64 The Castle Made for Love

by Barbara Cartland

  “He laughed and added, ‘you must allow me to stage manage this romance in my own way and no producer ever had a more attractive hero or heroine!’

  ‘Or a better stage set!’ I said. “The Comte laughed and added,

  ‘I thought you would think that. The Castle was made for love, which is something it has not had since I have lived there. You will change that, Leo, you and Marie Teresa’.”

  The Marquis’s voice died away and then he said,

  “It was after this last conversation, when I was twenty-three, that I came to an important decision.”

  “What was – that?” Yola asked.

  “I knew that I could not marry a wife who was not only wealthy but possessed the castle of my dreams unless I too had something to offer. I therefore determined to make myself into a rich man.”

  “A – rich man?” Yola echoed in surprise.

  “I realised it was not going to be easy,” the Marquis said, “because in fact I had nothing but a very generous allowance which the Comte made me. However, I thought about it very seriously and told him what I intended to do. He gave me his blessing although I fancy he was slightly sceptical.”

  “What did you intend to do?”

  “I realised that impoverished Noblemen were to be found by the dozens in Paris,” the Marquis answered, “and they were often an embarrassment to the Emperor and a large number of other members of the very rich, luxurious, extravagant Society there.”

  He spoke as if he was thinking again of the decision he had made and how hard it had been.

  “I also have a constitutional dislike of asking for help,” he added sharply.

  “So what – did you do?”

  “I introduced myself to Paris as a rich, carefree young man.”

  “Rich?” Yola queried in astonishment.

  “I borrowed a certain sum of money from a friend,” the Marquis said, “not the Comte, as I had had so much from him already. I promised to repay it in two years and I swore to myself that I would not fail him or myself.”

  “But how could you repay the money?”

  The Marquis smiled mockingly.

  “Men are nearly as susceptible as women to flattery, not about their looks but about their possessions. Paris was filled with men vying with one another to show off their wealth, which they expended in a profligate manner on women who spent it as fast as they could make it.”

  “I don’t – understand how that could – affect you,” Yola said.

  At the same time, because he had spoken of ‘women’ she felt a little stab of jealousy.

  “I made myself amusing and useful to the men who were to be found at every important party, every distinguished dinner. Sometimes, when they found me accommodating in repeating what I had heard passing from one financier to another, they showed me where there was money to be made.”

  “On the Bourse?”

  “On the Bourse, on the Racecourse, on the money exchanges. There is always someone ‘in the know’ always a man who is a little more intelligent and a little brighter than those round him.”

  “And you made money in – such a way?”

  “I made money because no one realised how much I needed it,” the Marquis answered.

  He gave a little laugh.

  “I am not a millionaire, but, when two weeks ago, I received a letter from Beauharnais, I told myself that I will not go there empty-handed.”

  “A letter?” Yola questioned, knowing only too well what he was referring to.

  “It was a letter from the Dowager Comtesse, the wife of the Comte who had originally befriended my mother and me,” the Marquis explained. “She invited me to The Castle next month because Marie Teresa is at last eighteen and grown up.”

  “You knew – why you had been – asked?” Yola enquired.

  “I knew I had to fulfil my promise to the Comte, marry Marie Teresa and run The Castle and the estates as he had wished.”

  Yola drew in her breath – it was impossible to speak.

  “Everything was plain sailing, everything that had been planned for me since I was nine years old had now come to fruition,” the Marquis said, “and then – I met you!”

  He looked at Yola before he said,

  “Last night I asked the river why in God’s name you had to come into my life just at this moment and then I knew the answer.”

  “Wh-what was – it?”

  Yola could hardly breathe the words.

  “It was Fate – Fate that we should meet – Fate that I should fall in love – Fate that I should learn that love is greater than possessions, greater even than The Castle I had longed for all my life.”

  It seemed to Yola as if she could not be hearing him aright.

  She looked up at him, saw the expression in his eyes and felt that her heart stopped beating.

  “That is why, my precious darling,” the Marquis said very quietly, “I have come here so early in the morning to ask you if you will be my wife!”

  Time seemed to stand still.

  Then the Marquis saw the colour come into Yola’s pale cheeks and a light into her eyes that made her suddenly radiant. It was like the sun coming up over the horizon to sweep away the night.

  She looked at him incredulously as if she could not believe what she had just heard and yet her whole body seemed to have come alive.

  “D-do you – mean – that?”

  “I mean it!” the Marquis answered. “But because I feel that I am betraying the man who did more for me than any other human being could do for another, because I am at the moment honour-bound to a girl I have not seen since she was a baby, I am going to Beauharnais today to explain my position before we can be married.”

  “Going – to – Beauharnais?” Yola repeated almost stupidly.

  It was difficult to think, difficult to be conscious of anything but the rapture springing within her.

  He loved her! He loved her!

  She felt as if she had wings to fly and the whole room was lit with a golden light that enveloped them both.

  “I have already sent a telegraph to announce my arrival,” the Marquis said. “I shall return tomorrow and then, my little love, you shall tell me all about yourself.”

  He looked down at her. Although he did not move, she felt as though he took her in his arms and his lips were on hers.

  “I love you!” he said very quietly. “I love you as I did not know it was possible to love anyone!”

  “Oh – Leo – ”

  The words that came from Yola’s lips were only a sigh as her eyes met his.

  “If you look at me like that,” the Marquis said in a low voice, “I shall not be able to leave you. You must not tempt me, my precious, or I shall break my promise to myself to do what has to be done in a decent and honourable manner.”

  “I – understand.”

  “I knew you would.”

  With an almost superhuman effort he turned and walked away from her towards the door.

  Only as he reached it did Yola manage to ask,

  “At what – time are you – leaving Paris?”

  “I believe there is a train about midday,” he answered. “But I cannot stay with you, my darling, until then and you know the reason why.”

  His eyes were on her lips and she felt as if he kissed them.

  Then before she could speak, before she could hardly realise what was happening, he had gone and she heard the sound of his chaise driving away from the front door.

  With a little cry she ran up the stairs and without even knocking burst into Aimée’s bedroom.

  The maid was already there, pulling back the curtains and, as Yola stood beside the bed, Aimée looked up at her with sleepy eyes.

  “What is it?”

  “I have won! Oh, Aimée, I have won!” Yola cried. “Leo has been here. He has asked me to marry him!”

  Aimée sat up in bed.

  “He has asked you to marry him? Yola, how wonderful!”

  “I had decided I should
go home and never see him again, but now everything has changed – everything will be perfect!”

  “I am so happy for you,” Aimée said, but there was just a hint of wistfulness in her voice.

  Yola put her arms round her and kissed her.

  “Everything will come right for you too,” she said. “I am sure of it. Thank you – thank you for all your kindness!”

  She kissed Aimée again and added hastily,

  “I must leave. I have to be at Beauharnais before he arrives there.”

  “Then hurry!” Aimée smiled. “And don’t forget to invite me to your wedding.”

  “I will not forget,” Yola replied, and ran from the room.

  *

  As the train carried her away from Paris and out into the countryside, which was bright with blossoms, Yola thanked God for having answered her prayers.

  She thought that her father must know and be pleased that everything he had planned was taking place just as he would have wished it.

  “I am so happy, Papa!” Yola said. “But how could I have ever guessed the reason why Leo was at every party, why his name was always in the newspapers and why everybody gossiped about him?”

  She was intelligent enough to understand exactly the kind of aura the Marquis had created for himself.

  She was quite sure that he was right in knowing that the rich are interested only in the rich, that people want to give only to those who have, never to those who have not.

  It was a clever plan, but could not have been carried out unless the Marquis himself was extremely intelligent, witty and charming in a manner that made him sought after not only by men but also by women.

  It was impossible for Yola not to feel a little pang of jealousy when she thought of how many women must have loved him.

  Then she told herself that no woman could have a greater tribute laid at her feet than that the Marquis should ask her to be his wife, knowing nothing about her, believing her to be of no significance socially and with the stigma of moving in the company of demi-mondaines.

  ‘He loves me! He really loves me!’ she told herself over and over again to the accompaniment of the wheels.

  Aimée’s servants had reserved a whole carriage for her on the train, but even so she knew that her grandmother would be horrified if she learnt that she had travelled alone.

  But for the moment nothing mattered. Her grandmother was always horrified over small trifles, but it was nothing to what she would have felt, Yola thought, if she had gone home, as she had intended, to say that she would not marry the Marquis.

  Now no one would know what she had done or the outrageous step she had taken in going to Paris to stay with Aimée Aubigny.

  No one would know except – the Marquis!

  It was almost as if a voice in the carriage spoke the words aloud.

  For a moment Yola was startled.

  Then it suddenly struck her that he might be angry. After all, no man liked being deceived, no man would want to be made a fool of and that in fact was what she had done to him.

  ‘It’s not true, I did not mean it like that,’ Yola cried silently to herself.

  Yet she was acutely aware that the Marquis might not be so rapturously happy as she expected when he arrived at The Castle and found that Marie Teresa de Beauharnais was in fact Yola Lefleur!

  ‘He will understand,’ Yola reassured herself.

  Then she knew that shadowing her radiant happiness there was a small cloud of fear.

  It was not menacing, it did not encroach upon her in the way she had felt when she was told she had to marry the Marquis, but nevertheless it was there.

  A small patch in the midst of so much light and she felt as she neared Langeais as if it grew and turned into a stern and accusing expression in the Marquis’s eyes.

  The way he had looked at her this morning and the things he had said made her feel as if he carried her up into the heart of the sun itself.

  But now she was afraid, even while she told herself she was being unnecessarily apprehensive.

  The train reached Langeais and, as Yola in her agitation to leave Paris had forgotten to telegraph her grandmother that she would be arriving, there was, of course, no carriage to meet her at the station.

  She was, however, known to the Station Master, and after she had explained that she had left hurriedly and had had no time to notify The Castle, a Hackney carriage was obtained for her.

  Her luggage was put into the Station Master’s office to be kept safe until it could be collected by The Castle servants.

  The promise of rain that had overcast the sky in Paris had not materialised and now there was sunshine, which Yola told herself was a sign of good luck.

  ‘Everything will be all right,’ she thought and hugged to herself the idea that he loved her, loved her enough to sacrifice everything, even The Castle.

  She thought again of the warm way the Marquis had spoken of her father and now looking back she remembered various things that might have given her an idea of what her father was planning for her in the future.

  She had always known that he had longed for a son to inherit and that it would have been against his every instinct to leave her unprotected at the mercy of fortune-hunters.

  ‘Papa loved me!’ Yola thought. ‘And he loved Leo too.’

  She could imagine how he had planned that he would be instrumental in bringing them together.

  She had been sure that, once the period of mourning for her mother was over, The Castle would be filled with the relations and friends who had been excluded from it for so long.

  Then, in the right atmosphere, that would have been the moment when her father would have asked Leo to come and stay so that they should meet.

  ‘That is what you would have done, Papa,’ Yola said to him now in her heart. ‘But perhaps this way it is even more exciting, because we might so easily never have realised how great our love is for each other.’

  The carriage crossed the Loire and then the Indre and now they were driving through fields filled with spring flowers towards the orchards covered in blossoms.

  Then The Castle was in sight.

  The sunshine was on it and its towers and turrets were silhouetted against the green forest behind it and the white stone glowed with a light that made it seem almost to float above its terraces.

  It was so beautiful, so Fairy tale-like, that Yola felt tears come into her eyes as she remembered how the Marquis had said that she was like the Sleeping Beauty.

  Now she was awake – awake to realise that her father had been right when he had said this was a castle made for love.

  ‘I will make Leo happy and we will have many children,’ Yola thought, ‘so that The Castle will never seem cold, austere and empty as it did when I was a child.’

  The horse clop-clopping along the dusty road carried her nearer still and she thought that The Castle now looked as if it might fly away in the sunlit sky and be nothing but a mirage.

  Then she told herself that she had nothing to fear.

  It was real, it was there and she would be waiting for Leo when he arrived and he would understand.

  There was still, however, just a tiny tremor of fear in Yola’s breast as the carriage drove through the gold-tipped wrought-iron gates and up the steep incline to the courtyard.

  As it drew to a standstill, the servants came hurrying through the front door, the old butler with an expression of surprise on his face.

  “We were not expecting you, m’mselle,” he said reproachfully.

  “I know,” Yola smiled, “but I had to leave Paris earlier than I expected.”

  She was thinking of a plausible excuse to explain her precipitate return to her grandmother and found one before she reached the salon.

  “Yola! My dear child!” the Comtesse exclaimed. “Why did you not let me know that you were coming?”

  “It was all very unexpected, Grandmère,” Yola replied. “One of the members of the household was taken ill and, as it would hav
e been inconvenient for them to have me there any longer, I left.”

  “Quite right, ma chérie,” the Comtesse approved. “At the same time I cannot bear to think that there was not a carriage at the Station to meet you. I suppose the maid who accompanied you has waited to take the next train back.”

  Yola did not answer because she had no wish to lie any further and her grandmother, not noticing her silence, said,

  “As it happens, I am delighted that you are here. In fact I was just about to telegraph to you to return.”

  “You were, Grandmère? But why?” Yola asked.

  “I have had a telegram from the Marquis,” her grandmother explained, “asking if he might arrive this evening”

  Yola forced herself to look surprised and her grandmother continued,

  “I cannot imagine why he wishes to come a fortnight earlier than he was expected, but even if I had had the chance to refuse I would not have done so.”

  “No, of course not, Grandmère,” Yola agreed. “But we have no time to invite a party to meet him.”

  She was trying only to speak naturally and to behave as her grandmother expected, but she knew that she wanted nobody else there – she wanted to meet Leo alone.

  She went to the window and thought of the pleasure it would give her to show him round The Castle where he had lived as a little boy and to see if he noticed any of the improvements that she and her father had made.

  There had not been a great deal that she and her father could do, as it had always involved an argument or a quarrel with her mother. But they had put on show a great many of the treasures which had not been very well displayed in her grandmother’s time and Yola thought that they made the inside of The Castle look even more beautiful than it had before.

  Now she told herself excitedly that there were so many more things she wanted to do, which Leo could help with and advise her.

  All the rooms that had been closed in her mother’s time would be opened and the bedrooms would be redecorated and they would place new curtains in the dining hall.

  It would all be exciting because he would be beside her, because she knew that they had the same taste and that their minds, like their hearts, were linked together.

  “You are not listening to me, Marie Teresa!” she heard her grandmother say behind her.