CHAPTER ONE

 

The sound of an irritable voice raised in anger and contempt made Gisele hurry towards the sitting room. When she got there, instead of going in she put her ear to the keyhole and listened. She looked very pretty crouching there in her bright blue dress.

She couldn't hear what was being said, so she stood up, shrugged her shoulders and opened the door.

Inside the gracious mauve and white room Madam Brun stood facing another tall and pretty young girl, a little older than Gisele, but darker. It was her sister Cyrienne and she was arguing with her mother.

"Really, Mother," she was saying, "I can't see any harm in our 'intimacy', as you put it, with the Habencourt gang."

"Gang!" exploded her mother. "Really, Cyrienne, what disgusting words you use. I think both of you have become quite unbearable and I should have sent you away to boarding school long ago!"

"What!" said Cyrienne. "No thank you! I'm eighteen now and I'm going to enjoy life - not that I've even started yet!"

"Good heavens," cried her mother, "what are you talking about, girl? I don't know what I'm going to do with you - talking like that at your age ... if your poor father could only hear you."

Gisele sighed, "We're in for an evening of it."

This was the sisters' stock phrase for disagreeable things, like rain, an unwelcome guests etc. and it served to make their mother utterly exasperated.

"Leave the room at once!" she said indignantly, "or I shall not be answerable for my actions!"

"But Mother," began Gisele and Madame Brun nearly became hysterical.

"I mean it ... do you hear me!" she said violently.

Seeing it was no use trying to reason with her the two girls went, leaving their mother to sink into an armchair and pity herself. Brought up in the old school she was quite unable to cope with modern girls and made no attempt to adapt herself. She had lost her husband four years earlier and all her devotion had been lavished on her only two children. Naturally they had been spoiled and were now disdainful and rather snobbish. Every day they seemed to her to grow more independent and hoydonish, which was why she had objected to the Habencourt boys. They were the sons of a near neighbour and, in her opinion, were the cause of her daughters' outrageous behaviour. As a matter of fact she wasn't far wrong since the boys' nickname for her was 'Ancient History' and they encouraged the girls to rebel against her strict rules. Every day they had scenes with her because of them, especially because their language had now become almost entirely slang and sounded like Chinese to Madame Brun, which infuriated her even more. She was becoming genuinely worried about them.

"Whatever will they become?" she thought, thinking of the sweet submissive creatures she would prefer to have as children.

This evening she had come to the end of her tether after a very stormy row with Cyrienne. She felt utterly worn out. Something, she told herself must be done ... but what?

Suddenly she thought of Madame Vandome, her friend, whose daughter Simone was the same age as Cyrienne. What a different kind of girl she was too ... perhaps if she sent them both to stay with her for a while she might be able to do something with them. After all, she had made a good job of her own daughter.

Having made up her mind she immediately wrote off to her friend and two days later came a reply:

 

'My dear,

Of course I will have your two girls for a while, I should be delighted. I quite understand all the worry you have had. If you will give me permission to place Gisele and Cyrienne under the guidance of my daughter's governess, Miss Denise Birch, I promise she will bring them to heel and you will have two of the sweetest girls you could wish for. Miss Birch is an absolute wizard at this sort of thing out of the purest and most disinterested motives. Come at one... I'm longing to see you all.... Micheline,'

 

Madame Brun heaved a sigh of relief and rang for the maid.

"We are going to Brittany tomorrow - all of us. Tell the young ladies so and please pack their trunks."

"And Madame's trunk?" asked the maid.

"I'm not going to stay. Just an overnight bag for me. They are going for a holiday."

A few minutes later the girls burst into their mother's room, quite radiant with joy.

"Is it really true, mother?" asked Gisele, "we're going to Aunt Micheline's?"

"Yes," said their mother, "for the rest of the summer. I'll come and fetch you in October."

"How marvellous! Dourance Bay in summer - nothing could be better ... white sand ... lovely country ... a really super place for the holidays ... oh thanks, mother."

Both of them flung their arms around Madame Brun's neck and tried to kiss her but she just coldly touched their foreheads with her lips and told them:

"Now go and get your things together and mind you are both ready in the morning."

"Aren't you staying with us, mother?"

"No," she said abruptly, "now don't bother me anymore."

When they were outside the sitting room Gisele said:

"That was a very sudden decision for our holiday, wasn't it? I mean she never said a word to us until now. Still, I don't care but you don't like Aunt Micheline very much, do you?"

"No, and Pierre Habencourt hates her and says that Simone is a beastly little pig - he met her last summer."

"Well it doesn't matter, we can keep to ourselves, just think, it's one of the most beautiful places in the world!"

Full of joy at the thought of more freedom, tennis, bathing, boating and (with luck) more boys, the girls went off with hoots of delight to help pack their trunks.

Meanwhile Madame Brun was saying to herself: "They behave like a couple of louts and I suppose it's my own fault. I've been too weak with them. Miss Denise Birch ... what a significant name. I suppose Micheline has a strong belief in discipline, all the better. I hope she and Miss Birch are successful where I have failed!"

The two girls, of course, had no suspicion of what they were walking into. Nor, in actual fact, had their mother. Gisele and Cyrienne thought of themselves as very up-to-date and with-it and felt they ought to be allowed to do pretty much as they liked, even if they had to fight to get it, as they had been doing with their mother for some time now.

They had yet to learn that there are places and persons who may live in the twentieth century, but whose customer and outlook belong to the past ... perhaps even as far back as Sparta. At the moment they were happy in their ignorance and were busily engaged in packing their trunks, gossiping about what they would and would not do in the months which lay ahead.