Now Roderick spoke with proud authority, like the Earl that he indeed was.
“We will go to your home, so that Louisa can change out of her clothes. Then we will all go to the Police Station and see this business through to the end.”
He took Louisa’s hand and led her out of the Chapel. She followed him gladly.
Her head was spinning with the speed of events, but when they reached the Police Station she was beginning to believe it was all true.
Lord Westbridge was like a cornered rat, bellowing his rage as the evidence piled up against him. The papers were damning. Every theft and fraud he had committed was written down in detail.
“I am reclaiming Cranford Manor at once,” Roderick declared. “I want to prepare my home for my bride.”
He held Louisa’s hand tightly as he faced Lord and Lady Hatton.
“She is mine,” he said proudly. “I shall never give her up.”
Lord Hatton’s eyes were wet with tears.
“If that is Louisa’s wish –” he began.
“It is, Papa. Oh, it is!”
“Then take her with her father’s blessing. And accept our thanks, sir, for what you have done to save us.”
Louisa raised a glowing face to Roderick. The dreadful nightmare was over. Now their perfect happiness could begin.
*
It was Roderick’s dream and Louisa’s too, that they should be married at Christmas. It seemed impossible that everything could be accomplished in time, but now Roderick had powerful friends who would help him.
A Bishop came to marry them. He was an old friend of Roderick’s grandfather and could also verify his identity.
The manager of the local bank, anxious to secure Lord Cranford as a customer, assured him of unlimited credit until his affairs were settled.
Many of the servants at the manor remembered old Lord Cranford with affection and they cheered the young Earl as he returned to claim his inheritance.
When he told them how he wanted the house to look for his bride, they scurried to please him. For them too, better times had arrived.
“I have plans for the estate,” Roderick said. “I want to establish a school for all children – not just the tenants’ offspring, but also the children of the servants. Why should the poor be denied the benefit of education? And I want only the best to teach them. A man with an Oxford degree would suit me.”
His eyes, full of amusement, were on Simon.
“There is a nice little house that goes with the job. You can take possession immediately and I will pay your salary at once, so that you can support your wife while you finish University.”
“But – I don’t have a wife,” Simon stammered, his eyes flying involuntarily to Arabelle.
Roderick grinned.
“That is for you to take care of, my dear fellow. I will leave the matter in your capable hands!”
He seized Louisa and they ran out of the room, leaving Simon and Arabelle in each other’s arms. Soon they were similarly engaged.
*
But one issue clouded Louisa’s joy. She felt that her parents were not at ease with her as they prepared for her wedding to Lord Cranford.
“They seem to be keeping their distance,” she said unhappily to Roderick. “I thought they had accepted our marriage.”
“I believe they are ashamed of the way they have treated you,” he said. “They are afraid that they have caused you to hate them.”
“They are my mother and father. How could I ever hate them?”
She heard a sob outside the door and ran out to find Lord and Lady Hatton standing there.
“Oh, my darling,” her mother wept. “How could we have done it to you?”
“We were so very frightened,” admitted Lord Hatton. “But that does not excuse us. How can we even beg for your forgiveness?”
“You do not need to beg for it,” Louisa said. “You have it freely. All I ask is that you accept my husband and love me as you have always done.”
She added joyfully,
“It is Christmas, the time for love and peace. Let us all be happy and forget everything that came between us.”
She embraced both her parents. Now she could go to her wedding with a light heart. There was to be only peace and love.
*
At last, on Christmas Day, Louisa was ready to travel to the Chapel again to become the Countess of Cranford.
The dress she wore this time was very different to the over lavishness of her first wedding dress. It was made of very expensive lace, but cut on simple lines.
Jenny helped her to put it on. She had come to Louisa and said that she would indeed like to become her lady’s maid.
“But I was afraid that you didn’t really mean it,” she admitted. “You were just talking until you could give me the letter.”
Jenny’s eyes were bright and Louisa realised that she was not at all stupid. She had been pretending.
“My mother’s maid has been looking after me,” Louisa had said. “But I will really need someone else when I am married. I should like it to be you, Jenny.”
Arabelle was to be her bridesmaid. Her own wedding would be the following month, when her parents had arrived from France. In the meantime she was joyful for her friend’s great day, the day she and Simon had done so much to bring about.
It was time to leave for the ceremony and her mother and Arabelle drove on ahead to the Chapel, where Lady Hatton was escorted, by Lord Cranford himself, to the place of honour at the front.
Then Lord Hatton handed his daughter into the carriage and together they proceeded to her wedding.
Louisa gasped when she saw the chapel door, which had been decorated with Christmas roses. Arabelle was waiting for her. She adjusted the bride’s veil, smoothed down her skirts and took her place behind her.
Everybody on the estate was present to cheer the bride’s arrival. They were all so glad that their Master was now to be the Earl of Cranford and not the hated Lord Westbridge. And they were even gladder that Louisa, whom they knew and loved, would be their Mistress.
As she started the long walk up the aisle the organist began to play, very softly. The Bishop was waiting before the altar and there was Lord Cranford – no, her beloved Roderick – waiting for her.
As they knelt before the altar and the Bishop joined them together as man and wife, she felt that they were being blessed by God.
Now they repeated in public the vows they had made in private and all the world knew that they belonged to each other.
She had never known anything like the wonder and glory of this moment, when she finally became the wife of the man she adored.
‘I love you, I love you,’ she was saying to her husband, over and over again.
She knew that secretly he was saying the same to her.
At last the organ pealed out bright notes of triumph. The new husband and wife turned to leave the Chapel. As they emerged into the pale winter sun, the estate children threw flowers over them.
A large crowd had gathered. They cheered the bride and groom to the echo as they hurried the short distance to the house. They climbed the steps to the front door and turned to wave at the crowd. There was applause and another cheer which almost seemed to shake the building.
There were shouts of “good luck!” from some, while others called out “Happy Christmas!”
A band, which had come from the village, now started to play.
The bride and bridegroom escaped into the house, and all those who could not follow were served with cakes and mulled wine. As they made their way back to their homes they sang the songs of love and happiness which were always sung at Christmas.
As the Earl and his new Countess walked to the banqueting hall in which they were to receive their guests, Roderick said very quietly, so that only Louisa could hear,
“Now, my darling, you know that you are mine for eternity and we must never lose each other.”
“I will never lose you,” Louisa sighed. “At the moment we wer
e married, I sensed that we were very close to God and that He blessed us both.”
“I felt that too,” he replied. “My precious, how could we ask more than that we should be blessed with love at Christmas, which is, as we both agree, the time of love.”
“I love you,” Louisa murmured very softly.
He lifted her hand to his lips as he said,
“I will tell you later, my darling, how much I love you and how blissfully happy I am that now you are mine for ever and ever.”
Roderick had not allowed her to enter the house while it was being prepared for the wedding. He had said there was to be a surprise.
Now she could see his surprise and marvelled as she realised how much trouble he had taken for her.
Cranford Manor bore almost no resemblance to the place she had hated when it belonged to Lord Westbridge. Everywhere was decorated with flowers. There were flowers on every picture. Flowers entwined the banisters from the top to the bottom.
“I feel as though I am dreaming,” she whispered into his ear. “How could you have made it look so wonderful in such a short time?”
“I did it all for you, my darling,” Roderick answered.
He added,
“I must tell you that no one has ever looked more glorious, more beautiful or more adorable than you do at this moment.”
He paused before he continued,
“All I want to do is hold you in my arms and kiss you. But that will have to wait until we are alone.”
She remembered how he had kissed her in the past. She recalled the feeling of excitement and passion which his kisses had brought her.
As if he had read her thoughts, Roderick said,
“I want to kiss you again, my darling, until we both realise that there is nothing more wonderful for us than each other. That is something which we will find for the rest of our lives.”
“I love you, I adore you,” Louisa managed to sigh.
Her feelings for Roderick were so intense and so sublime that it was difficult for her to breathe.
As they had knelt in the Chapel, she had been praying that her husband would always love her as much as he did today. In her heart she vowed always to be the perfect wife for him.
She realised that the trials they had endured to be together would make the bonds that united them stronger than ever.
They sat side by side at their wedding feast, smiling and behaving graciously to their guests. But secretly they longed to be alone.
Louisa gave thanks for her happiness and for the happiness of others that had also come to pass.
There, among the guests, was George, who had now left the asylum and come to work for Lord Cranford. And there was his father, newly released from prison.
And all over the country there were other victims of Lord Westbridge, whose Christmas would be happier for the knowledge that he had been brought to justice.
At last the feast was over. Night had fallen. The most blessed night of the year.
Alone in the great bedchamber, they stood together at the window, looking out over the snow.
Roderick wrapped his arms around his bride.
“Where shall we go for our honeymoon?” he asked.
“What does it matter? I am already in Heaven.”
“And I. But I want to take you to the ends of the earth and back. I want to show you all the wonders of the world.
“And then we shall look into our hearts, and know that we carried the wonders of the earth within us all the time. And no gift can ever be greater than the gifts we now give to each other.”
“We will make our own Heaven on earth,” Louisa murmured. “And there is nothing more that we could possibly ask.”
Her words faded as Roderick’s arms tightened around her. His lips touched hers and Heaven on earth was theirs.
A Heart in Heaven Page 13