The Eternal Collection

CHAPTER ONE-1

CHAPTER ONE“It has come! It has come!”

It has come!”Larisa burst into the schoolroom with a letter in her hand and every face in the room was turned towards her.

A spectator when he looked at the Stanton family might have been excused for thinking that he had stumbled inadvertently onto an Olympian party dedicated to Venus.

Lady Stanton, who had been surpassingly beautiful in her youth, was now a little faded but her four daughters looked exactly like Greek goddesses.

The late Sir Beaugrave Stanton attributed their beauty to the fact that he himself was obsessed with ancient Greece and it had been his interest and occupation all his life. But their fair hair undoubtedly owed much to Lady Stanton’s Scandinavian ancestors, although their classical features and perfectly proportioned bodies might have been inherited from their father.

It was due to their father’s preoccupation that all the Stanton girls were Christened with Greek names.

Larisa was named after the town where he had stayed on his first visit to the country while Cynthus, Athene and Delos were all baptised with names he found in his research, in which he was absorbed at the time of their arrival.

Sir Beaugrave’s only son, who had now inherited the baronetcy, had been called Nicias, a name that embarrassed him and so, during his school days, had been modified to the more mundane ‘Nicky’.

Nicky seemed as interested as his sisters in the letter that Larisa held in her hand and which she gave to her mother.

“Here it is, Mama.”

Her blue eyes held a hint of anxiety as her mother took the letter from her and without hurrying opened the envelope.

There came a hush over the family assembled in the schoolroom as if they all waited breathlessly to know what Larisa’s fate was to be – and incidentally Nicky’s.

It had been Larisa, who although not the oldest of the four sisters, was the most practical, and who had lifted them from a helpless depression when after Sir Beaugrave’s death they realised the impecunious state in which they had been left.

While their father had been alive he had dealt with the financial affairs of the family.

Although he continually preached prudence and economy, it had not seemed imperative until they learnt when he died exactly how precarious their situation was.

“Did you realise, Mama,” Nicky had asked incredulously, “that Papa had spent all his capital?”

“I always left such things to him,” Lady Stanton had murmured apologetically.

“But you knew how hopeless he was about such matters,” Nicky said accusingly. “After all he lived in a world of his own and the only coinage with which he was concerned was that used by the ancient Greeks!”

“Yes, I know, I know,” Lady Stanton replied unhappily, “but it bored your father to talk of money – and somehow we always managed to have enough to eat and to pay the servants’ wages.”

I know,”“Only because every year he was dipping into his capital,” Nicky said sharply, “and now there is nothing left, Mama. Do you understand? Nothing!”

Nothing!”For a little while the family was too stunned to understand what this could mean. They had lived in the comparatively large Redmarley House in Gloucestershire all their lives and it had been the Stantons’ family seat for three centuries.

Their great-grandfather, the fifth Baronet, had in the middle of the 18th Century altered the house considerably, adding to it a Georgian portico with impressive Ionic columns, which had always delighted their father.

It stood high on a hill with the parkland sloping away into the valley and there was only a small hamlet with a dozen cottages surrounding a Norman church in the immediate vicinity.

The Stanton daughters did not feel isolated.

They had their horses to ride and they were so happy with each other that they did not miss the companionship of their neighbours and friends – all of whom lived so far away that the family’s only visitors were limited to perhaps a dozen a year.

It was Nicky as he grew up who complained of lack of entertainment and who in consequence found Oxford alluring and delightful, as did most young men of his age.

Nevertheless, he worked hard because ever since he was a small boy it had been agreed that he should go into the Diplomatic Service. It was on his father’s death that he was forced to face the fact that as things were, it would be almost impossible for him to continue at Oxford, and he would therefore not get a First Class degree, which was essential in his chosen profession.

“What else can you do if you do not become a diplomat?” Larisa asked.

“I suppose I can always be a farm labourer if we can afford to keep the land!” he replied bitterly.

“I doubt if anyone would buy it in this isolated part of the country,” Lady Stanton answered. “And besides, the Stantons have always lived here.”

“Then I shall be the first Baronet not to do so,” Nicky retorted.

It was Larisa who said firmly,

“We have to do something – all of us – to keep Nicky at Oxford until he receives his degree.”

Her mother stared at her incredulously.

“What can we do?” Athene asked.

She was seventeen and a year younger than Larisa.

“That is what we have to decide,” Larisa replied.

It had taken days and a great deal of argument before finally a plan was approved by them all.

When the controversy became too violent, Larisa always brought them back with the practical statement,

“We have to pay Nicky’s fees.”

It was finally decided that Lady Stanton, Athene and Delos, who was only fifteen, should move into a cottage on the estate. The big house would be shut up and what servants remained, with the exception of their old nurse, would be dismissed or pensioned off.

The land would be let to tenant farmers and although this would bring in a little money it was still not enough.

Cynthus, aged nineteen, was engaged to be married to the son of a local Squire.

He had only a small allowance from his father and they all decided it would be impossible to expect either him or Cynthus to contribute towards Nicky’s education. At the same time Cynthus would play her part by not having any dowry on her marriage and costing nothing for her keep after she had left them.

While the discussions were still going on, Athene surprised them all by going out on her own one morning and returning with the news that she had found herself a job.

“I do not believe it!” Cynthus cried and Lady Stanton asked nervously, “what is it, Athene?”

“Do you remember old Mrs. Braybrooke?” Athene asked, “who lives at The Towers?”

“Yes, of course,” Lady Stanton replied. “Although your father would not allow me to call on her – as her family is in commerce – I have occasionally bowed to her when leaving Church.”

“Well, she is rich!” Athene said, “and I heard, because the butcher told Nurse when he called, that she was looking for someone to write her letters and be a kind of companion-secretary.”

No-one spoke as Athene continued,

“I called on her and suggested that I could assist her and she is delighted at the idea!”

“How could you do such a thing without consulting me?” Lady Stanton asked.

“I had the feeling you would say no,” Athene answered. “You know how stuffy Papa was about her – just because her husband made carpets in Kidderminster!”

“Is that what he did?” Nicky asked with interest.

“Actually, she is rather a nice old thing,” Athene said, “and I am sorry for her because her family seldom comes to see her and she is very lonely now that she is a widow.”

“What is her house like?” Delos asked irrepressibly.

“Very rich and grand,” Athene answered. “The carpets are so thick your feet sink into them. The curtains look very new and are absolutely bristling with tassels and there is a whole army of servants falling over each other!”

“How much is she going to pay you?” Larisa asked.

“You will be astonished when I tell you,” Athene said. “Hold your breath!”

They all waited until she said triumphantly,

“£100 a year! What do you think of that? And I need only be at The Towers for three or four hours a day unless she particularly wants me to stay longer.”

“It is too much!” Lady Stanton said quickly. “You cannot accept it!”

“I have accepted it, Mama,” Athene replied, “and you must realise that as I shall have no expenses, Nicky can have all of it, every penny!”

have“I think it is very good of you, Athene,” Nicky said, “and after all it does mean that you will still be living with Mama.”

He looked at his mother as he spoke and Lady Stanton understood what he was trying to say to her.

Athene was the impetuous, impulsive member of the family, and Lady Stanton had already confided to her son that she was worried as to what might happen to her third daughter if she went away from home.

She was so lovely with her fair hair and her large blue eyes, which invariably held a hint of mischief, that any mother would have been afraid of what the future might hold.

In fact, Lady Stanton worried about all her daughters.

She had always hoped that they would be able to enjoy the gaieties and the social amusements that had been a part of her own girlhood.

But when Cynthus, the eldest, grew up she learnt, although she did not quite realise at the time how serious the situation was, that there was no money for frivolities.

It was true there always seemed to be enough money for the newest books about Greece and, twice after he had been married, Sir Beaugrave had gone abroad by himself to visit the land that haunted his dreams.

He had travelled, he assured his wife, in the very cheapest way, which was why he could not take her with him.

Nevertheless, the journeys made an increasing hole in his capital – and everyday expenses had finally swallowed it up entirely.

“How could Papa have gone on year after year spending and spending, without realising the day would come when there would be nothing left?” Nicky asked furiously.

“I am afraid your Papa never looked forwards,” Lady Stanton answered. “He was always living in the past.”

“That was all right for him,” Nicky said bitterly, “but we have to go on living, and odes written to the Greek Islands are not going to pay the tradesmen’s bills or my expenses at Oxford!”

It was understandable, the whole family thought, that Nicky should be the most incensed at their impoverished condition. He was the one who would suffer most.

What made it worse in some ways was that only at the end of last term his tutor had written a glowing account of his progress and how proud they had every reason to be of him.

With Cynthus engaged to be married and therefore no drain on their future expenditure, and Athene aged seventeen and earning money, Larisa waited apprehensively while her mother read the letter that had just arrived from London.