“My language?”Madame Yvonne exclaimed. “We will see about that!”
She turned towards Belinda and spoke with the rapidity characteristic of the French.
She reeled off a dozen questions, asking her where she came from, how old she was and where she was going.
She was obviously testing her to see whether what D’Arcy Rowland had told her was true or false.
Without any hesitation, Belinda replied just as quickly as Madame Yvonne had spoken.
She spoke in perfect French with an obvious Parisian accent.
It banished the suspicion from Madame Yvonne’s eyes.
When she finished speaking, Madame Yvonne clapped her hands.
“Tres bien, Mademoiselle!” she approved.
She turned to D’Arcy Rowland.
“All right, D’Arcy,” she admitted, “I believe you!”
“And now,” he said with a certain amount of complacency in his voice, “we must leave you. But I will return once I have dropped Belinda off at her destination.”
“You promise that?”Madame Yvonne asked.
“I promise!” D’Arcy Roland replied. “And thank you for the champagne.”
He lifted Madame’s hand as he spoke and actually kissed it.
Belinda was watching him.
“Déjeuner will be ready when you return,” Madame Yvonne murmured, “but don’t be too long. You know I have to be at the theatre by six o’clock.”
“I shall be as quick as I can,” D’Arcy promised.
He would have turned away, but Madame Yvonne caught hold of his hand.
“I have missed you, mon cher,” she said in a low voice.
Because she felt embarrassed, Belinda walked away towards the door and, as she reached it, her stepfather hurried after her to pull it open.
“Come along,” he said sharply. “You must not be late for your appointment.”
They climbed into the chaise and only as they drove off did D’Arcy Rowland say,
“There was nowhere else I could take you. For, as you well know, we cannot afford to book into a hotel.”
Belinda knew he was trying to apologise and she said quietly,
“It is all right, Step-Papa, I understand.”
“It is something you should not understand!” he growled angrily. “God knows, I do not know which way to turn and everything I do seems to make things worse!”
“Perhaps it will all come right – in the end.”
Even as Belinda spoke she thought it was a forlorn hope, yet somehow she wanted to comfort him.
Of course everything he had done was wrong. Of course he had behaved abominably.
Yet, at the same time, there was something about his frankness and his despair that despite herself touched her heart.
‘I ought to hate him for what he has done to me,’ she mused.
She realised, however, that like the dozens of other women he knew, she was reacting to his charm. He admitted his foolishness and she knew he felt helpless to cope with the situation.
It was not far to Regent’s Park.
As Belinda saw the trees ahead, she was suddenly conscious of the significance of what she was about to do.
If she failed, she might be signing her stepfather’s death warrant.
She herself, as he had predicted, would have to go to the workhouse or starve.
She felt a sudden panic sweep over her.
‘I cannot do it! I am sure I shall make a mess of it and perhaps things will be worse than they are already,’ she thought desperately.
As if he were aware of what she was thinking, D’Arcy Rowland said,
“I think you are very brave, Belinda, and your father would be proud of you. Most girls would be screaming and crying because they were afraid, but you are behaving just as I knew you would.”
“I-I wish that were – true, Step-Papa,” Belinda replied in a low voice.
“It is true,” he answered. “I have been watching you and I know that no one and I mean no one would have behaved as marvellously as you have, since I confessed what an intolerable situation I have landed you in.”
He gave a deep sigh.
“It is my fault, of course, it is my fault, but I hope one day I will be able to repay you and that is what I am praying I shall be able to do.”
He was speaking with an undoubted sincerity.
Impulsively Belinda put her hand on his arm.
“I am praying so too, Step-Papa. I know Mama will help us and whatever happens we must not give up hope.”
As she spoke, her stepfather tooled his horses through some iron gates.
She knew that they had reached the house where Lady Logan lived.
Belinda was well read.
She was therefore aware that when Nash had designed his magnificent Crescent, it was he who had designated that the Park should be called after the Prince Regent.
She knew, too, that besides the Crescent, which was the finest piece of domestic architecture in London, Nash had designed six houses in the Park itself.
They had been lived in originally by Government Officials and gradually over the years they had been sold into private hands and at least three of them rebuilt.
As her stepfather drew up his Chaise beside the front door, she saw a house that certainly bore the hallmark of Nash himself.
It was surrounded by a garden exquisitely kept and ablaze with colour and there were tall trees on the green lawns.
It all appeared so perfect and might have come out of a picture rather than being there in reality.
There was a portico over the front door that had been opened by a footman.
He was wearing a very different livery, Belinda noticed, from that worn by Jim.
It was quite plain with knee breeches, silk stockings, a white wig and white gloves.
He helped Belinda out of the chaise.
As she walked into the house she turned back.
Her stepfather had not moved from the driving seat, but was waiting.
She had not really understood when he had said,
“Don’t forget that your name is Brown and you have been working for Lady Selby, who will, if necessary, provide you with a reference.”
Belinda did not speak and he went on,
“Her Ladyship was kind enough to send you in her chaise which also carried your trunks, so that if you are engaged you can be ready to move in immediately.”
Belinda had only half-listened to what he was saying.
She had been deep in her thoughts.
Now, as she walked behind the footman across the hall, she felt very small and alone.
She was wondering desperately what she should say when she was interviewed.
A footman opened a door and in a quiet respectful voice, he announced,
“Miss Brown, my Lady.”
The room was very different from the one she had just left and was a traditional drawing room not unlike her mother’s.
She was instinctively aware that everything in it was valuable and it professed a perfection all its own.
A woman in black was seated at the fireside.
Belinda walked towards her, aware that Lady Logan was small with dead-white hair.
As she reached her, Belinda dropped a curtsy.
“Good morning, Miss Brown,” Lady Logan said in a soft pleasant voice. “It is kind of you to come to see me so quickly. Please sit down.”
Belinda sat on the edge of a chair next to Lady Logan’s.
She looked at her and realised that Lady Logan must have been beautiful when she was young. Now her face was lined and her complexion was very pale, as if she were in ill health.
As she waited expectantly, she had the feeling that Lady Logan was finding it hard to see her at all clearly.
“What I have been looking for,” Lady Logan began, “is somebody who can speak languages that are not usually taught in schools. You say in your letter that is what you can do.”
“I know quite a number of diff
erent languages, my Lady,” Belinda replied, “and I find it easy to learn new ones very quickly.”
“You look too young to have so much knowledge,” Lady Logan remarked, “but I am sure you have been told that before and it is always annoying to have people saying so.”
Belinda gave a little laugh because it was so true.
“I would like you now to read me a little from a book that my son gave me which is written in Persian. Is that one of the languages you are familiar with?”
Persian was one of the languages that her father had taught her and she remembered his showing her a book he had brought back from Teheran. It had been exquisitely illustrated in the seventeenth century.
Lady Logan handed her the book, and as Belinda took it, she realised it was of the same period.
Gently she turned over the pages one by one.
To her delight, there was a poem that had also been in her father’s book.
He had made her translate it.
It was therefore easy for her to read it slowly in her clear musical voice.
It made every word she spoke sound as romantic as the author had intended.
As she finished, Lady Logan exclaimed,
“That was very clever of you, Miss Brown, but I find it difficult to believe that anybody could translate from a strange language so easily and so well!”
Belinda chuckled.
“I must be honest, my Lady,” she said, “and admit that I have read that poem before. It was in a book belonging to my father. But if you wish to test me, I shall read something else with which I am not familiar.”
“I am not going to test you any further,” Lady Logan replied. “I know you are exactly the sort of reader I am looking for and it will be delightful to have someone young with me.”
She gave Belinda a little smile before she went on,
“I was so afraid I would have to have somebody old and crotchety who would read the books my son gives me as if it was a duty rather than a delight.”
“If all your books are like this one,” Belinda remarked, “I can assure you it will be an inexpressible delight for me to read them.”
“Then it is settled,” Lady Logan said with satisfaction. “How soon can you come to me?”
“I can come at once,” Belinda answered. “The carriage that brought me here has my trunks strapped to it. And if you did not want me, I had really nowhere to go in London.”
“Then of course you must stay here.”
Lady Logan rang a little bell that stood on a table beside her.
Belinda noticed it was not only made of gold but also encrusted with precious stones.
She thought this was another present that her son had brought back from somewhere in the East.
The door opened and an elderly servant appeared.
“Please have Miss Brown’s trunks brought in, Dawson,” Lady Logan ordered. “She is going to stay with us.”
“That’s very good news, my Lady,” Dawson replied, “and I’ll see to it they’re taken upstairs at once.”
He went from the room and Lady Logan commented,
“My servants are all so good to me. They have been wonderful since my eyesight has deteriorated. They were hoping, as I was, that I will find somebody as charming as yourself to be my reader.”
Because she was being so kind, Belinda suddenly felt guilty.
She was here under false pretences. She was deceiving this charming old lady by purporting to come as her reader.
Then she told herself severely that a guilty conscience would not help her situation.
She had come here as a reader and she would play her part as conscientiously as she could.
The problem would arise when Marcus Logan himself appeared, but, because it frightened her, she did not want to think about it.
She looked towards Lady Logan.
“Please let me have some more of your other books that you have been unable to read,” she suggested. “Then we can choose the one that we enjoy most before we go through them one by one.”
Lady Logan laughed.
“You are making it a game, Miss Brown, which I shall enjoy. I used to be a great reader, but now I find it impossible to see the words, even when the print is quite large.”
“That is how I am going to help you, my Lady, and you must not let it worry you. I expect you have been to the best oculists, but my mother always said that a herb called ‘eyebright’ could sometimes help people’s eyes in a quite miraculous manner.”
“I have never heard of it,” Lady Logan said, “but you know what doctors are like. When I complain, they just give me something that makes me feel sleepy and rather stupid.”
“Mama was very good with herbs and we grew them in the garden. She thought that doctors’ medicine often did more harm than good.”
“I am sure that is true, so you must order me some of this eyebright and I will try it. Even if I cannot see to read, I might be able to see you more clearly.”
“I feel very sure that eyebright will help you,” Belinda said, “and we must work very hard with your eyes.”
Lady Logan gave a little chuckle.
“I see I am not only going to have a reader, but also a physician!” she said. “How can you know so much at your age? I know you are very young, but how old in fact are you?”
Belinda hesitated and then she told the truth.
“I am nearly nineteen, but my father, who was a very clever man, taught me languages almost as soon as I could talk. We lived in the country and my mother had an herb garden of her own.”
As Belinda spoke, she felt a pang of distress.
Now she had left home, there would be no one to tend the herb garden and the weeds would grow in abundance and swamp the more delicate of the herbs.
Then she told herself that that was a very small item to worry about.
Unless she was successful in what her stepfather was asking her to do, she would never see her home again.
Afraid of her thoughts, she picked up the book that Lady Logan had given her.
“I am sure I shall find some more poems in this book and I would like to read you another one.”
“It is something I will look forward to,” Lady Logan said, “and I can tell you right away, Miss Brown, that I think your voice is charming.”
She gave a little sigh before she added,
“So many young people today have such hard voices, which makes me fear that their characters are very much the same.”
“Then I hope my character matches my voice,” Belinda replied. “But that, my Lady, is something you will find out when you get to know me better.”
“Which is what I want to do. And I feel quite certain, my dear, that your character will be just as beautiful as your voice.”
Belinda opened the book.
She was thanking God in her heart that everything so far had gone so well.
‘I am here,’ she thought, ‘and I know Mama would have liked Lady Logan and is pleased that I am in this beautiful house.’
She turned over the pages of the book.
She was trying hard not to think of her stepfather going back to Madame Yvonne and her exotic pink bedroom.
Chapter Five
The house was entrancing everywhere she looked.
Belinda kept wishing that her father could see it and tell her about the pictures, the furniture and the carpets.
In fact everything.
She was shown into a bedroom that was very attractive.
It was not large, but to her delight it overlooked the garden.
It made her feel somehow that she had not left everything behind her in the country and the flowers, the birds and the bees were all there with her.
They had luncheon in the beautiful dining room that had been designed by Nash and Lady Logan talked of the development of Regent’s Park, and, of course, her house.
“I like living in the country best,” she said, “and my son has bought a large estate in Oxfordshire. The hou
se is lovely, as I know you will think when you see it.”
It flashed through Belinda’s mind that that was something she would never do if she found out quickly all that her stepfather wanted to know.
“I really had no wish to come to London,” Lady Logan went on, “but it was necessary for me to have special treatment on one of my legs. Also it means I am here when my son arrives home from his travels.”
“But this is not unlike being in the country, my Lady” Belinda remarked.
“That was what my son thought. He said, ‘Mama, if I cannot give you the broad acres, at least you shall have the flowers’.”
Lady Logan gave a sigh.
“He is such a wonderful son. I am so very very lucky to have him.”
“I hear he is very clever,” Belinda hazarded.
“So everybody says. He is like his father. I try to understand what he tells me about the places he has been and that is where you will have to help me.”
“I suppose, as you have a book from Persia,” Belinda enquired, “that he has been there.”
“Yes, that was his last trip and he brought me back some beautiful Persian carpets which are really too good to put on the floor!”
She paused before she added with a smile,
“He bought me a book that describes why the Persian carpets became so famous and that is something else I want you to read to me.”
“I shall enjoy that, my Lady,” Belinda answered.
“I find it very strange,” Lady Logan said, “that though so young, you should be good at so many languages. You say your father taught you, but even so, I was afraid that I was going to have an old Professor who had retired from University or, even worse, somebody whose real job was in the British Museum.”
Belinda laughed.
“I am glad I am neither of those persons, but it will be exciting for me to translate the books your son has brought you from so many different places in the world.”
There was silence as they went on eating.
Then Lady Logan said,
“Marcus, as you say, is very clever. Everybody talks about him as being ‘Lucky Logan’, but I cannot help wishing he would marry and settle down and have a family.”
“I suppose that is what we all want,” Belinda remarked.
Lucky Logan Finds Love Page 6
