No Darkness for Love E-Book

Barbara Cartland

• Herausgeber: Barbara Cartland Ebooks Ltd
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: The Eternal Collection
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 336

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

When beautiful Atalanta Lynton has a chance meeting with a dashing French artist on her way home to her father's modest Vicarage from Combe Castle where her aunt and cousins reside, she is smitten by his handsome Gallic charm and his talent as an Impressionist artist. But no sooner than Paul Beaulieu, for that is his name, declares that he has fallen in love with her at first sight, she finds to her chagrin that her father has promised her hand in marriage to her cousin William, who is to become the British Ambassador to the newly independent country of Vallon and he has to be married to a suitable wife to take up such a prestigious post. Although appalled at the prospect of a loveless marriage to her cold pompous cousin, Atalanta sees no alternative but to yield to her parents' will and the union will definitely ensure that she can provide for her impoverished parents and her brother and twin sisters. In Paris with her hated husband-to-be, the flame of her love is stoked once more by Paul's unfailing ardour and, finding that her cousin already has a mistress who is with child, Atalanta now resolves that she must refuse to marry him. But an enraged William will stop at nothing to prevent her marrying Paul and it seems that their love is doomed before it can really blossom.

Leseprobe

Author’s Note

Vallon does not exist, but the description of the Impressionists and their lives are factual.

Le Chat Noir with its fantastic furnishings actually existed and its proprietor Rodolphe Sarles did much to popularise Montmartre. Renoir’s model Marie-Clementine Valadon changed her Christian name to Suzanne and became a famous artist. She was the mother of the genius Maurice Utrillo.

Spring by Claude Monet is in the National Galerie Berlin-Dahlem. LeMoulin de la Galette by Auguste Renoir, Landscape at Chaponval by Camille Pissarro and many other pictures by the Impressionists which belong to the Louvre are on permanent exhibition in the Musée de Jeu de Paume in Paris.

In 1803 Princess Pauline Borghese, sister of Napoleon Bonaparte, bought the present British Embassy in the Faubourg St. Honoré from the Duc de Chamort. The Duke of Wellington purchased the building from the Princess in 1814. It was the first British Embassy ever owned by the British Government.

The cost of candles was a constant worry. Gas lighting was not installed until 1832, electricity in 1896. But an incoming Ambassador is still received with candles.

Chapter One 1880

Walking through the Park under the shade of the great oak trees, where the daffodils were as golden as the spring sunshine, Atalanta hummed a little tune to herself.

It was an inexpressible joy to think that, having come away early from The Castle, there was no reason for her to hurry home.

She could linger in the woods, which were the shortest cut to the village and where she had spent so much of her time when she was free from the innumerable tasks that engaged her at the Vicarage.

When she was a child, she had told herself stories in which the pinewoods held fierce dragons from which she was rescued by a handsome Knight.

Even today, when she moved softly under the dark branches of the trees and felt the green moss springing under the lightness of her feet, she had the strange feeling that the tales that had filled her dreams for so many years would still come true!

Swinging her cotton sun-bonnet by its strings, Atalanta was so intent on her own thoughts that she had nearly reached the edge of the wood before she looked up and saw, white between the trunks of two tall trees, the square of an artist’s canvas.

In an instant her happiness ebbed away.

Mr. Oliver Whithorn was painting another picture of The Castle!

This meant he was in financial difficulties once again and would send it to her soft-hearted father, simply because no one else would be foolish enough to take it off his hands.

‘There goes my new dress!’ Atalanta thought despairingly.

Last time it had been a winter coat of which Mr. Whithorn, with his excruciatingly badly painted picture, had deprived her.

There were by now no less than half a dozen of his canvases stacked in the attic and Atalanta was convinced that they were quite useless except for firewood.

She thought of turning aside and approaching the wood from another direction, but she realised that Mr. Whithorn must have seen her crossing the Park and to avoid him deliberately would appear gratuitously ill-mannered.

Moving a little slower, now with no smile on her lips, Atalanta walked towards the easel set up in an all too familiar spot. Mr. Whithorn never chose any other viewpoint from which to execute his daubs of Combe Castle.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Whithorn. I see you are starting another masterpiece,” Atalanta said trying to keep the note of sarcasm out of her voice.

Then to her astonishment the man who rose from behind the canvas, was not short, grey-haired and ageing, but tall and dark, bearing no resemblance whatsoever to the local artist.

“I regret, mademoiselle,” the stranger said in a deep voice, “that I am not Mr. Oliver Whithorn.”

“Oh, I am glad!” Atalanta exclaimed impetuously before she could prevent herself and then felt the colour come into her cheeks as she saw the twinkle in the stranger’s dark eyes.

His English had been perfect, but there was just a faint suspicion of an accent and his addressing her as ‘mademoiselle’ made his identity clear.

“You are French!” she exclaimed, forgetting as usual that Mama had told her over and over again not to be too talkative or familiar with strangers.

“I thought as I saw you come across the Park,” the stranger replied, “that you must be a small Goddess. You seemed to be part of the sunshine.”

Two irresistible dimples appeared in Atalanta’s cheeks.

“Alas! I am not a Goddess,” she answered, “my name is Atalanta.”

“The swift-footed huntress who could spring so lightly from crest to crest of a wave that she did not wet her feet!”

“I see, sir, you have a knowledge of the Greek legend,” Atalanta smiled. “That is unusual. Most people cannot understand why I have such an outlandish name.”

“A very beautiful one and very appropriate,” the newcomer said quietly.

Again Atalanta felt the colour rising in her cheeks.

She had not believed that any man could look at her with quite such a bold expression in his dark eyes or indeed that she would find someone so unusual in the woods.

In fact, she told herself, she had never seen anyone like this strange man.

He was not so very young. She guessed him to be about twenty-eight or perhaps a little older, but he seemed taller and more broad-shouldered than she had expected a Frenchman to be.

His dark hair was swept back from a square forehead and his clear-cut features were decidedly handsome, even if he had an unusual appearance by English standards.

He wore, she noticed, a green velvet coat such as might have been expected from an artist and, although his collar was of fashionable height, his tie was distinctly floppy.

He stood there looking at her and, because the expression in his eyes made her feel shy, she said quickly as if to draw away attention from herself,

“You speak very good English, sir.”

“My grandmother was English,” he answered. “Et vous, mademoiselle, vous parlez Francais?”

Atalanta smiled.

“Oui, monsieur,” she replied in French, “my grandmother was French!”

“C’est extraordinaire!” the stranger exclaimed. “And may I add I also had an English Nanny.”

“So did I,” Atalanta said, “but I assure you that she never did hold with ‘them foreigners across the water’.”

The stranger threw back his head and laughed.

“My Nanny always said, ‘you can’t help where you were born, poor child, but I’ll make you into a gentleman if I die in the attempt’.”

They were both laughing and then, as if Atalanta suddenly realised the irresponsible manner in which she was behaving, she said demurely,

“I hope, sir, you enjoy painting The Castle. It is very beautiful.”

As she spoke, she turned away to follow the path through the wood.

“Wait! Wait!” the stranger called out quickly. “Please don’t leave me! There is so much I want to know.”

“I think – I should – go,” Atalanta faltered.

She was intensely curious about this stranger, but at the same time she knew that her mother would not approve.

It was one thing to pass the time of day, everyone did that in the country, but it was quite different to linger chatting and laughing with a man to whom she had not even been introduced.

As if he read her thoughts, the artist said almost pleadingly,

“Do you not realise that our Nannies, had they been with us, would undoubtedly have talked to each other? We would have been introduced from our perambulators.”

He hesitated, then added,

“Alors! I should no longer have been in my perambulator, would I? Yet, if we had met in the Bois de Boulogne or in Hyde Park, I am sure that I should have been told to amuse you while our Nannies gossiped about their employers!”

He saw the smile on Atalanta’s face and added,

“May I therefore present myself? Paul Beaulieu, mademoiselle, at your service.”

Atalanta dropped him a small curtsey.

“Atalanta Lynton.”

“And you are the Princess who lives in that magnificent Castle?” he asked.

Atalanta shook her head.

“No indeed,” she replied. “I am only the poor relation.”

He raised his dark eyebrows.

“Poor relation?” he questioned in puzzled tones.

“The Princess, as you have called her, is Lady Clementine Combe,” Atalanta explained. “She lives in The Castle and is spoken of as the most beautiful girl in England.”

“And you?” Paul Beaulieu enquired.

“I am her cousin and live in Little Combe. My father is the Vicar. He is also a Greek scholar, hence my name.”

Again the dimples appeared in Atalanta’s cheeks,

“My twin sisters were christened Chryseis and Hebe and resent it very much! They would so much rather have been called Emily and Edith or something quite unexceptional.”

“And you?” Paul Beaulieu enquired.

“I am content to be Atalanta, but then I enjoy reading Greek.”

“For the first time in my life,” Paul Beaulieu said, “I don’t regret the long hours I spent struggling with that very complicated alphabet and being reprimanded by my tutor for not pronouncing the poetry of Homer in the correct manner.”

“And yet later one comes to realise that it is fascinating,” Atalanta said.

“Fascinating indeed!” Paul Beaulieu agreed.

He was looking at Atalanta as he spoke, seeing her tiny pointed face with its huge grey-blue eyes that seemed to reflect their owner’s feelings as clearly as the clouds crossing a sunlit sky.

And above the oval forehead there was that very pale golden hair, which had made him believe, as he had seen her walking through the Park, that she was the very embodiment of spring.

Her well-washed cotton dress was unfashionable and it clung, because she had almost grown out of it, to the budding maturity of her small breasts.

There was a grace about her that made him think once again that she was aptly named.

“I want to paint you,” he said suddenly. “It is not often an artist gets a chance to portray the heroine of a Greek legend who looks like a Goddess. Please stay! Already I have the idea of how I wish you to pose.”

“But surely you were painting The Castle,” Atalanta objected. “May I see what you have done?”

“I should be honoured,” Paul Beaulieu answered, standing aside so that she could draw near to his easel.

Atalanta had seen many pictures of The Castle. All down the centuries it had attracted famous artists and there were many versions of it in the Picture Gallery.

There were conversation pieces depicting the various Earls of Winchcombe with their families with The Castle in the background or as Turner and Constable had painted it silhouetted against the setting sun.

Originally Norman, on one side the great grey tower stood sentinel over the countryside.

The main building had been added to generation after generation until, now one of the largest private houses in England, it was a symbol of the wealth, importance and prestige of the Winchcombe family.

Close to, as Atalanta knew only too well, it was rather overpowering and awe-inspiring. But seen from the distance it had an almost Fairytale-like quality and this Paul Beaulieu had captured in his picture, which was unlike any she had ever seen before.

She stood looking wide-eyed at the brilliance of the colours and at the foreground in which the daffodils vividly gold and compelling seemed to lead the eye towards the mystical majesty of the tower etched against the blue and white of the sky.

The way Paul Beaulieu painted it was different. No black, a radiance of colour, every stone seeming through the light falling on it to have a vibration and a movement.

It was different from anything she had seen.

Then suddenly she knew!

“You are an Impressionist!” she exclaimed.

Paul Beaulieu who had been watching her face said quietly,

“And what do you know about Impressionists?”

“I have read about them,” Atalanta answered, “and Papa has told me how they have been abused and scorned in Paris.”

“And you, what do you think of my picture?” Paul Beaulieu asked.

“It’s very beautiful,” Atalanta said softly.

“Do you mean that?” he asked.

“Of course I mean it,” she replied. “I would not lie, even to flatter you, about something so important.”

“I never thought,” he said slowly, “that an English woman would appreciate what a few revolutionary men are trying to convey on canvas.”

“Papa has told me,” Atalanta said, “that the Salon and most art dealers in France believe that art does not consist of painting what one sees, but what is conventional to see. You, I think, are painting what is in your heart.”

“You are very perceptive,” Paul Beaulieu said, “and now let me paint you.”

“I ought not to stay,” Atalanta hesitated. “They are expecting me at home.”

“Please. It would be a great kindness! I cannot tell you how much I want to capture your little face on canvas. I have never before seen anyone so lovely.”

She blushed at the compliment. Then she told herself that he was only trying to cajole her into sitting for him. Perhaps he found it difficult to pay a model.

Had not Papa said that the Impressionists starved themselves for their pictures? Paul Beaulieu might have to go without meals so that he could purchase his paints.

If so, he certainly would not be able to afford the fees of those who made their living by modelling.

“I cannot stay for long,” Atlanta pointed out.

She remembered guiltily the chickens, which had to be fed, the horses waiting for their hay and the innumerable other tasks she was neglecting at home.

And yet she told her conscience that she had been early leaving The Castle.

Cicely had been told that she was to have her rest an hour earlier because her brother William was expected home from Paris that evening.

The Viscount Cottesford was in the Diplomatic Service and was usually abroad. But now the whole household was in a state of excitement because a telegram had announced his arrival.

‘There must be at least half an hour left,’ Atalanta thought ‘before Mama will be expecting me.’

Paul Beaulieu was already picking up his easel and carrying it with a heavy leather bag further into the wood.

“Where are you going to paint me?” Atalanta asked.

“Against the fir trees,” he answered. “I want you to look as if you have come from the sunshine into the cool of the pines.”

He found a place where there was a felled tree covered with moss on which Atalanta could sit.

A shaft of sunlight slanting through the thick branches just touched the pale gold of her head, haloing her curls and lighting up her eyes so that they seemed no longer blue but to reflect the green of the trees.

Paul Beaulieu set up his easel a little way from Atalanta and then he walked towards her, narrowing his eyes as if to put her into perspective and noting the way that she sat naturally on the tree trunk with a grace that could never be taught.

She had linked her fingers together in her lap and now she looked up at him, her eyes enquiring and curious and at the same time a little shy.

It was as if she suddenly realised how big he was, how different in his dark handsome way from any man she had ever met before!

“Voila! That is perfect,” he said gently.

He went back to his easel, moved it slightly so that in the distance to the right of Atalanta there was just a glimpse of The Castle brilliant in the afternoon sunshine.

He drew a new canvas from his leather bag and picked up his palette.

“Talk,” he said. “I don’t want you stiff or self-conscious. Tell me about yourself. Why do you say you are the poor relation?”

“My Uncle Lionel, the present Earl of Winchcombe, is Mama’s half-brother,” Atalanta answered. “He is a rather frightening person, but very important and very rich. Papa and Mama fell in love with each other and after long years of waiting they were allowed to get married. But we are very poor!”

“Do you mind being poor?” Paul Beaulieu asked.

“Not really,” Atalanta answered. “I have almost everything I want except new dresses. But my brother, Bernard, minds as he wants to go into the Army, which Papa cannot afford and the twins mind terribly.”

“It would surely be very easy for you to be rich,” Paul Beaulieu remarked.

“Me? How could I?” Atalanta enquired in surprise.

“You could marry a rich man!”

“Nobody asked me, sir!” Atalanta laughed, “And I have no wish to marry for money.”

“You would rather marry for love?” Paul Beaulieu questioned.

“But of course,” Atalanta’s voice was very positive.

“And supposing you never fall in love?”

“Then I must die an old maid!” Atalanta replied.

“Never! Never! It would be a crime against nature,” Paul Beaulieu cried, “but let me predict your future. One day you will fall in love and you will love passionately, deeply and irrevocably!”

“How do you know that?” Atalanta asked almost in a whisper.

“I can tell it by your mouth and by your eyes,” he answered. “Women with lips like yours are ‘givers’ and you will give your heart, your body and your soul to the man you love.”

There was a note in his voice that made Atalanta draw in her breath and her eyes dropped as the blood rose in her cheeks.

“You should not be painting me, but my cousin Clementine,” she said quickly in an effort to change the subject. “She is lovely, really lovely!”

“Is it possible that she could be more beautiful that you?” Paul Beaulieu asked.

He spoke in such a matter-of-fact tone that Atalanta was not embarrassed.

“You are teasing me,” she replied, “I am not beautiful. But Clementine has perfect features, classical like a statue and her hair is the colour of ripened corn and her eyes are really blue. Pale blue like a thrush’s egg.”

“You certainly admire her!” Paul Beaulieu remarked. “Are you also fond of her?”

There was a little hesitation before Atalanta responded,

“She is older than I am and, as she moves in the very best Society, we have little in common. It is Cicely whom I love.”

“And who is Cicely?” Paul Beaulieu enquired.

“She is Clementine’s sister – Lady Cicely Combe. She had a riding accident a year ago and has to lie flat on her back. The doctors hope she will be able to walk again, but there is always the fear that she may not be able to do so.”

Atalanta gave a little sigh.

“Poor Cicely! It is very hard for her! You can imagine what it must be like at sixteen to have nothing to do but lie flat and to think of other people riding and dancing and doing all the things that one longs to do one’s self,”

“And so you go and talk to her?”

“We gossip! Cicely likes to collect information about everybody inside and outside The Castle,” Atalanta said. “And we read together. Cicely has a good brain. I think really she ought to have been a boy. She enjoys Latin, I am teaching her Greek and we read Molière, Balzac and Goethe together and, of course, the novels written by Dickens and the Brontës.”

“I am glad of the last two authors,” Paul Beaulieu smiled. “I was beginning to be afraid that you and Cicely were bluestockings!”

“Would that shock you?” Atalanta said. “Mama always says that men hate clever women. She tells me that when I go to parties I must not show off my knowledge, but appear quiet, feminine and admiring to the man I am with.”

“And do you do that?” Paul Beaulieu enquired.

Atalanta smiled and he saw her irrepressible dimples.

“I very seldom go to parties,” she answered, “but when I do I usually forget to be quiet and admiring. Perhaps that is why I have so few beaux.”

“Are all the men in this part of England blind?” Paul Beaulieu asked.

“No, they are too busy looking at Clementine,” Atalanta smiled, “just as you would be if you saw her. Then you would not want to paint me – you would want to paint her.”

“I very much doubt it,” Paul Beaulieu said. “And may I say, little Goddess, that I am very content and very grateful that you have been kind enough to sit for me.”

“Perhaps an Impressionist would not do Clementine justice,” Atalanta remarked seriously as if she was following her own train of thought.

“I am sure that she needs a proper Academician,” Paul Beaulieu said. “He would paint her in white satin with a string of pearls and a bunch of pink roses in her hand. The golden hair and the blue eyes would, of course, be best against a draped curtain of blue velvet.”

There was no mistaking the sarcasm in his voice and Atalanta laughed.

“That is exactly how she has been painted! Not once, but twice. The pictures are hanging in The Castle. I would so much like to show them to you!”

“I would love to see them,” Paul Beaulieu said. “They would I am sure, be an excellent example to a young artist of how to get himself hung in the Royal Academy and make his fortune.”

“Do you want to make a fortune?” Atalanta quizzed him.

“Not particularly, but I would like more people to understand the message the Impressionists are trying to convey. The Master under whom I have studied had a picture accepted by the Salon last year, but he is so impoverished that he has pawned almost everything he owns.”

“How tragic!” Atalanta exclaimed. “What is your Master’s name?”

“His name is Claude Monet,” Paul Beaulieu answered.

“Oh, but I have seen one of his pictures!” Atalanta cried. “I mean I have seen a photograph of it. It was sent to Papa by one of his friends who was visiting Paris. It is called Spring Landscape.”

“Monet painted it in 1874, six years ago,” Paul Beaulieu said. “You like it?”

“I thought it very very beautiful,” Atalanta answered. “Now I can understand how with what seems only a few strokes of the brush you can make The Castle seem so mysterious and make me feel that the daffodils in the Park are alive.”

Paul Beaulieu put down his palette and stared at her.

“You know,” he said, “you are a very remarkable person, besides being utterly and completely lovely.”

His words seemed to startle Atalanta or perhaps it was the way he spoke in his deep voice. She clasped her fingers a little tighter and stared at him, her eyes very large.

Then it seemed to her that something passed between her and the man looking at her – something she did not understand, yet which seemed to her to comprise the magic of his picture and the picture she had seen by Claude Monet.

There was something compelling and fascinating about it and at the same time a little frightening.

Without really meaning to do so, she rose to her feet.

“I must – go,” she stammered. “I am sure – it is getting late – Mama will be – expecting me.”

“Will you come tomorrow?”

“I don’t – know,” Atalanta answered. “It may be difficult – and I shall not have so much time.”

“Please make time,” Paul Beaulieu pleaded. “That is what my Nanny always used to say, ‘You must make time’ and somehow I always managed to do so.”

He drew nearer to her as he spoke and now she found herself looking up at him.

He was so much taller than she was and she had the extraordinary feeling that, although they had just met, she had known him before. He did not seem a stranger and there was a familiarity about him as if he had been in her life for a long time.

“Please come!” he said softly, his eyes searching her face. “I cannot lose you now. Perhaps this picture of you will bring me fame and fortune. If it was never finished, you would have it on your conscience forever that you had denied me those two rewards.”

He spoke with sincerity and yet there was a twinkle in his eyes.

“You are flattering me into believing that I am important,” Atalanta replied. “Have I not told you that I am just the poor relation?”

“On the contrary you are undoubtedly a Goddess sent to bemuse poor mortals like myself. Will you bring me a gift from Mount Olympus?”

She smiled up at him.

“I will do my best,” she answered, “and I will come tomorrow, although I may not be able to stay long.”

“I will be waiting,” he said and she had the feeling that the words were important.

He put out his hand as he spoke and took hers.

She thought they would shake hands, but instead he raised it to his lips and she felt the pressure of his mouth against her skin.

It was not what she had expected and her heart gave a frightened leap.

Then she had turned and hurried away from him through the woods, twisting her way through the thick trunks of the trees until finally she vanished into the shadows and he could see her no longer.

He stood for some minutes staring after her and then he sat down again in front of his easel and began to paint feverishly with a fierce concentration as if every stroke was etched strongly in his mind before he put it on the canvas.

Atalanta ran from the wood onto the narrow dusty road that led into the village.

The clock on the small grey stone Church told her it was nearly a quarter to five o’clock and she knew that her mother was sure to ask why she had stayed so late at The Castle.

Atalanta seldom told a lie, but she was determined if possible not to reveal the reason for her tardiness or to mention the presence of a stranger in the wood.

There would not only be innumerable questions as to who he was and what he was doing, but she was also quite certain that the twins would not miss the opportunity of making the acquaintance of a foreigner.

At fifteen they were both incurably romantic and what was more they were determined, as Atalanta had never been, to escape from the confinement of village life and the poverty of the Vicarage.

As she thought of the twins, Atalanta gave a little sigh as she slipped through the gate into the Vicarage and, instead of going towards the house, went to feed the chickens in the orchard behind the stables.

‘If only one of Papa’s books could be a success!’ she said to herself.

It was a sentiment that had been expressed over and over again by Lady Evelyn Lynton.

She had braved her father’s wrath and the contempt of her half-brother when she had insisted on marrying not one of the important suitors who had paid court to her when she was first taken to London for the Season, but the third and impoverished son of Sir Perquine Lynton.

He was quite unacceptable to her parents as a future husband and Evelyn had been told so in no uncertain terms.

It had taken Donatus Lynton and Evelyn Combe five years to obtain permission to be husband and wife. It was only after Evelyn had turned down suitor after suitor and finally had refused the Duke of Loth that her father had washed his hands of her.

“Very well go to the Devil in your own way!” he had said bluntly.

The only concession the Earl had made when finally his daughter married the quiet scholarly Donatus, was to offer them the living at Little Combe, which brought them in a yearly income of three hundred pounds.

It was certainly not the life to which Lady Evelyn had been accustomed, but, being deeply in love with her unworldly husband, she had asked for nothing except that they could be together.

It was when the children came along that problems arose.

Bernard was so handsome and such a good sportsman, besides inheriting his father’s brain, that she resented his not having decent horses to ride and being unable to dress as smartly as his friends.

Lady Evelyn watched Atalanta grow more and more attractive and knew that, if she was fashionably gowned, she would outshine any of her contemporaries.

Finally the twins, who were far more worldly than the rest of the family, clamoured daily incessantly for new clothes, for bigger ponies, for parties and social activities.

“If only one of Papa’s books could be a success!” Lady Evelyn would murmur.

But she had no idea how disrespectful the twins were about the erudite volumes their father produced every two years. They commanded the respect and admiration of a few scholarly dons, but were of no interest to the general public.

Unfortunately, as Atalanta knew only too well, the books occupied her father’s attention to the exclusion of all else. He was apt to forget a funeral, a Christening and even a wedding.

The villagers, who were used to his absent-minded irregularities, would say to one of their children,

“Hop up to the Vicarage, Tommy, and remind the Reverend, that the body be comin’ along in a quarter of the hour. Help him into his surplice and don’t you dare leave his side until he be a standin’ by the grave.”

Atalanta, while feeding the chickens, remembered that her father had a meeting with the Church Wardens at five o’clock.

She gave the horses several forkfuls of hay, picked up the new-laid eggs she had collected from the hen’s nests and hurried into the house. She put the eggs into the kitchen and then walked down the passage towards the drawing room.

Lady Evelyn was sitting on the sofa sewing small bone buttons onto one of Hebe’s blouses.

“Oh, there you are, Atalanta!” she exclaimed. “I was wondering what had happened to you.”

“I have been feeding the chickens, Mama,” Atalanta said truthfully, “and I was just coming to remind Papa that he has a Church meeting at five o’clock.”

“Heavens, I had forgotten!” Lady Evelyn exclaimed. “What a good thing you remembered. Go and get Papa ready, Atalanta, and do see that he is wearing a tie and not those carpet slippers he went to the last meeting in.”

“I will see to it. Mama,” Atalanta said.

Thankful to be asked no more questions about her lateness she hurried to the study.

She made her father ready for the meeting, although he expostulated vigorously about being disturbed.

“Must I attend it, Atalanta?” he asked plaintively. “I have just reached a really interesting part in my sixth chapter. If I leave it now, I am certain to lose my train of thought.”

“I am sorry, Papa, but you must go to the meeting,” Atalanta said firmly. “You must discuss the repairs to the Church tower and the accounts for this year from March 1879 to March 1880. Don’t agree to everything that horrid Lady Boddington suggests. You know that she only argues just to prove how important she is.”

The Vicar put down his manuscript reluctantly.

“I was just writing about the Egyptian influence on early Greek civilisation,” he said. “It’s extremely interesting, Atalanta.”

“You must read it to me, Papa,” Atalanta said, “but not at this moment. Now you must attend the meeting.”

“Very well,” the Vicar said with a sigh, “but it does seem that I am always interrupted at the worst possible moment.”

“I know, Papa, but it cannot be helped,” Atalanta sympathised.

She was shepherding her father from the room when she saw a basket covered with a white cloth on a side table.

“Papa!” she exclaimed. “Did not Henry Gorton call today with a message from his mother?”

“Henry Gorton. Yes, I think he did,” the Vicar answered.

“But Papa you know you had to give him that special medicine that Mama had made for Mrs. Gorton. You must have forgotten, it is still there on the table.”

“On dear, I am afraid it slipped my mind,” the Vicar said, looking extremely guilty.

“Never mind. Papa, I will take it to Mrs. Gorton. She says that Mama’s special herbs are the only thing that helps her pain. Now, go straight to the Vestry! Don’t stop or think of anything else or you will be late. You promise me?”

“Of course! Of course!” the Vicar replied.

With a sigh Atalanta picked up the basket containing the special herbal medicine that her mother had spent several hours making for Mrs. Gorton.

It was so like her father to forget it and Henry, aged ten, was a scatter-brained little boy who would not remember anything he had been asked to bring back.

It would not take her more than twenty minutes to walk to the Gorton’s house and then perhaps her mother would not realise that her father had been forgetful once again.

Not that Lady Evelyn was ever cross with her beloved husband, but at the same time it distressed her to see him growing more and more indifferent to the needs of the villagers and more and more obsessed with his writing.

‘If only Papa’s books earned more money,’ Atalanta thought, ‘he would be able to have help with the Church Services and Mama could afford a better type of servant.’

She and her mother trained the local village girls, but, as soon as they knew the rudiments of housework or cooking, they knew that they could go up to The Castle and earn more money besides having the prestige of being in service to the Earl of Winchcombe.

Only her mother, Atalanta thought, would be able to smile when the housekeeper at The Castle said,

“The last two girls we had from you, my Lady, were real treasures, hard workers and well up in their duties. I often say to her Ladyship we ought to be real grateful for the Vicarage maids, that we ought.”

But that was cold comfort for all the hours she and her mother spent explaining to some nitwit how to lay a table, how to polish a grate and how to make a bed!

She picked up her sun-bonnet automatically and with the basket on her arm let herself out of the back door of the Vicarage to set off across the fields to the Gortons’ house.

Mrs. Gorton, a widow, was one of those helpless people who were always ailing and always complaining. She had enough money to be comfortable, but not enough to entertain in the way she would have liked and to command attention she had to be continually ill.

Now she had it in her head that the only thing that really helped her was Lady Evelyn’s home-made herbs and medicine.

It meant a lot of extra work, as Atalanta knew only too well.

Her mother had to give up precious time to pick, dry and mix the herbs, which Atalanta often thought were not really necessary because what Mrs. Gorton really needed was another husband.

However, such a revolutionary and improper idea would not have been acceptable either to her mother or her father, so she kept it to herself.

But, as she trudged across the fields carrying the basket, she was not thinking of Mrs. Gorton, but of the strange young man she had met in the woods.

How good-looking he was and how strong and manly he appeared despite his velvet jacket and his flowing tie!

She had not expected a painter to seem so virile. She had always thought of them as rather effeminate, but then her experience of artists was very limited.

She had met one of the fashionable portrait painters who had painted Clementine. He had been an affected vacillating creature with a weak chin that he disguised with a pointed beard.

He had spoken in an almost falsetto voice and, while she knew that he commanded large sums from his clients, she had not admired either his painting or the man himself.

Paul Beaulieu was very different. There was something determined, almost authoritative, about him, something that told Atalanta very clearly that he would succeed in anything he undertook.

Perhaps one day he would be acclaimed as a genius. Perhaps her portrait would bring him fame and fortune and yet he had said that he was not particularly interested in a fortune. Was it fame he sought?

Atalanta found herself puzzling about him and that moment of magic, which had made her run away.

It was wrong of him to look at her in that manner, she told herself, and yet she had to admit that it had not annoyed her.

There was no doubt that she had behaved in a very reprehensible manner. How would she ever explain to Mama that she had talked for nearly an hour to a stranger in the woods?

Then she knew that, whatever Mama might say if she heard about it, she would talk to Paul Beaulieu again tomorrow and sit while he painted her portrait!

She could hardly wait for the hours to pass until she could see him again.

It did not take as long as Atalanta had expected to reach Mrs. Gorton’s house.

Having handed over the medicine to the smartly dressed parlour maid who answered the door, Atalanta managed to slip away without having to see Mrs. Gorton.

She knew that once she entered the drawing room she would have to listen to Mrs. Gorton’s long list of imaginary ailments and also to an even longer list of Henry’s misdemeanours and mischievous pranks.

It was always the same, the wretched little boy had not enough to do and no companions, so he merely succeeded in irritating his mother who tried to evoke sympathy from anyone who would listen to her helplessness in bringing up her only child.

The sun was sinking in a blaze of glory as Atalanta wended her way back over the fields towards the Vicarage.

Intent on her own thoughts she had entered the stable yard and was crossing the cobbles towards the house, before she realised that a very smart phaeton drawn by two horses was standing outside the front door.

There was a groom wearing a cockaded top hat and the Winchcombe livery with its crested buttons and Atalanta wondered why someone from The Castle should be calling at this time of day.

If the Earl or Countess had sent a note to her father or mother, a groom would have carried it on horseback and, although the Earl might drive the phaeton, the Countess would certainly have come in a closed carriage.

Atalanta wondered what could have happened and why Uncle Lionel should want to see Mama.

She entered the house through the back door of the Vicarage and, catching a glimpse of herself in one of the mirrors decorating the passage, she stopped to tidy her hair.

Blown by the evening wind she looked what her mother would call a ‘sad romp’ and she knew that Clementine would never allow herself to get into such a state.

Atalanta wondered if she should go upstairs and change her dress. The walk over the fields had left the hem damp and the pollen from the wild flowers had marked it.

Then she gave her shoulders a little shrug.

What did it matter? Whoever was in the drawing room would not have come to see her.

She would go in and say “how do you do” because it would be polite, but if, as she suspected, it was Uncle Lionel, who was paying them a visit, he would not be interested in her or in her appearance.

Pushing her hair back from her forehead, Atalanta opened the door of the drawing room and walked in.

To her surprise both her father and mother were present and also a man who was not her uncle and who for a moment she did not recognise.

Then she realised that it was her Cousin William, Viscount Cottesford, whom she had not seen for over three years.

When William was at The Castle, he had never had any time for his Cousin Atalanta, whom he had always found extremely tiresome as a small girl and ignored when she grew older.

“Atalanta!” Lady Evelyn exclaimed as her daughter appeared. “I was just wondering where you were.”

She moved across the room as she spoke looking exceedingly happy, her eyes shining and it seemed to Atalanta’s surprised gaze that a number of years of worry and anxiety had suddenly dropped from her once lovely face.

“Atalanta, my dear, dear child!” she said and kissed her daughter’s cheek.

Astonished, Atalanta looked towards her father who was also smiling at her and then towards her cousin.