Under the Stars of Paris

by Mary Burchell

  UNDER THE STARS OF PARIS

  Mary Burchell

  © Mary Burchell 1954

  Mary Burchell has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1954 by Mills & Boon.

  This edition published in 2019 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter One

  Anthea walked up the long slope of the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in the clear, cool sunshine of a February afternoon. The sky was that pale, translucent blue which heralds the spring while still retaining the frigid beauty of winter. The trees—so soon to put on the first heavenly green of opening buds—were still leafless and stark. But, in some indefinable way, one knew that the sap was rising, that the life of the year was stirring, and that presently the first intoxicating breath of spring would be wafted along the avenues and boulevards.

  Usually the scene enchanted her. Not only the matchless architectural prospect, but also the moving crowds of the Avenue. The stroller, the early tourists, the occasional groups of provincials (too early for many of these) gazing at the sights and feeling that they were seeing life, the busy Parisians themselves, hurrying about their multitudinous affairs, even the smart, sharp-voiced policeman, directing the undirectable traffic.

  But today she was walking along with an absorbed and purposeful air. An air which might have deceived anyone into thinking she was bound for an important appointment. The truth was, however, that Anthea had no appointment, no special object in view, no real idea, even, just what she was going to do next. She was deceiving herself just as much as any observer, because she was trying to pretend to herself that she was not frightened and at the end of a road which led nowhere.

  In her purse she had exactly fifty francs, which sounds so much more than five pounds but which buys about the same. It was true that the rent of her small room, high up in the tall, old-fashioned house near the École Militaire, was paid until the end of the month. But this room and the fifty francs represented all the security now existing in Anthea’s life.

  At twenty-one, Anthea Marlowe had experienced rather more emotional ups and downs than usually fall to the lot of anyone so young. Her mother had died when she was sixteen, and Anthea, the sole child of a handsome, popular and successful portrait painter, found herself acting the part of housekeeper in a large, attractive and modern flat, and hostess to an equally large, attractive and modern circle which eddied round her father.

  Colin Marlowe was that unusual phenomenon—a socially successful artist. Someone once said of him that he had brought flattery to the finest of fine arts, both on canvas and in the drawing-room. And Anthea—who was not without shrewd powers of judgment—knew that there was much truth in this.

  Attractive himself, he liked attractive people round him. Not for him the subtle interest of a face lined with the story of long experience. Gay, good-humoured, tasteful, he had still a touch of the likeable adolescent in his make-up. And while Anthea loved her father, she had no illusions about his reliability as a stay and prop in life.

  All the same, the years as his hostess and home-maker had been gay and lovely, if a trifle without purpose.

  Then she had met Michael, and almost from that first evening she had known that life had a purpose at last. He was tall and fair and slightly arrogant. The way people always like to think Englishmen are, while, in point of fact, with characteristic contrariness, they usually contrive to be something quite different.

  With him too it was a whirlwind affair. He rang her up every day that week, took her out on four evenings, and, driving her home in his car on the Sunday evening, told her that he loved her and wanted to marry her.

  “Perfectly delightful!” everyone said. “The ideal match.” And—“Made for each other.”

  For five happy months Anthea thought all this too.

  The only person who was less than satisfied was her father, and, as he freely admitted, his reserve was based on selfishness pure and simple. (The expression was his own, and he managed to convey the impression that selfishness was something rare and slightly admirable.)

  He was naturally reluctant to lose his pretty, efficient and presentable daughter, and often said—with a pathos which he himself secretly admired—that he was a lonely old man now and it seemed as though life were not to hold much more for him.

  As he was an extremely well-preserved and attractive forty-eight, no one fell much for the lonely old man story, and as for life not holding much more for him—it was very soon, and rather regrettably, to hold Millicent Edney for him.

  No one could deny that she was the type of good-looking, sophisticated, slightly malicious person who always amused him, and Anthea could only hope that this amused interest would stand the test of married life. For herself, she had never liked Millicent, who made a speciality of understanding other people’s husbands, but if she were likely to prove the right woman to console her father for her own loss, Anthea was more than willing to make the best of her.

  However, hardly had Millicent begun to flash Colin Marlowe’s handsome emerald upon her finger when she also began to make it charmingly plain to Anthea that she could not fix her own wedding date too soon for her stepmother-to-be. Nothing nasty—well, frankly nasty—was ever said, of course. It was just that Anthea was made to feel so superfluous that she sometimes wondered what she was doing in her own home.

  If her father noticed anything, he affected not to do so. For Anthea—dear and precious though she might be—was already becoming very, very faintly shadowy in outline to him, since she no longer made up part of his own immediate concerns.

  Her sense of humour and her admirable tolerance kept Anthea from any open break with Millicent, for, after all, she would herself be marrying in something like six weeks, and it behoved her not to quarrel with her father’s choice in that short time.

  So Anthea controlled her feelings—even to the extent of going through the whole wedding day with every appearance of good feeling towards Millicent. Then, when the flat was hers while the other two went on their honeymoon, she settled down to the task of sorting out her own belongings and making the final preparations for her marriage.

  This was the point at which Michael came to her and told her he had fallen in love with Eve Armoor.

  He did not seek to excuse himself. He said he had struggled unavailingly against his feelings and that he deserved anything Anthea liked to call him. But the fact was that he loved Eve, and the only possible course was to tell Anthea the truth and trust to her generosity to release him.

  She released him immediately, of course—with a few inadequate words dug out of her frozen consciousness, a few well-sounding platitudes which deceived neither of them but somehow served to fill the ghastly rift which had suddenly been torn in their relationship. Sometimes, as she strove not to recall the scene, she felt that she must have been like someone dropping something which had suddenly become burning hot.

  There was no difficulty about the immediate decision. The difficulty came later, when for days and nights on end she could think of nothing but the desperate, aching loss of Michael. Everything she did or thought or planned led straight back to him—and had to be led forcibly away again.

  But more cruelly urgent and insistent than any personal tragedy of the emotions is the irresistible ma
rch of day-to-day events. And suddenly Anthea was right up against the question of what she was going to do now—where she was to go.

  In less than a week her father and Millicent would be returning. And, though her father might be quite content to hear that she was staying at home indefinitely after all, Millicent would be furious. And Millicent being furious in the place which had so swiftly and completely ceased to be home was not something to contemplate calmly.

  Anthea felt she could not put enough distance between herself and such a situation. But the state of her finances, and other practical considerations, precluded any very distant flight. Her father had always been lavish and open-handed where housekeeping expenses were concerned. But he demanded in return a very good standard of living and a daughter who was presentable on all occasions. The result was that, although Anthea had lived well, her bank balance was less than a hundred pounds in cold cash. Very much less if she had to settle one or two outstanding matters before making her departure anywhere.

  She was determined not to ask her father for assistance. Indeed, she had no intention of being at home when he and his bride returned, for to receive Millicent’s sweet-sour commiserations on what had happened was more than she could stand.

  And so Anthea had made the decision to go to Paris, which she knew almost as well as she knew London. There she would get a cheap room and teach English, act as companion, nursery governess, receptionist—any of those optimistic-sounding careers which the uninitiated are apt to think exist until they put the issue to the acid test of practical search.

  Anthea had been more than two months in Paris by now, but the only work she had found was one week as companion (virtually unpaid) to someone’s slightly dotty and very unlikeable great-aunt, and three or four exhausting days caring for a couple of dreadful children who were so revoltingly full of self-expression that she herself could willingly have done some self-expression, of a murderous variety, on her own account.

  And so, on this cool, bright February afternoon, she was walking up the Champs-Élysées, looking as though she knew exactly what she was going to do next, and not having a clue.

  When she came to the Avenue Georges V she turned along it, thinking that perhaps the slightly quieter scene might give her some sort of inspiration in her dilemma. Then, as she was about to cross the road, she paused to allow a stream of traffic to pass, and, at the same moment, the tall man immediately in front of her stepped back, so that they collided.

  “Pardon, mademoiselle!” He turned, raised his hat, and then exclaimed in English, “Why, hello!—I mean—I know you, don’t I?”

  Anthea was about to say coolly and pleasantly that this opening had grey whiskers on it when she suddenly realized that those curiously light grey eyes and the good line of the cheek and chin were indeed familiar to her.

  “Yes, I rather think—— Though I can’t remember just where——”

  “I can,” he said, triumphantly recapturing the memory. “At the Bellingers’, last summer. We danced together, and you told me you were engaged to a fellow who designed bridges or something.”

  So long ago! So cruelly long ago. Almost another world. A world which had securely contained herself and Michael—and no one else who really mattered greatly.

  “I remember,” she said. “You were over in England for a long weekend, but you told me you worked abroad.”

  “Diplomatic,” he agreed, presumably referring to his status rather than his remark. “I was in Rome at that time, but I’ve been in Paris for the last few months. Are you staying long or just on a—a shopping trip?”

  “He means—am I here to buy my trousseau?” thought Anthea, and wished these things did not still make her wince.

  “I am here indefinitely,” she stated, and although he could not know it, of course, she really flung down a challenge to fate when she said that.

  “Then I hope I may see something of you,” he replied. “It’s an odd admission to have to make, but I never knew your name. Someone just mumbled it at me before we danced. But I’m Roger Senloe. The time we met I was staying with some cousins of mine whom you probably know. The Armoors. The younger one, Eve, has just got engaged recently. Nice chap. Designs bridges or some——” He stopped suddenly, evidently struck by the horrid coincidence.

  “Please don’t mind.” She was sorry for him because he looked much too nice to have said such a thing on purpose. “As a matter of fact, it is the same bridge-designer. My engagement was broken off about a couple of months ago and Michael became engaged to your cousin.”

  “I couldn’t be more sorry or embarrassed,” he said, and this was so obviously true that she could not feel quite so raw and hurt as she should have. “You must be Anthea Marlow.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “And out of all the remarks I might have used for light conversation, I had to make that one. Please forgive me.”

  “But of course.”

  “And now how do we break off this conversation,” she thought, “without drifting on into all sorts of details and complications?”

  Something in his glance made her guess that, in spite of everything, he was going to ask about seeing her again. And, with a sudden sensation bordering on panic—a wild desire to escape from anything or anyone who could remind her of the past—she spoke first.

  “Look—the traffic is with you. I mustn’t keep you. Good-bye.”

  “You’re not coming my way?”

  “No. I”—she glanced round—“have an appointment here——” She indicated the fashionable hairdresser’s outside which they were standing. “And I’m afraid I am already late.”

  She smiled at him composedly, made a pleasant little gesture of farewell with her hand, and, resolutely entering the rather imposing doorway, ran up the short flight of steps to the reception desk.

  On such minor details do our destinies hang.

  It had been Anthea’s intention to ask for some imaginary person and then, after the consequent enquiries and discussion, go out into the street again, by which time Eve Armoor’s cousin would be safely out of the way. But, as she came up the stairs she saw herself in the large mirror suspended there, and she thought absently,

  “I could use a good hair-do at the moment.”

  Not that she could really think of such luxuries in her present position, of course.

  Or could she?

  She glanced at the list of charges which hung above the reception desk, in the mood of one who stakes his all on one throw of the dice. And, with a sense of recklessness impossible to explain or justify, she suddenly decided to spend most of her last few francs on having her hair done.

  And so, when the receptionist looked up to attend to her, Anthea had, in a few crazy seconds, made her decision.

  “You have no appointment, madame?” The girl shook her head doubtfully and studied her big ledger with pursed lips. “We are so very busy just now—naturally. But—well, Mademoiselle Claire might manage you.”

  She called to a dark, vivid, boneless creature in a white smock who was passing, and after a moment or two of discussion, Anthea found herself following Mademoiselle Claire into the vast salon, with wash-basins along one side and a veritable forest of hair-dryers, toilet tables and mirrors disposed about the place.

  There was a tremendous amount of chattering and laughing going on and, as Anthea seated herself before one of the basins, she wondered a little wryly why she had supposed that she would find a peaceful hour here. But the scene amused and distracted her. There was some atmosphere of subtle excitement, of tingling anticipation, all around her and, while she could not explain it, in some indefinable way, she felt her spirits begin to rise.

  While she waited for Mademoiselle Claire to come to her, she studied her reflection in the mirror and wondered—with the first touch of humour she had been able to bring to the situation—just what it was Eve Armoor had which she lacked.

  It was not a bad face, she told herself, dispassionately considering its heart-shaped
outlines, and her eyes were good. Dark, large and well-shaped—and the long lashes which fringed them were her own. Her complexion was smooth and creamy, with that faintly golden tint which belongs only to dark-eyed blondes, and while her mouth was a little wide for real beauty, a more objective observer than Anthea herself would have described it immediately as generous.

  But perhaps in this hour of depression she had been right to spend her all on her hair. Its golden, silky beauty—in such contrast to her dark eyes—deserved that final crazy gesture, for it shone with all the tender radiance of a good deed in a naughty world.

  Even the experienced Mademoiselle Claire paid it an unusual tribute when she returned, for she ran an appreciative—almost a gentle—hand over Anthea’s bright head and said in English,

  “Very beautiful!”

  “Oh, thank you.” Anthea smiled at her in the mirror, and then surrendered herself, with a little sigh of contentment, to the strong, expert fingers which seemed in some curious way to smooth away something of the weight of care which rested upon her.

  Mademoiselle Claire knew her job. Not until Anthea was seated before one of the dressing-tables, her wet gold hair clinging to her head like a silken cap, did the girl with the comb, the pins and the clips say anything. And then it was only a conventional enquiry about Madame’s length of stay in Paris, which could either lead to conversation, if her client so wished, or be briefly answered and succeeded by silence.

  “I haven’t quite decided how long to stay,” Anthea explained. “I have been here about two months.” Then, because she had no wish to think—much less talk—of herself, she asked, “Why is it that you’re so specially busy and—and full of vitality this afternoon? Your receptionist said that ‘of course’ you were busy. I wondered why.”

  “Why, because of the Collections, madame. The dress shows, you know. Most of them open next week, and this is the heart of the dress-house district. The mannequins and the vendeuses—even the sewing girls—are all excited and all want, of course, to look their best. Some of the most famous mannequins in Paris are here at this moment.”