Passage to Love, page 9
It was an issue that he had not considered before. Occasionally he had felt a little guilty at having decided never to set foot in Melverley Park again.
But he told himself that he was entirely justified in that decision and no one would make him change it.
The Park typified everything that had made his life after his mother’s death such a real misery beyond words.
When his father died and he became his own Master, he realised that now he never need speak to his stepmother again.
He had given orders for her to leave the house and had made provision for her.
But even after she died two years before, he felt that Melverley Park was still tainted by her cruelty and that he would never be able to enter his home without feeling that she was still there scowling at him.
His secretary and Manager, Mr. Richardson, sent him a monthly account of the expenses.
He did not even bother to read it, he merely turned it over to his secretary in London and told him to deal with it.
When he wanted to go to the country, he went to Newmarket.
He had fifteen excellent racehorses there and he had every intention of building up his stable still further.
He bought a house which fortunately came on the market at exactly the right moment on the death of a Peer, who had inhabited it for the last twenty years.
It was near the Racecourse and stood in five hundred acres of good agricultural land.
The Marquis planned to develop much of it as a partridge shoot.
When people asked what he was doing about Melverley Park and, if the gardens were as beautiful as they had always been, he answered them evasively.
‘I don’t know and I don’t care,’ he told himself. ‘Let the house fall down brick by brick. I will not raise a finger to save it.’
He drove back to London in his travelling chaise drawn by four well-matched horses he had bought two months ago at Tattersalls.
He told himself furiously that he did not want a wife spoiling the parties that he had been giving at Newmarket. Nor did he want a wife interfering with his arrangements at Melverley House in Park Lane.
He could not even remember exactly what Lady Imilda looked like.
He vaguely thought that she was not unprepossessing.
But she was just another debutante, who in their white dresses kept in the background at the parties he frequented.
‘How could I be caught in a trap in this idiotic manner?’ he raged at himself.
He knew only too well it was a deliberate trap from which he could not escape without causing a scandal.
He was well aware that it had all been contrived by the Countess of Harsbourne.
From the moment he arrived he had thought that she was an extremely tiresome woman.
The way she monopolised him the first night at dinner and the way that she tried to flirt with him reminded him of his stepmother.
Anyway the Countess was far too old to be of any interest to him and he had always been very fond of the Earl. And he would have been ashamed to intrude into his private life when he had shown him nothing but kindness.
Although people would not have believed it, the Marquis had his own set of rules as to how a gentleman should behave and he always stuck to them.
In his opinion, men should look after their wives properly not, as so many men did, spend their time gambling at their Clubs in St. James’s or shooting and fishing in the country.
In that way they opened the door to intruders like himself and then they had no right to complain if anything happened in their absence.
It had never crossed his mind for a moment that staying at Harsbourne House was likely to prove dangerous, except, of course, in relation to the Steeplechase.
Now he was returning to London in a fury and engaged to a girl he had not the slightest interest in.
‘Why was I such a fool to go into her room when she screamed?’ he asked himself.
He wondered if the girl herself was privy to the plot to trap him.
When he had thought it over, he decided that this was unlikely.
She had seemed very positive in declaring volubly that there was a rat in her room.
Also he recalled that, when he had gone to help her, she was undoubtedly trembling.
There was too a note of horror in her voice that he did not believe any actress, however brilliant, would be able to simulate.
‘No,’ he thought, ‘it is that ghastly Countess who had worked it all out and had made it all happen.’
He had been told that she was a Social climber.
He remembered now that people had been very surprised when the Earl, who was known to be so happy with his first wife, had married again so quickly.
‘She caught him, as she has caught me,’ the Marquis decided and felt the anger rising again inside him.
Those who knew him well were aware that, when he was angry, he appeared almost to freeze into himself.
If in the Army he reprimanded a man who had done something wrong, he spoke slowly and clearly and without raising his voice. Yet the man would go pale and start to tremble as if the Marquis had actually threatened him with violence.
When he arrived in London, his staff, who admired him greatly for his brilliance in the War, realised apprehensively that he was in a strange mood.
Hardly saying a word, the Marquis went straight to his study.
This was a large and comfortable room overlooking the garden at the back of the house.
His secretary had arranged on the writing desk the letters that had been delivered since the Marquis had left London.
On one side were the letters that had been opened and were waiting for his inspection.
On the other side were the letters that his secretary left unopened because he recognised the handwriting.
There were quite a number of these letters and the Marquis looked through them a little disdainfully.
There were two from a beauty who had already asked him to dine with her.
Then there was one in a pale blue envelope. His name was written in extremely elegant handwriting, but it did not look entirely English.
For the first time the Marquis’s face now relaxed a little.
There was just a faint twist to his lips which had not been there before.
The letter was from the Contessa di Torrio, thanking him for the flowers that he had sent her.
She said that she hoped to see him very soon.
She wrote,
“My husband has been recalled to Italy for a consultation. At the moment I am finding London very lonely.”
The Marquis smiled as he put the letter back into the envelope. He knew where he would be spending the evening!
At least that was what he hoped.
He had not expected to return to London so early in the day and had thought if he dined with anyone it would be the following evening.
Now he told himself that there was no point in waiting.
He despatched a quickly scribbled note to the Contessa saying that, if it was convenient, he would call on her at seven-thirty that evening.
He gave the note to his secretary and he told him to send a groom with the letter to the Contessa and to wait for an answer.
He was sure that it was extremely unlikely to be anything but in the affirmative.
The Contessa’s house, which was South of Hyde Park, was in its way like every other house in the Crescent.
The Contessa was clever enough to give it an individual touch which was as alluring and unusual as herself.
Diplomats from all the different independent Kingdoms, Duchies and States that were restored in Italy when the War with Napoleon ended had come to London.
They had suffered as many other countries in Europe had suffered under the hard heel of the Emperor.
The British, led by the Prince Regent, were noted for being friendly and pleasant to those who had been adversaries.
The Contessa and the other Italians with her were astonished to find that the Social doors of fashionable London were open to them.
They were treated exactly as if during the years of war they had been friends and only involuntary enemies.
Because the Contessa was so beautiful, London acclaimed her.
The fashionable young men from White’s paid her fulsome compliments that she found enchanting.
However, like so many other women before her, she had found it impossible to ignore the attractiveness of the Marquis.
That there were a number of women ready to warn her of his reputation merely made him more fascinating.
When she received his note to say that he would be coming to dinner, her household was galvanised into action.
Flowers were hurriedly bought from the nearest shops and the chef was told to prepare his very best dishes.
The Contessa herself spent two hours concentrating on her face and her clothes before she went down to the drawing room to await the Marquis’s arrival.
He swept into the room looking even more handsome and raffish than she remembered.
When she held out her hand, he raised it to his lips and actually kissed it.
“You are beautiful,” he said, “more beautiful than anyone I have ever seen.”
That was the start of a wildly passionate affair in which the flames, the Marquis felt, rose higher and higher every night they were together.
It was not interrupted by the publication in The London Gazette of his engagement to Lady Imilda Bourne.
This, of course, caused consternation from St. James’s and in Mayfair. Most people found it difficult to believe that it was actually true.
Letters of congratulations poured into Melverley House in Park Lane.
They asked how it had happened. When was he to be married? When could they give a party for Lady Imilda and himself?
The Marquis ignored them all.
He found that the Contessa made him forget what lay ahead and concentrated only on her.
They were careful not to be seen together in public and they were, however, together in private every hour of the day that it was possible.
Either the Marquis came to her house or she came to Park Lane.
The piles of invitations grew and grew, but the Marquis did not even bother to read them.
The only thing that slightly surprised him was that the Earl did not come with his family to London.
This meant, the Marquis thought thankfully, that he would not yet be able to face that embarrassing moment of meeting the girl who he was officially but involuntarily engaged to.
He assumed that she was elated by the idea, but to him it was a fate worse than death.
‘What shall we talk about?’ he asked himself. ‘What shall we do? What the Hell have I got in common with a young girl who has seen nothing of the world and has been closely chaperoned from the time she wakes up until the time she goes to bed?’
He thought of the women he had enjoyed in Paris before they had started to bore him.
He thought of all the fun that he had found in London.
When he started to count his conquests, he was slightly ashamed.
Whatever it was, marriage with an inexperienced country-bred young woman would bore him to distraction.
He did not want to think about it and he did not want to plan for the future.
He did not even want to remember that he was to be married.
So he concentrated on the delightful Contessa.
“No one,” she whispered to him, “has ever had a more wonderful, a more marvellous or more ardent lover.”
The Marquis thought that he could say the same to her.
It was so easy to kiss her and feel the fire burning on their lips.
Then, inevitably, they went too far.
The Marquis could never decide afterwards the truth of what actually happened.
Did the Contessa forget that her husband was returning from Italy or did he deliberately plan to surprise her?
It was after dawn and the Marquis was in fact just leaving her house.
He had dressed himself quickly and efficiently, the years of war had taught him that.
He turned from the mirror on the mantelpiece, having tied his cravat precisely, leaving the points of his collar high above his jawbone.
It was then that the door opened suddenly and the Conte walked in.
The Contessa was lying naked in the bed and she gave a scream of horror.
The Conte stood in the doorway for the moment, seemingly frozen into immobility.
Then, as the Marquis turned round, he said, almost spitting the words at him,
“I will kill you for this.”
The Marquis hesitated.
He tried to think of some likely explanation or even excuse he could make for being in the Contessa’s bedroom.
But as he saw the hatred and fury on the Italian’s face, he merely replied,
“In Green Park tomorrow evening at the usual hour.”
Then with a dignity that was most commendable, he bowed to the Contessa and walked past the Conte and down the stairs without looking back.
As he drove home in the carriage that was waiting for him outside, he told himself that he had made a hideous error.
The Prince Regent had more or less banned duels, particularly those duels that involved foreigners. They were not to take place because they made a great deal of trouble not only for the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs but also for the Prime Minister.
There was, however, as the Marquis knew, nothing that he could do about it.
He could only hope that the Conte was not as skilled a duellist as he was reputed to be.
The two friends, however, whom he had asked to be his Seconds, made it quite clear that he had a very dangerous opponent.
“I have heard he has won duel after duel in Italy,” one of them said. “There was a terrible scandal in Paris when he wounded one of Napoleon’s most distinguished Statesmen.”
“You are making me depressed, Charlie,” the Marquis answered.
“You have reason to be,” Charlie replied. “These Italians are very quick off the mark and I have a suspicion that he turns before the count of ten.”
“Surely you cannot say that,” the Marquis protested.
‘“Well, it is only a whisper, of course,” Charlie went on, “but I do beg of you, Vulcan, to be on your guard. We have no wish to lose you.”
“I have no wish to lose myself,” the Marquis replied sardonically.
He had fought two duels in the past, one when he was very young and one a year earlier.
On each occasion quite undeservedly he turned out to be the winner, while the affronted husbands carried their arms in a sling for two months.
The men he had fought then had not been Italian or any other foreigner.
Nor had they had the reputation with a duelling pistol that the Conte had.
The next day, because he obviously could not be with the Contessa, the Marquis opened some of his letters.
He found one from the Earl saying that he was so sorry he had not been able to come to London as he had intended.
His daughter, Imilda, was suffering from spring fever and so they had had to stay in the country.
It was quite a short letter and the Marquis tossed it on one side as unimportant.
He thought it was a very good thing that the Earl had not come to London. Otherwise he would have had to go to a number of parties that he and his fiancée had been invited to.
He could imagine nothing more boring and nothing that would make him angrier.
How could he pretend that he was marrying for love?
He had been foolish enough to be caught in a trap like any greenhorn with no experience of the wiles of the Social world.
Once again he was hating the Countess but knew, at the same time, that it was useless.
He was a lamb being taken to the slaughter and there was nothing he could do about it in any way.
He grew irritated with the pile of letters still in front of him and threw the last dozen to one side.
He told himself that he would go to the House of Lords.
He did not admit to himself why he had made this decision.
Actually it was because he did not want to go to his Club.
If he did so, he would have to answer uncomfortable questions about his engagement or even more uncomfortable ones about the duel.
He had sworn his two Seconds to silence, but then could not help feeling that somehow it would leak out.
The Clubs would be talking, just as the drawing rooms would be whispering.
In the House of Lords there were the usual number of sleepy old Peers around and to his surprise he was greeted by quite a number of them.
“It is very nice to see you here,” they said, “and congratulations on your award. I have not seen you since you came home or I would have spoken to you about it before.”
An hour later, to the Marquis’s considerable surprise, he found himself rising to his feet in the Chamber.
He asked the Lords if anything had been done for the thirty thousand men from the Army of Occupation who he had returned to England with last year.
“Has any help been given to them,” he enquired, “to find employment after serving their country so gallantly?”
He urged as well that preparation should be made now for when the remainder did return eventually.
He had heard very disturbing reports concerning the treatment of men who had already been disbanded from the Army, especially those who had been wounded.
He could not believe that this was the way that the country would wish to thank those who had fought so bravely against the scourge of Napoleon.
If, as he had suspected, nothing was being done, then most surely it was Their Lordships’ duty to see that steps were taken at once to ensure the future of the remaining one hundred and twenty thousand troops who would return at the beginning of the following year.
After the Marquis had sat down at the end of his speech, quite a number of the older members came up to congratulate him.
“A very good speech, my boy,” they said. “We shall hope to hear from you again. That is exactly the sort of thing men of your age should be thinking about and saying. We really need waking up.”
