The Keys of Love (2 page)

Henrietta did not know what the word ‘improvise' meant, but she said nothing.

She just placed her hand in her partner's and they were away.

The housemaid watched with pursed lips, throwing anxious glances at her, but she did not notice.

She felt like a feather, drifting here and there over the floor.

So this was what it was like to be grown-up!

When the dance finished, the young man bowed.

“Thank you, Miss Radford. I presume you are Miss Radford and not some changeling?”

Henrietta, unsure of ‘changeling', but being certain of who she was, nodded proudly.

“And how old are you, Miss Radford?”

“Seven,” replied Henrietta gravely. “And a half.”

Her partner's eyes twinkled.

“Well, when you are seven
teen
and a half, we will hopefully dance again.”

Henrietta had often thought since of the handsome young man who had danced so gracefully with her, but she never saw him again.

Perhaps it was because those days of splendour at Lushwood had ended soon after, when her grandfather died and it was discovered that he had squandered a large part of the family fortunes.

For years the new young Lord Radford and his wife struggled to maintain the house and its extensive estate.

Then Lady Radford died and Lord Radford lost all heart for the task. Day after day, Henrietta would find her father in his study, a glass of wine in his hand, as he stared disconsolately at the lovely portrait of his late wife.

Henrietta blinked away her own tears whenever she looked at the portrait.

Her mother had been regarded as something of a Saint. She had weathered the vicissitudes of her husband's wealth with equanimity. She neither admonished him for his generosity to impoverished relations, nor pilloried him when that generosity was not returned in his hour of need.

Henrietta had always believed her mother to be the prettiest woman in the world with her thick dark hair and warm hazel eyes.

One morning, looking up at her portrait, Henrietta thought she could see something else in those eyes. There seemed to be an expression of deep concern in them as she

gazed down upon her grieving husband.

She followed her mother's gaze to where her father slumped in his chair, his glass of wine at such an angle that it seemed it must spill on the carpet.

Gently Henrietta reached out and took the glass out of her father's hand.

“Papa. Please don't be so sad. Mama would not be happy to see you like this.”

Lord Radford repressed a sob as he replied,

“Ah, my dear, how can I not be sad? I have lost the dearest sweetest companion. She was always delicate, but to be stolen from me by a fever just a fever! How can I ever recover? No marriage was ever so content as mine. Now I have no one.
No one
!”

“You have
me
, Papa,” whispered Henrietta.

Lord Radford put his hand over his face in remorse.

“Child, how can I be so insensitive! Of course, I have you, but one day you will marry and leave me.”

“Everybody leaves in the end, Papa, so that there is always somebody who is left behind.”

He twisted in his chair to regard his daughter with astonishment.

“Those are sad but wise words for one so young!”

Henrietta was fifteen and a half, but, as she looked back at her father now, she felt much older.

“Papa,” she said, “let's go out and prune the roses in Mama's garden. They look so terribly overgrown.”

Her father roused himself to do as she suggested, realising that he had somewhat neglected her in his allconsuming grief.

He could not lose his air of dejection, however, and Henrietta despaired as summer waned and the trees began to shed their leaves.

A long sad winter lay ahead.

*

Then one autumn morning a letter arrived bearing a very unfamiliar postmark.

“
The United States of America
,” Henrietta read out with surprise before handing the letter to her father.

“My goodness,” he exclaimed, “it must be from my old uncle Harold. He emigrated some thirty years ago and has not been heard of since.”

The letter was not from Uncle Harold, but from his lawyer.

Uncle Harold had died, bequeathing his nephew a large tract of land in Texas.

To Lord Radford, this seemed like a sign, a chance to leave the sadness of Lushwood behind for a while.

He decided he must travel to Texas and attempt to establish a farm there.

“Many people make fortunes in America!” he cried. “Think of how Lushwood would benefit if I was to return with loads of money!”

Henrietta begged to go with him and not to be left behind in a boarding school.

Too fond of his daughter to thwart her, he agreed.

Lushwood was closed and most of what remained of the staff, a cook and two scullery maids, were dismissed.

Henrietta's old nanny, however, was recalled from retirement to travel to America with them.

Nanny readily assented, for she had been missing young Henrietta a great deal.

Lord Radford, Henrietta and Nanny left Lushwood on a grey autumnal morning.

Henrietta leaned out of the carriage window for a last glimpse of her beloved home, which bore a dilapidated and abandoned air.

‘We'll be back,' she whispered. ‘I promise we'll be back. And then you'll be restored to all your former glory

 just as Mama would have wished!'

At first it had not seemed that her promise would ever be fulfilled.

The land in Texas turned out to be dry and thorny. All efforts to farm the land successfully had failed.

Lord Radford and the local Mexicans he employed toiled day and night, but neither crop nor cattle flourished.

Henrietta and Nanny did their best to keep order in the house, a big rambling adobe, ranch-style building, but the heat and flies seemed to affect everyone.

Henrietta's one consolation was that her father had to work so hard on the farm that his mind could not dwell very often on the loss of his adored wife.

Then, one evening, one of the Mexican farmhands, Pablo, came running to the house in great excitement. He must speak to the ‘Meester'.

Lord Radford had left Pablo sinking a new well to the North of the farm.

“I dig deeper and deeper and stop to wipe my face,” babbled Pablo, “and when I take up my spade again, what is coming out of the earth at my feet but plenty water!

“Plenty. Only it ees thick. And
black
. Black as my kettle. It bubbles up, Meester, as if eet has no end!”

Lord Radford had leaped up in an instant. He knew what that meant.

Oil
!

He was now a wealthy man!

The fortunes of the Radfords had turned at last.

Too late, alas, to save his wife! But not too late to save Lushwood and to ensure a comfortable future for his darling daughter.

Henrietta was sent North to Boston, where she was lodged with Nanny and attended a finishing school. She was sorry to leave her father, but not dusty Texas.

She made good friends among her schoolmates, but after six months she felt ‘finished' enough.

She had learned posture and etiquette and how to sit with her hands in her lap, but her mind hungered for more substantial fare.

Left to her own devices in the big house on Boston Common, she read all she could lay her hands on, and even taught herself to speak French.

Her father visited when he could, but she knew that he was busy sinking wells and building up his business and she would have dearly loved to see more of him.

Meanwhile, as news of the oil find on the Radford land spread North, Henrietta found herself besieged by a growing number of suitors.

Most were from impoverished European Royalty or aristocracy come to America to marry into money.

There just seemed to be a virtual epidemic of these men offering some title or other in return for a fat dowry.

One day she was beginning to dream wistfully of a man who would love her for something other than the large number of gold nuggets stacking up in her father's account in the Bank of North America.

She started from her reveries when the door of the drawing room opened and Nanny put her head round.

“It's a lovely bright day, my dear. Would you care to go skating?”

Henrietta jumped up in delight.

“Oh yes, Poody!”

Poody was her chidhood pet name for Nanny.

It had been snowing all morning, but now the sun was out and the frozen pond was shining like pewter.

She sailed gaily onto the ice, her hands enveloped in a thick white muff. Soon her cheeks were rosy red and her eyes sparkling.

Blonde curls fluttered about her face though most of her hair was tucked into a soft white fur hat.

Nanny thought that she looked a delightful picture in the pale winter sunlight.

There was a delicate crunch of snow underfoot as a gentleman wearing a cloak and a black racoon hat came to the edge of the pond. He lit up a big cigar and stood there, smoking and watching Henrietta.

She was not aware of him at first as her eyes were half closed as she whirled and twirled, feeling wonderfully alone in this powdery sparkling kingdom.

It was only when she skated closer to the shore that her gaze fell on her watcher.

His intense stare unnerved her and before she knew it she was wobbling dangerously.

Next she landed unceremoniously on her back.

Henrietta heard Nanny's gasp and then she could hear someone else slide out onto the ice.

A second later the gentleman in the racoon hat was hovering over her, his cigar still smoking in his hand.

“You are not hurt?” he enquired.

“N-no. I don't think, I am,” murmured Henrietta.

“Well, please, allow me to help you to your feet.”

He threw aside the cigar and extended his hand.

Henrietta was lifted up and guided onto the bank.

Nanny fussed around her, removing her skates and shaking the powdery ice from her muff.

Henrietta stood still mutely, glancing up from under her long lashes at the handsome stranger.

For he was indeed handsome in a very sharp way.

His lips and nose were delineated like cut glass and his eyebrows were quite straight. His eyes were blue and might have seemed frosty to other observers, but Henrietta was only aware of the searching interest they betrayed.

‘Well,' she thought, ‘at least he likes me and I think he
does
like me for myself alone, for he has no idea of who I am.'

“Your home is far?” he asked with evident concern. It was clear from his accent that he was not American.

“No, very close,” replied Henrietta. “We are just over there. The house with yellow shutters.”

The gentleman followed her eye. Henrietta gave him no chance to enquire her name.

She did not wish to spoil the pleasure of being admired for herself alone.

Back in her little red boots and galoshes and her muff restored, she quickly bid the stranger adieu.

When she glanced over her shoulder as she left the common with Nanny, he was still watching her.

*

The very next morning she heard the doorbell ring.

A moment later a maid came into the drawing room to announce that Prince Vasily of Rumania requested the pleasure of calling upon the young lady with the red boots and the white fur hat.

It was clearly the gentleman from the day before.

‘
And he still does not have any idea of who I am
,' thought Henrietta in delight.

Prince Vasily was dressed in scarlet and clicked his heels when he greeted her.

“You now know my name,” he began, “but I am at the disadvantage, for I do not know yours.”

Henrietta hesitated.

“It is Henrietta Radford,” she replied at last, staring up at him.

She waited for an instant gleam of recognition, for the inevitable glitter of pecuniary interest to enter his eyes as with so many of her suitors, but it did not come.

“Radford?” he repeated. “I think you are not native to Boston, no?”

“No,” she breathed. “I am English. My father is in Texas for a while on business.”

“I wish him success, for Texas is hard country.”

Convinced that here at last was a man who had no interest in her fortune, the next hour passed like a dream.

She learned that the Prince was travelling the world before he settled down to administer his estate near Okna, in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains.

When the Prince begged leave to call on her again, Henrietta was happy to accede to his wish.

Even Nanny approved.

The Prince took to calling every morning and soon he and Henrietta were driving out together in his splendidly upholstered carriage.

One morning he sighed as he looked out upon the snowy streets of Boston.

“In my country now, there is also much snow, and the mountains are looking like pillars of ice.”

“It sounds as if it's very beautiful there,” murmured Henrietta.

“It is beautiful, but ” the Prince heaved a deeper sigh, “mine is a Kingdom that is lacking a Princess!”

With a thrill Henrietta realised that the Prince was now seriously courting her.

Since he had not known her name when they first met and therefore could not possibly be a fortune hunter, Henrietta allowed herself to take his attentions seriously.

She began to imagine herself as a Princess, strolling the grounds of Okna on the arm of her handsome husband.

She found herself blushing whenever he raised her hand to his lips or fixed an especially ardent gaze on her.

She was very excited when her father wired to say he would be arriving that weekend for a short visit.

She could not wait to introduce him to the Prince.

He was almost the first subject raised as her father set down his case in the hall on his arrival.

“He is very aristocratic, Papa, and his manners are impeccable! And he must have a fortune of his own, for he rides in a fancy carriage. He is just as a Prince should be!”