Philippe, heir to the Valmy estate, lived with his uncle Hippolyte following his parents’ accident but the demands of Hippolyte’s archaeological career mean that Philippe has just begun living with his uncle Léon and aunt Héloïse at Chateau Valmy. She meets her charge, nine year old Philippe, Comte de Valmy: he is an orphan too, which makes Linda protective of him from the outset. When she is offered a post as nursery-governess in the Savoy region of France, Linda accepts without hesitation: here is the chance for a lonely young woman to really start living, in the country she loves.Īnd this is where the book begins, with Linda en route to France.

As well as being orphaned, the accident cost Linda a life in Paris: we learn that she was put to a London orphanage and then worked as ‘general help and dogsbody’ at a boys’ school in Kent. The heroine-narrrator of this novel is Linda Martin, 23, who lost her parents – English poet Charles Martin and part-French Maman – in an aircraft accident when she was 14. Nine Coaches Waiting is Mary Stewart’s fourth novel and it was first published in 1958.

Nine coaches waiting