Enchanted Autumn

by Mary Whistler

  Then there was Rene’s singing ... The numbers were all so haunting, such catchy, rather simple, melodies, with that quaint French flavour about them that was the essential Rene Delaroche.

  There were at least a couple of extremely attractive young women amongst the members of the cast, apart from the exquisite Sandra, and together with a bevy of beautiful extras, these all seemed to conspire to make Jane’s heart ache during those days. She saw the way they looked at Rene, the way they sought to insinuate themselves into a position near to him when they were all off the set, and more or less free-and-easy; and the way they smiled at him when he gave them the opportunity to do so. One or two of them were the pert little midinette type; bright little Parisiennes, and they chattered away to him in his own tongue in a way Jane, for all her father’s insistence on her making every effort to speak idiomatic French, knew that she could never do.

  Not without a prolonged stay in France, anyway.

  The big granary was always full of studio gossip, music, and laughter in the evenings, and Rene carried his hospitality even into the ranks of the extras. Refreshments were always on hand, and one night there was a kind of impromptu dance, which Jane didn’t attend. She pleaded an excuse for going to bed early, and thought of her little office behind the big room where they were all dancing, and hoped that no one would think of using that as a sitting-out place.

  The next morning she found that she need not have worried, for Rene had given instructions that the room was to be locked, and Clarri handed her the key when she went over with her usual armful of mail to begin sorting it out and dealing with it.

  One afternoon, when Sandra had told her she could take the afternoon off for any purpose of her own if she wished, she found her way through the forest to the little house with the green door, behind which there were too many paper flowers, and an old lady too advanced in years to be an ideal companion for a young and growing child. Yet again Adele must have been following her favourite occupation of peering from the window, for she dashed out to greet her, and was immediately disappointed when she learned that there was little likelihood of her father also joining them that afternoon.

  “But I’m glad you’ve come,” she said to Jane. “It’s a fine afternoon, and we could go down to the river and watch the water-rats playing in the reeds. I often watch them, and one of them is such a fine fat fellow that I called him Grandpere.”

  “Then we will go and see how he is this afternoon, shall we?” Jane returned, with her smile which the child found curiously irresistible. And hand in hand the two of them disappeared amongst the forest trees, after inspecting Adele’s swing - which Jane thought rather a Heath Robinson affair, although definitely in keeping with everything else that made up Adele’s small world - and the shed where Tiger the cat caught his endless quantities of mice.

  Although it had rained the night before – first sign that the weather might be breaking up soon - the ground had dried in the heat of the sun, and they lay on the brink of the river, with the peaceful movement of the river itself a lazy, constant shimmer before their eyes. They watched the feathered life that sped up and downstream, the movements of the water-rats, and a family of voles, and they ate chocolate which Jane produced from her handbag, and Adele talked of all the things she wanted to do one day.

  She wanted to travel and see all the places her father had seen, and she wanted to hear him sing when there was a big audience there as well. She had a portable gramophone, and quite a large selection of his records, but she obviously wasn’t impressed by the sound of a voice on a movable disc; and to her the idea of a concert-hall - or better still the inside of such an excitingly named place as the Casino de Paris - was far more likely to gratify a desire for something she didn’t know how to express. She wanted to wear clothes more attractive than the ones she had at present - Jane discovered that Clarri had been filling her head with details of some of the film-people’s wardrobes - and more than anything else she wanted someone apart from Tante Clothilde to talk to every day, and to keep her amused.

  Her voice was very wistful as she made this last confession, and it was all the more touching because she admitted that Tante Clothilde told her stories, but they were always of her own village, and a way of life she did not understand.

  “Tante Clothilde is old,” she said, “and she thinks that fine clothes are a way of making sure le diable will possess one! But although I would not say you wear fine clothes, they are very pretty, and I do not think le diable would want to possess you!”

  “Thank you.” Jane smiled at her. “It would be most unpleasant to be possessed by the devil.”

  And then she tried to find out whether Adele would like to go away to school, and live with young people of her own age; and although at first the little girl seemed a bit bewildered by the very thought of living anywhere else, very soon it became plain that the idea appealed to her enormously. Her eyes grew large and round, the colour came and went in her cheeks, and she made a little clutching movement at Jane, as if anxious to discover whether this was something more than a suggestion, and whether it was possible that she had always thought she would like to be taught in the company of girls and boys full of similar aspirations.

  “I don’t know about boys,” Jane said, a little diffident now that she had gone so far; “but I think it; is highly likely you will be sent away one day to a girls’ school.”

  “And I will see my papa as much as I see him now?” “I think it is fairly certain you will see him as much as you see him now.”

  Adele’s colour grew brighter, and then faded a little.

  “But that is not yet,” she said, “and when you go away I shall be alone again!” Her voice grew eager, persuasive. “You will come and see me tomorrow, Mademoiselle Jane?”

  “I don’t think I can manage tomorrow,” Jane told her regretfully. And then she added: “But I will try. And if I can’t manage tomorrow I will try and slip away to see you the day after.”

  And, as luck would have it, Sandra decided that she must have a whole day’s rest the following day, and Jane was once more given permission to devote the afternoon hours to any purpose of her own she pleased. She saw Etienne drive away in his red Ferrari sports-car, and although he was unaccompanied she felt somehow certain he was not making his way to the house in the wood. Normally he walked through the wood when he wished to reach the house and today he had looked as if he was intent on something quite outside his daughter’s concerns.

  Her instincts were quite right about his not visiting Adele, and once more she and the child spent an afternoon on the bank of the river, placidly enjoying themselves. It was placid enjoyment, for Jane wasn’t capable of appreciating anything that might give her greater zest these days, and somehow the society of Etienne’s daughter was a consolation, when it was Etienne himself she longed to be with. She didn’t dare to dwell upon how much she longed to be with him, but she knew that the sight of him driving off alone filled her with intolerable ache, and even Adele’s chatter didn’t soothe that ache for some little while.

  But Adele was perfectly happy, lying with her head in her lap and talking dreamily, as on the afternoon before. And when they parted Jane had to promise that she would seize every opportunity to visit her, and that she would make those visits as lengthy as she could.

  The morning following her second visit she was busily typing in her office when Etienne appeared in the doorway and looked at her as if he wasn’t at all sure he shouldn’t apologize for intruding where only she had a right to be. It was the first time they had met in that room since the night that had brought about the peak, and the decline, of their love affair, and Jane felt her heart actually start to knock a little as she stood up rather slowly behind her desk and met his dark, brooding, thoughtful eyes.

  “Jane, I wanted to thank you for troubling yourself about Adele,” he said. “I have just been calling on my aunt, and I learn that on two occasions you have devoted quite a lot of your free time to the child.
”

  “It was nothing,” Jane answered, feeling as if her throat had gone absolutely dry. “Nothing, I mean, that I didn’t enjoy.”

  “Adele tells me you and she are great friends.” He looked away from her, at a picture on the wall. “She tells me you are going to remain friends always.”

  Jane made a little helpless gesture with her hands. “You know what children are. They never understand that nothing is – permanent ... One has to encourage them in a form of deception which isn’t really deception.”

  “I agree.” His voice sounded flat, and rather weary. “Nevertheless, Jane, you have already prepared my way for me, and Adele is quite eager to go to school. She tells me that you have discussed the matter with her, and that you know of a school where she would be very happy. Is that true?”

  “Yes. It is my old school.”

  “I see.” He produced a pencil and notebook. “May I have the address, and the name of the principal?”

  “Of course.”

  When he had written them down, he stared at them rather hard. “Why did you go to boarding-school, Jane?”

  “Because my mother died and, like you, my father couldn’t devote much of his time to me, and he realized I would be better off in a boarding-school. I was - much better off - and his mind was free of anxiety, and of course during the holidays we were together all the time. That was why we travelled about so much together, because we never had a settled home. My father taught in a boys’ preparatory school, and he lived there like any of the bachelor masters.”

  Once again Etienne said, “I see,” and he went on staring at the address in his notebook as if he was determined to get it fixed in his mind, and it preoccupied him at the moment more than anything else. But she knew that wasn’t true when he lifted his eyes. “Then you have never had a settled home, Jane?” he stated rather than asked.

  “I suppose I must have had one once, when I was small,” she said, playing with the clasp of her belt, and recognizing at the same time that her fingers were so nervous that they simply couldn’t keep still.

  “But not a home you remember?”

  “No.”

  She studied her restlessly moving fingers as if they, in their turn, fascinated her; and then at the end of a silence that seemed to go on and on until it threatened to become a nightmare she found herself forced to look up at him. There was an expression in his eyes that suggested he was enduring a kind of silent agony.

  “Oh, Jane!...” he said.

  She turned away quickly, and snatched at a paper on her desk.

  “Please forgive me,” she said, “but there is a letter here that is terribly important, and I promised Sandra I would have it ready for the out-going mail. I’m afraid I haven’t allowed myself very much time.”

  “I think you will find that you have sufficient time,” he assured her coldly - so coldly that she wondered at first whether her ears deceived her. And then he snapped shut his notebook, and slipped it into the inside pocket of his coat. “If I have interrupted your morning’s work you will have to try and forgive me. I won’t offend again. I will let you know, if you are interested, whether I am able to arrange something satisfactory for Adele.”

  Filming went on, and in spite of a few unavoidable delays and mishaps Val Wade was very satisfied with the speed with which things went ahead. If that speed continued, and the weather held, there was no reason why they shouldn’t be through even earlier than they had anticipated, or so he told Sandra, in which case they could all enjoy an unexpected break.

  “I’ll certainly have another week in Paris before I go home,” Sandra said. She was getting a little bored with the regular routine, and as always when she was drawing near to the close of a piece of important work she was growing a little restless. “And this time, Jane, you and I will hit the high-spots together. I don’t know whether you feel as I do, but rural France has a tremendous charm if you don’t take it in too large doses. If you do, it has the effect of making you want to sprout a pair of wings. You find yourself longing for rush-hour traffic and a mob of people on the sidewalk.”

  Jane replied that perhaps she was rather more country-minded than Sandra; but she had found the period of location pass very pleasantly. She didn’t admit that the very thought of getting to the end of a chapter and beginning a new one was like a leaden weight at her heart.

  Sandra regarded her critically. “You’re not as chirpy as you were when we arrived, Jane. You even look a bit pale and pensive at times. It’s all these trees ... That’s what I meant when I said I’d like to sprout a pair of wings.”

  Another day she said to Jane: “You’re coming back to the States with me, aren’t you, Jane, when all this is over? You’ve got so well into my ways that I don’t want to have to part with you now, and always, it’ll be a great chance for you.”

  Jane echoed her rather stupidly: “The - States?”

  “Yes, honey” - Sandra smiled - “the land of Uncle Sam! The Golden Land of Opportunity! I’m not suggesting you might break into films yourself - you’re hardly the type for that! - but you might find yourself a reasonably rich husband, and in these days of competition a rich husband’s an asset to any girl who has to earn a living.”

  Jane remained so silent that once more her employer looked at her with curiosity.

  “Honey, I don’t want you to think I’m harping on something, but I would like to know what happened when you and Rene were here alone together for those two days ... I mean, whether you fancied you could fall for him if he hadn’t turned out to be something quite different to that Monsieur Etienne he called himself? And, quite honestly, I don’t think he had any right to do that! It was a bit low down!”

  “All that was weeks ago,” Jane said.

  Sandra nodded. “Exactly. And you’ve never looked quite the same since!” She moved closer to the other girl, her expression not merely interested but genuinely friendly, and her voice all at once was brisk but kind. “Snap out of it, Jane!” she advised. “I see most things that go on under my nose, you know, and you’re pretty transparent - at least, you are to me, probably because I’ve got to know you. And any inexperienced girl who took Rene Delaroche seriously would simply be asking for trouble! Apart from everything else he’s a Frenchman, and the only French husbands I’ve met have been either extremely exacting or extremely inattentive. Usually they’re exacting over the housekeeping, and their inattentiveness is usually the result of marrying for convenience. An old custom over here in France. But Rene won’t marry for convenience, and he wouldn’t be mean over the housekeeping. He just won’t marry again. Once was obviously more than enough for him!”

  And Jane, who could have corrected her, knew that her only course was to remain as silent as she had been before.

  Having repeated her piece of advice, Sandra decided to leave it there.

  “Roll on the end of filming!” she exclaimed. “I’ve half promised Mark I’ll marry him in the spring... What do you think of that? Marriage-bells for little Sandra!”

  Jane tried to enthuse, but all real enthusiasm in her seemed dead. And marriage-bells had an empty ring for her just then.

  Their last night but one they dined as guests of the Comte and Comtesse de Rambouillet, at the chateau where several sequences of the film had been made. The Comte and Comtesse had been very helpful while filming was in progress, and several times they had invited leading members of the cast, as well as Jane, to lunch. Jane had got to know Elspeth de Rambouillet very well indeed, and only she herself knew how frequently she envied her when she saw how very happy the Englishwoman and her French husband were, and how contentedly they loved in their remote corner of France. They hardly ever visited Paris, and there were few really modern amenities in the chateau. But the four seasons passed over their heads, and what they had was enough. The beauties of the chateau, the splendour of the woods surrounding it, the society of each other.

  The night of the dinner-party the splendid banqueting-hall looked so magnificent
that Jane knew she would remember it always. The long table was softly candle-lit, the flames flickering in silver candelabra; the table napkins were edged with old and priceless lace, the wine glowed colourfully in the glasses. There was a centrepiece of waxen white roses, and the heavy perfume of these roses seemed to remain imprisoned in the air.

  Sandra wore a dress that glistened like the scaly skin of a serpent, and the hostess looked the part in black lace and pearls. The young woman who entered into competition with Sandra for Rene’s love in the film was an exquisite ingenue in white chiffon, and Jane wore the only really expensive evening-dress she possessed, a delicious flowing apricot-coloured tulle that, with her golden-brown eyes and the russet tints in her hair, made her look like an apricot-tinted rose. Her eyes were not quite as bright as they might have been behind her gold-dusted eyelashes, and there was a look in them that suggested she was completely preoccupied with storing up impressions, and that for her at least this farewell dinner-party was an occasion for regret, or at least quite a few regrets.

  Beside her Michael Pennington, who had remained on as a guest at the chateau throughout the filming, and who had often accepted invitations to the set, and attached himself to her very frequently, enquired how long she was likely to stay with Sandra in Paris. And when he learned that it would probably only be for a week he said that he would make every effort to see something of her there.

  “You probably know Paris fairly well,” he said, “but for me it was once a second home, and I flatter myself that there is much more I could show you than even the guide-books tell you about.”

  Jane replied a little mechanically that that would be extremely kind of him, and at the opposite end of the table two people noticed how persistently and purposefully his eyes rested on her. One of them was Sandra, who decided that Jane could do far worse than marry a well-known painter, particularly when he was her own countryman; and she made up her mind that if she could do anything to help forward the match she would most certainly do it, even if it involved a measure of personal sacrifice. For she was fond of Jane, and she didn’t like to see her looking as if someone had exploded for her, for good and all, the theory that life was good when one was young.