Never Laugh at Love Page 2

  “I borrowed it from Ellen.”

  “Ellen?”

  Thais did not answer and Anthea said,

  “Do you mean Ellen at The Dog and Duck?”

  “She has a gentleman friend who brings them to her regularly,” Thais admitted.

  “Oh, Thais, how can you?” Anthea protested. “I am sure Mama would have a fit if she thought you were friendly with Ellen, even though she is a very kind woman.

  At the same time it came home to her very forcibly that Thais ought to have more suitable friends than the barmaid at The Dog and Duck.

  She was only just seventeen the previous month, but she had already lost what her father used to call ‘puppy fat’ and was so pretty that even the choirboys stared at her when she was in Church.

  ʽThais should go to London, not me,’ Anthea thought and wondered whether her Godmother, if she sent an invitation, would accept Thais as a substitute for herself.

  “What can Mama be writing now?” Chloe asked.

  “I think she is going through a religious phase,” Thais answered.

  “We are lucky that it did not happen before we were born. Otherwise I am certain one of us would have been christened Jezebel or Magdalene!” Chloe volunteered.

  They all laughed.

  “To Chloe’s heart young Cupid shyly stole,” Anthea murmured beneath her breath.

  But she did not say it aloud, they had teased Chloe too often with the verse.

  “It could not be worse than being called Chloe,” her sister went on despairingly. “Why, oh why did Mama have a William Blake period when I was born?”

  “I don’t think mine is much better,” Thais came in. “No one can ever pronounce my name properly.”

  “Think how romantic it is,” Phebe said.

  She sprang to her feet to recite dramatically,

  “The lovely Thais at his side

  Sat like a blooming Eastern bride

  In flower of youth and beauty’s pride.”

  “Oh, shut up!” Thais cried and, picking up one of the books that lay on the table, threw it at her.

  The girls, with the exception of Anthea, all hated their names.

  She would read Robert Herrick’s ode, ‘To Anthea! Ah, my Anthea!’ and wonder if it would ever come true in her life.

  ‘Give me a kiss and to that kiss a score.

  Then to that twenty add a hundred more.’

  Would a man ever say that to her? And what would she feel if he did?

  “I cannot think why Mama could not have chosen a name from ‘The Vicar of Wakefield’,” Chloe was saying. “When she was reading it to us, I thought that if I did anything wrong, I could always quote her source by saying,

  “When a lovely woman stoops to folly

  And finds too late that men betray – ’

  “It might be something to remember as a precaution rather than an excuse,” Anthea remarked.

  “I wonder what sort of folly the poet was thinking about,” Phebe asked.

  No one answered her and she then said defiantly,

  “If Papa were alive, I should ask him.”

  “Well, he is not!” Anthea said, “and you are not to bother Mama.”

  It was a rule in the house that their mother was never to be bothered.

  They all loved the sweet, rather ineffectual person she had become since her husband had been killed.

  It was a point of honour to protect her from all the difficulties that she made little effort to understand, but which gave her sleepless nights when she knew about them.

  Anthea often thought that her mother wrote poetry whenever she wished to escape from anything unpleasant. It was certainly what she had done during her husband’s lifetime and now she seemed to become more and more immersed in writing long poems, which she read to her daughters and then forgot.

  For the first time Anthea wondered if in fact it would be possible to sell what her mother had written.

  Then she told herself that, while the idea would doubtless horrify the author, it was very unlikely that any publisher would be interested.

  From all they had read in the magazines Lord Byron’s works had been an overwhelming success.

  But the scandals that surrounded him had compelled him to go abroad the previous year, and Anthea suspected that when he was no longer present to be talked about and be the centre of attraction, the sales might drop.

  Who, she asked herself with practical common sense, would be concerned with poems written by a lady in the wilds of Yorkshire, who would certainly not be a talking point for the gay frivolous Socialites who enjoyed Lord Byron’s effusions?

  “You know it is rather sad,” she said aloud, “that none of us have any saleable talents.”

  “I am writing a novel,” Thais piped up.

  “Yes, I know,” Anthea answered. “But you have been writing it for the last three years and as far as I can make out you have only got to Chapter five. By the time you have finished in another twenty years it will not matter whether with the sales you can buy a pretty gown or an ugly one.”

  She bent her back and with shaking hands, faltered in a quavering voice,

  ʽAll my own – work, help a poor old woman – pretty lady – who has given the best years of – her life –’

  There was a burst of laughter.

  Anthea’s impersonations were always life-like and her sisters now recognised old Mrs. Ridgewell who was the village beggar.

  “It is very difficult to write a novel,” Thais said with dignity, “and besides it takes me so long because I cannot spell!”

  “I suppose I might sell some of my watercolour sketches,” Anthea remarked reflectively.

  Chloe laughed.

  “The last time you put one in the village bazaar it stuck and stuck. It was only when I reduced it to threepence that it was sold – and then it was only because Mrs. Briggs liked the frame!”

  Anthea sighed.

  “I noticed when I went to see her last week because she was ill that she had taken my picture out and the frame had a pressed rose in it which one of her grandchildren had sent to her!”

  “Well, it certainly does not look, as if we shall make any money that way,” Chloe said. “I have often thought that I might give riding lessons for anyone who would pay me.”

  “And who is likely to do that?” Thais enquired. “Anyone in the village who has an animal with four legs rides it anyway and the County, when they go hunting, certainly don’t wish to be taught by you.”

  Chloe sighed.

  “I would give anything for a good horse! It’s absolutely sickening that now Papa is dead we have only old Dobbin to take Mama out when she wants to go anywhere, which is very seldom.”

  “We cannot afford anything better,” Anthea said, “and Dobbin must be getting on for twelve years old. You are not to ride him hard, Chloe. If he falls dead, we should never be able to buy another one.”

  “Money! Money! Money!” Chloe declared. “No one talks of anything else in this house.”

  “It all comes back to what I asked originally,” Thais said. “What is Anthea going to wear if she goes to London?”

  “I am going to wear the clothes I already have with the new ones that you will have to make for me.”

  Her sisters stared at her wide-eyed and she went on,

  “I have thought about this just in case Godmama says she will have me. I am quite certain that we are clever enough to copy the designs in the latest Ladies Journal, so that I shall be presentable, if not spectacular!”

  “You will look like a country mouse,” Chloe said frankly.

  “Very well – a country mouse,” Anthea agreed. “But if the opportunity arises I am not going to refuse to go to London, because if I get there I have a feeling it would be to the advantage of all of us.”

  There was a moment’s silence, and then Thais said,

  “You mean – you would find a husband?”

  “If I – can.”

  “But I don’t want you
to get married,” Phebe said, her voice rising to a wail. “If you get married, Anthea, you will go away and leave us. It would be horrid without you – it would really!”

  She rose from the table as she spoke and rushed round to the other side to put her arms round her sister’s neck.

  “We love you, Anthea! We cannot let you go away and marry some horrid man who will never be as fond of you as we are.”

  “Perhaps I will marry a nice man who will have you all to stay,” Anthea suggested, “who would lend Chloe his horses to ride and give a ball for Thais.”

  “Do you really think you could do that?” Thais asked.

  “I can at least try.”

  As Anthea looked at her sisters’ serious faces and wide eyes, the dimples showed in her cheeks and she added,

  “If I go to London I shall wear a placard round my neck saying, ‘three sisters to support! Please help with a wedding-ring!’”

  The girls all dissolved into laughter and at that moment the door opened and Lady Forthingdale came in.

  She moved slowly and there was a far-away look in her eyes that they all knew meant that she was in the midst of being inspired by the muse.

  “I need your help, girls,” she began. “I cannot get any further with my poem.”

  It said a great deal for the respect in which her daughters held Lady Forthingdale’s talent that none of them for the moment mentioned the letter on the mantelshelf.

  Instead they were silent as, completely unselfconscious, their mother stood just inside the door and, lifting one white hand with its long thin fingers, recited,

  “In dying are we born,

  And if some part in this pale earth

  Must fade because I hold you in my arms,

  Why then I would embrace the Cross itself

  If through the sacrifice of self be found

  The glory of a love which must be God’s.”

  “That is lovely, Mama!” Anthea exclaimed as she finished.

  “One of your best!” Thais agreed.

  “But what comes next?” Lady Forthingdale asked. “That is what I cannot determine.”

  “You will have inspiration later on,” Anthea suggested. “It’s nearly luncheon time, Mama. I was just going to come and interrupt you anyway.”

  “This morning the first part of the poem seemed to flow quite smoothly,” Lady Forthingdale went on, but Anthea could bear it no longer.

  “There’s a letter, Mama! It arrived over an hour ago!”

  The words seemed to burst from her and Lady Forthingdale looked at her daughter in astonishment before she said in quite genuine bewilderment,

  “Letter? What letter?”

  “A letter from London, Mama.”

  “From London? Oh – from Delphine Sheldon. I had forgotten. Do you mean there is an answer to mine?”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  Chloe jumped up to take the letter from the mantelshelf and put it in her mother’s hand.

  “It must have come very quickly,” Lady Forthingdale remarked in surprise.

  “It flew here on the wings of a dove!” Chloe said irrepressibly. “Open it, Mama! Open it and see what she says!”

  Very slowly, as it seemed to her daughters watching her, Lady Forthingdale opened the letter.

  She began to read it.

  Then Chloe could not bear the tension.

  “Read it aloud, Mama! Please read it aloud!”

  “Yes, of course,” Lady Forthingdale agreed. “I was forgetting how interested you would all be, especially Anthea.”

  She smiled at her oldest daughter before she held up the letter to read,

  Sheldon House,

  Curzon Street,

  London.

  April 28th, 1817.

  “Dearest Christobel,

  It was a surprise, and such a very pleasant one, to hear from you after all these years. I have often thought about you and I was indeed most deeply distressed to hear that Sir Walcott had been killed at Waterloo. So many of our splendid and brave men died there to save the world from that monster, Napoleon Bonaparte.

  Of course I shall be delighted to have my God-daughter, Anthea, to stay with me here in London. It is a great pity that we did not think of it sooner as, alas, there is not very much left of the Season in which to present her to the Social world.

  I feel, however, I can give her a very enjoyable time and suggest she leaves immediately.

  It will not be possible for me to send his Lordship’s horses as far as Yorkshire, but, if you can convey her to the ‘White Horse’ at Eaton Socon this Friday, I will arrange for an Abigail to look after her that night and for our travelling carriage to convey them both to London the following morning.

  I send you my affectionate greetings, dearest Christobel, and will look forward to seeing my God-daughter, whom I remember as a very attractive child. She will bring with her memories of the happy times we spent together so many years ago. Oh, dear, how quickly time passes!

  Yours lovingly and with unchanging affection,

  Delphine Sheldon.’

  Lady Forthingdale finished reading the letter and Chloe gave a hoot of joy and excitement.

  “She has accepted! She has accepted! Oh, Anthea, do you hear? You are to go to London!”

  Chloe glanced around the room with excitement, but Anthea, who had risen to her feet, stood gazing at her mother with worried eyes.

  “Friday evening,” she said. “Do you realise, Mama, that that means I have only tomorrow to get ready for the visit?”

  “That will give you plenty of time to pack,” Lady Forthingdale replied vaguely.

  “But, Mama – ” Anthea began.

  As she spoke she caught Thais’s eye and realised that there was no point in saying any more.

  Her mother would only be distressed if she said that she had nothing to wear.

  After all, she thought, even a week would not be enough to replenish or create a wardrobe in the style that would be expected in London.

  ‘I shall just have to explain to my Godmother,’ she told herself, ‘that she must put up with me just as I am!’

  “I think it is very kind of Delphine,” Lady Forthingdale was saying gently. “But I was quite certain she would not fail me. As I have always said to you all, it is friendship that counts in life and real friends never alter.”

  *

  In London the Countess of Sheldon was entertaining the Duke of Axminster in her elegant salon.

  He had just returned from Newmarket where he had been in attendance on the Prince Regent and, finding a note from her Ladyship awaiting him at Axminster House, had answered the summons immediately without changing his driving clothes.

  His close fitting breeches and polished Hessian boots made him, with his grey whipcord jacket, look even more handsome and elegant than usual.

  There was an expression on his face as he regarded the Countess, which softened the usual rather hard arrogance of his eyes.

  “I came as soon as I returned,” he said. “Your note sounded urgent.”

  “It was,” Delphine Sheldon said briefly. “We have had, Garth, the most fantastic piece of good fortune!”

  “What is that?” the Duke enquired.

  “I am so glad you were away the last week or you would have been as desperate as I was.”

  “What happened?”

  “Edward suddenly decided that he would return to the country. You know how he hates London and something had upset him at the Club! I don’t know what it was, but he came back in a towering rage and said we were to leave on Tuesday and he was closing the house.”

  “Good God!” the Duke ejaculated. “What did you do?”

  “I argued with him, I pleaded, but he was adamant! You know how he loves being at Sheldon. He was just determined to get back there.”

  The Countess paused and then she added,

  “I loathe the country and that ghastly mother-in-law of mine makes it a hell on earth. Besides I should die if I could not see you!”
/>
  “You know what it would mean to me also.”

  “Yes, of course, but I could hardly tell Edward that!”

  “You said we have had a stroke of good fortune,” the Duke prompted.

  “I was just going to tell you about it, but I can assure you, Garth, it was a very near thing that I was not swept away from you and incarcerated in that mausoleum in the backwoods of Wiltshire!”

  “Well, you are still here and that is all that concerns me at the moment,” the Duke said with a smile.

  “And it concerns me,” Delphine Sheldon said softly.

  She put out her hand to him as she spoke and he kissed her fingers.

  She wondered if there was any other man in London who could do it so gracefully, while looking so disturbingly masculine.

  “You look very lovely!” he breathed. “But do go on with your story.”

  “I was in despair,” the Countess said. “When Edward makes up his mind, nothing will alter it. It is like banging one’s head against the Rock of Gibraltar!”

  “But you succeeded in changing his decision?” the Duke again prompted.

  He found it slightly irritating that the Countess always took a long time in coming to the point of a story.

  “That was when a miracle happened,” she said. “Out of the blue, at the very last moment, when I had given up hope and my maid was actually packing my trunks there arrived a letter from Lady Forthingdale!”

  The Duke looked puzzled.

  “Do I know her?”

  “No, of course not. She lives in Yorkshire and we were friends when I was a girl.”

  The Duke waited.

  “I had not heard from her for eight years, but now she has written to me,” the Countess said, “asking if she could send her daughter, who is my Godchild, to London for what remains of the Season.”

  She paused expectantly, but for a moment the Duke was unresponsive.

  “Do you not understand?” she asked at length. “Oh, Garth, don’t be so obtuse. When I showed the letter to Edward, he quite saw that I had a duty to my God-daughter and I could not very well refuse her mother’s request.”

  “Do you mean that you are going to have the girl here?”

  “Of course I am going to have the girl here,” the Countess replied. “I would have Medusa here or whatever that monster was called who had the snakes in her hair, if it meant I could stay in London!”