An Innocent in Paris

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1903-2

Then, to her horror and consternation, she felt her words fading away on her lips and the hall swimming dizzily around her.

She knew that she was going to fall and she reached out to hold on to something and felt a man’s arm go round her. This time it gave her a strange sense of security as she slid into a darkness that seemed to come up from the floor and encompass her utterly.

*

She came back to consciousness to find herself lying on a sofa in a strange room. Her hat was off, her head was resting on a pile of satin cushions and a glass was being held to her lips.

“Drink this,” a voice came commandingly.

She took a sip and shuddered.

“I don’t drink alcohol,” she tried to say, but the glass was pressed closer.

“Drink a little,” the same voice persisted. “It will do you good.”

She obeyed because she did not seem to have any choice. The brandy trickling warmly down her throat cleared away the mist from her eyes and she looked up to see clearly that it was the Englishman who was holding the glass.

She even remembered his name.

Lord Hartcourt.

“I am ‒ so sorry,” she stammered, blushing in embarrassment as she realised that he must have carried her to the sofa.

“You are all right,” he answered. “I expect you were tired from travelling. When did you last have something to eat?”

“It was a long time ago,” Gardenia admitted. “I could not afford the meals on the train and I did not like to get out at any of the Stations we stopped at.”

“I rather thought that might be the case,” Lord Hartcourt replied in a dry voice.

He put down the glass he had been holding to Gardenia’s lips, opened the doors of the room and she heard him speaking to someone outside. She looked round her and guessed that this was the morning room or the library that opened off the hall.

With an effort she sat up, her hands going instinctively to her dishevelled hair and then Lord Hartcourt came back into the room.

“Don’t move,” he smiled. “I have sent for some food.”

“I cannot just lie here,” Gardenia answered him a little weakly. “I must find my aunt and explain why I have arrived.”

“Are you really a niece of the Duchesse?” Lord Hartcourt enquired.

“Yes, I am really, although your friend did not believe me. Why did he behave in such an extraordinary manner? I think perhaps he had been drinking.”

“I think he had,” Lord Hartcourt agreed. “These things happen sometimes at a party.”

“Yes, of course,” Gardenia nodded, realising how very few parties of any sort that she had been to and certainly not ones where gentlemen became drunk and ladies were carried upstairs.

“Did you let your aunt know that you were coming?” Lord Hartcourt asked.

“I could not,” Gardenia replied. “You see – ” She checked what she had been going to say and added, “There were reasons that made it imperative for me to come to her at once. There was no time ‒ to let her know.”

“I daresay she will be surprised to see you,” Lord Hartcourt said in a quiet voice, which somehow made Gardenia say hotly,

“I am sure that Aunt Lily will be pleased to see me!”

Lord Hartcourt seemed about to say something of importance when the door opened and a footman entered carrying a huge silver tray on which reposed a number of different dishes. There were truffles in aspic, ortolans with asparagus tips and pâté de foie gras, lobster with a golden mayonnaise and many other strange and delicious-looking concoctions that Gardenia could not name.

The footman set the silver tray down on a small table beside her.

“But I could not eat all this!” she exclaimed.

“Eat what you can,” Lord Hartcourt advised, “You will feel better afterwards.”

He walked away as he spoke towards the far end of the room and stood by a writing desk fidgeting with the numerous objets d’art that lay on it

Gardenia was not certain whether he was being tactful in allowing her to eat hungrily without him staring at her or whether the sight of anyone indulging in food at this late hour was slightly nauseating to him.

Anyway, because she was so hungry, she sat up and started to eat first some lobster, then one of the ortolans. But she could not finish it either, there was far too much.

As Lord Hartcourt had predicted, however, even after a few mouthfuls she felt stronger. She was thankful to see that there was a glass of water on the tray. She drank it and, setting down her knife and fork, she turned with what was almost a defiant gesture to the man just behind her.

“I feel much better,” she said. “Thank you very much for ordering the food for me.”

He came away from the writing table to stand on the hearthrug beside her.

“I wonder if you will allow me to give you some advice?” he suggested.

It was not what Gardenia might have expected him to say and she raised wondering eyes to his before she asked cautiously,

“What sort of advice?”

“It is,” he replied, “that you should go away now and come back tomorrow.”

He saw the surprise in her face and added,

“Your aunt is very busy. She has a large number of guests here. It is not the moment for relatives to arrive, however welcome they may be.”

“I cannot do that.”

“Why not?” he persisted. “You can go to a respectable hotel or do you feel that is not proper? I could take you to a Convent that I happen to know near here. The nuns are very hospitable to anyone in distress.”

Gardenia felt herself stiffen.

“I am sure your intentions are kind and honourable, Lord Hartcourt,” she said, “but I have journeyed especially to Paris to see my aunt and I feel sure that when she knows I am here she will welcome me.”

As soon as she had spoken, Gardenia had the uneasy feeling that perhaps she might not be so welcome. She had assured herself not once but many times on the train that Aunt Lily would be delighted to see her, now she felt uncertain, but she was not going to allow Lord Hartcourt to realise her feelings.

Apart from anything else, how could she say to a strange man that she had no money? Her purse was empty except perhaps for two or three francs left from the English money she had changed at Calais.

“I will stay here,” she said firmly. “Now I am feeling better, I could perhaps go upstairs and look for my aunt. I am afraid the butler or whoever he was did not give her the message I sent to her.”

“I can only advise you that it would be a mistake,” Lord Hartcourt replied.

“Are you a very great friend of my aunt’s?” Gardenia asked.

“I am afraid I cannot claim that privilege,” Lord Hartcourt answered. “I know her, of course, all Paris knows her. She is very ‒,” he hesitated for a word, “hospitable.”

“Then I am certain she will extend her hospitality to her only niece,” Gardenia insisted.

She rose from the couch and picked up her hat from where it had been flung on the floor.

“I am most grateful to you for your kindness in bringing me here and for arranging that I should have some food. I shall ask my aunt tomorrow to express her gratitude to you too,” she said and then, as Lord Hartcourt said nothing, she held out her hand.

“I think before I fainted so very foolishly you wanted to leave. Please, Lord Hartcourt, do not let me keep you.”

He took her hand in his and said abruptly in a voice curiously devoid of any emotion,

“Will you allow me to tell the servants to take you upstairs and show you your bedroom? In the morning, when your aunt is awake, she will be far more pleased to see you than she will be at this moment.”

“I think you take too much upon yourself. Far from creeping up the backstairs as you seem to suggest, I have every intention of seeing my aunt at once.”

“Very well,” Lord Hartcourt replied. “So in that case I will bid you ‘goodnight’. But just reflect, before you do anything stupid that, seeing you in the clothes you are wearing now, other people at this party may get the same impression as my friend, the Comte André de Grenelle.”

He walked out of the door as he spoke and closed it behind him.

Gardenia stood staring after him.

Then the implication of his words and, what she felt was the insult in them, hit her. Her hands went right up to her flaming cheeks. How dare he mock her? How dare he sneer at her clothes and at her appearance? She felt she hated him, the stuck-up aristocratic Englishman with his cold manner and cynical twist to his mouth.

What impertinence to suggest that she would not be welcome in her aunt’s house or that she was not good enough for her smart friends who were making so much noise upstairs.

Then, as suddenly as it had been aroused, Gardenia’s anger ebbed away. But, of course, he was right. It was the way he had said it that annoyed her. She felt it had been a battle of wills between them, Lord Hartcourt had been determined that she should not see her aunt tonight and she was equally determined that she should.

Even so, he had won because he had struck at what was always a vulnerable point where a woman is concerned. Her appearance.

The moment of terror and panic that she had felt when the Comte’s arms had gone round her and she had known that his lips were seeking hers, returned to frighten her. How could he have imagined that she was nothing but the play-actress of a Music Hall turn to amuse the guests upstairs? What had he said about her getting into the trunk – ?

She put her fingers up to her ears as if to shut out the memory of his voice. She wished she could also forget the expression in his eyes. And yet, if she did not go to her aunt, what was she to do? Lord Hartcourt was right. To walk up to the ballroom in her travelling dress would be to cause a sensation and to be an object of curiosity and unfair speculation.

Gardenia might have been defiant with Lord Hartcourt because she resented his attitude, but she knew, now that he had gone, that she was after all too much of a coward to do as she had intended.

‘Well, one thing is certain,’ she told herself with sound common sense, ‘I cannot stay in this room all night.’

She thought of going into the hall and asking for the Major Domo, then she remembered that because of her shabby appearance she had already aroused his surprise and contempt.

‘If only I had some money,’ she thought despairingly, ‘I could tip him and that at least might make him respect me.’

But she knew that the few miserable francs left in her purse would mean nothing to the Major Domo or to any of the grand supercilious footmen with their powdered wigs.

She crossed to the mantelshelf and rang the bell. The bell-pull was a beautiful piece of tapestry hanging from the cornice with a gold tassel. Gardenia could not help the involuntary thought that even the price of the bell-pull would provide her with a new dress.

The bell was not answered for some few minutes. In fact Gardenia was wondering if she should pull it again when the door opened.