If This Is Love

by Anne Weale

Jane unscrewed a bottle of hand cream and began to massage the lotion into her hands. “So?” she prompted flatly.

  “For God’s sake, don’t you care for your reputation? Do you want to have your name smeared all over the gossip columns?”

  “No—but I don’t see why it should be.”

  “Then you must be singularly naive,” he told her scathingly. “St Cyr has always provided regular material for the columnists. They follow up all his entanglements. He’s one of their standbys.”

  “Possibly. But I am not one of his ‘entanglements.’ We are friends,” she answered quietly.

  David’s laugh was not pleasant. “Do you expect anyone to believe that?”

  “Maybe not, but it happens to be true, all the same. Why are you so concerned, David? You told me not long ago that you didn’t care what I did.”

  “I still feel some responsibility for you,” he said coldly. “I brought you to London. I started all this.”

  “I’m not a lost soul yet,” she countered dryly.

  “You will be if you go on seeing St. Cyr. You don’t imagine he’s serious, do you? Don’t you know what he wants, you little fool?”

  His tone, and all it implied, made her crimson.

  “Yes, I do. He wants to marry me,” she said furiously. “If you must know, he asked me tonight.”

  For a long moment, they stared at each other in silence.

  At last David said, “I see. In that case I owe you an apology. I’m afraid it never occurred to me you could succeed where so many others have failed. I underestimated you. Congratulations, Jane. You’ve pulled off a notable catch.” Before she could explain that she had not yet accepted Yves’s proposal, he wrenched open the door and left her.

  For several moments she stood there, paralyzed. Then she ran into the passage to call him back.

  But he was already in the lift, closing the grille. She watched it sliding down out of sight. She could not run after him in her kimono.

  CHAPTER SIX

  JANE waited till after midnight for David to return to his room at the end of the passage. But he did not come back, and at last she took some aspirins and went to bed.

  She slept until half past eight, waking up with a headache. Quickly she washed and dressed. But when she tapped on David’s door, a chambermaid came past with a pile of linen and said, “Monsieur has gone. He took a taxi to the Gare du Nord an hour ago, mademoiselle.”

  At nine Yves arrived. He had already telephoned the airline offices, and booked a seat for her on the noon flight.

  “I am not sure I should let you go,” he said, with a frown, as he watched her packing. “This other man ... will you see him when you are back in London?”

  “I doubt it,” she said flatly. “Yves, you won’t be angry if ... if I say no ? At the moment, I’m so confused, I don’t know what I want.”

  “You are tired. You work too hard.” He put his arms round her. “But if you marry me all that will be changed. We will spend the winter in the Bahamas. I will teach you to water-ski. In the spring, we’ll come back to Europe for the season and you can choose your clothes at Dior or Givenchy, or whichever couturier you prefer. I will have the St. Cyr jewels re-set. They have not been worn since my mother’s time. You will be the most beautiful, elegant woman in Paris society. If you wish, we will keep an appartement in London, as well as my place here. For the summer, there is my yacht and the villa in Corsica. I will give you everything you want, my lovely Jane.”

  “Yves, we’ve known each other such a very short time. How can you be certain your feelings for me will last? How do you know you won’t get tired of me?”

  “Ah, you think—what is that English expression?—a leopard cannot lose his spots,” he said wryly. “But I have never loved a woman as I love you, mon coeur. This will last me all my life, I promise you. I was never more sure of anything. You must believe this.”

  Back in England, Jane left the larger of her suitcases at the air terminal, and caught a train to Eastbourne. She spent three days there, staying at a small guest house, and spending most of her time walking along the front or sitting on benches, staring out to sea.

  She returned to the flat in London to find Heather glowing with happiness and wearing a charming Victorian engagement ring, a heartshaped garnet surrounded by seed pearls.

  “Bill wanted me to have diamonds,” she explained excitedly. “But I thought this was much prettier, and there are so many other things we shall need. Oh, Jane, I’m so happy I could burst!”

  “When are you going to get married?” Jane asked.

  “As soon as possible. As soon as we can find somewhere to live.”

  “Why not live here—or are you going to start a family right away?”

  “No, not for a while. We want to live outside London eventually. Bill thinks a country life is better for children. If I keep on working for a couple of years, we shall be able to buy a house. Not outright, of course. But without an enormous mortgage. Bill doesn’t believe in mortgages and hire purchase.”

  “Well, what’s wrong with this flat for a start, then?” Jane suggested again. “I can find another place, Heather. But it isn’t so easy for a couple.” She paused, then added casually, “I may be getting married myself before too long.”

  “Married ... you! Who to?” Heather exclaimed in amazement.

  Jane told her about Yves. “But don’t spread the word. I might change my mind at the last moment,” she ended.

  It took Heather some moments to recover from stupefaction. “I—I can hardly believe it,” she said breathlessly. “Oh, Jane, how fabulous! Here’s me twittering on about a semi-detached in Surrey, and you’ve got a chateau up your sleeve. Not that I’d change Bill for a dozen gorgeous Frenchmen. But you and Yves St. Cyr ... it’s incredible. I mean, he’s got everything. Money, looks, and a divine French accent, I suppose. He’s every woman’s dream. Tell me all.”

  “There’s nothing much more to tell,” Jane said guardedly. “We met again, he offered to show me the sights ... then he asked me to marry him.”

  “Why on earth didn’t you say yes at once?”

  “Oh, Heather—after a few days? It would have been crazy. I had to have time to think it over. That’s why I’ve been down in Eastbourne.”

  “But you say you still aren’t quite sure?”

  Jane shrugged. “Is one ever absolutely sure?”

  “I am about Bill. I couldn’t be more so.”

  “Yes, but you’ve had more time to get to know each other. And Bill isn’t like Yves. He hasn’t had dozens of affairs.”

  “No. I suppose you’ve got a point there,” Heather agreed. “But they say reformed rakes make the best husbands. It’s not as if Yves had two or three dud marriages behind him. That would be rather off-putting.”

  Every day, after Jane’s return to London, presents arrived. Flowers from Moyses Stevens. Chocolates from Floris. A box containing two dozen pairs of sheerest nylons and a beautiful hyacinth silk scarf was delivered from the Dior boutique in Conduit Street. Kettners sent round a case of Perrier-Jouet, and from Fortnum & Mason came a hamper of expensive delicacies.

  “Heavens! This is what I call wooing a girl,” Heather said, when the hamper arrived. “If I were you, I’d be scared.”

  “What do you mean?” Jane asked.

  “Well, it’s silly, I suppose, but I have a theory that one can’t have everything in life. Not wealth and health. Or looks and brains. But if you marry Yves, you’ll have everything. The lot ... with knobs on.”

  Not quite everything. Not love, Jane thought bleakly.

  She half expected Yves to telephone her from Paris, but she did not hear from him—except by way of the deluge of presents—until he wired her to meet him at London Airport.

  An hour before his plane was due to arrive, she was still not certain what she was going to say to him.

  It was a miserable day, cold and rainy and depressing, so she decided to wear her black fake ponyskin trench coat with the hya
cinth scarf over her hair. There might be Press photographers around, and she did not want to be spotted meeting Yves.

  “Jane! This week has seemed like ten years,” he said, when he came out of the Customs Hall.

  In the taxi back to Knightsbridge—he was staying at the Carlton Tower—she said, “I haven’t thanked you for all the lovely things you’ve been giving me. You are terribly extravagant, Yves.”

  “Oh, pouf! A few flowers. A box of chocolates.” He dismissed such trifles with a gesture. Then, opening his overcoat, he took a leather box from an inside pocket. “This is what I want to give you.”

  She knew it was a ring case, but she was not prepared for the flash of green fire when he opened the lid. She had never seen such an enormous stone, and the diamonds surrounding the emerald were the size of match-heads.

  “Will you wear it, Jane?” he asked her softly.

  She stared at the magnificent ring, gripped by a kind of terror at the enormity of the decision. The whole course of her life depended on a single word.

  Then she drew in a deep quivering breath. “Yes ... yes, Yves, I will marry you,” she promised.

  Within forty-eight hours, the story, was in all the papers.

  ‘London Model To Wed French Racehorse Owner ... Whirlwind Romance Of Millionaire And Model ... Cinderella Story Of The Girl They Once Called ‘Plain Jane.’

  With no strikes or political crises to make banner headlines that week, the newspapers seized on the engagement and give it the full front-page treatment. They explored every possible angle, adding fancy to fact in a way that infuriated Jane.

  “Half these stories are absolute lies,” she exclaimed angrily to Yves, after reading a particularly sensational account of her early life which implied that she had been dragged up in a slum, and run away from Starmouth in her teens to live in dubious circumstances until her discovery by David.

  But Yves was accustomed to publicity—some of the papers had also raked up his past ‘friendships’—and he only grinned and shrugged his shoulders.

  “Don’t read them if they upset you, chérie. We will soon be forgotten when someone is murdered or there is a train crash. You must not mind this rubbish.”

  But Jane did mind, very much. The papers made her sound like a cheap adventuress, a dumb or designing blonde who had somehow trapped Yves into marriage. Was David reading these stories? Did he think of her like that now?

  The weather continued cold, and Yves wanted to buy her a sable jacket.

  “Oh, no, please—not until we’re married,” she said uncomfortably.

  He had already given her a crocodile bag with a matching silver-fitted dressing case from Aspreys, and a vicuna sweater, and a gold powder case by Michael Gosschalk. And although she knew he could easily afford such gifts, she accepted them with reluctance and embarrassment. She would have much preferred the inexpensive little keepsakes which Bill brought home for Heather from his flights.

  “When are we going to be married?” Yves asked, kissing her. “You are always working. I see you only for lunch and in the evening. I want you with me all the time, mon amour.”

  “I must work out my bookings. It won’t take long,” Jane promised.

  Yves delighted Heather and Bill by offering them his villa near Ajaccio for their honeymoon.

  “It sounds a heavenly place ... it’s terribly kind of him,” Heather said to Jane, after the four of them had dined and danced at the Dorchester one night. “To be honest, I had some reservations when you first told me about him. But he’s not at all as I imagined. Do you know, he hardly glanced at the cabaret this evening. He was gazing at you all the time.”

  Jane smiled, hiding her inner disquiet. Yves was constantly telling her how lovely she was, and lately it had begun to jar on her.

  “You do realize my hair isn’t really this color, and I don’t look the same without make-up,” she had said to him once. “If you had met me a year ago, you wouldn’t have looked at me twice.”

  He had laughed and told her not to be foolish. Was he not a connoisseur of beauty? She was entirely enchanting. Her only fault was that she insisted on talking nonsense when he wanted to make love to her.

  After staying in London for nearly three weeks, he had to go back to Paris for a few days. One day, while he was away, Jane went to an espresso bar for a quick lunch between appointments.

  Accustomed now to having lunch with Yves at the Caprice, and meeting him after work in the Ritz Bar, she felt a curious sense of relief in perching on a stool at the crowded counter and ordering a couple of hamburgers and coffee.

  The bar was not far from David’s studio, but he was in Vienna at the moment. She had not worked with him since her return from Paris, but she knew she was bound to see him at Heather’s wedding, now only a fortnight ahead.

  When she had finished her snack, she paid the girl at the till and, checking the time, decided to walk to her next job. Turning towards the door, she saw an elderly woman step out from behind a lorry across the street. There was a van coming fast in the other direction. Jane glimpsed the driver’s horrified face as he wrenched the wheel over. The van swerved and shot the near curb, to crash into the cafe’s picture window.

  There were screams, and the sharp explosions of shattered glass. She felt a searing pain in her face, and a blow on the head. Then the world blacked out.

  Rushing back to England in response to Heather’s wire, Yves had Jane moved from hospital to the luxurious London Clinic. But she did not care where she was. She only wanted to sleep.

  Whenever she opened her right eye—the left one was covered by bandages—he was there at the bedside, holding her hand.

  “Don’t worry, petite. You had a little accident. But you will soon be well again. You must rest. Don’t worry about anything.”

  His anxious face, not quite in focus, hovered over her. It was he who looked worried, she thought dimly, sinking back into a shadowy soundless limbo.

  Soon, however, the drowsiness began to wear off. She woke up more often, and slept less deeply. Small sounds and lowered voices kept rousing her. She kept her eyes closed and lay very still, but she could not drift down into nothingness.

  “How long have I been here?” she asked, when it was no longer possible to feign haziness.

  As usual, Yves was sitting with her, and she thought it was the third day since the accident.

  “Eight days. But do not be alarmed. You have had concussion. I expect you do not remember what happened. I will explain when you are better.” Tenderly, he stroked her unbandaged cheek.

  “I remember. A van came through the cafe window. Was anyone else hurt?”

  “No, only you, chérie. But it is nothing, I promise you. A nasty bump on the head, and a few small cuts. Don’t talk now. Rest again.”

  “Poor Yves, you look worn out. I’m sorry to be such a nuisance.”

  “Foolish one! You could never be a nuisance to me.”

  Presently a nurse sent him away.

  “Is my face an awful mess?” Jane asked her, putting up a hand to feel the bandages.

  “Now you musn’t worry, Miss Baron,” the girl said soothingly. “You’ve a cut on the cheek, but it will soon heal. It’s nothing serious.”

  Jane knew she was lying, but she did not argue. Next morning the doctor came to see her. He was pink and bald, like a baby, and he smelt of an expensive after-shave lotion.

  “You’re much better, I hear, Miss Baron,” he said smilingly.

  He examined the cuts on her legs, then asked the nurse to remove the facial dressings.

  “May I have a mirror? May I see?” Jane asked, as they peeled away the bandages.

  “Not just at the moment, Miss Baron.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because this check will look much better in a day or two.” The doctor tried to distract her by asking if she had a headache or any nausea.

  Jane waited until they had renewed the dressings. “Doctor, I know it’s a bad cut. I wish you would tell me
the truth. I won’t have hysterics, I promise you.”

  He studied her thoughtfully for a moment. Then he pulled up a chair and sat down.

  “Very well, Miss Baron. Yes, it is rather a nasty cut, I’m afraid. A piece of glass gashed your cheek from here to here.” He traced a line from his temple to his chin. “But it’s healing very nicely,” he went on, "and you must count yourself lucky it missed your eye, you know.”

  “Will it leave a permanent scar?”

  “Not a permanent one, no. In time it will be virtually unnoticeable.”

  “How much time?”

  “Well, that depends,” he said guardedly. “Some skins heal faster than others. Now please don’t worry, Miss Baron. I fully understand your concern, but I assure you there’s no question of a permanent disfigurement.”

  Jane relaxed against her pillows. “It wouldn’t matter much if there were. I just wanted to know the truth. Thank you, Doctor.”

  Later, Yves came.

  “Oh, Jane, it is so wonderful to see you looking better.” He sat on the side of the bed and gently kissed her. “Qu’est-ce que tu as?” he asked, drawing back in concern. “Does your head ache, ma mie? Perhaps you should not sit up yet.”

  She turned her face away so that he could only see her bandaged profile. “I’m all right, Yves. But there’s something I have to tell you.”

  “To tell me?” he repeated perplexedly.

  “I’m glad the accident happened,” Jane said, in a low voice. “It’s queer, but having concussion seems to have cleared my head. I’m seeing things straight again. I’m not muddled and uncertain any more.” She looked at him then. “I hate myself for hurting you, Yves. But I must, or I might ruin both our lives. I can’t marry you, you see,” she told him huskily.

  For some moments he only stared at her. Then he caught her by the shoulders. “But this is nonsense, chérie. You are distraite. You can’t mean this.”

  “I mean it—and you must accept it, Yves. Believe me, I’m sorry, desperately sorry.”

  “You are saying this because of your face. You are afraid I will not like to see the mark. But the doctor assures me—”