Stand and Deliver your Heart. Barbara Cartland

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ ’ealed immediate after you tells me what to do with it,” the Head Groom replied.

      He took Kingfisher from her and led him into a stall.

      Vanda walked along the path through the big banks of rhododendrons which led to the kitchen door.

      She did not knock, but went along the flagged passage to the kitchen.

      It was a very large room with a high ceiling. There was a large beam on which they had hung game and dried hams in the past.

      Now there was nothing on the beam but one small rabbit.

      The caretakers were sitting at a large deal table drinking tea.

      Taylor would have risen when Vanda appeared, but she said quickly,

      “Don’t move, I only came in for a moment or two to tell you something.”

      “Now sit you doon, Miss Vanda. Mrs. Taylor said, who was a large and rosy-cheeked woman. “I’m sure you could do with a cup of tea and Taylor and me were a-just havin’ one.”

      “I would love a nice cup of tea,” Vanda replied.

      She knew that it was what they expected to hear.

      Although she did not really enjoy the strong dark Ceylon Tea they always drank, they would have been disappointed if she had refused a cup.

      When it had been poured out and the cup was beside her, Vanda began her story,

      “Such a strange thing has just happened. I was riding in Monk’s Wood and what do you think was right in the centre where no one ever goes except myself? There were men!”

      She paused for a short moment.

      Then, as Mr. and Mrs. Taylor did not speak, she went on,

      “They were all strangers and they most certainly did not come from Wiltshire. There were quite a number of them too and laughing in what I thought was an unpleasant manner.”

      It was then that she was aware that Mr. and Mrs. Taylor were looking at each other.

      She felt, although it just seemed incredible, they were not surprised at what she had said to them.

      “They be in Monk’s Wood?” Taylor asked at last very slowly. “Now what on earth do you think that they’d be doin’ there, Mother?”

      He looked at his wife as he spoke.

      She did not answer, but seemed to be busying herself pouring out more tea into her cup. Although it was already nearly full.

      Vanda looked from one to the other and then she asked them,

      “Have you heard of these men before?”

      “No, no,” Mrs. Taylor answered quickly. “We knows nothin’ about ’em.”

      She was obviously becoming agitated and so spoke in a way that was not in the least like her.

      Vanda next looked at Taylor.

      She did not speak, but he was well aware that she was asking him a question,

      “I knows of nothin’ we can tell you, Miss Vanda,” he said at length. “They ’as nothin’ to do with us.”

      “But you are aware they exist,” Vanda insisted. “Have they been here causing any trouble?”

      Mrs. Taylor put down the teapot and laid her two hands palm down on the table as she turned to say to Vanda,

      “Now just you listen to me, Miss Vanda. Go home and say nothin’ of what you’ve heard. There be nought you can do about it and we wants no trouble.”

      “Trouble?” Vanda asked in a bewildered tone. “What sort of trouble are you talking about and how can it possibly affect you?”

      Mrs. Taylor looked helplessly at her husband.

      “We be alone ’ere, Miss Vanda,” he said, “except for the grooms and Repton be an old man while Nat and Ben be high on a horse but small on the ground.”

      Vanda would have smiled at the description of the two younger grooms, who did in fact look rather like jockeys, if she had not been feeling so worried.

      ‘What can be going on?’ she wondered. ‘And why are the Taylors being so mysterious about it?’

      When she then thought about it, there was really no one to tell.

      Mr. Rushman, the Manager, was over seventy and could no longer ride a horse on the estate, but instead drove a gig.

      He was not in good health and in the winter was laid up with bronchitis and rheumatism, which kept him in his house week after week.

      She pulled her chair nearer to the table and, resting her chin on her hands she said,

      “Now tell me what it is that is troubling you both. You know I will help if I can and, if you want me to remain silent, I will say nothing to anybody.”

      Taylor looked at his wife.

      Mrs. Taylor let out a big sigh that seemed to shake her whole fat body.

      “We’ll tell you,” she offered at length, “but I for one be too afraid to even speak of them.”

      “Speak of who?” Vanda asked.

      Taylor cleared his throat,

      “It be like this, Miss Vanda. We be ’ere as you knows to look after the ’ouse till ’is Lordship comes back ’ome.”

      “No one could do it better,” Vanda said encouragingly.

      It was true that, with the help of three women from the village, the house was as well looked after as when the old Earl was alive.

      Granted there were not four footmen in the hall as had been usual or a butler in charge of them.

      Nor was there a chef in the kitchen, the equal of the one employed by the Prince Regent and with four scullions under him.

      When the Earl had died, Mr. Rushman had appointed the Taylors as caretakers of the house.

      They had certainly lived up to that name and had taken the greatest care of Wyn Hall and they had always in the past told Vanda how much they enjoyed their job.

      She just could not understand what could have occurred now to make them so frightened and reluctant to talk of their fears.

      “Go on,” she prompted Taylor.

      “They comes ’ere first about two weeks ago,” he began,

      “They?” Vanda asked. “Who are they?”

      “That be what we ain’t supposed to know,” he replied, “but they be men.”

      Vanda СКАЧАТЬ