“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.”
“I know,” the Duchess replied, “but Ula is different.
Very different
, I may add, from that beauty with whom you were so busy at one time, let me see, what was her name? Lady Salford.”
She laughed before she continued,
“If you remember, after she had given a footman notice and he cut his throat, she merely remarked, ‘I hope he has not spoilt the carpet’!”
The corners of the Marquis’s mouth twitched as if he could not help it, but before he could reply to his grandmother, Ula came back into the room.
She had run so quickly, knowing that she was keeping the Marquis from his dinner, that now her elegantly coiffured hair was slightly ruffled and little curls had reappeared on her forehead.
“He is very – grateful,” she said breathlessly as she reached the Marquis. “In fact he said, ‘I always knows His Nibs were a real sport!’”
The Duchess laughed.
“You cannot expect a fairer compliment than that, Drogo!”
“Dinner is served, my Lord!” the butler announced from the doorway.
The Marquis helped the Duchess out of her chair and offered her his arm.
Following behind them towards the dining room, Ula thought that everything was more exciting than she could possibly have imagined.
Because there had been such a drama with the knife boy’s hand, she had forgotten her gown.
Now they passed down the corridor and she saw herself reflected in a gilt-framed mirror.
She saw that her hair was untidy and put her hand up to smooth the curls back into place.
Then, when they were in the dining room, she again forgot her own appearance as she realised how impressive the Marquis looked sitting at the top of the table in a high-backed chair.
She was also thrilled to see the polished table without a cloth, which she had heard was a fashion introduced by the Prince Regent.
On it were some magnificent gold ornaments, candelabra each bearing six candles, and the table was also discreetly decorated with orchids.
Everywhere she looked there was a beauty that appealed to her in a way the large but ugly rooms at Chessington Hall had never done.
For the first time since her parents’ death she felt that she was not despised or ignored and that she was being treated as an ordinary guest by two very kind and distinguished people.
As if the Marquis knew what she was thinking, he said,
“I hope everything meets with your approval, Ula.”
“It is just how your house ought to look,” she replied.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Grand, because that is what you are and at the same time beautiful. There is also something warm and kind about this room and in fact the whole house, which I have not found for over a year.”
“I think perhaps, Drogo, that is the nicest compliment you have ever been paid,” the Duchess said. “And it is true that I always feel happy when I am in one of your houses.”
“Thank you,” the Marquis said, “and that is what Ula must feel in the future.”
“It’s wonderful for me to find it again,” Ula replied.
He knew that she was thinking how happy she had been when her father and mother were alive.
“Now we must make plans for the ball,” the Duchess said.
Listening to her discussing with the Marquis how many people they should invite, how the ballroom should be decorated, what they would have for supper and which band was considered best at the moment made Ula think once again she must be dreaming.
None of this could be happening to her.
Deep down inside her there was a fear that at any moment she would be taken back to Chessington Hall.
The Marquis, however, was intent on making the ball so sensational and so unusual in every particular that Lady Sarah would be furious that it was not given in her honour.
He had already told the Duchess that he intended to invite the Earl and Countess of Chessington-Crewe and Lady Sarah to be present.
“Is that wise?” she enquired.
“I want to see their faces when they learn that the ball is given for Ula.”
There was something almost cruel in the Marquis’s eyes as he spoke and the Duchess said,
“Revenge is not always as gratifying as one hopes, Drogo!”
“I shall find it very gratifying,” the Marquis replied, “and to make my revenge complete, you have to make Ula look much more beautiful and better dressed than her cousin.”
“I will do my best,” the Duchess said. “In fact, in my opinion, Ula is ten times lovelier than Lady Sarah, who, I have always felt, whilst she has a classical perfection, has what my old maid used to call ‘hard eyes’.”
“I know that now,” the Marquis said sharply.
They did not talk about it anymore, but the Duchess knew that he was still furious with himself for having been deceived by a beautiful face into believing that Lady Sarah loved him and would have made him a good wife.
The Duchess was well aware how many women had wanted to marry her grandson and how many more had been deeply and wholeheartedly in love with him.
She recognised that it had been a very bitter setback for him to realise that he had made a fool of himself. She could only hope that it would not make him more cynical about love than he was already.
Because she had always loved Drogo more than any of her other grandchildren, she had always hoped that he would find a girl to marry who would love him for himself and not for his title and his very great possessions.
She could hardly imagine it possible that Lady Sarah should not have fallen in love with him as all the rest of her sex seemed to do.
It had disillusioned him to the point where he was wholly obsessed by the idea of taking his revenge upon her.
‘And when he has done so,’ she asked herself, ‘where will it get him?’
It would certainly drive him back into the arms of the married, sophisticated women, who in her opinion engaged far too much of his time, as well as his brains and money.
The Duchess, however, did not say anything about this to Ula, when on the following day they once again went shopping.
On the way home, after it seemed to Ula that they had bought up everything in Bond Street, she slipped her hand into the Duchess’s and said,
“You don’t think it wrong, ma’am, that I should accept so much form his Lordship? I am sure Mama would be shocked. But, as he thinks I am helping him, perhaps it is not wrong, as it would be if it was just for me.
“You are not to worry your head over the whys and wherefores,” the Duchess said firmly. “Drogo is a law unto himself and, if he wants something, he invariably gets it.”
Her voice was very kind as she went on,
“All you have to do is to enjoy yourself, my child, and remember that you are a reflection of your mother, who shone like a star at every ball she attended.”
“I shall never be as beautiful as Mama,” Ula sighed. “But I cannot help feeling that she would be pleased that I have escaped from Chessington Hall.”
She paused before she said hesitantly,
“Last night I – woke up and found I was – screaming because I thought Uncle Lionel was – beating me.”
“Forget him!” the Duchess said sharply. “There is no reason why he should frighten you anymore and he will not interfere in your life again from now on.”
There was silence and then Ula said in a very small voice?
“But – what is to – become of me – when I am no longer of any – use to his Lordship?”
“I have been thinking about that,” the Duchess replied, “and I intend to ask him if you will come and live with me. You may find it rather dull, but I am sure, even if you are not living at Raventhorpe House, a great many of your admirers will call on us in Hampstead.”
Ula gave a cry of delight.
“Do you really mean that? Are you quite – sure you want me? You are not just being – kind?”
“I would love to have you,” the Duchess replied, “but I have a feeling that long before that you will be married.”
Ula shook her head and the Duchess said firmly,
“Of course you will! In fact I shall consider it an insult if, having produced, with the help of my grandson, a new star in the social firmament, there are not at least a dozen eligible young men knocking on the door and laying their hearts at your feet.”
The way the Duchess was speaking was so funny that Ula laughed.
“I am sure they will do nothing of the sort,” she said, “but it would be very exciting to have even – one proposal.”
*
There were no proposals at the reception that took place in the afternoon. But wearing a very beautiful gown, Ula received a great number of compliments from the Duchess’s friends.
Most of them had known her mother and all of them without exception remembered the sensation Lady Louise had caused when she ran away on the night before her wedding.
Before the reception, Ula had been a little afraid that some of the Duchess’s friends might criticise or condemn her mother, in which case she would have found it difficult to be polite to them.
But without exception they all told her how beautiful her mother had been and how brave it had been of her to marry the man she loved rather than the Duke chosen for her by her father.
“She was so different from the other girls of her age,” one lady said, “and I am sure, my dear, that you are very like her.”
“What made her so different?” Ula enquired.
The lady paused and then she said,
“I think it was that she was obviously so good in herself, that it was difficult, in spite of her beauty, for us to be jealous of her.”
She smiled as she explained,
“She was always prepared to share everything, even the men who admired her, with the girls who did not have as many partners as she had. It would have been impossible to dislike anyone who was so warm-hearted and so lovable.”
After all the cruelly unkind things her uncle and aunt had said about her mother, it gave Ula a warm feeling to hear people talk of her like that.
To the lady who had first spoken she said,
“Thank you very much for what you have said to me. I only wish Mama could – hear you. She would be – very proud.”
Everybody to whom Ula talked asked the same questions.
Had her mother been happy, really happy? Had she no regrets at running away as she had?
“Mama and Papa were the happiest couple in the world,” Ula replied. “As for regrets, Mama always said that she thanked God every day when she said her prayers for giving her Papa and letting her be brave enough to run away with him.”
By the time the reception was over, the Duchess had received a dozen invitations to luncheon and dinner parties to which she was to bring Ula. Also the promise of invitations to several balls that would arrive in the next day or so.
“You were a huge success, child,” she said as the last guest departed and they were alone in the flower-filled drawing room where the reception had taken place.
“It was very exciting to hear all your friends saying such nice things about Mama,” Ula said.
She looked at the Duchess and then asked in a small voice,
“Did I – behave as you – wanted me to? I did not do – anything wrong?”
The Duchess put a hand on her shoulder.
“You did everything right, my dear,” she said, “and I was very very proud of you.”
“You are – certain, quite – certain?” Ula persisted.
The Duchess understood that being abused and beaten and forced to endure the harsh criticism of her parents at Chessington Hall had made Ula unsure of herself.
“What you have to acquire, my dear,” the Duchess said as they went from the drawing room and started up the stairs, “is some of my grandson’s arrogance. He is quite sure that he is always right, and that, I think, is an asset in this world.”
Her voice was mocking as she added,
“Especially in a Society in which whatever one does or whatever one says, somebody is going to be critical. When they are, it is a mistake to let oneself be hurt by it.”
“I understand what you are saying,” Ula said, “but I cannot be as – pretty or as – successful as you say I am.”
The Duchess laughed.
“That is not at all the right attitude! You have to learn to look down your nose and say, ‘if they don’t like me as I am, then they will just have to put up with me!’”
Ula laughed too.
“I doubt if I shall ever be able to do that.”
“What are you laughing about?” a voice behind them said.
They looked around from halfway up the stairs to see that the Marquis had entered the hall.
“How did your party go?” he enquired.
“Need you ask?” the Duchess replied. “Your
protégée
was a huge success, but she is finding it hard to believe that the compliments she receives are entirely genuine.”
The Marquis looked up at Ula’s flushed, flower-like face looking down at him over the bannisters.
He thought as he did so that it would be impossible to find in the whole of London anyone so lovely in her unique manner.
He told himself that he had been extremely clever in realising her potential when he had picked her up on the road.
As he walked away to his Study he was thinking with satisfaction of how he had just alerted the members of White’s Club into being curious.