A Battle of Brains Read online

  “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.”

  “What has happened, Mama?”

  She knelt down beside her mother’s chair.

  “It may be wrong of me,” she answered, “and some people would think it reprehensible, but I had no choice but to accept Mr. Garrack’s kind offer.”

  “What was that, Mama?”

  “Because he wants my portrait to be painted for his collection, he has offered to pay the bill here and also to pay for us to go back to England.”

  She paused for a moment and then continued softly,

  “He said there is a painter who will do me justice. He has just painted the Princess of Wales, and a great number of fashionable beauties including Mrs. Lillie Langtry.”

  “I suppose,” Yolanda remarked a little doubtfully, “it is very kind of him.”

  “Yes, of course it is,” her mother replied somewhat sharply, “and I certainly cannot imagine anyone else being so incredibly generous or understanding after such a short acquaintance.”

  There was silence for a moment before she added,

  “He told me that if he had known earlier that Papa was being buried here in Paris, he would have arranged for his body to be taken back home to England and he could have been buried in the tomb of his ancestors.”

  Yolanda then remembered that they had not seen Mr. Garrack in the dining room since the night he had first spoken to her mother.

  She supposed that he must have been out of Paris and had not been aware of the duel or of her father’s death.

  As if she had spoken out aloud, her mother said,

  “Mr. Garrack only returned last night. When they told him what had happened to your Papa, he was not only shocked but as he said his ‘heart bled’ for me.”

  Yolanda thought this was a somewhat exaggerated way of talking, but she supposed it was indeed very kind of Mr. Garrack to befriend them.

  “We are returning to London tomorrow, Yolanda, and I never want to see Paris or meet a Frenchman ever again!”

  She spoke bitterly and tears were back in her eyes.

  “Don’t cry, Mama,” begged Yolanda. “You know Papa hated you to be unhappy. I am sure wherever he is, he is still looking after us and somehow everything will be all right.”

  She was trying as hard as she could to cheer up her mother, who now replied,

  “It does seem rather like a miracle that Mr. Garrack, whom we have not known before, should appear just at this moment and be so very very generous.

  “I told him that I had pawned all my jewellery and the only piece left was my engagement ring. I offered to give it to him, but he would not take it.”

  Yolanda was glad, as she knew that it would have completely broken her mother’s heart to have parted with the engagement ring that had meant so much to her.

  Her parent’s marriage had been a love match. They had been engaged for just a short time and her mother had often said that she and her father had fallen in love with each other at first sight.

  “I knew, darling, the moment I saw him,” she said, “that he was the most handsome, exciting and wonderful man I had ever met.”

  “I am not surprised, Mama.”

  She had noticed that when her father came into a room, the women all looked at him and she could easily understand why her mother had fallen in love so quickly.

  “I have heard Papa say,” she exclaimed, “that he looked at you and lost his heart immediately.”

  “We were so very happy,” her mother said and her voice broke on the last word.

  “I am sure it is Papa who sent Mr. Garrack to us at exactly the right moment. When we get back to England, I am sure we will find things are not as bad as we fear.”

  As it happened it would have been a lot worse, except that Mr. Garrack took them to his large and imposing house in Park Lane.

  He insisted on finding out if there was any money left in her father’s bank account and if they were entitled to sell anything from the family house and estate.

  Mr. Garrack reassured the heartbroken Countess that he was sure something had been overlooked and that they had not been left totally penniless.

  It was only after all the finances had been scrutinised that he conceded that he had been mistaken – there really was nothing left.

  What was more, the income from the people renting the Earl’s house and estate had already been given to the bank against his large overdraft.

  It was then, looking back, Yolanda realised that Mr. Garrack had taken complete control of their lives.

  He managed to persuade her mother that she should for the time being stay with Yolanda at his house in Park Lane.

  “I could, of course,” he said, “quite easily buy you a house anywhere you wanted, but I want to be with you, to see you and to talk to you.”

  He smiled before he added,

  “It seems rather a waste of money when this large house is full of empty rooms and I am a very lonely man!”

  There was really nothing the Countess could do but accept his kind offer.

  It would have been untrue to say that both she and Yolanda did not enjoy the comfort and luxury with which they were now surrounded.

  Because they were in mourning, Mr. Garrack at first did not try to persuade them to meet other people.

  But after quite a short time, he gradually began to bring his friends home.

  It was then that Yolanda began to notice that in many ways he was not exactly a gentleman.

  She did not say it, even quietly to herself, in those particular words – it was just what she observed when she compared him to her father.

  What was more, she considered it embarrassing that Mr. Garrack should be so obviously pleased and delighted to have her mother as a guest.

  Not only because of her beauty but also because of her title.

  There was something in the way he would say to anyone who came to see them.

  “Let me introduce you to the delightful Countess of Longwood, who is staying with me, who is not only the most beautiful woman in the world but also a very valued friend.”

  He always accentuated her title.

  “And also her daughter, Lady Yolanda Wood,” she heard him say dozens of times.

  Always he said her name with what she thought was a pronounced accent on the word ‘Lady’.

  *

  After they had been in London for only a month, the Season had come to an end and the majority of Socialites left London for the country or Scotland.

  They had been talking to two men who were going grouse shooting and Yolanda asked her mother,

  “Do you not think, Mama, it would be a good idea to get in touch with some of your relations? I know they live in the North, but I have not met any of them and it would be very exciting if we went for a visit.”

  The Countess was silent for a moment.

  Yolanda knew she was considering what she should answer and it made her wonder why she had not been told anything about them before.

  Finally her mother said,

  “I suppose, darling, you had better know the truth. When I married your father all my family were very angry. They had arranged for me to marry a distinguished man, rather older than I was. When I fell in love with your father, they tried in every way they could to dissuade me from marrying him.”

  “But you insisted, Mama, and I am very glad that you did!”

  “Of course I insisted! But after we were married your father found them so very disagreeable and unfriendly that we came Sou
th and never went back.”

  Yolanda gave a little cry.

  “But, Mama, surely you miss your family.”

  The Countess sighed.

  “To be honest I was so very happy with your father, I hardly ever gave them a thought. My father was never friendly like Papa was with you and my mother was, I think, not particularly fond of children – she had four and found them all rather a bore. As I was the youngest I received the least attention!”

  “It is difficult for me to think of your family being like that, Mama. You have always been so wonderful to me and so was Papa. You never made me feel you did not want me. Although perhaps sometimes I was a nuisance.”

  The Countess laughed.

  “You were never that, darling. We were thrilled to have you but, of course, I ought to have given your Papa a son to follow after him.”

  She paused and then she added,

  “I only realised yesterday that now your father is no longer with us, the Earldom comes to an end. He had two cousins who might have inherited the title, but they were killed fighting with General Gordon at Khartoum.”

  “I call it very sad, Mama, but what happens now to the house and all the things which should have come to the next Earl if there had been one?”

  “Mr. Garrack is looking into that at the moment,” her mother replied. “Of course even if we were allowed to go on living there as there is no heir, we could not afford to do so.”

  “Have we really no money, Mama, except what Mr. Garrack is giving us?” Yolanda asked her in a low voice.

  Her mother shook her head.

  “None, my darling, and I feel it is terrible for us to inflict ourselves on him like this. At the same time he so adores having us here and keeps saying what a difference we have made to his life. I feel it is no use suggesting we go somewhere else.”

  Although it seemed wrong and ungrateful, Yolanda just did not like Mr. Garrack.

  There was something about him that made her feel uncomfortable.

  When he told her that he now looked on her as if she was his daughter, she wanted to respond that she would never be that in a million years.

  Instead she just managed to say,

  “That is so very kind of you.”

  She thought from the expression in his eyes that he knew quite well it was something she did not want.