The Young Nightingales

by Mary Whistler

  Nevertheless, she could snatch a quarter of an hour or so before she need return to the house. She had the feeling that she was the odd man out tonight, and it was not because she had been particularly ignored, but because everyone there had the advantage of knowing everyone else, and they were nearly all firm friends. Madame Bowman was in her element, seeing them all after a considerable interval of being regarded as more or less an invalid; and as for Dr. Delacroix and the glamorous Chantal ... well, naturally they wished to be alone, and the move into the conservatory had been a concerted move.

  Jane sat on a rustic bench, her chin on her hand, her elbow on her knee, and the starlight fell gently all about her and emphasised the shimmer of her simple white dress. She was not brooding, exactly ... but for the first time she felt rather cut off from familiar things and all the people she knew, and if she had been honest she would have admitted that a slow, creeping wave of depression was washing over her like the slow surge of the waters of the lake.

  For the last few weeks she hadn’t allowed herself to think very much about anything in particular, but now, all at once, she started thinking about her father, and that last night of his life when, as she knew now, she should have stayed with him.

  Her delicate nails dug into the palms of her hands, that were growing slightly moist, as she asked herself the question yet again:

  If she had stayed with him could she have prevented his eventual suicide...?

  Suicide! The word made her shudder. Oh, why, why had he found it necessary to end things in that way?

  Something moved on the bridge above her, and then she knew that a dark shape was making its way down to the landing-stage. Brisk footsteps, finding no difficulty at all in treading purposefully on the unseen steps, echoed in the stillness of the night, and brought their owner within a few paces of her in a matter of a few seconds.

  “Miss Nightingale!” He plainly had no difficulty in recognising her. “What are you doing sitting here by yourself?”

  _ “Cooling off.” She looked at the spot where his face should be, but failed to make out very much of it save the gleam of his eyes. “It was hot in the house.”

  “And it’s dank down here beside the lake. You really ought not to do this sort of thing at this hour of the night.”

  “I often come here in the evenings.” She made room for him on the seat, because she had the impression that he was towering above her, and it made her feel uncomfortable. “It’s perfectly all right ... I’m not delicate. In fact, I’m almost revoltingly healthy.”

  “You don’t look it. Although I’ll grant you you have a healthy skin and clear eyes.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.” Her small voice mocked him in the gloom. “You make me sound like a television advertisement for some nutritive food.”

  He was silent. She felt him seat himself beside her, and he threw away the butt of the cigarette he had been smoking. Then he selected another from his case and lit it, and the flame of the match lit up his face.

  “Madame Bowman asked me to come in search of you,” he explained. “She was a trifle concerned because of your absence.”

  “I’m sorry if it meant dragging you away from the conservatory,” she answered before she properly realised what she was saying. “Miss d’Evremonde will find it hard to forgive me!” His eyes focused on her as he sat slightly sideways on the seat, and for one moment she thought he was going to snub her ruthlessly for descending to personalities when she hardly knew anything at all about him—save the titbits of information which she must have gleaned from her employer. And then, to her surprise, he asked her quietly:

  “Why were you really sitting here? Did you find the company in the house very boring?”

  “Not at all. But I did feel a little out of it, because I hardly know anyone.”

  “And Madame Bowman made the mistake of not asking someone of your age-group to keep you company.”

  “I don’t think she knows many people of my age-group. And in any case, the party was for her ... I mean, she obviously loves entertaining, and it’s a great pleasure for her to see her old friends. It doesn’t very much matter whether I’m bored or not.”

  “Are you bored?”

  “Not at all. I’m one of those people who find their own company quite attractive, and I was really enjoying the peacefulness of the spot and the magic of the hour when you hove up out of the night just now.”

  He spoke bluntly.

  “If you’ll forgive me for saying so, there was something quite forlorn about your attitude when I caught sight of you just now ... and my eyes are rather like cat’s eyes, enabling me to see very well in the dark. Were you thinking about Madame Bowman’s nephew, back home in England? Were you wishing very much that he was here?”

  She was so surprised that she couldn’t find the words to answer him for a moment. Then she said:

  “And what, if you don’t mind my asking, do you know about Madame Bowman’s nephew, who is certainly in England at this moment?”

  “I have met him, and I gather he’s a very successful lawyer. And as for your connection with him ... well, I know perhaps a little more than you appear to know about Mademoiselle d’Evremonde and myself.”

  She felt inclined to gasp. “You fascinate me,” she assured him. “What is this connection’ between Roger Bowman and myself?”

  “Aren’t you going to marry him one day? Madame Bowman certainly hopes so!”

  “Did she tell you that?”

  “She told me quite a lot about you when she knew that you were coming out here. Patients of her type have few secrets from their doctors, and she enjoys talking. Besides, it was a matter of interest. As I say, I have met Roger Bowman on several occasions, and we have even done some climbing together. Naturally, I should wish to hear when he was thinking of getting married, and when the young lady in question was about to descend on our small circle here...”

  “You can take it from me that I have no intention of marrying Roger Bowman!” Jane was quite startled by the sound of her own voice, and the amount of angry emphasis that caused it to vibrate. And she simply didn’t understand why, all in a moment, the decision to clear up such an important point was taken and acted upon. “I don’t know why Madame Bowman should—should assume there is anything between us, but there isn’t!”

  His eyebrows arched under cover of the darkness.

  “You have quarrelled, perhaps?” he suggested smoothly.

  “Certainly not. We are old friends, and—and that is all!”

  “I see.”

  “And it’s no concern of yours in any case.”

  “Perhaps not.”

  She felt her hands shaking as she clenched them in her lap. The cool quality of his reply incensed her for some reason ... and the fact that he obviously didn’t believe her struck her as sheer impertinence.

  It was true she had said something about him being dragged away from the conservatory and Chantal ... but she had been half joking. She had said it for something to say.

  He, on the contrary, had assumed something that he had no right to assume since not even Madame Bowman had had any serious confirmation of her own wishful thinking, and the fact that she had taken the doctor into her confidence should have been respected by him. Instead of which, he sounded as if nothing—nothing would convince him that she, Jane, was telling the truth when she denied any close attachment between herself and Roger.

  “Does Madame Bowman know that her very fond hopes are likely to be frustrated?” the doctor enquired, as he drew thoughtfully on his cigarette and gazed upwards at the brightening stars above their heads.

  “No.”

  “Do you intend to tell her?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Ah! Then there was—something!”

  She wondered that he didn’t hear her gritting her small teeth.

  “Do you mind if I ask you something, Dr. Delacroix?” she said.

  “Please do. Go ahead.”

  The scent of his cigarette
seemed to encompass them, and it was very pleasant. A light behind the trees indicated that the moon was rising, and that meant that they really ought to return to the house.

  “What else did Mrs. Bowman tell you about me when she knew I was coming out here to join her?”

  “Nothing very much that I can recall.”

  “She didn’t happen to mention to you that my father committed suicide two months ago?”

  “What!”

  He turned to her, and at last she had the satisfaction of hearing genuine feeling in his voice ... that annoyingly cool, quiet voice with the faint French accent. He was startled.

  “Did she tell you that?” She didn’t know why she had made this revelation, but she had, and her whole body was shaking as a result in a slightly uncontrollable way. She bit her lower lip fiercely until it bled. “Did she? Did she?” she insisted.

  “My dear child—”

  “I want to know! I hate to be talked about unless I know what is said about me! And my father did commit suicide... although it wasn’t his fault,” rushing on in a wild and slightly incoherent manner. “It was really mine, because I let him down and didn’t stay with him, and—and—if I’d stayed with him he would probably be alive to-day! I was thinking that as you came down the steps just now! And although everything would have had to be sold up just the same it wouldn’t have mattered, because he would have been alive!”

  One hand with a small lace handkerchief crushed in the palm was clapped to her mouth, and the other was taken suddenly and strongly by the man who sat beside her. While the moon rose and cast a golden pathway across the surface of the lake, and the stars dipped and wheeled in the violet sky above them, and the snows sparkled on the mountain peaks on the other side of the lake, she heard him saying the sort of things to her that no one had said to her yet since her father’s death, and at the same time he ordered her quietly to get a grip of herself and not become hysterical.

  “I had no idea,” he assured her. “Madame , Bowman said nothing to me ... but naturally she would not do so when it was such a very personal matter. The fact that she discussed you at all was simply because she was so pleased that you were to join her. Your private griefs ... nothing of that passed her lips. But if I had known the truth—if I had had even an inkling of the truth—you must believe me when I say I would not have attempted to pry into your affairs to-night!”

  She gulped down something which sounded like a sob, and then attempted to laugh shakily.

  “You’ve asked me not to become hysterical,” she said, “and I’ve never been hysterical before in my life ... but it was something that happened tonight that seemed to tip the scales and made me feel desperately sorry for myself. I don’t know what it was, because everything went off so nicely, and Florence didn’t even lose her temper although she had to cook the dinner herself because Freda couldn’t leave her mother ... and Madame was so pleased with the way I set her hair. She may be old, but she still likes to make the most of herself—”

  “Yes, yes,” he agreed, very quietly, while he still held her hand, “all that is profoundly interesting, but it is you we are concerned about. You say that tonight something upset you? Have you any idea what it was?”

  She shook her head. The moonlight was pouring all over them now, and he could see her small, very pale and very agitated face, and the way she kept biting her lip.

  “I don’t expect it was anything. It was just me...”

  “And the fact that you suddenly realised you were rather far from home?”

  She nodded.

  “Yes, that was it.”

  “Did you cry very much when your father died?”

  “No.” She wiped a tear from her lashes with the crumpled lace handkerchief. “I couldn’t.”

  “You were too badly shocked?”

  “I ... suppose that was it.”

  “Then it’s not surprising you’re upset now, when it’s all over, and there is no one very close to sympathise with you. It often happens that way.”

  “You mean it’s a sort of passing of the numbness?”

  “You could phrase it like that if you wish.”

  “But you’re being very kind. In a way I think you’re sympathising.”

  He smiled at her. She couldn’t remember being smiled at in quite that way before, and it had an astonishing effect on her. She felt as if her heart gave a tremendous leap, and then all her pulses started throbbing wildly. Her pale face was suffused by a rush of colour, and she suddenly realised that she was allowing him to hold her hand as if he was either a very close friend, or she was someone it was perfectly natural for him to encourage and cosset, and therefore it was not in the least strange that he should go on gently squeezing her fingers. She freed them suddenly by snatching them away quickly, and they took over the maltreating of the lace handkerchief while her other hand covered them and finally both hands were rather fiercely gripping one another.

  “I’m keeping you,” she said, fascinated by the effect the moonlight had on him, and by the strong line of his jaw and the almost beautiful outline of his attractive masculine mouth. “Don’t you think we ought to go back to the house—?”

  “We will in a minute.”

  He had started to frown as he regarded her. “How do you pass your time here?” he asked. “I mean, what do you do when your time is your own?”

  She shrugged.

  “I think I spend the better part of every day out here in the garden. I love it—”

  “But that is not enough,” he declared swiftly, “to prevent a young woman of your age—and with your recent history!—from becoming a trifle restive, to say the least. You must miss your friends, your activities...”

  “Only my sister Irina,” smiling with her old demureness down into her lap, “and my half brother Toby.”

  “No one else? Not—?”

  “No.” Her eyes flashed suddenly and dangerously. “No one else!”

  He spread his hands in an attractive French gesture.

  “You must forgive me,” he said, “if my mind does appear to dwell on the possibility that there is, or could be, someone else whom you might miss. You are a very attractive young woman, and it seems only natural that someone—some man, if not Monsieur Bowman—”

  “No, no, no!” she said.

  His eyebrows arched again.

  “You are determined to have nothing to do with men?”

  “I’m not thinking of marrying one of them, if that’s what you mean.”

  “You are entirely heartwhole? You intend to remain heartwhole?”

  “I think it has its advantages over losing one’s heart to the wrong man.”

  “Ah!” he exclaimed, as if she had unwittingly given herself away. Then he stood up. “We must go back now,” he said, “otherwise you will become chilled.”

  He laid a hand lightly on her bare shoulder to discover whether or not it felt cold, and then to her concern slipped quickly out of his dinner-jacket and placed it about her shoulders. “You are a silly child,” he said, “to come down here alone at this wrong end of the day.” He frowned at the blackness of the trees whispering above the landing-stage, and he frowned still more as they began to ascend the definitely time-worn steps. “Apart from the fact that it is too lonely you might very easily twist your ankle on these steps. Don’t do it again at this time of night. Give me your word you’ll be more sensible in future.”

  “If you really think I ought to, Doctor.” There was faint mockery in the words, but her smile was brighter than it had been all evening as she peeped round at him over the shoulder of his own jacket.

  “I do.”

  “Then I’ll try and be sensible.”

  He walked at her side as they crossed the main lawn in the direction of the shrubbery, and when they entered the shrubbery his hand closed over her arm to guide her steps. Just before they reached a side entrance of the house she spoke quickly and nervously, and handed him back his jacket.

  “You’d better take
this! ... And thank you for lending it to me. I wonder whether you’d make my excuses to the rest? I—I feel I’d like to go straight upstairs to my room. Florence is staying up to see Mrs. Bowman to bed, and I’m not needed any more tonight. I—I’d escape having to say good-night to everyone...”

  “Of course. There is no need for you to say good-night.”

  He slipped back into his jacket, and then watched him disappear along the corridor ahead of him. Just before she reached the opening to the hall and the foot of the main stairs she turned and waved her hand to him. “Good-night, Doctor.”

  “Good-night.”

  Upstairs in her room she watched the cars gliding away down the drive when the party broke up. The long beams from their headlights streamed out into the road and mingled with the beauty of the moonlight.

  She saw Mademoiselle d’Evremonde slip into the seat beside the driving seat of Dr. Delacroix’s car. He was driving himself tonight, and there was no other passenger, so the arrangement was almost certainly entirely satisfactory from the Swiss girl’s point of view.

  Jane, as she heard the car purr softly into life, reflected that it was probably entirely satisfactory from the point of view of Dr. Delacroix also.

  She wondered whether Chantal had seen her wearing his dinner-jacket. It was almost certainly her face that was close to the drawing room window when they crossed the lawn in the full blaze of the moonlight.

  CHAPTER NINE

  DURING the following fortnight several invitations arrived at the Villa Magnolia for Madame Bowman and her companion. There was one to a tennis party, and another to a cocktail party. There was also one to a formal reception and dinner.

  Jane knew it was quite impossible for her employer to attend either a cocktail party or a dinner party that was not held in her own home, and she firmly refused to allow the old lady to contemplate accepting in order that she should not have to miss the entertainment offered. But Mrs. Bowman made up her mind quite firmly about the tennis party, and nothing Jane could think of to say would shake her determination.