“I will buy you some,” Bertie suggested eagerly.
“No, no! Let me have the privilege,” Lord Hartcourt claimed with an ironic note in his voice.
Gardenia looked at them wide-eyed.
“Please, I really don’t want you to buy me anything, I just could not help remarking on the fragrance of the lilies-of-the-valley. You see we had a bed of them at home and they were my mother’s favourite flowers.”
Bertie did not seem to hear her. He was bringing a golden sovereign out of his pocket and finding that was all the change he had.
“I will buy them,” Lord Hartcourt said good-humouredly and added in a low voice that Gardenia could not hear, “Go and find a nice table, Bertie. I must say she occasionally does it over brown.”
“I believe every word she says,” Bertie exclaimed.
“I am sure you do,” Lord Hartcourt said in an amused tone. “Don’t quarrel with me, my dear fellow. I am putting myself out a great deal to be with you this afternoon.”
“And I have never for a moment stopped saying that I am grateful,” Bertie retorted as he hurried after Gardenia.
He found her a table with a big orange sunshade by the side of an ornamental fountain.
“What would you like to drink?” he asked. “Champagne?”
“Good gracious, no,” Gardenia laughed. “I could not drink champagne at this time of the day. Do you think they could possibly provide a cup of tea?”
“Most unlikely,” Bertie answered, “but I will try.”
Lord Hartcourt was still buying the lilies-of-the-valley. Bertie bent towards Gardenia and said,
“You are lovely, you know, lovelier every time I see you. Gosh, I am glad you were able to come out this afternoon. We have to make plans, you and I.”
“Plans about what?” Gardenia asked.
“How we are going to see each other,” Bertie answered. “I cannot get Vane to chaperone us every time. He has interests of his own.”
“What sort of interests?” Gardenia asked him.
“Well, as a matter of fact, he is a bit freer than usual,” Bertie confided. “He has had a row with his chère amie.”
“What does that mean?” Gardenia asked.
“I thought you spoke French,” Bertie said. “You know, his particular girl friend. Very pretty she is too.”
“You mean he was engaged to be married?” Gardenia asked.
“Oh, now really!” Bertie expostulated. “You are not as green as all that. He certainly had no intention of marrying Henriette. She is one of the Demi-Monde. Paris is full of them. One night you must get your Aunt Lily to bring you to Maxim’s you’ll see the lot,”
Gardenia felt the colour rise up her face. So Lord Hartcourt had a chère amie. She had never thought of that somehow. She had always seen him unattached, but then, of course, naturally, she would not have been likely to meet this Henriette at one of her aunt’s parties.
She did not know why, but she felt a sudden depression.
And the sun seemed to have gone out.
Gardenia chided herself for being foolish. Men like Lord Hartcourt and she supposed Mr. Cunningham as well, obviously had French lady friends whom they entertained and took out to dinner.
How childish and silly Mr. Cunningham must think her to have spoken of marriage. Of course she knew there were women who were not received in respectable Society, who were gay, fast and most attractive to men. But somehow Lord Hartcourt had seemed so staid and conventional that she had not expected him to be what her father liked to call a ‘Stage Door Johnny’.
She had a sudden curiosity to know what Henriette was like.
What did Lord Hartcourt admire in a woman, what did he find attractive? But naturally she knew that it would be extremely ill-bred to question Mr. Cunningham on such a matter or indeed to mention it at all. As her mother would have said only too firmly, ladies did not talk about such things or such people.
Bertie had already forgotten the subject, being far more intent on his own affairs.
“When can I see you?” he said insistently. “Can you creep out one night? I could wait for you a little way down the road and we would go somewhere amusing. You would love the Moulin Rouge! Although it is a hit noisy at times, I would look after you.”
“I could not possibly do anything like that,” Gardenia said. “You know quite well that Aunt Lily has only just come round to letting me out with you as long as Lord Hartcourt is there.”
“I was not suggesting you should ask your aunt,” Bertie said in an exasperated voice. “Why should she know? She sends you off to bed early, creep out and meet me. It would be quite easy, once one of those noisy parties is in full swing nobody would hear you if you let off a bomb!”
“I could not, really I could not,” Gardenia protested.
She did not understand why Mr. Cunningham kept pressing her to do things she knew were wrong and involved disregard of any older person let alone anyone who had been as kind to her as Aunt Lily.
Before she had any time to say anything more, Lord Hartcourt came back to the table with an enormous bunch of lilies-of-the-valley, in fact the flowerseller’s whole stock.
“How very very kind!” Gardenia cried, “but you should not have spent all that money on me. I feel ashamed now of drawing attention to the flowers. But thank you so much.”
She buried her face in them and, when she raised her head, they saw her eyes were misty with tears.
“It seems so ungrateful,” she almost whispered, “but sometimes I am terribly homesick for England.”
Lord Hartcourt then had a sudden vision of his own home in the spring, the great banks of rhododendrons, the lilac blossom heavy on the trees and the pink cherry looking faintly Oriental against the first green foliage of the English spring.
He found himself wondering just why he stayed in this foreign land when he might be at home. His horses were waiting for him, the gamekeepers would be eager to tell him how the pheasants were hatching out. There would be innumerable problems concerning the estate, which in the past he had found tedious, but which he thought now would seem interesting.
‘I have a good mind to go home,’ he told himself.
Then he knew that the house, large and lovely as it was, could be lonely. It was different if the place was filled with his friends, but one could not have party after party and a man, if he was going to live in the country for any length of time, required a wife.
He thought of the Roehampton girl and then shuddered. He was getting maudlin, he told himself. What he needed was not a wife, but another Henriette and so the sooner he started looking for one the better.
“Keep Miss Weedon amused,” he heard Bertie say, breaking into his thoughts of home. “I see Archie Claydon over there. I want to ask him if he has a good tip for the Derby. He is usually pretty well informed.”
Bertie rose as he spoke and wended his way through the tables, leaving Gardenia and Lord Hartcourt alone.
She tried to find something to say, but she could only think of what she had just heard about him. Then she raised her downcast eyes to look straight into his. It appeared to her that there was a question he was asking her, but she was not certain what it was.
“Still happy?” he enquired.
“Of course,” she answered, a trifle untruthfully.
“You look extremely pretty,” he said and somehow the compliment meant far more than Bertie’s more fulsome admiration. “Your dress is charming too.”
“Aunt Lily ‒ has been very kind ‒ to me,” Gardenia faltered.
“She is not the only person who would like to be kind to you,” Lord Hartcourt replied.
Quite unexpectedly he put his hand over hers as it lay on the table. She had taken off her gloves and now she felt the warm hardness of his fingers.
A sudden tremor went through her, quite unlike anything she had experienced before.
Now she saw that his eyes were on her lips. She then felt herself blush, not because she understood, but
rather because of the strange feeling which ran through her at the touch of his hand and something magnetic and exciting was passing between them.
She felt his fingers tighten.
“You know,” he said softly, “the choice is entirely up to you. No one can persuade you to do anything you don’t want to do. You must make up your own mind.”
His words bewildered her. She did not understand what he was trying to say.
It was a part of the whole incomprehensible relationship between herself and these two men who had come into her life so unexpectedly. She did not understand one half of what they were talking about.
She only knew now that her heart was beginning to throb in a very strange way and she felt her breath coming quickly between her parted lips.
“You are so young and so unspoiled,” she heard Lord Hartcourt say. “I think something ought to be done about you very quickly.”
She wanted to ask him what was the hurry but, before she could say anything more, Lord Hartcourt took his hand away and sat back in his chair. So she knew without looking round that Bertram Cunningham was coming back to the table.
He sat down, putting his top hat on the empty chair beside Gardenia.
“Archie says Minorin is almost certain to win,” he announced.
“The King’s horse!” Lord Hartcourt chimed in. “Well, it certainly might have a chance.”
“Archie says it is almost a certainty. So I shall put my shirt on it and, if it comes home, Gardenia shall have the best and nicest present in all Paris.”
Gardenia flushed. He had used her Christian name, but she thought that it would seem stiff and old-fashioned if she rebuked him. She also thought Aunt Lily would not be pleased if she accepted presents from a young man, but it seemed rather rude and ungracious to say so.
‘Perhaps the horse will lose,’ she told herself.
The time passed quickly and finally Gardenia rose to her feet.
“I am sure it is time I was going home,” she said. “We are going to the theatre tonight – the Comédie Française. For the first time I shall see a French play and I certainly don’t want to be late.”
“Who is taking you?” Bertie enquired.
“The Baron,” Gardenia answered. “He said that he was bringing another man to make us four. I do hope – ” she stopped suddenly.
“ – that it is not Pierre Gozlin,” Lord Hartcourt finished for her. “Well, I hope so too for your sake.”
“I just could not bear it!” Gardenia exclaimed. “It would spoil everything. No, I am sure it will be somebody different.”
Nevertheless, feeling rather miserably that she might be wrong, she sat still in silence as Bertie drove them back to Paris.
“Don’t forget what I asked you,” Bertie whispered in her ear as they stopped outside Mabillon House. “I shall be coming to your aunt’s party on Thursday and I have a plan all worked out. But even that is too long to wait. I will call tomorrow afternoon in case there is a chance of seeing you.”
“I don’t know what Aunt Lily’s plans are,” Gardenia replied.
“Damn Aunt Lily!” he asserted irritably. “I must see you.”
Gardenia smiled and, as she climbed out of the dog cart, Lord Hartcourt helped her to the ground.
“Thank you so much. It was a lovely afternoon. I have enjoyed it so much.”
Lord Hartcourt shook her by the hand and the two men swept off their top hats.
Gardenia ran up the steps and into the house. Glancing at the clock as she went through the hall she saw that it was just after six o’clock. This meant that Aunt Lily would be resting.
She went upstairs and, as she did so, the Baron came out of Aunt Lily’s boudoir, closing the door carefully behind him.
“Ah, there you are. Gardenia,” he called. “Your aunt was expecting you back earlier.”
“I had a lovely drive,” Gardenia replied.
“With the two Englishmen?” the Baron enquired.
Gardenia nodded.
“Yes, Lord Hartcourt and his cousin, Mr. Bertram Cunningham. We drove in a dog cart and tandem. It was very very smart.”
“Ha! These Englishmen are always affecting something new for the sport,” the Baron said scornfully. “Such frivolities, such a waste of money! My countrymen have more serious things to think about.”
“One does not always want to be so serious when it is the spring and one is in Paris,” Gardenia protested.
She had enjoyed herself so much that she was not going to let the Baron spoil it with his criticisms and his insinuations. She had heard him before say that the English were effete and wasted their whole lives looking only for amusement.
“And what did you talk about to Lord Hartcourt?”
“Nothing very important,” Gardenia parried.
“You like this Lord?” the Baron asked.
The question was unexpected and to her annoyance Gardenia felt herself blushing.
“I like both Lord Hartcourt and his cousin immensely,” she responded. “At least we all speak the same language.”
It was a rude retort, but the Baron seemed unperturbed.
“That is goot,” he said. “You must make friends with nice young men. That is what your aunt wants for you and especially she likes Lord Hartcourt, eh?”
“I must go and dress,” Gardenia said hastily, “or I shall be late for the theatre and I am so looking forward to it.”
“Ah yes, the theatre,” the Baron said, as though it had just come to his attention. “I am bringing my friend with me whom I think you met last night. Monsieur Pierre Gozlin.”
“Oh no!” Gardenia cried involuntarily before she could stop herself.
The Baron raised his eyebrows.
“You don’t like him? Your aunt feels the same. He is not a very prepossessing man, but clever, very clever. One cannot always have both looks and brains. As you grow older, you will understand that. But in fact Monsieur Gozlin wishes to speak not with you but with your aunt. You can talk with me. That will be pleasant, eh?”
“Very pleasant,” Gardenia replied through stiff lips.
The Baron chuckled and stepping forward put his thick fingers under her small chin and turned her face up to his.
“Very pleasant,” he repeated and before she could move or realise what was happening, he bent his head and his lips were on hers.
She recoiled from him, wrenching herself free and then, without a word, she was running swiftly up the stairs, frantically scrubbing her mouth as she did so with the back of her hand.
CHAPTER NINE
That evening Gardenia kept to her bedroom. She felt she could not face the Baron.
The memory of his kiss seemed to sear her lips so that, even though she had rubbed them until they were raw, the horror and the indignity of it remained.
“I hate him!” she stormed, walking up and down her room and then knew with a sudden feeling of utter helplessness that there was nothing she could do about it.
How could she go to Aunt Lily and complain? And there was no one else. Never before in her life had she felt so utterly alone.
With tears in her eyes she thought how this was the lot of all women that they were at the mercy of men.
Suffragettes, with their screams for equality, might well have made themselves laughing stocks, but in many ways they were right for, however much people might talk of a woman’s influence and her inspiration to men, in actual fact she was a chattel, a second-class citizen without rights or privileges unless they were granted to her through the benevolence of her father or husband.
Half an hour before dinner was due, Gardenia sent a note to her aunt saying that she had a headache. Then she lay down on her bed, knowing that it was the truth, except that she had a heartache as well.
She suddenly felt not only disgust with the Baron but with everybody else she had met in her aunt’s house, the fulsome, over-voluble Frenchmen, drunk and noisy women, the sinister frog-like Pierre Gozlin and, to crown all, the guttural brutis
h boorishness of the Baron.
It was with a sense of relief that her thoughts dwelt on Lord Hartcourt. His reserve, his dignity and, especially, his reticence made her feel proud that he was her countryman.
She found herself thinking of that surprising moment when his fingers had touched hers and she had felt some strange and almost magical communication.
Perhaps, she thought, she had misunderstood him when he had seemed to be rude to her on the balcony at that party. She wanted to make excuses for him and she wanted to cling to him as a person of integrity and strength amid the crowd of strange and unpleasant people she had met since she arrived in Paris.
What was wrong? Why was this house so different from what she had expected? Why did her aunt encourage the attentions of such a man as the Baron? Why did Aunt Lily have to be kind to a man like Pierre Gozlin?
It was all too incomprehensible. She only felt lost and unhappy and, like a child, found the tears running down her cheeks as secretly she cried for her mother.
Gardenia went to sleep in tears, but with the elasticity of youth she woke in the morning feeling that the sad cloud of depression had gone and that she was strong enough to cope with everything.
*
She woke early and decided that while the house was sleeping she could no longer lie in bed. She had found out by now that even the servants kept late hours because there was no one up early enough to hustle them about their duties and anyway because most of them had gone to bed very late.
Gardenia knew that it was not correct for her to go out by herself and that a maid should accompany her, but she doubted if Jeanne would be awake yet and even if she was, she had no desire for her company.
She dressed and slipped down the stairs. She undid the bolts and locks on the front door herself and pulled it to behind her with a decisive little bang.
There was something exciting and adventurous about being abroad in Paris at this hour of the morning and she felt that, however much she would be scolded for her escapade, it would be worth it.
The sun was shining, there was a scent of flowers in the air, and she felt as though she moved along the pavements with winged feet.
An Innocent in Paris Page 14
