Lights, Laughter and a Lady. Barbara Cartland

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      Author’s Note

      The Gaiety Theatre with its wealth, its happy sparkle, its vivacity and its full-blooded enjoyment, was a symbol of the Naughty Nineties.

      The centre of London amusement, the Gaiety shows were always beautifully staged and superbly dressed and, under George Edwardes’s brilliant management, became unique.

      As lovely as Goddesses, the Gaiety Girls had a grace, glamour and femininity that every man admired and desired.

      The Runaway Girl, produced on 21^st of May 1898, ran for 593 performances until 1900.

      The unique authority of a ship’s Captain to marry any of his passengers who demanded it stemmed from the long voyages in sailing ships when women became pregnant and the child was likely to be born before they reached land.

      Chapter One ~ 1898

      “Have you paid off all the debts, Mr. Mercer?” the Honourable Minella Clinton-Wood asked. The elderly man sitting opposite her hesitated before he replied,

      “The house, the furniture, the horse and, of course, the estate, which has been sold off bit by bit, have covered practically all of them, Miss Minella.”

      “How much is left?”

      “Approximately,” answered Mr. Mercer, of Mercer, Conway and Mercer, “one hundred and fifty pounds.”

      Minella drew in her breath and, when she did not speak, he continued,

      “I have taken it upon myself to keep aside one hundred pounds for you.”

      “Should you do that?”

      “It is what I insist on doing. After all you cannot live on air and I know you have not yet decided on which of your relations you would prefer to live with.”

      The expression on Minella s face was very revealing as she responded,

      “As you are aware, Mr. Mercer, that is very difficult. Papa did not have many relatives, and Mama’s are all in Ireland and I have not met any of them.”

      “I thought,” Mr. Mercer said quietly, “that you would live with your aunt, Lady Banton, in Bath.”

      Minella sighed deeply.

      “I suppose that is eventually just what I shall have to do, unless I can find some sort of employment.”

      Mr. Mercer looked at her sympathetically.

      He had met Lord Heywood’s widowed sister, who was older than he was and knew that she was not only in ill health but was one of those people who was always complaining and finding fault with everything and everyone.

      In fact the last time he had come in contact with her he had said to his wife,

      “I don’t believe that Lady Banton has ever said a nice thing about anyone in her life.”

      “I suppose, poor dear,” his wife had replied, “she thinks that life has treated her badly and, of course, it had all started with her being excessively plain.”

      Mr. Mercer had laughed.

      But he thought now, looking at the girl opposite him, that her being so exquisitely lovely would not make her aunt feel any kinder towards her.

      He leant across the desk, which had already been sold to pay for its late owner’s debts, to say,

      “Surely there is someone else you could go to? What about that charming cousin who used to come here some years ago and ride with your father and then after your mother died helped him to entertain the guests at one of his shooting parties?”

      “You must mean Cousin Elizabeth,” Minella said. “She married and is in India with her husband. She has not written to me so I presume she does not know that Papa is dead.”

      “Could you not live with her?” Mr. Mercer asked.

      Minella shook her head.

      “I am certain that she would not welcome my imposing on her in India and you know as well as I do, Mr. Mercer, that I could not afford the fare.”

      Because the one hundred pounds that he had put aside for her would not last forever, Mr. Mercer admitted silently to himself that this was the truth.

      Yet he was deeply concerned as to what would happen to the girl he had known since she was a child and who had grown lovelier year by year with nobody to admire her in the quiet, unfashionable County of Huntingdonshire.

      Lord Heywood had often complained,

      “Why my ancestors settled in this benighted hole, God only knows! I can only imagine that the house attracted them for there is nothing else.”

      It was in fact a most attractive seventeenth century Manor House and, as Lady Heywood had always said, it was comparatively easy to run.

      But there was nothing in Huntingdonshire to attract the sophisticated friends whom Lord Heywood enjoyed having around him except for himself.

      There was no doubt that Roy Heywood was born to be the centre of an admiring throng. He had a vitality and a charm about him that was irresistible.

      Minella was not surprised when after her mother died her father was constantly being invited to parties in every other part of the country except for where they lived.

      There the County gentlefolk seldom gave parties anyway.

      Because she was too young to accompany her father even if anyone had wanted her, she had been obliged to stay at home in The Manor and wait for his return.

      Sometimes it would be a long wait, but she had learnt to be pretty well self-sufficient and was quite happy as long as she had horses to ride.

      Until the end of last year she had been very busy being educated.

      “For Heaven’s sake,” her father had said to her, “stuff a little knowledge into your head! You are going to be very beautiful, my darling, but that is not enough.”

      “Enough for what?” Minella asked.

      “Enough to keep a gentleman amused, attracted and in love with you forever,” her father answered.

      “The way you loved Mama?” Minella asked.

      “Exactly,” her father replied. “Your mother always intrigued and amused me and I never missed anybody or anything else as long as we were together.”

      This was not entirely true, for Minella could remember times when he had expressed disgust and irritation because they had no money.

      He hated not being able to whisk her mother off to London, to go to theatres and balls and meet people who were as gay as themselves.

      Even so The Manor had always seemed full of sunshine and laughter until her mother had died.

      It had been a desperately cold winter and, however many logs were piled onto the fire, the house always seemed to have a damp chill about it.

      Alice Heywood’s cough had become worse and worse until finally, unexpectedly and without warning, it turned to pneumonia and within two weeks she was dead.

      To Minella it was as if her whole world had crashed about her ears and she knew that her father felt just the same.

      When the funeral was over, he had said violently in a voice she had never heard from him before,

      “I cannot stand it, I cannot stay here thinking your mother will walk into the room at any moment.”

      He had left that same evening and Minella knew that he had gone to London to try to erase the memory of her mother and the happiness they had known in the past, which haunted her as well.

      From that moment on her father had changed.

      Not that he had become morose, gloomy and introspective, as another man might have done. Instead he had gone back to the raffish, devil-may-care self that he had been before he married.