The Saint and the Sinner (10 page)

“Where are you going’?” the Earl asked.

“I am going back to Lindchester and taking the Clay family with me. Because I think it is unlikely that my uncle will ever forgive me or help them, I am going on my knees to everyone who is kind and charitable.”

Her voice rose as she added,

“There must be a heart somewhere, even amongst those whom you sneer at as ‘sanctimonious.’

Her hand was on the door when the Earl said,

“Come here, you little spitfire!”

She did not obey him, but she did not leave the room.

“I suppose anyone would know we are relations,” the Earl said. “We have the same bald-headed way of going about things.”

Pandora took a step towards him.

“You will save Mary Clay?”

The Earl did not speak for a moment. Then he said,

“I suppose there is no reason why the sins of the father should be visited upon the pensioners.”

Pandora ran across the room towards him.

“What are you – saying?” she asked. “Explain it to me – simply.”

He looked down at her, at the pleading in her eyes as they searched his.

“Do you know,” he asked after a moment, “where the previous housekeeper – what was her name? Mrs. Meadowfield? Do you know where she is living?”

“Oh, yes!” Pandora said breathlessly.

“And Burrows, the former butler? I remember him when I first came here.”

“He lives in the village.”

“Are you prepared to go and fetch them back?”

“Oh, Cousin Norvin! Do you mean that?”

The tears were back in Pandora’s eyes, but now they seemed to glitter like stars.

“You will remember I offered you
Paradise Regained?”

“That is exactly what you are doing,” Pandora said breathlessly. “And what about – Mr. Anstey?”

“What about him?” the Earl asked in an uncompromising voice.

“Mr. Farrow, whom everybody loved, was, I think, glad to retire, but his son, Michael, knows everything about the Estate. He worked with him during the last few years and he will know how to put everything right.”

She was begging him to understand as she said,

“You will not be troubled, you will not be worried, but things will be as they were when I first came here as a child; and it was all so – wonderful, like a King’s Palace in a – fairy-story.”

Very well then,” the Earl said. “You are determined to have your own way. Tell Farrow to call on me in two hours’ time.”

He smiled rather cynically as he added,

“You had better hurry or I may change my mind! Anyway, there is going to be a row, and if you do not wish to be involved in it, get out of the housel”

“I cannot believe it. It is all so wonderful! Oh, Cousin Norvin, I knew that you were only pretending to be bad.”

“You are white-washing me and it will not stick,” the Earl replied.

“I am giving you a halo,” Pandora flashed, “and do not let it slip!”

She ran across the room and only as she reached the door did she look back over her shoulder.

“Please count the snuff-boxes,” she said. “They are very precious.”

She heard the Earl laugh as she ran down the corridor.

She tore up to her room and rang the bell for Mary.

Before the maid came she had put on a bonnet and was searching the drawers for her gloves.

“Yes, Miss?” Mary said from the doorway.

“It is all right, Mary! Everything is all right!” Pandora cried. “But do not say a word to anyone yet. Just wait! It is going to be exactly the same as when Grandpapa was here, and everybody will be happy.”

“You can’t mean it, Miss!”

Pandora found her gloves.

“Do not even breathe a word of this to your mother,” she said. “Just behave as usual until I return.”

There was an expression of hope in Mary’s face as she passed her and ran down the stairs to the hall.

There was still no sign of Dalton, for which she was grateful, but to one of the footmen she said,

“I want a carriage to drive to the village, and as it is such a lovely day I will start walking down the drive. Will you tell the coachman to catch me up as quickly as possible?”

“Very good, Miss.”

Pandora walked out through the front door and into the sunshine.

The Earl had told her to hurry and she wanted to get away just in case there were any alterations to his orders. She also had no wish to meet any of the members of the house-party.

Her heart was singing and she was so excited that she wanted to dance rather than walk, but she forced herself to move sedately towards the lake and over the old stone bridge.

Now there was park-land on either side of her with its speckled deer, which because she used to feed them became quite tame. And there were oak trees with their branches almost meeting across the drive to form a green tunnel.

When she had walked for a little way she turned to look back.

The Castle was majestic in the sunshine, but to Pandora it was as if the light on the windows made it smile at her with a new happiness.

It suddenly struck her that it was Chart Hall that had won the battle, not herself. It had survived so many ups and downs during the long years it had stood there.

Religious Wars and Civil Wars had raged round it; there had been Charts who were spendthrifts and Charts who were misers; but the Hall itself had always survived.

Perhaps, she thought, it had become the controlling influence in the life of every member of the family wherever he or she might be.

One action on the part of her grandfather had made the present Earl seek to revenge himself violently, not on the man who was dead but on the house that had been his background and an intrinsic part of the family.

‘Chart Hall has proved too strong for him!’ Pandora reproved.

Even if she had not accelerated things by raging at him at this particular moment, she could not help feeling that sooner or later the Castle itself would have spoken to him, enveloped him, and protected him, as it were, against himself.

“You are always there in our lives,” she said to it now.

Then she saw the carriage coming towards her.

*

She went first to find Michael Farrow.

She knew that his father had a house on the outskirts of the village, and as the carriage stopped beside the gate, which was too small for the horses to pass through, she saw Michael, whom she had known ever since she was a child, digging in the garden.

As she waved to him he put down his spade and came to meet her with a look of surprise on his face.

“I wondered who could be calling, Miss Pandora,” he said. “But surely that’s one of the carriages from the Hall?”

“I have come to see you and your father,” Pandora answered.

“Father will be delighted to see you. He so often talks of your mother. He always says she was the most beautiful person he ever knew.”

“That is what I thought,” Pandora said, smiling.

“If you want to talk to me,” Michael Farrow said, “you’ll have to excuse me while I wash my hands. We can’t afford a gardener these days, so I have to do the digging myself.”

It struck Pandora that Mr. Farrow had very likely been dismissed without an adequate pension. That did not matter now, although she knew that it was a grave injustice after his long years of service to the Estate.

Mr. Farrow, who seemed to have grown very old suddenly, was sitting in the front room of his house, reading the newspaper.

He put it down to stare at Pandora in astonishment before he rose with some difficulty to his feet.

“Do not get up,” Pandora begged.

“I am having trouble with my legs these days,” Mr. Farrow answered. “It is due to lack of exercise, I think. I used to do so much riding when I was up at the Hall, but I find myself now getting chair-bound.”

He tried to laugh, but the sadness in his face was very apparent.

“It is nice to see you again,” Pandora said.

“I miss your father and mother more than I can ever tell you,” Mr. Farrow said, “and the village misses them too. Things are not what they used to be.”

“That is what I have come to talk to you about,” Pandora said.

Mr. Farrow looked at her enquiringly as Michael came into the room.

She told him briefly that the Earl had decided Mr. Anstey was not satisfactory. She had suggested that Michael Farrow should take over the Estate, and she was sure that his father would want to help him until he found his feet.

For a moment the two men stared at her as if she had taken leave of her senses. Then Mr. Farrow said quietly:

“Are you telling me that His Lordship intends to dispense with the services of Mr. Anstey altogether?” “I am hoping and praying that he will have left by the time Michael reaches the Hall,” Pandora answered. “His Lordship said he would see him in two hours’ time, and it must be an hour and a half by now.”

She did not wait to listen to their thanks, but hurried away to stop at the cottage where she knew she would find Mrs. Meadowfield.

It was where her sister lived who had been the school-teacher for many years until she retired.

Mrs. Meadowfield was grey-haired but full of energy and she greeted Pandora excitedly.

“It’s like a breath of fresh air to see you again, Miss,” she said. “I was talking about your dear mother and father only yesterday. There’s not a person in the village as doesn’t shed a tear when they speaks of them.

“I have come to ask you, Mrs. Meadowfield,” Pandora said, “if you will come back with me immediately to the Hall.”

“Back to the Hall?” Mrs. Meadowfield enquired. “What for?”

“The household needs you – needs you badly!” Pandora replied. “There will be plenty of people to tell you what has been happening, so I do not intend to do so.”

“You mean that His Lordship has asked for me to come back to my old position?” Mrs. Meadowfield asked. “Well, after the way I was treated, Miss Pandora...”

Pandora put out her hand and laid it on the old woman’s arm.

“Please, Mrs. Meadowfield,” she interrupted, “come with me. You are the only person who can put things right, which is something which has to be done, and at once!”

The words of affronted dignity which Mrs. Meadowfield was about to utter died on her lips. She looked into Pandora’s face and said:

“You’re just like your mother, dear, and I never could refuse anything she asked of me.”

Pandora gave her time only to get her hat and cloak.

“I am sure your sister will pack your box,” she said, “and you can send for it later this afternoon.”

It was only a very short distance to the cottage to which Mr. Burrows had retired.

It was not far from the Vicarage, and as Pandora passed first the Church and then the house where she had been so happy with her parents, she found herself thinking that her father and mother had helped her to set things right at the Hall.

It would have hurt both of them to know what was going on and to find that their friends in the village had been unjustly treated, or, worse still, that girls like Mary might have been corrupted and led astray.

‘If that had actually happened,’ Pandora thought to herself, ‘Prosper Witheridge would have been justified in all his accusations.’

It was only when she was driving back, with Mrs. Meadowfield sitting beside her and old Burrows opposite, both of them too surprised to have much to say, that she remembered that there was still the house-party to contend with.

She knew that Mrs. Meadowfield would be deeply shocked at the way the actresses behaved and spoke, and she thought old Burrows would be appalled if the best china dishes were broken at the table or anyone dented the silver.

Then she told herself that she was quite certain he would have the good sense not to use the best table-ware.

He knew far better than the present owner of the house what they were, and she deliberately stopped herself from asking him to take care and to prevent from happening again the sort of incident that had taken place last night.

Because she knew they would expect it, she told the coachman to pull up at the side of the house so that Mrs. Meadowfield and Burrows could walk round to the back entrance.

Then she drove up to the front and knew as soon as she saw the expressions on the faces of the footmen that things had been happening.

She had been longer than she had expected. It was in fact nearly luncheon-time and she realised that she was very hungry.

Mary’s revelations had prevented her from having any breakfast and it seemed a long time since dinner the preceding evening.

She walked into the hall, saw a hat lying on a chair, and knew that Michael Farrow had arrived and was doubtless with the Earl.

She went upstairs to her bedroom and as she was taking off her bonnet Mary came in.

“Oh, Miss Pandora, such goings-on! Such excitement as you never knowed!” Mary exclaimed.

“What has been happening?” Pandora asked with a smile.

“Almost immediately after you’d gone, his Lordship sends for Mrs. Jenkins and Mr. Dalton. He sacks them both, an’ I hear from one of the footmen that they were very impudent in the things they says too. Mary paused before she went on with relish: “James says as His Lordship was looking black as thunder when he sees Mr. Anstey.”

“What happened then?” Pandora asked.

“You’ll never believe, Miss, but when Mr. Anstey rides off out the front door he shakes his fist at him! ‘You’ll rue this day!’ he says. ‘Mark my words – you’ll all of you rue this day!’”

Pandora gave a sigh of relief.

The Earl had kept his word. Mr. Anstey had gone, and she could only hope that all the outsiders whom he had put into the cottages on the Estate would follow him.

Mary was almost incoherent with excitement, but she had very little more to tell.

Demurely Pandora went downstairs to the Salon, and found only Hettie there, looking very hollow eyed and talking with Freddie and Clive.

“It must be nearly luncheon-time,” Pandora said as the two gentlemen rose. “Where is everybody?” “All too ill to appear,” Hettie answered. “Caro has been sick all night and so has Lottie. Kitty’s got such a headache that she can’t open her eyes. “

“The trouble with Norvin’s wines,” Freddie said, “is that they are too good and too heavy. If the girls had taken my advice and stuck to champagne, they would have been all right!”