An Innocent In Paris. Barbara Cartland

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.

      It was a footman who had come in answer to her summons, the same footman Gardenia thought, who had brought in the tray of food for her. For a moment Gardenia hesitated, and then she spoke slowly in her excellent almost classical French.

      “Will you please ask the housekeeper to attend me,” she said. “I am not well enough to join Her Grace’s party and I would like a room prepared for me upstairs.”

      The footman bowed.

      “I will see if I can find the housekeeper, mamselle,” he replied.

      It was a long wait. Afterwards Gardenia wondered if the housekeeper had retired to bed and had been forced to rise and dress herself again. At length she appeared, a rather blowsy-looking woman, big-bosomed with somewhat untidy greying hair, not at all the austere type of her English counterpart that Gardenia had somehow expected.

      “Bonjour, mamselle, I understand you are the niece of Madame?” the housekeeper said.

      “That is correct, but I am afraid that I have arrived at rather an inopportune moment. Of course I am impatient to see my aunt, but, as I am rather tired and indisposed after the long journey, I think it would perhaps be wise if I waited until the morning when my aunt will be less occupied.”

      “It would indeed be much wiser,” the housekeeper agreed. “If you will come with me, mamselle, I will show you your bedroom. I have already told the footmen to take your trunk there.”

      “Thank you very much,” Gardenia said gratefully.

      The housekeeper turned towards the door and opened it. It seemed to Gardenia as if a loud sound entered the room like a whirlwind. There were high shrill voices, men shouting, a woman’s shriek, a crash as of some heavy object followed by a burst of raucous laughter.

      What was happening outside in the hall Gardenia could not imagine.

      The housekeeper closed the door.

      “I think, mamselle, it would be easier if you would condescend to come up the back way. There is a door from this room that leads to the back staircase.”

      “Yes, I think that would be wiser,” Gardenia agreed.

      She would not have liked Lord Hartcourt to think her a cowar but she shrank with every nerve of her body from going out into that noise and turmoil and running the gauntlet of that shrill insistent laughter.

      The housekeeper crossed the room. She must have touched a secret switch for a part of the bookcase swung open and there was a doorway leading into a long narrow passage.

      Without any comment she let Gardenia follow her through the opening and pulled the bookcase to again. Then she led her along the passage and up a narrow rather dark staircase. She passed the first floor and, climbing still higher, reached the second.

      Here the housekeeper seemed to hesitate at the door of the landing and Gardenia thought that she was about to open it. Then, after listening for a few seconds, she changed her mind.

      “I think a room on the next floor would be best, mamselle.”

      They climbed again and this time the housekeeper opened the door on the landing at the top of the stairs onto a very well-lit and heavily carpeted passage.

      Moving along they reached the main staircase. Gardenia glanced over the banisters. She could see, it seemed to her, there were men and women bulging out from all floors beneath her.

      The noise of their voices was deafening and it was even hard to hear the violins above the roar of their laughter.

      There was something rather frightening about the laughter itself. It sounded strange and uncontrolled, as though the people who laughed had drunk too much. Then she dismissed the thought from her mind. It was unpleasant and disloyal. These people were French. It was obvious that being a Latin race they were not so reserved as the English would be in similar circumstances.

      Then she almost ran from the banisters to follow the housekeeper, СКАЧАТЬ