A Battle of Brains (7 page)

Nor was the garden with its masses of flowers and broad acres of land stretching out as far as the eye could see.

After a moment she enquired,

“When the people who visit you are impressed, do you obtain a far better bargain out of them than you would otherwise?”

“Exactly, Yolanda, and Cecil Watson is what one might call a ‘prime bargainer' when it comes to business.”

There was silence and then Yolanda asked him in a rather small voice,

“What do you want me to do?”

“Very much the same as you did the other night,” he replied. “But actually you need not take any notes.  Just look quickly at what is written either on a letter or a notebook for the name and address of the man he is negotiating with in Germany.”

“In Germany!” exclaimed Yolanda.

“I know German is one of the lessons you had at the Convent. Therefore it will not be too difficult for you to remember it.”

“No, of course not.  I can read German very well.”

“Watson is having a room with a boudoir, so it will therefore be easier for you to find what I need than if you had to go to his bedroom.”

Yolanda wanted to say that wherever she had to go, it was unpleasant and something she hated having to do.

However, she realised that it was useless to ask her stepfather to find out what he required in a different way.

“Now be a good girl,” he said, rising from the table, “and I'll try to think of an even better present for you than Chestnut.”

He left the drawing room before she could reply.

She jumped up from the table and walked slowly to the window.

She thought once again how degrading it was to be paid for spying on his behalf – there was no other way to put it.

She knew that both her father and mother would be shocked at what she was doing.

But what was the alternative?

To try to find herself a job without the slightest idea of how she could begin to do so?

She stood looking blindly at the trees, the flowers and the fountain.

And then gradually their beauty seemed to seep into her soul.

The feeling of revolt and disgust faded away.

‘Surely,' she asked herself, ‘it is worth anything to stay in a place as beautiful as this?  Although I am shocked at myself, no one will ever know that I am doing something which puts me on a par with a pick-pocket!'

When she climbed upstairs to dress for dinner, Mr. Watson had just arrived.

He was talking with her stepfather in his study.

She did not meet him and had no wish to.

She saw to her surprise he had brought his valet – a strange servant she had never seen before was assisting the footmen.

They were carrying Mr. Watson's luggage into one of the rooms in the same corridor where she slept.

She thought uncomfortably that now there was one more person she would have to avoid.

She wondered if her stepfather was aware that Mr. Watson had brought a valet with him – he might say that it was too dangerous for her to go into the boudoir, where his despatch case would obviously be placed.

It was then she remembered something.

Unlike the first job she had done, her stepfather had not, this time, given her a key.

Yolanda wondered if he had omitted it.

Alternatively he might not have known till his guest arrived what type of despatch case he would be using.

Then, almost as if she had spoken her thoughts out loud, there was a knock on the door just as Emily was helping her out of her gown.

Emily opened the door.

“I wish to speak with her Ladyship for a moment,” Yolanda heard her stepfather say.  “Please wait outside, I shall not be long.”

He entered the room closing the door behind him, but Yolanda did not move until he was close beside her.

Then he held out his hand and she saw there was a key resting in his palm.

“This is what you will require,” he told her.

“He has brought a valet with him, Step-papa.”

“So I have just realised, but he will be sleeping on the top floor with the other men servants.  If he is hanging around before Watson goes to bed, you will have to wait until he is asleep.”

Yolanda stared at him.

When he was talking business, he spoke in a sharp hard voice – very different to the way he spoke when he was being pleasant and sociable.  Before she could protest, he added quickly,

“You will be quite safe in the boudoir.  I will see to it that he goes to bed and instantly falls asleep.”

Yolanda wanted to say that he had set her an impossible task, but in her heart she knew the answer.

However, before she could say anything, he walked across the room and pulled open the door.

“Don't be late for dinner, Yolanda.”

Then as Emily came in, he had gone.

Yolanda recognised that even if she tried to protest, he would not listen.

Quickly, Yolanda put the key away in the drawer.

Then she was silent as Emily helped her undress.

She climbed into her bath arranged as usual in front of the fireplace.  It was delightfully scented with the oil of white violets that Yolanda always enjoyed.

But tonight she was feeling too anxious and afraid of what she had to do later to relax and enjoy the warm, scented water.

When she had finished dressing in a very pretty gown, she walked to the window.

Looking out at the clear night sky, it seemed as though the stars were coming out just to help her.

She wanted them to ease away her strong feelings of resentment and fear, which were still with her, just like a physical pain in her chest.

“You looks lovely, my Lady, and that's the truth,” Emily exclaimed behind her.  “It seems a real pity there be no handsome young men here as you could dance with.”

Yolanda laughed.

“I expect all the young men you are thinking about have work to do or else they are in the Army and have no time to visit the country.”

“Then you, my Lady, should be in London.  There be parties there every night and I expects all the
debutantes
as they call 'em, who be your age are havin' a good time.”

“I am really quite happy here with the horses.”

She thought, as she walked downstairs, how true that sentiment was.

What she was not content about was meeting Mr. Watson.

As the footman pulled open the door of the drawing room for her, she could hear a voice, rather uneducated and too loud.

Him
.

When she went in, her stepfather and his guest were standing together at the far end of the room with a glass of champagne in their hands.

“Well, I says to him,” Mr. Watson said as if he was finishing a story, “that's all you're going to get and you're damned lucky to get that!”

Yolanda walked slowly towards them.

Her stepfather saw her.

“Oh, Cecil, here is my stepdaughter, Lady Yolanda Wood, who I don't think you have met.”

The man standing beside him turned round.

Yolanda saw, as she had already anticipated, that Cecil Watson was undoubtedly a very ugly man with heavy features and sharp eyes.

He was rather bigger than she had expected.  In fact he was far taller than her stepfather whom she had always thought of as quite a large man.

They shook hands and she realised then that he was undoubtedly an unpleasant character.

There was something about him that she not only disliked but wanted to avoid.

“You didn't tell me,” Mr. Watson was saying, “that I was to have the pleasure and privilege of meeting anyone as beautiful as this young lady tonight.  Where have you been hiding her?”

“She has just come back from Paris where she was being educated,” explained Mr. Garrack.

Mr. Watson sniggered.

“That might be said of us too,” he blurted out.

“There's always a lot to learn when you goes to Paris and trust you, Oliver, not to miss the prettiest of them all!”

He dug his host in the ribs as he spoke and both men guffawed with ribald laughter.  Yolanda looked away in hardly concealed disgust.

Next, the butler announced dinner and all three of them walked into the dining room.

It was quite obvious from the way Mr. Watson ate and drank that he intended to enjoy himself at his friend's expense.

In fact Yolanda had never seen any man drink so much so quickly.  A footman filled up his glass as soon as he put it down.

Much of the men's conversation contained innuendos.  Fortunately Yolanda did not understand – not that she wanted to.

She thought that Cecil Watson was repulsive in his appearance and in the way he spoke.

The over-familiar look in his eyes when he paid her a compliment, which he did frequently, made her dislike him even more.

She could not imagine her father, even if he knew a man like this, bringing him home to meet her mother.

Equally she just supposed as her stepfather would say, ‘business is business.'

If it paid him to have Cecil Watson in his large and beautiful house, the effort must be worthwhile.

The more Cecil Watson drank, the more he talked.

Yolanda hardly spoke a word all through the meal and was thankful when it was finally time for her to leave the gentlemen to their port.

Her stepfather rose as she did so.

Mr. Watson had great difficulty in standing up and only after the third attempt was he finally on his feet, just as Yolanda reached the door.

As she closed it behind her, she found herself hoping that she would never again set eyes on anyone so repulsive.

It struck her that it was quite obvious Mr. Watson would not be going up to bed very shortly.

This, therefore, would be a good opportunity to go to the boudoir and find the information that her stepfather desired.

She reached the corridor in which her own bedroom and that of Mr. Watson was situated.

As she did so, she saw his valet walk into his room.

He must have just come upstairs after eating in the housekeeper's room, where visiting servants always ate.

Yolanda wondered if the staff had found the valet as unpleasant as she had found his Master.

One thing was quite obvious.

It would be impossible for her to go to the boudoir while the valet was there.

So she rang for her lady's maid and undressed.

“You're up so early, my Lady,” Emily remarked as she came into the bedroom.

“I am tired,” answered Yolanda, “and I thought it was wise to come to bed.”

“Very wise, if your Ladyship asks
me
.”

The way she spoke made Yolanda aware that she was disparaging the new arrival.

She thought, however, it would be a great mistake to discuss him with the servant, so she merely talked about the gown that was being altered for her.

When Emily left, she went to the window and stood for a long time looking at the beauty outside.

The stars now filled the sky and a half-moon looked very romantic.

It made Yolanda remember that her father had loved looking at her mother by moonlight and he had often said he would like a portrait of her painted in a silver dress.

“You would be the real Goddess of the Moon, my darling!” Yolanda had heard him say.

“It is such a lovely idea,” her mother had replied.  “At the same time it is something we cannot afford.”

“Why was I not born an artist?” the Earl had asked.  “Then I could have painted you myself!”

“I have no wish to sit for hours so that someone can paint me.  And although it is so flattering to be named ‘the Goddess of the Moon', I would rather be the Goddess of the Sun.”

“Which you are anyway,” her father had answered, “and also for me – the Goddess of Love.”

“You are being greedy and using up half Olympus!” her mother had protested.

Then they both laughed, as he kissed her, saying,

“To me you are more lovely than all the Goddesses put together.  In fact I have no wish to meet a Goddess, only to have you, my glorious wife, and that means you belong to no one else but me.”

It was the sort of thing they had so often said to each other as they felt it did not matter that they expressed their love in front of a child.

At school the girls talked endlessly about romance, but Yolanda still found it difficult to think of anything else except the delightful words her father had said to her mother – the happiness they gave her was in her mother's eyes.

‘It was bliss for them both to be together,' Yolanda thought now.  ‘Why, oh why did Papa have to die in that useless way?'

Life would never be the same without him, not for her mother or for herself.

All the money in the world could not make up for the love her mother had lost.

Yolanda knew without her saying so that she would have thrown away the grand house.

She would have thrown away the comfort, luxury and the glittering jewels just to be with her father, even if it meant being in poor and uncomfortable lodgings.

‘That is real love,' Yolanda had said to herself, ‘and perhaps one day
I
will find it too.'

It did not seem to be very likely if the only men she was to meet were the likes Jack Harpole and Cecil Watson!

She shuddered at the thought of how unpleasant Cecil Watson was.

She was sure that many of the remarks she had not understood at dinner were vulgar and obscene and should never have been uttered in front of a lady.

She felt a little cold after standing by the window wearing only her nightgown.

Her lady's maid had departed, having blown out the candles before she did so with the exception of the small candelabra, which stood by Yolanda's bed.

She climbed into bed and tried to read a book – it was one she had found extremely interesting.

But it was impossible not to keep listening.

She was straining to hear the man coming upstairs.

She wondered how soon after Mr. Watson had gone to bed, she would be able to go into the boudoir.