Lucifer and the Angel Read online

  She found her handkerchief and was bending down to wipe it dry when a voice she remembered only too well remarked,

  “I think once again you must have been dreaming, but I cannot believe this time it was of Lucifer!”

  Startled, she looked up and there, standing behind the bath chair, was in fact Lucifer.

  He looked exactly the same as he had when they had met before and as she had visualised him almost every day since.

  The only difference was that he was standing instead of riding, while his tall hat was still at a rakish angle on his dark head and his coat fitted as elegantly across his broad shoulders.

  She stared at him wide-eyed.

  Then the lady in the bath chair said,

  “You appear, Kerne, to have an acquaintance with this young lady already. Perhaps you would introduce me?”

  “We met by chance, Mama, and, as she told me, she was at that moment thinking of Lucifer, I think perhaps I am connected in her mind with that particular gentleman.”

  The Duchess looked at her son in surpriseand then said to Anita,

  “Will you tell me who you are?”

  A little late Anita remembered to curtsy.

  “I am Anita Lavenham, ma’am,” she answered, and I am staying in Harrogate with my great-aunt, Miss Matilda Lavenham.”

  “Matilda!” the Duchess exclaimed. “Good gracious, is she here?”

  “She is over there on your right,” Anita replied, and please, if you will excuse me, I must fetch her another glass of water.”

  She curtsied again hesitatingly and hurried back to the well while the Duchess said to her son,

  “I should have thought Matilda Lavenham was dead years ago, but let’s go and speak to her. I remember her when I was a girl and I suspect that your young friend is the daughter of that very handsome nephew of hers, Harold Lavenham.”

  Back at the well, Anita had waited her turn for another glass of the mineral water and, when finally she received it, she carried it very much more carefully to her great-aunt, to find that the lady in the bath chair over whom she had fallen was talking to her.

  Standing a little apart from them both and looking rather cynical and bored was Lucifer.

  “You have been a long time, Anita!” Miss Lavenham said sharply, as she took the water from her hand.

  “I am sorry, but I had to wait,” Anita replied.

  As she spoke, she gave the Duchess a glance to see if she would betray her, but she received an encouraging smile. Then Miss Lavenham said in a manner which seemed almost reluctant,

  “This, Clarice, is my great-niece, Anita. You may remember her father?”

  “Of course I remember Harry Lavenham,” the Duchess replied. “He was the most handsome man I ever danced with and I used to follow him out hunting, knowing he would always be in at the kill.”

  “Those were the days when he could afford to hunt with a decent pack,” Miss Lavenham replied.

  Anita knew that once again she was referring to the fact that everything that was luxurious in her father’s life had come to an end when he married not a rich bride, as was expected of him, but her mother.

  Ever since Anita had arrived in Harrogate, Great-Aunt Matilda had made it very clear that the circumstances in which her great-nieces found themselves at this particular moment were due entirely to their father’s profligate life.

  Anita knew it would have been quite useless for her to point out that her father had been so happy with her mother that he had never missed any of the advantages he had enjoyed when he had lived at home.

  She knew only too well that Great-Aunt Matilda would not understand that love was a compensation for everything else that her father could no longer afford.

  She was wise enough to suspect that, because Great-Aunt Matilda had obviously never been in love, she was inclined not only to disparage that emotion but also to consider it an unnecessary luxury for everybody else.

  Now for the moment it was difficult to concentrate on what Great-Aunt Matilda was saying or indeed of whom she was speaking.

  Instead Anita found herself vividly conscious that Lucifer’s dark eyes were on her face, and she wondered what he would say if she asked him how long he intended to stay away in the hell he had recently chosen instead of Heaven.

  With a faint smile to herself she thought that not only would he be astonished if she said such a thing, but doubtless Great-Aunt Matilda would send her home on the next train for being impertinent.

  “I wish I had known you were here before, Matilda,” the Duchess was saying. “I have been in Harrogate for five weeks and it would have been pleasant to talk of old times.”

  “I am too busy to entertain,” Miss Lavenham answered sharply, “but, if you would care to visit me for a dish of tea next Sunday, you will be very welcome.”

  “Thank you,” the Duchess replied. “If I am able, I shall be delighted, and I hope you and your niece will come to me before I leave. I have rented Lord Arrington’s house on Prospect Gardens and find it extremely comfortable.”

  “A ridiculous man who worries far too much about his health!” Miss Lavenham sniffed. “When he told me he was visiting the spas in France and Switzerland I informed him it was a waste of money.”

  As she spoke, she signalled the footman who was pushing her chair to take her away and at the same time handed her empty glass to Anita.

  Quickly Anita returned it to the side of the well where a great number of other used glasses had been deposited.

  Then. as she turned to hurry after her great-aunt, who by now had left the Pump Room, she found that she had to pass by Lucifer.

  He blocked her passage and she was forced to stop.

  “Are you taking my advice, Miss Lavenham?” he enquired.

  She knew to what he was referring, and that, knowing what she thought of him, he was mocking her.

  “I remember what you said, sir,” Anita replied, “but you forget you also told me that the Devil would come – I am therefore apprehensive as to how I can stop him.”

  She saw the amusement in his eyes at her reply.

  Then, without waiting for him to speak, she ran from the spa, catching up with Great-Aunt Matilda, whose bath chair was already moving swiftly out through the gates onto the road.

  They proceeded for quite some way before Miss Lavenham said,

  “I presume you know who those people are?”

  “No,” Anita replied, “you introduced me to them, but you did not tell me their names.”

  “That was the Dowager Duchess of Ollerton,” Miss Lavenham said, “and her son, the Duke. A frivolous man, from all I have heard, but that might be said of any young man today.”

  Anita did not reply.

  She had already heard, a number of times, her great-aunt’s opinion of modern youth and their lack of responsibility.

  What did interest her was that Lucifer was the Duke of Ollerton.

  Anita had always thought that Dukes were old, pompous and overpowering. The Duke of Ollerton was certainly the latter, but he was not pompous.

  He had a lithe grace about him which had made her imagine he could easily have glided down from Heaven with his wings outstretched, landing with an athletic ability that prevented him from hurting himself.

  The Duke of Ollerton!

  It sounded a very formidable title and now she could no longer think of him just as Lucifer but as a Nobleman and she was quite certain that somewhere she had heard his name before.

  It took her a long time to remember where, until she recalled that her father had liked her to read the newspapers to him when he was ill and that included the reports of race meetings.

  Of course, the Duke was amongst those who owned winners of great races including the Derby and the Gold Cup at Ascot.

  ‘Papa would have liked to meet him,’ Anita told herself.

  Then she wondered if he would come to tea with his mother on Sunday when her great-aunt had invited the Duchess, but she thought that if he did he would b
e considerably bored.

  She had learnt that usually the only guest was the Reverend Joshua Hislip and last week there had been two ladies who had devoted their lives to teaching sign language to children who were born deaf and dumb.

  It was all very worthy, Anita knew, but she was quite certain that the Duke of Ollerton would not find it particularly entertaining.

  ‘No, he will not come,’ she told herself and wondered if she would ever see him again.

  *

  In the large drawing room of the house in Prospect Gardens, the Duchess, when she had been seated comfortably in her favourite place in the window, said to her son,

  “That was a pretty child with Matilda Lavenham, but I cannot imagine she has much of a life. Matilda is obsessed with the needs of the poor and the needy in every country but her own.”

  “I could see she was an old battleaxe!” the Duke remarked. “But I imagine the girl is only with her on a visit. When I saw her before, it was in Cambridgeshire.”

  “Was Anita staying with the Earl of Spearmont?” the Duchess asked.

  “Good Lord, no!” the Duke replied. “I was riding and asked her to open a gate for me, thinking she was a milkmaid, but she was daydreaming and she told me she was thinking about Lucifer.”

  “So that accounts for your extraordinary conversation with her,” his mother remarked.

  The Duke seated himself in a comfortable chair and after a moment the Duchess said,

  “As you asked me, Kerne dearest, I have made a list for you. It is not a very long one.”

  She drew out from a silk bag beside her a piece of paper, but, as she held it out to him, the Duke said,

  “There is no need for me to read it. Invite the girls, if you think they are any good, to stay at Ollerton in three weeks from now. I will give a party at which, Mama, you will preside and, although it will be a crashing bore, I suppose I must do my duty.”

  “We shall have to ask their fathers and mothers,” the Duchess commented.

  “Of course,” the Duke agreed, “and I will include a few friends of my own to cheer up what will undoubtedly be a laborious few days of utter boredom.”

  The Duchess drew in her breath.

  “I hate you to talk like that, Kerne,” she said after a moment. “You must remember, dearest, it is your future we are planning and, once you are married, there will be nothing anyone can do.”

  The Duchess spoke a little hesitatingly and the Duke responded,

  “I am well aware of that, Mama, but, as we have agreed that Marmion and his appalling wife must not on my death inherit Ollerton and all the responsibilities that go with my position, however unpleasant it may be, I must make the best of a bad job.”

  “I have chosen girls whose parents are an example of propriety,” the Duchess said, “and what is more, I know Her Majesty will approve of them.”

  “Then I can only say thank you, Mama, and beg you to stop worrying about me, as you are doing at this moment.”

  “Of course I worry. What mother would do anything else in the circumstances?”

  “Perhaps it will not be as bad as we both anticipate and I am sure, Mama, that, if nothing else, you will think it is very good for my soul. You have accused me often enough of being spoilt and selfish.”

  “Not where I am concerned,” the Duchess said quickly. “You have never been anything but kind and very unselfish to me and, however much you may deny it, that is why you are here now, boring yourself in Harrogate of all places.”

  “As a matter of fact I am finding it quite amusing,” the Duke replied. “Apart from being with you, the Earl of Harewood has told me I can use the excellent horses he has at Harewood House as if they were my own, and I am trying out a team this afternoon. I only wish you were well enough to come with me.”

  “I wish I were too, dearest,” the Duchess replied. “When you are there, tell the Earl I hope he and his wife will call on me before I leave. I have not been well enough to drive over to Harewood to leave my cards with them.”

  “I am sure they will wish to come and see you.”

  The Duke rose as he spoke and bent down to kiss his mother’s cheek.

  “You are looking much better, Mama,” he said, “and I think we can thank Harrogate for that.”

  He would have moved away, but the Duchess held on to his hand.

  “Before I send out the invitations, dearest,” she said, “you are quite, quite certain that this is what you wish me to do?”

  “Quite certain – but because it bores me, I don’t wish to discuss it any further.”

  “No, of course not,” the Duchess sighed, releasing his hand.

  There was, however, a deep sadness in her eyes as she watched him walk from the room and close the door quietly behind him.

  *

  Three days later, the Duke, driving a team of four perfectly matched chestnuts, turned a corner of the road and saw a small figure running swiftly ahead of him along the pavement.

  He thought he recognised the blue ribbons of the bonnet he had last seen in the Pump Room and it surprised him first of all to see that Anita was alone and unaccompanied, and secondly that she should be running away from the town in the same direction as the one in which he was driving.

  He was aware that Cornwall Road, once it had passed Knaresborough Forest, would take him out to the open countryside and it was there that he intended to test the speed of the horses he was driving so that he could report on their progress to their owner.

  He pulled his horses in until they were level with the small figure moving surprisingly quickly and then brought them to a standstill.

  Anita must have been aware that he was trying to attract her attention, for she turned her face towards him and he saw that her eyes were filled with tears and they had spilled over onto her cheeks.

  “You appear to be in a great hurry, Miss Lavenham,” the Duke remarked drily. “Perhaps you would find it easier to travel more swiftly in my chaise, wherever you are going.”

  “I-I am – going to the – country,” she replied after a moment, a little incoherently.

  “As that is also my destination,” the Duke said, “it is obvious that we should journey together.”

  He put out his left hand as he spoke and, almost as if he commanded her to do so, she took it and stepped into the chaise to sit down beside him.

  She made no effort to wipe away her tears and after he had started his horses again the Duke asked,

  “What has upset you?”

  “I-I want – to go – h-home – I want to – g-go away,” Anita said. “B-but I have – no money – and I am not sure that I can – do so.”

  “What has occurred to make you feel like this?”

  For a moment he thought that she was not going to answer him.

  Then, because he was waiting and she felt she must reply, she said in a voice that broke,

  “Great-Aunt Matilda has told me that I am to m-marry the – Reverend – Joshua – H-Hislip.”

  “And the idea upsets you?”

  “He is – old – and he is – always preaching about ­– the punishments that await those who – sin and when he looks at me – I think there is – f-fire in his eyes.”

  The Duke thought somewhat drily that perhaps the Reverend Joshua had fire in his eyes for a very different reason than Anita’s sins, but aloud he asked her,

  “Surely if you do not wish to marry him, it is quite easy to say ‘no’?”

  “Great-Aunt Matilda tells me that it is my – duty because his wife has died and he needs – somebody to look after him,” Anita replied. “Sarah said we were all to find husbands – but I cannot marry him – I think I would rather – die!”

  There was no doubt of the despair in Anita’s voice, but the Duke merely enquired,

  “Who is Sarah?”

  “My sister. When Mama went to Switzerland, Sarah wrote to our relations, who had paid no attention to us before, asking them to have us to stay. She thought it was our last cha
nce to find – ourselves husbands. There are no – young men where you first saw me in –Fenchurch.”

  “So you are husband hunting?” the Duke commented and he made it sound a very unpleasant pursuit.

  “Sarah is nearly – twenty-one,” Anita explained, “and she cannot wait. But I have plenty of time and anyway – I have no wish to – marry anyone – unless I love him!”

  Her voice broke on a little sob.

  Then, as if for the first time she realised that her face was streaked with tears, she put up her fingers to her cheeks before beginning to search for a handkerchief.

  As she seemed regrettably to have omitted to bring one with her, the Duke took the square of fine linen from his breast pocket and handed it to her.

  As she turned her face to thank him, he thought she cried like a child.

  The tears were running down her cheeks whilst her eyes were still wide open and swimming with them and he knew that he had never known a woman who could cry so prettily without contorting her face.

  “Thank – you,” Anita faltered. “You will think I am very – foolish – but somehow I know that Great-Aunt Matilda will – force me to – marry the Reverend Joshua because she thinks him such an – admirable man.”

  “Your father is dead,” the Duke said, “but I cannot believe you do not have some nearer relative who could be constituted as your Guardian and to whom you could appeal for help?”

  “There is only the Countess of Charmouth, my Aunt Elizabeth, who is Papa’s sister,” Anita said. “Sarah is staying with her and it would not be – fair for me – to interfere.”

  The Duke, being concerned with his horses did not speak and she went on,

  “I-I must run away – if I can go home – perhaps I could hide so that Great-Aunt Matilda could not make me return to her – and the Reverend Joshua could not – find me.”

  She twisted her fingers together for a moment before she added in a very small voice,

  “B-but I have – no m-money.”

  “So you are asking me to lend you some,” the Duke quizzed her.

  “C-could you? Please – could you do that?” Anita asked. “I promise you I will return it – every penny. It might take a long time – but you shall have it back.”

  “If I give you money, what exactly would you do with it?”