A Duke in Danger (7 page)

“I don’t think Lady Alvina’s in the Castle, Your Grace.”

The Duke sat upright.

“What do you mean she is not in the Castle? Where could she have gone?”

Again there was a pause before Walton said:

“I thinks Her Ladyship were somewhat distressed, and I sees her leave, Your Grace.”

“I do not understand. Where can she have gone?” Again there was an uncomfortable silence before the Duke said:

“I am afraid I must have upset her, which is something I should not have done. Please tell me where I can find her.”

He spoke in the persuasive manner which invariably enabled him to get his own way when more authoritative methods failed.

However, Walton shuffled his feet.

“I don’t think, Your Grace, that Her Ladyship’ll want you to find her at the moment.”

“I can understand that,” the Duke said quietly, “but you are well aware, Walton, having known us since we were children, that Lady Alvina is the one person who
can help me to put right what is wrong and clear up what is obviously a mess.”

He thought he saw the old man’s eyes lighten a little, and then he said:

“Well, it’s like this, Your Grace. If I tells you where Her Ladyship is, I’ll be giving away a secret which His late Grace didn’t know because he wouldn’t have approved.”

It flashed through the Duke’s mind again that perhaps Alvina had some man in whom she was interested, but he merely replied quietly:

“I think you will understand, Walton, that whatever His Grace felt or did not feel about things, now that I am taking his place I shall have to make a great number of alterations. The first one is to restore the Castle to what it was in the old days.”

He could not help thinking with some amusement that now he, of all people, was talking about “the good old days.” Yet, it was obvious that if things were to be restored as he wanted, he would have to step back into the past for an example of how they should be done. Still Walton hesitated, until at last he said:

“When His Grace was making economies he turned Her Ladyship’s Governess, Miss Richardson, out of the Castle, and as she’d nowhere to go, Her Ladyship persuaded her to live in what had been the under-gardener’s cottage.”

“Why did she not have anywhere to go?” the Duke asked curiously.

“Miss Richardson’s getting on in years, Your Grace, and she has rheumatism, which makes it hard for her to walk quickly or for any distance.”

“So you think that Her Ladyship has gone now to Miss Richardson in the under-gardener’s cottage,” the Duke said as if he was thinking it out for himself.

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Very well. I will go find her.”

He rose from the chair and walked towards the door as Walton said:

“Mrs. Johnson, Your Grace, was wondering, if you are staying tonight, what you’d fancy for dinner.”

Perceptively the Duke understood that if he wanted dinner, it would be difficult for the servants to provide the sort of meal they expected him to eat, unless he was prepared to pay for it.

“Now listen, Walton,” he said. “You have to help me get things back to normal, and I expect you will be able to find some of the old staff in the village or elsewhere on the Estate.”

He saw Walton’s eyes light up, and he said:

“It may take a little time, but I suggest the first thing you do is get help for Mrs. Johnson in the kitchen and two or three young men to assist you in the pantry.” He knew as he spoke that Walton was finding it hard to believe what he was hearing.

Putting his hands in his pocket, the Duke pulled out his purse, in which there were a number of gold sovereigns.

He then took from the inside of his coat a twenty-pound note, which he put down on the small table where he had laid his purse, and said:

This will help you get what is needed immediately. Send Mark, my groom, to a farm or the village to purchase meat or whatever Mrs. Johnson requires for dinner. I suppose there are some horses in the stables?”

“Only two that Her Ladyship’s been riding, Your Grace,” Walton replied. “One’s getting very old.”

“Mark can ride one of them,” the Duke said. “In the meantime, do what you can to improve things immediately, and there is no need to worry about expenditure. I will deal with that.”

As he finished speaking and walked towards the door, he was aware that Walton was staring down at what he had left lying on the table as if he could hardly believe his eyes.

The Duke did not go out the front door, which was still open, but down the passage that passed the Dining-Hall and the small Dining-Room.

He then pulled open the baize-covered door which led to the kitchen-quarters.

He came first to the pantry, where he could remember as a small boy he had been given sugared almonds and other sweet-meats by Walton.

The huge safe was still there, and the table on which the silver was cleaned, and there was also the bed that folded up into the wall for one of the footmen who was invariably on duty at night to guard the contents of the safe.

Now everything looked very shabby. The walls were damp and in need of paint, and the floor looked as if it could do with a good scrub.

The Duke walked on past cupboards and doors which he did not bother to open and the narrow staircase which led up to the servants’ bedrooms.

Then on his right was the huge kitchen, which he remembered had always been a hive of activity.

The scullions would be turning chickens and great joints on the spit, and Mrs. Johnson and the kitchen-maids would be at the stove. Brass sauce-pans, polished like mirrors, had hung from the walls while the freshly cured hams had hung from a cross-beam.

Now it seemed smaller to him and very empty, and there was only one old woman with bowed shoulders standing near a small fire.

For a moment he found it impossible to recognise the stout, apple-cheeked Cook who had made him gingerbread men as a small boy and later, when he was going back to School, huge fruit-cakes which had been the delight of his dormitory.

As he entered the kitchen she turned round, and he saw by the expression in her eyes that she recognised him.

“Master Ivar! Be it really you? You’ve grown into a fine man, there’s no mistake about that.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Johnson,” the Duke replied. “It is nice to see you again.”

He held out his hand and felt how cold her fingers were and realised how old and frail she was.

“Walton has been telling me,” he said quietly, “that things have been very difficult for you, but that is all over now. You shall have help the moment we can find anyone from the village to come to the Castle.”

He heard Mrs. Johnson make an inarticulate little sound and went on:

“I am looking forward to having one of those delicious dishes you used to cook for me when I was going back to Oxford.”

“That be a long time ago, Master Ivar ... I mean, Your Grace.”

“A long time,” the Duke agreed.

“Things have been bad, very bad these last years.” She gave a deep sigh before she said:

“We’d all have died, every one of us, if it hadn’t been for Her Ladyship.”

“That is what Walton has been telling me.”

“It’s true, Your Grace. We’d have been turned away after all these years without a penny, and there’d have been nothing for us but the Workhouse!”

“Forget it now!” the Duke said. “Everything is going to be exactly as it was when I was a boy and there was no war to make us miserable.”

“That’s the right word—miserable!” Mrs. Johnson agreed. “With that monster in France killing all our young men, His Grace was never the same after His Lordship fell.”

The Duke, feeling somewhat uncomfortable at having taken his cousin Richard’s place, replied:

“Now we must only look forward, Mrs. Johnson, and I want you to tell the groom I have brought down with me where he can go in the village to find food and help.”

He smiled at her as he continued:

“Tomorrow we can make further plans, but for the moment the best thing to do is just to cope with tonight, and actually I shall undoubtedly be very hungry.”

He knew that unless Mrs. Johnson had changed very much, this appeal would not go unanswered, and she said in a different voice:

“You’ll have the best dinner I can cook for you, Master Ivar, but there’s no pretending that I can do it without vittles.”

“That I understand,” the Duke said. “Leave everything to me.”

He walked away, passing the huge larder with its marble slabs on which there used to stand big open bowls of cream.

He remembered too the pats of golden butter from the Jersey herd and cheese which was made fresh every other day.

Then there were sculleries, a very large Servants’ Hall, the Housekeeper’s room, the boot-room, the knife-room, and various other offices, before he reached the yard.

He did not stop to look round but walked on as he knew this was the quickest way to the stables.

As he expected, he found that his groom was the only person there and had just finished putting the horses into four different stalls.

He saw at a glance that the roof needed repairing and the stable itself was badly in need of paint.

The stalls were comparatively clean, and as he saw the other two horses in them he had an idea that the only person who could have cleaned them was his cousin Alvina.

He told his groom exactly what he had to do, and was pleased to find that the man Gerald had engaged for him was quick-witted enough to realise that there was a crisis and was ready to help in every way he could.

The Duke sent him into the kitchen to talk to Mrs. Johnson, then looked towards the end of the stables where he could see the roof of a house.

He knew this was the Head-Gardener’s and opened on the back of the very large, walled Kitchen Garden, which was out of sight of the Castle.

It had always provided him and his cousin Richard with apples, peaches, nectarines, green figs, and golden plums.

He had the horrifying feeling now that it would look like a jungle, and he therefore walked past the Head-Gardener’s house quickly.

On the far side of it, about fifty yards away, was a very small cottage.

He was certain that this was where one of the undergardeners, perhaps the most important of them, had lived.

He was sure he was not wrong in recalling that when he was young there was an army of men working in the Kitchen Garden, on the lawns, in the flower-beds, and down by the lake.

When he reached the cottage, he saw that the windows were clean and the small garden between the gate and the front door was bright with flowers.

He walked up the small paved path and knocked on the door, which he noticed needed painting, although the brass knocker had been polished and so had the keyhole.

For a moment there was silence, then he heard the footsteps of someone who walked with a limp crossing the flagged floor. The door opened and he saw an elderly, rather distinguished, white-haired woman looking at him.

The Duke smiled.

“I think you must be Miss Richardson,” he said. “I am the Duke of Harlington.”

Miss Richardson made a little effort to curtsey, but it was obviously impossible.

She did not, however, open the door any wider, and after a moment the Duke said:

“I think my cousin Alvina is with you.”

“She is, Your Grace, but she has no wish to see anyone at the moment.”

“I think you will understand, Miss Richardson,” the Duke said, “that since I have just arrived and found things are very different from what I expected, the only person who can help me is Lady Alvina.”

As he spoke, he had the uncomfortable feeling that Miss Richardson was contemplating telling him to go away and shutting the door.

Then, as if she decided it would be a mistake, she said:

“Would Your Grace be gracious enough to wait a moment while I ask Lady Alvina if she is prepared to see you?

She lowered her voice before she added:

“She is somewhat upset at the moment.”

“It was my fault,” the Duke replied, “but I had no idea before I arrived that the Castle would be so different from what it was when I last visited it.”

The way he spoke seemed to sweep away a little of what had been an obvious feeling of hostility on the part of Miss Richardson, and she opened the door a little wider.

“Perhaps Your Grace would come in,” she said. “And if you do not mind sitting in the kitchen, I will talk to Lady Alvina.”

The door was so low that the Duke had to bend his head and once inside he could only just stand upright.

The kitchen was like a small box. However, it was spotlessly clean, and he thought that the walls must have been white-washed by Miss Richardson herself, or else, though it seemed incredible, Alvina.

There was a very primitive stove, a deal table, and two chairs. On one wall was a dresser which held plates, cups, saucers, and three china jugs.

The window was covered by some very old and faded curtains of a rich brocade which the Duke thought must at some time have hung in the Castle.

He sat down on one of the hard wooden chairs while Miss Richardson limped through a door which he guessed led to the Parlour.

Now he was sure that this cottage, like so many of the other workmen’s cottages on the Estate, consisted of two rooms on the ground floor, the kitchen and the Parlour, with a scullery at the back, and there would be two tiny bedrooms up the very small, ladder-like wooden stairs.