Lucifer and the Angel Read online

  Lucifer and the Angel

  Lost in a woodland daydream, cherubic eighteen-year-old Anita Lavenham is awoken from a reverie inspired by a sermon about the Devil by the sonorous voice of a handsome gentleman asking her to open the gate she’s leaning on – a gentleman whose imperious, yet raffish air leads her to think that he is Lucifer personified!

  Anita and her two sisters are impoverished after the loss of their father and their Mama’s illness – and soon she is obliged to go to live in Harrogate with her severe Great-Aunt Matilda, who, to Anita’s chagrin, is determined to marry her off as soon as possible to the ageing and boorish local Parson.

  It seems she is fated to a life of misery until, by chance, she meets the Dowager Duchess of Ollerton at the Harrogate Pump Room where, to her amazement she realises that the Duchess’s son is none other than her very own handsome fallen angel!

  Blessed by the kindness of the Duchess, who rescues Anita from the prospect of a loveless marriage and enlists her in the search for a bride for her discerning and disinterested son, Anita finds joy in her magnificent new surroundings and exalted company but still, surely, it is too much for her to hope that she herself might find a true love of her own?

  Author’s Note

  “One would think the English were ducks – they are for ever waddling in the waters,” said Horace Walpole in 1750.

  The origins of British spas date back to Roman times, when the thermal waters at Bath were used for bathing.

  In the early eighteenth century there were 228 spas in England and Wales. Today there are few which still have a medical reputation for healing. The most important is Harrogate, which averages 120,000 treatments annually.

  The usual crosses of the martyrdom at a spa had to be borne at Harrogate according to reports published in 1822. When new arrivals met the famous sulphur waters for the first time hot, stinking, and fizzing – they surreptitiously hid in corners to spit it out.

  Later, one of Punch’s anonymous rhymsters, ’Arry at ’Arrygate, reported,

  Reg’lar doctor shop ’Arrygate is, see their

  photos all over the town,

  Mine is doing me dollops of good, I’m quite

  peckish and just a bit brown.

  I’m making the most of my time, and laying in

  all I can carry,

  So ’ere ends the budget of brimstone and baths,

  from your sulphur-soaked ’Arry.

  I stayed in Harrogate some years ago when I visited Harewood House, the home of the Princess Royal who married the Earl of Harewood. Built in 1759, Harewood House is a treasure store of works of art and is now open to the public.

  Chapter One

  1860

  Anita stood against the gate and looked across the field to the little wood where she so often sat when she wanted to be alone to think.

  She had actually put her hand out towards the latch when, looking up, she saw the clouds which had been grey and heavy all day, suddenly part and a brilliant shaft of sunlight shine down towards the earth.

  Instantly there came to her mind the text she had heard yesterday from the pulpit.

  It was a somewhat unusual one for the Reverend Adolphus Jameson to have chosen and it had attracted Anita’s attention when, anticipating one of his long, erudite and incredibly boring discourses, she was already slipping away into her dream world.

  “How are thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!” the Reverend Adolphus had boomed out.

  Instantly Anita had a picture of the handsome Archangel falling and being deprived of everlasting bliss.

  His expulsion from Heaven had always fascinated her and now, staring at the sunlight, she wondered what Lucifer had looked like before he had sinned.

  She had a vision of his face, handsome, smiling and yet with perhaps even in the celestial regions a somewhat raffish glint in his eyes, as if his fate was already decided for him before the final act that sent him hurtling down to perdition.

  Then, abruptly breaking in on her reverie so that she started, a voice asked,

  “Well, young woman, are you going to open the gate for me or continue daydreaming?”

  She turned round and gave a gasp, for there behind her, seated on a magnificent black stallion, was Lucifer himself, just as she had always envisaged him.

  She was looking at his face, which was handsome but undoubtedly cynical and disillusioned, his dark eyes mockingly accentuated by his raised eyebrows, and even the high silk hat set on the side of his dark head seemed appropriate in place of the halo of light which had once been his.

  If she was bemused by the gentleman’s appearance, he was also surprised by hers.

  He had thought, seeing a woman or a girl alone, standing beside the five-barred gate that led to the pasture on which he wished to ride, that presumably she came from a nearby farm.

  But the small, heart-shaped face with its large blue eyes and the soft, very pale hair that curled round an oval forehead belonged to no milkmaid and he thought too that the girl was very young, perhaps still in her teens.

  Because she was staring at him in a bemused fashion, a faint smile curved the corners of his rather hard mouth and he asked,

  “Of whom were you dreaming in such an absorbed fashion?”

  Almost as if she was compelled to answer him, Anita replied,

  “Of Lucifer!”

  The gentleman laughed.

  “And now you think you see the Prince of Darkness in person?”

  Since this was the truth, she was not surprised, but she had no reply and after a moment he said,

  “If you knew your poets you would be aware that ‘The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike, the devil will come'.”

  He recited the lines as if they were familiar and, as he finished, Anita said softly,

  “Christopher Marlowe.”

  “So you do know your poets!” the gentleman remarked. “Well, beware of Lucifer wherever you may find him! That is the best advice I can give you.”

  He glanced away from her as he spoke and, as if she suddenly remembered why he was there, she undid the latch on the gate and at her touch it swung open.

  “Thank you,” the gentleman said, “and remember what I have told you.”

  He smiled as he spoke, as if he thought it unlikely that she would do so.

  Then he cantered away, moving swiftly towards the end of the field and she thought, as she saw him go, that he ‘went into the darkness of the damned.’

  Slowly, still watching him far in the distance, Anita shut the gate, knowing that she had now no wish to visit her secret wood. She would rather go home and think of the stranger she had met, who undoubtedly resembled Lucifer.

  She longed to tell somebody of her strange encounter, but she knew only too well that her sisters, Sarah and Daphne, would laugh at her.

  They always mocked her over-active imagination and the dreams that made her oblivious to everything that was going on round her.

  “But this dream was real!” Anita told herself. “He was really there, Lucifer, Son of the Morning!”

  It was strange that he looked exactly as she had envisaged him – the lines running from his classical nose to the corners of his mouth, the faint shadows underneath his eyes, his lips that she felt could speak bitter and cruel words although he had merely sounded cynical.

  ‘When he falls, he falls like Lucifer, never to hope again.’

  She had learnt the words from Shakespeare’s Henry VIII with her Governess, but she thought they were not appropriate for the Lucifer on the black stallion who was obviously not repentant of his fall and not without hope.

  Then, remembering Christopher Marlowe, whom he had quoted, she thought of two lines that describ
ed him exactly,

  It was Mephistopheles who said,

  ‘O by aspiring pride and insolence,

  For which God threw him from the face of Heaven.’

  Pride and insolence – that was what she felt her Lucifer, the one who had spoken to her, had.

  Walking back to The Manor, she thought of a dozen things she wanted to say to him, a hundred questions she would have liked to ask.

  Then she told herself that he would have thought her crazy. He was in fact only a gentleman, undoubtedly a guest of the Earl of Spearmont, whose parties were the talk of the village and of everyone in the County.

  ‘I shall never see him again,’ Anita thought as she reached The Manor, ‘but I shall always remember what he looked like’.

  *

  “Goodbye, Mama!”

  “Have a lovely time, we will be thinking of you!”

  “Please write as often as you can.”

  “Goodbye – Goodbye!”

  The girls were still repeating the same words as the rather old-fashioned but comfortable carriage carrying their mother and the Squire’s wife, Lady Benson, started down the drive.

  They watched until it was out of sight, then went back into the shabby hall which somehow seemed empty after being filled only a moment earlier with loving farewells and last minute instructions.

  “Now that Mama has gone,” Sarah said, “I want to speak to you, so come into the schoolroom.”

  Daphne and Anita followed her into the room which, even now when they were all grown up, was still called the schoolroom, although Mrs. Lavenham had done her best to make it a cosy sitting room where they could keep their own particular belongings.

  There was the easel that Daphne used for sketching and a miscellaneous collection of paints and brushes.

  There was Sara’s sewing basket, which was very like her mother’s, and Anita’s books that filled a whole bookcase and, despite innumerable protests, were piled untidily on the floor.

  The sofas and chairs were covered in slightly faded but pretty chintz that matched the curtains. There were flowers on the table and the sunshine coming through the window made it a very happy room.

  Sarah stood on the hearth rug and waited until Daphne and Anita had seated themselves before she said,

  “I have been thinking about this for a long time.”

  “About what?” Daphne asked. “And what do you want to speak to us about?”

  “That is what I am trying to tell you,” Sarah said impatiently.

  She was the most spectacular of the three sisters and her pink and white skin, her golden hair with red lights, and her hyacinth-blue eyes had proclaimed her a beauty before she had left the schoolroom.

  “You must have a Season in London and somehow you must be presented at Court,” Mrs. Lavenham had said over and over again and Sarah had looked forward to it and had been as sure as her family were that she would be a success.

  Then disaster had come.

  Her father, the Honourable Harold Lavenham, had a fall out hunting.

  His horse had rolled on him and he had been badly injured.

  There had been two long years of pain before finally he died and now when the year of mourning was over, the doctors had discovered that the strain of it had affected his wife to the point where they suspected that she had a patch on her lung.

  “Six months in Switzerland could save your mother’s life,” the doctors had said firmly.

  They had all thought that such expense was impossible until the Squire’s wife, Lady Benson, who had always admired their mother, had offered not only to take her to Switzerland but to stay with her for at least three months of her time there.

  She had been unwell too, but for a different reason and it seemed not only an excellent arrangement from Mrs. Lavenham’s point of view, but also a Godsend in that they would only have to find one fare and pay for one person in the hotel where she was to stay for her treatment.

  But they were aware that almost all the money that was available would be spent on their mother and there would be little left for those who stayed behind.

  Both Daphne and Anita guessed that this was what Sarah meant to talk about now and they looked at her a little apprehensively.

  Sarah was very much the head of the household even when their mother was there.

  She was a born organiser and since her father’s death, she had undertaken to handle their small finances and prevent the overspending he had never been able to avoid when he was alive.

  “As you are both aware,” Sarah began, “I thought that I might be obliged to accompany Mama to Switzerland and I was in fact dreading that I should have to do so.”

  “It might have been interesting to see a foreign country,” Daphne remarked.

  “Interesting!” Sarah exclaimed derisively. “The place where Mama has gone is full of elderly invalids, and in the brochure it says the doctors insist that there are no diversions or amusements that might tempt their patients from following diligently the strict routine of the cure.”

  “Oh, poor Mama!” Anita said sympathetically.

  “Mama will not mind,” Sarah replied. “She is determined to get well and besides she will have Lady Benson to gossip with. But there would have been no one of my age.”

  The sharpness of her tone made her sisters look at her in surprise, and Sarah went on,

  “Do you two realise that I am nearly twenty-one? And I have never been to a ball except for the local ones, which do not count. I have never had my Season in London. I have never done anything but wait on Papa and Mama and look after you!”

  Before Anita could speak, Daphne gave a little cry.

  “Oh, Sarah, I never thought of that! How selfish we have been! But Papa was so ill and when he died Mama was so unhappy.”

  “I know,” Sarah said dully, “and I have done my best – I really have done my best.”

  “Of course you have, dearest,” Anita agreed.

  Daphne jumped out of her chair to put her arms round Sarah and say,

  “You have been an absolute brick and we all know it!”

  “I don’t want your praise,” Sarah said. “Sit down, Daphne, I want to tell you what we are going to do.”

  She paused as if she was feeling for words.

  Then she said,

  “I have already written to Papa’s sister, the Countess of Charmouth, asking her if she will have me to stay.”

  “To Aunt Elizabeth?” Daphne exclaimed. “But she has never paid any attention to us and never even came to the funeral when Papa died.”

  “I am aware of that,” Sarah replied, “and we know that Papa’s family did not approve of his marrying Mama, but there is no reason why they should disapprove of us.”

  “The Countess has never invited us to anything,” Daphne persisted.

  “Never, but she will find it very hard to refuse what I have suggested in the letter I have written to her.”

  “And what have you suggested?” Anita enquired.

  “I have asked her if I can come and stay with her for the last two months of the Season. I explained that Mama has had to go to Switzerland and that, as we are left alone here, we are appealing to her, as one of our few remaining relatives, to show some compassion to Papa’s eldest daughter because, if he was alive, he would have been so grateful.”

  Sarah made what she was saying sound very appealing and Daphne gave a little laugh as she added,

  “You are right, Sarah, I feel she cannot refuse to do what you ask.”

  “That is what I am hoping,” Sarah said, “and that your Godmother, Lady de Vere, will have you.”

  Daphne gave a little gasp.

  “My – Godmother? But she has not written to me or sent me a present since I was confirmed.”

  “I know that,” Sarah replied, “but she is very rich and, although she is getting old, she entertains a lot in what Papa said was a magnificent house in Surrey.”

  “I remember his telling us about it,” Daphne said. />
  “I wrote her very much the same letter as I wrote to Aunt Elizabeth and, because I am sure she always had a tenderness for Papa, I feel she will agree to have you.”

  Daphne clasped her hands together.

  “I do hope so!”

  “So do I,” her sister replied.

  Sarah’s eyes now rested on Anita.

  As she did so, she was thinking how very young she looked.

  Anita was in fact just eighteen, but, as she was so small and had a face like a flower and the look of a small cherub, she seemed little more than a child.

  “What about me?” Anita asked as Sarah did not speak. “Am I to stay here alone with Deborah?”

  “I have not forgotten you, Anita,” Sarah said in a softer tone than she had used hitherto, “but we have run out of relations, except for one.”

  “Who is that?”

  “Great-Aunt Matilda.”

  For a moment Anita looked puzzled, then she said,

  “We have not heard from her for so long! Are you sure she is still alive?”

  “I think so. She certainly was when Papa died, because she sent a wreath to the funeral.”

  “I had no idea of that!” Daphne exclaimed. “But then there were so many.”

  “If you remember, I made lists of who sent them and wrote and thanked everybody.”

  “Where does Great-Aunt Matilda live?” Anita asked.

  “The wreath was sent from Harrogate,” Sarah replied. “It came by post and was made of leaves, which I thought very sensible, for flowers would have died on the journey.”

  “Do you think Great-Aunt Matilda will want me?” Anita asked in a small voice.

  “I daresay she will not want you any more than Aunt Elizabeth or Lady de Vere will want Daphne and me,” Sarah answered, “but I intend that they shall take us. You do realise, girls, that this is our great chance and, as far as I am concerned, the last.”

  She saw that Anita at any rate had not understood and she explained,

  “To find ourselves husbands! Surely you are aware that if we stay here, living as we have done for the last three years, we shall all die old maids?”

  As her voice seemed almost to ring out in the schoolroom, both Daphne and Anita were aware that Sarah was speaking the truth.