The Mysterious Maid-Servant (13 page)

“Cousin Talbot ought to be here to introduce us,” Julius whispered in Giselda’s ear.

She did not tell him that she had refused to meet the Duke that afternoon.

Instead she moved around the Rooms, admiring them and realising that the Colonel had not exaggerated when he said that new better and bigger buildings were needed in Cheltenham.

She thought she must remember everything she saw so that she could describe it to the Earl.

The exterior she had thought when they arrived was austere and undistinguished, but the ballroom was magnificent and the Duke led the dancing with his wife as his partner.

After that everyone took the floor, but having danced once with Julius, Giselda suggested that they move out of the crowd to look at the rest of the building.

They had not proceeded far when they came upon the Colonel looking exceedingly distinguished in his knee-breeches and wearing a number of glittering decorations on his satin evening coat.

He greeted Giselda by kissing her hand and then he turned to Julius,

“I wonder, dear boy, if you would be kind enough to dance with Lady Dennington who is staying with me at Berkeley Castle? There is not time for me to take the floor this evening and, as she is an exquisite dancer, I know you will enjoy waltzing with her.”

Before Julius could reply, he introduced him to Lady Dennington and Giselda found herself alone with the Colonel.

“I want to talk to you,” he said.

Putting his hand under her elbow he led her across a crowded anteroom into a smaller one, which seemed to be practically deserted.

“Let us sit down for a moment,” the Colonel suggested. “I have been on my feet since early this morning and I am glad of a rest.”

“This must have taken a great deal of arrangement, Colonel.” Giselda remarked.

“It did, and I am proud to say that it is a success,” the Colonel answered. “It is in fact the best advertisement that Cheltenham could possibly have.”

“I am sure it is,” Giselda agreed.

“However, I do not want to talk about Cheltenham at the moment,” the Colonel said, “but about you.”

“About me?”

Giselda’s eyes widened.

“I have been watching you these last few days and I think you are a natural actress.”

Giselda stared at him wide-eyed as he went on,

“Have you thought what you will do when the Earl no longer requires your services as a nurse?”

Giselda was still. It was a question that had haunted her, but she had not expected her thoughts to be repeated in words by the Colonel.

“I am sure I will find – something,” she answered.

“You will need employment?”

“Yes – of course.”

“I thought that was the truth. You would hardly be working in German Cottage as a housemaid unless you were poverty-stricken.”

Giselda said nothing.

She felt it was rather unkind of him to remind her at this moment, when she hoped she was looking attractive, of her position before the Earl had rescued her.

“When the Earl leaves,” the Colonel went on, “I have a place for you, Giselda, in the theatre.”

She looked at him incredulously.

“In the theatre?” she repeated.

“That is what I said,” he answered. “My players are amateurs, but I recompense them liberally and I will see that you are not without money when you are no longer performing this part.”

There was something in the way he spoke that made Giselda look at him questioningly.

As if he understood what she asked without words, he said,

“You are very attractive! More attractive than I can tell you at the moment whilst you are still, as it were, under the protection of my friend. But I shall have a great deal to say on the matter, Giselda, as soon as you are free.”

Because suddenly Giselda understood what he was insinuating, the colour rose in her cheeks.

“I-I cannot listen. I don’t think – ” she stammered.

The Colonel interrupted her,

“There is no need for you to say anything. I realise the position in which you find yourself, and of course your loyalty for the time being is to the Earl. But my dear, you can trust me to be very kind to you, and the position I will offer you in the future would certainly not be that of maid-servant in my house.”

He bent a little nearer to her as he spoke and instinctively Giselda recoiled, then she rose to her feet.

“I think, sir – I should go – home,” she said in a frightened voice.

“Leave everything to me, Giselda,” the Colonel said, and he was not speaking of her leaving the Assembly Rooms. “Your future is assured and I shall be only waiting for the moment when we can discuss it together.”

Without answering, Giselda turned away from him and moved towards the anteroom through which they had just come.

She did not know if the Colonel was following her for she did not look back.

She just walked steadily towards the ballroom, and when she reached it she saw to her relief that the dance had ended and Julius was coming towards her, Lady Dennington leaning on his arm.

He escorted his partner to the nearest chair and, when she had seated herself, he bowed and came immediately to Giselda’s side.

“Of all the impertinence!” he said. “The Colonel fobbing me off on that boring woman! She could talk of nothing but her ailments which have brought her here.”

“I would like to go home,” Giselda told him.

“And I will gladly take you,” Julius replied. “If you ask me, these Social crushes are always too hot and a dead bore!”

Giselda was inclined to agree with him.

There was a long line of carriages for hire waiting outside the Assembly Rooms and luckily it was too early in the evening for them to be in short supply.

Julius handed her into one and, as they drove off, he took her hand and said,

“I regret that we wasted this evening in that crush, the Colonel’s behaviour is indefensible.”

“I am sure he meant it kindly,” Giselda managed to say.

In reality she agreed that the Colonel had behaved extremely badly in more ways than Julius realised.

‘How dare he?’ she thought. ‘How
dare
he suggest such things to me?’

Then she remembered what she had asked the Earl to do for her when she had been desperate to find the fifty pounds for Rupert’s operation.

‘Is this what I have sunk to – ?’ she asked herself and felt ashamed and somehow unclean.

It was not a long drive to German Cottage and, although Julius was talking, she found it impossible to listen to what he was saying.

Only as the horses drew up outside the door did, she hear him say,

“You promise? You really promise me that?”

“What did I promise?” Giselda asked startled back to the present.

“You just said you would dine with me one night,” Julius answered, “ – alone.”

“Did I?”

“Of course you did, and now you cannot take back your word once you have given it. I shall hold you to that, Mrs. Barrowfield! For I wish to talk to you alone, where we shall not be disturbed.”

He spoke with a passionate intensity that made Giselda feel embarrassed. Then to her relief the footmen came down the steps to open the carriage door.

“I will think about it,” she said.

“And I may call for you at ten o’clock tomorrow morning?”

“Yes, of course.”

At least, she thought, they could not be alone walking down the avenue of elm trees to the Pump Room and waiting with a hundred other people for the glass of water to be poured by Mrs. Forty.

“Then you must give me a date on which you will keep your promise,” Julius persisted.

Giselda did not reply and he kissed her hand.

Then she was free of him, but not, she told herself as she went up the stairs, free of the Colonel and his proposition, which the more she thought of it, the more it shocked and horrified her.

‘I hate him!’ she thought. ‘I hate him and I hate Julius Lynd – in fact I hate
all
men!’

Then, as she passed the Earl’s bedroom, she knew that was untrue, for there was one man she did not hate – one man who did not shock or frighten her.

One man whom she wanted to tell now at this very moment what had happened.

‘But that,’ Giselda told herself sternly, ‘is something I must never do.’

The Colonel was his friend and not only had she no wish to be a disruptive influence between the two men who were fond of each other, but more than that, the last thing she must ever do was to accept charity from the Earl.

‘I must be strong and resolute about that,’ Giselda said to herself, as she went into her own bedroom.

When she thought of the future without the Earl she was afraid – desperately and agonisingly afraid.

The sunshine came in through the open windows of the breakfast room and glittered blindingly on the silver coffee pot.

There was, Giselda noticed as she sat down, a new honeycomb and a pat of golden Jersey butter from Colonel Berkeley’s farms at the Castle.

It was a thrill to realise as the Earl sat opposite her, how well he looked. Even in the bright morning light the pallor on his face was much less noticeable, in fact his skin seemed quite brown against the whiteness of his cravat.

“I am actually hungry this morning,” the Earl remarked as he helped himself to veal chops cooked with fresh mushrooms.

“That is a good sign,” Giselda smiled.

“But not as hungry as I shall be when I return home,” he went on. “There I always ride before breakfast and come in ready to do justice to the many dishes waiting for me.”

“You have fine horses at Lynd Park, my Lord?”.

“Very fine,” the Earl replied, “but I intend to buy a great many more. My father was not interested in racing, which I am, and as soon as I am well enough I intend to ride in the local steeplechases.”

There was an enthusiasm in the Earl’s voice that was almost boyish and Giselda felt a pain in her heart as she realised that while he was planning all these things in the future she would not be there.

She wondered if, when he was riding across his Park and over his big estate, he would ever think of her and she knew with a sudden sense of inevitability that she would never be able to forget him even for a moment.

He seemed to be ever in her thoughts and in her mind, part of her consciousness from which she could never be free and, as she envisaged a future without him, she knew suddenly and unmistakably that she loved him.

She had not realised before that what she felt for him was love, in fact until he was up and dressed she had not really thought of him as a man.

But now it was impossible to think of him in any other way and she knew that he filled her whole life.

‘How strange to realise at breakfast, of all times, that one is in love,’ she thought to herself.

But she knew that the love that lived in her heart had been there for a long time.

It was simply that she had been afraid to acknowledge it.

‘Whatever happens,’ she told herself, ‘he must never know – never have the least idea that I feel like this.’

Because perhaps she was in some ways the actress the Colonel thought her to be, she managed to enquire in quite a normal voice,

“What plans have you for today, my Lord?”

“I have not really decided,” the Earl replied.

As he spoke, a footman came into the room with a letter on a silver salver.

The man walked towards the table and the Earl waited, obviously expecting the letter to be for him, but instead the footman offered it to Giselda.

“
A billet-doux
?” the Earl enquired, raising his eyebrows.

Giselda took the note from the salver.

“May I open this?” she enquired politely.

“Please do. I assure you that I am extremely curious!”

Giselda opened the envelope.

It was from Julius.

His writing was large, his capitals somewhat flamboyant and she thought both characteristics were typical of his personality.

She read –

“
You promised to dine with me one evening and I am therefore planning a dinner, which I think you will appreciate for tonight.

You can give me your answer when I take you to the Pump this morning, but it is always so difficult to speak when there are so many people around us. I want to tell you that I am looking forward more than I can ever say as I have something particular to ask you, which I can only do when we are undisturbed.

Please do not disappoint your most humble and respectful admirer,

Julius Lynd.
”

After reading the note, Giselda passed it without comment to the Earl.

He read it and said briefly,

“Your answer is yes!”

“Do I – have to – go?”

Even as she spoke, she thought what a foolish question it was.

She had been employed to inveigle Julius into making her an offer of marriage and that, she was quite certain, was what he intended to do tonight.

“
Accept
,” the Earl ordered.

Obediently Giselda turned to the servant,

“Ask the messenger to tell Mr. Lynd that I shall be very pleased to accept his invitation.”

The footman bowed and left the room and the Earl and Giselda sat silently.

The Earl helped himself to another dish and, when he had done so, he said to the remaining servants,

“I will ring when we want anything else.”

The servants left the breakfast room and Giselda waited.

“As you must be well aware, Giselda,” the Earl said after a moment, “that, when we began this masquerade, the reason for it was twofold, first to deter Julius from marrying Miss Clutterbuck, the second to make him feel a fool and to teach him not to run after rich women.”

“Do you really think that because we – humiliate him when he asks me to marry him, it will prevent him from trying to find – another rich wife in the future?” Giselda asked, sounding uncertain.

“Perhaps not,” the Earl reflected, “at the same time no man likes to look an idiot and Julius, when he discovers that you are absolutely penniless, will realise what a turnip-top he has made of himself.”

“And you expect me to tell him?”