Call of the Heart (12 page)

There was a pause and Sophie went on:

“But you would not wish to embarrass Lord Rothwyn by making him dismiss you as if you were in fact a servant!”

Her eyes were on Lalitha’s face as she continued:

“I thought you would desire to behave like a lady. That is why Mama has sent you this money, so that you can show some

dignity in what has been a most unfortunate circumstance.” Lalitha made a helpless little gesture and asked: “What do you ... want me to ... do?”

“I want you to put a few things together,” Sophie replied, “only what you can carry under your cloak without being observed, and ostensibly we will set off for a. short drive. My carriage is outside.”

“And ... then?”

“I will take you to the nearest cross-roads where the stagecoaches stop on their way to London. When you reach Charing Cross you can take another coach which will carry you to Norwich.”

Her voice was firm as she continued:

“There are always two in the day and if you hurry you will catch the evening one. Once there, I imagine you can find your way to your Nurse. Mama was certain you know where she is staying.”

“Yes ... of course I ... I do.”

“Then what are you worrying about?”

“It is just that I do not. . . know if I am doing the ... right thing,” Lalitha said unhappily.

“When Lord Rothwyn realises I have come to him to give him my heart, and that I am ready to be his wife,” Sophie said softly, “he will no longer wish to be troubled with you.”

Lalitha gave a deep sigh which seemed to come from the very depths of her being.

“No ... I suppose you are ... right.”

“I will come upstairs with you while you put on your cloak,” Sophie said. “Do not leave any messages with servants. Do not write anything. There is no point in making things more difficult for him than they are already. It is natural he would feel under an obligation to stop you.”

“But we were . . . married!” Lalitha said in a low voice.

Sophie gave a little laugh.

“A marriage which for a few pounds can be obliterated from the Vicar’s memory and the evidence removed from the Marriage Register.”

Lalitha’s eyes went to Sophie’s and she cried involuntarily: “You have... already done that!”

“Yes, I have already done it!” Sophie answered. “It was quite easy. There was no-one in the Church when I walked into the Vestry. The Register was open on a table. I tore out the page. No-one will ever know that you went through a form of marriage with a man who was heart-broken because you were not the bride he had anticipated!”

Lalitha shut her eyes. For a moment it seemed as if there was nothing she could say.

Once again Sophie was doing exactly as she wanted and there was no gain-saying her.

They walked up the stairs to Lalitha’s bed-room. There was no-one there at this time of the afternoon.

Nattie would be in her own room and there were no housemaids in attendance unless the bell was rung for them.

Sophie opened the wardrobe doors.

“His Lordship has certainly fitted you out well!” she said sharply. “It is fortunate we can both wear the same clothes.”

“I am afraid those gowns will be much too tight for you,” Lalitha said. “I am very much thinner than you are.”

“Then they can be thrown away,” Sophie retorted airily. “You cannot take them with you. It would seem far too suspicious if the footmen had to carry a trunk downstairs.”

“Yes ... of course,” Lalitha agreed.

She took a night-gown and some under-clothes from the drawers and put them into a soft, silk shawl which she laid open on the bed.

She added a hair-brush. Then she hesitated, thinking that she would wish to take at least one dress with her, but Sophie said: “That is enough, Lalitha. Even what you have collected may look bulky under your cloak.”

Obediently, because there seemed to be nothing else she could do, Lalitha rolled up the things in the shawl and then took down from the wardrobe a thin travelling-cloak that she had worn the first time she had gone into the garden.

Sophie opened the cupboard in which Lalitha’s bonnets and hats were kept and which matched the various gowns which had been sent down from London.

“These are entrancing!” she exclaimed.

“Perhaps I had better wear one,” Lalitha suggested.

“Why? Sophie asked. “You can pull the hood of your cloak up over your hair. The servants will not think it strange, as you are only going for a drive with me and you would not wish to look conspicuous on the stagecoach.”

Lalitha knew that Sophie was saying this only because she wished to keep the bonnets and hats for herself. But there seemed to be no point in arguing.

She had to leave, and when she was with her old Nurse in Norfolk she would certainly have no occasion to wear the

elegant, expensive creations which had come from Bond Street.

“Here is your money!” Sophie said abruptly.

She held out a small purse.

Lalitha took it from her reluctantly.

She would have liked to say that she would take nothing from Sophie or her mother. Then she told herself practically that she could not inflict herself on her old Nurse, who had little to spare as it was.

She put the little purse into an elegant reticule of heavy satin, added a handkerchief, and picked up a pair of suede gloves. Sophie looked at her.

“You certainly look better than you used to,” she said. “I should imagine you will be able to get work of some sort, wherever you live.”

“Yes ... of course,” Lalitha said automatically and added: “That reminds me. I will take some needles and embroidery silks with me.”

She drew them out of a drawer, thinking with a little throb of her heart as she did so that she had persuaded Nattie to give them to her so that she could start to embroider a monogram on His Lordship’s handkerchiefs.

They were all together in a little bag with her thimble and a pair of scissors.

“Come on!” Sophie said impatiently. “If you remember all the things you need we shall take half the house with us!” Lalitha looked round the room in which she had slowly come back to health. It seemed a haven of security and peace. Now she must leave it forever for an unknown future.

She suddenly felt desperately afraid.

She was going back into a world which she had thought would no longer menace her. She was leaving Lord Rothwyn, who had said he would protect her!

“Do hurry!” Sophie cried impatiently. “You will miss the stage-coach and then you will have to stay the night in London.”

Lalitha felt a little tremor of fear.

Supposing she encountered one of the women who Lord Rothwyn had told her waited to kidnap unsuspecting girls from the country and spirited them away into slavery over-seas?

She felt in a panic that she could not go! She must stay here! She thought that she would run to Nattie and tell her what Sophie was making her do and plead for her help.

Then she knew she could not lower herself to behave in such

a manner.

Sophie was right. Lord Rothwyn had been kind but he was not really interested in her. It was Sophie he wanted.

If Sophie was now ready to love him as he wished to be loved, he would be happy.

Without speaking she followed Sophie downstairs and into the Hall.

The Major-Domo came forward as they turned towards the front door and said to Lalitha:

“You are going driving, M’Lady?”

“We are going for a short drive,” Sophie answered before Lalitha could speak. “We shall be back very shortly.”

“Very good, Miss,” the Major-Domo answered, and added to Lalitha:

“Will you be taking Royal with you, M’Lady?”

For the first time Lalitha realised that Royal was at her heels. She picked him up in her arms.

Here was something else it was hard to leave. She loved the little dog.

For a moment she held him close against her heart and kissed his soft, silky head.

Then she handed him to the Major-Domo.

“Take him to Nattie,” she said.

She heard Royal whine as she turned away to walk down the steps.

The footman opened the door of the carriage, a rug was placed solicitously over their knees, and the horses started off. “I am going away,” Lalitha told herself, and it was like the point of a dagger being driven into her breast.

“I shall never come back! I shall never see him again.”

The horses, gathering speed, moved from the courtyard and onto the drive.

Lalitha looked back.

The house in the afternoon sun-shine looked very beautiful. It was magnificent and at the same time she knew that it had been a haven of security which had encircled her like protective arms.

Now she was leaving.

“Good-bye ... my love,” she whispered beneath her breath.

As the words came to her lips she knew that it was not the house to which she was saying good-bye, but to its owner.

Lord Rothwyn walked from the Chamber of the House of Lords. His friend Henry Grey Bennet was waiting for him.

“I am sorry, Henry,” he said.

“It was only what I expected,” Mr. Bennet answered, “but I shall try again, make no mistake! I shall try and go on trying to get this Bill passed.”

“And I will support you,” Lord Rothwyn promised.

“You did your best. That was an excellent and most eloquent speech of yours. ”

“Thank you.”

“Where shall we drown our sorrows? Here or at White’s?” Henry Grey Bennet asked.

Lord Rothwyn hesitated for a moment.

Then as he was about to accept the suggestion he had an inescapable feeling that he should go back to Roth Park.

He could not explain it to himself. He just knew that there was a sudden urgency in him to go home.

“Forgive me, Henry, another time,” he replied. “I came up from the country especially to speak, as I promised you I would, and now I must get back.”

“It is unlike you to be in the country at this time of the year,” his friend remarked. “You missed the racing at Ascot.”

There was no answer because Lord Rothwyn had already left him and was proceeding to where outside the House of Lords his curricule was waiting.

Drawn by four horses of superlative blood-stock, he could travel the miles to Roth Park quicker than anyone else had ever managed to do.

In fact Lord Rothwyn had already set several records.

As he climbed into the curricule he remembered with a faint twinge of conscience that he had intended to call at Carlton House.

The Regent had returned to London from Brighton to attend the Christening at Kensington Palace of the daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Kent.

She had been baptised Alexandrina Victoria.

Lord Rothwyn was well aware that His Royal Highness would think it extremely off-hand of him not to have made at least an appearance while he was in London.

He knew that His Highness was longing to discuss with him the alterations and additions to the Royal Pavilion at Brighton.

Owing to national and political criticism, work had ceased until the Queen, impressed by her son’s vision of an Indian Palace, had contributed fifty thousand pounds from her own pocket.

Even so, the ornate domes, the Indian columns, graceful colonnades, piece-stone lattice work, delicate cornices, and fretted battlements had cost a fortune.

The huge chandeliers like water-lilies, the Chinese landscapes of scarlet, gold, and yellow lacquer in the Music-Room, and the spreading palm tree with a silver dragon among the leaves in the Banqueting-Room swelled the total.

Lord Rothwyn knew thirty-three thousand pounds had been spent last year and that it was likely to be forty thousand pounds this.

He did however like the Regent as a man and admired what he was trying to create with a sense of fantasy and a romantic exuberance unknown in a Royal Monarch since Charles I.

“People abuse me and mock the Pavilion,” His Royal Highness had said bitterly to Lord Rothwyn on his last visit to Brighton.

“Posterity will admire your improvement to London, Sire,” Lord Rothwyn answered, “and one day the Royal Pavilion will be the greatest sight in Brighton.”

Yet despite all the arguments in his mind that to call on the Regent would be the right thing to do, Lord Rothwyn wanted to reach Roth Park.

He therefore settled himself down to driving his horses with an expertise which made him one of the outstanding Corinthians of the era.

His groom sitting up behind the curricule noted with satisfaction that as they passed everyone’s head was turned admiringly in their direction.

It would have been impossible not to admire Lord Rothwyn. He was not only handsome, but with his high hat at an angle he had a presence which complemented the smartness and magnificence of his horses.

The houses were soon left behind and they were in the open country.

Lord Rothwyn gave his team their head and they travelled what to other people might have seemed an incredible pace along the road North which went through Barnet and Potters Bar, eventually emerging into a valley above which Roth Park was situated.

The great house was looking superb in the warmth of the evening sun-shine, which made the red bricks glow as if they were precious jewels.

The flag was flying above the high roof-line, which was one of the finest characteristics of the building, and below it the lake gleamed gold as the white swans moved with grace across its surface.

As always when he saw the house, Lord Rothwyn felt a pride not only of ownership, but because he was descended from a long line of intelligent, creative ancestors.

He drove up to the front door with a flourish, pulled his horses to a stand-still, and turned to smile at the groom behind him.

“Better than usual, Ned?” he asked. It was a question.

“Three minutes quicker than our last journey, M’Lord.”

“That is good, Ned.”

“It is indeed, M’Lord.”

Lord Rothwyn walked up the flight of stone steps to where the Major-Domo was waiting for him.

As he took His Lordship’s hat and driving-gloves the Major-Domo said:

“There’s a lady to see you in the Silver Salon, M’Lord.”

“A lady?” Lord Rothwyn queried.