The Reluctant Bride

CHAPTER 1There was a sudden crash followed by a slow rumble overhead and Lady Lambourn, who had been dozing, started up in her chair. “Good gracious! Whatever can that be?” she asked apprehensively. Her daughter rose from the window seat where she had been sewing, crossed the room and laid her hand on her mother’s shoulder. “I am afraid, Mama, it is the ceiling in the tapestry bedroom,” she answered. “After the last rains the water seeped in and discoloured the plaster. Old Wheaton warned us it might fall, but nothing was done to repair it.” “That is the third ceiling!” Lady Lambourn exclaimed. “The house seems to be collapsing about our very ears.” “Repairs cost money, Mama,” Camilla said quietly, “like everything else.” Lady Lambourn looked up at her daughter and there were tears in her tired eyes. “Camilla, what will become of us?” she asked. “Heaven knows we have nothing left to sell and I said before he went that your father’s journey to London would be fruitless.” “I was afraid too, but dear Papa is always optimistic. He was quite certain that he would encounter someone who would help us.” “Sir Horace has been optimistic all his life,” his wife said with a deep sigh. “He never gives up hope even when the odds seem most against him. But things now are desperate and when Gervase returns from the sea he will find us in a debtors’ prison!” “No, no, Mama, that will never happen,” Camilla said consolingly. “I dream about it every night,” Lady Lambourn insisted pathetically. “If only I was not so weak and so helpless, I could perhaps appeal to someone who used to know us in the old days. So many people came to our house when your Papa was an Ambassador. I thought I had more friends than any woman in the world, but now where are they?” “Where indeed?” Camilla echoed with a note of bitterness in her voice. “But we were not the only ones to lose money when the country Banks closed last year. It was a terrible time for thousands like us. In fact Papa says that the date 1816 will be engraved on more tombstones than any other date for centuries.” “We are at least alive,” Lady Lambourn murmured, “but sometimes I wonder for how long.” “You must not be depressed,” Mama,” Camilla begged her, kneeling down beside her mother and putting her arms round her. “Perhaps Gervase will come back rich and then you can go to Bath and get well. I know the hot springs would make all the difference to your legs.” “I would much rather we had the money for you to visit London and have a gay time such as you should be enjoying at your age,” Lady Lambourn replied. “It is wrong that you should be cooped up here, Camilla.” “Don’t worry about me, Mama,” her daughter interrupted quickly. “You know that, when I was in London at the beginning of last year, I did not enjoy myself, even though Aunt Georgina was as kind to me as anyone could possibly be. All I want is to live here in peace with you and Papa and to know that we are able to have a decent meal on the table and a roof over our heads.” “That hardly seems likely at the moment,” Lady Lambourn said miserably. “I feel so ashamed that the servants have not received their wages for over six months. I can hardly look at Agnes when she brings in my tea, struggling with the silver that used to be looked after by a butler and three footmen.” “Agnes does not mind,” Camilla declared with a smile. “She has been with us all her life, and you know as well as I do, Mama, that she is part of the family. Why, she said to me only last night, ‘when we get rich again, Miss Camilla, we will be able to laugh about all this’. Our troubles are Agnes’s troubles, and our joys, when they come, will be hers as well.” “When they come!” Lady Lambourn exclaimed. “What can be keeping your father? Let’s pray that he has not borrowed gold from some kind friend and thought to increase it at the tables.” “Father is not a gambler,” Camilla assured her mother. “You know that any money he saved when he was in the Diplomatic Service was invested. It was just unfortunate that he put a great deal of it into French francs.” “We lost nearly everything we possessed because of that monster Napoleon,” Lady Lambourn cried. “Then came the shock of the Banks closing last year when we all expected victory to make us much richer. It is cruel, Camilla! I feel so helpless.” “So do I,” Camilla said, rising from her feet and bending forward to kiss her mother on the cheek. “But there is nothing we can do now but pray. Remember, Mama, you have always believed that prayer can help us when all else fails.” “I have always believed that in the past,” Lady Lambourn admitted, “but now, my love, I am afraid.” Camilla gave a little sigh and turned again to the window. The April sunshine coming through the lattice panes was warm on her small pointed face and Lady Lambourn, looking across the room, caught her breath at the fragility of her child as she saw her silhouetted against the light. ‘Camilla is too thin,’ she thought and yet it was not surprising as their food supply had diminished week by week, day by day. They owed money to the butcher in the village and there were no gamekeepers now to bring in the rabbits and pigeons that had been their main diet during the hard winter. Everyone had gone except Agnes and old Wheaton, who had been with them over fifty years and was half-blind and so rheumaticky that he could only crawl about his work. Lady Lambourn closed her eyes for a moment and remembered the distinguished guests who had thronged their house in London when she and Sir Horace had returned from Europe just before the War. As an Ambassador he had been persona grata with all the Diplomats at the Court of St. James’s and they had flocked to greet him, eager for news from Europe and proffering an almost extravagant welcome to the popular Sir Horace and his lovely wife. They had brought presents for Camilla, expensive trifles, but she had often found them far less interesting than her old toys, which she had treasured since she was very small. She had been beautiful even then, a fairy-like child with golden hair and deep blue eyes, which would study seriously everyone who spoke to her. “She will be the toast of the town,” the Diplomats told Lady Lambourn. “In a few years’ time your house will be besieged by ardent beaux.” Lady Lambourn had accepted that they spoke the truth, and Camilla’s childlike loveliness had developed over the years into a breathtaking beauty. But now there was no money to spend on fashionable gowns and there was no house in London, only a crumbling Elizabethan Manor and an estate that lay rotting, its fields full of weeds and nettles because there were no labourers to work on them. “Oh, Camilla, I had such plans for you!” Lady Lambourn exclaimed and the cry seemed to come from her very heart. Camilla was not listening to her mother and she held up her hand as if to ask for silence. “I think, Mama, I am almost certain, it is the sound of wheels,” she cried and turning she ran from the room. Lady Lambourn heard her footsteps cross the hall and the sound of the latch being raised at the front door. Unable to move in her wheelchair she could only clasp her hands together and pray almost fiercely. ‘Please, God, let my dear one have brought some hope for the future.’ There was a sound of voices and then the drawing room door, which Camilla had left ajar, was flung open and Sir Horace stood there. Notwithstanding his years he was an extremely handsome man with iron-grey hair brushed back from a square forehead. An exquisitely tied cravat, still spotless and uncrumpled despite his journey, and his many-tiered riding coat, which he had not yet discarded, made him seem almost unnaturally tall and at the same time elegant. There was something triumphant in the way he paused at the doorway and he did not need to speak because his wife saw the expression on his face. “Horace!” and her voice deepened, “Horace, my love!” As her husband walked across the room and bent to kiss her, she raised her trembling hands towards him. Her fingers, some of them misshapen, still had some resemblance of beauty and her care of them showed in the polished nails and the crisp exquisite lace that veiled her wrists. “Have you been successful?” Lady Lambourn could hardly speak the words for the beating of her heart. “More than successful!” Sir Horace declared and his voice seemed to ring out round the room. “Oh, Papa, tell us!” Camilla was at his side, her eyes upturned to his and her fair curls seeming to dance with excitement. The depression had gone and the whole room seemed to vibrate with a new tempo from the moment of Sir Horace’s arrival. There was no longer an atmosphere of anxiety and despair now, almost as if a light illuminated every corner, there was hope and a rising faith. “You are all right, my dear?” Lady Lambourn enquired. It was a question she never failed to ask whenever Sir Horace returned from one of his journeys. “I am all right,” Sir Horace assured her. “Everything is all right and I want above all things to tell you about it, but first, Camilla, instruct the servants to bring from my travelling carriage the presents I have bought you both.” “Presents, Papa? What sort of presents?” “A pâté for one, a shoulder of mutton for another,” Sir Horace replied. “A whole case of the best cognac besides some of the finest Indian tea for your Mama.” “How wonderful!” Camilla exclaimed, running from the room, knowing that Agnes and Wheaton would require her assistance in bringing the packages into the house. The coachman would be too concerned with the horses to be of much help. When she had gone, Sir Horace put his wife’s hands to his lips. “Our troubles are over, my dear.” “But how? What has happened?” Lady Lambourn demanded. “And if it is a loan, will it not have to be repaid?” “It is not a loan,” Sir Horace began and then broke off as Camilla returned. “Papa!” she cried. “There was a footman on the box of the travelling carriage and he tells me that you have engaged him. Is that correct?” “Yes indeed,” Sir Horace replied. “I had no time to find other servants, but doubtless many of our old employees can be re-engaged from the village. This footman was available, so I brought him with me.” “Where does the money for all this come from?” Camilla asked and now the first excitement had gone from her voice and her eyes looked troubled. Sir Horace took off his riding coat and threw it on a chair. “I am ready to tell you all about it, Camilla, but first may I have a drink? I assure you I have come here at such breakneck speed that I did not stop, even to water the horses. I was so anxious to relate to you and Mama what has occurred.” “I will fetch you a bottle of your new brandy,” Camilla smiled. “No!” Sir Horace said sharply. “Tell the footman to bring it. There is no need now for you to demean yourself as you have done these past months.” A little smile dimpled Camilla's cheeks. “I have never thought it was demeaning myself to wait on you, Papa,” she answered softly. Sir Horace, forgetting his thirst, put out his hand to take hers and draw her close to him. “My dearest, my most beloved daughter,” he said. “The reason I am so excited about the news I bring is that it concerns you. That is what matters more than anything else to me.” “It concerns me?” Camilla looked surprised. “Come and sit down.” Sir Horace seated himself in the winged armchair, which was close to Lady Lambourn, and Camilla sat on a low stool facing him. “Tell me, Papa,” she begged, “I cannot bear the suspense any longer.” “Nor me,” Lady Lambourn interposed, “but, Horace, you have no idea what it means to me to see you smiling again. You went away miserable and grey, an old man, but you have come back to me in looks and voice as young as your son.” “That is how I feel,” Sir Horace told her. “But won’t you tell us why?” Camilla prompted. Sir Horace cleared his throat and leant back in his chair.