I have the feeling that he is looking down his nose at me.”
“Oh, Aunt Lily, how could he do that!” Gardenia exclaimed.
At the same time she had a feeling at the back of her mind that it was exactly what Lord Hartcourt would do.
“So he has seen you and André as well. That makes things rather difficult.”
“But why?” Gardenia asked.
“You would not understand,” the Duchesse said firmly. “Well, we shall have to make the best of it. But if I do let you stay here, Gardenia, you must promise me to do exactly as I tell you. If I tell you to go to bed at a certain time, you must go. If I tell you not to talk to certain people, you must obey me.”
“Of course I would. Oh, Aunt Lily, does that mean you are going to let me stay?”
“I don’t really see what else I can do,” she answered. Then she smiled. “Yes, dear child. It will be nice to have you and, thank God, although you are young, you are not such a beauty that you will entirely eclipse me!”
“Me a beauty!” Gardenia threw back her head and laughed. “Papa always claimed that I never lived up to my name and looked like a modest hedge-rose or a common English daisy, instead of anything as exotic as a gardenia!”
“Nevertheless you have possibilities, we will have to take you in hand and see what can be done. You cannot wear your hair in that old-fashioned untidy fashion and as for that dress, well, it must have come out of the Ark.”
“It is rather old,” Gardenia admitted.
“And you cannot wear black if you stay here with me. It is too depressing. It will make you look too much like a poor relation and that is enough to put any man off. No, Gardenia. If I am to find you a husband, you will have to have proper clothes and look, as everyone will expect you to, like my niece and doubtless, as I have no children, my heir.”
“Oh Aunt Lily! I should not expect anything like that,” Gardenia protested.
“My dear, it is not such an asset as it sounds. I may be a Duchesse and rich, but there are a number of people in Paris who will not be particularly effusive at meeting you for that very reason.”
“But surely, Aunt Lily, as a Duchesse, you must be terribly important and influential.”
The Duchesse looked at her out of the corners of her eyes, seemed about to speak and then changed her mind.
“We shall talk about things like that in good time,” she said. “At the moment we must be concerned with your appearance. I cannot even take you to see Monsieur Worth dressed as you are now.”
She touched a bell at her side and seconds later the door opened and the maid came in.
“Yvonne,” the Duchesse said, “my niece, Mamselle Gardenia, is going to stay with me. She will need clothes and a new hair style and many other things. As soon as I am dressed, I will take her to Worth’s, but I cannot take her looking like this.”
“Non, madame, c’est impossible!” Yvonne almost shouted.
“Very well, Yvonne, find something for her. Perhaps some of my old gowns that I wore when I was thinner can be altered, at least until I can buy her some new things.”
“Oh, thank you, Aunt Lily!” Gardenia exclaimed, “not only for the clothes but for saying I can stay. I cannot tell you how wonderful it is for me. I was so frightened of being alone. When Mama died, I thought the end of the world had come but now, because I have you, it is different.”
“Because you have me,” she repeated in a strange voice.
Then she bent forward to let Gardenia kiss her cheek.
“Bless you, my child. I suppose things will work out one way or another.”
“I will do everything you tell me, everything, and I do hope that I shall be able to repay a little of your kindness.”
“That reminds me,” the Duchesse said. “Yvonne, take Mamselle to Monsieur Groise. She has some instructions to give him and please explain that they have my full authority.”
“Very good, Your Grace,” the maid said stiffly and rustled towards the door, obviously expecting Gardenia to follow her.
Gardenia walked a few paces and then looked back.
“Thank you, thank you, Aunt Lily,” she said. “I did not realise until this moment just how terrified I was that you might turn me away.”
“Run along, child. Everything is going to be all right,” the Duchesse assured her.
As the door closed behind Gardenia and Yvonne, the Duchesse lay back on her pillows and closed her eyes.
“Poor child,” she whispered aloud. “How can I ever explain to her? But undoubtedly she will find out sooner or later.”
In the meantime Gardenia, feeling elated, was following Yvonne down the staircase to the hall that she had entered so ignominiously the night before.
There appeared to be a whole army of servants working in the salon as they passed by it and there were cleaners on the stairs, brushing and scrubbing the carpet where food and drink must have been upset the night before.
There were also men and women in aprons polishing the marble hall and Gardenia could not help seeing that some of the pans contained broken pieces of a crystal-glass chandelier.
It seems strange, she thought, that Aunt Lily should give such rough parties but, as she had told herself last night, the French were a very excitable race and not dull and stolid like the English.
Yvonne led her across the hall to a room opposite the one that Lord Hartcourt had carried her into when she had fainted.
She knocked and a voice called out, “Entrez” and Yvonne opened the door to disclose a grey-haired middle-aged man sitting at a big desk with piles of papers stacked in front of him.
Yvonne conveyed the Duchesse’s instructions and obviously introduced her to Monsieur Groise, but she spoke so rapidly that Gardenia could not understand all that she said.
Monsieur Groise rose from the desk and held out his hand.
“Enchanté, mamselle,” he said in French and then went on in broken English, “The maid has explained to me that you have something you wish to do and it has her Grace’s approval.”
“It is a number of bills that have to be paid,” Gardenia said a little uncomfortably. She drew the list from the pocket of her black skirt. “I am afraid that there are rather a lot.”
“On the contrary,” Monsieur Groise contradicted, “it is a very small list. Are you quite sure that everyone is included?”
“I don’t think I have missed anyone, but, if I have, perhaps I could come and tell you later?”
“But, of course, mamselle,” he replied. “I am at your service. The cheques shall be sent off today. These people shall all be sent money
