Love is Heaven

Chapter One ~ 1824-2

After his accident there had been no question of Delysia leaving him and he even ceased to be interested in learning what Fleur was doing in London or of the undoubted success she was.

In fact as she had said to Delysia the last time she had come home,

“I would say that I was the toast of St. James’s if it was not a somewhat vulgar thing to be.”

“I am so glad, dearest,” Delysia replied, thinking that no one could be lovelier than Fleur with her golden hair, blue eyes and dazzling complexion.

She was not just a pretty face, she was enticing, entrancing, mischievous and extremely unpredictable.

It was, Delysia thought, inevitable that other women should be jealous of her and, as Fleur had admitted frankly,

“The Dowagers look down their noses at me and label me as ‘fast’. Of course I am fast compared to those old snails! I go everywhere, am seen at every party of any importance and have more beaux than I can possibly count!”

“Are you thinking of marrying, dearest?” Delysia had asked her. “After all you are now eighteen and perhaps if Mama was here she would think it wise for you to accept one of your many proposals of marriage.”

Delysia spoke a little tentatively.

It would be like Fleur to fly at her and claim that she had no intention of doing anything so boring as getting married when she was having such a fantastic time because she was free.

To her surprise Fleur rested her pretty pointed chin on her hands with her elbows on the table and said,

“I have, of course, considered it and I was very tempted to accept the Marquis of Gazebrooke when he proposed to me.”

“Why did you refuse him?”

“He is nearly fifty and such a pompous bore,” Fleur replied. “Also he would have wanted me to live in his big gloomy mansion in Northumberland and spend my time patting the heads of the tenants and immersed in good works.”

Delysia laughed,

“That certainly does not sound like you, but I am sure it would have been a brilliant marriage.”

Because Fleur did not answer after a moment she asked,

“You have not fallen in love?”

“No!” Fleur replied firmly. “The only time that my heart gives the slightest flutter, it is always for a man who is penniless and of no consequence. I am not such a fool as to accept someone like that.”

“At the same time,” Delysia replied, “you must remember how Mama and Papa fell headlong in love and how happy they were together.”

“I know,” Fleur agreed, “but we are not so stupid, you and I, Delysia, not to know that it was a chance in a million.”

She paused before she went on,

“In the Social world young women like myself marry the highest bidder. In other words they choose the man with the most important title and most money. Love, they always say, comes later.”

Delysia was shocked.

“Oh, Fleur, I am sure that is wrong and it is wicked even to think in such a way. Can you imagine Mama being interested in any man except Papa? And he has always said that from the moment he saw her there was no other woman in the whole world but her.”

“I know, I know,” Fleur agreed crossly, “but those sort of things don’t happen today, not to me at any rate.”

“Well, what can you do?” Delysia asked a little helplessly.

She felt that she was not guiding her younger sister in the way that she should.

But because she knew so very little of the London scene, she felt ignorant and tongue-tied and could only let Fleur talk and listen to what she had to say.

Her sister reeled off a lengthy list of other suitors and Delysia found herself agreeing that there was something wrong with every one of them.

They were either too old or too young or extremely unattractive or spendthrifts! She dismissed, the moment she heard about them, those with a bad reputation for women or drink.

“The truth is,” Fleur explained finally, “I don’t believe that an ideal man really exists.”

“I am sure he does,” Delysia disagreed, “but you have to wait until you find him.”

“As you have already pointed out, I am now eighteen and people are expecting me to be married. Of course my rivals are praying that it will take place as soon as possible so that I will be unable to entice any more men away from them!”

Looking at her sister’s lovely face, Delysia was certain that she must be a very real menace to other young women’s ambitions.

However she knew better than anyone else that Fleur would find it hard to settle down with one man unless he was really exceptional.

They talked for a long time until Fleur, who had, of course, not come home alone but with two young men to escort and amuse her, decided that she needed their company.

“We are all returning to London tomorrow morning,” she announced. “Harry and Willie find this house as gloomy as I do with Papa so ill and the servants grumbling because there is extra work to do.”

Delysia looked guilty.

“Oh, dearest, that is my fault,” she cried. “If you had let me know a little earlier that you were coming, I could have arranged for extra help from the village. It’s a mistake to have too many servants falling over themselves in the house with nothing to do when Papa is ill. But another time please give me at least twenty-four hours’ notice.”

Even as she spoke she knew by the expression on her sister’s face that there might not be another time.

“Please, Fleur, come home again soon,” she pleaded. “Then you can tell me what you are doing. I am so worried that without Mama you will make mistakes and be sorry for the rest of your life. ”

“I don’t intend to,” Fleur replied, “and although, of course, Cousin Sarah is always pressing me to marry a Duke, I want to be happy.”

“That is a sensible outlook,” Delysia nodded.

She blamed herself for not having taken more trouble to find the right sort of chaperone for Fleur.

She had actually forgotten that her sister was old enough to begin to chafe at the restrictions she endured in the country and Delysia thought now that, if she had been more aware of what was happening, she could have found someone better for Fleur than Lady Barlow.

*

But she could not put the clock back and the next morning, as she watched her sister drive off in a very smart phaeton with one young gentleman driving and the other riding beside him, she felt as if Fleur was leaving for another planet that she would never see.

Yet now, on the doctor’s insistence, she had come to London.

The door was opened by a footman wearing the Langford livery and looking very smart in it.

“Good morning,” Delysia began. “I expect Mr. Wrightson has told you to expect me.”

“Yes, miss,” the footman said and hurried to the post-chaise to lift down Delysia’s luggage.

Sir Kendrick had said,

“If you are going to London, I will not have you sponging on my relatives as Fleur has done this last year. Tell Wrightson to have the house opened and everything ready for you.”

“The house? Our own house?” Delysia had asked in surprise. “But there are only the caretakers in charge.”

“There are more servants than that,” her father replied, “because I told Wrightson that Fleur could go there at any time she chose and some of my friends have used it when they wanted to stay in London.”

“You did not tell me, Papa.”

“I suppose I forgot to mention it,” her father had replied. “They thanked me for my hospitality, so I presume that they were comfortable enough.”

Delysia was surprised because she had never imagined that the house in London, where her father so seldom went, was actually open.

If she thought of it at all, she envisaged the furniture all shrouded in Holland covers, the shutters closed and only an old couple living in the basement to keep an eye on things.

But now she had the idea that perhaps Fleur had found if convenient to have a house in London at her disposal despite the fact that she was staying with Cousin Sarah.

Mr. Wrightson was not only her father’s Solicitor in London but also attended to many of his affairs in the country that concerned horses and payments.

Delysia had hardly expected him to be waiting for her and instead the old butler she remembered came slowly through from behind the staircase, shuffling in shoes that had grown too large for him because his feet had shrunk with age.

“It’s nice to see you, Miss Delysia,” he said in a wheezy voice. “I’ve been hearin’ how bad the Master’s been and thought you’d never be comin’ to town.”

“I am here now,” Delysia smiled. “I hear the house has been open for some time.”

“Yes, we’ve had some good parties here,” old Rogers replied. “Miss Fleur had a big dinner party last week and very pleased she was with everythin’ we done for her.”

Delysia was extremely surprised, but did not like to say so.

“Does Miss Fleur know that I am arriving today?”

“Yes, miss. She tells me to say she’d be back about four o’clock.”

“Thank you,” Delysia replied.

She walked automatically towards the sitting room on the ground floor, which she reckoned her father used when he came to London.

“The drawin’ room’s open, miss,” Rogers said. “Miss Fleur has rearranged the furniture and I’m sure you’ll think it looks nice.”

Bewildered, Delysia went up the stairs.

If Fleur was using the house, why had she not written to tell her so?

It seemed extraordinary that she should have given parties on her own when she had always understood that Cousin Sarah was only too delighted to entertain for her at her house in Islington Square.

‘I wonder what is going on,’ Delysia mused.

As she walked into the drawing room, she saw that it was looking very attractive even though the furniture had been rearranged from the way that her mother had organised it.

There was too a profusion of flowers, which, a quick glance told her, had been sent as tributes to her sister.

There were baskets of orchids, arrangements of carnations, each with a card on them that obviously carried the name of the sender.

It seemed so strange that they should be sent here and, as a sudden thought struck Delysia, she turned to Rogers who had come up the stairs behind her.

“Has Miss Fleur been staying here?” she asked.

The old man looked surprised.

“She has been livin’ here, miss, these past two months.”

“I had no idea. I thought that she was staying with Lady Barlow, but perhaps her Ladyship has moved here from her own house.”

The butler shook his head.

“No, miss. I thinks her Ladyship and Miss Fleur had a bit of a disagreement. Anyhow Miss Fleur moves in here and says this is hers and she’s goin’ to stay.”

Delysia gave a little gasp.

“But surely she has a chaperone?”

“Oh, yes, miss, Lady Matlock is here too.”

“I don’t think I know her,” Delysia said in a low voice.

“Her Ladyship’s a widow,” Rogers replied, “and Miss Fleur thought that, as she and her Ladyship are in the main suite, you would like to be in the Rose Room,”

It seemed to Delysia extraordinary that her sister should not only be living in the London house without either her father or herself being aware of it, but also that she should be occupying the rooms that were always kept for her father and mother and not the simpler bedrooms that they had used as girls.

She herself had not come up to London very often except before her mother died to buy clothes or to visit the dentist.

After her death she had come once with her father to attend a very special sale of horses when he had spent a great deal of money and said very flatteringly that he needed her advice.

She had never at any time anticipated that Fleur would open the London house on her own without even consulting her father and live there with an unknown chaperone who she guessed did not have the approval of Lady Barlow.

She had the feeling that she had now stepped into a kind of maze when she had at least expected it and it was going to be hard to find her way out.

But then she had no wish to discuss her sister’s behaviour with one of the servants.

She therefore went to the room that had been chosen for her and, when her luggage was brought upstairs, she changed from her travelling gown.