Winged Magic

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1882-2

For a moment Mina thought that she must have misunderstood what Christine was implying.

Then she stammered,

“I-I don’t – understand.”

“I am not surprised and I would not have understood either if I had not realised what was going on between Stepmama and the Marquis and if Hannah had not found out what they intended for me.”

Hannah was, as Mina knew, Christine’s lady’s maid.

She had been with her ever since she was a baby, was still more of a Nanny than a maid and adored Christine and her whole life centred around her.

“Why should the Marquis want you to live with him?” Mina asked.

“Stepmama’s explanation,” Christine answered, “is that, since there would be difficulties about arrangements in the holidays while she is so far away, she would feel so much happier if I was under the same roof as somebody she both respected and trusted.”

Christine’s voice was tinged with sarcasm as she went on,

“A friend who would see that I did not become acquainted with any unsuitable people while at the same time I had a chance to enjoy myself in the way that my father would wish.”

“It sounds as if she was really being considerate,” Mina murmured.

“Considerate?” Christine exclaimed. “That is how it may appear on the surface. Of course everybody will think that it is an excellent arrangement because the Marquis has a number of desirable residences and, according to Stepmama, elderly relatives who would be delighted to chaperone me until she and Papa return to England.”

“Perhaps you will enjoy – yourself.”

“That is not the real reason for all this consideration!” Christine cried. “My stepmother intends me to marry the Marquis!”

“But– you said that he was your stepmother’s – beau.”

“He is. She has been having a passionate love affair with him since Christmas.”

“I cannot – believe it,” Mina replied in a shocked voice.

Because she had always lived very quietly with her father and mother in the country, she had no idea of the immoral behaviour of many of the ladies and gentlemen in high Society until Christine had told her about them.

Then she was quite certain that her friend was exaggerating as she often did.

How was it possible that ladies who moved in Court circles could be unfaithful to their husbands? Or a gentleman be prepared to make love to a friend’ s wife?

When Christine related these scandalous stories to Mina, they had sounded so wild and far-fetched that she thought that they were merely inventions of her fertile imagination.

Now she said in a firm little voice,

“I am sure, dearest, you are mistaken and, if the Marquis wants to marry you, he could not possibly be – in love with your stepmother and anyway you are too young to be married.”

“I shall be seventeen in two months’ time,” Christine said, “and then I intend to be married.”

“To the – Marquis?”

“No. To somebody quite different! I have not yet told you about him.”

Mina’s eyes opened so wide that they seemed to fill her whole face.

“Christine! Can you really mean what you are saying?”

“I intended to tell you,” Christine said, “but Harry was so insistent that it was to be our secret and nobody else’s that I swore to him I would not breathe a word to anyone.”

“Then perhaps you should not tell me now.”

“I have to tell you,” Christine said. “Harry will understand, but first let me finish about the Marquis.”

She saw that Mina was listening intently and went on,

“The Marquis has the reputation of being the most dashing and raffish man in the whole of London. He has had affairs with dozens of beautiful women. I have heard people gossiping about him for years.”

“Do they really – say such things in – front of you?” Mina asked.

Christine smiled.

“No, of course not. They treat me as a child.”

“Then how do you know?”

“Because, dearest Mina, servants always gossip to each other as if the children were stone deaf and servants know everything.”

She thought her friend looked shocked and she went on quickly,

“What is more, when at home I have my own ways of finding out what is going on.”

She smiled before she added,

“I know you will disapprove and that is why I have not told you before, but there are quite a number of places in our house, which is very old, where one can hear what is happening in the next room.”

“You mean you have – eavesdropped?” Mina asked.

“It is what generations of Lydfords must have done before me,” Christine said defensively. “I would not have done it when Mama was alive, but where Stepmama is concerned it is different.”

Again her voice had sharpened as she spoke of her stepmother and Mina gave a little sigh as she said,

“Go on with your story.”

“My stepmother has been infatuated with the Marquis ever since Papa left for India. Usually she has stayed away at other people’s houses where she met him or he had parties at Vent Royal, which is his house in Hertfordshire, but when he stayed with us there was no doubt what they felt about each other.”

Christine was silent for a moment and then she said passionately,

“It made me sick to hear them kissing in the rooms that had belonged to my mother and while Papa was away in India.”

There was no doubt that Christine was upset and Mina slipped her hand into hers to say,

“I am – sorry it has – upset you, dearest.”

“Some of the things they said I did not understand,” Christine went on. “Once or twice I heard my name mentioned, but it was just casually, and I did not think it particularly significant.”

“And yet you say – now you are to – marry him?”

“It was Hannah who told me what my stepmother has been plotting when her letter arrived this morning. You know I have no secrets from Hannah.”

Mina nodded.

“I told her that my stepmother had arranged for me to go and stay with the Marquis,” Christine continued, “and Hannah exclaimed, ‘it’s true then what Miss Parsons tells me last holidays and I thought that she was making it up just to tease me!’”

“What was she planning?” Mina asked.

“That, if Stepmama had to leave for India, I should go and live with the Marquis and that afterwards when I was older he would marry me.”

“Why should she want you to?”

“See how she has worked it out,” Christine answered. “If he wants a young, complacent, unsuspecting wife, what could be better than a girl of sixteen who he thinks knows nothing of the world?”

Christine drew in her breath as she went on,

“Hannah said Miss Parsons, who is Stepmama’s lady’s maid, told her that the Marquis has always said to his close friends that he would never marry a woman who was likely to be unfaithful in the same way as his lady friends were.”

“You mean he thinks it is wrong?” Mina asked.

“Only for his wife,” Christine answered scornfully. “He is quite prepared for other men’s wives to behave badly with him and, as Papa sometimes says, ‘there is no one more respectable than the poacher turned gamekeeper’.”

Mina did not smile. She was only looking worried.

“I still cannot – understand why the Marquis should choose you.”

“He has not chosen me,” Christine replied. “Stepmama has done that! Do you not understand that she thinks if he married me she will be able to see as much of him as she wants and they will be able to continue their affair when she comes back from India. I assure you, she has no wish to lose the Marquis.”

“But it is – wrong and – horrible!” Mina exclaimed.

“Of course it is,” Christine agreed, “and that is why I am going to marry Harry. He really loves me and he has done so for three years.”

“Marry – Harry?” Mina exclaimed. “But who is he?”

“He is the Earl of Hawkstone’s second son,” Christine answered. “He has told me that, although I was only fifteen, he fell in love with me the moment he saw me, but he knew that I was far too young and he would have to wait until I was older.”

“Did he tell you that he loved you?” Mina asked.

Christine’s eyes were shining.

“He did not say so then. But I knew he thought that I was attractive and, when we met when I was out riding, I fell in love with him.”

“But you were very young.”

Christine smiled.

“Sometimes I think I have never been young like you and certainly not as ignorant or as innocent as you are, Mina.”

“To me you have always seemed very sophisticated and grown-up,” Mina agreed, “but I thought that was because I had met so very few people and am very inexperienced.”

“When I fell in love with Harry, I grew up overnight,” Christine said simply. “Of course at first we had to keep it a secret because Mama would not have agreed, but he often came to the house and we saw each other.”

She smiled tenderly and went on,

“Although he said very little, I knew that he mattered to me in a way I cannot explain, but that made him different from every other man.”

Mina knew that ever since Christine was twelve there had been men who found her attractive and had tried to kiss her.

They had written to her what to all intents and purposes were love letters, but those she had kept she had made Christine tear up in case Mrs. Fontwell should find them.

She had never heard her speak before with such a serious note in her voice and she said almost reproachfully,

“You have never told me this.”

“At first I was afraid that it might be unlucky,” Christine replied. “Then after Mama died when Harry came to the house Stepmama would not let me even see him, so we met in the woods and he told me that he intended to marry me.”

There was a rapturous note in Christine’s voice as she went on,

“I knew then that I loved him and would never love anyone else in the same way.”

“But you are so young!” Mina objected.

“Many girls have been married at seventeen and Harry said that we must wait until my birthday and then he would ask Papa.”

“Do you think your father will agree?”

There was just a little pause before Christine said,

“Harry’s father may be an Earl, but, as he is only a second son, I am afraid that because I am so rich, Papa, and certainly Stepmama, will say I could do better.”

She spoke scornfully and then she added,

“That is why I am running away.”

Mina gave a cry of protest.

“Running – away?”

“Harry and I are going to Rome where Papa’s younger brother lives,” Christine explained. “He married an Italian girl the family do not approve of. That is why I am certain that in Papa’s absence he will constitute himself my Guardian and give permission for Harry and me to be married. He will do so partly to spite the family and partly as a champion of romance.”

“It does indeed sound very very romantic,” Mina said, “but are you sure you are doing the right thing?”

“Quite, quite sure,” Christine said confidently. “I love Harry and he loves me, and we are prepared to wait until I am seventeen. But I know that if the Marquis proposes to me, which he intends to do, Papa and Stepmama will make me marry him.”

“Are you quite certain that he wants to marry you?”

“Quite certain!” Christine replied. “According to Hannah he has always had this idea of finding a young, innocent, untouched wife who would not interfere in his rakish pursuit of other women and now Stepmama has done all the hard work for him and produced me like a rabbit out of a hat!”

She sounded frightened as she continued,

“Once I get to Vent Royal, you know as well as I do that I shall be trapped and that is why first thing this morning I sent a telegram to Harry and he met me in the shrubbery after luncheon.”

“How could he do that?” Mina cried.

“Quite easily and it is something I have done before,” Christine answered. “As you know, the dragon has a rest at two o’clock and we are all supposed to do the same. I merely slipped out of the side door and kept in the shadow of the trees. When I reached the shrubbery, Harry was waiting just inside the gates.”

Her face was suddenly radiant as she went on,

“He loves me! He loves me so much, Mina, that he agreed we could not risk losing each other and we will leave for Rome as soon as I reach London.”

“And when will you do that?”

“We leave tomorrow!”

Christine clasped her hands together.

“Harry is so clever. He saw at once that, if Papa’s carriage arrived on Thursday as Stepmama said in the letter, it might be difficult when I reach London, where the Marquis’s horses will be waiting for me, to get away.”