Rivals for Love (2 page)

“I felt sure that Papa would write to you for help,” replied Elva. “But do not waste time in reproaching me, because I have no intention whatsoever of going back to London.”

“But why not? That, Elva, is what really interests me. Why did you suddenly run away and return home? What has upset you?”

She moved as she was speaking towards the sofa which faced the fireplace and sat down.

Elva did not speak and her aunt continued,

“Your father is astonished and I think rather angry. What intrigues me is the reason why you ran away.”

“I will tell you exactly why, Aunt Violet. I was so bored.”

Lady Violet stared at her.

“
Bored
?” she echoed.

“If you think it is amusing to go to one ball after another, to be one of a crowd of giggling girls who are all terrified they will not be asked to dance by a lot of stupid stuck-up young men, you are very much mistaken.”

She paused for a moment.

“The only thing the girls are frightened of is that they will be a ‘wallflower' and the other girls will laugh at them. I must have been to eight balls and after the last one I told myself ‘enough is enough'.”

“But Elva, you had other amusements as well as balls!” questioned Lady Violet quizzically.

“I could walk in the Park and meet the same people I had seen the night before,” retorted Elva. “I could go to luncheons where, because Papa possesses a title, I was paired off with whomever the hostess considered to be the most distinguished young man present.”

“But surely you enjoyed it all, my dear?”

“Enjoy it?” fumed Elva. “Most of those men did not have a brain in their heads!”

“How can you be so sure? After all, as you said yourself, they come from distinguished families.”

“I suppose some of them might possibly become distinguished in another twenty years. In which case I might have enjoyed talking to them, but I was just not prepared to wait that long!”

Lady Violet made a gesture.

“Listen, dearest Elva, now you are grown up you can do many more things that you were not allowed to do before. But you have first to make your appearance as a
debutante
.”

“I have appeared, I have done it and now I have come home,” asserted Elva firmly. “And I can assure you, Aunt Violet, that I am not going back!”

“What about the balls you have already accepted and all the other invitations I have seen on your writing table?”

“I have told my Papa's secretary to refuse the lot. Nothing and no one is now going to force me to go back to London, not even you, Aunt Violet, and you know how much I love you.”

Aunt Violet's eyes softened.

“And I love you, Elva, and I always have, just as I loved your mother. She was one of the most charming and beautiful women I have ever known.”

She paused for just a moment before she added very quietly,

“And you resemble her in every way. Really, what more can you want?”

“I do want a great deal more,” insisted Elva. “And as I guessed that sooner or later I was bound to have this conversation, I have been making a list in my mind of what I do want out of my life.”

“Then tell me about it, my dear, because you know I have to convince your father that what you are doing is reasonable. At the moment he is really very angry with you!”

“It is all very well for Papa to feel like that, but he is enjoying himself fishing, which is what he likes, and so I can see no reason why I cannot do what I like.”

“And what is that?” asked her aunt cautiously.

“I want to travel abroad and see something of the world. I have no intention of being married off to some idiotic young man, who thinks that I am a good catch just because I am Papa's daughter.”

Lady Violet gave a little grunt of irritation before she responded,

“No one is asking you to get married when you are only eighteen, but a great many girls are fortunate enough to fall in love during their first Season.”

Elva laughed scornfully.

“If you call it falling in love to be pushed up the aisle, Aunt Violet, because the man has a title and knows his family will approve of you because you have one too, and some money as well, which is always useful! That is
not
what I want.”

Lady Violet was silenced for a moment.

She considered it a great mistake that Elva had money of her own. She had been left what many people would call a fortune by one of her Godparents. Most girls of her age were completely dependent on their parents and their fathers would be in a strong position of being able to threaten, ‘I will cut you off without a penny.'

“Now let's talk sense, dearest,” Lady Violet battled on. “I am sure your father will arrange to take you abroad a little later on when it suits him. But you know at the moment he loves his salmon fishing and you will therefore have to wait until he comes home.”

“I am quite prepared to wait,” agreed Elva, “but do you know what going abroad with Papa would be like?”

Lady Violet did not reply and she continued,

“We will go to Paris where I will be bidden to the same sort of balls as in London. We might go as far as Hamburg or Baden-Baden, which will be very much the same as Paris or London. That is
not
my idea of travel!”

“What then do you really want to do?”

There was a short silence.

“I dream every night of journeying to strange and unusual places. I want to see the world I have read about in books – the Middle East, the desert, perhaps even the Himalayas.”

For just a moment Lady Violet could not think of a reply.

Then she said,

“I am sure it will all happen to you in time. I have seen much of the world myself, as you know, because I fell in love with Edward.”

She stopped for a moment before she added softly,

“But I married him because I loved him and if we had been forced to spend our lives in a small village I would have been just as happy.”

She spoke with a sincerity that Elva found very moving.

“You are exceptionally lucky, Aunt Violet, but I can assure you that when I looked round the ballrooms in London, I saw no one there with the intelligence of Uncle Edward. Unless they were at least sixty years old!”

Lady Violet laughed.

“You are just making a story out of it, Elva. You have not really tried out London properly. Be a good girl, come back with me now, and you can stay with me if you like before we depart for Madrid, where you know Uncle Edward has just been appointed Ambassador.”

“I should love to stay with you, Aunt Violet, but you know quite well that you are only asking me so that I can go to more of those ghastly balls. I really cannot waste my time all over again, listening to endless idiotic remarks of even more brainless young men.”

Lady Violet laughed as if she could not help it.

“Can you tell me then what I am to say to your father, my darling Elva? I wrote and told him I would come down to the country to see you.”

“Tell him that I am just impossible and you have now washed your hands of me,” suggested Elva impishly. “You can tell him too that I am perfectly content here at home and if I marry at all it will be to one of his horses!”

Lady Violet laughed again.

“You are quite hopeless! I cannot imagine what your father will say.”

“He will say it all to me in double measure when he returns home! So in the meantime please just allow me to enjoy myself in my own way. I am trying to think how I can undertake my travels in reality, instead of having to do them in my mind and by reading books.”

“The trouble with you is that you read too much, my dear. I was absolutely astonished the last time I came to stay here and saw the number of new books you had brought into the library.”

“Some of them are extremely interesting. There was one volume on South America which has made me determined that sooner or later I must visit that continent even though I may have to go disguised as a llama!”

“Now you are just being preposterous,” said Lady Violet. “Let me make one point quite clear before we go any further. It will be quite impossible for you to wander about the world at your age looking as you do.”

She paused before she resumed,

“I think you will find it very hard to persuade your father either to take you himself or to find you the right chaperone and guide which you would certainly require. In addition a great deal of the world is in a tumultuous state at present.”

“I do know,” responded Elva, “which makes travel even more interesting. There is a war going on in Sweden, so obviously I cannot go there. Also there is fighting in Turkey, and France is in turmoil after their Revolution.”

“I think you will find,” replied Lady Violet crisply “that there are a great number of other places that are too dangerous for casual visitors. Therefore your journey around the world will be quite a short one!”

“It will be better than nothing,” came back Elva.

Before Lady Violet could think of any response, Beecham entered with tea and arranged a table in front of the sofa where Lady Violet was sitting.

A footman wearing the Earl of Chartham's livery bought in a silver tray. On it was the kettle, the teapot, the cream jug and the sugar bowl. Another footman carried in cakes, hot buttered toast in a silver container and a plate of cucumber sandwiches. When it was all laid out, it looked very inviting.

Lady Violet was wondering what she should tell her niece about the rigors of travelling, as for her it very often meant sleeping in extremely uncomfortable beds and eating indifferent food served by untrained and sometimes not too clean servants.

Then she thought it was no use arguing any further with Elva as doubtless her father would have a great deal to say to her when he came home. Perhaps if she lived alone in the country until he returned she would find that rather boring as well.

Elva had been educated by governesses and tutors and at times she had other girls of her own age to share her lessons. The Earl had insisted that she was taught foreign languages as he had been when he was a boy.

It was a peculiarity of the Chartham family down the ages that they should speak foreign languages and travel extensively around the world – something which had stood Lady Violet in good stead when she married a diplomat.

She could appreciate, although she considered it would be a mistake to say so, that Elva's present feelings were based on heredity.

Her tutors had instructed her in French, German and Spanish and a little Russian, so it was only natural under the circumstances that Elva should desire to travel abroad.

However it was most unfortunate that she should make a scene only a month after becoming a
debutante
. After all, she was being chaperoned in London by one of the more distinguished members of the family.

Lady Violet looked back to when she was the same age and recognised that she too might easily have felt the same as Elva, but she had been fortunate enough only a month after beginning to enjoy the Season to have met Edward Grange.

They had not been allowed to marry at once in case they changed their minds. It was only when the autumn had come and the family was still urging them to remain patient that they threatened to run away.

Rather than be embarrassed by a scandal, which this would undoubtedly have caused, they were allowed to marry.

Lady Violet could indeed remember all too clearly her ecstasy as they had been driven away from their huge wedding reception.

All that she and Edward had wanted was to be alone, preferably in some foreign country where no one could interrupt them, and everything had been perfect for her.

But Elva had not fallen in love.

In fact she had been most scornful of every young gentleman she had encountered, nor had she appreciated the compliments she had received from those who found her beauty irresistible.

She was just as lovely, Lady Violet decided, as her mother had been and it was rather an unusual loveliness which made her stand out amongst other girls of her own age.

She was very slim owing to the amount of exercise she took. Her hair was golden and yet it contained some of the exquisite fiery lights which had been such joy for Italian artists.

Elva boasted the perfectly clear pink and white complexion of an English rose. Her eyes were the dark blue of the Mediterranean with a sparkle that men found irresistibly attractive.

It was thus not surprising that she was so much admired and Lady Violet was very proud of the success of her niece.

But it had never occurred to anyone that Elva was not enjoying herself at the London Season.

They now finished their tea, Elva having enjoyed a good number of the delicious treats provided by cook, the redoubtable Mrs. Medway, who had been at The Towers for over thirty years.

“Will you be staying with us, Aunt Violet?” asked Elva.

“I would love to do so if you will have me,” she answered, “but I do have to return back to London early tomorrow morning as your cousin, Varin, whom you may remember, has particularly asked to see me.”

Elva looked puzzled for a moment.

“Oh, you mean the Duke of Sparkbrook. I saw he had just come into the title. What is he like?”

“He is an amusing and charming gentleman,” said Lady Violet, “and of course the family are very anxious now he is the head of the family that he should marry.”

“Is there any hurry for him?” asked Elva. “How old is he?”

“He must be about thirty and I find him delightful. But like you he enjoys travelling abroad and up to now has not spent a great deal of time in England.”

“I think he sounds very sensible,” remarked Elva. “When you are telling Papa that I have returned home and mean to stay at home, will you also make it absolutely clear to him that I have
no
intention of being pressed into marriage.”

She accentuated the word ‘no' and then added,