Rags-to-Riches Bride

by Mary Nichols

  He was looking at her, not the bird. Something inside him gave a great lurch and a lump came to his throat he could not dislodge. ‘Diana.’ His voice was a hoarse whisper.

  ‘Hallo, you two, what are you doing there?’

  They turned startled eyes on Freddie Somers, who had come upon them so silently they had not heard his tread, or perhaps they were so absorbed in each other, they were oblivious to anything else.

  Richard recovered first. ‘Bird watching,’ he said.

  Freddie dropped to the ground beside them. ‘And what have you seen?’

  ‘A beautiful kingfisher,’ Diana told him. ‘It caught a fish.’

  ‘You like the things of nature, Miss Bywater?’ he asked, apparently unaware of what he had interrupted and where it might have led if he had not.

  Diana was thankful for it, but that was tinged with regret. What might Richard have said if his friend had not come upon them? ‘Yes, of course. Do you?’

  ‘Indeed I do. As I walked I saw a kestrel swoop down and fly off with a tiny creature in its beak, a peacock butterfly and a wild orchid in the grass, all in the space of a few yards.’

  ‘How observant you are.’

  ‘An artist needs to be.’

  ‘Do you use living things as subjects?’

  ‘Often. Come and see.’ He scrambled to his feet.

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Yes, now. You too, Richard, I have something new to show you.’

  They rose and he went ahead, while Richard and Diana led their horses, through a gate in the wall that surrounded the park and down a narrow path to a small chapel. The area around it was overgrown, but well trampled. ‘Here is where we work, Joe and I.’ He led the way to its blackened oak door and pushed it open.

  The inside had been cleared of pews and the area divided into two. There were easels and tables covered with pots of paint and jars of brushes and innumerable canvases stacked against the walls. He moved forward and pulled aside the cloth that draped an easel in the centre of the room and she found herself looking at a portrait of Dick. He had captured the child exactly, his red-gold hair, blue eyes and chubby cheeks. ‘It is lovely,’ she said. ‘Do you not think so, Mr Harecroft?’

  ‘Your best yet,’ Richard said, studying it carefully. ‘How much more time do you need to finish it?’

  ‘A few days, maybe a little longer. Then we need to catalogue everything before we can go public.’

  ‘You are surely not going to sell it?’ Diana said. ‘If Dick were mine, I could not bear to part with it.’

  ‘I can always paint another if Lucy wants one, but she already has several.’ He began pulling the covers off other pictures: some were of broad sweeping vistas, including one of Borstead Hall, another was of the dower house with the tiny figures of a woman and child standing in the corner of the garden, almost as if they had been put there as an afterthought. Others were portraits, though, not knowing the sitters, she could not tell if they were true likenesses. She guessed they might be if the one he was painting of Dick could be used as a yardstick. One was a muscular figure of a man that made her think of Richard and sent the colour flying to her cheeks. There were horses, dogs, birds at rest and on the wing, little animals like squirrels and beavers, all displaying the nervous energy of the painter. When they were all uncovered she wandered round the room stopping at each, turning her head this way and that to view them.

  ‘What do you think?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, they are all so well done, they should not be hidden away here.’

  ‘They are not hidden away. We are hoping to hold an exhibition when we can find a venue that will do them justice.’

  ‘Then I am sure you will soon be rich and famous.’

  He laughed. ‘Are you a connoisseur, Miss Bywater?’

  ‘No, but my father taught me to appreciate the finer things in life and that included art. He said it was all part of my education. He believes in education for women as well as men and always maintains knowledge makes men free.’

  ‘Good for him,’ Richard said. ‘Your papa and I have much in common.’

  She looked sharply at him, noting the humour in his eyes and his half-mocking smile. It was an attitude he seemed to adopt when anyone else was around, as if he were afraid to show the real Richard. And yet if anyone knew the man, it must surely be his close friends. And his mistress. She deliberately shut her mind off from thinking of Lucy.

  ‘Joe’s work is here,’ Richard said, indicating some canvases stacked against the wall on the other aside of the chapel. She went to stand beside him as he turned them round one by one. They were very different: street scenes with houses in disrepair and ragged children, industrial processes, full of steam and machinery, showing children at work. One in particular showed a child only a year or two older than Dick. She thought the boy might have been used as a model, except the child in the painting was thin as a stick with wide, black-circled eyes and bare feet. He was kneeling beneath a huge loom, while an overseer stood over him with a whip. The pictures moved her almost to tears, which was no doubt what was intended. If they were exhibited, they might add fuel to the debate about poverty, but she doubted they would be a popular choice for buyers to hang on drawing-room walls.

  ‘They are very different,’ she said. ‘Do you think a joint exhibition will show them to best advantage? Might not one detract from the other? I would have thought two venues would be better.’

  ‘That’s what I said,’ Freddie put in. ‘No gallery would put my work beside Joe’s.’

  ‘We shall see,’ Richard said.

  ‘What about you, Mr Harecroft?’ she asked as Richard put the canvases back and they prepared to leave. ‘Have you found a publisher for your work?’

  ‘No, my efforts to find one have been unsuccessful so far. The subject matter is meant to stir consciences, but people do not like having their consciences disturbed.’

  ‘What is your book about? I recall you said something about the plight of children.’

  ‘So I did. It is a subject that needs addressing, but finding a publisher has not been easy, for the same reasons that Joe’s work is rejected. It is not popular.’

  ‘But you should not let that stop you. Publish yourself if you have to. Make a song and dance about it beforehand. Use Mr Harris’s pictures to illustrate it. That way you would both benefit when it sells in thousands.’

  ‘You might have an idea there, Diana, but I do not think I can afford to publish it myself. It is not the printing, so much as the marketing of it which would be horrendously dear.’

  ‘Would your family not help you?’

  His smile was a wry one. ‘I would not ask. My father’s views and mine do not coincide.’

  ‘Politics?’

  ‘That and other things.’

  ‘He does not like the way you live with your friends?’

  ‘I do not think he has ever spoken to them.’

  ‘Not even Miss Standish?’

  ‘No. She is an actress, not acceptable in the society my father inhabits and especially with Dick—’ He stopped. Now was not the time.

  ‘I hope you find a publisher soon,’ she said, not wanting to talk about Dick. ‘And a venue for all these lovely pictures.’

  They left the young artist, who seemed to have forgotten their existence as he picked up a brush and dipped it in paint.

  Once outside they fetched their horses and mounted, riding the rest of the way back to the stables at Borstead Hall.

  It was late when they arrived and the stable lads had all gone into the kitchen for their dinner. Dismounting, Richard turned to help Diana and then set about unsaddling his mount and rubbing him down. Diana did likewise with Mayfly, smiling as the mare shivered with delight. They worked companionably, talking to the horses, not each other, and then led the animals into their respective stalls and gave them food and water.

  ‘I must get back to the house, it must be nearly dinner time,’ she said. ‘Thank you for a pleasant afternoon.�
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  Richard found her sudden coolness inexplicable. Down by the water, she had looked at him with considerable warmth in those expressive smoky grey eyes, mesmerising him. For what seemed like minutes but could only have been seconds, he had been unable to move, struck dumb. He had never experienced that feeling with a woman before. Did she have that power over all men, or only over him? Did she know she had it? Was that how she had ensnared Stephen? He smiled at his own fancies, believing himself immune. ‘My pleasure,’ he said.

  ‘Why are you laughing?’

  He took her shoulders in his hands and turned her towards a trough of clear water where she could see her reflection. What she saw made her laugh herself. Her hat had fallen down her back, kept there by the veil which she had tied under her chin and there were wisps of straw, sticking in her hair, one coil of which had escaped its pins and hung to her shoulders. He lifted it and gently kissed the nape of her neck.

  She felt the slight pressure of his lips and shivered uncontrollably. Her hands went up behind her head and found his face, whether to stop him or encourage him she could not have said. He took her hands in his own and kissed the palms one by one and then slowly turned her round to face him. Each searched the other’s face, not speaking, then he bent his head and kissed her lips.

  The feel of his mouth on hers sent shock waves right through her. Her knees began to tremble and would have buckled if he had not been supporting her, holding her so close against him she could feel his warmth turning her insides to liquid fire. She seemed to have left the ground, flying from all earthly things, all sensible thoughts. She wanted this man, she wanted the kiss to go on, to lead to other transports of delight she could only imagine. She clung to him, returning his kiss in full measure.

  It was only then he realised what he was doing and released her. They stood facing each other, breathing heavily. Neither spoke. She did not condemn him; any sign of anger would be a pretence, and he must know it. Nor did he regret what he had done, though he did not know why he had done it, nor why a simple stolen kiss should have such a devastating effect on him. It had unnerved him. He opened his mouth, but no words came from his lips. ‘Sorry’ seemed inadequate. She was lovely and the temptation had been great, but that did not excuse him. Besides, he wasn’t sorry.

  Deliberately she turned her back on him and faced the water again and used it as a mirror to pick the straw out of her hair before pushing the heavy locks up under her hat and securing it with the veil. Then she turned towards him again. He had been holding his breath, but now he breathed out slowly and managed a rueful smile before going to the stable door and holding it open for her. Silently they walked side by side back to the house, where they parted, still without a word being spoken. Neither could think of anything to say.

  Once in her room, Diana collapsed on her bed, surprised to find that her cheeks were wet, though she had not been aware she was crying. But she knew the reason for it. She had fallen in love with Richard Harecroft, head over heels, irrevocably. How and when had it happened? She tried to think back, to their first meeting, to his kindness in helping her father, the journey down from London, the acrimony since then, which, she realised, had been a direct result of her love for him, but there seemed to be no particular time when gratitude and tolerance had become love. It had crept up on her unawares. He already had a mistress and a child and lived openly with them, which did not seem to preclude him from kissing another woman. How could she love someone like that? But how could she not? If you loved someone, you loved them and nothing could change it.

  How could she go on, day by day, knowing that when Richard came up to the house for dinner he was leaving afterwards to go back to Lucy and his child. She could not come between them. She must pull herself together and hide her feelings from everyone. It would be too humiliating if any of his family and particularly Richard himself were to find out how she felt about him. But how hard it was going to be!

  One thing was certain; she must take the first opportunity to tell Stephen she could not marry him, though what the consequences of that would be she dare not conjecture. The prospect of searching for suitable employment again terrified her. And what reason could she give without revealing the truth? Her position at Borstead, difficult enough before, had become untenable. It was not fair on Stephen or Lady Harecroft or Miss Standish, come to that. First thing in the morning she would have to tell her ladyship that she had decided not to marry Stephen and under the circumstances it would be better if she left before he came down from London. Then she would go and see her father and tell him that she could not stay and she would not listen to his arguments. He would have to remain where he was until she had found accommodation for them both and a new job, but she could just about manage it for a week or two. Now the decision had been made, all she had to do was find the strength to carry it through.

  She heard the first dinner gong, telling her she had half an hour to change and go down. It would be an ordeal to sit down to dinner with them all, but it must be done. Making excuses to stay in her room would invite curiosity and solicitous enquiries about her health. She could not bear that. Slowly she left the bed and went to the wardrobe to select something to wear.

  She was tempted to put on the embroidered green gown that her ladyship had admired; after all, she would not be wearing it to the party now, but to wear it might cause comment. Tonight must appear to be an ordinary evening, as if nothing were amiss. She chose a blue silk she had made over from one of her mother’s, arranged her hair in a severe style and wore a string of colourful beads, purchased in India. The second gong went as she was slipping into her shoes and she went down to the drawing room just in time to follow the family in to dinner.

  Lord Harecroft was in a jovial mood and asked Diana what she thought of the stables and his horses. She was glad of the opportunity to talk to him and thank him for showing her round and added the tale of the kingfisher, but she was careful not to look at Richard when she spoke, knowing that looking into those blue eyes of his would totally unnerve her. ‘We went into the chapel,’ she added, then wondered if she should have mentioned that, but his lordship did not appear concerned.

  ‘Oh, yes, I believe Richard’s friends keep their works of art there. What did you think of them?’

  ‘Very good indeed.’

  He turned to address his grandson. ‘Are you any nearer to finding a permanent home for them?’

  ‘A little,’ he said, helping himself to vegetables from a tureen a servant had placed at his elbow. ‘I have an appointment with the owner of a gallery in the Burlington Arcade tomorrow afternoon. Something may come of it.’

  ‘Burlington Arcade,’ Diana repeated. ‘You mean you are going to London?’

  ‘Yes, didn’t I say?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I am leaving first thing in the morning. I also have other errands which I hope to conclude in good time to return for Great-Grandmama’s party.’

  ‘Will you come back with John and Stephen?’ his grandmother asked him, while Diana digested the information that she would not see him again. She would be gone before he returned. Perhaps it was for the best, but, oh, how miserable it made her!

  ‘No, because I shall take Great-Grandmama’s carriage and Papa will not leave before close of business on Friday night. I would like to be back before that.’

  ‘You will stay at Harecroft House, though?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Then will you tell your father to put business second for once,’ Lady Harecroft said. ‘If they travel after dark, who knows what might happen. They might be delayed and if they are late for my party I shall be most displeased. Tell them to make an early start.’

  ‘I will tell them, but I cannot guarantee they will take any notice. You know Father’s reluctance to miss a minute’s profitable trading.’ He turned to Diana before her ladyship could reply to that. ‘Have you any messages for Stephen? I am sure he would like to know you are waiting impatiently for his arriv
al.’

  She felt the colour flare in her face as she realised he was baiting her. She took her time to find an answer. ‘I am sure he knows that already,’ she said slowly.

  He noticed her heightened colour and wondered if she were thinking of what had happened that afternoon. He had embarrassed her, but then he had embarrassed himself and he wished heartily he had not given in to the temptation to kiss that lovely neck. It had aroused in him a physical ache and a strange longing that a second and more protracted kiss had not assuaged. It had left him hungrier than ever. He was not a rake, whatever the world might think; he did not go about kissing young ladies just because the fancy took him to do so. She must think he did. Mentioning Stephen was a way of reminding himself that his brother had proposed and, as far as he was aware, she intended to accept. Otherwise, why had she come to Borstead to attend the party? And her measured reply had confirmed that. In a way he was glad to be going away, to have something useful to do that might take his mind off her.

  He was relieved when the meal came to an end and his great-grandmother asked him to take her back to her room. They had the talk she had been promising him and it left him so bemused, instead of returning to the drawing room to join the others for tea, he left to go to the dower house, where he entered into a lively discussion with his boarders about what constituted a work of art.

  Richard had left by the time Diana rose next morning. She dressed in her grey working dress and after breakfast went with Alicia to look at the ballroom and decide how many tables and chairs would be needed and where the flowers should be put. The servants had already lifted the huge carpet and were busy polishing the floor ready for dancing. ‘How many extra footmen do you think we shall need for serving?’ Alicia asked. ‘There will be glasses of wine and cordial to be taken round throughout the evening as well as supper to be served. I thought about a dozen.’