The Hunter's Moon (Timeless Classics Collection)

by Ursula Bloom

  Quite suddenly she saw the young man from last night approaching her. He wore the sort of smart clothes of which her father would have disapproved. A white shantung suit, and under it a light cinnamon-coloured jumper. He was good-looking in a way, amusing too, and spoke instantly as though he knew her already. Usually she was squeamish about this, but somehow he could do it.

  ‘Where on earth did you go last night?’ he asked. ‘I was hoping to take you along to the casino with me.’

  ‘I was tired and went to bed.’

  ‘You’re too young to tire like that.’

  ‘I’d experienced my first flight, which means I had also experienced my first real scare. That’s the way of things, but today I’m better, for I slept like a top.’

  ‘You’ve been ill, Madame says.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, and to herself, ‘So they’ve been talking about me, one must not trust Madame.’

  ‘I’ve been ill, too, and my mother sent me down here for a treat. I arrived last week. So far it’s been pretty dull, nothing much going on.’ He went on gaily talking; he chattered with a freedom which was attractive, and he told her about himself. He had gone from Cambridge to work with the B.B.C., because his father thought that there was a tremendous future for men of his age in Broadcasting House. The idea struck him as fairly deadly, but he had thought it wiser to keep in with his father, so took it on.

  He had connections with a programme which Diana knew. He admitted that his mother said that it was the poorest programme on the air, and should have been taken off it years ago, but for some strange reason it still continued. She asked about it. His work was to make himself pleasant, and he confessed that this was one of the most tedious things imaginable. He met contributors to the programme in the massive hall of Broadcasting House in Portland Place. Then he took them along to the studio, talking with discretion and tact, and getting them into what was called ‘the right mood’. When they were in tune, and less nervous, the producer came in, and they all had a long talk. Still with everybody being vastly encouraging, they went through the first rehearsal, and after that retired for lunch.

  Diana gathered that he was paid to be encouraging.

  ‘But I’m sure the lunch is good,’ she said.

  He did not think it was, privately he was not so keen on Spam, for he had had too much of it in the war. He was just going to talk about the time when they ‘went live’, when Madame appeared in the garden. In the harsh light of the new day Madame’s complexion revealed the truth, which was that her main method in the art of make-up was to cover as much as possible with a heavy powder, and then hope for the best. Alas, the sun had piercing rays.

  She was, of course, much older than she admitted, and she stood there blinking at them.

  ‘So you meet? Nice. Verra verra nice,’ said she.

  The young man told the truth. ‘I was so sorry when m’lle went off to bed last night, for I had hoped to take her along to the casino with me,’ he said.

  Instantly Madame feigned the expression of sympathy. Too bad! So terrible! But m’lle had had the long flight, and, like herself, she did not like the flight. Then she picked herself a camellia from the bush beside the house, pinned it to her ample breast and smiled back at them.

  ‘The ’appy days,’ said she contentedly.

  Diana watched it all with something of a smile. The garden was warm and enchanting, the young man attractive, and the old woman amusing. Newbury seemed to be a million miles away, and John had disappeared. One is only young once, she thought, and clung to that thought. It is madness not to be happy through those early years, for they mean so much, but of course they go too soon. Madame was an example of that!

  Diana realised that perhaps she had only begun to live in the last few months, for the early life at Solihull had been unbelievably cold and dull, almost a life in prison. Now she knew that she was going to love every moment.

  Madame giggled, and laid a fat finger alongside her large nose, with a cunning look which conveyed that she knew everything, far more than they would ever believe. She liked guests to enjoy themselves, for then they would come back again, and also when they were happy (though this she did not mention) she knew that they did not pry into those small items which drifted on to their bills, somewhat promiscuously out of nowhere. Madame never missed the chance to make money.

  She turned and went back into the house, simpering to herself.

  ‘Come on,’ said the young man, rather agreeably.

  Half a hour later he took Diana out with him in his car. He was gaily amusing; the sort of man with whom there was never a dull moment, and possibly just the right person to meet on the start of a visit. He was Eton and Trinity, and had all their charm. His car was a beauty, and she, used to her father’s very serviceable one, and the rheumaticky Rolls Aunt Chrissie had left her, had not realised how supremely comfortable the perfect car could be.

  ‘You know the world well, I suppose, and are used to the south of France?’ he asked her.

  ‘Not at all! The truth is that I have never been out of England before.’

  ‘Oh well, now it is going to be my job to show you what it is all like. We’ll go to Nice, you have to see Nice.’

  They got into Nice in time for a coffee at a street cafe, sitting with a surround of rose-pink tables, and pale blue wicker chairs. There was the usual crowd of French people, a couple of artists, and two society girls, possibly English, for their clothes looked like England, and already Diana was discovering that the French know more about the job than the English. But it was gay! Time did not matter, as far as one could see nobody had any work to do, and if they had had, wouldn’t have done it.

  She got the absurd feeling that she had gone back in life and once again was in the teens. She had recaptured the gaiety of it, life was a joke, and she was happy. Maybe taking this step had turned her from Birmingham for ever.

  It was the young man’s idea that they should have cognac in the coffee, everyone did, and he suggested that if she did not they would think her a weakling. She had to admit that she felt better for it, but slightly giggly, and somehow over-young. It was good to be young in this place, and to enjoy every moment, and stop having one eye on the clock and thinking of the onus which could lie with unborn tomorrow. They went on to Monte Carlo, via Villefranche, which enchanted her, and she came to the conclusion that the small places were always much nicer than the large ones. She liked the fishermen darning their nets, and the girls who helped them, singing as they did it.

  This really is a new world, she thought.

  It would be a new Diana who went home when the hour came, and she would be glad of that. But for now, whilst life was so good, she wished to stay here for quite a long time, and with the thought of it she got the inkling that all manner of things would happen to her. She was setting forth on the road of adventure.

  Monte Carlo was surprising, for it had none of the thrill which she had expected of it. They arrived fairly late in the morning, when apparently all the pot cinerarias had been wheeled out of their sheds to be re-planted in the gardens, for although she believed that this was a hot climate, it was lovely during the day but the nights could be cold and even frosty. It was right for flowers to be blooming everywhere (the Riviera lived on flowers), and gardeners were for ever trundling barrow loads of them about, then taking them back for the night into shelter.

  ‘So that’s what they do!’ she said, ‘and all the time I thought … well, well, well!’

  ‘It was what you were meant to think,’ he agreed.

  They lunched in a wonder restaurant of light gold and Cambridge blue. She had intended to go back to La Cloche for her lunch, for suddenly she had developed the most enormous appetite, but he said no, and they lunched together.

  His name was Greville Hawkes.

  He asked what had brought her here and she spoke of the car accident, explaining that the holiday had been her doctor’s idea; she would never have thought of it herself. He knew Dr James
, he said, they had met somewhere, and he was a first-class doctor.

  ‘I thought that, too,’ she admitted.

  Later on they went into the casino, he said she must do that. It was far smaller than she had anticipated, for she had thought of it being a series of great halls magnificently decorated, and of beautifully dressed people sitting excitedly at the tables. The casino gave the impression of being time-worn, the people also. For the first time she became conscious of that disease which comes to some, compulsive gambling, so that they cannot leave the enemy who is actually destroying them. She thought the place had a faded glory, something from the past, and was not really here at all.

  They sat down at one of the tables, and she looked about her, Greville Hawkes watching her with somewhat amused eyes. Possibly because he was well used to it, none of this struck him with the force it had for Diana. It was a strange crowd of people, and here were those to whom the necessity of a big win was apparently so vital. There were old ladies who, in agony, stuck their fingers into their ears when the croupier called the winning number. Those who looked as though they had grown old in the same chairs in which they sat today.

  ‘Of course,’ said Greville, ‘a fortune can be quickly made, or lost, and the risk is exciting,’ and he encouraged her to lay a bet; whatever happened, she must do that, he said. With reluctance she did, and the number came romping home. In a single instant a little pile of chips was pushed towards her, so that she could hardly believe it.

  ‘Beginner’s luck,’ he told her. ‘You can do it twice, they tell me, but never three times. This is not one of the games at which you can say third time lucky.’

  But she did win three times, and one after another she increased the pile of little chips beside her. She betted again and again, the croupier pushing other piles towards her, and an hour later when they walked out into the hot day, she was fifty pounds the richer.

  ‘Well, you were lucky,’ he said.

  ‘You won, also.’

  ‘Yes, but nothing like what you did. You could not put a foot wrong. Now don’t think that it often happens this way, because it doesn’t. Learn your lesson from one who knows.’

  ‘I’ve learnt it,’ she said, for she knew privately that she would be far too nervous to return to the tables, and attempt to do it again. Perhaps she had not really liked the place. She had experienced a sense of awe as she saw the small ball spinning round, and waited for the petrifying moment when it stopped. Old fingers, reminding her of bird claws, had reached out to grab their winnings. In a way she could feel that it gave one an urge, and there had been a second when she felt it herself as the ball spun so gaily into space. It was one’s own life flying hither and thither, buffeted at times, exultant at others, but in the end possibly one always lost.

  She had the feeling that in this part of the world anything could happen, and because of this perhaps she herself was changing somewhat. What a contrast it was to the Devonian village with the lace of ships’ masts against the blue sky, and the strong scent of the sea! Yet in the Devon village something had happened, for this is life. The Riviera was a different story, a place where the surroundings stopped one thinking. Today was today and tomorrow could see after itself. As to yesterday, if one was wise, one forgot, she told herself.

  Before they returned to La Cloche they stopped in a small town and had tea in a patisserie.

  ‘You’ll love this place,’ he said, ‘and whatever you do you must visit the artists’ quarter. There is quite a crowd of them living there. There is Madame Negatti who paints the most exquisite miniatures, and you’ll like Bernard Dante who sculpts.’

  ‘Dr James told me of him. He produces most wonderful statues, I believe.’

  ‘Does he not! He may not look a romantic figure but he has done some of the finest statues in Europe. I never can see how a man wishes to work in stone. Too cold for me, but then I am not that sort.’

  She thought about it for a moment, then she said, ‘I think it would be rather wonderful. Moulding, chiselling, seeing the thing come to life in your very hands. I’d like it.’

  ‘If it comes to art, give me pictures,’ he said.

  ‘But sculpture is more real,’ and as she said it she realised that she was talking of something which had always stood in the background of her life, some sort of a ghost beckoning to her. ‘I get worried over Henry Moore, maybe he is the man who has put me off it, because it always looks unreal to me, and there I know I am wrong.’

  ‘Quite wrong, according to the critics. You’re very young, you see.’

  ‘Time remedies that,’ she reminded him.

  ‘I have the feeling that you grew up in the old school and are only just emerging from it.’

  ‘How right you are!’ and she laughed as she thought of what her father would have said if he could have seen her now; taking tea in the street was what he would have said, and with a young man whom she had met for the first time today.

  She talked of home, the house which had been almost a prison with her father as the head warden. It was a horrible thought. She told him there had been the one young man, and the engagement broken off; then Aunt Chrissie’s death. Suddenly the prison doors had opened, and she found that she was free, quite free. ‘That was a wonderful experience,’ she said.

  He changed the subject for her. ‘One thing you will have to learn here is water ski-ing, because it is the greatest fun. Nothing like it.’

  ‘I’d never have the nerve.’

  ‘Nonsense! I’ll teach you some day, and you’ll love it, I can promise you that. One skims through space, and I always feel that it is quite the most heavenly feeling I know. You’ve got to do everything whilst you are young. Afterwards it is always too late.’

  It was as though the door was opening on a new life for her, and even as she thought of it she realised how far she had come from home. She talked to him of home again, and the dullness of it; her sympathy with a darling mother, and her intense longing to escape a routine-ridden father. She talked of the hunter’s moon, and the fact that they said that those born under it had second sight. He believed in that sort of thing, and said too few people in the world realised how we all came into this life under different stars. They could help, but also they could hinder, and one could never be too careful.

  Then he helped himself to another rhum baba and said, ‘But we’re too young to bother about that sort of thing. Life has lots ahead for us, much fun. Let’s look into tomorrow only, and enjoy every moment of it.’

  ‘How could one do anything but enjoy it out here in this part of the world?’ she asked him.

  They drove back in the car.

  He talked of his home and the difficulties of unreasonable parents, though as far as she could see, his were quite the kindest people of all. He should have had her father! When they got back to La Cloche, she found to her amazement that she was utterly exhausted, and could do no more. Maybe it was the climatic change, and this part of the world could do this for one. She lay down on the bed, fell asleep immediately and did not wake until it was time for dinner.

  I’m enjoying myself, she thought, I am having the sort of time I need most, a time in which to forget, and then said to herself, Christian James must be a very good doctor, for he seems to know the answer to all one’s troubles. She yawned and stretched herself. She wanted to be gay. She wanted to live, and all the time there was that little faint shadow with her in this room, a shadow which at times beckoned to her, yet shapeless, the shadow of the future, something which she had never quite understood.

  Forget it, forget everything but life for the moment, she told herself, and knew that this was exactly what she was going to do.

  Chapter Nine

  VISITATION

  Diana liked Greville Hawkes.

  She was obliged to admit that there were moments when she actually disliked him, for he had a very sullen temper, and if there is one thing which complicates life, it is the sullen temper. When he got into one of those moods, he
was best avoided.

  ‘’E is so silly,’ Madame said, waving her hands as though to dismiss the whole matter. ‘He make trouble where no trouble is. I say, Go away. I mean, Go away. But he ever come back,’ and she laughed.

  For the moment it was amusing to go about with him, and they went to Grasse and saw perfume factories; then to the border, and had a peep at Italy. It was he who took her to visit the artists’ colony, as he had promised he would.

  The artists lived on the west side, one took the car down to the colony, and as the road narrowed one left it where one could and walked on to the colony, which was a huddle of houses built on the very edge of the sea. How it did not sweep them up at high tide amazed her, but then the Mediterranean is almost tideless, she learnt.

  Walking along the narrow streets, all of them crooked with the crudest little pathways, one saw all the doors and windows wide open. On some the bedding was lavishly displayed as is the method of the French; in others there were men and women busily absorbed in their occupations.

  Artists called an amiable ‘Hello’ as one passed, for all of them were friendly.

  Greville wished to introduce Diana to Bernard Dante, an old friend of his, so he said. He was older than most, a man past the mid-forties who had put on weight. He never took any exercise. He worked hard all day, then flung himself down with the eternal cigarette and a glass of something fairly potent, and dozed through the pleasant evenings.

  ‘Married?’ she asked.

  ‘You girls always think of that!’

  ‘Do we?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. He was married once, but his wife died in a car accident or something. She took his car out and knew too little about it, so the gossips say. He tries to forget in his work.’