A Heart in Heaven

by Barbara Cartland

  “My angel,” he sighed, smiling.

  It felt sweet to look after him. All around them lay disaster, but just for a little while she could pretend that she was his wife. It was the most beautiful moment of her life.

  “When we are old we will look back on this time and smile,” she said eagerly.

  “Oh, Roderick, we will grow old together, won’t we? God could not be so cruel as to part us when we have just found each other?”

  “We will be together,” he said weakly. “We will teach the world what a happy marriage should be.”

  “Promise that you will love me always, as I will love you.”

  “I will love you always,” he vowed. “I will never love any woman but you. Whatever happens, you will live in my heart as the perfection of womanhood.”

  She kissed him, moving gently so as not to hurt his wounds. To her this kiss was a sacred act. With it she consecrated herself to Roderick again, heart and soul, as she had done at the altar in the Church. And she knew it was the same with him.

  “You must go now,” Roderick said at last.

  “I cannot leave you,” she protested.

  “You must. It’s dangerous for you to be here.”

  “I will come back as soon as I can.”

  “Take care of yourself, my darling,” he urged softly.

  “I will be back tomorrow.”

  “Not during the day. It’s too dangerous.”

  Somehow she endured the following day. She rode again with Lord Westbridge and managed to smile. That night he came to dinner and she forced herself to be charming.

  Once she looked up and found him regarding her out of narrowed eyes. But he said nothing.

  Late that night she slipped out again. She found Roderick on his feet, but almost at once he swayed and she helped him back to bed.

  “There isn’t much time,” he grunted. “There is something you must do tomorrow.”

  “Anything,” she said fervently.

  “Go and see Lord Westbridge. Go to the house. Try to find one of the maids, called Jenny. Give her this.”

  He handed her a sealed envelope. There was nothing written on the outside.

  “But who is she? How can Jenny help us?”

  “She is the – what was that?”

  They both froze, listening.

  “I heard a noise,” he muttered.

  Louisa ran to the window and looked out anxiously. But she could see no sign of movement.

  “Be gone quickly,” Roderick told her.

  His arms encircled her and he drew her close.

  “One last kiss,” he whispered.

  “No, not the last,” Louisa said frantically. “It must not be the last. We must find a way to be together.”

  “I pray to God that we do.”

  He kissed her again.

  “But if anything should happen, my darling,” he said, “you will remember always how much I loved you.”

  “Do not talk like that. Nothing will go wrong. Oh, my love, my love!”

  “Go now,” he said urgently. “And pray we meet again.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The next morning Louisa dressed in her most attractive riding habit and she and Arabelle rode over to Cranford Manor. She greeted Lord Westbridge with a smile.

  It went so much against the grain, but it was for Roderick, for their love and the hope of a future together.

  “I hope you don’t mind my calling unexpectedly,” she said. “I wanted to look over my future home.”

  “It is always a pleasure to see you,” he replied.

  But his eyes were sharp and suspicious.

  Louisa did not notice. She was working hard to keep her promise to Roderick. She assumed a slightly lofty air.

  “If I am going to be Mistress of the house, I should meet my future staff.”

  “Very well. I will have them lined up for you.”

  Within a few minutes all the servants in the house had assembled in the hall. Lord Westbridge took her slowly along the line.

  “This is Mrs Jenkins, the housekeeper, Hepworth the butler, the chief parlour maid –”

  It seemed endless. Louisa began to fear that she would never reach Jenny, but at last they reached a girl who looked rather vague and stupid.

  “What do you do, Jenny?” Louisa asked kindly.

  “I’m a maid, miss?”

  “Yes, but what do you actually do?”

  “Beg pardon, miss?”

  Louisa’s heart sank. How could this be the saviour who would help them overcome the frightful Lord Westbridge?

  “My Lord!”

  Louisa turned to see who had spoken. The man who stood there was dressed all in black. He was small, thin and looked like a weasel. There was something mean and unpleasant about his face and Louisa shuddered.

  “This is Compton, my secretary,” Lord Westbridge said. “I did not include him in the line because he deals only with my very private affairs. What is it, Compton?”

  “Someone to see you, my Lord. Very urgent.”

  “Very well. You may all go.”

  Lord Westbridge snapped his fingers and the servants began to disperse.

  Louisa seized her chance.

  “Jenny,” she said, “have you ever thought of becoming a lady’s maid?”

  “Me, miss? Oh, no, miss.”

  The others were disappearing. Soon she would be alone with Jenny. She struggled to keep the conversation going.

  “Would you not like to learn how to dress my hair and keep my clothes?”

  Jenny thought for a long time.

  “I just fetch the coal, miss.”

  Louisa took the envelope from her reticule.

  “Take this,” she whispered urgently.

  Jenny looked puzzled, but she slipped the envelope into her pocket. A terrible thought occurred to Louisa. Suppose there was another Jenny? How could this stupid creature be the right person?

  She was sure she had made a ghastly mistake.

  Then she looked up and her heart nearly failed her.

  Compton, the secretary, was standing there. He was watching her from eyes that looked like flints. He had seen everything.

  Jenny scuttled away. Louisa felt faint. She had failed. She was sure of it.

  “Shall I have some tea brought to you, Miss Hatton?” Compton asked.

  “No, thank you. Since Lord Westbridge is busy, I shall leave.”

  She hurried away. She longed to run straight to the cottage to see Roderick, but she did not dare.

  Darkness must fall before it would be safe.

  She spent the rest of the day discussing wedding preparations with her mother. All the time she was thinking of a very different future.

  But later that afternoon, disaster struck.

  A maid summoned Louisa downstairs. She descended, full of foreboding, to find Lord Westbridge in the library with her parents.

  Lady Hatton was saying something to him in a trembling voice. But his face was black with fury.

  “I have not come here for social niceties,” he snarled. “I have come, madam, to tell you that your daughter has been behaving disgracefully. Roderick Blake escaped from the care in which I placed him. In defiance of my express wishes she has been hiding him.”

  “I do not believe it,” Lord Hatton tried to defend his daughter.

  “Then you will experience quite a shock when you see the evidence,” Lord Westbridge snapped. “He is in the cottage on the far side of the stream that runs through your property.”

  His accurate knowledge made Louisa gasp with horror. Lord Westbridge grinned. He moved close to Louisa and stood looking down at her.

  “You thought you were so clever, but you gave yourself away.”

  “How?” she asked, trembling.

  “By being nice to me, of course! I became suspicious as soon as you smiled at me.”

  He seized her wrist with cruel fingers.

  “Now we will go and find Roderick Blake and you can witness his fate
for yourself.”

  He strode from the room, dragging Louisa after him. She struggled but his grip was implacable. Lord and Lady Hatton followed, pleading and protesting uselessly.

  Outside Louisa found two large men in white coats.

  “They are the guards from the asylum,” Lord Westbridge grated. “They will take him back where he belongs and keep him there.”

  “No,” Louisa screamed. “No, please don’t hurt him.”

  Lord Westbridge never heard her. He was heading for the little cottage where she had thought that Roderick could be safe. Tears poured down her face.

  The cottage came into sight. Nearer and nearer he dragged Louisa until at last they were facing the door. Lord Westbridge kicked it in and strode inside.

  Then he froze in his tracks. Everyone else came to a halt behind him.

  The cottage was empty. There was no sign of Roderick.

  Louisa squealed with hysterical laughter. Roderick had escaped. Lord Westbridge’s furious face showed that he realised it too.

  “Get after him!” he bawled at the two guards.

  They ran out, but stood looking out over the countryside. Baffled. The snow had melted and there were no tracks to help them.

  “No matter,” Lord Westbridge growled. “We will find him sooner or later.”

  Louisa’s laughter faded, to be replaced by a return to despair. Roderick had escaped but he was too weak to go far. Whatever he had planned to do about Lord Westbridge would have to be abandoned. Their last hope was gone.

  “Take your daughter home,” Lord Westbridge ordered Lord and Lady Hatton. “And make sure she behaves herself until our wedding day.”

  “She will be locked in her room,” Lady Hatton promised.

  Louisa faced her husband to be.

  “I despise and detest you,” she hissed in a low voice. “And if I have to marry you, I will make you rue the day.”

  Lord Westbridge’s eyes gleamed.

  “That’s the spirit,” he gloated.

  *

  The week before Christmas was set for Louisa’s wedding day. It should have been the happiest of her life, the day on which she united herself with the man she loved.

  But her true love was far away. She knew not where. It was to be the one man she hated who would wait for her at the altar.

  On the night before her wedding Louisa stood at her window looking out on the silent countryside and spoke to Roderick in her heart.

  ‘My dearest, I don’t know where you are, or whether I will ever see you again. But even if I do, it will be too late after tomorrow.

  ‘I want you to know that you are my true husband and will be forever – all my life, until the day comes when we can be joined in Heaven. My heart is yours and my life is yours, although the world will see me as the wife of another man.

  ‘Until my last moment I shall belong to you – and love you.’

  Then her heart broke and she let out an anguished cry.

  “Where are you? Come to me! Come to me!”

  But there was only silence. In the distant countryside nothing stirred.

  Clear across the land she heard the chimes of the Church bell, the same bell that had swung above them when they claimed each other in marriage.

  As it reached the last stroke, she fell on her knees beside the window in a passion of weeping.

  After a moment Arabelle came and knelt beside her, taking her in her arms. They stayed together for the rest of the night.

  *

  Next morning Louisa rose, stiff and cold, but bleakly resolute. Whatever the day might hold, she would have courage.

  She shuddered as she donned the showy, luxurious dress Lord Westbridge had demanded. It was made of yards and yards of heavy white satin, encrusted with real pearls. The long, flowing veil was antique lace, held in place by a diamond tiara.

  More diamonds hung about her neck, seeming to choke her. And yet more weighed down her wrists and hands. She would have liked to sink from shame.

  Lady Hatton swept into the room. She was resplendent in furs and velvet, but she could not meet her daughter’s eye.

  “The carriage is here, my darling. Your Papa is waiting below.”

  “Then let us be going, Mama,” Louisa agreed tonelessly.

  In too short a time she was aboard the family carriage, being borne to her wedding. It was to be held in the private Chapel that belonged to Cranford Manor. For this Louisa was thankful. If it had been held in the same Church where she and Roderick had claimed each other in marriage, she would not have known how to bear it.

  A group of tenants was waiting outside when they arrived. They waved and cheered as she descended from the carriage.

  She took her father’s arm and they entered the Chapel together. The organ began to play, “Here comes the bride.”

  It was all over. Nothing could save her now. She was parted from her true love for ever.

  She bid Roderick a silent, heartbroken farewell and began the journey down the aisle to where her bridegroom was waiting. Louisa moved as slowly as she could, because once she was married to Lord Westbridge her life would be over.

  He watched her every step of the way. A smile of greed and self-satisfaction playing over his lips.

  At last she reached him and reluctantly offered him her hand. His own hand was cold and clammy. She shuddered.

  The Vicar cleared his throat and began to speak.

  “Dearly beloved, we are gathered together to join this man and this woman –”

  Louisa listened to the words in a trance. Beneath the heavy veil, tears glistened on her cheeks as Roderick and all the love and joy he had given her faded from her life.

  “If any of you know of just cause or impediment,” the Vicar intoned, “why this man and this woman may not be joined in holy matrimony, you are to declare it.”

  “Stop this wedding!”

  Everyone turned at the imperious voice from the door. Louisa shouted with joy.

  “Roderick!”

  He stood there, proud and determined, his right hand raised. His face was bruised and frightfully pale, but his head was held high. As he strode down the aisle, Louisa noticed that three men accompanied him. One was Compton, Lord Hatton’s private secretary. One was a policeman. Louisa recognised the third man as one of the guards from the asylum.

  “This man belongs in a prison cell,” Roderick declared. “He must answer to the law for his crimes.”

  “He is mad,” Lord Westbridge howled.

  The asylum guard stepped forward. “Lord Cranford is not mad,” he stated firmly. “He has been your victim, as my own father has been. And he –” he pointed to the secretary, “has the evidence.”

  All eyes turned to Compton. The secretary, whom Louisa had thought so unpleasant, drew himself up. Suddenly he possessed a dignity she had not noticed at their earlier meeting.

  He brandished a bundle of papers.

  “It is all here,” he announced. “All the details of his evil-doing. Cheating, fraud and outright theft. Enough to put him away for the rest of his life. I have allowed him to make me a part of his deeds, but now I hate what I have become.”

  Lord Westbridge let out a roar and tried to make a dash for the door. But quick as a flash the policeman snapped a pair of handcuffs on him.

  “I arrest you on charges of fraud, theft –”

  Lord Westbridge’s face was ghastly as his wicked deeds caught up with him and in front of such a distinguished gathering.

  Louisa stood transfixed, hardly able to believe that all this was happening.

  The policeman finished reading out the charges. The wedding guests listened to him, astonished.

  “This wedding is over,” the policeman informed them. “The bridegroom has an urgent appointment, which will detain him for some years.”

  “I will make you sorry for this outrage!” Lord Westbridge snarled at the world in general.

  “We will be leaving now, sir.” The policeman addressed Compton. “Bring those p
apers to the Police Station,” he ordered.

  Compton gathered them up. He was smiling.

  “I don’t understand,” Louisa gasped. “You are on our side? But I thought –”

  “You thought I would betray you, when I saw you pass the letter to my daughter,” Compton said.

  “Jenny is your daughter?”

  “I introduced her into Lord Westbridge’s house to make it easier for me to smuggle messages in and out. She gave your letter to me.”

  “But what did it contain?” Louisa asked.

  “Sending me to that asylum was the most foolish move Westbridge could have made,” Roderick said. “George here –” he indicated the guard, “has suffered from his thievery too. Westbridge stole a large sum of money and managed to get George’s father blamed for his misdeed.”

  “He is in prison for that theft now,” George said. “I swore I would avenge him and bring that devil to justice.”

  “So George believed my story and helped me to escape,” Roderick added.

  “I told Lord Cranford what Westbridge had done to my family,” George said. “Only Compton could find the proof, but I could not make contact with him myself. That letter told him what to look for.”

  “I knew that Westbridge had found out about the empty cottage,” Compton said. “I sent Jenny with a message to George –”

  “And George whisked me out of the cottage just in time,” Roderick finished. “He has been hiding me while Compton put the last of the evidence together.

  “There are papers that will free his father from Westbridge’s clutches. The demon even keeps a book of whom he has cheated at cards, how and by how much.”

  Louisa gave a cry of joy. The miracle had happened and the darkness had passed.

  Roderick took Louisa into his arms.

  “It is all over, my darling,” he said. “Thank God I did not arrive too late! That monster is defeated and now we can be together.”

  “Together,” she murmured. “Together for all eternity!”

  It was too much happiness. Louisa burst into tears and threw herself into his arms.

  “Let us leave this place at once,” Roderick said.

  “But whatever are we going to do?” Lady Hatton moaned. She was too confused to understand what had just happened.