by Jane Arbor
But at that Paul exploded. “I do not ‘care to advise.’ Find your own solution—it’s your headache.”
“Then kindly leave the pain and the cure of it to me!”
Through the hinge of the cellar door Caroline saw Paul shrug.
“Oh, I will. Don’t worry. But if you ever take time off from trying to run a show like Prairies Pascal nose-down to a deskful of accounts and samples of fertilizer, you should have a look some time at the kind of debris that is cluttering Fragonard at this moment. Ever heard, for instance, of cigarette butts causing forest fires, or that you can’t better a broken bottle if you’re in need of a burning-glass to get a nice flame going? Well, butts and bottle-shards, your ‘high summer’ picnickers are leaving them there in quantity in tinder-dry undergrowth that should have been cleared in the spring after cropping, when you could have spared the men. But it’s too late now, agreed. Now you can only rely on a better patrol system than I’ve yet seen in action up there and hope you aren’t merely closing the stable-door after the—”
He broke off as Caroline, irked by an eavesdropping which had been forced upon her, pushed the cellar door wide and stepped into view. He stared down the hall at her; at her homely burden; from Berthin back to her and then laughed.
“Well, well!” he said slowly. And then—in English, which had the subtle effect of shutting Berthin out—“And to think that when we scraped acquaintance, I made the mistake of inviting you to a drink, whereas, if I’d only recognized the ‘little woman’ in you that was screaming to get out, I might have got a lot further than I did, if I’d offered you a duster or a can of detergent instead!”
CHAPTER FOUR
FROWNING, Berthin came to take the bucket and dustpan out of Caroline’s hands. “Now, now, you shouldn’t have troubled yourself with that!” he chided.
She smiled at him, in her turn deliberately shutting Paul out. “Why not? It needed doing, and your sister was safely asleep before I left her," she told him.
“She was? Good.” He turned back to Paul. “I haven’t had time to tell you, but Mademoiselle Caroline and I met by chance in the village and I brought her back to meet Ursule. But when we got here I found Ursule half unconscious on the cellar steps, so between us we had to get her to bed and call Dr. Lanvin to her.”
Paul said quickly, “Good heavens, I’m sorry. Do you mean she had fallen down the steps?”
“From what she was able to tell us, I gather she was on her way up with some stores, remembered something else she wanted, turned and slipped then. Anyway, she couldn’t stand on a possibly broken ankle, and Lanvin says she is slightly concussed from hitting her head as she fell. Meanwhile, as I had to go back to Villon, Caroline here has nobly stood by, though I certainly didn’t mean her to turn char as well as nurse!”
Paul grinned. “Not to worry. At a guess, Caroline, when young, won every Girl Guide badge there was! But what now for Ursule? While she is hors de combat you’d better let me send Simone over to do for you.”
“Not at all. That won’t be necessary. I can manage.”
“For Ursule, then. Simone shall look in twice a day and bring over some cooked stuff for you both.” As he turned to leave, Paul looked back at Caroline. “Where’s Betsy?” he asked.
Caroline told him.
“Then you were walking when you met Berthin?”
“Yes.”
“And now? Are you staying on or can I take you back in the car? I’ve got it below on the road.” As she hesitated, knowing she could use a few minutes alone with him to some purpose, Berthin urged her, “I’d accept, if I were you, Caroline. It’s pretty hot walking now.”
“Then I will, because I daresay Betsy means to be back for lunch. But—” giving him her hand—“I may come again to see Ursule? Tomorrow, perhaps?”
“Of course. Any time, Or if you could give me a ring, I would come over for you whenever you like. Meanwhile, thank you for this morning, for everything.”
In the car there was silence while it took the first bend in the road. Then, on an exaggerated sigh, Paul said, “Now don’t tell me. Let me guess what causes the depressing air of disapproval of me. Could it be, I wonder, my having whipped smartly back on my tracks last night when, by all the best Sidcup standards, I should have called it a day and gone like a good boy to bed?”
“Of course not. It was no business of mine. But I think Betsy was surprised you went back when, from what you said when you left us, you were tired and were on your own way home,” Caroline told him.
He waved an airy hand. “My dear, that was just a closing gambit! As for instance, you might say ‘Not at home’ to me, when you were, and I knew you were, and you knew I knew you were, and I—Look, you’ll stop me, won’t you, when I’ve made my point?”
Caroline said crisply, “You’ve made it now, if you mean you didn’t want to accept Betsy’s invitation to go in with us.”
“Let’s say, shall we, that a threesome doesn’t give anyone much chance? Besides, Betsy, bless her, always wants background music to the mildest of junketings, and her taste in beat records doesn’t coincide with mine. So, the thought of home and bed not tempting either, I went back and dropped in for a lone session at the tables in the Summer Casino. That made bed in the really small hours hardly worth while, so after I’d bathed and made myself some coffee, I went out again, this time up-valley towards Castellane and back through Grasse. I’m still on my way back.”
“I know. That is,” Caroline corrected herself, “I know you were out pretty early, because Betsy rang you up between eight and nine.”
“And I daresay, putting two and two together, immediately canvassed your opinion as to whether or not I’d spent the night on the tiles? She did?”
As Caroline’s sharply drawn breath gave him his answer, he laughed. “I thought as much, and of course Simone, who doesn’t approve on principle of incoming calls from her own sex, wouldn’t have been helpful. However, if my double-dealing of last night isn’t the cause of my being in the doghouse, what is? Was it by any chance that crack of mine about dusters and detergents?”
Caroline nodded. “I thought it was rather uncalled for, and it seemed to me that the circumstances made it doubly—cheap.”
“I know, and I’m sorry.” His glance and his smile were equally disarming. “But for the defence—when I said it, I didn’t know what the circumstances were, and the sight of you popping up out of Bertha’s cellar, wearing a smug ‘domestic mission accomplished’ air, and about as unexpectedly as Aphrodite rising from the waves, was too much for both my aplomb and my well-known tact. Am I forgiven?”
In spite of herself Caroline laughed. “And just how renowned is your tact?”
“Well, shouldn’t you know? Didn’t I give you a mint example of it last night when I refrained from telling on you to Betsy? Which raises the nice point—though I’m not pressing for immediate payment, mind you!—do I get my pound of flesh or not?”
“Your—? Oh, these?” As she took the cigarettes of their bet from her bag and slipped them into the glove compartment in front of him, she was again reminded of those tossing, elusive balls. Of how, for all your experience told you they were intentionally geared to defy you, you still went on buying pot-shots at them until you beggared yourself of small change without regret. So what? said your mood, as long as it was gay and devil-may-care enough, So what—you’ve had fun for your money, haven’t you? And, of course, you had...
She did not know that, at the thought, her mouth had quirked in private amusement until she caught Paul’s eye in the driving mirror and heard his question, “What’s the secret joke? May one share it?”
But knowing she couldn’t explain either the thought or the mood, she evaded with, “It was nothing. I didn’t know I was smiling,” and then, noticing he was halting the car at a fork in the road, “Why are you stopping here?”
“Because, theoretically speaking, our ways part here. That one—” pointing—“takes us back to Mimosa; this one to
my house. How sure are you that Betsy means to come back for lunch?”
“I’m not sure. She said it depended on whether the car was ready and on whom she met in Cannes, but—”
“Then if you came home with me and we rang up the villa to hear she wasn’t back or wasn’t coming, would you stay for lunch with me?” As he saw her hesitate, “After all, as a friend of mine you’ve got to run Simone’s gauntlet some time, so why not now?” he urged.
What have you got to lose? she asked herself. Of course you’ll say no if Betsy has come home. But supposing she hasn’t? Letting the possibility decide her, Caroline said, “I’d like to very much, but only if Betsy has rung up to say she isn’t coming.”
“Well, if she hasn’t or is back already—” he slewed over the wheel in order to take the right-hand fork—“I’ll make amends for last night by going over for her, and we’ll lunch a trois instead.”
A couple of hundred yards further on the road narrowed to an avenue bordered by sweet chestnut trees taking turn and turn about with cypresses which speared blackly against the brilliant cobalt of the sky. Another broadening, this time to a sweep of gravel edged by flowerbeds behind a low stone coping and then a house as different from either the villa or Berthin’s cottage as the two latter were from each other.
This one was of stone, square built and true to the classic tradition of the early nineteenth century, its façade a fan-lighted doorway flanked by ground-floor french windows opening on to a balustrade terrace and with a row of wrought-iron balconied sash windows above. There was nothing of the chateau about it, nor of the accepted sun-wooing style of the region. And though decades of southern sun had mellowed its stone and put alien colors into its grey roof tiles, it still wore the air and dignity of a town house of its period—a fact explained by Paul as he drove under a wide archway into a pavé courtyard at its side—“Maison Pascal, built by my great-great-grandfather when he first came south from Paris and declared he would show ‘ces types Provencals’ what civilized living was! The result? Well, civilized enough, though not all that luxe by today’s standards. But I’m fond of it and I’m glad when other people take to it too.”
Caroline told him that from its exterior she had done so already and he had just said, “I’ll show you over it when we’ve had lunch—” when a side house-door opened and a stumpy woman in black emerged from its shadow to accuse him,
“And where, mon brave, have you been, may one ask, since you go down to Cannes last night, do not sleep in your bed and keep petit dejeuner waiting all morning in vain? So! No affair of mine, you say. Nor is it. But even if you do not see fit to acquaint this fat Simone of your movements, one would expect that today at least you would have cared enough to be on hand for poor Clementine’s occasion!”
At that Paul clapped a hand to his thigh. “Mon dieu—Clementine! I did forget her, I confess. Do you mean this is the day she—?”
Simone bridled. “And who is to say, when the expectant mother is a cat, which is ‘the day’ for her? Enough, surely, that Clementine herself knew and prepared accordingly ... on the bottom shelf of the cupboard in the music-room, as I thought she might?”
Paul groaned. “As you thought she might! As I knew she would. She’s been reconnoitering there for days, and after all, she chose a pile of my favorite records last time. But she has had them, has she? How many?”
For a moment Simone’s expression remained one of affront. Then her features broke up and her beady eyes disappeared in an enormous conspiratorial smile as she thrust a fat finger at Paul’s chest.
“How many? Five, my friend! Six, counting le pauvre who did not survive and whom I have—removed. But Clementine is well and proud; five lusty ones remaining, and every one of them—imagine!—as tigré as herself! And if Madame would excuse you—” a glitter of frost returned to her glance as she looked at Caroline—“you could see for yourself how well she has done!”
But for Caroline, who loved cats, the thought of five newly minted kittens and their gratified mama was too much. She looked first at Paul, then at Simone. “Oh, please,” she begged, “if it’s not too early to disturb the mother, couldn’t I see them too?”
Simone’s face softened. “You would care to? You are fond of cats? Perhaps you have a dear one of your own?”
On the way into the house through the kitchen quarters Caroline explained that, living in rooms as she did, she couldn’t keep a cat. But later, as the three of them knelt side by side on the floor of the music-room, peering at the scraps of tabby cathood mewling on their flannel bed while Clementine wreathed back and forth about them, Simone urged, “But you have a sympathetic concierge—no? And perhaps a garden where a minou could run and hunt a little? Therefore you must have one of these. When they are more grown, you shall choose this one or that, and I shall give it you. No, no—I insist. It is arranged!”
Caroline sat back on her heels and appealed to Paul, “Explain about the English quarantine laws, will you, please? I’m not sure that my French is equal to it.”
He did so, adding something which, owing to the scream of a jet plane overhead, she did not hear properly, though it brought another wide smile to the housekeeper’s face. She turned to commiserate, “Quel dommage! A pity, that! But perhaps it will be as Monsieur Paul says—if you are not already fiancée, it may be that you will choose a Frenchman for a husband and, with your home then in France, you may keep as many cats as you please. In the meanwhile, you will come often to see Clementine’s little family—yes?”
Rising and offering a hand to Caroline to help her to her feet, Paul promised for her, “She shall. But in the meanwhile, Simone, what about some lunch for us? Say in the garden-room in a quarter of an hour, which will give Mademoiselle Neville time to freshen while I make a telephone call.”
Simone hesitated. “I should tell you—Mademoiselle Lane rang you earlier while you were out.”
“Yes, I know. I’m ringing her back. Oh—and Simone, Mademoiselle Ursule has had a fall, and as she is likely to be out of action for some days, I’ve promised my cousin you’ll go over and help them out.”
Simone scowled, “That I will? Now, Monsieur Paul, haven’t I duties and affairs enough here without that? While as for those good-for-nothing girls in my kitchen—!”
“Nonsense,” Paul cut in. “They’ll remain good for nothing if you do all the work yourself, as I suspect you do. You can spare an hour or two for the cottage and I’ll take you over myself this evening. When you’ve done what’s wanted, no doubt Monsieur Berthin will bring you back. Tomorrow you may be able to send Claire or ’Melie instead. But someone is to go twice a day until Mademoiselle Ursule is better. Understood?”
For a long moment Simone stood smoothing her skirt over her ample hips. Then, her tone mutinous, she echoed, “Understood. I will go, and though not happily, it is not in fact that I shirk the errand. You should not force me to speak plainly, Monsieur. For though there are those whom one is glad to help when they are in trouble, there are others—usurpers and the like—who do not deserve—”
“That will do, Simone! Show Mademoiselle to the cloakroom now, and join me in the garage at six this evening when I’ll take you to the cottage.”
Paul’s own tone was curt, incisive, and Caroline, following his housekeeper’s eloquently rigid back, felt a little sorry for her. But of course she had invited his snub and, without knowing why she should care either way, Caroline was glad Paul had brooked no argument against the kindness from either Berthin or Simone.
An hour later they had lunched on iced beetroot soup and delicious grilled river trout followed by fritters containing—of all things! acacia and marrow blossom, which Paul said were a speciality of the region.
Caroline’s surprised delight over these had led her to want to know all he could tell her about the candying of rose and violet petals and angelica in the mountain confiseries of which she had heard and meant to see. From there they had gone on to the larger subject of the processing of flowers
in the perfume factories of Grasse, which in turn had produced its awkward moment when she mentioned that her planned exploration of the Pascal estate had got no further than the place in Villon where she had met Berthin.
“Don’t tell me my desk-wallah of a cousin offered to take time out to escort you himself?” challenged Paul.
“He didn’t then. He asked me to go with him to meet his sister, and you know what happened after that. But on the way up, when I told him I wanted to see the plantations, he did suggest he should take me over them some time.”
“Well, with a thousand hectares to cover, I wish you joy of your conducted tour. Berthin, if you didn’t know, graduated to the Directorship of Pascal by way of some staggeringly brilliant applied science degrees and a laboratory in Grasse, and he can reduce Nature to a matter of test-tubes and percentages of extraction faster and more thoroughly than anyone I know. However, you’ll emerge far better informed on the technicalities of flower farming than if I took you round, though if you’d settle for a smaller canvas—say the home stretch around here—you could have my angle too if you’d care for it.”
Caroline thanked him, said she would like that and waited, expecting him to enlarge on what his approach was. But lying back in his chair and half closing his eyes against the vine-dappled sun of the garden-room, he said casually, “By the way, I take it Betsy or someone will have told you what the set-up is here at Pascal?”
“You mean—about your cousin’s having been made Director of it with sole control? Yes.”