A Battle of Brains (2 page)

Her mother accepted the gifts and Yolanda believed it was because inevitably sooner or later they would have to be sold or pawned.

The only presents her mother did not lose were the many pretty gowns that her father had bought for her.

“You will always be very beautiful, my precious,” he would tell his wife.  “But I like your frame to be worthy of your beauty.”

Because her mother had loved him so completely, she always did whatever he wanted, regardless of the consequences.

Yolanda remembered affectionately how sweet and kind she was when things went wrong.

They would know only too well exactly what had happened after an evening's gambling had not gone well.

Her father would enter the room in a slow way and the expression on his face told them before he spoke what had occurred.

“I have lost,” he groaned.  “I cannot think why luck had turned against me.”

“You are asking too much, my dearest,” her mother would say. “You won last month and indeed the month before, but you cannot expect to win every time.”

Sometimes when things were bad they would have to leave the comfortable hotel they had been staying in, which meant moving into very uncomfortable lodgings and eating inferior food.

But invariably, in some way or another, her father was able to find the money to carry on gambling.

It was indeed a strange life, Yolanda mused, as the train carried her from Paris to Calais.

She had visited Baden-Baden in Germany with her parents and found the town incredibly beautiful.  And she had spent several weeks in Hamburg.

They had then travelled back to London after one of her father's more successful spells at the roulette tables and rented a house in Mayfair.

He had then been in touch with several of his old friends whom he had not seen for many years, and they had been delighted to see him again.

They made a great fuss of the beautiful Countess of Longwood too, much to the delight of her adoring husband.

Next a governess was engaged for Yolanda and she enjoyed going to Hyde Park to see the horses in Rotten Row.

The beautiful Society ladies, like her mother, drove in an open Victoria, an elegant French carriage with a raised driver's seat drawn by two magnificent horses.  Accompanied by a liveried coachman, the ladies rode through the parks of London with small sunshades held up over their heads.

Then she recalled how very suddenly her father had decided to go to Paris, as he wanted to attend the racing that was about to take place on the new Racecourse in the Bois de Boulogne.

“I know which horse is going to win the big race,” he boasted, “and I intend to make a packet on him!”

Her mother agreed with him as she always did.

So they set off for Paris and stayed at a large and impressive hotel.

As a special treat Yolanda was allowed to go to the Racecourse and she had known without being told that the racehorses she saw were the finest in Europe.

The horse which her father had come to see run was outstanding and she was well aware that a great number of people were putting their money on him to win.

The race was thrilling and the horses moved at an almost impossible speed, sweeping like typhoons past the winning post.

But the horse her father had backed was not in the first three.

The result was such a surprise to a large number of race goers that a groan echoed around the enclosure.

It was then that her father had exclaimed angrily,

“I don't believe it!  The whole race was a cheat and there should be a full enquiry as to why the favourite was pulled in at the last moment!”

Unfortunately, the horse's owner, who took umbrage at the suggestion of cheating, overheard her father's loud comments.

Yolanda was not quite certain what happened between them, but upon returning to the hotel that evening, she was horrified to discover that her father was expected to fight a duel at dawn the next morning.

Her mother was distraught at the prospect.

“You cannot do it, darling,” she wept over and over again.  “You have not fought a duel for many years and these Frenchmen are experts at it.”

“It is something I cannot refuse,” replied the Earl, “and, damn him, he has lost us every penny we possess!”

Yolanda remembered that her mother had not been in the slightest concerned about the losses – she was only worried about her father fighting in a duel.

She was still pleading with him desperately to refuse to take part when they retired to bed.

“You know as well as I do,” insisted the Earl, “that I have to behave like a gentleman.  It would besmirch my honour to refuse!”

There was nothing further her mother could say to dissuade him, but Yolanda could see the tears in her eyes.

They drove off together before dawn to the Bois de Boulogne where duels always took place.

Her father was not killed – but badly wounded.

Although he was taken back to the hotel where they were staying and the doctors sent for at once, his wound became septic.

Finally after three days in agony, he died.

To his adoring wife it was the end of the world and she could only weep helplessly.

They had been very happy together and the endless difficulties over money had not seemed important as long as they both shared success and failure.

Her father had been buried in a graveyard in Paris, as it was too expensive to take his body back to England.

Yolanda had then asked her mother what they were going to do and the Countess made a helpless gesture with her hands.

“I have no idea, my darling,” she answered.  “We have no money and we owe a great deal to the hotel apart from anything else.”

“Oh, Mama!” exclaimed Yolanda.  “Perhaps they will prosecute us if we cannot pay!  We might even have to go to prison!”

Her mother had not responded, only cried more tears of despair, whilst Yolanda shivered because she was so afraid.

It was then, and it seemed at the time almost like a miracle, that Mr. Garrack had come into their lives.

He was staying in the same hotel and Yolanda had noticed him when they were having dinner the night before the race.

He had been sitting at a table near to theirs and she had been drawn to him, thinking he was a rather unattractive man compared to her handsome father.

But he kept staring at her mother with such a look of admiration in his eyes that was, in a way, very flattering.

As dinner ended her father was debating whether he would go to a gambling house that was not too far away.

Suddenly the stranger rose from his table, bowed to her mother and father and introduced himself,

“My name is Oliver Garrack, and you must forgive me if it seems impertinent of me to speak to you.”

Her father, who was always charming to everyone he met, smiled at him and commented,

“We are staying in the same hotel, are we not?”

“I was just counting my lucky stars,” Mr. Garrack said, “because it has allowed me to see the most beautiful woman I have ever set eyes on!”

He was looking at her mother as he was speaking, and Yolanda saw that she turned her head away as if a little shy.

“There,” her father remarked, “I must agree with you. I only wish I could afford to have my wife's portrait painted by a great artist.”

“Strangely enough,” Mr. Garrack then replied, “that is just what I was going to ask you.  You may think it very forward, but I am a great lover of beauty.  I have in my house in England a collection by some very fine Masters.”

He paused to look at the Countess again, before he went on,

“But none of my pictures, and many of them are of lovely women, are as beautiful as you, my Lady.”

“That is very kind and most flattering of you,” the Countess responded, obviously feeling a little embarrassed.

“What I am wondering,” he continued, “is whether you will allow me to have your portrait painted by one of our greatest artists, who is in Paris at this very moment?”

Yolanda recalled how her mother had looked across the table at her father.

“We are, of course, very grateful, Mr. Garrack,” the Earl said.  “But I am afraid that we cannot accept your kind offer, because, as soon as the racing is over tomorrow, we intend going back to England.”

Mr Garrack was silent for a moment and then said,

“I too shall be returning home.  I can only ask if you would permit me to visit you in London, or the country, to discuss this matter again? To me it is a matter of great importance and it would be a great honour to add a portrait of your wife to my collection.”

He smiled before he added,

“I am certain that future generations of art lovers would be eternally grateful to you too.”

The Earl looked at his wife.

As they were so very close to each other, Yolanda was always sure that they could read each other's thoughts.

Her father clearly sensed without being told that his wife did not want her portrait painted – in fact she had no wish to see Mr. Garrack again.

The Earl was, however, very tactful,

“It is exceedingly generous of you and of course we shall consider your offer seriously.  But, for the moment, my wife is tremendously busy, so it would be difficult for her to be in London for long or to give up so much time to an artist.”

“I do understand.  Yes, of course I understand,” Mr. Garrack had answered.  “But I am just praying that one day my dream will come true and your beautiful wife will shine in my collection which I hope to leave, when I die, to the National Gallery.”

The Earl was obviously impressed.

And as Mr. Garrack bowed himself away, Yolanda remembered her mother saying,

“I don't want to be in
his
collection, darling, only in
yours
.”

The Earl had laughed.

“Which is so small that at the moment it does not exist except in my mind!”

Yolanda had, she recalled, somehow felt glad that they need not be troubled further with Mr. Garrack.

Yet it was he who came to their rescue in their darkest hour.

The day after her father was buried, her mother was presented with a very large bill by the hotel.

She and Yolanda were both in the sitting room of their suite when she received the bill.

When the servant had left them the Countess said in a small, frightened voice,

“Whatever am I to do now, Yolanda?  I have only my engagement ring to sell, but I doubt if that will give us enough money to pay this enormous bill.”

Yolanda was well aware that her father had been so certain the horse he fancied was going to win.

He had pawned most of her mother's best jewellery and then sold some of her other pieces to finance even more bets.

Looking at the bill searchingly as if she thought that somehow there must be a mistake, the Countess asked again,

“What am I to do?  Oh, darling, what can I do?”

As she spoke there was a knock at the door.

Because her mother was crying, Yolanda jumped up to answer it, as she would not want the servants or anyone else to see her tears.

Outside was Mr. Garrack.

He was well dressed and sporting an orchid in his buttonhole.

Yolanda felt that they had no wish to talk to him at this traumatic moment.

“I would like to see your mother – ” he began.

“I am afraid that Mama is not receiving – ”

Then to her great surprise and before she had even finished speaking, he pushed past her into the sitting room.

He crossed over the room to where her mother was sitting with a handkerchief held to her eyes.

He went down on one knee beside her.

“You must not weep, my beautiful lady,” Yolanda heard him say.  “I cannot bear to see you so unhappy.”

Yolanda thought that it would be embarrassing for her mother if she listened to what Mr. Garrack was saying to her, so she went into the bedroom, but did not close the door.

She could hear her mother, weak and tearful.

And next came Mr. Garrack's voice, sympathetic and flattering.

She could not hear exactly what was said, only the tone of their voices.

Her mother's was low and quieter whilst Mr. Garrack's was more determined, as if he was fighting to get his own way.

Yolanda could not think what the conversation was all about, unless he was once again pressing his longing for a portrait of her mother.

If he was, she considered it rather bad taste at this particular moment.

Anyway it would be impossible for them to stay in Paris without any money and equally impossible, she now feared, to leave.

She sat wondering anxiously what they could do, wracking her brain for a solution to their hopeless situation.

For the first time in her life she began to query why they had so few relations.  She had thought about it before, but had not actually asked any questions.

She knew that her mother's family, who were very distinguished, lived in the North of England.  It was a long way from London, she mused, so maybe that was the reason she had not met any of them.

Her father's family, if he had any, must live somewhere in the rural County of Hertfordshire where the family home was situated, she concluded.

‘I must ask Mama,' she had said to herself, ‘if there is anyone we can turn to now that things are so desperate.'

It seemed to Yolanda as if hours passed.

At last she could hear Mr. Garrack saying goodbye to her mother and walking across the room to the door.

“I will order dinner for eight o'clock,” he said as he reached it.  “And I will be there waiting, my beautiful lady, eagerly and excitedly for you and your daughter.”

Then he was gone.

Yolanda hurried out into the sitting room to find her mother was no longer crying.

As Yolanda reached her, she held out her hands.

“We are saved, darling,” she cried.  “Saved when I was frightened that we might have been taken to prison.”