The Saint and the Sinner (3 page)

It was to Pandora as if their blood in her cried out against the new Earl being subjected to the slings and arrows of the petty, unimportant little people of Lindchester, who really delighted in being in a position to defame him.

“I wonder what he is really like?” she said to herself.

Then suddenly an idea came to her, an idea so fantastic that for a moment she almost laughed as she thought of it.

And yet quite clearly she could hear her aunt saying in this very room,

“The Earl entertains nothing but doxies and play actresses. No decent man would be seen in the company of such creatures!”

No decent man . . .

The words seemed to burn themselves into Pandora’s mind, and suddenly it seemed to her as if here was a way out, here was a way of escape.

She walked to the window and stood looking with unseeing eyes at the trimmed garden, so neat with its flower-beds and clipped yews that she almost felt there was something unnatural about it.

She had a sudden vision of the green velvet lawns at Chart, of the herb-garden enclosed by its Elizabethan walls, of the rose-garden fragrant and vivid with colour surrounding an ancient sun-dial.

She felt homesick for it in a manner that was almost a physical ache in her heart and in her mind.

Then, the same idea presented itself again to her so clearly, so precisely, that it was almost like looking at the pieces of a puzzle falling into place and the answer was there.

She sat down at her uncle’s desk, something she would never have dared to do if he had been at home, and wrote a letter on the thick vellum paper that was kept entirely for him.

Then, having folded it, she fastened it with a wafer and went upstairs to the small room she had been allotted on the second floor of the Palace.

She rang the bell for a maid and when one came she gave her instructions in a quiet, calm voice which almost surprised herself.

*

An hour later Pandora was driving away from the Palace in one of the carriages which she and her aunt used when they went calling at the houses in the vicinity of Lindchester.

The old coachman looked surprised when she directed him to where she wished to go, but he had been too long in the service of the Bishop to query any order he was given.

Pandora sitting back in the open carriage was conscious that a small trunk containing her clothes was strapped on behind.

They crossed the river by the ancient bridge which had first been built in Norman times.

Then they were in the open countryside with its green trees, fields ripening with corn, and beyond them woods which made excellent cover in the winter for those who hunted there.

Pandora had not been allowed to go hunting since coming to live with her uncle. One of her father’s horses had been kept for her to ride, but the rest had been sold.

She knew it was a concession to have even one, and her aunt’s most frequent threat when she was annoyed was to say that she would take away from her the privilege of being allowed to ride.

She could not help thinking with a slight smile of amusement that in driving to Chart she was obeying her uncle in the letter if not the spirit of his order.

She had been told not to ride in the vicinity of Chart Hall. Well, she was not she was driving there.

She told herself that if her expedition failed and she returned ignominiously, no-one would know except the servants, and because they liked her and disliked her aunt it was doubtful that they would betray her.

She had now driven over three miles outside the town and was in the quiet, beautiful countryside which she had known all her life.

The woods were much thicker here, and she remembered how she had loved roaming in them as a child and riding in them when she was older.

There were streams winding through meadowland and one where her father occasionally went fishing and caught fat, brown trout which they enjoyed for breakfast.

There were memories every inch of the way. Then at last they came to the village with its black and white cottages with their thatched roofs.

All the gardens were bright with flowers and Pandora remembered that it was her mother’s idea to give a prize for the best garden every year, so that the local people strove to make their village the most beautiful in the whole County.

Pandora knew the inhabitants of every cottage they passed, but at this time of the day the men would be out working in the fields and many of the women would be working at the Castle.

In her grandfather’s time they had been employed in the kitchens, the laundry, and the dairy.

She wondered if there were still the big wide bowls of thick cream standing on the stone slabs waiting to be made into the golden pats of butter that were stamped with the Chart crest.

She had loved to watch the dairymaids at work and sometimes she would ask if she could help, but soon found it very tiring to turn the cream in the churn until it became butter.

Now the Castle was in sight.

It always looked magnificent at any time of the year, but perhaps most of all in the summer when it was surrounded with green trees as if it were a precious jewel.

The grey stone glowed against the trees, and the chimneys, statues, and urns on the roof were silhouetted against the sky.

It had majesty and an importance that spoke without words of the great family it housed.

Every generation of the Chart family had added to the original building, which had been commenced in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

The second Earl, however, who, having been impressed with houses like Blenheim, Hatfield, and Burleigh, had employed Inigo Jones to improve Chart Hall.

He had added two wings and a new facade, making it an outstanding edifice as well as a beautiful one.

“I love Chart!” Pandora exclaimed.

It was part of her life.

There was the lake where her father had taken her boating amongst the water-lilies, the lawns where she had rolled down their slopes when she was a small child, screaming with excitement.

At the back of the house there were the shrubberies where she had played hide-and-seek and the greenhouses from which the old gardener had given her peaches so large that she could hardly hold them in her small hands.

‘If only Uncle George had not been killed at Waterloo,’ she thought wistfully.

He had been very like her mother and he would never have allowed her to live with her father’s relatives, who did not like her.

The carriage drew up outside the long flight of steps leading to the front door.

A footman, whom Pandora did not recognise, came hurrying down the steps to open the door of the carriage and Pandora stepped out.

It was like coming home, she thought, to walk into the huge cool hall with its statues of Grecian goddesses set in alcoves, while the ceiling, painted by an Italian master, rioted with colour.

A strange butler with a somewhat supercilious expression on his face stood waiting for her to speak.

“I wish to see the Earl of Chartwood,” Pandora said.

It disconcerted her to find that she did not know the servants. She had expected old Burrows to be there and the footmen who had once been boys in the village and had sung in the choir.

The Butler did not ask her name but gave her what she thought was a disdainful glance before he walked across the hall and opened the door to the Morning-Room.

It was a room that her grandfather had liked because it had a view over the gardens and it was smaller than the grand Salons and therefore easier to keep warm in the winters.

Pandora waited, but to her surprise the Butler went into the room, leaving her outside.

She heard him say,

“There’s a lady to see you, M’Lord.”

“Another?” a voice answered. “Good God, Dalton, who can it be now?”

“I’ve no idea, M’Lord.”

“Another little bee to flutter round the honey pot, I presume. They smell it, that is what they do, Dalton, they smell out the honey, wherever it may be.”

“As you say, M’Lord.”

“Well, show her in, but God knows I did not invite her.”

The Butler returned to Pandora’s side, where she stood, still astonished and a little shocked by what she had heard.

Too late she wished she had not come, but now there was nothing for it but to obey the almost imperious gesture which the Butler made for her to enter.

She walked into the room, instinctively straightening her back and lifting her chin a little.

A quick glance told her that nothing had been changed since her grandfather’s time.

The three long windows admitted the sunshine and for a moment it dazzled her eyes so that it was hard to find the only occupant of the room.

Then she saw him.

He was lounging in a high-backed chair that her grandfather had invariably used, with one leg over the arm, the other stretched out in front of him.

He held a glass in his hand and for a moment Pandora found it difficult to focus her eyes on his face.

Then she saw that he was undoubtedly a Chart, with the same pansy-coloured eyes as her own, except for the fact that his were darker and harder, and his eye-brows, which were dark like his hair, almost met across his nose.

There were fair Charts and dark Charts and the dark ones were those who were dangerous and also adventurous.

“Your hair’s the wrong colour, that’s what’s wrong about you!” her Nanny had often said when she had done something particularly naughty. “You’re meant to be good with your fair hair, and don’t you forget it!”

The new Earl was very dark and his hair had an almost Byronesque look to it, an impression that was accentuated by the fact that he had pulled loose his cravat and it hung untidily down the front of his shirt.

He had been riding, Pandora noticed, for he was not only in riding-breeches but his highly polished boots were covered in dust.

She stood looking at him, hardly aware that she was staring. Then he said in what was a jeering, mocking voice,

“Well, who are you and what do you want?”

Rather belatedly, because she had been so interested in what she saw, Pandora curtseyed.

“I am your cousin, Pandora Stratton,” she replied, “and I have come here to ask for your help.”

He looked at her in astonishment although he made no attempt to rise.

“Pandora Stratton,” he repeated. “And you say you are my cousin?”

“Not a very close one, but the late Earl was my grandfather.”

The Earl pushed back his head and laughed.

“Your grandfather? Well, thank God you are not like him, but I am certainly surprised to see you, Cousin Pandora. I understood I was to be ostracised by all my relations.”

“Are you?” Pandora enquired. “I did not know.”

“You must be very out-of-touch,” the Earl replied with a sneer. Then he said: “No, of course! I know! Stratton – you are something to do with that sanctimonious, psalm-singing Bishop who called on me last time I was here.”

“He is – my uncle.”

“Then all I can say is that I am sorry for you!”

“I am rather sorry for myself.”

He smiled for the first time and it made his face look quite different.

“I suppose you want to tell me about it,” he said, “but if you are asking me to subscribe to the poor, the diseased, the crippled, or the out of work in Lindchester, you can save your breath!”

“I am not asking for help for any of them,” Pandora replied, “although doubtless they would appreciate it – but for – myself.”

She seated herself as she spoke in a chair opposite the Earl.

He stared at her, taking in, she thought, every detail of her plain, unornamented gown, her bonnet decorated only with the ribbons with which it was tied under her chin.

“I suppose you have some resemblance to all those toffee-nosed ancestors who bedeck the walls here,” he said.

“As I expect you know, there are fair Charts and dark Charts,” Pandora said. “You represent one and I the other.”

“What is the difference?”

“One is good and the other is bad.”

The Earl laughed again.

“Well, that makes things simple, at any rate, and I do my best to live up to what is expected of me. Now – you say you need my help? What can have occurred to bring the Saint to the Sinner?”

Now Pandora laughed because she could not help it. Then she said quite seriously,

“I have come to see you, Cousin Norvin, because you are the only person – I think, who can – save me.”

“I only hope you are not talking about your soul,” the Earl remarked.

“I am talking about my life – or rather – my future,” Pandora answered. “You see, my uncle, the Bishop, intends that I should – marry his Chaplain, the Honourable Prosper Witheridge.”

“And what am I expected to do about it?” the Earl asked bluntly.

Pandora suddenly felt shy and her eyes dropped. After a moment she said in a very small voice,

“I wondered if you – would – ask me to – stay here for – a night – or two?”

After she had spoken there was silence. Then the Earl said,

“Am I hearing you aright? You are inviting yourself to stay with me because you think in some way, which I cannot imagine, it will prevent your marriage?”

There was a pause before he added,

“I must be very dense, but I cannot understand what you are suggesting.”

Pandora drew in her breath.

“I hope what I – say will – not make you – angry.”

“Does it matter if it does?”

“It – it might prevent you from being – sympathetic and – understanding.”

“Two virtues which are lamentably lacking in my make-up,” the Earl replied. “But I would still like you to explain what you are trying to say.”

Pandora drew in her breath.

“My uncle and aunt have gone to – London to attend a garden-party at Lambeth Palace.”

“I am sorry for them,” the Earl said with a twist of his lips. “One Parson is enough at any time, but a conclave of them would undoubtedly try the patience of any Saint!”

Pandora smiled faintly, but she went on,

“Before they left I – overheard my uncle say that his Chaplain had asked if he could pay his – addresses to me. My aunt was – insistent that my uncle should give his –consent and that I should – marry Mr. Witheridge.”