Love Forbidden

  Chapter 1

  ~

  1953

  “Sorry to be late, dearie, but the milk didn’t arrive from the farm till a few minutes ago. Your tea’s waitin’ for you now.”

  Aria rose slowly from the table where she had been sitting and smiled.

  “I thought Bill must be late again,” she said. “Don’t worry, Nanny, and for goodness’ sake don’t say anything to him. You know what a job Charles has to get cowmen.”

  “It’s a job to get anyone these days,” Nanny answered tartly. “Now you run along for your tea. Did anyone come this afternoon?”

  Aria looked down at the box on the table in which reposed six half-crowns.

  “As you see, we haven’t been overwhelmed by the crowds,” she smiled, “There were four Americans and a horrible couple on a motorcycle. The woman said ‘reely’, in her opinion, she didn’t think the house was worth half-a-crown and she wondered how we had the cheek to charge it.”

  “What impudence!” Nanny ejaculated. “I wish I’d been here. I’d have given her a piece of my mind.”

  Aria laughed. She had been conversant with the ‘pieces’ of Nanny’s mind for as long as she could remember. They always sounded very fierce in anticipation, but in actual fact they were not likely to make anyone over the age of three quake in their shoes.

  “We mustn’t drive away the few customers we have,” she said. “Despite the woman’s nasty remarks, her husband bought a couple of postcards. You will find the money in the drawer. Charles said we were to keep it separate.”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” Nanny said irritably.

  She invariably put any money there was into a muddle and disliked the slightest suggestion that she was not a meticulous accountant,

  “Six people in an afternoon!” Aria said, stretching her hands over her head. “Fifteen shillings! It’s hopeless, isn’t it, Nanny? I shall talk to Charles tonight. He was so tired when he came in yesterday evening that I didn’t like to worry him.”

  “Now, think before you do anything rash, dearie,” Nanny admonished her. “And I’m not agreein’ with your wild ideas – mind you.”

  “But you know as well as I do, Nanny, that something has to be done,” Aria insisted.

  Nanny gave a sigh that seemed to come right from the very depth of her frail little body.

  “Yes, dearie, I suppose something has to be done,” she agreed. “But what? That’s the question.”

  “And I know the answer,” Aria said. She bent down unexpectedly and kissed her old Nanny’s withered cheek. “You are not to worry, whatever happens. It will all come right in the long run, you see if it doesn’t. Doubtless it’s all for the best! Don’t you remember how often you used to say that to me when I was little?”

  “Indeed I remember,” Nanny answered. “It used to cheer me up no end to say it, but I’m not sure in my bones that it was always right.”

  “Well, I’m sure this time,” Aria smiled.

  She walked from the table across to the window. Outside the sun was shining and a light breeze was rustling through the pale green early summer foliage of the trees. There was a soft murmur of bees in the rosebushes that stood in front of the house. Otherwise everything was very quiet, the soft quiet peace of the English countryside.

  “Too quiet!” Aria suddenly said aloud, following the trend of her thoughts.

  Nanny looked up in surprise from the table where she had seated herself.

  “What is?” she enquired.

  “This place,” Aria replied. “Too quiet, too off the beaten track, too small to command much attention. And we can’t afford to advertise. What chance do we have of attracting visitors when within a few miles of us are Hatfield House, Luton Hoo and Woburn Abbey? And with all the attractions the Duke of Bedford is introducing to bring the crowds into Woburn, why should anyone worry about us?”

  “Why shouldn’t they?” Nanny enquired almost angrily. “Queen’s Folly is as old and as beautiful as Hatfield House.”

  “And about a tenth of the size,” Aria retorted and then laughed. “Don’t listen to me, Nanny. I am just feeling envious of those who can collect so many more half-crowns than we can because they have so much more to offer. Not that Charles would admit that any place in the world could be as wonderful as Queen’s Folly.”

  “There isn’t a place to touch it!” Nanny declared stoutly.

  Aria laughed again.

  “You’re prejudiced, both of you.”

  “And rightly,” Nanny snapped.

  “And – rightly,” Aria echoed softly.

  Her eyes were gentle and she looked at the bent figure of her old Nanny sitting at the table just inside the open front door waiting to collect money from the visitors to Queen’s Folly.

  It seemed such a splendid chance of making money when they first decided to open the house to the public. Naturally Charles had at the outset been against the idea of allowing strangers to intrude on his privacy and disturb the peace of the house, which he loved to the exclusion of all else.

  It was Aria who had convinced him that their only chance of keeping the roof over their heads was by gratifying the curiosity of those who liked to stare at the relics of past glories.

  When Charles was finally convinced that to open the door of Queen’s Folly was not only necessary but expedient, he too became enthusiastic, only to be thrown into a fit of depression and bitterness that the response to their gesture was so half-hearted.

  It was not surprising, really, that few people had heard of Queen’s Folly, let alone found it. It lay down narrow twisting lanes, in the wild, rural green belt of Hertfordshire, which is still untouched and unspoilt even though it lies within twenty-five miles of London.

  There were no gay roadhouses with swimming pools and coloured lights along the road that led to Queen’s Folly. There were no public houses that had been taken over by smart caterers who were prepared to serve a Ritz luncheon under ancient beams and in front of ancient open fireplaces.

  Yet a few people did visit Queen’s Folly, the more intelligent of them to exclaim with delight at the mellow beauty of the red bricks, which had been erected five centuries earlier, to go into ecstasies over the mullioned windows and to stare incredulously at the pictures that hung in the Banqueting Hall, finding it hard to believe that they were authentic.

  And that was all! There was nothing more to see!

  Queen’s Folly was quite tiny. The legends said that it had been built at the command of Queen Elizabeth as a place where she might spend a few informal nights without being surrounded by courtiers, ladies-in-waiting and attendants.

  Legends also hinted that there was something romantic in her desire for a small hiding place, but there was nothing to substantiate any of these stories.

  Queen’s Folly was undoubtedly Elizabethan and a perfectly preserved gem of the period.

  Its name was certainly as old as its foundations and one could only conjecture as to the reason for its existence, for in the records of the County of Hertfordshire there was nothing save the bald information that it had been built at the order of one Sir Charles Milborne.

  Had he, perhaps, been yet another gallant who had laid his heart at the feet of the woman who had raised England to unprecedented greatness and whose adorers had christened her Gloriana?

  The Queen’s portrait hung over the mantelpiece in the Banqueting Hall. It was not a particularly famous portrait, but it portrayed very successfully the vivid red of her hair.

  As a child Aria loved it.

  “She is red like me,” she had said when she was quite tiny, pointing with a small finger up towards the jewel-spattered tresses of the Virgin Queen.

  “She was a great woman,” Nanny had told her. “And that’s more than you
will be if you don’t learn to control your temper.”

  Then she had taken Aria by the hand and shown her an old carving on the staircase and made her spell it out loud.

  “When a Milborne is red, there’s trouble ahead.”

  Looking at her charge now, with red hair rioting over her tiny head, the sunlight streaming through the open door making each curl dance and sparkle as if, indeed, it was a golden flame rather than ordinary hair, Nanny felt her heart contract suddenly.

  The child was lovely! And what was there for her in this empty crumbling house save the companionship of an old woman and the unceasing grumbling of a man who had been nearly broken and destroyed by the blood and carnage of war!

  ‘She must go away from here,’ Nanny thought to herself.

  But even as she moved her lips ready to say the words aloud, Aria had turned on her heel and was no longer listening to her. She was looking out through the open door.

  “There’s a car coming,” she said. “It looks expensive. My goodness, it is too! It’s one of the new Bentleys.”

  She moved forward into the embrasure of the window so as to see more clearly. Standing between the faded damask curtains which had once been red and were now a soft threadbare pink, she was hidden from anyone entering the hall.

  She watched the Bentley pull up outside. A man got out. He walked round to the other side to open the door for a woman who had been sitting beside him. He was wearing a casual grey flannel suit, his head was bare and his skin was very sunburned.

  There was something purposeful in the way he walked, in the squareness of his shoulders and the carriage of his head.

  Aria decided all that from his back view and then, as she saw his face, she realised that her first impression of him was not exaggerated.

  There was something arresting about him – something that made her stare almost breathlessly through the small panes of the mullioned windows. He had high cheekbones, deep-set eyes and a full, yet rather cruel mouth.

  He was not exactly good-looking, but he was obviously a person one could not ignore or be likely to forget. He smiled and she decided that he was also definitely attractive.

  And then there stepped from the car a woman who made Aria forget the man. She was silver blonde and so breathtakingly pretty that Aria knew without being told that she must be a star of film or stage.

  Dressed in deep sapphire blue with a long stole of platina mink, she had diamonds twinkling in her ears and at her wrists and she stepped from the car to stand outside the house with her hands still in her escort’s, her face upturned to his.

  “Must we really look at yet another boring old museum?” she enquired in a soft almost caressing tone. “I am so tired.”

  “This is the last,” the man answered in a low deep voice with a faint American accent.

  “Well, I promise you I’m not climbing any stairs.”

  “Would you like me to carry you?”

  The question was charged with meaning and two blue eyes gleamed at him from beneath long, dark lashes.

  “I would love it – but not here.”

  He slipped his arm through hers and drew her up the steps to the front door. There was no mistaking that they were lovers, Aria thought, turning from the window to watch them as they paused at the table in front of Nanny.

  “Five shillings! Is that right?” the man asked.

  “Yes, that’s right, sir,” Nanny answered, taking her time in giving him change from a pound note.

  “Do we need a guide or can we look round on our own?”

  “You just walk round on your own, sir. There’s no one to take you. The Banqueting Hall, where the pictures are, is straight ahead”

  “No stairs, mind,” said the blonde.

  “If there are any, my offer still stands,” he replied, speaking in a voice that was intended for her alone.

  Still arm-in-arm they walked across the hall and into the Banqueting Hall. Nanny leant back in her chair and looked round to where Aria was watching them.

  “That makes eight altogether today,” she said. “It’s better than yesterday anyway.”

  “Yes, it’s better than yesterday,” Aria answered automatically.

  She moved as she spoke and opened a door on the right marked Private. She did not know why, but she had no desire to go on watching the American and his lovely companion. Usually the visitors’ reactions were a matter of indifference to her, but for some reason that she could not explain she did not want to hear these two exclaim,

  “Is this all? Aren’t there any other rooms to see?”

  How often had she heard that complaint? And usually she merely despised those who preferred quantity to quality. But now the idea of hearing it from these visitors made her feel depressed.

  She walked along a short passage and opened the door of the sitting room where she knew her tea would be waiting. Nanny had left it on a tray and an old-fashioned tea cosy covered the teapot and kept it hot.

  The room was small and shabby. When her father had been alive, it had been the housekeeper’s room. Now it housed all that was left of their furniture.

  Aria sat down at the table and poured herself out a cup of tea. There were cucumber sandwiches and a piece of homemade cake. She ate absentmindedly, her thoughts far away, until with almost a start she heard the sound of a car being started up.

  Then she rose to her feet and went to the window that overlooked the front of the house.

  She could see the grey Bentley just beginning to move. She had a fleeting glimpse of a sunburned face with high cheekbones and dark eyes. And then the car was past and was moving swiftly up the drive, seeming to flash by in the sunshine as if it was something from another world.

  “Swiftly come, swiftly go!”

  Aria whispered the words aloud and then wondered why she had said them.

  The car was now out of sight. There was only the same peace and quiet that she had commented on a little earlier.

  They were the richer by five shillings and yet Aria felt as if the man in the grey Bentley with his lovely amoretta had left disruption behind him. Or did that lie merely within her own heart?

  The door behind her opened.

  “They didn’t take long, did they, Nanny?” she said without turning her head.

  “Who didn’t?” a man’s voice enquired.

  She swung round.

  “Charles! I wasn’t expecting you.”

  Her brother walked across the room and sat down at the table.

  “Have you a cup of tea for me?” he asked.

  He was wearing dirty stained corduroys and an open-necked shirt.

  “Of course,” she answered. “But what has happened? Why are you here at this time of the day?”

  “I have a blade broken on the silage cutter,” he answered. “It’s a damned nuisance too. We would have cleared Greenacres tonight if we hadn’t been held up like this. I had to go into Hertford to get another.”

  “How sickening for you,” Aria sympathised.

  She fetched another cup from the cupboard in the dresser.

  “Eat that sandwich,” she said, “and I’ll cut you another.”

  “No, I don’t want anything to eat,” he answered. “I have to go back to the fields in a moment, although we cannot get on until Joe has fixed the new blade.”

  “You look tired,” Aria remarked quietly. “Can’t you leave it until tomorrow and start fresh in the morning?”

  “You know darned well I can’t,” he said sharply and then added quickly. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to snap at you, but it makes me so irritable these blasted things always breaking. It isn’t only the delay, it’s the fact that I can’t afford to pay for new ones.”

  “Yes, I know, Charles. But you are driving yourself too hard. You are trying to do too much, too quickly.”

  “Too quickly! Do you know what the overdraft is at the Bank? And by the way I have had a letter from the Manager this morning. He has asked me to go in and see him. You know what that
means!”

  “Oh, Charles! You don’t think he is going to be difficult and ask us to repay some of the loan?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if he did. But I can’t do it, you know that, Aria. I just can’t.”

  There was a sudden high, almost frightened note in her brother’s voice and quickly Aria put out her hand and laid it in his.

  “No, I know you can’t, Charles. But don’t worry. Don’t cross the bridge until you come to it. It may be nothing – just a routine talk.”

  “But if it isn’t, what am I to do?”

  Again there was that note of panic in his voice.

  “Charles, something will turn up. We have survived until now, haven’t we?”

  “By the skin of our teeth.”

  “Nevertheless they are still there!”

  Aria tried to smile. It was not a very successful effort.

  Charles beat both fists on the table.

  “I won’t give this place up, I won’t, I tell you.”

  “You are not going to,” Aria said soothingly. “Who has ever suggested such a thing? It’s yours, Charles. We are living here. We have managed so far – we will go on managing. You are not to doubt that.”

  The passionate sincerity in her voice and the pressure of her hand seemed in some measure to bring reassurance. For one moment Charles was tense, fighting a rising panic and the next moment at Aria’s words he seemed to relax, the terror faded from his eyes.

  “Drink your tea,” she said quietly. “And eat that sandwich, if nothing else. I insist on it.”

  He obeyed her without further argument and once he had started to eat she went into the kitchen and brought back a loaf and a pat of butter.

  “Did you have any lunch?” she asked casually.

  “Of course – ” he began and then stopped and looked at her guiltily. “I – think I did.”

  “That means you didn’t,” Aria said. “Charles, how ridiculous you are! You’ll kill yourself if you work like this. No one can work from dawn till dusk without food. Now don’t you dare move, I am going to fry you a couple of eggs and you will eat them and like them.”

  Her brother looked at his watch.

  “I have to get back.”

  “You will stay where you are until you have something inside you,” Aria insisted firmly.