Love and the Loathsome Leopard (7 page)

“Mrs. Briggs was delighted with the birds that Richard bought from the farm,” Wivina said in her soft voice. “She is only hoping that she will have cooked them to your liking. I am afraid the stove is very old fashioned and in need of repair.”

There were two roasted chickens ready on a side table, and she added,

“Will you please carve? I am afraid Richard is late, as usual.”

Even as she spoke there was the sound of Richard coming down the passage and a moment later he came into the room, hurrying as quickly as his crippled leg would allow him.

“Sorry, Wivina,” he said, “I was reading a book and forgot the time.”

“That is nothing new,” Wivina answered with a smile. “I imagine it was very interesting.”

“It was one of Papa’s, as it happens, but one I have never read before.”

He walked to his place at the table, then, seeing the Earl carving the chickens, he asked in an afterthought,

“Can I help you, sir?”

“I suggest your sister sits down,” Lord Cheriton replied, “and you and I wait on her.”

Richard looked surprised, and glancing at Wivina with a little smile, he said,

“This is something new. She usually waits on me!”

“I imagined that would be the case,”‘ Lord Cheriton said dryly. “But this is a formal dinner party, Richard, and we will behave as befits gentlemen.”

There was just a hint of reproof in his voice, which Wivina did not miss.

She looked at Richard a little anxiously, but she said nothing as Lord Cheriton put a helping of chicken in front of her and her brother rather clumsily handed her the bread sauce and the vegetables.

She waited a little self-consciously until they were seated on either side of her and then said,

“I brought up the claret as soon as I knew you were dining with us, but I am afraid it will not yet be the right temperature.”

“The claret?” Richard exclaimed before Lord Cheriton could speak. “Do you mean to say, Wivina, that we are to be allowed to drink some of the wine you have kept locked away because you said it did not belong to us?”

“Captain Bradleigh is a friend of Lord Cheriton’s,” Wivina persisted.

“Well, I must admit I shall enjoy it even if no one else does,” Richard remarked. “It is too bad to think of all that good wine going to waste in the cellars while we are only allowed water or that fiery stuff Farlow – ”

He saw the expression on his sister’s face and bit his lip.

“May I say how honoured I am by your hospitality?” Lord Cheriton said, to gloss over what was obviously an uncomfortable moment. “But I would be interested to know what you intended to do with the wine if the house was eventually to fall to the ground.”

“We may live here without permission,” Wivina replied in a reproving tone, “but that does not entitle us to drink wine that does not belong to us or to dispose of anything that we cannot replace.”

She looked at Lord Cheriton almost pleadingly as she said,

“I know we are trespassing, but I have done my best to preserve what I could from falling into disrepair. I have tried to keep the house clean and to keep it alive as long as I can.”

She spoke with such earnestness that he answered equally seriously,

“No one could have done more and may I say I consider it was right of you to come here and make a home for those who had no other home of their own.”

He saw by the sudden light in her eyes that it was what she wanted to hear. He was sure it had worried her to know that she was, as she said, a trespasser.

He rose to bring the bottle of claret from the sideboard and pour them each a glass.

“I say, this is good!” Richard exclaimed. “If you stay long enough we may be able to sample all the different wines there are below.”

Lord Cheriton did not reply and they talked of other things until after they had all had two helpings of the chicken, then Richard said,

“Do you think, sir, it would be possible tomorrow, if your horses are rested, for me to have a ride on one of them? Your servant said he did not think you would mind.”

“I am sure Captain Bradleigh has to continue his journey,” Wivina said quickly, “therefore, you must not tire his horses unnecessarily.”

“Unnecessarily!” Richard exclaimed. “Do I ever get a chance of seeing horses like those? You are only trying to please Farlow by getting rid of Captain Bradleigh. You are going to marry him, but surely that need not stop me from having a ride?”

For a moment Wivina went very white, then she said in a low voice tense with emotion,

“I am
not
going to marry him! I have told him so and I have told you the same thing!”

She rose from the table as she spoke, and taking her empty plate and Richard’s, she said,

“I will go and see if the next course is ready.”

She went from the room and Richard smiled almost cheekily at Lord Cheriton.

“She will marry him in the end, whatever she says,” he remarked, “and when she does, he says, he will send me to Oxford.”

Lord Cheriton was just about to reply when Wivina came back into the room.

The next course was strawberries from the garden with the thick cream which Richard had bought from the farm.

There was a big bowl of them and Lord Cheriton helped himself liberally before he sat down again at the table.

As if he felt there was something a little uncomfortable in his sister’s silence, Richard said to Lord Cheriton,

“Nickolls has been telling me about the battles you fought in and how brave you were. He says that both you and he belonged to one of Wellington’s Commands, which was called the ‘Loathsome Leopards’.”

Wivina gave a little cry and looking at Lord Cheriton, she exclaimed,

“Now I know what was worrying me!”

“What was that?” he asked.

She blushed as if she had spoken without thinking, then replied:

“You might – think it rude.”

“If you are referring to the fact that I look like a leopard,” Lord Cheriton replied, “may I say I am well aware of the resemblance and I am in fact rather proud of it!”

“Of course you are!” Richard said enthusiastically. “Nickolls says the ‘Loathsome Leopards’ were the bravest soldiers in the whole of the Duke’s Army and that the French were terrified of you.”

“It is certainly true that they were frightened of us,” Lord Cheriton admitted, “and we did very well at Salamanca.”

“I want to hear all about it!” Richard cried.

“If you find me a map, I will try to explain to you exactly what happened.”

“We have no map here, not a good one anyway,” Richard replied, “but the Vicar has one. I will borrow it from him tomorrow and, when I come back after my lessons, you can show me exactly how you defeated the French.”

“That is something I shall be delighted to do,” Lord Cheriton replied, “if I am still here.”

“You must be! You must. I shall never have an opportunity again of talking to a soldier who was actually in that battle.”

“I feel you will meet a great many soldiers in the future, who fought not only in that battle but a large number of others,” Lord Cheriton replied. “Unfortunately, now that there is peace, they will be out of a job.”

“But they will not come here,” Richard said, “they will not be allowed to. So promise you will stay until I can get hold of a map.”

“I think the answer to that depends on your sister,” Lord Cheriton replied, “but may I say that I am very comfortable, and it is a treat to sleep in a house instead of a tent and, let me add, to enjoy a well cooked meal.”

“Then that settles it!” Richard cried. “You must stay, of course you must. Tell him so, Wivina!”

Lord Cheriton saw the worry and apprehension in her eyes but he had the feeling it was not on her own account that she wished him to go.

“I am glad you are comfortable, Captain Bradleigh,” she said in a low voice.

She rose and added:

“I think I should withdraw and leave you gentlemen alone.”

Lord Cheriton rose to his feet and after a second Richard followed his example. Then after Wivina had left the room and he had closed the door behind her, Lord Cheriton sat down again at the table.

There was a little claret left and he gave some to Richard and the greater part to himself, thinking that Wivina would not wish her brother to drink heavily.

“Your sister is a very remarkable young woman!” he said aloud.

“She gets upset and frightened over things,” Richard replied, “but I suppose all women are the same.”

“That is why it is important for you to look after her and protect her,” Lord Cheriton remarked.

Richard looked surprised.

“I imagine, now that your father is dead,” Lord Cheriton went on, “that you are the head of the family. It is therefore up to you to take care of your sister and above all not to force her into marriage unless she is in love with the man in question.”

“If she does not marry Farlow, what will happen to us?” Richard asked almost sulkily.

“If you are thinking of his sending you to Oxford,” Lord Cheriton said, “I am sure that you are quite capable of getting there on your own.”

“How can I possibly do that?”

“You could win a scholarship.”

“The Vicar has spoken of that, but I would have to journey to Oxford and I have no money.”

Richard paused and then he said,

“I suppose I could borrow it from Farlow, in which case I might as well let him pay the fee and have done with it.”

“From all I have heard you saying about this man Farlow, you have no particular liking for him,” Lord Cheriton said slowly. “I hardly think it wise or in fact decent to accept
his
money or anything else.”

Richard looked startled.

“You see,” Lord. Cheriton went on, “one never gets anything for nothing in this world. One always has to pay sooner or later. Quite frankly, I should have thought that to make your sister sacrifice herself by marrying a man she dislikes, and of whom she is afraid, is a very high price to pay for your own personal gratification.”

He had meant to startle Richard and he succeeded.

He had learnt in dealing with men that to be brutally frank was one way of jolting them into looking at the truth honestly and without clarification.

“I did not think of it like that,” Richard said after a moment.

“Well, think of it now!”Lord Cheriton said sternly.

“We have no money, except for a pittance, just enough to buy food for ourselves and for the people in the house.”

“I realise that,” Lord Cheriton said. “But I think I may be able to help you.”.

He paused and then he said,

“Where you are concerned, I think I could arrange for you to sit for a scholarship for Oxford.”

“You could?”

Richard sounded almost incredulous and Lord Cheriton explained,

“I was not at University myself, but I have friends who will help you solve your problem, if not your sister’s.”

He was thinking as he spoke that both his father and his grandfather had been at Christ Church College. It should therefore be easy for him to arrange for Richard to sit for a scholarship, and, if he failed, he could get him accepted as a Commoner.

He was beginning to understand the stranglehold that Jeffrey Farlow had not only on these two children, for they were little more, but on the whole neighbourhood, and yet he had the feeling he was not the prime mover of the smuggling gang.

He undoubtedly benefitted from the cargoes, and perhaps arranged the sales of them and was the middle-man between the actual smugglers and the merchants who handled the goods that were brought duty-free so easily into the country.

But Lord Cheriton was almost certain that the head of the large gang was someone else, someone he had not seen, whose name had not as yet been mentioned.

Before he left London, the Prime Minister had arranged for the Commissioner of Customs to give him a list of the names of smugglers known along the South Coast of England.

There was a fair number of them and Lord Cheriton had committed the names to memory and then destroyed the list.

He was well aware that to carry any incriminating documents of any sort upon his person would be to sign his own Death Warrant.

The claret was finished and as he rose from the table he said,

“What we have discussed together here, Richard, is completely in confidence. I do not wish you to speak of it to your sister or to anyone else. And may I say that I am trusting you as a gentleman?”

Richard looked at him a little uncertainly, then asked,

“Are you thinking that you might be able to help us and perhaps – other people as well?”

He spoke hesitatingly, but Lord Cheriton knew the boy had been quick-witted enough to realise that he was not entirely the simple soldier he professed to be.

“We will speak about this another time,” he replied. “In the meanwhile, study hard, and bring me that map tomorrow morning.”

“I will do that,” Richard said eagerly. “And may I ride one of your horses?”

“You have my permission, but you had better speak to Nickolls about it.”

“Thank you, sir. I will go and tell him now,” Richard said eagerly.

He hobbled off and Lord Cheriton went into the salon.

The sun was sinking in a blaze of glory behind the trees and high overhead the first evening star was twinkling in the translucence of the sky.

Wivina was outside on the terrace, leaning on the old grey stone balustrade which was covered with moss, and staring out over the lake which was full of mysterious shadows now that the light from the sun had gone.

Lord Cheriton went to stand beside her.

She did not turn her head or move, but he was aware that she was tinglingly conscious of his presence.

After a moment she said in a worried little voice,

“You should not – stay here. You must leave – early tomorrow morning.”

“Why?” he asked.

“I cannot – explain, but it might be – dangerous for you to remain.”

“What about you?”

“There is – nowhere else for Richard and me to go.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“Quite sure. Do you suppose I have not thought about it?”

“Suppose I tell you that I am not afraid and want to stay?”