The Angel and the Rake Read online

  He thought as he spoke that it was unusual for a woman to be so unselfconscious about her looks.

  He had noticed the way that Angela had pushed back her wind-swept hair with her hand.

  The other Gaiety Girls would also have powdered their noses and reddened their lips.

  It suddenly struck him that Angela had not used any cosmetics before she came riding.

  Apparently this had never occurred to her and the Marquis knew that it was very unusual for any young woman who was constantly in front of the public to appear without her make-up.

  As he had predicted, although breakfast was ready, there was no one in the dining room.

  There was an array of silver entrée dishes on the sideboard with candle flames beneath them.

  It made Angela think of the days when she had been little and her father and mother had entertained for the Hunt Ball and the many parties they gave in the summer.

  In those days there had been a butler and three footmen to wait on the guests.

  Breakfast had been arranged in exactly the same way as it was here and the guests had all helped themselves.

  “Would you like fish or eggs?” the Marquis asked, raising the lids of the entrée dishes one by one.

  “As I am hungry, I think I will have both please,” Angela replied.

  He helped her to fish and eggs and she sat down at the table, pouring herself out a cup of coffee from a tall coffee pot.

  The Marquis had just joined her when the door opened and Trevor came in.

  “Good morning, my Lord,” he said to the Marquis and then turned to Angela,

  “I guessed when I went to your room and found it empty that you had gone riding.”

  “It has been the most exciting ride I have ever had,” Angela said, “and, having seen the Marquis’s stallions before you have done so, I can tell you they are truly magnificent.”

  “I hope you rode well,” Trevor remarked a little uneasily.

  “I did not disgrace you if that is what you are implying,” Angela responded.

  They were talking to each other as they always did.

  Then, as if Trevor suddenly remembered that they were supposed to be something other than brother and sister, he put a hand on her shoulder and said,

  “I should have been very worried if the horses had been too much for you or you had had a fall.”

  For a moment Angela stared at him.

  Then, when she understood, she answered,

  “It is sweet of you to worry, but there is no need. I have come back to you intact.”

  “Of course that is all I would want,” Trevor said.

  Angela wanted to giggle at the way they were behaving and she could only hope that the Marquis was impressed.

  Then, as Trevor helped himself from the array of dishes on the sideboard, two other men appeared and there was no need for Angela to go on talking.

  She had a second helping of breakfast as well as enjoying several pieces of toast spread with Jersey butter and comb honey.

  It was very different from the meagre meals she had been having recently when she was lucky if they could afford to buy one small egg.

  ‘If I was a camel,’ she thought, ‘I would be able to stuff myself with this delicious food and go without anything more for at least a week.’

  It was an amusing thought.

  Her eyes must have been twinkling for the man next to her said,

  “You are looking very happy. Has anyone particularly pleased you in this party or have I a chance of looking in?”

  It took Angela a second or two to understand what he was implying.

  And then she parried,

  “I am afraid the answer to that is, ‘no’, I have fallen madly in love – and his name is Saracen.”

  For a moment the man who had spoken looked perplexed.

  But the Marquis understood and, as she rose to leave the room, he rose too to open the door for her.

  As he did so, he said,

  “The gentleman you love will be waiting for you this afternoon.”

  “Then I will be so pleased to see him,” Angela said. “I am going to change now. Where shall I meet you, my Lord?”

  “Ask one of the footmen to take you to my theatre,” the Marquis replied.

  Angela smiled at him and then hurried away to take off her riding habit.

  She then put on one of the pretty gowns that Nelly had found her.

  Her maid tidied her hair and for the first time she remembered that she should use the cosmetics that had been unpacked and put into a drawer of the dressing table.

  Somewhat tentatively she put a little powder on her nose and chin.

  Then she reddened her lips.

  It made her look, she thought, somehow unlike herself.

  At the same time she looked theatrical and she hoped that was what the Marquis would think.

  Because she was still flushed from riding, it seemed unnecessary to put any colour on her cheeks.

  She ran down to the hall to find three footmen on duty and she asked one of them to take her to his Lordship’s theatre.

  “You’ll real admire it, miss, when you sees it,” he said as he walked along the corridor. “Everyone says it be the finest private theatre in the whole country.”

  The way he spoke told Angela that he was proud of serving anyone who had anything so exceptional as a theatre

  He opened the door with a flourish and, when she looked inside, she could understand why he was so impressed.

  Compared to an ordinary theatre it was small.

  Yet Angela could understand that it was large compared to some of the private theatres that she had read about.

  It was built to hold fifty people sitting in the comfortable armchairs in the stalls.

  There were several boxes at the side draped with velvet curtains.

  So palatial was it that it seemed almost a shame that so few people could see anything as spectacular.

  There was a small orchestra pit and the stage was fashioned exactly in traditional style with footlights.

  The crimson velvet curtains were sumptuous and embellished with tassels.

  As Angela stood and stared, the curtains were drawn back.

  It was then she saw that the stage was arranged for what she thought must be the first scene in The Rake’s Progress.

  She was looking at it admiringly when the Marquis came up behind her and asked,

  “Well? What do you think of my theatre?”

  “You know without my saying so that it is sublime,” Angela answered. “I was told that you had copied it from the theatre in The Winter Palace in St. Petersburg.”

  “I copied the structure,” the Marquis replied, “but the decoration is entirely my own.”

  “It is really beautiful like everything else in your house, my Lord.”

  She looked towards the stage.

  “Is that a scene from The Rake’s Progress?”

  “I suppose Brooke told you what I was doing,” the Marquis replied, “but I am having a different ending, which is where you come in.”

  “You mean the angel is going to save him from Bedlam,” Angela answered. “Oh, I am so glad. It has always made me sad to think of him there and regretting everything he has lost.”

  The Marquis looked at her in astonishment.

  “You seem to know a great deal about The Rake’s Progress or was it Brooke who told you?”

  “My father had eight prints of The Rake’s Progress,” Angela explained, “and therefore I have always been interested in Hogarth.”

  “So you know why he became famous?” the Marquis asked.

  “Of course I do,” Angela replied. “It was because he decided to paint pictures with a moral to them. In that way he became one of the most notable artists of his day.”

  “You surprise me,” the Marquis remarked.

  “Why?” Angela asked.

  Without him replying, she knew that it was because he was thinking of her as if she was one of the G
aiety Girls.

  She had already realised that they were very beautiful, very attractive and could flirt in a manner that would have deeply shocked her mother.

  But none of them was well educated.

  She had heard them talking on the train and in the drawing room last night and she knew then that her mother and father would not approve of her pretending to be one of them.

  Because it was a subject that she did not wish to discuss, she said quickly,

  “Now please tell me exactly what I am to do.”

  The Marquis took her up onto the stage.

  “This is the first scene,” he said, “in which obviously you do not appear. I have cut the story down to three scenes. I decided that the most effective would be The Rake’s Levée and, of course, the glamorous women will be played by the Gaiety Girls. Then the gambling house where he loses all his money. After that you rescue him from the Debtor’s Prison.”

  “How do I do that, my Lord?” Angela asked.

  The Marquis explained how the Rake would first be jeered at by the other inmates, who would all be uncouth men and not gentlemen as the Rake was supposed to be.

  “He will then die,” the Marquis said finally, “but you will come down from Heaven to tell him that if he is sorry for his sins, you will take him to Paradise from where he can come back and be given a second chance to be a successful man instead of a complete and utter failure.”

  The Marquis spoke slowly as if he was speaking to a child.

  Angela clasped her hands together.

  “I do like that!” she approved. “Now I can feel happy about the poor old Rake. He has always worried me because his life was so futile and he just threw away all his money in a foolish and reckless manner.”

  “As a great many men do,” the Marquis declared cynically. “So are you sorry for all of them too?”

  “I am sorry for anybody who misses the chance of living their life to the fullest,” Angela answered. “Life is difficult and we all go through unhappy experiences not always of our own making. But if we have courage, we can survive.”

  She was thinking of Trevor and herself as she spoke and her voice was very moving.

  “Is that what you have done?” the Marquis asked.

  She had forgotten who she was speaking to and for a moment she could not think of an answer.

  Then she said,

  “Yes, it is true. But I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Very well,” the Marquis agreed. “Let us start rehearsing.”

  He handed Angela the script with her lines on it and then he lay down on the stage as he would have done if he was in prison.

  There were not many lines and, as she had a good memory, she was word perfect after the first time she had repeated them.

  They went over it several times before the Marquis said,

  “I can see that what you are doing moves you and, as you feel for the unhappy Rake, I do not want to rehearse you anymore.”

  “Why not?” Angela asked.

  “Because I am afraid it will spoil the spontaneity of it,” he replied. “In fact, Angela, you are so good that I am suspicious you are not only an outstanding rider but also, unknown to me, a distinguished actress!”

  Angela laughed.

  “That is what I would like to be – but thank you, my Lord, for the compliment.”

  “You should be used to them by now,” the Marquis remarked.

  “I doubt if you will believe me,” Angela replied, “but I had received very few before last night.”

  “If that is really true, what did you think of them?” the Marquis enquired.

  “To be honest I thought that they were too slick and had been repeated so often that they no longer sounded sincere.”

  The Marquis laughed.

  “You cannot be a cynic at your age!” he said. “I am quite sure that the gentlemen who paid you compliments would be horrified at what you have just said.”

  “Then, please, don’t tell them,” Angela answered, “but when you ask me questions, I find myself automatically telling you the truth.”

  “Are you telling me you never lie?” the Marquis asked.

  It flashed through Angela’s mind that she was, in fact, acting a lie at this very moment – and a very big one.

  “I did not say that,” she said after a moment’s pause, “but I know it is a great mistake to lie unless one absolutely has to. It is wrong and sometimes even wicked to do so.”

  The Marquis glanced at her before he replied,

  “When we have time, which is not now, as we must go back to the others, I want to talk to you, Angela, about what you think is good and what you think is wicked. Let me tell you, and this is not a compliment, that you look good.”

  “That is what I have tried to be all my life,” Angela answered. “I have always felt that it was a grave responsibility to look like an angel.”

  She did not see the expression in his eyes as they walked from the theatre back towards the centre of the house.

  He did not speak until they heard the noise of voices coming from the drawing room.

  The rest of the house party had come downstairs and were doubtless drinking champagne before their early luncheon.

  Angela, however, because she was going to be allowed to ride, went upstairs to change.

  She was glad that Nelly had been so particular as to provide her with two riding habits.

  Now she could wear the blue one that she thought was easily the prettiest and which the Marquis had not seen before.

  She asked if the other ladies were wearing hats at luncheon.

  “Yes, miss,” the maid replied. “They’re all ready to get into brakes that take them to the Racecourse. ’Is Lordship gets ever so cross if ’e’s kept waitin’.”

  Angela therefore put on the blue riding hat with its gauze veil.

  When she looked at herself in the mirror, she thought that she looked very unlike the angel and exactly like a Gaiety Girl.

  ‘Papa would be horrified at my appearance,’ she told her reflection and for one moment she felt a little afraid.

  Then she remembered the one thousand pounds that was going to repair the roof of The Priory.

  As if to force herself to play the part that she was being paid for, she powdered her face again and put on some more lipstick.

  Then with her head held high she walked down the stairs.

  She was telling herself that nothing mattered except that she and Trevor should get away without anyone guessing their secret.

  Chapter Five

  The Marquis’s plans went, as might have been expected, exactly as he wanted.

  The races that Angela found thrilling were faster and more proficient than anything that she had ever seen.

  She took part in one race in which, to her delight, she came in third.

  The Marquis was first and Trevor, riding a magnificent black stallion, was second.

  Angela was just half a length behind him and she received many congratulations from the gentlemen.

  She thought, however, that the women who were not taking part looked rather sour.

  Three of the Gaiety Girls did ride, but none of them very well, while the others said that they would be spectators.

  A number of men, who Angela learned were the Marquis’s near neighbours, arrived to take part in the races.

  They brought fine horses, but nothing to equal his.

  Halfway through the afternoon when Angela was resting on an uncomfortable wooden chair after her race, a voice beside her came,

  “I have found you again, pretty lady!”

  She looked up and saw that it was Lord Grentham.

  She looked at him in some surprise.

  “Why are you here?” she enquired.

  “Because,” he replied, “I am riding one of my horses, which I intend to race against the Marquis’s and I am coming to see your performance tonight.”

  He paused, smiled at her and continued,

  “I just k
now that you will look even more beautiful than you do now.”

  It was not what he said but the way that he said it that made Angela feel uncomfortable.

  There was something too familiar in his voice and the way he looked at her.

  She felt as if she was being insulted and degraded.

  Then she remembered that she was not Angela Brooke, but an unknown young woman who associated with Gaiety Girls.

  She thought too that the compliments that she had been paid since she had arrived at Vaux were given in very much the same way.

  She told herself that for the first time in her life she was being treated as if she was not a lady.

  To her consternation Lord Grentham sat down beside her on the brake and said,

  “I want you to tell me all about yourself. The moment I saw you I realised that you were what I have been looking for all my life.”

  “I really have nothing to tell,” Angela replied.

  “Nonsense!” he parried. “You have lived for nineteen, or is it twenty, years and I want you to tell me who are your parents, where you live and who brought you to London.”

  Angela did not answer him and he carried on,

  “I cannot believe it was Brooke, as I hear that he has very little money and could not afford anything so ravishing and so exquisite as you.”

  Angela looked around her.

  She could see that Trevor was talking, as she might have expected, to Sadie Vandebilt and he was being very attentive to every word he was saying to him.

  Angela was intelligent enough to realise that he was deliberately preventing her from associating with the Gaiety Girls.

  At this moment, however, she wanted to run to her brother to beg him to look after her.

  She did not know why but she sensed that Lord Grentham was menacing her.

  She thought too that he might become a danger if he exposed her as being a fraud and that would certainly hurt Trevor.

  She rose from her seat and Lord Grentham asked,

  “Where are you going?”

  “I want to speak to our host about the horses,” Angela said.

  Climbing down from the brake, she walked quickly away.

  She thought that if she was going to see the Marquis, it was unlikely that Lord Grentham would follow her.

  Although she did not look back, she was sure that he had not done so.