Forty is Beginning (Timeless Classics Collection)

by Ursula Bloom

  ‘Well, I never married,’ she said.

  ‘There is time,’ said Jean, ‘lots of time, and Mamselle is so pretty.’

  That was a surprise! It was really the biggest surprise she had yet had, and it did something stimulating to her, for when a woman of over forty is told that for the first time in her life, she finds it most disturbing.

  ‘Oh, I’m not!’ she said.

  All the French training bobbed up in him; he was twinkling and effervescent, the corners of his mouth twitched with unspent kisses, he was the typical Frenchman. He said, ‘You have the English hair, which is so gold, and the skin like the pink roses, and when you smile it is like heaven. Of course you are pretty, you know it but will not tell it. Of course you are very very pretty.’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ she confessed; then suddenly, ‘If you had been a school marm all these years, if you knew Lavender Hill and Manchester, you’d feel very much this same way. Of course you would! Didn’t you realise how horrible life could be?’

  ‘Not for me,’ he said. ‘I find life exciting, very exciting. But then I make it so. There is no fun without excitement, for after all life is short; when you are sixty there is no fun any more, and soon it may be too late. So I take my fun where I can.’ It was perhaps a most unfortunate thing that his hand lightly touched hers when he spoke, almost as if he were making an attempt to take his fun now. She carefully removed it, but the awful part was that in her heart Lilias Marvin knew that she liked it.

  ‘We had better go home,’ she said.

  They turned, for he was quick to realise when matters were verging on embarrassment. The curious thing was that she was the one who felt awkward. Now she herself was driving slowly down on to the Grande Corniche, which surely is the most horrifying road in the whole of Europe, and the whirl with which other cars passed her left her gasping. ‘Go on!’ said he, ‘go on! You must make the pace more quickly!’

  Driving was not so easy as it sounded. She went along the Grande Corniche, accelerating timidly, and all the while the haze was lifting from the sea, disclosing far islands, which were hyacinth smudges in the grey. It was a glorious view. She managed to drive down into Cap Rabat ‒ she would never know how ‒ and stop before the door. Flushed and exhilarated, she turned to Jean. ‘We are here!’

  He nodded, and now she saw that the pressmen were waiting, a small bunch of them, which meant of course that the newspapers were at it again. She supposed that she must have won a great deal of money, but she very much wished that they would let her alone, because although publicity is very pleasant in small doses, like iced cake you can have too much of it.

  ‘Be brave,’ whispered Jean, realising how she felt. ‘Fame is greatness, you can go far on fame, remember.’

  ‘Tomorrow at the same time?’

  ‘I live for tomorrow, Mamselle.’

  Really, he did say the nicest things!

  Maxwell Hewlitt was awaiting her with a whole bunch of papers to be signed. They were the deeds of Les Papillons which would pass it over to her.

  The next hour was spent sitting side by side on a chintz sofa, with champagne cocktails on tap, and going through papers which Lilias did not understand, but the only thing to do was to be guided by the man who had carried her into this crisis of her life.

  ‘I may be signing everything away,’ she said.

  ‘You can always trust the Madras Militia,’ and his steel-blue eyes laughed.

  ‘I’m sure I can. There is something awfully satisfactory about being British.’

  ‘There is.’ The Colonel was lighting a cigar, which smelt very pleasant indeed. ‘One Englishman is worth forty Frenchmen, in spite of all their dark eyes and toujours la politesse.’

  ‘You think so?’ Privately she was not quite sure.

  ‘Think so? I know it. What do they do in a war? It’s happened twice. Out they flop. Oh yes, one Englishman is worth forty of them.’

  After the entertaining morning with one of the French so libelled, she could not agree. Could it be that Maxwell was just a little stuffy? After all, King’s Regulations is not a book of the widest appeal, it has a limited quality attached to it.

  When she had finished the papers, lunch was served in her sitting-room.

  Everything was really hers. She had burnt her boats behind her; St. Helena’s, Manchester on cheap days, the Haineses, all that was over. She could not have been more pleased.

  The waiter brought in the English newspapers with her déjeuner, and on opening one she saw that it had horrifying headlines.

  WOMAN WHO BROKE BANK AT MONTE CARLO NOW BUYS HOTEL WHERE SHE IS STAYING.

  ‘Really,’ she thought, ‘these papers are not slow on news!’

  She went along to Maison Avions for la beauté.

  M. Gaston received her as he would have received the Queen; never had a gentleman bowed lower, nor gesticulated more obsequiously. He could no longer admit her to the general line of cubicles, there was the special place kept for ladies like herself, he said, and ushered her into a lavish room delicately decorated in a tender shade of lilac, and overpowering with its gilt baskets of dark roses.

  ‘You would like M’lle Josette?’

  In the next hour M’lle Josette did her best by Lilias Marvin’s face, and her best was very good. When she had finished, Lilias paid at the desk, and here contacted a stout Englishwoman who was complaining about the prices. Turning to Lilias in the doorway where M. Gaston was bowing them out, she said, ‘It’s really awful what they charge in France. My hotel is ruination. It’s the exchange, and only being allowed to draw a certain amount, so that I simply don’t know what to do. How do you manage?’

  Lilias was a truthful woman. She said that she had saved on the train journey.

  ‘Of course I flew,’ said the woman.

  ‘That bath in Paris, the meal and the hair-do cost me a lot,’ admitted Lilias Marvin. They were out in the street now and if only one of those abominable press photographers did not bob up, everything would be all right. ‘Also I won something at the casino,’ she said.

  The woman was enchanted. Her name was Mrs. Goodway and apparently she lived in Kensington. Had Lilias got a system? she asked.

  ‘Oh no, it was just a hunch. I think that is what you’d call it,’ and she laughed.

  ‘Where are you staying?’

  ‘I was staying first at the Bella Vista, but I couldn’t stand it.’

  Mrs. Goodway was at the Bella Vista, and living on the very French French bean and half an egg. Madame was evasive, rude if tackled, and offhand at other times. Lilias Marvin suggested a change-over to Les Papillons; it would be an idea. They would go back and have a look if Mrs. Goodway liked. But the moment she got outside Les Papillons, there were the pressmen like wasps round a jam pot, and flicking those absurd flash cameras.

  Lilias Marvin handed Mrs. Goodway over to Maxwell Hewlitt, who took her off to see a charming little suite he had, and she rang up Jean. The time had come when she must have her own chauffeur. Until she could get everything planned, he would perhaps help her; she could not go on like this. If she went out walking, mendicants swarmed round her, pressmen bobbed up from nowhere.

  Jean had a small flat in the cheaper quarter of the town, the really French quarter. He had told her that it was in an optimistically named alley, Rue des Etoiles, and certainly, said he, there were no stars there. There was no reply, which was irritating. She was now determined to get Jean to help her, and although she ought to have consulted Maxwell, she decided against that. If he was a little stuffy, then he would be anti-Jean; privately she did not think that he was really pro-Jean.

  She decided to sneak out of the tiny gate in the mimosa hedge, get a taxi and go to see Jean. It was early afternoon, and during this time there are very few people about in France. They come to at four, ready for the patisserie, for the patisserie has much the same demand as opening hours in England. Even the Press should be snoozing. She walked because there were no taxis, and it was very hot. Even in
the cyclamen-coloured linen suit she felt hot, and she took off the coat to fan herself with it. The palms hardly stirred, they were so quiet that they might have been carved out of wood. The flowers swooned against the drooping leaves. She turned into the cheap quarter. There were little estaminets and tabacs, the confused muddle of gaily striped awnings, of stalls, and with it all the strong salty smell of salami, of hot coffee, and of fish.

  The Rue des Etoiles was narrow. The little tabac over which Jean’s flat was situated was merrily inviting, but not inspiring. She groped her way up the side stairs, cool after the heat outside, and stopped against a double doorway painted with pale blue paint, and bearing the name Comte Jean Hubac.

  She tapped.

  ‘Entrez,’ she heard Jean call.

  She entrez-ed.

  It was a large room, the far windows wide open under their awning, and looking out to sea. Jean, wearing bright blue linen trousers and nothing more, was sitting on an extravagant sofa, his feet stuck up on a glass table; he was reading one of those livelier French magazines which have a great many nudes on the cover and the sort of captions that Lilias Marvin was very glad that she couldn’t translate.

  When he saw her, he was so horrified that for a single moment he could not move.

  ‘Mon Dieu!’ he said before he could stop himself.

  He got up, standing there with the disgraceful magazine crumpled at his feet; his body was dark brown and gleaming, he looked extraordinarily handsome, and she must admit that she admired those vigorously blue trousers.

  She said, ‘You must excuse me, but I came to ask you something. I hope you don’t mind.’

  ‘It is most pleasurable.’ He offered her a chair by the window. ‘It is cool here, m’lle, and there is a little wind. How unhappy that my fan has broken!’

  It was unhappy, but there was nothing that one could do about it.

  She sat down in the window with the fetid little street beneath it, and the sound of children playing and of loud French conversation, in which one never knows whether it is a row to the death or a proposal of marriage. She said, ‘Jean, I can’t wait until I can drive my own car. I want to buy a second-hand car and have a permanent chauffeur.’

  ‘M’lle!’

  ‘Indeed I do! I can trust you and I want to know if you can possibly help me.’

  ‘You desire me for the chauffeur?’ he asked. He had gone to a side cupboard and opening it displayed a most adequate cellarette; she would not have believed that Jean knew so much about wine, but he seemed to have a stupendous number of bottles there. He brought her a glass of something that he had selected for her. The glass was of carved crystal. A nude girl held up the bowl, and turned a laughing face to Lilias Marvin.

  ‘What a lovely glass!’ she said impulsively.

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘The château is lovely. I have a few selections here. You call them samples, yes? That is one of them.’

  ‘I’d love to see the château.’

  His face became interested. ‘Would you? It is not too far away. I could take you one day, perhaps? We should have to travel very fast, and you are a little nervous? Oui?’

  ‘A little’ was putting it mildly. The French travel at a murderous speed, they career about the Riviera not caring how hard they go, nor if they break their necks. She had told him of them, and Jean had said that if the neck was broken, they got out and stuck it together again and that was that. Who cares?

  She said, ‘I would love it, but listen, I have a suggestion to make. I want your help.’

  ‘I am attention.’

  ‘I want to buy another car, a long comfortable one which will be chauffeur-driven. I want you to be my chauffeur.’

  He glanced at her and for a moment she felt that he was annoyed. ‘I will pay you anything you ask,’ she added.

  ‘But I should ask too much. There are other highly desirable chauffeurs.’

  ‘Oh dear, he doesn’t want to come,’ she thought. Down in the street a child started to laugh; it laughed uproariously, and Lilias Marvin got the idea that it was laughing at her. She could not hear it.

  ‘I don’t want anybody else. You are the man I trust,’ she said, and then for no reason at all she began to cry. She did not know why she did it, it must be the heat! Perhaps she had got a touch of the sun. She didn’t know what happened.

  Instantly he was charming. He put down the bottle that he was opening, and came rapidly across to her. He knelt down on the floor at her side, lifting her hands in his own and kissing them so devoutly that he made her feel like a statue in a church niche.

  ‘Do not cry, ma petite!’ he implored her, ‘it make me so sad to see tears. Ecoutez! I will come for a time. I will come for one month until you find the someone else whom you can trust. Oui? Would that make you happy, for I cannot bear that you cry?’

  ‘I should be very very happy,’ she said, ‘but would that be all right?’

  ‘Excellent!’ He had put his arms round her, drawing her closer to his brown body. ‘Really,’ she thought, ‘this is the most extraordinary thing, but what does one do?’ She didn’t want to put him off. He was patting her shoulders with a charming tenderness. ‘Tomorrow I will buy you the loveliest car; it shall come from Nice, I know a very great place there where cars are most beautiful. Will that make you happy?’

  ‘Very happy. And during the month you will find me someone else?’

  ‘Of course. Someone clever, desirable and charming. In the month we will visit the château? Yes?’

  ‘Oh yes, please,’ she said.

  The atmosphere of the flat had changed completely.

  She found herself sitting there with his arm about her, and a glass of wine half drunk in her hand.

  ‘It is delightful here,’ she said.

  She never quite remembered what he replied, it was probably the wine, for although she was becoming accustomed to such things, they still did something peculiar to her memory. A pleasant blur presented itself, blotting out anything unhappy.

  Before taking her back, Jean dressed; he flipped a little screen round the corner of the room and changed behind it, talking to her all the time.

  ‘This really can’t be me,’ she told herself yet again, because it was more than a little odd to be holding a conversation with a Frenchman who unabashed was changing his trousers behind a screen. But when you go to Rome you do as Rome does; that is the be-all and end-all. He emerged in a silk shirt and tight black linen trousers. He looked like something out of a really slick revue on Shaftesbury Avenue, very charming of course, but a trifle intime. He tied a scarlet scarf round his neck, adding very much to the intime part of it.

  ‘I will escort you home,’ he said.

  They went back to the hotel, and he left her at the gate in the mimosa hedge from which she had emerged, then he put a finger tip to his lips. ‘Be careful, m’lle, be very very careful. Colonel Hewlitt may not like. Mr. Lorimer may not like. Be careful.’

  ‘It’s my own money and my own life.’

  ‘Ah yes, indeed, but still they may not like,’ he assured her. ‘And tomorrow we will buy the loveliest car, it shall be a surprise.’

  ‘That is the idea. The surprise.’

  He went off whistling gaily. There certainly was something about these Frenchmen. They had a far better idea of life than the English, she told herself.

  Eight

  ROMANCE

  She went off early next morning in her own little car, but with Jean driving, and they visited Nice. She did not believe that anyone knew she was up. She did not think her exit had been rumbled, because she had gone before the letters came, and before the day drew itself out of that ever blue sea. The mimosa trees were a welter of perfume and fuzzy blossom along the route, and they continued to drop down into Nice, where they arrived just after ten. It was already too hot to be comfortable. Jean took her straight to the car shop where he knew the owner. He and the owner had been in the Maquis together, she gathered. They had crawled through the wood on
their stomachs, not daring to lift their heads; the owner had been blessé; that was a shocking thing, for it was the stomach, and you know what stomachs do for you, protested Jean.

  They had been ministered to by the most charming girl called Bébé, and she had the loveliest eyes. It seemed ridiculous that with his friend blessé in the stomach he should have noticed the charm in a young girl’s eyes, but you can’t put anything past a Frenchman, as Lilias was beginning to gather! The young girl had sheltered them; much later the Boches had discovered this and had shot her. It was all very triste, but things went that way in war; he shrugged his powerful shoulders; his eyes and mouth both squidging up at the same time.

  Lilias Marvin thought that it was shocking.

  He said, ‘It does not do to weep too many tears. Let us live for the hour; the hour is important. It is a mistake to think of tomorrow, tomorrow anything may be, but this is not tomorrow. Life has surprises too. You did not expect to be rich, no?’

  ‘Very much no!’ said Lilias promptly.

  They bought a most expensive coffee-coloured car. It had a beauty box beside her seat, and an abundance of coffee-coloured velvet everywhere. There was a picnic hamper to one side and a tiny cupboard opened by pressing a diamanté button.

  ‘For the cognac,’ said the owner. The owner was much like Jean. He did not look as if he had been blessé in the stomach, he looked as if he had always been robust.

  He said he could fit Jean out with a suitable suit to go with the car, and they disappeared together. Jean returned in a uniform in an exactly matching coffee colour. He looked so lovely that Lilias Marvin realised that she was beginning to feel rather girlish about Jean. The physical emotion is an even greater surprise when you are over forty and thought you knew all about life. ‘I mustn’t be silly,’ she thought.

  Therefore she went a little quiet as they drove back in the handsome new car, whilst a garage hand brought her small coupé home for her. The garage hand got sick of the pace they maintained, which he thought very much too English, and he went on ahead. Turning a corner in the area of Juan les Pins, they came upon him wandering dazedly about in the road with the little car lying upside down on the grass verge, and looking like some new sort of tortoise.