An Angel Runs Away by Barbara Cartland

she went on,
    “All you have to do is to enjoy yourself, my child, and remember that you are a reflection of your mother, who shone like a star at every ball she attended.”
    “I shall never be as beautiful as Mama,” Ula sighed. “But I cannot help feeling that she would be pleased that I have escaped from Chessington Hall.”
    She paused before she said hesitantly,
    “Last night I – woke up and found I was – screaming because I thought Uncle Lionel was – beating me.”
    “Forget him!” the Duchess said sharply. “There is no reason why he should frighten you anymore and he will not interfere in your life again from now on.”
    There was silence and then Ula said in a very small voice?
    “But – what is to – become of me – when I am no longer of any – use to his Lordship?”
    “I have been thinking about that,” the Duchess replied, “and I intend to ask him if you will come and live with me. You may find it rather dull, but I am sure, even if you are not living at Raventhorpe House, a great many of your admirers will call on us in Hampstead.”
    Ula gave a cry of delight.
    “Do you really mean that? Are you quite – sure you want me? You are not just being – kind?”
    “I would love to have you,” the Duchess replied, “but I have a feeling that long before that you will be married.”
    Ula shook her head and the Duchess said firmly,
    “Of course you will! In fact I shall consider it an insult if, having produced, with the help of my grandson, a new star in the social firmament, there are not at least a dozen eligible young men knocking on the door and laying their hearts at your feet.”
    The way the Duchess was speaking was so funny that Ula laughed.
    “I am sure they will do nothing of the sort,” she said, “but it would be very exciting to have even – one proposal.”
    *
    There were no proposals at the reception that took place in the afternoon. But wearing a very beautiful gown, Ula received a great number of compliments from the Duchess’s friends.
    Most of them had known her mother and all of them without exception remembered the sensation Lady Louise had caused when she ran away on the night before her wedding.
    Before the reception, Ula had been a little afraid that some of the Duchess’s friends might criticise or condemn her mother, in which case she would have found it difficult to be polite to them.
    But without exception they all told her how beautiful her mother had been and how brave it had been of her to marry the man she loved rather than the Duke chosen for her by her father.
    “She was so different from the other girls of her age,” one lady said, “and I am sure, my dear, that you are very like her.”
    “What made her so different?” Ula enquired.
    The lady paused and then she said,
    “I think it was that she was obviously so good in herself, that it was difficult, in spite of her beauty, for us to be jealous of her.”
    She smiled as she explained,
    “She was always prepared to share everything, even the men who admired her, with the girls who did not have as many partners as she had. It would have been impossible to dislike anyone who was so warm-hearted and so lovable.”
    After all the cruelly unkind things her uncle and aunt had said about her mother, it gave Ula a warm feeling to hear people talk of her like that.
    To the lady who had first spoken she said,
    “Thank you very much for what you have said to me. I only wish Mama could – hear you. She would be – very proud.”
    Everybody to whom Ula talked asked the same questions.
    Had her mother been happy, really happy? Had she no regrets at running away as she had?
    “Mama and Papa were the happiest couple in the world,” Ula replied. “As for regrets, Mama always said that she thanked God every day when she said her prayers for giving her Papa and letting her be brave enough to run away with him.”
    By the time the reception was over, the Duchess had received a dozen invitations to