The Mountain of Love

CHAPTER ONE 1882-1

CHAPTER ONE

1882“You are the top of the class,” the Greek Master enthused, smiling. “I congratulate you.”

He was addressing Kayla Forde, his best and most attentive pupil “I am so glad,” Kayla responded. “I love Greece and cannot read too much about the country.”

“Have you ever been there?” the Master enquired.

“I went there with my father when I was only six, but I remember it so vividly and I believe the beauty of Delphi is engraved permanently on my heart.”

He clasped his hands together.

“That is exactly how you should feel,” he cried, “and what the Greeks feel themselves.”

Kayla picked up her books and left the schoolroom. The Master had called her back as the other pupils were leaving when the lesson ended.

Kayla had found that the men and women who taught languages were more interesting to her than anyone else at the Convent.

She was very well aware of why her mother had sent her there. It was because the Holy Convent of Santa Maria Magdalena in Florence was renowned as the best Finishing School for young ladies in the whole of Europe.

Aristocrats from every country sent their daughters there and their brains were polished and honed before they appeared as debutantes in Society.

Kayla’s mother had been determined that she should have the very best and Kayla had in fact expostulated before she went there,

“It will cost too much, Mama, and we really cannot afford it.”

“Nothing is too much for you to have a really good education, my darling Kayla,” her mother replied fervently.

Because she was so positive that this Convent was where Kayla must go, they did not argue any further.

At the same time Kayla was fully aware that since her father’s death they had to count every penny – except in their case it was not the pence they counted, as they were living in France, but every single centime.

Kayla had had a very strange and unusual childhood.

Her father, Lord Alastair Forde, was the second son of the Duke of Barningforde.

He was very different from his elder brother, the Earl of Barne and his younger brother Lord David Forde.

They were a very English family and so enjoyed the sports that were available on their father’s various estates.

Their huge ancestral home in the rural County of Nottinghamshire provided them with the endless partridge and pheasant shooting the boys always enjoyed.

There were also cricket matches in the summer in which all three brothers participated.

At the Castle in Scotland there was salmon fishing and grouse shooting and all through the summer there were the horses that ran under the Duke’s colours at Newmarket, Epsom and Ascot.

For some reason that no one in the family could understand, Lord Alastair was a talented artist.

Even when he was small, he appreciated the beautiful pictures in his home and, as soon as he could hold a pencil, he drew the flowers in the garden, the blossom on the trees and the carp swimming in the lake.

It was an interest his brothers teased him about and his father despised.

When he was old enough to do what he wanted, he spent a great deal of his time in the art galleries of London and he seldom missed an exhibition.

It was inevitable that he should be drawn to France.

The modern trends in art in Paris at that time were laughed at scornfully and most people preferred their art to be ultra-conventional. But the Impressionists, as they were called, attracted Lord Alastair just like a bee to a honey pot and he was soon spending more of his time in Montmartre than he did at home.

The Duke merely shrugged his shoulders.

He did not think about Alastair more than he could help and he had plenty to occupy his mind in running his vast estates.

His heir, the Earl of Barne, was considering marriage, because it was essential for him to produce a son and heir.

Then, like a bombshell, Alastair announced that he was intending to marry a woman he had met in Paris.

That she was unknown to the family and obviously not accepted in the Social world that the Duke moved in was bad enough.

But, when he learned that she was a singer, the Duke flew into a furious rage.

He sent for Alastair immediately and he came back from Paris reluctantly.

When he arrived at Forde Hall, he was aware, as he entered the front door, that he was walking into a lion’s den.

The Duke had ordered that the moment he arrived, he should be brought to his study.

It was a very impressive room, hung with pictures that Alastair had always admired, but now he found them too conventional and had no wish to follow their traditional style.

The Duke, looking very fierce, was seated behind a Regency writing table with its flat top.

When his son was announced, he did not stand up.

He waited for Alastair to cross the room and held out his hand over the desk.

“Sit down,” the Duke ordered him.

There was an armchair placed conveniently facing his father and Alastair sat down on it.

He was an exceedingly good-looking young man and at twenty-six he was actually taller and more handsome than his brothers.

“Now what is all this nonsense,” the Duke began, “about you marrying an actress, my boy?”

“I am not thinking of marrying an actress, Papa,” replied Alastair. “Grace Stewart has an exceptionally fine soprano voice and sings at concerts that are attended by many musicians and lovers of Classical music.”

“If she is on a stage and people pay to see her,” the Duke retorted angrily, “then she is an actress and I will not have an actress in my family. I forbid you to have any more to do with her, Alastair.”

“I am afraid that is impossible, Papa – ” “Nothing is impossible,” the Duke interrupted. “You will do as you are told and I will have no more arguments about it.”

“I was somewhat afraid, Papa, that that would be your attitude,” replied Alastair. “So Grace and I were married in Paris the day before I left!”

There was a moment’s silence.

Then the Duke, crimson in the face, brought down his fist violently on the desk.

“How dare you do anything so outrageous as to marry without my consent?” he shouted. “You are my son, you bear my name and it is only right and proper that I should have been consulted.”

“I knew exactly what your attitude would be, Papa. It would have been impossible to make you understand that I love Grace deeply and I know that she loves me and we will be very happy together.”

The Duke recognised at once that he could not forbid a marriage that had already taken place.

Instead he told his son that he would not allow him to bring his wife to England and they must consider themselves exiled.

“I will allow you two thousand pounds a year as long as you remain out of this country,” he snarled. “But if you return, I will give you nothing! Is that clear?”

“Absolutely clear, Papa, and I am only sorry that you should be so distressed. Equally I just cannot contemplate life without the woman I love.”

“Love! Love!” screamed the Duke. “What does an actress know about love? She is doubtless marrying you for your title and the money she thinks I am going to give you!”

Alastair did not answer.

His father carried on relentlessly,

“You will find that she will soon regret marrying you when she realises how little you can give her. Let me make it quite clear, there will be no more so long as she remains with you as your wife.”

Alastair rose to his feet.

“You have made that very clear, Papa,” he said. “I only feel sorry that you cannot understand how much I need Grace and how it is impossible for me to be happy without her.”

He spoke with dignity.

Then, as the Duke remained silent, he added,

“If we don’t meet again, I can only thank you for my very happy childhood. I shall miss my brothers and I shall also miss you, Papa. If my mother was still alive, I think she would have understood that I must have a life of my own and that this is the path I have chosen.”

He did not wait for his father’s reply, but walked from the room.

He ran up the long ornate staircase.

He told one of the servants to pack some of his things that he needed to take away with him.

There were clothes, books and pictures he had painted before he left England and he knew that everything would be destroyed if he left them behind.

Then, when all was ready, he walked downstairs.

The only person he actually said goodbye to and who was there in the hall to see him off was the butler.

He was a man he had known since he was a boy.

“Take care of yourself, my Lord,” the elderly servant sighed. “We shall all miss you.”

“And I shall miss you and my home,” Lord Alastair answered, “but there is nothing else I can do.”

He did not wait for a reply but climbed into the post-chaise.

It had brought him to Forde Hall and now it drove him away into permanent exile.

He looked back at the fast disappearing home he had loved so much all his life and tears slowly began to fill his eyes.

*

Lord Alastair and Grace travelled all over the world so that he could paint, as it was something he had always wanted to do.

His pictures were not at all saleable, as, just like the Impressionists, he was painting in a new way that people did not yet understand or appreciate.

Grace admired his work enormously and recognised his very considerable talent. However, they had to be very careful how they spent the allowance that arrived every quarter from England.

But they were blissfully happy with each other and moved contentedly from country to country as the fancy took them.

There was therefore no possibility of Grace making engagements to sing in concerts as she had in the past, but she often sang to Alastair when he was painting and he said it helped him more than anything else she could do.

When Kayla was born, they were delighted with their little daughter, but it did not alter their way of life that she was now with them.

Instead they took her to Italy, to North Africa and to Greece, but she did not remember much about the first two places.

When she was a little older, she knew that Greece had left an indelible impression on her she could never forget.

She was also fascinated by Egypt just as her father was and she found the Pyramids and the Valley of the Kings inspiring.

She would dream of her most special places later in her life when she was feeling especially unhappy.

They then returned to Paris after two years of constant travelling and Alastair was soon painting again with some of his old friends in Montmartre.

There Alastair learned from the newspapers that his brother, the Earl of Barne, had suffered a fatal accident – it had apparently happened whilst he was out hunting.

This meant that Alastair was now heir to his father’s Dukedom and took over his brother’s courtesy title of the Earl of Barne.

They waited patiently, but there was no summons from his father, the Duke, for them to return to England.

The funeral was reported in all the newspapers and a great deal was written about the late Earl.

Several days later Alastair received a letter from the family Solicitors. They informed him that his father was prepared to accept him back as his eldest son and heir, but he must come alone.

Grace begged him to go.

“He is your father and I feel that it is wrong of me to keep you from him,” she sighed.

Alastair put his arms round her.

“I love you, my dearest darling,” he insisted. “You have made me the happiest man in the world because you are my wife. You have given me an adorable daughter and quite frankly I am not interested in being called an Earl. I am supremely happy as I am.”