Produced by Dagny John BickersTHE LAMP OF FATEBy Margaret Pedler     Then to the rolling Heavn itself I cried     Asking What Lamp of Destiny to guide        Her little Children stumbling in the Dark     AndA blind Understanding Heaven replied     The Rubaiyat of Omar KhayyamTo AUDREY HEATHDEAR AUDREY I always feel that you have played the part of FairyGodmother in a very special and delightful way to all my stories andin particular to this one the plot of which I outlined to you oneafternoon in an old summerhouse So will you let me dedicate it to youYours alwaysMARGARET PEDLERTHE LAMP OF FATEPART ONECHAPTER ITHE NINTH GENERATIONThe house was very silent An odour of disinfectants pervaded theatmosphere Upstairs hushed swift steps moved to and froHugh Vallincourt stood at the window of his study staring out withunseeing eyes at the smooth shaven lawns and wellkept paths with theirbackground of leafless trees It seemed to him that he had been standingthus for hours waitingwaiting for someone to come and tell him that ason and heir was born to himHe never doubted that it would be a son By some freak of chancethe firstborn of the Vallincourts of Coverdale had been for eightsuccessive generations a boy Indeed by this time the thing hadbecome so much a habit that no doubts or apprehensions concerning thesex of the eldest child were ever entertained It was accepted as aforegone conclusion and in the eyes of the family there was a certaingratifying propriety about such regularity It was like a hallmark ofheavenly approvalHugh Vallincourt therefore was conscious at this critical moment ofno questionings on that particular score He was merely a prey to thenormal tremors and agitations of a husband and prospective fatherFor an ageless period it seemed to him his thoughts had clung aboutthat upstairs room where his wife lay battling for her own life andanothers Suddenly they swung back to the time a year ago when hehad first met heran elusive feminine thing still reckoning her age inteensbeneath the glorious blue and gold canopy of the skies of ItalyTheir meeting and brief courtship had been pure romanceromance suchas is bred in that land of mellow warmth and colour where the flower ofpassion sometimes buds and blooms within the span of a single dayIn like manner had sprung to life the love between Hugh Vallincourtand Diane Wielitzska and rarely has the web of love enmeshed two moredissimilar and illmatched peopleHugh a man of sevenandthirty thestrict and somewhat selfconscious head of a conspicuously devout oldEnglish family and Diane a beautiful dancer of mixed origin theillegitimate offspring of a Russian grandduke and of a French artistsmodel of the Latin QuarterThe three dread Sisters who determine the fate of men must have laughedamongst themselves at such an obvious mismating knowing well howinevitably it would tangle the threads of many other lives than the twoimmediately concernedVallincourt had been brought up on severely conventional lines rearedin the narrow tenets of a family whose salient characteristics werean overweening pride of race and a religious zeal amounting almost tofanaticism while Diane had had no upbringing worth speaking of As forreligious views she hadnt anyYet neither the one nor the other had counted in the scale when thecrucial moment camePerhaps it was by way of an ironical setoff against his environmentthat Fate had dowered Hugh with his crop of ruddy hairand with theardent temperament which usually accompanies the type Be that as itmay he was swept completely off his feet by the dancers magic beautyThe habits and training of a lifetime went by the board and nothingwas allowed to impede the swift not to say violent course of hislovemaking Within a month from the day of their first meeting he andDiane were man and wifeThe consequences were almost inevitable and Hugh found that his marriedlife speedily resolved itself into an endless struggle between thedictates of inclination and conscience Everything that was man in himresponded passionately to the appeal and charm of Dianes personalitywhilst everything that was narrow and censorious disapproved her totalinability to conform to the ingrained prejudices of the VallincourtsNot that Diane was in any sense of the word a bad woman She was merelybeautiful and irresponsiblea typical _cigale_ of the stagelovableand kindhearted and pagan and possessing but the haziest notions ofselfcontrol and selfdiscipline Even so left to themselves husbandand wife might ultimately have found the road to happiness across thebridge of their great love for one anotherBut such freedom was denied them Always at Hughs elbow stood hissister Catherine a rigidly austere woman in herself an epitome of allthat Vallincourts had ever stood forSince the death of their parents twenty years previously Catherine hadshared her brothers home managing his houseand on the strength ofher four years seniority in age himself as wellwith an iron handNor had she seen fit to relinquish the reins of government when hemarriedPrivately Hugh had hoped she might consider the propriety ofwithdrawing to the dower house attached to the Coverdale estates but ifthe idea had occurred to her she had never given it utterance and Hughhimself had lacked the courage to propose such an innovationSo it followed that Catherine was ever at hand to criticise and condemnShe disapproved of her brothers marriage wholly and consistently Inher eyes he had committed an unpardonable sin in allying himself withDiane Wielitzska It was his duty to have married a woman of the typeconventionally termed good whose bloodand religious outlookwerealike unimpeachable and since he had lamentably failed in this respectshe never ceased to reproach him Diane she regarded with chronicdisapprobation exaggerating all her faults and opposing her joylovingbutterfly nature with an aloofly puritanical disdainAmid the glacial atmosphere of disapproval into which marriage hadthrust her Diane found her only solace in Virginie a devoted Frenchservant who had formerly been her nurse and who literally worshippedthe ground she walked on Conversely Virginies attitude towards MissVallincourt was one of frank hostility And deep in the hearts