A Beauty Betrayed

CHAPTER ONE 1885-1

CHAPTER ONE 1885Lady Zela Lang trotted briskly into the stable yard and a groom came running out to hold her horse’s head.

“’Ave you ’ad a good ride, my Lady?” he enquired.

“Really lovely, thank you, Armstrong,” Lady Zela replied. “It’s a marvellous day and I could go on riding for hours.”

“’Is Lordship should be back ’ere soon,” Armstrong remarked.

“Yes!” Lady Zela said. “And it will be delightful to see him.”

Armstrong, who was now leading the horse to the stable, then said,

“I thinks, my Lady, you ought to ask ’im if we can ’ave another ’orse or two. Poor old Robin won’t last for much longer.”

“I know that,” Lady Zela replied.

“What you wants, my Lady,” he carried on, “is a good ’unter for the winter and ’is Lordship’ll want the same. Those we’ve got ’ave served us real well, but neither them nor us’ll last for ever!”

“That is very true,” Lady Zela agreed, “and I will certainly speak to his Lordship.”

She walked across the cobbled yard and through the arched door that led to the front of the house.

The sun was shining on the windows and Langdale Hall was looking very beautiful.

It had been in the family since the reign of Charles II and now that the bricks had mellowed over the years it was even more attractive than it must have been then.

Lady Zela loved her home, but since her beloved mother had died she was very much alone.

Nevertheless Zela was exceedingly happy galloping over the fields and tending the somewhat wild garden.

The trouble was, and it was nothing new, that there was not enough money!

It cost money that they did not have to keep it in the way it had been in her grandfather and great-grandfather’s time.

Back then the reigning Earl had employed a large number of indoor and outdoor staff.

But today, whatever Zela asked her father to buy or do, he claimed at once that he could not afford it.

At the same time he had taken lately to going to London and she could understand that he found it dull in the country without her mother.

As he was still a very attractive man, he enjoyed being with his friends and making new acquaintances.

London gave him not only his contemporaries, who he found at White’s Club, but he was also eagerly sought after by the hostesses who made the Social life of London the most attractive and amusing in Europe.

People who came from Paris always said that they could not compete with London and the Germans were just plain envious.

So it was not surprising that the Prince of Wales enjoyed going to a party or giving one almost every night and then he was able to pursue those who were known as the ‘Professional Beauties’.

When His Royal Highness fell in love with Lillie Langtry, she was undoubtedly one of the greatest beauties that England had ever seen.

It then became possible, for the first time in social history, for a gentleman to be able to conduct an affaire-de-coeur with a lady of his own class.

Previously there was an enormous division between the Cyprians and Ladies of Quality and it was impossible for the two to ever meet.

But Lillie Langtry had been accepted by Princess Alexandra, the long suffering Princess of Wales.

All the hostesses of Mayfair had then followed her example, while the Prince of Wales had moved from one beauty to another. There were many entries in the Betting Book at White’s as to who would be the next!

The Earl of Langdale was an extremely handsome man and he was still exceptionally good-looking when he became a widower at only forty-three.

It was not surprising that a number of women found him most attractive and they pursued him relentlessly.

He had at first, when his adored wife died suddenly for no good reason that any of her doctors could diagnose, remained gloomily in the country.

He was alone except for his daughter, who was still at the age when she was being instructed by Governesses and Tutors.

It was one of his old school friends who had then persuaded him to come to London.

“Do stay with us for a few nights, David,” he urged, “and I will show you round.”

The Earl took quite a lot of persuading, but finally he accepted his friend’s invitation.

When he reached London, he found at once that it was everything he had missed for so long without realising it and a good deal more. In fact he had been so happily married that he had never thought about it.

He went to Whites and found a great number of his school friends in the Club as well as those he had studied with at Oxford University. They had not forgotten him and greeted him with delight.

“Now that you are back in circulation, David,” they said, “we will make sure that you enjoy yourself.”

They took the Earl from party to party.

He had been in London for barely ten days when he found that he had attracted the attention of one of the most outstanding of the ‘Professional Beauties’.

He found that being with her and making love to her helped him forget his unhappiness and despair at losing his very special wife.

His second visit to London, this time staying with another old friend of his who was anxious to entertain him, was also a great success.

It was then that the Earl decided that he must have a pied-a-terre of his own in London and he found a small cheap flat in Half Moon Street just off Piccadilly in the heart of Mayfair.

And so his visits to the country grew fewer as the invitations from London hostesses continued to pour in.

He was, however, coming back to his home today.

His daughter, Zela, was determined that he should enjoy himself and she had had a long conversation this morning with the cook.

Mrs. Brunt had been Langdale Hall for thirty years and she was a very good cook when she had all the right ingredients and she had been preparing all week for his Lordship’s return.

“I’ve planned all your father’s favourite dishes, my Lady,” she said to Zela. “Brunt has brought up a bottle of champagne from the cellar and a fine old brandy that he says were put there when we were fightin’ Napoleon.”

Zela had laughed.

“I expect it was smuggled,” she said. “And I have always been told that, as the very best brandy comes from France, the gentlemen in England drank it during the War against Napoleon as they could only obtain it from the smugglers.”

“Well, however we got it,” Mrs. Brunt replied, “I knows his Lordship’ll really enjoy it.”

“I know he will too,” Zela said, “and he will be delighted to eat all the dishes you are cooking for him.”

She left the kitchen to put flowers in her father’s study, as she thought that he would rather sit there than in the drawing room, which would inevitably make him think of her mother because it had been her favourite room.

She had made it very beautiful, just as she had with everything around her, and Zela had heard her father say so often that she was as lovely as she had made the house.

The Countess had died one cold winter’s day and no one could do anything to save her. The doctors were helpless and she passed away quietly while everyone who loved her was deeply shocked.

It happened so unexpectedly that it was difficult for her husband and daughter to believe that she had really left them.

At first the Earl was so depressed that Zela could do nothing to cheer him up.

Yet there were still horses to ride and there was still plenty to organise on the estate.

Finally he began to pay attention to the everyday problems that at first he had refused to even recognise.

As soon as he had started going to London, Zela had to admit that he was a different man.

He would tell her about the parties he had been to and the people he had met and he would relate what was being performed at Drury Lane.

What Zela enjoyed hearing about most of all was the horses. They were to be seen daily in Rotten Row and her father was lent horses by his many friends.

“I was lent an Arab,” he had said the last time that he come home. “It was the best horse I have ever ridden and by far the most impressive.”

“I am sure you looked handsome and magnificent on him, Papa,” Zela smiled.

Her father had laughed, but what she had said was true. Because he was so handsome, it would have been just impossible for the ladies who attended Rotten Row in their open Victorias not to notice him.

Fortunately the walls in the Earl’s study that were not covered with books were not in as bad a state as they were in some of the other rooms.

The whole house needed a great deal of attention and the ceilings were either cracked or discoloured and the walls needed painting or repapering.

And a good many of the diamond-paned windows were broken.

Zela had grown used to the dilapidated state of the house and tried to ignore how much there was to be done everywhere.

Looking at it now she thought that it would be just impossible for her father not to compare it with the houses where he had been staying not only in London but in the country as well.

He had been invited at weekends to parties that had included the Prince of Wales.

The Prince had asked for him because he found him so amusing. He always enjoyed being with him, a man like himself who attracted beautiful women.

‘I have done my best to make it look as attractive as possible,’ Zela thought as she looked around the study. ‘I only wish that we could have the pictures cleaned. Some of the oldest ones are in a really deplorable state.’

Then she remembered what Armstrong had said to her and, of course, her father must have a good horse to ride in the winter.

The horses he already had, although he loved them, would not be able to keep up with the Hunt.

Zela was still in the study when she thought that she heard the sound of wheels outside.

She ran along the passage to the hall and found that she had not been mistaken.

Her father had come home in a post chaise drawn by two horses and, as he climbed out, Zela ran down the steps to fling herself against him.

“You are home, Papa! It’s wonderful to see you!”

He kissed his daughter affectionately and said,

“Let me pay this man now and tell him that he can have something to eat before he returns to London.”

He took some money from his pocket as he spoke and Zela could not help hoping that he had a great deal more.

The Earl put his arm around Zela’s shoulders and they walked up the steps and into the house.

“How are you, my dearest Zela?” he asked. “You are looking very lovely and, seeing how you are dressed, I would suppose that you have been riding this morning?”

“I have, Papa, and I want to talk to you about the horses. But do tell me first what you have been doing in London.”

The Earl evaded her question.

After he had washed his hands, they went into the dining room together for a late luncheon.

It was then that Zela realised for the first time that something was wrong.

Her father seemed to be strangely reluctant to talk to her about what he had been doing in London.

Knowing him so well Zela now perceived from the expression in his eyes and the way he spoke that he was worried and upset about something.

He was looking, she felt, exceedingly handsome in the smart clothes he wore in London.

When they had finished luncheon, Brunt put a large glass of Napoleon brandy at her father’s side. And then he withdrew into the pantry closing the door behind him.

Zela bent forward and put her hand on her father’s.

“What is upsetting you, Papa?” she asked. “I know that something is wrong. Tell me about it, please.”

For a moment there was silence.

And then the Earl began,

“It is something I am finding very difficult to relate to you, my dearest.”