The Goddess and the Gaiety Girl Read online

  Ever since she had agreed to Harry Carrington’s scheme this was the moment Larentia had felt would be the most embarrassing.

  £5,000 was an incredible sum of money, and although Harry Carrington had said over and over again that it would mean nothing to the Duke, she still felt that to ask for so much seemed greedy and in her own opinion, likely to make the Garons feel that they were almost being blackmailed.

  “And that is exactly what they are,” she had told herself on the train. “Blackmail means that you are trying to extort money from somebody by threatening to expose them if they do not pay you! That is what I am doing, and it makes me feel like a criminal!”

  Harry Carrington had been quite cross with her when she had suggested she should ask for half that amount and hope the family would give more.

  “Why should they not be generous now that the Duke is dead?” he asked sharply. “Besides, have you ever known anyone who wishes to part with more money than they are compelled to? Let me tell you – it’s the rich who are mean and ungenerous, except when it suits their purpose.”

  His voice had been sharp as he had gone on,

  “If they can get away with tuppence halfpenny they will! You do as I tell you and ask for £5,000. They may screw you down, but I doubt it. They will be too frightened that you will demand everything you are entitled to as a Duchess.”

  Yet the fact that she now had to say what she was asking made Larentia wish that she could fade away into unconsciousness again.

  “I am waiting to hear what you are asking,” the Duke prompted.

  “I thought – perhaps – £5,000,” Larentia said, in a voice that was little above a whisper.

  She could not look at him as she spoke but could only stare down at her hands and know that she was blushing in a way which always made her feel shy.

  “You think that is a right and just sum?” the Duke asked.

  “Perhaps – you may think it – is too much,” Larentia faltered.

  “If you want the truth,” he replied, “I think you have been very loyal and behaved in an exemplary manner in keeping your marriage a secret for so long, but I am wondering what you will do now if I refuse to give you the money.”

  Larentia’s head went up quickly and her eyes, as she looked at him, were wide and terrified.

  “But you must give it to me!” she said. “I must have some of it at any rate!”

  “Why is it so urgent?”

  “Because I have a – commitment which must be – paid.”

  She said the first words that came into her mind and she could only think of Isaac Levy waiting for the return of his loan and what would happen if she went back empty-handed.

  “A certain commitment?” the Duke repeated quietly. “You mean that you are in debt?”

  “Yes – yes – that is it,” Larentia said, “I am in debt and if I cannot pay what I – owe I may have to – take the consequences.”

  It was quite obvious from the expression on her face and the desperation in her voice that the consequences were frightening.

  “How much is your debt exactly?” the Duke asked.

  Frantically Larentia tried to do a sum in her head – £200 for each operation, and it was only just by chance that Harry Carrington had let out that Isaac Levy expected not 50% interest, but 100%, and more if it was not paid within a month.

  “Twice £400 is £800,” Larentia told herself.

  Then in a voice that sounded even more frightened than she had been before, she managed to say “I – I – owe over – £8oo.”

  As she spoke she thought it would be impossible for the Duke to believe her.

  How could she have spent so much money looking as she did in clothes she had made herself, and which she had worn for a long time?

  There was an uncomfortable silence. Then the Duke said,

  “Who sent you?”

  “Nobody!”

  Even as she spoke Larentia prayed that she might be forgiven for telling yet another lie.

  “Who told you how much money to ask for?”

  “No – one.”

  She wondered how long she could bear this inquisition and she felt that each answer had to be torn from her as if it was a living part of her body.

  The Duke looked at her in silence.

  Then he said,

  “As I think you must be very tired I am going to suggest that you go to bed. I want to think over what you have told me and, if you will allow me to do so, to discuss it with my aunt, the Dowager Marchioness of Humber, for whom you asked when you arrived. Then, of course, I shall have to consult my Lawyers.”

  “W – why?” Larentia asked. “Why should you – wish to do that? Surely you could just – give me the money and let me – go back to London?”

  “You are in a hurry to get back? Why?”

  “I have to get back to the – Theatre and also – there is someone who needs me.”

  “A man?”

  For a moment she did not understand the implication in the question, then Larentia said quickly,

  “It is someone who is very ill and whom I am looking after.”

  “So you cannot be spared, especially as you cannot afford to pay anybody to take your place.”

  “Yes, that is – right.”

  “I clearly understand what you want,” the Duke said, “but you will appreciate that this evidence you have brought me is very serious from the point of view of the family. If you are in fact, as you say, the wife of the 4th Duke of Tregaron, then it is something which must be added to our genealogical tree, and be incorporated in the archives of the family to go down with all the other history of the Garons to posterity.”

  “No – no,” Larentia said quickly. “There is no need for that! It was a secret marriage – and I quite understand it must remain – secret for all time. All I ask is that you will – substantiate the promise the Duke gave me that I might have a little comfort – as long as I keep my word to him.”

  “I hardly think he was very generous.”

  “That was – all I needed at the time – but I would like now to be – free of the necessity of watching for the money to arrive – and feeling that I cannot manage without it.”

  “How long do you think £5,ooo would last you, and how could we be certain that when you had spent it, you would not come back for more?” the Duke asked.

  “I can only give you my word.”

  “The word that you have kept most discreetly for six years,” the Duke agreed. “Nevertheless times change, you will get older, and perhaps it will be no longer possible for you to appear on the stage. What happens then?”

  “Oh – please – ” Larentia begged. “Do not let us concern ourselves with that – but just with the present. I need £8oo desperately. In fact – I have to have that! The rest is not so important.”

  She knew Harry Carrington would be furious with her. At the same time she told herself all that really mattered was that the two operations could be paid for and they were no longer in debt to Isaac Levy.

  It flashed through her mind that neither her father nor Katie King might be able to earn any money for some time.

  “In which case, I must earn some,” Larentia told herself, and wondered helplessly what she could do.

  She was aware that the Duke was watching her face and the expressions that followed one after another in her green-tinged eyes.

  Then she looked at him pleadingly.

  “Please – do not make things too difficult for me,” she said. “It has been very hard to come here – and I only wish I could – manage without having to beg money. It is – humiliating – degrading – but there was nothing else I could do.”

  She sounded so pathetic that the Duke found it difficult not to be moved by her voice and the expression in her eyes and by the way the light seemed almost to dance on her hair as she moved her head.

  “I have already said that you should go to bed,” he replied. “In the morning things will perhaps not seem quite so upse
tting as they are at the moment.”

  “And you will let me – return to London – as soon as possible?”

  “I will keep in mind what you wish to do,” he replied.

  He rose as he spoke and because she felt it impossible to go on pleading with him Larentia rose too.

  The Duke rang the bell.

  “May I keep this letter and also your Marriage Certificate to show my aunt?” he enquired.

  “Yes, of course.”

  He looked down at her and asked,

  “Are you not rather trusting? Suppose I destroy them?”

  It was the same question Larentia had asked Harry Carrington and she replied,

  “I know you would think it very wrong to do so, and besides, if you wish, you can of course see the entry of the marriage in the Register which is kept in Southwark Cathedral.”

  She thought as she spoke, that Harry Carrington would have been pleased with her answer, and she had the feeling, although she could not be sure, that the Duke too thought it was a convincing one.

  The door opened and the butler asked,

  “You rang, Your Grace?”

  “Miss King will be staying here the night. Will you take her to Mrs. Fellows?”

  “Very good, Your Grace.”

  The Duke put out his hand to Larentia.

  “Goodnight, Miss King. I hope you sleep well. I know you must be very tired after such an exhausting day.”

  Larentia curtsied and when her hand touched the Duke’s he found it was very cold and he was aware that her fingers trembled in his.

  He watched her as she walked across the room to the door, her hair arranged at the back of her head in two heavy plaits, which seemed to have come from the heart of the sun.

  Then as the door closed he said beneath his breath,

  “Uncle Murdoch and that girl! I do not believe it!”

  Chapter Four

  “You are very early, Justin!” the Dowager Marchioness said as the Duke came into the Boudoir that adjoined her bedroom.

  She was fully dressed. She would not have thought of receiving anyone, even her nephew, wearing a negligee. Her lace corsets held her stiffly upright, her hair was well arranged by her maid, she wore five ropes of pearls and had several diamond rings on her blue-veined hands.

  “I apologise, Aunt Muriel,” the Duke replied, “but I have something of great importance to tell you, and I need your advice on what is a very urgent family matter.”

  The Marchioness looked at him in surprise and he seated himself in a chair beside her while her lady’s maid carried away the tray that had contained her breakfast.

  When the door was closed the Duke said,

  “Last night, after you had left me, I was told a young woman had called asking to see you.”

  “To see me, so late!” the Marchioness exclaimed.

  “That is exactly what I said,” the Duke answered, “but as I did not wish to disturb you I saw her. She informed me that six years ago she had become the wife of Uncle Murdoch.”

  For a moment it seemed as if the Marchioness could not take in what the Duke had told her. Then her whole body seemed to stiffen and she said in a voice that was curiously unlike her own,

  “Did you say he was – married?”

  “The young woman who was, she says, only seventeen when the wedding took place, is not the type with whom he usually associated. At the same time, she is on the stage.”

  The Marchioness closed her eyes for a moment, and although the Duke thought she was rather pale, she was admirably controlled as she remarked,

  “An actress! I suppose that was what we might have expected!”

  “Not exactly an actress,” the Duke said, “but what is known in London as a Gaiety Girl.”

  “And Murdoch actually married her?”

  “She has brought her Marriage Certificate, and a letter from Uncle Murdoch saying that he married her because he believed she would give him a son.”

  “That is what I always feared,” the Marchioness said in a low voice.

  “And did she do so?”

  “Fortunately no, but apparently when she failed to produce what he wanted Uncle Murdoch paid her to keep the marriage a secret.”

  “And she has done so all these years?”

  “Surprisingly she has kept her word,” the Duke said. “She swears she has told no one that she is the Duchess of Tregaron.”

  “How can you be sure of this?” the Marchioness asked. “Quite frankly, Justin, I do not believe that Murdoch, fool though he was, would have married a woman of that sort, unless he was quite certain she was carrying his child.”

  “The same idea certainly struck me,” the Duke said. “At the same time, on the face of it, the Marriage Certificate looks valid and the letter is in Uncle Murdoch’s handwriting, as you can see for yourself.”

  He held out the letter to the Marchioness who took it from him in a way which said all too clearly she hated even to touch anything she felt was defiled.

  She opened her lorgnette, which she wore hanging from her neck on a gold chain interspersed with pearls, and read the letter slowly.

  Then she handed it back to the Duke as if she was glad to be rid of it, saying,

  “You let this woman stay here in the house last night?”

  “There was nowhere else she could go.”

  “Nevertheless I think it was a mistake. It might appear as if we had accepted her story.”

  “Perhaps that is what we will have to do.”

  “I do not believe for one moment that this creature is really the Duchess of Tregaron!”

  “That remains to be proved,” the Duke said, “but I do not think we shall do any good by antagonising her.”

  “What else do you expect us to do?” the Marchioness asked fiercely. “How can we contemplate for a moment, that a common woman who walks the stage for anyone who pays to look at her, should bear our name and be accepted as my brother’s legal wife?”

  She shut her eyes again as if at the horror of the idea.

  Then she said,

  “All down the centuries there have been male relatives who have misconducted themselves in one way or another. There have been rakes, rogues and roués! But the Garon women have always had dignity and blue blood has flowed in their veins of which no succeeding generation need be ashamed.”

  “I am aware of that, Aunt Muriel,” the Duke said, “but this is a problem, and you and I have to solve it.”

  “How can we do that?”

  “What this girl has asked, and incidentally her name is Katie King, is that we give her a lump sum of £5,ooo and she will continue the silence she has kept for six years for the rest of her life.”

  “One could hardly accept the word of a woman like that,” the Marchioness said scathingly.

  “She sounded convincing,” the Duke replied reflectively, “in that she does not wish to be acknowledged as a Duchess and is more vitally concerned in paying a debt she owes of £8oo.”

  “In which case, why is she asking for £5,000?”

  “I cannot help thinking,” the Duke replied, “that somebody has suggested that sum to her, and I feel sure there is a sharp brain behind the whole exercise.”

  “Do you mean that somebody is trying to blackmail us into providing the money?”

  “I naturally assumed that is so,” the Duke answered, “but we must have evidence to prove such a contention. In the meantime the woman is here and I am not quite certain what we should do about her.”

  “I refuse, I absolutely refuse to associate in any way with the type of woman that your uncle was seen with in London, and whom he actually entertained in Garon House.”

  The Marchioness drew in her breath before she added,

  “I have never mentioned this to you before, but I have heard of the orgies that took place in what was always our London home! It was at Garon House that I had my coming out ball that was attended by the Queen herself, and from Garon House I was married. Your uncle made it nothing
more than a pig-sty!”

  The way she spoke was so vehement that the Duke was surprised.

  He had always realised the Marchioness deeply resented anything that damaged or defamed the family name. She was in other ways such a warm-hearted, kindly woman that it almost shocked him to hear her speaking in such a bitter, violent manner against her own brother. Yet he could understand only too well what she was feeling, and he knew far better than she did to what depths of depravity the late Duke had sunk, and the vices with which he had amused himself.

  Now the Duke said quietly “You will find Miss King is very different from the sort of woman you are visualising her to be, and we must remember that she was only seventeen when she married Uncle Murdoch. I gather he left her very shortly after the wedding.”

  “She could only have married him for his title and his money.”

  “I suppose so,” the Duke admitted, “but she does not wish to use the title, and he has certainly not been overgenerous to her in the six years they have been apart.”

  “What did he give her?”

  The Duke told her, and as he expected the Marchioness looked surprised.

  “Is that all?”

  “All she admits to.”

  “She must have been aware that Murdoch was an exceedingly rich man.”

  “She says she does not wish to capitalise on that and has only come here now because she has been ill. Unable to earn any money herself she is heavily in debt.”

  “It sounds a very familiar story to me,” the Marchioness said. “These women will lie and lie and none except the Prime Minister would believe their ‘hard luck’ stories, which are invented to wring the hearts of those who listen to them.”

  The Duke was surprised at the hardness in his aunt’s voice, and it struck him that the great ladies who sat on Charity Committees were always ready to be generous to the poor and needy, except when it concerned them personally.

  At the same time, he could understand what a shock it had been to the Marchioness to learn that her brother was married and to a woman whose profession would scandalise the whole family when they learned of it.

  This thought made him say aloud,