Seek the Stars Page 5

  They went into luncheon after the butler had announced it and the Marchioness talked endlessly of the large trousseau that Sadira would need and the sooner they started shopping for it the better.

  Sadira could see across the table that her father was listening to the Marchioness and all her suggestions.

  At the very same time her instinct told her that he still half-suspected that he was being deceived.

  She therefore put out her hand to touch his.

  “Stepmama is going too fast,” she said. “While I am thrilled and delighted to be engaged to Norwin, I do not wish to have to leave home too soon. You know, Papa, I am always happy when I am with you.”

  The Marquis’s eyes softened.

  “And I love having you with me, my dearest, but I must accept that it will be impossible now that you will be preoccupied most of the time, as you surely will be, with your fiancé.”

  “I still want to be with you every moment of the day that you can spare for me,” Sadira insisted.

  Somehow they managed to get through the meal and Sadira felt as if she was walking a tightrope and at any moment she might slip and fall into a chasm below.

  She had no idea what she ate and she noticed that, when her stepmother was not being over-gushing, she was looking at her with a hard look in her eyes.

  ‘She hates me as much as I hate her,’ Sadira thought. ‘How could Papa have married such a ghastly woman in the first place?’

  She thought that the only consolation in having to marry the Earl would be to get away from the Marchioness’s evil presence and she felt as though the whole house was poisoned by it.

  After luncheon the Marchioness suggested that she might like to go shopping.

  Sadira replied, however, that she had a good number of letters to write.

  “I suppose you want to tell your friends that you have beaten them to the matrimonial post?” her father commented in a strained effort at being humorous.

  “You are quite right, Papa,” Sadira replied, “and I just know that they will all want to be bridesmaids.”

  “I am sure they will,” he agreed, “and they will be grinding their teeth all the way up the aisle!”

  Sadira managed a rather stifled laugh as she could not help thinking that it was what she herself would be doing even louder than anyone else.

  Her father had, however, put a good idea into her head.

  So she decided that she would go to see her closest and dearest friend, Anne Beecham.

  They had known each other since childhood and they had shared a Governess for several years and had then gone to the same Finishing School.

  Anne was a great deal more intelligent than most of their contemporaries and she had therefore at school shared with Sadira the extra Tutors whom the Marquis had ordered for her.

  Feeling that she must talk to someone, Sadira reckoned that the only person she could trust would be Anne.

  They were very close to each other and often remarked that they were just like sisters.

  She knew that nothing she told Anne would be passed on to anybody else.

  Equally she was nervous about hearing Anne’s reactions to anything as unpleasant and sordid as the position she found herself in at the moment.

  Although she had known of her stepmother’s infidelity, she had never told Anne about it and she had tried to pretend even to herself that it was not happening in her supposedly happy home.

  Because she loved her father, she had prayed that he would never know as he would be intolerably humiliated by all the intrigue and deception.

  Now she had been forced to save the Earl and her father from being involved in a divorce case.

  She wondered if it was really to her father’s advantage to have to live for the rest of his life with a woman who was nothing more than what people in Society would call, ‘a common whore’.

  ‘I just cannot think clearly while I am in the same house with her,’ Sadira told herself morbidly.

  She rang the bell for her maid.

  When she came, Sadira told her to order a carriage and that she was to accompany her.

  “I am visiting a friend,” she told her.

  Unlike the Marquis Anne’s parents, Lord and Lady Beecham, spent most of their time in London.

  They went to the country only when they stayed with friends and, because Anne, like Sadira, loved riding, she had greatly enjoyed staying at Langbourne Hall.

  She rode the Marquis’s horses and did everything else that Sadira enjoyed to the full.

  They had even planned how often they could be together during the Season when they were both to be debutantes.

  Lord Beecham was giving a ball for Anne and the Marquis was giving one for Sadira.

  They were both to be presented at their first ‘Drawing Room’ to Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace.

  And, as they would be invited to the same balls, their parents could take it in turns to give dinner parties for them.

  ‘I must see Anne,’ Sadira determined, ‘only she will understand and help me through my darkest hour.’

  *

  A short while later Sadira was driving towards Anne’s house.

  She was turning over in her mind exactly what she should say.

  ‘I will tell her the truth,’ she decided, ‘and Anne I am certain will surely understand.’

  At the same time she shuddered from actually putting into words the horror that she felt at her stepmother’s behaviour.

  She also shrank from explaining to her the degrading position that she had been forced to accept in order to deceive her father.

  She knew that Anne would be as shocked at the whole situation as she was herself.

  The carriage drew up outside Lady Beecham’s delighful house in Belgrave Square.

  Only then did Sadira think that perhaps it would be a mistake to tell Anne the whole sordid truth.

  It would be better on the whole just to say that her father and stepmother had arranged her marriage without consulting her.

  But, of course, she was pleased at having such a splendid and influential bridegroom!

  When the front door opened, she realised that she was not the first visitor.

  In the hall were men’s top hats and a number of elegant sunshades, which told her that Lady Beecham was entertaining.

  “Good afternoon, my Lady,” the butler, who naturally knew her well, greeted her.

  “Good afternoon, Watkins,” Sadira replied. “What is happening today?”

  “Her Ladyship is holding a meeting here, my Lady, of one of her Charities to help the heathens.”

  Sadira’s spirits sank.

  She knew only too well that Anne’s mother was a very religious woman and she spent a great deal of her time and money in helping charitable causes.

  On one occasion Sadira had been dragged in to help make what were known as ‘mother Hubbards.

  These were, she remembered, very ugly dresses from one of the African countries, where the children were naked and their mothers were in very much the same condition most of the time.

  When Sadira stayed with Anne, she had to be down early for breakfast because Family Prayers always took place in the dining room every day before breakfast was brought in.

  All the staff were expected to attend and either Lord or Lady Beecham presided.

  They read the Collect of the day followed by a number of prayers that the congregation were expected to reply to with fervent Amens.

  Now, as Sadira seemed indecisive, the butler suggested,

  “If I were you, my Lady, I’d slip into the back of the room and, when Miss Anne sees you, she’ll come away as quick as possible.”

  “That is a good idea,” Sadira smiled at him.

  The butler led the way to the dining room and Sadira knew that by now it would be filled with chairs all neatly arranged in rows.

  They would face towards a table at the end of the room where Lady Beecham and the organisers of the Charity would be seated. There w
ould not be a large audience, if it was anything like the meetings that she had attended before.

  Those who were there would all be middle-aged or elderly friends who came because Lady Beecham asked them to. Another reason was that they knew that after the meeting was over there would be an excellent tea. And this would take place in the drawing room.

  Sadira thought that, when the audience started to move away from the breakfast room, she and Anne could escape upstairs.

  They could talk in what had once been the schoolroom but was now her friends’ sitting room.

  Watkins opened the door quietly and Sadira walked past him into a vacant chair that was right at the back.

  As she did so, she was aware that a soberly dressed man was giving a lecture and she was not surprised to find that it was about North Africa.

  It was a part of the world that Lady Beecham was particularly interested in.

  Sadira had learned a considerable amount in the past about Africa from various Charities that Lady Beecham generously supported.

  Now she noticed that the man speaking had white hair and a kind face and he spoke in a deep positive voice.

  He was describing a camel market in Marocco and making it easy for the audience to imagine the men with their array of great beasts.

  He told them in detail of the women sitting on the sand and selling homemade goods or twirling wool into yarn on hand spinners.

  “They use,” he said, “big skeins of coarse stuff, while the baby camels nuzzle against their mothers.”

  He then went on to describe how hard the women were forced to work and how difficult it was for most of them to feed their children and even keep alive.

  To her surprise Sadira then found herself deeply interested in what he was saying.

  This speaker most certainly knew his subject well and he spoke with an unmistakable air of sincerity.

  Having heard so many of them, Sadira had learnt to tell which speakers were genuinely concerned with the Charity that they were raising funds for, while others merely repeated what they had read in pamphlets or had been told to say.

  The man with white hair went on to speak about the lack of available medical help. It led, he said, to a great deal of unnecessary suffering especially amongst the women.

  “It’s not only a question of medical supplies,” he went on, “but the knowledge of those who administer them is very limited and many children die because there is no one who can tell their mothers how to treat even the commonest illnesses.”

  He paused to look round his audience before he continued,

  “The women themselves as well frequently have an agonising time in childbirth.”

  He told his listeners how the countries of North Africa were still entirely a man’s world and the women had to keep their faces covered and waited on their husbands at meals. They were then allowed to eat what was left after their husbands had finished.

  Another urgent need, he declared, was any sort of schools for the children.

  Trained technicians were desperately lacking as well in everything that concerned the economic development of the region.

  “I am,” he proclaimed with a faint smile, “just a voice crying in the wilderness. To send out Medical Missionaries like myself costs money and that is not available unless people like your good selves are warm-hearted enough to help us, not only with your prayers but also from your purses.”

  He then sat down and there was rather more applause than would be usual on such an occasion.

  Lady Beecham, who had been listening intently to him, then rose to her feet.

  “I know you will want me to thank Father Christopher,” she began, “for his excellent address and for all we have learned about the poor women of North Africa. I need not ask you to give generously to his cause because I know you will do so.”

  She paused to look at the audience and then continued,

  “Father Christopher will be leaving England in two days’ time and I feel certain that we would want to send him back with enough money to help at least some of the wretched women and children who are suffering so badly in North Africa.”

  She was about to say something more, when Father Christopher, who had just sat down, rose to his feet again.

  “I think we should make it clear, my Lady, so that there is no mistake,” he said, “that while I spoke of North Africa in general this afternoon, I am in fact, when I leave England, going first to Morocco.”

  He paused and then added,

  “I am told that I am urgently needed in what to the Muslims is the Sacred City of Fez and I know that all I have said this afternoon applies specially to that beautiful country.”

  He sat down to more applause and Lady Beecham rose again to say,

  “You know, Father, that we wish to help you wherever you go. Your wonderful work has already been commented on by Her Majesty the Queen and we know that any money we give you will be spent in the best and most effective way.”

  Father Christopher nodded as if in agreement and Lady Beecham then added,

  “I hope now that you will all come to the drawing room for tea and, of course, to talk to Father Christopher personally. Any donations you feel able to give us will be collected at the door.”

  Those who were seated at the table rose to be followed by those in the audience.

  As they did so, they all started talking at once so that the room seemed to vibrate to the sound of it.

  Anne, who had seen Sadira come into the room, joined her.

  “Let’s disappear while we can,” she whispered.

  They slipped out through the door before anybody else had reached it and then, running through the hall, they hurried up the stairs to Anne’s sitting room.

  As they reached it, Anne exclaimed,

  “I am so glad to see you, Sadira. What has been happening? Have you been asked to any parties yet? Believe it or not I have had three invitations already.”

  Sadira drew in her breath before she said,

  “I have something to tell you, Anne, dearest.”

  “What is it?” her friend asked.

  “Papa has arranged that I am to – marry – the Earl of – Kensall.”

  Anne stared at her in astonishment.

  “Marry – the Earl of Kensall?” she repeated after a moment. “But I had no idea that you even knew him.”

  “I know him now,” Sadira answered, “and my engagement to him is being announced tomorrow.”

  “I don’t believe it!” Anne exclaimed. “How can it all have happened so quickly? You never said a word to me about it when we met the day before yesterday.”

  “I did not – know it – myself then,” Sadira replied.

  “And he has asked you to marry him?” Anne asked as if she was trying to work it out for herself. “But, surely, this has all happened too quickly? How can you know if you really are in love with him?”

  They had often insisted to each other that they would never marry until they were really in love and Sadira knew that this was what Anne was referring to.

  Before Sadira could think of a reply, Anne added,

  “I suppose, because your father is so grand, that you are being treated like Royalty and are having an arranged marriage! Oh, Sadira, we always promised each other that we would never agree to a marriage like that!”

  “I – know,” Sadira answered. “But Papa thinks that the Earl of Kensall – is different from other men.”

  “Which, of course, he is,” Anne remarked. “I have heard about him because everybody says how handsome he is. Once Papa made some remark about his love affairs, but Mama said ‘hush’ and put her fingers up to her lips because I was present.”

  She had said all this before she put her hand up to her mouth as if to stop herself.

  “Oh, dearest,” she cried, “I am sorry. I should not have said that to you. But it is such a surprise! I thought we were going to spend at least half the Season together before either of us even thought about becoming engaged.”<
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  “I – know,” Sadira answered, “but it is something I – cannot do – anything about. I just wanted you to – know about it before the announcement – appears in The Gazette.”

  Anne rose and kissed her friend.

  “I love you, Sadira,” she said, “and you know that the one thing I want is for you to be happy. If you are, it is all that matters.”

  Sadira wanted to say that she was miserably unhappy and that was why she had called to see her.

  But she knew that it would be a mistake to say any such thing and there was nothing that Anne could do anyway except to commiserate with her.

  She suddenly decided that she did not want to talk about it any further. The whole idea of it was too appalling to discuss.

  If they talked and talked, as most women did, it could only make everything worse and it was bad enough as it was.

  Impulsively she asked,

  “I will tell you what I would like, Anne. I would like to meet Father Christopher. I was very interested in what he was saying. Perhaps after that we could come up here again and I can tell you more about my engagement.”

  “Of course, if that is what you would wish, dearest,” Anne agreed, “and naturally I want to hear everything – about your – future.”

  She hesitated over the last words of her sentence.

  Sadira was aware, because they knew each other so well, that Anne suspected that there was something wrong.

  She was, however, too tactful to say so. She only took Sadira by the hand and they went slowly down the stairs that they had just run up so quickly.

  Lady Beecham’s large and attractive drawing room was full of the people who had attended the meeting.

  There was a delicious tea laid out at one end of the room and a number of maids and footmen to serve it and they carried round every sort of sandwich, scone, biscuit and cake.

  The Beechams were well known for their outstanding hospitality.

  But Sadira knew that most of those present at Lady Beecham’s invitation to support good works came because of the food rather than the cause.

  Lady Beecham was a rather stout woman who had once been extremely pretty like her daughter.

  She greeted Sadira with affection,

  “How sweet of you, dear child, to come and help me,” she gushed. “We have had one of the best meetings I can remember.”