Authors: Rose Burghley
It was on these occasions that they talked a good deal— perhaps in order to forget that pregnant silence that seemed to press upon them in the green gloom that surrounded them, waiting for them to become aware of other things apart from conversation. Apart from Robert’s description of the Luxembourg Gardens in spring, lilies of the valley on sale everywhere in Paris at the beginning of May, the Horse Show in the Bois de Boulogne, gala performances at the Opera. He talked so much about Paris that she began to feel she had done far more than pass through it, and although she wouldn’t admit it— preferring to cling to her pre-conceived notion that, compared with London, it was a frivolous city, likely to appeal only to those who were naturally rather frivolous-minded—she did begin to be conscious of a desire to see something of it one day.
He whetted her appetite for the sight of tree-lined streets greening over, as it were, in a night, after a particularly hard winter. Wide avenues where the sun found it possible to gild everything, because they were so open, and shop windows that would tempt even the most nunlike female, if she was a female at all. It was only when he talked of little restaurants tucked away near the Madeleine, and the Montparnasse district with its literary and artistic associations, that she grew a little cautious of displaying enthusiasm. And when he talked of “first-nights’’ at the theatres, and night-clubs that kept open until an hour in the morning when it seemed to her peculiar that people should still be seeking vicarious entertainment. Then he felt her withdraw into a kind of shell, and his eyes twinkled, and twinkled still more as he casually mentioned “mornings after”, and Armand making frequent threats to cut out that side of his life altogether, because it interfered with his work, and his work was the one thing that was really important to him these days.
But he had not so far been strong enough to eschew the lighter side of life entirely, although there was no telling what he might do one of these days.
“Armand is a little bit unpredictable,” he admitted to her once, when they were re-packing the picnic basket after doing more than justice to Monique’s feather-light pastries and macaroons, and the excellent coffee she had introduced into a thermos flask. “It is not always easy to understand him. Sometimes he is gay—without, you would say, a care in the world—and then,” with a little shrugging movement of his shoulders, “for no reason whatsoever he is down, deep down, in the doldrums! It is a little difficult to keep pace with his moods.”
“Isn’t that because he is naturally temperamental? A writer would be temperamental, wouldn’t he?”
“Would he? Or, rather, should he be?” He leaned on his elbow and watched her, while his cigarette burned away between his fingers, and his look seemed to her to be a little intense, as if he was interested in her reactions. “Does temperament excuse fits of very bad temper, impatience with everything and everybody, refusal to take anything but a cynical view of most people’s intentions, and a disinclination to believe that there is any real good in human nature? Does it excuse thinking contemptuously of his own success, which he does?”
“I don’t know.” Her eyes were very large and rather round in the dimness of the wood, and their colour was a kind of misty violet. “But then I don’t know very much about successful people. Actually, I’ve never met any.”
“Then you are fortunate, my child.”
He ground out the end of his cigarette in the long grass, and then lighted another. She had noticed that he practically chain-smoked, and the tips of his supple fingers were stained with nicotine.
“You—you see a good deal of the Comte, don’t you?” she suggested diffidently.
“For my sins, I see a very great deal of him—a very great deal, yes!” he admitted.
“And you would rather it was otherwise?”
He shrugged.
“I haven’t said so. He is David to my Jonathan, or vice versa. In any case, we couldn’t get on without one another.”
“You mean that you help him—with ideas, or something of the sort—in his work? And that is why he shares the profits with you?”
Amusement overspread his face, and his dark eyes grew a little mocking.
“You do not altogether approve of my sharing those profits, do you? You think it would be far more to my credit if I made that bookshop of mine pay dividends! Or did some other honest job of work! Well, perhaps I will one day—if you think it necessary!” He leaned forward and possessed himself of one of her hands, turning the fingers back so that he could admire the delicate nails, and then staring rather hard at the soft palm. “And we will not talk about this de Marsac, for he is a dull subject of conversation, and there are other subjects that could be so much more interesting.”
“Such as?” she heard herself enquiring, in almost a whisper.
He went on staring at her palm,
“Can’t you think of one that would enable us to be in some sort of accord? No criticism on either side, no doubts, no uncertainties—just the delight of discussing something we both know and understand!”
Her heart had started to hammer wildly, and the hand he had felt taut as a piece of live wire. But she looked away from him desperately, into the leafy green foliage, thinking that he was a man who allowed another man to be responsible for his creature comforts—or largely responsible —and the life he led was not the sort of life she was certain she could ever approve. He had a curious, detached attitude to what was important in life—even loyalty to his friend was not his strong point—and yet Marie-Josette would hurl herself into his arms the instant she saw him coming! Jacqueline, the mother of many kittens, followed him about like a forlorn dog, and Monique’s eyes grew several degrees brighter when his name was mentioned. Marthe Giraud had written from the hospital that he was being kinder to her than she deserved, and she had recommended Caroline to listen to his advice and stay away from sick-visiting for a time.
“Get well and strong yourself’ she said, “and before long I will be back to look after you both!”
Which looked as if she was accustomed to Monsieur de Bergerac’s visits, and had decided that this might be a lengthy one.
And now Caroline could feel him tugging at her hand, gently but insistently.
“Well,” he said, “isn’t there such a subject we can discuss?” Caroline looked down into his eyes, and it was her undoing. Her eyes became mirrors of all that she was thinking and feeling, and she heard him give a little exclamation—a satisfied exclamation—and then sit up swiftly. He held out his arms to her, and like Marie-Josette she went into them gladly, and he folded her close. She heard him whispering while he rubbed his cheek against hers, and although her other cheek was pressed against him and she could hear the wild thunder of his heart, she could also hear what he said.
“Little one...! Little, little one! Cheiie...! Oh, Cherie ...!” His eyelashes brushed against her skin, and the wildest of thrills sped up and down her—she felt she was drowning in bliss. Her fingers clutched at him, and she trembled like a leaf in his arms. “I have wanted to hold you like this almost from the very first moment that we met,” he told her dreamily, “and now you are close to my heart! I don’t think I can ever let you go!”
She felt his hand beneath her chin, forcing her face up, and his eyes above her were ablaze with all sorts of lights, and tender at the same time.
“Don’t tell me if any man has ever kissed you before,” he said, “because I couldn’t bear it!”
And then his mouth was on hers, and the ecstasy was complete.
Later he lay with his head in her lap, looking up at her. “You will marry me?” he said. “I have never asked a woman to marry me before in my life, but you I have got to have! Carol, if I don’t have you I shall pine away and die like one of those comfortless females in English novels of Victorian life! Do you believe me?”
She traced the arrogant outline of his eyebrows with a slim fingertip, and then gently touched the eyelashes that fascinated her. Marry him... ? She felt bemused, unable to believe that that was what he was asking her to do, unused yet even to the touch of his lips, unsure of the sensations rioting within her.
“But you hardly know me,” she answered. “I hardly know you!” “And is it necessary to know all there is to know about a man or a woman before it is possible to fall in love with him or her?” he returned, hurt rebuke in his voice. He captured her hand and buried his mouth in the palm. “Is that the way the English fall in love?—Is that the way a cool, remote little girl like you expects to be loved before she can make up her mind to marry?”
“I am not cool and remote!” Her shaken voiced proved that she certainly wasn’t. “And I do love you, Robert...!” There...! It was out, her doubts vanished forever, everything clear and crystallised for her so that, whatever happened, it would be impossible to doubt that one thing again, and instantly he removed his head from her lap and took her back into his arms. He held her as if she was very young, and a little unsure of herself still, and had to be reassured, and his reassurances were the sweetest things that had ever happened to her in her life.
“And I love you, my darling, my darling!” he told her. “It is a depth of love that has shaken me, I’ll admit, for I had become cynical about such things, but perhaps that is why it is all the more wonderful to be in love at last! And the fact that we met when and how we did, arriving at the chateau at the same time, is proof that it was all arranged beforehand! It is something that was intended... ! I knew it for a certainty that afternoon when you were frightened by the bat, and when you flew into my arms, but it seemed too early to tell you then! Although I think that you might have listened... ! And therefore there is nothing for it but that you must become my wife!”
Her face was once more hidden against him, but she whispered into the heavy silk of his shirt:
“But what will we live on?” It seemed a little paradoxical that such a question should have to be asked when the silk of that shirt was so heavy, and so obviously expensive; but it did have to be raised just the same. “The bookshop, or the Comte!”
He was silent for several seconds, but when he spoke there was a note of amusement in his voice.
“You would dislike very much to live on the Comte?” She put back her head and looked up at him, and her violet eyes were a little amazed.
“Dislike. . . ? But, it’s impossible! We couldn’t! Oh, Robert, of course we couldn’t! And the bookshop doesn’t seem to pay very well!”
He lifted her chin again, and looked deep into her eyes. There was something thoughtful and mesmeric about that prolonged and concentrated gaze, deep, as it were, into the heart of her being, and then at last he said:
“Perhaps when I have you to guide me things will be better! You will be my clever little mentor and most truthful companion, and with you nothing will find it possible to go wrong! We will have all the money we need—perhaps more than we need!—and you at least will never be left alone again to be ill in a lonely room at the top of a steep flight of stairs! That, to me, is the important thing— that you will be cared for, and that you will be safe!”
“But, Robert, darling-------”
“There are no ‘buts’, my little one—not just now, at least! Just now the only thing that matters is that we belong—that I love you, and that you love me!” He kissed each of her eyes in turn, the soft curve of her cheek, the slender column of the creamy throat he had thought graceful as a flower stern, and the little hollow at the base of that throat where the pulse beat quickly and excitedly. He kissed the tendrils of hair on her forehead, the tip of her slightly upturned nose, the pink lobes of her ears— and then as if he had been deliberately delaying the moment of supreme rapture, her mouth. The kiss went on and on, and her bones melted. She clung to him helplessly.
“Are there any ‘buts’?” he asked huskily, at last.
“No—there are no ‘buts’.... ”
“And even if I ask you to live with me at the top of an equally unattractive building as that one in which you were taken ill, will you agree?”
“Yes, yes, I’ll agree!”
“You wouldn’t mind poverty—if it was necessary?”
“I wouldn’t mind anything, so long as I was with you!”
He drew away from her, and he seemed to be breathing rather hard.
“Even a reputation that was—as I once said about Armand’s—a little ‘blown upon?’ A little inclined to cause raised eyebrows at times! You wouldn’t mind throwing in your lot with a man who has lived at a much harder pace than you have, my darling?—who is a very black sheep indeed compared with your ewe-lamb whiteness! Who has very few illusions about life, and until he met you thought that women were—well, to be treated lightly!” As she looked at him with wide, disbelieving eyes, he caught her back to him again. “Darling, darling, I love you! Is that enough?”
“It is enough,” she told him fervently.
“You mean it?” as if he would force her to admit that it was not quite the truth.
“I mean it!” she wound her arms about his neck and held him tightly. ‘‘It doesn’t matter to me what you have done in the past, Robert, or how you have lived. All that matters to me now—all that is important to me is that I want to be with you, to look after you as only a wife can look after you—to cook for you, sew on your buttons, mend your socks! To starve with you if necessary, and be happy with you under any circumstances! Believe me, Robert, that is allI want!”
He laughed triumphantly into her hair.
‘Then that is all you shall have! You shall do all those things at the top of one of the tallest buildings in Paris, and your world will not be the world beyond the windows, but the world within the four walls! It shall be our haven, our paradise, and we shall need no greater bliss! My little one, my beloved, we shall have everything,
because we shall have each other!”
They clung together in a delirium of happiness, and it wasn’t until the light beneath the forest trees began to grow really dim that they realised that they would have to leave. Caroline gathered up the remnants that had to be returned to the picnic basket, and he took it from her and they walked together side by side in the soft, warm gloom that was already filled with the mellow fluting of an eager nightingale, and her hand was inside his arm and pressed close to his side.