103. She Wanted Love (7 page)

When he carried it in, she had deliberately taken a dress out of one of the cases and hung it up in the open door of the wardrobe and it looked quite obvious, without her saying anything, that she was unpacking.

“Mrs. Buxton hopes that you’ll enjoy your tea, my Lady,” the footman said, “and she wants to know if you’ll be going down for dinner.”

“I think, as I am so tired after my journey, I would rather have dinner in my room,” Eleta said. “Is the Master dining in or out?”

It was what the servants called Cyril Warner and Eleta never heard it without feeling irritated that he should be Master in her mother’s and father’s house.

The footman hesitated.

“I thinks,” he said, “the Master be waiting to hear if your Ladyship be dining upstairs or down.”

Eleta thought this was good news, as it meant there were no guests and if she stayed upstairs her stepfather would probably go to his Club.

“Please ask Mrs. Buxton just to send me up a little soup and perhaps an omelette and tell the Master I have a bad headache and am going straight to bed.”

“I’ll tell them both, my Lady,” the footman replied and disappeared.

Eleta then undressed and climbed into bed.

She was trying to think over as she did so of all the items she must take with her, just in case she did not return home for a long time.

At the same time she could not help feeling that she was leaving something very precious behind her.

It was all her feelings and thoughts for her mother whom she had always associated with this house.

It had never been a real home for her since her mother had married again. Yet it had always been there, as the house in the country had always been in her dreams.

She had imagined herself riding over the land she had ridden over when she was a child and swimming in the lake in front of the house.

It was all so large a part of her childhood and it seemed incredible that, now she was back in England, she could not go there and feel as she had felt when she was very young.

She remembered so vividly the first pony she had ridden and later the first horse.

No house – and she had visited a great number of them in many parts of the world – could ever be the same as the house in the country which was her real home.

On the way back from France she had been musing how exciting it would be to go there at the weekend.

Even if her stepfather had accompanied her, which she had hoped he would not do, she would still have felt the thrill of being home. Of running to the stables for the horse she wanted to ride, sliding down the banisters which she had done as soon as she was old enough to do so!

It was all part of her. The home she now could not go to, simply because if she stayed even one more day in London she would inevitably be confronted by the Duke.

‘I must escape, I must,’ she told herself again and again before she fell asleep.

*

It was Betty who wakened her when it was still dark, although the stars were not as bright as they had been earlier in the night.

“It’s a quarter-past four, my Lady,” Betty said, “and you should be out of the house in twenty minutes in case someone is up early.”

In her mother’s day the staff had been on duty at five o’clock and Eleta was suspicious that now many of them rose much later.

However, she knew that Betty was wise to take no risks and she must be out of the house before anyone could see her leaving.

She dressed quickly with Betty’s help and she told her that she had taken the luggage after the servants had gone to bed and placed it on the staircase inside the door of the Agency.

“You are an angel, Betty,” Eleta sighed. “Don’t forget to give me back the key.”

Eleta dressed in the same plain coat and skirt she had worn yesterday, but, as she thought it was chilly, she put on the cape she had taken from her mother’s room.

Because it smelt of violets she reckoned that her Mama was standing guard over her and there would be no difficulty in getting away from London.

As she gazed round the room, she believed that she had remembered everything.

Betty was putting on her bonnet and black cape.

“You are coming with me!” Eleta exclaimed.

“Of course I am, my Lady. You don’t suppose I’d let you walk the streets of London at night by yourself.”

“I did not think of it, but, of course, Betty, I would love you to be with me. But I don’t want you to get into trouble with Step-papa if he fancies I left the house and was accompanied by you.”

“He won’t know anythin’ that you don’t want him to know,” Betty replied. “If I tells them in the kitchen, I’ve been to Church and am real astonished when your room is found empty, they’ll believe me all right.”

“You are a genius, Betty! You think of everything and I am so very grateful to you.”

Eleta gave a deep sigh before she added,

“I have a feeling I would never have got away if you had not been here to help me.”

“I’ll be countin’ the days until you comes back and you can be sure, my Lady, I’ll let you know the moment the Master gives up the idea of your marryin’ the Duke. But take care. If you’re in any trouble with the Marquis, come back and we’ll find somewhere else for you to hide.”

“I know you will and thank you, darling Betty.”

They crept down the back staircase and out through the door that led into the Square.

There was no one about, but it was not as dark as it had been and the first glimmer of light was just appearing over the roofs of the houses.

They walked quickly to the Agency to find that the road was deserted and everyone was still asleep.

“Now you stay quietly inside till the carriage comes for you,” Betty said. “It’s not likely you’ll be disturbed at this time of the mornin’, but as you know you can lock the door on the inside.”

Eleta hugged Betty as she said goodbye to her and kissed her on both cheeks.

“You have been wonderful, wonderful,” she said. “I will write to you, but I must disguise my writing in case any of the staff recognise it and tell Step-papa.”

Betty nodded and Eleta went on,

“You can be quite certain he will be suspicious of everyone, especially of you, as you have always meant so much to me.”

“I’ve thought of that,” Betty said.

She opened her rather ugly handbag and pulled out a piece of paper.

“Here’s the address of my sister-in-law, my Lady, and if you write to me there, she’ll forward the letter on.”

“How clever of you,” Eleta exclaimed. “I did not think of that and, if I do write to you, it would not be surprising if your sister-in-law writes to you whenever she feels like it.”

“That’s what I want you to do. I’ll tell her to put it in another envelope so that the Master won’t be curious as to why I’m hearin’ from Hertfordshire.”

Eleta gave a cry of delight and kissed Betty again.

It would have been dark inside Mrs. Hill’s house if there had not been a glass panel above the door and the dawn was just beginning to percolate through it.

Eleta sat on the stairs. It was not very comfortable, but at least she was resting her legs.

Then, as she was alone in the quiet of what was at the moment an empty house, she began to pray.

She prayed for God to help her and for her mother to be near her and she also prayed that where she was going would not be as difficult or as frightening as Betty feared it would be.

The sun was coming through the top of the door and lighting the stairs when Eleta’s wristwatch told her that it was now six o’clock.

It was then that she turned the key in the lock and opened the door. Even as she did so, she saw a carriage approaching drawn by two horses.

When they were pulled in exactly outside the door, she opened it still further.

There was a footman on the box beside the driver and, as he came across the pavement, she saw that he was a comparatively young man with a smile on his lips.

“Be you the new Governess?” he enquired.

“I am,” Eleta said, “and let me thank you for being so punctual.”

“We was afraid we’d have difficulty findin’ this place,” he replied, “as we ain’t been here before.”

“My luggage is inside and thank you for coming.”

“You may not thank me when you gets there,” the footman muttered.

Eleta knew without being told what he meant and she thought it would be a mistake to be too chatty. So she waited until the footman brought out her luggage and then she locked the door and put the key through the letter-box.

The footman loaded her luggage at the back of the carriage and then came round to open the door for her and she climbed inside.

It was very comfortable and well-upholstered and Eleta put her jewel-case down beside her, as the footman came to the door carrying her hat-box.

“Do you mind havin’ this with you?” he asked. “It won’t go into the hole at the back and I don’t fancy havin’ me legs on it all the way down.”

“It will be quite all right on the small seat,” Eleta said. “Or if you think it might fall, put it on the floor.”

“If you asks me that’s more sensible,” the footman replied. “Do you want a rug over your knees, miss?”

“Thank you,” Eleta said. “Now I am comfortable and I hope I will go to sleep.”

“I could do with a wee bit of shut-eye meself,” the footman said, “but there won’t be no time for that.”

He grinned as he closed the door and climbed up on the front seat and then they drove off.

The man was, she thought, somewhat cheeky for a footman and then she remembered she was no longer Lady Eleta Renton but just a Governess – someone he would say ‘miss’ to when he thought about it, but was more likely to forget it.

‘Now that I am below stairs,’ Eleta reflected, ‘I will doubtless learn so much I did not know before.’

Yet, as she thought it over, she decided that she was not quite below stairs like the rest of the staff.

As one Governess had said to her years ago, her position was between Heaven and Hell!

She laughed at the time, but now she told herself it was no laughing matter and she would have to be careful to keep her dignity, while at the same time to be friendly and at ease with the other staff.

At least her stepfather would not expect her to be in such a position and she reckoned that he would first try to find her amongst her friends.

This would be much more difficult than it sounded because her friends of the last three years lived abroad and he would undoubtedly first ask her friends in France.

If he was at a loss as to where else she was likely to be, he only had to look at her letters to her mother.

The last batch of letters had been from Africa, but he would hardly expect her to travel all that way alone and before that there were letters she had written from Spain and Portugal.

‘If Step-papa has to write to all those people,’ Eleta thought, ‘it will certainly take him a good long time. And he will be embarrassed at having to say he has lost me.’

She almost laughed at that idea, knowing it was something her stepfather would never admit.

But he would have to make some excuse for being anxious to get in touch with her immediately.

She had locked her bedroom door before she left, slipping the key back into the room by pushing it under the door and onto the carpet inside.

They would either have to break down the door to get in or find another key that fitted it.

She could imagine all too clearly her stepfather’s fury and anger when he found her room empty and only a few clothes left in the wardrobe.

He would know then that she had gone away and there would be no one in the house to inform him when she left or where she went.

Eleta knew that she could trust Betty.

She would be surprised, astonished and appear very worried because she was not there, all of which would be of no help to her stepfather, who would be frantic in his efforts to find her.

‘It will never enter his head for a moment,’ Eleta thought, ‘that I would go to an Agency and find a situation for which I was being paid.’

Seeing how rich she was, that would never occur to him, any more than he had expected her to run away.

If he had thought of it, she was certain he would have locked her in her bedroom and at night put a guard on the door without her being aware of it.

‘I think I am safe, I am almost sure I am,’ she told herself. ‘But I must not take any chances. It is essential, if the Marquis entertains his friends, they do not see me.’

Then she told herself that was not as dangerous as it might be.

She had not been in England since her mother had died and she had deliberately stayed away, as she could not bear to go back to the house without her. Above all she had no wish to be with her stepfather.

‘How could I have imagined for a moment that he would try to marry me to a man I have never seen,’ she asked herself, ‘who is old and prepared to sell his title to the highest bidder.’

She shuddered because the very idea shocked her.

The carriage continued gathering speed as it went out of London and it was then that Eleta began to think of the future rather than the past.

‘Why,’ she asked herself, ‘does this child have such a dislike of her Governesses? Why do they say she is so impossible and un-teachable that they leave almost as soon as they arrive?’

Because she had learnt to reason things out at the Convent, she had been successful at all her lessons.

Not only had she used her brain, but her perception, her imagination and what she liked to call her
Third Eye
and now she applied them all to what was waiting ahead for her.

This passed the time far more quickly than anything else she could have done.

It was twelve o’clock before the carriage turned in at some large and majestic gold-topped gates and drove up a long drive with ancient oaks on either side.

They made Eleta think of her own country house in Northamptonshire.

When she had her first glimpse of the Marquis’s house, she thought it was, without exception, the finest and most attractive house she had ever seen.

It was certainly extremely impressive and she was to learn later that it was considered the greatest success of the Adam Brothers.