A Gamble with Hearts

Chapter One ~ 1868-2

As he spoke, he moved across the room to place his candle on the narrow mantelshelf over the empty grate.

The shutters were fastened over the window, but even so the room was cold and he thought with regret of the fire burning warmly next door in his own bedroom.

There was the sound of a movement behind him and then a low, still frightened little voice said,

“I-I am – in bed.”

He turned round.

She was sitting up, a sheet held against her chest. Her fair hair fell over her shoulders, making her look as if she had stepped out of a Fairytale.

The gentleman moved towards her, looking as he did so to see if there was a chair where he could sit down. The only one in the attic was covered with the girl’s clothes and when he reached the bed he sat down on the extreme end of it.

“Now tell me,” he began, “why you are here.”

As he spoke, he looked at her and realised that even with a tear-stained face she was unusually lovely. In fact, he told himself, he had not seen anyone so beautiful for a long time.

Her skin was almost translucent, her eyes were the deep blue of the Mediterranean or perhaps of the gentians that could be picked high above it on the mountains.

Her nose was very small and straight and her lips still trembling, although smudged a little with the agony of her tears, were exquisitely curved.

“Who are you?” the gentleman asked.

“My name is – Selina Wade.”

“And mine is Quintus Tiverton. So now we are introduced.”

He smiled as he spoke and it was a very beguiling smile, as women had found since he first used it to his advantage when he was in the cradle.

“D-do you – really want me to – tell you about – myself?” Selina asked hesitatingly.

“I must beg you to do so,” Quintus Tiverton replied, “otherwise I assure you I shall lie awake all night worrying as to what is the truth.”

“Y-you – will be – shocked when you – hear.”

There was a smile at the corners of his lips as he answered,

“I can assure you, Miss Wade, nothing ever shocks me.”

Selina gave a little sigh and leant back against the pillows.

It was an involuntary gesture and the weals on her back caused her to wince so that she sat up again.

“How could anyone dare to treat you in such an appalling way?” Quintus Tiverton asked sharply.

“I-I suppose it was my own – fault,” Selina replied. “But there was – nothing else I could do – really there was not.”

“I believe you,” Quintus Tiverton said. “But you must tell me first what I am to believe.”

He smiled again and realised that Selina, who had been trembling ever since he entered the room, now seemed a little calmer.

“It is all – so – bewildering. When Mrs. Devilin asked me to go with her to – France, I thought it would be – exciting and an – adventure, but it has been – terrifying!”

“Who is Mrs. Devilin?” Quintus Tiverton enquired.

“I met her in the – domestic bureau,” Selina replied.

“Start at the beginning,” he suggested. “Who are your parents and where do you live?”

“My parents are both – dead,” Selina answered. “We lived at Little Cobham in Surrey.”

“I know it. What did your father do?”

“He had a small estate,” Selina replied, “which he bought after he retired from the Army. He was a Colonel – in the Eleventh Hussars.”

The man listening to her did not speak and after a moment she went on,

“He had his pension and Mama had a little money of her own. But, when Papa died and his pension – stopped, I found that Mama’s capital had all been spent and so there was – nothing.”

“The house did not belong to you?”

“I thought it did – but it was mortgaged.”

Selina gave a little sigh.

“I had always imagined that I would go on living at home if anything happened to Papa. I could have arranged for some respectable woman to live with me – but then I learnt that the house was no longer mine.”

There was something pathetically lost and childlike in the way she said it and after a moment Quintus Tiverton prompted,

“What happened?”

“My uncle told me that I could live with him, but he obviously did not really want me. He is a Parson living on a very small stipend and it is hard enough for him to make two ends meet.”

She made a little gesture with her hand as she continued,

“When I suggested to my uncle that I should find work, he seemed pleased. So I went to London.”

“By yourself?” Quintus Tiverton asked.

“There was no one to go with me,” Selina replied, “and Uncle Bartram was too busy to spare the time.”

“I understand. Go on.”

. “I knew, of course, I would have to go to a domestic bureau,” Selina continued. “I thought they would advise me as to – what sort of employment I should take. I-I am afraid – I am not very – talented.”

Looking at her face and at her big eyes raised to his, Quintus Tiverton could not help thinking that there would be no need for a girl of such beauty to possess many talents.

But he made no comment, anxious for Selina to carry on with her story.

“I had only just begun to explain to the secretary at the desk in the bureau what I required, hoping that she would advise me, when another more elderly woman came to her side and said, ‘I think Mrs. D’Arcy Devilin would like to see this young woman.’

“‘She is not interested in Betty Sheffield?’ the secretary asked.

“‘No, the elderly woman replied, ‘she is not pretty enough.’

“I thought this sounded rather strange, but before I could ask any questions, I was led into a small room, which I guessed was where employers interviewed applicants for an engagement.”

Selina drew a deep breath.

“Seated there was the smartest and most elegant lady I had ever seen.”

Quintus Tiverton was listening intently and, as Selina continued with her story, her voice low and hesitating, trembling sometimes over her words, he gained a very vivid picture of what had occurred.

He realised, as Selina had been unable to, the implications that lay behind the conversations and how easily a girl from the country could have been bemused and bewildered by the sophistication of the woman who held out so tempting a situation.

Mrs. D’Arcy Devilin, with her full, rustling satin skirts, her elegant taffeta pelisse and her bonnet trimmed with floating feathers, had looked to Selina like a being from another world.

She and her parents had lived very quietly in Little Cobham.

Although she occasionally had had glimpses of the ladies of the County when they visited her mother or when she herself went to parties or Receptions at the Squire’s or at the High Sheriff’s Annual Assembly, Mrs. Devilin was more striking and certainly smarter than anyone she had ever seen before.

She was to learn later that it was Parisian chic, but at the moment she was concerned not only with admiring the fashionable figure who scrutinised her from head to foot but with feeling slightly embarrassed by the sharpness of the lady’s voice as she questioned her and the penetrating glance of her dark eyes.

“I require a companion for my niece who lives with me in Paris,” she said, “and I cannot bear to have ugly or gauche women around me. I want somebody who is educated, who understands how to be charming to the many important people who frequent my house and who has at least a smattering of the graces that are essential for every young Lady of Fashion.”

“I-I am – not certain – what those – a-are, ma’am,” Selina stammered.

“You will need to dance, you will need deportment and you will need to talk on many subjects but, most of all, to be able to listen.”

“I am sure I can do that.”

“You are certainly quite presentable,” the lady went on in her hard voice. “At the same time your clothes are lamentable.”

“I understand, madam, this young woman comes from the country,” the woman from the bureau interposed.

Mrs. Devilin gave her an impatient look.

“I think, Mrs. Hunt, I should prefer to interview this girl alone.”

“Of course, madam, I quite understand,” Mrs. Hunt replied.

She bobbed a curtsey and went from the room, leaving Selina standing nervously in front of Mrs. Devilin.

“You may sit down,” she said condescendingly. “And now answer my questions truthfully and accurately.”

“I will try – to do so,” Selina replied in her soft voice.

“You are an orphan?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What relations do you have?”

Selina wondered why it should matter that she had an uncle who she could live with until she found employment, a cousin in Scotland whom she never saw and another in Cornwall who was so old that it was no use writing any further letters to her.

“You are quite prepared to come to France?” Mrs. Devilin asked.

“I should love to travel,” Selina answered, “and I have always longed specially – to see France and Italy.”

“I live in Paris,” Mrs. Devilin said. “Can you come with me tomorrow?”

“Yes, there is no reason – why I should not,” Selina answered.

“Your uncle will not prevent you going?”

“No, indeed, ma’am. He would be glad to think that I have found employment, even though it is in another country.”

“Very well, you can meet me at Sheriff’s Hotel tomorrow morning at half after nine o’clock. Bring few clothes with you. I shall have to fit you out in Paris. You would be a laughing stock there in what you are wearing now.”

Excited by the interview Selina went back to her uncle to tell him that she need no longer be an encumbrance to him.

“Paris?” he had commented reflectively. “From all I hear, Paris is not the City for a young girl alone.”

“I don’t expect that Mrs. Devilin’s niece would be allowed to go anywhere unchaperoned, Uncle Bartram,” Selina had answered. “Mrs. Devilin appeared to me to be –very strict.”

“That is what I would hope,” her uncle said. “You are quite certain that you are wise to accept the first position you are offered? After all there might he others more to your liking.”

“This one is very much to my liking, Uncle Bartram. You know how Papa always used to tell me about his travels abroad when he was in the Army. It is so wonderful to think that I can see a little of the world.”

“I suppose it is all right,” her uncle agreed grudgingly. “Perhaps we should make some enquiries about this Mrs. Devilin. You say she was known to the Agency?”

“She was indeed. When she called Mrs. Hunt in and said that she would engage me, Mrs. Hunt said, ‘I only hope, madam, that you have found the other young girls I have provided you with in the past to be satisfactory.’

“Mrs. Devilin laughed.

“‘Too satisfactory, Mrs. Hunt! They were so attractive and so charming that both of them have married. One to a very rich man, another to a Nobleman!”

“‘That’s nice for them, madam,’ Mrs. Hunt exclaimed.

“‘But a nuisance for me,’ Mrs. Devilin replied. ‘That is why I have come to visit you again for I have to say that I am very satisfied with the service you have given me.’

“‘We do our best, madam,’ Mrs. Hunt replied. ‘And may I say that we are by far the largest and the most exclusive domestic bureau in London. In fact our clientele is very distinguished. As I often remark to my assistant, it reads almost like a page from Debrett’s Peerage.’”

Selina, having related the story, waited for her uncle’s reaction.

“It certainly sounds satisfactory, Selina,” he had said. Equally there was some doubt in his voice and Selina sensed that he was still perturbed at the thought of her going away to Paris. But for her it was an excitement beyond words.

She had been unable to sleep that night after she had packed her small leather trunk and had lain awake alternately thanking God for looking after her and eagerly anticipating all that she might see in Paris.

She and Mrs. Devilin had travelled by train to Dover, crossed the English Channel and then taken a train for Paris.

It had been a long and tiring journey, but they had travelled Second Class in what seemed to Selina luxurious comfort.

It was only when she arrived in Paris that she had been a little surprised to learn that Mrs. Devilin’s niece was not in the house.

It was a long, narrow grey building in what she learnt was the fashionable part of Paris, just off the Rue de St. Honoré.

She had supposed that it belonged to Mrs. Devilin, but from some remarks that were made by a servant she learnt that it was only rented and that Mrs. Devilin had not even seen it until her return from England.