108. An Archangel Called Ivan Read Free

man called Charles replied. “It will be an agony beyond words, my darling, to leave you, but I have no alternative than to marry Arliva as her aunt wants me to.”
    It was then that Arliva realised who was speaking.
    It was a young man called Charles Walton whose mother had been one of her aunt’s bridesmaids and her greatest friend.
    She had heard them talk before of the family estate that he had inherited from his father.
    It had been doing pretty well until the Crimean War had taken a great number of men who were in the County Yeomanry into the British Army fighting the Russians and indeed the British casualties had been very high.
    “I hate wars,” Arliva’s father had said at the time, “and it has been extremely poor diplomacy on our part for us to become so entangled in this one.”
    Arliva knew he was right when in the following years the countryside suffered by the loss of the men who had died so bravely in the Crimea.
    She knew now that the young man she had been listening to was a near neighbour of hers in the country.
    Her father, who had been a friend of his father, had always said that Charles was a very bright young man who would go far if he had the chance.
    Now Arliva realised that his only chance had been to try to save his family home and estate.
    And, as he had failed, he was to lose the girl he loved as well.
    She had a suspicion who she was, but she was not certain. Then, when a few minutes later he said her name, she recognised her.
    “You do have to be brave about all this, Betty, my precious,” Charles said. “But I just cannot allow any more deaths in the village. Apart from that, you know as well as I do that the roof is leaking badly and, unless it is repaired, it will undoubtedly collapse and cost a fortune to replace.”
    There was silence for a moment.
    Then Betty asked,
    “Is there anything you can sell?”
    “Do you imagine,” Charles replied, “that I have not walked round the house a thousand times to find something to sell if it is only a piece of china? But the only things left of any value are entailed onto the son I will never be able to afford to have, although I have often dreamt of how wonderful it would be to see him in your arms.”
    “I have dreamt of that too,” Betty said softly, “but I feel that we are giving in too easily.”
    “I wish I could think the same,” Charles went on. “I have thought about selling the pictures even though it’s illegal for me to do so.”
    “If you did, would anyone really be aware of it?” Betty quizzed him.
    “They would know immediately. Every month the Trustees make some excuse to visit me. I know it’s to see that I have not sold, as they expect me to do, one of the pictures that were the joy and delight of my grandfather or the silver he inherited as a young man and was determined should remain in the family as long as it existed.”
    Charles spoke with such bitterness that Arliva was not surprised when Betty sighed,
    “I am sorry, darling Charles. It’s just that I feel like you do that something must be done. But it would be an agony for me to watch you marrying someone else.”
    “I have to marry Arliva even though she is quite obviously not in love with me and she will appreciate the fact that her father and mine were close to each other. I am quite certain that, if he was alive, Lord Ashdown would have helped Papa when he knew how bad the situation was.”
    ”Could you not just ask Arliva to help you?” Betty enquired.
    “You don’t suppose her Solicitors and those who control her fortune would encourage her to give it away in large quantities. To get straight, Betty, my dearest one, we need twenty thousand pounds, which is a fortune by any man’s calculations.”
    There was an ominous silence.
    Then Betty said in a trembling voice,
    “Do you think she will accept you?”
    “Because our fathers were so friendly she at least will be more interested in me than in those over-dressed, stuck-up young London