Roumelia Lane - The Scented Hills

by Roumelia Lane

  They were playing Patience with some very old worn cards, when the doctor arrived. Tessa made a discreet exit, but within twenty minutes a relieved Nicolette was knocking on her door. She explained in her laboured English, that her mistress was well but for a slight disorder, for which the doctor had prescribed two or three days in bed, and that she was asking for Tessa.

  Barry came up while she was sitting in the lamplight with Madame Devereux. He showed a boyish concern for his grandmother's state of health, stooping to drop a kiss lingeringly on her cheek, but Tessa could see he was fidgety, and she wasn't surprised when he said with a casual grin, 'Well, if things are okay here, I might as well see what's doing in Cannes.'

  Affecting to see him off, Tessa slipped out after him, and caught him up on the way to his room to whisper with cold urgency, 'If you can think of someone else besides yourself, Barry, I'd like a lift to the airport.'

  He looked at her sharply, then nodded back towards his grandmother's room to say in genuine concern, 'You can't leave now. The old lady wants you with her.'

  'I know.' Tessa bit her lip and moved uncertainly. Her ears were straining to catch the sound of a car pulling up on the terrace, her senses turned to alarm pitch for the click of a firm heel across the hall. She darted a look along the corridor and stammered, 'I'd like to stay with your grandmother, but I'm afraid I…'

  'Look, you can walk out on me some other time,' Barry said angrily, 'and it wouldn't do you much good right now anyway. With Neil away I can still run my own life.'

  Tessa blinked, feeling a surge of relief.

  'Neil has gone away?' she echoed questioningly, striving to sound casual.

  Barry relaxed at her change in mood and nodded. 'One of our perfume chemists is ill over at Castellane. He was working on a new blend and Neil has gone over to see if he can get it off the ground and into production.'

  Tessa nodded as though she was vitally interested in the internal workings of a perfume factory, then asked carelessly, 'Will he be away long?'

  'Long enough for me not to have to worry who I'm seen around town with,' Barry replied with a sour smile.

  Tessa let the remark pass. She waited for an answer to her question and after a moment Barry shrugged, 'He'll be back some time on Friday afternoon.'

  Friday, and it was Tuesday now. Madame Devereux should be up and about by then. Going back to Barry's previous remark, she said calmly, 'I don't suppose we'll be seeing much of you around the house, so perhaps I'd better stay on, for these three days at least.'

  As the light of satisfaction showed in his eyes, she said firmly, 'But that request for a lift to the airport still stands for Friday.'

  Barry sauntered off in the direction of his room and grinned drily, 'You won't find me cutting my own throat.'

  'I don't expect to find you doing anything that doesn't suit you,' Tessa remarked evenly, 'but this time…'

  She was prevented from finishing the sentence by the sound of her name being called from Madame Devereux's room. Ignoring Barry's innocent smile and faintly ironic shrug, she turned and hurried back inside.

  Tessa knew a happy relief at being able to snatch this little extra time at the Villa Valrose. At least now she could repay Barry's grandmother for some of her kindness and then when the time came she could slip quietly away, and that way, her going wouldn't seem too bad.

  The days drifted by in delicious tranquillity. She wasn't sure who was having the rest cure, Madame Devereux or herself. After the strain of the past few weeks it felt good to move about the house being simply Tessa Browning. She wandered through the beautiful old rooms lingering over the richly carved furniture and what she suspected were very valuable antiques. It was pleasant too, to bask in the blissful calm of life on the first floor, when Madame Devereux wasn't sleeping.

  She took her meals with the older woman in her room, and pottered out on the balconies reviving the wilting flowers. There was television at the foot of the bed if they needed entertainment, and sometimes Tessa tried her hand at French embroidery.

  But Madame Devereux didn't see herself as an invalid. On the second evening she was sitting at the windows watching the sun go down, with Tessa, and on Friday after lunch, she was fully dressed and ready for her usual tour round the garden. Tessa was only too happy to accompany her. As fond of her as Barry was she was relieved to see her completely recovered, and felt justified now in making a hasty departure. Though her heart had learned not to accelerate at the sound of every car along the road, and some of the tenseness had gone from her limbs, she had never allowed herself to forget for one second that Neil would be back and she would have to be gone before his arrival.

  Barry had been showing himself briefly in his grandmother's room in the mornings and evenings, but Tessa knew that he lunched alone downstairs, then tore off as fast as his speedy sports car would take him. His car was there now. She could see it as she strolled with Madame Devereux, and if her timing was correct he would be down, dazzlingly turned out for the afternoon, in about twenty minutes. Coming back on to the terrace, she calculated that she had just time to do what she had to do, to be ready when he was.

  She escorted the old lady back to her room, and saw her settled in her chair with a recently arrived magazine, and then dropping a kiss more fervently than usual on the paper- smooth cheek, she waved gaily from the door as though she was just slipping away for a few minutes. Out in the corridor, she hurried to her room, gathered up the few things she had taken from her case, and snapping it closed moved as silently as she could with the weight, downstairs.

  Barry was polishing something on the front of the car as she came out. She couldn't hurry with the cumbersome suitcase and it worried her, for she noticed him toss the duster quickly inside the car at the sight of her and swing rapidly towards the driving wheel. Summoning all her strength, she got to the boot at the same time, and lifting the door almost fell in with her case, then not taking any chances, for she could hear the engine thundering into life, she kept a firm hold on the car until she had worked herself round and into the front seat.

  Watching her sitting there breathing quickly, Barry asked with a scowl, 'What do you think you're playing at?'

  'I'm waiting for you to do what I asked you to do,' Tessa said between breaths, 'to drive me to the airport.'

  'I never go that way,' he looked indifferent.

  'But you will today,' she determined. Barry set his jaw, and then after a few moments he turned to say to her with an exasperated smile, 'Beats me what more you want! You don't get this kind of life handing bottles of scent over the counter.'

  Tessa fixed her gaze on him and said with more truth than he realised, 'This might be a wild and wonderful game to you, Barry. To me it's just one big nightmare.'

  'It wouldn't be if you'd let yourself enjoy some of the perks,' he said scowling again.

  'The only perk I want is a lift to the airport,' she said firmly, 'and if you don't take me I'll ring for a taxi.' Barry looked at her with a bitter light in his eyes. 'You really are going, aren't you?' he stated flatly.

  'I never intended anything else. Can we start now?'

  He didn't reply, but she felt his anger as the car shot forward with such force her head was jerked back sickeningly on her shoulders. It was some moments before her vision returned, and then she saw the trees of the drive flying by overhead and later the valley curving away as they tore up and away from the town of Grasse. Waiting for the turn off towards the coast that never came she said, looking at him quickly, 'This isn't the way to the airport.'

  'Who said it was?' Barry smiled tightly.

  'When you've finished behaving like a spoiled child,' Tessa said, hiding her fear at the speed they were going, 'perhaps we can turn around?'

  'I know lots of turns,' Barry replied, his smile distant now. 'One of them might be just what I'm looking for.'

  Tessa tried to appear indifferent at his mood, but her heart was pounding with apprehension. In the short time they had been away fro
m the house, they seemed to have covered half the terrain of France. Villages, farmsteads and remote villas shot by, and still they were racing on towards pine covered hills, and grey granite mountains. She looked at the speedometer, and at the hands clenching the wheel, and hoped that one or the other would slacken before long. Surely he couldn't go on venting his displeasure for ever.

  When the car slowed down to turn off through a cleft in the hills, she began to breathe easier, but as they came out through the pass on the other side, her heart leapt into her mouth.

  They were high, terrifyingly high over a narrow gorge that seemed to cut half-way to the centre of the earth. The trees growing down the sides fell away until they appeared to be mere blades of grass among the rocks and a river twisting deep down in the bottom looked no more than a thread of silk.

  Tessa's only consolation was that the road curving its way down was good and appeared to be in regular use. Two cars that had just completed the trip, were crawling away like injured flies across the valley, and another one, a mere dot at the top, was about to make the descent. She held her breath hoping that Barry would decide against taking this route down, but after several moments in which he seemed to be giving her time to take in the view, he swung the car out on to the sloping road.

  With the nose of the car aimed directly at the drop, only straightening out at the last minute, it was some time before she could find her voice. When she could manage it she jerked, 'If you want to amuse yourself. At least stop the car so that I can get out.'

  Barry was staring with a tight smile at the scenery which fell away at his side. He said, flicking the wheel with agonising carelessness, 'If you go, Elaine and I are finished. Neil will see to that.'

  'There's no "if", Barry,' Tessa looked at him, showing her annoyance. 'We've been all through this before. I'm going, and you know you can't stop me.'

  'Okay, you go!' He swung the wheel violently to jerk the car over to the edge of the gorge. 'And I'll do likewise.' Tessa shot up, watching the strip of road vanish beside his door. As he hung over the view she kept a tight hold on her nerves and asked coldly, 'What are you talking about?'

  'Just that if you go,' Barry shrugged, staring fixedly below, 'I'll come out one day and take the quickest way down there.'

  Tessa followed his gaze and then swung her eyes up to his to say quickly, 'That's talking nonsense and you know it. Nobody is worth that.'

  'Elaine is,' he said feelingly.

  Tessa was at a loss for words on this. She swallowed, let the remark pass, and then said irritably, 'Well, anyway! People don't just go round leaping off cliffs, simply because things don't work out. It's silly talk.'

  'Is it?' Barry shrugged again. 'My old man went out that way, and what was good enough for him…'

  'Barry! For heaven's sake!' Tessa felt the colour drain from her face as she saw the view rock before her eyes and heard the wheels crying out for more room on the road. He watched her reaction and drove drunkenly around another two bends, then asked, screwing his lips up into a smile, 'If I come away from the edge will you stay on ?'

  'Of course I won't I' Tessa snapped, her anger temporarily swamping her fear. 'It's up to you to settle your differences with Neil.'

  'I'd get a better reception from the rocks down there,' he sneered, lowering his gaze over the side, and then coming in to sit over the wheel he smiled thinly, 'Let's take a look, shall we?'

  Before Tessa could open her mouth to protest he kicked the engine viciously for speed, and she was flung back in her seat, as the car dropped down the road. It slewed round the bends leaping straight for the gorge one second, and the high looming wall of the cliff the next. If she had thought he had been taking chances before, he was being positively suicidal now!

  That was it! As the tyres screamed in protest, the terror crept up her limbs to paralyse her. He was being suicidal! He really did see it as the only way out. If he couldn't have Elaine he didn't want anything. That was the way his mind worked; had been working ever since she had told him she was leaving. She clung on to her seat as the car tossed. Why, oh, why hadn't she realised he would take it like this? Why hadn't she foreseen what her going would do to him? In feeling only for herself, she hadn't given a thought as to how he might be feeling at losing Elaine.

  She wanted to touch him now, to tell him she would do anything in the world to save him from what he had in mind, but she dared not interfere with his grip on the wheel. One flick, half an inch the wrong way, and they would both be over the side. They would be anyway. She closed her eyes, feeling the world spin round. The tyres shrieked. A blackness threatened to engulf her, but she fought it off. While there was still a chance she had to get it through to Barry that she knew how he felt.

  She tried to shout above the squealing of the brakes, but every time she opened her mouth the noise grew louder. It was only after struggling for some seconds to make herself heard that she realised it wasn't only Barry's tyres that were screaming over the road. Even as she turned, a gleaming amber nose streaked up alongside the tangerine bonnet. It came in so close as to be almost a part of the other car. Metal gleamed against metal. Wheels raced against wheels. One touch would have meant disaster, but cleanly and neatly it inched ahead at an angle and forced the sports car to the inside of the road. When they were running parallel with the wall of the cliff the amber car moved swiftly in front and crunched to a stop.

  Barry was forced into doing the same, and with but an inch to spare they came to an abrupt and dust-swirling halt. As Tessa gathered herself up from the shattered heap she had become on the seat she heard the other car door slam and then Neil, grey-faced, the green eyes dark with menacing fury, came striding alongside. For a second his gaze fastened on her, then he swung to Barry and demanded in tones no more than a teeth-clenched whisper, 'What in the name of reason do you think you're doing? Do you realise your wheels were less than a foot from the edge?'

  Barry, out of the car, attempted a shrug and smiling down at his feet muttered, 'I was watching it.'

  'Well, you'd better watch it one hell of a lot more,' Neil blazed, 'or I'll personally see to it that you never drive again!' He swung another look towards the car and added tight-lipped, 'And until you can learn to look after your own neck, Tessa goes with me.'

  Loo't after his own nec't! White and shaking, Tessa felt what little strength she had left ebb away from her at the words. That was the one thing Barry didn't intend doing. He might have been watching it while he had her beside him, but what would happen when he was driving alone? Even now when he left them? Cold horror crept round her heart. She looked at the slim young figure and imagined it broken among the rocks; saw the laughing blue eyes turned for ever from the sun. The picture made her own eyes brim with tears. She clutched for the door handle not knowing that it was her voice that was making the awful sounds, hardly caring that she was falling rather than running to Barry.

  The steely arms that saved her and caught her up only served to make her kick and struggle hysterically to be free. She battled wildly but the muscular grip remained unrelenting and in the end she could only sob against the wide chest,

  'I want to stay with Barry I I must stay with Barry!'

  The heart close to her cheek seemed to be hammering as hard as her own. As she was held against it, she lifted wet eyes to see Neil's haggard look, heard his dangerously soft tones as he said to the boyish figure in front of him, 'I'll deal with you later.'

  Barry paled under the green gaze, but putting on a jaunty air he moved towards his car and grinned, 'Sorry if I frightened you, Tessa. I'll see you,' he gave her a pointed look, 'back at the villa, okay?'

  'Oh yes. Yes, I'll see you back at the villa.' Tessa nodded vigorously. She watched him vault lithely over into his seat, look behind briefly to see that nothing was coming, then slide noiselessly down the hill. Her heart went down there with him, and without realising it she buried her face in the already damp shirt.

  She felt herself being carried close against it a
nd lowered gently into her seat, but after that the world fell about her ears. Neil strode around to his side, dropped in behind the wheel and swung on her to blaze from taut features, 'What in heaven's name possessed you to be a party to a joke like that?'

  'Me?' Tessa flared. 'I wasn't at the wheel!'

  'You were as good as, sitting there making out you got a kick out of Barry's wild driving,' he snapped through a clamped jaw, and then with a sneer, 'I can imagine you wanting to keep well in with him, but not at the expense of a broken neck.'

  Too spent to get worked up about anything, Tessa dropped back and said tremulously, 'For heaven's sake leave me alone!'

  'I ought to shake out what little life there is left in you.'

  'And wouldn't you enjoy that!' She faced him, hating herself because her eyes were pools of tears. But try as she may she couldn't stem the flow. It was as though her whole inside had melted at the horror of that awful ride and all she wanted to do now was wallow in its onrush.

  Neil looked at her, his face working strangely, then he turned and struck the car into life. Tessa couldn't have cared less about his foul mood. She couldn't care less about anything. As the tyres whispered down the road on a slow- motion descent she sat crumpled in her seat, sniffing quietly.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Back at the villa she would have preferred to step out of the car unaided, but her mind was hazy, and her arms and legs wouldn't work properly, and Neil was round opening the door for her before she was fully aware that it was time to get out. He bent and caught her up while she was still thinking about it, and moved inside and up the stairs.

  In her room she felt herself being lowered on to the bed, and struggling up to brush a tear away she gulped coldly, 'I'm perfectly capable of standing, thank you.'

  'You'll stay where you are until I've had someone to look at you,' Neil glinted. 'Your nerves are shot to pieces.' Dropping back, Tessa had to admit that it felt good to rest her head against the cool pillow, to know that the bed was supporting the dead weight of her limbs. Just when she was lowering heavy eyelids, she heard the crisp voice at the doorway, giving orders again. 'Get between the sheets. I'll send Nicolette in to give you a hand.'