Beauty or Brains Read online

  ‘John would understand how touchy a family could be if one was favoured more than the other,’ she thought. ‘And John will prevent any members of the family from being jealous of me because I have so much money.’

  She gave a deep sigh as she thought of how much she had given them in presents and she had paid for their education as her father had done and made sure that those who desired a ball could afford to have it.

  They were grateful. Of course they were grateful.

  At the same time she was quite sensitive enough to realise that they resented her being so rich when they were the same age as she was and she was a woman.

  If she had been a man, they would have accepted her gifts far more eagerly and appreciatively.

  She had never expressed such feelings aloud and now John would be ostensibly the giver of money, horses, parties, education and everything else the family looked for and hoped that they would receive.

  ‘I am happy. I am very happy,’ Iona thought as she ran downstairs and unlocked the front door.

  It was still not yet six o’clock when the servants would come on duty and the dew was thick on the grass as she went to the end of the lawn where the shrubbery began.

  She had always loved the shrubbery as a child and in it was her Wendy house where she kept her dolls and many other playthings.

  It was where she often sat alone and planned what she would do when she was grown up.

  What she wanted more than anything else was to travel, but it had not been easy to leave her father, who was, in his last few years, too ill to travel himself and he wanted her beside him almost every hour of the day.

  When he had first suffered with his heart and the doctors had said that he had to live a very quiet and simple life, it had put an end to Iona’s hopes that they would visit countries all over the world.

  And, when this proved impossible, she had stayed with him and contented herself with reading once again of all the marvellous places she hoped to visit one day.

  Now, she thought, it would be best to travel before they started a family.

  She and John would be able to visit the Pyramids which she had always longed to see. They would go to Constantinople and the Greek Islands before they reached India and the Himalayas.

  ‘There are so many places I want to go to,’ she thought, ‘and with John nothing could be more exciting or more thrilling.’

  When she reached the Wendy house, she could see all the dolls that had always lived there.

  She then walked round the little house touching her dolls and feeling, in what she thought was quite an absurd way, that they should come to her wedding.

  ‘I want everyone and everything I have ever loved to be there in the Church tomorrow,’ she told herself.

  Because she was happy, she walked down the little cascade that ran from the top of the shrubbery then through the orchard.

  She remembered the way she had looked eagerly for the first plums and had searched in the walled garden for the first strawberries.

  ‘I may well have been an only child,’ she mused to herself, ‘but everything here is part of me and my life. I will always love it, even when I am too old to be excited as every child is by the first strawberries of the Season, the first cherries and succulent grapes from the greenhouses.’

  She was laughing inwardly at herself for being so sentimental as she walked through the orchard feeling the early morning sunshine warm on her face.

  It seemed to make everything around her glitter as the sun was shining so brightly.

  At the end of the orchard there was a field through which ran a small stream and beyond it was a wood.

  It was the wood where Iona, as a child, had really believed that there were goblins working underground and fairies flitting amongst the wild flowers.

  In the very middle of the wood there was a secret pool where the mermaids lived.

  One of the first things she had done every morning, when she had taken her favourite horse, was to ride to the wood and see the squirrels climbing up the trees and the rabbits running through the undergrowth.

  It was a wood that she felt had played a big part in her life.

  She could remember her Nanny telling her to look for special mushrooms where the fairies had danced the night before and had told her stories while they ate their tea in the little wooden hut by the pool.

  ‘It will always be full of memories for me,’ Iona thought, as she walked along the mossy path. ‘One day I will bring my children here and tell them the same stories that Nanny told me.’

  It was then, as she came to the centre of the wood, she saw a horse tied up, cropping the grass by the pool.

  She knew, with a leap of her heart, that John was there.

  He must have come to the wood, because it was in the little wooden hut that he had asked her to marry him.

  It therefore made it sacred in her mind.

  ‘John has felt he must see the place that mattered so much to him too when he was young,’ she felt. ‘Perhaps, as I am doing, he is thinking how wonderful the future will be for both of us.’

  As there was no sign of him, she knew that he must be inside the wooden hut.

  ‘He will be surprised to find me here,’ she thought, as she walked eagerly towards the hut.

  Then, as she drew near, she was astonished to hear the sound of voices.

  John was not alone and Iona wondered who was with him.

  Because she thought it would be a mistake just to walk in, she went to the back of the hut.

  She could hear John’s voice and then to her surprise it was a woman’s voice who replied to him.

  Iona went nearer still.

  As she reached the back of the hut and stopped near the window which was in bad repair with two of the panes of glass broken and others cracked, she heard John saying in his deep attractive voice,

  “You must not be unhappy, my dearest one. There is nothing I can do about it. It is just Fate.”

  “I prayed and prayed,” the woman with him said in a whisper, “that you would somehow – find the money that you need.”

  Iona drew in her breath.

  She now knew who John was talking to.

  It was Mary, the Vicar’s daughter whom she had known ever since she was a baby and who was one year older than herself.

  “I think I prayed too,” John added. “But Fate is against us and, as I am very fond of Iona, I will try to make her happy.”

  “Of course you will,” Mary replied. “At the same time I will love you – as I always have. I always hoped, as you did, that one day we could be – together.”

  Her voice broke on the last word and Iona knew that she was crying.

  “My precious, my darling,” John said. “It’s no use. We have looked at every possibility. I have no idea how my father kept on for so long when he was so hard-up.”

  There was a distinct pause before he continued,

  “But the house is falling into disrepair and there is no money to spend on it. If the horses have to go too, what would I have to offer you?”

  “The only thing I ever wanted,” Mary sobbed, “and that is – your heart.”

  “You have it, you know you have it. I have loved you since you were a small child,” John answered, “and you know I could never love anyone else the same. But how could I possibly ask you to slave for me in a house which is falling down on our heads. If we had children, we could not afford to have them properly educated.”

  He spoke almost harshly.

  “But we would be together” Mary said. “Oh, John, why did you not get that job you told me your friend was offering that you thought would one day make you rich?”

  She spoke hesitatingly because she was still crying.

  As her words were muffled, Iona reckoned that she was crying against John’s shoulder.

  “I am afraid that my friend had raised my hopes unnecessarily,” John replied with a sharp note in his voice. “He offered me what sounded a very promising positio
n, but I had to put five thousand pounds into the project.”

  “Five thousand pounds!” Mary exclaimed. “Oh, John – is that what he wanted?”

  “He said, if I went in on equal terms with him, I must contribute towards it,” John said miserably.

  He gave a laugh that had no humour in it.

  “I could not have given him the money in pennies let alone in gold!”

  “No, of course not,” Mary said. “It was unkind of him to raise your hopes.”

  “He thought that he was doing me a favour. I could hardly explain to him that I was poverty-stricken.”

  There was silence before John went on,

  “That was why, my darling, when I had no hope of ever being anything but poor, I proposed to Iona and she accepted me. I want you to understand that I have never stopped loving you. It’s just completely impossible for us to be together.”

  Mary gave a sob.

  “I understand, I do – understand,” she said. “But it has been an agony beyond words to know I have lost you.”

  “You will never lose me completely,” John replied. “I will always love you. Once I am married to Iona, I will make certain that your father’s stipend is doubled and that you have everything you have ever wanted.”

  “I don’t want anything but you,” Mary wept. “I love you. I love you and I don’t know how I can bear life in the future without you.”

  “I feel the same,” John answered. “But, as Iona has been generous enough to accept me, I will do my best to make her happy and run the estate for her.”

  “Which you will do brilliantly,” Mary murmured. “It was not your fault, but your father’s, that your land has gone to rack and ruin.”

  “Papa was very ill the last year of his life. I don’t think he had the slightest idea that things were as bad as they are. It was only after he died and I went through the accounts that I realised it myself.”

  John sighed before he went on,

  “He loved his horses and so could not resist buying a new one from time to time, which he could ill afford.”

  “Everyone admired and respected him,” Mary said, “but no one knew that he was so poor.”

  “I did not know either,” John told her. “He put his money into various ‘get-rich-quick’ schemes that of course failed and although he kept trying he was always unlucky.”

  “Now it’s incredibly unlucky for you and for me.”

  “I know, my own darling, but you have to be brave about this. There is nothing else I can do, nothing!”

  There was a poignant silence for a moment.

  “If I could have obtained five thousand pounds for the house and land,” John then continued, “I might have invested it with my friend until the money poured in and then we could have been married.”

  He spoke as if he was just telling himself a story and then, as Mary gave another sob, he added,

  “We just have to be brave. I promise that you will benefit from my marriage in every way possible.”

  “We have loved – each other,” Mary replied, “for five or is it six years and – I just cannot imagine my life without you, John.”

  “I feel the same, Mary, I always believed that one day Fate would be kind to us and we would be able to marry, but now that is completely impossible. I can only promise that you and your father will be comfortable and not have to worry where the next penny is coming from.”

  “But I want you! You!” Mary sobbed. “Once you are married to Iona it would be best for us not to see each other again – alone.”

  “Do you really think I could bear that?” John asked. “Of course I will see you and talk to you. I swear on all I hold Holy that I will never love anyone as I love you.”

  “I can say the same,” Mary whispered. “But what good is it when we know we cannot be together – ?”

  “You have to be brave. I can only hope that one day things will seem better than they do at this moment.”

  Iona listening, knew that he was now kissing Mary, kissing her wildly, passionately and despairingly.

  Because she was afraid that they might come out and see her, she moved quickly back down the mossy path.

  Running as fast as she could through the orchard and into the shrubbery, she reached the Wendy house.

  She opened the door and, breathless from the way she had rushed away from the hut, she threw herself down on the sofa.

  Could it really be true what she had just heard?

  Having heard it all she knew that it was impossible now for her to marry John.

  She had never thought for a moment that he loved anyone else and she must have been very blind not to have guessed in the past that he had been seeing Mary, but no one had apparently ever connected their names together.

  ‘What can I do?’ she asked. ‘What can I do?’

  She could not marry John tomorrow.

  It was impossible to tell him that she had overheard him and Mary declare their love for each other.

  ‘I cannot marry him,’ Iona told herself. ‘Yet, if I don’t, I will leave him to starve.’

  It seemed at that moment as if the whole world was tumbling around her shoulders.

  It was almost as if the house itself fell in on her and crushed her beneath it.

  Yet what she had heard must be the truth.

  It was like a huge fence that was too high to jump.

  There seemed no way out of the predicament she found herself in as she sat with her eyes tightly closed.

  She felt everything that she had ever known had fallen to pieces at her feet and she had no idea how to put them together or what she must now do.

  Sitting there in the Wendy house, she could see, as she had out of her window, the huge marquee filled with her guests from London and the County.

  She could see all the villagers, having cheered her at the Church, hurrying to the barrels of beer and food.

  The children were already excited at the idea of the fireworks that would be let off after she and John had left for their honeymoon.

  As the last thought sped through her mind, Iona put her hands up to her face.

  What sort of a honeymoon would it be when all the time he would be thinking of Mary sobbing bitterly?

  Mary would sit white-faced but silent while she and John proclaimed their marriage vows in the Church.

  ‘I cannot do it,’ Iona told herself. ‘How could I do it and sacrifice him, Mary and myself?’

  Because she was so desperate she clasped her hands together and prayed,

  ‘Please God show me a way out of this, there must be something I can do. But I cannot marry John.’

  Then, almost as if it was a message from Heaven, an idea came into her mind.

  An idea that was so outrageous that she could not believe she was really thinking it.

  Yet undoubtedly it was the answer to her prayer, an answer that would solve her problem at least for a time.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Iona then slipped through the garden gate and to her relief she saw that there was not yet anyone about.

  She ran upstairs to her bedroom and, letting herself in, she locked the door in case one of the housemaids had seen her and wondered if she wanted anything.

  She crossed over the room as the sun was streaming in through the windows.

  It was shining on the inkstand on her writing desk, which was French ormolu and Iona had always been very proud of it when writing letters to her friends.

  She sat down now and wrote a letter to her elderly aunt who was more or less the Head of the Family.

  “Dearest Aunt Matilda,

  I have just received a letter to say that my dear old Governess, Sarah Dawson, is dying and particularly wants to see me before she does.

  I feel that I must go to her, as she was so kind and sweet to me when I first started my lessons.

  I know it will be an cause problems to put off the wedding. At the same time I cannot refuse to go to Sarah when she has asked me so fervently to do so.
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  Please make my apologies to everyone so they will not be too upset.

  Love, Iona.”

  She read the letter through, put it in an envelope and addressed it to her aunt.

  Then she hesitated for a moment over the next letter which was to be to John.

  After some hesitation she finally wrote,

  “My dear John,

  Please forgive me, but I have decided unfortunately very late that I do not wish to be married at the moment.

  It would most certainly be a disaster if I changed my mind once the ring was on my finger.

  I need time to think things over and I am going away to my old Governess, who has asked for me on her deathbed.

  Please persuade the family not to try to find me or to prevent me from staying with her until she actually does pass into the next world.

  As I know, you have spent a great deal of money and time on arranging our wedding and I am sure that you will be sensible and not offended if I give you back the money you must have expended and this will give you a chance to put your estate back into good order.

  As you will see from the cheque, I have not put to whom the money is to go to, so you can write in any name you want and I suggest we keep it a secret.

  Forgive me, forgive me for upsetting you but I must have time to consider marriage which is such an important step into the unknown.

  As you know, I am very fond of you, so I cannot help feeling that we are doing everything too hastily and so therefore I am running away.

  Again please forgive me.

  Love, Iona.

  She then took her chequebook out of a drawer.

  She wrote out her cheque for five thousand pounds, which she was sure John would send to the man who had offered him a Partnership.

  The next cheque she made out was for ten thousand pounds.

  She knew that neither of them would matter to her life in any way at all, but they would certainly make a huge difference to John’s.

  She placed the two cheques in an envelope with his letter and addressed it to him and left it beside the one to her aunt on the writing table.

  Then she jumped up and went into the room next to hers where there were three wardrobes filled with dresses and clothes.