Chateau of Flowers

by Denise Robins

Genres: Romance

Synopsis

In keeping with her father's dying wish, Laura goes to live at the family
chateau in France.But the happiness she hoped for eluded her. Instead
she is mistreated by her own relatives.

Ordered about by her aunts, envied by an indulged cousin, Laura finds very
little pleasure...

Will her one chance for love be denied?

Release date: January 1, 1974

Publisher: Beagle Books

Print pages: 192

Sample

THE train for Chartres was an hour late in starting. Paris was wrapped in a grey fog. Laura gave a little gasp of relief when, at last, with a shrill, angry whistle from the engine, the train moved slowly out of the Gare de Montparnasse.

The second-class carriage was not full. There was one bearded gentleman on Laura’s left, and opposite her a stout lady wearing toque and veil and shabby black fur coat. With her was a young man unmistakably her son. They had the same long, thin noses and rather close-set, blue eyes. He had just lifted a shopping bag, crammed full, and a dress box, on to the luggage rack.

Laura was interested in these two because they chattered at such a rate and with such abandon that she found it quite a test for her French.

The stout lady, who seemed agitated, finally dropped her purse on Laura’s feet. It was picked up by the young man who gave Laura a warmly admiring glance that embarrassed her.

“Pardon, Mademoiselle … je m’excuse.”

Laura replied, “Pas du tout, Monsieur.”

“Vous êtes Anglaise, Mademoiselle?” asked the stout lady.

“Oui, Madame.”

“Ah!” said the young man, nodding, “but she speaks with a remarkable accent, Maman.”

“My father was French,” Laura ventured shyly.

“Ah!” the two of them opposite her chorused.

Now they all looked out of the window and grumbled about the fog. The brouillard. The young man smoothed his long fair hair in an affected way and announced that he was sure the weather would improve once they were out of the suburbs. It was definitely growing lighter.

Madame took off her gloves and revealed sausage-like fingers glittering with rings, which fascinated Laura. She breathed noisily, eyeing Laura as though the solitary English girl was a mystery that must be solved. One could see Madame was thinking that the jeune fille came from England. That sensible tweed suit and green jersey—those sensible brown shoes. Not chic. But good and sensible.

The young man, however, looked only at Laura’s face and thought how beautiful it was. There was a touch of the Latin there, he decided, in that creamy skin without colour, in the large, serious eyes which were like dark honey and heavily lashed. She wore a little velveteen beret. One could see that she had long hair. A little bun the colour of pale toffee peeped out at the back. The young man turned and whispered to his mother, who shrugged her shoulders and then addressed Laura.

“You are here on a holiday, Mademoiselle?”

“No, Madame. I am joining some relatives.”

“You are going to live in France?” put in the young man eagerly.

“Yes, Monsieur,” said Laura and looked more coldly at him than at his stout, wheezing mother.

Laura found herself overcome, suddenly, with home-sickness. How difficult to believe that she was already here on her father’s native soil; that this time yesterday she had been in the quiet vicarage in the village of Wychfield, under the shadow of the Sussex Downs. The place in which she had spent the last thirteen years of her life (and that was most of it, because she was not yet twenty-one).

For a moment she could see so plainly the kind, rather anxious face of the Vicar of Wychfield, whom she called Uncle David, and of Mrs. Mac, the Scottish housekeeper who had looked after things since the death of Mrs. Honeywood.

How quickly one’s life could change, thought Laura. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Who was to know which it would be for her now that she had taken this grave step and cut away from England and everybody whom she knew?

It was all rather frightening—yet exciting. When she was eight she had lost her mother, and Mr. Honeywood, the Vicar, and his kindly wife had taken her to live with them while her father pursued his career as a travelling actor.

But with rather startling suddenness yet two more deaths had flung Laura into a void of loneliness. For Mrs. Honeywood had died and not long afterwards, darling Daddy—the gay, sweet person who had been all in all to her for so long and who had rushed down to the Vicarage to see her whenever his job allowed.

All their lives he had talked to her of his French family—his home in the village of St Martin-de-Bois, which was ten miles away from Chartres. She had received vivid descriptions of the splendid Chateau Fleuries, the stately grounds with the trout river running through them—the fish leaping in the dimpled waters, the flowers for which the Chateau was famous and which had given it that intriguing name.

His father had owned a leather business in Chartres but the young Edouard had grown up with a passion for acting and, after a prolonged series of rows, he had run away from home and made his life on the stage in England.

He had often written to his family but they never replied, which had been a great grief to him. And because of financial trouble and being so often out of a job, he had never been able to go back there and try to bridge the gulf.

After the war he had learned through friends that his parents were no longer living. His elder sister Victorine had married a Monsieur Devasse and they’d had a daughter named Clarisse. There was one other sister, Alyse, who had always been the favourite. And, as far as Laura knew, Victorine was now a widow and lived with Alyse and the young daughter in the old Le Maitre home.

Before the end, Edouard had made it quite clear to Laura that he wanted her to approach his sisters and if possible go and live with them at the Chateau Fleuries.

Laura now pulled a letter from her bag and began to read it. It was written in French in a thin, slanting hand and was in answer to the one she had sent to Tante Victorine.

My dear Laura,

I was amazed to hear from you and to learn of my brother Edouard’s death. After thirty years I find it difficult to feel personal sorrow for one who voluntarily left his own home and country. He has, in fact, been dead to us at the Chateau for years. It was my late father’s wish that we should not receive him again. He will probably have told you that none of his letters to us was answered.

On the other hand, you are my niece, and blood is thicker than water, and since you wish to come to us here we will not reject you. My sister Alyse and I live in retirement with my daughter Clarisse, who is eighteen and very delicate. However we hope that she will get stronger and I am expecting her to make a good marriage in which the mastery of the English language will be an asset.

If you care to come and make yourself useful and teach English to Clarisse I am willing to offer you a home. I note with some satisfaction that you write surprisingly well in French.

If you will let me know when you intend to make the journey and at what time you will reach Chartres, I will have you met and conducted to St. Martin-de-Bois.

This stiff unloving letter was signed:

“Your aunt,         

Victorine Clarisse Devasse.”

It left Laura a little hazy as to all the facts. Who M. Devasse had been, for instance, and what, she knew not. She only knew it was Daddy’s earnest desire that she should go to his people, and because she had loved him so much she wanted to carry out his wishes. Perhaps she would be able to make Aunt Victorine forget all that silly spite against poor Daddy and so end the thirty-year feud.

Laura lifted her eyes from the letter and sat quietly thinking about it all. It would be nice, she thought wistfully, to find all the love and happiness she longed for, in darling Daddy’s old home. She longed to see her aunts and the young cousin to whom she was going to teach English.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the voice of the French lady opposite her in the carriage. She was announcing that her name was Mme. Lefranc and this was her son—Michel—who was in the corn-and-seed trade in Chartres.

“It is interesting to us,” added Madame, “that you should have had a French father.”

“And may we ask your name, Mademoiselle?” enquired Michel, fingering his pink bow-tie and flinging Laura one of those looks which made her feel as though she had received a sudden slosh of sticky honey.

“Le Maitre,” she replied. “Perhaps you know my aunt’s house, the Chateau Fleuries in St. Martin-de-Bois?”

As this name left her lips, both Mme. Lefranc and her son sat upright. They exchanged glances, their smiles fading.

Mme. Lefranc breathed in, then let the breath out again with a whistling sound. Her enormous bosom rose and fell. Laura looked at the wobbling of her two chins. For all the world, Mme. Lefranc resembled a jelly-fish that had suddenly been struck. She said:

“I thought as much. Your aunts, then, are Victorine Devasse and Alyse Le Maitre.”

“You know them?” asked Laura eagerly.

Mme. Lefranc had little eyes. They disappeared now in the pouches of her lashless lids. ‘She is many animals wrapped up in one, and at this moment she is like a pig,’ thought Laura with a school-girl inclination to giggle.

“Yes, Mademoiselle, my son and I live in St. Martin near the Chateau Fleuries,” said Madame after a disconcerting pause.

Laura’s large brown eyes sparkled.

“Oh, tell me something about it, Madame, please. My father always said it was the most beautiful house in France. The Chateau of Flowers—so we would call it in England—it sounds so heavenly!”

Mother and son exchanged glances. Michel shrugged and slithered his long body down the seat. Mme. Lefranc opened her lips as though to speak, then closed them. Laura questioned her again.

“Is it very lovely, Madame?”

“You will see for yourself, Mademoiselle,” was the curt answer.

And after that it seemed to Laura that the Lefrancs shut up like clams. Michel continued to throw her his disconcerting glances but did not speak. Madame shut her pig-like eyes and her mouth. It left Laura with the rather uncomfortable sensation that her aunts were not popular, and that the Lefrancs no longer wished to know her. It was not an agreeable feeling.

The train jerked and stopped. Now they were in the country. Laura tried to find some beauty in it but the afternoon was still misty and she could see only straggling pasture-land, so different from England, with its lack of hedges and long, long, stretches between the villages. Everything looked frozen on this bleak January day. The farm buildings; the great barns; the rivers fringed by tall poplars; and now and again, a dense black forest. Nothing much to comfort Laura or raise her spirits, which had dropped considerably during the last half hour.

The train moved on again. Mme. Lefranc began to snore. Laura shut her eyes and tried to doze, feeling rather exhausted after the events of this crowded day.

It was almost dark when the train steamed into Chartres.

MICHEL LEFRANC took Laura’s suitcases down from the rack for her.

“I will see you again, I hope,” he said in an undertone while his mother struggled with her parcels. “If you need a friend, let me know. I admire English girls.”

Laura thanked him coldly and shook hands, in true French fashion, with mother and son, who now disappeared from her sight.

She was thankful when at length she stood alone on the platform beside her luggage. She had had enough of the Lefrancs. The cold was piercing. She began to wonder if she had made a mistake in coming to France. Even more so when the porter who had dealt with her trunk returned to tell her that there was nobody waiting outside the station from Mlle. le Maitre and that there would not now be another bus for St. Martin-de-Bois for an hour and a half. Laura bit her lip. Little doubt the poor weather and the lateness of the train had thrown out the schedule.

“I can hire a car for Mademoiselle.”

“No, no, it will be too expensive,” said Laura quickly. “I will telephone the Chateau—I have the number—and ask my aunts what it is best to do.”

At this moment a tall man wearing a tweed cap and thick grey overcoat, with white muffler around his throat, strode down the platform. He carried a leather case. He had just emerged from a first-class carriage. He barely glanced at Laura but bade the porter good evening.

“The train is devilish late,” he said. He had a deep, strong voice. Everything about him suggested strength, Laura decided. His wide shoulders, his height, his upspringing hair, tawny-coloured, revealed as he lifted his hat for a moment, then replaced it. This was a Frenchman with a certain elegance, and importance of mien. She wondered who he was. Then the porter whispered:

“This Monsieur lives in St. Martin-de-Bois,” and greeted the tall man respectfully, “Bon soir, Monsieur le docteur.”

“Oh, do you think the doctor would give me a lift?” Laura whispered to the porter.

“I’m sure he would, Mademoiselle.”

“Or would it be an imposition—?” began Laura.

But already the accommodating little porter was addressing Dr. Deschanel, who listened, while he drew on a pair of gauntlets, glancing at the forlorn figure of the young girl who stood beside her luggage. He did not smile. But the porter returned to Laura and announced that le docteur would be pleased to drive her to St. Martin.

“Oh, Monsieur, how very kind of you!” exclaimed Laura, a little colour coming into her cheeks now as the doctor reached her side. He removed his hat and extended a hand. (There was so much hand-shaking in France, Laura thought with a touch of amusement.) The doctor towered above her. He hardly seemed to notice her, although the grip of his fingers was firm.

“I live in St. Martin-de-Bois,” he said. “On the neighbouring estate to the Chateau Fleuries, so it will not be out of my way.”

As the porter put her luggage into a handsome black Citroen which was waiting in the station yard, Laura murmured:

“Please tell me how much I ought to tip this man.”

“I will do it for you.”

“Thank you, Monsieur, but I will pay the tip myself,” said Laura primly. “It is just that I am not yet used to the currency.”

Now Lucien Deschanel turned his gaze to the young English girl who spoke such surprisingly good French. At first sight one might have thought her timid and bewildered but suddenly he felt the quiet strength under the youthful exterior, and became aware of a touch of unsuspected dignity about her. He admired independence in any human being. Was he not himself, one of the most independent people alive and inclined to suffer because of it?

He told Laura how much to give the porter. A few minutes later they were driving through the narrow streets, up a hill, and along a well-lighted boulevard which led into a fine square. From here, Laura could see the towers of the mighty cathedral which dominated the city, and, indeed, the landscape for miles around.

“Oh, how wonderful to see it all at last!” she was sufficiently excited to make the exclamation.

“The cathedral is lovely and has the finest stained glass in Europe,” said her companion.

It was his turn to surprise Laura because he had broken into English. He had an accent, but his grammar was perfect.

“You must know England. You speak my language so well,” she said.

“I was educated in Switzerland but I received part of my medical training in London,” he told her.

“Do you by any chance attend my father’s family in St. Martin?”

Dr. Deschanel looked ahead of him without answering for a moment. He was accelerating now that they were on the long, straight road leading out of Chartres. The light was fast fading. On either side of her Laura could only see flat and somewhat gloomy pasture-land. It was drizzling. But she was not going to allow herself to be discouraged, for, after all, this was midwinter and Northern France and she had not expected sunshine. Then Deschanel said:

“I know your aunts very well. I am now attending Mlle. Clarisse.”

“Oh, I hope my cousin is not ill.”

“Let us put it that she is never very well,” said Deschanel drily.

“I wonder what it will be like at the Chateau?” Laura ventured the question, hoping to draw the doctor into some sort of conversation which would give her a picture of the place to which she was going.

“It was once a fine old place but during the war few landowners in occupied France had either money or opportunity to keep up the former glories of their estates.”

Laura bit her lip. Perhaps he did not know it but the doctor was throwing more cold water on the warm and fervent hopes that she had entertained of finding what he called ‘glory’ out here. Why did nobody say anything pleasant about her relations? She thought of the Lefrancs; how they had ignored her once they knew who she was.

Laura made a further effort at conversation. She told the doctor about the Lefrancs.

“They did offer me a lift,” she said, “but I refused because I thought my aunt would be sending someone to meet me. It was lucky that you were on the train.”

“Oh, so you met the Lefrancs!” said Deschanel.

His voice was cool and even disdainful. Laura tried a trifle weakly to summon up her sense of humour. The inhabitants of St. Martin-de-Bois did not seem to like each other! There was an evident atmosphere of hostility which could not help but be disconcerting to her.

She peered out of the car window just in time to see a tall, white, rather ugly tower looming up towards the sky.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “That must be Daddy’s famous water-tower. He used to tell me many stories and there was one about the day that tower was built. St. Martin-de-Bois was then just a little village, he said, but after thirty years, I suppose it is quite changed.”

“I doubt if much ever changes in St. Martin-de-Bois,” said the doctor in an ironic voice. “There are perhaps a few more houses since your father’s day, but we do not progress here at the rate you do in your country, Miss Le Maitre.”

“Did you know my father?”

“I did not. He left France many years before the war, when I was a child. I have heard of him, of course. My father knew him well.”

“Now I remember,” nodded Laura. “Things keep coming back to me. M. Deschanel, your father, is an avocat. He looked after my grandfather’s estate.”

“And still looks after the affairs of your aunt, Mme. Devasse.”

“It’s wonderful for me to have these relatives in France to come to,” said Laura.

Deschanel slowed down and, pulling out a packet of cigarettes, lit one.

“You smoke, Miss Le Maitre?”

“No, thank you.”

His face was lit for a moment by the tiny flame of the match which he had struck. An intriguing face, thought Laura, with strong, fine bones. She noticed his forceful, rather thin mouth and his large, brilliant, lightish-grey eyes, under dark, heavily marked brows. She judged him to be in his early thirties. With her usual humour and imaginativeness, she reflected that he did not look at all like her conception of a French doctor (a little man with glasses and a pointed beard!).

Deschanel spoke. “It will, perhaps, be an ordeal for you pitchforked into the bosom of a French family, into a life which you will find entirely different from the one that you have been leading in England.”

“But it should be interesting and I shall do my best to please my aunts,” said Laura.

Deschanel opened his lips as though to make a reply, then shut them again. Better to say nothing, than that which sprang to his mind just then, he thought.

His sole interest lay in his medical work, in the big country practice which straggled over a wide area all around here—and in his particular passion, which was the healing of sick children. To sick and suffering women he gave deep sympathy and a tender care. He made no difference between the richest lady of the parish and the poorest peasant in some vermin-ridden, tumble-down cottage. But he was seldom aware of women in a personal way. He had no time for social life and only once had he ever contemplated marriage. But that was a closed book. It had happened when he was a medical student and had resulted in his own complete disillusionment. He did not intend to make a second mistake. He was particularly careful not to allow close friendships to arise between him and his female patients.

Life was not going to be a picnic at the Chateau Fleuries, and this young English girl would soon find it out for herself. But for once he felt strangely sympathetic and even anxious to befriend her. He wanted to say:

‘Do not try to make a home with your aunts. Go back to England whence you came.’

But he said no such thing. It was not his business. He steered the conversation into another channel. But when he thought of the trouble that his father had as Victorine Devasse’s lawyer—and of his own difficult position as Clarisse’s medical adviser, he wondered what obstacles Laura would meet.

‘Perhaps she will manage,’ he thought. ‘She seems a nice child and certainly no weakling.’

He put his foot down on the accelerator. He had two important cases to see tonight. It had seemed a wasted day in Paris, but he had had to attend the conference at the Faculté de Médecine—it had been in his own interests to do so.

Now Lucien ceased to think about Laura Le Maitre. He had plenty of worries of his own. Not the least was the steadily growing success of a certain doctor who a year ago had set up his plate in Clos-Caville, the village through which they were now passing and which was only ten minutes away from St. Martin-de-Bois.

Secretly, battle had been joined between him and this rival, Henri Gozule, when Gozule first came here with his smart car which was bigger than Lucien’s, his new expensive X-ray equipment, his up-to-date clinic, his chic, white-gowned nurse. Oh, it could not have happened in England, where, now, a private practice could hardly be bought and it was all the National Health system. How primitive they still were in France, thought Lucien grimly. Yet he enjoyed a fight. And he and Gozule were battling for more than a local clientele. There was something more in the air—much that he had discussed in Paris, and which he had to tell his father about tonight.

Laura, who had been sitting in. . .