The Ghost who Fell in Love

Chapter One-2

“He has never married?”

“He is married.”

“I had no – idea. You have – never mentioned – the Countess.”

“She is mad – shut up in a madhouse and has been for the last twelve years.”

“Mad! How terrible! You must feel very – sorry for him.”

“Sorry for Trevarnon?” Gerard laughed. “That is the last thing anyone would be! He owns more property than any other man in England and is as rich as Croesus. They say he obliged the King when he was Regent with enormous loans which will never be repaid.”

“But for his wife to be – mad!”

“It does not seem to trouble him, but it is certainly an obstacle to all the women who want to walk him up the aisle.”

“Perhaps he would like to be married.”

“There is no chance of that as long as he has a wife alive and I assure you he turns to his advantage the very fact that he is shackled.”

Gerard laughed a little bitterly.

“If he leaves a woman weeping and broken-hearted, she can hardly blame him when she knew from the very beginning he could not marry her.”

“I can understand – that,” Demelza said.

“You understand nothing!” her brother snapped, “and I am not having you coming into contact with the Earl and that is final! You will leave here this evening and no more arguments about it.”

“But where am I to go? I can hardly undertake the journey to Northumberland to stay with Aunt Elizabeth without anyone to accompany me and if I take Nattie with me I am that sure Betsy will refuse to do anything!”

“Oh, God, you are making so many unnecessary difficulties,” Gerard cried.

“I am not, I promise you I am not, dearest, but we have to face facts. You know as well as I do that I keep the house going, that I cook your meals when you are here, that I see to the linen, the opening of the rooms and all the dusting.”

“Then pay someone to do it while you are away,” her brother replied in an exasperated tone.

“Pay who?” Demelza asked. “Every available woman on two legs is already engaged to wait on the visitors to the races.”

This was so irrefutably true that Gerard found there was nothing he could say.

“And what is more,” Demelza went on after a moment, “I cannot have strange servants spoiling the few things we have left, like the sheets with real lace which Mama always used and the pillowcases she embroidered so beautifully.” Her brother was about to speak, when she gave a little cry.

“I have thought of it! I know what I can do! I have solved the whole – problem.”

“Where are you going?”

“To the Priests’ Room!”

“To the Priests’ Room?” he echoed.

“I will sleep there,” Demelza said. “No one will know I am in the house and, when you are at the races, I can tidy everything and put things ready for your return.”

Gerard looked at her speculatively. Then he said slowly,

“I don’t like it. It’s too dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” Demelza queried.

He was not prepared to explain, but it was as if he saw his sister in a different way for the first time.

He was so used to her that it had not struck him until now how exceedingly lovely she was with a beauty that was so different from the women he knew in London.

There was something very young and almost childlike in her small oval face and huge eyes that were the colour of a pansy.

It was a characteristic of the Langstons that their eyes looked purple in some lights.

Gerard indeed followed the family tradition, but surprisingly Demelza, while inheriting her father’s eyes, had her mother’s hair. It was such a pale gold that it sometimes appeared to be silver.

It was a strange combination, but at the same time so arresting and unusual that any man would be fascinated by it.

Demelza was four years younger than her brother, but Gerard thought of her as a child except that in many ways she looked after him as if she was his mother.

Now he told himself that he had to protect her, especially from a man like the Earl of Trevarnon.

“Why are you staring at me?” Demelza asked.

He smiled and it made him look attractive and boyish. “I was thinking that properly gowned you would be the toast of St James’s.”

“I hope not!” Demelza exclaimed. “Mama always said it was very – vulgar for ladies to be talked about in Clubs. In fact it meant they were not – ladies!”

“Well, you are not going to be, so the question does not arise,” Gerard said with a sudden note of authority in his voice. “If I let you stay in the Priests’ Room, do you swear to me, that you will not come out of the secret passages as long as Trevarnon or any of his guests are in the house?”

He paused before he added,

“I mean that, Demelza. You will give me your word of honour or you and Nattie will have to go to Northumberland.”

“Of course I promise you,” Demelza said disarmingly. “You don’t think I wish to meet men like the Earl or any of your other raffish friends? Although it fascinates me to hear you talking about them, I disapprove of most of them and all they do!”

Gerard laughed.

“Of which you know nothing, thank goodness! Well, I trust you. Perhaps I am doing the wrong thing, but I do understand that the whole household depends upon you.”

“That is the nicest thing you have said to me,” Demelza smiled. “But, Gerard, as you are getting so much money, you will give me some for the wages and for our food when you are not here?”

“Yes, of course I will,” her brother answered. “I am a cad to you in a lot of ways, Demelza, but just as you share the bad times, naturally you will share the good.”

“Thank you, dearest, I just knew you would understand and I hate owing money to the local tradesmen.”

She kissed her brother’s cheek as she spoke and he said,

“I have not cashed Trevarnon’s cheque yet, but here is a guinea or two to be going on with.”

He drew some golden coins out of his pocket and put them into her hand and Demelza kissed him again.

“Now I must go and get everything ready,” she said. “There is very little time if the gentlemen are arriving tomorrow and you had better go to the stables and tell Abbot to expect the horses. The stalls are all right except for the three at the end where there are holes in the roof and the rain comes in.”

“It does not look as if it is going to rain,” Gerard said. “It was terribly hot riding here and both Rollo and I were pretty well done in by the time we reached Windsor.”

‘You rode Rollo the whole way? Oh, Gerard, how could you?”

“I rested him while I had something to eat and rode him carefully for the last five miles,” her brother answered. “I also came across country, which is shorter as you well know. I cannot afford to have more than one horse in London at the same time.”

“Yes, I know that, but it is really too far for him.”

“And for me!” Gerard replied. “I suppose there is no chance of a bath?”

“Of course there is, if you don’t mind a cold one.”

“I should welcome it.”

“I will go and get it ready for you,” Demelza said, “but you will have to fetch a bottle of wine for yourself. There is very little in the cellar, but I suppose his Lordship will be bringing his own.”

Gerard grinned.

“He will be very thirsty if he survives on what we can provide.”

Demelza reached the door.

“You have not told me how many there will be in the party.”

“Six with me!”

“And are you here for dinner?”

Gerard shook his head.

“I am going over to see Dysart at Winkfield to tell him that the Earl will be staying here. He is dining with him on Tuesday after the Grafton Sweep which the Duke of York is quite convinced he will win because he has drawn Trance.”

“I expect he will with Trance,” Demelza said reflectively. “Is there a lot of money on him?”

“Thousands!” her brother answered.

The way he spoke made Demelza glance at him sharply. “How much have you risked?”

“There is no risk where Trance or Moses are concerned, as you well know,” he replied.

Demelza, though she wished to argue with him, knew that he spoke the truth.

Trance was an exceptional horse and the Duke of York had won the Derby with Moses the previous year.

With the exception of Crusader the latter was the most outstanding animal amongst all the highly bred ones which would be seen at the race meeting.

*

As Demelza hurried upstairs to open up the bedrooms, many of which had not been in use for a long time, she was thinking with interest and excitement about the horses she would see in two days’ time.

To her they were far more important than the crowds of distinguished people who watched them race, and to think that Crusader would actually be stabled at The Manor was a thrill beyond anything she had known for a long time.

She longed to talk about it with Abbot, but she knew that first she must prepare the house for the Earl and his guests and she only hoped that he would not feel that his money had been misspent.

To her the large but low rooms, with ancient carved panelling on the walls and huge four-poster beds whose canopies touched the ceiling, were an enchantment that she loved and which had been part of her life and her imagination.

Now as she drew back the curtains, many of which were worn, and threw open the diamond-paned windows, she wondered if the Earl who was so rich would only see how shabby everything was.

Perhaps he would not notice the mellow beauty of the faded tapestries, the colour of the polished floors or the soft shades of many of the rugs that lay on them.

To Demelza there was beauty everywhere, just as there was the history of the Langstons in every room, in every picture and in every piece of furniture.

One blessing, she thought, was that because it had already been such hot weather she had made fresh potpourri and most of the rooms were fragrant with it.

Her mother had taught her the secret recipe which had been handed down from their Elizabethan ancestors, just as there was a special one for the beeswax that polished the floor and furniture.

There were also recipes for cordials which she gave the villagers when they had an ailment that the doctor in Windsor thought beneath his condescension.

Everything was usually so quiet at The Manor. It stood on the very edge of Windsor Forest surrounded by trees and, although it was only a little over a mile from the Racecourse the noise of the crowds did not encroach upon it.

But now, Demelza thought, it was somehow very exciting that The Manor should be drawn into the thrill of Race Week.

She knew it was not only the thought of the house being ill-used that made her fight to stay when Gerard would have sent her away, but also that she could not have borne to miss the races.

She had attended them ever since she was a small child and loved every moment of it.

Now she knew that all along the edge of the course the tents and booths were going up, just as they did every year.

There would be every kind of refreshment for hungry and thirsty people, entertainers of all sorts – jugglers, glee-singers, freaks and a profusion of gaming tents which, as Demelza knew only too well, fleeced all those who were foolish enough to risk their hard-earned savings.

Even Jem had been taken in last year by the thimble game men who were always numerous on the Heath. He had lost over a guinea trying to identify the thimble which his grandfather had so scornfully denounced as ‘a mug’s game!’

Also arriving in their hordes would be the pickpockets and the thieves.

She and Nattie, who always accompanied her, were still laughing about the gang who, on a hot day such as they were likely to have this week, made off with seventy greatcoats stolen from out of carriages and stands.

But whatever happened, it was all entrancing to Demelza and something to talk about and laugh over during the year which ensued until the next meeting.