The road was crowded with carriages and vehicles of all types. Some were very grand, the occupants being extremely elegant ladies holding up small sunshades for fear of being sunburnt.
Others were rough carts drawn by mules and, to her delight, Ancella often saw two white bullocks yoked together in harness.
Beaulieu seemed to have been built in a sheltered wood and there was a profusion of orange and lemon trees, tall hedges of roses and scented geraniums bordering it.
Above rose gigantic perpendicular cliffs, their skyline fringed with pine trees, the limestone interstratified with layers of red sandstone.
There were also magnificent ancient olive trees, some of them, Ancella had read in a guide-book, being over a thousand years old.
After leaving Beaulieu, the carriage drove along the road known as the Lower Corniche. It had been hewn in some places out of the rock and once they passed through a short tunnel so that Ancella’s eyes had to adjust themselves from brilliant sunshine to partial darkness and back again to brilliance.
The railway line ran beside them and before Ancella had progressed very far the train she had come from Paris in passed them and she knew that it was going on to Monte Carlo, which was the end of the line.
She knew that thirty years ago in 1868 it had been completed so as to reach Monte Carlo and the effect had been explosive! Every day crowds of passengers poured out of the trains and into the gambling rooms.
Ancella had noticed when they left Paris that the travellers on the express were very smart and opulent.
They certainly made themselves comfortable on the journey. She had seen huge hampers being carried in to their compartments or left outside, heard the pop of champagne corks and in the morning had seen a great many empty bottles placed outside the doors so that they could be cleared away by the attendants.
‘How shocked Aunt Emily would be!’ Ancella thought with a little smile.
Then suddenly the carriage turned off the road and began to descend a very steep driveway that curved down the side of the cliff.
For the first time she realised that they had left the line of the railway and were between it and the sea.
When she had asked Sir Felix the address of the Princess Feodogrova’s villa, he had told her that it was the Villa d’Azar, Point de Cabéel near Eza and Ancella had looked it up on the map.
She had found that it was a tiny promontory on the Monte Carlo side of Beaulieu.
It had been so small that it was only after searching for some time that she found it on a very large-scale map that her father kept of all the different regions of France.
Now, as the carriage curved down the tree-shaded drive, with the walls on either side brilliant with pink and crimson geraniums, she saw below her a large building with a flat roof gleaming very white against the green trees and the blue sea beyond it.
The carriage came to a standstill outside an important-looking front door, on either side of which were pots containing coral-coloured azaleas.
The hall was spacious and cool and a resplendent Major Domo bowed respectfully before he invited her to follow him.
Feeling for the first time a little apprehensive and nervous, Ancella walked up a wide stairway.
On the first floor the Major Domo turned left and knocked on a closed door.
It was opened by a grey-haired maid with what Ancella thought privately was a disagreeable expression.
“The m’mselle from England,” the Major Domo said.
The maid looked at Ancella, then walked ahead, obviously expecting her to follow.
She opened another door and now for a moment Ancella was blinded by the sunshine pouring in from windows on two sides of the room.
Then she saw that seated in an enormous silk-draped bed, propped up against a profusion of pillows, there was an elderly woman.
“So you have arrived!” a querulous voice said in English, but with a slight foreign accent. “And about time! I began to think that you must have been lost on the way!”
Ancella approached the bed.
Now she could see its occupant clearly and could not help being surprised.
The woman sitting back against the pillows seemed very old!
Her face was deeply lined and looked the texture of ancient Chinese parchment. There were, however, patches of rouge on her high cheekbones and her lips were vividly coloured.
On her head was obviously a dark wig in which several diamond stars were glittering in the sunshine.
The glitter was echoed by the bracelets on her thin wrists and the rings on her fingers. Around her neck there were ropes of magnificent pearls so large as to look like birds’ eggs.
Over her shoulders she wore a stole that Ancella knew was made of priceless Russian sable and an ermine cover had been thrown aside on the bed.
She was so surprised at the Princess’s appearance that for the moment she could find nothing to say.
The Princess might be old, but her eyes were shrewd and, as Ancella entered, she looked her up and down taking in every detail.
“So you are Ancella Winton,” she said after a moment. “You are younger than I expected!”
Ancella felt a little guilty.
Sir Felix had deliberately abstained from mentioning her age, because he was afraid that Dr. Groves might think her too young to occupy such a responsible position.
“We will not lie,” he had said to Ancella, “but we will not offer any unsolicited information. After all, only I know how experienced you are in nursing a sick person and how extremely efficient you are under the most difficult circumstances.”
“I am sorry if Your Highness is disappointed,” Ancella said, finding her voice after a distinct pause.
“I have not said so, have I?” the Princess snapped. “I like young people, if they keep their place and if they know how to behave!”
“I hope I shall do that,” Ancella said.
“You are pretty – too pretty for this sort of employment,” the Princess remarked. “Why are you not married?”
Ancella had an overwhelming desire to laugh.
This was not at all the way she had expected the interview to take place between employer and employee.
“No one has asked me!” she answered and saw the Princess’s lips twitch as if she was amused.
“Then you must have been shut up in a Convent or incarcerated in a prison!” she remarked. “Have you had breakfast? ”
“I had a cup of coffee on the train,” Ancella replied.
“Then you will be hungry!”
The Princess rang a small gold bell that lay beside her on the bed.
Instantly the door opened and the maid appeared.
She was there so quickly that Ancella could not help suspecting that she had been listening.
“Give Mademoiselle Winton something to eat!” the Princess commanded, “and after she has unpacked and changed her clothes, I will see her again.”
The maid nodded. She was obviously a woman of few words.
Ancella curtseyed and went from the room, conscious that the Princess’s eyes were following her.
The maid led her across the landing at the top of the stairs to the other side of the villa.
There were a number of rooms here, which the maid walked past until finally she opened a door and Ancella saw a small room where the window looked out onto the other side of the promontory.
At a glance she could see that she could look back towards Beaulieu and the peninsula of St. Hospice at Villefranche jutting out into the sea.
It was very lovely, so that with an effort she forced herself to turn to the maid and say,
“When I have unpacked and changed, shall I come to Her Highness’s room?”
The maid nodded somewhat condescendingly and walked away.
‘She is jealous!’ Ancella told herself.
She knew that all lady’s maids hated nurses or any other outsider who should somehow diminish their authority where their employer was concerned.
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‘Perhaps she will get to like me better later on,’ she thought and, because she was alone, turned again to the window.
She had only just reached it when there was a knock on the door and two footmen came in carrying her belongings and with them an elderly man.
She knew at a glance that he was Russian and he was in fact very ugly and strange-looking with a large, bald, egg-shaped head, high cheekbones and deeply hooded eyes.
He appeared to be in charge of the footmen, giving them directions, but he looked all the time at Ancella and she felt that he was sizing her up, looking her over in a manner that she resented and felt was extremely impertinent.
The footmen unstrapped her trunk and then, as they straightened themselves, the Russian said in French,
“You have everything you brought with you, m’mselle?”
His voice was harsh and Ancella knew when he spoke that there was something unpleasant about him.
“Everything, thank you,” she replied coldly.
“If you want anything – ask me! I am Boris!”
“Thank you,” Ancella replied.
She met his eyes deliberately, feeling in some way she could not explain that he was trying to intimidate her.
For a moment they looked at each other and then Boris turned away.
He preceded the two footmen out of the room and one of them closed the door.
‘What a horrible man!’ Ancella told herself.
She did not know why, but she felt that there was something ominous about him – something dangerous for which she had no explanation.
Chapter Two
When Ancella had changed her gown and helped the French maid who came to do her unpacking arrange her clothes the way she wanted them, she went back along the corridor towards the Princess’s room.
When she reached the outer door and knocked, it was opened by the maid.
She looked at Ancella so aggressively that she explained,
“Madame la Princesse asked me to return when I was changed. I think she wants to see me.”
“She’s busy!” the maid said sharply, speaking for the first time since Ancella had arrived at the villa.
She had a provincial French accent with an overtone so that Ancella had the idea that she must have been with the Princess for a long time and perhaps spent many years in Russia.
She knew it was usual for the Russian aristocracy to have French maids, French Tutors for their children and, when they were en famille, to speak French.
In fact French was the chic language in St. Petersburg and she had not been apprehensive about communicating with her employer as she journeyed to France because she was quite certain that the Princess would automatically speak French, not only with her but also with her own relations.
She had, however, underestimated the linguistic skills of the Russians and that the Princess spoke excellent English was something Ancella told herself now that she might have expected.
Her father had told her that the Russians were a very cultured people.
“They may have been uncivilised in dealing with their serfs and the poorer classes,” he said, “but those who can afford it are extremely well-educated and are men and women of great culture.”
Ancella had never met a Russian before and the more she thought about the Princess the more fantastic she appeared.
Never had she imagined that a woman could wear so much and such magnificent jewellery and now she realised that the villa itself was the height of luxury.
Even the furniture in her bedroom seemed to consist of museum pieces and she had noted in the Princess’s room, in the hall and in the corridor magnificent examples of Boulle and marquetry while she was sure the pictures on the walls were masterpieces.
She hoped she would have time to examine them more closely later on.
Now she said to the maid,
“Shall I return to my room?”
“No, wait, m’mselle the maid replied. “La gitane will not be long.”
Ancella’s eyes widened.
‘La gitane’ meant ‘the gypsy’ and she thought that she must be mistaken.
How could it be possible that the Princess was engaged in her bedroom with a gypsy? They were, she knew, considered outcasts in France as they were in Spain and many other European countries.
The old maid saw her surprise.
“You’ll learn here that there’s nothing more important than la chance!” she said in a grumbling tone.
“The Princess gambles?” Ancella asked.
“You’ll learn!” the maid said again.
Ancella felt ashamed to be gossiping with a servant. At the same time she was intensely curious.
“Will you tell me your name?” she asked in her soft gentle voice.
“Maria,” the maid replied.
Ancella smiled.
“Then I hope, Maria, that you will help me. I have never been employed in this capacity before and I am sure that I shall make a great many mistakes without your guidance.”
The suspicion and aggressiveness in the old woman’s face melted visibly.
“You’re too young!” she said after a moment’s pause.
“I know,” Ancella agreed disarmingly, “but I shall grow older and I have to start somewhere.”
She thought that there was a faint smile on Maria’s face as she said,
“You just have to do what Her Highness requires. That’s all she’ll expect from you.”
“I shall certainly do that,” Ancella replied. “That, after all, is what I am paid for.”
Maria glanced at the closed door that led to the Princess’s room. Then she opened another one.
“You can sit down here in my room, m’mselle,” she said. “La Bohemienne will not be long. As soon as she gets her money, she’ll scuttle off!”
“Does the Princess always consult her?” Ancella asked.
“Her and a lot of other charlatans,” Maria replied. “They’re harpies, the lot of them!”
She spoke with so much disgust in her voice that Ancella wanted to laugh.
Just as she was about to question Maria further, there was the tinkle of the Princess’s golden bell and the old woman went to the door.
Ancella saw a dark gypsy woman, wearing jangling golden chains and huge earrings with a red handkerchief over her hair, being shown out onto the landing where Boris was waiting to take her downstairs.
She looked far too opulent and well-dressed to be the type of vagrant gypsy that Ancella had seen at home when they passed through Windsor, many of them journeying to the hop fields of Kent.
As a child she had been fascinated by their dark eyes and black hair, their piebald horses and colourful caravans, but she had always been warned about them and threatened by her nurse that they would kidnap her and take her away.
She had not believed that, since they always appeared already to have far too many children of their own, but she had realised that they were a strange and alien people.
She knew too that the villagers were afraid of them, not only attributing the loss of poultry to them as they passed through the countryside but also putting down to ‘the Evil Eye’ any illness arising in the months after their departure.
Ancella wondered whether la gitane had given the Princess really good advice.
She was quite certain that if Her Highness won she would attribute it to the gypsy’s powers of divination and if she lost, the excuse would be that the planets were not favourable or the time of day unpropitious.
“Her Highness is ready for you now, m’mselle,” Maria announced and Ancella rose from the chair to walk into the bedroom.
The Princess was still in bed, but now, lying on the exquisite and obviously very valuable lace cover there were pieces of paper, astrological charts and a pack of worn cards.
The Princess regarded her with her bright shrewd eyes.
“Have you ever played Baccarat or Roulette?” she asked.
“They are illegal in England,” Ancella
replied.
“I know that!” the Princess snapped. “But they are played in private houses and by your Prince of Wales.”
“Yes, that is true,” Ancella agreed. “I had forgotten.”
“I don’t suppose you have ever been invited to such parties,” the Princess conceded. “What are your parents like? Very respectable?”
“My parents are dead!” Ancella said gently. “But Your Highness is right – they were very respectable!”
“And they would turn in their graves, I suppose, if they thought that you were une habituée of the Casino in Monte Carlo?”
Ancella smiled.
“My aunts would certainly be scandalised!”
“Then it is fortunate they will not know,” the Princess said, “for that is where you will be this evening!”
“I will?” Ancella exclaimed in surprise.
“I expect you to accompany me,” the Princess replied. “Every night after dinner I visit the Casino and I play for two or three hours. As it is inconvenient trying to reach the table from a wheelchair, I shall want you to place my stakes for me.”
“Yes, of course, ma’am,” Ancella agreed.
At the same time she could not help feeling how horrified Aunt Emily and Aunt Edith would be if they knew.
“I wonder if you have the Eye of Divination?” the Princess said reflectively. “Petula, the gypsy, who was here just now said that I would meet someone with the Eye. Do you think that is you? ”
“I have no idea, ma’am,” Ancella replied.
“I suppose she was speaking of a man,” the Princess said almost to herself, “but it might be you, it might be!”
“How does the gypsy predict your fortune?” Ancella asked.
“By cards and a crystal ball,” the Princess replied. “But there is an astrologer and I think he is better than Petula. He works on my horoscope and tells me what will happen from the position of the stars.”
The Princess paused for a moment and then said,
“It all comes back to luck. It is luck that counts and I have never found anyone yet who could predict really accurately how luck would affect the turn of a card or the fall of the Roulette ball.”
Ancella was quite certain that this was true, but for the moment she was rather overcome with the idea that she should go with the Princess to the Casino.
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