To Hear a Nightingale

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘I don’t understand how you can sleep with paintings like that in your room,’ Cassie said, indicating a particular canvas.

  ‘Because it is not only erotic,’ Jean-Luc explained, standing back to look better at the picture, ‘but also a particularly fine example of religious sexuality. Paintings such as this illustrate the artist’s freedom to show with impunity highly sadistic and therefore very erotic scenes under the guise of religious art. As I am quite sure you are all too well aware, sadism has often found a great ally in the Church.’

  He smiled and walked on, stopping a moment later in front of a large and handsomely painted watercolour.

  ‘Perhaps this will be of greater appeal to you,’ he said, but without a smile. ‘Woman as the horse.’

  Cassie looked round at de Vendrer curiously.

  ‘Are you showing me these in the hope of shocking me?’ she asked. ‘Because if you are, you’re in no way succeeding.’

  ‘But of course not, ma petite,’ he replied, wandering away to stare at another watercolour. ‘I have a profound interest in sensuality and the erotic. Do you not share this?’

  ‘I can’t in all honesty say that I do,’ Cassie replied calmly, refusing to be drawn into argument. ‘I think that eroticism is very important, and most enjoyable – in the right hands. And as far as art goes, it obviously plays a major role. But actually, what really turns me on is love.’

  Jean-Luc turned round, visibly disconcerted for the very first time. It was as if Cassie had waved garlic at a vampire.

  ‘I suppose you think only uncivilised people satisfy their sexual instincts without love,’ he replied, unable to keep the chill from his voice.

  ‘Well yes, as a matter of fact I do,’ Cassie said.

  ‘Then in light of today’s events,’ Jean-Luc countered, a smile returning to his face, ‘that must mean you have fallen in love with me.’

  ‘Really?’ Cassie enquired very coolly. ‘I don’t recall saying that I was satisfied.’

  There was a moment’s silence while Jean-Luc regarded her from behind his round, brass spectacles. Then he smiled broadly and kissed the tips of two of his fingers.

  ‘Bravo!’ he said. ‘Formidable! You are an infinitely more fascinating woman than I first gave you credit for!’

  He moved towards her and taking her by one arm, stood her in front of another set of pictures hanging in an alcove. Cassie regarded them in silence, although the content of this set of pictures upset her more than all the others.

  ‘Alors,’ said Jean-Luc, lowering his voice to a whisper. ‘I thought something along these lines could provide a most interesting evening.’

  ‘This is what you would like?’ Cassie enquired carefully.

  ‘No,’ Jean-Luc replied.

  And bending down to whisper in her ear, he told her at length what he would really like.

  Cassie was forced to listen, so strong was his hold on her. She glanced fearfully back at the bed with its enormous four posts, which were apparently going to play a key part in the proposed events. He then moved behind her, and taking her by the other arm, pushed her slowly but inexorably to the bed. Cassie struggled, but the scholarly-looking Jean-Luc was a deceptively strong man.

  Then suddenly she was free, as releasing her, he pushed her down on to the bed. Cassie lay there, refusing to show the fear she was feeling. Instead she smiled up at the man standing above her, who was beginning to undo his shirt and tie.

  ‘Now what?’ she enquired coolly.

  ‘You just lie there, ma petite,’ he whispered. ‘I will not keep you waiting long.’

  He walked away from the bed towards a door in the wall. Rather than let him see that she was watching him closely, waiting for the chance to escape, Cassie lay back on the pillows and stretched out. Jean-Luc looked back at her once, then opened the door and disappeared into the small room within.

  Before he half-closed the door behind him, Cassie had time to see that the room was a closet, cupboards within cupboards with a light which came on as the door was opened. From that information alone, Cassie deduced that there could be no window in there, and no other door. Not if the closet was built into the thick walls of the room.

  And unbelievably there was a key in the door. In her side of the door. Holding her breath, and biting her lip to stifle the scream she felt coming, Cassie slid off the bed and tiptoed to the cupboard.

  ‘Please God,’ she prayed. ‘Please God don’t let the key be stiff!’

  It wasn’t. It turned easily and almost silently in the lock, the moment Cassie slammed the door completely shut. Cassie leaned for a moment with relief against it before Jean-Luc started pounding on it like a madman from within, forcing her to run as fast as she could to the main bedroom doors.

  They were all locked.

  Cassie had neither seen nor heard Jean-Luc turn the keys. He had obviously used the conjuror’s theory of distraction, and locked them both in while Cassie was taking her first and privately appalled look at what hung on the bedroom walls. Now they were both imprisoned, he in his closet, Cassie in the bedroom. If it wasn’t so terrible it would be funny.

  Her prisoner was hammering loudly on the door and shouting in French from within. But the door was very heavy, and the walls twice as thick, so his voice was distant and muffled. Even so, fearful that with his seeming brute strength he might be able to break the lock, with a superhuman effort Cassie dragged a large chest of drawers from along the adjoining wall, and pushed it hard up against the door. Then she started desperately searching for the door keys.

  But there were none. Jean-Luc must still have them on him, because a very thorough search revealed nothing. There was no other way out, the windows of the room opening out only on to the sheer and blank walls of the château.

  Then she remembered the house telephone.

  ‘Celine?’ she said, when her maid answered the second call. ‘This is Madame Rosse. I’m afraid something very foolish has happened, and Monsieur has locked us both in his bedroom and mislaid the key.’

  The maid didn’t understand at first, but after about Cassie’s fourth or fifth attempt to explain, she announced that she understood, and would come up that minute with the pass key.

  While she waited, Cassie quickly undressed and put on one of Jean-Luc’s robes, which hung along with his silk ties and shirts in another closet in the walls. She wanted the maid to assume it was quite a normal night, if, she thought wryly, such a thing was possible under this particular roof.

  ‘Is this the only pass key?’ Cassie asked, easing Celine back into the corridor as the maid opened the main door, anxious for her not to become aware of her master’s muffled shouts of rage.

  ‘Because if this is the only pass key,’ Cassie continued, shutting the main door behind her, ‘I’d better hang on to that. There are a few other locked doors round here, you understand.’

  She smiled and winked at the girl, who smiled blankly back at her, having failed totally to understand what Cassie was saying, which was exactly Cassie’s intention. By the time Celine might have been having any second thoughts, the key was safely in Cassie’s hands.

  ‘Thank you so much!’ she whispered, waving the key at her. ‘Sorry to have gotten you out of bed!’

  Then she shut the door and waited long enough for the maid to have got back all the way again to the servants’ wing before making her final escape. While she was waiting, she looked around the room, anxious to leave her host something by which he would remember her. Then she recalled seeing a pair of scissors in one of the dressing-table drawers, when she had been searching for the keys, and fetching them, she went into the other wall closet where she had found the robe, and cut every single one of his silk neckties neatly in half.

  She locked all the doors of her host’s bedroom suite on her way out, before returning to her own room to collect her belongings and to get dressed. It was now after midnight, and she imagined there would be little chance of summoning a taxi from the nearest town, particular
ly in her schoolgirl French. Then she remembered that in both Leonora’s houses, all the keys to the garages and cars were kept on a board in the kitchens. So she tiptoed downstairs, across the hall and through the pass door which she knew must lead, just like Claremore, to the domestic offices.

  There was no sign of any keys in the kitchens. Nor in either of the small rooms leading off, which were obviously butlers’ pantries. But further along the corridor leading away from the kitchens, Cassie found the estate office, and hanging on the wall was a board of numbered and labelled keys. Under Garage One, she found and took the set of keys for Jean-Luc’s Bentley. Tyrone for a short time had owned a similar car, so at least Cassie reasoned she would be familiar with the controls. Then she let herself out of the heavily bolted back door, and made for the garages, which lay on the opposite side of the courtyard to the stable block.

  The garage doors, being on the outside of the block, opened away from the stables and straight on to the back drive. Once Cassie had refamiliarised herself with the car, she held her breath and pressed the starter button. The engine fired at once, and almost inaudibly. As far as Cassie could tell from a long backward glance in her driving mirror, no lights came on in the stables nor in the servants’ quarters as she slowly drove the car down the grass verge of the back drive. Within a couple of minutes she was safely out of sight of the château, and within five she was on the road to the nearest town.

  She knew she would have to abandon the Bentley in the town because its loss would invariably be discovered long before Cassie made Paris or the coast. So as soon as she reached the town, Cassie determined to hire another car before continuing on her way.

  The proprietor of the only garage she could raise at that time of night was not as keen as Cassie was, however, that she should continue her journey at such a late hour. He became considerably less stubborn once Cassie had offered him a more than generous commission on the deal, and finally offered to rent her a much abused Renault at an exorbitant rate.

  Cassie paid without a murmur, anxious to be on her way. While the garage proprietor was filling the rented car with petrol, she collected the Bentley from where she had left it on the corner and parked it on the garage forecourt.

  When she alighted from the car, Cassie found the proprietor’s humour had worsened.

  ‘You are from the château, madame?’ he asked darkly.

  ‘I have been a guest at the château, monsieur,’ Cassie replied.

  The proprietor nodded, then spat vehemently on the ground.

  Cassie paused for a moment in the loading of her luggage.

  ‘You don’t like Monsieur de Vendrer much either?’ she asked.

  ‘Madame,’ the old proprietor replied. ‘Were there to be another revolution tomorrow, de Vendrer would be the first to visit Madame Guillotine.’

  ‘He’s none too popular round here then, I guess.’

  ‘He is filth, madame. Salot.’

  The proprietor spat once more on the ground, then looked at the handsome car standing parked on the forecourt.

  ‘I was rather hoping I could leave this car of his here,’ Cassie ventured. ‘So that maybe they could collect it tomorrow.’

  ‘You are in a hurry to leave the château,’ the proprietor replied, more as a statement than a question.

  ‘Yes,’ Cassie agreed.

  ‘Then by all means please leave the car here,’ the proprietor said, suddenly smiling. ‘It will suit me very well. I can hold it against the monies Monsieur owes me. He still does not pay me for his wife’s garage bills.’

  Cassie threw her last case in the back seat of the Renault, and looked sharply up at the old Frenchman.

  ‘You did say his wife’s garage bills?’

  ‘Oui, madame. They are outstanding since March.’

  Cassie straightened up, and stood holding on to the top of the car door.

  ‘His wife died three years ago, monsieur.’

  ‘His first wife killed herself three years ago, madame. He married again three months later. Everyone loved his first wife. So sweet. So gentle. But –’

  He shrugged, and relit the butt of his yellowing Gauloise.

  ‘But what, monsieur?’ Cassie enquired.

  The proprietor raised his eyebrows, shrugged again, and tapped his head once to denote madness.

  Cassie gripped on to the car door even more tightly, and looked back over her shoulder anxiously, as if the shadow of the château still loomed behind her.

  ‘This new wife – bah!’ the proprietor continued. ‘What can you expect?’ he shrugged. ‘Elle etait une go-go girl!’

  ‘Where is she now? She wasn’t in residence at the château.’

  ‘Abroad. The West Indies. Always abroad. Madame de Vendrer, she does not like the rain.’

  He held one hand up to the night sky, from which indeed heavy rain was now starting to fall. Cassie shivered and got back into the car.

  ‘Thank you, monsieur!’ she called over the engine as she started it up. ‘And if I were you, yes – I would keep the car! Lock it away in your garage, until that bastard pays you what he owes!’

  The old man nodded and waved once before disappearing back inside his premises. Cassie put the car in gear and drove off round the town, looking for the Paris road.

  She had called de Vendrer a bastard, she recalled as she headed north-east through the now torrential rain. As an insult, she had called him the very thing that she herself was, and of which she was no longer ashamed. Yet when she wanted to call someone so terrible as Jean-Luc de Vendrer something appropriately insulting, the first word that had sprung to her lips was ‘bastard’.

  She smiled grimly to herself, wiping the windscreen with her hand to try and clear the mist. Neither the heater nor the demister worked, but Cassie didn’t care. She could take her time now, because she was free.

  He had been so plausible, she thought as she drove. He had been so sensitive and, initially, so gentle and attentive. And he had played the tragic widower so well! Damn him! Cassie thought, banging the steering wheel, damn him to hell and twice over! He had simply set about seducing her for want of something better to do, and in order to do so, had pretended to be in the same state as his victim, bereft and still in grief. And she had fallen for it, totally – hook, line and sinker. As she drove through the rain on the long road to Paris, she ended up cursing herself more than him, for being such a gullible fool, such a compliant and unsophisticated idiot.

  Later that day, as she sat waiting for her flight to be called at Orly airport, Cassie read in the newspaper that Celebration’s old trainer Willie Moore had retained for the next season one of the most highly thought of American jockeys for his rapidly expanding string. The name of the particular rider was Dexter Bryant.

  Chapter Twenty

  Dexter Bryant’s start to the next season was nothing short of sensational. He won first time out at the Curragh on one of Willie Moore’s promising two-year-olds, and out of his next twelve rides had four more winners – a strike rate of almost 2½ to 1. The knockers had all been standing by as usual, ready to forecast the Yankee’s undoubted failure, according to them due to his totally unsuitable style of race riding. But even though he rode too ‘flat’, and held his whip in that faintly absurd upright fashion universally favoured by American jockeys, those observers with open minds could see from Bryant’s first few rides in public how beautifully balanced he got his horses and how tenderly he rode all the youngsters.

  Cassie saw him again face to face for the first time in the weighing room at Leopardstown. She was standing talking after the last race to Dermot Pryce, who happily now was fully recovered and riding again, when Dexter came out of the changing room. Cassie excused herself from Dermot for a moment, and intercepted Dexter before he reached the main door.

  ‘Hello Dex,’ she said. ‘How are you?’

  Dexter turned as if surprised, but Cassie could tell from the look in his eyes that he had already both seen and recognised her on his way out.


  He touched his hat with a finger, as if he was still wearing his race cap, and smiled politely.

  ‘Mrs Rosse, ma’am,’ he replied. ‘Why how good to see you again.’

  ‘Congratulations on your success, Dex. You’re certainly making them sit up and take notice.’

  ‘Thank you, ma’am. And if I may say so, I was awful sorry to learn about Mr Rosse.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Cassie. ‘I still miss him terribly.’

  ‘I’m sure you do, ma’am,’ Dexter replied.

  ‘You must come to Claremore, Dex,’ Cassie offered, looking at the handsome boy who had now become an extremely handsome man. ‘I’d love you to see the house. And the yard.’

  ‘That would be a pleasure, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, Mr Moore is waiting for me with some of his owners.’

  Dexter touched his hat again and went, watched by Cassie. He wasn’t nearly as short as most other jockeys, she noticed, standing a good three to four inches over her. But he was very slender, slim in hip and leg, and without a visible ounce of spare flesh.

  Cassie also noticed that when he had walked out of the weighing room and she had caught her first close sight of him, her heart suddenly missed a beat.

  The start of the new season for Cassie was one of mixed fortunes. Reverse, seemingly recovered from his troublesome tendon, ran in the Gladness Stakes at the Curragh, which was won by the O’Brien hotshot as forecast. Dermot Pryce pulled Reverse up two furlongs out, as he felt the horse ‘go’ under him. When Niall Brogan got to look at him, it was discovered that he had ‘done’ his other tendon.

  ‘This often happens, you know, Cassie,’ her vet told her. ‘While the horse is recovering from one bad leg, the good leg takes all the strain. In fact it takes too much strain, and instead of the bad one going again, the good one goes.’