65 A Heart Is Stolen (4 page)

“I thought as your Lordship was coming down the drive, I had never seen a finer team!”

“Neither have I, as it happens,” the Marquis agreed.

He turned to his friend.

“I expect, Anthony, you would like to wash off the dust before you do anything else?”

“I certainly would. At the same time I would like a drink.”

“There’s a bottle of champagne cooling in the ice bucket, my Lord,” Mr. Markham said, “and there’s also some claret, should you prefer it.”

“Champagne for me,” Anthony said, before the Marquis could reply, “and let us hope it’s easier to obtain now we have peace.”

“I don’t suppose the people in this vicinity have had much difficulty in obtaining wine all through the war,” the Marquis commented dryly. “Were our locals in the smuggling racket, Markham, like everybody else along the coast?”

“There’s very little of it locally, my Lord,” Mr. Markham replied. “The big gangs, and I may say the dangerous ones, were all working near the Romney Marshes.”

“I have heard a great deal about those particular smugglers,” the Marquis said, “and I am relieved to hear that you are not troubled by them. I am told they terrorise the local population.”

“We are very fortunate, my Lord,” Mr. Markham said.

He snapped his fingers at a servant who had followed them into the room and now at the signal hurried to open the bottle of champagne.

The Marquis looked at him and saw that he was a well-built young man of about twenty-one or two.

He was wearing the Veryan livery, but it did not seem to fit him very well and the Marquis had the impression, but he was not certain why, that the man felt rather uncomfortable in it.

Then to his surprise, as the footman poured the champagne into the glasses, he saw that his wrist, which just showed beneath the cuffs of his coat, was tattooed.

“Were you in the Navy?” he enquired.

“Yes, my Lord.”

“Then I suppose you have only recently been discharged.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

“That is interesting. I had imagined that I would find only old servants in the house.”

The footman looked quickly in the direction of Mr. Markham, who explained,

“I am afraid that a number of the retainers you would remember, my Lord, either left us to go to the war or retired through old age. We were able recently to fill their places with younger men like Billy here.”

“That was lucky,” the Marquis approved. “I hope, Billy, you enjoy your new position.”

“I be glad have it, my Lord.”

The Marquis was about to say something else, but Anthony lifted his glass.

“Your health, Justin! And it is delightful to be back at Heathcliffe again!”

“Thank you,” the Marquis said, “and Markham, you must have a glass too. Coming home is certainly an excuse for a celebration.”

“That’s very kind of you, my Lord.”

He spoke in a tone that the Marquis thought was one of relief.

For a moment he wondered what his agent had to be relieved about and then as he drank the champagne, he forgot that such an idea had even occurred to him.

The Marquis came down early to dinner looking as resplendent in his evening clothes as if he was going to a reception at Carlton House.

As he descended the ancient oak staircase, he noticed that the house smelt of beeswax and lavender and thought it was a vast improvement on the exotic perfumes that his women guests had used the night before.

He was in a mood when he was prepared to appreciate Heathcliffe and everything about it.

He was just going into the drawing room when he thought that he would first visit the library, which had been his father’s special sanctum and where he had kept a great number of the treasures that had given him great pleasure because he had collected them personally.

The magnificent pictures at Veryan and at the family house in London had been inherited from the Marquis’s grandfather who had a keen appreciation of art and had spent a great deal of time and money in assembling a collection which was spoken of as one of the best in the whole country.

He also had a good eye for furniture and had added to the superb pieces of red lacquer for which a Veryan in the reign of Queen Anne was responsible.

It had been difficult therefore for the late Marquis to improve on what he already possessed, but because he had excellent taste and a fortune that enabled him to indulge it, he had concentrated while he was at Heathcliffe in buying antiques that had some connection with the sea.

The Marquis knew that there were first editions of books on the shelves of the library that any connoisseur and certainly any maritime museum would love to possess.

All over the house were ship pictures by famous artists that had made one of his father’s cronies declare that it was easier to feel seasick in Heathcliffe than in any ship he had ever boarded!

There was also his father’s special collection of snuffboxes.

These were each connected in some manner with the sea and the Marquis remembered now that he wanted to look for the one that resembled the box belonging to Peregrine Percival, which he had inspected last night.

He thought it rather strange that there should be two boxes exactly the same, knowing most of the craftsmen of the period preferred to make something unique for their patrons.

At the same time he was aware that while one treasure, such as a Grecian vase, would be extremely valuable, if there was a pair they became not only worth four or five times as much, but in their own way, unique.

He opened the library door and was aware that as in the drawing room flowers had been arranged to herald his arrival.

He thought however, besides the fragrance of them, there was a slight smell of dust and ancient leather and he walked across the room to open a window.

As he did so, he noted that everything on his father’s writing table were arranged just as he remembered them – the blotter with its gold corners, embellished with the Veryan coat of arms, the large gold inkstand, which had been made in the reign of Charles II by one of the greatest goldsmiths of his time, and all the other small objects in which his father had delighted.

There was a letter-opener set with precious gems, a magnifying glass, a pen holder, a seal and a dozen other items that had thrilled the Marquis as a small boy.

He smiled as he looked at them. Then instinctively his eyes went to where on the other side of the room was the large inlaid French cabinet with a glass top where his father had kept his precious snuffboxes.

‘Now I will see,’ he mused to himself, ‘if Peregrine Percival’s box is any different from the one we possess.’

He walked to the cabinet to stare into it with surprise, because there were far fewer snuffboxes there than he had expected.

Had his memory been at fault? he asked.

He was sure in the past that there had been so many that there was hardly room for more. Now, lying on the dark blue velvet with which the cabinet was lined, there were a dozen boxes.

But they were arranged with gaps between them in a manner that might seem artistic, but made the Marquis feel that in some way, they were filling up space where there should have been others.

He made an effort to think back.

Surely he was not mistaken in thinking that his father’s collection was very much larger?

Perhaps some of them had been moved to another room, the drawing room, for instance?’

He looked down at what were already there and saw that most of them were distinctive and, he told himself, as far as he was concerned, unforgettable.

A number were ornamented with precious stones, but there was certainly not the ship in full sail on an emerald sea that he had recently been shown by Peregrine Percival.

Then it struck him that, of course, Mr. Markham, being extremely zealous in his care of Heathcliffe, would have put away the most valuable snuffboxes in the huge safe, which he remembered stood in the butler’s pantry.

That was where they would be and the Marquis heaved a sigh of relief because for a moment he had been afraid that he had lost something that mattered to him because they had meant so much to his father.

‘I must talk to Markham about it tomorrow,’ he told himself.

He knew there were a great number of items to discuss with his agent, not only those that concerned the house, but also the estate.

He went from the library back into the drawing room to wait for Anthony.

As it was such a hot night, the long French windows were open onto the terrace and he walked out to look down into the rose garden and think how beautiful it was with the late roses still in bloom around an ancient sundial.

He could feel the faint breeze blowing in from the sea and he told himself that he had been away from Heathcliffe far too long and another year he would definitely spend several weeks here.

Anthony came to join him.

“I cannot think why you have neglected this place, Justin,” he began.

“It is what I was thinking myself,” the Marquis replied, “and we will definitely come here next year instead of prancing up and down the Steine at Brighton talking to all those bores who have not an ounce of intelligence in their heads.”

“Perhaps next year you will not invite me.”

The Marquis looked at him in surprise and Anthony went on with a smile,

“I was thinking as I was dressing that this is the perfect place for a honeymoon.”

“If you start talking about marriage all over again, I shall hit you,” the Marquis growled. “We are here to preserve our bachelorhood, so let’s drink on it.”

He walked back into the drawing room just as the footman came in carrying a tray on which there were two crystal glasses, accompanied by a butler carrying a bottle of champagne wrapped in a napkin.

The Marquis looked at him and asked,

“You are not Bateman!”

“No, my Lord. My name’s Travers.”

“What has happened to Bateman?”

“He’s retired, my Lord. I believe he has a cottage in the village.”

“I did not realise that he was so old,” the Marquis remarked. “I hope you will manage in his place and enjoy your duties at Heathcliffe.”

“Thank you, my Lord. I will endeavour to perform them to your Lordship’s satisfaction.”

The Marquis liked the way the man spoke and it struck him that he had a military bearing.

Then an idea came to him and he enquired,

“Who were you with before Mr. Markham engaged you?”

“I was at sea, my Lord.”

The Marquis made no comment, but he looked at the man speculatively and decided that Markham had made a good choice.

It vaguely struck him that now there was peace, there might be quite a number of Naval personnel looking for jobs.

He had however, always made it a rule on his estates that servants if possible should come from the families who had served him, his father before him and often his grandfather as well.

At Veryan there were pantry boys who represented the fifth generation and girls who considered it almost their right as soon as they were old enough to be taken on at the ‘big house’.

He had always imagined the same principle held good at Heathcliffe.

Then he tried to remember the size of the village, which was situated over a mile and a half from the house and found it difficult to recall even approximately the number of inhabitants who lived there.

“You are very silent, Justin,” Anthony remarked.

“I was thinking,” the Marquis replied.

“I am so tired that I can think of nothing but how comfortable the bed in my room is likely to be.”

“You are lucky you don’t have to dance attendance on Lucy, and that is putting it politely.”

“What do you bet Bicester turns up there tonight saying that he has changed his mind and has decided to accept your invitation after all?”

“If he does, he will find an empty house,” the Marquis replied. “You can be quite certain that Bradley will have bundled everyone back to London by now.”

“I can imagine their fury! They were expecting to stay for at least another week.”

“If you ask me house parties always go on for far too long,” the Marquis remarked. “For the first few nights the conversation seems witty and entertaining, but after that one has heard all the jokes and even one’s drink seems to taste stale.”

“You are spoilt, that is what’s the matter with you!”

“Nonsense!” the Marquis replied. “We are just too intelligent for the type of people with whom we are forced to associate.”

Anthony laughed.

“I would love to see their faces if they heard you say that!”

“For the moment I have no wish to see any of them again,” the Marquis answered petulantly.

The butler announced dinner and they walked into a delightful room that overlooked another part of the garden.

A huge window, which almost covered one wall, was open and the sun was sinking behind the trees in a blaze of glory.

“I wish I could paint that,” the Marquis sighed.

“Van de Velde did his best,” Anthony replied, “and I see you have two excellent pictures of his on the stairs.”

“They portray the sea which is why my father bought them,” the Marquis answered.

They sat down at the table, which was lit by four candles in exquisitely chased gold candlesticks.

In the centre of them was a gold ship which Anthony stared at with undisguised admiration.

“I must say,” he said, “I can well understand your father collecting everything to do with the sea. What I cannot understand is your taking so little interest in what he bought and leaving it here instead of taking it with you to Veryan or to London.”

“I never thought of it,” the Marquis said simply. “The things here belong to Heathcliffe and I like everything in its rightful place.”

He thought again, as he spoke, of the snuffboxes and decided that he would not show them to Anthony until they were all back in the showcase.

The dinner was good and the Marquis appreciated that the fish was fresh from the sea and the partridges, if a little tough, had obviously been shot when the household had been told of their arrival.

The beef, however, was tender and excellent and Anthony, who had a second helping of nearly everything, exclaimed when the fruit was put on the table,