Read Illusions of Happiness Online
Authors: Elizabeth Lord
Illusions of Happiness
Table of Contents
Recent Titles by Elizabeth Lord from Severn House
BUTTERFLY SUMMERS
AUTUMN SKIES
WINTER WINE
SHADOW OF THE PROTECTOR
FORTUNE’S DAUGHTER
COMPANY OF REBELS
TO CAST A STONE
A SECRET INHERITANCE
JULIA’S WAY
ALL THAT WE ARE
Elizabeth Lord
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First published in Great Britain and the USA 2013 by
SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of
9 – 15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.
eBook edition first published in 2013 by Severn House Digital
an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited.
Copyright © 2013 by Elizabeth Lord.
The right of Elizabeth Lord to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Lord, Elizabeth, 1928-
Illusions of happiness.
1. England–Social life and customs–20th century–
Fiction. 2. Love stories.
I. Title
823.9'14-dc23
ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8257-8 (cased)
ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-473-8 (trade paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-410-2 (epub)
Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.
This ebook produced by
Palimpsest Book Production Limited,
Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.
Eight thirty – November’s early morning sunlight beginning to peep above the tall houses on the far side of Holland Park, West London more open here, giving space to breathe. Hers was a lovely house, one of rows of similar high-class three-storied homes with attic and basement, steps down to the street, protective railings at the front and long narrow gardens at the rear.
Some three and a half years ago she’d bought this huge house out of a need to prove her independence. Instead she had found herself rattling around in it, refusing the comfort of staff apart from a daily woman who came in to cook and clean before returning home in the evening. Until recently she’d had plenty of friends but since October they had deserted her, or more likely she had driven them away, no longer able to face them.
The sun had begun to light up the room, reflecting off the big mirror on to the central chandelier, its crystals scattering a myriad of bright splashes around the walls of the huge reception room. She’d been up all night unable to sleep, and now she gazed up at the chandelier as she had done so many times before, except on this occasion not in admiration.
Madeleine Ingleton’s gaze was thoughtful. This was where it would happen. It would be swift – over in seconds – and the heartache, the grinding sense of anguish, the lonely recriminations would be no more, a thing of the past.
No friends, her money already gone, she was now deeply in debt; soon the house too would be lost. Wasn’t it well known that rats always desert a sinking ship? Well she was a sinking ship right enough, no denying that. In fact it had already sunk.
Madeleine found herself thinking back on her life as she stood in the middle of the room where so many uproarious parties had been held: such wonderful parties, every room overflowing with joyous partygoers and hangers-on, most of them sozzled to the eyebrows on champagne or whatever else they could down, some making idiotic attempts to dance, seeing themselves as experts at the Black Bottom, the Charleston, Tango, One-Step or the Turkey Trot; the place stifling, filled with music and laughter and cigarette smoke.
A far cry from the quiet Buckinghamshire house she’d once known, where her parents had lived. Only her miserable sod of a father there now, rattling around in that mausoleum of a place, her mother dead these last thirteen years.
She couldn’t recall the last time she’d laid eyes on him and as far as he was concerned, she could have been as dead as her mother. It didn’t matter. Before long she’d probably join her to haunt the life out of him and serve him right, if he cared at all.
He’d always wanted a son to carry on the family name, but she had remained an only child. He therefore looked to her to marry well and have a son of her own who’d one day take up his grandfather’s name of Wyndham at the same time as inheriting under his will.
He had even made it known that he’d added this into his will and as soon as she turned eighteen, an age when girls of good families were expected to think of finding a future husband of equally good background, he had pinned all his expectations on that wish.
Her mother had been in total agreement with her husband as women usually were prior to 1914. So why had she expected her to be otherwise? Even so it had hurt, left with no support or sympathy from either of them.
She was twenty when her mother died – tuberculosis, a disease that usually struck poorer families. She was now thirty-three but even had her mother been alive now, the hostility would still be there, neither parent ever forgiving her for what she’d done. To this day her father would still see her as having been the cause of her mother’s death.
She could still recall that vile argument nearly fifteen years ago when they’d sprung the news of their plans for her future. Until then they’d looked on her as a model daughter, dutifully doing as she was told.
How wrong they were.
She had enjoyed every minute of her two years at the Swiss finishing school for young ladies. Now Madeleine was home having just turned eighteen, her parents were already planning to attend her first social engagement of the London Season, her coming out ball, along with a host of other debutants in white ball gowns.
Each family looked to their daughter meeting some likely young suitor of equal good standing and, even better, heir to a vaster fortune, with a view to eventual marriage. But just in case, Madeleine’s own parents already had their eye on one young man.
She and Hamilton Bramwell had already met at two or three social gatherings long before she’d gone to Switzerland so they weren’t exactly strangers. With this in mind, Mummy and Father had approached his wealthy parents just prior to her return home, fully expecting her to be thrilled at renewing their acquaintance with a view to marriage.
It seemed they were taken with the idea, her father’s standing being pretty high and the prospects of her bringing a fine dowry to the marriage, she being an only child, was most tempting. The drawback for her was that he wasn’t the sort of husband she’d dreamed of while in Switzerland though of course she’d so far kept her thoughts to herself. Back then she and her friends had fantasized constantly about the man each would marry. Someone special; someone tall and strong and handsome, with smouldering eyes of whatever colour each preferred and gleaming blonde or glossy brown hair according to each girl’s particular taste.
The drawback with Hamilton was that there was nothing, nor had there ever been anything, special about him from what she’d remembered, apart from merely being a quite agreeable young man with a gentle nature.
Now twenty-one, three years older than her, that considered just right by both families, he was tall, slim, moderately good-looking but for a rather weak chin, somewhat washed-out blue eyes, and fair hair so fine it gave the impression of being in danger of wafting off his scalp at the least puff of wind. He certainly wasn’t the man of her dreams back in Switzerland.
She too was tall and slender, but her hair though fair, was heavy and luxuriant and her eyes a vivid blue. In fact only a few days ago she’d been told by Freddie Dobson she was extremely pretty.
‘Gosh, miss, you’re far prettier than I imagined,’ he’d said. ‘If you’ll forgive me for being a bit forward, I’d say extremely pretty,’ which would have struck her as being very forward had it not been for his smile, so utterly appreciative that she had felt herself colour with pleasure rather than show pique or embarrassment.
She’d been home only two days and had been standing at the front door enjoying the warmth of late April’s early morning sunshine, needing to calm herself after being faced by her mother’s questions in the hall of all places, having only just come down from her bedroom. The last thing she’d wanted was to be interrogated on how things had gone between her and Hamilton after last night’s sumptuous dinner organized for her homecoming with his parents as guests.
‘All right, I suppose,’ she’d answered in an offhanded almost negative manner, instantly putting her mother’s back up.
‘
All right
, you suppose?’ her mother had burst out. ‘
All right
? Is that any kind of response to give us after the effort both our families have made on behalf of our daughter and their son?’
Her tone made Madeleine turn on her more than any nice girl should towards a parent, her own tone rising. ‘Mother, I don’t want anyone to make an
effort
! Yes, he’s a nice person but he’s not for me. At least I don’t think so,’ she ended trying to moderate her tone. Too late, her mother was already livid, her fair-skinned cheeks reddening.
‘Then I think you should explain your feelings to your father and see what he has to say about it. He will not be pleased. He will not be pleased at all. What right have you, eighteen and still under our jurisdiction, to begin behaving so finicky when we’re thinking only of your well-being, your future? Hamilton will make you an ideal husband,’ she went on, her words gaining momentum from shock, disappointment and mounting vexation. ‘He is kind and generous and gentle-natured. You might never find another prospective husband half as suitable as young Hamilton, look though you will, and—’
‘But I
need
to look!’ she’d cut in, not as any good daughter should to a parent, but she was angry too. ‘This is nineteen fourteen, Mummy, not eighteen ninety-nine! I don’t want to marry someone on whom my parents have already decided whether I like it or not. I like him, yes, but not enough to marry him. And anyway, how do I know he’s what I want? I know you’ve mentioned him in your letters when I was away but last night was the first time we’ve met in two years, so don’t you think you’re somewhat jumping the gun, Mummy?’
‘Jumping the gun? Jumping . . . What an uncouth expression for a well brought up young lady to use! Your father and I have . . . We have . . .’
‘I don’t want to talk about it just now,’ she said, cutting through the stammering torrent of dismay. ‘All I want at the moment is some fresh air – to think.’ With that Madeleine swung away from her and let herself out.
To help control her rapid breathing, she stood for a moment watching their gardener preparing to mow the huge circular front lawn bordered by its line of trees on one side and the curving, wide gravel driveway on the other.
The rattle of milk churns took her attention. Glancing towards the sound she saw a young man, in a blue and white striped apron over trousers and a collarless shirt, the sleeves rolled up as he trundled a handcart bearing two huge milk churns along the gravel path towards the servants’ entrance, as energetically as if they weighed nothing.
With growing interest she found herself taking in his appearance: the broad shoulders, the tanned skin of someone used to the outdoors, a shock of dark brown hair. It was a strong face, firm jaw, straight nose; she judged him to be around twenty-five.