It Began in Vauxhall Gardens - Plaidy Jean - Страница 62

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Fenella had said they were to let her go and that she might present herself at the house in the square. Jenny had done this, had received a bath and delightful clothes to wear. Fenella had then changed her name to Genevra, and to Fenella Genevra gave her love and loyalty. To Fenella she owed all, including her friendship with the noble lord. She had persuaded the rich, in the forms of Fenella and the lord, to love her; and in the first place it had been due to being neither modest, neat nor clean, nor even submitting when reproved, for she had stood glowering at Fenella in the shop, until she realized that Fenella's intentions were kindly.

Lucie's story was different. She had been brought up quietly in the country with a governess. She had been two months with Fenella, and here she had been introduced to an earnest young man who would marry her.

Glotilde's story was different again. Clotilde was the daughter of a lady of high rank and her footman. She had been brought into the

lady's house and had spent part of her childhood there. Clotilde was lighthearted; she lacked Lucie's desire to stress her high-born streak, and Genevra's pressing need to set poverty behind her for ever. Clotilde fell in and out of love with speed; there was no restraint in Clotilde. Had she not been partly of noble birth, and had not regular sums of money been paid to Fenella by her mother, she would have joined Daisy, Kate and Mary Jane in their apartment from which only Genevra's special attractions and strength of character had saved her.

The segregation of those three was not complete. At certain times they all mingled freely, but the girls understood that they had come to Fenella in different ways. Daisy, Kate and Mary Jane adored Fenella. She had saved them, as Genevra said, from what was nearer a fate worse than death than some things she had heard so described. She had saved them from drudgery and starvation, from the appalling misery of the days of famine which made up those hungry forties. She had found them—one in a shop, one in a sewing-room, and another in the streets—poor thin scraps of female life; yet in them Fenella had seen that beauty which delighted her. So she had brought them into her house. She fed them; she gave them a little education; and they showed off her dresses. Fenella could not guarantee their marriage; marriage was not for such girls unless they were exceptional. Occasionally they entertained and were entertained by gentlemen, and that was very pleasant for the girls and the gentlemen. Fenella received benefits from such encounters, as did the parties concerned. It was an amicable arrangement and considered by them all far better than the starvation and drudgery which the factories and workshops had to offer. Fenella's girls grew plump and happy. Said Fenella: "Better to sell their virtue than their health. Better to sell what they have to sell to a lover than to an industrialist. They eat, sleep and live comfortably in my house, which is more than they could do by working in a factory."

Genevra belonged to their category, but Genevra had shown herself possessed of especial gifts. Genevra had the attention of a noble lord, and Fenella was amused and delighted to see how a cockney girl of only that little education which she had been able to give her, could score in the battle between the sexes.

For Melisande the days in Fenella's house had been pleasant, the evenings somewhat alarming.

Each day they would rise late after one of the maids had brought them cups of chocolate. They would lie in bed talking of the previous night's entertainment with their usual frankness. Afterwards they would read books which Fenella had chosen for them. Sometimes luncheon would be taken with Fenella, who would talk politics and literature or discuss the previous night's gathering. In the afternoon

2IO IT BEGAN IN VAUXHALL GARDENS

they would take the air in the Park, riding there in Fenella's carriage or walking about on the gravel paths with Polly as their chaperone. There they often met gentlemen who had attended Fenella's social evenings. When they returned they would go to the dress salon and the dress they should wear that night would be selected for them. Then they would retire to their rooms and be helped to dress by two French maids—servants of Fenella's—who were immediately attracted by Melisande, gave her the best of their attention and delighted to talk French with her.

Melisande was recovering from the shocks she had received during those last days in Cornwall. Her natural high spirits had risen to the surface; she was adaptable and, just as she had quickly become the companion of Caroline, she was fast becoming the charming, vivacious and intelligent young woman Fenella intended she should be.

The nuns would have raised their hands in horror. Melisande herself wondered whether she was like a chameleon which took its colour from its background. Here she was, delighting in clothes, laughing with the girls, enjoying recounting her conquests as they did.

For, of course, they would not let her remain silent. They wheedled certain information from her although she had determined that these things should remain her secret. She had never been discreet at any time. Yet she did not tell them that Sir Charles was her father. She felt compelled to respect his desire for secrecy. But she told of Leon and of Fermor; and she felt that these girls, with what seemed to her their vast knowledge of the world, might help her to understand these two men.

"You must have had a lover," they insisted one morning as they lay in bed sipping their chocolate.

"I thought I was going to be married," she told them. "That was only a little while ago."

Genevra put down her cup of chocolate. "And you didn't tell us! What stopped it? Was he a duke or something?"

Lucie said: "Did his people stop it?"

But Clotilde merely waited patiently to hear.

Melisande then told the story of her meeting with Leon, his desire for freedom, the sudden death of little Raoul and the fortune Leon had consequently inherited.

Lucie cried: "A fortune? And you gave that up! You're not very clever, Melisande."

Genevra said: "You should have waited, Melly. You should have heard what he had to say."

Clotilde, her eyes looking—as they invariably did—as though she were brooding on intimacy with one of her lovers, said: "If you had

really loved him, you wouldn't have gone away without seeing him. There was someone else, wasn't there?"

Melisande was silent; but they all began to chant: "Was there? Was there?"

"I don't know."

"But you must know," insisted Clotilde. "Though," she added, "it might be that you only know now ."

And then Melisande told them of Fermor, of the wickedness of him and the charm of him, of the proposition he had made while he was betrothed to Caroline, of the Christmas rose he had slipped under her door with the note written on his wedding night.

"He is a rogue," said Lucie. "You were wise to have nothing to do with him."

"Was he really as handsome as you say?" asked Genevra.

Clotilde answered for Melisande. "Not quite. She saw him with the eyes of love. It makes a difference."

"Tell me," said Melisande, "what should I have done?"

"Waited to ask Leon for his explanation, of course," said Lucie.

"Married him and gone to the plantation in—wherever it was," said Genevra.

"You should not have run away from the one you loved," murmured Clotilde.

And after that they began to talk of Fermor and Leon as they talked of their own lovers.

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