Lovers in London Read online

  “Did you ’ave a nice ride, miss?” he asked.

  “It was lovely, as it always is! If I can, I will go riding again this evening.”

  The stable boy grinned as if he knew without being told.

  Lanthia loved to be riding Jupiter when the sun was beginning to sink in the sky and the shadows were growing a little longer.

  It was then that everything seemed mysterious.

  There was a sudden hush over the world and she felt that she was nearer to the unknown.

  It was then that the best stories would come to her mind and she found them completely realistic. She could almost see them happening as well as feel them in her heart.

  *

  As she walked back to the house, she wondered if her father would do anything with her this afternoon.

  Sometimes he would place aside the book he was writing and say he must inspect something on the estate or visit one of the tenant farmers.

  Or perhaps he would just ride with her for the sheer joy of doing so.

  Because the possibility of his riding with her was so exciting, she hurried into the hall.

  She wondered if she should go to her father’s study, but knew he disliked being disturbed if he was busy.

  It was, however, nearly time for luncheon and one thing her mother always insisted upon was that Sir Philip should take proper meals at proper times.

  She would never permit him to concentrate on his book to the extent that it might affect his health, which was something he had done in the past, working flat out all day with nothing to eat or drink.

  It was simply because he was so engrossed with his writing that he felt he could not bear to break the spell it cast over him.

  Now that he was getting on for sixty his wife was insistent that he should take better care of himself.

  Because he loved her so much, he did whatever she asked of him.

  ‘It is five minutes to one,’ thought Lanthia. ‘He will not be annoyed if I disturb him now.’

  She ran along the passage.

  Sir Philip’s study was next to the library so that he did not have far to go when he needed a book to help with his research.

  Very softly Lanthia opened the door.

  Then she saw that her father was not alone and her mother was with him.

  She entered and Sir Philip exclaimed,

  “Oh, there you are Lanthia! Your mother was just talking about you.”

  “I have been riding, Papa, and I am hoping that you might ride with me this afternoon.”

  Sir Philip smiled at her.

  “Your mother has something to tell you.”

  Lanthia looked towards her mother expectantly.

  “We have received an invitation, darling,” she said, “to a ball which is being given by the Lord Lieutenant. It will be a most auspicious occasion because he is holding it for the Empress of Austria, who you will remember stayed at his house for a short while last year.”

  “Yes, she did so because she specially wanted to see his horses,” added Lanthia. “You know what a fine stable the Earl has and apparently she was entranced with them.”

  “Well, she is coming again and he is giving a ball for her this time. As it is such an important event for the County, darling, you should look your best and you will need a new gown.”

  “I have hardly worn the last one you bought for me, Mama. Being in mourning for Grandpapa, there have been so few times when I could wear it.”

  “I know that, Lanthia, but most of the County have seen it and I want you to look your most beautiful when we attend this ball in three weeks time.”

  She spoke in such a way that Lanthia realised that her mother had made a decision about something.

  She waited patiently to hear what it was.

  “I have been talking to your father,” Lady Grenville said at last, “and as it is impossible for me to do very much at the moment until my knee is better, you will have to go to London without me.”

  “To London! Whatever for?” cried Lanthia in astonishment.

  Her mother smiled.

  “When I said a new gown, I meant one that is really fashionable and up-to-date, and that of course means Bond Street.”

  “Are we not all going to London?” asked Lanthia looking at her father to see what he thought.

  “I am afraid that is quite impossible, darling. This tiresome rheumatism I am suffering from would make it impossible for me to walk from shop to shop, as we should undoubtedly have to do to find just what we need and you know your father is in the middle of his new book and, of course, will not be drawn away from it.”

  “Or from you,” Sir Philip came in with a smile.

  He adored his wife as she adored him.

  Lanthia knew that it would be quite impossible to talk her father into coming to London if her mother was staying at home.

  “What am I to do?” she implored her mother.

  “We have just been talking it over and we know that Mrs. Blossom would be only too willing to travel to London with you as your chaperone.”

  “Mrs. Blossom!” she repeated without very much enthusiasm.

  “I know, my dearest, she is rather dull, but, as I was saying to your father, all our relations seem to be in the country at the moment and your Aunt Mary told me quite specifically last time she was here that she had no intention of opening their London house in Belgrave Square until the autumn.”

  “Then where will I and Mrs. Blossom stay?”

  “Your Papa and I are quite certain that you will be well looked after and quite safe at The Langham.”

  “The Langham!” cried Lanthia. “Oh, I would love that!”

  She had been to The Langham once with her father and mother when she was a young girl and thought it was a fascinating hotel.

  The Langham was one of London’s newest hotels and its owners had claimed that it was the largest building in England when the young Prince of Wales opened it in 1865. The hotel boasted no less than five hundred bedrooms, dwarfing rivals such as Claridges and The Grosvenor.

  When Sir Philip had to go to London to see about his books being published or for any other reason, he and his wife always stayed at The Langham.

  Their last visit had been two years ago, but they did not take Lanthia with them as she was so occupied with her governesses.

  Lanthia believed then, as she did now, that they had actually wanted to be on their own and she knew that The Langham held so many happy memories for them.

  She herself could remember being very impressed by the hotel and some of the stories her father had told her about people who stayed there had remained in her mind.

  She remembered now him telling her on his return home all about the romantic novelist, Louisa Ramée, who lived in The Langham.

  Lanthia knew that Louisa Ramée was known to the world by her pen name, ‘Ouida,’ which originated from her own attempts as a baby to pronounce ‘Louisa’.

  Since her father had met Ouida, he had bought her novels – she published one nearly every year. And she could remember her mother reading various passages aloud so that her father could laugh at them with her.

  Last year when her father had just bought the latest novel by Ouida, he had told Lanthia what a strange woman she was.

  “She is different from anyone else I have ever met,” he had said.

  “Why does she live in a hotel, Papa?”

  “I really have no idea,” he answered. “Apparently she first stayed at The Langham when she was twenty-eight and has lived there ever since. They told us when we were staying there how she receives her visitors in bed, which is where she writes all her books!”

  “In bed, Papa! What a funny thing to do!”

  “She is indeed a very strange woman. She likes to work by the light of candles and has black velvet curtains drawn over the windows to keep out the daylight.”

  “I hear that she is always surrounded by masses of flowers,” Lady Grenville had chimed in, “and they are all purple. Her eno
rmous bed is in the middle of the room and she sits up writing with a quill pen onto sheets of violet-coloured writing paper.”

  Lanthia had laughed loudly at the time, thinking it all sounded ridiculous.

  Now she wondered if she stayed at The Langham, whether she would be able to meet the famous authoress.

  “Do you think you could give me an introduction to her, Papa?” she asked.

  “I doubt if she is still resident at the hotel, my dear, and even if she is, I don’t think she would be very anxious to meet you.”

  “Why ever not?”

  “Because,” her mother answered, “Ouida prefers men to women. I am told that her parties at the hotel were always attended by handsome Army Officers and very few women were invited.”

  It certainly all seemed very strange and it made her feel that it would be exciting just to stay in the same hotel as such a weird and unaccountable authoress.

  “When do you think I should go, Mama?”

  “We shall have to ask Mrs. Blossom when it suits her, darling, but she has always told me she would be only too willing to do anything I request and I know she enjoys going to London when she has the chance.”

  Mrs. Blossom was the only daughter of the Bishop of Bristol and she had married for the first and only time to a sailor when she was long past her girlhood.

  Retiring from the sea, he had taken his bride to live in a house inherited from his uncle in Huntingdonshire but died after five years of marriage leaving his wife childless.

  Broken-hearted, Mrs. Blossom had been left alone, which she found dull and miserable without her husband.

  She had therefore begged Lady Grenville to find her something to do to relieve her sadness and boredom, but it was not an easy task.

  Slowly Lady Grenville had managed to interest Mrs. Blossom in a number of charities in the County, who were only too delighted to receive her attention and help.

  There was also a nearby orphanage where she had been persuaded to teach the girls how to paint in watercolours at which Mrs. Blossom was actually quite an expert.

  She was exceedingly grateful to Lady Grenville for making her life much more interesting than it would have been otherwise.

  So Lanthia knew all too well that if her mother asked Mrs. Blossom to take her to London, she would be only too willing to do so.

  “Very well, Mama, you ask Mrs. Blossom. But I don’t want to stay away from you and Papa for any longer than I have to.”

  “Just long enough to buy some really pretty dresses and a special gown for the ball.”

  “I hope I shall be able to choose something you will like,” said Lanthia doubtfully. “It would be disastrous if I spent a great deal of money and you and Papa thought my choice was hideous.”

  Lady Grenville laughed.

  “I have always considered your taste impeccable, darling, and you know exactly the sort of white gown I would like you to wear. Remember you are a debutante, even though you have never had a Season in London.”

  “That was poor old Grandpapa’s fault for dying last year when I should have been in London with you. Now at nearly nineteen I am almost old enough to be a Dowager!”

  Her mother laughed again.

  “Papa and I are now planning to take you to Ascot and, of course, there will be plenty of balls then.”

  Lanthia gave a cry of delight.

  “Oh, Mama! You did not tell me!”

  “It was to be a surprise, but Ascot is just one reason why I really want you to start choosing pretty gowns now, because unless my leg gets better quickly we shall not have much time before we will all have to go to London.”

  “For you and Papa to enjoy the racing at Ascot, and for me to go to parties every night!”

  Lanthia kissed her mother.

  “You did not tell me all this, Mama, but it sounds so exciting.”

  “I am only frightened that I will just not be well enough. When the doctor called this morning he said he is quite certain that I will be my old self by next month, but I am to do as little as possible until then.”

  “Of course you must do exactly as he says. Oh, Mama, going to Ascot with you and Papa will be the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me! I only wish we were entering a horse for the Gold Cup.”

  Sir Philip chuckled.

  “That is something I definitely cannot afford, even though I would enjoy owning a racehorse!”

  “Perhaps if your book is a huge success, Papa, next year you may be able to buy one horse which is so good that we can run him at Ascot.”

  “It is just a case of ‘if wishes were horses, beggars might ride’, Lanthia! You are not to try to tempt me to wild extravagance, as I am saving up for your wedding when you have one.”

  “That will be a long, long time away, Papa. I have no wish to marry anyone.”

  That was not exactly true.

  In her dreams she fervently believed she had a very special man in her life, completely invisible but exploring the world with her.

  She had always thought in her heart of hearts that he was the man she would eventually marry; all she had to do was find him.

  But she had no intention of marrying anyone unless she was as much in love with him as her mother was with her father, and he loved her in the same way.

  Lanthia had grown up in a house filled with love.

  From all the books she had read she had been made vividly aware of the power of love and she was brought up to appreciate that it was something that men and women had always sought since the beginning of time.

  So many events had occurred entirely as a result of love – misery, crime, war, cruelty and blissful happiness, all because two people had found each other.

  It was in the books about Greece that Lanthia had read the mythology of how real love began.

  Apparently, the ancient Greeks fervently believed that when God first created a human being, he just made a man.

  But the man was lonely all by himself.

  God therefore cut him in half making one half the woman and the other half the man.

  It was the woman who was sweet, gentle, loving and inspiring and equally it was the man who was strong, protective, masculine and adventurous.

  Together they made one complete person, just as they had been before being divided into two.

  ‘That is what I am looking for,’ Lanthia had often told herself, ‘my other half.’

  That particular fancy crept into her dreams and the stories she lived in as she went riding.

  She was, however, well aware that her mother hoped that she and the Lord Lieutenant’s eldest son would be attracted to each other.

  He was really quite a nice young man and Lanthia had known him since they were children, but he was not particularly interested in her and if she was honest, she found him rather dull.

  He was certainly not the hero of her dreams or her imagination.

  She had no desire to climb up the highest mountain with him or go down deep into the darkness of the earth.

  ‘The man I marry will have to be different, very different,’ she told herself many times.

  So far she had not met him, nor had there been any occasion when she might have done.

  Her mother’s father, Lord Leamsford, had died last year at a very inconvenient time and his unexpected death had postponed her ‘coming out’ as a debutante.

  It had not worried Lanthia particularly, but it had upset her parents’ plans for her introduction to Society.

  There was nothing they could do but stay quietly in the country and entertain in only a small way.

  Queen Victoria had set down the rules of mourning by excessively overdoing it for Prince Albert who had died in 1861. She was still, almost twenty years later, draped in black crêpe and refusing to attend all functions that were just for amusement.

  Since then it was generally accepted that anyone who tried to shorten his or her period of mourning for a relative was committing a serious Social error.

  The unwri
tten laws of Society were very strict.

  Deep black for six months, purple and anything that could be considered half-mourning for the next six months.

  It was the young girls who suffered most.

  A debutante, once she had been presented at Court, was invited to attend all the glamorous balls, receptions and garden parties that took place in the Social world.

  It was impossible to attend any of these if one was dressed in black.

  Only the smaller and less important occasions were permissible when one was in half-mourning.

  “It is just not fair,” Lanthia had said to her mother several times.

  “There is nothing we can do about it, dearest, and as you well know, everyone is much too frightened of the Queen to break the rules.”

  But now she was free.

  Lanthia knew that her mother was perfectly right in saying she should buy new clothes, especially if they were to be in London for Ascot and she was to attend the ball given by the Lord Lieutenant.

  “I want you to look your very best, my dearest,” Sir Philip had said. “But do not bankrupt me completely!”

  “I will try not to, Papa. At the same time I want to be a good advertisement for your books. If I was to look tatty, people may assume that nothing you have written is worth reading!”

  She was only teasing him and he laughed before he answered,

  “You are quite right. If I have to rely on you to sell my books, then you must certainly come out in frills and furbelows so that you will be the belle of the ball!”

  He looked at his wife as he spoke, knowing she was certain that was just what Lanthia would most certainly be.

  There was no doubt she was very lovely.

  In fact he had said to her moments before Lanthia returned from riding, she was so beautiful that at times he could hardly believe she was real.

  They both thought it would be a mistake to praise Lanthia to her face, but both Sir Philip and his wife were convinced that once Lanthia appeared in the Social world, she would be a sensation.

  “I often wonder, darling,” Lady Grenville had said, “how we managed to produce anything quite so exquisite as Lanthia.”

  “I know the answer to that,” he replied, “because, my precious wife, I love you with all my heart and soul and I believe you feel the same about me.”