” Lord Cheriton replied, “and you and I wait on her.”

  Richard looked surprised, and glancing at Wivina with a little smile, he said,

  “This is something new. She usually waits on me!”

  “I imagined that would be the case,”‘ Lord Cheriton said dryly. “But this is a formal dinner party, Richard, and we will behave as befits gentlemen.”

  There was just a hint of reproof in his voice, which Wivina did not miss.

  She looked at Richard a little anxiously, but she said nothing as Lord Cheriton put a helping of chicken in front of her and her brother rather clumsily handed her the bread sauce and the vegetables.

  She waited a little self-consciously until they were seated on either side of her and then said,

  “I brought up the claret as soon as I knew you were dining with us, but I am afraid it will not yet be the right temperature.”

  “The claret?” Richard exclaimed before Lord Cheriton could speak. “Do you mean to say, Wivina, that we are to be allowed to drink some of the wine you have kept locked away because you said it did not belong to us?”

  “Captain Bradleigh is a friend of Lord Cheriton’s,” Wivina persisted.

  “Well, I must admit I shall enjoy it even if no one else does,” Richard remarked. “It is too bad to think of all that good wine going to waste in the cellars while we are only allowed water or that fiery stuff Farlow – ”

  He saw the expression on his sister’s face and bit his lip.

  “May I say how honoured I am by your hospitality?” Lord Cheriton said, to gloss over what was obviously an uncomfortable moment. “But I would be interested to know what you intended to do with the wine if the house was eventually to fall to the g
round.”

  “We may live here without permission,” Wivina replied in a reproving tone, “but that does not entitle us to drink wine that does not belong to us or to dispose of anything that we cannot replace.”

  She looked at Lord Cheriton almost pleadingly as she said,

  “I know we are trespassing, but I have done my best to preserve what I could from falling into disrepair. I have tried to keep the house clean and to keep it alive as long as I can.”

  She spoke with such earnestness that he answered equally seriously,

  “No one could have done more and may I say I consider it was right of you to come here and make a home for those who had no other home of their own.”

  He saw by the sudden light in her eyes that it was what she wanted to hear. He was sure it had worried her to know that she was, as she said, a trespasser.

  He rose to bring the bottle of claret from the sideboard and pour them each a glass.

  “I say, this is good!” Richard exclaimed. “If you stay long enough we may be able to sample all the different wines there are below.”

  Lord Cheriton did not reply and they talked of other things until after they had all had two helpings of the chicken, then Richard said,

  “Do you think, sir, it would be possible tomorrow, if your horses are rested, for me to have a ride on one of them? Your servant said he did not think you would mind.”

  “I am sure Captain Bradleigh has to continue his journey,” Wivina said quickly, “therefore, you must not tire his horses unnecessarily.”

  “Unnecessarily!” Richard exclaimed. “Do I ever get a chance of seeing horses like those? You are only trying to please Farlow by getting rid of Captain Bradleigh. You are going to marry him, but surely that need not stop me from having a ride?”

  For a moment Wivina went very white, then she said in a low voice tense with emotion,

  “I am not going to marry him! I have told him so and I have told you the same thing!”

  She rose from the table as she spoke, and taking her empty plate and Richard’s, she said,

  “I will go and see if the next course is ready.”