Barbara Cartland - This Is Love

As the maid started to unpack for her, she took off her hat, which was somewhat dusty and changed her gown.

By the time she had washed and then brushed her hair, it was dark outside.

She knew, as there was no moon tonight, that it would have been impossible to drive home through the narrow lanes.

‘I am far safer here,’ she told herself, ‘for we might have had a more serious accident if we had continued on that terrible road.’

At the same time she knew that Mrs. Beckwith was expecting her and she would be worried when she did not arrive as she had said she would.

‘We will leave directly after breakfast,’ she decided, ‘and I will be home well before luncheon.’

She told the maid to call her at eight o’clock prompt, thanked her for helping her with her gown and then went downstairs.

The dining room was large and boasted a beamed ceiling like the hall and there was a large fire crackling in the grate.

It had been a cold spring and, although the days were beginning to be turn warmer, it was still chilly at night.

The proprietor was at the foot of the stairs as Athina descended and he waited for her.

“I’ve kept a table for you, ma’am,” he said, “’tis close to the fire and I hopes you’ll enjoy your dinner.”

“I am sure I shall,” Athina answered him.

She had remembered when the housemaid was not looking to slip a ring onto the third finger of her left hand. It was a pretty ring with three diamonds and had belonged to her mother.

By twisting it ground so that the diamonds were on the inside of her hand, it looked like a Wedding ring.

The proprietor escorted her to the table that he had described and Athina was pleased to find that she was on her own in the dining room.

The rest of the tables were occupied at the other end of the room.

When she had ordered all that she wanted to eat, the proprietor hurried away to the kitchen.

She was then able to look round at her fellow guests.

At one table there were three elegantly dressed young men. They were laughing and joking with each other too loudly while apparently celebrating or anticipating a win at the Races.

At two of the other tables there were what Athina thought must be commercial travellers.

Then there was an elderly couple. The woman had a red shawl over her shoulders and she guessed that they were staying in the inn and were not just travellers.

She then started in her mind to make up stories about each of the guests as she often did when she saw strangers in the countryside and villages.

Then at the other side of the fireplace she saw that there was a man who was obviously a gentleman. And with him was a small boy.

She had not noticed them at first, but she was made aware of their presence when she could overhear the gentleman speaking sharply to the waiter.

He had apparently brought him a bottle of wine that was different from the one that he had ordered and the gentleman cursed the waiter for being stupid.

Looking at the gentleman without appearing to do so, she thought that he looked disagreeable and clearly bad-tempered. She suspected that he was also a heavy drinker.

The little boy with him was obviously very young and she made a guess that he was about nine years of age.

He had fair hair and seemed a rather delicate child and Athina thought that he also looked very tired.

She wondered where they were going and what their relationship was.

Her dinner arrived after only a short wait and she started to eat.

As she did so, she heard the gentleman start complaining about the food and sending away one dish because in his view the meat was cut too thickly.

She ruminated that, whoever he might be, her father would have disapproved of him.

“I dislike men who shout at waiters,” he had said to her once.

He himself had never shouted at his servants. If he rebuked them, it was in a cool quiet manner that was far more effective than if he had raged at them.

The gentleman, who obviously had ordered a large meal, was still complaining as Athina finished hers.

She felt that, while the food admittedly was not very exciting, it was edible and on the whole well cooked.

She had also been attended to without there being any long waits.

When she thanked the waiter for his excellent service, he said,

“It’s bin a pleasure waitin’ on you, ma’am.”

She smiled and left the dining room.

She could still hear the gentleman’s voice blasting away by the time she had reached the foot of the stairs.

A porter hurried to stop her before she went any further.

“Your groom, ma’am,” he said, “’as told me to tell you that the wheels of your chaise ’as now bin repaired.”

“Thank you,” Athina replied.

Once in her bedroom she undressed and then found that she was unexpectedly tired.

Listening to her aunt saying the same things over and over again that she had heard so often before was always exhausting.

They had also come quite a long distance to where they were now.

‘I should sleep well,’ Athina told herself.

She said her prayers and as she said them she felt, as she always did, that her father was close to her.

Also her beloved mother, whom she had adored and who had died two years previously.

They had both been, she recalled, charming and delightful people.

The sad thing was that they did not get on and did not even like each other.

Indeed it had taken Athina some years before she had realised just how divided her parents really were.

It was all due to the fact that theirs, as with most aristocrats, had been an arranged marriage.

When she was old enough to talk to her mother intelligently, the Countess had confided in her.

When she was young she had fallen very much in love with the son of the neighbouring Squire.

“We had known each other since we were children,” the Countess said. “Then, when I was seventeen and he was twenty-one, we realised that we were in love.”

“How romantic, Mama!” Athina had exclaimed. “What did you do about it?”

“We used to meet secretly,” the Countess said, “as William did not wish to approach my father until he had completed his degree at Oxford University and had seen a little of the world.”

“So he went abroad, Mama?”

“Only for a short time. When he came back we knew that we were more in love with each other than we had been before. William then decided that he would talk to my father.”

There was a note in the Countess’s voice as she spoke that made Athina ask,

“What happened then?”

“It had all been arranged that I should go to London that spring to be presented at Court and to have a Season in which I was to enjoy the balls. William then asked me if I wanted to wait until after I had been presented before he asked Papa if we could be engaged. I stupidly said that perhaps I should be presented first.”

She sighed before she went on,

“I thought that it would make me seem more grown-up and more capable of knowing my own mind.”

“Then you did suspect that your father would not really welcome William as a son-in-law,” Athina had suggested.

“I was sure that my father would want me to make an important marriage.”

“Because you were so beautiful,” Athina had finished.

Her mother smiled.

“I think that was the reason and also my father was an ambitious man who had somehow failed to become of any significance himself in the neibourhood.”

“So what happened?” Athina had asked.

“Foolishly I went to London. I was then presented at Buckingham Palace and, while I was there, your father saw me – ”

Now there was a note in her mother’s voice that Athina could not help recognising was one of despair.