Kingfisher Tide

by Jane Arbor

"I hope so, though I didn't have time to look them up until I shut the shop. The story was on the grapevine by about three, and after that everyone who wasn't up at the Haute Foret seemed to look in to chew it over. Hoping to be there when you were brought in on a stretcher, I daresay, but mostly lacking the nerve not to buy something while they waited. I did a roaring trade in consequence."

  Rose laughed. "You would, you opportunist ! But thanks all the same." She stretched luxuriously. "What's the time?"

  "Sevenish. I gather we're to dine out here, to save your needing to move. I met Saint-Guy in the hall and he'll be out for drinks in a few minutes, he said. By the way, have you rung Sylvie about all this?" asked Blaise.

  "Not yet, but I ought to, if I may. Supposing she rang the flat and got no answer—"

  As Rose spoke she made to get up, but Blaise forestalled her. "Stay where you are," he ordered. "The phone in the room behind us is on an extending cord which reaches out here. I'll bring it to you."

  While she got Sylvie's number and talked he prowled rather restlessly about the terrace, returned to the room, then stood in its open french window until she had finished.

  She replaced the receiver and looked back and up at him. "That's all right, and thanks so much," she began. At which he was beside her chair in a stride, but instead of taking the instrument from her he knelt, bringing his face level with hers, looked deeply into her startled eyes for a moment, then drew her gently forward into his arms and kissed her full upon the lips, just as footsteps sounded in the room behind them and someone—the second sight of love told Rose it was Saint-Guy—halted on the threshold of the window.

  "Blaise! What—?" She wrenched her lips free and he stood. Saint-Guy remained motionless where he was, the three of them in a silent tableau of anticlimax until Saint-Guy turned on his heel and spoke to his mother just behind him, her view of the terrace obscured by his figure, Rose hoped.

  "I'm sorry, Mother." His tone was clipped, cool, formal. "I won't bother with drinks here after all. Flore has just rung up and I shall be dining with her. Don't wait up for me. I may be late."

  "Oh, Saint-Guy—tonight ?" The other two heard the faint dismay in Madame's voice before she added quickly, "Of course, though, naturally you want to spend the evening with Flore. But see me in the morning, won't you ? I shall be awake—"

  Then he was gone without a backward glance at the terrace. Now, avoiding her eyes, Blaise took the telephone from Rose, looping up the slack of the cord, and Madame Saint-Guy came over to her chair.

  "I left you in a lovely sleep, my dear. How are you feeling now ?" she said.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  LATER Rose was to remember the rest of that evening as a nightmare of frustration affording not a single moment in which she could demand of Blaise what he had meant by a kiss so utterly out of context with anything which had gone before, so uninvited by any word or attitude of hers.

  Why had he done it? Why then? It was almost as if he had chosen a moment when, immobilised by her sling and bandages and by the telephone handset she was nursing, her immediate reaction could be nothing more violent than blank surprise. Moreover, he had said himself that Saint-Guy was on his way to join them for drinks and for dinner. He could also have reckoned that Madame Saint-Guy would be coming too. So even if he had been struck by a strange, unrelated impulse to kiss her, why yield to it then ? He must have known she would not go on registering dumb surprise, and who ever wanted witnesses to the kind of exchange which would naturally have followed if they had remained alone?

  They were questions which were to go unanswered by so much as a single direct look from Blaise, and Madame, entirely unaware of tension, took drinks with them, was her usual gracious self over dinner, and when the night air grew cool, decreed that it was time Rose went to an early bed.

  So that meant there would be no explanations from

  Blaise that night, thought Rose as she undressed. But the next time she got him alone— ! She hadn't wanted to take the sleeping pills the doctor had ordered, but she did, knowing that without them she might spend the hours puzzling, debating and agonising over more than Blaise's peculiar, irrelevant urge to kiss her with the passionate warmth he had.

  Supposing, for instance, Saint-Guy had stayed for drinks and for dinner? Would he have continued to ignore the incident, as he had for the moment he was on the terrace before he left? Or would he, more naturally, have questioned or teased Blaise about it; questioned her?

  If only he had ! She did not know how much he knew of Blaise's pursuit and rejection of Sylvie. But if he knew all about it, she dreaded the thought of his opinion of her now. If he believed he had interrupted a tender scene between her and Blaise, he must think she had filched Blaise from Sylvie. So a question—just one !—and she could have dispelled that idea for the little it was worth. But he hadn't stayed--(or cared enough ?)—to put the question. Instead he had taken away with him indefinitely a picture of her, apparently complacent and yielding to Blaise's kiss.

  `Indefinitely .. .' That brought her to something else which hurt beyond all reason. For it had emerged at dinner that his brief exchange with his mother had referred to his departure, very early the next morning, for England.

  For England ! On business, of course, which was no concern of Rose's. But somehow his omission to mention his visit to her own country—or Blaise's omission, or Madame's—pinpointed for her just how far out-

  side Saint-Guy affairs she and Sylvie really were.

  They had been offered kindness, help, hospitality, a long way beyond their first bleak hopes. But when they were gone a few months hence, would even Blaise remember them for long?

  That was the depth her depression and self-pity reached before the sedative did its work and she fell asleep. Later, though how much she was too bemused to know, she roused slightly to a sound which might have been her bedroom door being either opened or shut. Then drowsiness claimed her again and she slept.

  Very early the next morning she woke to the sound of a car. That would be Saint-Guy on his way to Nice or Hyeres airport. She lay for a while, wondering whether last night had to be real, then got up and was bathed and dressed well before her breakfast of coffee and rolls was brought to her room. Her shoulder, though stiff, was giving her no pain, as she gratefully told Madame when she went downstairs, ready to go back to the shop.

  Madame said, "Very well, my dear, if you think you should. Blaise will drive you, of course, and I think you will find him in the garage now, working on his car. And remember, will you, that if you would rather not be alone tonight, you have only to ring up later in the day, if he isn't spending it with you, and he shall come down and bring you back this evening?"

  Blaise's head was under the bonnet of his car, but he lowered it and leaned against it as Rose approached.

  "Look—" he began.

  "Not here, Blaise, please." She cut him short, glancing at her watch. "If you'll take me now, there'll be time to . . . talk before I need open the shop. Because we've got to talk, haven't we?"

  He shrugged. "I suppose so."

  In the flat he waited until she took a chair, and then went to support himself on a windowsill. Without preliminaries Rose said, "Last night—you know what I mean—what was it all about ?"

  "Don't you know ?" he countered. "You must have seen it coming !"

  "Seen what coming?"

  He shrugged again. "Why, all of it. Do I have to spell it out ? Mon dieu, Rose, you're not so dumb that you can pretend you don't know what it means when a man kisses you—like that !"

  "Dumb enough—when the man in question was supposed to be courting my sister only a week or two back !"

  Blaise bit his lip. "That was a bit below the belt, wasn't it? And I did try to tell you—on Sunday, on Ste. Marguerite."

  Rose thought she saw light. "You mean the 'shabby thing' you spoke about was a switch of your feelings from Sylvie to me?"

  "That ? Heavens, no. No, I meant I angled for an opening by saying you would
be rewarding to make love to only to be snubbed for my pains. So last night on the terrace—"

  "You chose the direct approach? You kissed me by way of telling me that, about as quickly as you were attracted to Sylvie, you had now fallen for me?"

  He half turned from her to outline a windowpane with his thumbnail before he replied. "That's about the size of it," he muttered.

  "And to let me know it, you chose a place and a time when I could hardly slap your face and when you knew we weren't likely to be alone for more than a few minutes ?"

  "It—just came over me. And I wasn't to know how long Saint-Guy meant to be before he came out. Nor that my aunt would shepherd you like a ewe lamb until she trundled you off to bed. I did debate coming to your room to see if you would let me explain. But I knew you were doped and might be asleep."

  "So you didn't come?"

  "Only as far as your door. I did turn the handle. Why ?"

  "Because I heard you, half in and half out of sleep. But what," Rose appealed, "did you expect me to do —or say ? I like you, Blaise. You know I do. You've been kind and brotherly and you were sweet with Sylvie, I thought. But I've never wanted you in any other way. Besides, if I were in danger of falling in love with you, the way you treated Sylvie wouldn't exactly have—helped. You weren't very honest with her, were you ? You left it to me."

  He jerked his head in distaste. "You don't have to rub in it. And if I'd fallen out of love with her, you don't suggest I should have gone on ?"

  "No. But equally there's no future either, where I am concerned. For instance, until she gets over you, what do you suppose Sylvie's feelings would be if she guessed you had turned over to me instead?"

  "I hoped she mightn't have to know until—"

  "Mightn't have to know ! Oh, Blaise, be your age, do ! She's still in love with you, and any girl you look at will be suspect in her eyes for a long time to come. So, whether or not you're sincere about me, I dare you—dare you, do you hear?—to do or say anything that would allow her to guess. After all," Rose added, "we shan't be here very much longer now, and when we've gone you can forget us both."

  He was silent at that. They both were until Rose, conscious of her cruelty if he were indeed sincere, added hesitantly, "I'm sorry, Blaise. I know— That is—(safer to put the confession in the past tense !)-- I have known what it is not to be wanted by.. . the other person. But try to understand and help me, won't you ?"

  "If that's the way you want it, I've no choice, have I?" he said unhelpfully.

  Rose sighed. "No." A sudden thought struck her. "Tell me one thing. While it lasted for you, you were being straight with Sylvie? All this about me has only blown up since you dropped her?"

  "Of course I was sincere with Sylvie ! Why?"

  "Because all along Flore Michelet has claimed you weren't, that it was me you were really interested in. She even told me that more than once you had led people to think so. Had you ?"

  "Never, while I wanted Sylvie."

  "Are you sure? What about once when she insisted you lunched with her and Saint-Guy and Marie-Claire Odet in St. Tropez ?"

  "Oh—then ?" Blaise frowned, thinking. "Yes—I'm not sure. But if I did, it was deliberate, and for Saint Guy's consumption, not hers."

  "Why for his?"

  "Because I knew I was falling for Sylvie and I wasn't having him managing the affair for me, nor using Sylvie as a lever to force me into a job I should hate. So I believe I did sing your praises instead. But if Flore says I ever did it again while I was chasing Sylvie, you don't have to believe her. When it suits her whim, she isn't noted for strict truth. Or had you noticed that?"

  "I had, in fact," said Rose quietly. "But though you know that about her, it doesn't seem to deter you from talking business with her on occasion."

  "Business?" His echo was sharp. "Oh, you mean the last time she came to look me up here? That was —just an idea in which she wanted to interest me. But when she wants something for herself, she hasn't many scruples about scheming for it. Which is something Saint-Guy will need to watch, once they're married."

  "They are going to marry, then ?"

  "I believe she's pretty certain he will ask her in so many words when he comes back from England."

  On a dying wishful thought Rose asked, "But what about Monsieur Odet? Doesn't she see almost as much of him as of Saint-Guy?"

  Blaise shook his head. "Claude is only her second string. Among other disadvantages he has a grownup daughter to whom Flore would hate to be a stepmother." He levered himself from the window sill, looked at his watch. "Time you were opening up below, chérie." A diffident pause. "I suppose, in the circumonnres, you would rather I weren't around for a while?"

  Rose smiled bleakly "It would be best. I—I'm sorry, Blaise."

  You don't have to be. Just one of those things." As he crossed the room he touched her on the shoulder and his finger tilted her chin. He said (thinking of Sylvie?), "May I be forgiven—" before he went out and down the stairs, taking too many happy memories with him.

  For their luncheon party in Cannes, Sylvie had chosen a small, exclusive restaurant noted for its chef, its Provencal menu and its tasteful décor.

  "It doesn't look much from the outside, but they say Royalty dines there quite often, so I thought it would be good enough for us," she said ingenuously over the telephone to Rose.

  Her hosts were a 'young' middle-aged couple, their daughter a chubby girl of Sylvie's age. To Rose's relief Sylvie, outwardly at least, seemed fairly happy and relaxed; the other three were easy to know, and the meal was congenially at the coffee stage when Sylvie touched Rose on the arm.

  "Flore Michelet—at the table but two to our right," she said.

  Rose looked, at the same moment as Flore glanced their way and raised a hand in greeting. She appeared to hesitate a moment, then to excuse herself to her own party, and came over.

  Sylvie made introductions. Flore said, "Well, well ! Fancy your discovering Chez Pierre !" her brilliant smile congratulating them all, her tone, to Rose's prejudice, implying they were guilty of an impertinence. To Sylvie she went on,

  "You have been staying over here, haven't you ? But I expect you have been kept up to date with Maurinaire news? For instance, you'll come back to find Rose's heroism is the toast of the place ! And I daresay she will have told you herself how Blaise's devotion to her has suddenly flared? So much so that we are all wondering when we are to be told just how far their affaire has gone !"

  Rose blanched. Sylvie's grasp of spoken French, though improved, was still slow, and Rose agonised for her through the long beat of time she took to absorb the import of Flore's words.

  When she did the effect was almost too cruel to witness. Her stricken look went from Flore's face to Rose's and back again. "Their—affair?" she faltered.

  "Why, Sylvie— !" began Mrs. Eliot, her friend's mother. But she had already pushed back her chair and fled from the table. Flore looked after her in well-simulated surprise.

  Her gaze innocently wide, "What have I said ?" she asked Rose. "Doesn't she know?"

  With difficulty Rose controlled her tongue. "Know what? Considering there's nothing to know about an affair between Blaise and me, how could she?"

  Flore laughed, not mirthfully. "Nothing? Oh, come ! How are you going to convince her of that, when she has only to ask Blaise himself and he'll have to admit it ?"

  Rose said coldly, "Don't worry. I can convince her. She won't need to apply to Blaise."

  But Flore with an indifferent shrug had turned away and was already on her way back to her own party.

  Rose turned quickly to Alys Eliot. "If Sylvie has confided anything to you about a man named Blaise Varon, explain him to your people, will you ?" she asked, then excused herself and hurried after Sylvie.

  But Flore had the last word.

  On the way to the cloakroom where Sylvie had taken refuge Rose had to pass her table, and momentarily Flore's fingertips touched her hand.

  "Didn't I agree wi
th you that one need never bet on certainties?" she murmured silkily. "Remember ?"

  Later Rose was to recall the ensuing mental struggle with Sylvie as an ordeal she would not relive for a king's ransom.

  Sylvie had enough social sense to be easy to persuade that they owed their guests the courtesy of returning to them as soon as possible and making light of the incident as an inexplicable misreading on Flore's part of Rose's relations with Blaise. But afterwards there was the long journey home and, once there, the full floodtide of Sylvie's bitter doubt to be stemmed.

  At first Sylvie raged that she wanted no more of Maurinaire or any of its works. Ignoring the happy, carefree, sunlit days they had enjoyed, she declared it had brought her nothing but misery, rejection and now betrayal. How could Blaise? How could he— ! Worse still, how could Rose—? Rose !—who must have been biding her time, waiting until she herself was out of the way, to snatch Blaise from her; Blaise, whom she never wanted to see again, once she had taken Flore's advice and demanded the truth !

  That was the worst of her hysteria, and it passed,

  in face of Rose's dogged, sincere assurance that they both had more to fear from Flore's unexplained

  malice than Sylvie had from any imaginary betrayal on the part of either Blaise or Rose.

  But Sylvie, though calmer, still insisted, "No smoke without fire. She must think she knows something about you and Blaise. Otherwise she would never dare—" which thrust Rose on to less sure ground, knowing that in her turn she dared not tell Sylvie of Blaise's kiss and his claim that she had taken Sylvie's place with him.

  However, she told herself she had effectually quenched any hopes he may have had. She must simply trust him to keep faith with her to cause Sylvie no suspicion of his change of heart. Moreover, Rose had been granted a breathing-space. Saint-Guy, who had been the only witness of the kiss, was in England, and a day or two earlier Blaise had also gone away.