The Young Nightingales

by Mary Whistler

  Roger frowned when he witnessed her withdrawal, said something inaudibly and made to grab her again. But this time she averted her face, jumped back into her corner seat and waved to him from the window.

  “Good-bye,” she called. “I’ll write and let you know how I get on with your aunt!”

  The train slid away from the platform, and she had an impression of Roger’s lean, dark, handsome face frowning, while he bit angrily at his lower lip.

  “Take care of yourself!” he called back.

  She subsided into her seat in the packed compartment. She shut her eyes and tried to feel something ... regret, concern, just a slight bubbling up of emotion.

  But the truth was, she didn’t feel any emotion. And when she opened her eyes she noticed that a child struggling to find a seat on its mother’s lap opposite her didn’t seem to be having much success, because there was already another toddler enthroned there, and she held out her arms to it.

  “Come and sit over here,” she invited softly and persuasively. And all the way to Folkestone she held the child on her lap, and fed it with the sweets with which Roger had provided her, and handed over the fruit to the mother just before they parted to be consumed on the remainder of the journey.

  The magazines she left behind in the boat-train.

  And now here she was in Switzerland, and it was evening and there was a wonderful golden light falling all about her, and despite the fact that it was July the mountain tops when she lifted her eyes to them had a remarkable amount of dazzling white snow adhering to them; and in places the snow was the colour of pink candyfloss, and there were streaming banners of pink floating out across the amazingly blue, blue sky.

  She lifted one of her suitcases off the rack, and the French-Swiss train attendant came along at precisely the right moment and helped her down with the other.

  “You are going to an hotel, mademoiselle?” he said, when he was standing beside her on the all but deserted platform, and she appeared to be wondering what to do next.

  “Yes—the Continental. I’m staying there for one night. Can I get a taxi?”

  “It should be easy at this hour.” He looked along the platform and signalled a porter, to whom he handed over Jane complete with her two suitcases. There were Customs formalities to be gone through before she found herself in a taxi, and while she was explaining to the driver where she wished to be taken a man emerged from the station behind her and appeared to be disconcerted because there were no other taxis available.

  He stared hard at Jane and her roomy, gleaming means of transport, and as soon as her driver shut the door upon her he accosted him without hesitation.

  “You will take me, too, Maurice?” he said, removing the heavy pack from his back and dumping it in the road for the other to deal with. “I am in a hurry, and I neglected to arrange to be picked up. You can deposit Mademoiselle at her hotel and then drive me-home.”

  The taxi-driver turned and fairly beamed at him.

  “Ah, oui, m’sieur!” he exclaimed. “But of course!” He took note of the fact that his extra passenger was wearing stout boots, thick stockings and a cumbersome sweater over an open necked shirt, and that his skin was burned to the hue of mahogany, and added in an enlightened manner: “You have been climbing again, m’sieur! The weather was good, yes?”

  “It was good enough. I was sorry to leave.”

  “Ah, yes, m’sieur, the mountains are wonderful. I should know, because I was born in a mountain village and have never taken kindly to the towns.” Without enquiring of his other passenger whether she objected or not he opened the taxi door again and bowed quite deferentially as the bronzed man, now deprived of his pack, climbed in. “I will have you home in a matter of minutes, m’sieur!”

  Jane’s slim eyebrows arched as she found herself sharing the seat with her fellow traveller. He must have been on her train, but he had probably boarded it at a station a little way down the line, and therefore was not in a sense a fellow traveller.

  And she did think he might have asked her whether she objected to his being given a lift.

  “Good evening, mademoiselle,” He nodded at her coolly. “It was fortunate for me you were not already on your way when I emerged from the station just now.”

  “Yes, I suppose it was.”

  She was conscious of being rather travel-stained herself, and his eyes were critical as well as being quite frank in the way they regarded her. He did not attempt to disguise his interest in her—purely temporary interest, of course—and the fact that she was English was given away by several things. Her voice was unmistakably English, her clothes were smart, but there was a certain formality about them which told him she came from a conventional background, and a small hand-case which she carried had her name clearly inscribed on it—Jane Nightingale.

  He smiled, and his teeth flashed hard and white and perfect.

  “I am very grateful to you, Miss Nightingale, for ensuring that I get home without any loss of time.”

  Jane hardly knew what to say. She was tired, she wanted to be able to enjoy the scenery—the glorious brilliance of the lake as it flashed past their windows, the white hotels, the shops, the well-laid-out gardens and the blaze of summer flowers on the lake shore—but with a pair of slate grey eyes with tiny greenish lights in them watching her every movement from under shapely black brows and an even more shapely, deeply tanned forehead detachment of any sort or kind was impossible. She found herself fumbling with her gloves and wishing they were on her hands because her hands were grubby, and above all loathing the thought of the shine on her nose, and trying hard to think of some appropriate comment because he had paid her the compliment of addressing her in English. And from his interchange with the taxi-man it was quite obvious that his native tongue was French.

  He laughed suddenly and softly from very close beside her.

  “Sit back, Miss Nightingale, and enjoy the view,” he suggested. “Relax. You must have had a somewhat tiresome journey if you have been travelling by rail. Are you on holiday? Why did you not fly out?”

  “Because I prefer to travel by rail,” she answered stiffly.

  His eyebrows ascended.

  “Then I trust you were lucky enough to get a sleeper, but at this time of year it is not always possible unless you book well in advance.”

  This sounded so much like Roger—who had made quite a scene because she had refused even to think of reserving a sleeper—that it caused her to answer more stiffly still.

  “No, I sat up in my compartment and dozed whenever I found it possible. There were lots of other people in the carriage and it wasn’t always easy.”

  “You mean they snored?”

  “When they weren’t eating oranges and drinking coffee out of flasks. Then there were several children.”

  “Who also ate oranges, but did not, I trust, drink coffee out of flasks?'” She was looking deliberately away from him, but it was easy to detect the humour in his voice. “Coffee is bad for the very young.”

  “Is it?” She glanced swiftly at him and then away again. “But when you’re travelling third you have to make do with whatever comes to hand, and milk doesn’t keep on a long hot journey.”

  “You make the journey sound really alarming, and on the whole I think I would prefer to stay at home and forgo my holiday rather than face up to such an ordeal.” He produced a cigarette-case from his pocket and she realised that he was offering it to her. “Do you normally travel third-class?” he asked with interest.

  “No.”

  “Only on this occasion? It was, perhaps, an experiment.”

  “In—in a way, I suppose.”

  “You will forgive me if I state the obvious ... and that is that you do not look like a third-class passenger.”

  She had declined a cigarette, and he lighted his own. It had a pleasant smell ... she suspected it was a somewhat expensive blend of Turkish and Virginian tobaccos. Yet—to quote his own words in a slightly different context—he did not
look like the kind of man who could afford expensive blends of anything, unless his shabby climbing kit was a form of disguise. She shot another curious glance at him, and although he was very personable and extremely healthy-looking, she was inclined to adhere to her first impression of him, and that was that, unless he liked dams in his shirts, he was some kind of lower-salaried man ... possibly a clerk in a local office who had just had his fortnight’s holiday and spent it in the mountains.

  “Well?” he asked, surveying her quizzically. “Do I look very disreputable?”

  “No, er ... No, no, of course not!” The taxi was slowing, and she realised that they had arrived at her hotel. He glanced up at the impressive white facade of it and nodded his head in approval.

  “You should be comfortable there,” he said. “It is a good choice.”

  She gathered together her handbag and gloves, and prepared to nod to him coolly and say a frigid farewell, but he climbed out on to the pavement and insisted on handing over her cases and making sure that the hotel porter would relieve her of the necessity of carrying them into the hotel. Then he bowed in an attractively formal manner and wished her a happy holiday.

  “Make the most of it,” he said. “You will fall in love with Switzerland before you leave.”

  “Will I?” She produced some Swiss francs from her bag and turned to pay the taxi-man, but Maurice had already received his instructions in rapid French and he waved the offer aside.

  “It is all right, mademoiselle,” he said. “You do not have to pay.”

  “But—” She felt annoyed, because it was her taxi and the man in climbing clothes had merely travelled as far as he had because she had permitted him to do so, and it was rather like having the tables turned and a beggar towards whom she had behaved generously returning her charity with interest.

  She felt her face flush and was quite sure her eyes sparkled with annoyance, but the extra passenger had leapt back into the taxi and waved Maurice to proceed. Without giving her time to argue the matter further he waved to her casually from the back of the cab and she thought that his slate-grey eyes were smiling with amusement, and then the hotel porter led the way into the hotel and a welcoming receptionist wondered why the attractive new arrival appeared so obviously discomposed.

  Jane signed the register, received an impression of a great deal of up-to-the-minute opulence in her surroundings, and a quietly obsequious staff, and then was conducted into a gilded lift and upstairs to her room on the second floor, which had a wonderful wide window overlooking the lake.

  In a matter of minutes Jane had cooled down and forgotten her recent irritation entirely, largely because the view from the window was so breathtaking, and outside the window she had a balcony of her own on which she could sit and enjoy herself thoroughly by simply absorbing all the unfamiliarity and the charm of the prospect whenever she felt like doing so.

  It was true that night was closing down rather abruptly, but it was a wonderful July night, and the light lingered for some time on the high peaks on the farther shore of the lake. The stars shone like pale golden lamps when they first appeared in the dusky indigo blue of the sky, and each one was mirrored in the shimmering surface of the lake. In gardens with landing-stages running down to the edge of the lake lights gleamed fitfully amidst the gently stirring leaves of the overhanging trees, and pale paths of radiance streamed out across the lake.

  As Jane, having bathed and changed into something more suitable for going down to dinner, brushed her hair before her dressing-table mirror, she watched a steamer moving like a phantom over the silent water, and that, too, was illuminated by a whole string of lights which were reflected like a string of pearls in the lake.

  She was afraid that she was a little late for dinner when she entered the dining-room, but there were still plenty of people enjoying a leisurely meal at the flower-decked tables. It was the height of the holiday season, and her fellow guests were representative of many different countries, and most of them looked tanned and vigorous after a long day in the open air. As the Continental was the kind of hotel where people dressed for dinner the men mostly wore dinner-jackets, and the women were like bright butterflies with many different hair-styles and, in a lot of cases, a lavish amount of jewellery scattered about their persons.

  When she had been in Switzerland a little longer Jane was to make the discovery that Swiss women almost invariably carried a small fortune in jewels on their necks and arms—particularly the wives of prosperous business-men. And she was to recognise their beautifully coiffured blonde heads and elegant gowns and pick them out from the rest as soon as she entered a room or a public place where many of them were congregated.

  But on this first night of her arrival she felt shy and awkward as she followed a waiter to her table in the corner, and she kept her eyes averted from everyone until she had been seated for several minutes and had had time to consult the menu.

  The waiter was most helpful. He recommended several dishes, and as he was young and impressionable found it a comparatively simple matter to keep his eyes fixed on Jane. He thought she had the air of being English and was exceptionally attractive with her perfect skin and shadowy blue-grey eyes, and despite the fact that her only adornment was a neat row of pearls could not have appeared to greater advantage.

  She had chosen a black dress for the occasion, and, like all her clothes, it was expensively simple and fitted her beautifully. Apart from the waiter other men in the room eyed her quite openly as she kept her head slightly bent and her eyes glued to the tablecloth; and when at last she looked up and about her they were fascinated by the flutter of her thick dark eyelashes, and by the faint air of melancholy that looked out from between them.

  Most of the women had escorts, and the fact that she had none no doubt increased her attractiveness in the eyes of the impressionable males. She began to feel their persistent glances on her, and decided to hurry through her meal and return to her own room as quickly as possible, for she was not in the mood for masculine admiration ... and she most certainly did not wish to risk being accosted by any one of the gentlemen present as soon as the first opportunity presented itself to him.

  As she left the dining-room she saw a party of people enter it from a door on the farther side, and they were all so splendidly dressed—particularly one woman who was also young and exceptionally beautiful in a fair and arresting fashion—that she actually glanced up to observe them before making her way to the reception desk to gather information from one of the clerks.

  “Can you tell me how far the Villa Magnolia is from here?” she asked the young man on duty.

  He was only too eager to deal with her query.

  “The Villa Magnolia? Now let me think—” He was turning to consult one of his colleagues when she added the information:

  “A Mrs. Bowman, an Englishwoman, lives there.”

  “Mrs. Bowman? Ah, yes, mademoiselle!” he exclaimed, light apparently dawning on him immediately. “We know Mrs. Bowman very well. She comes here sometimes for dinner, or when she has friends she wishes to entertain for lunch. There was a time when she came here quite often, but she is not nowadays—how do you say?”

  “She is very elderly and not very strong,” Jane helped him out.

  “Ah, yes, mademoiselle!” He leaned across the counter and beamed at her. “That is, I am afraid, very true. Madame Bowman cannot nowadays get about as much as she once did, but she is a so very charming lady all the same ... Very charming!” he added, as if he wished her to be in no doubt about his personal opinion of Madame Bowman, who was as English as the young woman confronting him.

  Jane looked surprised. From the little Roger had disclosed to her about his aunt she had not gathered that charm was the most noticeable thing about her. Autocratic might be a more suitable word. She had lived in Switzerland for years, and in St. Vaizey where her villa was situated for at least half of that length of time. She had an English housekeeper and an English chauffeur, and maintained a certain a
mount of rather comfortable state on an income which had been left to her by her second husband, another Roger Bowman, who had been a City merchant, and accumulated quite a fortune in his day.

  The young man behind the reception desk was suddenly inspired.

  “You are a relative of Madame Bowman, mademoiselle? You have come to Switzerland to visit her?” he suggested.

  Jane thought it best to put him right at the outset.

  “No, no, I am not a relative of Madame Bowman,” she answered. “But I am going to be employed by her, and tomorrow I must leave here for the Villa Magnolia. That is why I want to know whether it is very far from here, and if it is whether I can hire a car to take me there?”

  The young man was obviously intrigued.

  “It is no distance at all, mademoiselle,” he assured her. “And a taxi will take you there...”

  He broke off as a man came in swiftly through the main entrance and started to cross the vestibule to the dining-room. He was a youngish man of medium height, with well-held shoulders and a curious, cat-like grace as he moved, who looked extraordinarily fit and brown and was dressed with care in the full regalia of white tie and tails, which most certainly became him because by any standards he was an attractive man, and if the impeccability of his linen was anything to go by an exceptionally fastidious one.

  “Ah, there is someone-—!” the desk clerk exclaimed; and then broke off as the man paused in his swinging stride and quite obviously recognised Jane.

  “Well, well,” he exclaimed. “Miss Nightingale!”

  Jane stared unbelievingly.

  The bronzed man smiled.

  “Yes, I’ve had an opportunity to clean up a bit, he admitted, “and I hope I’m a little more presentable now. Are you settling in? I do hope they’ve given you a room on the lake side. If not I shall have to use my influence and persuade them to shift you!”