Barbara Cartland - An Innocent In Paris

“No,” she said after a moment. “You are right. I will get dressed, then perhaps my trunk can be taken to the other room and then I will be most grateful if you would unpack for me.”

“Very good, mamselle. ”

The maid left the room with a sidelong glance of her eyes that Gardenia found somewhat disconcerting. What was there about the servants in this house, she wondered, that made them seem so strange?

Then the aroma of fresh coffee and crisp warm croissants told her that, despite what she had eaten the night before, she was extremely hungry.

The croissants were delicious, although the butter had a strange taste. It was very unlike the Jersey butter she had enjoyed in the village where she had lived since a child. But the coffee was better than any coffee she had tasted before.

She poured herself out a second cupful and then eagerly started to wash and dress.

Whatever else she did, she must make a good impression on her aunt.

“ First impressions are always very important ,” she could hear her mother saying and just for a moment tears gathered in her eyes before she hastily wiped them away.

All her endeavours did nothing to improve her coat or the skirt and finally in despair she dressed and busied herself with making her hair as neat and tidy as possible.

She looked very young and, if she had known, very lovely, as she turned away dejectedly from her own reflection in the mirror and walked tentatively towards the door. She was not very tall and was too thin to be fashionable but she held her head proudly.

Her fair hair which persisted in curling, however hard she brushed it, clustered on her white oval forehead and made a frame for her tiny pointed face with its dark grey eyes and full sensitive mouth.

Gardenia felt her heart give a little leap as she walked from the room, which had seemed like a sanctuary the previous night, and down the passage towards the main staircase.

The house was still after all the turmoil and noise. There was, however, a left-over smell from the night before that she could not help recognising.

As she reached the end of the stairs, it grew stronger, the fragrance of cigar smoke, of the flowers that were dying, of exotic perfume and, although at first she had not recognised it, of alcohol.

She came to the first floor and after a few steps across the broad beautifully furnished landing she stood looking through big double doors that opened into what she imagined must be the main salon.

She stared in astonishment.

It was a huge room running the length of the house and, as Gardenia realised, decorated in the most extravagant manner. The curtains surmounted by carved gilt pelmets were of pink brocade interspersed with gold thread and matched the silk panels let into the white and gold walls. There were exquisitely carved gilt mirrors and inlaid marble-topped furniture.

But what held Gardenia’s attention after a quick glance were the tables dotted around the salon. They were green-baize tables that, though she had never seen one, she recognised them instantly. So it had been a gaming party last night, she thought! But why then so much noise?

Amid the debris on the floor were broken champagne glasses, a great vase of hothouse flowers that had been turned over and a Dresden china ornament with broken cupids.

It was the sort of party that Gardenia could not envisage or even imagine. She could see the platform in the anteroom where the musicians had sat and played so exquisitely. But why had there been music if people wanted to sit on these gilt tapestry-covered chairs and lose their money at the tables?

Then she remembered that she was in France. She had heard people talk of the gambling at Monte Carlo and at Ostend where people crossed the Channel especially for a flutter. She had not imagined that she would find it in Paris and least of all in her aunt’s home!

What would her darling mother have thought, she wondered, knowing that her mother disapproved of gambling in any form and protested vehemently when her father had wanted to bet on a horse.

Despite these beautiful furnishings and the ceiling exquisitely painted by what Gardenia recognised as a Master hand, the room had somehow an unpleasant atmosphere. It was not the smell or the debris, it was something deeper and more fundamental. Embarrassed by her own impressions, Gardenia walked swiftly down the stairs to the hall and into the room off it where Lord Hartcourt had carried her the night before.

The room was just as she had left it. Someone had indeed pulled back the curtains, but the food on the big silver tray stood beside the sofa and the sofa cushions that she had lain on still bore the imprint of her head.

The room was, as Gardenia saw now, expensively and artistically furnished. Yet there were no homely touches, nothing comforting or even welcoming. She felt herself shiver. She did not know why, except that she knew, without even expressing the words to herself, that this was not the sort of house that she could ever think of as home.

And that was what she had come to find!

She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece, which had stopped, and wondered why there was no one to see to such matters in such a luxurious house. Ink in the inkwell, pens ready for writing, clocks that were wound up and drinking water by the beds, these were the small details in which her mother had so often instructed her.

“ That is a woman’s job, dear, to see to the little things ,” she used to say. “ For it is the little things that make comfort and comfort is something that every man wants, whether he is rich or poor, old or young. ”

‘Perhaps I can help Aunt Lily with the little things,’ Gardenia told herself and then as an excuse she remembered that her aunt was a widow.

“ Bonjour, mamselle ,” a voice behind her made her jump.

Gardenia turned to see a very elegant, sharp-featured young female in a black dress with a tiny ridiculously small lace apron.

“Oh, good morning,” Gardenia said, somehow flustered by the woman’s sharp eyes that seemed to take in every detail of her shabby appearance.

“I am Her Grace’s personal maid,” the woman said. “Her Grace is now awake and I have informed her of your arrival. She wishes to see you.”

There was something in the hard words that made Gardenia feel apprehensive. Perhaps she was being unduly sensitive, but she had the impression that her aunt was not particularly pleased with the information she had received of her presence.

However there was no time for introspective thoughts.

“I am very eager to see my aunt,” she responded.

The personal maid’s expression of aloof disdain did not alter.

“Kindly follow me, mamselle ,” she said sharply and led the way through the hall and up the stairs.

With a sinking heart Gardenia then followed her. Perhaps this would not be the pleasant reunion that she had expected. In the back of her mind she could not help feeling that Lord Hartcourt had been right, it would have been much worse if she had climbed these stairs last night to confront her aunt amid a welter of green tables in the ornate salon.

The maid led the way to the second floor, knocked perfunctorily at the mahogany door of a room, opened it and ushered Gardenia inside.

For a moment it was difficult for her to see, for the windows were shaded by sunblinds and though the curtains had been drawn very little light seemed to illuminate either the room or the big bed set in an alcove and surmounted by a huge shell carved out of mother of pearl.

Then a voice from the bed, hoarse and rather weak, called out,

“Who is it? Can it possibly be you, Gardenia?”

Gardenia’s embarrassment and apprehensiveness fell away at the sound of the voice.