On an impulse Yola bent and kissed the older woman’s cheek.
“You have been so kind and so understanding,” she sighed. “I think that Papa would be glad that we are here together.”
She looked up at her father’s portrait as she spoke.
“You know, madame,” she went on, “nothing would have amused him more than what you call ‘this mad escapade’. He would have thought it showed courage and initiative – two attributes he liked me to have.”
“He might also have thought it foolhardy and dangerous,” Madame Renazé answered.
“How can there be any real danger?” Yola asked. “If things get out of hand I shall just come home.”
“I hope it is as easy as that,” Madame Renazé” replied doubtfully.
“I have a feeling that if your niece is like you,” Yola said, “she will be warning me and looking after me.”
“I hope she will do that,” Madame Renazé” said, “and, of one thing I am quite sure, she will find it very amusing. Aimée has a great sense of humour and she will enjoy deceiving the Marquis and perhaps the rest of Paris!”
“I am not interested in anybody but him,” Yola answered.
As she drove away from the little château, she felt elated and excited in a manner she had not felt since she had returned home.
First there had been the emptiness of The Castle without her father and then the menace that her grandmother had conjured up in speaking of the Marquis.
Now it was as if the sun had come out and the shadows had been dispersed and ahead there was a voyage of discovery that was a real adventure.
‘I must plan everything very carefully,’ she thought, ‘and no one must be in the least suspicious.’
Flicking her horses with the whip, she hurried them towards Langeais, knowing that Jacques would be waiting and undoubtedly reproachful because she had been so long.
*
Yola was having breakfast alone in the small dining room at The Castle when a servant brought her a note on a silver salver.
She took it from him and felt with a sudden leap of her heart that this was what she had been waiting for.
Three days had passed since she had visited Madame Renazé and she was beginning to wonder frantically if anything had gone wrong and her niece had refused to entertain such an idea.
Now, in the neat upright handwriting that she had seen on the letters in her father’s desk, was the answer she had been waiting for.
She did not open the envelope until the servants had left the room.
She breakfasted alone because her grandmother had hers in bed, saying that it was far too chill in the mornings for her to rise until the sun had done so.
The letter from Madame Renazé was very brief,
“My niece, Aimée, will be delighted to welcome you as soon as is convenient to you at her house in the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. When you reply, will you let her know if you would like a carriage to meet you at the Station or if you will find your own way? I shall be thinking and praying for you and you know that I wish for your well-being and your happiness.”
The letter was unsigned and Yola knew that Madame Renazé was being discreet in case it should fall into the wrong hands.
Yola was well aware that everyone, including the servants in The Castle, would be shocked if they knew that she was associating with the woman who had been her father’s mistress.
What was more, those who had served the Comte for years would think it their duty to tell her grandmother what was occurring and this might cause endless trouble.
Accordingly, she committed the contents to memory, tore the letter into small pieces and threw them onto the fire and then sat down to write to Madame Aimée Aubigny.
She did not entrust the letter to anyone in The Castle, but, making another excuse to go into the town, posted it herself.
Only when it had gone did she return to find her grandmother downstairs in the salon.
“How are you feeling this morning, Grandmère?” Yola asked, kissing her.
“A little warmer, thank you, ma chérie,” her grandmother replied, “but you seem to be very thinly garbed for a spring day. Remember the winds can be treacherous even in the Loire valley and you don’t want a repetition of your illness of last year.”
“It’s really quite warm, Grandmère,” Yola said, “but actually I do find I want a number of new clothes that I did not have time to buy before I came home.”
She did not look at her grandmother as she added,
“If the Marquis is coming here to stay and I hope – other people as well – I don’t wish to appear like Cinderella in rags and tatters!”
“You hardly look like that,” her grandmother replied, glancing at the elegant small crinoline that Yola was wearing and the little tight-fitting jacket that matched it.
“I think the exchequer might run to two or three gowns from Worth, do you not, Grandmère.”
She thought that her grandmother was hesitating and added,
“I am sure the Marquis, since he is such a ladies’ man has an appreciation of women’s clothes.”
It was the bait that she knew her grandmother would be unable to resist.
“Yes, of course,” the Comtesse replied. “You must be properly gowned and, although what you have been wearing seems very attractive, I daresay Worth will fit you out as befits your position and the clothes you buy can form the basis of your trousseau.”
Yola’s lips tightened, but she strangled the retort she was about to make before it reached her lips and said quite pleasantly,
“Then the sooner I go to Paris, the better, Grandmère. I think I had better leave the day after tomorrow. After all, having ordered what I want, I can return and then go back again if more fittings are needed.”
Before her grandmother could speak, she gave a little sigh.
“How I hate fittings! Perhaps it would be easier after all to look like Cinderella!”
“No, no, of course not!” the Comtesse said quickly. “A woman’s appearance is always important and it’s no use trying to be beautiful in a shabby frame.”
“Very well,” Yola agreed almost reluctantly, “I will go to Paris and I shall stay with one of my friends I was at school with.”
“Would you not like me to write to one of your cousins in the Boulevard St. Germain?”
Yola knew that this was the area on the Left Bank where the majority of the ancient regime had settled and she thought with a little smile of amusement how horrified they would be if they knew who she would really be staying with.
“No, thank you, Grandmère,” she said. “You know as well as I do that they will want to entertain me. They will give afternoon receptions and family dinner parties and I shall never have a chance of getting anything done.”
“Perhaps you are right,” the Comtesse agreed, “but I am sure that they would like to see you, if you have time.”
“If I have time, I promise you I will call on them,” Yola said, “but please don’t write and tell them I am in Paris. You know they will take umbrage if I cannot accept their invitations.”
“I understand,” the Comtesse conceded.
Even so, Yola thought right up until the last minute that there might be difficulties in getting away, but surprisingly everything seemed to go smoothly.
Her grandmother even accepted that, while one of the elder maids should accompany her to Paris on the train, her friends would rather she did not bring a lady’s maid with her to their house, but would arrange for her to be looked after by their own servants.
Had she been a married woman this would have been inconceivable, but for a young girl it was understandable that she could manage to share a lady’s maid with her friends.
The old maid who acted as chaperone to Yola was only too glad to return to The Castle by the next train.
“I never did like Paris, m’mselle,” she said disparagingly. “Nasty noisy place with every likelihood of being run over if one steps off the pav
ement!”
“I will not be there for long,” Yola said. “You must look after my grandmother and see that she has every comfort.”
“Madame is yearning for the warm sun of the South,” the maid replied.
Yola knew that this was true, but her grandmother had no intention of being lonely while she was away.
She had already invited a friend as old as herself who lived in Tours to come to The Castle to keep her company and Yola knew that they would have plenty to gossip about and would doubtless plan her wedding in detail.
The idea made her all the more eager to reach Paris as quickly as possible.
She had a feeling that the sands were running out and unless she was careful she would achieve nothing and the Marquis would arrive full of hope at The Castle. Then the only way she could be rid of him would be to have one devastatingly explosive row both with him and with her grandmother.
This was to be avoided at all costs because she recognised that the repercussions of it would vibrate through the family.
Her father had been very conscious of his position as Head of the Beauharnais Family and, although there was nothing he could do about it, he had always felt guilty about his wife’s inhospitality.
He deeply regretted the way that she had alienated himself and his daughter from those of their own blood.
‘I must bring them back into the life of The Castle,’ Yola told herself. ‘I must not be selfish and want only those who are intellectual and talented around me.’
She knew that was how the Grand Seigneurs had behaved in the old days with their relations filling the house so that the great castles had almost been a City within themselves.
Last night when her grandmother had gone to bed she had walked through the vast rooms feeling how quiet and empty they were.
Then she had gone out onto the terraces where there were orange trees, some of them having been planted a hundred years earlier.
It was all majestic and impressive and yet who was there to enjoy it but herself and one old woman who was longing to be somewhere else?
‘It is wrong!’ Yola thought. ‘The Castle should be filled with those both old and young who love it and all it stands for.’
It suddenly occurred to her how wonderful it would be to have children here, not one child, as she had been, lonely and afraid of the austere cold woman she called mother, but boys and girls of varying ages.
She walked to the terrace to look out over the sleeping valley.
‘I want to have children of my own,’ she thought, ‘but unless I love a man, how could I bear him to be their father?’
She thought of the Marquis and shivered.
No child of hers must ever think of their father as just a pleasure-seeker, a man who would turn from one woman to another and care for nothing but the gratification of his senses.
She looked up at the sky.
‘Send me someone whom I can love, Papa,’ she prayed. ‘Send me a man like yourself whose heart is big and whose mind is understanding.’
The night was very still.
She waited, but it seemed to her that there was no answer.
Chapter Three
Yola put the maid who had accompanied her to Paris in the ladies’ waiting room and said goodbye to her. She only had an hour to wait before she could catch the train back to Langeais.
Accompanied by a porter carrying her luggage, Yola went outside the station to find waiting for her a very elegant closed carriage with a coachman and a footman on the box.
She noticed with satisfaction that it discreetly had no Coat of Arms or crest emblazoned on it and that the livery of the servants was quiet and not in any way ostentatious.
She had reckoned during the journey that she was calm and not in the least apprehensive as to what lay ahead. But now as they neared the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré she felt her heart thumping and she knew that she was in fact feeling nervous about meeting Madame Renazé’s niece.
The house in the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré stood back a little from the road and there was a small courtyard by which the carriage entered and drove round in a sweep to the front door.
The house was grey and anonymous with wooden shutters, but the moment Yola passed into the hall she realised that it was in fact furnished in excellent taste and filled with treasures of the type she appreciated.
She could not have lived in The Castle all her life, surrounded by antique furniture, magnificent pictures, statues and bronzes, without having learnt a great deal about them.
Her father had been her instructor in teaching her about the various periods of French history when their craftsmen had led the world in almost every branch of art.
Yola had a quick glance at a very fine Louis XV inlaid commode and some Boulle pieces of an even earlier date and then she was shown into a salon on the ground floor with windows opening onto a garden behind the house.
There she had no time to notice anything but the woman who rose from a secrétaire to cross the room towards her.
Yola had naturally expected that Madame Aimée Aubigny would look like her aunt, but there was in fact very little resemblance.
Madame Renazé was beautiful even in her middle age, but her niece could make no claims to real beauty. At the same time she had an arresting, fascinating face that made one want to look at her and look again.
She had dark eyes that slanted a little at the corners and a mouth that curved in a smile that was infectious. As she held out her hand to Yola, there was no doubt that the welcome which she expressed with her lips was sincere.
“I am delighted to meet you, Mademoiselle la Comtesse,” she said, “and may I say I am very honoured that you will stay here as my guest.”
“I have so much to thank you for,” Yola replied, “and I only hope you will not regret befriending me.”
“I will not do that,” Aimée Aubigny said, “and quite frankly it is the most challenging adventure I have heard of anyone undertaking.”
Her eyes seemed to be laughing and Yola found herself laughing too.
“Your aunt has already told me it is outrageous,” she replied, “but you do understand that it is something I have to do?”
“I understand and I commend you for your courage,” Aimée Aubigny said.
She made a gesture with her hand as she added,
“Please sit down. Now we must plan everything very quickly, because no one in this household must have any idea who you really are.”
“You mean the servants?” Yola questioned. “Certainly everything must be kept hidden from them.”
“It must indeed,” Aimée Aubigny agreed. “In Paris everyone talks. The chatter of the servants is unceasing and everything that is said or done sweeps along the grapevine to the other houses so that it is almost impossible to keep a secret.”
“I must keep mine,” Yola said.
She thought as she spoke how horrified her grandmother and her other relations would be if they had the least idea of what she was doing at this moment.
“First of all,” Madame Aubigny said, “we must choose a name for you, if you have not done so already.”
“No, I was going to consult you about that,” Yola replied. “I thought I would call myself ‘Yola’ because no one has ever used that name for me except my father. To everyone else I am Marie Teresa.”
‘Yola’ is charming!” Aimée Aubigny said. “And, as you are so beautiful, why not ‘Yola Lefleur’. That will suit you. It sounds a little theatrical, which after all is what we want.”
“I am delighted with your suggestion,” Yola answered.
“Then that is settled. In this household you will be an old friend whom I have not seen for some years and whom I am introducing to Paris. That in fact is the story we will tell everyone.”
She looked at Yola a little critically, so that she asked,
“Are you thinking that I must change my appearance?”
“Only your clothes,” Aimée Aubigny answered.
“My
clothes?” Yola questioned.
“They are very suitable for a jeune fille, but would look out of place, I think, if you intend to appear a little older, which is essential.”
“How old?” Yola enquired.
Again Madame Aubigny examined her critically.
“I think,” she said after a moment, “with your hair done in a different manner and with the right gowns, you will be able to pass for twenty-two or twenty-three.”
Yola had not thought this was necessary and, as she looked enquiringly at her hostess, Aimée Aubigny explained,
“No one would expect me to chaperone a young girl or to introduce someone who has only just left the schoolroom into my way of life.”
“Indeed, I do see,” Yola said.
“You will therefore have to be a close friend. I make no pretence about being twenty-seven. You must be old enough to understand the world you are ready to play a part in.”
Yola looked a little startled, then said in a low voice,
“Of course, I understand.”
“That is why it is important,” Aimée Aubigny said, “that we should go at once to buy the right kind of gowns for Mademoiselle Lefleur.”
“I am ready now,” Yola said with a smile.
“You would not like to rest first and have something to eat and drink?”
“No, thank you. I had luncheon on the train,” Yola replied, “and because the chef at Beauharnais felt that to go to Paris was as adventurous as making my way to Tibet or up to the top of Mont Blanc, he provided far more than I could possibly eat.”
“Very well then,” Aimée Aubigny said. “I told them to keep the carriage and the sooner we leave the less likely it is that anyone will see you as you are now.”
Yola could not help feeling that this was a little disparaging to the very elegant travelling costume she wore, which she had purchased for her return to The Castle.
However, she knew she must leave everything to Aimée Aubigny’s good sense and, when they were ready to leave the house, she saw all too clearly the difference in their appearance.
64 The Castle Made for Love Page 5