And Anthony was none too subtly sending the same message. He was now the centre of attention, as was ably demonstrated by Lord Challoner’s attitude to him.
He called Verna forth to talk to Anthony, which she did with courtesy but reserve.
Then, to Michael’s horror, he heard Lord Challoner invite them for dinner that evening.
“Your whole family,” he added. Verna smiled at Michael, taking this as a hopeful sign and he tried to smile back.
But his heart was heavy, because instinct told him that this was an ominous development.
*
Dinner that night confirmed his worst fears.
It was ostensibly a quiet occasion out of respect for the family’s grief over their dead father.
But it was obvious that Anthony meant to make the most of it, ordering his sisters to wear their best jewellery with their dark dresses.
He was elegant enough himself in his evening rig, sporting his late father’s gold cufflinks.
Michael found out that he still possessed a tolerable evening dress, but his cufflinks were modest for an Earl.
“It’s all right,” he told Jane, when she was upset for his sake. “It’s the way things are now.”
“But you are the Earl,” his sister protested tearfully.
“Yes, I am the Earl. But that’s all I am. Oh, Jane, I’ve just started to realise how little a title means. If it isn’t backed up with wealth, it is only hollow words. And the worst of it is, it’s all my own fault.”
“Papa was never fair to you, Michael,” she added loyally. “He always made a favourite of Anthony.”
“Perhaps, but if I am honest, I gave him plenty of excuse to turn against me. I lived a dissolute life, thinking only of enjoying myself. Now I am paying the price. I just wish that others did not have to pay too.”
Pulling himself together, he suggested,
“It’s time we were going. It will be a very difficult evening, but I must put a brave face on it.”
They travelled in the big carriage with the family crest on the side. As they approached Challoner Abbey, Michael could see that it was ablaze with light.
The elaborate front door was open and six footmen in powdered wigs already stood on the front steps.
Clearly Lord Challoner had decided to do things in style.
A devil seemed to have got into Anthony. As they climbed out of the coach, he deferred ostentatiously to his brother.
“After you, my Lord,” he proclaimed.
“Stop that – ” muttered Michael.
“But nothing is too good for the new Earl.”
So that’s his game, Michael thought with a sinking heart. His spiteful brother would lose no opportunity to underline their different fortunes.
Then everything went out of his head as he saw his beloved appear on the steps and hurry down to him, her arms outstretched, her face full of joy.
She greeted his two sisters pleasantly and smiled at Anthony though with some reserve. As they ascended the steps together he realised that she was regarding the whole matter as settled and this dinner merely as a formality.
He only hoped that she was right, but his heart was full of dread.
On the surface all was well.
Lord Challoner had exerted himself to honour his guests, which was as it should be. But Michael sensed an undercurrent. There was an ostentatious display of wealth, a parade of extravagant style that he still felt was meant as a signal to himself.
Like the Belmont ladies, the Challoner ladies wore their very best jewellery. Verna was dazzling in diamonds, while her sisters wore pearls, rubies and sapphires.
Michael guessed that this too had been an order.
Lord Challoner was letting him know that this kind of life was what he expected for his daughter, and the man who could not provide it need not aspire to be her husband – no words were necessary.
Lord Challoner treated Michael as the chief guest, addressing him as ‘Lord Belmont’, with only the faintest emphasis on ‘Lord’. But his eyes glinted.
From time to time Michael glanced across the table to where his Verna sat, poised and beautiful, occasionally smiling at him.
And his heart ached.
When the ladies had left the gentlemen to their port, Lord Challoner began to talk about running a great estate, almost as though he had not heard that Michael had been disinherited.
Michael listened to him stony-faced and dreadfully aware of Anthony, watching him across the table with a spiteful smile on his face.
At last it was time to join the ladies.
As soon as he entered the drawing room, Michael went to Verna, who looked up at him quickly.
“Is Papa behaving well to you?” she enquired.
“He is being perfectly civil.”
She took his hand to draw him to the door.
“Come with me,” she whispered. “I simply must be alone with you.”
Quickly they left the drawing room and slipped into the dimly lit library.
Then she was in his arms, kissing him as fervently as he was kissing her.
“Everything’s going to be all right,” she murmured. “As long as we still love each other, nothing can go wrong. Let’s get married very soon.”
“My darling Verna, you are so brave. If only I had your courage.”
“It comes from you. Oh, kiss me, kiss me!”
He did so, pulling her hard against him and putting his whole heart and soul into the kiss.
For a few blinding moments they were transported through the stars to Heaven.
But then, as he had always known would happen, Heaven was snatched away by an ominous sound.
The click of the library door closing.
Looking up, Michael saw with a sinking heart that Lord Challoner had come into the room and was standing there watching them with cold hard eyes.
“You must forgive me for intruding,” he remarked tartly, “but I do have the strongest objection to having my daughter seduced under my roof.”
“Papa!” Verna burst out indignantly.
“Be silent!” her father snapped at her. “You should be ashamed to behave like this, throwing yourself at him.”
“I will not be silent,” she cried out. “And I am not throwing myself at Michael, because he loves me and we are to be married.”
Lord Challoner now looked Michael up and down contemptuously.
“Yes, so you told me earlier, but do you seriously intend to go through with such a marriage that will lead my daughter into poverty and misery.”
“Papa, you are so unfair!”
“Am I? Then perhaps I have been misinformed. Maybe a new inheritance has come to light, meaning that you can afford to support my daughter?”
“No sir. It is just as I told you earlier.”
“Then I am afraid that marriage is completely out of the question. Did you really think I would allow one of my family to wed into squalor?”
“But Papa, we do love each other,” Verna screamed frantically. “Why can’t you believe me?”
“I do believe you,” her father replied loftily. “But I cannot see what relevance it has? Marriage is about far more than love, as you will soon learn when I have found a suitable husband for you.”
“No! I will never marry anyone else. Michael – tell him that he cannot stop us.”
Michael was silent.
“Michael!” she howled in despair.
“My love,” he choked. “What your father says is true. I cannot marry you into poverty. I have nothing to offer you.”
“Nothing but your love! Nothing but yourself.”
“I am afraid that ‘myself’ does not amount to very much,” he responded wryly.
“And your love?” she challenged him. “Does that not amount to very much?”
“You’ll never know how much I love you,” he said, barely able to speak. “You are my life – my everything. I love you too deeply to do you the injury of marrying you.”
“
Thank you, sir,” rasped Lord Challoner. “I’m glad to see that you have at least that much honour.”
“Papa!” Verna burst out in anguish.
“No gentleman of honour could marry you under these circumstances. The matter is now concluded.”
“It is not concluded,” Verna yelled hotly.
“Yes,” stated Michael, very pale. “It is. We cannot marry.”
“But I don’t care about money. I have some of my own – ”
“Supplemented by a generous allowance from me,” her father came in brutally. “An allowance that will stop if you do anything at all foolish. You will not like living in poverty, my girl.”
“You need have no fear,” asserted Michael. “My mind is made up. There will be no marriage.”
Verna gave a cry and buried her face in her hands.
Michael made an instinctive move to her then drew back, knowing that he no longer had the right to take her in his arms to caress and comfort her.
She was lost to him forever.
CHAPTER EIGHT
At the end of the week the late Lord Belmont was buried in the local Church, which was almost too small to accommodate such a large crowd. Nobody wanted to miss such a notable occasion as the funeral of a great aristocrat and extravagant personality.
Nor were they going to lose the chance to witness the hint of tasty scandal that had made itself known across the district.
It was said that the two brothers had tried to murder each other in a duel and only Lord Challoner hurling himself between them had averted that tragedy.
Nobody really believed the story, least of all those who knew Anthony and recalled what a cry-baby he had been all his life. A whiner and a sneak, so different from the handsome and upstanding Michael.
Rumours circulated that Lady Verna had confined herself to her room, sobbing, and in this rumour there was some truth.
The chief families of the district were all present, including the Challoners, swathed in black as though their nearest and dearest lay in the coffin.
When the Belmont family arrived, all eyes turned to look at Michael, the very picture of the new Earl. He was dressed in black and dreadfully pale, looking neither to the right nor the left.
Michael saw Lord Challoner as soon as he entered the Church and he instinctively looked for Verna.
At first he just could not tell her from the others, all in black and covered in veils, but then he saw that one of them was turning in his direction in agonised intensity.
And he knew that it was Verna and the knowledge smote him to the heart.
He faced the fact that all was over between them and during the last two days he had told himself that he would be forced to learn to live with his pain.
But when he saw her there, yearning towards him, he knew that the pain would never end in all his life.
The Funeral Service began and the Parson intoned words from the Bible. To Michael’s fevered imagination certain phrases stood out starkly –
“We have brought nothing into the world and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away.”
He had nothing because everything had been taken away from him. In fact he had less than nothing because he had discovered the love of his life – only to lose her.
Somewhere he felt he could hear his father cackling malevolently at the terrible deed he had done.
‘Goodbye, Father,’ he thought. ‘I only wish I could grieve for you, but I cannot – not after what you have done to me and the pleasure I am sure that you took in it!’
Through the heavy black veil her father had insisted on her wearing, Verna tried to see Michael, tried to get him to meet her eyes, but it was impossible.
She could barely make him out, although she knew he would be sitting in the place of honour – the new Lord Belmont, entering upon his grandeur. Except that it was really a cruel joke.
At last the coffin was carried out of the Church and past the cemetery into the elaborate mausoleum where the Belmonts were always interred.
“Dust to dust, ashes to ashes,” recited the Parson.
‘Ashes,’ Michael thought.
It was a perfect description of the life that faced him now. He had not just lost his rightful position, but he must be separated from the love of his life, for he knew he could never take his darling Verna into poverty.
He ventured to turn his eyes towards her, willing her to look at him and at last she turned her head.
But he could only see her veil. He wondered how well she could see him. Did she know of his anguish?
But of course she did. If her eyes could not tell him, her heart would.
If the funeral was painful, the reception afterwards was a thousand times worse.
It was held in the Great Hall, under the portraits of the notable Belmonts of history. Some had been ministers of Kings and Queens and one had been a great explorer.
They looked down loftily on the man with the title but no money and his brother with the money and no title.
Anthony was indeed behaving beautifully, holding back and deferring to Michael, whom he continually referred to as Lord Belmont. Michael was not fooled. He knew what Anthony was doing.
By now the whole neighbourhood knew the truth about their respective positions.
He even had the effrontery to approach Michael and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Courage, my dear brother,” he said. “This is a sad time for all the family, but we must all endure everything together.”
“Together is hardly the right word – ”
“But surely you don’t think I am going to leave you destitute? You are still my brother. I have a plan that will make things better for you.”
Michael was scarcely able to believe what he was hearing.
Was he really preparing to share his inheritance?
If so, he and Verna might still find some way to be together.
Wild hope stirred within him.
“Do you really mean it?” he asked.
“Of course I do, Michael. Did you think I would let you starve? This place is going to need an estate manager and who better than you?”
Michael stared at Anthony as the enormity of his proposal hit him.
“Your estate manager?” he blurted out at last. “You want me to work for you as a servant?”
“I’ll pay you good wages and you can live in the two rooms over the stable – ”
He broke off and backed away, suddenly alarmed by the look in Michael’s eyes.
“Be careful,” Michael told him softly, “or I may be tempted to wring your neck here and now. It would be no more than you would deserve. Work for you? Live over the stables on the estate that should be mine? Were you mad when you thought of that idea?”
“I only want to help you,” stammered Anthony.
“You only want to humiliate me and I shall never forget it. I would sooner starve in a ditch than accept your offer. Now, get out of my sight!”
Anthony scuttled away.
Suddenly he could no longer bear his surroundings, the many eyes regarding him furtively.
He now walked straight out of the room, knowing that he left behind a buzz of speculation, but past caring.
He found the library empty and sank into the big leather sofa, staring out into the distance, a prey to the most unbearable bitterness.
This was the end of all his dreaming.
His last chance had been the hope of finding some generosity in his brother. But it had been a foolish hope and there was nothing left for him but to face reality.
He had already partly faced it by packing a bag and leaving it here – in the library – where he could take it and slip away quickly.
Even at the last his heart had treasured a dream that it would not be necessary, that something would happen to save him and his darling Verna from the wretched fate that awaited him.
Now he knew that would not happen and realised that he must leave fast.
B
ut first he must say a terrible goodbye.
He heard the click of the door and the next moment Verna was beside him on the sofa and in his arms.
“Darling, tell me what has happened,” she begged. “What were you talking about with your brother?”
“He was offering me a job – estate manager, living in two rooms over the stables.”
“We could manage – ”
“Do you think I would ever take you to live in such a way?” he demanded, almost violently. “Is that the kind of man you think I am?”
“I’ll tell you the kind of man I think you are,” she answered softly. “You are the man I love and the only man I will ever love. I think you are strong and brave but so am I, and I know that if I cannot become your wife, then my life is over.”
He loved her even more for these loyal words.
Her willingness to face any hardship rather than be parted from him made him want to fall at her feet. But he refused to yield to his feelings. What he had to do was terrible, but it must be done and the sooner he made an end the better for them both.
Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to say,
“Nonsense!”
She looked up at him, startled.
“Of course your life isn’t over,” he said in a voice that he tried to make harsh. “You will forget me in no time and find a man who is suitable.”
“Michael!”
Her cry of such pain pierced his heart, but he forced himself not to weaken.
“We cannot afford to be sentimental about this,” he continued. “We enjoyed a pleasant flirtation, but it’s over now and we must go our separate ways.”
“I don’t believe you,” she whispered. “You are just saying this for my sake. You are trying to put me off – ”
“I am trying to save you from pain and regret,” he growled.
“There would be neither if you love me as I love you,” she affirmed strongly.
He closed his eyes, recognising that the greatest sacrifice of his life was being demanded of him.
At all costs he must save his Verna from the life of misery that would await her if they married – poor, derided by the world, perhaps sick if he could not afford to buy her good medical care.
“Well, then,” he replied, speaking as lightly as he could manage, “perhaps I do not.”
It Is Love Page 10
