by Susan Barrie
And then she told herself that that was being utterly absurd and purely her imagination, and for the first time that evening she was glad of the Comte de Villeneuve. He came up behind her just as she caught sight of Madame Faubourg, in a gown of dead white satin that emphasized the sleek loveliness of her dark head, entering the splendid main living room by way of the wide-open double doors with Leon Daudet just a little behind her.
Philippe de Villeneuve stooped his head and whispered in Valentine’s ear, “You are lovely as a dream in that dress!” It was a dress that really was as lovely as a dream, for it was creamy pink lace over an underskirt—or rather, several underskirts—of taffeta, and it rustled delectably as she moved. Her hair was a shining cap around her small head. She wore Miss Constantia’s smaller row of pearls, and Peter had sent her a spray of palest pink camellias, and they were attached to the touch of iridescence on her one shoulder strap.
“Why didn’t I think of those flowers?” Philippe demanded, looking at her quizzically. “I’ll wager that was our friend Peter!”
“Our friend Peter” appeared at her elbow, and the comte shook his head at him.
“Orchids are rarer and would have suited her better,” he told him. “Slightly speckly ones, like freckles on a soft pink nose!”
But Peter shook his head.
“I think not,” he said, and Valentine smiled into his eyes. Peter’s admiration was very evident tonight.
Jane, who was wearing a silver sheath-like dress and looking quite wonderful—although Philippe made no comment whatsoever on her appearance—slipped her hand into Valentine’s arm and whispered, “Who is the statuesque-looking beauty over there in the white dress, with Dr. Daudet very much in attendance?”
Valentine answered as if the last words hadn’t caused her to wince inwardly, “That is Madame Faubourg. She has been invited specially for Dr. Daudet.”
“I see,” Jane said. And all at once she thought she did see a great deal.
Dr. Daudet merely bowed in front of Valentine and her party, and Madame Faubourg became too preoccupied with her hostess even to notice them. Valentine heard her inquiring solicitously after the marquise’s health, and she seemed to be consumed with anxiety lest such a sudden descent of guests upon her should prove too much. And as there were more than two dozen guests, and the marquise had been living very quietly for some time, there was perhaps some justification for this anxiety, which was undoubtedly shared by Dr. Daudet.
Valentine noticed how almost tenderly he offered his arm to his aunt to lead her into dinner, and once inside the huge dining room, with its magnificent table ablaze with flowers and glowing Venetian glass, he took some time settling her in her chair at the head of the table, and then took his place facing her at the opposite end.
Tonight he was playing host, to give support to his aunt, and he did so in a manner that proclaimed him very familiar with such a role, although Valentine was not one of the guests who received any attention from him. Somehow he seemed to be quite unaware of her, seated between Peter Fairfield and the comte, and even when his eyes strayed in her direction he never looked at her. He managed to look either over her head or through her.
Valentine knew that she had been guilty of a grave offence, and he was not prepared to overlook it.
Back in the main living room after dinner, while the coffee was being handed around, Valentine somehow found herself in a corner examining a picture on the wall. It was a Renoir, one of his more impressionistic efforts, and the light above it enabled Valentine to examine it in detail. She was doing so, and yet not really aware of the subject at all, when she heard a voice behind her demanding with a cool edge, like a rapier blade, and with carefully modulated masculine tones, “Why have you so callously neglected my aunt, Miss Brooke?” No “Valentine” tonight, and nothing in the least friendly in his eyes as she whipped around automatically to stare at him. “You know she is not able to get out and about very much, and she particularly requested you to call and see her as often as possible. It would have been a kindness to devote a little of your time to her. Or do you find Paris so exciting nowadays that you have no spare time?”
Valentine gazed at him and felt something angry in her heart begin to smolder and become revealed by her eyes. He was so condemning, so critical, so aloofly composed; just like the man who had more or less told her she was an adventuress when he had to break the news of her legacy to her. And beyond everything else, he was so heart-shatteringly handsome in his impeccable evening garments, and so far removed from her—millions of miles removed from her—that anger and despair became mixed, and she could have wept for the very love of him, and the very dislike of him!
She could have wept and excused herself, and then told him how much she disliked him. But she didn’t do either of those things. She remained completely silent.
“Well?” His voice was very still and waiting. “Was it deliberate neglect?”
“I thought I might find you here.”
“And you will do much to avoid seeing me?”
“Quite a lot. But I’m terribly sorry about the marquise. In future, I ... I will call and see her. I will call and see her as often as she would like me to do so.”
“She’s going away for a few weeks to the country. She needs a change of air.”
“Then I will call and see her when she returns.”
“And by that time perhaps I will be out of Paris.” His voice was very dry, his eyes inscrutable as he gazed straight at her.
“Then I shall almost certainly enjoy my visits more.” She turned away, but he put a hand out to touch her, and his fingers were resting on her slim bare arm when Madame Faubourg came around a gilded screen and appeared very surprised indeed.
“Why Leon! I have been looking for you,” she admitted. She smiled with her lips at Valentine. “How pretty you look, Miss Brooke, and so very young! I always think young things are pathetic. They never know what is ahead of them, or how long it is going to take them to develop sufficiently to become interesting. But I don’t suppose your young man Peter Fairfield is enamored of anything but youth, is he?” She smiled with a cool sparkle in her eyes.
Valentine replied ,with a quiet unyouthful dignity, “I really don’t know, madame.’ ”
“Oh, come now!” Elise Faubourg slipped a hand inside Leon Daudet’s arm and leaned a little against him as she rallied Valentine. “Young things understand one another, and he’s such a very pleasing young man. Of excellent family, too. When are you going to defeat the clause in that whimsical will of Miss Constantia’s and give us all the thrill of a wedding before the year is out? The two of you could settle down comfortably at Chaumont, or you could sell it and go home and live in England, as I understand he will be inheriting his uncle’s estates one day.”
Valentine said, “Excuse me, I must go.”
“Of course.”
Elise smiled understanding.
“You are treating your Peter as if he doesn’t exist. I saw him searching the room for you a few minutes ago.”
As Valentine made to leave them both the doctor said sharply, “Valentine! Valentine, I want to have a talk with you sometime!”
But she moved away swiftly, and Madame Faubourg patted his arm protestingly.
“Miss Brooke to you, darling. And how delighted she was to escape! What had you been doing to her? Even Philippe manages to make her laugh, but you just seem to petrify her. It must be your advanced years.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
June became July, and then Paris sweltered in the heat of August. Philippe departed into the Basque country to look at his long-neglected estate (entailed, but according to his reports disintegrating under the eyes of the caretaker) and remained away long enough for the two Englishwomen in Miss Constantia’s apartment to miss him. In fact, they missed him so much that even Jane admitted it, and Peter Fairfield seemed to Valentine scarcely to make up for the unfailing cheerfulness and sparkling humor of the comte.
Peter was be
coming very serious about her, and it was making her increasingly uncomfortable. He no longer talked about the isles of Greece, and apparently his book had been locked up in a drawer, and all he wanted to do was to dance attendance on Valentine. He was spending far too much of his allowance on her, she was sure, but there didn’t seem much she could do about it, short of telling him she didn’t want to see him anymore.
His uncle was very ill in July, and she actually surprised an anticipatory gleam in his blue eyes when he read out to her his aunt’s letter describing all the distressing symptoms of the baronet. He was much older than Lady Fairfield, and at one time it looked as if the baronetcy would be Peter’s at any moment. And the anticipatory gleam in the young man’s eyes became so unmistakable that Valentine was shocked.
“But you wouldn’t want him to die in order to inherit his title, would you?” she asked in disbelief.
“I don’t want the old boy to die at all, but I’m fairly sick of being dependent on him and his generosity, and I want to be in a position where I can ask you to marry me!” Peter replied.
It was out at last. He was living with the idea of asking her to marry him, and she had no intention of marrying anyone—ever!
“Peter!” She took a deep breath. “I like you, and apart from your eagerness to step into a dead man’s shoes, I admire you. I believe that you might write a good book one of these days, and Jane and I both find you fascinating as a guide to Paris. But to marry anyone you have to be in love with him, and I’ve made up my mind that I’m never going to fall in love with ... with anyone!”
“Nonsense!” He laughed lightly and took her to a mirror. “Have a good look at yourself, my sweet, and tell me precisely what it was you were born for if not for marriage. Marriage to someone like me, who will adore you every minute of your life and will make such a very indulgent husband. Oh, Valentine!” Suddenly he was immensely serious. “You must know I love you? And I want to have the right to look after you!”
“But an indulgent husband wouldn’t be the slightest use to me,” she told him, trying to restore the light note. “I’m never very good at making decisions for myself, and I’d have to have someone who would stand absolutely no nonsense and be terribly firm. A strong character, quite unlike my own.”
Then she saw his face, and her heart softened.
“Oh, Peter! Marriage is such a terribly serious thing, and one day I’m sure you’ll make a wonderful husband for some lucky girl ... but that girl won’t be me! You’ve got to get used to the idea, Peter.”
“And what about that old woman’s will?” he asked rather harshly. She always felt all her hackles rise when he referred to Miss Constantia as “that old woman,” and on this occasion they rose until they felt like hedgehog’s prickles standing up all around her.
“Well, what about it?” she asked quietly.
“It was a ridiculous will—tying you down to getting married in a year. But when you stop to think of all that it involves, you can’t just ignore it. You can’t turn your back on fifteen million francs and the house.”
“Oh, so you’ve been working it all out, have you?” she said, looking at him strangely. “Fifteen million francs and a house that could be worth quite a lot besides. If the house was sold, as someone I know suggested to me, and I married you, and we went to live-in England, we could be very comfortable, and we certainly wouldn’t starve, even without your uncle’s money and estate. With your uncle’s money and estate we could have a wonderful time! Oh, a really wonderful time!”
He stood very stiffly in front of her.
“Don’t be crude, Valentine. It doesn’t suit you.”
“No?” But her eyes still glittered. “But just tell me this. If I say I’ll marry you when the year is up—the year Miss Constantia allowed me—but not before it, will you be content to wait?”
This time it was Peter who drew a deep breath. Then he smiled at her gently.
“Don’t be silly, darling, and don’t try to trip me up, either! I’d marry you without a penny to your name, as you very well know, because if there’s one thing I am not, it’s a fortune hunter. And in many ways I’d prefer it if you didn’t have any money at all. But only a complete idiot would turn his, or her, back on a bequest the size of the one Miss Constantia made to you. And if you’re prepared to marry me once the year is up, then obviously you’ll be sensible enough to marry me before it’s up.”
Valentine felt as if her slim breasts were heaving, and something dry in her throat seemed inclined to choke her. “I suppose you realize that that’s an admission that you want the money?”
“It’s nothing of the kind!”
“But I say it is! And I ... I wish I’d never had the money left to me at all! It hasn’t brought me any real happiness!” Only a promise of eternal unhappiness, she could have added, but didn’t. She locked her hands together tightly. She would make yet a further test. “I’ll marry you, Peter, if you’ll wait for the wedding to take place after the year is up. I have a trinket box of jewelry and I shall have a few hundred pounds. I’d feel happier with just the few hundreds and the knowledge that a man had wanted me enough to turn his back on a sum like fifteen thousand pounds!”
He moved closer to her and put his hands on her shoulders. He looked deep into her eyes.
“Valentine, I love you and I want to marry you more than anything else in the world, but I’m not going to let you behave like an irresponsible schoolgirl for absolutely no reason. You must realize that if we do marry everyone will think I’m a fortune hunter, but I don’t care about that. So long as you’re secure—”
“And you’re secure!”
His blue eyes flashed rather sullenly.
“Valentine, don’t be insulting.”
“I’m not being insulting,” she assured him with peculiar sweetness. “I’m offering to marry you, or rather, agreeing to marry you, since you’ve asked me to do so, if you’ll take me with my few hundreds, not with my thousands. We can be engaged immediately—but we’ll wait for a ceremony until the year is up.”
“And I wouldn’t think of behaving so unfairly to you.”
“Very well,” she said quietly, withdrawing herself, “you’d better go now. The offer stands for another twenty-four hours. You can ring me if you change your mind.” She heard him give an exasperated sigh, felt him grasp her shoulders again and give her a slight shake, and then he walked toward the door.
“Very well,” he said, “I’ll go now, not to think anything over, but to answer my aunt’s letter. It’s just possible I’ll have to get a flight reservation fairly suddenly if the old boy’s condition should deteriorate still further, and if that happens I might not have a chance to say goodbye to you. But I’ll ring you and I’ll write to you from England.”
“Yes,” she said very quietly indeed, “do write to me from England.”
She heard the apartment door close, and then Jane came in and saw that her blue eyes were slowly welling with tears. Jane had not seen Valentine anywhere near tears lately, and she stood still with surprise.
“Have you any idea, Jane,” Valentine asked, “why Miss Constantia left me her money? Do you think it was in order to ensure that I would never marry?”
ABOUT THE MIDDLE OF AUGUST Philippe returned, and the day after his return he walked calmly into the apartment at about eleven o’clock in the morning and announced that he had come to take them both out for the day to a place where they could enjoy some cooling breezes.
Philippe was looking browner than ever, and his eyes were very alert. He admitted that he had been living a very simple life indeed, with only an old housekeeper to look after him, and not a soul for miles, as he put it. He had been shut up with some books and an ancient gramophone, and in the daytime he had lounged in the sun on the terrace and watched the moorhens on the lake, which was green with slime, and decided that there was much to be said for a peaceful life after all. At the moment he was in the mood to break out, but only for a moment. If the moment pass
ed, he might disappear again very rapidly.
“So you’d better make the most of me,” he said to them audaciously. “And Jane had better confess that she’s missed me, and we’ll have a wonderful day where there are woods and a stream, and as a result of some magical materialization, a picnic basket!”
“I’m not at all sure that I have missed you,” Jane said slowly, bending her head above a nylon stocking she was trying to free from a snag.
“No?” He walked into the middle of the room and looked at her as she sat on the settee. She was wearing a pale pink linen dress with a wide white belt and sandals, and perhaps because her legs were bare and as slim as a schoolgirl’s, and her hair was very short and shining and dark, she looked very young indeed. Infinitely younger when she removed her glasses and looked up at him as if she was seriously contemplating him.
Philippe smiled. “I shall never believe that I have a negative personality, and I am not prepared to believe that you are always entirely truthful!” He sank down beside her on the settee. “Come off it, Jane, and admit that you have missed me!”
Jane’s lustrous gray eyes gazed into his. But it was she who had to lower hers first.
Valentine, who had been writing letters at the desk—a lovely little Empire desk that she wished she could keep when the time came for her to give up the apartment—closed down the lid and came across to them. She was surprised to see that Jane’s creamy complexion had turned slightly pink—as pink as her dress.
“What about you, Valentine, my sweet?” Philippe asked, looking up at her. “You never dissemble, and I don’t for one moment imagine you’re in love with me, so you’ll come out with me for the day, won’t you? Even if Jane won’t come!”
“I haven’t said I won’t come,” Jane said, folding up the nylon stocking.
“Ah!” the comte exclaimed delightedly. “That is what jealousy will do, even for one as incapable of jealousy as Jane! She is afraid, ma petite Valentine, that even if you do not love me you might permit me to kiss you down by the river, or where the reeds grow thickest; and in order that this shall not happen she is willing to sacrifice herself and come with us. But do not for one moment suppose that it is because the green-eyed little god has started to exercise any power over her. Oh, dear me, no! Not our cool detached Jane, who loved once but never again! Never, never again!”