A Battle of Brains (6 page)

By the time she left the dining room, Mr. Harpole had drunk a great deal.

He was talking much more effusively than he had previously and he began paying her one or two rather uncomfortable compliments.

When she rose to leave ‘the gentlemen to their port' Mr. Harpole had some difficulty in rising to his feet.

She walked quickly upstairs as her stepfather had instructed her to do.

Mr. Harpole, as an honoured guest, had been put in the same corridor as her own room, but on the other side.

Yolanda was relieved that there were no servants to be seen.

Nervously she now opened the door of the bedroom where Mr. Harpole was sleeping and it was a relief to find that there were some lights left on.

His room was large, but it was not connected to a boudoir, thus there was a writing desk in the bow window overlooking the garden.

Yolanda saw that the despatch case her stepfather had told her about was standing at the side of the desk.

She picked it up and put it down on a chair.

As her stepfather had anticipated, it was locked and the key he had given her fitted perfectly.

She opened the case.

Inside, just as she had been told, were a number of letters and three notebooks together with pens and pencils.

Because she was feeling so apprehensive, her hands were trembling as she pulled out the papers – none of them referred to ships, nor were they headed with the name of the Doxford Shipyard.

She must have turned over a dozen letters and notes in Mr Harpole's hand.

Finally she found what she wanted.

She pulled a letter out of the case and going a little nearer to the lamp burning on the writing desk, she read,

“
Sir
,

With reference to your recent offer of five hundred
thousand pounds for the ships we discussed at our meeting
on the 29th April, I have now put forward your offer to the
Committee of the Doxford Shipyard.

They have suggested you should visit them at your earliest
convenience to discuss the matter more fully.

Yours truly, James Augment
.”

Quickly, as she was afraid she might be disturbed, she scribbled down what she had read onto a small piece of writing paper.

Then she shut and locked the case with the key and put it back down beside the writing table.

Having taken the information her stepfather wanted, she hurried across the room.

She only paused as she reached the door with the sudden realisation that it would be a mistake for anyone to see her coming out of Mr. Harpole's bedroom.

To her great sense of relief the passage was empty.

She ran to her own bedroom on the other side of the corridor, closed the door behind her and locked it.

She had done it
.

She had obeyed her stepfather and found what he wanted.

She should imagine how angry he would have been if she had failed to find anything – or even worse still, been discovered rummaging in the case by Mr. Harpole or anyone else.

She undressed.

Then before she climbed into bed, she stood at her window looking up at the stars.

‘Are you very shocked, Papa?' she asked the stars.  ‘I know you would have been horrified at being required to do anything underhand and despicable.'

There was no answer, but she carried on,

‘I will try not to have to do anything like this again.  I have the frightening feeling that Stepfather will ask me to do anything he wants and there is really little point in my protesting.'

She was still looking up at the stars.

Then suddenly a shooting star sped across the sky.

There was a flash and it was gone.

She had the feeling it was somehow an answer from her father telling her that he understood.

*

The next morning Mr. Harpole left early.

By the time Yolanda came downstairs for breakfast, he had gone and she was thankful not to have seen him.

She then learnt from the butler that her stepfather had breakfasted with him and had seen him off.

“The Master is in the study, my Lady, if you wish to see him.”

Yolanda was wearing her riding habit, but she went straight to the study knowing he would be expecting her.

He was at his desk and he looked up as she entered.

“Good morning, Yolanda. I very much hope you have something for me.”

She did not answer, but walked to the desk and handed over to him the piece of paper on which she had copied the letter in Mr. Harpole's case.

He took it from her, read it and then smiled.

“Thank you, Yolanda.  You did that very well and I commend you for bringing me exactly what I required.”

“How can you be sure,” she asked, “that the people who own the ships will not ask Mr. Harpole to pay more and he will still get what he wants?”

“That is an intelligent question, Yolanda, but at the same time there is no reason for me to answer it.  But you can be quite sure I shall buy those ships and they will make me a great deal of money.”

He regarded her closely with what she felt was an unpleasant glint in his eyes.

“And, of course,
money
is what has been paid for the horse you are to ride this morning.”

It was with difficulty that Yolanda managed to say,

“I am looking forward to it, Step-papa, and again thank you very much.”

She left the study thinking how much she had always disliked him, but how difficult it was not to be grateful.

At the stables she found the stallion he had given her was outstanding and easily one of the best looking animals she had ever seen.

She rode him into the paddock on the other side of the stables knowing as she did so that it was, without a single exception, the best horse she had ever mounted.

She took him around the paddock and over one or two jumps.

Then she rode him into the woods – it was always in the woods that she could feel free from the worries and difficulties of the world outside, even when she was young and they were living rather uncomfortably in her father's country house.

As far back as she could remember her parents had always worried about money and could talk of little else.

It was then that Yolanda had realised that in the woods lay a veritable Fairyland just waiting for her.  Once there, under the acid green canopy of the trees, she was lost in a world of her own.

There were no frightened voices, no hidden tears and no unpleasant anticipation.  There was no talk of debts or creditors chasing unpaid bills.

There was just the music of the birds and the soft movement of the rabbits in the undergrowth.  Yolanda was certain that fairies were hiding in the blossom on the trees, as well as flitting over the flowers round the pool in the centre of the wood.

No one could spoil it and there was no unhappiness.

That is what she wanted to feel now and at the same time she craved forgiveness.

She had played a part in something she knew in her heart was wrong and in a way wicked.

It took her a long time to ride Chestnut, her new horse, through the woods.

Then she galloped him over the fields and finally returned to the house.

It was with an effort she made herself remember that she was to have luncheon with her stepfather.

She decided that today would be a good time to find out what he was planning for the future and she only hoped that, whatever it was, it would not be in London.

In the City there would be visitors coming in for almost every meal, afternoon tea to be taken and endless parties and balls waiting for her in the evening.

She had no wish to be sociable in any way whilst in mourning for her mother, but undoubtedly if it suited her stepfather, she would not be able to refuse.

‘If I can only stay here,' she thought, ‘at least I can think about Mama in the woods and forget what I had to do last night.'

When she reached the stables she realised that there was just time for her to quickly change before luncheon.

So she ran into the house by the back door and went up the back stairs to her bedroom.

Emily, her new lady's maid, was waiting to help her change into an afternoon gown.

It was a soft shade of blue and, although she thought it morally wrong to be wearing such a light colour, she did not protest.

Downstairs her stepfather was waiting for her in the drawing room.

As she walked towards him, he pronounced,

“You look very nice, in fact, very beautiful.  I am sure that before too long we shall have quite a number of young gentlemen waiting to tell you so.”

“I just had a wonderful ride on Chestnut, Step-papa, and he is the best and finest horse I have ever ridden.”

“I thought you would think so.  He cost me a lot of money, but because you are so content, I don't begrudge a penny of it.”

“I am most grateful,” she managed to say again.

“So am I, so I think we can celebrate with a little champagne for luncheon.”

They walked into the dining room and the butler held  a bottle of champagne ready for them.

Yolanda told her stepfather all about her ride and was surprised to find that he was actually really interested.

When the servants had left the room having served the coffee, he said,

“That reminds me, we have another friend of mine coming here tonight for dinner.  He's not a very pleasant man, in fact, I think you will dislike him.”

“Then why is he coming?” enquired Yolanda, amazed that her stepfather should want to spend time with someone he so openly despised.

“Business, my dear, business, which is far more important than our personal feelings.”

Yolanda gave a sigh and then something struck her.

Was this going to be another ‘job' as her stepfather would say – another ‘job' for
her
?

If so, how could she bear it?

Yolanda did not see her stepfather again until it was teatime.

She had ridden again, this time on one of the other horses, which was a particularly good jumper.

She sailed over all the jumps in the paddock.

Then she had a discussion with the Head Groom asking him to put up some more difficult jumps.

“I'll 'ave to ask the Master,” he said.

“Of course,” Yolanda replied.  “But he did agree with me that we need some more when I spoke with him over luncheon.”

“I'll get busy on 'em right away, my Lady.”

Yolanda took her horse over the same jumps again.

She could not help thinking it would be exciting if she had someone to ride with her – someone young whom she could race and compete with over the jumps.

Then she thought that she was asking too much.

It was just a miracle that she should have so many wonderful horses to ride.

She knew her father would have loved to have them if he could afford it, and it seemed sad that there were so many horses in the stables and so few people to ride them.

At the same time all her stepfather's friends might be like Mr. Harpole and if they were, she had no wish to meet them.

She was feeking a little apprehensive after what he had said about the man who was coming this afternoon.

Several hours later Mr. Garrack came into the drawing room for tea.

It was arranged in front of the sofa and he immediately asked Yolanda,

“Did you have a good ride this afternoon?”

“It was fabulous, thank you, Step-papa.  By the way, I hope you don't mind, but I told the Head Groom that you agreed to some more jumps in the paddock.”

“No, of course not and you were quite right to do so.  I had forgotten all about it as a matter of fact, but when the new horses arrive we must keep them well exercised.”

“I think that means that you will have to ride more frequently than you do already,” suggested Yolanda.

“I am too busy to spare the time.”

“I am certain that Mama would say that you should take more exercise than you do at the moment.  She always thought that you spent too much time at your desk and not enough in the saddle.”

Her stepfather laughed as she meant him to do.

“I will follow your mother's wishes – as I always have and I will ride with you tomorrow morning.”

“Perhaps they will have some more jumps up by that time,” Yolanda added optimistically.

She passed him various plates of food, but he shook his head.

“If I take more exercise, as you suggest, I shall be able to eat more.  As it is I am getting fat.”

He was actually a very slim man.

Yolanda could not imagine that however much he ate, he would put on much weight.

“I think you are exaggerating.  Therefore as I cannot eat all this tea myself, the chef will be disappointed if every plate goes back untouched.  We will have to buy a dog.”

Her stepfather laughed.

“I suppose the excuse that the dog has eaten the tea is better than nothing.  I have often thought that we lack dogs here and I will see about it the next time I am in London.”

“That will be marvellous,” enthused Yolanda.

There was a slight pause and she looked at him nervously.

“My friend, the one I told you about,” Mr. Garrack began, “is called Cecil Watson.  He is an uncouth man for whom I have no liking, but he is an extremely astute businessman.”

“If you do not like him, why do you have him down here?  Can you not see him at your office in London?”

“That is a very sensible question,” he replied, “and I will tell you the answer.  When I have people here they are impressed, so I manage to manipulate them far better than if I am sitting in an office which is what they expect.”

Yolanda could see his reasoning and nodded slightly.

She was aware that the house with all its beautiful furnishings and stupendous pictures was certainly not to be expected of the ordinary businessman.