by Susan Barrie
“But a pleasant enough vessel to look at, you must admit,” Marty herself murmured as she insinuated herself into the back of the car. “James darling, where are we going? I do hope it isn’t the Ritz, or somewhere thoroughly ordinary like that. I was hoping you’d discovered somewhere new, especially as Armand is joining us for dinner.”
“Armand is old-fashioned and doesn’t believe in taking schoolgirls out to dine at untried places,” her brother returned as he started up the car. Sitting beside him Carole was impressed by the shapeliness of his hands on the wheel, and intrigued by the manner in which he handled the highly explosive car. “But as a matter of fact I don’t agree with him, and I’ve found somewhere new. I hope you’ll like it ... you and our clever Miss Sterne,” looking sideways at her for an instant with his brilliantly blue eyes.
“For goodness’ sake call her Carole,” Marty said, from the back. “She won’t mind, will you, Carole?”
“Of course not,” Carole answered.
“Then you must call me James, Carole,” Pentallon said indolently, while the rain drove at the windscreen and his windscreen-wipers functioned with noiseless precision. “Or Jimmy if you prefer it.”
“You know very well that no one ever calls you Jimmy,” Marty spoke once more from the back seat. “You’d simply hate it if they did!”
Carole could believe it. With that arrogant chin and jaw she was prepared to believe that he was capable of disliking a lot of things, and objecting to them very strongly on occasion. Strongly, but suavely, without any display of temper or vulgar animosity. Somehow she was quite sure he disapproved of vulgarity even more than he disapproved of anything else.
They arrived at the restaurant where they were to dine and meet the Comte de Sarterre, and already it was crowded and a lot of other people were clamouring for tables. The disastrous close to the brilliant June day had taken everyone by surprise, and outdoor amusements and evening entertainments had, perforce, to be cancelled, and hurried reservations made wherever it was possible to obtain them. James Pentallon had reserved his table much earlier in the day, so there was no waiting about for them, and no hesitancy before they were conducted to it. In addition he was a very well-known young man in the right circles, and head waiters and even cafe proprietors became intensely subservient and anxious to be helpful the instant they caught sight of him.
Even so, Carole for one felt sorry for the anxious groups of exquisitely gowned women glittering with jewels, and their impeccable escorts, who waited hopefully on the fringe and looked enviously at those who were already seated. A wet evening that has turned suddenly very chill is a bad thing for beauty—feminine beauty, at any rate; and there was a certain aura of dampness clinging to them, dampness and disappointment.
And then outside it started to thunder, and at the same time a storm of hail lashed the windows and blotted out the view of the Seine and the multicoloured lights that were already striving to penetrate the deepening dusk. And underneath the trees of the Bois couples raced for shelter.
James glanced at the windows and shrugged.
“So much for summer,” he remarked. “Our summer! ... Which, of course, includes the brand we get in England. You can place about as much dependence on it as you can on a really lovely female.”
His eyes met Carole’s, and they gleamed curiously. He offered her a cigarette—which she refused because she was unaccustomed to smoking at the beginning of a meal—and for an instant his gaze flickered over the dress she was wearing. She felt absolutely certain that he dismissed it out of hand, just as he must already have dismissed her as a dead loss so far as the evening ahead was concerned. She might be the possessor of naturally curly honey-coloured hair, the creamy skin that almost always goes with it, and large, thoughtful, greenish-grey eyes with slightly sandy eyelashes that were, nevertheless, brightly golden at the tips, but she was not his cup of tea, and she knew it. She was not even as attractive as his sister ... certainly not as strikingly attractive.
Most people spared her a glance when they met her for the first time, and some spared her more than one glance. The Comte de Sarterre, when he arrived apologetically several minutes late, spared her a somewhat surprised look, and then gave her the sweetest smile she had ever seen on the face of a man who was normally, she felt oddly certain, extremely reserved.
He was a slender, neat, dark man, with beautiful hands and slightly melancholy equally beautiful brown eyes. He bent over her hand and murmured:
“Enchanté, mademoiselle!”
And the crystal beads on the front of her dress sparkled like dewdrops, although she had no gorgeous necklace of stones insured for a sum that would keep her for several years, encircling her pretty throat, or brilliant ear-rings drawing attention to her delectable ears, as Marty had. And yet it was not on Marty that the Comte’s eyes dwelt as he sat down at last. He seemed to be queerly fascinated by her school friend and Miss Dove’s recently acquired helper.
Marty was too clever at concealing everything she felt to display either amusement or mild vexation at the difficulty she herself experienced in fixing the archaeologist’s attention. She had wanted to meet him again because he had impressed her rather more than any other man she had met in recent months, but although he was beautifully polite and answered all her questions about the American forests and the ‘finds’ he and his companions had made—and about which they were committed to make disclosures on French television—there was a certain mechanical quality about the way in which he dealt with her questioning that caused her brother to smile a little—perhaps with as much surprise—as the meal progressed.
For once Marty was not holding the stage. For once—although all sorts of other men dining beneath the lights in the atmosphere of elegance and perfume-charged opulence studied her from time to time, despite the watchfulness of wives and other female companions—the one man she had expected to devote himself to her was not doing so. And, young though she was, it was a novel experience for Marty.
James sat back and looked increasingly amused—although sometimes, also, a little bored—as course followed course, and champagne was removed from ice pails and lovingly poured into glasses, and finally the colourful liqueurs were brought to table with the coffee. Carole found herself with a green chartreuse in front of her, and she felt bemused by the Comte’s soft voice, his tales of jungle nights and poisoned arrows and fever—he himself had contracted fever rather badly, although he had got over it following a brief spell in a Paris hospital—and she had no idea of what happened around her, or even any clear idea of what she had eaten. Although she knew that she had refused more than half a glass of champagne, and her host had elevated an eyebrow.
Now he said suddenly, with his eyes on the Comte: “You and Carole will have to get together. You seem to have a lot in common.”
“By all means, if the lady is willing...?” Armand watched Carole almost anxiously. “I’m afraid that I have bored you very much, mademoiselle? I talk too much about myself and my concerns, whenever the opportunity is presented to me.”
“On the contrary, I can’t remember when I’ve enjoyed myself so much,” Carole said truthfully. Marty flashed her an amused look.
“I don’t find that really surprising,” she remarked, a little spitefully, “because an evening at Madame Dove’s is a pretty dull affair by comparison.”
Carole flushed quickly. Instantly she felt guilty, realising that Marty was slightly annoyed with her. And with a certain amount of reason, for it had been her part to pair off with the brother ... Instead of which the brother had practically ignored her, and she had listened avidly to everything the Frenchman had to talk about.
She knew that if anyone asked her what she thought of the two men with whom she had spent the evening she would have answered at once that she thought the Comte was charming, and she didn’t think charm—the kind that exerts itself naturally—played very much part in James Pentallon’s makeup.
The Comte de Sarterre looked positively
delighted by her admission that she had enjoyed herself because of him.
“Perhaps Miss Carole will permit me to call at the school some time, and take her to tea, or for an evening somewhere?”
Marty looked across at her brother, and smiled ruefully.
“What has happened to the Pentallons?” she asked.
He answered with a lazy, white-toothed smile.
“You will have to alter your tactics, chérie.”
Then the smile vanished from his face as a woman who had just entered the room with an escort caught sight of him and came swiftly to his table. She was a tall, statuesque, dark-eyed, dark-haired beauty in a ravishing gown.
“James!” she exclaimed, as she bent over him. “Jim-mee!”
James looked up at her with dark blue, unrevealing eyes. Then he rose with dark, swift grace and towered above her as he kissed her hand.
“Chantal!” he replied. “What a delightful surprise.”
“Is it?” She surveyed him doubtfully, her eyes so large and liquidly dark he must have received the impression he was floating in a lake of liquid darkness as he gazed into them. “You said that you were going out of Paris for the weekend. I did not expect you back until Monday at the earliest.”
“Oh, I—er—changed my mind.” He smiled at her as if her very loveliness compelled him to be gentle with her, to be almost tender. There was a softness at the corners of his mouth ... a kind of humouring sweetness. “How many times have I told you that I’m always liable to change my mind? I’m one of those people who confuse the issues because I’m addicted to sudden fads and fancies ... You can call them whims if you like.”
“Why should I call them anything at all?” Her delicate underlip was protruding, because she was pouting at him. “You are so English that I fail to understand you! You tell me one thing one day, another the next!” She shrugged her perfect shoulders. “However, I will forgive you this time if you will introduce me to your friends.” She looked hard at Marty. “This, I believe, is your sister ... And the Comte de Sarterre I already know.” The Comte, already standing, accorded her a meticulous little bow. “This other so charming young lady is...?”
“My sister’s friend, Miss Carole Sterne, also from England, as you will gather,” Pentallon supplied with a rapidity and smoothness that somehow made it unnecessary for anything else to be added.
“A-ah!” the lovely Chantal exclaimed, as if she was completely satisfied. “A family affair, yes? Then I will not intrude, and in any case my party is expecting me to rejoin them. But I shall see you...?” She looked hard at him, so hard that one side of his shapely mouth twitched. “When will I see you, chéri? On Monday evening?”
“On Monday evening,” he replied immediately.
She smiled like a gratified child.
“And tomorrow, perhaps, you will ring me? I shall be at home all day.”
“I will ring you,” he promised.
When she had departed and he had resumed his seat a cloud of exotic perfume still seemed to envelop their table. Marty looked across at her brother, one eyebrow partially upraised in the same manner that he frequently lifted one of his own.
“And that, I take it, is Madame St. Clair?” she said. “Madame Chantal St. Clair?”
He nodded, and finished a half glass of champagne in a gulp. He lifted a bottle off the ice and refilled his glass.
“Yes,” he said.
“She’s certainly eye-catching.”
“Most people consider her very beautiful,” he replied rather stiffly.
It was left to the Comte to change the subject.
“And what do we do now?” he asked. He looked across the table earnestly at Carole. “The evening is yet young. We must not break it up too soon.”
“You can take us somewhere where we can dance,” Marty told him.
But Carole remembered that their passes permitted them to stay out until ten-thirty, and ten-thirty only. And it was already nearly ten o’clock.
With a bad grace Marty conceded that there was nothing that could be done about it. The two girls were escorted back to Miss Dove’s by the two young men, and once again the long white car roared under the arch into the courtyard.
CHAPTER THREE
TWO days later the Comte de Sarterre telephoned to make some arrangement to see Carole again, but she refused politely, to his infinite regret. But she was not to escape the social round so easily. James Pentallon arrived one afternoon and insisted on carrying his sister out to tea with him, and unblushingly flattered Mademoiselle with his eyes until she agreed to let Carole go with them.
Carole would have preferred to be left behind, but James wouldn’t hear of it. For some reason he had decided that he found Miss Sterne’s company attractive, and he could understand perfectly why his sister looked upon her as her very best friend. At any rate, he said so, and he added that Carole must stay with them some time at Ferne Abbey ... perhaps during the next holidays.
“Why, are you leaving Paris so soon?” Marty asked, as they sped out into the country in his powerful car. “I thought you were to be attached to Sir Darrel Bream’s staff for some time.”
James stared at the road ahead.
“That was the original idea,” he admitted, “but it’s important that I look into matters at home.” The Pentallon fortunes were founded on an old-established iron and steel works in the north of England. “There’s been some kind of trouble at head office, and I’ve got to look into it. In any case, it’s high time I assumed my rightful position at the head of affairs.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” Marty agreed, but she glanced at him curiously all the same.
He took them for tea to the house of an elderly duchess who was also his godmother. She was delighted to see them, and Carole received her first introduction to the homes of the rich and influential, who could be surprisingly pleasant to people like herself when they felt like it. The duchess, who was very old and very faded, like a withered white rose, took in fact quite a fancy to Carole, admiring the unusual colour of her hair, and complimenting her on the perfection of her complexion.
“I had colouring very similar to yours when I was young,” she told her. “You’ll stay beautiful all your life, my dear, if you avoid the temptation to ruin your skin with lots of unnecessary make-up. People like you don’t need make-up ... or just a very little.”
She actually ran a bony finger down the smooth side of Carole’s cheek as if she liked the feel of it.
Marty studied Carole thoughtfully, as if it had never occurred to her before that her friend had any particular charm, and James went roaming restlessly about the magnificent salon where tea was brought to them by a bewigged footman who actually wore silk stockings and old-fashioned livery.
The duchess swung her lorgnette in his direction, and studied her godson through it.
“When are you going to get married, James?” she asked, startling them all with the unexpectedness of the question.
James turned and regarded her with an odd expression. Then he smiled, his blue eyes between their thick black eyelashes narrowing to mere slits.
“Never, Marraine, if I can help it,” he answered, with uncompromising bluntness.
The duchess tapped her stick on the floor impatiently.
“Rubbish!” she exclaimed. “Of course you must marry ... And it’s high time that you did so.” It must have been purely by accident that her eye alighted on Carole, occupying a footstool at her feet. “A suitable wife is the most important thing a man has to find for himself, particularly a man like you, who not merely needs an anchorage, but has a home waiting to receive its mistress. Oh, I know you and Marty are devoted to one another, and it’s her home, too ... but you mustn’t let that stand in the way of your marriage.” She frowned at Marty, as if declining to recognise her as a stumbling-block. “I’ve heard tales about you and that St. Clair woman, James. I don’t like her, and she’s not for you!”
Once more she confronted him, as if defying him to argue
the matter with her. But James was not in an argumentative mood ... that, or he was in no danger from the St. Clair woman.
“I have told you, Marraine, I shall not marry unless someone catches me by the scruff of the neck and leads me to the altar,” he told her carelessly, dropping into a low armchair near to her. “And as there are few women with the audacity to do that to me I’m perfectly safe.” He reached out and patted her beringed hand as it rested on the arm of her chair. “Don’t worry yourself, darling ... certainly not about me!”
“But I do worry myself,” she told him, with insistence. “You are my favourite godson, and I wish to see you married.”
“Then you must live many, many years longer,” he replied, and smiled at her in such a way that there was nothing she could say, and she could only admire him openly with her eyes because he was so very, very good-looking, and being French to her fingertips she adored a good-looking man.
A week elapsed before Carole accompanied Marty on another expedition into top-ranking French society, and this time it was a cocktail party at a fellow diplomat’s house. James drove them there, looking every inch the Englishman in his superbly tailored suit, and with his impeccable linen and air of scrupulous grooming. Today he was a James who was a trifle silent, but he did not neglect either his sister or her close friend when they arrived at the house, making certain they were each of them taken under someone’s wing, and that a suitable beverage was provided for them.
In Carole’s case it was ample fruit juice, but Marty insisted on something more exciting. As she sipped her vodka and lemon—“I always associate vodka with romantic Russian novels,” she confessed, bright-eyed, as they sat together on a window-seat in a corner of the crowded room, and Carole thought how utterly sophisticated she looked in her cream silk suit and fetching little cream straw boater with a midnight-blue velvet bow slashed across the front of it.