Call of the Heart Read Free

thinks it a right setting for an elopement.”
    Sophie smiled scornfully and added:
    “What is more important is that the Vicar can be bribed to keep his mouth shut, which is more than one can say of the more fashionable incumbents who are in league with the newspapers.”
    “And where are you going after you are married?” Sophie shrugged her shoulders.
    “Does it matter, as long as it is somewhere comfortable? I shall have the ring on my finger and I shall be Lady Rothwyn.”
    Again there was silence and then Lalitha asked hesitatingly: “And what about... Mr. Verton?”
    “I have written him a note and Mama has arranged that a groom shall deliver it to him just before I arrive at the Church. We thought it would look better and be more considerate if he were told before the ceremony actually takes place.”
    Sophie smiled.
    “That of course is really rather a cheat, since Julius is staying with his grandmother in Wimbeldon and he will not receive my letter until long after I am married.” She added after a pause:
    “But he will imagine that I have done the right thing, and it will be too late for him to arrive offering to fight a duel with His Lordship, which would be embarrassing to say the very least of it!”
    “I am sorry for Mr. Verton,” Lalitha said in a low voice. “He is deeply in love with you, Sophie.”
    “So he should be!” Sophie retorted. “But quite frankly, Lalitha, I have always found him unfledged and a bore!” Lalitha was not surprised at Sophie’s words.
    She had known from the very beginning of the engagement that Sophie was not in the least interested in Mr. Verton as a man.
    The notes of passion and adoration that he wrote her were left unopened.
    Sophie would hardly glance at his flowers, and she invariably complained that his presents were either not good enough or not what she required.
    And yet, Lalitha asked herself now, was Sophie really any fonder of Lord Rothwyn?
    “What is the time?” Sophie asked from the dressing- table. “Half after seven,” Lalitha replied.
    “Why have you not brought me something to eat?” Sophie asked. “You might realise I would be hungry by now.”
    “I will go and get you a meal at once!”
    “Mind it is something palatable,” Sophie admonished. “I shall need something sustaining for what I have to do this evening.” “At what time are you meeting His Lordship?” Lalitha asked as she moved toward the door.
    “He will be at the Church at nine-thirty,” Sophie replied, “and I intend to keep him waiting. It will be good for him to be a little apprehensive in case I cry off at the last moment.”
    She laughed and Lalitha went from the room.
    As she shut the door Sophie called her back.
    “You might as well send the groom now,” she said. “It will take well over an hour to get to Wimbledon. The note is on my desk.”
    “I will find it,” Lalitha answered.
    Again she shut the door and went down the stairs.
    She found the note addressed in Sophie’s untidy, scrawling writing and stood looking at it for a moment.
    She had the feeling that Sophie was doing something irrevocable that she might regret. Then she told herself that it was none of her business.
    With the note in her hand she walked down the dark, narrow stairs which led to the basement.
    There were few servants in the house and those there were were badly trained and often neglectful of their duties; for every penny that Lady Studley had, and a great deal she had not, had been expended on the rent of the house and on Sophie’s clothes.
    It had all been a deliberately baited trap to lure rich or important young men into marriage and it had succeeded.
    The person who had suffered had been Lalitha.
    While they were in the country, even after her father’s death, there had been a number of old servants who had continued to work in the house because they had done so for years.
    In London she had found herself being alternately cook, house-maid, lady’s-maid, and errand-boy