Lucifer and the Angel Read online

  In the little village of Fenchurch, where they lived, there were no young people of their own age and, after their father’s death, it appeared that they had been forgotten by the County families, of which there were not many.

  It was Sarah who realised only too clearly that nobody wanted three girls without a man to escort them and, what was more, three girls who were outstandingly attractive.

  The Squire, Sir Robert Benson, and his wife invited them frequently to luncheon and dinner, but Sir Robert was over sixty. His son, already married, was serving with his Regiment in India and his daughter had chosen a life of seclusion as a nun.

  The most spectacular and talked-of house in the County belonged to the Earl of Spearmont, but he and his wife belonged to the smart set that circled round the Prince and Princess of Wales at Marlborough House and they said openly that they “never entertained the locals”.

  The people who lived near them had to be content with the gossip that was repeated by the servants, or to catch an occasional glimpse of beautiful women and handsome men as they rode or drove in smart carriages through the village.

  Sarah was right.

  In their way of life since their father’s illness and death there had been no opportunities of meeting eligible bachelors and where Sarah herself was concerned the position was growing desperate.

  She was in fact so pretty that it was not surprising that she yearned for a wider and more appreciative audience than her mother and sisters and the Squire and his wife.

  “What we have to decide now,” she was saying, “is how much we can afford to spend on new clothes, which are very necessary unless we are to appear like creatures out of Noah’s Ark.”

  “Clothes!” Daphne ejaculated almost ecstatically.

  “I don’t suppose I shall need anything at all smart in Harrogate,” Anita said. “From what I remember Papa saying about Great-Aunt Matilda, she is given to ‘good works’, and I am therefore not likely to meet a prospective husband with her unless he is in Holy Orders!”

  Sarah laughed. Anita had a funny way of saying things which they all found amusing.

  “Don’t worry, dearest,” she said. “If I can marry someone of importance or at least wealthy, both you and Daphne can come and stay with me and I will scour London and the countryside, or wherever I may be living, for every eligible bachelor.”

  “Of course, that is the solution!” Daphne exclaimed. “So you must have the beautiful clothes, Sarah, and Anita and I will manage somehow.”

  She sounded a little wistful because she had often imagined how exciting it would be to have gowns that had not been passed down to her after Sarah had grown out of them.

  “What I am hoping,” Sarah declared, “is that your Godmother, who I believe is very wealthy, will not only have you to stay but will provide you with the type of clothes you will need as her guest.”

  “I can hardly ask her to do so!” Daphne exclaimed.

  “No, of course, not,” Sarah answered, “but I did point out in my letter how poor we are and how we had been very fortunate in being able to send Mama to Switzerland, and then only with the help of her friend Lady Benson.”

  Anita moved a little uncomfortably.

  “It does sound, Sarah, as if we were begging.”

  “Of course it does!” Sarah said sharply. “And so we are! Make no mistake about it, we are beggars and I am not ashamed to say so. After all, the Lavenham family owes us something.”

  “Owes us?” Daphne asked.

  “But of course!” Sarah replied. “They behaved abominably when Papa married Mama, simply because Grandpapa, being an Earl, was puffed up with pride at his own consequence. He thought even his younger son should marry someone with a title or money and Mama had neither. But she was exceedingly beautiful and Papa fell in love with her.”

  “The moment he saw her,” Anita added dreamily, “it was just like a story in a book. And Mama said that as soon as she looked at Papa, she knew that he was the man she had always seen in her dreams.”

  “It was certainly very idyllic,” Sarah said, “but we each want to find the man of our dreams too and we are certainly not going to meet him or any other sort of man here.”

  Anita wanted to reply that, strangely enough, she had met a man only that morning – and he was Lucifer.

  Then she knew that Sarah would be annoyed at anything that interrupted her recital of her plans.

  When Sarah was concentrating on something she expected everybody else to do the same, so Anita went on listening as Sarah told them what money was available for them to spend and what arrangements she had made for the house to be taken care of while they were away.

  “You are very sure the relatives you have written to will have us?” Daphne asked at length in a low voice.

  “They have to! They have to do what I have asked them to do,” Sarah said, and now her voice was desperate. “Otherwise, I feel we are all doomed!”

  *

  The Duchess of Ollerton, sitting in the window of the large house she had rented in Prospect Gardens, felt that the sulphur baths and the chalybeate waters she was drinking every morning were doing her some good.

  She had come to Harrogate because, after listening to what her doctor had to say on the subject of her health, her son had insisted that she should do so.

  She found it impossible to protest that she had no wish to leave the comfort and beauty of her own house to travel North.

  She had, however, learnt since she became a widow that it was useless to oppose her son once he had made up his mind, especially where it concerned her.

  He had certainly arranged everything to make her as comfortable as possible.

  The house, which had been chosen by his secretary and comptroller, was large and extremely well furnished and belonged to an aristocrat who had gone abroad for the summer.

  It contained practically everything that a Lady of Quality would need, but when the Dowager Duchess of Ollerton travelled, she moved, as someone had once said laughingly, “like a snail with her house on her back!”.

  She had therefore travelled from the South with her own linen, her own silver and of course her own servants. Besides this, there were also what Her Grace was pleased to describe as “knick-knacks”.

  These alone filled a large number of trunks and required several carriages to transport them from the Duke’s private train to the house in Prospect Gardens.

  Among the many things without which the Duchess never travelled was a portrait of her son, Kerne, now the fifth Duke of Ollerton.

  It stood on a large easel, which had been made especially for it, not far from where the Duchess was sitting, and her eyes softened as she looked at the Duke’s handsome face and thought how well the artist had portrayed his dark eyes and firm chin.

  Almost as if her very thoughts of him had conjured him up, the door opened and he came into the room.

  The Duchess held out her hands with a little cry.

  “You have arrived, dearest! I was hoping it would be today, but Mr. Brigstock thought it was more likely to be tomorrow.”

  “As you see, it is today,” the Duke said. “How are you, Mama?”

  He reached her side as he spoke and bent down to kiss the softness of her cheek, holding one of her hands in both of his as he did so.

  “I am better, I really am better,” the Duchess told him, “and looking forward to going home.”

  “You have not been happy here?”

  There was a faint frown between the Duke’s eyes as he spoke.

  “It has been an interesting experience,” the Duchess answered, “but quite frankly not one I wish to repeat. You know as well as I do that I hate to be away from Ollerton and from you.”

  “I too have missed you, Mama.”

  “It is so very sweet and kind of you to come and see me,” the Duchess said.

  The Duke released her hand to sit down in a chair opposite her.

  “I will be honest, Mama, as I know you would wish me to be,
and tell you that, although I was eager to see you again, my journey North was not solely a filial duty.”

  “You had another reason?” the Duchess asked, smiling. “Let me guess – I feel it has something to do with the Earl of Harewood and his superlative horses.”

  The Duke laughed.

  “You are always intuitive where I am concerned, Mama. Yes, it is true. When I leave you, I will be staying at Harewood House before I go on to Doncaster for the races.”

  “Have you a horse running?” the Duchess enquired.

  “Three, as it happens and I think one of them will definitely win the best race.”

  The Duchess sighed.

  “How I wish I could be there.”

  “Perhaps next year, Mama. But if you are well enough, perhaps you could manage one day at Ascot.”

  “It is something I would most enjoy,” the Duchess smiled, “and I am sure Her Majesty would be gracious enough to have me to stay at Windsor.”

  “You know she would,” the Duke replied, “but you must be well enough. All that standing in the Royal Presence might be too much for you.”

  “It might indeed,” the Duchess agreed. “But tell me more about your visit to the Marquis of Doncaster. I have always found him a very charming man.”

  “So have I,” the Duke said, “and that is why you will understand, Mama, that I am interested in meeting his daughter.”

  There was a moment’s silence and the Duchess was very still.

  Then she said,

  “Do you mean – can you be – thinking – ?”

  “ – of marriage,” the Duke said, finishing the sentence for her. “Yes, Mama. I have come to the conclusion that it is time I was married.”

  “Oh, Kerne, it is what I have prayed for!” the Duchess exclaimed. “But is it Marmion who has made you decide so suddenly that it is something you should do?”

  “It is Marmion,” the Duke agreed, “but more directly the Queen.”

  “The Queen?”

  “Her Majesty spoke to me last week.”

  “About Marmion?”

  “That is right.”

  The Duchess made a little sound that might have been one of horror, but she did not interrupt.

  “Her Majesty asked me to speak with her in her private sitting room. I knew at once that what she had to say was serious.”

  “It was also likely to be only one subject,” the Duchess said quickly.

  “Exactly! She told me she had heard that Marmion and his wife were in a box at Covent Garden the night the Prince of Wales was there and they were both behaving in what the Queen described as an ‘outrageous manner’.”

  “I presume Her Majesty meant that they had both had too much to drink,” the Duchess said in a low voice.

  “I heard from another source that they were disgracefully, revoltingly drunk!”

  “Oh, Kerne, what can we do about it?”

  “There is nothing we can do,” the Duke replied, “except to make sure that Marmion does not inherit the Dukedom after me.”

  “And is that what Her Majesty said?”

  “She pointed out to me,” the Duke answered, “that the Duchess of Ollerton is traditionally a Lady of the Bedchamber.”

  “And of course Her Majesty could not countenance that vulgar creature whom your cousin has taken as a wife in that capacity,” the Duchess added.

  “That is exactly what Her Majesty implied,” the Duke said, “and so, Mama, the time has come, regrettable though it may be, that I must be married.”

  “Of course, dearest, but must it be regrettable?”

  The Duke waited a moment before he responded,

  “I have no wish to be married, Mama, as I have told you when we have discussed the subject many times before. I am entirely content as I am, but I am well aware that it is my duty to provide an heir to the Dukedom. I therefore need your help.”

  “My help?” the Duchess echoed in surprise.

  The Duke smiled.

  “With the exception of the Marquis’s daughter who happens to be the right age – and the last time I visited Doncaster she was still in the schoolroom – I am not in the habit of meeting young girls and in none of the houses in which I stay do they feature among the guests.”

  “No, of course not!” the Duchess exclaimed. “I understand that.”

  “So, what I am asking you to do, Mama,” the Duke went on, “is to make a short list of the girls you think are eligible and I will look at them before deciding on the one I think most suitable.”

  The Duchess said nothing, and, looking at her, the Duke asked,

  “What is wrong, Mama? I thought that you, of all people, after all you have said about my being married and producing a son, would be delighted that the moment has come when that is exactly what I mean to do.”

  “Of course I am delighted that you should be married, Kerne dear,” the Duchess replied, “but I had hoped, perhaps foolishly, that you would fall in love.”

  The Duke’s lips twisted wryly.

  “That is what the servants would call ‘a very different kettle of fish’.”

  “But your way seems such a very cold-blooded manner in which to get married.”

  “What is the alternative? You have met most of the charmers and I am not pretending there are not a number of them – who have engaged my heart for a short period, but none of them is eligible to become my wife.”

  The Duchess, who knew a great deal more about her son’s love affairs than he imagined, admitted to herself that this was true.

  His affaires de coeur, though conducted very discreetly, were nevertheless common knowledge amongst the Society in which he moved, and the Duchess had friends who were only too willing to tell her the latest gossip.

  She was therefore aware that for the last six months the Duke had been constantly in the company of an acclaimed beauty whose husband was quite prepared to ride His Grace’s horses, sail in his yacht, drink his wine, and turn a “blind eye” to his host’s preoccupation with his wife.

  This, the Duchess thought was very civilised behaviour, an example that had been set by the Prince of Wales.

  But there was no doubt that the Duke was correct in saying that at the house parties at which he was either a guest or a host there was no likelihood of a young unmarried girl being present.

  As if he knew what his mother was thinking, he bent forward to say,

  “Don’t look so worried, Mama. When I am married I promise you I will behave with great propriety towards my wife. But she must be exactly the right person to take your place, although no one could ever look as beautiful as you.”

  He spoke with such sincerity that the Duchess put out her hand to him as she said,

  “Dearest Kerne, you have been a wonderful son to me, and I hope that your wife, whoever she may be, will appreciate you. At the same time a marriage needs love and that is what I would wish you to find.”

  As if embarrassed by the turn of the conversation, the Duke rose to his feet.

  “Love is one thing and marriage is another, Mama. Let us concentrate on marriage. Find me the right sort of wife, one who must of course grace the Ollerton diamonds.”

  The Duchess smiled.

  “That means, as our tiaras are higher and more magnificent than anyone else’s, that she must be tall.”

  “Of course,” the Duke agreed. “At least five foot nine or ten and because the sapphires always look their best on fair women, she should have hair the colour of ripe corn.”

  The Duchess said nothing, but her eyes twinkled a little as she remembered that the last three women with whom the Duke’s name had been associated were all brunettes.

  “Then, of course, there are the pearls,” the Duke continued, following his own train of thought. “Five rows of them, Mama, need someone with, shall we say, a full figure, to show them off.”

  “Junoesque is the right word, dearest,” the Duchess said. “It is a description I have always enjoyed myself and you will remember that, until
I was afflicted by this terrible rheumatism, I managed to keep a very small waist.”

  “I am not likely to forget it. Somebody was saying only the other evening that their idea of beauty was you blazing with diamonds and wearing a long train standing at the top of the staircase at Ollerton House.”

  “You are always very complimentary, dearest, and I love it! I know exactly what your wife should look like, but it will not be easy to find her.”

  The Duke walked across the room and back again.

  “God knows, Mama,” he said after a moment, “it is going to be difficult not only to find the type of wife that I require but also to endure her once I have done so. What does one talk about to an unfledged girl?”

  “There is no woman born who is not interested in love,” the Duchess told him softly.

  The Duke made a derisive sound, but before he could speak, she went on,

  “You should remember, dearest, that the beauties you now find so desirable were once unfledged girls straight from the schoolroom. They all start out that way – gauche, shy, ignorant and uneducated.”

  “God knows it is a dismal prospect!” the Duke exclaimed.

  The Duchess laughed.

  “It is not going to be as bad as that! I admit I was shy when I married your father and I suppose in many ways I was very ignorant. But, although we were brought together by our parents because it was considered a suitable marriage, I made your father very happy.”

  “You know as well as I do, Mama, that Papa fell head over heels in love with you from the moment he saw you. He told me once you were the most beautiful thing out of a stained-glass window he had ever seen in his whole life.”

  The Duchess smiled complacently while her son went on,

  “But Papa added, ‘they don’t make them like that these days, Kerne,’ and he was right!”

  “I made your father happy and that was all that mattered,” the Duchess said. “There is no reason why we should not find a woman just like me to do the same for you.”

  The Duke sat down again on the chair next to his mother.

  “Papa loved you wholeheartedly, Mama, until he died. What about you?”

  For a moment the Duchess looked at him with startled eyes, then she asked,