A Princess Runs Away, page 6
Vasila did not answer.
“What is your name?” Kelvin then asked her.
“Vasila,” she answered.
He realised that this was all that she intended to tell him and he said quietly,
“Mine is Kelvin.”
They had now reached the front of the Big Top and Kelvin bought two tickets and they went in.
The tent was nearly full up and they had hardly sat down before the show commenced.
The Master of Ceremonies then came into the ring wearing his traditional red coat and top hat.
He announced what a magnificent performance that they were about to see.
Then followed the clowns tumbling over each other and making everyone laugh.
Actually the show was, Kelvin thought, a very good one.
There were well-bred white horses with pretty girls in ballet skirts standing up on their backs.
There was an equestrian on a horse leaping through a blazing hoop. This trick he knew had been introduced at one of the London circuses only a few years ago.
There were men on stilts who made everyone laugh and acrobats balancing on the top of long poles.
There were jugglers and acrobats.
There were tightrope walkers high up at the top of the tent that made Vasila gasp.
Finally, when one of them appeared to drop from a great height, she slipped her hand into Kelvin’s.
He knew that she was tense with fear that he might hurt himself.
“It’s all right,” he said soothingly. “He does this on purpose every night.”
There was a long low gasp from the audience and then a heavy round of applause. It was all so very thrilling to Vasila who had never seen anything like it before.
When it was over, she realised that now she would have to walk home alone in the dark to Hampton Court.
Earlier in the evening she had thought that it would be quite an easy thing to do. But now there seemed to be an abnormal number of men moving about.
They were either shouting to each other or calling out to the girls as they passed them.
Without realising it she moved closer to Kelvin.
“I will look after you,” he said to her quietly, “but you should not be alone. You must be aware of that.”
“I was not at all worried before it grew dark,” she admitted.
“Well, you should worry now and I must take you home.”
It was then that Vasila realised that she could not go home.
Of course, when she was missing from The Castle, they would assume that was where she had gone.
The Queen would undoubtedly send a carriage with two Equerries and perhaps a Lady-in-Waiting to bring her back immediately.
Kelvin had stood still while he was talking to her.
As he looked at her, he realised by the expression in her eyes that she was not only worried but very frightened.
“What is wrong?” he asked gently.
“I – cannot tell you,” Vasila replied.
She looked round nervously as she spoke.
“I will tell you what we will do,” he said. “I am hungry and I expect you are too. It will be difficult to find anything to eat here where there is such a big crowd, so I suggest you come back to the house where I am staying where I expect a light meal to be waiting for me.”
Before leaving Riverside House he had left a note for Mrs. Banks saying that he was staying at the General’s invitation and asking her to be kind enough to leave him something to eat in the dining room.
He was sure that she would think it a nuisance, but the General had said that she would look after him.
“That would be lovely,” Vasila replied. “If you are quite certain – I shall not be a bother.”
“I should worry about you if I left you here alone,” Kelvin said. “Then when you are ready to go home, I will find a way of taking you there.”
“You are very – kind,” Vasila murmured.
He felt, when she looked at him like that, that it would be very difficult for any man not to be kind to her.
At the same time he was more curious than ever to learn why this pretty child was wandering about by herself.
He was quite certain that if he had not been there, some man who had drunk too much would have accosted her and she might have been really scared of him.
It was a short walk down the hill to the river, but Vasila seemed to skip along beside him.
When they reached Riverside House, she cried,
“It’s very pretty! Is it yours?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Kelvin replied. “It belongs to a friend who has lent it to me for the night because I have come to Windsor on business.”
He opened the door with the key and saw as he did so that the curtains had been drawn and there was a lamp burning in the small dining room.
When he pushed open the door, he saw to his relief that there was food on the table and a bottle of wine.
“It’s like a doll’s house,” Vasila was saying, “and I am sure that anyone who lives here is very happy.”
“Unfortunately the friend who has lent it to me has to work in London,” Kelvin said. “He comes here when he can get away, but I think he stays here alone.”
There was a bare masculine look about the rooms which made Kelvin think that the General’s wife was not interested in this pied-à-terre, which he only used when he came to see Her Majesty the Queen.
Vasila sat down at the table and Kelvin poured her out a glass of wine.
What Mrs. Banks had provided was adequate, but not very exciting.
There was cold meat and a green salad to go with it and there was fresh fruit and a blancmange, while Kelvin saw that there was also some cheese on a side table which he much preferred.
Vasila, however, had a little of everything.
“I have not had anything since luncheon,” she said, “except two delicious chocolate cakes.”
“Who made those for you? Was it your mother?”
It suddenly occurred to Vasila that it would be a great mistake for him to know where she had come from or why she had run away.
Because he was a gentleman and, she thought, had an air of authority about him, she was sure that he would insist on taking her back either to Windsor Castle or to her own home in Hampton Court.
‘Whatever happens, I am not going back,’ she told herself, ‘until at least Prince Gadelov has left England.’
She thought of his face again as she had seen it as they drove away from Windsor Castle and shivered.
“What is frightening you?” Kelvin asked.
“How do you know that I am frightened?” Vasila enquired.
“Your eyes give you away and I am quite clever at knowing what people are feeling.”
It was something he had learned in a hard school and he had come to know a great deal about anyone he was talking to by using what the Egyptians had called the Third Eye. It had saved his life a dozen times.
He would gradually become suspicious of a man who at first had appeared quite harmless and of no interest.
At other times Kelvin had known that a man was dangerous from the moment that he spoke and as soon as he looked into his eyes.
They went on eating their supper.
Then, as Vasila had finished her plate of fresh fruit, Kelvin said to her gently,
“Now tell me what is troubling you. I promise you that I am quite good at solving other people’s problems.”
“You cannot solve mine,” she replied. “And please, please don’t ask me any questions because I cannot answer them.”
“Why? I don’t understand. But I think that you are running away.”
“That is true, but I cannot tell you why. If I did you might make me go back.”
“And would that be so terrible?” Kelvin enquired. “After all you will have to go back at some time.”
“Perhaps,” Vasila said after a pause, “but not just at the moment.”
Kelvin was now intrigued.
He was aware, however, that if he said too much he might make her more frightened than she was already.
She would then run away from him.
She was just so young and obviously so completely innocent of the world.
She had no idea how harmful it could be to her if she wandered about alone without any protection.
Kelvin sat back in his chair.
“Well, if you will not tell me what is worrying you and, of course, that is your business and not mine, what do you intend to do.”
It was a question that Vasila had asked herself but had found no answer.
There was now silence and, after what seemed quite a long pause, she said hesitatingly,
“Could I – possibly stay here tonight – with you? I could sleep in a chair and – not be any trouble.”
If any other woman had suggested it, Kelvin would have assumed that she had an ulterior motive.
It would be just a pretext to be with him.
He was extremely good-looking and, when not on a mission for The Great Game, moved in the highest social circles.
He had been pursued in Calcutta, Simla and a great many other places in India by a number of alluring women. And he would undoubtedly have been inhuman if he had not accepted their favours.
Although he had often been intrigued and at times infatuated, he had never lost his heart.
Anyway that was something he could not afford to do. He had very little income apart from what he earned as a soldier.
That was not enough to pay his Mess bills without the few hundred pounds a year that had been left him by his mother when she died.
She had been dependent on a member of her family who unfortunately she had quarrelled with. In consequence he had stopped the allowance that he had made to her as a poor relative.
This child, Kelvin thought, was asking if she could stay here with him with an innocence which could not be questioned.
He was sure that she was so young that she had no idea of the dangerous game that she was playing or of the intolerable situation that she might find herself in.
Aloud he said,
“If I let you stay here tonight, will you promise to go home tomorrow?”
Vasila looked away from him and then replied,
“I cannot promise to do so because the reason why I ran away will still be threatening me. Only when that has gone can I feel safe.”
She was choosing her words very carefully and was now anxious that this kind man who had taken her on the Helter-skelter should not guess why she was so frightened.
Kelvin, however, felt strongly that there was a man concerned in this and yet he could not be completely sure.
Then Vasila looked at him across the table and said pleadingly,
“Please, please let me stay here. I will be no trouble to you. I know I will be safe and I really have nowhere else I can go.”
It would indeed have been a hard man who could have refused such a plea from someone so beautiful.
“Very well,” he agreed. “And I think, as we both have a long day in front of us, we should go to bed now. I will show you where you can sleep.”
Vasila jumped up from the table.
“Thank you! Thank you!” she cried. “You are the kindest man who ever existed and I am so lucky to have found you!”
Kelvin turned out the lamp in the dining room and there was a small one no bigger than a candle in the hall.
They went up the stairs and he opened the door.
He found that the bedroom had an oil lamp by the bed and the cover had gone and the sheets turned down.
Vasila looked round the room.
“This is your room?”
“It was going to be, but, as it is a very warm night, I intend to sleep on the roof.”
“On the roof!” Vasila exclaimed in surprise.
“The owner of this house has been in India a great deal and therefore when it is warm he likes sleeping in the open air. He has made, I believe, a roof garden. He has a mattress up there so it is quite comfortable.”
“Are you quite certain you will be all right?” Vasila asked. “As I said, I could sleep downstairs in a chair.”
The suggestion made Kelvin’s eyes twinkle.
Equally he thought that any man who allowed her to do such a thing would be an iceberg.
Vasila looked very lovely in the faint light from the lamp.
And it was with the utmost difficulty he did not tell her that he could make a far better suggestion.
Then he knew that he could not do anything to spoil this innocent child. He had to protect her, not only from the dangers outside but also from himself.
“I think,” he said aloud, “you had better come and see where I am sleeping so you will not worry about me.”
“I would like to,” Vasila replied eagerly.
Kelvin opened a door in the room that she thought was a cupboard.
Inside she could see that there were steps against the wall and they led upwards like a ladder to a trap door.
Kelvin went up first and opened the trap door and then she followed him and he helped her onto the roof.
The moon was now high in the sky and the stars were like diamonds overhead.
It had not been possible to notice them while they were at the circus where there was so much light, noise and excitement.
But here shining over the roof with the river below it was enchanting and very romantic.
The General had been rather austere in decorating the inside of the house. He had, however, taken a great deal of trouble with his roof garden.
There was the scent of honeysuckle and lilies and there were plants in every corner and in the centre of the roof was a pillow and several blankets.
“As you can see, it is a bed fit for a Queen,” Kelvin remarked.
He thought that Her Majesty would not be amused.
“I can well understand your wanting to sleep here,” Vasila said in a low voice. “It is something I would like to do myself.”
Kelvin glanced at her sharply.
But he realised at once that she was not inviting herself to join him.
As she raised her face up to the moon, he could see that to her it was just a dreamland. Something exciting and unusual that he suspected was part of her dreams.
For a minute they were both silent and then he said,
“What I am going to suggest is that you stay up here for a few minutes and talk to the stars while I undress. Then when I join you, you can go down and get into bed and sleep soundly until tomorrow morning.”
“I will do that,” Vasila said, “and when I look at the stars I will then say a very special prayer of thankfulness because you are so kind and understanding.”
She looked very lovely as she sat down on top of the blankets.
It was with some difficulty that Kelvin did not put his arms round her and kiss her.
But his instinct told him that if he did so she would be afraid and would run away again as she was running now, perhaps from a man who had done just that.
“I will not be long,” he said.
He was aware that she did not answer as he climbed down the ladder into the bedroom.
He put away the clothes that he was wearing tidily in the wardrobe and unpacked a nightshirt and a warm robe that he had brought with him.
As he did so, he realised that Vasila had brought no luggage with her and had no nightgown.
She had just taken off her hat when they had had supper downstairs.
He thought when he left her that the moonlight on her fair hair was exquisite.
‘I suppose most men would think I am a fool,’ he told himself, ‘to leave such an attractive girl alone and to sleep by myself on the roof.’
The big double bed that the General had provided for himself looked enticing. The white pillows were of the best linen and the eiderdown, which would be unnecessary as the night was warm, was the blue of the morning sky.
He washed his face and hands in the small bedroom next door and he thought if it was very warm tomorrow that he might swim in the river before he left.
Then he wondered what he would do with Vasila if she refused to leave him.
As he had to go from Windsor tomorrow, he would have to leave her.
There was nothing he could do about it.
‘I must talk to her again,’ he thought, ‘and explain that it is just impossible for her to stay alone in Windsor or anywhere else. She must have some relations who she can go to or perhaps a friend.’
Then he tried to tell himself it was not his concern.
The girl had picked him up at the circus.
She could hardly expect him to do any more than house her for the one night and treat her as no other man would have done.
‘I suppose I am a fool,’ Kelvin told himself again as he climbed up the ladder onto the roof.
Vasila was still sitting where he had left her.
Her head was turned up to the sky, her hands were pressed together and he knew that she was praying.
She had not heard him coming and he stood gazing at her, thinking that no woman could be more beautiful.
Although he had not made a movement, the mere fact that he was there made her turn her head towards him.
She smiled and sighed,
“It is so lovely up here I know that you will have marvellous dreams and when you wake in the morning will you be disappointed that they are not true?”
“Perhaps one day they will come true,” Kelvin said as he walked towards her.
“That is what I prayed for myself, that my dreams will come true. But I am very afraid – they will not.”
“Then you must go on praying,” Kelvin said, “and I am sure on a night like this our prayers will go straight up to Heaven.”
“That is what I was thinking myself. I have asked Mama and Papa to help me.”
“You are an orphan?” Kelvin asked her.
Vasila nodded.
“I am an orphan and therefore I have no one to turn to now – when I am so frightened.”
“You have me,” Kelvin said gently.
“I don’t think that even you could help me at this moment. Except by letting me stay with you as you have tonight – so that no one knows where I am.”
