by Susan Barrie
One thing which had upset her very much over the past week was the recollection that she had actually told him that she was in love with him! —in love with him! and he had apparently forgotten all about it! He had opened the door of a kind of earthly paradise to her and then shut it, ruthlessly and inexorably, in her face!
Aunt Harry, when she heard all about it, could only agree that it was most extraordinary. But then Timothy was not quite like other men—he might have, he probably had got, his reasons. But whatever they were they were unfair to Carol, and the girl looked white, and upset, and almost desperate. At a time when, following a period of prolonged convalescence, she needed bolstering up and encouraging and rendering as happy and contented as possible, she was being flung into an abyss of unhappiness and profound depression and uncertainty because Timothy, apparently, had no eyes to see. And if he had he was keeping them closed for some reason of his own.
“What are you going to do, dear?” the Marchesa asked, watching Carol with the deepest sympathy.
“I don’t know.” Carol, still playing with the quilt, looked as if she had no longer any hope. “There’s nothing much I can do, except—”
“Except what, dear?”
“Except—” Carol drew a deep breath, bit her lip suddenly very hard, looked at the Marchesa with grey eyes that were deep and dark with her misery, and then got out rather huskily, “I have made up my mind to—go away! ”
The Marchesa did not look surprised. She did not even look as if she disapproved.
“I think perhaps you're right, child,” she murmured, very gently. “After all, there are refinements of torture, and although Timothy is my godson, and I am deeply fond of him, I can't offer you any explanation of his conduct towards you. I know—I believe, that is—that his affection for you is genuine, but I have long since come to realize that you do not require affection alone. It would be most unfair to expect you to accept anything so lukewarm and unsatisfactory, and if you are ever to learn what Timothy’ s true feelings are towards you, then there is only one course open to you.”
“You mean that you agree that I should go away?”
“I agreed that you should try the experiment,” Aunt Harry answered, pushing away her correspondence and her breakfast tray and sitting up in bed. She leaned forward and took both Carol’ s hands and pressed them hard, and at the same time she looked deep into the girl’s eyes. “You are unhappy now, Carol —you cannot be any more unhappy if you put Timothy to the test, and if the test fails—”
Carol actually winced, but the next moment she had set her lips and her eyes took on a look of resolution.
“If the test fails—then you will at least know where you are! But I do not believe it will fail!...”
“Don’ t you?” Carol whispered.
The Marchesa shook her head.
“Timothy is in love with you—I believe you yourself know that! But he’s got some extraordinary maggot in his brain about cherishing you and doing the right thing about you at this particular moment, and—”
“You don’ t think—you don’ t think Mrs. Featherstone has got anything to do with it?” Carol asked, waiting for her answer rather breathlessly.
“No, dear.” Aunt Harry shook her head quite definitely. “I don’t.”
“But she’s so beautiful—she’s got so much to offer him, and—and men like—men like—older women...”
“Do they?” Aunt Harry looked at her rather quizzically. “When Viola Featherstone was nineteen I don’ t think she had nearly so much to offer any man as you have. I don’t think, even now, she has so much to offer Timothy as you have—in fact, I’ m quite sure of it! So I wouldn’ t let Viola Featherstone worry you. ”
Carol looked relieved. But the next moment the gloom returned to her face.
“Then you really think I ought to—go?”
“Yes, dear.” Aunt Harry patted her hands again. “I think you should—but you will let me know where you are going?”
“I shall go,” Carol told her, having firmly made up her mind, “to Paris.”
Aunt Harry looked suddenly rather shrewd.
“You won’t become involved with that young Winslow boy?”
“Of course not! ” Carol was almost indignant. “But if I need a job he will help me to find one. And he will also be able to help me to find a little hotel where I can live cheaply. I haven’ t a great deal of money, but it will last me until I can earn more.”
Aunt Harry looked at her rather pityingly, the white, earnest face, the firm, quite capable little chin, the grey eyes that were fixed and determined.
“If you want money, my dear, you know you have only to ask me for some,” the Marchesa told her gently. “You mustn’ t ever allow yourself to run short, and I would never forgive myself if I thought you were alone in Paris and in difficulty, particularly as I have agreed that it is the right thing for you to go away. Promise me that you will let me know if you are in any difficulties—promise me, also, that you will keep in touch with me? It is very important, Carol, and I will not give you away to Timothy—unless I am absolutely certain in my own mind that, when he comes to bring you back, you can be glad to see him! ”
Carol looked down at her wistfully. She was thinking: What if Timothy never comes to bring me back!...
Two days later she was in Paris, having for the first time in her life journeyed alone by air. Aunt Harry had given her the name of an hotel where she could afford to spend one night at least before contacting Brian Winslow, and she went to bed without bothering about any dinner although conscious that the strangeness of a new, and rather wonderful, city, was all around her, and that she was virtually cut off from the life she had once known.
She went to the window and looked out at the lights of Paris, twinkling through the haze of the spring evening. Paris in spring had always sounded to her as if it must be the most wonderful place in the world, with its boulevards and its historic buildings, its unlimited entertainments—a city to live! But Carol’ s heart was as heavy as lead as she looked over the tops of the rapidly greening trees a delicate tracery of bursting buds, to where the sounds from the busy streets rose up in a swelling chorus proclaiming the joys and delights of living.
For her Paris had few charms tonight. But if she was here with Timothy!... If Timothy stood now, beside her, at her elbow, and they both looked out over those fascinating and enticing lights, and if she knew she was going out to discover the beauty and
excitement of it all with him as her guide!
Well, that would be more than different!
But Timothy was probably at this moment re-reading the uninformative little note she had left him, and trying to fathom out why she had left him—for, of course, he would not easily understand!...
She felt terribly lonely, and terribly disinclined to test the comfort of her solitary-looking bed, and instead she looked up Brian's telephone number and put through a call to him at his more modest hotel. He sounded absolutely flabbergasted when he heard her voice, and even more so when she made it clear to him that she was actually in Paris. He asked at once whether Timothy was with her, and seemed to find it difficult to credit the evidence of his own ears when she told him that he was not.
“Do you mean to tell me that you’re actually here alone?” he said. “But I can’t understand it!... It’s too good to be true!...”
Carol tried to explain to him that she wanted to see him the next day, but he cut her short in his excitement.
“Tonight! You’ll have dinner with me tonight? Of course you will! ”
But Carol said quite firmly that she was going to bed. At what time could she see him the following day?
Brian was not actually disappointed, for he finally arranged to collect her at her hotel the following morning, and to take her to a little place he knew of for lunch. His voice sounded excited and delighted beyond words. Carol’s heart misgave her a little as she realized what he might be thinking, but it was impossible to dim his enthusiasm
over a telephone, and she thought it better to wait. All in good time she would have to make Brian realize that she was not here to afford him any particular pleasure from her near presence in Paris, and it might be as well to do so without very much delay. But for the moment his was the voice of the one friend she had in a strange city in an unknown country, and it comforted her a little to hear it.
She went to bed at last feeling suddenly desperately tired, and she actually fell asleep almost immediately her head touched the pillow. Which was a merciful dispensation on the part of Providence, for she was more than unhappy. She was wondering how she was going to get through the days ahead of her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
AT lunch the following day Brian was plainly in his element,
but he was a little at a loss to understand why Carol had left Venice. He attempted to convey to her that he had always been under the impression that she was rather keen, to say the least, on her husband, and if so why had she left him? It was not exactly a light step, walking out on the man who was one’s lawful lord and master, and what was Timothy going to have to say to it, anyway? Had Carol thought of that?
Carol had thought of it so much so continually during the past twenty-four hours that even she was a little appalled at what she had done. Timothy had always been so good to her, so good and kind and considerate, and this and abetted his wife in running away from him!
Carol felt rather sick inside herself at the thought of what she had done. After all, she loved Timothy—she would never wish to hurt him. And yet she had, she must have, hurt him a little. She was displaying a tendency to rank ingratitude at least.
“What are you going to do?” Brian asked her. “If you stay on here in Paris, have you got enough money to keep yourself?”
“For a time,” Carol told him. “And then I thought,” she explained rather shyly, “I’ d get a job. I thought you might be able to help me there.”
He looked at her, at her slender figure in the beautifully tailored light spring suit, her golden aureole of curls, her grey, soft, infinitely attractive eyes.
“That shouldn’t be very difficult,” he admitted. “You’ve got a perfect face and a perfect figure, and you might do very well as a model. But”—he looked rather worried— “You’re not very strong yet, are you? And it seems to me that you want someone to look after you. After all, you’re very young, too, and—well, I don’ t know! ”
He smiled a little whimsically. It was a situation which appealed to him, but it might not be altogether easy to handle. And Carol attracted him very strongly.
She took a sip at the light French wine he had ordered. She had little or no appetite, but she pretended to eat because she did not wish him to become anxious about her.
“And where are you going to live?” he asked. “Can you afford that hotel where you’re staying now?”
Carol shook her head very definitely.
“I thought perhaps you might be able to find me somewhere cheaper. ”
Brian did find her somewhere cheaper, but Carol was to make the discovery that while expensive Paris hotels provided every comfort, the less well-known ones—and the ones where the charges dropped considerably—were much more inconvenient, and a little depressing besides. She had lived for months now in the lap of a good deal of luxury, and to find herself suddenly on the top floor of a building tucked discreetly away behind the skirts, as it were, of the more imposing Parisian edifices was not calculated to give a lift to her spirits. There was no outlook, for one thing, and the room was dark and dismal, the lift worked erratically, and a stale smell of food hung in the atmosphere. Even so, after a week or so it would be more than she could afford, unless she appealed to the Marchesa, which she was quite determined not to do, or Brian found her a job. And inexperienced as she was, she could not hope for a very highly salaried job. She might even find it necessary to remove to somewhere cheaper than this.
Brian tried to console her when she rejoined him in the hotel vestibule, and he suggested taking her out to dinner that night. She looked at him rather anxiously. It was not to be expected that he should take her about and pay for her enjoyment and for diversion for her when she was really nothing but the merest acquaintance. He might like her—he made no secret of the fact that he liked her very much indeed—but that scarcely helped matters.
She knew that she must not encourage Brian. It was not fair to him, and it did not agree with her own slightly puritan moral code. Timothy would not like it, either.
Not that Timothy had very much to do with it any longer.
But she accepted Brian’ s invitation to dinner. She could not possibly sit alone in that gloomy hotel bedroom. And in order to recompense him she donned one of her prettiest evening dresses—the only one, as a matter of fact, she had brought with her from Venice—and made herself look as attractive as possible, and he took her to a gay little cafe in the Montmartre district, and afterwards to a cabaret where they danced until quite late. Then they decided to walk back to her hotel through a night that was alive with the hooting of taxis and the inconsequent chatter of numberless passing couples who walked arm-in-arm, or with arms draped about one another, and who all seemed very happy and carefree.
The night wind blew softly, the young green leaves on the trees whispered caressingly, and all Paris, apparently, was gay. But not Carol. She walked beside Brian as if she was walking in a dream, and when he looked down at her her eyes were downcast and her mouth had a pathetic droop. She had no conversation and she answered him in monosyllables. Somehow she managed to make his heart ache a little, and it was more on her own account than his. He knew she was not— and she never would be! —for him.
When he left her at her hotel she had to climb the stairs to her room because the lift was out of action, and the smell of garlic and vegetables seemed stronger than ever. In her room she did not attempt to undress, but sank down on the side of the bed and remained huddled there for a long time, and it was not until she found that she was shivering with cold that she went to bed.
The next day Brian was much occupied with his own affairs, and she found her own way about the streets of Paris, visiting an art gallery and a museum because there was nothing else to do. The shops did not tempt her she had no money to spend on trivialities, and no heart for them if she had. She was only conscious of an aching void inside her, and a strange spreading sea of loneliness which made her wonder how much longer she could endure it, and why she had ever decided that separation from Timothy was better than living without his love.
She knew now that it would have been better to spend her whole life near him, without receiving so much as a word from him, than to cut herself quite off from him as she had done.
Why, she asked herself, had she done it? Why had the Marchesa not stopped her?
It was scarcely likely that Timothy would want her back now. He had probably decided to let her work out her own salvation, that it was the best thing to do. And yet—and yet it was not like Timothy....
Whenever she saw a man who looked even remotely like him her heart did a kind of somersault, but she did not see many who looked like Timothy. Dark men, yes—Latin types with swarthy skins. Men who sometimes looked at her boldly, others who plainly admired her, who thought her fair, English beauty exceedingly striking. There was the dark-eyed man she shared a table with when she paused for a coffee at one of the little outside restaurants, and who offered her a cigarette, the man who offered to see her across the road when she seemed nervous of crossing. Then there was the man who really did look like Timothy, with the same bronzed skin and lean line of jaw, and a certain something about the eyes, who recovered her hat for her when the wind blew it off, and who was obviously one of her own countrymen on holiday in Paris.
He looked at her as if he would have liked to stop and talk to her, but being English he did not press the point. And being English Carol thanked him hurriedly, smiled at him uncertainly, and then went on her way.
He looked after h
er. She knew he was looking after her, but he was not Timothy, and she was not in the least interested in him.
She began to realize that what she was actually doing was searching every passing face for Timothy, without ever recognizing him amongst the swarm of faces. Her heart sank lower and lower. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack, and in any case Timothy was in Venice.
She stayed out until it was nearly dusk, and then returned to her hotel with dragging steps. She walked a good many miles that day and she was desperately tired. Climbing the stairs to her room—the lift seemed permanently out of action—was almost the last straw.
She did not look up when she entered the room, and she dragged herself wearily across to her bed. She did not realize that a shadow in the window meant that someone was standing there, and it was not until a voice spoke to her that she looked up, startled.
“Those stairs are a bit trying,” Timothy remarked in a cool voice. “I wouldn’t like to do them many times a day.”
Carol sat gripping the sides of the bed. She could not even utter his name.
“I wondered how much longer I had got to wait for you,” Timothy said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
SHE was back in the hotel where she had spent her first night in Paris, in a large double-bedded room with windows which looked out on to one of the most fashionable quarters of the city. She had no idea where Timothy’s room was, for beyond bringing her here and remarking that she would probably find it more cheerful than the spot where he had found her, he had said practically nothing at all to her, and he had certainly not reproached her in the least for behaving as she had done. His air and his attitude had been quite kindly, but detached and completely impersonal, and he had betrayed no hint of having suffered in the least as a result of her desertion. Apparently she had not even impressed him by her action.