21 The Mysterious Maid-Servant (The Eternal Collection) Page 5

  “I have – considered it,” Giselda said, “and it is the only – solution I can find. I thought perhaps it would be easy for you to find – someone who would – pay for what I can – offer him.”

  “It is, of course, possible,” the Earl said slowly.

  “Then you will do it?”

  “That depends,” he replied. “I think I would not be asking too much, Giselda, if I enquire why you need such a large sum so urgently.”

  She turned from the bedside to walk across the room to the window.

  She stood looking out and the Earl knew she was debating with herself as to whether she should trust him with her secret or whether she should refuse.

  Finally’ because he knew she felt he was the only hope of providing the money, she said in a low voice,

  “My brother – if he is ever to walk again – must be operated on by Mr. Newell.”

  “Your brother has been injured?”

  “He was knocked down two months ago by a phaeton that was travelling too fast. He was trampled on by the horses – and a – wheel passed over him.”

  The last words were spoken almost as if the horror of what had occurred was still too poignant to be expressed in words.

  “So that is why you came to Cheltenham!”

  “Yes.”

  “And you have been waiting for your brother to see Newell?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you not tell me?”

  She did not reply and he knew what the answer was. She and her family would not accept charity.

  “It must be a very serious operation if Newell is charging so much,” the Earl said after a moment.

  “It is, but he will also keep Rupert in his private hospital for a few days and that is included in the fifty pounds.”

  “You have no other way of finding the money?”

  It was an unnecessary question, the Earl knew. They would not be starving now if they had any resources.

  Giselda turned from the window.

  “Will you – help me?”

  “I will help you,” the Earl replied, “but perhaps not in the way you suggest.”

  “I must – earn the money.”

  “I am aware of that.”

  She came nearer to him and now he thought the expression in her eyes was one of trust.

  Experienced though he was in the problems of other people, the Earl thought that he had never in his life heard such an extraordinary request or one that he found so incredible.

  And yet he realised that where Giselda was concerned there was little alternative.

  It was true, and she was not misinformed, that there were men who would pay large sums, although not often as much as fifty pounds, to the keepers of expensive brothels who would provide them with untouched virgins.

  The Earl was well aware, as were all his contemporaries, that the Temple of Flora in St. James catered for every type of vice, and there were other places whose proprietors haunted the parks in search of pretty nursemaids from the country and met the stage coaches when they arrived with rosy-cheeked girls looking for domestic employment.

  That Giselda should suggest such a thing was to the Earl as surprising and perturbing as if a cannonball had been fired in the quiet bedroom.

  He realised that she was waiting and after a moment he said,

  “Will you give me a few hours to think this over, Giselda? I suppose, while I am considering the matter and we are finding a solution, you would not allow me to lend you the money?”

  “Mr. Newell said he could perform the operation on Thursday.”

  “That gives us two days.”

  “Yes – two days.”

  “I would like longer.”

  “I – cannot – wait.”

  He knew she had refused his suggestion without actually saying so and he wondered whether if he raged at her it would make any difference.

  Then he knew that nothing he could say would make her take money from him.

  Because the tension between them was so strong, again the Earl played for time.

  “Suppose you read me the news?” he suggested. “I want to hear what is happening in the world outside. It will also give me a chance, Giselda, to adjust myself to this quite astounding request.”

  She made a helpless little gesture with her hands as if she explained without words that she had no alternative. Then obediently she picked up the Cheltenham Chronicle and, seating herself on a chair at the bedside, she started to read in her soft voice first the headlines and then the leading article.

  That was the order in which the Earl liked things done, but this morning he did not hear one word of what Giselda read.

  He was turning over and over in his mind every possible way by which he could prevent her from sacrificing herself to save her brother.

  From the conversations he had had with Giselda, the Earl was certain that she was very innocent.

  They had not actually discussed the intimacy between a man and a woman, but from things she had said he thought that, like most girls of her age, she had little if any idea of what happened when two people made love together.

  Because she was so sensitive, so innocent and, above all, well-bred, the Earl knew that anything that occurred in the circumstances she had suggested would be a shock and perhaps a terror beyond anything she had ever dreamt of or imagined.

  He realised too that because he was an invalid and because she was so innocent, it had never for one moment struck her that he might in fact offer her the money on his own behalf.

  He had been right, he surmised, in thinking that she did not look on him as a man who might desire her as a woman.

  In fact never in their relationship had she ever at any time been self-conscious about tending to his wounds, arranging his pillows or being in close proximity to him.

  His own attitude had, the Earl realised, contributed to this by the fact that he either ordered her about or discussed subjects that interested them both in the same manner he would have discussed them with a man.

  Now he knew that it would be impossible for him to stand aside and let Giselda prostitute herself, as she wished to.

  But the difficulty was how to prevent it.

  He was still not well enough to play the lover, even if he wished to do so, and even to suggest such a thing would be to change the relationship between them in a manner the Earl felt would be extremely regrettable.

  At the moment she trusted him. She had come to him in her difficulty and with her problems and that at least made the situation easier than it might have been.

  But he knew only too well how fiercely she would resist any attempt on his part to give her money.

  What is more she would not be deceived into believing that he desired her as a woman, when up to this moment there had never been the slightest indication of it in his manner towards her.

  ‘What the devil can I do?’ the Earl asked himself.

  When finally Giselda set down the newspaper he still had no solution of any sort to offer.

  She looked at him enquiringly and he wondered what on earth he could say to her when Batley came into the room.

  “Excuse me, my Lord, but Captain Henry Somercote has called and wishes to see your Lordship.”

  The interruption was, the Earl thought, for the moment a Godsend.

  “I shall be delighted as well you know, Batley, to see Captain Somercote. Ask him to come up.”

  Giselda rose to her feet.

  “We will talk about this a little later,” the Earl suggested.

  “Thank you, my Lord.”

  She curtsied and as she went from the room the Earl thought that the suffering on her face was even more marked than when she had merely looked starved.

  ‘I have to find a way out of this problem,’ he told himself frantically.

  Captain Somercote came into the room looking a ‘Tulip of Fashion’ with a starched cravat almost dazzling in its whiteness, the points of his collar high above his sunburnt chin.

>   “Henry!” the Earl exclaimed. “I am delighted to see you! What on earth has brought you to Cheltenham?”

  “I thought you might have expected me,” Henry Somercote replied.

  He was a good-looking young man, a few years younger than the Earl. They had served in the same Regiment and fought side by side at Waterloo.

  They were also related, although the connection was slight, and they had actually known each other since they were children.

  “I am here to scatter rosebuds in the path of the conquering hero,” Henry Somercote said, seating himself in a comfortable chair.

  “Of course! I might have guessed that where the Duke was you would be also.”

  “Am I ever off duty?” Captain Somercote asked, who had been an aide-de-camp to Wellington at Waterloo. “His Grace has now almost adopted me and he bamboozles the C.O. into sending me ahead of him whenever he has to make a public appearance!”

  “I should imagine that is no hardship.”

  “Good Lord, no! I much prefer it to ‘square-bashing’, but I don’t mind telling you, I find myself in some jolly queer places.”

  “Well, I for one, am delighted that you have come to Cheltenham,” the Earl said.

  “The first thing I thought of when the Duke told me where he was going was that I should see you,” Captain Somercote replied. “Are you better?”

  “Much better!” the Earl asserted firmly.

  “That is a relief. When you left Belgium, I thought you were for the high jump and all because you would not let the old sawbones take your leg off.”

  “How right I was,” the Earl remarked. “It is now well on the way to recovery, but I have to thank the amazing surgeon here for that.”

  “I must say you look better,” Captain Somercote said regarding the Earl critically, “but you will put on weight if you lie in bed for too long.”

  “That is what I keep thinking myself,” the Earl answered, “but I am bullied most effectively into staying where I am until the wounds have healed.”

  “Well, I don’t suppose you lack for entertainment in this house,” Henry Somercote said. “How is the Colonel? I found the whole town was talking of him as soon as I arrived, but that is nothing unusual.”

  “Fitz was here this morning as it happens. He has taken a new beauty under his protection – Maria Foote.”

  “I have seen her. She is beautiful,” Henry Somercote remarked. “Trust the Colonel to get there first! I would not mind having a go at her myself!”

  “I would not advise you to interfere now that they are firmly established. Fitz has a way of resenting any encroachment on his preserves and he is very handy with a pistol.”

  “I am not such a fool as that,” Henry Somercote replied. “Besides, the town is full of pretty women. There is plenty of choice.”

  He smiled and then asked,

  “Do you want to hear the bad news?”

  “You would not be able to keep yourself from telling me sooner or later, so I had better hear it sooner.”

  “It is about Julius.”

  “It would be!” the Earl groaned. “What has he been up to now?”

  “Making more of a fool of himself than usual.”

  “Damn the young idiot!” the Earl exclaimed. “I suppose he is in debt again! I told him the last time I paid up that was the end and, by God, I meant it!”

  “I think he believed you.”

  “He had better,” the Earl answered. “I have spent no less than ten thousand pounds on that young reprobate in the last two years. It is like throwing money down the drain.”

  “Well, he has spent all that – and more!”

  “Then he can go to the Fleet for all I care! I will not raise a finger to bail him out.”

  “He has no intention of doing that.”

  “Then what is he doing?”

  “He is trying to marry a rich heiress!”

  “Would he find one who would be such a fool as to have him?”

  “That is exactly what I was going to talk to you about. He has made himself a laughing stock by trying to propose to every girl with money who appeared in London this Season.”

  The Earl’s lips tightened, but he said nothing.

  His young cousin, Julius Lynd, had been a pain in the neck ever since the Earl had inherited the title. He was a waster and a ne’er-do-well upon whom no amount of reprimand had any effect.

  The Earl’s father had had one younger brother who became an alcoholic and died from drink at an early age. His widow consoled herself by spoiling their only child inordinately and Julius had grown up to create scandal after scandal, behaving in a manner that made the Earl rage whenever he thought of him.

  As he was the Earl’s heir presumptive, he had made no pretence of not hoping his wounds at Waterloo would kill him and had sulked when he was disappointed.

  “Go on!” the Earl said sharply to Henry Somercote now, knowing there was more to come.

  “Naturally Julius’s reputation preceded him and the fathers of most of the heiresses chucked him out of the front door before he could even declare himself.”

  Henry Somercote looked at the Earl warily as he went on,

  “He was even caught in one young girl’s bedroom trying to compromise her and only escaped from being strangled by her father by shinning down a drainpipe.”

  “It makes me sick to hear about it!” the Earl said violently.

  “I thought you would be none too pleased, but I ought to warn you that he is coming to Cheltenham. In fact I believe has already arrived.”

  “Coming here? What the hell for?” the Earl enquired.

  “He is chasing a Miss Clutterbuck. I think she is his last hope. She is as plain as a pikestaff and the wrong side of thirty-five, but her father, Ebenezer Clutterbuck, is an exceedingly rich tradesman.”

  He paused to say slowly and impressively,

  “Usurers or should I say money lenders usually are!”

  The Earl made a sound of sheer rage.

  “Dammit all! I will not have a usurer’s daughter in the family! The Lynds, for the last hundred years at any rate, have been respectable.”

  “From all I hear, Miss Clutterbuck is likely to accept him. Despite her money she has not had many offers and Julius, for all his faults, is a gentleman.”

  “By birth, if not behaviour!” the Earl added bitterly.

  He was thinking to himself that here was another problem and one that would also have to be solved immediately.

  “If I give Julius money,” he said aloud, as if he was voicing his thoughts, “there is nothing to ensure he will not use it to pay off his debts and at the same time marry this Clutterbuck woman, if she is really rich.”

  “It is infuriating for you, I know,” Henry Somercote said sympathetically. “I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I thought you ought to know what is going on.”

  “I would rather know the worst,” the Earl conceded.

  “If you ask me, someone ought to teach young Julius a sharp lesson,” Captain Somercote proposed.

  “I agree,” the Earl replied, “but it does not sound as if Ebenezer Clutterbuck is likely to do so.”

  “Not he! He will jump at the chance of having an aristocratic son-in-law!”

  Then suddenly Henry Somercote laughed.

  “The whole thing is like one of those nonsensical dramas in which the Colonel likes to act. The reprobate nephew – Julius, an incensed Guardian – you, the old usurer licking his lips at the thought of moving into Society and the ugly, doubtless pock-marked bride, who is really the unfortunate dupe.”

  Henry Somercote laughed again, but there was a scowl on the Earl’s face.

  “All we need now,” he went on, “is a heroine, a beautiful Princess in disguise, who reforms the reprobate, so that all ends happily with wedding bells!”

  The Earl sat upright.

  “Henry, you have given me an idea.” he exclaimed. “What is more, it will not only solve the problem of putting Julius in
his place and saving the family from Miss Clutterbuck, it will also answer another problem – and an even more difficult one!”

  .

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Ring the bell, Henry,” the Earl ordered

  “Why?”

  “I will tell you about the idea you have given me,” the Earl replied, “and I want Giselda to be here.”

  Captain Somercote obliged by rising to his feet to tug at the embroidered bell pull, which hung beside the mantelshelf.

  Batley opened the door almost immediately.

  “You rang, my Lord?”

  “Fetch Miss Chart here at once!”

  “Very good, my Lord.”

  “You are arousing my curiosity,” Henry Somercote said. “You have that look about you as though something important is pending. I always knew in Portugal when you were anticipating a battle.”

  The Earl laughed.

  “I don’t believe a word you are saying,” he replied. “At the same time I have to admit to having an engagement in mind.”

  “And the enemy is Julius?”

  “One of them!” the Earl remarked enigmatically.

  Giselda came hurrying into the room.

  “You asked for me?”

  There was still that look of anxiety in her big eyes and a tautness in the lines of her mouth the Earl had not seen since the first day they met.

  “I want you to sit down, Giselda,” he said quietly, “and listen to what I have to tell you. First of all, let me introduce an old friend, Captain Henry Somercote – Miss Giselda Chart.”

  Giselda curtsied and Henry Somercote bowed.

  Only when he saw the expression in her face did the Earl realise that she thought perhaps Henry Somercote was the man he had chosen to pay her the fifty pounds she required.

  Hastily, because the idea embarrassed him, he added,

  “Captain Somercote, Giselda, has brought me news of a first cousin of mine, Julius Lynd, who is behaving in an extremely reprehensible manner.”

  Giselda looked surprised, but she did not speak and the Earl went on,

  “He is in fact, if I do not marry, heir to my title and as such I have certain responsibilities towards him.”

  “No one could have treated him more generously than you have,” Captain Somercote interposed.

  “Julius Lynd has already run through what would seem to you and most ordinary people a fortune,” the Earl continued, as if Henry Somercote had not spoken. “I have paid up for him again and again, and now, quite frankly, I realise it is quite hopeless to go on pandering to his extravagances.”