The Young Nightingales
Page 12
“Of course not. That is ... I didn’t know who it was!”
Roger glanced at his aunt, and the wry expression increased in his eyes.
“Don’t tell me she’s made so many gentlemen friends since she’s been here that any one of them might turn up at any moment,” he said.
Mrs. Bowman, who was looking rather more thoughtful than delighted at the unexpected arrival of her nephew, smiled very faintly in answer, and then pointed out to Jane that she hadn’t yet welcomed her brother. She made some observation about him being unusually tall for his age, and not in the least like Jane to look at, and then smiled with rather more pleasure as Jane advanced to clasp Toby delightedly ... but was rebuffed by Toby himself, who drew back hastily and offered her his hand instead.
“Don’t make a scene, Jane,” he implored, with schoolboy horror. “It’s only a few weeks since you saw me last, and I haven’t really altered in that time. But I must say you’re looking pretty fit yourself,” and he grinned at her with unabashed pleasure. “Isn’t she, Roger? Looks as if Switzerland agrees with her!”
“Very fit ... surprisingly fit.”
But Roger’s tone was somewhat dry, for Jane hadn’t advanced one step in his direction to offer him her hand, and his expression grew frankly reproachful as she stood clutching at her young brother’s sleeve and asking him all sorts of eager questions about his journey.
“How did you get here? Did you fly? And why are you here so much sooner than we expected?” She was determined to include Mrs. Bowman in the conversation, for Roger was, after all, her nephew, and therefore he had a legitimate excuse for visiting Switzerland and the Villa Magnolia which need have nothing to do with Mrs. Bowman’s companion. “We were hoping to find you a villa. I saw some agents last week...”
Toby explained that his mother couldn’t wait, and as there had been an outbreak of measles in his school which had forced it to close before the school holidays he had been thrilled to bits when Roger said he could accompany him on a kind of exploratory mission.
“We’re going to try and find a house, and then my mother will join us, and maybe Conway, too.” He walked eagerly to the window and looked up at the snows sparkling on the wall of mountains on the other side of the lake. “Is it possible to climb one of those?” he asked. “I mean, if you’re not a proper climber? Do you think I could get to the top of one of them?”
“Well...” Jane explained that she had been a little way up a mountain that day, and it was wonderful. “But I expect you’ll have to wait until you’re a bit older before you can really climb.”
Mrs. Bowman looked round, and—losing her detached expression momentarily—asked her whether she had enjoyed her day. Jane, amazed that she could appear so calm and almost disinterested when a visit from her nephew was something she had long looked forward to—answered truthfully that she had enjoyed it very much ... and Roger walked across to her and put his hands on her shoulders and asked her reproachfully whether she hadn’t got a word for him.
“When I suggested your coming out here to my aunt I didn’t think Switzerland would claim you like this,” he said. “Excursions into the mountains with some unknown when I imagined you typing letters and getting over the shock of your experiences in comparative solitude.” He shook her very, very gently. “What’s happened to you, Jane? Have you grown away from us, or is it simply my imagination?”
Jane managed to detach herself, but the movement was quite noticeable, and she answered hurriedly that she didn’t think she had changed. There certainly hadn’t been time for that.
Roger appealed to his aunt.
“But she is changed, Aunt. She’s not even pleased to see me!”
“Isn’t she?” Mrs. Bowman spoke drily. “Well, to me Jane seems exactly the same as she was when she came out here ... except that she’s not quite so unhappy.” She looked shrewdly at her nephew, and at the same time her eyes reproached him a little. “You can’t expect a young woman who has survived a family upheaval such as she had to survive to appear exactly light-hearted and inclined to welcome anyone who perhaps failed to support her at that most difficult phase of her existence after only a few weeks!”
Roger frowned.
“If you mean me, I was so distressed for Jane that I knew the only thing to do was to send her away.”
“Was it?” His aunt’s eyebrows went up. “You surprise me. I personally would have recommended some other treatment. However, I do realise I was not on the spot, so I am not able to judge.” She smiled with exceptional sweetness at Jane. “Roger wants you to dine with them tonight. They’re staying at the Continental.”
Jane instantly looked as if the very idea alarmed her considerably. Then she thought of an excuse.
“Oh, but I’ve been out all day and I couldn’t leave you tonight,” she said quite firmly. “Tomorrow, perhaps—”
“You are pleased to see me,” Roger murmured with irony.
Jane stuck to her guns.
“I think Toby ought to go to bed early tonight, and tomorrow he’ll feel much fresher, and—perhaps we could meet and do something together ... if Mrs. Bowman has no objection,” she added hurriedly.
“I have no objection to anything you wish to do, my dear,” Mrs. Bowman informed her placidly.
“Then—then perhaps lunch? Here? All of us!”
“I’m sure that would be very nice,” Mrs. Bowman agreed, but there was a sudden bright sparkle of amusement in her elderly eyes as they swung round to her nephew’s face. “Don’t you agree, Roger?”
He looked as if he could not have disagreed with more fervour.
“I’d like to have a word with you, Jane,” he said, obviously coming to a decision. “Toby, there’s a canoe in the boat-house and a punt moored to the landing-stage at the bottom of the garden. Run down and see if you think they’re seaworthy, only don’t drown yourself ... Jane,” looking at her as if he would hypnotise her into obeying him, “show me the corner of the garden you like best. And in case you’re afraid my aunt won’t be able to manage without your ministrations may I remind you that you’ve absented yourself from her all day! Now!...” He stood aside for her to precede him into the conservatory. “This way leads to the garden!” Jane directed one wild glance of appeal at her employer, but Mrs. Bowman was doing something to her spectacles, and paid no attention whatsoever. Jane realised that there was no getting out of it, and took a step towards the open conservatory door. A few seconds later she was on the lawn with Roger.
“Well!” he said, and he sounded pretty grim as soon as they were alone. “I’ve come out here to marry you, Jane, and there’s no point in your behaving as if you haven’t a clue why I’ve come all this way ... neglecting one or two rather important clients, I might tell you.”
“Then you shouldn’t have done so.” She couldn’t really believe that he had done anything of the kind, and it only gradually sank in that he was in earnest. “Besides, I understood from Miranda that you and she were to share a villa ... It sounded rather an odd arrangement, but before I left England you were so concerned with Miranda’s wellbeing that I naturally supposed you were still very much preoccupied with her.”
“Jane!” He took her by the arm, and sounded as if he was genuinely surprised that she could so misjudge him ... surprised and hurt. “Would I be so indiscreet as to set up an establishment with your stepmother? ... even a temporary one! The arrangement was that you, or my aunt, should look for a villa for her, and I would stay where I am staying now ... at the Continental. Why, my dear child,” as if the magnitude of what she had believed was startling him further, “haven’t you and I always known that one day we would be something much more to one another than mere good friends? When you were a child you turned to me with your problems, when you were a schoolgirl I singled you out for the most noticeable attentions ... Your father was fully aware that I contemplated becoming his son-in-law just as soon as you were old enough to take on the burdens of marriage, and even Miranda knew that. Why, sh
e and I have talked about it only recently.”
“When you discovered that she had plans to marry you herself, and you weren’t so keen on that happening?” She looked up at him with contempt and wrenched away her arm. “I don’t forget the day of my father’s funeral,” she said, in a small, tense voice. “It was all Miranda then, and what she had suffered, and you even dared to criticise my father! And as for marrying me ... if marriage was ever seriously in your thoughts why didn’t you say something about it on that awful day I shall never forget? Instead of quoting Miranda to me as if you were hypnotised by her, and suggesting only that I should take a job with your aunt ... in Switzerland! Not for a few weeks, but as a kind of permanency. For I don’t think you intended visiting me so soon when you made the arrangement, did you? At that time you were under a spell!”
“What nonsense you’re talking, Jane,” he said. But as she watched him to take note of the changes in his expression she realised that he couldn’t deny it. He had been under a spell ... but apparently the spell had lifted.
“It isn’t nonsense. It’s nothing more nor less than the truth, and if you’re honest you’ll admit it.” "
“And if I admit it will you forgive me ... and marry me?”
She shook her head.
“I couldn’t marry you, Roger, under any circumstances.”
“Why not?” There was a certain aggressive note in his voice again, although he looked abashed. “I’ve told my aunt that I’ve come out here to ask you to marry me ... and you’ll disappoint her very much indeed if you won’t even consider it. Apparently she’s grown very fond of you, and she’d love to have you for a niece.”
“Did she suggest that you should propose to me as quickly as possible before I returned this afternoon?”
“No ... No, as a matter of fact she asked me a lot of questions about you, and why I hadn’t asked you to marry me before I let you leave England.” He frowned. “Of course, I don’t know how much social life you’ve been having out here since you joined her, but she did rather paint a picture of you becoming rather popular, and apparently you went out today with some man. Who was it?” frowning very blackly. “She wouldn’t say.”
Jane’s eyes gleamed quickly with relief.
“Then I won’t, either. It was just a kind of excursion.”
“Nothing serious?”
“How could I have become serious about a—man—in such a short space of time?”
But even as she put the question to him the blood was pounding through her veins and her pulses were leaping. She was recalling Jules Delacroix’s last words to her before he left her that afternoon: “We have to be absolutely sure! ... I, for one, can’t afford to make a mistake!” Well, she was sure. She was so sure that she couldn’t be any more sure! She had seen Roger again and was marvelling that she had ever even contemplated marrying him when all she had ever felt for him was a kind of lukewarm affection, and now, all at once, she could thank Miranda for opening her eyes. And she even felt grateful to Roger for being captivated by Miranda.
She spoke to him breathlessly:
“Roger, it’s very nice to see you again, and I agree we’ve always been excellent friends. But to marry someone you have to be in love with them, and I’m not in love with you! I think you’re very fond of me, but you’re not really in love with me, either!”
“Rubbish, you foolish child, I’ve always loved you devotedly.”
“But it’s not the sort of love that leads to marriage ... or should lead to marriage.” She felt so worldly wise all at once that she astonished herself as much as him. She felt as if a pair of outsize scales had been removed from her eyes, and she was seeing clearly for the first time in her life. She looked up at him as if it was important to him as well as to her that he should be convinced. “Roger, we might as well face it ... We were never intended to marry.”
His square chin set mutinously.
“Because you say a thing like that it doesn’t mean that I’m going to accept it. On the contrary...” he drew a deep, determined breath, “I shall stay here until you come to your senses, and then I’ll take you back to England and we’ll be married immediately. No fuss ... I couldn’t stand a fussy wedding. And then as I have to visit America fairly soon we’ll make that a honeymoon trip.”
“You’ll have to wait a very long time, Roger,” she told him gently, “before you take me with you to America.”
“I intend to take you with me.” She had never realised before that he had such an arrogant, rather mulishly obstinate jawline. And his mouth was obstinate, too. “I need a wife, and I need you ... and I’m going to make you Mrs. Roger Bowman before the end of the summer.”
“No, Roger.” She shook her head at him again. “You might as well believe me when I repeat that I mean it.”
“And you might as well believe me when I repeat that I mean it! I’ve booked a room at the Continental for the next fortnight, and if necessary I shall book it for another fortnight and another fortnight after that, until you say ‘Yes’.”
She felt suddenly aghast.
“You can’t afford to be away from London for as long as that,” she observed doubtfully.
“Oh, but I can!”
Toby joined them in the middle of the lawn after making a careful inspection of the punt and the canoe, and he appeared to be of the opinion that they were both seaworthy. The next day, when he was wearing more suitable clothes, he intended to put them both to the test if Mrs. Bowman had no objections to raise.
His sister spoke to him hurriedly.
“I’m sure she won’t, Toby,” she said. “And you know you’re invited to lunch tomorrow ... you and,” she glanced up cautiously at her very determined suitor, “Roger. We shall expect you both at one o’clock, although we don’t actually have lunch until half-past one.”
Roger looked down at her grimly and masterfully.
“You’ll see me very soon after breakfast,” he said.
Toby grinned at her.
“And me,” he told her. “I’ll probably have to put a patch on that canoe, but there are some materials in the boat-house I can use. As a matter of fact, there’s quite a lot of useful junk in that boat-house, and I shall enjoy sorting it out.”
Jane smiled at him with a tinge of uncertainty.
“Oh, well..”. she said. “If that’s your idea of enjoyment.” And then she glanced upwards again and met Roger’s coolly determined eyes. “But you do realise I have my duties,” she said. “I shan’t be free to see either of you before lunch time.”
Roger smiled with a hint of triumph. She knew he had no doubts at all about his capacity to get her to change her mind. After all, he had known her for a very long time.
CHAPTER TWELVE
FORTUNATELY they took their departure very soon after that, and Jane sought out Mrs. Bowman where she was changing for dinner in her bedroom and asked her if she would mind very much if she went out again for an hour.
Mrs. Bowman looked at her a little curiously, and then said very gently that of course she did not mind.
“But you must be very tired after your long day,” she remarked. “Don’t exert yourself too much, will you?”
“I won’t be exerting myself,” Jane promised.
Mrs. Bowman nodded at her.
“All right, my dear, I don’t want to pry into your affairs. But don’t do anything foolish.”
Jane gave her her word that she wouldn’t.
Mrs. Bowman observed even more gently:
“I do realise, having seen you both together, that you and my nephew just aren’t suited to one another!”
Jane thought this over as she made her way out into the road and managed to stop a taxi. She knew that what she was about to do was not merely unorthodox, but likely to result in a rebuff that would take her a very long time to get over. In fact, she doubted whether she would get over it very easily ... and if not she would have the knowledge of her own stupidity to live with for the rest of her life.
It needed so little to convince him that at the moment she was experiencing something in the nature of a temporary rebellion because Roger had temporarily failed her. She was trying to force herself into love on the rebound. But this was so completely untrue that the very thought of Roger dug in at the Continental, where Jules probably made a habit of dining often with his friends, and was bound to run into him fairly frequently, made her feel temporarily quite distracted. She knew Roger ... Roger, with his suavity, could convince anyone in time, and that was what he would set out to do, particularly when he made the discovery that it was Dr. Delacroix who had supplanted him as the one and only man in Jane’s life.
The one person who no longer troubled her as she travelled in her taxi to that corner of St. Vaizey where the lime trees grew thickest, and a certain brass plate adorned a certain white wall, was Mademoiselle d’Evremonde.
She believed Jules when he said he had no intention of marrying. Without any amplification or any further explanation she believed him. And that, when she thought about it afterwards, was rather curious, for she certainly needed some explanation.
She could hardly wait to pay off her taxi when she arrived at her destination, and because she hadn’t the patience to collect her change he was grossly overpaid. Only when she pressed the bell of the doctor’s house, and could hear it shrilling softly on the other side of the neat front door, did she feel slightly appalled because of what she was doing.