Desert Doorway

by Pamela Kent

  think that very odd!"

  Celestine shrugged her shoulders impatiently. "If I approve of your leaving Louis I can hardlysee that it matters what anyone else thinks," she

  answered sharply. "And Si Mohammed is an old

  friend, and I promised him that you would lunch

  with him today. I don't think it fair to put him

  off."

  "But I couldn't dream of leaving Louis," Jenny

  said, with so much quiet determination in her tone

  that her employer looked at her in surprise, and

  then elevated her eyebrows.

  "Yesterday you did what you wished to do to

  please yourself and no one else," she pointed out.

  "Today I think you should do what I wish you to

  do." . ,.

  Jenny stood up, her deep blue eyes reflecting

  faint distress and astonishment.

  "But surely��?" she began.

  "It is important to me that you keep your ap

  pointment today," Celestine "told her coldly.

  "And I would much rather that you didn't

  insist!"

  "Oh," the Comtesse exclaimed, with an almost infuriated look of dislike, "you and Raoul are so much alike�it is duty, duty, duty with you both, all the time! I have no patience with such self-.

  appointed martyrs!"

  And then, very much to Jenny's relief, but also rather to her surprise�because she had been afraid that the Comtesse had been going to insist

  that she went out and made a pretence of enjoying

  herself instead of performing the iob she was

  paid for at a time when the job should be the

  all-important thing�she flounced out of the

  room and slammed the door sharply behind her, although the disturbance and the unnecessary noise she created caused her small son, who had

  been dropping off into an uneasy doze, to open � his eyes and wail pathetically.

  Jenny managed to soothe him, and at last, while she sat beside him, he did drop off into an uneasyslumber, although his temperature was still high, and when the bustling little French doctor arrived

  �to examine him he was once more somewhat jarringly prodded into wakefulness.

  . But Dr. Le Croix saw nothing m his condition

  to cause the least alarm.

  "It is nothing serious," he said. "Merely the climate. The child should be sent home to France."

  You mean that he is subject to this sort of:thmg?" Jenny asked. ; "Oh, yes�nothing extraordinary in a child of

  his years and delicate constitution." His very

  |bnght dark eyes surveyed the slim figure of the |governess with open appreciation. "You are mew

  |here?' he asked. "I haven't seen you befog-�." Sf No, I am quite new," Jenny admitted.

  I; The French doctor picked up his black bag and jbeamed at her'approvingly.

  I,, "II1 that case, I hope you will stay," he said. fcGood for the children�good for us all to havejan attractive fresh face in our midst!" In spite of

  his flattering look and speech Jenny judged him to be the type to have a comfortable wife and probably several near-grown-up children of his own, but she smiled at him pleasantly. "Good day toyou, mademoiselle," he concluded, and sketched

  her a portly bow.

  She did not see anything more of the Comtessethat day, and as her lunch was brought to her inthe nursery she saw nothing of the Comte until about three o'clock in the afternoon, when she went out into the central courtyard for a breath

  of fresh air and an opportunity to stretch her legs in one of the cool colonnades.

  The Comte was already there, walking up and down between the slender marble columns, and she thought that there was a decidedly harassed expression on his face as he paced beside the longrectangular pool with the water lilies floating

  on it. , , . ,

  At sight of her he came hastening up, and as

  always he greeted her with excessive politeness, his eyes lighting as if with pleasure.

  "Ah Miss Armitage!" he exclaimed and placed one of the long wicker chairs for her. "It wasgood of you to forego your own pleasure in orderto remain with my son! It was extremely good

  of you." ,. , � T

  "But I had no wish to do anything else, Jenny

  assured him, looking up at him from the depths of her comfortable chair and thinking that he and his wife were unusual employers in that they both, for some reason, made a point of her having a taste of social life while she was with them. "I was quite happy to remain with Louis, and m

  any case it is my job." .

  "And you weren't very much disappointed because your appointment to lunch had to be post"

  poned?"

  "Of course not." . ,. �

  She thought that his expression not only lightened, but he appeared surprised�and, she was secretly certain, relieved.

  I understood from my wife that you�that 'it

  would be something of a disappointment."

  Jenny shook her head, and she smiled at him in a way she reserved for people who for some reason appealed to her as not being entirely happyand in need of some sort of solace and consolation being brought to them.

  "Nothing of the kind," she said. "As a matter 01 ^"TT"" And then she broke "^ thinking that she had better not contradict too flatly anything

  that the Comtesse had said.

  The Comte brought a chair close to her side, and when he was seated in it he looked at her gravely earnestly. '

  "Miss Armitage," he said quietly, "I would like you to know that, while you are with us, anything you do not wish to do, at any time, you most certainly must not allow yourself to be forced into doing! You are your own mistress, free to express your dislikes, as well as any inclinationsof your own. I would not like to feel that you were �coerced. ..." '

  He offered her a cigarette, and as he held his lighter to the tip of it he leaned rather near to her and looked long and carefully into her eyes. / She realized at once what he was trying to tell her

  �that so far as Si Mohammed was concerned, or any other man his wife might decide would be a

  suitable escort for her, she was at liberty to pleaseherself entirely, and that she must not allow Celestine to impose her own will on her. Which, if she had weakly given way over the lunch appointment today, would most certainly have beenthe case!

  She tried to assure him, in as tactful a manner as she could, that there was no danger of anything of that sort happening, and then because she thought it wise she changed the conversation by introducing instead the subject of Louis and his ' tendency to run high temperatures. Instantly the father's face grew much more openly anxious. He tossed away the end of his avm. cigarette, and

  ground it beneath his heel on the black and white tessellated pavement.

  "I wish I knew�I wish I knew what is the best thing to do with Louis," he exclaimed, as if the words were wrung out of him. "And, if it comes to

  that, little Simone, too, although somehow J do not feel she will ever present as great a problem as Louis. She is very much her mother's daughter, whereas Louis��". He broke off. "Sometimes I wish that my mother��"

  "Your mother is English," Jenny said gently. "You would like Louis to go to England?" He lifted his troubled dark eyes and gazed

  'Q+-TlQT*

  "I don't know�but sometimes I think it would be a good plan." .

  ."And your mother, Lady Berringer, would, of course, be in a position to keep an eye on him, even if he went to boarding school?"

  "Yes."

  She stared at the pool, reflecting like a mirror

  the deep blue of the afternoon sky. From the garden the scent t)f oranges reached them, mixed with the even more disturbing perfume of the

  lilies that rioted beneath the hot sun. "And � your wife?" she asked hesitantly. "My wife would like Louis to be sent to school

  in France. But there we wou
ld neither of us be near him, and my mother would have no influence over him�and he is very young yet!"

  Jenny recognized the problem, and she felt herself sighing inwardly for him,

  "I suppose," she said, more slowly, "that there is no possiblity that you will ever return to live in France? I noticed a beautiful little picture of a lovely old French chateau, set amongst vineyards, in the library. Is that^-does that belong to

  you?"

  "Yes " he admitted, and his voice all at once was openly bitter. "It is mine, but Celestine has quite made up her mind that she does not ever wish to return to live in France�a few weeks

  in Paris during a part of each year is the most she desires to see of her own country!�and Marrakesh for her holds so much charm that it is highly unlikely we shall ever return to Pranceto live."

  And she knew by the faint weariness, and the wistfulness, of his one, that to return to France, and his lovely old chateau, and not to be forced to leave it again for the queer exotic brilliance of life in a North African desert town was one of his secret dreams.

  And looking at him, and his sad, disillusioned face, she asked herself why he had married Celestine, and imagined that in her was a suitable life partner for a man who still possessed ideals. And the only answer she could think of was that it was her beauty that had enthralled him�as it had probably enthralled a good many other men!

  Including�Max Daintry , , . ?

  They talked for a while longer on matters less likely to perturb either of them, and then Jenny decided that she must return to her charge, although she knew by the Comte'8 look that he was reluctant to let her go. She realized that in her he sensed a sympathizer in his problems, and since she was truly feminine her sympathy, once

  1 aroused, was liable to escape her without the volition of her own will, and the Comte de St. Alais was badly in need of feminine sympathy just then.

  i Jenny would not admit to herself that he could

  f possibly see anything else in her that would

  ; account for the obvious pleasure he felt when

  v she devoted a little of her time to him.

  v The following day Louis improved, but his im-

  Iprovement was so slow that Jenny spent prac".

  l^tically all her time near to him. She read to him

  |and told him stories, while Nerida looked after

  s'Simone, and kept her away from any possible

  g.mfection, and by the end of the third day Jenny

  pelt that the little boy had become curiously d&

  ��' � 85

  pendent on her, and she wished she knew the best thing to advise about his future.

  His grandmother came to see him on the afternoon of the third day, and Jenny's first impression of her was confirmed. She was lovely for her age, poised, charming and friendly, if not particularly practical, and although she did not look or behave very much like a grandmother. Jenny knew that the little boy welcomed her visit. She brought him unsuitable books and bon-bons, but she stayed talking to him and holding his hand beside his bed until, as he did with Jenny, he fell into one of his more tranquil dozes, which in this case looked as if it was going to last well into the evening, and meant that he really was very much

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  If only he hadn't looked quite so much like Dresden china instead of a sturdy boy Jenny would have been happier about him.

  Before Lady Berringer left she told Jenny that there was to be an important dance at one of the more modern of the French luxury hotels on the following night, and that her daughter-in-law,

  she knew, was planning a party for it. The party

  would have dinner in the hotel beforehand, and then attend the dance, and Lady Berringer herself and her companion, Esther Harringay, would be two of those who would make up the party. Others

  would probably be one or two friends of Celestine's and, of course, the Comte�if he could be persuaded to put in an appearance at a dance, which was not the sort of thing he enjoyed.

  "And I've got an idea that Celestine intends you to come along with us as well," Lady Berringer told Jenny, smiling at her. "I said you'd have quite a nice social life here, didn't I? And so you will, unless I'm very much mistaken. Celestine may even make an attempt to marry you off to someone she considers suitable," with a sudden touch of dryness to her smile. "She's rather good at that sort of thing�and if you have no desire to be married off just yet, beware, child!"

  Suddenly she touched Jenny's cheek, as if she liked the look of it. "You're a nice child, too�and I know my son thinks so!" She sighed unexpectedly. "Poor Raoul!

  ... Sometimes I think ..." But she did not voice her thoughts aloud, and instead she looked again at Jenny and asked rather curiously: "Have you seen anything more of Max Daintry ?'''

  "Yes," Jenny admitted. "I had lunch with him the other day, and he showed me some of the sights of Marrakesh."

  Lady Berringer elevated one skilfully darkened eyebrow. "With or without my daughter-in-law's approval?"

  Jenny thought she saw something quizzical in the other's expression�quizzical and surprised� and for no reason at all she flushed.

  "With the Comtesse's permission and approval.

  of course." rf s

  "H'm!" Lady Berringer exclaimed. The quizzical look vanished from her eyes, and she studiedJenny more keenly. "What do you think of him?" she asked. "Do you like him?"

  To her acute annoyance Jenny felt herself flushing almost uncontrollably.

  "Yes�yes, of course," she answered, although she honestly did not know whether she liked himor disliked him�or liked him very much' "He� I think he thought I felt a bit strange here, andbeing partly English��"

  "But only partly, my dear!" Lady Berringer reminded her. "The other half of him is unpredictable Italian, and in any case he must be nearlythirty-five�he could even be a year or two older,, And. ^^ lived ^^ one of those ye81"� to the full! Remember that, my dear child, if you ever begin to feel that he has a rather powerful attraction� and personally I feel he could be extremely attractive if one saw enough of him, and if for some reason or other he wanted one to be impres

  sed by that essential masculinity of his!'* There

  [ ' ' .87'

  was a bright, inscrutable smile in her blue eyes as they rested on the girl in front of her, and she picked up her immaculate white handbag and gloves and moved towards the nursery door. "It's the one thing about him you can't ignore, isn't it? � that positive, iron-hard, unquestionable strength of his. And it would be rather like hurling oneself against a stone wall�with as much risk of being badly battered!�if you wanted something he was not prepared to give!"

  At the door she paused and looked back at Jenny, and there was no longer any hint of a smile in her eyes. In fact, for a moment, she

  looked almost grave. "Au revoir, my dear," she said. "I shall probably see you at the dance tomorrow night. I wouldn't like you to be hurt�ever! You're much too young, and much too gentle!" When the Comtesse made her appearance in the nursery just before dinner she was looking much more-affable than she had done for three

  days, and there was a kind of amiable approval

  in her eyes when she looked towards Jenny,

  seated in the wide nursery window with a pile of

  small garments that required buttons and an odd

  darn here and there, while her son slumbered

  �ypQ/tp-Fnn-y "I must say," she remarked, "your sense of

  duty has been very high over the past three days,

  and I'm quite sure I ought to be delighted because

  that agency in London sent you to me. And, as

  a matter of fact, i am"�with a brittle smile at

  Jenny�"and I also feel that you've earned some

  thing in the nature of a small reward."

  Jenny looked up at her a trifle anxiously, wait

  ing for what was coming next. But all that did

  come was confirmation
of the hint Lady Berringer

  had dropped her during the afternoon.

  "How would you like to go to a dance?" Celes

  tine asked. "Tomorrow night?"

  Jenny glanced for a moment at Louis, but his

  mother said impatiently:

  88

  Oh, Louis is sufficiently recovered to be safely

  left with Nenda for one evening, at least, and allwork and no play make Jill a dull girl! The dance is at the Splendide�one of the newer hotels_andI am getting up a party for it, so I think you will

  find it rather fun. Being young you naturally adore dancing?"

  "I haven't done a great deal of it," Jenny confessed� and she might have added that she had had very little opportunity up to date to indulge any secret passion she might have for the typeof ballroom dancing her employer had in mind.

  Celestine surveyed her with raised eyebrows and a cool, amused smile on her lips.

  "Nevertheless, I'm sure you do dance beautifully and while you are with me I want you to have as good a time as possible/' she said magnanimously.

  Although I pay you a salary, I have no desire at all to treat you as if you were nothing morethan an employee, and there wouldn't be much point m your having come all the way from England to a place like Marrakesh if you couldn't enjoy yourself occasionally." She sank down grace" fully in an armhcair and lighted herself a cigarette, although Jenny would have preferred the airof her small charge's bedroom kept free from the taint of cigarette-smoke. "Have you got anything suitable to wear?�apart from that white dress you wore when we went to the Benoits?"

  "I have a pale primrose net," Jenny replied. "It's

  quite new, and it's my only other evening dress." Celestine looked at her consideringly. "Pale primrose?^ she echoed. And then she

  finally nodded her head in approval. "With your hair, and those eyes, that should make you look rather like a primrose yourself. And I will lend you my cape again, and you can borrow anythingelse of mine you are short of�gloves, an evening bag, anything of that sort." Jenny was a little slow in thanking her, for she could not altogether understand the reason why someone who employedher as a governess should be anxious about her

  appearance at a dance, and be willing to pass on to her things of her own in order to improve that appearance, or at least make the best of it, and she could only conclude that the Comtesse was naturally rather generous�or, perhaps, having been a model herself at one time in her career, she liked to see other young women looking at