Part 1 (2/2)
He himself had never married.
He had been too busy when he was young in making a great fortune, and in fact the only woman he had ever loved and wished to make his wife had fallen in love with Charles Beverley, and he with her, at first sight.
A man of less fuse character than Sir Roderick might have been jealous and resented that he had brought together the two people he cared for most in the world, only in one way. to lose them both.
From the moment they met Charles and Charlotte Beverley ceased to remember that anyone else existed in the whole world.
Charles had always been a traveller and in an amateurish way an explorer.
Charlotte would have been perfectly happy to explore the moon if he had asked it of her.
Sir Roderick often thought it was quite incidental that they had a daughter. They both adored Astara who merely added to their happiness and they never found her an enc.u.mbrance for the simple reason that they never let her become one.
When they went travelling they took her with them.
By the time Astara was ten years old she had travelled in a dhow down the Nile, she had been capsized from a canoe in a crocodile-infested river, and she had encountered so many storms at sea that inevitably she had become a good sailor.
And she had seen parts of the world into which few adults, let alone children, had ever penetrated.
She was not surprisingly, by the time she came under the care of Sir Roderick, extremely intelligent and knowledge-able about many subjects of which another girl of her age would have been completely ignorant.
Sir Roderick thought what she needed was a sophisticated polish which would enable her to take her place in Society and ensure that her unusual and unique beauty acquired the right frame.
Sir Roderick was very much a man of the world and because he was so rich there was not a Capital in which he was not welcomed or a house in any country where its owner was not proud to entertain him.
The Worfields were an old and distinguished family and Sir Roderick was the seventh Baronet.
It would have been quite easy for him, since so many countries asked his advice and found they profited by it, to have acquired a number of other important t.i.tles, but he was not interested.
He was however extremely proud of the large and magnificent Mansion in Hertfords.h.i.+re, which had been in the Worfield family for nearly five hundred years.
His grandfather had added to it and the main part had been completely rebuilt by Robert Adam: It was these rooms which Sir Roderick thought were particularly right for Astara and he had spent the last two years when they were travelling about Europe acquiring pictures and other treasures with which to embellish them.
It had amused Sir Roderick when Astara was captivated in Paris by a picture by Johann Van Aachen who, a brilliant technician, had been Court painter to the exacting Emperor Rudolf II.
'He could understand Astara s enthusiasm for 'The Judge-ment of Paris because she herself resembled very closely the three lovely, ethereal G.o.ddesses who stood in front of the handsome young Trojan each one confident she would receive the golden apple he would give to the most beautiful of them.
There was something about Astara, Sir Roderick thought, that was different from any other woman he had ever met.
It 'was something ethereal and difficult to put into words, and yet he knew it was this which made men fall head-over heels in love with her the moment they saw her.
It also told him that London would be no different from Rome or Paris and he would spend most of his time fending - off the fortune-hunters.
He made no secret of the fact that he considered Astara his adopted daughter and that she would inherit a great deal, if not all, of his fortune.
It suddenly struck him as he walked across the room and out into the Hall where a number of servants were unpacking the huge cases in which the purchases they had made in Europe had travelled with them to England, that it might eventually prove more of a curse than a blessing.
Sir Roderick called to his Agent who was supervising the operations.
”I want two men, Mr Barnes, to bring that picture over there into the Salon and hold it up over the mantelpiece.”
”Certainly, Sir Roderick, ” Mr Barnes answered.
He followed the direction in which Sir Roderick pointed and he ordered two footmen to carry the picture into the Salon.
It was quite large and its frame was gilded and heavily carved. As they held it up Sir Roderick knew that Astara's good taste was unerring.
”It is perfect, just as I knew it would be!” she cried. ”It picks up the pinks in the carpet, the blue of the ceiling and I feel as if the whole room revolves around it.”
”Then it shall be hung at once!” Sir Roderick smiled, and gave the order.
They decided the position of several other paintings. Then Sir Roderick suggested it would be best to get most of them up on the walls so that they could sort them out later and arrange them to their best advantage.
”There are so many other things I wish to show you, my dearest child,” he said to Astara, ”that our new acquisitions will have to wait their turn.”
She smiled with delight for already she was fording that England had attractions she had not found in any other country.
She had not been in England for eight years and she had almost forgotten, she told Sir Roderick, how beautiful it was.
The daffodils made a carpet of gold in the Park and there were primroses in the hedgerows as they drove from London, and in the garden the first shrubs were coming into bud.
”It is even lovelier than I imagined it would be!” she said excitedly, ”and I really feel as if I have come home.”
Sir Roderick was delighted, as she knew he would be. That evening as they sat in the Salon after dinner and he saw that her eyes continua4 wandered to the picture over the mantelpiece, he said: ”Your appreciation for 'The Judgement of Paris' has, given me an idea!”
”What is that?” Astara enquired.
”I want you to sit in judgement not on three beautiful women, but on time handsome men!”
She looked at him in surprise and he went on: ”I have already told you that when I am dead you will inherit my fortune, but as you are aware there are always penalties attached to great wealth especially where a woman is concerned.”
He spoke seriously and Astara slipped from the sofa on which she had been sitting to kneel beside his chair.
”Then do not give me so much,” she said. ”I know that you are afraid of my being pursued by fortune-hunters, and I feel it is a mistake to put temptation in their way.”
”It is certainly a case of gilding the lily,” Sir Roderick agreed. ”You are so lovely, my dearest, that any man would love you if you were the proverbial 'beggar maiden', but we are both sensible enough to realise that most men find wealth irresistible.”
”I want to be ... loved for ... myself,” Astara said in a low voice.
”And you will be, that I promise you,” Sir Roderick replied. ”No-one who knew you could not love you, but I wish to ensure that when I am no longer here my money is handled in the right way.”
<script>