Barbara Cartland: A Magical Moment

They were nevertheless legally married.

Madame Flaubert had a new gold Wedding ring on her left hand to prove it.

The Earl was not the only person who had told her all about the beauty and importance of Armeron Castle.

The Marquis, who had stayed there often, described it as one of the finest examples of medieval building in the whole country.

The gardens, which had been created by the last Earl, were to his mind, he claimed, finer than any other garden he had ever seen.

The congratulations the new Countess of Armeron had received did not however prepare her for the first sight of her elder stepdaughter.

She had expected that both the girls would be pretty.

“How could they be anything else?” she had asked the Earl. “When you, dearest, are so handsome that I know every woman’s heart turns over when she looks at you.”

“You flatter me,” the Earl insisted, but he was quite prepared to listen to more.

The new wife, however, had a severe shock when she had walked into the drawing room where Lencia and Alice were waiting to meet her.

They felt shy and, although they tried so hard not to admit it, somewhat hostile towards their stepmother before her arrival.

They were not waiting for them in the hall, where the Earl had expected to find them.

Instead they were standing in the beautiful room that had always seemed to be the perfect background for their beloved mother.

The blue curtains and coverings on the chairs and sofas had echoed her eyes, whilst the glittering crystal chandeliers had the same sparkle that shone in her eyes whenever she saw someone she loved.

The Earl would have walked into the room first.

But his wife put her arm in his so that they came in side-by-side.

Just for a moment there was complete silence.

“Here we are, girls,” the Earl began, “and I have been so looking forward to seeing you both.”

With an effort Lencia moved forward.

It was then that her stepmother drew in her breath.

This was certainly a rival who she had not expected, a girl very young and so lovely that it was impossible even for a woman not to stare at her and go on staring.

Lencia kissed her father and he kissed her back.

“We have been longing to have you home, Papa,” she said.

As she spoke, she could not help looking with some surprise on her face at the woman holding tightly to his arm.

The Countess had clearly dressed herself to impress.

She was wearing a hat trimmed with ostrich feathers and their colour was echoed by the ruby earrings that dangled from her ears. There was a ruby brooch pinned to the shoulder of her black satin cape.

She was certainly elegant, but at the same time there was something theatrical about her.

Lencia knew instinctively that she was just incongruous in her mother’s drawing room and indeed in The Castle itself.

“Now you must meet my daughters,” the Earl was saying to his new wife.

“Yvonne, this is Lencia, who, as I have told you, should have been presented in Court last year, but will instead curtsey to Queen Victoria next month.”

Neither of the women spoke and the Earl went on quickly,

“And this is Alice, who is just seventeen, but I expect she will want to join in some of the Festivities that her sister is invited to.”

“They are much older than I had expected,” the Countess said. “I thought, dearest, seeing how young you look, your daughters would still be in the nursery.”

This was obviously the sort of flattery the Earl had listened to and found so enjoyable in Nice.

Somehow it seemed more than a little out of place at this particular moment.

“I am sure, Papa,” Lencia said, “that you are longing for your tea. It is all ready for you.”

She moved towards the fireplace as she spoke and the Earl and his new wife followed her.

The tea was laid out as it always had been in front of the sofa.

There was the traditional shining silver teapot and kettle and also the Queen Anne tea caddy in which the very first tea from Ceylon had been served in The Castle.

There was also an imposing display of warm scones, cucumber sandwiches, fruit cakes and iced cakes and several other dainties for which the Armeron kitchens were justly famous.

As they reached the table with its long lace-edged cloth, Lencia turned to the Countess,

“Will you pour it or would you like me to do so?”

It was a question that the Countess recognised immediately as significant.

With hardly a pause she replied,

“Of course I will do it. I know exactly how your dear handsome father likes his tea,”

She swept with a rustle of silk petticoats and a whiff of exotic perfume to sit in the centre of the sofa, facing the silver tray.

It was where their mother had always sat and it was at that moment Lencia knew how much she resented the intruder, a woman who she was certain could never take her mother’s place in The Castle or anywhere else.

At the same time, as the afternoon and evening passed, she had to admit that her father was in far better spirits than when he had gone away.

He was certainly finding his new wife most amusing and entertaining.

Only when they had gone upstairs to go to bed did Alice say in a whisper,

“How could he have brought anyone like that to take Mama’s place?”

“She makes him laugh,” Lencia had answered. “But – ”

She bit back the words that she was going to say. What was the point of fighting against the inevitable?

Their father, whom they loved and who had been so very much a part of their lives, had somehow left them.

“We have lost not only our mother but also our father,” Lencia said to herself bitterly as she climbed into bed.

In the days that followed she was to think the same again and again.

The new Countess was determined not to be ignored and she intended to assert herself in what she thought was her rightful position from the moment she arrived.

She gave orders to the servants in a sharp voice, but to the Earl she was all honey and sweetness.

She flattered him not only in words but by seeming to watch over and tend him.

She would fetch his cigar case almost before he wanted it and she would pat the cushion before he sat down in the chair. She was at his side almost every moment of the day.

There was no doubt, Lencia had to admit to herself, that he seemed younger in years.

Yet she felt rather embarrassed at the blatant way that her stepmother flattered her father and flirted with him quite openly regardless of who was present in The Castle.

Alice watched them wide-eyed as if it was a performance and she was the audience.

Because to Lencia her stepmother’s behaviour seemed so vulgar, whenever she could she kept away from her father and his new wife.

The girls had planned with their father, before he went to Nice, that he would take them to France before the Season in London started.

Alice had been reading about the Castles of the Loire Valley.

The Earl knew them well and had promised to take the girls to see Château Chaumont, which was the largest and the most impressive of all the Castles in that part of France.

They had both been looking forward to the trip to France wildly.

To Alice it was particularly exciting because she had just grown old enough to read some of the great love stories of the world.

One which had captured her imagination more than any other had been the story of the famous beauty Diane de Poitiers.

She was loved to distraction by King Henry II of France even though she was eighteen years older than he was.

Alice was determined to see where Diane’s monogram was carved on the parapet wall of Chaumont which she had restored.

“It is the letter ‘D’,” she said excitedly, “surrounded by attributes of the Goddess after whom she was named.”