Authors: Unknown
“Do you wish you could afford to have this sort of thing?” Owen asked curiously with a comprehensive sweep of his hand.
“No, I don’t,” Lucy said unhesitatingly, turning to him from the contemplation of an exquisite Faberge trinket.
“No? I thought all women coveted thing like this.”
Lucy shook her head.
“I love looking at them,” she explained. “But if one could afford to buy them I suppose one could really afford to buy almost anything in the world?”
“More or less, no doubt,” Owen agreed.
“Well, I think that would be dull,” Lucy declared firmly. “Fancy never looking forward to having anything—never saving up for it! And fancy having so much that no one thing stood out—no, I don’t envy that sort of person!”
“Wise child,” Owen commented. “Then let’s go and have a bathe, shall we?”
“In the sea?” Lucy asked with almost childish glee.
“In the sea,” he promised.
Unused, at home, to swimming in anything but almost invariably chilly seas, the warm, tideless water was a revelation to Lucy. Side by side they swam out to an anchored raft, lay supine on it in utter contentment until Owen insisted that she had had sunshine enough for the time being and then swam back to change and sit for a while in the shade of the trees under which the beach nestled. They spoke but little, for Lucy was too entranced by the constantly moving scene—the speedboats flashing across the glassy blue water, the children, wearing the absolute minimum in the way of clothing playing with gaily coloured beach balls, the women, so many of them lovely enough to make Lucy sigh faintly, and wearing such glamorous beach costumes that it was clear they were never meant for swimming in—all these in turn caught and held her attention, and Owen, looking at her eager, alert face, was well content to sit silent.
“Well?” he asked at last. “Does it meet
(
with your approval?”
“Oh, yes!” she told him ecstatically. “It's like something out of a book!”
“Not quite real?” he suggested.
“Not quite,” she agreed. “Or else it’s that I don’t feel quite real. You see, it isn’t
my
world.”
“Nor mine,” Owen concurred. “For a holiday, yes. But—” he shook his head. And then after an interval: “What is your world, Lucy?”
“I don’t quite know,” she admitted. “Not—what it used to be. And not this. But I haven’t got any further yet than that.”
“You’ve travelled a good distance already,” he commented, and touched her hand lightly with his.
* * *
The next day he refused to tell her where he was taking her. All he would say was that if she imagined something utterly and entirely different from what they had seen the day before she would not be far out. Also that she had better bring a coat with her.
Guessing that the possible need of a coat meant that they were to take a mountain drive, Lucy was surprised and a little disappointed when Owen drove along the road by which they had arrived in Monaco and so to Nice. But once through the town he turned to the right along a road that ran by the side of a river. Almost immediately the road began to rise steeply and Lucy could see that they were heading for the mountains of the Alpes-Maritimes, but she asked no questions, for she knew they would not be answered.
But once she could not help exclaiming: “How beautiful!” to be answered by the one word: “Wait!” But Owen was smiling.
On they went, climbing all the time and always following the path that the rivers had worn during the centuries. They passed through wild, steep defiles cut through rock that was copper-coloured and which Owen told her were the Georges de la Vesuble. But names meant little to Lucy. She was intoxicated by the wild beauty and the fresh, wine-like air, beyond words, content just to look—
At St. Martin Vesuble he slowed down almost to a walking pace.
“Would you like to see the sanctuary of the Madonna at Fenestre—or the cascades at Boreon?” he asked doubtfully. “They’re both worth seeing in their own way.”
“Couldn’t we do both?” Lucy suggested, and Owen laughed.
“It will mean we’re a bit late for lunch,” he warned her.
“Does that matter very much—on a day like this?” she asked, and again he laughed.
“Not really,” he admitted.
So they saw first the charming sanctuary and then the wild, tumbling falls. After they had gazed their fill, Owen turned to the car, and Lucy made her first suggestion of the day—only to have it rejected.
“Couldn’t we have lunch here?”
“No, not here.” And then, as if he were anxious not to hurt her feelings: “You’ll see why—when we get there.”
So they went on, along a narrow valley, with mountains towering on either side until at last Owen said softly: “Here!” and stopped the car.
There was no need to ask why he had chosen this particular spot to stop. They were by the side of an enchanted lake, an emerald jewel set about with trees and with crimson rhododendrons beginning to show their colour.
They got out, but neither of them spoke! Neither consciously thought: “This is the most beautiful place in the world, I must not forget a single, thing about it!”
because they knew that such utter loveliness never could be forgotten any more than one would ever be able to find words to describe it. But each knew that their delight was greater because it was shared—
But on the way home, in the middle of a long silence, Owen suddenly said:
“I’ve been there several times before, but always alone. I’ve not risked taking anyone else in case—”
“Yes?” Lucy encouraged gently.
“In case—they talked too much,” he confessed, and grinned in a half shamed, half confiding way that once again left Lucy silent.
* * *
Just after breakfast, two days later, they were entertained by the arrival of an unusually large and luxurious yacht in the harbour.
“I think I know her,” Mr. Keane remarked, picking up his binoculars and focusing them. “Yes
—La Mouette.
She's been in once or twice before. She did belong to an American, but I heard he’d sold her recently—I don’t know to whom.”
“Someone with a good lot of money, I should imagine.” Owen remarked drily. “It comes expensive to run a tub of that sort!”
Mrs. Mayberry reproached him for his disparaging description, but to Lucy it had come as something of a relief. To her there was something overpowering, even threatening about such magnificence, and Owen’s light dismissal of it seemed to break the spell.
Suddenly he turned to Lucy.
“Let’s go into Nice and have a look at the old town,” he suggested. “I’ve never had time to before and I believe it’s worth a visit.”
Lucy looked at Mrs. Mayberry for permission.
“Yes, of course, my dear. But, Owen, it’s going to be a really hot day. Don’t walk the child off her feet!”
“I won’t," he promised. “And what's more, when we’ve done enough sightseeing, I’ll take her to one of the hotels on the Promenade des Anglais and stand her a drink on the terrace. How’s that?”
Lucy enjoyed seeing the old town, with its quaint buildings and its streets climbing, sometimes steeply, sometimes up wide, shallow steps, to the rocks behind. The flower market was not yet open, although it was a scene of bustling activity in preparation for the day’s trade, but every window seemed to have a show of flowers and the many balconies were draped with vines and creepers. But charming though it all was, Lucy was not sorry when Owen suggested that they should go in search of the drink he had promised her, and drove first along the Quai des Etats-Unis and then the Promenade des Anglais.
The terrace of the hotel he chose was protected from the sunshine by a gaily striped awning and Lucy sank down gratefully in its shade.
“Something long and cold?” Owen suggested, and gave his order.
Despite the chatter all around them and the sound of traffic, their table became a pleasant little oasis of peace and contentment, but that state of affairs was not to last long. Lucy was less than half way through her drink when a man approached and laying a hand on Owen's shoulder, greeted him enthusiastically in French so rapid that Lucy had considerable difficulty in following what he was saying. She felt rather out of it because although Owen performed the necessary introduction punctiliously, the newcomer obviously regarded this chance meeting as a heaven-sent opportunity to talk business. What was more, despite an entire lack of encouragement on Owen’s part, he made an insistent request that he should come to his room in the hotel— “but only for a moment!”— in order to see some documents he had there. In fact, he jumped to his feet, obviously expecting Owen to follow.
“This is a confounded nuisance,” Owen remarked in an irritable undertone to Lucy. “The last thing I wanted was for it to get out that I’m in the locality, but Le Marquand is so insistent—and to be perfectly honest, he’s too big a noise to offend. All the same—” he frowned. “Look, Lucy, would you mind if I leave you here for a few minutes? You see, that way I have an excuse for cutting it short 'that I wouldn’t have if you came with me. I’ll have a word with our waiter to keep an eye on you so that you’re not annoyed—”
“Of course,” Lucy said quickly. “I quite understand. And I’ll be quite all right.”
Still frowning, Owen hesitated momentarily and then strode off. Lucy sipped her drink slowly and pensively, hoping he wouldn’t be too long. Then she became so lost in thought that she was startled when someone spoke her name.
“Lucy! What in the world are you doing here?”
It was Dick Corbett.
“Dick!”
It couldn't be true, Lucy thought wildly. Coincidences like this didn’t happen in real life. She and Dick had parted for all time—and yet here he was, sitting right opposite to her in the chair which Owen had so recently vacated!
“Lucy, what
are
you doing here?” Dick repeated urgently, and, it seemed to Lucy, uneasily. “It isn’t because you knew—I mean, you’re not hoping—”
Lucy was suddenly angrier than she had ever been in her life before.
“If you’re insinuating that I knew you would be here and I hoped that we would meet, you’re quite wrong,” she said icily. “I’m here because my employer has need of my services here.”
“Your employer—old Keane?” Dick looked surprised.
“No, not Mr. Keane. His sister. She is a novelist and I'm working as her secretary,” Lucy explained shortly. “And now, Dick, I think you’d better go. We have nothing whatever to say to one another.”
“I’m not so sure of that—”
His mood had changed. Instead of being perturbed by her unexpected presence, he now appeared reluctant to leave her, all the more because Lucy, uncomfortably aware that Owen might return at any moment, was giving him no encouragement whatever.
“I am—quite!”
Dick regarded her moodily. He knew perfectly well that he had treated this girl, who had given him her trust and love, in a shameful way. But he was not the sort of man who could tolerate being presented with an unflattering picture of himself. Somehow or other he had got to make her understand that it had not been his fault—
“I don’t wonder you’re sore,” he said, calculatingly abject. “I treated you like, an absolute heel—oh, yes, I did,” deliberately misunderstanding Lucy’s gesture of distaste. “And I’m damned sorry about it, Lucy. But the fact is—”
“Does mam’selle require—anything?” the waiter asked suavely at Lucy’s elbow.
Remembering that Owen had said he would ask the waiter to keep an eye on her, Lucy knew that she had only got to say that Dick was annoying her for him to be requested to leave in no uncertain terms. But she could not bring herself to do it. Dick was hardly likely to accept such an ignominous rebuff without making a scene—Owen would become involved, and he would detest that, particularly if Monsieur le Marquand was present. Somehow, she must persuade Dick to go. She shook her head, but Dick took it on himself to make use of the man’s presence;
“Yes, get me a double scotch on the rocks—and another of whatever that was,” pointing to Lucy’s glass.
“Dick—-no!” Lucy said sharply. “I don’t want it— and I wish you’d go.”
She would have gone herself, only Owen would expect to find her here when he returned. She glanced at the door through which he had vanished, half hoping, half afraid that he might be coming back. There was no sign of him, and Dick was talking again, taking up the conversation at exactly the same point as he had dropped it.
“The fact is, I lost my head completely over Gwenda. It’s no excuse, of course, but—well' it’s flattering to a chap who’s an absolute nobody if a girl like Gwenda makes a dead set at him. I mean, with her looks and her money, she could have taken her pick. But she made it clear how she felt about me and—well, I fell for it, hook, line and sinker—” he covered his eyes momentarily with his hand. “Honestly, Lucy, I didn’t mean to let you down. It just sort of—happened.”
Lucy did not reply. Stirring faintly in her mind was the memory of something Owen had said about Dick— yes, of course, it was when he had seen that wedding photograph in the evening paper.
He had said that Dick had a thoroughly weak face, that he was the sort who would always take the line of least resistance. She had been furious with Owen for that, but now Dick himself was making his own weakness an excuse for what he had done.
Realising that he was making no impression whatever, Dick ploughed even deeper into the mire.
“Of course I don’t expect you to forgive me—why should you? But I’d like you to know that I realise now that I’ve made the most ghastly mistake of my life. You see, though Gwenda can be as sweet as honey when she gets her own way, she’s been so spoilt all her life that if she meets with the least opposition, there’s the deuce—”
“Dick, stop!” Lucy said peremptorily. “I won’t listen! It’s absolutely horrible of you to talk like that about your wife.”
“Well, I only thought you’d like to know that if I played you a dirty trick, believe me, I’m paying for it,” Dick said sulkily.
“Well, you’re quite wrong. I don’t want to hear anything about it. And if you don’t go at once, Dick, I’ll ask the waiter to make you!” Lucy said resolutely.