The Young Nightingales

by Mary Whistler

  “Oh, I don’t think so.” Mrs. Bowman sipped her sherry appreciatively. “For one thing, he’s too good and dedicated a doctor to have a great deal of interest in women. But there are rumours that he’s to be married soon. Little Chantal d’Evremonde seems to have rather cleverly caught him, which surprises me, as she’s not the type I would have thought he would have chosen to settle down with.”

  Jane explained a trifle belatedly that she had already met Dr. Delacroix at the hotel, and she had also, apparently, met his wife-to-be. She asked Madame Bowman why she considered she was not the ideal type for him to marry.

  “Oh, the girl is shallow ... and rather stupid at times, or so I personally consider. Spoilt, and the daughter of a very rich father ... which could be a help to Jules in his profession if he hadn’t already made quite a lot of money himself. His clinic is always full, you know. People come to him from all parts of the world for treatment.”

  “And Mademoiselle d’Evremonde?” Jane wished to have more information about the beautiful golden girl who had clung so possessively to Delacroix’s arm, and not hesitated to scold him a trifle shrewishly because he was late. “You were saying that she is not quite suitable.”

  “Well, not quite ... perhaps.” She looked upwards suddenly at Jane. “By the way, my dear, I received the distinct impression that you and Dr. Delacroix were not getting on at all well when I entered the room and found you both together. I said just now that not all people take to him, although most trust him absolutely ... and if he treated you as if you were a paid employee and nothing more you mustn’t mind. He orders Florence about at times, but she doesn’t mind.”

  Jane decided to change the subject. She had not emphasised the fact that Dr. Delacroix was annoyed because he had not gathered that she was to be a paid employee. And to try and make Madame Bowman understand why everything about Dr. Delacroix irked her, and apparently she had the same effect on him, was rather more, she thought, than she was capable of after such a recent interview with the doctor.

  “Oh, let’s talk of something else,” she said. “The fact that he thinks you’re so much better ... that, at least, is something to be delighted about.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  MRS. BOWMAN was as good as her word, and invitations to a formal dinner-party were sent out within the next few days.

  Jane wrote the invitations, and Florence was issued with a set of instructions concerning the actual dinner. Apparently it was some time since more than two people at a time had dined with Mrs. Bowman, and it was quite clear from the expression on Florence’s face when she received her instructions that she was quite unable to see any reason for the present departure from what had become established custom. She even predicted that the unusual excitement would upset her mistress, and was surprised because Dr. Delacroix had sanctioned such a piece of folly.

  “You would think a doctor would have more sense, wouldn’t you?” she observed to no one in particular—although Jane was in the kitchen at the time—as she laboriously worked out the list of ingredients she would want at the kitchen table. “I suppose we’ll have to have one of my special soufflés, and the mistress always insists upon a sweet as well as a savoury. And if there’s to be champagne someone will have to get in touch with the wine-merchant.”

  “I’ll do that,” Jane offered. And then she suggested that perhaps champagne wasn’t necessary. “What about that really excellent hock we have for dinner sometimes? Are there any more bottles in the house?”

  Florence glanced at her with contempt. “When the mistress gives a party she gives a party,” she said. “It’ll be champagne or nothing.”

  Jane withdrew the suggestion demurely.

  “Oh, well, you know, of course,” she said.

  Florence’s eyes snapped dangerously.

  “I certainly do,” she agreed. “And I tell you that if the mistress is to stand up to this ordeal she’ll have to be cosseted for the next few days. No staying up late, or anything like that.”

  “Dear me,” Jane commented. “I do seem to have brought a certain amount of disorganisation into this hitherto peaceful household, don’t I?”

  Florence immediately softened ... which was one of the most surprising things about Florence when she appeared to be actually on the warpath.

  “Oh, well, I don’t know about that,” she said. “The mistress does seem to like having you here, and you could say she’s been a lot brighter since you arrived. But I just want to be sure she doesn’t do too much all at once, that’s all.”

  “You and Dr. Delacroix should set up business together,” Jane remarked. And then, all at once, she felt quite happy and light-hearted because Florence, apparently, approved of her, and Mrs. Bowman had made it very plain that she did. Her presence in the house was not disruptive, and for the first time since her father’s second marriage she was able to think and plan for a special occasion without having to defer to someone like Miranda, who always organised everything in the Nightingale household.

  Here it was different. Mrs. Bowman made her feel that she was the actual mistress of the place, and it was her ideas and her tastes that were consulted. Florence might argue, but she was not antagonistic ... and she could even express her approval on occasion.

  That was something.

  As for Miranda, Jane wrote to her regularly, and she also wrote regularly to Irina and Toby. There was not much point in writing to Conway, for he was the world’s worst correspondent, and would be most unlikely to reply. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t want to hear all about her from Irina, so Irina’s letters contained much more detailed information than the ones that were received by Miranda, although it was Miranda, surprisingly, who wrote rather fulsomely after Jane had been in Switzerland for nearly a fortnight.

  “I miss you,” Miranda wrote—and this was surprising—“and I also envy you, because at this time of year St. Vaizey must be really delightful. I went to school near there, although I’m sure you didn’t know it, and they were amongst the happiest days of my life.” What about the days when she was married to her father? Jane wondered. “If you could find us a villa which we could rent I’m sure it would be a good plan to let Toby spend his holidays near you. You handle him so well, and although I know you have a job to do now you could still see quite a lot of us if we came, and Toby would have a better chance to get over the death of his father.”

  Jane bit her lip. It was true that Toby had taken it hard, and Miranda could be right. Toby did need to get away somewhere completely new and fresh after the shock of John Nightingale’s suicide.

  But there was a slight sting in the tail of the letter ... for Jane, anyway. And it could be a deliberate reminder that her old life was indeed a thing of the past.

  “Roger would also like a holiday in Switzerland, and if you could find us a villa he’ll probably join us for a while. He’s worn out after a most exhausting case, and badly needs a rest. Conway, too, will come along. It will make it quite respectable!”

  Jane showed the letter to her employer, and Mrs. Bowman looked up at her somewhat curiously when she had read it.

  “Do you want your stepmother to come out here?” she asked. “Your half-brother I can understand ... but your stepmother?”

  Jane looked down at the carpet.

  “It would probably do her good,” she said.

  “Didn’t she spend months in the South of France before your father’s death? Surely that should have done her some good?”

  Jane hesitated, not certain how much Mrs. Bowman knew, or suspected, about her relationship with her father’s second wife.

  “She’d had a kind of nervous breakdown before she went away,” she replied. “My father insisted that she stayed away until she was better ... but the shock of his death must have set her back a bit,” striving to be absolutely fair to Miranda.

  Mrs. Bowman nodded thoughtfully, apparently studying Miranda’s handwriting with interest.

  “That could be so, of course,” she agreed. �
�But what astonishes me is that my nephew hasn’t written direct to me and suggested coming to stay here if he really needs a holiday.” She lifted her eyes to Jane’s face and watched her keenly. “There are plenty of rooms in the Villa Magnolia, and I am old-fashioned enough to think it a little odd that he should contemplate sharing a villa with your stepmother, even though she is likely to be joined by both your brothers. Besides,” she added with emphasis, “you are here!”

  “I—I—” Jane stammered helplessly. “Perhaps Roger thought it would be too much if he came here!”

  “And stayed with his only blood relation? And you?”

  Jane turned away.

  “There’s the rent ... perhaps he thought he could help Miranda out with the rent, if I do find her a villa,” she added.

  “It’s a most difficult time of the year to find empty furnished villas. Most people hire these places months ahead of the date of their arrival. But I will see what I can do!” She folded the letter and handed it back to Jane. “For your young brother’s sake I will see what I can do!” she concluded.

  Jane thanked her with a marked lack of enthusiasm ... not because she didn’t wish to see Toby, who, after all, might be invited to stay at the Villa Magnolia if his mother was unlikely to accompany him, and Florence felt she could bear it. But because the very thought of seeing Miranda and Roger together day after day for several weeks affected her with an extraordinary feeling of revulsion. And it had nothing to do with her own attitude to Roger, for, despite the distinctly hopeful gleam in his elderly aunt’s eyes whenever she referred to him, the charm Roger had once held for Jane was as dead and incapable of being revived as if she had never known him.

  It was extraordinary ... it was fantastic ... but it was true!

  Putting him out of her heart and her thoughts had been as painless as if someone had administered an anaesthetic ... and she confessed to herself that she did not quite understand the change in herself. She had been very fond of Roger. She had hoped to marry him.

  But she never even thought of him nowadays, and she had been forced to conclude that being very fond of someone was not apparently enough when they provided you with a serious shock.

  The roots were pulled right out of the ground, and nothing could induce them to take root again.

  It was as final as that.

  The party list was checked for acceptances two days before it was to take place, and Mrs. Bowman expressed herself as satisfied because so far no one had refused. And the only two people who had not acknowledged her invitation were very old friends, and were quite unlikely to let her down.

  Dr. Delacroix’s secretary had telephoned to say that he would be delighted to dine with Mrs. Bowman and her companion, and the parents of Mademoiselle d’Evremonde had accepted on her and their own behalf. The other guests included another elderly couple, a Swiss banker and his wife, who were close friends of Madame Bowman, and her Swiss lawyer, who was apparently a bachelor, but already in his sixties, so unlikely to make much appeal to Jane ... although, as Mrs. Bowman said to her smilingly, it didn’t really matter, did it? The fact that there were few eligible bachelors on her list of close associates could not really matter to Jane, since all her main interests were firmly rooted in England.

  At first Jane was a little startled by this somewhat naive attitude on the part of her employer, and then the realisation of what was behind the naive attitude really sank in, and for the first time she felt vaguely alarmed because Mrs. Bowman had apparently got it firmly fixed inside her head that Jane’s attachment to her nephew—and his to her—was so strong that it could end in only one thing. And that one thing was marriage!

  Hence her coy looks whenever she mentioned Roger, and the affectionate gloating that occasionally overspread her features when she sat contemplating Jane, and no doubt already thought of her as her niece-by-marriage.

  Something, Jane promised herself, would have to be done about this before many more days, and certainly weeks, had passed, otherwise the disappointment in store for the old lady would be too great to be contemplated.

  But, just before the dinner-party, she couldn’t bring herself to destroy illusions. Mrs. Bowman was so happy going through her wardrobe with Florence and calling in the local dressmaker to do something about a black lace dress that required to be lifted slightly since she seemed to have shrunk since she wore it last, and rifling her jewel-box for her choicest triple row of pearls and a set of diamond and sapphire brooches and bracelets with which to embellish the black lace, that Jane simply hadn’t the heart to destroy any of her pleasure.

  Her own dress was decided upon several days before the dinner-party, and Mrs. Bowman approved of it strongly when her companion showed it to her. It was white corded silk, and with it she planned to wear cobwebby white satin sandals, and her own really flawless row of carefully graded pearls ... her father’s last expensive gift to her. Mrs. Bowman, who, despite her clinging to her old-fashioned surroundings, liked to think of herself as modern in many ways, and even “with it”, approved the short, swinging skirt of the dress, but pointed out that it was not nearly as short as anything Mademoiselle d’Evremonde was likely to wear, unless she was striking one of her poses in one of her floating evening-gowns, for she was the most up-to-the-minute young woman in St. Vaizey, and possibly that whole corner of Switzerland.

  Jane was surprised, for it did not strike her that such a young woman would make an ideal doctor’s wife, particularly a doctor who had already climbed high in his profession. And then she told herself that it was she who was being old-fashioned, and having already met the enchanting Mademoiselle Chantal she was not really surprised that Jules Delacroix saw her in the role, very likely, of the ideal doctor’s wife. Or perhaps he didn’t care whether she was likely to turn out to be an ideal wife of any kind. Perhaps he was too bemused by her, too full of admiration for her, to mind one way or the other.

  Amongst the first guests to arrive on the night of the party were the d’Evremondes. Father and mother were very friendly and almost simple people, but Chantal shone like a star. She was wearing blue—ice blue—and it was no more than a tunic embroidered with silver, and revealing for all to see a lovely slender length of leg.

  Such grace, such perfection, Jane thought as she gazed at her almost compulsively, must take a man’s breath away, particularly when he adored her already. She was not in the least surprised to see Dr. Delacroix appear almost as if he was slightly taken aback when he, too, arrived, and Chantal rushed across the room to him and took him possessively by the arm.

  Dark and curiously, vitally attractive in his dinner-jacket, he actually appeared embarrassed for a moment. Chantal had betrayed no sign of recognising Jane, or having seen her before, and after the first introductions she practically ignored her. She was placed beside the doctor at the dinner-table, and on her other side she had the serious Swiss lawyer. Jane found herself placed opposite Dr. Delacroix, with the Swiss banker on one side of her and his wife on the other.

  Florence had excelled herself over the meal, and everything was beautifully served and there were no hitches of any kind. The long rosewood dining-table was a blaze of silver, crystal and flowers—which Jane had spent some time arranging, just as she had arranged the flowers in the drawing-room—and the hostess herself appeared quite in her element as she sat enthroned in her black lace at the head of the table.

  Afterwards coffee was served in the drawing room, and Jane did the honours behind the enormous silver coffee-tray, and Dr. Delacroix handed round the cups. Every time he returned to her for another of the fragile porcelain cups he was inclined to frown at her, and she realised that he had not yet forgiven her for deceiving him over her real reason for visiting St. Vaizey when he met her for the first time.

  While the somewhat long-drawn-out dinner was in progress she noticed that he studied her in the same manner, but he made no effort to draw her into any conversation at the table. For one thing, Mademoiselle d’Evremonde sparkled so much, and w
as such a determined conversationalist, that he had little opportunity. But Jane did think he might say something to shatter the somewhat oppressive silence whenever he joined her at the coffee-tray.

  Having handed out the last of the cups she took her own to a corner and sat down with it. A palm in a Benares brass container provided her with a certain amount of protection from the eyes of other people in the room, but she did feel rather lonely as she sat enthroned on a satin damask-covered settee and listened to the lively hubbub of French and German that was going on around her.

  It was certainly not Mrs. Bowman’s intention that her companion should be isolated, but she had been caught up by her old friends, and they were eagerly discussing the setting up of bridge tables in the adjoining small salon and had little time to spare for outside diversions. Dr. Delacroix had disappeared into the conservatory with Mademoiselle Chantal, arid Jane seized the opportunity while no one was actually observing her or looking towards her corner to disappear into the garden by means of an open french window at the opposite end of the room to the conservatory.

  It was a soft, velvet-black night, and apart from the lights that streamed from the house the only illumination that enabled her to see where she was going came from the stars. But by this time she knew the garden of the Villa Magnolia well, and was well able to pick her way down to the landing-stage, where the stars peeped at themselves in the water and she could hear the lazy murmur of the wavelets that broke upon the pallid shimmer of the beach.

  At this hour, without the knowledge of Madame Bowman, who had usually gone to bed when she made her escape from the house, she loved to sit and watch the twinkling, far-off lights of the opposite shore, like fireflies under cover of the rich purple gloom and the pale silver fire that slashed the darkness above the mountain peaks, and the fact that it sometimes grew chilly didn’t really disturb her. She wasn’t disturbed, either, by the loneliness of the spot and the slightly eerie rustling of the leaves amongst the trees. More than once she had stayed there until the moon rose, but the moon was rising very late now and that wouldn’t be possible tonight.