108. An Archangel Called Ivan Read online

  “I went to buy a present for one of the girls whose birthday it is tomorrow,” Arliva replied. “But I could not find anything I liked, so I will have to look after luncheon.”

  “Now, my dear, you must go and change,” her aunt suggested. “Surely you must have remembered that we are lunching with Lady Fotheringay today and you look very drab and dowdy in that get-up.”

  “I dressed in a hurry as I wanted to go shopping,” Arliva told her. “I will not keep you long while I change.”

  “There is no great hurry, dearest, but I want you to look your very best, so do wear that pretty blue dress you wore yesterday. I thought the hat exceedingly becoming.”

  Arliva smiled at her.

  “I promise I will do you credit, Aunt Molly, but I can hardly do more,” she replied.

  “Of course not,” her aunt agreed. “Did you enjoy your party last night?”

  “I thought it was one of the best we have given so far – ”

  They had moved into one of the sitting rooms while they were talking.

  Now her aunt glanced at the door before she said,

  “The Countess of Sturton talked to me last night. She is very anxious that you should marry her son.”

  “But I am not at all anxious to marry him,” Arliva answered. “He is very dull and whenever I have talked to him I find his conversation, to say the least, is limited.”

  Her aunt sighed.

  “Of course, dearest, he is an Earl and I believe that their castle is very impressive.”

  ”Which is much more than can be said for Simon Sturton,” Arliva retorted.

  “Well, do be nice to him if he is at the luncheon today,” her aunt said. “I can assure you that his mother thinks the world of him.”

  It was with difficulty that Arliva did not reply that the Countess of Sturton thought the world of money and not particularly of anything else.

  “I will go to change,” she said. “I am sure you don’t want to be late for Lady Fotheringay.”

  “No, of course not, and do make yourself look very attractive. I cannot think why you ever bought that suit you are wearing, it really has nothing to recommend it and the hat is even duller.”

  Arliva then remembered that she had not put the little feathers back into the hat, which would make all the difference to it.

  But she replaced them when she had taken off the hat and was walking up the stairs, so that the housemaid should not think it strange.

  Then she changed into one of her prettiest dresses.

  She chose a hat trimmed with pink roses that was as pretty as the sunshine outside in Hyde Park.

  When they drove off to the luncheon party, Arliva said,

  “It’s getting so hot in London, I would really love to be in the country.”

  “In the middle of the Season!” her aunt exclaimed her voice rising in surprise. “Think how dull it will be. Here you have a party every night and soon it will be time for Ascot. There, I know, you will be the smartest girl of the year.”

  Arliva wanted to add, ‘and the richest’, but she bit back the words.

  She was not surprised that Lady Fotheringay made a great fuss of her at the luncheon.

  A large number of the men paid her compliments and the girls were obviously jealous at the attention she was receiving.

  *

  ‘I want to be myself. I want people to like me because I am me,’ Arliva mused as they drove back.

  Her aunt was babbling on about the party they were going tonight.

  Without her saying so, she knew that the Countess of Sturton would be there telling her son once again that he must be charming to her and, of course, propose marriage.

  When they reached the house, she said to her aunt,

  “I have a headache. I think it’s because it is so hot, so I am going up to my room to rest.”

  “That is a good idea,” her aunt replied, “and I am going to rest in mine. Don’t forget that you have to look particularly beautiful tonight.”

  “Why particularly?” Arliva asked.

  There was a moment’s pause, then her aunt said,

  “Because there will be so many people expecting you to shine and I am sure that is what you will do.”

  Arliva knew that she was still thinking about what the Countess had said to her.

  There was no doubt that she had persuaded her aunt that marriage to the Earl would be a course that would really be to her advantage.

  ‘I don’t want to marry the Earl. In fact I don’t want to marry anyone,’ Arliva told herself when she was alone in her room. ‘If I do find people who love me for myself, then I will be proud to be their friends, perhaps even to marry a man who is not interested in my money.’

  But she knew that as long as she remained the rich daughter of Lord Ashdown, it would be just impossible for anyone not to think of her money rather than herself.

  ‘It’s a curse, rather than something creditable,’ she said bitterly to herself as she closed her bedroom door.

  Then she locked it and began to pack the case she would take with her when she went to Wilson Hall as a Governess.

  She packed all the items she wanted which seemed to her more than most Governesses would possess.

  Then, locking up the case, she hid it in the dressing room that contained most of her clothes.

  She felt that they looked at her almost reproachfully knowing that, although she had bought and paid for them, she would not be wearing them as long as she was so far away from London.

  Then she sat down at the writing table in her room.

  She wrote a letter to her aunt in which she said that she had been asked away to stay with some of her friends in the country.

  She would be away for a week or so, but they were not to worry about her as she felt that she must have a rest from all the exhausting activities of the Season.

  It was a very affectionate letter and she thought that because her aunt was not a very bright or clever woman, she would accept the situation as it was and not make a fuss but wait for Arliva to return.

  She lay on her bed wondering if she was mad in what she was doing.

  Perhaps she should stay and do what everyone else expected of her and that was to enjoy the Season to the full.

  Yet her father had followed his instinct in going abroad when people least expected it.

  He had visited countries where he was entranced by what he had found, which invariably turned to gold in his hands, although no one had managed to do it before.

  She was the same.

  She had to seek out challenges for herself.

  She had to find an answer to the question that was growing in her mind more and more day by day.

  It was not a question of whether anyone liked her for herself or for what she owned.

  ‘I want to be me,” she reflected. “I want to be a person just like other people who have just enough money to live on, but not enough to throw about or envelop me with a golden halo.”

  She sat thinking it all over, vividly conscious of her case already packed, until it was time to dress for dinner.

  Her lady’s maid accompanied by two housemaids brought in her bath and she had it in front of the fireplace, although it was far too hot to need a fire.

  Then she put on one of her most spectacular gowns that had come from Paris.

  She knew that it would undoubtedly make her the belle of the ball this evening even without her mother’s diamond necklace. And there were two diamond stars arranged in her hair.

  ‘As this is my farewell’, she thought to herself with a smile, ‘I will give them something to talk about.’

  As she went down the stairs, she knew that her aunt looked at her appreciatively.

  When she arrived at the house where they were to dine, she was not surprised to find that she was sitting next to the heir to his family title who was as yet unmarried.

  He was a very charming and intelligent young man called Peregrine.

  “I have heard so
much about you,” Peregrine said as they started dinner, “that I began to wonder if you really existed except in people’s minds.”

  Arliva smiled.

  “I know exactly what you have heard about me,” she replied, “but I don’t want you to repeat it.”

  “It was very complimentary,” he assured her.

  “I am sure it was,” she said, thinking of her father’s money. “It’s very kind of people, but strangely enough I have an urge just to be myself without any trappings.”

  To her surprise Peregrine understood what she was trying to say.

  “Forget it,” he said. “People are always envious and therefore they talk if you have more of anything than they have. You must not let it spoil you.”

  “Why should you think it would?” Arliva asked.

  “There was just a note in your voice,” he replied, “that told me only too clearly that you are tired of being called ‘the rich Miss Ashdown’.”

  Arliva smiled.

  “Right at the very first guess. Go to the top of the class!”

  “I can quite understand,” Peregrine replied, “that you find it a bore when people talk about your possessions. At the same time you know that you would be lost without them.”

  “Ignored is the right word,” Arliva parried.

  He chuckled.

  “Now you are being too modest, but I understand that the women look at you reproachfully because you have looks, wit, intelligence and, of course, riches.”

  Arliva laughed at the way he was speaking.

  Then she said,

  “You must agree it is all too much.”

  “I would be willing to change places with you,” he replied, “if it was possible. Equally don’t attach too much attention to what people say or think. Jealousy is a nasty word and people resent someone having too much.”

  “And that someone is me!” Arliva exclaimed.

  “Most people would be on their knees thanking God for having it all. Do you really think it’s important?

  “I can think of many other things that I would much prefer,” Arliva replied.

  “What are they?” he quizzed.

  She shook her head.

  “I am still looking for what I want. Just as my father went out to strange places and found things which no one had ever seen before. I think that is what I really want.”

  “But you are a woman and so it’s impossible,” he said. “If you take my advice, you will marry some nice fellow who falls madly in love with you, settle down and have a large family and forget that you can pay the bills.”

  “Unfortunately no one else forgets it,” she pointed out, “and that is what I mind.”

  “I can understand in a way,” Peregrine said, “but I assure you that it is far worse when you cannot pay them and very frustrating.”

  She remembered as he spoke that at one time he had been a penniless young man and he had not been able to go into the Regiment he wanted simply because it was too expensive.

  Then his Godfather had left Peregrine a large sum of money because he had no children and so he had known what it was to be poor.

  Naturally he was now enjoying being rich.

  In a low voice Arliva enquired,

  “Are you telling me that the years when you had no money taught you nothing and you merely hated them?”

  “I hated not being able to do what I wanted,” he answered. “Then when I realised that the gates had opened and everything was possible, I was extremely grateful. In a way the long years of feeling frustrated and neglected were worthwhile as they made me appreciate, as I never would have been able to do, all that I now have.”

  Arliva smiled.

  “That is the right way to look at it, but how do you cope with the people who would have taken no notice of you in the past but now kowtow at your feet?”

  “It’s not as bad as all that,” he replied, “but quite frankly I forget about them. I am just thankful that I can live here at the moment with my parents and enjoy being able to ride beautiful horses that I never believed in my wildest dreams would ever be mine.”

  Arliva clapped her hands.

  “That is the right way to look at it and, of course, the horses are glad to be yours and never stop to count up what you spend on them.”

  “That is indeed very true,” Peregrine laughed, “and in five years’ time, when you have had this world at your feet, you will realise that people love you for yourself even though you are suspicious of it. Then you will forget what you are feeling now and just make the best of things as they are. Which I am sure is, in fact, the very best way.”

  “Of course it is,” Arliva agreed. “But I am afraid I want more, much, much more than what you are telling me.”

  “Come and dance,” he said, “and I will continue my lecture.”

  They then went out of the dining room and into the ballroom where the band was just beginning to play very softly.

  They danced round the floor.

  Then he said,

  “I ought to have attended this ball with my fiancée whom you have not as yet met. We are announcing our engagement next week and I hope that you will be friends with her as I know she will want to be friends with you.”

  “Why should she want to?” Arliva asked.

  “Because she really enjoys meeting people who are different. She has already complained that the people we have had here up to now have been much of a muchness. In fact I have a feeling at the back of my mind that I will find myself sailing for some strange land before we have had time to settle down in our new house.”

  “She must be charming!” Arliva exclaimed. “Far too many people have no interest outside their own small circle. That, as you know, always ends in boredom.”

  “It is absurd for you to be talking like this at your age,” Peregrine asserted. “I am ten years older than you and I am now going to prophesy that, if you are looking for the stars, you will eventually find them.”

  He paused for a moment before he added,

  “But it is a long haul up into the sky to where they are!”

  Arliva laughed, but later when she was going home she remembered what Peregrine had said and thought that perhaps he was right.

  Was she completely mad to go off on her own to try to find people who would like her for herself and not for her money?

  When she said goodnight, her aunt Molly said,

  “You were a great success tonight, dearest. You looked lovely and I was very very proud of you. It’s a pity our host is already engaged because he is such a charming young man and I think he would have been a very suitable husband for you.”

  “Are you really looking for a husband for me?” Arliva asked.

  Her aunt smiled.

  “How can I help it? Their mothers, their aunts, their cousins all come and tell me that they have exactly the right husband for you and, as soon as you meet him, you will realise it for yourself and fall in love.”

  “You have not asked yourself if they want to meet me,” Arliva countered.

  There was a short silence.

  And then her aunt replied,

  “Of course, my dearest, you are so pretty and so charming that all the men want to meet you.”

  ‘Also so rich,’ Arliva thought to herself, but did not say it aloud.

  Only when she went up to her bedroom and closed the door did she think that whatever her aunt might say and whatever anyone else might say, she was doing the right thing.

  She was starting off on a voyage of discovery.

  If she failed, she only had to go back and the Social world would be waiting for her with open arms.

  ‘Of course,’ she thought, ‘I may not find anyone. In which case it will be the same answer, back again to the old routine.’

  Yet somehow she knew that she was being guided in the right direction.

  Somehow, perhaps by some miracle she would find what she was seeking and could view the world in a very different way from how she was viewing it at
the moment.

  ‘Please God help me,’ she prayed fervently and felt sure that her prayer would be heard.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Arliva’s alarm that her father had given her a long time ago, which he had bought in France, went off at six o’clock.

  She knew that she had plenty of time before she left because she had everything ready last night.

  At the same time she took a great deal of trouble in dressing herself in her plainest and most ordinary-looking clothes.

  She put on the hat she had worn yesterday from which she had removed the feathers.

  Then she gazed at herself in the mirror and felt that her face looked very young.

  She carefully drew a line under both her eyes with a pencil and was certain that it made her look at least five years older than she actually was.

  She was about to put on her glasses, but thought it might be rather intimidating for the children to see their Governess with huge dark glasses, so she tucked them into her pocket.

  She waited until it was nearly seven o’clock when she knew that the whole staff would be having breakfast.

  Her aunt, because she was not very strong, did not rise early and she usually rang the bell to be called just before ten o’clock.

  So there was no one in the front of the house and when she went to the top of the stairs she saw that the hall was empty.

  She found the case she had packed a considerable amount of clothes into was very heavy.

  But somehow she managed to get down the stairs, open the front door and walk out as quickly as she could manage it into Park Lane.

  She knew there was usually a place where Hackney carriages accumulated and she made her way to it and she was very pleased when she saw ahead that there were quite a number of carriages waiting for passengers.

  Arliva’s arm was by now aching considerably from the weight of the heavy case.

  She stopped at the first one and the driver, who was sitting on the box, turned round to say,

  “Can I take you anywhere, miss?”

  “I wish to go to King’s Cross Station,” she replied.

  “I’ll take you there in a jiffy,” he answered cheerily jumping down from the box and taking hold of the heavy case from her.

  He put it behind his seat and then opened the door for her to climb into the carriage.