A Battle Of Brains

CHAPTER ONE 1889-1

CHAPTER ONE

1889Yolanda laid the flowers on her mother’s grave and said a prayer as she did so.

She found it hard to believe that she would never again see her mother she adored.

She had already cried herself to sleep every night since she learnt of her death.

It seemed that she had no more tears to shed.

It had happened so suddenly, so unexpectedly that even now it was difficult to believe.

She still expected her mother to be waiting for her.

She would be holding out her arms as she always did when they had been away from each other.

Yolanda had been a pupil at a Convent school just outside Paris.

Four days ago the Mother Superior had sent for her and she had gone slowly to her office wondering what she had done wrong.

She never dreamt it could be a message from home.

The Mother Superior had broken the dreadful news to her gently, but at the same time it was such a shock that for a moment the news was impossible to believe.

Yolanda felt as if the ground had been pulled from under her.

They had been through so much together since her father died and she had believed for a long time that the only safe and secure rock in her life was her mother.

Now she was dead too and Yolanda knew that she was alone.

It was only after a very long silence that the Mother Superior said,

“Your stepfather, Yolanda, has asked you to return home at once, which I feel certain you will wish to do. You will unfortunately be too late to attend your mother’s funeral, but he wants you to be with him.”

Yolanda had given a little shiver.

She never wished to be with her stepfather and she could not understand why he wanted her now.

Equally if he ordered her to return, there was really nothing she could do about it.

She had had plenty of time to ponder her situation on the long journey home, accompanied by an ancient nun who had been instructed to chaperone her.

For hours Yolanda was silent, looking back into the past and seeing everything in a very different way.

Her dearest father, the Earl of Longwood, had been the most handsome, charming and delightful man anyone could possibly meet.

Wherever they were and whatever was happening, they always seemed to be laughing.

Yolanda believed no one could have been happier than she had been with two such wonderful parents.

It was only as she grew up that she understood.

The many difficulties, frustrations and moments of despair in her parent’s lives became clearer.

Her father, after inheriting the Earldom, was given a dreadful shock – except for the title that had been in the family for several centuries, he received nothing else from his father.

The Fifth Earl had spent considerably more than his income and he had sold everything that was saleable.

The London house had gone first and then all the land in the country that had not been entailed, such as the house and its contents.

It was heartbreaking for the new Earl.

His father had left a considerable number of debts too, which more or less equalled his own and, as far as he could see, there was no chance of meeting them.

He was therefore forced to let out the family house and estate, which brought him in a little money.

He, his wife and daughter had then moved into the Dower House.

Yolanda did not know exactly when her father took up gambling, but she could understand, now she was older, that it was a desperate effort to win back something after all he had lost.

She suspected that some of the possessions in the house that he had dared not sell went to the pawnbroker.

They were usually small items that would not be noticed by the Trustees, who visited the house and estate every six months to check that everything was intact.

At first the Earl was very lucky at his gambling – he won at racing, cards and, when they travelled abroad, in the casinos as well.

As she grew up, Yolanda was fascinated when her father came back smiling.

He would throw up his arms in delight.

“I have won! I have won!” he would call out to her mother. “Now we can enjoy ourselves and, my darling, you must have the most beautiful jewels I can find.”

Her mother accepted the gifts and Yolanda believed it was because inevitably sooner or later they would have to be sold or pawned.

The only presents her mother did not lose were the many pretty gowns that her father had bought for her.

“You will always be very beautiful, my precious,” he would tell his wife. “But I like your frame to be worthy of your beauty.”

Because her mother had loved him so completely, she always did whatever he wanted, regardless of the consequences.

Yolanda remembered affectionately how sweet and kind she was when things went wrong.

They would know only too well exactly what had happened after an evening’s gambling had not gone well.

Her father would enter the room in a slow way and the expression on his face told them before he spoke what had occurred.

“I have lost,” he groaned. “I cannot think why luck had turned against me.”

“You are asking too much, my dearest,” her mother would say. “You won last month and indeed the month before, but you cannot expect to win every time.”

Sometimes when things were bad they would have to leave the comfortable hotel they had been staying in, which meant moving into very uncomfortable lodgings and eating inferior food.

But invariably, in some way or another, her father was able to find the money to carry on gambling.

It was indeed a strange life, Yolanda mused, as the train carried her from Paris to Calais.

She had visited Baden-Baden in Germany with her parents and found the town incredibly beautiful. And she had spent several weeks in Hamburg.

They had then travelled back to London after one of her father’s more successful spells at the roulette tables and rented a house in Mayfair.

He had then been in touch with several of his old friends whom he had not seen for many years, and they had been delighted to see him again.

They made a great fuss of the beautiful Countess of Longwood too, much to the delight of her adoring husband.

Next a governess was engaged for Yolanda and she enjoyed going to Hyde Park to see the horses in Rotten Row.

The beautiful Society ladies, like her mother, drove in an open Victoria, an elegant French carriage with a raised driver's seat drawn by two magnificent horses. Accompanied by a liveried coachman, the ladies rode through the parks of London with small sunshades held up over their heads.

Then she recalled how very suddenly her father had decided to go to Paris, as he wanted to attend the racing that was about to take place on the new Racecourse in the Bois de Boulogne.

“I know which horse is going to win the big race,” he boasted, “and I intend to make a packet on him!”

Her mother agreed with him as she always did.

So they set off for Paris and stayed at a large and impressive hotel.

As a special treat Yolanda was allowed to go to the Racecourse and she had known without being told that the racehorses she saw were the finest in Europe.

The horse which her father had come to see run was outstanding and she was well aware that a great number of people were putting their money on him to win.

The race was thrilling and the horses moved at an almost impossible speed, sweeping like typhoons past the winning post.

But the horse her father had backed was not in the first three.

The result was such a surprise to a large number of race goers that a groan echoed around the enclosure.

It was then that her father had exclaimed angrily,

“I don’t believe it! The whole race was a cheat and there should be a full enquiry as to why the favourite was pulled in at the last moment!”

Unfortunately, the horse’s owner, who took umbrage at the suggestion of cheating, overheard her father’s loud comments.

Yolanda was not quite certain what happened between them, but upon returning to the hotel that evening, she was horrified to discover that her father was expected to fight a duel at dawn the next morning.

Her mother was distraught at the prospect.

“You cannot do it, darling,” she wept over and over again. “You have not fought a duel for many years and these Frenchmen are experts at it.”

“It is something I cannot refuse,” replied the Earl, “and, damn him, he has lost us every penny we possess!”

Yolanda remembered that her mother had not been in the slightest concerned about the losses – she was only worried about her father fighting in a duel.

She was still pleading with him desperately to refuse to take part when they retired to bed.

“You know as well as I do,” insisted the Earl, “that I have to behave like a gentleman. It would besmirch my honour to refuse!”

There was nothing further her mother could say to dissuade him, but Yolanda could see the tears in her eyes.

They drove off together before dawn to the Bois de Boulogne where duels always took place.

Her father was not killed – but badly wounded.

Although he was taken back to the hotel where they were staying and the doctors sent for at once, his wound became septic.

Finally after three days in agony, he died.

To his adoring wife it was the end of the world and she could only weep helplessly.

They had been very happy together and the endless difficulties over money had not seemed important as long as they both shared success and failure.

Her father had been buried in a graveyard in Paris, as it was too expensive to take his body back to England.

Yolanda had then asked her mother what they were going to do and the Countess made a helpless gesture with her hands.

“I have no idea, my darling,” she answered. “We have no money and we owe a great deal to the hotel apart from anything else.”

“Oh, Mama!” exclaimed Yolanda. “Perhaps they will prosecute us if we cannot pay! We might even have to go to prison!”

Her mother had not responded, only cried more tears of despair, whilst Yolanda shivered because she was so afraid.

It was then, and it seemed at the time almost like a miracle, that Mr. Garrack had come into their lives.

He was staying in the same hotel and Yolanda had noticed him when they were having dinner the night before the race.

He had been sitting at a table near to theirs and she had been drawn to him, thinking he was a rather unattractive man compared to her handsome father.

But he kept staring at her mother with such a look of admiration in his eyes that was, in a way, very flattering.

As dinner ended her father was debating whether he would go to a gambling house that was not too far away.

Suddenly the stranger rose from his table, bowed to her mother and father and introduced himself,

“My name is Oliver Garrack, and you must forgive me if it seems impertinent of me to speak to you.”

Her father, who was always charming to everyone he met, smiled at him and commented,

“We are staying in the same hotel, are we not?”

“I was just counting my lucky stars,” Mr. Garrack said, “because it has allowed me to see the most beautiful woman I have ever set eyes on!”

He was looking at her mother as he was speaking, and Yolanda saw that she turned her head away as if a little shy.

“There,” her father remarked, “I must agree with you. I only wish I could afford to have my wife’s portrait painted by a great artist.”

“Strangely enough,” Mr. Garrack then replied, “that is just what I was going to ask you. You may think it very forward, but I am a great lover of beauty. I have in my house in England a collection by some very fine Masters.”

He paused to look at the Countess again, before he went on,