The Glittering Lights (Bantam Series No. 12) (14 page)

“I see you have a warm cloak,” he said. “I am glad about that, because as it is a fine day I suggest that we drive in my open Phaeton. If it rains, there is a hood we can raise. I have also brought a brake for our luggage. My valet will see to yours.”

“I shall enjoy being in the fresh air,” Cassandra replied.

She noticed that today the Duke had a different Phaeton from the one he had used the day before, when there had been a groom seated behind them.

Built for speed, there was room for only two people in it.

She saw a man climb down from the brake which was driven by a Coachman wearing the Alchester livery and a cockaded tall hat.

She thought, as she saw him enter the flat, that she had been wise to tell Hannah to put the trunk that had been packed upstairs outside on the landing and close the door.

She did not want Hannah to meet the Duke’s servants.

The Duke helped her into the Phaeton, and as they set off down Jermyn Street, Cassandra said:

“You have not forgotten that we are going to see Nancy?”

“I have already been there.”

“You have?” Cassandra ejaculated in surprise. “How was she?”

In reply the Duke held out an envelope which she took from him. There was a grim expression on his face which made her exclaim: “What has happened? What did she say?”

“She was not there,” the Duke said quietly.

Cassandra stared at him in surprise then she looked at the envelope he had given her.

Written on the outside was just her name: “Sandra.”

She opened it. Inside was a brief letter written in an educated, tidy handwriting, but in pencil.

“You were so kind, but there is nothing you or anyone else can do for me. I would rather face God than my father! He is more likely to forgive me.

Nancy.”

Cassandra read it through. Then she said fearfully:

“What does she mean? Where had she gone? I do not ... understand.”

“I went up to her bed-room,” the Duke answered. “The door was unlocked and she was not there. On the dressing-table I found this letter and the money I had given to her last night.”

“But what had she ... done?” Cassandra cried.

“I think it is obvious,” the Duke answered, “that she has taken the easiest way out of her dilemma. She really had little alternative.”

“You mean she has ... killed herself?”

“I imagine she will be one of the unidentified bodies that are fished out of the river every day,” the Duke said. “Many of them are in fact in the same condition as Nancy Wood.”

“But we must do something ... find out for certain!”

“It would involve you with the police,” the Duke said, “and I do not think that is at all desirable.”

At the thought of the police Cassandra was suddenly still.

“After all,” the Duke went on, “all we have to show them is this note left for you. We do not know how to find her father, his name may not even be Wood.”

“No ... of course ... not,” Cassandra agreed.

“It would cause a scandal for you and for me to be involved publicly in this tragedy,” the Duke continued. “And we are too late to help her.”

“But will not the ... police, or Nancy’s landlord make enquiries?”

“I doubt if either of them will trouble themselves unduly,” the Duke replied. “The police will find it difficult to discover who she is. The landlord, when she does not return, will pocket the money which we left behind in lieu of rent and dispose of her belongings.”

Cassandra sat stunned by shock. At the same time she knew that if the police discovered that she and the Duke were the last people to see Nancy alive, her subterfuge would be revealed.

Her father would be furious if this happened, and she was well aware what a story the newspapers would make of it.

But she was at the moment very appalled at the thought of what had happened to Nancy.

“It is horrible! It is cruel! How could she have ... done such a ... thing?” Cassandra cried.

The Duke did not reply but concentrated on driving his horses. After a moment she went on in a low voice:

“She told me last night that her father would never ... forgive her. It seems ... un-Christian and ... wicked to punish her so ... severely.”

The Duke still made no answer. Cassandra stared ahead seeing only Nancy Wood’s white, frightened face, hearing the despairing note in her voice which had been followed by a flood of hopeless tears.

After they had driven for some distance, the Duke said:

“I want you to try to forget what has happened. It is something that you should not have experienced. Dwelling on it will help no-one.”

He paused as if he searched for words before he continued:

“I cannot help thinking that from her own point of view Nancy Wood did the best thing possible. What future could there possibly be for her or her child?”

That was a sensible view, Cassandra had to agree, and yet she could only feel almost physically sick at the thought of the wretched girl going out, perhaps at dawn, to seek oblivion in the dark cold waters of the Thames.

But she told herself that the Duke was right.

To keep thinking about it, to wonder if she could have prevented such a tragedy, to reproach herself for not having given Nancy Wood more help than she had been able to do, would only make her miserable to no purpose and would ruin this lovely day alone with the Duke.

She could quite understand that he found this whole subject distasteful, but in a way, she wished she could have asked him more questions.

She wanted to understand how a Vicar’s daughter, brought up in a decent household, could have got herself into such trouble, and why there was no man to marry her, thereby making the child legitimate.

There were so many questions to which Cassandra could not find an answer, but she knew that she must not pester the Duke with them.

In any case, in all probability he would refuse to reply.

It all seemed to her very mysterious, but at the same time, she had only to think of the dirty boarding-house and Nancy Wood’s untidy, squalid bed-room to see that for his sake she must try to forget.

With an effort, Cassandra told herself to think of the Duke. He wanted to be amused, to be gay. This situation could do nothing but irritate and embarrass him.

She could almost feel it putting a barrier between them. So, desperately, because she felt her own happiness was slipping away from her, Cassandra tried to talk of other things.

As if he understood the effort she was making, the Duke talked of his horses.

He told Cassandra the pedigrees of the ones he was driving, described some of the sales he had visited in his father’s time.

The old Duke had gloried in visiting Horse-Fairs all over the country, always hoping, as many owners had hoped, before him, to discover a Derby winner being sold for a few pounds.

“Some men collect horses, as other men collect pictures and objets d’art’,” the Duke smiled.

“Is that what you would like to do?”

“I have no opportunity of doing either at the moment,” he replied. “If I had the chance, I would be greedy and collect both!”

“I am sure you have some very fine pictures at Alchester Park,” Cassandra said.

“The family collection is unique,” he said. “Every head of the family and his wife all down the ages have been painted for posterity-some by great artists—some by what my father used to call ‘the village carpenter’.”

He laughed.

“But they are all there: first the Earls and Countesses of Alchester, and—then after the Dukedom was created, every Duke and Duchess.”

“Has your portrait yet been added to the others?” Cassandra asked.

“No,” the Duke replied. “It is traditional that the owner of the title waits until he is married.”

As he spoke Cassandra saw a shadow cross his face.

She knew he was thinking of the marriage that had been arranged for him years ago and to which today he was committing himself.

She had an impulse to tell him the truth—and then quite suddenly she was afraid.

When she had planned this wild escapade, she had known that at the back of her mind lay the idea that if after all the Duke was not in love with someone else she might be able to attract him.

Then as in a fairy story, she would only have to throw off her disguise and reveal her true identity.

Now for the first time she had the feeling that the Duke might well resent being tricked and imposed upon.

Her dreams had all been concerned with what was really a cardboard figure of a man. The pictures and portraits of the Marquis had filled her adolescent dreams.

But they were not of a man who was flesh and blood; a man who had kissed the palm of her hand and wished to kiss her lips; a man who had said that only actors and actresses were free to be themselves.

“I have made a mess of it!’ Cassandra admitted to herself frankly.

And her brain was busy with how she could extricate herself from a position that she felt now might so easily be misinterpreted.

They had been driving into the country for some time before Cassandra asked where they were going.

“Lord Carwen’s house is only three-quarters of an hour’s drive from London, I thought,” she said. “Surely we shall arrive too soon? He did not ask us until tea-time.”

“I have no intention of turning up one moment before we have to,” the Duke answered. “I am taking you to luncheon at an Inn which I think you will enjoy. It is on the river and later in the year is very popular, but I do not think today we will find it very crowded.”

The Duke was right in his assumption. The Inn was charming.

Having arranged stabling for the horses, he escorted Cassandra to the Dining-Room and they were seated at a table in the window, overlooking the slow-moving silver Thames.

The Inn was old, with great oak beams and a huge open fireplace in which a log-fire was burning.

The Duke ordered wine, and the meal, though simple, was well-cooked and palatable.

It was easy as they faced each other across the small table in the window to forget the tragedy of Nancy Wood and to pick up their discussion where they had left off the night before.

Cassandra realised she had been right in thinking that the Duke was extremely clever.

She knew that she herself had an intelligence superior to many of her contemporaries. There was no doubt that they stimulated each other’s mind, capped each other’s quotations, and were able to argue as equals.

“How dare you be beautiful as well as clever?” the Duke demanded at one moment when he found some argument of Cassandra’s unanswerable.

“You do not make that sound as if it were a compliment,” Cassandra replied.

“It is not!” the Duke said. “Most men dislike clever women. They are frightened of them.”

“And you?”

“I find you very interesting, Sandra, but it perplexes me why, being so intelligent, you have chosen your particular profession.”

“There are not many careers open to women,” Cassandra replied.

“That is true,” the Duke answered. “Who would want to see women Members of Parliament, women lawyers, women stockbrokers, or worst of all—a woman Judge!”

“Why would that be so horrifying?” Cassandra asked.

“Because women are always prejudiced. Their minds are supremely illogical.”

This was a provocation Cassandra could not let pass, and once again they were arguing fiercely with each other, until the Duke threw himself back in his seat to say:

“I take back all I said! You are a blue-stocking! If you were my daughter I should pack you off to Oxford and see how you fared at Somerville amongst the student feminists.”

Cassandra smiled and he added:

“You see, it is really not fair when you look like that with your lips curved in a smile. No man could refuse you anything, whatever the odds against him!”

They sat for a long time after luncheon was over.

There had been few other guests in the Inn besides themselves, and when they had departed the waiters seemed to disappear too, and Cassandra and the Duke were alone.

“I wish we did not have to leave here to go on to this boring house-party,” he said suddenly.

“Will it be boring?” Cassandra enquired.

“There will be other people there,” he replied, “and I want you to myself. I want to talk to you; to listen to you; to be with you. Anyone else, whoever they may be, will be an interruption which I shall resent.”

“I, too, would ... much rather be just with ... you,” Cassandra murmured.

“Do you mean that?” he asked.

He leaned forward as he spoke and took her hand in his.

Once again she felt herself quiver because he was touching her. As their eyes met, he said in a low voice:

“Do you know what has happened to us, Sandra?” She did not reply and after a moment he went on:

“I think I fell in love with you the moment we were introduced. It was not only that I thought you more lovely and attractive than anyone I had ever seen before, but there was something else. Did you feel it too?”

It was impossible for Cassandra to speak, her heart was thumping so wildly in her breast. Then the Duke released her hand and stood up.

“There is no point in talking about it,” he said harshly. “Come! If I take you by a somewhat round-about route so that you can see the countryside we should arrive at exactly the right time at His Lordship’s residence.”

For a moment it was difficult for Cassandra to move.

She felt as if by his abruptness he had slapped her in the face. Then suddenly she realised she faced a new and even worse dilemma.

The Duke had admitted loving her, but he was not prepared to do anything about it!

His head would rule his heart! Money was more important to him than love!

Because Cassandra loved him so that her whole being vibrated with it, she could not bear the thought that his love for her was something he could set aside for mercenary reasons.

Now she knew that she had brought upon herself an agony that was almost impossible to contemplate.

He loved her!

He had fallen in love with her just as she had hoped he would, but he was quite prepared to give her up for a rich heiress he had never seen, but who would bring him the millions he needed.

It had been bad enough to envisage the Duke, her ideal man, the hero of her girlish dreams, being in love with someone else.

But that he should be in love with her, and yet not have the
courage
to do anything about it, was a pain beyond anything she had imagined she might endure.

As she rose from her seat at the table, she felt as if she could not go on with the farce any longer.

Then she knew that having once embarked on this crazy adventure, she must continue playing her assumed part at least until they returned to London.