“You’re never going to do that!” Gracie exclaimed in astonishment. “What’ll your grandmother say?”
“She will say a great deal,” Roberta replied, “but only after I have gone!”
“D’you mean you’re leavin’ without tellin’ her?”
“I will keep them guessing as to where I am,” Roberta smiled. “Actually I am going to Paris to find Papa and you are coming with me!”
Gracie, who was very energetic and spry at sixty-nine, looked at her in astonishment.
“Did you say we’re a-comin’ with you, my Lady?”
“Yes, Gracie. You know quite well I cannot travel alone. Mama would not have approved, and so you have to look after me.”
Gracie gasped in astonishment, but, because she loved Roberta and was actually thrilled at the idea of going away, she agreed to everything that was suggested.
It was not easy, but once Roberta had made up her mind she could be as determined as her father when the occasion arose and everything seemed to fall into place.
She had no ready money because she seldom went shopping and her grandmother gave her only the same amount of pocket money she had received when she lived with her father and mother.
This was actually not enough to take her to Paris, so she planned to wait until the end of the month when the servants in the house, as well as those employed on the estate, would be paid.
This meant that the estate Manager, a slow-thinking middle-aged man, would come to The Hall the afternoon before and sit in the room that was known as the Estate Office and count out all the money that would be given out the following morning.
When he had put it into neat little bags, he would lock them up in the safe for the night and hand the keys to the Countess, leaving everything in what he called ‘apple pie order’.
That afternoon Roberta waited until she had heard him say goodbye to her grandmother, when as usual the Countess placed the keys in the right hand drawer of her desk before going upstairs to change for dinner.
It took Roberta very little time to collect them, go to the safe, open it, empty all the little bags of money into a small case she had ready and leave a piece of paper on which she had written,
“I owe you the money I have taken from here and which will be repaid by my father, the Earl of Wentworth.”
She had signed it with a flourish, placed it in a prominent position and put the keys back in the desk.
Then she had gone demurely upstairs to say goodnight to her grandmother and her Aunt Emily before she ate her supper alone in the schoolroom.
Because she was only sixteen, it was only on special occasions that she was allowed to dine downstairs.
However, as she found dinner in the dining room, waited on by a butler and two footmen, long drawn out and extremely boring, she much preferred to eat alone and read a book at the same time.
But that night she was too excited to read and, having sent away most of the well-cooked, nourishing but dull dished that were brought to her, she went to her bedroom to make sure that everything was ready for the morning.
The most awkward problem had been how to get the local brougham, which was for hire, to call at the house without her grandmother being aware of it.
Then Gracie had come to her aid.
“If I says one of my relatives be ill, my Lady, I can hire Tom Hanson to take me to the station and he’ll call for me at whatever time I tells him to.”
“Of course, Gracie! I might have thought of that myself!” Roberta exclaimed. “Will you tell him to be outside your house at four-thirty in the morning so that we can catch the milk train to London which I know leaves from Chelmsford at five o’clock.”
“I’ll do that, my Lady,” Gracie agreed.
It was therefore as dawn was rising over the trees in the Park that Roberta reached the stables.
All she was taking with her was a small carpet bag that contained only necessities and two of her lightest dresses.
They had been chosen for her by her grandmother and she was quite certain that her father would think them as unattractive as she did and buy her something new.
The same applied to the very plain gown she was to travel in and the coat that went over it.
It was her Sunday best and every time she put it on she felt as if she might have come out of an orphanage.
Her bonnet was the same dark blue as the rest of her outfit and was trimmed with the blue ribbons that seemed to have no colour in them.
It presented no difficulty to Roberta to saddle one of the horses she habitually rode and to ride it holding her carpetbag on the saddle in front of her.
When she reached Gracie’s cottage she saw with a leap of her heart that Tom Hanson’s brougham was outside and that he was just walking up the small path to knock on the cottage door.
There was a light in the window, which told her that Gracie was ready.
As she dismounted with some difficulty because she was still holding her bag in her hand, Tom Hanson turned around to stare at her in astonishment.
“‘Mornin’, my Lady!” he said. “And where might you be a-goin’?”
“I am coming with you, Tom,” Roberta replied. “It’s a long journey for Gracie to make on her own, so I have decided to accompany her.”
“That’s right kind of your Ladyship,” Tom exclaimed, “but what be you goin’ to do with your ’orse?”
“I shall turn him loose on the village green,” Roberta replied. “He will not go far and I thought you might be kind enough when you return from the station to take him back to the house for me.”
Tom Hanson scratched his head.
“I’ll do that right enough, my Lady,” he said, “but what’s ’appened to all them grooms in the stables?”
“They were asleep,” Roberta said lightly, “and it was quicker for me to come alone than to wake one of them up.”
Tom laughed and she was certain that this was a joke that would be repeated against the grooms for a long time to come.
Then she and Gracie were off and she knew that it would be at least four or five hours before anybody realised that she had gone. By then it would be too late to stop her, even if they guessed where she was going.
She had left a note for her grandmother, but was too wise to say that she had gone to her father, thinking perhaps they would telegraph to the authorities to stop her at Dover.
Instead she wrote that she had suddenly heard that a dear friend was ill and had gone by train to visit her, taking Gracie with her as she was certain that her grandmother would not like her to travel alone.
This made it sound so correct that she knew it would never enter her grandmother’s head for one moment that she was doing anything so reprehensible as to travel to Paris.
Thinking back on it afterwards, Roberta was astonished that everything went so smoothly.
They managed to catch the morning train to Dover, which connected with the afternoon cross-channel ferry.
She could afford, with the money she had taken from the safe, to travel in every comfort and it was therefore not an arduous journey, except that they did not reach Paris until early the next morning.
It was then Roberta encountered the real difficulty, which was to find her father.
Afterwards he scolded her for embarking on such an escapade without knowing exactly where she could find him.
“I remembered two things, Papa,” Roberta explained to him blithely. “First, that when you took Mama to Paris I wrote to you care of the Travellers’ Club and secondly, you told me that your English Bank was situated in Paris in the Rue de la Paix.”
The Earl looked at her in astonishment.
“Whatever made you remember that?”
“I suppose because the way you and Mama talked about the Rue de la Paix made it sound to me the most exciting street in the whole world!”
“That is what it was to your mother?” the Earl laughed. “Mr. Worth works there and no woman who came to Paris could resist buying one
of his creations the moment she arrived!”
That was true, Roberta thought, because the gowns her mother had bought at Worth’s were the most beautiful she had ever seen.
Anyway, knowing that she must wait until the Bank opened, Roberta had taken Gracie, who by this time was too bemused to ask any questions, to a hotel next to the station.
When they had eaten a large breakfast, they had sat in the comfortable lounge until it was after eight o’clock.
Then when Gracie’s head was nodding with fatigue despite the fact that she had slept most of the way in the train, although Roberta felt as bright as the birds which by now would be singing in the gardens of England, they had driven to the Bank in the Rue de la Paix.
When she had explained to the Bank Manager who she was, he had given her her father’s address without too much prevarication.
It was nine-thirty when the voiture that Roberta had hired drew up outside a tall rather distinguished looking house in a quiet street just off the Champs Élysées.
The Earl was having breakfast when the French servant, making no effort to announce her, opened the door and let her into the dining room.
For a moment her father could only stare at her in astonishment as if he did not believe she was real.
Then, as Roberta ran towards him, he rose to his feet exclaiming in astonishment,
“My precious, is it really you?”
“Yes, it’s me, Papa! Do you not recognise me?” Roberta asked feeling, although she was smiling, curiously like tears now that her journey was at an end.
She flung her arms around her father and, as he held her close against him and she kissed his cheek, the Earl asked,
“Why are you here? What has happened? Why did you not let me know that you were coming?”
“I have run away, just as you did, Papa!” Roberta replied breathlessly. “I heard that you were alone and I could not stand Grandmama’s and Aunt Emily’s croakings any longer! Since Lady Bingham has returned to her husband, they have started to say how wicked you are all over again and I refuse to put up with it any longer!”
The Earl hugged her.
“My darling, this is madness! Delicious madness! God, I am pleased to see you! I cannot tell you how much I have missed you.”
“As I have missed you, Papa.”
Now, to her surprise, tears were rolling down her cheeks and she was kissing him, kissing him over and over again as if she could hardly believe he was really there.
Then it seemed as if neither of them could ever stop talking – there was so much to say, so much to ask, so much to remember.
It was typical of the Earl, that, because it was what Roberta wanted, he accepted what she had done and never suggested that she should return.
“You realise, my dearest, that if you stay with me, it will not be possible for you to be a conventional debutante? I am sure you would never be allowed to make your curtsey at Buckingham Palace.”
“All that matters is that I should be with you, Papa,” Roberta replied. “If I stay any longer with Grandmama, I shall die of boredom or else become a terrible bore myself. Then no man will look at me, let alone wish to marry me!”
“The first thing you can do,” the Earl said disparagingly, “is to throw away those clothes! They would make even Aphrodite look plain and that’s an understatement!”
It was not only what he said but the way he said it and suddenly Roberta was laughing helplessly and he was laughing too.
It was like stepping into Paradise after being incarcerated in the darkest Hades that had ever imprisoned Persephone.
As might have been expected, the Earl did not alter his way of life because his daughter was living with him.
There were beautiful women to amuse him in the evenings and occasionally he took Roberta out to luncheon with them or they rode all together in the Bois de Boulogne.
During most of the time they were in Paris, he spent part of the day with his daughter and left her alone in the evening.
He insisted that she have a Tutor to teach her French and a dancing master as well as a music master to call at the house and give her lessons.
While he was amusing himself in his own way, he arranged that Roberta should attend the opera and the theatres wherever there were plays that he considered suitable for her to see.
Her French teacher took her round the museums and art galleries and they visited Versailles, Fontainebleau, and of course, Notre Dame.
It was all so different from studying the subjects out of books as she had been made to do at The Hall, reading the classics with Aunt Emily, struggling with endless arithmetic, Algebra and geometry problems with the retired Governess and doing hours of homework which usually consisted of copying out passages from a book.
Everything she did in Paris, everything she saw, seemed to sparkle as if it had a life of its own and she knew that not only would she learn at breakneck speed but also that every day new horizons were opening up before her eyes.
Then, just when she felt that she was now proficient in French, her father became enamoured of a very beautiful Italian Contessa and almost before Roberta realised what was happening they had moved to Italy.
First they stayed for several months in Venice, then in Rome and lastly moved South to Naples.
It was here that the Earl’s affection for the Contessa faded and somebody new and very unusual attracted his attention instead.
Her name was Francine and she was half-French, half-Arab.
She was to Roberta undoubtedly the most alluring and exotic woman she could ever have imagined let alone met.
Francine had the sinuousness of a snake and her large almost black eyes seemed to hold all the allure and mystery of Africa.
The Earl was entranced by her and readily agreed that she should show him what she thought of as her own country.
Francine’s mother had been an Algerian Princess, her father a French diplomat stationed in Africa, who, when his term of service was up, had returned to his own country and to his wife who was waiting for him there.
Francine had been extremely well-educated and had been brought up as a Frenchwoman and not as an Arab as one might have expected.
She had married, which gave her freedom to escape from the confinements that her family placed upon her.
But whether she had left her husband, or he her, Roberta never knew.
She was now free, rich and looking for excitement and adventure in the same way that the Earl was.
They certainly found it together and, as they accepted that Roberta should go with them, she found everything they did entrancing and far more informative than any lesson could possibly be.
Just as she had learnt French in France and Italian in Italy, now Roberta began to learn Arabic.
It was Francine who was able to teach her the different dialects of the tribes, just as she could explain the history, the beliefs and behaviour of the Arabs they met as they travelled through Algeria, Morocco and down into Senegal.
To Roberta everything was fascinating, even the heat, the bad-tempered camels, the difficulties that frequently confronted them and, just as her father laughed at anything that occurred and thought it was a huge joke, so did she.
While Francine would throw up her hands, expostulate and rage at those who caused a disturbance, she too would laugh, even at the most uncomfortable disaster that befell them.
Then she would pull the Earl’s head down to hers and kiss him so that they forgot everything but themselves.
It was a strange existence for a young girl, for they would go for weeks without seeing anybody but natives and, as Francine and her father had so much to say to each other, they often forgot to address one word to her.
Roberta did not mind, she was so happy to be with him and, just as she was not jealous of Francine, it was a relief to know that she was not jealous of her.
Because Francine was used to a French household where everybody was accommodated from the youngest grandchild to the oldes
t grandparent, they all lived together and she accepted Roberta in a way that none of her father’s other mistresses had done.
She did not resent her, she did not worry about her and it was doubtful if she even thought about her.
Roberta was just part and parcel of the happiness she was finding with the Earl and he with her.
They journeyed over the mountains, they were guests of Arab Chieftains or they camped at an oasis beside a well, slept through the hottest hours of the day, then moved on when it was cool.
It was all so fascinating, a story unfolding in front of Roberta’s eyes, and there was always something new and exciting to be discovered.
Now suddenly Roberta knew that with her father’s death it had come to an end.
Chapter Two
Having cried herself to sleep every night, by the time Roberta reached Marseilles she was very tired.
Then she told herself that she should be ashamed to be her father’s daughter if she could not do as he had suggested and make her journey to America an adventure.
He had been unconscious until the last moment before he died, when he had opened his eyes and looked at her as if, she thought, she was surrounded by a dazzling light.
Then he said very quietly,
“I love you – my darling!”
A moment later he stopped breathing.
She was not certain afterwards whether he was speaking to her or whether he thought that she was her mother, but his words were a comfort and she had the feeling that his spirit would be with her wherever she went.
When Hassam and the camel boys put him into his grave, which they had dug just outside the oasis in the sand, she made no attempt to read the prayers of the Burial Service over him.
She only prayed in her heart that he would be happy wherever he was and he would still look after her.
The Arabs stood around and she felt that there was sorrow in their dark eyes and that in their own way they had been very fond of her father.
Certainly they had all been with him ever since they had first come to Africa and had been prepared to go wherever he wished to travel.
71 Love Comes West Page 2