“Monsieur Ie Comte, I am an artist myself….”

I could picture his scornful looks.

“Mademoiselle, I am not interested in your qualifications. I sent for Monsieur Lawson. I did not send for you. Therefore oblige me by leaving my house’ (… my residence? .. my castle?) ‘without delay.”

Joseph was looking at me shrewdly. I could see that he was thinking that it was very odd that Monsieur Ie Comte had sent for a woman.

I longed to ask questions about the Comte, but naturally I could not.

It would have been useful if I could have learned a little about the household, but it was out of the question to inquire. No. I must put myself into the right mood; I must feel that there was nothing unusual in taking my father’s place, so that I could convey this to others.

In my pocket was the request. That was the wrong word. Monsieur Ie Comte would rarely request; he would command as a king to a subject.

The king in his castle! I thought. Monsieur Ie Comte de la Talle summons D. Lawson to the Chateau Gaillard to carry out the work on his pictures as arranged. Well, I was Dallas Lawson, and if that summons was meant for Daniel Lawson, then my answer was that Daniel Lawson had been dead for ten months and that I, his daughter, who in the past had helped him in his work, was now carrying on in his place.

It was about three years earlier that my father had been in correspondence with the Comte, who had heard of his work, for Father had been well known as an authority on old buildings and paintings.

Perhaps in the circumstances it was natural that I should grow up with a reverence for these things, which had turned into a passion. Father encouraged me in this and we spent many weeks in Florence, Rome and Paris doing nothing but looking at art treasures; and every moment I could spare in London was spent in the galleries.

With a mother who was not very strong and a father who was almost always absorbed in his work, I was thrown a great deal on my own resources. We saw few people and I had never formed the habit of making friends easily. Not being a pretty girl I felt at a disadvantage and there seemed to be a constant need to hide this which made me develop a far from attractive, over-dignified manner. Yet I longed to share experiences with others; I longed for friends. I was passionately interested in the affairs of others, which always seemed more exciting than anything that could happen to me. I would listen enraptured to conversations which were not intended for my ears; I would sit quietly in the kitchen while our two servants, one elderly, one young, discussed their ailments and love affairs respectively, and stand quietly listening to people in shops when I was shopping with my mother; or if anyone came to the house I was often discovered in what my father called eavesdropping. It was a habit of which he did not approve.

But when I went to my art school, for a while I began to live my life first-hand as it were, rather than through my ears.

Yet that did not satisfy Father either, for there I fell in love with a young student. In romantic moments I still wistfully remembered those spring days when we wandered through St. James’s and Green Parks and listened to the orators at Marble Arch, and strolled along the Serpentine into Kensington Gardens. I could never be there without remembering; that was why I never went if I could help it. Father had objected because Charles had no money. Moreover Mother, who by that time had become an invalid, needed me.

There was no great renunciation scene. That romance had just grown out of spring-time and youth; and with the coming of autumn it was over.

Perhaps Father had thought it would be better if I had not the opportunity to become involved with anyone else, for he suggested I leave the art school and work more closely with him. He said he would teach me far more than I could ever learn at school. He was right, of course; but although I learned so much from him, my opportunity to meet people my own age and live my individual life was lost. My time was divided between working with Father and looking after Mother. When she died I was stunned by my grief for a long time and when I recovered a little I felt that I was no longer young; and as, long ago, I had convinced myself that I was not attractive to men, I turned my desire for love and marriage into a passion for paintings.

“The work suits you,” my father once said.

“You want to restore everything.”

I understood what he meant. I had wanted to make Charles into a great painter when he wanted to be a care free student. Perhaps that was why I lost him. I wanted to restore Mother to her old vigour and interest in life. I tried to chivvy her out of her lassitude. I never tried to change Father. That would have been quite impossible. I realized that I had inherited my forcefulness from him, and at the time he was stronger than I. I remember the day the first letter came from Chateau Gaillard. The Comte de la Talle had a gallery of pictures which were in need of attention; and he would like to consult my father about certain restoration of the chateau. Could Monsieur Lawson come to Chateau Gaillard, estimate what work was necessary, and if a satisfactory arrangement could be reached, stay until it was completed?

Father had been delighted.

“I will send for you if possible’, he had told me.

“I shall need your help with the pictures. You will enjoy the place. It’s fifteenth-century and I believe a great deal of the original is there. It’ll be quite fascinating.”

I was excited. First because I longed to spend a few months in a French chateau; secondly because Father was beginning to accept my superior knowledge where pictures were concerned.

However, a letter had arrived from the Comte postponing the appointment. Circumstances made the visit impossible at present, he wrote, giving no detailed explanation. He would probably be in touch later.

About two years after receiving that letter Father had died quite suddenly of a stroke. It had been a terrible shock to realize I was on my own. I felt bereft, lonely and bewildered moreover I had very little money. I had become accustomed to helping Father in his work and I wondered what would happen, for although people had accepted the fact that I was his assistant and no doubt very useful in that capacity, how would they feel about my standing on my own?

I talked it over with Annie, our elderly servant, who had remained with us for years and was going off to share a home with a married sister. She thought there were only two things I could do. I could be a governess, as many ladies had to be, or a companion.

“I’d hate either,” I told her.

“Beggars can’t be choosers. Miss Dallas. There’s many a young lady, educated like yourself, who’s found herself left and been forced to.”

“There’s the work I’ve done with Father.”

She nodded, but I knew she was thinking that no one would want to employ a young woman to do the things my father had done. That I could do them, was not the point. I was a woman, and therefore no one would believe my work could possibly be any good.

Annie was still with me when the summons came. The Comte de la Talle was now ready for Monsieur D. Lawson to begin the work.

“After all, I am D. Lawson,” I pointed out to Annie.

“I can restore pictures as well as my father could, and I can see no reason why I should not.”

“I can,” replied Annie grimly.

“It’s a challenge. It’s either this or spending my days teaching.

Father’s lawyers have assured me of the urgent need to earn a living.

Fancy teaching children to draw when they have no talent and don’t want to learn! Or perhaps spending my time with a fretful old lady who finds fault with everything’I do! “

“You have to take what comes. Miss Dallas.”

This has come to me so it’s exactly what I am doing. “

“It’s not right. People won’t like it. It was all very well going with your father and working with him. You can’t go on your own.”

“I did finish the work after he died … at Mornington Towers, you remember.”

“Well, that was what he started. But to go to France … a foreign country … a young lady … alone’ You mustn’t think of me as a young lady, Annie. I’m a restorer of pictures. That’s quite different.”

“Well, I hope you’ll not forget that you’re a young lady all the same. And you can’t go. Miss Dallas. It wouldn’t be right. I know it. It would be bad for you.”

“Bad? In what way?”

“Not… quite nice. What man would want to marry a young lady who’d been off abroad all by herself?”

“I’m not looking for a husband, Annie. I’m looking for work. And I’ll tell you this: my mother was exactly the same age when she and her sister came to England to stay with their aunt. The two girls actually went to the theatre alone. Fancy that! Mother told me she did something even more daring. She went to a political meeting once in a cellar in Chancery Lane … and, as a matter of fact, that was where she met Father. So, if she hadn’t been bold and adventurous she wouldn’t have had a husband at least not that one.”

“You were always one for making what you wanted sound right. I know you of old. But I say this; It’s not right. And I stick to that.”

But it had to be right. And so, after a great deal of consideration and trepidation, I had decided to accept the challenge and come to Chateau Gaillard.

We crossed the drawbridge and as I looked at those ancient walls with their moss and ivy, supported by the great buttresses, as I gazed at the cylindrical towers, at the rounded roofs rising to conical points, I was praying that I might not be sent away. We passed under the archway and entered a courtyard with grass growing between the cobbles, and I was struck by the silence. In the centre of the courtyard was a well about which was a parapet and stone pillars supporting a dome. There were a few steps leading to a loggia in front of one side of the building, and I saw the words ‘de la Talle’ entwined in the fleursdelis cut into the wall above a door.