A Fall from Grace

by Maggie Ford

  A Fall from Grace

  Cover

  Title Page

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  About the Author

  Also by Maggie Ford

  Copyright

  Cover

  Table of Contents

  Start of Content

  One

  Eight thirty – November’s early morning sunlight beginning to peep above the tall houses on the far side of Holland Park, West London more open here, giving space to breathe. Hers was a lovely house, one of rows of similar high-class three-storied homes with attic and basement, steps down to the street, protective railings at the front and long narrow gardens at the rear.

  Some three and a half years ago she’d bought this huge house out of a need to prove her independence. Instead she had found herself rattling around in it, refusing the comfort of staff apart from a daily woman who came in to cook and clean before returning home in the evening. Until recently she’d had plenty of friends but since October they had deserted her, or more likely she had driven them away, no longer able to face them.

  The sun had begun to light up the room, reflecting off the big mirror on to the central chandelier, its crystals scattering a myriad of bright splashes around the walls of the huge reception room. She’d been up all night unable to sleep, and now she gazed up at the chandelier as she had done so many times before, except on this occasion not in admiration.

  Madeleine Ingleton’s gaze was thoughtful. This was where it would happen. It would be swift – over in seconds – and the heartache, the grinding sense of anguish, the lonely recriminations would be no more, a thing of the past.

  No friends, her money already gone, she was now deeply in debt; soon the house too would be lost. Wasn’t it well known that rats always desert a sinking ship? Well she was a sinking ship right enough, no denying that. In fact it had already sunk.

  Madeleine found herself thinking back on her life as she stood in the middle of the room where so many uproarious parties had been held: such wonderful parties, every room overflowing with joyous party goers and hangers-on, most of them sozzled to the eyebrows on champagne or whatever else they could down, some making idiotic attempts to dance, seeing themselves as experts at the Black Bottom, the Charleston, Tango, One-Step or the Turkey Trot; the place stifling, filled with music and laughter and cigarette smoke.

  A far cry from the quiet Buckinghamshire house she’d once known, where her parents had lived. Only her miserable sod of a father there now, rattling around in that mausoleum of a place, her mother dead these last thirteen years.

  She couldn’t recall the last time she’d laid eyes on him and as far as he was concerned, she could have been as dead as her mother. It didn’t matter. Before long she’d probably join her to haunt the life out of him and serve him right, if he cared at all.

  He’d always wanted a son to carry on the family name, but she had remained an only child. He therefore looked to her to marry well and have a son of her own who’d one day take up his grandfather’s name of Wyndham at the same time as inheriting under his will.

  He had even made it known that he’d added this into his will and as soon as she turned eighteen, an age when girls of good families were expected to think of finding a future husband of equally good background, he had pinned all his expectations on that wish.

  Her mother had been in total agreement with her husband as women usually were prior to 1914. So why had she expected her to be otherwise? Even so it had hurt, left with no support or sympathy from either of them.

  She was twenty when her mother died – tuberculosis, a disease that usually struck poorer families. She was now thirty-three but even had her mother been alive now, the hostility would still be there, neither parent ever forgiving her for what she’d done. To this day her father would still see her as having been the cause of her mother’s death.

  She could still recall that vile argument nearly fifteen years ago when they’d sprung the news of their plans for her future. Until then they’d looked on her as a model daughter, dutifully doing as she was told.

  How wrong they were.

  Two

  She had enjoyed every minute of her two years at the Swiss finishing school for young ladies. Now Madeleine was home having just turned eighteen, her parents were already planning to attend her first social engagement of the London Season, her coming out ball, along with a host of other debutants in white ball gowns.

  Each family looked to their daughter meeting some likely young suitor of equal good standing and, even better, heir to a vaster fortune, with a view to eventual marriage. But just in case, Madeleine’s own parents already had their eye on one young man.

  She and Hamilton Bramwell had already met at two or three social gatherings long before she’d gone to Switzerland so they weren’t exactly strangers. With this in mind, Mummy and Father had approached his wealthy parents just prior to her return home, fully expecting her to be thrilled at renewing their acquaintance with a view to marriage.

  It seemed they were taken with the idea, her father’s standing being pretty high and the prospects of her bringing a fine dowry to the marriage, she being an only child, was most tempting. The drawback for her was that he wasn’t the sort of husband she’d dreamed of while in Switzerland though of course she’d so far kept her thoughts to herself. Back then she and her friends had fantasized constantly about the man each would marry. Someone special; someone tall and strong and handsome, with smouldering eyes of whatever colour each preferred and gleaming blonde or glossy brown hair according to each girl’s particular taste.

  The drawback with Hamilton was that there was nothing, nor had there ever been anything, special about him from what she’d remembered, apart from merely being a quite agreeable young man with a gentle nature.

  Now twenty-one, three years older than her, that considered just right by both families, he was tall, slim, moderately good-looking but for a rather weak chin, somewhat washed-out blue eyes, and fair hair so fine it gave the impression of being in danger of wafting off his scalp at the least puff of wind. He certainly wasn’t the man of her dreams back in Switzerland.

  She too was tall and slender, but her hair though fair, was heavy and luxuriant and her eyes a vivid blue. In fact only a few days ago she’d been told by Freddie Dobson she was extremely pretty.

  ‘Gosh, miss, you’re far prettier than I imagined,’ he’d said. ‘If you’ll forgive me for being a bit forward, I’d say extremely pretty,’ which would have struck her as being very forward had it not been for his smile, so utterly appreciative that she had felt herself colour with pleasure rather than show pique or embarrassment.

  She’d been home only two days and had been standing at the front door enjoying the warmth of late April’s early morning sunshine, needing to calm herself after being faced by her mother’s questions in the hall of all places, having only just come down from her bedroom. The last thing she’d wanted was to be interrogated on how things had gone between her and Hamilton after last night’s sumptuous dinner organized for her homecoming with his parents as guests.
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  ‘All right, I suppose,’ she’d answered in an offhanded almost negative manner, instantly putting her mother’s back up.

  ‘All right, you suppose?’ her mother had burst out. ‘All right? Is that any kind of response to give us after the effort both our families have made on behalf of our daughter and their son?’

  Her tone made Madeleine turn on her more than any nice girl should towards a parent, her own tone rising. ‘Mother, I don’t want anyone to make an effort! Yes, he’s a nice person but he’s not for me. At least I don’t think so,’ she ended trying to moderate her tone. Too late, her mother was already livid, her fair-skinned cheeks reddening.

  ‘Then I think you should explain your feelings to your father and see what he has to say about it. He will not be pleased. He will not be pleased at all. What right have you, eighteen and still under our jurisdiction, to begin behaving so finicky when we’re thinking only of your well-being, your future? Hamilton will make you an ideal husband,’ she went on, her words gaining momentum from shock, disappointment and mounting vexation. ‘He is kind and generous and gentle-natured. You might never find another prospective husband half as suitable as young Hamilton, look though you will, and—’

  ‘But I need to look!’ she’d cut in, not as any good daughter should to a parent, but she was angry too. ‘This is nineteen fourteen, Mummy, not eighteen ninety-nine! I don’t want to marry someone on whom my parents have already decided whether I like it or not. I like him, yes, but not enough to marry him. And anyway, how do I know he’s what I want? I know you’ve mentioned him in your letters when I was away but last night was the first time we’ve met in two years, so don’t you think you’re somewhat jumping the gun, Mummy?’

  ‘Jumping the gun? Jumping… What an uncouth expression for a well brought up young lady to use! Your father and I have… We have…’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it just now,’ she said, cutting through the stammering torrent of dismay. ‘All I want at the moment is some fresh air – to think.’ With that Madeleine swung away from her and let herself out.

  To help control her rapid breathing, she stood for a moment watching their gardener preparing to mow the huge circular front lawn bordered by its line of trees on one side and the curving, wide gravel driveway on the other.

  The rattle of milk churns took her attention. Glancing towards the sound she saw a young man, in a blue and white striped apron over trousers and a collarless shirt, the sleeves rolled up as he trundled a handcart bearing two huge milk churns along the gravel path towards the servants’ entrance, as energetically as if they weighed nothing.

  With growing interest she found herself taking in his appearance: the broad shoulders, the tanned skin of someone used to the outdoors, a shock of dark brown hair. It was a strong face, firm jaw, straight nose; she judged him to be around twenty-five.

  Catching sight of her standing there looking his way, he gave a small, friendly nod, his gaze lingering for a moment before continuing on his way. In that moment, even from a distance of some fifteen feet she was aware of his dark brown eyes that seemed to her to smoulder, causing her young heart to quicken. So much so that on impulse and without thought of why or what had got into her, she followed him as he went out of sight around the far corner of the house.

  Reaching the place where he’d disappeared she hovered, hopefully concealed, to watch him manoeuvre the awkward milk cart alongside the rear door to begin ladling out the thick creamy milk from a churn into the two large jugs that their cook, Mrs Plumley, had brought out to him.

  As the woman retreated back inside he replaced the churn lid and deftly manhandled the milk cart around the way he’d come. The movement was faster than she had expected, too late to hurry back to the front of the house as he came abreast of her. Giving an impression of shocked surprise, seeing her there, he gave a dramatic execution of recovery as a broad grin widened his lips to reveal white even teeth.

  ‘Good gosh, miss!’ he burst out, ‘you gave me quite a start!’

  Not knowing how to combat the play of surprise she was on the point of apologizing when she heard him say, ‘You’re Madeleine Wyndham, aren’t you?’

  ‘Maddie,’ she corrected impulsively. Warmed by his infectious grin, she forgot that she was talking to a mere tradesman. Mummy would have had a fit had she been here.

  ‘I prefer Maddie,’ she finished awkwardly. It was what her friends at finishing school had used despite the rules forbidding the shortening of names.

  ‘I bet you’re Madeleine to your parents though,’ he chuckled, making her smile, in that moment feeling more drawn to him than she knew she should be.

  There was a warm look about him, not just his smile but seeming to issue from him physically as if she could actually feel it. His arms about her would be warm. She had never had any man’s arms around her, wondered how it must feel and suddenly she wanted them to be his.

  ‘I guessed it was you,’ he was saying, bringing her abruptly back from her thoughts, ‘although I don’t ever remember seeing you before.’

  ‘I’ve just returned home after my two years education at a finishing school in Switzerland,’ she answered, trying to sound composed although her heart still thudded from those earlier thoughts.

  He gave a little snort of self-derision. ‘Lucky you! Me, well, I was… educated, if you could call it that, a bit closer to home, local junior school here in Pilbridge. The three R’s and that was that – left at twelve years old to work with me dad, tending the cows, milking ’em and learning the ropes. That was it, really.’

  It sounded sad but his smile remained so wide and cheeky that she found herself smiling with him.

  It was then he made the comment that he thought her pretty, adding, ‘Hope you don’t mind me saying, but when I heard this family’s daughter was coming home from some finishing school abroad, in me mind’s eye I saw some gawky girl all full of herself. But you don’t seem like that and you’re far prettier than anyone I’ve ever met, if you don’t mind me saying.’

  As she stood lost for a reply, he went on, ‘And by the way, my name’s Freddy Dobson. I work with me dad who has the dairy, the other side of the village. Dobson’s Dairies, do you know it?’

  No, she didn’t. Most of her life had been spent away from home, her childhood in the care of a nanny until, as with most children of good families, she’d gone to boarding school; after that, college then finishing school. When home, recreation was visiting friends or they visiting her, any journeys would be in her father’s Wolseley-Siddeley motor car he’d bought new in nineteen twelve, just before she’d gone off to Switzerland and which he still ran.

  ‘It’s not a large place, me dad’s dairy,’ Freddy was saying, jerking her thoughts back to him. ‘It’s at the rear of where we live. That’s not all that large either, just a cottage, not like here where you live.’

  Brookside, so named because the tiny River Pil flowing beside it was indeed more a brook than a river, was the last in a sprinkling of rather nice houses this end of the village. The road went on to Beaconsfield some five miles further along with little in between. There used to be a couple of farms and one or two smallholdings on the other side of Pilbridge but she couldn’t ever recall noticing a dairy. No doubt she would be obliged to pass it from now on, on her way to Gerrard’s Green, four miles off in that direction where Hamilton Bramwell’s parents lived in their big manor house.

  But at the moment her thoughts were on the man in front of her, he now telling her that in between milking cows, cleaning out their stalls and delivering milk to the surrounding area, he was trying to educate himself by reading books in whatever spare time he had. Really she shouldn’t have been standing talking with him at all. Were her parents to see her she would be severely instructed that young ladies did not converse with tradesmen on a social standing. To families such as hers, despite him and his father owning their own dairy, they were tradesmen and as such should keep their place.

  ‘I usually deliver
here on Monday, Wednesday and Friday,’ he said, breaking into her thoughts – though why tell her this, she wondered. It was an unnecessary comment unless he was trying to make it obvious that he hoped to see her again on those days – in fact almost too obvious.

  Even so a tiny thrill had rippled through her as she replied maybe a little too quickly, ‘Then I’ll probably look out for you,’ trying to make her tone sound jocular to offset the strange excitement sweeping through her.

  * * *

  Today she hovered out front as she had these last two weeks other than both Wednesdays when rain had prevented her. It was Friday and he wouldn’t be here again until Monday, two days without seeing him instead of just one.

  Her excuse for lingering out here in full view of everyone, which was how her mother had described it, was that she wanted to enjoy the warmth of the early morning sun on her face. Even so her mother hadn’t been at all pleased and said so.

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t, Madeleine. Much nicer to wait for the sun to move to the rear of the house when you can enjoy it in the privacy of your own garden. Standing in the front in full view like a common hawker…’

  ‘The sun isn’t so hot in the mornings, Mummy,’ she’d cut in. ‘And much fresher, and besides,’ she couldn’t help adding a little caustically, ‘hawkers and tradesmen always go to the rear door.’

  Her mother had reacted with a touch of pique. ‘There is no need for sarcasm, my dear! I am merely suggesting that you display a little decorum if you must indulge in this odd habit you seem to have acquired recently. I cannot stop you, but please, do try not to let tradesmen notice you hovering there.’

  Little did she know! It was precisely her intention to be noticed by one special tradesman; have him beckon her with a small tilt of the head as he went towards the servant’s entrance, she following cautiously, coming to a stop just beyond the corner of the house, hopefully out of sight of prying eyes.

  The milk delivered, Mrs Plumley gone back inside, as always he came up to Madeleine, pausing beside her and they’d pass the time of day. He’d ask how she did. She’d respond gladly, a little self-consciously to start with, telling him what she had been doing the days between seeing him, he in turn telling her what he’d been up to during that time. All the time her heart would beat heavily, excitement tingling through her veins at his closeness as she listened to his deep voice.