Love and the Loathsome Leopard (2 page)

“It sounds interesting,” a Major remarked.

“Interesting and extremely dangerous!” Lord Cheriton replied.

There was a note in his voice which made all his guests turn to look at him simultaneously.

“Anyone who knows anything about smuggling,” he said, “is aware that an informer, if he is caught, is not only killed but subjected to the most sadistic, horrible and terrifying tortures.”

He went on to say even more impressively,

“The bodies that have been found have in some cases been beaten to death and others have been degraded and mutilated in a manner which I will not describe. For most of them, death, prolonged for days if not weeks, was a release from an intolerable suffering.”

Lord Cheriton spoke very seriously and he knew that those listening were impressed by his words.

“The popular idea,” he said, “of the jolly good-humoured smugglers, wicked in practice but decent at heart, is a romantic notion created only by novelists.”

His voice was grave as he continued:

“The exact opposite is the truth. The men we are up against are ruthless and completely heartless murderers. They terrorise local farmers, make themselves free not only with their horses and their houses but with their women, and strike down without mercy anyone who opposes them.”

Lord Cheriton let his words sink in, then he asked,

“Any questions, gentlemen?”

There was no reply and he pushed the decanter and glasses farther onto the table to spread out in front of him a large map.

“Then let us get down to business,” he said abruptly. “There is a great deal to be done.”

*

Lord Cheriton, emerging from the shadows of the trees, saw in the distance the English Channel vividly blue in the summer sunshine.

The wood through which he had been riding was on the slope of a hill and below him he could see fields of ripened corn and in the valley a small hamlet.

He pulled his horse to a standstill and sat looking at what he saw, while his servant who was riding behind him reined in his horse and waited.

It was sixteen years, Lord Cheriton thought, since he had last looked on Larkswell Village – and he had meant never to see it again.

When he was in India, he had thought of it as dark as hell and covered in a pall that was almost like a fog. Yet now in the summer sunshine with the sea beyond, it had a beauty that he resented.

He had thought that if the Larks Gang had, as he suspected, made their Headquarters in the village, it was poetic justice and just what the place deserved.

He sat so still that after some minutes his servant coughed as if to remind him that they still had some way to go.

At the sound Lord Cheriton turned his head and the man asked almost apologetically,

“Is that Larkswell, my Lord?”

“Yes, Nickolls, that is Larkswell, and you know when we reach it what I have told you to do.”

“Go to the pub, M’Lord, and enquire if there are rooms in which we can stay the night.”

“That is correct,” Lord Cheriton approved. “We are travellers on our way to Dover and in no particular hurry about it, since having left the Army we neither of us have any employment.”

“I’ll remember your instructions, my Lord.”

“Then stop calling me ‘my Lord’.”

“Yes, sir. It’s only when we’re alone, sir.”

“From this moment, Nickolls, you will address me as an ordinary gentleman and while we are in Larkswell my name is Bradleigh, Stuart Bradleigh.”

“I’ve not forgotten, sir.”

“It is essential that you should not do so.”

“I realise that, sir.”

“And above all, Nickolls, don’t appear inquisitive. Ask no questions. Listen to what you are told, but on no account appear as if you are interested in local doings or local people.”

“You can trust me, sir.”

“I am aware of that,” Lord Cheriton said, “otherwise I would not have brought you with me.”

“Excuse me, sir,” Nickolls said, “but if anyone asks what rank you held in the Army, what am I to say?”

“Reply I was a Captain, as I was too poor to buy myself a better Commission and too much of a rebel to be given quick advancement.”

Lord Cheriton paused to think before he added,

“Give the impression we are both heartily sick of war and want to settle down.”

“Very good, sir.”

“We both have to improvise as we go, Nickolls.”

As Lord Cheriton spoke, he began to move his horse down the hill towards the village, and the expression on his face would have made those who had served with him know that he was at his grimmest and most formidable – a man going into battle.

Lord Cheriton left Nickolls outside
The Dog and Duck
and proceeded down the narrow, dusty road until he came to the entrance of what appeared to be a Park enclosed by a stone wall.

The wall was in a sad state of disrepair, and the gate, which was of wrought-iron and had once been supported by two stone pillars surmounted by griffons, was off its hinges.

One of the griffons had fallen from its pillar and the other was overgrown with ivy.

Lord Cheriton rode his horse up the drive, which was covered with moss, the oak trees that had bordered it lying with rotting branches on the grass beneath them.

In the distance there was a house and anyone watching Lord Cheriton perceptively would have thought that his face was grim and more than usual he resembled a leopard.

The house, built of red brick, was a patch of colour against the surrounding trees.

As he rode towards it, Lord Cheriton was remembering how early one morning he had crept away down the drive when the sea mists made everything seem grey and insubstantial.

It also afforded him protective cover, which was what he needed in order to get away.

His back was hurting him intolerably from the thrashing he had received the night before. The whip that had been used on him had opened the scars from other beatings, and he knew that in climbing out of his bedroom window and shinning down the drainpipe, he had started them bleeding again.

But the only thing that mattered at that moment was to escape, to be free of a situation that was so intolerable, so unbearable, that he could no longer endure it.

He had meant never to come back.

Yet he was here, riding towards the house that he had loathed and hated with a violence that had made it seem menacing even when he had reached India and put two Continents between himself and his father.

He drew nearer, and now he saw with satisfaction that there were holes in the roof and that many of the windows were empty of glass.

He could remember as if it was yesterday his feelings when in 1805 he had returned with his Regiment to England. General Sir Arthur Wellesley had sailed with them at the same time in
H.M.S. Trident
.

How strange England had seemed to him then after spending nine years in India.

He had been fifteen when he ran away, a boy knowing little of life, but he had learnt – yes, he had learnt – and it had been the hard way.

He had learnt to be a man in the thick jungles of Mallabelly amid the shell-shattered Forts of Seringapatam and the heat and fever of Mysore.

He had often wondered how he had ever survived those years, pretending for the purpose of enlisting that he was three years older than he really was, consorting with men who were so rough that he was often more afraid of them than he was of the enemy.

But any of it, however hard, had been preferable to the tyranny and cruelty of his father.

In a strange way in his own life that he had chosen for himself, he had found as the years went by a happiness that a man knows when he becomes his own master.

By the time he was twenty-five, he told himself that the past was the past, and he had no existence outside that of Stuart Bradleigh, the name he had chosen when he had enlisted in the Army.

Then one day at Deal, where Sir Arthur was waiting for instructions to leave for the Continent, he was told to report to the General’s office.

He wondered why, knowing that his only ambition was to follow the man under whom he had served for eleven years.

He knew, as did all those who had returned from India, that Sir Arthur wanted to be sent where there was fighting, and they were all of them certain that when he went he would ask for his picked men to go with him.

“Sergeant Bradleigh,” Sir Arthur had said as he had entered the office and saluted.

“Sir!”

“Is it true that you enlisted in the Army under an assumed name?”

It was the last thing Lord Cheriton had expected to hear and for a moment he felt it impossible to reply.

He had grown so used to the name of his choice that he had almost forgotten he had another one.

“Yes, sir!” he said finally, and thought his voice sounded strange to his own ears.

“And your real name is John Heywood?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Then I must inform you, Sergeant, that your father is dead!”

It had been impossible to speak because all he could have said was how glad he was and that it was the best bit of news he had ever received.

“This means,” Sir Arthur said quietly, “that you are in fact, I understand, Lord Cheriton!”

For a moment it had been impossible to realise it.

He had never thought of the title. He remembered only as a child might have done that his father was an ogre, a tyrant, a brute whom he hated with every fibre of his being.

“Lord Cheriton?” he replied stupidly beneath his breath.

“In the circumstances,” Sir Arthur went on, “do you wish to leave the Army?”

“No, sir! Of course not, sir!”

“I understand that you inherit a considerable property.”

He did not answer and Sir Arthur continued,

“Your Solicitor is here, and, of course, I will grant you leave if that is what you wish.”

“Thank you, sir.”

There was a pause, then Sir Arthur said quietly,

“I think, Cheriton, in the circumstances, it would be best for you to buy yourself a Commission. I will assist you in every way I can, and, of course, you will have my recommendation without reserve.”

There had been nothing to do but salute and murmur a somewhat incoherent expression of thanks.

Then, rising, Sir Arthur had held out his hand.

“I shall welcome you, Lord Cheriton, to my staff.”

He could remember now, Lord Cheriton thought, the glow of pride which had swept through him.

He somehow anticipated instinctively that he would be in the confidence of the man who was, as the Duke of Wellington, to become the greatest hero of the age.

At the moment, however, he left the office somewhat apprehensively to find the grey-haired Solicitor, who was waiting for him.

“I had a great deal of trouble tracing you, my Lord,” the elderly man remarked reproachfully.

“Was it important that you should do so?”

The Solicitor looked shocked.

“Extremely important! Here is a list of your father’s properties and another showing his Securities in the Bank. Your Lordship will note that you own a considerable fortune.”

He had realised he was now a rich man, but somehow at that moment it gave him little pleasure.

He would have liked, if possible, to accept nothing from his father, not even his title, but this he knew could not be avoided.

The life he had led had made him quick-witted and he found no difficulty in making decisions.

He instructed the Solicitor to look after the estates his father owned in London and collect the rents.

Cheriton House in Berkeley Square was to be closed and kept in good order until he required it.

The tenant farmers in Sussex were to be asked if they wished to buy their farms, and if they declined, the buildings and land were to be administered in proper fashion.

“And what about the house, my Lord?” the Solicitor asked respectfully. “What do you wish done with Larks Hall?”

There had been a pause, then the new Lord Cheriton, his voice ringing out with a strangely violent note, replied,

“Let it fall to the ground!”

As he now drew nearer to the house he realised that it had not fallen, not yet, but he was sure that the nine years in which it had remained empty had taken their toll.

He wanted to see it a crumbling ruin, and then, only then, he told himself, the ghosts of the past would be laid to rest and he would no longer hear his father’s voice shouting at him and feel the sting of a whip across his shoulders.

He passed the lake, remembering reluctantly a few happy hours when he had caught a trout or swum in the clear water and felt it take some of the pain from his burning, inflamed flesh.

He had reached the front door when to his surprise he saw that it was open.

He told himself it was all the better, for if the wind and the rain could beat in and the snow accumulate, the sooner the floorboards would rot.

He swung himself down from his horse, a spirited stallion he had ridden on the battlefields of Europe and had brought back with him to England.

Fixing the reins to the horse’s neck, he left him loose, knowing he would come at his whistle as he had been trained to do.

Then reluctantly, almost as if he hated to step back into the past, he went in through the open door.

To his astonishment there was not the dirt and desolation he had expected.

He had thought to find The Hall thick with cobwebs, pictures fallen from the walls, the carpets grey with dust, but instead everything was clean.

Lord Cheriton looked round in surprise.

The oak furniture even seemed to have been polished and there was a bowl of roses on the table at the bottom of the stairs where he remembered that callers, and there were few enough of them, would leave visiting-cards which his father never read.

Pensively he walked towards the door of a room which in his mother’s time had been her drawing room.

It was the only room in the house which he could ever think of with tolerance. The library where he had been whipped had been a dark purgatory of pain, the dining room where his father had ranted through every meal was a place of terror.

He opened the door and stood for a moment speechless, staring about him as if he was dreaming.