Little Tongues of Fire Read online

Everything in India had been so different.

  She had listened while the Senior Officers had talked to her father of the Russian infiltration amongst the tribesmen on the North-West Frontier, the terrors of Thuggee and the horror of Suttee.

  Apart from that there had been her father’s mysterious visits.

  They were very secret, but, on his return, Officers as concerned as he was with the hidden undercurrents of insurrection would come to talk to him about what he had discovered.

  Although it was reprehensible, Vina would eavesdrop.

  However, when after the first time she admitted to her father what she had done, he had only laughed.

  ‘"You are intelligent enough, my poppet,” he said, “to realise that you hold my life in your hand. One unwary word could mean my death, if nobody else’s.”

  “You know I will be discreet, Papa, and never do anything that could possibly hurt you. At the same time, although I am frightened by what you do, I find it very thrilling!”

  Her father had kissed her, but he had not forbidden her to eavesdrop.

  She, therefore, learned many secrets that would have horrified the powers that be, had they been aware of her knowledge of them.

  But because he trusted her, her father often made use of her intuition.

  “What did you think of the man who came to see me yesterday?” he would ask.

  He knew that she had overheard what had been said, although the visitor had not been aware of it.

  Sometimes Vina would reply,

  “He is honest and trustworthy, but rather stupid.”

  “That is what I thought myself,” her father would add.

  Or else her reply might be,

  “He is interested only in money. If somebody offered him more than you pay him, he would not hesitate to accept it.”

  “How can you be aware of that?” Colonel Wallace had enquired.

  “When he told you what he had spent in obtaining the information you wanted,” Vina answered, “he was asking more than he had actually expended, and also his voice was greedy.”

  Her father had put his arm around his daughter’s shoulders.

  “I should not allow you to do this,” he had said, “but you are a great help to me.”

  ‘How can all those days be over?’ Vina had asked herself despairingly after she had come to England.

  Sometimes, when the conversation was so commonplace, she had found it hard to even make a pretence of listening to what was being said.

  Now, because she wanted to escape the rider who might or might not be looking for her, she put Hercules at a high hedge.

  It was different from those that she had jumped before, but she cleared it without difficulty.

  Then at the end of the field she saw yet another hedge and to her delight, Hercules seemed to fly over it.

  Vina then saw a flat piece of land in front of her and she thought that she had certainly evaded her pursuer if that was what he was.

  Hercules settled down to a trot and Vina thought again about her father.

  It was therefore a shock when a voice behind her asked sharply,

  “How can you take those jumps in such an irresponsible manner on a horse you have no right to be riding?”

  As he spoke, the Duke came alongside her and, as Vina turned her face to look at him, she realised that he was angry.

  She had no idea how concerned he had been when he arrived at the stables about ten minutes after she had left.

  He had asked for Hercules to be saddled only to be told that the horse was already being ridden by one of his guests.

  The Head Groom had come hurrying towards the Duke as he started to interrogate the stable boy.

  “We didn’t expect you so early, Your Grace – ” he began, but the Duke interrupted him.

  “I have just learned that Hercules is being ridden, without my permission,” he said sharply.

  The Head Groom looked at the empty stall as if he could not believe his eyes.

  Then he said angrily to the stable boy,

  “What d’you mean by lettin’ someone take ’Is Grace’s ’orse?”

  “She insisted on havin’ ’im!” the lad said defiantly.

  “She?” the Duke exclaimed. “Are you telling me that a lady is riding Hercules?”

  “Aye, Your Grace.”

  “Saddle Wellington!” the Duke peremptorily ordered.

  Three minutes later he left the stables by the back entrance, the stable lad telling him the direction that Vina had taken.

  He had no idea where she could have gone except that the surrounding fields were flat and an invitation to any rider.

  He thought apprehensively that if Hercules was up to his usual tricks, she might be lying at the bottom of a fence or be unconscious in a ditch.

  He had quite expected to encounter Hercules riderless, making his own way back to the stables.

  It was with a deep sense of relief, therefore, that the Duke finally saw far in the distance the horse and rider he was seeking.

  It was then he realised that Vina was running away from him.

  He first of all thought it an impertinence and then, as she took fences that he would himself have found difficult, if not impossible, he felt his temper rising.

  He had bought Hercules from a friend who had told him quite frankly that he had found the stallion too hard to handle and quite dangerous.

  “You are the only man who would, I think, be able to control him,” he had said to the Duke.

  The Duke had discovered that he was right and it was most certainly a challenge that he greatly enjoyed.

  Although the stallion was now far less obstreperous, he had not yet allowed anyone else to ride him.

  With horror he watched Vina taking one fence after another, expecting at any moment to see her fall to the ground.

  If she did not break her neck, he thought, she would surely be severely injured in one way or another.

  Now, as he saw the ease she was riding with, he could hardly believe that he was not dreaming.

  “I-I am sorry, Your Grace,” she said in a quiet voice, “if I have done anything wrong, but you did say I could have a horse that was spirited.”

  “Spirited!” the Duke exclaimed.

  Suddenly he laughed.

  “I don’t believe it!” he said. “How can you ride a horse that I myself have difficulty in holding?”

  Vina smiled and bent forward to pat Hercules on the neck.

  “He is magnificent!” she enthused. “And I think perhaps we understand each other.”

  “Are you telling me that you have some magic power over horses, as if you were a lion tamer?” the Duke asked.

  Vina shook her head.

  “I don’t think it is magic, but Papa said if you gave animals love, real love, which they understand, then they respond in a different way to people who, although they may not be aware of it, are really frightened of them.”

  She was thinking as she spoke of the elephants in India who loved their mahouts and the tiger cub that her father had kept as a pet after its mother had been shot.

  It had been as adorable as any kitten and Vina had cried when eventually her father had been forced, because they were moving to another part of India, to send it to a local zoo.

  She had lain awake for nights worrying that the cub would miss them and feel lonely and neglected.

  They rode for a few minutes in silence.

  And then the Duke said,

  “I have to concede, Miss Wallace, that you are, without exception, the best rider I have ever met, but you have also nearly caused my heart to stop beating.”

  Vina looked surprised for a moment.

  “You thought Hercules would throw me, Your Grace?”

  “I was sure he would do so,” the Duke replied, “and I had visions of you being seriously injured.”

  “I-I suppose,” Vina said hesitatingly, “that I should – apologise for taking him – without asking you, but to be honest – I thought th
at no one would be up so early – and that I would be back in the stables before anybody had time to worry about me.”

  “I was early too,” the Duke admitted, “because I did not sleep well.”

  This was true because he had been concerned about Edgar and he had wondered if there would be any real alternative to his marrying Vina Wallace.

  He knew now that he had seen her that she was not at all the sort of wife Edgar would appreciate nor would she be likely to be able to reform him.

  He was well aware that Edgar’s women, and there had been a great number of them, were noisy and tawdry.

  In fact in his opinion they were of a coarse type who were at their best at riotous parties where too much wine was served.

  Now that he had seen Vina, the Duke could not imagine Edgar finding her in any way to his taste.

  His choices were invariably flamboyant, over-dressed and over-bejewelled. Their conversation was certainly not suitable for anybody as young and as so obviously innocent as Vina.

  Then, as he had still been awake when the dawn was breaking, he had told himself that he was being very stupid.

  Perhaps with the General behind her, Vina would be able to curb some of Edgar’s wild extravagances and at least have the whip hand, because she held the purse strings.

  As dawn broke, the Duke was still sleepless and it was then that he had decided to go riding.

  Now, as their horses moved together over the flat field in the direction of the house, Vina said again,

  “I am sorry – I have behaved badly – but still it has been the most exciting and wonderful thing that has happened to me since I – came to England.”

  “Do you miss India very much?”

  “To me it is like being shut out of Paradise!”

  “Are you saying that you don’t like this country?”

  “To be honest – I find it very – dull.”

  He looked at her in astonishment and she added quickly,

  “But please – don’t repeat that to my uncle and aunt. It has been very kind of them to have me – but they do not understand how different it was being with my Papa.”

  “I should have thought that you would have found the Regimental quarters in India rather constricting,” the Duke remarked. “I have always understood that the Memsahibs lived a somewhat monotonous life.”

  Vina laughed.

  “My life with Papa was certainly not monotonous. We travelled all over the country and I think perhaps you would be shocked at some of the strange places we have stayed at and the people we have known.”

  Suddenly the Duke was aware of why Vina’s father had been spoken of with so much respect.

  He remembered, as he had forgotten before, that the Secretary of State for India had said to him one evening in London,

  “I hear you have Sir Alexander Wallace as a neighbour in the country.”

  The Duke nodded and he went on,

  “His brother David is one of the most brilliant men we have ever had in India.”

  The Duke had looked surprised and then somebody had come to interrupt them and he had not thought of it again.

  Now that he had an idea of the work that Vina’s father had been engaged in and he understood what she was feeling.

  They rode in single file through a ride in the wood and then were in the Park with the great house standing just ahead of them.

  The Duke looked at it with satisfaction before he said,

  “I want you to like and admire Quarington.”

  “It is – very impressive.”

  The Duke waited to hear the eulogies that usually came from anyone who looked at or talked about the house.

  Then, as Vina did not speak, he said almost as if he forced her to be more appreciative,

  “You see the Tower at the far end? It is all that remains of the Norman Castle that was built on this site after William of Normandy had won the Battle of Hastings.”

  Vina looked and saw that the Tower altered the otherwise perfect symmetry of the house, which she guessed rightly, was of the Georgian period.

  “It is known,” the Duke went on as if he wished to command her attention, “as the ‘Tower of Despair!’”

  “What an unhappy name,” Vina exclaimed. “But, why?”

  “The Norman Baron who built Quarington took a large number of prisoners who had ferociously fought against him.”

  The Duke looked at Vina to see if she was interested and went on,

  “He then informed them that he had no intention of allowing them to escape and, because they had killed so many of his men, they would remain his prisoners for life.”

  “Incarcerated in the Tower?”

  “Yes, but he was merciful enough to allow them, when they wished, to go up onto the roof.”

  The way the Duke spoke told Vina that this was not the end of the story and she looked at him enquiringly.

  “There was, of course, a moat all around The Castle in those days, but now only a very small part of it is left beneath the Tower.”

  “You mean the prisoners – threw themselves into it,” Vina said, understanding where the story was leading.

  “Exactly!” the Duke answered. “The family history says that no less than a hundred men perished in that way.”

  Vina shuddered.

  “I think if I owned your house I would want to sweep away the fear that they must have felt before they drowned.”

  Since this was the first time the suggestion had been made to him, the Duke looked at her in surprise.

  “I think it would be sacrilege,” he pointed out, “to destroy anything that has been preserved for so many generations. The house has been built and rebuilt, but the Tower of Despair has always remained.”

  “Then I can only hope that there will be no more prisoners in it,” Vina said, “and if there are, that I am not one of them!”

  She spoke lightly, but there was a frown between the Duke’s eyes as she quickened Hercules’s pace and he followed her.

  *

  Back at the house Vina changed out of her riding clothes and then went down to the breakfast room.

  As she half-expected, there were only the younger members of the house party because the more elderly ladies like her aunt had breakfast in their bedrooms or the boudoirs that adjoined them.

  There was no sign of the Duke and she thought that he must have eaten very quickly or else was taking longer than she had in changing.

  She did not tell anyone that he had been riding as for the first time it crossed her mind that it was a rather reprehensible thing to have done without a chaperone.

  It was only when she had come to England that she had realised how many restrictions existed for a young girl and she supposed that had she spent much time at hill stations or in Calcutta or Bombay that she would have found the same in India.

  But she and her father, especially after her mother had died, had always been on the move.

  She had forgotten, therefore, that it was incorrect for a woman to ride without being accompanied by a groom and perhaps even more improper to ride alone with a young man.

  The Duke, she thought, certainly did not come into that category.

  At the same time she had noticed vaguely on the previous night that a beautiful member of the party, Lady Halford, had been very possessive towards him.

  She might be annoyed if she thought that he had been spending any time with her.

  “What are you going to do this morning, Miss Wallace?” one of the men in the party asked.

  “I have not yet seen my aunt to ask her what she wishes to do,” Vina replied.

  “What I would like to do,” the man said, “is to take you driving. I am sure that you would enjoy seeing our host’s estate, a model of its kind.”

  “Now, Edmund, you are rushing your fences as usual!” one of the others intervened. “I was going to ask Miss Wallace if she would like me to show her the hothouses. They are some of the best in the country.”

  “I have a
better idea,” another man chimed in. “I will take Miss Wallace riding.”

  They all looked at Vina as he spoke, but when she had finished her breakfast, she rose from the table.

  “It is very kind of you,” she said, “but first I have to consult my aunt and secondly I want above everything else to see the library.”

  She walked away as she spoke, not realising that all three gentlemen were staring after her in astonishment.

  Later Vina went with Lady Wallace and several other ladies to see the hothouses.

  When they returned, the butler showed her to the library.

  It was as fine as she had hoped, books reaching from floor to ceiling, with a balcony all along one wall and Vina longed to be able to spend the rest of the day there, uninterrupted.

  After luncheon several of the party wished to go riding and the Duke said that he would take them to see the Racecourse he was having laid out on the other side of the Park.

  There was no question this time of Vina riding Hercules.

  While the horse she was given was, as the Duke had promised, spirited, it could not compare in any way with the great stallion.

  As if the Duke was well aware of what she was thinking, his eyes twinkled as he said quietly to her so that nobody else could hear,

  “I was afraid you would be disappointed.”

  “I was too polite to say so,” Vina replied. “But then there is no comparison.”

  “I quite agree with you,” the Duke said. “But I thought that Hercules has had enough excitement for one day.”

  She laughed and he thought that it was a very young, spontaneous and a very pretty sound.

  Then they were all riding towards the new Racecourse, although Lord Edgar was not in the party.

  Vina did not miss him, but the Duke did and there had been a harshness in his voice as he asked the butler,

  “Is Lord Edgar not coming with us?”

  “No, Your Grace, his Lordship is playing billiards.”

  The Duke did not say anything, but he wondered, as he rode after the rest of the party, what Edgar was up to.

  He had always been unpredictable and it seemed extraordinary that if he had made up his mind to propose to Vina Wallace he was making no effort at all to even talk to her.

  Lady Wallace thought the same thing.

  After tea, when there was still no sign of Lord Edgar and she was just about to suggest to Vina that she rest before dinner, she realised that she had disappeared.