Barbara Cartland - A Magical Moment

“I believe you, I believe you !” Alice cried. “Oh, Lencia, you are a genius! I do so want to see Château Chaumont!”

“I know you do,” Lencia said. “I asked myself why Stepmama should spoil everything. She has made Papa happy and that is all his business. But we are definitely unhappy and we have every right to fight for ourselves.”

“I will fight – I am longing to fight,” Alice declared forcefully.

“Well, we will have to hurry to get everything arranged.”

“What do I have to do?” Alice asked her sister.

“Help me choose and pack Mama’s clothes for one thing. The housemaids can do yours, but they must not see what I am doing for otherwise they will talk.”

Alice nodded.

“I will not need many clothes, as we will not be staying long,” Lencia went on. “But they must make me look older. I shall have to use powder and very little rouge as Mama did when she went to London.”

“Mama did not use it in the daytime,” Alice remarked.

“No, but Stepmama does,” Lencia answered. “She is ‘made up to the nines’ but everyone seems to take it as normal. So I imagine that is how all the French women behave.”

“Yes, of course they do,” Alice said. “I have read about them and Papa told me once that in Paris the ladies look like actresses.”

“Then that is how I must look as soon as we can get away from here,” Lencia said. “You must tell the maids that we are going to stay with friends in London, so we will have to get ourselves taken there without anyone from the stables knowing that we are going abroad.”

“That is not going to be easy,” Alice commented.

“I have thought it all out,” Lencia said. “We will get our own horses to take us as far as The Three Kings. ”

“Where is that?” Alice asked.

“It is a Posting inn where I know that Papa changes horses when he is driving to London. If you remember, we changed horses there the last time we went to stay with Uncle Tyson.”

“Yes, of course,” Alice nodded, “I remember now.”

“I think,” Lencia said, “we can cover our tracks better if we drive to London rather than go by train.”

Alice said nothing and Lencia went on,

“It is still early in the morning so we have all day to make our plans. After spending the night at The Three Kings , we will hire a carriage to take us on to London. From there we can catch a train to Dover and cross the Channel on the later ferry. That will enable us to take the evening Express to Paris.”

“How do you know all this?” Alice asked.

“I was working it out for our own trip with Papa before he went to stay in Nice.”

She gave a sigh.

“Oh, dear, if only he had not gone. But it seemed such a good idea at the time for him to go away from everything and try to cheer himself up.”

“I know,” Alice said, “but we did not know that would mean Stepmama .”

Lencia was about to say something and then thought that it would be a mistake.

Instead she said,

“Let’s get on with our own plans. We just have to go over them again and again until we are quite certain that they are fool proof. Nothing – I mean nothing – Alice, must go wrong.”

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