The Sign of Love Read online

  As her thoughts went back to her mother’s funeral, Bettina remembered how broken-hearted her father had seemed at the time, but then how quickly he had recovered.

  “Life has to go on, Bettina,” he had said while his daughter’s eyes were still red with tears.

  She had missed her mother so intolerably that she could not even think about her without crying.

  “Yes, I know, Papa,” she had managed to say because she knew that he was waiting for an answer.

  “What I am going to do now,” her father said, “is to go and see your Godmother, Lady Buxton. She has always taken an interest in you and I feel that she is the one person who can help us at this particular moment.”

  “In what way, Papa?”

  “I am not quite certain, but I am sure that Sheila Buxton will know what to do.”

  She had indeed known, Bettina thought, and almost before she realised what was happening she had been sent off to France to Madame de Vesarie’s School where she was to remain for the next three years.

  She had been eighteen this summer and she thought that she would be allowed to leave in April and make her debut into Society as all her friends of the same age were to do.

  However, when she had written to her father about it, she had learned that Lady Buxton was ill.

  “Stay where you are,” her father had written. “I cannot trouble your Godmother at the moment and quite frankly there is no chance of her bringing you out this year while she is laid up.”

  It had been hard to find herself the oldest girl in the school and to receive letters from her friends describing the balls, theatres and entertainments they were attending while she had to have special lessons on her own because she was too advanced for the top form.

  Then suddenly two weeks ago she had learnt that her Godmother was dead and that she was to come home immediately.

  It had been a complete surprise both to herself and to Madame de Vesarie.

  “I should have thought, Bettina, that your father would have wished you to complete this term at least,” Madame huffed.

  “Yes, I would have thought so too, Madame.”

  “You might remind him, my dear, that we have not yet received the fees, which are always payable in advance. Of course we can make some reduction, but will you please point out to him that the term started on the first of September.”

  “Yes, madame.”

  Bettina had known then without being told the reason why she had been sent for to return home.

  Her Godmother had always paid her school fees and with her death this arrangement must have come to an abrupt end.

  Ever since she could remember her father and mother had always been hard up, but nothing prevented her father from associating with his rich friends and taking part in all their interests whatever the cost.

  He hunted, he shot, he raced and he did all the things that contributed to the amusement of the ‘Marlborough House Set’ that centred round the Prince and Princess of Wales.

  Bettina knew with a sinking of her heart that there would be little money left for her and now that Lady Buxton was dead it was doubtful if she would have even one new gown to attend a ball in, should she be invited to one.

  Her thoughts were so far away that it was quite a start when Lord Eustace came back into the Waiting Room accompanied by a Steward from the buffet car carrying a tray containing a pot of tea and some rather thick ham sandwiches.

  The Steward set them down on a chair beside Bettina, thanked Lord Eustace for what was obviously a generous tip and hurried away.

  “You will feel better when you have had something to eat and drink,” Lord Eustace said.

  “You are – so kind,” Bettina answered.

  “There is a train in another half an hour and I have arranged for a tea basket for you and I have reserved for you a seat in a ‘Ladies Only’ compartment.”

  Bettina murmured her thanks and poured out the tea.

  Lord Eustace had been right. She did feel better, so much better that she picked up one of the ham sandwiches and realised as she bit into it that she was quite hungry.

  No one had wanted to eat anything on board the Steamer and she had felt too shy to eat alone.

  The ham sandwich tasted good and, when she had eaten one, she started on another.

  She had only taken a few bites of it when the doctor returned and she rose hastily to her feet

  “Sit down,” Lord Eustace said, “and leave everything to me.”

  He drew the doctor into a corner of the room and they talked in low voices so that Bettina could not hear what they were saying.

  She did not like to go on eating and drinking and suddenly became acutely conscious again of the dead body of Mademoiselle.

  Ambulancemen with a stretcher then came in to lift her onto it and cover her completely with a blanket

  Bettina felt that she ought in some way to say ‘goodbye’ to her, but they moved from the room in an impersonal and professional manner and the door was closed behind them.

  The doctor was still talking to Lord Eustace and she saw that they had Mademoiselle’s papers in their hands, which they had taken from her handbag.

  Then, as if their conversation was finished, the doctor walked towards Bettina.

  “The address here is that of Madame de Vesarie’s School,” he said. “This is where we should write to notify the death of this lady?”

  “Yes, that is right,” Bettina answered. “If she had a home or relations, I don’t know anything about them.”

  “I can understand that,” the doctor said, “and you may rest assured, Miss Charlwood, that everything will be done as her Priest would require. I have already sent someone from the Hospital to inform him that a Roman Catholic was extremely ill. He would expect to give her the Last Rites, but, as it is, he will, of course, arrange her funeral in a Roman Catholic Cemetery.”

  “Thank you very much. I am very grateful to you, doctor, for all the trouble you have taken.”

  “I am only sorry that we could not have saved her life,” the doctor replied.

  He shook Bettina by the hand and she felt that she ought to mention something about payment and then remembered that Lord Eustace had said that he would see to everything.

  ‘Papa must pay him,’ she told herself and thought it was very likely that Lord Eustace would know her father, who always seemed to know every member of the aristocracy.

  When the doctor had gone, Lord Eustace came to sit down in a chair by the fireside.

  “I had better give you my father’s address,” Bettina offered. “I wonder if perhaps – you know him?”

  Lord Eustace waited and she went on,

  “He is Sir Charles Charlwood and is a friend of the Prince of Wales.”

  To her surprise Lord Eustace seemed to stiffen slightly before he replied,

  “I have heard of your father, but I don’t move in the same set that he does.”

  “No?” Bettina questioned, feeling puzzled.

  “If you want the truth,” Lord Eustace said, “I disapprove of the Prince of Wales and most of the people he associates with.”

  As if he felt that he had been rude, he added quickly,

  “Please don’t think that I am disparaging your father whom I don’t know. But the Prince’s behaviour causes a great deal of gossip that can only be deprecated at a time when there is so much suffering and misery in the country.”

  “They admire His Royal Highness very much in France,” Bettina replied. “In fact they always speak as if they love him.”

  “I understand that His Royal Highness made a good impression in Paris,” Lord Eustace conceded. “At the same time his extravagance and that of his friends and the luxurious parties they give contrast badly with the starvation and unemployment amongst the lower classes.”

  “Is it – very bad?” Bettina questioned.

  “Terrible! And I am appalled, yes appalled, Miss Charlwood, at the indifference and lack of interest amongst those who should be gr
avely troubled by the terrible problems that one can see in every major City in Britain.”

  There was a note of unmistakable sincerity in his voice and Bettina said after a moment,

  “I feel that you want to try to help the poor.”

  “I do indeed, but it is not easy. I assure you, Miss Charlwood, one is up against not only apathy but sheer selfish ignorance on the part of those whose duty it is to know better.”

  “The poor are lucky to have you as their champion,” Bettina said with a little smile.

  “One day I would like to show you what I am trying to do to help the less fortunate members of the community,” Lord Eustace said. “But it is merely a drop in the ocean, an ocean of despondency, misery and despair.”

  He spoke almost dramatically and Bettina looked at him with a new interest.

  She had hardly had time with the horror of what was happening to Mademoiselle to look at the man who had befriended her.

  Now she could see that, while he was good-looking with clear-cut features and a square intelligent forehead, he also looked sombre and almost grim.

  He was fashionably, yet soberly, dressed and she thought that he had chosen such clothes to be unobtrusive even while he obviously patronised a good tailor.

  ‘He is obviously always ready to be kind to those in trouble,’ Bettina told herself, ‘and that is why he has so generously helped me.’

  Lord Eustace looked at his watch.

  “Our train should be in at any moment now. Wait here while I go and look for a porter who will find our seats for us.”

  He walked across the Waiting Room and Bettina realised that he had broad shoulders and, although he was not particularly tall, he was well built.

  ‘He is certainly a very unusual person,’ she told herself. ‘Quite different from the other men I have met.’

  She remembered how jovial and full of laughter her father’s friends always seemed to be as they smoked their cigars and invariably seemed to have a glass in their hands.

  There was something about them, Bettina thought in retrospect, that made them seem frivolous and unconcerned with anything but their own enjoyment.

  Very different from this serious young man who minded so deeply about the poor.

  ‘I am sure I am very lucky to have met him just at this moment,’ she told herself.

  Then she added with a little sigh,

  ‘I wish that he was travelling in the same carriage to London and we could go on talking.’

  *

  A gust of wind swept down Park Lane and caught the top hat of the gentleman stepping out of his barouche at Alveston House.

  He held onto it with difficulty and walked in through the impressive front door to hand it to a white-wigged liveried servant.

  “It’s a very blustery day, my Lord,” the butler said as he helped him off with his coat.

  “It is growing cold too,” Lord Milthorpe replied, “but we must expect it in October.”

  “We must indeed, my Lord,” the butler agreed respectfully.

  Going ahead he opened the large mahogany doors at the end of the huge marble floored hall and announced,

  “Lord Milthorpe, Your Grace.”

  The Duke, who was sitting in front of the fire at the end of the room, looked up with a smile on his face.

  “You are late, George,” he remarked. “Charles and I were wondering what had happened to you.”

  “The Prince kept me,” Lord Milthorpe replied.

  He settled himself in a deep comfortable armchair near the other two gentlemen in the room and accepted a glass of sherry from the silver salver proffered by a footman.

  “I thought that must be the reason,” the Duke commented. “And how is His Royal Highness?”

  “Extremely discomfited and very frustrated.”

  “What has happened now?” Sir Charles Charlwood asked.

  A footman was refilling his glass and, as he took it from the tray, he added,

  “It is always the same where poor old Bertie is concerned. I suppose that the Queen has refused to let him do yet another thing that he had set his heart on.”

  “Right first guess!” Lord Milthorpe exclaimed.

  “It’s not a competition that I would offer a prize for,” the Duke of Alveston remarked laconically.

  “You know, Varien, it really is so disgraceful,” Lord Milthorpe chipped in. “In fact I consider it a scandal that the only person who is going to represent us at the Opening of the Suez Canal is our Ambassador in Constantinople.”

  “Good God!” Sir Charles declared. “The Prince was certain that he would be able to go. He was looking forward to it after the magnificent way the Khedive of Egypt entertained him and the Princess last year.”

  “The edict from Buckingham Palace is the invariable ‘no’,” Lord Milthorpe stressed.

  “It is indeed a scandal,” Sir Charles declared. “I was just reading about the opening of the Suez Canal in The Times. The Empress Eugénie is to be the Guest of Honour, the Emperor of Austria is to be present and also the Crown Prince of Prussia! My God, how will Britain look with a mere Ambassador to grace such a throng?”

  “All Queen Victoria cares about is to stop the Prince of Wales from being in a position of any real power,” Lord Milthorpe said. “She just wants him to sit about The Palace at her beck and call and I swear if there is a good notice about him in the newspapers, which is rare, she tears it up in a temper.”

  “Who shall blame him for finding his amusements where he can?” Sir Charles asked.

  “Who indeed?” Lord Milthorpe agreed.

  “It certainly seems an extraordinary decision on the Opening of the Suez Canal,” the Duke said slowly.

  He was younger than either of his companions, but his air of authority made him seem older than he was.

  An extraordinarily good-looking man, he was outstanding in any company he appeared in.

  However his reputation, like that of the Prince of Wales, was continually in question.

  Not that it troubled him in the slightest. The Duke was a law unto himself and, as he was exceedingly wealthy, one of the largest landowners in the country and his title graced the history of England, no one was prepared to remonstrate with him whatever he wished to do.

  He was a close friend of the Heir to the Throne, but he did not consider himself one of the Marlborough House Set for the simple reason that the ‘Alveston House Set’ rivalled and in fact surpassed it in every way.

  The Prince of Wales himself always complained that the most beautiful women, the best dinners, the finest entertainment and the most luxurious parties were given at Alveston House.

  “Dammit all, Varien!” he had said more than once. “It’s not only that you can afford such extravagance, it is, I suspect, that your taste is better than anyone else’s and you have more original ideas.”

  “You flatter me, sir,” the Duke had replied.

  But, while he spoke politely, there was a cynical twist to his lips.

  He often found the pace that the Prince of Wales set, simply because he was bored and irritated by the restrictions his mother laid on him, was too contrived to have the spontaneity that he himself enjoyed so freely.

  “You know what we are, Varien?” the Prince had once said jovially. “We are the Kings of Society and, because I am fond of you, I don’t really mind sharing my Throne!”

  The Duke had murmured something complimentary. Equally he told himself that he had no intention of sharing a Throne with anyone.

  He knew that he was envied by most of his contemporaries and that he had only to lift his little finger to have them grovelling slavishly at his feet.

  He was so rich that he could indulge his whims and so generous that his friends never lacked for any requirement that he was aware of.

  At the same time he was more aloof and any onlooker might have said more Kingly in his bearing than the Prince of Wales himself.

  There was something imperious about him, which was something that kept
even those who loved him at arm’s length.

  There were women in his life, of course. They came and they went and he had only to enter a ballroom for every female heart to flutter and for hundreds of pairs of eyes to look towards him beguilingly with an unmistakable invitation in them.

  “He is like a Greek God,” one of the beauties of Marlborough House had murmured to another.

  “How many do you know, dearest?” her friend enquired.

  “One is enough,” was the reply, “but not yet as intimately as I would wish!”

  “As a matter of fact,” Sir Charles was saying, “the Grand Duke Michael of Russia, when I saw him three months ago, told me that he had every intention of attending the Opening of the Suez Canal, so that is another Royal who will be there.”

  “I suppose the real truth is,” Lord Milthorpe said, “that we are as a country sulking because we would not support the scheme to start with. Lord Palmerston was against it and, of course, Stratford de Redcliffe did everything he could to prevent Ferdinand de Lesseps from putting his plan into operation from the very beginning.”

  “One cannot help admiring the man,” Sir Charles remarked. “It took him years of frustration before the project could begin and enough money to even start digging.”

  “Well, now it’s a fait accompli,” Lord Milthorpe pointed out, “and Britain is determined not to participate in his triumph.”

  “I see no reason why all Britons should stay at home,” the Duke remarked slowly, almost drawling his words.

  His two friends turned their faces towards him with a look of surprise.

  “What are you suggesting, Varien?” Sir Charles enquired.

  “Simply that, what the Prince of Wales is unable to do, we can!” the Duke replied.

  “You mean go to the Opening?”

  “Of course! Why not?”

  “Why not indeed?” Lord Milthorpe cried. “God, Varien, you always have had a sense of what is important. Of course you must go. A Duke is always a Duke and you know as well as I do that you have always got on well with the Empress of France.”

  “Varien has always ‘got on’, as you put it, with every pretty woman,” Sir Charles remarked, “and Paris abounds with broken hearts every time he stays there.”