Prince Of Secrets. Paula Marshall

the top shelf was a brown bowler hat of the kind which she had seen artisans wearing when, out for the day, they wished to imitate the gentry. Beside it was neatly arranged—everything was neat, as he always was—a pile of mufflers, some of wool, some of silk, and all of them shabby. There were also a pair of carefully folded brown and yellow check woollen trousers, a short brown woollen jacket and a pair of heavy boots. Doubled up beside them was a large doll with brilliantly painted red cheeks and a wide grin. Its wooden head was on a peg which fitted into a cloth body.

      Dinah felt like the lady in the story of Blubeard who had entered the forbidden room to discover strange and terrible things. There was nothing terrible about these things, but they were certainly strange. Memory teased her, until, suddenly, she knew that if she had not found the key to Cobie, she had certainly found the key to explain all these objects—they were the stock-in-trade of a stage magician.

      She had sat in drawing rooms when she had been a little girl, oohing and aahing and clapping her hands while the visiting conjuror or magician performed his tricks with paraphernalia similar to that which was so neatly laid out before her. The big doll was undoubtedly a ventriloquist’s dummy.

      What in the world was Cobie doing with them, hidden away as they were? She thought of him, grave, charming, always perfectly turned out, the complete patrician, remarkable for the excellence of his manners in a society where such things were highly valued. Nothing about him suggested that he would have a secret hoard of objects such as these—or be able to use them.

      Why? She gave them one last stare before she shut the cupboard door and manoeuvred it so that it locked again, even though imperfectly. What else was he concealing? Who was the man who used these strange toys, for their appearance told her that they had been used, that this was no private museum. What else lay hidden behind the locked cupboard doors of his room?

      And the odd clothing. What was that doing there? For the life of her she couldn’t visualise him wearing it. Then, when she shut the door of the room, a little frightened, as well as a little ashamed of having spied on him, memory struck.

      Before they had married he had visited her in her dreams. Now that she was his wife, and shared at least a part of his life with him, he had ceased to do so. But the memory of that recurring dream, almost forgotten, came back to her—as well as the strange visions which she sometimes had during and after their love-making.

      In the dream he had been quite unlike the civilised urbane man whom she and the world knew, the golden Apollo of the Prince of Wales’s set. He had been wild, feral, not even clean. His hair had been long, his face unshaven, and the hand he had extended to her had been grimy. She also remembered that he had never offered her his right hand in the dream, only his left. But he was right-handed, surely? Another puzzle.

      What was important, though, was that she could imagine that man being a magician, a conjuror. That man could be anything. But why had she seen him in such a guise? Why, occasionally, during their love-making, when it was at its wildest—as it had lately become—had she had flashes in which she had seen the wild man again?

      Could that man be carrying on a secret liaison with Susanna? She could imagine that man doing anything, anything at all. She would not like that man to know that she had been prowling curiously around his room, drawn there by the doubts that not only Violet had put in her head, but by his own conduct.

      Not that, if questioned by a barrister, she could have said exactly what it was about him that disturbed her, but because she knew that she was beginning to sense that the inwardness of him was quite different from the bland image which he showed to English society.

      She remembered what he had said to her before they were married. ‘Appearances often deceive, Dinah.’ All the way to Markendale, her mind worried at the problem which was Cobie Grant like a dog worrying a bone.

      But she was the magician’s true pupil because nothing showed.

       Chapter Three

       A fter Sandringham and the season, living at Markendale was like falling into a warm bath. Nothing was required of one, Dinah decided, but to lie back and enjoy one’s self. That this also was not enough for her was a subject for internal annoyance. Really, what do I want? she asked herself. If I were honest, a different kind of life altogether, but that would mean being no longer Lady Dinah Grant—and do I want that? Could I bear to lose Cobie—even though in no true sense can I be said to have him!

      He remained an enigma. She could be sure of nothing. He might—or might not—be having an affaire with Susanna. He might—or might not—be doing a thousand other things, some of which might—or might not—involve him in using the magician’s tricks which she had found in the cupboard in his room.

      For no reason at all she thought that he was in some way involved with the police—but how and why she had no idea. She also had no idea whether or not he was enjoying himself in England, and whether he intended to stay, or whether he meant to return to the United States—and if so, when?

      Markendale was even bigger than Moorings. It had been built early in the eighteenth century and had little of Moorings’ airy charm. It was a barracks of a place, furnished heavily by William Kent, and looked out across the moors.

      Its attraction for Lord Kenilworth and his guests was its nearness to the railway line which led to Doncaster, where the autumn race meeting was held. Dinah found racing boring, and she was pretty certain that Cobie felt the same. He had once said to her when she had asked him why he didn’t buy any horses to race that his interest in horses was confined to riding them, not watching midgets doing it for him.

      ‘Now that is for your ears only,’ he told her, lightly. ‘They would probably drum me out of English society forever if they found out that I thought any such thing!’

      Dinah could lose herself by wandering through the corridors at Markendale, admiring the paintings on the walls, and visiting the library, which was excellent, although there was no sign that anyone in the house-party ever used it other than to read the daily papers in it, or write the occasional letter there.

      By doing so she could avoid the idle chit-chat of the other women. Never mind what the Marquise had taught her, she deserved a little time to herself, and so she told her husband when he came to find her, late one afternoon, curled up on the window seat in the library, half-hidden by the curtain. She was not reading anything improving, but was deep in Mr Henry James’s novel, The Princess Casamassima.

      She looked up at him, impudence written on her face. ‘I hope that you have not come to reprimand me.’

      ‘For what?’ He was brief. She had noticed that when they were alone this was more his style than effusiveness was.

      ‘For not joining in, for hiding myself away.’

      He sat down opposite to her in one of William Kent’s chairs, and shrugged. ‘You deserve a little time of your own.’ He nodded his head at her book, ‘Something serious?’

      Dinah knew from his tone that he was roasting her—she was reading his voice more and more easily, and knew that his subtle double-entendres were always intended, never accidental.

      She decided to return the compliment, ‘You might say so.’ She showed him the title-page. ‘It is, after all, about us, I mean our society.’

      He nodded agreement. ‘You should read The American—and then tell me whether you think Mr James describes us correctly.’

      Her answer was oblique. ‘Most of the Americans I have met are not at all like you.’

      ‘Is that meant to be a compliment?’

      ‘If you like.’ Her smile at him was as sweet as those which he usually offered her.

      Cobie laughed, rose and came over to her, to bend over her, to put his hand on her neck and kiss her tenderly.

      ‘You learn quickly,’ he told her, ‘and now, you must learn something else—a little patience with the inanities of this life. We are going to the races at Doncaster tomorrow, and I have said that