A Fall from Grace, Maggie Ford [best english novels to read txt] 📗

the Boer Wars his father attained the rank of colonel and Hamilton will be looked upon to follow suit. In time, my dear, you will become the wife of an officer of high rank equal to that of his father in his time and will enjoy all the fine prestige that carries.’

For the first time in many long months he smiled benignly at her. ‘You will be proud of him, my dear. And grow ever fonder of him. So enough of this foolishness…’ The smile vanished. ‘I have decided to announce your engagement to Hamilton before the end of the month. It will no doubt be a military wedding as befits the times.’

Decision made, he strode away, leaving her as though rooted to the spot, staring after him. Her stomach felt odd, then a sudden spasm caught her, not painful but strange so that her head felt it was reeling, making her feel suddenly feeble. She felt herself sway. Her mother’s voice, calling to her, seemed to be a long way off, her mother catching her as she began to slip to the floor, but she was unaware of it as blackness engulfed her.

Madeleine was lying in bed in her room. Her mother was bending over her. By the window the silhouette of her father’s back was dark against the bright sunshine pouring into the room. Between the two stood a man, tall, thin, bespectacled, slightly balding; Murray, their family doctor. He looked grave.

Her gaze drifting back towards her mother, she saw that she had been weeping, her face anguished but not loving. Seeing her open her eyes fully, her mother straightened up and walked away, stiff backed. No one spoke and all Madeleine could say was, ‘I’m sorry. I must have fainted.’

At the words her father whirled round to face her. ‘Sorry! Is that all you have to say?’ He came forward to stand over her like a dark monument.

‘How dare you bring this appalling shame upon us?’

‘I don’t understand,’ she quavered, still not quite back in the world. ‘What have I done?’

A convulsive sob was torn from her mother at her words. Her father’s reply to her question rumbled deep and sonorous in her ears.

‘You know well enough. Doctor Murray has informed us of your condition. You disgust me. And I want nothing more to do with you. I wish never to set eyes on you again, do you understand what I am saying!’

From across the room, her mother broke in, her words tumbling out in a frantic torrent. ‘How could you do this to us? I am so ashamed! How could you?’

Her voice melted into tears, Doctor Murray going to her aid. ‘Try to calm yourself, my dear. Your daughter…’

‘She is not my daughter!’ she burst out, the words seeming instantly to freeze Madeleine’s heart. ‘I can’t bear to look at her. I don’t ever want to look at her again. What are we going to do?’

Madeleine felt sickness rising inside her, not from her condition but from what her mother had said.

‘There is only one solution,’ Doctor Murray was saying. ‘She must marry her fiancée as soon as possible. She is only just above three months. If her fiancée hasn’t yet realized her condition, you may use the excuse when the time comes that the child arrived earlier than expected. It happens quite often. But you should not delay. It is the only solution…’

‘There is only one solution!’ her father echoed forcibly. ‘I have no intention of harbouring this disgusting creature that has the audacity to call herself my daughter under my roof. We know for a fact that her fiancé would never have…’

He pulled himself up sharply, leaving the rest unsaid. But Madeleine knew what he had been about to say. To say it would have lowered him in the eyes of all who knew and respected him, including their family doctor.

Instead he continued, ‘But I thank you Doctor Murray, for coming here so quickly. You have been most helpful and I am grateful to you. But I expect you’re probably needed elsewhere.’

As Doctor Murray took his leave, Madeleine got up from her bed and, going to the door of her room heard her mother say after they’d closed the front door on the doctor, ‘She knows no one else other than Hamilton and I certainly cannot believe it is him.’

‘Of course it’s not him!’ he answered irascibly.

‘But who?’

‘I’m not concerned who,’ he growled. ‘She has disgraced this family’s good name. She is soiled, caring for nothing but her own disgusting desires and I’ll not abide her living under this roof for one minute longer. I cannot even bear to look at her. I am sickened by her and I shall never forgive her, and neither shall you, Dorothy, at your peril!’

Madeleine wrenched open her door, ran out on to the landing, leaning over the balustrade. ‘You can’t mean that!’ she cried out in panic. ‘I never meant for this to happen to me.’ She saw him look up at her, his expression, harsh and unloving, freezing her blood.

‘That does not change anything. That you lowered yourself to let some filth have his way with you, be used for some stranger’s appetite turns my stomach. My own daughter no more than a…’ He stopped short of having to utter whatever immoral term he’d been about to use. Instead he drew himself upright, seeming to tower above his wife. ‘I erred in calling you my daughter. I will correct that. You are no longer my daughter.’

‘Who was it, Madeleine?’ cried her mother but he cut her short.

‘We do not wish to know. You will not ask that question again, Dorothy.’

Her mother fell silent but Madeleine found her own voice, descending the stairs at a run to face him. ‘Father, I need to explain, I’m…’

Her words were sharply silenced by a stinging slap across her cheek. Never before had her father ever laid a hand on her. His voice and the sharp glare of his blue