The Race For Love Page 7

  “One thing I have never done,” Clint Wilbur went on, “is to stage a performance of live animals. I don’t like circuses, but an exhibition of horsemanship is something very different.”

  “Like the Spanish Riding School in Vienna?”

  “Exactly!”

  “I am sure that it would be very exciting!”

  “I think so,” he agreed. “And, of course, the star of the show would be Flamingo.”

  “Flamingo?” she replied.

  “He can do the tricks you demonstrated to me and any others I have not yet seen.”

  “You are – suggesting that I should – ride him?”

  “Who else?”

  “That is impossible! Quite impossible!”

  “Why?”

  “Because my – ”

  She was going to say, ‘my uncle would never allow it’, but she managed to bite back the words before they fell from her lips.

  “I am sorry to – refuse you,” she said, “but I could – never do anything like that.”

  She thought he looked disappointed and she added quickly,

  “But I am sure that I could teach you how to handle Flamingo.”

  “I doubt it,” Clint Wilbur replied. “He is your horse and he not only hears what you say but knows what you are thinking.”

  Alita thought wildly that that was true. At the same time Clint Wilbur must be crazy if he thought that she could appear in any performance he might stage.

  “Let me explain what I want to do,” he said. “A friend of mine, an American, is playing the leading part at The Gaiety Theatre in London.”

  “The Gaiety?”

  “I expect you know all about it,” he said with a note of amusement in his voice. “I understand it’s one of the great British institutions.”

  That was true enough.

  Alita had heard about The Gaiety Theatre from her father, from her Cousin Gerald and from the newspapers that she read assiduously in an effort to keep in touch with the world that still existed outside The Castle.

  The Gaiety was the most famous variety theatre in the world and her father had always promised that as soon as she was old enough he would take her there to see a musical burlesque.

  He had told her that they had been described by the owner of the theatre, a man called Hollingshead, with a slogan that became famous, “The Sacred Lamp of Burlesque”.

  Whenever people spoke of The Gaiety there seemed to be a sparkle in their eyes and a smile on their lips.

  It had for Alita always personified music, dancing feet and bright lights.

  She had known when she came to live at The Castle that all those things would be denied to her for the rest of her life.

  Because like so much else they were out of reach, she had followed the different shows at The Gaiety with the same interest that she accorded to the political news and to the foreign countries she read about in her uncle’s library.

  She knew, for instance, that the Gaiety Girls were the most beautiful that could be found anywhere on the stage and that they were also the embodiment of elegance.

  She had once asked her father about them and he had said,

  “For a young unmarried man to take a Gaiety Girl out to supper and drive her home in a hansom is the most exciting thing he could do.”

  “But why are they different from any other women, Papa?” Alita had enquired.

  “I think,” he had replied, “it is because they personify not only beauty but laughter and fun. We all need fun, Alita, as you will find as you grow older.”

  He had spoken sadly and she knew that something personal was troubling him, but she was too shy to ask him what it was.

  The Gaiety fascinated her and, when she read about the shows put on there, she found that the critics became more and more enthusiastic about every new burlesque.

  There had been Our Cinderella, Galatea or Pygmalion Reversed, Camaralzaman, Our Helen, Very Little Hamlet, Mezeppa and The Vicar of Wide-Awake Field.

  She loved their names and she loved reading about the people who performed in them.

  She therefore knew that Miss Wadman, an American who for some unknown reason was never billed as having a Christian name, was a favourite with the public because of her voice, her good acting and her lovely appearance.

  The expression on her face must have told Clint Wilbur that she knew who he was talking about.

  “I see you have heard of Miss Wadman.”

  “Yes.”

  “I am giving a party for her,” he said, “and also for Nellie Farren.”

  “Nellie Farren!”

  Alita cried out the name.

  “You mean she is coming – here? To – stay?”

  “Only for two nights,” Clint Wilbur replied, “but the show she is in at the moment will soon be taken off. They are to stage a new one, called Little Jack Sheppard, at the end of the year.”

  “I have read about it!” Alita exclaimed.

  “Well, Nellie and my friend, Miss Wadman, will be arriving after the Saturday night performance and will stay until Monday afternoon. I promised them I would provide something exceptional, but I was not certain what it would be until now.”

  “You mean that you will put on a – show for them in the riding school?”

  “That is what I have been saying,” Clint Wilbur said, “and you and Flamingo will be the leading actors, just as Nellie and Miss Wadman are leading actresses at The Gaiety.”

  Alita gave a little sigh.

  “It’s a wonderful idea, but impossible! Absolutely impossible!”

  “Nothing is impossible!” Clint Wilbur replied. “And, as it happens, if you don’t want the Duke to know what you are doing, it’s very possible.”

  “How?”

  “Because the Duke told me last night at dinner that he, the Duchess, and Lady Hermione are all invited to stay at Windsor Castle at the time that Nellie Farren and Miss Wadman will be staying here.”

  Alita stared at him wide-eyed.

  It flashed through her mind that if he was entertaining ladies from The Gaiety, surely none of her aunt’s friends in the County would be among the guests.

  Then she told herself that she must be mad to consider such a thing for one moment. How could she, the Duke’s niece, perform in public? And what was more she would look a fine figure of fun in front of the beautiful and exquisitely dressed leading ladies from The Gaiety.

  She took a little sip of her champagne and put it down on the table beside her.

  “I am sure that you will give Miss Farren and Miss Wadman a treat,” she said, “and I would love to be able to see it, but it’s something I cannot do. However, I will – lend you – Flamingo.”

  Clint Wilbur did not speak for a moment and Alita, looking up at him, felt a little tremor of fear.

  There was something in the squareness of his chin and the tightness of his lips that told her that he was going to be difficult.

  “I am – sorry,” she said again.

  “So am I,” he answered, “but, as you suggest, I daresay I shall be able to handle Flamingo. Of course in those circumstances I shall expect him to be included in the deal with the other horses.”

  Alita felt as if her heart had stopped beating and she stared at him incredulously.

  “Y-you – don’t – mean that?” she stammered. “You – cannot mean it! You promised – you would not – suggest such a thing!”

  “I told you I always have my own way,” Clint Wilbur replied. “If you will not agree to show Flamingo to my friends, then I must do it myself and naturally I could not waste time learning how to handle a horse unless it belonged to me.”

  “B-but he is – mine!” Alita retorted passionately.

  “I daresay the Duke will provide you with another mount,” Clint Wilbur answered casually. “Will you inform His Grace that I will buy Flamingo as well as those he showed me this morning?”

  He moved as if to escort her to the door, but, with her fingers locked together, Alita could
only look at him, her grey eyes seeming to fill the whole of her small face.

  “Please – listen to me,” she begged.

  “There is really nothing to discuss,” he answered, “and I dislike arguments.”

  “I – told you, Flamingo is – all I have in the – whole world – how can he matter to you when you – have so much?”

  “I do not have a horse to equal him in intelligence or who can give such a unique performance.”

  “E-even – if I said I would – do it,” Alita said desperately, “do you – realise that I have n-nothing to – wear except – what I have on? Of course, I would be a clown for your – friends to – laugh at. Perhaps that is what you – intend?”

  “If you take part in my show,” Clint Wilbur said coldly, “I will naturally provide, as any theatrical Manager expects to do, the right clothes for the performance.”

  “I-I could not – let you – do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “It would be – wrong and – improper – for a gentleman to p-pay for what a – lady wears.”

  “I am not asking you to appear as a lady,” Clint Wilbur retorted, “but as a rider. That, as you must admit, is a very different thing.”

  He had the answer to everything, Alita thought, and yet how could she possibly do what he asked?

  But she could not lose Flamingo – she could not! He was the only thing left in her life, and, as she had already said, perhaps indiscreetly, the only being who loved her and whom she really loved.

  After all, she asked herself, what did it matter if she did something unconventional?

  It would doubtless horrify her uncle and aunt if they should ever learn of it. But they would never in their wildest dreams imagine her behaving in such a way.

  The alternative to doing what Mr. Wilbur asked of her was to sit alone in The Castle as she had done for three years, which seemed like three centuries, with no one to talk to, no one even to notice her except with contempt and dislike.

  To lose Flamingo would be to lose her last touch with the life she had once known and her last memories of happiness.

  She felt that Clint Wilbur was impatiently waiting for her to leave and she felt too that what decision she came to was really a matter of indifference to him.

  He wanted her to do as he wished. If she refused, he would manage without her, perhaps even find another woman to take her place on Flamingo’s back.

  She could not bear it.

  It was too much!

  She knew that without Flamingo she would only want to die!

  “Very – well,” she said in a strange little voice that seemed to come from a long way away. “I will – do what you – ask.”

  Chapter Four

  Riding towards Marshfield House, Alita felt her heart still pounding from the altercation she had just had with her uncle.

  The Duchess and Hermione had been to a dinner party the night before and, when Alita entered the breakfast room, she found only her uncle sitting at the table.

  “Good morning, Uncle Lionel!” she said. “I am sorry to be late, but Sam was worried about Sparkling Knight’s fetlock.”

  The Duke only grunted and, as Alita sat down, a footman offered her a dish of bacon and eggs.

  She was feeling rather breathless as she had run up the three flights of stairs to her bedroom to pull off her habit and hurry into the first gown she found, buttoning it up at the back as she ran back downstairs.

  The Duke did not speak until the servants had left the room.

  Then he raised his eyes from The Times to say,

  “It is time, Alita, that you stopped all this nonsense of spending so much time at Marshfield House.”

  Alita put down her knife and fork to stare at him in consternation before she answered,

  “What – do you mean – Uncle Lionel?”

  “You can understand English, I suppose?” the Duke retorted sharply. “Your aunt has found out that you spend much time in that man’s stables and she considers it quite unnecessary. What is more, it is likely to cause gossip.”

  “There is no chance of that, Uncle Lionel,” Alita said quickly. “But Mr. Wilbur insists that I superintend the alterations to the stables. They are nearly finished and then our horses can move in there.”

  “I agree with your aunt that your supervision is quite ridiculous!” the Duke replied angrily. “I admit you brought off a good deal for me with Wilbur and I shall be delighted when I have the cheque in my hand. In the meantime you stay here. Do you understand?”

  “Mr. Wilbur made my – assistance in the – alterations to his – stables a condition of the sale,” Alita said falteringly.

  Her uncle brought his fist down angrily on the table, making the china and silver rattle.

  “I have never heard such impertinence!” he stormed. “Let me make it quite clear, I will not be dictated to by an American, however rich he may be!”

  He paused before he added firmly,

  “You can tell Wilbur for me today that this is the last time you will go to the Marshfield stables. Is that clear?”

  Alita was sure from the way her uncle was talking that the Duchess must have made an issue of the whole matter to arouse him to such a state of anger.

  She suspected that the reason was that Mr. Wilbur had not paid court to Hermione as they had hoped and indeed expected.

  She knew that her uncle and aunt had given a large party for him to meet the County, but, from what Hermione had told her afterwards, while he had been polite and charming to everybody, he had not singled her out in any way.

  Nor had he shown any more interest in her at other times, as when he came to The Castle or they met outside, than he had shown the first day they had met.

  In a way it was absurd that the Duke should have set his heart on having Clint Wilbur as a son-in-law.

  Alita was quite certain that, when they came to know each other better, they would find that apart from horses they had little in common.

  She realised, meeting Clint Wilbur every day, that he had an astute intelligent mind, which made him knowledgeable about a great many things that her uncle was supremely ignorant about.

  He was also even more autocratic than the Duke.

  She could well imagine that if the two men were together for any length of time, not only would they disagree on a great number of subjects but also their personalities would come into violent conflict.

  She knew now with a sense of dismay that Clint Wilbur would be furious at having his plans circumvented, while at the same time it would be extremely difficult for her to defy her uncle.

  As if he felt slightly apologetic at having been so violent, he said more gently,

  “Surely those damned stables are finished by now? I could have built an Army Barracks in the time you have been going over there!”

  “It is only a little over a week, Uncle Lionel.”

  She spoke humbly, in what she thought was a conciliatory tone, but the Duke once aroused was difficult to pacify.

  “In the meantime our horses are being neglected,” he said. “I know you sold the bulk of them to Wilbur, but there are the mares and foals and I have learnt that one which was born yesterday is dead, I presume from neglect!”

  “That is not fair, Uncle Lionel,” Alita retorted. “Sam suspected that the foal was not in the right position. It was born with a twisted neck and it was really best that it did not live.”

  “You are making excuses!” the Duke roared. “If you had been there, as you should have been, it would doubtless have survived. I will have no more of it, Alita, and that is an order!”

  He threw The Times down on the floor and rose from the breakfast table.

  “Inform Mr. Wilbur of my decision and tell him that I require your services here at The Castle!”

  The Duke turned and walked from the room, closing the door noisily behind him.

  Alita stared after him in consternation.

  She was quite sure that, if her uncle was angry
, Clint Wilbur would be angrier still and she thought with a sigh that she had in fact been fortunate that all this had not occurred sooner.

  She had been well aware that, if the Duchess had had the slightest intimation that she was spending so much time at Marshfield House, she would have interfered immediately.

  There was no use pleading that Clint Wilbur had no idea who she was, trying to convince her aunt and uncle that he treated her in exactly the same way as he treated his architect and the other people he employed.

  Actually, however, this was not quite true.

  She and Clint Wilbur had had long consultations together about the progress that was being made in the riding school and what fortunately had gone unnoticed was that he rode nearly every morning with her on the Racecourse.

  She was usually there before he appeared, so that she could teach Flamingo some new tricks and take him through his repertoire of old ones.

  She acknowledged to herself that she looked forward eagerly and with a strange excitement to the moment when she would see a man riding out of the morning mist as if he stepped out from a magical world to enter into her own.

  Everything at Marshfield House did seem magical.

  Clint Wilbur was transforming it into what it must have looked like when it had first been built.

  The beautiful ceilings glowed with colour that had been obscured by the dirt and dust of ages and the gold leaf on the cornices, which also decorated much of the white panelling, shone with a pristine brilliance.

  And apart from the fine furniture that had belonged to the house originally, Clint Wilbur was bringing in new treasures.

  Art dealers came down from London with paintings that he chose with a discrimination and faultless good taste that Alita found surprising.

  She had not expected an American to know so much about painting, furniture, and china, but she was sure that Clint Wilbur was a very unusual American.

  As he had said himself, his cosmopolitan education was certainly different from that available to the majority of his countrymen.

  He showed Alita his new purchases as he accumulated them and let her look at the rooms as they progressed under the decorator’s hands.