The Young Nightingales

by Mary Whistler

  “I can sit in the shade while you play tennis,” she said. “And it will be good for you to meet some young people. There are bound to be quite a number at the Vansaals’.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Vansaals—they were Dutch, as their name indicated—were charming, and it seemed that they loved to surround themselves with youth. Grey-haired themselves, with a grown-up family long since married and off their hands, they took a positive delight in watching young things leaping about on tennis courts or dancing to a record-player in the cool of the evening on the terrace of their very beautiful villa that, like almost all the other villas in St. Vaizey, overlooked the lake. Or if they didn’t entertain in their own home they gave parties in hotels, and there was always a large number of invited guests.

  Jane was partnered during the afternoon by a couple of quite attractive young men, one of whom was extremely shy while the other was entirely the reverse. He was a young American, staying in St. Vaizey, who wanted to see much more of her and said so without hesitation. She found it rather difficult to extricate herself from him and his very persistent attentions, and was glad of the excuse of not being an entirely free agent to get away from him and make certain Mrs. Bowman was enjoying her China tea with a slice of lemon in the shade of some sweet-smelling limes.

  Nevertheless, she enjoyed the afternoon, and she particularly enjoyed playing tennis. Mrs. Vansaals said they would collect her in future if Mrs. Bowman didn’t feel like making the effort to come along as well, and it looked as if there were going to be a good many more afternoons of a similar kind while she remained in St. Vaizey ... and evenings, too, because the Vansaals had taken quite a fancy to her, and her new American friend threatened to call at the Villa Magnolia and detach her himself if she refused invitations and proved hard to get.

  In addition to the tennis party, and a couple of tea parties at the Villa Magnolia, Mrs. Bowman insisted that she went out as much as possible by herself. She invented excuses that would take her into the town to do shopping for her, and on wet days she was persuaded to go to the cinema in St. Vaizey. It was almost as if Mrs. Bowman had been urged to get her companion away from the villa as much as possible, for she even placed Andre at her disposal and suggested excursions that would enable her to see rather more of Switzerland than she would do if she remained chained to her employer’s side; and Jane had to remind her that her main function, and the reason for his visiting Switzerland at all, was to provide Mrs. Bowman with companionship, and earn the generous salary she was paid.

  Mrs. Bowman said, “Tut, tut,” and that was a lot of nonsense. But Jane stuck to her guns. She would consent to go shopping, and she borrowed Andre occasionally. But she never left the villa for longer than an hour or so at a time, and she was always on hand in the evenings.

  One day she went shopping for herself, and she had bought herself a new dress and some underwear, and was studying the range of cosmetics in a chemist’s window, when Dr. Delacroix’s car drew up at the kerb. He asked her to wait while he went inside and he would drive her to his house and pick up a prescription required by Mrs. Bowman. Without waiting to make certain she would do as he asked he disappeared inside the chemist’s, and when he emerged she was standing on the pavement beside his car, her parcels were hugged up in her arms and she looked as if she might drop one of them at any moment.

  He whipped open the door of his car and said he hadn’t realised she was quite so loaded.

  “You’ve been shopping?” he said. “For yourself or Madame Bowman?”

  There was a faintly guarded look about his eyes, although that didn’t prevent them roving over her and taking in the details of her somewhat carefree appearance. She was wearing one of her favourite striped sun-dresses, and there was a ribbon looped through her hair which exactly matched the sky-blue of the major set of stripes in her dress.

  “For myself,” she answered.

  As he settled her in the car she felt a little constrained, for that guarded expression in his slate-grey eyes had been the first thing she had really observed about him, and she thought she knew the reason for it. The last time they met she had made what she now thought of as a public exhibition of herself, and he had been forced to act the part of comforter. It was probably a role he didn’t entirely enjoy, and the fact that she had been observed by his girl-friend wearing his dinner-jacket might have brought about repercussions. In any case, the incident had caused them both to feel a trifle wary of one another ... and when Jane recollected how he had held her hand and she had permitted him to do so while the tears bounced off her eyelashes the colour began to burn in her cheeks.

  Having studied her intently for a moment or two, he kept his eyes glued to the road ahead as he swung the car round and they drove off along the lake shore. It was a beautiful Swiss morning and a superbly comfortable car, and Jane felt a sudden upsurge of pleasure as the breeze stirred her hair and the sunlight sparkled all about her. The warm leather of the seat as she lay back and relaxed felt like a warm glove caressing her, and for one moment as they outdistanced all other cars that were speeding along in their direction she wished that instead of being driven to pick up a prescription she was being taken somewhere for the day, and that this was the exciting prelude to some sort of an experience that was unlike anything she had ever known before.

  But her companion had little to say as they drove, and indeed he seemed so preoccupied that she gathered he was already immersed in the problems of his day. It was only ten o’clock, and he was probably on his way to his clinic ... or would be after he had disposed of her.

  She was someone he had spotted by accident, and seeing her had saved him a visit to the Villa Magnolia, which was important to a busy man like himself when it was not the day for his regular visit.

  Jane cast her mind back and realised that she had not seen him when he paid his previous visit, for the excellent reason that she must have been out ... or else she had been somewhere in the garden, and, naturally, he hadn’t bothered to ask for her.

  “It was lucky you saw me,” she remarked, for something to say, when the silence began to prey on her nerves.

  “I beg your pardon?” He glanced at her swiftly. “Did you say it was lucky I saw you?”

  “Yes. Because I can save you the trouble of delivering Madame’s tablets yourself. Although I suppose you could have posted them to her.”

  He frowned.

  “Posted them to her? Why—er—yes, I suppose I could.”

  They had arrived in a quiet backwater of St. Vaizey which was entirely new to Jane, and she thought it was delightful with its shady lime trees and white-fronted houses standing well back from the road in dignified gardens. One of these houses had a brass plate beside its front door and green sun-blinds over the windows, and the doctor’s car drew to a standstill outside it, and he slipped out and held open Jane’s door for her to alight also.

  “This is where you live?” She looked up at it with open interest for a moment, and then as she saw him studying her almost gravely she flushed. “Of course, I can see it is. There’s a brass plate beside the door.”

  “That’s very observant of you.”

  She couldn’t tell whether his dryness was sarcastic, or whether he was merely a little distrait and not really conscious of what he was saying.

  She followed him up the steps, and he stood aside for her to enter the welcome coolness of the house. It was a coolness that came at you, like a welcome wave in an arid desert.

  She had wondered more than once what his background was like, and now she was seeing it for herself. The tiled hall was spacious and gleaming with polish, and there were one or two handsome pieces of furniture like a dark oak side table that stood out against the severe white walls. The thing that surprised her was a great bowl of flowers on the oak side table, and she wondered who it was who was capable of such an artistic arrangement, and went to so much obvious trouble for the benefit of the doctor’s patients.

  Jules Delacroix swung open a door on his right,
and he put Jane into a room that surprised her still more and charmed her immediately.

  There was nothing like it at the Villa Magnolia, and almost certainly Mrs. Bowman would consider it sparse and comfortless, for there were no pot plants and no cascades of draperies at the windows. Instead, everything suggested a symphony in varying tones of grey and green, and the quality of the tapestry that covered the chairs, the thickness of the carpet and the paintings that adorned the walls indicated a lavishness of expenditure that must have shocked Mrs. Bowman when she visited the house because comparatively little by her standards had been received in exchange.

  But Jane—who had never lived with a background quite like this, for her stepmother’s tastes ran to flamboyance in a modern way—felt her eyes widen with appreciation as she looked around her. She noted that here, too, there were flowers ... but only because it was summer and flowers were rioting in the gardens outside. She felt that normally Dr. Delacroix would not admit them, and in any case he preferred the satin surfaces of his furniture unmarked by bowls or vases.

  But that, of course, was because he was a bachelor. When he married—and almost certainly, if he married Mademoiselle d’Evremonde —a change that would be quite considerable would come over the whole appearance of the house.

  She turned impulsively, as he stood behind her, and said:

  “It’s nice!”

  Then once again she felt herself flushing ridiculously because all at once his eyes appeared to be quizzing her.

  “Do you really think so? I’m glad!”

  The flush burned like a rosy glow in her cheeks.

  “You must forgive me if I sound surprised,” she apologised. “Only—only after all the lovebirds and the antimacassars and—”

  “I understand perfectly.” He laid a hand lightly on her shoulder. “Do sit down. I must have a word with my secretary and see about those tablets, and then I’ll rejoin you. In the meantime you must have some coffee.” He pressed a bell and a manservant appeared. “Bring coffee for Mademoiselle, Pierre,” he instructed.

  The manservant withdrew, after gazing in a faintly surprised manner at Jane—or so she thought.

  Left alone, Jane sank down into one of the very comfortable chairs, and let out a faint sigh of pure pleasure because she really did like the room. She thought the pictures were a trifle sombre, and they were certainly not representative of modern art, and she thought a bowl of red roses on a lovely inlaid table in the window would be absolutely perfect, but otherwise there was very little that was lacking, and she was quite sure Dr. Delacroix entertained very elegantly here when the mood took him.

  She went over to a pile of magazines and selected one and was leafing through it when Pierre brought her coffee ... and shortly after that a slim, dark-haired girl of about her own age looked into the room and smiled at her with very friendly brown eyes, and enquired whether she was quite comfortable.

  “I’m Dr. Delacroix’s secretary,” she said. “He has asked me to make sure your coffee is all right.”

  “Thank you, it’s excellent.”

  Jane smiled back, thought she detected a look of interest in the other girl’s eyes, and then began to grow slightly agitated after she was left alone again and the minutes ticked by without any sign of the doctor, for she always liked to be back in time to help Florence set the table for lunch.

  She leafed through more magazines, thought the silence of the house—save when a mellow grandfather clock in the hall chimed the half-hour—was like the silence of a sheltered pool, and almost certainly excellent for jagged nerves if one wasn’t thinking about Florence and the amount of work that she had to get through now that Freda couldn’t leave her mother; and then fairly leapt up out of her chair in relief when Dr. Delacroix returned to the room.

  One of his eyebrows upraised itself rather comically above its fellow as he saw how relieved she was.

  “Don’t tell me you thought I’d forgotten you?” he said.

  She shook her head.

  “Of course not. But I was worrying about getting back. You see, I have to walk back, arid I promised Florence I’d help her with the lunch—”

  “Never mind Florence.” He pushed her gently back into her chair. “And as for walking back— well, of course I wouldn’t permit that. But in any case, there’s no question of your going home for lunch ... unless you want to, that is. I’ve telephoned Madame Bowman and have her permission to take you out to lunch, and afterwards to show you some of the countryside beyond St. Vaizey. Of course, I can’t hope to compete with the advantages of one of our local conducted tours—”

  “You are going to take me out to lunch?”

  She found it so difficult to believe that she wondered whether there had been something in the coffee that had disagreed with her, and she was imagining things.

  “Yes ... unless, as I said before, you particularly object.”

  She stared up at him from the depths of what was most surely his most comfortable armchair.

  “B-but it isn’t a question of whether I object or not. What about—what about...?” She was going to say Mademoiselle Chantal, but something in his expression made it impossible, and she felt shy and confused. She subsided into silence, and he smiled.

  “Well? Are you very anxious to return to the Villa Magnolia and be of assistance to Florence?”

  Of course not. I mean—I like helping her, and she really has had a lot to do since Freda stopped coming to us daily. But if she only has to prepare lunch for Madame...”

  “You will consider my invitation?”

  Her wide blue eyes met his fully, and a curious excitement stirred in her. For the first time she realised that he had changed out of his dark professional suit and was more casually dressed in a lighter suit, and for some reason he actually appeared younger ... not as he had looked when she first met him, when there was something hard and resistant and slightly ruthless about him, and his age was more or less indeterminate. Now, with a silk scarf tucked inside his shirt instead of a formal collar and tie, and his beautifully brushed dark hair gleaming in the solitary bar of sunlight that found its way into his charming room round an edge of one of the green sun-blinds, he could even be described as looking distinctly boyish and rather eager.

  She stood up quickly and the colour rose in her face.

  “Oh, it’s very nice of you to ask me, Doctor, and I really would love to accept,” she got out in a little rush, “but—”

  “You are so full of ‘buts’,” he chided her.

  “Well, what about Madame’s tablets, and ... What about you? I thought you were very busy—”

  “It is a long time since I had a whole day off,” he explained, “and I have consulted with my secretary and she sees no reason why I shouldn’t absent myself today.” He smiled whimsically. “She is not so determined to keep my nose glued to the grindstone as you apparently are. And as for Madame s tablets, she is not waiting for them, having a sufficient supply to last her for several days yet; and it will be quite in order if you hand them over to her when you return to the villa. Now, are there any other objections that you would like to raise?”

  She shook her head.

  “None whatsoever.”

  “Good!”

  He took her by the arm and led her towards the door. But at the door he paused. “You have been sitting here for some time, and you probably feel that the facilities of a bathroom would be desirable.” He was gazing at her in such a way that the strange excitement she had experienced before seemed to rise higher in her throat, and although he was also smiling it wasn’t the smile that affected her. “Your nose doesn’t look to me as if it needs powdering, but you probably think that it does. There is a cloakroom at the end of the corridor. I will wait for you here in the hall.”

  She smiled back at him gratefully.

  “I won’t be long.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  WHEN she set out immediately after breakfast that morning to do some personal shopping Jane had no ide
a that such a day was in store for her. If she had known it might have spoiled some of the pure pleasure of it.

  She was glad of the opportunity to wash her hands and re-do her face in the beautifully fitted cloakroom to which she was directed; and when she rejoined Jules Delacroix in the hall she was looking fresh as a flower, and even the ribbon in her hair had been re-tied. He bowed to her ceremoniously in acknowledgement of the efforts she had made.

  “You are charming, Mademoiselle Jane ... no; I will go further than that. You are completely beautiful in a very English way!”

  “Thank you.” She smiled at him. “Of course, if I’d known I was going out to lunch I would have worn something different from this,” touching the skirt of the striped dress apologetically. “I would have dressed for the occasion.”

  “Then I’m glad you didn’t know. You are rather more than satisfactory as you are,” and there was a look in his strange grey eyes that were so blackly and thickly lashed as he spoke that brought her up short as if she had stumbled.

  For one moment she looked back into his eyes, and then she looked quickly away. Never in the whole of her life had the moment seemed so rare and full of promise ... and yet there was no reason why it should. He was merely being kind. She must remember that he was merely being kind because she had made a fool of herself the other night, and very nearly wept all over him.

  As they walked out to his car she received the distinct impression that eyes watched them, and when she looked round at the window of what was obviously his consulting-room his secretary smiled at her over the net curtains that screened the lower half of the window.

  She felt surprised. So even his secretary approved of him taking her out and neglecting his patients in order to do so!