And Be Thy Love (11 page)

He met the faint appeal in the dark violet eyes with rather a shamefaced shake of the head.

“No, as a matter of fact, it isn’t,” he had to admit. “I invented it on the spur of the moment. It seemed as good a name as any—

at that time!”

She bit her lip until a tiny spot of blood spurted.

“And the bookshop, and the flat at the top of a tall building?” For an instant a gleam of pure mischief appeared in his eyes, and even his lip twitched.

“Not Robert’s, I’m afraid. . . ! I do own a bookshop, but it happens to be a very well run and successful bookshop, and my flat is in a modern block with an outlook over the whole of Paris—or so it seems when you’re on the balcony outside my sitting-room! It is actually a very pleasant and comfortable flat, and I’m afraid,” the mischievous gleam persisting, although he recognised it was no time for flippancy of any sort or kind, “that it will hardly be necessary for you to occupy yourself with cooking or sewing on my buttons, because I’ve an excellent housekeeper who does all those things for me.”

“I see.” She tried to prevent her lip from trembling noticeably this time. “You must have enjoyed yourself drawing me out in your skilful way. . . ! The stupid, feminine things I wanted to do because I was in love...! But it was Robert de Bergerac with whom I was in love, and it was Robert de Bergerac who would probably have found me a little flat at the top of an equally tall building, where I could get used to the idea of sharing him with another life altogether—to say nothing of an illustrious name that he never had any intention of bestowing on me! And that young woman downstairs—Diane Montauban!—would probably have seen him just as often, and being far cleverer than me, and with much more to commend her, would—and probably will!—finally succeed in persuading a hardened bachelor to marry. And that wouldn’t have made any difference to me, because that is the sort of arrangement even completely respectable Frenchmen go in for—a wife and a home and a mistress. . . !

“You little-------! Carol!” he exclaimed, and sprang up

and caught her by the shoulders. He looked, and he sounded, as if she had definitely succeeded in shocking him. “Do you expect me to believe that you—you think I had that sort of intention in

mind? You think as badly of me as all that?”

His fingers hurt her shoulders, but she didn’t even wince.

“I think that Robert de Bergerac had a reputation of which he had no cause to be proud, but because he was Robert de Bergerac I could have forgiven him anything, and overlooked everything—just because,” her voice trembling uncontrollably, “I was so much in love with him! It didn’t matter what he did, I—I would have gone on loving him! But,” making a sudden attempt to escape his hands, “you are someone I loathe! I couldn’t ever do anything else but loathe you!”

For an instant the brown eyes became so black that they frightened her, and then the queer little lights that she had seen in them before changed them altogether. Far from permitting her to escape he drew her ruthlessly as close as he could get her, and she felt his mouth scorching hers as his kiss took her breath away. He kissed her in a fashion he would never even have dreamed of kissing her that afternoon—as if behind the violence of his desire to do so was an even more violent desire to punish her for things she had just said, and after striving fruitlessly to thrust him from her she resorted to faintly terror-stricken appeals.

“Robert...! Armand, please, please let me go... !”

She managed to get her mouth free, and she beat at him with her fists.

“Let me go...! Armand, please...! This is cowardly...!” He let her go at once, but he was pale, and breathing hard. He looked at her as if he disliked her.

“Have you any more accusations to hurl at me?”

“No.” She was still a little frightened, and her mouth felt bruised. She put up a shaking hand and touched it. “No.”

“And you’re not prepared to retract anything you’ve said?

You—you believe it all?”

“Yes.” She looked at him almost defiantly, although her heart was hammering away within her, and behind the defiance was a feeling of abjectness because his face was colourless and his eyes were blank with hurt—and that hurt sent knife thrusts through every sensitive part of her being, and she wanted to dissolve into weeping. To weep for their lost love, and their wonderful time together, that had been something stolen out of both their lives, because none of it was real. “I believe you were merely amusing yourself—not only at first, but—most of the time! I was something new in your experience, and you couldn’t resist the temptation to—well, to take advantage of a rather unique situation. If you had ever been serious you would have told me the truth about yourself—at least you would have done so this afternoon!”

She pushed the hair back wearily from her brow, and inconsistently enough she thought of Monique, rushed off her feet in the huge and rather primitive kitchen of the chateau, and waiting for her to keep her promise and hasten downstairs to help her by laying the table for dinner.

“Go, please,” she begged. “I must make myself respectable and go down and help Monique.”

“You are not a maidservant here.”

“No, but Monique is run off her feet, and it isn’t fair to expect her to do everything. She has waited on me so much, I must help her now.”

He sent her a long, and distinctly curious, look, and then turned away abruptly, and stared at the floor, only partially covered by a threadbare carpet.

“Very well—if that’s the way you feel about things! About Monique amongst others...! But if I assure you that, in future, however great the temptation”—very drily—”to take advantage of a unique situation, I will never attempt to thrust unwelcome attentions on you, and that so far as I am concerned at any rate you are safe for all time from becoming the mistress of a French playwright—with or without a more permanent establishment that can be safely recognised, according to the habits of my countrymen!—will you promise not to do anything impetuous, such as packing up your things and departing from here hurriedly? You still need a holiday— a rest! And Marthe is very anxious that you shall have that rest! So, in order to please

Marthe, if no one else, will you give me your word to stay on here for a time?”

She swallowed. Misery was swamping her, and at the same time she was worried by the thought of Monique.

“I could stay on here and—and help Monique! I would be happy to do that! I mean, so long as your guests remain....”

He turned back and looked at her with a kind of harsh mockery.

“You will wait on them for me? That is most kind— particularly as Diane Montauban is used to rather a lot of waiting on!”

She winced, but he didn’t notice the wince.

“And she might even turn you into a kind of personal maid, if you are willing! But in that case we shall have to think up a suitable recompense for you, won’t we?” even more harshly. “A salary, perhaps? Because I should hate Diane to receive the minimum of attention.”

She walked past him in the direction of the door.

“Excuse me,” she said, “but I must go!”

“Certainly.” He moved aside from the doorway. “And may I say that it was a pleasant little diversion while it lasted, Mademoiselle Darcy?”

CHAPTER IX

Caroline had no clear idea how the rest of that evening passed. She only knew that it did eventually pass somehow, and that she had very little time to devote to her own problems because the new arrivals caused personal problems to fade into the background before the varying demands they made on an insufficient domestic staff. A hopelessly insufficient domestic staff.

Monique grew hot in the kitchen, and consequently flustered. Nevertheless, the dinner she eventually served was well up to her highest standard, and Christopher Markham, who was the somewhat insular type of Englishman abroad who could put up with pests and pestilence in British Protectorates, but quickly grew tired of Continental cooking, praised the meal unstintingly.

Possibly the near proximity of Mademoiselle Montauban, wearing something flame-coloured and startling—even in the eyes of hardened Parisians—had a good deal to do with his enjoyment of the highly seasoned courses. And although he had driven a good many miles that day, and was feeling very weary, he never once failed to reply brightly to any remark she addressed to him, and to look as if he was anxiously awaiting the next remark when it was slow in coming.

Helen Mansfield did her utmost to monopolise Armand, whom she addressed as Comte’ in her rather broad American accent. He listened to her flow of experiences resulting from a very comprehensive world-tour, commencing almost as soon as she left school, with a faintly abstracted air, but was never-failingly polite and attentive and an extremely courteous host to all four of the guests he had never expected to entertain—at least, not in his remote chateau. Occasionally his dark eyes rested rather thoughtfully on Diane, who was never too preoccupied with her Englishman to spare him her slow, seductive smile across the table appointments and the centre-piece of flowers Caroline had arranged there, but Caroline herself he pointedly avoided looking at. And as Miss Mansfield left him with little excuse for looking at anyone but herself this wasn’t really as noticeable as it might otherwise have been.

Lady Penelope talked throughout the meal almost nonstop to Caroline, and her disclosures were all connected with her schooldays in Paris, and the escapades she and Caroline’s attractive grandmother had got up to, including one when they received and accepted invitations to a ball without the knowledge of the principal, and arrived back in their dormitories afterwards through the connivance of a little between-maid and a back door which was normally kept locked. On that occasion Caroline’s grandmother had worn white satin and violets, and had fallen madly— although only temporarily—in love with a Ruritanian prince on a visit to the French capital. It had been a most exciting evening, followed by enormous boxes of chocolates and colossal bunches of violets being received at the school for weeks afterwards.

“But in the end your grandmother married a clergyman, and settled down very soberly and happily,” Lady Pen concluded, with a faint sigh for what might have been. “And I never married at all!” She looked at Caroline with bright blue eyes that twinkled, in spite of having to make such an admission. “I was born Penelope Pinder, fourth daughter of an impoverished earl— although later in my life I was left a small fortune by a devoted aunt!— and Penelope Pinder I’ll almost certainly die...! And now, does anyone mind if I go to bed? Fm finding it extraordinarily difficult to keep awake after my hectic experiences of the past few weeks!”

Nobody raised any objections to her going to bed, and Caroline by that time was feeling strangely exhausted, as if she had lived through experiences that had drained her mentally and spiritually, as well as physically. And although she had no idea at what time the others retired, she went upstairs herself shortly after Lady Pen, and when she said goodnight the four she left in the big salon looked as if they might remain where they were for several hours, at least.

Helen Mansfield was as bright as when she started out that morning, and Diane Montauban had the sleepily contented look of a cream-fed kitten. And neither of the two men looked as if they had the least desire to be anywhere other than where they were. Only Caroline, conscious of Armand’s persistent cold avoidance, was—or felt—the odd man out.

The next morning she rose early, without waiting for Monique to bring her a tray of early morning tea, and went down into the kitchen to help Monique. The latter was so pleased to see her that her eyes brightened considerably, and she agreed at once when Caroline suggested she should take up Lady Pen’s tray.

Lady Pen looked even more diminutive in her enormous halftester bed than she looked in her tweeds. Whilst in Paris she had bought herself some completely unsuitable nightwear, and

Caroline was a little taken aback by the incongruity of her appearance as she approached the bed. But the brightness of the old lady’s extraordinarily vivid blue eyes banished almost immediately any desire to be critical.

“Don’t draw the curtains so early in the morning,” Lady Pen begged. “I’m never quite at my best very early in the day, and I like to get used to the fact that it’s daylight.”

Then, as if she only suddenly realised that it was Caroline who had brought her her tray, she looked pleased and patted the side of her bed.

“Come and sit down, my dear, and talk to me! You know,” she admitted, her eyes hanging a little enquiringly on Caroline’s smooth, fair, English face—so like, she wanted to keep on emphasising, the face of her grandmother—“I haven’t been quite able to satisfy myself what it is you are actually doing here? Diane Montauban is a different cup of tea altogether, but you— well, you must forgive me, my dear,” the blue eyes twinkling still more in spite of a certain solemnity of expression, “if I’m a bit stupid, but you don t look the type of young woman with whom Armand might normally be expected to associate—in a strictly unconventional way, if you know what I mean!”

Caroline did know, and she felt herself colouring rather brilliantly.

“I tried to explain to you last night how I came to be here,” she said, occupying herself with pouring out a cup of tea for the shrewd old lady. “The—the Comte tried to explain to you, too, I think! “

This was true, for Armand had formally introduced her as a friend of Marthe Giraud who was staying at the chateau.

“Yes, b u t . . . L a d y Pen shook her dyed tresses, confined by a cap of nylon net and lace, as if this was likely to prove a little beyond her. “Young women like you—young women of your type—don’t normally accept hospitality from a bachelor unless there is someone else in the house to—well, to act as a kind of chaperone! Not that I’m suggesting,” hastily, “that you need to be chaperoned—at least, you probably don’t need to be chaperoned, but Armand is—well my dear, I absolutely adore him, and he’s quite a darling, but his reputation is not all that I can approve of! I may be his godmother, but possibly for that very reason I can’t approve of everything he does!”