Kingfisher Tide

by Jane Arbor

  "Dear, you must take my word for it for the moment," she told Sylvie. "While you were in Cannes Blaise came here just once. He drove me down after I 'had spent the night at the Château. After that I didn't see him again and when he went away he didn't even ring up to say he was going. Madame Saint-Guy told me, the next time I saw her."

  "Where has he gone?" Sylvie asked suspiciously.

  "Vaguely up the Rhône, to one of the hydro-electric schemes to visit a friend of his, one of the engineers. But he didn't leave any address, even with Madame."

  "Running away from me, I suppose. Afraid that, sooner or later, I'd make a scene. As if—as if—" Sylvie's lip quivered and the angry tears welled—"he were worth a scene !"

  At the fighting sound of that Rose took heart. "That's better," she said. "If you can hate the thought of him a little, it will help. But don't hate me, Sylvie, please. I've never had a tremor of the same feeling you had for him, and when you can remember him in the mild way I do, I'll know you're cured of him and I'll be very, very glad."

  But that still left the danger of Saint-Guy's witness. Rose thought it unlikely Blaise had confided in him. That night on the terrace he had appeared too surprised, somehow almost—affronted; certainly disapproving. (Had Sylvie then been so far out, when she had claimed he considered her 'not good enough?' After all, she and Sylvie were stepsisters. . . .) But when he came back he would surely expect some development of the affair and, however innocently, might betray her to Sylvie.

  Therefore he must be intercepted, told the truth that there was nothing between her and Blaise. And little as she liked the prospect, she knew it must be faced.

  But he had been back at the Chateau for some days before they met, and when they did it was on an unexpectedly peremptory message from him.

  Madame Brissac brought it to her in Madame Saint-Guy's study.

  M'sieur wished to see her before she left for the day. Therefore, even if she had finished her work for Madame, would she be so good as to wait for him to come to her there in about half an hour's time ?'—its tone so much more of an order than of a request that, though she was ready to leave, she had no choice but to obey.

  So this was it. Sylvie had been right; they had in-

  deed both been written off as acceptable connections by marriage with the Saint-Guys; this was to be a timely warning to her before her supposed affair with Blaise went any further.

  She told Madame Brissac that of course she would wait for M'sieur,' but her half-hour of waiting put her in no compliant mood.

  "Blaise and I? Just how premature can you get?" Though she knew she would not put it so crudely, that was the gist of the proud retort she planned, and by the time Saint-Guy arrived she was spoiling to make it.

  But his expression, the grim meticulous care with which he closed the door behind him warned her that she had wasted her prepared defence; that, whatever the purpose of the interview, he intended it should go his way, not hers. For he was bringing to it the same dangerous pressure of anger he had barely controlled against Blaise on the night of Sylvie's accident. But why again now—against herself ?

  She was soon to know, and it had nothing to do with Blaise. She was standing and he did not invite her to sit. And his opening was a question so seemingly irrelevant that it made her gasp.

  "When I engaged you to help my mother with her affairs, wasn't it in the same capacity as you had worked in England—as a confidential secretary ?" he asked.

  "As a—? Why, yes," she faltered.

  "The operative word being 'confidential' ? Or don't you—" the irony was deliberately barbed—"understand what that implies?"

  Rose flushed with chagrin. "Of course I do ! Have you any reason to suppose otherwise ?"

  He said carefully, "I hope I haven't. But I believe I have, in that I suspect you of gossip—or, worse still, outright malicious disclosure of confidential facts and figures relating to your work for my mother. What have you to say to that ?"

  Rose stared, though hardly seeing him for indignation. "What have I to say?" she demanded. "Why, to deny it, of course ! For I have never gossiped, never discussed Madame's correspondence even with Sylvie, and certainly never mentioned any figures outside this room !"

  "No? Though Flore Michelet tells me that you were willing enough to listen when she told you casually something of our circumstances— However, let that pass. At that stage it was a not unnatural interest in us. But this—this is something entirely different, and it can only have emanated from—here !" His knuckles rapped the desk between them, pointing his meaning.

  "But what has emanated ? I don't understand— !"

  "Figures mainly. Figures so uncannily accurate to the facts that they could only have been disclosed by someone of the few people who knew and dealt with them. Among the few—you. And you—the only person with any possible motive for drawing deductions from them and subsequently making such deductions public property outside this house."

  "I still don't understand," Rose insisted. "The only figures I have ever dealt with have been those of Madame's cheques to her various charities—"

  "Exactly. But a great many of them and some of them large, even astronomically so, you may have considered ?"

  "I have never 'considered.' I shouldn't regard it as

  my business. And even if I had, what possible deductions could I make from them?"

  "Enough, I daresay, for your purpose. Though if you are responsible, it's a petty revenge to which I never supposed you could stoop."

  "Revenge? Against whom ?"

  "Against me. If not personally, against what I stand for. If you remember, you've made no secret of your scorn for the way in which my family uses its privilege. So I can only conclude you hit on this idea of damaging tattle as a means of, as it were, cutting us down to size. Which I find despicable."

  "As I should too—if I were guilty of it. But I'm not. What's more, I haven't a clue as to how such gossip could harm you, whoever may have spread it."

  "No? Then may I give you a sample of the whispers to which people are being coaxed to listen ? Accurate figures first—'So many francs given away to this Trust; even more squandered on that Fund. This folly repeated month in, month out to a total tune of thousands . . . Is this true? But yes indeed—the accounts have been seen!' And then the inferences—`And who signs the money away? Who backs it all, makes this foolishness of Madame's possible? Why, who but M'sieur himself? Even though such sums would tax the fortunes of a Croesus, yet he pays them. Risking bankruptcy, they say . . . And when that happens, what about us? What then for Maurinaire? Charity should surely begin at home, and if the estate is going to fail us, shouldn't we be better off encouraging the tourists?"'

  At the bitter mimicry of his tone, Rose controlled

  her own anger with difficulty. "And you dare to suggest I fostered such talk ?" she demanded.

  "If you didn't supply the figures that set it going, who did ? Am I to suspect my bank, our auditors or my mother ?" he countered.

  Rose said proudly, "Suspect whom else you like. I insist that you believe I have treated as confidential every figure and every sentence I have written for Madame."

  "I'd like to, if the evidence didn't point so surely your way."

  "Only my way?" Rose turned reckless. "For instance, you say you know that Madame Michelet has casually discussed your affairs with me. And isn't she enough in Madame's confidence—and yours—to know something about the actual figures in question ?"

  He said shortly, "You can leave Flore out of this. I assure you she has neither any knowledge of my mother's private accounts, nor any possible interest in setting people's faith in my family by the ears."

  "And you believe I could have. Though why you should fear that anything belittling I could say could dent Maurinaire's loyalty to you, I can't imagine."

  "Then you don't understand the pressures at work in a community which depends, as Maurinaire does, on only one source of livelihood—the estate. If that goes, everythi
ng goes. But until it must, I object strongly to having either my mother's generosity called into question, or the fear of disaster put into my tenants' minds." He paused. "Perhaps you notice I say, 'Until it must?' "

  Rose stared in disbelief. "You mean—? Oh, no !"

  "That the risk exists, yes. With the invention of synthetics the cork industry isn't all it once was, and we are far from being the only estate to suffer. It could be only a short-term setback. After all, rubber went through worse slumps and still lives. And it could be weathered by standing-off labour and cutting wages. But that has never been the Saint-Guy way. Other expedients have to be found, and while I'm casting about for them, perhaps you can appreciate my reluctance to have my good faith doubted until it has been proved a failure?"

  "Yes." Rose bit her lip, her first thought dismay and sympathy for him, her second a brief, guilty relief that after all wealth was not such a barrier between them, that he knew his difficult times too—But that passed and she said aloud, a little humbly, "Thank you for telling me. I didn't know."

  "You weren't meant to. For morale's sake, no one was."

  "But you believe ... you hope there may be a chance of recovery ?"

  "Given the success of certain negotiations, it's very possible. But meanwhile," as he spoke he studiedly avoided her eyes, "until the question of this leakage has been cleared up, you'd probably prefer to discontinue your work here?"

  Stating, not asking, Rose said flatly, "You mean you would prefer it, and I understand that. But may I put just one point in my defence? Surely you should look instead for someone who does know about the estate's difficulties?"

  "And who also has access to my mother's accounts

  and who wishes to harm me in Maurinaire's eyes?" He shook his head. "No, I'm afraid that calls for the dovetailing of too many factors. Unless—" now his look was direct, accusing—"do you know where Blaise is to be found?"

  Momentarily the switch of topic left Rose groping for the connection in his mind. But when she saw it and guessed the question was intended to take her off guard, she ignored it.

  "That's all it needed ! You actually suspect Blaise and me of being in this together ! I had the access; he had the grudge. It adds up, you think? Well, if you can believe that, you'll believe anything—Monsieur Saint-Guy !" she raged, then left him, too proud and too angry now to enlist his silence on Sylvie's behalf, and hearing the closing of the door behind her as the ultimate finality between herself and him.

  It was not until later that a connection fell into place in her own mind and sheer raw hurt took over from anger.

  `Given the success of certain negotiations' . . . the estate might be saved. That forecast his hope of support, the promise of help . . . money from somewhere. Flore Michelet's money, without a doubt. Not as a loan, nor as her generosity to a dying cause, but the riches in her own right which she would bring with her as the new mistress of the Château . . . as Saint-Guy's bride.

  The next morning there were two letters for Rose.

  One was headed with the Saint-Guy crest, a short

  friendly note from Madame. She had been called sud-

  denly to Avignon, to the possible deathbed of a lifelong friend. Therefore for a short time there would be no work for Rose to do at the Chateau. Her stay in Avignon might be indefinite, but when she returned she would hope to call on Rose's help again. Enclosed was a cheque which paid for her services up to date, and finally Madame was 'Yours gratefully.'

  It was little enough balm to Rose's sore spirit, but it was something. At least the cheque, written and signed by Saint-Guy, did not cover a figure in lieu of dismissal, and Rose believed that Madame meant her to read between the lines of her letter that she did not think Rose guilty and was using the chance of her own absence from home to give time for the ugly affair to be cleared up.

  Dear Madame! thought Rose. Dear Madame—who 'lived' noblesse oblige to the very core of its spirit and meaning, and who would not understand that outraged pride and a love that had no future had already made the Chateau a no-man's land which Rose told herself she would not willingly visit again.

  The other letter was an airmail from her Tante Elise, and when Rose had read it through she passed both missives over to Sylvie.

  Overnight she had given Sylvie the gist of her stormy interview with Saint-Guy, so that Sylvie understood Madame's letter for what it was—a gentle cover-up for the harshness of his accusations—and her only comment on it was an indignant, "I should think so ! I don't know how they dared— !" But from the South African letter she looked up and across at Rose.

  "Then this means," she hesitated, "that—if we

  choose—we could—go back to England quite soon? Well before our year here is up?"

  Rose nodded agreement. "You got the sense of it? Good for your French, dear ! Tante Elise does ramble a bit. But yes, that's how I take it too. You see she says her son-in-law is coming back to take a better job in Paris, that he is selling up out there and she must come back with him and her daughter much earlier than she planned. But she does say it needn't make any difference to us unless we wish."

  "I don't see how it can't. She will be needing this flat and the shop again."

  "Yes, but rather than cheat us of our year here, I suppose she means, the three of us could manage for the rest of our time. As we could, if you and I doubled up in one bedroom. Alternatively, we could leave as soon as she wants to take over from us."

  "You'd go for my sake, even though you love it here so much ? Or has that—" Sylvie indicated Madame Saint-Guy's letter—"done anything to change your mind ?"

  (If it were only that !) Aloud Rose said, "I'd rather the choice was yours, Sylvie. What do you want to do?"

  She saw the warning quiver of Sylvie's lips, the widening of the blue eyes against the threat of tears.

  "Oh, Rose, I don't know ! I don't know— You must choose. I can't care, either way," wailed Sylvie piteously, making Rose as always the one who must decide, act, move, and unaware that, whether they went or stayed, Rose shared heartbreak with her.

  CHAPTER NINE

  A DAY or two later Tante Elise cabled that she hoped to arrive home that day fortnight, and Sylvie listlessly agreed to Rose's suggestion that they should postpone their own firm decision until after her return.

  Meanwhile it telescoped their plans. Sooner now than they had thought, they would have to give an account of their stewardship, which meant, among other things, stocktaking in the shop and a special house-cleaning for the flat. Rose set doggedly about both, trying to count their blessings and telling herself 'mission accomplished.'

  For it was. They had had their months in the sun; only the winter now lay before them. They had more than kept the shop's head above water and physically Sylvie was well again. Tante Elise had broken no promises to them, nor had the sun and the sea and the scenery. When they left Maurinaire more heavy of heart than when they came, that would be because they had come to hope more of it than it had to offer either of them. And that was no one's fault ... was it?

  Socially, at any rate, they were as 'in' the town's affairs as if they had been born to them. Marie Durand distilled the essence of its news for their benefit and they were invited to every local occasion from christenings to youngsters' First Communion parties,

  from weddings to countless personal anniversaries. And it was on a Monday afternoon, when Sylvie had gone to St. Tropez to buy a new frock for Marie's own daughter's wedding, that Rose, doing some 'turning out,' came upon Sylvie's tape-recorder in its banishment to the dark corner of a cupboard floor.

  Rose drew it out, feeling guilty that when Sylvie had rejected it, they hadn't returned it to Blaise. They ought to still, before they left for England. It was valuable and scarcely used. She dusted off its case, opened it and experienced her first curiosity as to what particular recording the three of them had last made on it.

  They had had quite a lot of fun with it before that Sunday when Flore had called, demanding to see Blaise
on business and alone. They hadn't used it that morning, Rose thought, and after then everything Lad changed. So Blaise had never carried out his threat to catch them unaware of a 'live' microphone. But now the tape was fully wound on the take-up reel, which meant a full recording they had never played back— Rose flicked the rewind switch, waited, flicked again to 'Play' and listened ...

  First of all to the faint chink of cups and saucers; to Blaise's voice; Sylvie's answering; then her own and a spurt of laughter from them all. That meant Blaise had—! He must have switched on during the minute or two they had both been in the kitchen, Sylvie clearing the dessert, herself fetching the coffee !

  She was listening again, hearing the confused rustle of Flores arrival in the room; her first words, 'Do you mind—?' which had asked permission to monopolise Blaise; then Blaise's replies to her, from his

  cool, 'Talk away' to his blunt question, 'What do you want ?'

  After that, nothing until Rose's own, 'It's all right, Blaise. We'll wait in the car' and the sound of her departure with Sylvie.

  The tape ran on, with most of its length still to go. Then there was Flore's voice—"This is business. Take it or leave it. But I think you'll take it." Then Blaise's, switching to French—"Alors—?" and after a moment, mention of her own name which lured Rose, appalled, into the guilt of an eavesdropping which only science could have made possible.

  Flore continued, "Yes. Let's face it, I'm not going to get Saint-Guy to the point while he remains infatuated with Rose Drake. Or didn't you know he was?"

  Blaise—"I hadn't thought about it, and I don't enjoy his confidence."

  "Oh well, it may be only a love-hate thing, the novelty of her being English or that, though she must be flattered, she is playing hard-to-get. And of course he only wants her as a petite amie; he couldn't be thinking of marriage. But while he is running after her—knocking about Claude Odet in her defence, disappearing with her from my party, spending half of his precious bravade day with her and more than half the night—"