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  It took a little time because she was so grief-stricken to realise that with Harry’s death she had not only lost him but also her own and Lela’s means of survival.

  She was wondering what she could do, having no wish to encumber her family with two poor relations, when Sir Robert Lawson came into her life.

  A much older man, nearing forty, he had been a widower for over ten years and had for some time vaguely contemplated the idea of marrying again.

  When he met Mildred Cavendish he knew at once that she was everything he had ever sought in a woman and without exception the most beautiful one that he had ever seen.

  It took him six months to persuade her to marry him and it was only when it became a choice between marrying Sir Robert, who was very rich, or begging her relatives, who were not well off, to support her that Mildred agreed.

  At the last moment she thought that loving Harry as she had, it would be impossible to allow any other man to even touch her.

  Yet because Sir Robert was older and extremely generous, she felt that it was her duty to provide for Lela and not be an encumbrance on anybody else.

  They moved into his very comfortable house in Oxfordshire and Lela, who was now fourteen years of age, found his horses, which were superb, a great new interest

  If Lady Lawson wanted to be compensated for what she had done, it was to see Lela’s face, which was so like her own, alight with joy and her eyes shining as she came in from riding.

  “I jumped higher today, Mama, than I ever have jumped before!” she would announce proudly.

  Her mother would put her arms around her as she said gently,

  “I know how proud your father would be of you. He was a magnificent rider and won all the Point-to-Points and Steeplechases at home.”

  It was impossible, however comfortable they might now be, not to think of the little Manor House where they had been so happy.

  But it was a mistake to live in the past and Mildred made a tremendous effort to please Sir Robert.

  She knew that he was proud of her and that he enjoyed the parties when she sat looking exceedingly lovely at the end of his table wearing the jewels that he had festooned her with.

  Some of the men who came to the house she did not like.

  Gradually she persuaded Sir Robert to entertain more distinguished County people of whom there were quite a number living in their neighbourhood.

  They also went to London, where they met members of the Political world, which gave him an insight into a subject that he had not thought about before.

  Then, when Lela was fifteen, her mother suggested to Sir Robert that she should go to a Finishing School in Florence.

  “She should come out in the Season of 1902,” she said, “and I want her to be better educated and more intelligent than debutantes usually are.”

  He had laughed and said,

  “Most men will not be looking for brains in anyone as beautiful as Lela, who is exactly like you.”

  “All the same I want her to be intelligent,” Lady Lawson persisted.

  Good-humouredly Sir Robert agreed, paying a considerable sum for Lela’s education at the most exclusive young ladies’ Seminary in the whole of Europe.

  Lela had wept when she left her mother.

  “If only we were going together, Mama,” she said, “it would be exciting to see the pictures in the Galleries that you have told me about so often.”

  “I know, my dearest,” her mother answered, “but your stepfather has been so generous in paying the fees of your School that I really cannot ask him for anything more at the moment.”

  Lela had understood because she was well aware that Sir Robert doted on her mother.

  He grudged every hour she spent away from him. Even if she went shopping with her mother he was sometimes disagreeable when they returned if they had been longer than he had expected.

  Lela was sensible enough to be aware that, although he did not say anything, he often resented the fact that she was with them when he wanted to be alone with his wife.

  She tried to be tactful because she loved her mother, but it was difficult.

  She also knew that it was only when they were alone and could speak without being overheard that her mother would talk to her about her father.

  It was then Lela knew that her mother was still miserably unhappy at having lost the only man who had really mattered to her in her whole life.

  When she took out his Victoria Cross to touch it gently, there was an expression on her mother’s face that told Lela that nobody could ever take her father’s place.

  Her mother was longing, although, of course, she did not say so, to die so that she would be with him again.

  This thought came into Lela’s mind when she was leaving for Florence and she clung to her mother saying,

  “Promise me, darling Mama, that I can come back for the holidays next year. It will be ghastly being away from you – for so long.”

  “I know, my precious,” her mother answered, “and I will try to persuade Sir Robert to bring me on a visit to Florence, although he does not care much for the Italians.”

  “Try, Mama! Please, try,” Lela begged her.

  She made up her mind to learn everything she could because she wanted to please her mother and the following year Sir Robert and Lady Lawson came to Florence for one weekend.

  They were on their way to Rome, where Sir Robert wanted to meet some business associates.

  Although he was kind and gave Lela a number of presents, she was sure that he resented the delight that mother and daughter greeted each other with.

  “When can I come home, Mama?” Lela had asked before her mother had said ‘goodbye’.

  “At the end of the summer term next year. You will be nearly seventeen and I want you to help me plan your coming out, which your stepfather has already promised will be a very brilliant one.”

  “You mean – he is giving a ball for me, Mama?”

  “Two, darling, one in London and one in the country.”

  Her mother held her close for a moment before she went on,

  “We will buy you some very beautiful clothes and I am praying that you will find someone as wonderful as your father, who will love you as he loved me.”

  There was a little sob in her voice and then she added quickly,

  “You must work really hard this year, for I want you to be not only the most beautiful but also the cleverest debutante.”

  Lela had laughed, but she was no less determined to try.

  As her mother drove away from the school, she had the terrifying feeling that she was losing her.

  It was a premonition that was sadly proved right.

  At the end of the year her mother died unexpectedly having contracted tuberculosis.

  Lela could hardly believe that it had happened as her mother had made no mention in her letters that she was ill, only that at times she was very tired.

  Now Lela asked herself bitterly why she had not begged to come home so that she could be with her mother and why her stepfather had not sent for her.

  His letters, which were few, told her very little, except that she was to stay where she was.

  When the time came when she should return home as originally planned, she was told that she was in mourning.

  She must remain in Florence until she need no longer wear black.

  This meant that she was an exile from England and had nowhere to go after she had finished her schooling.

  Then when she was thinking that she must beg her stepfather to take her away because it was embarrassing to be so much older than the other girls, an Italian Contessa sent for her.

  She had met her mother on a number of occasions when she was in England and she now invited Lela to come and live with her.

  “What I suggest, my dear,” she said, “is that you stay with me in my Villa, which is very comfortable, and keep on with your studies and especially your painting.”

  “I love painting,” Lela exclaimed
. “And I copy the pictures in the Uffizi Gallery.”

  “I know of an excellent teacher who will make you even more proficient than you are already,” the Contessa informed her.

  It seemed the solution to all her problems and anyway there was nothing to draw her back to England now that her mother was dead.

  So Lela wrote to her stepfather and told him what had been suggested.

  Sir Robert had written back to her by return giving his approval and sent Lela a large cheque to pay for her further tuition.

  Because the Contessa refused to accept anything for staying with her as a guest, Lela felt for the moment that she was very rich.

  She therefore bought the best canvasses and the best paints and also, on the Contessa’s suggestion, a number of pretty gowns.

  “There is no need for you to wear black for any length of time while you are in Italy,” the Contessa pointed out.

  Because her father and mother had always disliked heavy mourning such as the example set by Queen Victoria, her gowns were mostly mauve and white.

  Then after nine months she blossomed into pale pastel colours, which made her look even lovelier than she was already.

  She was happy and even thinking that it would be a mistake to return to England when the Contessa suddenly died.

  She was indeed very old and just fell asleep gently and quietly with a smile on her lips.

  It would have been impossible for Lela to mourn her excessively and after the funeral the Contessa’s family arrived to take possession of the house and its contents.

  Lela knew then that she must now go back to England.

  Her Head Mistress made arrangements for her to be chaperoned by a Diplomat’s wife who was returning to England and she also saw that she was accompanied by a Courier.

  Nevertheless she felt very strange when, after having been away for so long, she first set foot on English soil.

  But she was delighted when she returned to Sir Robert’s house in Oxfordshire to find that her old Nanny, who had become her mother’s lady’s maid, was still there.

  Lela flung her arms around her, saying as she did so,

  “Nanny, Nanny! I was so afraid you might have left!”

  “I was waitin’ for you, Miss Lela,” Nanny said. “Now, come upstairs and change after that long and, I’m sure, dirty journey.”

  She spoke in a voice that Lela remembered as a child.

  She gave a little choked laugh as she obeyed what she knew was actually an order.

  Only when she was in her bedroom, which was the one she had used before she had gone away to Finishing School, did she feel instinctively that something was wrong.

  “What is it, Nanny?’’ she asked.

  For a moment she thought that Nanny was not going to tell her.

  Then she said,

  “I thinks. Miss Lela, you’ll find there’s been a few changes at The Towers. And not for the better!”

  It was difficult to make Nanny say much, but Lela was soon to discover that the real change was in Sir Robert.

  For a start he seemed to have grown very much older and fatter.

  There was something about him that had not been there when her mother had been alive.

  And it did not take Lela long to realise that, for one thing, he drank very much more than he had in the past.

  Besides that his friends, who seemed always to be in the house, were very different from those who he and her mother had entertained.

  In fact Lela knew that her mother would not have approved of them.

  Sir Robert had always been a hard rider and his friends seemed to be the same, hard riding, hard drinking and hard swearing.

  They used language in their conversation that shocked Lela and, if anything went wrong, they swore as they would have done on the hunting field.

  At first they treated her with respect. Then, after only a few days she realised from the ‘swimmy’ look in their eyes and the way their hands reached out to touch her, that their feelings were something very different.

  After Lela’s arrival, Sir Robert gave a large dinner party.

  One look at the women told Lela that her mother would never have had any of them in the house.

  She had met a great number of the mothers of the girls she had been at school with and she knew that they too would not have invited these women into their homes.

  As dinner progressed, the laughter grew louder, the women became somewhat abandoned and the men’s voices grew thicker.

  Lela had never encountered anything like it before.

  She was both shocked and disgusted until the ladies, some of them unsteadily, left the room and she escaped to her bedroom.

  She was not surprised to find that Nanny was waiting there for her.

  There was no need for words and she walked into her arms and Nanny held her against her.

  “I knew it’d upset you, dearie,” Nanny sympathised, “but the question is what can you do about it?”

  It was a question that was to echo and re-echo in Lela’s ears all night.

  *

  The next morning, after she had been riding, her stepfather called her into his study.

  She went rather nervously, wondering why he wanted her and, when she had closed the door, he began,

  “I realise that my friends were not good enough for you last night!”

  He spoke truculently and Lela thought how unpleasant he looked and how different from when her mother had been alive.

  “I was – tired,” she said after a moment, realising that he was waiting for her answer.

  “That is a lie!” he replied. “I suppose you were shocked. Well, they are my friends and now your mother has left me alone, I have to have somebody to keep me company.”

  “Yes – of course – I understand,” Lela said softly. “At the same time – ”

  “All right! All right!” Sir Robert exclaimed. “But I have a solution to your problem.”

  Lela looked at him enquiringly and he carried on,

  “John Hopthorne is coming to see you this afternoon.”

  Lela tried to remember which of her stepfather’s guests was John Hopthorne.

  Then she recalled that she had met him the day after she had arrived when he had come to luncheon. He was not a very prepossessing man, but he had been talking to Sir Robert about horses.

  She had listened to the conversation because it had interested her.

  Now, as she thought about it, she remembered Mr. Hopthorne as being a guest last night as well.

  He had spoken to her before dinner was announced. She had, however, been so surprised by the appearance of the ladies as they arrived, that she could not remember one word of what Mr. Hopthorne had said to her.

  “What does he want to see me – about?” she asked nervously

  “I should have thought that was obvious,” Sir Robert replied. “You are a very pretty girl, as more than one man told me last night.”

  Lela stared at him.

  “Are you – are you – saying?” she stammered, thinking that her stepfather could not mean what she thought he meant.

  “Hopthorne wants to marry you,” Sir Robert said bluntly, “and I have given my consent.”

  “M-marry me?” Lela exclaimed. “But – I could not possibly – marry him!”

  “Why not?”

  “He is – too old. And I don’t – love him!”

  Sir Robert laughed.

  “He is very rich, is respected in the County and has his own pack of foxhounds. I don’t know what more you could want.”

  “I want a great deal – more than that,” Lela said quietly, “and my answer is quite simple. It is – ‘no’!”

  Sir Robert looked at her for a moment.

  Then he said,

  “It is unfortunate that you should feel that way about it, as I have already given my consent. I am your Guardian, Lela, and, as I have to find a husband for you, I doubt if you could do better than Hopthorne.”

  He paused and, as
Lela said nothing, he went on,

  “I have been told on good authority that he will be Knighted either this year or next for the considerable contribution he has made to Conservative Party funds.”

  He laughed, but it was a sound without much humour in it.

  “You will be a Lady, my dear, like I made your mother. There is not a woman born who does not enjoy having a title.”

  “Then I must be – the exception,” Lela replied, “for I don’t want a title! And I do not wish to be married, at any rate – not to Mr. Hopthorne.”

  There was a moment’s silence while Sir Robert scowled at her.

  Then he said,

  “You will do as you are told and the sooner you are married the better. I don’t want you looking down your nose at my friends, as you did last night, and sneaking away as if they were not good enough for you.”

  He suddenly lost his temper and shouted,

  “How dare you criticise me! I have looked after you all these years, dressed you, fed you and educated you to please your mother and now you will do what I say. You will marry Hopthorne if I have to drag you to the altar!”

  Because he sounded so threatening, Lela gave a cry of sheer horror and turning ran from the room.

  She heard Sir Robert shouting her name as she ran down the passage.

  Then she went up the stairs and, bursting into her bedroom, locked the door.

  She threw herself down on the bed, not crying but trembling and trying desperately to think how she could save herself.

  Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined that anything like this could happen when she came back to England.

  She was intelligent enough to know that a Guardian had complete control over his Ward and in her case Sir Robert, as her stepfather, was her natural Guardian.

  Even the Law could not protect her from any decision that he might make about her future.

  ‘I will run away!’ she told herself abruptly.

  Just then there was a knock on the door and she stiffened.

  Then she heard Nanny’s voice saying,

  “It’s only me, Miss Lela.”

  Lela jumped up and let her in.

  Then, as she looked at Nanny’s familiar loving face, she burst into tears.

  “It’s all right, it’s all right!” Nanny was saying with her arms around her. “I know what’s happened, because Sir Robert told his valet, who told me, that this Mr. Hopthorne wants to marry you.”