“Come down and join us after dinner,” Lou invited casually. “Bring your Giles over to our table for coffee.”
Valentine disliked having Giles Haversham referred to in that condescending fashion as “her Giles,” and, in any case, he had had to go to Vienna for a few days, and was not likely to return before the week-end.
Valentine decided to forget it was a gala night and go to bed early, but the music that came stealing upwards from the very heart of the hotel drew her, presently, to stand like a shadow in a corner of the big veranda that was used as a cooling-off place for the dancers, and it was there that she saw Lou and her escort stand very close to one another as they looked out at the star-spangled banner that was the night sky above the frozen peaks.
Lou looked golden and ethereal in her whiteness—her tan banished out of existence by the splendour of the star-shine—and Alex was wearing full evening dress, and nothing could better have become him than a white tie and tails. A few Orders on his breast and he would have really looked the part—His Excellency the Baron von Felden—and because of the manner in which he bent his gleaming dark head, and captured a lady’s hand with rather an exquisite grace and carried it up to his lips, he might have been attending a reception in the home of someone with a more impressive-sounding title still.
Valentine looked backwards into the ballroom, and saw the lights and the flowers, the gala streamers. Without the latter, and with a gracious staircase winding upwards and a few ladies with coronets and more gentlemen with Orders the picture would have been entirely right. A fitting background for someone like Alex von Felden. Instead of which it was a winter sports hotel, and he was paying an enormous sum for his suite and the upkeep of his manservant, and probably wondering at that moment how he was going to settle his bill when it was presented.
Valentine felt a surge of contempt for him, and his mode of life ... the general unsatisfactoriness of everything he undertook these days. If he was a man at all—if he had any of the arrogant blood of his forebears flowing in his veins—he would want to be independent above everything else, and independence did not lie in becoming a slave to a woman. Dependent upon her for everything he needed, right down to meeting the demands of his tailor and his shirt-maker, and all those people who turned him out so splendidly.
Valentine felt her anger against him rise and become quite fierce ... And then she noticed how the crested ring on his little finger glistened as he took out his cigarette-case and handed it to Lou. Once more she felt herself growing bemused as—in retrospect—she stared downwards at that very same ring on that very same finger, as he held both of her hands tightly.
She felt a strange fluttering sensation at the base of her throat, where an uncontrollable pulse started to get out of hand, and then a breathless excitement...
And then Lou, having refused a cigarette, put a white hand upwards and touched the Baron’s cheek. He caught it and kissed it yet again ... And then Lou put her other hand up and slid it behind his neck, drawing his face down to hers deliberately, provocatively. For one instant, as the pulse beat so wildly in Valentine’s slim throat that she felt it must choke her, the man seemed to smile, oddly, inscrutably, right into the upturned blue eyes of the woman who was so close to him, and then he bent and kissed her hard and full on her mouth.
Lou flung abandoned arms round his neck and clung to him.
Valentine turned away, feeling strangely sick and trembling as if from reaction, and she remembered that Lou had boasted that Alex made love beautifully.
Too beautifully! ... No woman would ever be able to trust him, or believe that it was just for her!
She stumbled away, hoping against hope that no one would see her, colliding with the base of a potted palm before she reached one of the big glass doors through which she could regain the ballroom. But she had no partner to dance with, and she wasn’t even dressed for gala celebrations. She was still wearing the quiet grey dress she had worn all day, and she felt like a grey unwanted ghost—the death’s head at the feast!—as she stole through the ballroom.
But upstairs in her room the desolation passed a little, the awful sensation of being unwanted. She told herself it wasn’t true, anyway ... She was useful to Lou, and while waiting for the lift the elderly Count von Hochenberg—“Willi” to Alex von Felden—had tried to persuade her to go back into the ballroom and drink a glass of champagne with him.
“I’m getting too old to be a satisfactory dancing partner,” he confessed, smilingly at her kindly. “And young ladies generally find me a bore. Won’t you take pity on me?”
But Valentine had not been deceived by his eager fumbling with his monocle, through which he could put up a pretence of surveying her with the very maximum interest, or the excessive gallantry of the little bow he accorded her when he recognised who she was. He was merely being kind, because she looked so alone, and because he was a survival of an era when pretty young things of her type were never without an escort, and never earned their living by acting the part of a personal maid.
“Thank you very much,” she declined the invitation gratefully. “But I’m not really dressed to share in the festivities. Actually, I’m still on duty.”
He looked a little quizzical.
“When I last saw Miss Morgan she didn’t give me the impression that she was thinking of going to bed. I hope you won’t have to sit up until she does decide to call it a day?” He chuckled. “That’s an Americanism I’ve picked up from her!”
Valentine reassured him.
“Lou isn’t as inconsiderate as all that.”
He held wide the gate of the lift for her, because the liftman was no longer on duty.
“Good night, Fraulein,” he said gently. “Life is complex sometimes, but that happens to all of us, you know!” As she walked through into the sitting-room of the suite to collect some magazines with which to read herself to sleep, Valentine wondered what he had meant by that.
He was rather a faded copy of what he had once been, his dress suit well cut, but as equally well preserved, his buttonhole gay and a symbol of jauntiness, while his monocle was not much an affectation as a badge to which he clung. Without it he would probably feel that he had lost something quite irreplaceable, and it didn’t matter that there were many things he had lost which he would not recover.
He was another one like von Felden, brought up on a tradition and at sea in a world that no longer required his kind. He was Count von Hochenberg, but Valentine felt certain that if she inquired about Hochenberg she would be told it no longer existed ... save, perhaps, as a place name. He was clinging to a way of life, just as Alex was clinging, with probably just as little to make it possible.
But for him, a man who was no longer young, there was some excuse. For Alex there could be no excuse.
There came a light tap at the door, and Valentine went to open it. Alex himself stood there. He smiled down at her with a languid flash of his white teeth.
“I was prepared to make every endeavour not to disturb you,” he told her. “But I couldn’t just walk in without warning you by knocking. Lou wants her purse ... a brocade purse that she said she left on the table in this room.”
Valentine picked it up and handed it to him.
“I think this is the one you mean,” she said quietly.
He allowed his dark glance to slide over her ... a leisurely process, even insolent.
“Not dancing to-night?” he inquired. “Are you being the faithful little attendant who never deserts her post, or is it because your Englishman appears to have evaporated into thin air?”
“Mr. Haversham has gone away for a few days, if that’s what you mean,” she returned stiffly.
“Too bad,” he murmured. His glance dropped to the reading matter under her arm. “So you are going to keep boredom at bay by devouring all that is devourable in those magazines? Poor little Cinderella! You must find yourself another Englishman!”
“I ... have no intention of finding myself anyone,” Va
lentine managed to articulate, disturbed because, owing to an uprush of resentment, she couldn’t prevent her voice shaking.
She thought that his dark eyes looked suddenly amused, and one beautifully marked eyebrow ascended.
“So? Then I’m afraid there is a lot of boredom in store for you, little one, and I can do nothing about it! Good night, Cinderella!” And he tucked the purse into a pocket and strode off casually in the direction of the lift.
Valentine closed the door and leaned against it.
“Good night, Cinderella!” There had been a glimmer of something harsh, and even cruel, in his eyes. His voice had mocked.
CHAPTER SIX
The next day Lou, in an unusually expansive mood, told Valentine she could take the whole day off if she chose.
“Alex and I are going off with a party on some new climb, and we might not be back until evening. In any case, I can look after myself if we do get back and you’re not here. Take the ski-lift up to the Devil’s Plateau, as they call it, and have lunch at the little hotel there. The food’s quite good, and it will make a change for you. Also there’s a tea orchestra, if you’d like to stay for it. I’ll be responsible for all the wild extravagance.”
“Thank you, but I can pay for my own extravagance,” Valentine assured her, smiling, however, gratefully, because Lou was prepared to be generous.
Lou struggled into her windcheater, and Valentine zipped it up for her.
“All right. Be independent ... and English!” But Lou touched her cheek almost affectionately. “And have a good day. That’s the important thing!”
Valentine watched them depart from the hotel, a noisy cluster of rainbow-hued figures. The men had packs attached to their backs, as well as skis carried at the correct angle on their shoulders, and Valentine guessed there would be a meal in the open—a merry meal accompanied by much laughter, and possibly the popping of champagne corks, while the sun scorched down from the cloudless heaven and burned them browner than they were. She couldn’t resist a sensation of envy as she listened to the noisy tramp of their feet winding their way up the village street, and the thought of the lonely day that stretched ahead of herself made the envy grow stronger.
Then one of the group turned and looked up at her window. It was the tallest amongst them, a bareheaded man with shining hair that was blue-black in the sunlight, wearing a primrose-coloured windcheater and black vorlagers. She saw his hard white teeth as he flashed a derisive smile upwards at her balcony, and her fingers clutched the balcony rail so tightly that they were numb for some time afterwards. And then he sketched her a salute, and Lou—all powder-blue to-day, and radiant as the morning—looked upwards also in some surprise.
Then she, too, waved a hand, and immediately afterwards forgot all about the girl she employed. She clutched at the Baron’s arm in a familiar manner, and the whole of the village street echoed to their determined tramping. In a matter of minutes they had rounded a corner by the cafe, and were out of sight.
Valentine went back into her room and started to tidy it automatically. The maid, Lisa, who did her room was a willing girl, but she hated to give her too much trouble, for the hotel was over-full, and Lou demanded rather more attention from the staff than she could reasonably expect.
Valentine began to make a plan for her own unexpectedly free day. She was not very much in favour of the Devil’s Plateau idea, but there were other things she would like to do. She rang for Lisa and made the unusual request of a picnic lunch for herself, and with it strapped inside a knapsack went out into the resinous freshness of the morning. The resin was the odour of the pines that guarded the hotel, and their shadows lay like blue-black pencils on the whiteness of the snow. The overhead arch of blue sky had an amazing quality of purity about it, as if it had been carefully distilled through layers of gauze, and was even yet protected by an invisible layer of gauze that softened anything in the nature of a blemish which would otherwise have been revealed to the naked eye.
Valentine looked up at it appreciatively, and felt a sudden lightening of her spirit. The warmth of the sun even at that early hour, made her suddenly intensely aware of the fact that it was good to be alive, and although the village street confronting her was comparatively empty, and there were few people left on the steps of the hotel, she didn’t feel nearly so alone. And even though she was alone it didn’t matter, for there was a whole day stretching ahead of her, and she needn’t bother about nylon underwear or pressing seams or banishing cigarette burns in taffeta evening skirts. She was free to enjoy every minute of the day, and as preparation she drew in some exciting breaths of the wine-like air and tightened the strap of the pack on her back.
She was wearing navy-blue ski-pants and a scarlet windcheater, and there was a navy-blue cap on her curls. One or two of the people who still lingered on the steps of the hotel glanced at her curiously as she stood there, poised, as it were, for adventure, and a glimmering of admiration appeared in more than one pair of eyes. These English, they had such excellent complexions, was the general consensus of opinion of the German and American element, and the Austrians themselves were impressed by the touch of fragility.
You didn’t get it in a country where there were so many mountains, and so many opportunities to enjoy outdoor sport and exercise.
“You go off by yourself, Fraulein?” said a voice behind her, and Count “Willi” beamed at her as if he thought it a very excellent notion. “That is good! So long as you do not go too far, or forget that this is not Piccadilly Circus! So?” And he laughed as at an extremely funny joke. “You will remember that here people can get lost?”
“I’m not likely to get lost,” Valentine reassured him, smiling as if she thought his joke amusing, too. “I’m going to have a wonderfully lazy day and do practically nothing, except sit in the sun.” She pointed upwards at a wood that crowned the crest of a rise. “I’m going to explore that. I’ve never been there before.”
The Count looked upwards a little wistfully, shielding his eyes from the glare.
“I wish I could offer to come with you, Fraulein, but nowadays I find that I cannot climb.” He touched his noticeable paunch, and then his chest. “My breath refuses to come, and I gasp and gasp! ...” He rolled his eyes horrifically, and then smiled his ridiculously angelic smile. “So I, too, will sit in the sun and smoke a cigar. It is all I can do now that I am growing old!”
“Nonsense.” The warmth of her smile, and the soft brilliance and clarity of the golden eyes stirred something inside him that would probably never grow old, and, indeed, he suddenly yearned to be able to escort her. “But I hope you’ll enjoy your cigar!”
By noon she had reached the little plateau where the pine wood spread its protecting branches, and as the sun, by that time, was fiercely hot, she was glad to find a fallen tree trunk on which she could sink down thankfully and begin her lunch.
It was deliciously cool in the pine wood, and the green twilight that hung between the trees was a rest after the glare of the open snow slopes. She was able to remove her dark glasses and put them away in her knapsack, and the serried shapes of the trees that rose up all around her assumed an additional sprightliness and a grace that was surprising when one thought of the storms that lashed at them.
Eating thick slices of bread interspersed with sausage, cheese tarts and an apple in this tranquil shade, Valentine thought how even more delicious it would be here in the summer-time, when instead of trodden snow underfoot there would be a warm carpet of pine needles on which one could recline, and the aromatic scent of them would rise like a cloud of incense on all sides. And instead of the stark whiteness of the valley confronting her there would be a green slope covered with wild flowers, the hazy shimmer of sunlight in the long luxuriant grass, and the endless silver glitter of streams and cascades finding their way down from the heights.
There would be the babble of the running water—instead of this frozen silence—the noisy chirping of unseen regiments of crickets, the music of co
w-bells stealing down, also, from the high pastures. And at this hour of the day it would be hot, hot... So hot that one would think thankfully of falling fast asleep, and almost certainly succumb to the temptation to close one’s eyes, at least. Sink deep into the pine needles...
After such a hard climb as she had done that morning Valentine would have been glad to close her eyes just for a minute, and lean back against the stout pine behind her. But there was a nip in the air when the sun’s rays couldn’t touch one that warned her of the foolishness of doing anything of that kind, and instead she concentrated on the lonely figure of a man towing a sled up from some deep pocket of the valley. There was another figure some considerable distance to the right of him—a figure without the bright blob that represented a cap—and although he appeared to be moving more quickly, and with greater ease, he was too far away to be of any real interest to Valentine.
Almost certainly someone from the hotel—or one of the other hotels in the village—not bothering about hurrying back for lunch. Possibly armed like herself with a lunch packet.
Then, abruptly, her thoughts drifted to Lou and von Felden. That week-end they would probably be visiting his schloss, and she wondered whether she ought to go along with Lou—although what would she do for a chaperon if she didn’t?—and what sort of an excuse might be acceptable if Lou could find someone to take her place. Then, because her mind was growing a little drowsy, and vital problems were better shelved, she wondered about the schloss itself.
What was it like to own a castle—a medieval castle that had belonged to one’s family for generations? What would it be like to live in it? In a setting like this it could be wonderful. Even if the place was falling about one’s ears, summer and winter up here in the mountains would be an experience. There would be very little contact with other human creatures, a splendid sort of remoteness.
Love in High Places Page 6