A Night of Gaiety (16 page)

Davita thought the flashing jewels that filled it made it look like something out of Aladdin’s Cave.

The Countess searched first the top tray and then the second, until at the very bottom she found what she wanted.

“I wore this when I was your age,” she said. “Put it on. I want to see it round your neck.”

It was a delicate necklace with small emeralds and diamonds fashioned in the shape of flowers.

Excitedly Davita ran to the mirror on the dressing-table and clasped it round her neck. It gave a finish, she thought, to her whole appearance, and also accentuated the whiteness of her skin.

“It is lovely!” she exclaimed. “May I really wear it tonight? I will be very careful with it.”

“It is a present.”

“A present?” Davita gasped. “I cannot take it, it is too valuable! You must not give me any more than you have given me already.”

“I want you to have it,” the Countess said. “I shall be very hurt if you refuse to accept it.”

“Thank you, thank you,” Davita answered. “You are so kind to me. I haven’t any words to tell you how grateful I am.”

She lifted the Countess’s hand as she spoke and kissed it, and then she said:

“One day perhaps I shall be able to repay what you have done for me. I do not know quite how I shall do so.”

There were tears in her eyes as she spoke, and the Countess replied:

“Run along, child, and enjoy yourself, you are making me feel sentimental.”

Smiling, Davita ran downstairs where she knew the Marquis would be waiting for her in the Blue Drawing
Room. He was looking magnificent as he had the first night she had seen him in his evening-clothes.

Because he had watched her with the usual rather
cynical expression on his face as she walked towards him, he made her feel very shy.

Then because what had happened was too exciting to keep to herself, she said:

“Please look at what your Great-Aunt has just given me. I feel I ought not to accept, but she said she would be very
...
hurt if I did not do so.”

Then as she spoke, Davita thought she had made a mistake. Maybe the Marquis thought she was like Violet, getting presents out of men or anyone whose generosity she could impose on.

To her relief, the Marquis merely replied:

“It is certainly very suitable with your green eyes.”

“You do not think it
...
wrong of me to accept such a
...
valuable present?”

“I think after what my Great-Aunt said about you to me this afternoon, it would be unkind of you not to do so.

Davita’s face seemed to light up as if there were suddenly a thousand lights blazing in the room.

“Now I feel happy about
...
accepting it,” she replied. “She is so ... so kind to me, and I do want to make her
...
happy.”

During dinner, although Davita had been apprehensive that she might bore him, there were so many things to talk about that time seemed to speed past on wings.

They first talked of Scotland and the Marquis told Davita how he went grouse-shooting every August and how many salmon he had caught the previous year.

“Ours is not a famous river,” Davita said. “But once Papa caught fifteen in a day, and another time I caught ten.”

“I call that a very good catch,” the Marquis said with a smile.

But she knew he was delighted as a sportsman that his best day had been nineteen.

“I wonder what horses you will buy tomorrow?” she asked as dinner came to an end.

“I will be able to tell you that tomorrow evening,” he answered.

“You will come back after the sale?”

“I have no wish to make the journey back to London late in the evening if I am not able to bid early in the day for the horses I want.”

“I will be very eager to hear all about your purchases.”

“I might even bring them back with me,” the Marquis said.
“
Two of my grooms are meeting me at the sale.”

“That would be even more exciting!” Davita exclaimed.

The Marquis smiled a little mockingly.

“I am not certain that is really a compliment.”

For the moment she did not understand what he meant. Then she realised that she had implied that his horses were more interesting than he was.

A little shyly, because she was uncertain how he would take the question, she asked:

“Do you
...
like being
...
flattered?”

“Only if it is sincere,” the Marquis answered. “Then of course I appreciate it.”

“I should have thought it would not matter to you what anyone thought about you.”

“Why should you think that?”

“I suppose it is because you seem so important
...
so authoritative and
...
”

Davita stopped, afraid that what she was about to say was rude.

The Marquis did not leave that unchallenged.

“And what?” he enquired.

“I have
...
forgotten what I was going to
...
say.
”

“That is not true!” he said. “And I would like you to finish the sentence.”

A
s if once again he compelled her, Davita said shyly: “When I saw you that first night at
...
Romano’s I thought that you seemed cynical and a little
...
contemptuous of everything that was going on round you. Was I right?”

T
he Marquis looked at her in surprise.

“
In a sense,” he answered. “But I did not realise it was so obvious.”

“
Perhaps it would not have been to everyone, but you must not forget that the Scots are fey.”

The Marquis laughed.

“So you were aware I was feeling at odds with the world—that particular world in which we met.”

As she thought he was referring to Rosie, Davita merely nodded her head.

The Marquis seemed to hesitate. Then he said:

“It is not something I should discuss ordinarily with someone of your age, but because you were at Romano’s that night and were indirectly involved in a scene that should never have taken place, I will tell you the background of the story.”

There was a hard note in his voice, and Davita said quickly:

“There is no
...
reason for you to do so. It is not for me to
...
criticise, but you did
...
ask me what I
...
felt.”

“What you felt was perhaps what no-one else would. So I intend to explain to you why I was in such an unpleasant mood.”

As he paused for a moment, Davita thought it was a very strange conversation for her to be having with the Marquis. But then the whole evening, she realised, was strange.

They were alone, for one thing, sitting at a candle-lit table in the huge Dining-Room, hung with paintings of the Sherburn ancestors. They were isolated on a little island of light as if they had embarked together on an unknown sea into an unknown future.

It flashed through her mind that that was indeed just what they were doing!

Then she told herself she was being ridiculously imaginative and she must listen attentively to what the Marquis was saying.

“
Because you have been impelled into a world of which most girls of your age and breeding have no knowledge whatsoever,” he began, “you were doubtless unaware, even before Lord Mundesley made his objectionable proposal to you, that men as a rule do not marry actresses but enjoy them as companions in a very different manner.”

D
avita understood that he meant gentlemen took them as mistresses.

S
he could not help thinking it would have been far better if that was what her father had done rather than marry Katie, who had run away to be the mistress of Harry.

“
I thought Rosie very beautiful,” the Marquis was saying, “which indeed she is. It was only after she accepted my protection, as it is usually called, that I discovered that she was incapable of being faithful to her protector, even though it is an unwritten law that that is what is expected of a woman in such circumstances.”

H
e spoke in such an impersonal manner that Davita did not feel embarrassed. She was only interested as he went on:

“
I found it impossible to continue providing a house for a woman who entertained in my absence a series of ne’er-do-wells who drank my wine and smoked my cigars, and as they did so felt that they were having the laugh of me.”

H
e paused before he continued:

“That is the whole story in a nutshell. Rosie broke the rules of the game, and I brought the game to an end.”

“You do not really
...
think she would have
...
killed herself?” Davita asked almost in a whisper.

The Marquis shook his head.

“It is a trick women of her class use very frequently both here and in Paris, to get their own way.”

He saw the question in Davita’s eyes and added:

“If you feel at all worried about Rosie’s future, I learnt before I left London that she was already very comfortably settled in another house—this time in Regent’s Park—which belongs to a member of the House of Lords who is frequently away from London for long intervals.”

The Marquis did not give Davita a chance to say anything and merely said quietly:

“Now that I have explained that, the whole subject is a closed chapter. We will neither of us refer to it again.”

Davita gave a little sigh.

“I am glad you told me.”

“I only wish I did not have to do so,” the Marquis said. “Do you remember my advice that night?”

“That I should go back to Scotland?” Davita asked. “What you were really saying is that I should not have come South in the first place.”

She glanced at the Marquis a little uncertainly as she said:

“Even after all the
...
awful things that
...
happened ... I am glad I did. If I had not, I should never have come to Sherburn House and would not be
...
sitting here with
...
you at this
...
moment.”

“You are glad you are?” the Marquis enquired.

“But of course I am very glad. It is very exciting for me,” Davita answered.

Then as her eyes met his, perhaps it was a trick of the candlelight, but she found it hard to look away.

The next day the Marquis left early to go to the sale. He sent a message to his Great-Aunt to say he was looking forward to seeing her that evening, and he hoped she had passed a restful night as he had.

Davita was with the Countess when the message was brought to her, and she laughed.

“I am sure it is a most unusual occurrence for my great-nephew to spend a restful night,” she said. “From all I hear, if he is not escorting some beautiful actress from the Gaiety Theatre, he is dancing attendance on one of the beauties who surround the Prince of Wales at Marlborough House.”

S
he spoke with a note of satisfaction in her voice, which made Davita feel she was proud that the Marquis could prove himself to be what Violet and Katie had called a “dasher.”

T
his she had learnt was the highest grade a young man about town could reach.

“
Then he must have been very bored with me last night,” Davita told herself with a sigh.

N
evertheless, the Marquis had not appeared bored. They had sat talking for a long time over dinner and then had gone on talking when they retired to the Blue Drawing-Room.

T
o her surprise, he had been as easy to talk to on any number of subjects as her father had been before he had married Katie and started drinking.

D
avita had gone to bed thinking over what they had said, and had planned what she would say as a challenge when she had the chance to talk with him another evening
.

“
Even if he was bored,” she told herself, “he is coming back tonight, and even if I never see him again, I shall have quite a lot to remember.”

I
t was a warm day, and she went riding for an hour in the morning, while the Countess was having massage on her legs from an experienced masseur who came from Oxford to treat her.