Love Joins the Clans

by Barbara Cartland

  Clova could understand this and it had been enough to know that her mother was happy and laughing, as if she had a whole lifetime in front of her instead of only a few years. Or was it months?

  Sometimes Clova would lie awake at night wondering what she could do and where she would go when her mother died.

  Then she thought that it was selfish to think about herself when her mother was dying and the only thing that really mattered was that she should be happy.

  But happiness unfortunately meant spending money and suddenly Clova found that, perhaps through her own stupidity, they were down to their last few francs.

  She was uncomfortably aware that she had refused to face the fact that they were overdrawn at the Bank up to the limit and there was no chance of their obtaining any more.

  She was wondering frantically what she should do, knowing that the rent for the sordid lodgings they were in at the moment was due in a few days’ time and there was literally no money to pay for food.

  Her mother at the moment appeared to have no admirers willing to provide her with a meal.

  “I want a new hat,” Lottie said petulantly as Clova helped her to dress.

  “That is certainly something we cannot possibly afford, Mama.”

  She saw the disappointment in Lottie’s still beautiful blue eyes and then suggested,

  “I tell you what we will do. The sun is shining and we will walk to the Rue de Rivoli, look at the shops and pretend we can buy anything we want.”

  Lottie had laughed spontaneously.

  “Yes, that is what we will do,” she agreed. “And if I see a kind gentleman friend, I will ask him to give me a new hat. I hate this one!”

  “You look very lovely in it, Mama,” Clova said.

  Because there was that ominous little pink flush in her mother’s cheeks, it was the truth.

  Last night she had heard her coughing and she already suspected, although she asked no questions, that Lottie had been coughing blood, but had not said anything to her.

  It was a warm spring day and the chestnut trees were just coming into bloom.

  Their lodgings were not in one of the wide tree-lined roads off the Champs-Élysées, where they had lived in the past, but in a dingy little alleyway where the houses had deteriorated and many were condemned as uninhabitable.

  It did not take them long, however, to reach the Rue de Rivoli and almost at once Lottie stood entranced in front of a window that was displaying furs.

  There was a sable stole with a large number of tails hanging from it with a muff to match.

  “That is what I want!” Lottie cried. “I have wanted one for ages!”

  “Then imagine you are wearing it, Mama,” Clova said. “Think of it as encircling your shoulders while your hands are warmed in the muff and then it is yours just as much as if we could afford to pay for it.”

  Lottie had laughed spontaneously so that several people turned to look at her.

  They had moved on, but suddenly Lottie seemed to stagger a little and, afraid that she had done too much, Clova put her arm round her.

  It took a long time to go home, because Lottie seemed not to have the strength even to put one foot in front of the other.

  By the time they reached the dingy house where they were living, Clova had practically to carry her up the stairs.

  She undressed her mother and put her to bed, then, as she fell into a deep sleep, she went out again.

  *

  The Bank where Lionel Arkwright had originally opened an account for them was in the Rue Royale.

  Clova entered and asked to see the Manager.

  Monsieur Beauvais was an elderly man who had been in charge of this branch of the Bank for some years and Clova knew him.

  “I am sorry to bother you, monsieur,” she said in her perfect French after he had greeted her, “but my mother is very ill and, although I know that we already owe you a small amount of money, I can only beg you to be generous and let us have a further loan.”

  “I am afraid that is impossible, mademoiselle,” he replied. “Much as I would like to accommodate you it is the policy of the Bank’s Headquarters not to give loans without security and I am obliged to obey their instructions.”

  “Of course I understand, monsieur, but if you could let us have just a few louis for a week or so, I am sure that as soon as my mother is better I could then pay you back.”

  “And how would you manage to do so?”

  He was thinking as he looked at Clova across his desk how lovely she was.

  At the same time he was well aware that she was far too thin, her chin was sharp against her long neck and her eyes were too big in her small face for it to be natural.

  “I am sure, if nothing else,” Clova said slowly, “I could secure a job teaching English to French children, but for the moment I dare not leave my mother.”

  She had thought out this reply to the question that she was sure he would ask, but she was aware as she spoke that it did not sound very convincing.

  There was an uncomfortable silence and she sensed that the Bank Manager was trying to think how he could put it to her without being too unkind that there was nothing he could do.

  Then, as if he played for time, he said,

  “All I can promise you, mademoiselle, is that I will write to Headquarters, explain your predicament and say that your mother is a very old customer.”

  “My mother has banked with you since I was seven,” Clova said, remembering that had been her age when she had first come to Paris.

  Monsieur Beauvais nodded.

  “And now,” Clova remarked, “I am nearly nineteen, so we are, as you say, very old customers.”

  He smiled and stood up.

  “I promise I will do my best, mademoiselle, and I will let you know their reply as soon as I can.”

  There was nothing Clova could do but thank him, but, as she walked slowly back, she thought despairingly that only a miracle could help her now.

  ‘Please God,’ she prayed, ‘send somebody – anybody to – help Mama. She has not long to – live anyway and to – die of hunger would be too cruel.’

  She was still praying when she reached the front door.

  The concierge’s wife, a kindly woman, was just coming out with one of her children in her arms.

  “Have you been shopping, mademoiselle?” she asked.

  Clova told her the truth.

  “I have no money for shopping, madame, I wish I had. Mama is hungry and so am I.”

  She thought for a moment that the woman was going to enquire how in that case she was going to pay the rent, but instead she said,

  “There is a little milk and several croissants left over from breakfast on the table in my kitchen. If they are of any use, you are welcome to them.”

  For a moment Clova thought that she would kiss the kindly woman as she replied,

  “Thank you, madame. Thank you! Thank you! You are very kind and I know that Mama will thank you too when I tell her.”

  She went into the house to find the croissants and the milk and hurried up the stairs with them to her mother.

  She was still asleep and Clova thought when she awoke that she would break one of the croissants into the milk and spoon it to her mother.

  She sat in the window, looking out at the sunshine trying to percolate through the gloom of the streets and wondered what she could do.

  ‘Mama will have to stay in bed tomorrow,’ she decided, ‘while I go looking for work.’

  She saw a flashily dressed woman leave the house opposite and start walking down the street, swinging her hips as she did so, in an unmistakably provocative manner.

  It was growing late in the afternoon and Clova knew quite well where she was going.

  For a moment it seemed the obvious answer to her own problems and then she closed her eyes in horror at the idea.

  Because there was nothing else she could do, she started praying again.

  The croissants and milk did not seem to
interest Lottie much, but what she could not eat kept Clova from lying awake with the pangs of hunger inside her.

  She had already looked through their clothes the previous week to see if there was anything more she could sell or pawn, but anything worth even a few centimes had already gone.

  She walked from her own bedroom across the landing to her mother’s and as she did so she heard the concierge shouting from down below,

  “Is that you, mademoiselle? There’s a letter for you just been delivered by hand.”

  The old man was too fat and lazy to climb the stairs unless he was positively obliged to do so and Clova knew that she would have to fetch the letter herself.

  She resisted an impulse to run, knowing that the only person who would have delivered a letter by hand was the Manager of the Bank.

  She felt sure that it would contain in fulsomely polite tones a refusal to oblige even an old client.

  She reached the concierge’s desk where he sat in an ancient dilapidated armchair over a small stove, which he kept alight even in the summer.

  “Voila, mademoiselle,” he said. “Looks important, doesn’t it?”

  “Thank you, monsieur, yes, it does,” Clova nodded.

  She had no intention of satisfying his curiosity and she walked away without opening the letter until she was halfway up the stairs.

  There was a landing and she went to the window, which badly needed cleaning, and opened the letter, which, as she had expected, bore the name of the Bank on the flap of the envelope.

  Slowly she drew out the contents, read the first words and then looked incredulously at the envelope to be quite certain that it was her name that was written there.

  “Mademoiselle Clova McBlane.”

  There was no mistake, and surprisingly ‘McBlane’ was spelled correctly, which was unusual.

  She looked at the letter again and then, with a cry that seemed to come from the very depths of her heart, she ran up the stairs.

  She opened the door to her mother’s bedroom and found that she was awake, strangely enough looking somehow different from the way she usually did first thing in the morning.

  Her hair, despite the touch of grey in it, was golden against the rough cotton pillows and her eyes seemed to shine as if the sun had caught them.

  “Mama! Mama!”

  “What is it?” Lottie asked.

  With difficulty Clova managed to say,

  “Do you remember Jan Maskill?”

  There was silence while Lottie thought.

  “Should I – remember him?”

  “Yes, Mama. Think. He came from South Africa, a rather good-looking man. He stayed with us for a month here in Paris and then we went to Monte Carlo. It must have been five or six years ago.”

  “Yes, Jan Maskill, of course, I – remember him now,” Lottie said. “He loved me, Clova – although he had a wife and two – tiresome children. He kept telling me about them.”

  Clova looked down at the letter.

  “He certainly loved you. Mama! He has died and left you a fortune!”

  Lottie stared at her.

  “What do – you mean by – ‘a fortune’?”

  “His Bank has just communicated with ours. The Manager tells me that he had put some shares in his diamond mine in your name.”

  “Shares?” Lottie said. “I would rather have had the diamonds on my fingers!”

  “You have now inherited the shares on his death,” Clova went on, “and they have vastly increased in value. In fact at the present rate of exchange – they are worth over a million francs.”

  Clova’s voice seemed to break on the last words.

  Her mother, however, closed her eyes and there was a happy smile on her lips as she said,

  “Now I can have those sables, the ones I wanted yesterday.”

  “Yes, of course, you can.” Clova answered.

  Her voice broke and tears were running down her cheeks.

  But, when she went to see her mother again, she realised that she was dead.

  Chapter Two

  Lottie was buried with a pomp and style that would have delighted her.

  Clova found that the Bank was only too pleased to advance her any amount she required until the money from South Africa arrived and Monsieur Beauvais himself undertook to look after her affairs.

  When the funeral was over, Clova realised sadly that the only other mourners had been a representative from the Bank and the concierge’s wife, who had wept copiously through the Service.

  It seemed horrifying that Lottie, who had been such a success in Paris when she was with Lionel Arkwright and for many years after he had left her, should now have had no one else to mourn her.

  As they had gradually become poorer and poorer and moved to lower and cheaper accommodation, Lottie had been too proud to contact her old friends.

  Moreover, although she would not admit it to herself, she had not felt well enough to make the effort.

  But to Clova it seemed bitter that she had not been able to enjoy the money that Jan Maskill had so kindly left her.

  There had not even been time to buy the sables that had delighted her so much in the Rue Royale.

  Going back to the two empty bedrooms after the funeral was over, Clova looked around her as if she was seeing them for the first time and realised how squalid and uncomfortable they were.

  She thought of all the elegant houses and apartments that they had lived in before and knew that those who had disapproved of Lottie would say she had got what she deserved.

  Yet it was impossible to forget her laughter, her irresistible enjoyment of life and the happiness she brought, even if it was a fleeting one, to so many different men.

  At least Jan Maskill had appreciated her and Clova thought that perhaps he and her mother would find happiness together in that other world that they had travelled to within a few weeks of each other.

  Now she had to decide what she was going to do and for the first time she realised how lonely and friendless she was.

  She had been so intent on looking after Lottie this last year ever since she had known it was impossible to save her life that she could hardly remember talking to anyone except shop assistants and lodging house keepers.

  There was therefore literally no one she could visit in Paris and ask to advise her.

  As she thought about it, she knew that it would be difficult as a young unmarried woman to obtain decent accommodation.

  And it was unlikely that any responsible hotel would accept her.

  She was sure that most landlords would refuse to rent her an apartment when she had no personal credentials and no older woman to chaperone her.

  She went to the window to look out over the roofs of Paris and think how frightening it was to be so completely alone and without her mother.

  She had loved Lottie with a childlike devotion and, although Lottie had expected her to wait on her hand and foot, she had always felt that by being with her mother she was protected and also had a purpose in life.

  Now that was gone and there would be nothing to replace her it in the future

  She put her hands up over her face and instinctively she was praying fervently and agonisingly for God’s help.

  Lottie had never felt the need or inclination to attend a Church Service and, living in France, they had not taken the trouble to find a Protestant Church, although it had been a Clergyman from the British Embassy who had taken the Burial Service.

  That had been arranged by the Bank Manager and Clova had only exchanged a few words with the English Parson, who was an elderly man with white hair.

  Perhaps, Clova thought, she should ask him for assistance and it would certainly be a sensible thing to do.

  But it would be embarrassing when he enquired where she worshipped and her only answer could be that she and her mother sometimes went into Catholic Churches, lit a candle and prayed for anything that they particularly wanted at that moment.

  Clova had the idea that what her mother
prayed for was that there would be another man in her life.

  She was sure when one did appear that Lottie attributed it to the candle she had lit in the Madeleine, in Notre Dame or when they were in Monte Carlo in the Chapel of Ste-Dévote.

  ‘Perhaps I had better wait until tomorrow and ask Monsieur Beauvais, who has been so kind and helpful, if he will assist me,’ Clova decided finally.

  Anyway she had to thank him for everything he had done for her and it would be easier to call and see him at his office.

  She rose from the bed where she had been sitting and crossed the room to the looking glass, wiping her eyes as she did so.

  One thing she could do would be to buy something decent to wear.

  She had bought herself a simple black gown for the funeral and now, looking in the mirror, she thought that her mother had been right when she had said that, because of their fair hair and blue eyes and translucent white skin, black made both of them look theatrical.

  Not that that had worried Lottie. Indeed she often added a black gown to the expensive garments she possessed when some man was paying for them.

  But black, sparkling with diamanté, ornamented with flowers and feathers, was very different from the severe black of mourning.

  As Clova looked at her reflection, she had the uncomfortable feeling that if she tried to find a position as a Teacher in a school or as a Governess in a Parisian household, her employer would think that she looked too sensational or perhaps ‘flamboyant’ was the right word.

  ‘I will not wear black,’ she decided, knowing that if Lottie knew why she did not appear in mourning she would think it sensible and not in the least insulting to herself.

  “One must always make the best of oneself,” her mother had said not once but a hundred times as they moved about Paris or journeyed to Monte Carlo.

  “No one could suggest that you do anything else, Mama,” Clova had answered.

  “But you have not combed your hair properly this morning and your shoes are dusty,” Lottie had replied. “Appearances are always important and I would not want any of my friends to think that I neglected my little daughter.”