Cast a tender shadow

by Dix, Isabel

  The sun, although it was now late afternoon, was still 'hot and the field on her left was bathed in a shimmer of golden light. At last the sheer beauty, the tranquillity of it, like some old Impressionist picture, forced itself into her consciousness. She paused, leaning her back against a tree, grateful for the shade and a moment to escape from her own pervasive worries.

  The field was sprinkled with patches of red where poppies had invaded the crop, making vivid contrast with the wheat while down the side of the field, stunted twisted hawthorn trees marked the boundary, diminishing in the hazy mist as they wandered towards the horizon. Unconscious fingers reached for one of the silky blobs of red, only the sticky feel of juice on her fingers drawing her attention to what she was doing.

  She looked down at the softness already drooping in her hands, then touched the full flower, wondering at the perfection of the splash of black in its heart at the frill of pollen-laden stamens. Her finger raised the half-open bud, vaguely regretful that her unthinking action had deprived it of life. Then a sudden click brought her startled eyes up and she saw Charles coming towards her turning the spool of his camera.

  `Girl with poppy,' he explained as he came closer. Then, 'I wondered where you had gone.'

  Kate turned abruptly from him, scarcely trusting

  herself to reply, her eyes looking far over the field. `Isn't this the most beautiful spot you ever saw?' The wildness she felt was hidden in her voice. 'It reminds me of a picture I saw once—Monet, I think—with a girl walking through a field. And there were poppies .

  She faltered, leaned back against the trunk of the tree, turning to him with a feeling of hopeless longing.

  `Do you like butter?' Facing her, he leaned against the tree, supported by one hand somewhere above her right shoulder, and he was smiling down into her face. Something he was twirling in his right hand attracted her attention and she saw that he was holding a buttercup under her raised chin.

  `Do you like butter? My Kate.'

  Kate shook her head as if such a futile gesture however negative could protect her from the irresistible force of her own desires, from the white fire that was racing through her veins, consuming her. Her eyes moved giddily from his, to his mouth hovering so close to her own, then her head drooped so that the dark chest, the dark silky hair beneath the thin shirt, were so near that by sinking just a little against the trunk she could have pressed her lips to that throbbing pulse of his throat.

  But before she could do that his arm had moved strongly round her waist, supporting her, drawing her closely against him. Startled, fearful, her eyes flicked wide to look at him, and what she saw in his face made her hold her breath.

  `Kate.' It was a husky whisper now and his hand slipped lower, moulding her body against him with a fierce possessiveness which thrilled yet caused her to tremble with fear. 'Kate,' he said again with a kind of

  lingering, amused despair, and his mouth closed on hers.

  Just for a moment she would abandon herself to the bewildering, overpowering sweetness, to the gentle fierce exploration of her mouth. Then when she knew that the moment was over, when warning signals were jangling in her mind, a hand on the nape of her neck imprisoned her, holding her immovably linked to him.

  Another moment's bliss; Kate, obeying some instinctive urge, slipped both hands inside his shirt, moving over the warm satin softness of his chest, her fingers touching the dark curling hair in a caress. The groan that she drew from his lips made her pulses race uncontrolled and she leaned her head back as his mouth moved to her throat and lower to the deeply plunging neckline of her dress.

  There was no resistance in her as she felt his hand reach for the zip at the back of her dress, then his mouth was searching for the firm sweet swell of her breast, while a tumult of response burned through her. Again he sought her lips, demanding a submission she was willing to show, heart throbbed against heart, Charles moved his body gently against hers so that she felt the faint roughness score her breasts.

  She knew now that nothing she had experienced with Antoine had been like this. She linked her hands round Charles's neck, felt his answering power as he strained her form against his. Poor Antoine !

  She had no idea that his name had escaped her lips till she was thrust aside and Charles's eyes were blazing down at her with a fury she could not understand, his teeth bared in a threatening gash.

  `Antoine ! Did you call his name when I was making love to you?'

  `No . . . I I. . .' Deprived of the support of his arms, she lay back, half fainting, against the tree. 'Charles . . His voice was a sob and she held out her hands appealingly.

  Now the eyes that had been so passionate a moment before were consumed with fury, the mouth that had been so tormenting was a thin hard line.

  `No, damn its' He let out the words as if he hated her. `I refuse to be a surrogate lover for anyone. Not even for Antoine would I adopt such a role.' His eyes travelled coldly contemptuous over her dishevelled appearance, over her heaving bosom. 'I suggest we meet back at the car in a few minutes. We'll try to forget this sordid episode ever happened.' And the next moment he was striding away from her, the camera he had been using lying on a tree stump, as despised and forgotten as she was herself.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE return journey to the house was completed in an atmosphere of total silence, Kate sitting hunched in her seat, gazing out of the side window, trying to avoid looking at the dark intimidating man by her side. He drove with a kind of repressed fury that showed itself in the way the car cornered with a screeching of tyres and a wild scattering of pebbles as they accelerated along unmade roads.

  At last they drove into the courtyard of La Pigeonnière, and as he switched off the engine Kate ventured a glance in his direction. His profile was as if carved in marble and not by a softening of any gesture did he give an indication that his fury was abating. At last he spoke, and it was without looking at her, his manner as cold as ice.

  `I shall take the things in to the kitchen. Madeau will put them away later. You must be tired, so perhaps you would like to go upstairs to your bedroom.'

  Anger surged inside Kate at the insulting way he spoke as well as his assumption that she could be hidden away in her room. Even if it was true that she longed for nothing so much as to bury her head in her pillow and cry, not for the world would she have confessed as much to him. So, not trusting herself to reply, she got out of the car, slamming the door as the

  only way of showing what she felt.

  Ignoring what he had said, she picked up one basket of groceries, walked into the kitchen and put it on the table, then returned to the hall. She had reached the stair when Charles shouldered the door open, heavily laden with packages, but he paused when he saw her, his eyes resting impassively on her turbulent face.

  `Oh, I may have to go out this evening. I hope you won't mind eating alone. Madeau will make you something.'

  `Thank you.' Her voice matched his for iciness. `I'm quite capable of making a meal for myself should I want anything. Might I ask where you're going?' She paused significantly. 'Or would that be tactless?'

  `What is that supposed to mean?' Charles's eyes narrowed dangerously, making her regret such a cheap remark, but she refused to let him know that she was in any way intimidated.

  `Oh, I merely thought that you might be going to see Francoise. I know she'll be very . . . understanding when you explain just how things are at home. I'm sure she'll have no scruples about being a surrogate—wasn't that the word you used?' With admirable control Kate was able to assume a faint smile. 'In fact where you're concerned she would, I think, welcome the opportunity.' Then collecting the remnants of her tattered dignity about her she walked unhurriedly up to her room.

  Only there did all her self-control desert her so that she threw herself on to the bed in a noisy storm of weeping that went on till she lay utterly exhausted, staring at the net curtains as they moved gently at the open window. Several times she thought she heard a sou
nd

  in the corridor outside and held her breath, listening with a desperate urgent longing for something that would indicate that Charles had come to make peace with her. But all she heard as she lay there was the hammering of her own heart and the vague creaks and groans of an old house, cooling as the sun moved round in the sky.

  It was a long time before hope faded altogether, but when it did, Kate dragged herself from the bed and walked over to a mirror where she could study her reflection. Vaguely she pondered on the girl who had gone out and the one who had come back. Was it possible they could be the same person—the first so fresh, bursting with life and excitement, this one with the sunken red-rimmed eyes, the distraught haunted expression. The first borne on an expectant wave of love, the second cast aside by a brutal rejection.

  There, she had admitted it at last. It was love. This burning fiery ecstasy and despair, this stormy passionate longing could be nothing else but love. And it was all to do with Charles, nothing with Antoine.

  Had she really spoken his name when the final knowledge came to her? She could only assume she had. And that brief fleeting moment of sympathy for him, that vague regret for those carefree tender days in London had saved her. Her hand curved over the breast where his lips had begun their passionate trembling onslaught. Saved her? Bleakly she regarded herself, trying to ignore her own burning unsatisfied body, before with a despairing cry she turned away from the mirror. There was nothing to be gained by self-deceit. She knew that she would regret to the end of her life that accident which had made Charles recoil from her. She would

  regret it forever, knowing that she would never have another opportunity.

  Kate walked to the bathroom and began taking off her clothes. A moment later she was standing under the shower wishing she could find some recipe for relieving the pain inside her as surely as warm water could ease the body's aches. Half an hour later she was slipping naked between the clean, sweet-smelling cotton sheets. It seemed impossible even to hope for sleep, but a few moments later her breathing deepened, lengthened and she drifted away from her tormented life to blissful oblivion.

  It was evening when she woke and she lay for a long time watching the shadows in her room lengthen, the last golden streaks fade from the sky before, regretfully, she forced herself from the warm cocoon. She dressed quickly, hardly noticing what she was wearing, and ran downstairs, her heart hammering against her ribs. A door somewhere opened and Kate felt a blow of disappointment when she heard Madeau's faintly concerned voice behind her.

  `Madame? You are all right?'

  `Of course, Madeau.' Kate stretched ostentatiously. `I had such a wonderful sleep.'

  `Ah. Monsieur Charles said you were sleeping so peacefully, he could not disturb you.'

  `Charles said so . . .?' Deliberately hiding her face, Kate turned away, adjusting some of the flowers she had arranged the previous day in a shining yellow bowl. `When was that, Madeau?'

  `Oh, more than an hour ago. I wanted to know about your meal. He told me that he was going out, so I asked him to go up and find out when you would be...'

  `But didn't he tell you,' Kate's voice was brittle as she turned to face the other woman, 'that I would get something for myself? I told him that earlier.'

  `Yes, he did say so, madame.'

  `Then I suggest that you go across to the flat, Madeau.' She smiled in what she hoped was a relaxed manner. 'We had a lovely lunch and I'll just make myself an omelette. I might even take it out and eat it beside the pool. You can have a rest tonight.'

  `Are you certain, madame?'

  `Positive.' She went over and draped an arm about Madeau's shoulders. 'After all, you shouldn't be doing too much. I mean to see to it . . . that you take life more easily.' She felt guilty as she spoke, for of course she would be in no position to influence any such thing.

  `Very well, madame. Merci.'

  `But before you go, Madeau, tell me what I can do for tomorrow. Can I prepare any of the food?'

  `Ah no, madame. Monsieur Charles ordered meat to be delivered and it is already cooked for the boeuf en gelee. Tomorrow we shall be busy with salads and desserts; there are all those delicious cheeses you brought from Sarlat and Monsieur Charles has ordered strawberries to be delivered. Besides, my sister will be here to help. And Georges will be with us in the evening to assist with the drinks. Non, madame,' Madeau smiled, 'you enjoy your quiet evening without Monsieur Charles. Tomorrow there will be work for all of us.

  But Kate was regretful that she had nothing to occupy her hands and her thoughts that evening, for the time dragged slowly enough. It took her only a few minutes to slice some tomatoes, peppers and spring

  onions for a salad and then to beat up two eggs and pour them into sizzling butter for an omelette. She put the plates on a tray with a pot of coffee and went out to sit at one of the small tables at the side of the pool, where she ate with neither interest nor enjoyment.

  It was difficult to avoid knowing that the time had come for action. It was clearly impossible for her to wait here any longer in the belief that Antoine would come and rescue her. She wasn't even sure that there was any point in his coming. It was all too late for that. And if there was to be a meeting with Antoine it must be somewhere far away from here. Yes, her mind was made up. As soon as the party was over, she would go back to London and wait. Charles had told her that a marriage such as theirs would be annulled very quickly. She would go to London, throw herself into her work and try to forget that she had ever met any of the Savoney-Morlet family.

  Relieved that she had at last made up her own mind on something, she took the tray into the kitchen, washed up the few dishes and left the kitchen tidy. Restlessness made her wander about the grounds, savouring the sweet scents drifting up from Georges' small patch of herbs, mingling with all those other smells which she was beginning to identify so closely with France. With home. It gave her a stab of real pain to think how fragile her claim was to use that word here. Home must be a flat in England she had shared with Hilary, not this beautiful French country house she had shared for a brief moment with a man who was and was not her husband.

  She sighed and walked back through the courtyard, glancing up to the window of Madeau's flat where the

  yellow light seemed so welcoming. She could imagine inside how contented they must be, planning for the arrival of the baby they had given up hope of having. Her ears caught the sound of a car accelerating up the hill and she drew back into the shadows, her heart hammering, hardly daring to hope. Then the sound reached the end of the lane—and passed, dying away in the distance.

  How can you be so idiotic? Kate asked herself. But there was no answer. So firmly, determined to concentrate on her plan for the future, she went in through the front door, closing it firmly behind her.

  But those long hours spent in bed in the late afternoon seemed to have robbed her forever of the inclination to sleep. Even a swim in the pool, not a mere dalliance but an obsessive powerful crawl from one end of the pool to the other, back and forth, back and forth till her arms were exhausted, her lungs bursting in her chest with the effort, had little effect in tiring her.

  She lay in the darkness of her bedroom, tossing and turning, searching for elusive sleep until with a groan of despair she sat up and switched on the bedside lamp. If she couldn't sleep then perhaps she might read. Throwing back the covers on her bed, she went to the door, then without waiting to put on either slippers or a wrap she ran swiftly downstairs to where she had seen some copies of the latest American fashion magazines. She remembered that in one of them an article which had interested her had caught her eye.

  But as soon as she pushed open the door of the sitting-room she hesitated. Light was spilling from somewhere. Not from any of the lamps in the room but faintly, from some higher source. Of course—she felt a

  throb of pain—Charles must be back. After listening for every sound she had decided that he had not yet returned, but she had been wrong. Was she ever anything else?<
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  Carefully she slipped into the room and moving silently reached the small -table where she was able to locate the magazines she wanted. Her eyes she kept carefully averted from the upper storey, knowing that even a glimpse of him would be certain to bring a resurgence of all those feelings she was trying so hard to subdue. But her longing defeated her, for as she was about to pull the door behind her, her eyes were drawn upwards, to that gap in the sliding wall where the light escaped. She could see nothing. Nothing but the outline of his profile thrown against the pale wall. The head was leaning back, as if supported by a chair, and even as she watched, she saw a shadowy cigar raised, and placed between the parted lips. Without remembering to close the door Kate ran up to her bedroom and lay shivering between the sheets.

  The next day was a blur of busyness which afterwards she could hardly remember in detail. The awkward moment of breakfast passed easily, unobtrusively, for when she went into the dining-room Madeau and Charles were involved in checking the arrangements, seeming to have time for little more than a brief glance in her direction. She was grateful, yet piqued that Charles hadn't taken time to notice her appearance in the crisp businesslike pink linen skirt and matching blouse checked in white. -

  `You slept well?' When Madeau left the room he turned to her with a dark searching look.

  `Yes.' Perhaps it was the ease with which the lie came

  to her lips that brought the faint colour to her cheeks, but she tried to regard him calmly as she raised her steaming cup in both hands. 'And you?'

  `I always sleep well.'

  Kate didn't ask him if that meant smoking at one-thirty in the morning, and he immediately went on to speak about what he meant to do that day.

  `We'll have drinks on the terrace first. Then the meal will be laid out in here, Kate.' He waved an arm round the large dining room. 'I'll leave that side to you and Madeau. She's pretty efficient and will tell you anything you want to know.' Kate's stab of annoyance that he would assume that she needed guidance was almost immediately dispersed. `I'd like you to do the flowers. Yours always look special.' He paused, his eyes wandering over her face and seeming, she thought with a hint of panic, to come to rest rather more frequently than she wished on her mouth. 'And perhaps this is an evening for something just a bit out of the ordinary.' She wasn't certain whether or not she saw a glint of sardonic amusement in his face, he turned away so abruptly. 'Oh, and by the way,' he paused at the door, frowning over a piece of paper he held in his hand, 'I'm glad your hair is back to normal.' The door closed behind him and she could hear him call to Madeau as he walked across the hall.