It was the kind of abuse which Ula had had to endure for a year, but she merely drew in her breath and forced herself not to reply.
“After which you have the effrontery,” the Earl raged on, “to revive the old scandal that I hoped had been forgotten of your mother’s appalling behaviour in running away and disgracing the whole family.”
His voice rose as he screamed,
“You are no better than she was, and yet despite your ingratitude, I have, and it is a great deal more than you deserve, arranged your marriage, which will take place immediately.”
Ula stared at her uncle in sheer astonishment.
“Arranged –
my marriage
– Uncle Lionel?”
“God knows why anyone should want to marry you!” the Earl declared. “But I am thankful, indeed very grateful, that you will be off my hands and, which pleases me even more, out of this country, so I need never see you again.”
“I-I don’t – understand,” Ula stammered.
“Then let me tell you of your good fortune,” her uncle replied. “His Highness Prince Hasin of Kubaric has asked for your hand in marriage!”
Ula gave a scream that seemed to echo around the walls of the study.
“Prince Hasin?” she gasped. “It cannot be true – and I will not marry him – nothing in the world would make me – marry him!”
She moved towards her uncle as she spoke, saying,
“He is horrible – repulsive – and I would rather die – than be his – wife!”
“How dare you speak to me like that!” the Earl roared. “You should go down on your knees and thank God that any man, considering your background, would marry you!”
“I will not do it
– I will not
!” Ula cried. “I hate him – you understand? He is –
loathsome
!”
She thought that her uncle would now shout at her louder than he had already. Instead, he reached out and hit her hard on the side of the head.
She was not expecting it and she fell down, bumping her head as she did so against the leg of the chair.
For the moment there was nothing but darkness.
*
Ula slowly came back to consciousness to hear Sarah’s voice,
“What has happened, Papa? I see you have brought Ula back, but why is she lying on the floor?”
“I suppose she has fainted,” the Earl admitted grudgingly. “I will bring her round.”
Ula heard him walk across the room and knew he was going to the grog tray that stood in one corner.
“She looks very pale,” Sarah remarked.
“I will pour this water over her,” the Earl said. “She will soon come round.”
Sarah gave a shriek.
“No, Papa, no! You will spoil her gown and, as it is far smarter than anything I own and far more expensive, I want it for myself. I am sure it will only need lengthening.”
Ula did not move. She was feeling weak and her head ached and she had no wish to face her uncle or Sarah.
She heard her uncle put down the jug of water on a side table before he said,
“Damn the girl! She is nothing but a nuisance!”
“I hope, Papa, you are going to beat her for the way she has behaved,” Sarah said in a spiteful voice.
“I have every intention of doing so,” the Earl replied, “but the Prince will be here with the Special Licence he is obtaining from the Archbishop of Canterbury.”
“I don’t think it right that Ula should be a Princess,” Sarah complained.
“She can call herself anything she likes as long as she stays in Kubaric,” the Earl said. “I don’t expect she will much enjoy herself there with three other wives waiting to scratch her eyes out!”
Ula drew in her breath and realised in horror that what he had just said implied that the Prince was a Muslim.
In which case he was entitled to four wives and she would only be one of them.
For a moment she could hardly believe that any man could call himself a Christian and at the same time consign her to such a fate.
Then she knew that the Earl would accept anything or anybody so long as she was taken away from England and out of his sight.
Almost as if what she was thinking gave Sarah the same idea, her cousin said,
“Well, we need not worry about her once she is gone. Did you see the Marquis when you collected her from his house?”
“No, of course not,” the Earl replied. “I knew that Raventhorpe was at Epsom, where he has several horses running.”
“That was clever of you, Papa, and, if the Prince marries Ula tomorrow morning, it will then be too late for him to interfere.”
“Do you really think he will try to do that?” the Earl asked.
“He has set her up as a beauty only because he is angry with me,” Sarah replied. “Once she is out of the way I will get him back.”
“I hope you are right,” the Earl said dryly. “You cannot ‘play fast and loose’ with a man like Raventhorpe.”
Sarah was not listening.
“I want that gown, Papa,” she said.
Ula was aware that Sarah was looking down at her.
“Have her taken upstairs and undressed. After that you can beat her until she is dead for all I care!”
“It would be a mistake to upset Prince Hasin,” the Earl suggested. “He wants some horses to take back with him to Kubaric and I have some which I intend to show him tomorrow before the marriage takes place.”
“Well, all I want is Ula’s gown,” Sarah persisted, “although if His Highness throws in a few diamonds, I shall not say ‘no’!”
“Leave everything to me,” the Earl replied confidently.
A voice from the door interrupted them.
“You rang, my Lord?”
“Yes, Newman. Have Miss Forde carried upstairs, undressed and put to bed.”
“Very good, my Lord.”
“She is not to be taken into her old room,” the Earl went on, “but somewhere where she has no clothes. She must be rendered unable to escape. Do you understand?”
“Yes, my Lord.”
“Put her in the oak room at the end of the passage of the first floor and tell the housemaids when they have undressed her that Lady Sarah wants her gown. Miss Forde is to be locked in the room and the key brought to me. Is that clear?”
“Yes, my Lord.”
“If she escapes again,” the Earl continued, “anyone who helps her or lets her go will be dismissed immediately and without a reference!”
“I understand, my Lord.”
Ula heard Newman step back and he must have beckoned to one of the footmen. A few moments later someone lifted her shoulders, someone else her feet and she was carried from the study, through the hall and with some difficulty up the stairs.
The whole household must have been aware by now, Ula thought, that something unusual was happening.
She could hear the housemaids chattering at the top of the stairs before the footmen carrying her reached them.
“Miss Forde is to go in the oak room at the end of the passage,” Newman said.
He repeated the Earl’s instructions about removing her gown and locking her in and that if anyone helped her escape they would be instantly dismissed.
“’Er’s fainted,” one of the housemaids said as the footmen put her down on the bed.
“I heard his Lordship knock her down,” Newman replied, “and she must have hit her head against something.”
“Oh, poor young lady! T’isn’t fair!”
Ula knew it was Amy who spoke. She was one of the younger housemaids and a very nice girl.
“Now, you be careful, Amy,” Newman warned. “If Miss Ula runs off again, we’ll be in the soup.”
“If you asks me, Mr. Newman, it’s a cryin’ shame the way ’is Lordship treats ’er and I’ve always said as much.”
“Then you keep your ideas to yourself,” Newman answered, “or you’ll find yourself crying outside the back door! Come on, James.”
The two men left the room as he spoke and Amy and the other housemaids undressed Ula.
She was determined to remain, as they thought, unconscious, and she made herself completely limp as they took off the beautiful gown that Sarah coveted.
Then having fetched it from her bedroom upstairs, they dressed her in one of her old, worn, and darned nightgowns.
Ula lay stiffly without moving until the housemaids had left and she heard the key turn in the lock.
Only then did she open her eyes and look around her frantically, wondering if there was any means of escape.
She knew, however, that unless she had wings and could fly, it would be impossible to get out by the window.
The house had been built with high Georgian ceilings and even from the first floor, if she fell from a window onto the gravel below, she would certainly break at least a leg or her back, even if she did not kill herself.
She sat up in bed looking at the large mahogany wardrobe, the dressing table, the wash stand, with its china ewer and basin, the chairs and other smaller pieces that furnished the room.
It was very much better than the room she had been given originally which was really a servant’s room on the second floor.
Equally she was aware that the wardrobe was empty. Although she could see that the housemaids had, besides her nightgown, brought down a plain flannel dressing gown she had worn for some years and a pair of slippers, there was nothing else in which, if she wanted to, she could escape.
“What can I do?
What – can I do
?” she asked in a whisper.
Once again she was sending out a frantic winged prayer to the Marquis, pleading with him to come to her rescue.
She knew it was impossible and yet he had saved her before when she was running away from Chessington Hall without even a penny in her pocket in an effort to reach London.
He had saved her once already from Prince Hasin and perhaps by a miracle he would do so again.
Something she decided during the long hours when no one came near her was that she would rather die before she allowed the Prince to touch her, although she had no idea how she could do so.
There were, she knew, guns in the gun room and sharp knives in the kitchen, but they were all inaccessible.
Half a mile from the house, if she could get there, there was a swift-moving stream and she thought that in certain parts of it the water would be deep enough for her to drown.
But with the door locked there was little or nothing she could do about it.
‘Help me – God please – help me. There must be – a way. There must be some manner of – escape before I am to – marry that Prince!’
Having studied Eastern religions with her father, she knew it was very easy for a Muslim to divorce any wife he was bored with.
If the Prince already had four wives, which was more than likely, because in the East the men started marrying when they were very young, he only had to say, ‘I divorce you’ and he was free to marry another woman.
But it was not so much being the wife of a Muslim that appalled her, but the thought of belonging to the Prince.
The evil she had immediately felt in him seemed in her imagination to be all around her. She wanted to scream and go on screaming so that she could somehow express her terror and horror of what awaited her.
*
At five o’clock in the evening Ula heard someone outside the door and, as the key turned in the lock, she quickly lay down and closed her eyes.
She did not need to be told that it was her uncle who had come into the room and she sensed, although she did not look at him, that he had come to beat her as he intended.
When he came up to the bed, she felt that he was surprised at finding her, as he thought, still unconscious.
She knew he was looking down at her, because she could hear him breathing heavily as if it had been an effort to walk up the stairs.
She did not move, and after a moment he said,
“Ula, Wake up! Do you hear me? Wake up!”
There was a note of authority in his voice that made it difficult for her not to obey him.
Then, as if he was anxious because she appeared to be unaware of what was being said, he bent forward to take her by the shoulders and shake her.
He shook her backwards and forwards, but with an effort of willpower which came from her fear of being beaten, Ula forced herself to be limp under his hands.
She let her head fall backwards and forwards as if she had no control over it.
Then with an oath beneath his breath her uncle threw her back against the pillows.
As he did so, Sarah came into the room.
“Ula cannot still be fainting, Papa!”
“I think she must have a touch of concussion,” the Earl said slowly, as if it was difficult for him to admit it.
“Well, she had better come round before tomorrow, if that is when she is to be married.”
Her father did not reply and Sarah went on,
“Mama says I am to lend her one of my gowns or give her back the one she arrived in, but I have something white which I don’t want and it will be quite good enough for her.”
“The Prince can certainly afford to buy her anything she wants,” the Earl remarked.
“Then she is lucky!” Sarah sneered. “I could do with quite a lot of things!”
“If the Prince buys my horses at the high price I intend to ask for them,” the Earl said, “you shall have a new gown as soon as we return to London.”
“Then let that be the day after tomorrow or better still, tomorrow afternoon. I want to see the Marquis and now that Ula is out of the way he will soon be back in my pocket – you see if I am not right, Papa.”
“I hope you know what you are talking about,” the Earl said, “but come on, we can do no good here.”
Ula heard him stride out of the room and Sarah followed him, then once again the key was turned in the lock.
She climbed slowly out of bed and walked once again to the window.
Was it possible, she wondered, to make a rope with the sheets from the bed?
She had nothing to cut them with and she knew that tied together even with the blankets they would not be nearly long enough to reach the ground.
‘Help me! Please, God – please – Papa
– help me
!’
There was nothing she could do but pray and now she thought of how cleverly her mother had escaped the night before her marriage.
No one had been aware of it until the next morning, when it was far too late to find her. She and the man she loved had already been married in a small country village by a Parson they had got out of bed to see the Special Licence they showed him.