Polly and the Prince (4 page)

“It will not be any trouble!” Nick declared. The lad had been amazingly—or perhaps prudently—silent for some time. “Kolya can stand up behind like a footman and I shall ride on the box with the coachman.”

“Oh no, Nicky, that is by far too dangerous,” Mrs. Howard said at once, but to Ned’s surprise she went on, “Indeed, I can see
no harm in taking Kolya with us.”

Now how had the fellow managed to ingratiate himself with their ever-cautious mother?

“He really deserves some reward,” Polly added persuasively. “He saved me, you know, when I fell down the steps from the Pantiles. I was thinking about painting and did not watch my step. Mr. Irving had just given me the money for the pictures he sold for me this past quarter.”

“Ned, I wish you will stop your sister selling her pictures,” begged his mother. “It is not at all genteel.”

“
I
think it’s famous,” said Nick loyally. “I hope you make pots of money, Poll.”

Ned was torn. It distressed him that Polly felt the need of earning money, but the supplement to his own salary and Mrs. Howard’s meager jointure was most welcome. She had also managed to set aside a small nest egg for herself, he knew, which was a relief as he was in no position to provide for her.

Besides, she would not stop simply because he told her to. “Congratulations, Polly,” he said. “Did Mr. Irving sell many for you?”

“He sells all the views of this area that I paint: the Pantiles, the Common, even the ruins of Tonbridge Castle. Many of the visitors to the Chalybeate Spring want a memento of their stay.”

“Is good people are willing to pay for your work, Miss Howard,” the Russian said quietly. “Thus, you know is of value to others,
nyet?”

“Yes! Yes, that is just how I feel.” Polly favoured the
stranger with a delighted smile, and Ned realised that he had failed to understand his sister’s pride in her art. It was not money she cared about, but recognition. She turned back to him. “Do you think there is a shop near Loxwood that will take my pictures?”

Ned hated to disappoint her. “You might find one in Horsham. It’s a pretty town and the assizes are held there, so there are plenty of visitors at times.”

“I doubt lawyers and prisoners will want keepsakes of the place,” she said with a sigh.

“They will if they win their cases,” Nick encouraged her. “You should paint pictures of the gaol to remind them of what they have escaped.”

Polly laughed. “It is worth trying. Is Horsham on the way to Loxwood, Ned? Shall we pass through it?”

“Yes, you will see it tomorrow. If we make good time, we might stop there for luncheon, though I left the duke’s horses in Crawley.”

“Lord John lent you his cattle, too?” Nick was thrilled. “I wager they are famous bits of blood and bone. Lord John must be a regular Trojan.”

“Is good fellow,” Kolya confirmed.

Ned found himself the target of four pairs of eyes.

“Well?” demanded Nick. “Are we taking Kolya?”

If the man was going to walk to Five Oaks anyway he might as well go with them. After all, there were plenty of servants there to deal with an encroaching foreigner if necessary. Ned sighed and gave in. “Very well, we shall take you up, Kolya.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“And you,” Ned said severely to his young brother, “come up to my room with me while I wash. I’ve a bone to pick with you.”

It was unfortunate, as he confessed to Polly later, that Nick’s bear story made him laugh. After that it was impossible to instill a proper sense of wrongdoing in the boy, let alone to discipline him thoroughly.

“I could not help remembering,” he told her as they climbed the stairs to bed, “that you warned me an academic career would not suit him. However, he has picked up some little learning at least, and now I shall just have to see what I can do to help him join the Navy.”

“I hope he realizes how lucky he is to have such an amiable brother,” said Polly, kissing him good-night.

He hugged her. Despite her vagaries, she was a dear girl, and he was glad that at last he was able to have her and his mother to live with him. He had worked very hard for this moment. Even Nick’s misdeeds could not spoil it. He just hoped Lord John would not be too infuriated by his delivery of that wretched foreigner his impulsive sister had taken under her wing.

Chapter 4

In the morning, Ned had to admit that both Nick and Kolya were a great help when it came to packing up the last of the household goods and loading the coach. It did not take long—fortunately Mrs. Howard had let her house furnished, and owing to her efficiency almost all the
moveables had gone with the carter.

Everything was ready. Mrs. Howard locked the door and was about to give Ella the key to take to the neighbour’s when suddenly she stopped and looked round.

“Polly! Where has the girl got to now? Nicholas, have you seen her?”

“Not since breakfast. Ned, do say I may ride on the box.”

“Polly went up to the attic half an hour ago,” Ned said, “to make sure she had not left anything in her studio. Perhaps she is still up there, lost in one of her dreams.”

Kolya laughed. “I wager Miss Howard is sketching in garden.” He held out his hand. “Give key, please. I fetch.”

Mrs. Howard gave him the key and he went back into the house. Ned looked at his mother with a frown. “How does the fellow know so much about my sister?”

“He’s not stupid,” Nick answered with unexpected indignation. “It only takes an hour or two to discover Polly’s crazy about art. Mother, you don’t mind if I ride on the box, do you?”

“Oh dear, do you think it safe, Ned?”

Once Ned had reassured his mother as to the safety of riding with the groom, he found it difficult to punish Nick for his misbehaviour at school by forbidding it. While he was humming and hawing, Kolya returned with Polly, sketch book in hand.

“I did not realize you were waiting,” she apologized. “The clouds are so extraordinary I wanted to draw them before they blow away. They look like a ploughed field.”

Everyone immediately stared at the sky. The clouds did indeed look as if they had been raked into neat rows. Lit from below by the rising sun, they shone pearly gold. A momentary feeling of awe filled Ned, and he turned to thank Polly for drawing his attention to the sight.

Kolya was before him.
“Prekrasno,”
he murmured. “Beautiful. Is special gift of artist to see what others fail to notice. Thank you, Miss Howard.”

Polly smiled at him. Dash it, thought Ned, annoyed, the Russian said it better than he could have himself. He busied himself handing his mother and sister into the
carriage while Kolya took his place on the narrow perch behind intended for footmen.

Taking advantage of his distraction, Nick climbed up onto the box. As Ned followed Ella inside, to sit beside the maid with his back to the horses, he consoled himself with the thought that there was more room, and definitely more peace, without his brother.

No sooner did they leave the town behind them to roll along the open road than Nick’s voice floated back in an urgent plea to “spring ‘em.” Mrs. Howard looked alarmed, but as the duke’s groom paid her importunate son no heed, she soon settled down on the luxuriously padded seat. The carriage was so well sprung that she dozed for much of the way. Polly, meanwhile, gazed out of the open window, far too entranced by the new sights to care about the layer of road dust deposited upon her person.

When they stopped for luncheon in Horsham, Polly once again disappeared. This time she returned before anyone went to look for her.

“I found a bookseller,” she reported happily. “He has promised to display two pictures of the town or the surrounding countryside, and if they sell quickly he will take more.”

Mrs. Howard sighed heavily. Ned knew she had hoped that the removal from Tunbridge Wells would put an end to her daughter’s commercial ventures. He half sympathized, but Polly was so delighted it was impossible not to be pleased for her.

They reached Loxwood in the middle of the afternoon. A quarter mile beyond the gates of Loxwood Manor, they
turned from the narrow lane into one even narrower, on the outskirts of the village. The house the duke had provided for his bailiff stood on the corner. The carriage pulled up on the strip of gravel separating the whitewashed, tile-roofed building from the lane.

 Ned stepped out and handed down his mother and sister. “Welcome home,” he said.

“This is it?” whooped Nick, scrambling down from the box.

Polly squeezed Ned’s hand. “I know we are going to be very happy here. I cannot wait to unpack my paints.”

The front door swung open and his elderly cook-housekeeper appeared, neat and respectable in her black dress and white apron. She was accompanied by a mouth-watering smell of baking.

“Mother, this is Mrs. Coates. She will do all the cooking and marketing so you shall be a lady of leisure and drink tea with the vicar’s wife.”

Hung with oddments of baggage, Ella emerged from the carriage and regarded her fellow servant with a glowering face. “Since you won’t be needing me no more, madam, I’ll just turn meself around and go right back to Tunbridge Wells.”

“Oh dear,” said Mrs. Howard. “Indeed I cannot manage without you, Ella.”

Ned hurried to excuse himself. “I’ll have to leave you to make the peace, Mother. I left my horse at Five Oaks yesterday, so I must go back with the carriage as soon as we have unloaded the luggage. Do you go in and settle yourselves, and I shall return in no time.”

“You need not worry about Ella and Mrs. Coates,” Polly whispered, “for it is exactly the sort of problem Mama enjoys worrying about. If Lord John will not help Kolya, will you bring him back here?”

He looked at her in surprise. “No, Polly, I will not. It would not be at all proper.”

“Just for a few days, until I finish the portrait.”

“I’m sure Kolya himself had rather go on to London to find his other friends,” he said gently, concerned at his usually cheerful sister’s despondency. “You will not wish to delay him further.”

She sighed. “I suppose not. But you must make him take this money. He is more like to take it from you than from a female, surely.” She pressed three sovereigns into his hand.

Ned did not know what to say, so he was glad when at that moment Mrs. Howard called Polly into the house.

Kolya had just helped Nick carry in one of the trunks. Polly met him coming out, and Ned saw them exchanging a few words. However, he was busy giving the groom a hand with the second trunk and did not hear what was said. Soon everything was unloaded. Kolya joined the groom on the box and they set off again.

Cross-country Five Oaks was no distance, but by the winding lanes it was a good six miles. Ned had plenty of time to wonder how Lord John would feel about the appearance of an out-at-elbows foreigner claiming to be his friend. By the time the carriage rumbled into the stable yard of the duke’s vast mansion, he was decidedly apprehensive.

While the carriage horses were unharnessed, the head groom sent one of his underlings to saddle Ned’s hack for him, another to the house to report the Russian’s arrival.

The horse beat Lord John by a short head. Ned was just taking the reins from a stable boy when his lordship strode into the yard and looked around.

“Kolya? Kolya, my dear fellow, it really is you!”

The Russian flung his arms around Lord John and kissed him on both cheeks. His lordship fervently returned the embrace, to the fascination of Ned and the stable hands. This display was followed by some back slapping, both men talking at once in an incoherent babble.

As surprised as he was relieved by Kolya’s welcome, Ned wanted to be on his way. However, he felt that as his lordship had come out, he ought to stay
and thank him for the loan of the carriage. Unable to get a word in edgewise, he was about to give up when Lord John said, “But you must come into the house at once, Kolya. Beckie won’t thank me for keeping you from her.”

“So you marry Rebecca Ivanovna? Congratulations, my dear John. Am very delighted. One moment, if you please.” He turned to Ned. “Must thank you, sir, for courtesy and assistance to unknown traveller.”

He held out his hand and Ned, bemused, shook it. “It was nothing,” he said awkwardly.

“Howard brought you?” asked Lord John. “My thanks, Howard. Her ladyship and I shan’t forget this.”

“I’m happy to be of service, my lord. And I must thank you for lending me the carriage.”

“Family arrived all right and tight, are they? Splendid. Come on, old chap, we mustn’t keep Beckie waiting.”

Ned watched them walk away, once again talking nineteen to the dozen. The Russian looked thinner and shabbier than ever beside the strongly built, fashionably dressed English lord.

Pulling on his gloves, he recalled the feel of Kolya’s rough, hard-skinned hand. As he mounted and turned Chipper’s head towards home, he pondered the mystery of the obviously intimate friendship between the Russian labourer and the son of the Duke of Stafford.

* * * *

As Kolya followed John into the small, comfortably furnished sitting room, a familiar voice asked eagerly, “Is it really him?”

“Yes, love, it’s Kolya.” John moved aside and his wife hurried forwards, both hands held out.

“Nikolai Mikhailovich, we were so worried about you.”

He took her hands, very conscious that his friend was watching their meeting. He had once had a notion to marry Miss Rebecca Nuthall himself. “I am honoured to be subject of your concern, Lady John,” he said.

“Lady John! I am still not used to the name. Will you not call me Rebecca Ivanovna as you did before?” Marriage had given the shy girl he had known poise and self-confidence—and an inner glow of happiness which radiated and made her beautiful.

Kolya glanced at John, who nodded, grinning. “There’s no harm in private, and even in public people will only think you are a mad Russian.”

“This is true, but I mean to become English gentleman.”

John eyed his worn, shapeless clothes and roared with laughter.

“Hush, John, do not be so rude,” Rebecca scolded. “Come and sit down, Nikolai Mikhailovich, and tell us everything. His Grace heard from Princess Lieven that the tsar found out you helped us escape and exiled you. Our thoughts have been with you constantly.”