The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lamp of Fate, by Margaret Pedler

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: The Lamp of Fate

Author: Margaret Pedler

Release Date: April 13, 2006 [EBook #3824]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAMP OF FATE ***

Produced by Dagny; John Bickers

THE LAMP OF FATE

By Margaret Pedler

Then to the rolling Heav'n itself I cried,
Asking, "What Lamp of Destiny to guide
Her little Children stumbling in the Dark?"
And--"A blind Understanding!" Heaven replied.
The "Rubaiyat" of Omar Khayyam.

To AUDREY HEATH

DEAR AUDREY: I always feel that you have played the part of Fairy
Godmother in a very special and delightful way to all my stories, and
in particular to this one, the plot of which I outlined to you one
afternoon in an old summer-house. So will you let me dedicate it to you?
Yours always,

MARGARET PEDLER.

THE LAMP OF FATE

PART ONE

CHAPTER I

THE NINTH GENERATION

The house was very silent. An odour of disinfectants pervaded the
atmosphere. Upstairs hushed, swift steps moved to and fro.

Hugh Vallincourt stood at the window of his study, staring out with
unseeing eyes at the smooth, shaven lawns and well-kept paths with their
background of leafless trees. It seemed to him that he had been standing
thus for hours, waiting--waiting for someone to come and tell him that a
son and heir was born to him.

He never doubted that it would be a son. By some freak of chance
the first-born of the Vallincourts of Coverdale had been, for eight
successive generations, a boy. Indeed, by this time, the thing had
become so much a habit that no doubts or apprehensions concerning the
sex of the eldest child were ever entertained. It was accepted as a
foregone conclusion, and in the eyes of the family there was a certain
gratifying propriety about such regularity. It was like a hall-mark of
heavenly approval.

Hugh Vallincourt, therefore, was conscious at this critical moment of
no questionings on that particular score. He was merely a prey to the
normal tremors and agitations of a husband and prospective father.

For an ageless peri