The Mysterious Maid-Servant (4 page)

“No desire to meet the Duke?” he repeated. “I always believed that every woman in England was on her knees night after night praying that by some lucky chance she would encounter the hero of her dreams! Why are you the exception?”

Again there was silence.

“Surely you can give a simple answer to a simple question?” the Earl asked in a tone of exasperation. “I asked you, Giselda, why you do not wish to meet the Duke?”

“Shall I say that I have my – reasons?” Giselda answered.

“A more damned silly answer I have never heard,” the Earl stormed. “Let me tell you, Giselda, that it is very bad for my health to be treated as though I were a half-witted child who could not stand the truth. What is the truth?”

“I think, my Lord, that, as your dinner will be arriving in a few minutes, I would like to go to my own room and wash my hands after attending to your leg.”

Before the Earl could reply, Giselda had gone from the room.

He stared after her for a moment in exasperation, then in amusement.

“Now what has she got to be so mysterious about?” he asked aloud.

Then, as the door opened and his valet came in, he said,

“Have you any news for me, Batley?”

“I am afraid, my Lord, I have drawn a blank. I had a chat, as one might say, with the housekeeper. But she knows nothing, as she told your Lordship, she took the young lady on without a reference.”

It did not escape the Earl’s notice that Batley, who was an acute judge of people, referred to Giselda as a ‘lady’. He was well aware of the difference in Batley’s tone when he spoke of someone as being a ‘person’ or a ‘young woman’.

It only confirmed what he thought himself. At the same time it was interesting and he knew too that Batley had got over his pique at Giselda taking over what had previously been one of his duties.

Normally he would have been jealous of another servant valeting his master or in any way intruding on the somewhat unique relationship between them. But apparently Giselda had stepped in without opposition and that to the Earl was significant.

“You must go on trying, Batley,” he said aloud. “It is unusual for you and me not to be able to find out what we want to know. You remember how useful you were in Portugal when you found out where the merchants had hidden their wines?”

`That was very much easier, my Lord. Women are women all the world over and the Portuguese are as susceptible as any other nationality.”

“I will take your word for it, Batley.”

He was conscious of a twinkle in the eyes of his valet as they both remembered a very delectable little señorita with whom he had spent several pleasant nights when they passed through Lisbon.

There was very little in the Earl’s life that Batley did not know about. He was devoted and had for his master a respect and admiration that amounted almost to adoration.

At the same time he retained his individuality and his own independence of thought and judgement.

Batley was shrewd and the Earl knew that he could always rely on him to pass judgement on a man or a woman, which would not be far from the truth.

“Tell me exactly what you think of our new acquisition to the household, Batley,” he asked now.

“If you are speaking of Miss Chart, my Lord,” Batley replied, “she’s a lady, I’d bet my shirt on that. But there’s something she’s hiding, my Lord, and it’s worrying her, although I can’t quite understand why.”

“And that, Batley, is what we have to find out,” the Earl replied.

He thought as he spoke that, however reluctant Giselda might be to dine with him, he was looking forward to it.

“Where are you going?”

Giselda, with one arm full of books, turned from the desk from which she had taken a number of letters.

“I am going to the Post Office first, my Lord,” she replied, “to try to persuade that lazy Postmaster that your letters are urgent. Everyone in the town is complaining about him because he is so dilatory about despatching the mail. I am not certain whether I should speak to him coaxingly or severely.”

The Earl smiled.

“I should imagine in your case that coaxingly might be more effective.”

“One can never be sure with that sort of man,” Giselda said.

“And you are taking the books back to the library?” the Earl asked glancing at the pile in her arm.

“I will try to find something to amuse you,” she replied in a worried tone, “but your Lordship is very critical, and although Williams Library is the best in the county, I can find little to please you.”

The Earl did not reply because, to tell the truth, he enjoyed criticising the literature that Giselda read to him aloud for the simple reason that he liked to hear her opinion on the various subjects they discussed.

He was astonished to find that so young a girl not only had a very decided point of view on most matters including politics, but also could substantiate her opinions from other books she had read on the subject.

At times they argued quite violently and when he was alone at night the Earl would go over in his mind what had been said and find surprisingly that Giselda was often better informed on some matters than he was himself.

She was wearing her bonnet with the blue ribbons and, as there was a wind despite the warmth of the day, she wore a light blue shawl over her gown.

Looking at her, the Earl decided that in the week she had been in his employment, eating two good meals a day in his company, she was already less thin and there was a touch of colour in her cheeks that had not been there before.

At the same time, he thought, they had a long way to go before she reached what should be her normal weight, even though she assured him that she had always been slender.

The difficulty, he found, was to persuade Giselda to accept anything from him except her wages.

He had thought on the second day of her entering his employment that he would be clever and order such large meals that what she took home would be more than enough for her family and herself.

But he had come up against what he told her was her ‘
damnable pride’
.

As they finished luncheon, he noted with satisfaction that there was a whole chicken untouched besides a plump pigeon and a number of other dishes, which were perfectly conveyable.

“You had better pack up what is left,” he said casually.

Giselda had looked at the chicken and replied,

“I cannot do that, my Lord.”

“Why not?” he enquired sharply.

“Because I suspect that your Lordship ordered more food than was necessary and what is left over, being untouched, can be used again.”

“Are you telling me that you will not accept this food, which you well know your family needs?”

“We may be poor, my Lord, but we have our pride.”

“The poor cannot afford pride,” the Earl countered scathingly.

“And when they get to that stage,” Giselda retorted, “it means that they have lost their character and personality and are little more than animals.”

She paused to add defiantly,

“I am grateful for your thought of me, my Lord, but I will not accept your charity.”

The Earl made a sound of impatience. Then, reaching forward, he pulled off one leg of the chicken with his bare hands.

“Now it is acceptable?” he asked.

There was a pause before Giselda said,

“Because I know the chef will either throw it away or feed it to the dog, I will take it, my Lord, but another time I will refuse to do so.”

“You are the most foolish, idiotic, tiresome woman I have ever met in my whole life!” the Earl stormed.

She had not answered, but had merely packed up the chicken leaving the pigeon on its plate.

The Earl learnt in the succeeding days that Giselda had to be handled with care, otherwise her pride created obstacles even he could not scale.

What was more exasperating was that despite every effort on his part he still knew no more about her than he had the first day he had engaged her services.

One thing however was very clear.

Under her ministrations his leg was healing better and quicker than Mr. Newell the surgeon had dared to hope.

“You must rest while I am away,” Giselda, said now, “and please do not get out of bed as you tried to do yesterday. You know what Mr. Newell said.”

“I refuse to be mollycoddled by you and these damned doctors,” the Earl growled.

At the same time he knew that what the surgeon had said was commonsense.

“Your leg, my Lord, is far better than I had anticipated,” he answered after he had examined it. “But your Lordship will appreciate that to pull out all the grapeshot I had to probe very deeply.”

“I have not forgotten that!” the Earl said grimly.

“I will be frank,” the surgeon went on, “and tell you now that I thought, when I found so much had been left behind and how badly it was festering, that you might still have to lose your leg. But miracles still happen and in your case this is undoubtedly true.”

“I am grateful,” the Earl managed to say as the surgeon’s fingers moved over the scars to find them clean and healing, as he had put it, ‘
from beneath’
.

“How soon can I get out of bed?” the Earl asked.

“Not for at least another week, my Lord. As you well know, any sharp movement or even the weight of your body might start the wounds bleeding afresh. It only requires a little patience.”

“A virtue, unfortunately, I have never possessed,” the Earl remarked.

“Then, my Lord, it is something you must learn now,” Thomas Newell had replied.

He then commended Giselda on her bandaging.

“If you are ever in need of employment, Miss Chart, I have a hundred patients waiting for you.”

“You sound busy,” the Earl commented.

“I have a waiting list from here to next week,” Newell said not without a touch of pride in his voice, “and they are not only veterans of the war, like yourself, my Lord, but members of the nobility who come here from as far away as Scotland and even from across the Channel. Sometimes I wonder how I can possibly accommodate them all.”

“There is a penalty attached to everything,” the Earl smiled, “even to a famous reputation.”

“That is something your Lordship must have discovered yourself,” Thomas Newell said courteously before he took his leave.

“If you move about,” Giselda said now, “you will disturb the bandages, and if you do that I shall be very angry.”

She paused as if she had remembered something.

“My mother is making some more ointment. Perhaps I had better call for it on my way back.”

“I owe you for the last lot your mother made,” the Earl said. “How much did it come to?”

“One shilling and threepence halfpenny,” Giselda answered.

“I presume you expect me to give you the halfpenny or would you accept a fourpenny piece?”

“I can give you change,” Giselda replied with a twinkle in her eye.

She was well aware that he was teasing her, half playfully and half seriously, because she refused to accept any money except what he actually owed her.

“You infuriate me,” he said as she turned towards the door.

“Then that will give your Lordship something to think about while I am gone,” she answered. “Batley is listening for your bell if you should wish for anything.”

With that she was gone and the Earl lay back against his pillows to wonder for the thousandth time who she was and why she would not tell him about herself.

He had never imagined that any woman who was so young – Giselda had admitted to being nineteen – could have so much self-assurance when it came to dealing with him. Yet he knew that in other ways she was in fact very sensitive and shy.

There was some quality about her that he had never found in any other woman and what he admired better than anything else was her air of serenity.

When he was not talking to her, she would sit quietly reading in a corner of the room and make no effort to thrust herself into prominence or attract his attention.

It was a new experience for the Earl to be with a woman who not only made no effort to flirt with him but who seemed perfectly content to be anonymous, except when he required her services.

He was used to being with women who used every wile in the female repertoire to focus his attention upon themselves. Who looked at him with an invitation in their eyes and challenged him with a provocative twist to their lips.

Giselda was as natural in her behaviour as if he was her brother or – sobering thought – her father, and she talked to him frankly on every subject except herself.

‘I will find out what is behind all this if it is the last thing I do,’ the Earl vowed.

At that moment the door opened and a man put his head round it.

“Are you awake?” a deep voice said.

The Earl turned to look at the intruder.

“Fitz!” he exclaimed. “Come in! I am delighted to see you!”

“I hoped you would be,” Colonel Berkeley said, entering the room,

He seemed, with his height and his broad shoulders, almost overpowering to the Earl who must regard him from the bed.

“Dammit, Fitz!” he exclaimed. “You look disgustingly and outrageously healthy! How are your horses?”

“Waiting for you to ride them,” Colonel Berkeley replied. “I now have sixty top-notchers, Talbot, which I intend to put at the disposal of anyone who wishes to hunt them this season – and you can have first pick.”

“It certainly is an inducement to get well quickly,” the Earl said.

“You are better?”

“Very much better. Newell is a good man.”

“I told you he was.”

“You were absolutely right, and I am extremely thankful that I took your advice and came to Cheltenham.”

“That is what I wanted you to say,” Colonel Berkeley smiled. “As I have told you before, this town is unique!”

There was a pride in his voice that was unmistakable and the Earl laughed.

“How soon are you going to re-christen it ‘
Berkeleyville
’? That is what it ought to be named.”

“I have thought of it,” Colonel Berkeley replied, “but since Cheltenham is of Saxon origin it might be a mistake to change it.”