“Wait,” he said. “Only wait!”
They went up in a lift that was less ornamental than the one at the hotel, but ten times more efficient, and Armand said good morning to the concierge, who answered with a gratified look, as if his day had been made by the encounter. He also looked a little surprised, and studied Caroline with interest, and when Armand took her arm and led her out of the lift and along the corridor he watched them with an intrigued expression on his face, for Monsieur le Comte had observed that it was going to be another fine day, and as everyone knew the weather was several degrees cooler. Also it was unlike the Comte to be out of his flat at all at this hour, and that was another cause for speculation. Very definite speculation!
Caroline realised that the lift had carried them to the very top of the building, and she felt a little awed as she glanced from a window and had a brief glimpse over a wilderness of trees to a mass of dreaming spires and gargoyles and sun-gilded roofs. It was just as if the whole of Paris was spread out like a carpet for her to gaze at.
And when Armand took a key from his pocket and opened a white-painted, glistening door another little shock of surprise was in store for her, followed by a swift uprush of appreciation. For the hall they stepped into was small but beautifully proportioned, a wave of olive grey carpet seemed to come at them, and polished sycamore doors confronted them. Armand apologised for going ahead and pushing open one of those doors, and then Caroline felt her appreciation expanding, growing, until she wanted to exclaim aloud.
She had never known such a sensation of spacious living before, and the whole of one wall seemed to be made entirely of glass, and beyond the glass flowers on the balcony waved colourfully against the pale blue sky. The room itself was a harmony of subtly different greys— blue-greys, mauvish-greys, green-greys, and even pinkish greys. There were deep armchairs and settees in pearly- grey damask, filled with cushions that repeated the tints of the ceiling, the three more solid walls, and the sycamore wood that ran waist-high around the room, and coordinated the whole. In this infinitely pleasing panelling were insets such as radiators and cabinets, and more flowers were arranged on the low shelf. An alcove was obviously a dining alcove, and the chairs had olive damask seats. The table held one single magnificent specimen of branching silver candelabra that had obviously been brought from the chateau.
“Well?” Armand demanded, at last, watching her curiously. “What do you think of my sitting-room?”
“This is your—flat?”
She managed to articulate the words, but in spite of the pleasure the room filled her with they sounded both colourless and inadequate.
“Yes—this is my flat!”
He walked to the window, and then beckoned her to come and stand beside him.
“Do you like the view? I told you I had a wonderful view, didn’t I?”
“Then you were referring to this—you really were referring to this flat, where you obviously live when you are in Paris, when you talked about living at the top of a tall building?” And she couldn’t explain that when he had first mentioned that “tall building” she had pictured it surrounded by mean streets, with the smells of cooking floating up from the basement, and perhaps garbage also, and a colony of cats indulging in musical evenings amongst the attic roofs at sunset.
“Why, naturally I was referring to the only other home I have apart from the chateau,” but the bland innocence of his expression made a tiny spurt of anger against him once more rise inside her. For she knew it was he who had deliberately fostered the “mean streets” idea when he had talked to her about sharing poverty, and the unhealthy state of his bookshop. “But it needn’t alarm you because I have brought you here,” looking at her rather whimsically, “or put any ideas of the wrong sort into that small head of yours, because my housekeeper has merely gone shopping for lunch, and she’ll be back any minute now. But before she gets back I’d like to show you the rest of the flat.”
She said, diffidently:
“Your housekeeper has gone shopping for lunch? Won’t she think it rather—rather strange when she gets back and finds me here?”
“Not at all. She’s expecting you to stay to lunch.”
“To—lunch?”
He smiled at her.
“You needn’t be afraid of her cooking—it’s excellent!” “But-
“No buts!” He swung open a door, and showed her a little room lined with books, and with a delightful marquetry table under the window holding an exquisite pair of china lamps, and a closed blotter, which was obviously the room in which he worked. There was another, more practical desk in a corner, with an angle-poise lamp on it, and a swivel chair before it, and on the sycamore shelf in this room there were several photographs in different types of frames. Armand went across and picked one up and handed it to her.
“The young lady you saw last night,” he told her. “Enchanting, isn’t she?”
Caroline looked at the pictured face carefully. Yes; she was enchanting, and she stifled a sigh inside her, because she could never possibly look like that, and Armand was watching her closely. As she handed it back she didn’t realise that her expression was most revealingly wistful.
“It would be wonderful to look like that,” she said, and
Armand returned gently:
“You shouldn’t worry—you do very well as you are!” Before they left his study she noticed that a large collection of his books were in English, and he seemed to have a complete set of Shakespeare.
Which didn’t surprise her so much when she reflected that he
was a playwright.
He showed her to the kitchen, which was so beautifully appointed that she longed to spend some time in it herself, the spare bedroom and bathroom, and finally his own bedroom. And here again she was conscious of surprise, for, as if some freakish whim had affected him when he got down to the adornment of his own sleeping chamber, he had gone in for a severity of furnishing that was hardly in keeping with the rest of the flat. True, the carpet was luxurious, and a kind of pale mushroom colour, the curtains and coverlet plain but heavy silk, but there were no touches to soften it, or render it particularly comfortable. It was even a trifle monastic, Caroline thought— and longed to do something to make it a little more habitable. Which was absurd, as she realised, when she thought about it afterwards, for such as it was it was its owners whim.
And there was no doubt about it he was, in many ways, a whimsical young man.
She expected him to say something before they left his bedroom—something to embarrass her slightly, but he didn’t. And by the time they returned to the main sitting-room his housekeeper had returned, and he introduced her, and Caroline thought her a little more tight-lipped and reserved than Monique, but obviously extremely competent in her neat black dress, and with her hair drawn into a bun that suggested she was the type who brooked no nonsense.
She endeavoured to conceal the interest she felt in Caroline from the girl herself—for, had Caroline known it, it was not a habit of the Comte’s to entertain young women to lunch at his flat, or to ask his housekeeper to prepare something special in the way of a midday meal for their benefit—and when she had left the room Armand put Caroline into a comfortable chair, and provided her with a drink. Then, until the meal was served, they talked as if they had only just got to know one another, on all sorts of subjects that interested them both.
Caroline felt a new sensation of peace and well-being come over her, ensconced in the comfortable chair, and although it seemed to her extraordinary that Armand had asked her out to lunch like this, and was wasting time on her that could probably be better—and more satisfyingly—spent, she began to feel so grateful to him for telephoning her so early that morning that she longed to be able to confide how grateful she was. It was sheer bliss to be sitting there with him, in his own home, his rightful environment—for, somehow, the chateau would never be that, she knew—and to know that she need make no effort, nor put up any sort of pretence, because he wa
s so obviously feeling the same way about things.
He looked as peaceful as she felt, lying back in his own deep chair, and there was no longer even any mockery in his eyes, or the slightest degree of teasing. His attitude was relaxed, his brown eyes quiet and watchful and a little tender sometimes, when she said something a little naive, and the little one-sided smile at the corner of his mouth was no longer in evidence. His mouth, too, had an unguarded reposefulness about it, and in repose it was a singularly beautiful and quietly strong mouth. There was no weakness in his chin, either, as she had noticed at the very beginning of their acquaintance.
Looking at him, whenever he didn’t happen to be looking at her, with all her heart in her eyes, she thought that there must be moments when he was lonely, and when he needed someone to share his life, perhaps to give him confidence, or to give a boost to his confidence when it was slipping a little. There was a sensitivity about his face, an earnestness at times, just a touch occasionally of wistfulness, and all three of these proofs of a temperament that would probably be described as “artistic” caused her heart to lurch when she glimpsed them, and she wished that she could be the one to share his life. She wished it so ardently that her desire shook her and she had to take herself very firmly in hand as she sat there facing him, in case something in her expression should give her away.
And she was lucky to be where she was—especially after last night, when she had found it impossible to get used to the idea that he had put her out of his life altogether!— and she tried to think only of how lucky she was, and to think of and live only in the moment. While it lasted it was, and should be, sufficient!
When the lunch was served she enjoyed it far more than she had enjoyed her dinner with Christopher the night before, and she felt a little guilty when she thought of Christopher, and the time he had recently devoted to her.
“I’ve no doubt,” Armand said to her at last, when they emerged from the flats after lingering over their coffee, and he once more put her into the car, “that your friend Markham has already shown you what he considers to be the sights of Paris. They’re like London and Westminster Abbey—the sort of sights not to be missed, or he would consider they shouldn’t be missed!” with such a sharp edge of dislike to his voice that it amazed her a little for she had never realised that he disliked Christopher so strongly before. “Last night, for instance, that restaurant he took you to was the sort of place I wouldn’t have taken you to—not until you were a little more prepared for it, that is! You’re not a town mouse, my little one, and that is why one has to be careful how one uses you,” letting his fingers stray over hers before he started up the car. “And this afternoon I’m going to show you something that a country mouse—at heart!—will appreciate more, I think!”
And he turned the car away from the busy heart of Paris, and soon she found herself on the way to Fontainebleau, a quiet and clean little town with a military flavour about thirty miles from the capital, and famed for its palace where Napoleon took leave of his grenadiers after his first abdication, and to which he returned after his escape from Elba.
The afternoon was not hot and brilliant, but clouded and warm, with intermittent sunshine, and an occasional refreshing breeze that reached them over the top of the wide windscreen.
The cream car travelled like a dream, eating up miles in a completely effortless manner, and Caroline knew the drive was going to be one of the high-spots of her existence right from the beginning. She lay back and let the wind sing past her ears, and her heart felt temporarily as light as air, and she refused to dwell upon how she would feel, and what would happen to their relationship, once the afternoon was over. That was something that belonged to the future, and for the moment she was living in the present.
Fontainbleau, when they reached there, proved well worth the visit, even if she had been seeing it for the first time under the auspices of someone other than Armand. They wandered through rooms that contained a good deal of the personal equipment of Napoleon I, including his hat, and his clock, and his camp-bed. They saw the magnificent Council Chamber in which he had presided, and the Throne Room, and the Queen’s Apartments, and a room hung with Gobelin’s tapestries. Caroline was fascinated by a room with a marquetry floor, and by the largest carpet she had ever seen in her life. Then they wandered in the formal gardens, and afterwards they had tea, and then drove into the forest, loud with the voices of nightingales in spring, and a pageant of colour in the autumn.
It was on the drive back that a little of the pleasure began to fade, and a feeling like apprehension began to seize hold of Caroline. She knew that she was beginning to feel secretly convinced that when the moment which should bring this day Armand—for some reason of his own—had devoted to her to an end, should be actually on top of her, some vital part of her was going to be barely able to stand up to it. For, just as he had taken it into his head to invite her out to-day, he might never invite her out again, and next week, in any case, they were going home to England. Only the day before Lady Pen had started talking about Cook’s, and getting them to make the necessary reservations; and now, when she recalled that conversation, Caroline’s hands went cold and damp inside her thin nylon gloves.
Cook’s...! Cook’s and the reservations, packing up all
their luggage, vacating their hotel rooms-----------Boarding a
Channel steamer that would take her away from France almost certainly for good....For a long time, at any rate....
She began to feel as if something inside her was like a piece of tightly stretched wire, and it couldn’t stand very much more. The least bit of unsuspected pressure and it would snap.
She watched Armand’s hands on the wheel of the car, so calm and confident. He lay back in his corner of the car, behind the wheel, driving with an ease that suggested he had been doing it since his cradle, and that his mind was completely unperturbed. Stealing side glances at him she decided that he was unperturbed...! He had been very gentle and pleasantly attentive to her all afternoon, telling her lots of things that guide books could not have told her, suggesting that she must see Fontainbleau in the autumn, when there was all that blaze of colour in the woods—just as there would be a blaze of colour in the de Marsac woods before very long!—and remarking that it was a pity she hadn’t had her holiday with Marthe Giraud.
“But perhaps, when Marthe comes out of hospital you’ll be able to see her somehow,” he said. “She ought to have a holiday... ! Shall I insist that she takes a holiday in England, and comes to see you?”
Caroline felt as if something had risen up in her throat and was about to choke her. She swallowed, and managed to speak.
“I-----Of course, I’ll always be glad to see her...”
“How soon do you return to England?” he asked, casually. “I don’t suppose Lady Pen will stay on in Paris much longer, will she? And that nephew of hers will be going back to East Africa one of these days, or so I imagine.”
“West Africa,” Caroline corrected him, although she could not think why she did so, since it was not important.
“West Africa, then....” He sent her an odd, amused sideways glance under the brim of his soft hat. “Since you’re so specific about his eventual destination you’re not thinking of going back
with him, are you?”
She bit her lip.
“You’re joking.”
“I’m not! He was looking at you as if he could eat you last night, and you’ve admitted he’s been taking you about a lot since you arrived in Paris. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if Lady Pen hasn’t got that in mind—that you’d make a nice little wife for Christopher! And, come to think of it, you would...! In a few years he’ll be terribly straight-laced, taking his job so seriously that he’ll almost certainly get whatever promotion there is to be got in that particular service these days, and with you beside him he might get almost anywhere! You’re loyal, and faithful, and upright, and moral, and you’re probably single-minded, too! You’d conceive it your d
uty to do everything you could to help him, whether it was in West Africa, or Central Africa, or one of the plague spots—if there are any that haven’t been cleaned up in this highly civilised age! And think how pleasant it would be for Christopher to have you with him all the time!”
Caroline didn’t bite her lip this time, but she knew that, a slow tear was welling into one of her eyes, and that it would spill over before very long. She could hardly believe that he was deliberately mocking at her—her whom he had admitted he loved! But, then, of course, the love had died, because she had probably killed it—just as he had said she would kill all the happiness that could ever be between them!
She widened her eyes, so that the tear wouldn’t spill over— but it was no good, it dropped on to her hand.
But he was staring at the road winding on interminably, as it now seemed, ahead of them.
“You must think of it, Caroline,” he advised. “Think of marrying Christopher...! It would solve all your problems! You wouldn’t have to go back to that nasty little room of yours, and you wouldn’t have to be dependent on Lady Pen’s affectionate charity! You’d be your own mistress, with a home of your own, and a husband who’d never let you down—for Christopher is
made that way!”
So much bitterness flooded through her that she started to shake a little. He was jibing at her now—at her state of insecurity, at her need to accept charity from others. But she wouldn’t—she needn’t! When she got back to England she would cut loose from them all, and go back to her little room. She would probably be lucky and get her job back, and if not she could get herself another....
“You know very well that you’re only talking like that in order to be—horrible!” she said, her lips shaking now as well as that traitorous thing inside her that was appalled because he had recovered so completely from what was now proved to have been nothing but a very passing infatuation. “When I get back to England,” she added, with sudden concentrated fierceness, “I hope I never see or hear of you again!”
And Be Thy Love Page 16
