He had walked into the Coffee Room and automatically, because it was his acknowledged right, had taken the place which had formerly been occupied by Beau Brummell in the famous bow window that overlooked St. James’s street.
“I thought you were in the country, Raventhorpe!” one of his friends remarked.
“I have returned,” the Marquis replied.
He knew as he spoke that quite a number of his closest friends were aware that he had gone to the country to see Lady Sarah Chessington. Although he had not said so, they had instinctively assumed that he intended to propose to her.
They waited now for him to tell them when the wedding would take place, on the presumption that no woman would refuse such a matrimonial catch.
In fact the Marquis was aware that the betting for the last week at White’s had been four-to-one on on his proposing to the incomparable Sarah.
There was silence until somebody asked a little tentatively, knowing how seldom the Marquis talked of his private affairs,
“Did anything happen while you were in the country?”
“It certainly did,” the Marquis replied, “but I think it would be a mistake for me to tell you about it.”
“Why the secrecy?”
“It will not be a secret for long,” he answered. “In fact, I found myself quite unexpectedly in the role of explorer discovering an hitherto unknown priceless jewel!”
The Marquis was well aware as he finished speaking that there was an extremely puzzled expression in his friends’ eyes.
Two of them drew their chairs a little closer to his, and another, bolder than the rest, asked,
“What do you mean – an
unknown
treasure?”
The Marquis knew he was thinking that while Lady Sarah might be an ‘Incomparable’ and was certainly a treasure, there was nothing unknown about her!
In fact, she had been the toast of all the clubs in St. James’s for the past six months.
“Unknown to you and certainly to me until I found her. But I suppose that is what we are all seeking in one way or another,” the Marquis said cryptically. “It is what has kept the poets raving, the artists painting and the musicians composing ever since the beginning of time.”
“What the devil are you talking about, Raventhorpe?” his friends enquired.
“Beauty,” the Marquis said, “beauty that is untouched, unspoilt and hitherto unacclaimed.”
There was silence.
Then one of the Marquis’s contemporaries who was rather more intelligent than the others asked,
“Are you telling us that you have found a new ‘Incomparable’ whom none of us have seen previously?”
“I should not have thought it difficult for you to understand plain English,” the Marquis replied, “but if you don’t believe me, then I suggest you accept the invitation you will receive from my grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Wrexham, tomorrow for a ball that will take place at my house on Friday night.”
“A ball?” someone exclaimed. “For an unknown beauty? Really, Raventhorpe, you never cease to surprise me!”
The Marquis rose from his chair.
“I am glad about that,” he said, “for if there is one thing I find intolerably boring, it is the ceaseless repetition of the obvious. Someone new will give you something new to talk about!”
With that parting shot he walked out of the Coffee Room, leaving behind him a buzz of voices rising higher and higher.
He knew that what he had said would be repeated in the drawing rooms of London by the end of the evening. It would be augmented by reports from the older members of the community who had attended the Duchess’s reception.
The Social world would be agog with curiosity long before the ball on Friday night.
Only the Marquis with his genius for organisation could possibly have arranged everything with such unprecedented speed.
By some magical means of his own, the invitations were printed and his servants had delivered them all over London by luncheon time the next day.
There was fortunately no other ball of any great consequence to be given on Friday night. Even if there had been, it was doubtful if anyone would have refused the Marquis’s invitation while curiosity had mounted every hour of the following day.
Once the gossips were aware of who Ula was, the story of her mother’s elopement became more and more romantic and more exciting every time it was repeated.
In a Society where every girl’s ambition in her first Season was to find a husband with the highest possible title, the greatest possessions and the most important position, what Lady Louise had done was considered inconceivable.
It seemed even more incredible now that an undisputed beauty should have not only refused to marry the Duke of Avon but had done so at the very last moment.
Over five hundred people had been expected as guests at the wedding.
The Church had been decorated, the Archbishop of Canterbury was to marry them, and several members of the Royal Family were to be present in the congregation.
To leave all that and run away with the Curate of her father’s parish in the country seemed unthinkable.
Daniel Forde was the third son of a well bred country gentleman who had no reason to be ashamed of his lineage. His father was a third Baronet, but there was little money.
While Sir Matthew Forde could provide for his eldest son, who would succeed to the Baronetcy and for his second to join a not too expensive Regiment, there was nothing left for the third.
Daniel, therefore, because it was traditional, went into the Church, although he would have preferred, if he had had the choice, to join the Navy.
He was not only strikingly good-looking and exceedingly charming but he was also a man of great compassion and understanding of other people’s problems.
It therefore turned out that he had made a remarkably good Parson, as he loved people for what they were and not for what they pretended to be.
He found that the difficulties and worries of his flock became his personal problems, so that he exercised his brain as well as his heart in doing his best to solve them.
It was obviously impossible for him to return with Lady Louise to Chessington village after they had run away.
His father, therefore, in consultation with the Bishop who, fortunately, was an old friend, arranged for Daniel to be appointed Vicar to a small village in Worcestershire.
It was assumed that their presence there would offend no one and their social crime would soon be forgotten.
Actually, there was very little social life in their new Parish, which suited Lady Louise, who wanted only to be alone with the man she loved.
They were supremely happy with their only child until, as Ula grew older and, as her mother saw, very lovely, she wondered how it would be possible for her ever to meet the right sort of man she could marry.
There was, however, no chance of her being forgiven by her own family for refusing to marry the Duke and Daniel’s father was now dead.
His two elder brothers were both struggling to live on small incomes with a number of sons, each of whom demanded an education which they found very expensive.
“If only Ula could have a Season in London,” Lady Louise had said once to her husband.
Then she regretted she had spoken. It still hurt him to think that he had deprived her of so much when she had preferred to marry him rather than a wealthy and important Duke.
“I am afraid, my dear, the only thing we can afford is tea on the lawn or perhaps a few people for supper in the Vicarage,” he had replied.
Lady Louise laughed.
“Whom could we invite?” she asked. “You know most of the so-called gentry around here have ‘one foot in the grave’, and all the young men in their families gravitate as soon as they are old enough to London and away from the quiet of the country.”
“That is what we want,” Daniel Forde said fiercely.
He had taken his wife in his arms and kissed her.
“I love you!” he declared. “Is that not enough?”
“It is all I have ever wanted and what I have!” Lady Louise had answered softly. “But I was talking about Ula, darling, and not me.”
“We shall just have to pray that something turns up,” Daniel Forde said optimistically.
He had then kissed his wife again so that there was no chance of her saying any more.
It was after her father and mother’s funeral that Ula’s uncle had taken her back to Chessington Hall. He was grumbling all the time over what an expense she would be and how the last thing he wished to do was to revive the memories of her mother’s disgraceful behaviour by allowing her to meet his friends.
“Surely, Uncle Lionel, you are glad Mama was so happy?”
“If she was, she had no right to be,” her uncle replied harshly. “She behaved abominably and, although Avon married subsequently, I am sure he had never forgiven her for insulting him in such an outrageous fashion.
It was something Ula was to hear over and over again in the months to come.
Although it hurt her like the stab of a knife every time she heard her mother decried, it was impossible for her to answer her uncle or defy him without being beaten for doing so.
The first time he struck her she could hardly believe it was really happening. Her father had never in his whole life raised his hand to her and, even when she was a child, had never punished her, except by speaking to her severely.
Then, when her uncle continued to beat her on every occasion he could find an excuse to do so, she realised that it was because he was still infuriated that he could not call the Duke of Avon his brother-in-law.
It was also a humiliation that his sister had caused such a scandal.
On the other hand Ula knew that the Countess disliked her because she resembled her mother.
Although she had produced such an exceptionally beautiful daughter, the Countess herself was a plain woman.
The beauty in the family came from Lady Louise’s mother, who had been not only a famous beauty, but a woman of great charm and goodness and who was the daughter of the Marquis of Hull.
Sarah was always told that she resembled her grandmother and Ula, having seen portraits of the Countess, knew that this was true.
Her own looks were, however, different from Sarah’s.
Although she resembled her grandmother in her colouring, she had her father’s eyes and, while she was unaware of it, his character, which was exceptional.
Daniel Forde had talked to his daughter since she was very small as though she was grown up and could understand exactly what he was saying.
His philosophy of life, his kindness, his understanding of other people, had therefore been transmitted to her.
She had inherited not only this as his child but he had also communicated to her the wisdom of his experience and made her aware, as he was, that everyone one met in the world was a human being like one’s self.
Ula had therefore grown up perceptively aware of other people’s inner selves in a manner that was exceptional for a girl of her age.
She had known, as no one else would have, the reason that she had been treated so hatefully and cruelly at Chessington Hall. Even though she understood it, it did not make the pain of it any easier to bear.
Night after night she had cried despairingly into her pillow, telling her father and mother how unhappy she was and finding it unbearable that they should have left her alone.
She was living with people who both condemned and punished her for sins that she herself had not committed.
“Save me – Papa – save – me!” she had cried out the night before the Marquis had called on Lady Sarah.
When driven beyond endurance by Sarah’s blows, by her uncle’s threats and the fact that she was given so many services to perform and was punished when she was slow at carrying them all out, she had run away.
It was then that her father, by sending the Marquis to rescue her, had answered her prayers.
Every night since she had come to London she had thanked him on her knees and again before she had gone to sleep.
‘How could I doubt that Papa would save me?’ she asked herself every morning.
She was sure when she put on the party gown that the Duchess had bought for her that her mother was looking at her approvingly from the other world, where one day she would join her.
‘I am so happy, so very very happy! I feel it cannot be true!’ she told herself on Friday morning.
By the time she had seen the ballroom decorated with garlands of flowers, with pink candles instead of white in the sconces and chandeliers, which the next day would be the talk of London, she was saying it again.
How could any girl not be happy when she had even more gowns to wear than she had ever imagined even in her dreams?
Then the Marquis had a new idea, which again would give the gossips something to talk about.
He had erected a small fountain in the anteroom of the ballroom which sprayed, instead of water, a delectable perfume of roses.
“How clever of you to think of it, Drogo,” the Duchess had said.
“I must be honest and say that I saw something very like it in Paris when I was in the Army of Occupation,” the Marquis replied. “But I think mine is an improvement because the fountain in Paris sprayed champagne!”
“I think scent is far more suitable for a
debutante
,” the Duchess agreed.
To Ula it was the most fascinating toy she had ever imagined.
She realised that the Marquis had exercised all his ingenuity to make the ball different from any other ball that had taken place recently in London, especially in regard to the decorations.
Not only were the candles pink but the flowers were all pink and white and the chefs had been instructed to see that the supper echoed the same colours.
Up the stairway that led to the ballroom there were great banks of pink and white flowers.
The Marquis had arranged that at midnight, pink and white balloons should be released from the top of the house.
They would float down into the garden, where Chinese lanterns hung from the trees and the paths around the lawn and amongst the flower beds were picked out with fairy lights.
It was all so beautiful that Ula was quite certain that no one would look at her.