by Susan Barrie
The housekeeper crossed the floor and deprived her of the suitcase.
“You don’t have to carry this, miss,” she said. “If you are to be moved then I’ll see to it that you’re moved without any inconvenience to yourself. And if it’s true that you’re leaving us, miss, then I’m sorry.” She looked Carole in the eyes. “Really sorry!”
Carole smiled mirthlessly.
“That’s nice of you, Mrs. Bennett. But I never intended to stay. Mr. Pentallon and his sister and myself have been playing a kind of game.”
Mrs. Bennett regarded her shrewdly.
“You’re sure you don’t mean that you and Mr. Pentallon have quarrelled, miss?” she suggested. She looked vaguely troubled. “It happens sometimes when two people get engaged, and don’t, perhaps, know one another very well. And when you first came here and the master introduced you as his fiancée it was such a pleasant surprise that we all couldn’t quite get over it. You see, we never thought he would marry anyone quite like you—”
“And he won’t,” Carole told her, with a still more mirthless, and yet faintly whimsical smile. “I’ll break it to you gently. I think he’s going to marry Madame St. Clair!”
“Oh, no, miss!” the housekeeper exclaimed, and there was no doubt about it she was genuinely dismayed. “Madame St. Clair is a French lady ... and she’s a widow!”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CAROLE had only a hazy impression of what happened at lunch time, but she knew that James was curt to the point of rudeness whenever he had cause to address her, and the Comte de Sarterre frowned blackly at his lapses as if he considered the Englishman was behaving with a boorishness he would not have believed possible under any circumstances.
And certainly not when the girl who was made to feel small, and to look confused at times, was Carole.
After lunch she went upstairs to her new room, and Madame St. Clair came tripping along the corridor to her once her own things were safely bestowed in the White Suite.
“It was kind of you to make this change,” she commented, surveying Carole with a kind of careless approval. She was smoking a cigarette in an antique silver holder, and she had already changed into casual clothes, which were not in the least Carole’s idea of casual clothes. Skin-tight slacks of pearl-grey velvet and a breast-hugging silk top of emerald green, and an enormous emerald ring blazed on the little finger of her right hand. “Of course,” an insolent look invading her lustrous eyes, “I realise that you and James have been playing a game. But it is over now. James has agreed that it is over!”
“Oh, yes?” Carole said, on her way to the nearest bathroom to clean her teeth, since the Orchid Room did not have its own bathroom, and looking impatient. “Well, that’s all right with me. Mr. Pentallon can have his ring back whenever he wants it.”
“Oh, no!” Chantal assumed an expression which indicated she did not consider that quite fair. “The ring was bought for you, and you must keep it. James and I have agreed about that, also. You must look upon it as a little present ... a peace-offering from James!” smiling and drawing on her cigarette. “In any case, I shall not require it. I do not like opals.”
Footsteps could be heard coming along the main corridor, and Carole spoke quickly.
“That’s a pity, Madame St. Clair, because I don’t need a peace-offering from Mr. Pentallon ... And I have no intention of keeping the ring! If Mr. Pentallon won’t accept it back from me I shall give it to one of the maids before I leave here!”
“Oh, dear!” Chantal was much amused. “I see I have under-estimated you, Miss Sterne. I thought you were a timid little thing—but I see there is a spark of temper in you after all! But perhaps Armand, who appears to be tremendously taken with you, will replace the opal with something you will like even better ... and that before very long!”
The footsteps that had turned into the side corridor ceased suddenly, and James regarded Carole as if she had very recently become his bitter enemy. Nevertheless, he spoke suavely and almost naturally.
“It was good of you, Carole, to give up your room to Chantal without being asked. I’ll admit I always intended her to occupy it when she came here, but it would have been perfectly understandable if you’d objected to moving. However, since you have moved I hope you’re comfortable?”
“Perfectly,” Carole answered, feeling as if he had slapped her across the face. And although for the past two days they had been on very distant terms with one another she could not really believe that it was he who was speaking to her like this ... as if she was of no more importance in his scheme of things than one of the under-housemaids who had been required to change her room.
She felt herself flushing brilliantly for a moment, and then all the colour left her face, and she turned rather pale, although in the gloom of the corridor it wasn’t particularly noticeable. But Chantal noticed it. She spoke quickly.
“Miss Sterne has been talking to me about your ring, James,” she said. “In the circumstances she does not wish to keep it.”
“Oh!” His blue eyes were glacially cold. “Why not?”
“Because it could prove embarrassing.” Madame St. Clair glanced at Carole, smiled a little mysteriously, shrugged, and patted James’s sleeve as if inviting him to try and understand. “How obtuse you Englishmen can be! Surely it has occurred to you that Armand did not come all this way from Paris just to see you? Having travelled with him I know very well the reason why he came. It was not very fair of you, chéri, to think only of your own concerns just after Miss Sterne had met Armand for the first time. But for you they might by this time have been ... well, much better friends. In fact, very good friends!”
James’s expression did not alter, but the line of his mouth hardened.
“I dislike riddles,” he told her curtly. “But if you’re trying to tell me that Carole is embarrassed by the possession of my ring because Armand has arrived at Ferne Abbey ... well, it’s up to her to return the ring. She doesn’t have to continue to be embarrassed.”
Chantal attempted to soothe him.
“Of course, darling. That’s what I told her. But at the same time I do think we ought to make it clear that there is no longer any need for any pretence.”
“There certainly isn’t,” James said harshly.
“And although she’s been terribly sweet and helpful, you can dispense with her sweetness and helpfulness now.”
“I certainly can,” James declared with an almost brutal bluntness.
“And if she likes to give me the ring I’ll send it back to Paris and no doubt it can be credited to your account. I’m sure there won’t be the smallest difficulty there ... particularly as you’ll almost certainly be buying something else before very long. Probably something much more expensive!”
As she stood there in the shadowy corridor, meeting her brilliant, beautiful eyes Carole felt as if she was being lashed at by unfeeling talons that took a kind of delight in tearing her apart, and she was absolutely certain the brilliant eyes were mocking her almost openly, and that Chantal was enjoying the situation as if it was a kind of healing balm poured out over her.
And behind the mockery and the amusement was something spiteful and revengeful. She would never forgive Carole for the part she had played in temporarily depriving her of James, even though James had apparently finally succumbed and she really could afford to be more generous.
“If you’ll take my advice, Miss Sterne,” she suggested, in an easy, friendly manner, “you’ll return all the presents Mr. Pentallon has given you since he tried to deceive even himself—” with a languishing glance up at James—“and then I’m sure you’ll feel much more as if your self-respect has been returned to you. I can understand that a girl like you must have hated being made use of, and I know you really did it because of your affection for Marty ... which proves you’re really terribly sweet. But James wouldn’t understand that in a thousand years! To him you were just someone to be used, and because of me he used you. You’ll just have to for
give him if you can!”
Carole turned away. It seemed to her that James’s eyes were dismissing her altogether as someone beneath contempt, and although she said something about returning the presents as soon as she had had an opportunity to get them all together James appeared not to notice her humiliation, and by this time Chantal was smiling with the satisfaction of a cat who had been regaled with several saucers of cream.
“I’m glad you’re so sensible, my dear,” she murmured. “But that is because you are English, of course. You English are all so very practical. A French girl in your circumstances would probably have a fit of temperament and prove awkward before she left, but I’m sure you’re going to be nothing of the kind. Which really does prove that James is lucky!”
She gave a little tug to his arm and started to draw him away along the corridor as Carole walked swiftly back to her room, but just before she reached it she heard him say something which sounded impatient and inattentive, and Chantal chided him with a note of gentle, humouring laughter in her voice.
“Darling, one simply has to be blunt in these circumstances, and of course the girl understands. Besides, Armand is not a poor man, you know, and it’s not such a bad exchange! For a little schoolmarm she’s really rather lucky!”
Once inside her room Carole hurried to open her drawers inside which she had recently stowed away some of her possessions and searched diligently for the various items James had given her. There was the ring in its handsome Morocco and velvet case ... the opal which must have absorbed quite a few impressions since she had worn it, and which from now on, could, she supposed, be considered unlucky. Carole did not even open the case to look at the ring before she set it aside for return to James ... and she knew that she would always remember the beauty of it, and the morning when James bought it for her, and all Paris seemed unusually bright and gay, in a way it had never been bright and gay before.
Then there was the necklace of pearls he had given her, the creamy-pink pearls which she had worn at her engagement party at Sir Darrel and Lady Bream’s house in Paris. These pearls—which she had never intended to keep in any case, however much James had insisted—she did lift from their case and run through her fingers and hold against her cheek for a moment, before she returned them to their case.
She was deliberately trying to feel nothing as she gathered together the presents. The only thing she did feel that she could do nothing about was a sort of bewilderment, a kind of spreading sea of bewilderment, as if she was a very lowly domestic who had been ordered to pack up and leave without the week’s wages that were due to her.
Marty came breezing into her room while she was dressing for dinner. Marty was wearing black velvet, very close and clinging, and she looked strikingly beautiful. She caught sight of the collection of jewel-boxes and other items on the dressing-table and her eyebrows arched.
“What are those doing there?” she asked. “You know, you really oughtn’t to leave those pearls lying about. They’re good. James will put them in the safe for you if you’re not going to wear them tonight.” She noticed that Carole had already fastened a slim gold chain with a little gold cross attached to the end of it, that was one of the few items of jewellery that really belonged to her, about her neck, and therefore she was plainly not planning to wear the pearls. “As for your engagement ring, that certainly ought to be in the safe when you’re not wearing it.”
“I’m giving it to James tonight,” Carole told her, without meeting her eyes. “And I’m also returning to him the pearls, and everything else he has given me in the past few weeks.”
Marty surveyed her with slowly widening eyes.
“Why?” she demanded. “Because Chantal is here, or because you and James have had another quarrel?”
“Because Chantal is going to marry James, and I’m leaving.”
“No!” Marty went up to her and caught her strongly by the arm. For one moment Carole received the distinct impression that she was going to shake her. “Don’t be silly, Carole!” she exclaimed. “The fact that Chantal has arrived means nothing ... Except that she’s amazingly sure of herself when she hasn’t the smallest reason to be! Believe me, I know! I’m telling you...”
Carole, who was looking hostile, shook off her hand.
“Why did you let the Comte de Sarterre believe that I wanted to see him again?” she demanded angrily. “Why did you ask him here, having previously given him the impression that I would be perfectly happy if he turned up suddenly? He seems to have the fixed idea in his head that he has only to make some sort of a suggestion to me and I’ll fall in with it! And as I’m what Madame St. Clair described a short time ago as a ‘little schoolmarm’ I don’t imagine it would be a very serious sort of a suggestion. And, even if it were—” her slim breasts heaving—“I have no interest whatsoever in the Comte de Sarterre, and I resent it very much that he should have come here—through your agency!—for the express purpose of embarrassing me.”
Marty realised for the first time in their acquaintanceship that Carole was not always quiet and placid, and as the other girl’s indignation flamed in her eyes, while two spots of hectic colour burned on her cheeks, she stood silently by and decided it would be unwise to attempt an explanation at that juncture. But her blue eyes did sparkle with a gleam of dry appreciation when she spoke at last.
“Well, at least if I ever decide I find Armand fascinating I’ll know I haven’t a serious rival in you. As a matter of fact, I did find him rather fascinating at one time, but it was so obvious he had fallen for you that I thought it was a good plan to invite him here, knowing there was never likely to be anything serious between you and James.” She turned to the dressing-table and spoke oddly. “If I were you, I’d give these things to James tonight. Just leave them on the library table with a note. That will save you both embarrassment, and James won’t offend you by offering to write you a cheque before you leave here. In your present mood that would be likely to cause quite a scene between you.”
“It would.” But Carole felt suddenly a trifle sick because Marty was in a position to talk about James offering to write her a cheque—as a reward for services rendered. And it didn’t pass her by that Marty had suddenly altered her tone, and she sounded almost casual as she made the suggestion about leaving James’s gifts on the library table with a note.
Carole looked at her and studied her for rather a long moment with a deep sensation of shock confusing her still further, and she wondered whether it was actually her imagination that Marty even looked casual; and she was moving in the direction of the door, as if she either wished to cut the interview short or she had remembered something and wished to attend to it.
“Anyway, we haven’t time to talk about things now,” she said. “As I’m acting the part of hostess I’ve simply got to go down and do my duty, and if you take my advice you won’t do anything in a hurry. Remember that James is a bit spoiled, and that he’s always had things very much his own way...” She paused, languidly, in the doorway, her deep blue gaze that was so painfully reminiscent of James’s deep blue gaze sweeping Carole with a kind of languid, friendly indifference. Never, in the whole time that they had known one another, had Carole felt the gap in their social positions so forcibly ... And it seemed to her that Marty had suddenly realised she was becoming involved, and it was not really part of her ‘role’ in life to become seriously involved in the affairs of less fortunate mortals ... even the affairs of an old school friend. The blue eyes smiled with sudden brilliance.
“If Chantal St. Clair is clever enough to catch him—and he isn’t clever enough to avoid being caught, without assistance from you or someone else—well, let her have him! After all,” she shrugged her shoulders, “he’s got to marry someone some time, and at least Chantal has looks, and will fit in beautifully here at Ferne Abbey. So if I’ve got to have her for a sister-in-law, well...” Once again she shrugged her shoulders, waved a careless hand to Carole, and said before she disappeared, still smiling, “Mat
ters could be worse, couldn’t they? And at least you’ve had a certain amount of fun!”
Left alone in her room Carole stood rigidly close up against the dressing-table, that was an elegant affair with an oval mirror and lots of silver-topped bottles and crystal flagons showing up the simplicity of her own hairbrushes, and wished that Marty had slapped her across the face rather than talk to her like that.
It simply meant that Marty was growing a little tired of the game she herself had started, and was anxious to get back to normal. Even if it meant acquiring Chantal St. Clair as a sister-in-law.
As she had pointed out, at least Chantal would make a very personable sister-in-law, and there were some things that were more or less inevitable. One could not change them.
Carole knew that she herself had no power to change them, and the only thing left for her to do was ... go away.
Back to Paris? She shuddered at the thought of returning to Paris and taking up the old threads. But there were other things she could do. She supposed that there were many things she could do. But an awful apathy had come upon her, and she couldn’t see herself doing any of them as she stood there in her lovely orchid-mauve bedroom and tried to realise what permanent separation from James would be like.
James who had kissed her and let her go ... because he didn’t want her.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
SHE went down to dinner looking very composed, after spending quite a lot of time exercising her will and ordering herself to look as if there was nothing in her strictly personal and private life that had the power to upset her in any way—not even the return of James’s presents, which she intended to place in the library before she went to bed that night, when she was fairly certain no one was using it.
It had been a sultry day, and the windows of the drawing-room were wide when she entered it. Everybody else was already gathered there, Chantal, of course, dominating the whole scene with her exotic, Latin-type loveliness, and an exciting dress of shimmering tulle that was somewhat reminiscent of moonlight. She had never looked more darkly lovely, more handsome. Anyone, seeing her, would almost certainly think that James would be very lucky to acquire her for a wife.