She remembered her parents’ marriage and how wonderful it had been for both of them. Despite all the difficulties they had encountered, they had been the happiest couple she had ever known.
“I loved your mother,” her father had told her once, “from the moment I first saw her. We wanted to have a large family but after you were born the doctors said it was impossible for her to have another baby. So you will have to make up for all the other children.”
‘If I ever marry,’ Elvina had thought, ‘I want to be as happy as Mama and Papa were together. If things went wrong they laughed and if things went right they shared their happiness, so that it was impossible for anyone or anything to upset or worry them.’
When her mother had died Elvina herself had been a debutante, staying with Aunt Alice in London, but she had returned home at once to be with her father.
She had soon recognised that on his own her father had lost the will to live.
Father and daughter had always been close, but in the last four years of his life they had grown even closer. She shared his passion for horses and they loved nothing better than to be together, riding or discussing breeding stock.
But Elvina had known that this could not last. Papa’s health was frail and when he said he wanted her to find a companion she guessed that he dreaded leaving her alone.
“You should have a girl of your own age,” he said, “someone to share your interests.”
A few months ago they had found a very charming girl who was actually a distant relative of the family.
Her name was Margaret and she was delighted to come and live with them. Her parents were dead and she dreaded having to earn a living among strangers.
Elvina liked her, finding that they shared many interests. Margaret too enjoyed riding and loved the music which meant so much to Elvina and her father.
Every evening after dinner, Elvina would go to the piano and play to her father the tunes he had liked ever since he had been young.
Invariably when she had played and sometimes sang the popular tunes, her father would say,
“You ought to be in London. You should have some charming young man telling you that you are the prettiest girl he has ever met.”
Elvina laughed.
“I would much rather you say it, Papa,” she answered. “You made me go to London to stay with Aunt Alice when I was eighteen, but I felt lonely and somewhat of an outsider.”
“Well, I am glad you would rather be here with me,” her father said, “I would be very lonely without you.”
She was perfectly happy riding every morning with her father, helping him with the new horses which he kept adding to his very large collection.
At the time of his death, she had known that he was happy to rejoin his beloved wife.
Now Elvina was grateful to Papa for having insisted on a companion of her own age, so that she was not completely alone.
And then another figure had come into her life.
She had noticed the young man first because he had been riding a very fine horse. It was only afterwards that she had noticed how handsome he was. And then she realised that he was very good-looking indeed.
He was Captain Andrew Broadmoor, newly out of the Army and owner of the estate nearby.
At their first meeting he had apologised for wandering onto her land and she had smiled and said that all was well.
They had talked about horses and both found them to be more exciting and interesting than people.
“I talk to my horse when I am riding,” Elvina had told him. “I feel that he understands everything I say to him.”
Andrew laughed.
“I find horses irresistible,” he replied. “I bought two more yesterday which I want you to see and tell me if I have secured a bargain.”
“I would love to see them. Can I come over this afternoon and bring my friend with me, who is as enthusiastic as I am to make our stable the best in the whole County?”
“You are forgetting that I will be fighting you for that accolade,” Andrew retorted.
Elvina shrugged.
“You have a long way to go to catch up with me,” she replied. “After all, I inherited over fifty horses when my father died. As you have just come out of the Army, I cannot believe you can have as many as that.”
“I have as many as I can afford,” Andrew admitted, “and I will be very hurt if you do not admire them.”
Elvina and Margaret rode over after luncheon.
It was only two miles to Captain Broadmoor’s house which was much larger than she expected. So were his stables.
But his horses were a disappointment – few in number, and none of them matched up to the excellent stallion Elvina had seen him riding. But she was far too polite to say so.
She found that it was rather charming to have a young man as a neighbour. When her father had been alive his friends in the country had been his own age.
“We are two young people,” she had once said to Margaret, “amongst those who are double our age.”
“But at least we have the Captain to cheer us up,” Margaret reminded her.
He must have felt the same, because he was continually popping in to see them and consulting Elvina about the horses he was determined to buy.
“I have a long way to go before my stables equal yours,” he admitted, “but I find it impossible to say no when I am offered a bargain.”
“You must not spend what you cannot afford,” Elvina advised him. “Don’t be in so much of a hurry. Remember that horses not only cost money but eat money, as my father used to say.”
She spoke cautiously because she had come to understand that Andrew was not well-off in comparison to herself.
“I heard of an excellent new horse today,” he had said recently, “and I think I should buy it before it’s offered to you because I know you will take it.”
“Are you depriving me of something I ought to acquire?” she asked.
“No, I am only protecting you from having too much,” Andrew answered. “Your stables are bulging and mine, as you have pointed out, are extremely empty.”
“You will have to look after my horses next week,” she told him, “as I have to go to my cousin Claudia’s wedding in London. I will be away for at least a week.”
“I promise I will exercise your horses and keep an eye on them,” Andrew had said. “Are you taking Margaret with you?”
Elvina shook her head.
“No,” she replied. “They have only asked me.”
“Then I will look after Margaret too,” he offered. “But hurry back.”
The week before she left, she rode every morning with Andrew. He was a better rider than Margaret and they both rode so fast that it was a joy for them and the horses they rode.
On the day that she left he had pressed her hand and said,
“I will miss you dreadfully.”
“I feel guilty about going,” she told him. “But I will feel less guilty knowing that you are here.”
“I always want to be here,” he told her.
There was an expression in his eyes which Elvina had not seen before.
She found herself thinking about him on her way to London.
She knew, although she had not thought about it earlier, that he meant so much to her and things might be very different if he was not there.
‘Can I be falling in love with him?’ she asked herself repeatedly.
Then almost as if she had suddenly woken up, she was sure that he was in love with her.
There were comments he had made which were of no particular importance. But now, when she remembered them, it seemed to her that the words held a new significance.
She was pondering these thoughts for the whole week she was in London attending parties, meeting other young men and finding them dull. Now she knew that they were dull because none of them was Andrew.
Next day she left her aunt’s house immediately after breakfast. The carriage took her to the railway station an
d she boarded the train for Derby. From there she changed onto a small local line that dropped her half a mile from her home.
A passing farmer offered her a lift on his cart. She left her luggage at the station, telling the station master that someone would come to collect it, and she spent the rest of the journey enjoying the thought of Margaret’s face when she walked in unexpectedly.
Then she would take her best horse from the stable and gallop over to see Andrew. Picturing their joyous reunion made her shiver with pleasurable anticipation.
She walked the last few hundred yards, approaching the house from the back and letting herself in by the kitchen door.
There was no one in the kitchen and she slipped quietly into the hall.
And at once she saw Andrew’s hat and riding whip on one of the chairs.
‘He is here,’ she thought. ‘He must have come to ask Margaret if she had heard any news from me.’
She hurried down the passage which led to the room which her father had used as his smoking room. She reached the door and was just about to open it when she heard a man’s voice, and knew that Andrew was inside and was talking to someone.
There was a curtain over the door which protected those in the room from draughts in the winter.
Without really thinking what she was doing, Elvina pushed open the door not making a sound.
Then she heard Andrew’s voice saying,
“I love you, I love you, you know I do. But there is no possible chance of my holding my estate together unless I ask Elvina to marry me.”
There was silence for a moment.
Then Elvina heard Margaret say,
“How can you do that when we love each other? love you, Andrew, with all my heart. But, despite what you say, I cannot really believe that you love me.”
“I do love you,” Andrew answered, “with all my heart and soul. But I need money. There has been a terrible crash on the Stock Market and I find myself practically penniless.”
“Oh, it cannot be true,” Margaret said with a sob.
“It is true,” Andrew replied. “I have tried to avoid it and I have tried to pretend it isn’t happening, but it has happened. I have to sell all my horses, my house and everything I possess and even then I will still be in debt.”
“I don’t understand,” Margaret sighed in a whisper.
“I have to find at least two thousand pounds to keep what I possess,” Andrew added sombrely. Even then I will find it very difficult to keep my head above water.”
“So there is nothing you can do but marry Elvina,” Margaret sobbed. “But does she love you?”
“I think so,” Andrew replied, “and I am very fond of her. But you are the one I love and have done from the first moment I saw you.”
“How can I live without you?” Margaret asked passionately.
“Or I without you,” Andrew answered. “But I have no choice, even though I feel I will die without you.”
“You will break my heart,” Margaret wept. “I will never love anyone but you. Is there any way we can be together?”
“How can I ask you to live in poverty, watching you dying in misery? Then I would only want to die myself.”
“You must do what you think is right,” Margaret said forlornly.
“My precious, my darling, I knew you would understand,” Andrew told her. “Although, God knows, I will regret it every day of my life.”
“She will be home any day soon,” Margaret said. “And then I suppose – ?”
“Yes, I dare not leave it any longer. I must propose at once and the sooner we marry the better. Heaven knows how I shall live with her. Perhaps if I pretend she’s you – ” He broke off with a groan.
“I must go away,” Margaret murmured.
“Yes,” he said, “for I must try to be faithful to Elvina, although it breaks my heart. Oh, my darling, my darling, kiss me, kiss me!”
There was a long silence and Elvina guessed that they were in each other’s arms, locked in a passionate embrace.
Slowly she turned away from the door.
Walking on tiptoe she crossed the hall and climbed up the stairs to her bedroom.
When she reached it she stood looking at a portrait of her father which hung near her bed.
Elvina stood gazing at it for a long time before she asked,
“What am I to do, Papa? Tell me what I am to do.”
CHAPTER TWO
In the first hideous shock of discovering that the man she loved had turned away from her and loved another, Elvina had frozen. Then her only thought had been to escape before they discovered her.
But now she had gone well away from them, all the bitterness and anguish of her situation welled up and a violent sob shook her.
She wanted to cry aloud to Heaven that she had been betrayed. Margaret had come into her house and stolen the man she loved in a devious and underhand way.
But she did not cry to Heaven. She leaned against the wall while tears poured down her face. She loved Andrew and now she had learned in the most brutal way that he did not love her.
Worse, he was a deceitful schemer, coldly and cynically planning to swear his love to her so that he could get his hands on her money.
He planned to marry her for money and spend their life together pretending that she was Margaret.
She felt as though her heart would break.
After a while she forced herself to be calm. At all costs she must not let herself be found in the house. But where could she turn for help?
She returned to her father’s portrait, feeling that somehow and somewhere he knew what was happening to her.
‘Help me! Help me!’ she cried from her heart.
Then she knew the answer, just as though he had spoken to her.
She must go away. Not just out of the house for a while, but far away for a long time.
She must not let them realise that she had discovered what had happened.
She shivered at the picture of herself that Andrew had presented to her – a little rich girl, using her wealth to snare a man whose heart belonged to another woman.
Was she really that vulgar a creature?
No, she decided. She would prove them wrong. Somehow she would make it possible for Andrew and Margaret to marry each other. Only then would she be truly free of them and be able to put this terrible day behind her.
‘But how can I do that?’ she asked herself.
Then, again as though her father had inspired her, she knew the answer.
Drying her eyes, she hurried across the room to a desk where she wrote her letters. Sitting down, she wrote out a banker’s draft in the name of Andrew Broadmoor.
She hesitated before she wrote, ‘two thousand pounds.’
Then she signed it, put it into an envelope and addressed it to Andrew.
Next, she returned to the portrait of her father, and pleaded,
‘Now what shall I do, Papa? Where shall I go? I cannot stay here and argue about what has happened.’
She waited almost as if she would hear an answer from her father. But there was only a silence that seemed to ring in her ears.
When he received the cheque, Andrew would press her to marry him. How could any man accept such an enormous gift from a woman without in some way paying for it?
She felt suddenly as if she was alone in a place she did not know and that she was in danger.
‘I am frightened,’ she whispered. ‘Help me, Papa, please help me. I am afraid that Andrew will argue with me and force me to take the money back. I still love him. cannot help it. If he wants me to marry him, I might weaken and agree. And I must not. We could never be happy.
‘But where can I go? Not back to London. They will wonder why I have returned so soon.’
Then suddenly she heard a voice in her head – Lady Croften, at the wedding reception, saying,
‘The Duke of Castleforde is having a great deal of trouble with his sister – he inherited when he was very young – since her mother di
ed the girl just refuses to learn anything. She is horse mad and spends her life in the stables – they have had governess after governess.’
This was the answer to her prayer. The Duke lived in Cumberland and no one would think of looking for her there. Andrew would believe she was still with her relations in London.
‘I must leave at once,’ she told herself. ‘If the Duke has no use for me, I am sure I will be able to find something else to do.’
Leaving the letter to Andrew on her desk, she put the chequebook into her bag, turned and ran out of the room and down the back stairs.
She found her way through the passages which led to the scullery. The back door was open and she slipped through it, heading back the way she had come.
There was no cart to take her, so she set herself to walk the distance.
Her heart ached and she wept as she trudged on, but she had set her course and would not be turned aside from it now.
She reached the little station at last, thankful that she had left her luggage there. In answer to her question the porter told her that there was a train back to Derby in ten minutes. And from Derby there was a connection to Arnside in Cumberland.
He carried her bags over to the far platform for her and soon she was on her way back to Derby. There she had only a short wait. The train to Arnside was on time and at last she was able to sink back into her seat and think clearly about what had happened.
She loved Andrew but he did not love her. Worse still, he was prepared to marry her cynically for her money.
How easy she had made it for him by going to London. He must have ridden over every day to see Margaret and their love had flourished.
‘I will not think about it,’ she told herself firmly. ‘I just hope the Duke will employ me. If he doesn’t, I can always go travelling, but a post as a governess will hide me better because nobody would ever think of it.’
Now it was time to be practical. It would be early evening before she reached Arnside and too late to go to the Duke’s estate.
‘I will stay the night at a hotel,’ she thought. ‘There is probably one close to the station. And I will tell them I am a married woman. A single girl alone attracts too much attention.’
They Found their Way to Heaven Page 2