“That is true,” the Duchess confirmed, “but apart from her looks everybody loved her for herself.”
“Thank you for telling me that,” Ula said, “and you will understand how much I miss her – and Papa!”
There was just a little defiant note as she spoke of her father, as if she refused to allow him to be left out.
But the Duchess understood and she said,
“You must tell me all about them. I have often wondered if your father and mother were really happy and whether it was worthwhile giving up the important position your mother would have had as a wife of the Duke of Avon.”
“Mama once told me that she was the luckiest and happiest woman in the whole world because she had been fortunate enough to find Papa,” Ula replied. “Even when things were difficult and we were cold in the winter because we could not afford enough coal she used to laugh and say, ‘nothing really matters as long as I have Papa and you, dearest, for that makes the house, even if it is as cold as Siberia, a little – corner of Heaven because we are all together’.”
There was a break in Ula’s voice as she spoke and it was with an effort that she forced back the tears from her eyes.
The Duchess put out a hand towards her and said,
“Sit down, child. I gather my grandson wants to plan how to make you the success your mother was, which I am sure she would want for you. I don’t think it is going to be too difficult.”
“Are you – sure about – that?” Ula asked. “His Lordship has the fantastic idea that I might be an ‘Incomparable’, but I know how plain I look compared with Sarah!”
She hesitated before she added softly,
“Papa said once that no one could be really beautiful unless they had the ‘Divine Light’ shining from inside them. Perhaps that is something I do not have and only – God could give it to me.”
She spoke earnestly without the least embarrassment and the Marquis watched to see what his grandmother’s reaction would be to this very unusual young woman.
However, the Duchess did not appear to think what Ula had said was in the least odd.
She simply replied,
“I think we shall just have to hope that you and I together can please my very fastidious grandson and make sure, as he has just said, that you gallop past the winning post ahead of all the other competitors in the race.”
Ula laughed, and the sound seemed to ring out around the room.
“Is that what I am to do?” she asked the Marquis. “Then I do hope I win the Gold Cup, as you did at Ascot last year.”
“I am prepared to bet on it!”
“Please – don’t be too – confident,” Ula said quickly. “You might lose your money.”
“Talking about money,” the Duchess interposed, “the first thing Ula will require is the right clothes.”
Ula gave a cry of protest.
“I had forgotten that! Oh, please, ma’am, I am sure you realise that I should not allow his Lordship to pay for my gowns, but, when I ran away in such a hurry, I brought nothing with me.”
There was a worried expression on her face as she turned to the Marquis and said,
“I cannot be an – encumbrance on you – or on Her Grace.”
The Marquis rose to his feet to stand with his back to the fire.
“Now, let me make it clear from the very beginning,” he said, “that I cannot have my plans interfered with. As you promised, Ula, to trust me, you must also obey me.”
Ula’s eyes fell before him.
Then she said in a low voice,
“Mama – told me once that a lady could – accept only small presents – from a gentleman without being thought ‘fast’ or – improper. I think she meant a fan or perhaps a pair of gloves – nothing else.”
“And yet I think you had originally very different ideas of what you would accept when you came to London!” the Marquis remarked.
Ula blushed and looked very lovely as she did so.
Then she said,
“I-I thought then I should be – earning the money – not just accepting it as a – gift.”
“That is the answer!” the Marquis said. “You will be earning the money because you will be carrying out my orders and you can, if you like, think of me as being your employer.”
For a moment Ula considered this. Then she looked at the Marquis in a mischievous manner and he realised that she had a dimple on each side of her mouth.
“I am sure your Lordship has just thought of that idea on the spur of the moment, but, as it saves my face, I shall accept it and say thank you very much!”
The Duchess laughed.
“I have always told you that you are extremely ingenious, Drogo, when it comes to getting your own way. You were just the same when you were a small boy.”
“I am sure he is very clever,” Ula said, “because he always seems to have the answer to everything.”
“I agree with you,” the Duchess smiled, “and now, Drogo, what are your orders.”
“They are quite simple,” the Marquis replied. “Ula will stay the night with you here and, as I expect you will retire early to bed as you usually do when you are in the country, I will dine with her and give her some last-minute instructions. Tomorrow you will both come to Berkeley Square.”
“Tomorrow?” the Duchess queried. “But what about her clothes?”
“She will, of course, not be seen until you have fitted her out and it is essential that she should look at least presentable within at most twenty-four hours.”
The Duchess gave a little scream.
“That is quite impossible!”
“Nothing is impossible. Today is Sunday. Tomorrow evening, as soon as you arrive, you will send out invitations to a small reception for your intimate and most important friends to meet Lady Louise’s daughter.”
Ula gave a little exclamation and the Duchess stared at her grandson.
He saw the question in her eyes and he said,
“You knew Lady Louise and you were very fond of her. Now that she is dead, you wish to show your affection and your admiration for someone who gave up the Social world for the man she loved by presenting her daughter to the Beau Monde.”
The Duchess smiled.
“Drogo, you are a genius! Nothing could intrigue or excite people more than first to learn that Louise had a daughter and secondly that she is under my chaperonage and in your house.”
“That is exactly what I thought,” the Marquis agreed.
“Will they not still be – shocked at the – scandal Mama caused by – running away?” Ula asked haltingly.
“They will be intrigued and bemused and I am quite certain that they will be full of admiration, as I am, for anyone who was brave enough to do such a thing,” the Duchess said firmly.
“Uncle Lionel will be – horrified!” Ula murmured.
“I hope so!” the Marquis said. “In fact, the more horrified he is, the better I shall be pleased!”
He paused and, looking into Ula’s troubled eyes, he added,
“What you have to do is to forget all that you have suffered at his hands and your cousin Sarah’s. You are starting a new life, Ula, and I think you will find it a very exciting one.”
“I only – wish Mama could – thank you, as I am trying to do,” Ula said. “I can only – think that I am – dreaming, and in the morning I shall – wake up.”
The way she spoke made the Duchess laugh, but once again Ula was trying to keep the tears from falling from her eyes.
She went upstairs to have a bath before dinner when the Duchess retired to bed.
“I am going to need all the rest I can get, dear child,” she said, “because once we are in the thick of the entertainments which will be arranged for you, I have every intention of enjoying myself by being present at all the balls and by accepting all the other invitations which will be showered upon us.”
Ula gave a little laugh and the Duchess, as she kissed her cheek, said,
“Leave ev
erything to Drogo. He loves a challenge and he will enormously enjoy making plans and embarking on a campaign as if he was a General. All we have to do is to follow his orders.”
“You have both been so kind,” Ula sighed. “Last night I went to bed in tears because Uncle Lionel had beaten me again and Sarah had pulled my hair. I-I wanted to die – but now I want to live because – everything is so – exciting!”
“That is exactly what it is going to be for both of us.”
The Duchess smiled and went into her bedroom.
Later, just before he was going down to dinner, the Marquis came to say goodnight to her.
Lying against her lace-edged pillows, her grey hair covered with a very becoming little lace cap and lace falling over her hands from her silk nightgown, the Duchess still possessed a shadow of the beauty that had been hers in the past.
There was an expression of satisfaction in her eyes as she looked up at her grandson.
In his evening clothes the Marquis was unbelievably elegant.
He was wearing, instead of knee breeches and silk stockings, the long tight-fitting black drainpipe trousers which had been invented by the Prince Regent.
His cravat was tied with great ingenuity and his tailcoat with its silk lapels had been cut by a master hand.
With his hair in the windswept fashion, again introduced by the Prince Regent, the Marquis looked so handsome that the Duchess wondered how any girl could have been such a fool, as Lady Sarah had been, as to lose him.
She was aware as well that the cynical lines running from his nose to his lips were even deeper than usual. She was sure that not only his eyes were critical of everything and everybody but his whole attitude was more supercilious than ever.
‘Curse the girl!’ she said to herself. ‘She had the chance of sweeping away the disillusionment that spoils him and, whatever he may say, it will take him a long time to forget and forgive!”
She did not, however, voice her thoughts aloud and merely exclaimed,
“How smart you look, Drogo dear! No wonder the Prince Regent is jealous of you when he grows fatter and fatter year by year, while you seem to grow slimmer.”
“That is because of the exercise I take,” the Marquis replied. “Besides, I don’t gorge myself as everybody has to do at Charlton House night after night!”
“Nevertheless your chef at Berkeley Square is an excellent man,” the Duchess replied, “and I look forward to enjoying my meals as your guest.”
“It will be delightful to have you,” the Marquis responded quite sincerely.
“Do you really mean to say that I have only twenty-four hours in which to make that child a sensation?” the Duchess asked.
“It’s best to ‘strike while the iron is hot’,” the Marquis answered, “and you must be aware that once Ula is launched under your chaperonage it will be impossible for the Earl to make any claim to take her back to the country.”
“I understand,” the Duchess said, “and that is something which must never happen.”
She looked up at the Marquis as she added,
“My lady’s maid tells me that when she helped Ula with her bath, she was appalled by seeing the scars on her back, some of which were still bleeding from the beating she received last night!”
The Marquis frowned.
“Then it is true what she told me?”
“Only too pitiably true,” the Duchess said. “Robinson says she must have suffered agonies, not only when it happened, but also when the open wounds stuck to her clothing, which had to be pulled away when she undressed.”
The Duchess saw with satisfaction the anger in the Marquis’s eyes and the tightness of his lips.
She knew that he had rather doubted Ula’s story of how her uncle had beaten her and she had the same suspicion herself.
But there was now no doubt that the child had been treated even worse than any drunken labourer would have treated his children after drinking on a Friday night.
“I will see that Chessington-Crewe pays for this!” the Marquis exclaimed.
“I can only thank God,” the Duchess said quietly, “that you have been spared a marriage which would have made you not only unhappy but even more cynical and disillusioned than you are already!”
“Who said I am either of those things?” the Marquis asked truculently.
“I am not going to argue about it,” his grandmother replied. “As you were always my favourite grandson, all I have ever wanted for you is that you should find happiness.”
“I have no hope that will prove possible,” the Marquis said, “but I am prepared to settle for a certain amount of contentment and that, at the moment, does certainly not include marriage.”
As if he did not wish to say any more, he kissed his grandmother’s cheek and then her hand.
“Goodnight, Grandmama!” he said. “I am exceedingly grateful to you for playing my game with such charm and grace and, whatever happens, you will delight in watching two people who are quite despicable getting their just deserts.”
He smiled at her and went from the room.
But there was a sad expression on the Duchess’s face as she remained looking at the door for some time after he had passed through it.
chapter three
The Marquis drew his gold watch from his waistcoat pocket.
“It’s time for dinner,” he said sharply. “You must each Ula to be on time.”
“I think,” the Duchess replied, “she is delayed by the new gown I bought her in Bond Street this morning and is hoping you will admire it.”
The Marquis did not answer and the Duchess continued,
“She certainly ‘pays for dressing’, as the servants say. In fact I am sure you are right, Drogo, in your confidence that she will be a sensation when she appears at my reception tomorrow and at the ball you are giving on Friday.”
The Marquis still said nothing, but the Duchess knew that he was listening and after a moment she asked,
“You have heard nothing, I suppose, from Chessington Hall?”
“Why should I?” the Marquis enquired. “After all, what can they say except that it was strange that I should call to see Lady Sarah and then disappear.”
“They must have been disgruntled by your behaviour.”
“That is what I hope!” the Marquis replied grimly.
He glanced at his watch once again and then looked at the Sèvres clock on the mantelshelf, as if he thought he might be mistaken as to the time.
As he did so, the door opened and Ula came in.
The Duchess was expecting her to walk slowly and perhaps a little self-consciously in a new gown that was, she reckoned, one of the prettiest she had seen in a long time.
It had been a very tiring day, searching for clothes that were ready for her to wear or required only a few alterations. In fact when they returned home at tea time, the Duchess had gone to her bedroom to lie down and it had been quite an effort to come down to dinner.
She was, however, determined to see the expression on her grandson’s face when he realised that the little duckling he had brought her yesterday had undoubtedly turned into a swan.
Experienced though she was in both beauty and the wearing of fashionable gowns, the Duchess could hardly believe it when she had seen Ula just before she came downstairs that she was the same pathetic and frightened girl, shabbily dressed and with untidy fair hair, who her grandson had brought to her.
Now Ula was wearing a gown that fitted her to perfection and revealed the exquisite lines of her figure. The tight bodice was ornamented with the decorations that were the vogue after the long years of austerity during the war.
The gown that the Duchess had taken so much care in choosing was of white gauze faintly sprinkled with a touch of silver, which made it shimmer.
It was decorated with snowdrops that had diamante like dewdrops on their petals.
They nestled in the chiffon that encircled the décolletage, and made Ula look more than ever like a small angel
who had just peeped through the fleecy clouds in a summer sky.
Her hair, instead of rioting over her forehead as it had when the Marquis had first seen her, had been dressed by the most experienced hairdresser who served the Beau Monde.
He had, when he had finished, exclaimed with delight that his new client was as beautiful as Diana the Huntress.
To the Duchess’s surprise, however, Ula did not attempt to show off her gown as she came into the drawing room.
Instead, she ran with almost undignified haste towards the Marquis.
“I am sorry – I am – sorry,” she said a little breathlessly. “I know I am late for dinner, but your knife boy had an accident and cut his hand very badly. No one knew what to do until I – bandaged it with honey.”
The Marquis looked at her in astonishment.
“My knife boy?”
“Yes, he cut himself in the kitchen and was crying with the pain. When I was told what had happened, I knew what should be done, so I had to go to him.”
“You have been in the kitchen!” the Marquis said slowly as if he could hardly believe it himself.
“Willy – that is his name – is much better now,” Ula said, “but he is very frightened in case you should dismiss him for being so careless. But you will not do that – will you?”
She looked up, her blue eyes pleading with him.
There was a silence.
The Marquis intended to say that his secretary dealt with all household affairs and, apart from giving exact orders as to what he required, he never interfered.
Then, as he found it impossible not to respond to anyone so ingenuous, he answered,
“No, of course not. He could not help having an accident.”
Ula gave a cry of delight.
“That is what I knew you would say and I must tell Willy not to worry anymore.”
Without waiting, she turned and ran from the room, leaving the door open behind her.
The Marquis turned to look at the Duchess and saw that she was laughing.
“Society beauties,” he said severely, “should not go into kitchens or concern themselves with knife boys.”
An Angel Runs Away Page 4