Bride of Dreams Read online

  "A proposal?" Amanda hoped she could not believe her ears. "But . . ."

  "Precisely so." Never, in the rest of her life, would Mrs Carteret allude to or even let herself remember the humiliating misunderstandings of the interview she had just endured. "Lord Meynel does you the honour of wishing you to be his wife. I only hope you will contrive at least to seem worthy of him."

  "Lord Meynel? Me?" It was what, in her heart of hearts, Amanda had sometimes, secretly, dreaded. It was the threat against which John's love had seemed so sure a defence. And John had sailed, today, for India. Cold terror seized her. He had sailed because Lord Meynel had arranged it. Lord Meynel, in fact, was no fool. Her hand on her heart, Amanda felt John's letter there: 'Amanda, do not forget.' She mustered her defences. "Mother, there must be some mistake. It is you, surely, Lord Meynel has been courting?"

  "Apparently not." Now Mrs Carteret's colour came flooding back. At this moment, remembering his careful pretence that he did not understand her, she almost hated Lord Meynel. And yet, perhaps, she should be grateful for that very pretence. The connection was too profitable a one to be lost. If it was Amanda he wanted, Amanda he must have. He had made it clear – almost brutally clear – that Mrs Carteret stood greatly to gain by the transaction. "I could not allow my mama-in-law to live so pinched a life as you do now. A house in town perhaps? A carriage?" He had not tried to be graceful about his bribery. Why should he? He knew Mrs Carteret.

  Just for a moment, now, looking at her daughter's white and stricken face, Mrs Carteret had a qualm about what she was doing. Amanda was seventeen, a child still; nobody knew Lord Meynel's age, everyone his reputation. But he was rich, much richer than Mrs Carteret had even hoped her dead husband would be – if he had not died so inconsiderately before inheriting the title and estates. Somehow, her very fury of disappointment because it was not herself, but Amanda, that Meynel wanted turned into a determination that Amanda must have him. Unacknowledged, bitter jealousy wanted Amanda punished. Well, one look at her distraught face showed that marriage to Lord Meynel would be punishment enough. The moment of doubt was over: Mrs Carteret's mind was made up.

  "Well," she said, "why are you standing there, gawping, child? Tidy your hair, and come down with me to thank Lord Meynel for the great honour he has done you. We have kept him waiting quite long enough."

  "Mother! You cannot mean it." Frenzied appeal shook Amanda's voice.

  "Cannot mean it? What absurdity is this? A man of rank and fortune wants to marry you – I cannot imagine why – and you think 'I do not mean it.' Well; I'll show you soon enough that I do." The battle was short and bitter; its conclusion inevitable. Gentle Amanda had never been any match for her mother. If John had been nearer; if Miss Purvis had been a more possible ally . . . But John had sailed for India; Miss Purvis was the mildest of ineffective old maids; Amanda was alone before her mother's rage. She went down, at last, alone, on her mother's orders, to face Lord Meynel.

  A clever man in his way, he had a pretty good idea of what must have been happening upstairs and Amanda's white face and shaking hand as she greeted him confirmed his suspicions. He was gentleness itself with her, all courtesy, all respect. She had had some wild idea, when she agreed to see him, that she might, somehow, get him on to her side. Now, finding him so unexpectedly gentle and kind, she began to feel there might be something in this forlorn hope. He had led her to a seat and now settled himself at a respectful distance from her. "My dear Miss Carteret, you must not look so frightened. Do I seem such an ogre to you?"

  She stammered something, she did not quite know what, but his gentle tone, calm manner and formal address were beginning to have their effect. She listened passively as he apologized for having spoken so soon, so suddenly, but, "Truly, Miss Carteret, I thought you in need of a protector. You must give me that right, that privilege . . ."

  Now was the moment for her appeal. She made it, with sinking heart. In response, he was all that was kind, was considerate. He had been, he admitted it, precipitate. She was so young; a child still . . . she must think of his offer; he would rather die than hurry her, but . . . There were a great many buts, most of them financial ones. By the time he had finished he had made it amply clear how great, both for her and for her mother, would be the advantages of the match. But again . . . his speech was reassuringly full of qualifications . . . he would not dream of expecting an answer from her today. Let her but think of him, as kindly as possible . . . He had her hand now, and pressed it to his lips. Her wish should be his law; she had no idea, he was convinced, how deeply, how truly he loved her.

  He let her go. Amanda, who had expected, had feared a much more passionate outcome to this scene found herself at once relieved and faintly, ridiculously, disappointed. Lord Meynel was a very clever man. After this, he left Amanda strictly alone for three days, days in which he knew she would be the target of her mother's furious pressure. Then he called and was once more the kind friend, the devotedly respectful suitor. Amanda was very young; she began to forget the meetings in the shrubbery and to see him, as he intended her to, as a protection against her mother. And all the time, John's ship was drawing further and further away into the mysterious Indian distance. There was no one Amanda could talk to. She called on Miss Purvis several times, hoping for she knew not exactly what in the way of aid and comfort. But Miss Purvis knew nothing of the engagement with John – and John himself had said that only he was to be bound. As for Mrs Carteret, she would not discuss John at all; that was a childish, shameful escapade, best forgotten.

  The slow weeks passed. The hay was all in and Lord Meynel, who was usually at Brighthelmstone at this time of year, was still playing the perfect landlord and assiduous suitor. Amanda had got quite used to his visits by now, and did not realize to what an extent she was letting him treat her as if they were indeed engaged. As long as he did not touch her, she found it easy enough to be friendly with him these days, and – an observant man as well as a clever one – he was careful never to touch her except when he arrived or took his leave.

  Then, one morning, Mrs Carteret received a letter that threw her into hysterics so genuine that even Amanda was frightened. When, at last, the sal volatile had had its effect, and Mrs Carteret was able to speak again she threw it to Amanda. "We are ruined," she said. "Read that."

  Amanda read with a sinking heart. For once, her mother did not exaggerate. The letter was from the lawyers who had handled her late husband's affairs. They reported, with deepest regret, that his family would no longer be able to permit Mrs Carteret to live in the Dower House. A long and apologetic explanation followed. It was beside the point, which was simple. Ever since her husband's death, Mrs Carteret had lived, rent free, in the Dower House. Now she must go, and as soon as possible. It was as simple as that.

  They looked at each other. There did not seem even to be anything to say. Both of them knew that Mrs Carteret's tiny income only just met their expenses, without rent. Where could they go? What could they do?

  "They cannot mean it," Amanda began.

  "But they do," her mother interrupted, and was, herself, interrupted by Phoebe, who announced that Lord Meynel was below. A silent, speaking glance passed between Amanda and her mother. For once, Mrs Carteret had the wisdom to say nothing. She and Amanda went downstairs together and after the usual greetings she lost no time in pouring out the whole story. Lord Meynel was everything that was sympathetic. It was only long afterwards that it occurred to Amanda that he had not seemed particularly surprised. He was not only sympathetic, he was practically helpful. He had been intending, he said, for some time, to pay a visit to his estates in Suffolk, but had delayed going, partly (here a look for Amanda) because he could not tear himself away, partly, he must confess, because he had ordered certain alterations to his house here and wished to stay and supervise the workmen. Now he appealed to Mrs Carteret. If she would do him the honour of using his house as her own – and at the same time have an eye to the decorations that were in progress – she would be doing him a real kindness.

  Mrs Carteret protested, doubted, exclaimed and finally, to Amanda's dismay, agreed. Alone at last with her, Amanda in her turn protested, but her mother was adamant. "What else can we do?" she asked reasonably.

  And still Lord Meynel behaved like a perfect gentleman. He stayed in his house to welcome Mrs Carteret and Amanda, and then, after commending their comfort with every solicitude to his highly respectable housekeeper, called for his carriage and left for his estates in Suffolk. If they needed him for any reason, he said, they had only to send for him. Driving away, he congratulated himself. He had left Amanda, he knew, in the hands of his best possible ally. One way or another, Mrs Carteret would do his business for him; it was but to apply a little more pressure in his own good time.

  He was saved the trouble. The Rye tradesmen, alarmed by Mrs Carteret's move, became clamorous for the payment of their outstanding accounts. Amanda, returning from one of her frequent visits to Miss Purvis, found her mother in tears over a pile of papers. She had always known her to be extravagant, but had never dreamed her to be so deeply in debt as a little simple arithmetic now proved her. So long as she continued mistress of the Dower House, with the Carteret family behind her, the Rye tradesmen had been content to let her bills run on, but now, it was clear, she must be out of favour with the family. Nobody could tell where she might go next. They had all sent in their bills at once. The result was disaster – and tears. "I cannot possibly pay them," she sobbed. "Even if we bought nothing for a year I could not pay them. Oh, Amanda, what are we to do?" From behind the handkerchief, her sharp eyes were watching Amanda.

  "What can we do?" asked Amanda.

  "Well," her mother began doubtfully. "We could send for Lord Meynel, I collect."

  "Send for Lord Meynel." Amanda's heart sank. "But what's that to the purpose?"

  "Why, everything, my dearest love, if you would but write him."

  "I?"

  "Yes, you. This is no time for shilly-shallying, Amanda. It is that, or ruin for both of us. For you, he will do anything. Amanda, you must save us."

  It was three months now since the Phoenix had sailed and still there had been no word from John. Lord Meynel, considerate as always, had given Amanda news of the ship. She had been spoken with off the Cape of Good Hope by a merchantman on the way back to England. This ship – the Panther – had brought back mail from the Phoenix. "I had thought," Lord Meynel had said, "that you and your mother might have heard from young Purvis, but doubtless he was too busy with plans for his career in India. That he was in the best of health and spirits I have from the captain of the Panther, to whom he handed the mail from the Phoenix!"

  Amanda was young and unsuspicious. Though she had always disliked Lord Meynel, it had never occurred to her that she should distrust him too. John was well – and had not troubled to write to her. He had not, it seemed, written to his aunt either . . . A thorough man, Lord Meynel, had simply arranged for all John's letters to be suppressed.

  Now, the seed of doubt he had sowed so skilfully was ready to bear fruit. Three months had passed, and Amanda had had no word from John. He had forgotten her, it seemed . . . And she and her mother were alone, facing crisis and ruin. Quietly, desperately, she sat down to write the letter her mother suggested. It took her hours of anguished copying and recopying, but the result was short and to the point: 'Dear Lord Meynel,' she wrote at last. 'My mother and I would be most grateful if you would come to us on a matter of some importance.' And, then, without preamble, the signature in her neat, schoolgirl's handwriting. 'Amanda Carteret'.

  Her mother was looking over her shoulder. "What, nothing more?" she asked.

  "No," said Amanda. "Nothing more. It is enough, is it not?"

  They both knew that it was, and so did Lord Meynel. He returned at once, learned the whole story from Mrs Carteret, who thought Amanda best absent from this particular interview, and spent the following day settling her debts, which seemed to him almost ludicrously small, considering the prize they brought him. He would have been hard put to it to say why he was so determined to have Amanda. Young, slender and half-formed, she hovered, these days, between a child's awkwardness and a woman's moments of sudden grace. When she was happy, and forgot herself, her wide-eyed, heart-shaped face might flash into an instant beauty, but in the main Lord Meynel would have agreed with the view of Rye society that Miss Carteret was not a patch on her handsome mother. But it was the child, not the buxom mother, that he wanted. He had had spirited and beautiful mistresses in plenty, but never anything like this slender, quiet girl who paid him so little attention. Sometimes he asked himself why after all his years of freedom he was going to so much trouble to saddle himself with a wife. The answer was simply that he wanted her. She was his last fling, his assertion of youth in the face of encroaching age.

  And now, he had got her. Amanda had known it when she wrote to him, and he knew it when he arrived and, so gracefully, kissed her hand. But he intended to play safe still. There should be no passionate demonstration to frighten her off at the last moment. Indeed he went further than that. Finding himself, for the first time, alone with Amanda on the evening of the day he had spent in settling her mother's debts, he took her hand and pressed it to his lips. "May I," he asked, "dare, at last, to hope?"

  She had known that this moment must come, but had still not contrived to prepare herself for it. Now, she looked down, crimson and, quietly, trembling. "I . . . I suppose so," she said.

  It was hardly an encouraging acceptance, but he took it as warmly as if it had had her whole heart in it. "You make me," he kissed her hand once more, then made himself let it go, "the happiest of men. May I hope that you will name an early day for the completion of my good fortune?" And then, seeing her look of sudden fright, he continued, on the inspiration of the moment: "You are but a child, I know, but I long to have the right to protect you, to care for you as you should be cared for. Let me but have the right to call you mine, and you shall have nothing from me but the affection I would show to a dearly loved sister or friend, until, as I must hope you soon will, you shall wish it otherwise." As he spoke, he laughed to himself. A sister or friend, indeed – let her but be his . . . But this was a shy bird, and must be caught with the very best chaff. "If you will but give me your permission to ask your mother for an early day," he said again, schooling himself not to touch her.

  "If you wish it." The die was cast; what was the use of drawing out the agony? She looked up at him, her grey eyes wide with tears, and he longed to take her in his arms, crush her to him, show her what it was to be his. But he had himself well in hand. "Then I have your permission to go to your mother?" he asked.

  "Yes. You have been very good to us," she said.

  "I would do anything for you." At the moment, he meant it.

  Between Lord Meynel and Mrs Carteret, matters were soon and most amicably settled. Resigned by now to her position as pampered mother-in-law, she did not attempt to conceal her delighted relief when he came to her with the news that Amanda had accepted him, and was all acquiescence when he urged the earliest possible day for the wedding. She knew as well as he the dangers of delay. She was, of course, ignorant of his arrangements about John Purvis's letters and thought one might arrive any day, as she told herself, "to upset Amanda". Oh yes, the sooner, the better, particularly as Lord Meynel had ingeniously intermingled bribery with his planning. Always a realist, Mrs Carteret had taught herself from the moment of his first proposal for Amanda to give up all hope of being Lady Meynel. She merely intended to make the best possible thing out of being Lady Meynel's mother-in-law, and with so much to gain he was generosity itself – at least, in his promises. The house in which they were now living was to become hers on the day of the wedding, and here, her prospective son-in-law made it clear to her, he expected her to live while he and Amanda divided their time between his Suffolk estates and the house he proposed to take in London. A handsome income would make life pleasant for her as it had never been before. She would be able to visit Bath . . . Cheltenham . . . her friends and correspondents wherever they were. The only thing he did not, she noticed, suggest was that she should visit her daughter and son-in-law. It was a blow to her; she had counted on tasting once more the almost forgotten delights of London life, and enjoying the fame of her titled daughter. But, clearly, it was not to be. Once or twice, she was tempted to suggest what a pleasure, both for her and for Amanda, such a visit would be, but there was something in his tone to her, since the day when he had paid her debts, that made her instinctively refrain.

  Instead, she threw herself, heart and soul, into the delightful business of assembling Amanda's trousseau – and her own. For Lord Meynel's generosity matched his firmness. His bride and his bride's mother must have every fashionable appurtenance that imagination could conceive of – and Mrs Carteret's imagination could conceive of plenty.

  Lord Meynel was far too punctilious to spend the night under the same roof as his prospective bride and mother-in-law and for the two or three days it took to make the arrangements for the wedding he stayed at the George in Rye, riding out every morning for the necessary discussions with Mrs Carteret. He was never alone with Amanda, nor seemed to wish to be, and contented himself with kissing her hand devotedly when he came and went. As he also brought her a series of magnificent presents, she found it impossible not, a little, to enjoy the distinction of being an engaged young lady. Everyone was kind to her and she found herself treated with a new respect by both her mother and the servants. Perhaps marriage would not be so bad after all . . . At night, in the strange bed, she cried herself to sleep over thoughts of John, who had forgotten her, but in the daytime she contrived to seem happy and busy enough.

  It was a relief, of course, when Lord Meynel announced his intention of spending the rest of the time before their rapidly approaching wedding day between his house in Suffolk, and London, where he proposed to take one. Everything, he said, with a smile for Amanda, must be in perfect order for his bride. He left the arrangements for the wedding, which was to take place as quietly as possible in Rye church, to Mrs Carteret. His part would be to pay the bills.