A Magical Moment

Chapter One ~ 1895-1

Chapter One ~ 1895“Oh, no, Papa, you cannot mean it!” Lady Lencia Leigh exclaimed.

“You promised, you promised!” her younger sister Alice cried. “How can you change your mind now at the very last minute?”

“I am very sorry, girls,” their father, the Earl of Armeron, replied, “but your stepmother has set her heart on going to Sweden and a Prince does not celebrate his seventieth birthday very often.”

He tried to make it a joke, but both his daughters were looking at him reproachfully.

They were thinking that ever since he had been married for the second time, the Earl had changed.

He was no longer the fond loving father that he had been before and was now someone who seemed to them almost a stranger.

When the Earl’s wife had died a year ago, he had sunk into the depths of despair from which, it seemed, no one would ever be able to arouse him.

It was his good friend, the Marquis of Salisbury, who had suggested that he should go with him for a holiday in France.

The Marquis had recently built himself a very large and impressive Villa near Nice in the South of France and he had said to the Earl that he wanted his expert advice in planning the garden.

Looking back at what had occurred, his daughters realised that it had been the first step towards a tragedy.

They had never for one moment ever imagined that their father would marry again.

He had adored their mother as they all had and the whole family had been very close and extremely happy together.

It had always been a disappointment to the Earl that he had no son and therefore no direct heir to inherit his title.

But he had been extremely proud of his eldest daughter, Lencia.

She closely resembled her mother, who had been an outstanding beauty.

So great was the resemblance that at first, after his wife’s death, the Earl had been almost reluctant to look at Lencia.

She had the same fair hair, the same sparkling blue eyes and the same exquisite pink and white complexion.

But Lencia also had a kind of spiritual aura about her, which made her different from all the other girls of her age.

She was also very intelligent, but that was not at all surprising considering how clever her father was.

Besides this she had a marked personality of her own that unfortunately her stepmother, the new Countess, had noticed from the moment she first stepped into Armeron Castle.

The Earl had been away from home for six weeks and they were excitedly awaiting his return and Lencia had actually received a letter from him the day before he was due to arrive.

“A letter from Papa!” she had exclaimed when the butler brought it to her.

“I hope he has not changed his mind at the last moment,” Alice said, “and intends to stay on longer in the South of France.”

“Papa must realise that there is such a lot to do here,” Lencia assured her.

She opened the envelope as she spoke.

Taking out her father’s letter, she read a little of it before she cried out,

“It cannot be true!”

“What has happened?” Alice asked at once.

Lencia looked at the letter again before she said in a voice that did not sound at all like her own,

“Papa has – married again.”

“I don’t believe it!” Alice declared.

But it was true.

And when the new Countess arrived, everything was changed.

The girls had waited for her apprehensively.

When their father appeared with his new wife clinging onto his arm, it was impossible for either of them to run towards him eagerly as they had always done in the past.

Madame Flaubert was characteristic of the exotic chic French woman. She might almost have stepped straight out of a novelette.

She was not beautiful in any way, but good-looking and she made the most of her looks.

She was amusing and witty and almost every word she spoke seemed to have a double entendre.

She flattered the Earl not only in words but with her eyes, her mouth and her hands.

Lencia realised that her father was fascinated by her because she was so different from the wife he had loved and lost.

Madame Flaubert had gone to visit Nice looking for a man to escort her.

The meeting with the Earl was a dream come true.

She had always hoped to marry again, but the Frenchmen who paid her compliments and laughed at everything she said did not offer her marriage.

She saw the Earl, morose and depressed, but at the same time still a very handsome man.

A rich Englishman with an impressive title!

She felt that the gates of opportunity were opening up in front of her.

She had never in her life worked so hard at presenting herself as she did after meeting the Earl.

By shameless wheedling she managed to get herself invited by the Marquis to stay in his Villa.

Her sob story was that she had been unable to get into the hotel where she always stayed and that the noise in the hotel she had been forced to go to was intolerable and the discomfort indescribable would have appealed to any kind man’s heart.

The Marquis was in fact finding the Earl somewhat heavy on the hand.

Therefore he invited Madame Flaubert and another friend who he had known for years to move from where they were staying into his Villa.

From that moment, although he was not aware of it, there was no escape for the Earl.

Madame Flaubert paid him subtle compliments until he relaxed and smiled.

And then she set herself out to amuse him until he laughed.

He could not help feeling flattered when she told him how much she loved him.

He was, in point of fact, not quite certain how he found himself being married officially at the Mairie.

As their religions were different, they then dispensed with the usual Marriage Service to follow in a Church.

They were nevertheless legally married.

Madame Flaubert had a new gold Wedding ring on her left hand to prove it.

The Earl was not the only person who had told her all about the beauty and importance of Armeron Castle.

The Marquis, who had stayed there often, described it as one of the finest examples of medieval building in the whole country.

The gardens, which had been created by the last Earl, were to his mind, he claimed, finer than any other garden he had ever seen.

The congratulations the new Countess of Armeron had received did not however prepare her for the first sight of her elder stepdaughter.

She had expected that both the girls would be pretty.

“How could they be anything else?” she had asked the Earl. “When you, dearest, are so handsome that I know every woman’s heart turns over when she looks at you.”

“You flatter me,” the Earl insisted, but he was quite prepared to listen to more.

The new wife, however, had a severe shock when she had walked into the drawing room where Lencia and Alice were waiting to meet her.

They felt shy and, although they tried so hard not to admit it, somewhat hostile towards their stepmother before her arrival.

They were not waiting for them in the hall, where the Earl had expected to find them.

Instead they were standing in the beautiful room that had always seemed to be the perfect background for their beloved mother.

The blue curtains and coverings on the chairs and sofas had echoed her eyes, whilst the glittering crystal chandeliers had the same sparkle that shone in her eyes whenever she saw someone she loved.

The Earl would have walked into the room first.

But his wife put her arm in his so that they came in side-by-side.

Just for a moment there was complete silence.

“Here we are, girls,” the Earl began, “and I have been so looking forward to seeing you both.”

With an effort Lencia moved forward.

It was then that her stepmother drew in her breath.

This was certainly a rival who she had not expected, a girl very young and so lovely that it was impossible even for a woman not to stare at her and go on staring.

Lencia kissed her father and he kissed her back.

“We have been longing to have you home, Papa,” she said.

As she spoke, she could not help looking with some surprise on her face at the woman holding tightly to his arm.

The Countess had clearly dressed herself to impress.

She was wearing a hat trimmed with ostrich feathers and their colour was echoed by the ruby earrings that dangled from her ears. There was a ruby brooch pinned to the shoulder of her black satin cape.

She was certainly elegant, but at the same time there was something theatrical about her.

Lencia knew instinctively that she was just incongruous in her mother’s drawing room and indeed in The Castle itself.

“Now you must meet my daughters,” the Earl was saying to his new wife.

“Yvonne, this is Lencia, who, as I have told you, should have been presented in Court last year, but will instead curtsey to Queen Victoria next month.”

Neither of the women spoke and the Earl went on quickly,

“And this is Alice, who is just seventeen, but I expect she will want to join in some of the Festivities that her sister is invited to.”

“They are much older than I had expected,” the Countess said. “I thought, dearest, seeing how young you look, your daughters would still be in the nursery.”

This was obviously the sort of flattery the Earl had listened to and found so enjoyable in Nice.

Somehow it seemed more than a little out of place at this particular moment.

“I am sure, Papa,” Lencia said, “that you are longing for your tea. It is all ready for you.”

She moved towards the fireplace as she spoke and the Earl and his new wife followed her.

The tea was laid out as it always had been in front of the sofa.

There was the traditional shining silver teapot and kettle and also the Queen Anne tea caddy in which the very first tea from Ceylon had been served in The Castle.

There was also an imposing display of warm scones, cucumber sandwiches, fruit cakes and iced cakes and several other dainties for which the Armeron kitchens were justly famous.

As they reached the table with its long lace-edged cloth, Lencia turned to the Countess,

“Will you pour it or would you like me to do so?”

It was a question that the Countess recognised immediately as significant.

With hardly a pause she replied,

“Of course I will do it. I know exactly how your dear handsome father likes his tea,”

She swept with a rustle of silk petticoats and a whiff of exotic perfume to sit in the centre of the sofa, facing the silver tray.

It was where their mother had always sat and it was at that moment Lencia knew how much she resented the intruder, a woman who she was certain could never take her mother’s place in The Castle or anywhere else.

At the same time, as the afternoon and evening passed, she had to admit that her father was in far better spirits than when he had gone away.

He was certainly finding his new wife most amusing and entertaining.

Only when they had gone upstairs to go to bed did Alice say in a whisper,

“How could he have brought anyone like that to take Mama’s place?”

“She makes him laugh,” Lencia had answered. “But – ”

She bit back the words that she was going to say. What was the point of fighting against the inevitable?

Their father, whom they loved and who had been so very much a part of their lives, had somehow left them.

“We have lost not only our mother but also our father,” Lencia said to herself bitterly as she climbed into bed.

In the days that followed she was to think the same again and again.

The new Countess was determined not to be ignored and she intended to assert herself in what she thought was her rightful position from the moment she arrived.

She gave orders to the servants in a sharp voice, but to the Earl she was all honey and sweetness.

She flattered him not only in words but by seeming to watch over and tend him.

She would fetch his cigar case almost before he wanted it and she would pat the cushion before he sat down in the chair. She was at his side almost every moment of the day.