Music from the Heart

Chapter One ~ 1831-2

She had deliberately set out on what amounted to a campaign of spite against Ilouka and where possible to drive a wedge between her father and his new wife.

There she was completely unsuccessful, although she often made Lady Armstrong very unhappy.

But where Ilouka was concerned she managed to make her life a series of petty insults and slights that grew worse every day that they were in the same house together.

“It will be a relief, Mama, to go away,” Ilouka said now. “Equally please, please don’t let me stay away very long.”

“You know, dearest, I have planned to present you at a ‘Drawing Room’ in May,” Lady Armstrong replied, “and your stepfather wishes me to present Muriel at the same time. But now I cannot help feeling that it would be impossible to enjoy a London Season together.”

“I don’t mind missing the Season,” Ilouka said, “but I do mind being away from you, especially with Mrs. Adolphus.”

Lady Armstrong sighed.

She was well aware that her husband’s sister hated her because she had set her heart on her brother marrying again and having several sons.

She was a demanding elderly woman who her enemies said had driven her husband into the grave and then had transferred her ambitions to her only brother.

She lived in a bleak ugly house in Bedfordshire, where the flatness of the countryside seemed somehow to echo the deadly boredom of the neighbourhood and of Mrs. Adolphus’s household in particular.

The servants were old and crotchety and resented visitors because they made extra work.

The food was plain and dull and even the horses, which Ilouka was allowed to ride, were slow and unspirited.

With her Hungarian blood she had all the talents that had made her great-grandmother so outstanding.

A magnificent rider, she could master any horse, however wild and unruly, and she was also exceedingly musical and with her fairy-like figure could dance in a way that made her father say once,

“We really must put Ilouka on the stage at Covent Garden and then the money she makes in wages will keep us in comfort in our old age!”

His wife had protested laughingly.

“How can you say anything so outrageous, darling? For Goodness sake, don’t put such ideas into Ilouka’s head!”

“I was not serious,” Colonel Compton had laughed.

Nevertheless he would make Ilouka dance for him while her mother played the piano.

In the music was the wild dance of the Hungarian gypsies and Ilouka would dance as if her feet never touched the ground and she flowed with grace and an abandon that came from her instinct and not from anything that she had ever seen.

“I tell you what I will do,” Lady Armstrong said now after a pause while she had been considering what her daughter had said. “You must go to Agatha before Lord Denton arrives, but I will write to your father’s sister who lives not far away in Huntingdon and ask her if she will take you for a short while.”

Ilouka’s face lit up.

“I would like that,” she replied. “Aunt Alice is a sweet person and I love her children.”

“I know, dearest, but you do realise they are very poor and, although we could not insult them by offering money, even one extra would strain their resources even more than they are strained already.”

As she spoke, Lady Armstrong was thinking of how difficult it had been for her and Ilouka after her husband had died.

“You know I understand,” Ilouka said, “and perhaps you could give me some money to buy presents for the children, not toys or games, which are really useless, but dresses for the little girls and perhaps a coat for each of the boys.”

“Of course I will do that,” her mother replied. “But you will have to be very very careful not to let them feel it is an act of charity.”

“Leave it to me, Mama. You know I would not do anything to hurt Aunt Alice.”

“Then I will write to her at once.”

“I suppose I could not go there first and not to Mrs. Adolphus?”

Lady Armstrong shook her head.

“Your stepfather thinks that his sister is a delightful person.”

“She always is ‒ to him.”

“It is only that she dislikes me and in consequence you,” her mother went on.

“Yes, I know, but it means that she will find fault every moment of the day and will keep on telling me over and over what wonderful chances her brother missed when he married you.”

Lady Armstrong laughed.

“You will just have to remember that neither he nor I are complaining.”

“I know, Mama, but she goes on and on almost as if Step-Papa picked you up from the gutter or you trapped him into marriage when he was least expecting it.”

Lady Armstrong laughed again, remembering how Sir James had pleaded with her and begged her to marry him so humbly that now in retrospect it seemed almost incredible how abject he had been at the time.

But she was growing fonder of him all the time that they were together and she prayed that for all their sakes that Muriel would get married soon.

Then, as far as she was concerned, she could enjoy having a husband who adored her and who was prepared to give her all the money that she needed for herself and her daughter.

But Sir James had his little meannesses and one of these was that he did not like to send his horses on long distances and he resented hiring conveyances when his stable was full.

“Ilouka will leave for your sister’s early the day after tomorrow,” Lady Armstrong said. “If she starts early in the morning, she will only have to stay for one night on the way and you know I don’t like her staying at Posting inns even with a maid to look after her.”

There was silence while both Sir James and his wife were thinking that Lord Denton was unlikely to arrive before teatime and by that time Ilouka would be far away.

Lady Armstrong then asked pleadingly,

“You will send her in a carriage, James?”

“That is impossible,” Sir James replied. “I need all the coachmen and the grooms here to help with the Steeplechase and it is anyway too far for our best horses.”

Lady Armstrong stiffened.

Then she enquired,

“Then how are you suggesting that Ilouka should travel to your sister’s house?”

“She can go by stagecoach. After all, it will hardly be a new experience for her.”

This was true, because before Lady Armstrong married Sir James, she had during her widowhood been obliged to dispose of her horses and she and Ilouka had therefore had no option but to travel by stagecoach.

There was a little silence.

Then Lady Armstrong said,

“I suppose if she is with Hannah she will be all right.”

“Of course she will be all right,” Sir James said sharply, “and very much safer than if she travelled by Post-chaise, which is the only other alternative.”

“The stagecoaches are so slow and they don’t always stop at the best inns.”

“I imagine, as it is a cross-country journey, there will not be much choice,” Sir James replied drily.

Lady Armstrong was perturbed.

At the same time she realised that her husband would have made up his mind and she thought that to plead with him to change it would be a mistake and might affect Ilouka.

He had already said that she should have a Season in London and, although they were both well aware that it would be difficult because of Muriel, so far he had not renounced his intention of opening his London house to give a ball for both the girls.

Lady Armstrong was certain that behind her back Muriel was trying by every means she could to have Ilouka excluded.

And she was also confident that her husband would be too loyal to her to agree to what his daughter suggested.

But it would be a silly mistake to upset him in any way at this particular moment and she could only pray more fervently than she was already that Muriel would marry Lord Denton and Ilouka could then enjoy a Season alone.

Aloud she said,

“I will see that Ilouka is ready and that Hannah goes with her. Will you order a carriage to convey them to the crossroads? And please ask whoever goes with them to see that she has a comfortable seat and to tip the guard so that he will look after her.”

“You know I will do all that,” Sir James said.

Then he put his hand on his wife’s shoulder,

“I am sorry to send Ilouka away, my darling, if it upsets you. Denton is quite a catch and I would welcome him as a son-in-law.”

The way he spoke said far more than the words he used and Lady Armstrong quickly put her hand over his as she said,

“You know, dearest, that I want Muriel’s happiness just as I want yours.”

Sir James bent his head to kiss her cheek and said no more, but Lady Armstrong knew by the expression in his eyes before he left the room how much he loved her.

But she could not help worrying about Ilouka.

Then she told herself that there was really nothing to worry about but that her daughter would be exceedingly bored on the long journey cross-country.

The stagecoach would not be packed with dashing young men who might be beguiled by her beauty but with farmers’ wives journeying to a market town, commercial travellers intent on what they could sell and perhaps a few farm boys returning home after taking a horse to sell at a Fair or driving a herd of cows to a new purchaser.

‘And who could look after Ilouka more effectively than Hannah?’ she thought with a smile.

Hannah had been their only maid after the Colonel’s death, because they had been unable to afford any more servants.

She was a strict Presbyterian who thought the whole world was a wicked place filled with people who in her own words were ‘up to no good’.

Even the many tradesmen who came to The Manor had been afraid of Hannah and Lady Armstrong knew that any man who even attempted to talk to Ilouka without an introduction would be annihilated by Hannah’s eyes before the first words had left his lips.

“I am afraid it will be a rather long and boring journey for you, Hannah,” she said to the old maid in her sweet manner that every servant found irresistible.

“Duty is duty, my Lady,” Hannah replied, “and the Good Lord never said anythin’ about it being a pleasure,”

“I know Miss Ilouka will be quite safe with you,” Lady Armstrong went on.

“You can be sure of that, my Lady.”

“All the same,” Lady Armstrong continued as if she spoke to herself, “I wish the Master could have spared a coach to take you to Bedfordshire.”

Hannah’s lips tightened making her look even more formidable.

Now that she was nearing seventy, the lines on her face were deeply ingrained and when she was angry as an impertinent footman once said,

“She looks like an old gargoyle!”

Hannah had never really approved of Sir James from the first time he came courting her Mistress.

But she definitely appreciated the comforts of their new home, but she deeply resented it if ‘her ladies’, as she thought of them in her mind, were insulted in any way.

“I am not that sorry for myself having to travel in the stagecoach,” Ilouka said to her mother when they were alone, “but for all the other travellers who will have to put up with Hannah! I cannot tell you, Mama, how intimidating she can be.”

“I have seen her,” Lady Armstrong replied laughing.