“Having met Lady Rosemary, perhaps you have already made up your mind and the party is now unnecessary.”
What was unnecessary, the Duke thought when he read his mother’s letter, was that Lady Rosemary should be included in the party.
He had thought last year, although he had paid her little attention, as she was still in the schoolroom, that she was rather an attractive girl who might easily blossom into a beauty.
But he had been over-optimistic and, when he had arrived at the Marquis’s large house which was not far from the race course, he had found that Lady Rosemary was not half as interesting or as attractive as her father’s horses.
There was in fact rather a horsy look about her which the Duke did not appreciate in a woman, and he thought the hearty manner in which she spoke was reminiscent of the stables where she obviously spent too much of her time.
When he rode with her and was some time in her company at the races, he realised that she was not in the least the type of woman he would invite to become his Duchess.
‘Let’s hope the other two are better,’ he thought now as he left the outskirts of London and was in the open countryside.
Then he told himself that the whole idea of being married was so unpleasant that he had a good mind to go straight back to London to seek the familiar amusements that he found so entertaining.
But he had a vision of his cousin Marmion with his bloated red face and paunchy figure, and he knew that even if it was not his urgent desire to prevent him from succeeding to the Dukedom, he still had to obey what was to all intents and purposes a command from the Queen.
Yet every instinct in his body rebelled against it.
He had no wish to be married and he knew only too well that even if he had some sort of interest or even an ordinary natural desire for his wife as a woman, it would very quickly fade.
Elaine Blankley was a case in point.
He had known when he went to bed last night that he was through with her and, although she would doubtless protest and perhaps make a scene if she could get him alone, her name was crossed off his list and that excluded her from being a guest at Ollerton.
‘I wonder who will interest me next,’ the Duke asked himself, and he thought that the inevitable end of a chase which never took very long was becoming tedious.
‘Why are all women so exactly alike?’ he asked.
When he met a new beauty for the first time he found himself intrigued like a man exploring new territory or finding a strange hitherto uncatalogued flower on the side of a mountain.
Then all too quickly he found he knew every move of the game before she made it.
It was like playing chess with an opponent who was so bad that there was never a chance of it being anything but a walkover.
Sometimes he would think that a woman was mysterious and elusive, only to find quite soon that there was nothing Sphinx-like about her and all she wanted was to be in his arms as quickly as possible.
‘Dammit all,’ the Duke said to himself, ‘I think I shall go big game shooting.’
Then he knew he had done that already, and, what was more, his future was waiting for him at Ollerton – three fair-haired, blue-eyed young women who were tall enough to look resplendent in the Ollerton tiaras and with Junoesque figures to do credit to the ropes of Ollerton pearls.
*
The Duchess had said very much the same thing to Anita when they were travelling down in the train from Harrogate.
Anita had been thrilled and excited by the Duke’s train as a child might have been.
“I thought only the Queen had a private train,” she had said, “but of course a Duke is very nearly the same as King, is he not?”
“Not exactly!” the Duchess had replied, smiling, “although I am sure Kerne would like to think he was.”
“He looks so magnificent and it is only right that he should have everything to enhance his position,” Anita said ingenuously. “I am sure when he was a little boy he had a toy train and planned that when he was grown up he would have a real one.”
“That certainly never struck me,” the Duchess said, “but we will ask him sometime if that was true.”
She smiled at Anita, who sat first on one seat of the drawing room compartment, then on another, determined to try out everything.
As servants wearing the Duke’s livery brought them luncheon, her eyes were shining and the Duchess thought she looked as if she was watching her first pantomime.
“I ought to have read to you,” Anita said when they had been travelling for a long time and the Duchess said she would go to her sleeping compartment to lie down.
“I have enjoyed our conversation, my dear,” the Duchess replied, “and actually I don’t really require a reader.”
She saw the disappointment in Anita’s eyes and guessed she was thinking that in that case she would dispense with her services very quickly.
“At the same time I like having you with me,” she said, “and because my private secretary is away on holiday, you shall help me, when we get to Ollerton, to arrange the special party that my son is giving.”
“A special party?” Anita questioned.
“Yes,” the Duchess answered, and that is why you and I are going to stay in the big house and not in the Dower House where I live when I am alone.”
“Tell me, please, tell me exactly what you do!” Anita begged.
She listened with rapt attention while the Duchess explained how sometimes the Duke had parties at Ollerton at which he wanted his mother to be the chaperone, but otherwise she lived in her own house, which was smaller and very beautiful and where she had all her favourite things round her.
“Which do you like the best?” Anita asked.
“It’s difficult to say,” the Duchess replied. “When I first left Ollerton, where I had lived all the years since I became a bride, I am afraid I shed a few tears as I felt I was saying good-bye to my youth. Then I came to love my own house and it is rather nice to be able to do exactly what I want without worrying too much about appearances.”
“I can understand that,” Anita said. “But now we are to go to Ollerton?”
“Yes, because this party is a very special one.”
“Why is it so special?” Anita enquired.
The Duchess told her the truth.
She was almost certain that Anita was not having romantic dreams about the Duke, but one could never be sure with young girls and the Duchess wished not only to save her son from any embarrassment but to prevent this engaging child from having her heart broken.
She began to tell Anita exactly what the Duke required of his wife, and she thought, from the manner in which she listened and the enthusiasm with which she asked questions, that she had been quite needlessly apprehensive in thinking that Anita had any foolish aspirations in his direction.
“You must find him somebody very very beautiful,” Anita said.
“That is what I am trying to do,” the Duchess answered. “But it is not easy. You see, my son is used to associating with much older women who are sophisticated, witty, elegant and amusing. This is something impossible to find in a girl who is just out of the schoolroom.”
Anita nodded her head.
“I can understand that and I expect most of them find it very frightening to be launched into the world like a ship which has never been in the water before.”
“That is true,” the Duchess smiled, “and sometimes it seems like a rough sea.”
Anita laughed.
“No one ever looks her best when she is seasick!”
“I am trying,” the Duchess continued, “to find three girls from whom my son will be able to choose a wife who will fulfil all his requirements.”
“You will be able to help her,” Anita said, “but she will find it difficult, Your Grace, to be as charming or as beautiful as you!”
The Duchess thought she was almost echoing what the Duke had said and she smiled before she answered,
“It
is very sweet of you to speak like that, but I am growing old and I know that my tiresome rheumatism has put lines on my face, besides making me walk in a grotesque fashion.”
Anita thought for a moment.
Then she said,
“Would Your Grace think it very impertinent of me if I made a suggestion?”
“Of course not,” the Duchess replied.
“Well, we had a doctor in Fenchurch who was rather a friend of Papa and Mama and he treated people in the village suffering from rheumatism and he always made them better.”
“How did he do that?”
“First, he insisted that they should always walk quite a long distance every day. He said it was fatal for them to become chair-bound because sooner or later they became bed-bound and then there was no hope for them.”
The Duchess looked at Anita in a startled fashion.
“I never thought of that,” she murmured. “I wonder if you are right!”
“I am sure Dr. Emerson was right,” Anita said, “and also he used to give his patients a herbal drink which he sometimes asked Mama to make for him and I can make some for you, if you wish.”
“I would try anything to take away the pain and make me mobile again,” the Duchess replied.
Anita was silent for a moment.
Then she said,
“That day at the well when I fell over your chair, I was thinking how wonderful it would be if the water really worked for those who drank it and they all jumped out of their bath chairs and shouted that they were cured.”
She paused before adding,
“I said a little prayer that that might happen, but instead I met you and it was the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me! Perhaps if you drink the herbs and I pray very hard while I am mixing them, they may work like a miracle and you will be well, completely well, and your rheumatism will go away.”
“That is a lovely idea,” the Duchess sighed, “and of course we will try it. I too believe prayer can do amazing and unexpected things.”
“Mama always said that God helps those who help themselves,” Anita replied, “so we must do our part too.”
“That is exactly what we will do,” the Duchess agreed.
When they left the train at the halt which was used only by visitors to Ollerton Park, Anita saw that there was an open carriage waiting with a white pink awning to shade them from the sun.
They drove for a little way through pretty country, wooded and with meadowland brilliant with wild flowers.
Then suddenly ahead of them was Ollerton Park and it was even more magnificent and impressive than Anita had expected.
“It is beautiful, majestic!” she cried. “It is exactly the sort of house the Duke should have! Do you not feel that too, Your Grace?”
“I do indeed,” the Duchess replied. “And I felt just like you do the first time I came here after I was engaged.”
“You must have felt that you were stepping into Fairyland,” Anita said, “and I am sure you looked exactly like the Princess who married Prince Charming.”
The Duchess smiled.
She was beginning to realise that everything Anita said or thought had a dream-like quality that had little to do with reality.
She thought it was very unusual to find a girl who was so completely unselfconscious and had about her a vivid joy in life which made her different from any young woman the Duchess had ever met before.
Because she had only just thought of it, she said,
“Yes, Ollerton is a Fairytale building, and I think, Anita, because I hope you will stay with me for some time, that I should give you some gowns which will be complementary to the house where you will be staying.”
Anita turned to look at her and the Duchess thought that her blue eyes were shining like stars.
“New gown!” she cried. “Oh, ma’am, do you mean it? If you do, it will be the most wonderful and exciting thing that could possibly happen.”
She paused.
Then, before the Duchess could speak she said quickly,
“I am sure I should not – accept such a generous present from you when you have been so kind already in helping me – escape from the – Reverend Joshua.”
“There are a great many more exciting things to do,” the Duchess said quietly, “and I do mean that you shall have some new gowns. You will enjoy Ollerton all the more if you feel you are dressed for the part.”
“But of course,” Anita said, “and please – do you think I could have a new crinoline – a really big one?”
She saw the smile on the Duchess’s face and added quickly,
“Perhaps not an enormous one – because I should look strange as I am so small – but just one that is fashionable.”
“I will get you one that is exactly right,” the Duchess promised.
Anita clasped her hands together.
“I am dreaming – I know I am dreaming!” she exclaimed. “But I do hope I shall not wake up until I have worn it!”
Once again the Duchess was laughing as the horses came to a standstill.
Chapter Four
The Duke walked up the steps and into the magnificent marble hall.
The statues were all of Goddesses, and he thought, as he had often thought before, that there was no hall to rival his in any other of the large houses he had visited.
“Welcome back, Your Grace,” the butler said respectfully. “Her Grace is in the music room.”
The Duke handed the butler his hat and gloves and was feeling satisfied that the six footmen in the Ollerton livery were up to standard.
He had always insisted that they must be over six feet tall and their smartness and bearing was something on which he was particularly insistent.
Leaving the hall, he walked down a wide corridor hung with portraits of his ancestors which led to the music room, which was in the West wing.
It was a room that had been redecorated by the Duchess shortly before his father’s death and it was in consequence artistic and combined the classical and the modern with great success.
As the Duke drew nearer to it, he expected to hear the music of Chopin or Bach, knowing that they were his mother’s favourite composers.
To his surprise he heard the unexpected sound of a gay waltz which had been popular in London the previous winter and to which he had partnered many fascinating beauties.
Now that he thought of it, he remembered that it was during this waltz at a ball given at Marlborough House that he had first become aware of Elaine Blankley’s attractions.
She had used every known artifice to make him notice her as a woman, glancing up at him with her green eyes veiled by her mascaraed eyelashes and making her hand on his shoulder feel like a caress.
That he should recall Elaine at this moment when he had just returned home annoyed him and there was a slight frown between the Duke’s eyes as he opened the door into the music room.
Then he stood still in utter astonishment.
In the centre of the room was his mother and he could hardly believe his eyes when he saw that she was dancing.
She was moving slowly, it was true, but very gracefully and from the manner in which she held her arms there was no doubt that she was pretending to be waltzing with a partner to a melody played on the huge Broadwood piano at which Anita was sitting.
As the Duchess turned, she saw her son and came to a standstill and then a second or two later Anita realised who had come into the room and raised her hands from the keyboard.
The Duke spoke and there was no mistaking the amazement in his voice.
“You are dancing, Mama! How is it possible?”
The Duchess would have replied, but before she could do so Anita came running to her across the floor to exclaim,
“You have done it! You have done it! Is it not wonderful? And you told me you would never dance again!”
“But, as you see, I can waltz,” the Duchess enthused.
“Is this what Harrogate has done for you?” the Duke a
sked.
The Duchess shook her head.
“It helped a little, but that I have been walking and can dance is due entirely to Anita.”
“To Anita?” the Duke echoed.
As he spoke, he looked at the small figure standing beside him, but her eyes, filled with delight, were on the Duchess’s face.
“Anita made me walk and gave me a herbal concoction to drink which I really do believe has performed miracles!”
“It certainly has!” the Duke agreed. “I never expected to see you dance again, Mama, nor for that matter to walk so easily.”
“But now I can do both,” the Duchess said, “and it is due entirely to this dear child.”
She put out her hand to Anita as she spoke.
“You must not forget one important thing, ma’am,” Anita insisted, “that we both prayed very hard for a miracle.”
“Yes, of course,” the Duchess agreed. “That is something we must not forget.”
Anita looked at the Duke.
“I was praying for a miracle,” she said. “when I fell over Her Grace’s bath chair in the Pump Room at Harrogate.”
“But instead you ‘fell from grace’,” the Duke smiled.
“No,” Anita replied, “it was the miracle I was asking for, but it came in a most mysterious manner.”
She gave a little skip of joy as she went on,
“It was a miracle that you saved me from having to marry the Reverend Joshua – a miracle that brought me here and a very very big miracle that the herbs and our prayers have made your mother so much better that she can dance!”
The Duke grinned.
“Do you agree with that, Mama?”
“But of course!” the Duchess answered. “But now, miracle or no miracle, I would like to sit down for a moment.”
The Duke led her to a comfortable sofa and, as the Duchess sat down on it, Anita said, with a note of anxiety in her voice,
“It has not all been too much for you, ma’am? Shall I call the footmen to bring your chair so that you can be carried upstairs to lie down?”
“No, I am perfectly all right,” the Duchess replied. “It is just that I need a moment to catch my breath, so that I can talk to my son.”
“Then I will leave you to talk to His Grace,” Anita suggested tactfully.
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