Barbara Cartland - A Magical Moment

“You shall see it all, my dearest,” the Earl had said, “and I promise that you will not be disappointed. I have seen a great many French Castles and Château x , but of them all I think that Chaumont is the most exciting and certainly the most impressive.”

He sighed.

“I wish I could have stayed there when King François enjoyed the marvellous hunting available in what was then a deserted area.”

The girls were listening intently and he went on,

“He had the old Hunting Lodge razed to the ground and began the construction of this sumptuous Palace, which will thrill you as it thrilled me when I first saw it as a boy.”

It was the first time that her father had seemed to be enthusiastic about anything since her mother’s death.

They had therefore made him plan the date they should go and how long they should stay.

“We must see heaps of other Castles too while we are there,” Alice suggested eagerly.

“I can see I shall have to read up my history,” her father said, “but we will certainly see all we can. I shall expect you both to speak perfect French by the time we return.”

“We will try, Papa, we really will try very hard,” Alice had promised.

As Lencia knew that she would, for the next month Alice talked of very little except their intended visit to France.

She sought out in the extensive library at Armeron all the books that mentioned the Loire Valley.

She had put them ready to be packed with their luggage when they set off to Château Chaumont on what to her was a pilgrimage.

Now two weeks after the Earl had returned home he was telling them that the visit would have to be postponed.

“We will go another time,” he said vaguely, “I promise you.”

But Alice protested volubly.

“You know, Papa, that, once we go to London and Lencia is presented, there will be too many other engagements for us to get away. And there will be Ascot and finally Goodwood, where you will be running your horses.”

Her voice rose as she cried,

“Oh, Papa, how can you fail us now when everything was fixed and planned?”

“I am sorry, my dear,” the Earl said, “but 1 promise you I will find another time when it is possible for me to leave England.”

The way he spoke told Lencia only too clearly that it was unlikely that their stepmother would be willing to leave during the London Season.

She was also convinced that she would not allow her husband to go off travelling with his two daughters without her.

“That reminds me,” the Earl said unexpectedly. “I am afraid, Lencia, my dearest, we will have to change the Drawing Room when you are to be presented to the Queen.”

Lencia stared at him.

“Why, Papa?”

“Because, my dearest, I am sure that you will understand that I must first present your stepmother on our marriage. She thinks it would be a mistake for you to be presented at the same time.”

Lencia drew in her breath.

It had been planned that she should be presented last year just before she was eighteen.

Then, when the Countess died, they had been in deep mourning.

The presenting to the Queen obviously had to be postponed until the first Drawing Room the following year, which would take place at the beginning of May.

Her father had gone to see the Lord Chamberlain and everything had been arranged.

He was opening Armeron House in Park Lane and because her mother could not present Lencia, the Earl’s elder sister, who was a Lady of the Bedchamber, had volunteered to do so.

It had never occurred to Lencia for one moment that, having missed her presentation last May, she would be asked to postpone it for a second time.

She knew the procedure on those occasions quite well and said,

“But if you, Papa, can present Stepmama, why in her turn, as I know has been often done before, can she not present me?”

There was a short silence before the Earl answered,

“I did suggest that, but your stepmother says, my dear, that it makes her feel old, when she is still so young, to be chaperoning a girl of your age.”

Lencia knew quite well that this was not the reason.

What her stepmother was afraid of was that she would outshine her.

Because Lencia was very unselfconscious, she thought that the idea was quite absurd, yet because she was a woman she understood.

In point of fact the new Countess had been evasive about her age and she and Alice had soon realised that it was not a subject that should be discussed.

“Very well, Papa,” Lencia said, “if it must be changed, then it must.”

“I am sure that there will be no difficulties,” the Earl said. “The Lord Chamberlain will understand and there will be several more Drawing Rooms, the last I believe is taking place in June.”

“Supposing they are all full up?” Alice asked him unexpectedly.

“I cannot believe that I shall be refused a place for my daughter,” the Earl asserted.

He spoke in a manner that his children jokingly called his ‘Armeron air’.

It was something that happened only occasionally because the Earl was in fact a friendly and easy-going man.

But if his pride was hurt or he was insulted in some way, then his family background, which was a very distinguished one, would come to the surface and his Armeron voice would pulverise the person who had offended him.

“It would be dreadful,” Alice said, “if poor Lencia has to miss being presented at Court, just as I am very sorry for myself in not being able to see the glories of Château Chaumont.”

“You will see it, of course, you will see it,” the Earl said. ‘It is just that your stepmother has set her heart on going to Sweden and it would be very unkind of me if I refused her.”

“I expect really she wants to wear the Armeron tiara and associate with all those Princes and Princesses,” Alice said. “And I would not suppose that she knew people like that before she married you, Papa.”

It was only Alice, Lencia thought, who would put thoughts like that into actual words.

Because it was something that was undeniably true, the Earl had looked at the clock on the mantelpiece and said,

“It is time we were all getting dressed for dinner. You know I dislike having to wait for my meals.”

He walked out of the room as he spoke and the two girls were left alone.

“It is not fair!” Alice raged. “Our stepmother is determined that he should not go away with us. When I was talking about the beauty of the Castles, she said, ‘they are not really very interesting, most of them are empty’. Fancy her feeling like that!”

Alice’s voice was very scathing.

Lencia well knew that their stepmother, as the Countess of Armeron, wanted to share in the smart Society world of London and she was not the least interested in anything that had happened in the past.

“It is no use, Alice,” Lencia replied. “If we cannot go, then we cannot go. We shall just have to stay here and wait for them to come back.”

“When they do, I bet that she will find some way to prevent you and me going to London with her and Papa,” Alice complained.

She thought for a few moments and then went on,

“She wants him to herself and to give big dinner parties at Armeron House. She will say that I am too young to attend them and that debutantes and their parties are a terrible bore.”

“Oh, Alice, you cannot be sure she will say that,” Lencia protested.

“She most surely will, because I have heard her saying it already,” Alice pointed out. “She was talking to that lady’s maid of hers when I passed by the door. They were speaking in French, thinking no one would understand. But I heard Stepmama say, ‘ debutantes are a bore and the people I want to meet are to be found in London. So the sooner we get there, the better’.”