The Flame Is Love

Chapter One 1892-2

“Charles Dana Gibson,” Vada replied automatically.

“Yes, Gibson,” Mrs. Holtz repeated, “and I really believe that he could do you justice. You are in fact almost a perfect ‘Gibson girl’, as they call his models.”

She sighed and went on,

“But your father would never countenance pictures of you appearing in the social journals and certainly not in those sordid ‘rags’ that are sold on street corners.”

“I believe he fixed the editors of most of the newspapers,” Vada said.

“Of course he did! Your father could do anything and besides he owned a number of newspapers himself. Anyway lack of publicity is one of the reasons that you have been able to lead a quiet life and why I am determined that you shall not be submitted to the vulgarity that usually attends American debutantes.”

“I have no wish to go to New York balls or mix with people who don’t want me,” Vada said almost defiantly.

“They want you all right,” Mrs. Holtz retorted, “but nothing in New York is as impressive, spectacular or has such quality as the functions you will attend in England.”

“As a – Duchess?”

“As a Duchess.”

Vada was silent for a moment and then she said,

“I have a proposition to make to you, Mama. Let me live an ordinary social life, meeting anyone you choose in New York or any other part of America for just one year. After that, if I meet no one I like and no one I could – love, I will go to England.”

Mrs. Holtz laughed.

“Really, Vada. How can you be so naïve? So incredibly foolish as to believe that English Dukes are waiting about until it suits some American heiress to pick them as if they were mushrooms?”

She laughed again.

“No, my dear, it is not at all easy to find a Duke. There are only about thirty of them and they have a very good idea of their own consequence!”

Vada gazed at her mother and Mrs. Holtz went on,

“If I had not been at school in Florence with the Duke’s mother, you would never have had this opportunity, but our friendship has continued all through the years.”

She paused.

“When the Dowager Duchess came to America six years ago, she stayed with us on Long Island. It was then that we talked together, a little guardedly, but nevertheless with perfect understanding of what might happen when you were old enough.”

“I remember the Duchess,” Vada said. “She was rather awe-inspiring.”

“She comes from a very old English family,” Mrs. Holtz explained, “and, as her father’s lands, he was a Marquis, marched with those of the Duke of Grantham, it was obviously sensible that the two families should be united in marriage.”

“Then she must have known the Duke since she was young.” Vada said. “It is quite different travelling to England to marry someone one has never seen.”

“You will meet each other and you will become engaged,” Mrs. Holtz persisted. “There is no question of a hurried marriage or anything like that.”

She gave a little sigh of satisfaction.

“And I promise you, Vada, it will be the most spectacular, the most sensational Wedding America has ever seen.”

“You really think I would like that?” Vada asked.

“All sensible girls enjoy their Weddings,” Mrs. Holtz snapped. “It’s the one time in your life when you have no rivals and no equals. You are the bride and the focus of everyone’s attention.”

“Then, when the Wedding is over, you are left alone with your bridegroom,” Vada said in a somewhat forlorn voice.

“In your case a bridegroom you can respect, a man you meet on equal terms. If you bring him a large fortune, he brings you a position and title, which none can equal.”

There was silence in the room and then Vada rose to walk restlessly across to the piano.

She struck a note, sat down and played the opening bars of Mendelssohn’s Wedding March. Then, closing the piano lid, she rose from the stool to walk across to the window.

“There is no alternative,” Mrs. Holtz said quietly. “I promise you, Vada, you will be far happier my way than leaving anything to that deceptive, perfidious and often cruel emotion called love.”

Vada did not turn from the window and after a moment Mrs. Holtz went on in a brisk voice,

“Everything is arranged and Miss Nancy Sparling has promised to chaperone you, until she actually hands you over to the Duke’s mother.”

“Nancy Sparling?” Vada asked.

“Yes, dear. You remember her? She is the Bishop of New York’s sister and a very charming woman. She travels a great deal and I shall not worry in the slightest if you are in her care.”

“When are we leaving?” Vada asked in a low voice.

There was a light of triumph in Mrs. Holtz’s eyes, as she realised that her daughter had accepted the inevitable.

“Next week.”

“Next week?” Vada repeated, turning from the window. “But that is impossible!”

“Why?” her mother enquired.

“Surely I shall have to buy new clothes for one thing?”

“I have thought of that,” Mrs. Holtz said. “I don’t want the newspapers to learn that you are going to Europe, in which case they might so easily have a suspicion that there is an ulterior motive in your journey. So you will buy all the clothes you will need in Paris.”

“I am going to Paris?” Vada asked and now there was an interest in her voice that had not been there before.

“That is what I have planned,” Mrs. Holtz said, “and bitterly disappointed I am that I cannot come with you. Paris in the spring is every American woman’s idea of Heaven!”

There was a reminiscent smile on her lips before she went on,

“Fortunately Nancy Sparling knows Paris as well as I do, if not better. She actually lived there for some months and she will therefore, Vada, take you to all the right couturiers. Worth, Doucet, Rouff.”

“That at least sounds interesting.”

“I want you to be very smart and very appropriately dressed when you reach England,” Mrs. Holtz continued. “Nowhere in the world can you find such entrancing clothes as in Paris. That, if nothing else, Vada, should make you look forward to the trip.”

“I will look forward to seeing Paris,” Vada said. “It’s a place I have always longed to visit. You know, Mama, how interested I have been in the new art and in the new thought that always seems to come from the French Capital?”

“I certainly don’t want you to waste your time on that sort of nonsense!” Mrs. Holtz said sharply. “The English are very conventional and as for art, they have fabulous pictures in every aristocratic home that cannot be equalled by any other country in the world.”

Vada said nothing.

There was a light in her eyes that had not been there before.

“Anyway, a week in Paris should give you plenty of time to buy everything you require,” Mrs. Holtz went on. “Some of the gowns may have to be sent on, but the French are so clever that they can provide a whole trousseau in half the time that any other dressmaker requires for one simple gown.”

“I want to see Paris in the spring!” Vada said quietly as if to herself.

“That is exactly what you will see,” Mrs. Holtz answered, “and, Vada, you will behave with great propriety, remembering that your visit to Paris is only a prelude to your appearance in England.”

She paused to add impressively,

“I would want you to be not only the most beautiful American Duchess but the most circumspect.”

“I will try, Mama. But there is one thing I want to say.”

“What is that?” Mrs. Holtz asked.

“It is this,” Vada answered. “If the Duke and I really dislike each other, if we feel that there can be no possible bond between us, then whatever anyone may say I shall refuse to marry him.”

“It is such an unlikely contingency,” Mrs. Holtz said loftily, “that I have no intention of discussing it with you. The Duke is a charming, cultured, exceedingly well bred Englishman. If you meet him in the spirit in which I am quite certain he is prepared to meet you, you will undoubtedly find an affinity together.”

“I hope so, Mama,” Vada said in a low voice.

She was about to say more, but a maid entered the room and approached the sofa.

“The masseuse is here, Mrs. Holtz.”

“Oh, thank you, Jessie,” Mrs. Holtz answered. “Ask Carlos to bring in the wheelchair to take me to the bedroom.”

“I’ll do that, Mrs. Holtz,” the maid answered and she went from the room.

“I am not sending Jessie with you to Europe,” Mrs. Holtz said to Vada as the door closed. “She would not fit in at all well with English servants.”

“What you mean, Mama, is she is too familiar calling you ‘Mrs. Holtz’ instead of ‘madam’,” Vada said with a smile. “That is American independence!”

“Something they don’t appreciate in the Old Country,” Mrs. Holtz remarked. “You will therefore take Charity with you.”

“Oh, good!” Vada exclaimed. “I would rather travel with Charity than anyone else, even though, as you well know, Mama, she is very inclined to nanny me.”

“She will look after you. That is all that matters,” Mrs. Holtz said. “Charity is the old-fashioned type of servant who knows her place, but at the same time can be relied upon. She has travelled a great deal with me and I will miss her when you are gone. But Charity knows how to behave.”

“She certainly will not gossip with the other servants as Jessie would,” Vada said. “I would never be surprised, Mama, if Jessie did not sell her life story to one of the more sensational newspapers. Can you imagine how it would read – My Years in the Oil-King’s Palaces or ‘The Secrets of Loftus Holtz’s Family and their Inhibitions’!”

“Really, Vada,” Mrs. Holtz exclaimed, “that is not funny.”

“Only because I feel it is very near the truth,” Vada smiled.

“Your father had a horror of journalists and so have I,” Mrs. Holtz said. “You must be very careful not to let anyone know that you are travelling to Europe or on which ship you are sailing. Your cabins, of course, will be booked simply in the name of Miss Nancy Sparling. No one will have any idea that she is accompanied by the wealthy Emmeline Holtz.”

Vada laughed before she said,

“You know, Mama, we have for so many years been afraid of our own shadows and shied away from any possible mention of our name, that now I don’t believe that the words ‘Emmeline Holtz’ would mean anything at all to the great American public!”

“It would mean a great deal once the newspaper boys got working on it,” Mrs. Holtz said gravely, “and after that, Vada, you would never be able to appear anywhere without drawing a crowd, say anything without it being printed the next morning, buy a new hat or a new pair of shoes without someone speculating that you were going to do something sensational in them!”

Vada sighed.

“You are right, Mama. I would hate that.”

“Then believe that the life your poor Papa mapped out for you was the right one and I am only carrying out his wishes.”

As if the words moved her, Vada knelt down beside the sofa on which her mother sat and bent forward to kiss her.

“I love you, Mama! And so I am going to do what you wish and I will travel to Europe to have a look at the Duke.”

“You will marry him, Vada!” Mrs. Holtz said quietly.

“I will think about it.” Vada promised.

Mrs. Holtz rested her hand with a sudden gesture of affection against her daughter’s cheek.

“You are very lovely, child. It would give me great joy to think of you at the Opening of Parliament, attending a State Ball at Buckingham Palace and curtseying to Queen Victoria wearing three white Prince of Wales’s feathers in your hair.”

“It all sounds very formal,” Vada said, “and, when I drive away from Buckingham Palace in the three white feathers beside my husband glittering with his decorations, what do I talk to him about?”

“Now, Vada,” Mrs. Holtz reproved, “those sort of questions only make things difficult for yourself.”

“But those are the sort of questions that have to be answered sometime, Mama, have they not?”

“You will find a thousand things to interest you in England,” Mrs. Holtz said enthusiastically, “and a thousand different subjects for conversation.”

“Which will all be very appropriate except for one.” Vada said.

“And what is that?” Mrs. Holtz enquired.

“Love!” Vada replied, “And that, you must admit, Mama, will not come easily to the tongue.”

There was a silence and Mrs. Holtz touched her daughter’s cheek again.

“You are being nonsensical, dearest,” she said. “Promise me to go to England. That is all I will ask of you at the moment. Everything else will fall into place like a jigsaw puzzle when you get there. Now go and sort out the things you want to take with you. Not too many! Remember, there is all that deliciously exciting shopping to be done in Paris.”

“I have not forgotten – Paris,” Vada affirmed.