CHAPTER ONE - 1900-2
2013 Words
Sir Terence laughed.
“Are those your favourite disguises?”
“No. The East is notable for its fakirs and I cannot tell you how many ineffective prayers and curses I know in a dozen different dialects.”
They both chuckled and, as if the sound eased the tension, Rex Daviot leant back to say,
“Tell me your second suggestion – ”
“It originally came from Her Majesty,” Sir Terence replied. “While she is extremely anxious for you to take the post suggested, she asked me to tell you that she considers it essential that the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Provinces should be a married man.”
For a moment Rex Daviot stared in surprise at the man opposite him.
Then he said decisively,
“Well, that lets me out! I have not yet accepted the bonds of Holy Matrimony and I have no intention of doing so!”
“Why ever not?” Sir Terence enquired.
“The answer is simple. No woman would put up with my way of life as it has been up until now and I have never met one who I wished to share the future with.”
“I am quite certain that there have been many applicants for the job,” Sir Terence remarked drily.
“Not exactly for matrimony,” Rex Daviot replied with a twist of his lips.
“It’s about time you settled down,” Sir Terence replied. “The Daviot Baronetcy is an old one and you must have an heir sooner or later.”
They were both aware that one of the reasons why the Queen had not suggested knighting Rex Daviot was that his father, as the sixth Baronet, had not added anything illustrious to what had been an ancient and respected name.
At the same time Rex Daviot was proud of his ancestry and proud of the fact that, with the exception of his father, there had been Daviots all through the history of the last three hundred years who had served their country valiantly.
“There is plenty of time,” he said now.
“Is there?” Sir Terence asked. “I should have thought, considering the risks you take, that it is high time you started remembering that your son will be the eighth Baronet or perhaps the second Lord Daviot!”
“I have already told you that there is no chance of him becoming either.”
“There is every chance, if you will listen to what I am trying to tell you.”
“I am waiting.”
“I don’t know if you have ever met my brother,” Sir Terence began.
Rex Daviot shook his head.
“He died a year ago. He was an adventurer and a man of extraordinary perception when it came to making money. In fact he died an amazingly rich man.”
Rex raised his eyebrows slightly, otherwise he sat quite still listening and wondering how this could possibly concern him.
“My brother had only one child,” Sir Terence went on, “a daughter, who has been living with my wife and me for the last eighteen months. She has inherited such an enormous fortune that my wife anticipated, and so did I, that she would have been married long before now.”
“What is the difficulty?” Rex Daviot asked.
He had an idea of where this conversation was leading and he also knew what his reply would be.
“When Quenella came to us after her father’s death,” Sir Terence continued, “she was nineteen. Because she had travelled extensively with my brother and they were continually on the move, she had never had time to enjoy the comfort and security of a home or to find herself friends who she would have had much in common with.”
His voice was reflective as he went on,
“She is a strange girl, extremely intelligent and well read. But I do not pretend to understand her. Perhaps it is because she has Russian blood in her veins and we both know that the Slavs are most unpredictable.”
“Russian blood!”
“Her great-grandmother was Russian, a Princess who fell crazily in love with my grandfather when he was a Diplomat in St. Petersburg. The Princess was a widow, but they had to wait for five years to marry each other because my grandmother was still alive, hopelessly insane but alive!”
He paused as if to let Rex Daviot digest what he had said before he continued with a smile,
“Russian, English and, of course, Irish blood. What do you expect of a complex, beautiful, very enigmatic young woman who, as far as I am concerned, is as mysterious as the Sphinx but as lovely as Cleopatra must have been at that age?”
“You paint a very glowing picture,” Rex remarked with a smile behind his eyes, knowing that Sir Terence was deliberately trying to intrigue him.
“My wife entertained for Quenella and there is no need for me to tell you that she was an outstanding success. Invitations poured into our house from all the great hostesses. The Queen herself complimented us on Quenella’s beauty when she was presented at Court.”
He looked across at Rex Daviot and then he said in a different tone of voice,
“Two months ago disaster struck!”
“What happened?”
There was a note of curiosity now in his voice that Sir Terence recognised.
“At a party at Windsor Castle, Quenella met Prince Ferdinand of Schertzenberg.”
“That swine!”
The exclamation from Rex Daviot was involuntary.
“Exactly,” Sir Terence said. “While I agree with you that he should be barred from every drawing room in the land and kicked out of every gentleman’s house, he is nevertheless of importance in Europe, and he is a distant, although very distant, relative of the Queen.”
“What happened?”
“He pursued Quenella in an extremely reprehensible manner. After all he is a married man and the days of Monarchs being expected to behave in an imperious and licentious manner are well and truly over especially at Windsor Castle!”
“What were the young woman’s feelings in the matter?”
“She loathed him,” Sir Terence responded briefly. “She told me that the moment he came near her she felt repelled as she would have been by a reptile.”
Sir Terence fell silent, but there was obviously an end to the story and Rex insisted,
“What happened then?”
“The Prince refused to leave Quenella alone. He bombarded her with letters, flowers and presents until I told him firmly that his behaviour could not continue.”
Sir Terence sighed.
“It was not an easy thing to do and the Prince was offensively rude as only the Germans can be. He even threatened that my manner would, if I was not careful, cause a Diplomatic incident and he would have me dismissed!”
“Good God!” Rex Daviot expostulated and then he added,
“You did not take him seriously?”
“I assure you that His Royal Highness was very serious, but I told him that, if he continued to behave in such a manner, I would inform the Queen of what was occurring.”
“Did that quieten him down?”
“He was furiously angry, but I felt that like everyone else he is afraid of Her Majesty and would behave better in the future.”
“So that put paid to the whole problem?”
“On the contrary,” Sir Terence replied. “It merely drove underground what had been easier to see and perhaps easier to cope with when it was out in the open.”
He knew as he spoke that Rex Daviot would understand only too well for the sedition and the intrigues amongst the tribes incited by the Russians were always fomented by secrecy and suppression.
“What did he do?”
“He arranged, without my being aware of it,” Sir Terence answered, “to be included in a house party together with Quenella. It was unfortunately one that neither my wife nor I had planned .to accompany her at. The hostess was one of our closest friends and my wife was only too happy to have the girl in her care.”
Sir Terence paused and then he continued,
“How was I to know that that devil would get himself invited at the last moment and take advantage of the fact that his hostess was a trusting woman and Quenella an innocent young girl?”
The fury in Sir Terence’s voice was very evident before he resumed,
“The Prince forced his way into Quenella’s bedroom, tore at her clothes and attempted to rape her!”
“I have never heard of anything so outrageous,” Rex exclaimed. “I have always known that he was an outsider and a bounder of the first water, but what you tell me is incredible even for a German with an inflated ego.”
“Fortunately somebody in the next bedroom heard Quenella’s screams,” Sir Terence went on, “but frankly it was a near thing and the girl was shocked in a way that is difficult to understand.”
“Did she collapse or have a nervous breakdown?”
“It might have been better if she had,” Sir Terence answered, “No, she just seemed to turn inwards on herself.”
He saw that Rex did not understand.
“It is difficult to put into words what happened. Quenella has always been proud. She has also been reserved and a little aloof, I thought, in her dealings with other people, I attributed it, as I said before, to her foreign ancestry, but after this episode with Prince Ferdinand – ”
He paused as if he was seeking for words and, because now he was undeniably curious, Rex said almost insistently,
“Go on.”
“It is as if she has put a barrier between herself and the rest of the world. She is charming and attentive to my wife and myself, but otherwise she has withdrawn from all contact with human beings. I have a feeling, although she has not told me so, that she now hates men!”
“That is understandable,” Rex Daviot nodded.
“She has refused every party and every other sort of entertainment that she has been asked to.”
“Surely she is afraid of meeting the Prince again?”
“He is, I believe, still trying to get in touch with her,” Sir Terence answered, “but even when she is certain of not meeting him, Quenella still tears up every invitation she receives.”
“I suppose she is still suffering from shock.”
“I wish it was just that. I have a feeling that it is something much deeper, something that might affect her whole life and her whole outlook.”
He thought that Rex Daviot smiled a little sceptically and he said quickly,
“That is why I am asking for your help.”
“My help? What can I do?”
“You can marry Quenella and take her away from here!”
There was a stupefied silence and then Rex Daviot asked,
“Are you mad?”
“If you think it over, you will see that it is a rather sane suggestion. Because I love Quenella I want her to get away. I want her to be completely free of the Prince. The only way she can be quite certain that he will not pursue her is to have a husband who will protect her as I quite frankly am unable to do.”
“Why?”
“Because the Prince can make an immeasurable amount of trouble for me if I continue to oppose him.”
Sir Terence spoke frankly and Rex Daviot was aware that it was the truth.
The Head of the India Office held a post of such responsibility that a brawl with a Ruling Prince of Europe would not only hurt Sir Terence but perhaps the whole system.
Rex Daviot knew that it had been a great feather in Sir Terence’s cap that he had been appointed when he was comparatively young, but his list of qualifications had made him the ideal man for the job.
That his career should be ruined now and that he should be forced to resign would be a tragedy for Britain and, he thought, a tragedy for India.
As if he knew exactly what Rex Daviot was thinking, Sir Terence went on,
“I may be wrong, but I have the idea that even if you were willing to marry some young woman so that you could accept the post of Lieutenant-Governor, you do not know many except those of the ‘Fishing Fleet’!”
This was a joke for the girls who went out to India every year in the hopes of finding a husband were known always as the ‘Fishing Fleet’ and those who came back unsuccessful in their quest were referred to as ‘Returned Empties’.
Rex Daviot did not laugh, however, and Sir Terence continued,
“It seems to me a very reasonable proposition. While you need a wife with money, Quenella has to find a husband who will take her out of reach of the Prince. So, why not think it over?”
When Sir Terence had stopped speaking, it seemed as if the silence was different and somehow much more poignant than it had been before.
“Are you really serious about this?” Rex Daviot asked slowly.
“I have never been more serious in my life,” Sir Terence answered. “And I will not pretend to you that I do not have a great deal of self-interest in your reply.”
He gave a deep sigh before he added,
“I am asking for your help, Rex. Quite frankly I am in a hell of a hole and I cannot see any other way out.”
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