Dreams Do Come True E-Book

Barbara Cartland

• Herausgeber: Barbara Cartland Ebooks Ltd
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: The Eternal Collection
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 224

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

A shy English Rose blossoms into an exotic bird of paradise in this thrillingly romantic twist on the tale of Cinderella. With her slender, graceful, almost elfin beauty, Odetta may not look like a Cinderella but it's she who must stay at home while her aristocratic friend is dressed by the great couturiers and dances at Society balls. That is, until she's whisked to Paris as her friend's lady's maid – and, on a crazy impulse, borrows a fabulous dress and a mask and slips unnoticed into a Venetian Masked Ball. As she's marvelling at the whirling waltzes, Chinese lanterns and glamorously costumed guests, a tall, handsome masked and cloaked man asks, 'Are you waiting for some laggard partner or have you just dropped down from the sky to bemuse us poor mortals?' Cinderella has gone to the ball! No longer 'Miss Nobody from Nowhere', she lives the dream, playing the part of a French Princesse and quickly finding her feet in the fashionable world… But just as quickly she loses her heart to her masked hero – and her impossible dream becomes a nightmare because her new life and love is all a lie.

Leseprobe

Author’s Note

Frederick Worth, born in Lincolnshire, became overnight the dressmaker to the Empress Eugenie of France and the first worldwide dictator of fashion.

In the glittering and extravagant Second Empire, Worth reached the peak of international fame. He produced the crinoline as a ‘great novelty’ and then discarded it.

By 1870 he employed twelve hundred seamstresses turning out hundreds of new gowns every week. His prices made people reel with shock.

But Worth turned Parisian fashion into the universal industry it is today and imitated the technique of mass production.

Of all couturiers he was indeed the first and the greatest.

The Vedic Religion, the oldest known to have existed in India, was the starting point of Brahmanism or Hinduism. It was brought to India by the Aryans.

The Vedas were the sacred hymns and verses composed in Vedic, which is the oldest form of the Sanskrit language. No definite date can be ascribed to these compositions, many of which possess very great literary merit, but it is believed they were written between 1500 and 1200 B.C.

Details about the British Embassy in Paris, the British Ambassador, Lord Lyons, and his staff are all factual.

Chapter One ~ 1869

Snowball plodded slowly down the dusty lane, moving at exactly the pace that suited him.

As he refused to hurry, whatever his rider might do, Odetta pretended that she was riding a huge black stallion that would carry her with a magical swiftness over the green fields to The Hall.

When they reached it, there would be no Lord and Lady Walmer nor a fascinating Duke or Marquis who would invite her in to meet his friends.

They would be very elegant fashionable and amusing people who would cap each other’s stories and witticisms with a sophistication that would make the conversation glitter like a constellation of stars.

This was one of Odetta’s favourite daydreams, mostly because at least two or three times a week she rode Snowball from the Vicarage to The Hall.

It was no use resenting the time it took because he was old. It was easier to imagine him as a spirited thoroughbred with Arab blood, which she could see so clearly in her mind that she believed he really existed.

They reached the impressive iron gates set between two stone lodges and now Snowball could have moved a little more swiftly across the Park under the trees rather than keep to the gravel drive.

But, while Odetta preferred the grassland, Snowball was happy to take the direct route to The Hall because he knew that it would bring him sooner to the comfortable stables where he would wait for his Mistress.

Odetta was sure he calculated that the hay and the oats that he was provided with at The Hall were of better quality than those he was given at home.

Giving up the usual struggle to coax him onto the grass, Odetta stared ahead to The Hall, which looked extremely impressive with its Greystone touched with gold by the sun and Lord Walmer’s personal standard flying over the roof.

However it was not her dream house, which was much larger and built by the famous Robert Adam rather than the obscure architect who was responsible for the erection of The Hall at the beginning of the century.

Nevertheless, Odetta thought, after the simplicity of the small Vicarage, the Walmers’ home was by contrast extremely grand.

‘If I had money,’ she told herself, ‘I would redecorate the drawing room in silver and gold and then have a deep Madonna-blue carpet up the staircase to replace the patterned one in that rather ugly shade of red.’

She always found it fascinating to imagine how she would change and improve other people’s houses.

Just as when she looked at other women, whether old or young, she had an immediate mental picture of how she could improve their appearance by re-dressing them.

However one person whose appearance she would not alter was Lady Walmer.

She was actually wondering which of her many gowns Lady Walmer would be wearing this afternoon when Snowball reached the front door.

Odetta dismounted and, as she did so, a stable boy, who must have been waiting for her came to Snowball’s head, touching his forelock as he said,

“Afternoon, miss.”

“Good afternoon, Joe. Is Miss Penelope indoors?”

“Her be that, miss,” Joe said and, without wasting any more time in conversation, he led Snowball off towards the stables.

Odetta ran up the steps.

The door was open and it did not surprise her that there was nobody in the hall.

She expected that Bateman, the butler, was still busy clearing away the luncheon.

But there was no need for her to be announced or for anyone to be informed that she had arrived.

She knew her way up the stairs to the sitting room on the first floor, which had once been the schoolroom and now, since Penelope had grown up, had been elevated into being called a ‘sitting room.’

She next opened the door and, as she had expected, Penelope was there waiting for her looking rather thick-set and lumpy in a gown that Odetta had never liked.

It was not only the wrong colour for Penelope’s dark hair and rather sallow complexion but it also made her waist look thicker than it actually was and accentuated the fact that she was too short and too fat for the current fashions.

To Penelope all that mattered at this moment was that Odetta had arrived and, as the sitting room door opened, she jumped up with a little cry to exclaim,

“I have been watching for you. You must have arrived while I was still downstairs.”

“You know how slow Snowball is,” Odetta pointed out with a smile.

“But you are here!” Penelope said. “I have something awful to tell you.”

Odetta looked surprised.

She had been at The Hall only yesterday and nothing untoward had occurred then.

“What is it?” she enquired.

“We are going to Paris!”

“To Paris?” Odetta exclaimed. “How exciting. But why?”

“The Prime Minister has asked Papa to attend some conference or other and Step-Mama and I are to go with him.”

“It is the most thrilling thing I have ever heard,” Odetta cried. “How lucky you are.”

To her surprise Penelope turned her head away and said gloomily,

“I have no wish to go.”

“No wish to go?” Odetta echoed. “Can you really be saying such a thing?”

Penelope glanced towards the door to see that it was closed. Then she moved towards the window seat and saying,

“Come and sit down beside me. I have something important to tell you.”

The way she spoke surprised Odetta, but she obeyed, moving with a grace that her friend Penelope sadly lacked and sat down sideways on the soft cushion on the window seat.

As she did so, she pulled off her plain straw bonnet and the sunshine touching the gold of her hair seemed to make it spring into life.

There was a great difference between the two girls for, unlike Penelope Walmer, Odetta Charlwood was very slender and much taller than her friend with a sweet expression on her face that was very much in keeping with her character.

The starriness of her grey eyes revealed that she lived half the time in a world of make-believe. But there were dimples on either side of her mouth, which, when she was laughing, gave her face an almost mischievous look that was very attractive.

But both her eyes and her voice were serious as she asked,

“What are you keeping from me, Penelope? I cannot believe that you really do not wish to visit Paris.”

Again Penelope glanced over her shoulder as if she was terrified of being overheard.

Then she said,

“I was going to tell you – sooner or – later, Odetta that I am in – love!”

Odetta stared at her in astonishment before she asked,

“In love? But with whom?”

As she spoke, her mind searched frantically among the men who came to The Hall for one on whom Penelope was likely to bestow her heart.

Of course the Walmers entertained generously for Lady Walmer was very fashionable at the moment and liked to spend as much time in London as her husband would allow. But her friends were invariably married like herself.

Because Odetta spent a great deal of time at The Hall, she did not miss the fact that there was a stream of elegant gentlemen paying court to Penelope’s stepmother, but none of them had shown the slightest interest in Penelope, nor, as far as she had guessed, were any of them bachelors.

Of course she was far too kind and too tactful even to hint at it, but she had in fact been very worried about Penelope now that she was grown up and was still living at home.

Her stepmother was infinitely more attractive than she was and Lady Walmer made it obvious that she resented the fact that she had to chaperone her husband’s daughter.

Unfortunately Penelope did not resemble her mother, who had died three years ago but took after her father.

Lord Walmer, dark, heavily built and over six feet tall, was quite a good-looking man but his features on a woman were not very prepossessing, nor was his daughter’s rather thick-set figure conducive to elegance.

Yet Odetta knew that Penelope had a kind disposition, a loving heart for those on whom she bestowed her affection and a loyalty that was one of her most sterling qualities.

However she was rather shy and reserved, perhaps because she had no mother to guide and help her and she clung onto Odetta, who like herself was motherless, although she had no stepmother to make her life difficult in a hundred different ways.

“Who is it? Who can you be in love with?” Odetta asked as Penelope did not speak.

In a voice that was barely above a whisper, Penelope replied,

“It is – Simon Johnson – and he loves me, Odetta. He – told me so yesterday.”

Odetta was astonished as well she might be.

Simon Johnson was the younger son of a yeoman Squire who lived on the other side of the little village of Edenham.

She had known him all her life and had always thought him a dull over-serious young man. That Penelope should love him, and he her, was just so astonishing that for the moment Odetta could think of nothing to say.

“But where have you met – and how did you know him – well enough?” she managed to ask after a long pause.

As she spoke, she was thinking that Squire Johnson nor his sons were ever invited to The Hall, except for a meet of the foxhounds or when a Point-to-Point was taking place on Lord Walmer’s estate.

“It all – happened a month – ago,” Penelope said a little breathlessly. “I was riding in the morning with Sam when his horse went lame.”

Sam was one of the grooms who usually accompanied Penelope when she went riding.

“Sam walked his horse back to the stables,” Penelope went on, “and I went on alone.”

She paused to draw in her breath and her somewhat plain face became quite pretty as she carried on,

“I met Simon as he was bringing a note from his father – and we talked and he told me about a litter of puppies that his spaniel had just had.”

Odetta was listening intently and Penelope continued,

“He said he wanted to show them to me and, of course, I wanted to see them, but I knew that there would be a fuss if I asked Papa if I could visit the Johnsons.”

“So what did you do?” Odetta asked, knowing the answer already.

“Simon said he would bring a gig and collect me if I would walk to the edge of the Home Wood.”

Odetta listened with astonishment. It was so unlike Penelope to take the initiative or to do anything that was not completely conformable.

“So you went alone?”

“I said I had a headache and was going to lie down after tea,” Penelope replied.

Odetta thought that this was quite a clever idea on her part, because if her stepmother had guests she usually did not want Penelope there, while if the family was alone, Lady Walmer would lie down until dinnertime so as to look her best, especially if there was to be a party.

“So you saw the puppies?” Odetta prompted.

“As a matter of fact I did not,” Penelope answered. “We drove through the woods where no one was likely to see us and Simon said he thought that it was a mistake after all for me to go to his house in case his father and mother talked and Papa heard that ‒ I had been there.”

“Your father would most certainly have thought it wrong for you to go alone with him,” Odetta observed.

“Yes, I know,” Penelope agreed, “but when Simon told me what he felt about me, I knew that I had to be very clever if I wished to go on seeing him – which I did.”

“What does he feel about you?” Odetta asked her curiously.

Penelope’s eyes lit up.

“He said he had always admired me when he had seen me out hunting and he wanted to know me better. Then last night, when we had met for just the sixth or seventh time, I cannot remember which, he said he – loved me.”

“That was very quick,” Odetta commented.

Penelope shook her head.

“Not really,” she answered. “We have been living near to each other for eighteen years, and now when I look back I know I was always – conscious of him whenever I did see him. Once I asked Papa if we could have the Johnson boys to a party.”

“What did he answer?” Odetta asked.

“He paused for a moment,” Penelope replied, “then he said, ‘Squire Johnson is a decent man and I respect him but socially, Penelope, they are not in our class’.”

Odetta gave a little sigh because this was what she would have expected Lord Walmer to say, but before she could reply, Penelope said in a pleading voice,

“Odetta, what am I to – do? I – love him and I want to – marry him!”

There was an appeal in Penelope’s voice, which Odetta did not miss and instinctively she put out her hands to take those of her friend.

“It is going to be difficult, Penelope dear.”

“I know,” Penelope agreed, “but however much Papa may want me to make a brilliant social marriage, I swear I will not marry – anybody but – Simon!”

Odetta looked worried.

She knew that Lord Walmer was rich and that Penelope was his only child. Of course he would want her to marry somebody who was socially acceptable and of whom he approved and she knew as well as Penelope did that Simon was not in that category.

Because she thought it was something she ought to say, she held Penelope's hands very tightly and asked,

“You don’t think, dearest, it would be wisest to try to forget Simon? And perhaps that is what you will do in Paris”

“I shall never forget him if I meet a million men!” Penelope replied positively. “I know he is the right man for me – just as he says I am the right woman for him. It is not something we can explain in – words, it is just something we both feel.”

“That is what you should feel for the man you marry,” Odetta said almost beneath her breath.

“I knew you would understand,” Penelope sighed. “In the stories you have told me ever since we were small, true love always conquers in the end and the Prince finds the girl he really wants to marry even if she is poor and ragged.”

Her voice was deep with feeling as she added,

“What I feel for Simon is one of your ‒ Fairy Stories come true, Odetta.”

“Oh, dearest, I do want you to be happy,” Odetta cried, “but you know how difficult your father is going to be about it.”

Penelope’s eyes darkened.

“Yes, I do know and Simon says it would be a mistake to tell him now. We just have to wait and if it is impossible for us to be married with Papa’s blessing, then we shall just have to run away.”

“Run away?” Odetta echoed.

Penelope nodded.

“We would hide until we could get married somehow. Then perhaps I will – have a – baby and it will be too late for Papa to separate us.

Odetta was astonished not only that Penelope should talk in such a manner but that she should have thought it all out for herself.

She had always seemed a rather unimaginative simple person and Odetta had been the leader, the guide and the inspiration not only in every game they had played but in everything they had thought since they had been children.

Because there were few families in the rather isolated countryside of South Lincolnshire, Penelope and Odetta, being of the same age, had played together when they were both in their prams and had been close friends ever since.

The first Lady Walmer had been very fond of Odetta’s mother and it had been a sensible arrangement for their daughters to share a Governess.

In summer or winter, in rain or fine, Odetta had found her way from the Vicarage to The Hall where Penelope and their Governess would be waiting for her in the schoolroom.

When Lady Walmer had died and a year later Lord Walmer had married again, things had changed.

The new Lady Walmer had made it quite clear that she was not impressed by the Vicar, whom she found a bore, nor by his daughter.

“Surely there are more congenial friends with whom Penelope can spend her time than that girl from the Vicarage?” she had said to her husband.

“Odetta is a nice little thing,” Lord Walmer replied, “and Penelope is very fond of her.”

“That is as may well be,” Lady Walmer said sharply, “but Penelope is coming out next Season and the sooner we start finding an eligible husband for her the better.”

“There is no hurry,” Lord Walmer replied.

“On the contrary the sooner a girl is married the better,” his wife answered, “and quite frankly I find a ménage à trois a bore. I would much rather be alone with you.”

Lord Walmer appreciated his wife’s flattery and, since he was not a very perceptive man, it did not strike him that she deeply resented having to chaperone a girl when she considered herself still a young woman.

But Lady Walmer had made up her mind that the quickest way of ridding herself of the encumbrance was to get Penelope married off and therefore out of the house.

The difficulty, of course, was Penelope herself.

No one appreciated better than Lady Walmer that Penelope was plain, dull and not rich enough to be attractive to the fortune-hunters.

However she had done her best by taking Penelope to London and having her fitted out by the most expensive dressmakers in Bond Street.

She then arranged some dinner parties at Lord Walmer’s house in Berkeley Square and also took Penelope to a number of balls, where she stood most of the evening beside one of the Dowagers, while Lady Walmer danced every dance and had more partners than she could possibly accept.

“It was ghastly,” Penelope told Odetta when they returned to the country. “I hated every minute of it and, if I have to do it again, I swear I will drown myself in the lake!”

Odetta, who had been left behind, could not help feeling a little wistfully that she would have liked the opportunity to see London and attend at least one of the balls that Penelope had found so unpleasant.

She had often told herself stories of how the ladies with their huge crinolines swinging round the ballrooms under the chandeliers would look like swans.

She could visualise the grace of their movements, the glitter of the jewels on their heads and round their necks and the elegance of the handsome men who they danced with.

Penelope’s version of what occurred was not in the least like Odetta’s daydreams and what was more Odetta thought that her friend’s gowns were by no means as attractive or as flattering as they could be.

She was not certain what was wrong, but she knew that, instead of improving Penelope’s appearance, they contrived to accentuate her bad points and neglect the good ones.

Looking at her friend dispassionately, Odetta knew that she had pretty eyes that shone with a sincerity that any observant man would find enticing.

Her skin was clear and white but because she was so short, a crinoline made her look dumpier and more unattractive than she actually was.

Then Odetta asked herself what the alternative was. Everybody wore a crinoline!

Although hers was a small one and had she kept it for special occasions, she and Hannah, who had helped her make her gowns ever since she could remember, had contrived by adding dozens of stiff petticoats to make her dresses seem as full as the fashion decreed. Hannah did everything in the house for the family from washing their clothes to coping with any crisis that came along.

Odetta was fortunate in that her waist was very tiny and, although she did not realise it, everything she wore seemed to add to the elusive Fairy-like quality of her appearance, which was echoed by the stories that came frequently into her mind.

Now, because it was a tale of love and she knew that it had brought something magical into Penelope’s life that had never been there before, she said impulsively,

“I understand what you are feeling, dearest, and I will help you – you know I will – if you want me to, but it is going to be difficult – very very difficult to convince your father that you should marry Simon Johnson.”

“He will never agree,” Penelope said simply, “and, although Simon says we must not do anything too quickly, I know that sooner or later we shall have to brave Papa’s wrath and either tell him that I intend to marry Simon or else inform him that I am already married when it is too late for him to do anything about it.”

Then she gave a cry that was like the sound of a cornered small animal.

“Now you – understand why I cannot go to – Paris.”

“But you will have to go.”

“Perhaps Simon will be able to – prevent it.”

Odetta thought that this was unlikely and she asked,

“When are you meeting him?”

Penelope looked at the clock.

“In half-an-hour.”

“Half-an-hour?” Odetta echoed. “Where?”

“In the usual place at the end of the wood. That is why I sent a groom with a note for you as soon as Papa said at breakfast this morning that we were going to Paris. I know how clever you are, Odetta and I am sure that you can think of some way that I can stay at home.”

“You want me to come with you and talk to Simon?”

“Of course,” Penelope answered. “I meant to tell you about him yesterday but, if you remember, Step-Mama kept coming in and out of the room and I was terrified in case she should overhear what we were saying.”

“It would be wise not to let her know anything at the moment.”

“She wants me to get married,” Penelope said, “so as to get me out of her way, but I am quite certain she will think that the Johnsons are beneath her condescension.”

Odetta knew that this was indeed true.

“I know I shall like them, “ Penelope said fiercely, “and I should be miserable if I had to marry one of the men I met in London. I cannot tell you, Odetta, how horrible they were. Blasé, selfish and indifferent to anything except their own interests.”

Odetta had heard this before, but she knew that, because Penelope had been a wallflower at the balls and overshadowed by her stepmother, she had a very jaundiced idea of London Society.

At the same time she was astute enough to fully realise that, whatever she might feel, her father still would not accept a man like Simon Johnson as an eligible suitor.

Before she could speak, Penelope sprang to her feet.

“Come on, let us start walking through the woods,” she said. “No one will suspect us of doing anything unusual and I do know that Step-Mama is expecting a lot of boring people to tea.”

“In which case she will not want me here,” Odetta said quickly.

“No, of course not,” Penelope cried. “And I have already told the servants that we will have tea upstairs. If she does not want you, she will not want me either.”

Odetta had seen some of Lady Walmer’s friends. Most of them were not living in the County but staying with those few of the neighbours whom she thought were interesting.

Odetta could readily understand how Penelope felt out of place amongst them.

Lady Walmer had always been acclaimed as a beauty. When she was very young she had been married to a man who both drank and gambled.

He had been conveniently killed in a Steeplechase, leaving his wife penniless and with no other assets except for her beauty.

It had been a Godsend when Lord Walmer, recently bereaved and lonely as a man can be after a long and happy marriage, sat next to her at a dinner party and fell for the allurements which she could, when she wished, use extremely effectively.

They were married within three months and Penelope found herself with a stepmother who was very different in every way from her mother.

Lady Walmer made no pretence about disliking the country and was wishing to spend as much time as possible in London.

But Lord Walmer was conscious of his duty to his estates and, despite every enticement his wife used, he insisted on staying for months on end at The Hall.

Odetta was sure that the one person who would be thrilled at the idea of going to Paris would be Lady Walmer and this was confirmed when, as the two girls were walking down the stairs, ostensibly to start out on a walk in the garden, they met her Ladyship in the hall.

“Good afternoon!” she said coldly as Odetta curtseyed to her. “I thought you were here with us yesterday?”

“Yes, ma’am, I was,” Odetta answered.

“Well, you will miss Penelope when she goes to Paris,” Lady Walmer said. “I suppose she has told you how excited we all are at the prospect?”

“Yes, indeed, ma’am,” Odetta replied, “and I can imagine nothing more thrilling than to visit Paris and see all the improvements that have been made to the City recently.”

Lady Walmer laughed scornfully.

“It is not the improvements that I am interested in,” she replied, “but the chance to visit Monsieur Worth and have some decent clothes for once. Do you know that the crinoline is now completely out of date and so he has introduced a new fashion that has not yet reached London?”

Because she was talking on a subject that really interested her, Lady Walmer was not only animated but was speaking to Odetta quite pleasantly, which was unusual.

“The crinoline is out of date?” Odetta exclaimed. “How extraordinary!”

“That is what Worth has decreed and the first thing I shall do when we reach Paris is to buy dozens and dozens of new gowns.”