The Golden Illusion

Chapter One ~ 1869-2

When she had first begun to teach Linetta, sometimes her old pupils would call to see her.

They were elegant, sophisticated young women, now with husbands and babies, finding it amusing to talk over old times and to remind their ex-Governess how they tried to evade their French lessons.

But as the years went by they no longer came and Mademoiselle Antigny was thankful to have the companionship of Mrs. Falaise and the small comforts of the larger house that she had missed in her own cottage.

Her mother and Mademoiselle had always talked in French together, but they had both been insistent that, while Linetta’s French should be perfect, her English should be equally good.

“Your father was English,” her mother would say, “and he had such a beautiful voice. I used to tell him that when he talked it was like hearing music.”

“Tell me about Papa,” Linetta would sometimes reply when her mother made such remarks, but the moment she asked the question it would seem to her as if her memories were too painful for her mother to speak about them.

“He is dead, Linetta,” she would say with a little sob in her voice.

Then slowly she would get up and go from the room as if she was afraid to lose her self-control in front of her daughter.

Linetta had looked round the house the night before she left for Paris.

‘This has been my world,’ she told herself, ‘and I am leaving it all behind.’

The pieces of furniture that her mother had always loved and which had looked so elegant in the sitting room had gone.

They had fetched very little money and the bookshelves were empty and Linetta thought that more than anything else she would have liked to keep the books that had been her closest companions ever since she could read.

But they were too heavy to take to Paris with her and she felt somewhat guilty that she had so much luggage as it was.

Not that she had many clothes. There had never been much money to spend on what her mother with a smile called ‘frills and fancies’.

But she had kept back from the sale many little objects that had been her mother’s personal possessions and which she knew were the only mementoes left of her home and the life that she had lived as a child.

Last thing of all she had gone to the churchyard to her mother’s grave. Mademoiselle Antigny, being a Catholic, had been buried elsewhere.

There was a headstone over her mother’s grave, a very plain one. Linetta had not been able to afford anything elaborate, but it bore the name Yvonne Léonide Falaise. Born 1832. Died 1867.

‘I wonder where Papa is buried,’ Linetta thought to herself.

It was something that she had never asked her mother.

“Why do I use Mama’s surname?” she had asked Mademoiselle when they were choosing the headstone.

“Your mother never told me,” Mademoiselle answered, “but I believe it is because she loved your father so desperately that when he died she could not bear to talk about him or bear his name.”

“Mama adored him,” Linetta said softly,

“He must have been a very fine man to inspire such love,” Mademoiselle remarked.

Of that Linetta was absolutely sure.

She laid on the grave the flowers that she had picked in the garden that morning. There were columbines, the herald of spring, primroses and a handful of snowdrops that had come out late this year.

Linetta had knelt down on the cold grass and prayed that Mademoiselle, like her mother, was in Heaven and that they would find each other.

Then she prayed for herself.

‘Please, God, look after me and keep me from all harm. Help me to be good, to remember all the things that Mama taught me and help me not to be afraid.’

Mama and Mademoiselle would be looking after her she thought, wherever they might be. Their love for her would never die, just as hers for them was as warm and glowing in her heart as it had been when they were alive.

Nevertheless it had been difficult not to feel afraid when the moment had come to wait for the stagecoach that was to carry her on the long journey to Dover.

She had to change coaches more than once and she was always nervous in case her luggage was mislaid.

But somehow, mostly because people were kind to her and realised how inexperienced she was at travelling, she had reached Dover safely to find that she had only a little while to wait before the cross-channel Steamer left the Harbour.

She had never been in a Steamer before and she thought that it was large and very impressive.

Because a Steward directed her to do so, she went below and sat in the comfortable Saloon where there were other ladies, some with small children.

As soon as the Steamer started, the children became a nuisance and many of the other passengers began to be desperately sick.

There appeared to Linetta to be no reason for it as there was very little movement of the ship and she thought much of it must be because they were in a nervous state at having to travel at all.

Because she wanted some air and also to see a little more of the ship that she had gone up on deck.

A man had approached her wearing a plaid tweed cape and a hat of the same material.

He was, she knew by his voice, not a gentleman, but she had answered him politely because at first she had not realised that he was trying to be anything but helpful.

He pointed out the White Cliffs of Dover behind them, told her how long it would take them to reach Calais and informed her that this was no less than his twelfth visit to France.

She had moved away from him, but he became insistent that they should have a drink together.

“If I’d known I was going to meet someone as pretty as you on board,” he said, “I’d have booked a private cabin. They’re all engaged now, but we’ll find ourselves a comfortable spot out of the wind.”

There was something in the way he spoke that made Linetta feel apprehensive.

“I must go below,” she insisted, only for him to reach out and catch hold of her wrist.

“You’re going to stay with me, my pretty,” he carried on. “We’ve got a lot to say to each other.”

He put his arm round her as he spoke and his red face was unpleasantly close to hers.

Linetta fought herself free and ran along the deck. She heard his footsteps coming behind her and knew in a panic that she would not be able to escape from him for long.

It was then she remembered that, while she was waiting to go aboard, she had seen a tall distinguished man, accompanied by a valet and two porters carrying his luggage and coming from the Railway Station that adjoined the Port.

Linetta had in fact wanted to reach Dover herself by train, but it had been much more expensive than the old-fashioned coach, which had become little more than a carrier of goods for the last part of the journey.

She had looked with interest at the railway passengers as they walked towards the Steamer and it was obvious that there was no one more outstanding or indeed better looking than the traveller whom she had noticed immediately.

He was, she thought, quite different from any gentleman she had seen before.

She had, of course, seen quite a number in the distance during the years, the hunt had met occasionally in the village and besides the local Squires, some of whom she knew by sight, there had been the country Noblemen riding magnificent horseflesh and looking extremely autocratic in their pink coats and top hats.

The man walking from the train towards the ship had, in Linetta’s eyes, been the embodiment of everything she thought of as handsome in a man.

‘That is how my father must have looked,’ she told herself.

Over the years, because her mother would tell her so little about her father, she had created in her mind a man who embodied in himself all the heroes of the books that she read so avidly.

Her father, she was sure, was like Richard Coeur de Lion, as Sir Walter Scott described him, like Jason in search of the Golden Fleece, David as Michelangelo had sculpted him and most of Shakespeare’s heroes all rolled into one.

But she had never really been able to visualise his features or know in what way she resembled him.

Yet, when she had watched the gentleman she now knew was the Marquis of Darleston walking up the gangway of the S.S. Victoria, she told herself that that was how her father would have appeared when he was alive.

She set down her glass of champagne that she had taken only the minutest sips from and said now, almost like a child who has remembered its manners,

“I am very grateful to you, my Lord, for letting me stay here. You must think it very – forward of me to have come into your – cabin as I did, but I did not know what – else to do.”

“I think you did exactly the right thing, mademoiselle,” the Marquis said. “And, when we reach Calais, I will see that you are in a carriage that is reserved for ladies only.”

“Thank you, my Lord,” Linetta replied quickly. “I did not know that there were carriages like that.”

“As I said before, you have no right to be travelling alone,” he remarked. “But, of course, it is none of my business. I will just make sure that you are safe until your friends meet you in Paris.”

Linetta opened her lips to say that she had no one to meet her, since Marie-Ernestine Antigny to whom she was carrying her aunt’s letter, had no idea that she was coming.

Then she thought that it would seem as if she was asking the Marquis to give her further attention. And so she said nothing.

She would be able to hire a cab, which she knew was called a voiture, when she reached the Gare du Nord. She could give the driver Marie-Ernestine’s address and after that everything would be all right.

She had a child’s faith in what had been planned for her. It never occurred to her for a moment that Marie-Ernestine might be away or have changed her address in the two months since she had written to her aunt at Christmas.

“You are very kind,” she said now to the Marquis and there was a look of trust in her face that he found touching.

Nevertheless when they reached Calais and he had personally found a carriage marked Les Dames Seulement, he had gone to the luxurious First Class compartment that had been engaged for him before he left England, telling himself that he had done his duty and nothing more could be expected of him.

While he was waiting for the train to start, he settled himself down intending to open his despatch box and make a start on the work that he had been unable to do while crossing the Channel.

When his valet brought a large hamper into the carriage, which he knew contained his dinner, it occurred to him that Linetta had not known that if she was to eat before she reached Paris she would have to buy food at the Station.

On an impulse which rather surprised him, he sent his valet to purchase at the buffet what he thought she would need and take it with a bottle of white wine to the compartment that he had found for her.

Then resolutely the Marquis had opened his despatch box and told himself that he had no wish for further interruptions.

Linetta was in fact surprised and delighted when the valet brought her the food and wine.

“His Lordship thought that you wouldn’t have remembered, miss, that this be an Express and only stops once or twice durin’ the night.”

“Will you please thank his Lordship very much indeed,” Linetta said. “I would have been very hungry by the time I reached Paris if he had not been so considerate.”