A Moment in Paris (5 page)

‘But Philippe says I’ve got to be careful what I say, and I must look my best.’ Her eyes were suddenly haunted. ‘I wish I didn’t have to meet any of Philippe’s relatives, and really close friends. But if I’m going to marry him ... well, I suppose I’ve got to, haven’t I?’

‘
If
you’re going to marry him,’ Diana echoed her softly. Surely there wasn’t any doubt...

They left for the Duchesse de Savenne’s home just before noon. The house was within easy reach of the heart of Paris, and the journey by car was quite a brief one.

But it took them out into the quiet of the countryside, where already the signs of spring were everywhere. It was easy to believe the sap was rising and bubbling in seemingly lifeless branches, and that the hard crust of the brown fields would soon be rich and green. Farther south—even a
little
farther south, Diana thought—everything would be much farther advanced than it was here, and in the Pyrenees...

High in the Pyrenees it would still be winter, but in the foothills there would be warm airs and flowers creeping up the valleys. There was the nearness to the Mediterranean, for one thing; and the solid rampart formed by the mountain range protected the villages huddling in its shelter.

They swept between a pair of gates, and ahead of them was the stately bulk of a house. The Comte was driving his powerful cream car himself, and Diana occupied the back seat with Lady Bembridge. Celeste, in dark, soft mink and a pale rose dress, with no other ornamentation than a pair of large pearl studs attached to her ears, was seated beside the Comte, and Diana could imagine how her gloved hands clenched one another as they described a triumphal flourish and drew up before the house.

There were gardens crowding in close to the house that were very formal, and just now they were devoid of colour, but their very formality must have set Celeste’s heart beating more quickly. They spoke of large regiments of gardeners, and a love of order and unfailing good taste, while the American girl had a love of flamboyance in her veins which she was striving hard to conquer.

Philippe slipped out from behind the driving wheel and helped his fiancee to alight. Then he assisted his aunt—whose movements were a trifle slow because of her rheumatic affliction—and last of all Diana. She was aware of him smiling at her very faintly as he stood momentarily near to her.

He was wearing a beautifully tailored dark lounge suit, and his tie was exceedingly restrained. His linen could hardly have been more immaculate.

For an instant, as she looked up into his dark eyes, a strange thought leapt through Diana’s mind. ‘He’s the best-looking man I’ve ever met, and Celeste is very, very fortunate; but I don’t envy her. It would be madness to envy her, for it would be death to be married to a man like that and know that he didn’t love you. For love is beyond criticism and impatience and the recognition of flaws. Love is humble, and grateful, and it doesn’t want anything altered.
Anything
...

As she stood there, in the sunshine on the drive, she felt that she ought to warn Celeste. And then the Comte’s hard fingers pressed against her elbow, and it seemed to her that his smile grew harshly mocking.

‘We are invited to lunch, mademoiselle,’ he said smoothly. ‘And my godmother will not excuse unpunctuality.’

Diana hurriedly pulled herself together, and mounted the steps to the great front door. She was wearing rather a sober shade of grey, but by contrast with it her copper-bright hair and her pale but flawless skin were undoubtedly at their best. And all her accessories were entirely right.

Celeste, naturally, went ahead of her and Lady Bembridge, and it was not until they had crossed a marble-floored hall and a wide strip of richly carpeted corridor that Philippe must have realized his betrothed’s footsteps were faltering. He slid a hand inside her arm and gripped it firmly, and the footsteps seemed to gather strength. Diana drew a swift breath of relief: for Celeste squared her shoulders and, when a pair of white double doors were drawn inwards, she was able to walk forward with a certain amount of assurance.

The Comte dropped his hand, and Diana manoeuvred herself into a position nearer to Celeste’s elbow. The old lady in the carved elbow-chair near the window—through which streamed all the reflected brightness from the gardens—sat a little more upright and studied them as they approached. She was a very old lady indeed, and she was also very deaf. She spoke loudly to the slender, exquisitely elegant young man who stood beside her chair.

‘Which one is it, Michael? Philippe usually goes for the fair ones, but I always said he’d have enough sense to marry a brunette. They’re not so ornamental, but you can tell whether or not they’re dyed. Ah, but this girl’s a redhead...!’ Afterwards Diana understood only too clearly what the Comte had known he was facing up to when he recognized the futility of trying to evade his godmother’s blessing on the marriage he had decided to contract. He had known the Duchesse de Savenne all his life—and she had been interested in his arrival even before he occupied the cot above which she stooped to peck at his cheek once he had been laid there by the nurse. She was among the most eccentric of elderly ladies bearing a time-honoured title, and her deafness made her a positive menace, as well as a source of astonishment.

She used an old-fashioned ear-trumpet—declining to have anything to do with modern methods of relieving her particular affliction—and she held it out to whom ever she was in conversation with at the time, and the recipient of her uncensored confidences had (if he was tall, and she was seated) to bend practically from the waist to be on a level with the somewhat fearsome-looking instrument.

Michael Vaughan was both tall and supple, so that he curved gracefully above her, and it was the sight of him there that prevented Diana speaking until too late. ‘I like the look of her,’ the Duchess boomed in Michael’s ear. ‘She’s got the sense to dress quietly. No gaudy colours to fight with that hair!... It would be quite unpardonable.’ And she beckoned imperiously.

‘Come here, child, and bring Philippe with you. What’s the matter with you, Philippe,’ she demanded, ‘that you stare as if I’ve aged since you saw me last? I was eighty-three last birthday, and when I’m ninety-three we’ll have such a celebration that you’ll none of you forget it! Come here,
both of you
!’ she thundered.

Diana sent an aghast look at the Comte.

‘Godmother,’ he said loudly and coldly, ‘this young lady is
not
my fiancee.’

‘Not your fiancee? Don’t be silly! What have you brought her here for, then? She’s as pretty as a picture, and I can tell you at once that I approve! Yes, Philippe, I
approve
!’ she shouted at him.
‘J’approuve,
mon enfant
!’

‘Whether you
approve or not,
Marraine,
Mademoiselle Craven is not going to marry me,’ Philippe enunciated icily into the ear-trumpet that was thrust in his direction. ‘She is at this moment acting as
companion to Mademoiselle O’Brien here, who will become my Comtesse
in a very few weeks from now. Is everything clear to you now, Madame la Duchesse?’

If no one else realized that he was consumed with anger, Diana certainly did. By the time Celeste had been formally presented, and the Duchesse had looked her over and declined to apologize for mistaking someone else for her godson’s future wife, she was still feeling too shaken even to move. But once more the Duchesse beckoned to her imperiously, and she had to go forward.

‘So you’re English, are you?’ she said. ‘That makes me like you even more, for Michael here is English, and I’m very much attached to him. He’s amusing, and so good-looking, and although he’s supposed to be my secretary I really keep him on just because I like to have him around, as this American young woman would probably say!’

She peered distastefully at Celeste.

‘Don’t look so terrified, child. I’m not going to bite you, and if Philippe wants to marry you then he can do so for all I care! People must make their own beds, and lie on them, too, if they don’t suit them.’ She stretched forth a claw-like hand and caught at her secretary’s sleeve. ‘Say “how do you do” to your countrywoman, Michael. You’re in luck today, for I give you full permission to show her all over the grounds after lunch, and you must make the most of your opportunity.’

But Michael had already grasped Diana’s nerveless hand. He was holding it very strongly, and his handsome grey eyes were insisting that she look up and meet their full regard.

‘Miss Craven and I already know one another,’ he said softly, ‘indeed, Madame, we have known one another since we were children.’

The Duchesse’s mouth dropped open, and then she cackled delightedly.

‘But isn’t that extraordinary?’ she exclaimed, ‘isn’t it delightful?’ She looked round at the others as if she didn’t doubt they agreed with her. ‘Two of the nicest-looking people I have ever met, and they know one another! All their lives they have known one another! They will be telling me next that they are in love with one another!’ And her faded eyes grew quite bright at the prospect.

Michael—somehow he was still holding Diana’s hand—smiled down at the old lady he served.

‘As a matter of fact, Madame, there was a time when we did plan to marry. We were engaged to be married.’

CHAPTER FOUR

Diana wrenched away her hand from the almost possessive clasp of the man who sought to retain it.

Michael—who had once meant everything in the world to her, and gone for good out of her life (or so she had thought!)—was here in the house of the Duchesse de Savenne, and it was so unbelievable that it deprived her of the power to behave normally. And she knew that she must remember her position and behave very normally indeed, especially while her employer glared at her from the other side of the Duchesse’s chair.

Already she had snatched away from his fiancee a certain amount of her rightful limelight, and now she was attracting fresh attention to herself.

Lady Bembridge, however, seized the opportunity to beam at her, and she said in one of her penetratingly loud whispers: ‘What a surprise, my dear!... But you’ve put the Duchesse into a good humour, and at least we shall be able to enjoy our lunch. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it at all.’

Celeste stole across to her and whispered, also.

‘I always said you were a dark horse! Now everything’s coming out, and we shall learn the truth. He’s
terribly
good-looking!’ She glanced from Diana to the debonair secretary, who had provided his employer with an aperitif, and was coming across to put one into Diana’s uncertain grasp. ‘I shall want to hear the
whole
story!’ And she bestowed a radiant smile on Michael Vaughan.

But, although Celeste had recovered her nerve—having been more or less accepted by her fiancé’s august godmother—Diana had never felt so strained and unequal to an occasion in her life, and she was glad when a silver-toned gong announced the fact that luncheon was about to be served, and they all moved into an enormous and grandiose dining-room. The Duchesse insisted that Michael sit beside Diana, and in helping her to the various dishes and refilling her glass, he seized every opportunity to touch her hand—quite by accident, as it must nave appeared to everyone else—and told her that he would certainly show her the gardens after lunch, and they would have a talk.

Their first for a very long time!

‘It’s been so long, Diana. Far, far too long!’

She looked at him, and then away. That golden, beautifully shaped head of his, those clear and strangely commanding grey eyes, had had the power to melt her bones at one time. She had been lost when he so much as whispered her name; but now, after three years, the power seemed to have weakened. It had weakened extraordinarily, and she knew that she was free of the desperation of loving him.

‘You seem to have landed yourself a very comfortable job here with the Duchesse,’ she remarked.

He shrugged.

‘She’s an extraordinary old thing, but I like her. And ... yes, it’s a good job. Financially.’

‘Which means you’ll hang on to it as long as possible?’

‘I expect so.’ He smiled a little wryly. ‘As you know, I’m always in near-danger of being broke.’ She knew it so well that she felt a quick spasm of sympathy for him. ‘Diana,’ he said huskily, ‘you’re lovelier than ever!’

She looked downwards at her plate.

‘I mean it,’ he told her urgently, in all this time, ‘I’ve never for one moment forgotten you, Diana. There’s never been anyone else.’

A servant stood behind them, and she accepted a proffered dish. Michael spoke more casually and cautiously.

‘What sort of a job have you landed yourself?’ he inquired, and looked along the table, loaded with silver and flowers and resounding with crystal, to where Celeste sat beside the Comte. ‘That girl to marry de Chatignard? I can’t believe it! She won’t last longer than a few months. He’ll have to find some means of disentangling himself!’

‘It’s no entanglement,’ Diana returned, a little curtly. ‘He’s in love with her.’

‘Sez you?’ Michael murmured, and his experienced eyes could hardly have looked more cynically amused. ‘Philippe in love with a girl who sticks like a limpet, and has nothing at all to say for herself? In that case, I’m in love with the old woman who pays me my salary!’

‘Celeste is shy,’ Diana said in her defence. ‘And she hasn’t had many advantages.’

‘She’s getting them now,’ Michael remarked. ‘That engagement ring she’s wearing must be worth a small fortune.’ Philippe lifted his eyes from contemplation of a piece of crested silver and looked along the table at them. His gaze was still dark and brooding, and Michael whistled softly under his breath.

‘He doesn’t appear to be in a very good humour, does he?’ he breathed. ‘Our Comte! In fact, I’d say he’s in a very bad humour. Must be because the Duchesse mistook you for the girl he’s got himself engaged to marry. And you can’t blame her. For one awful moment I thought so too.’ And he glanced at her sideways. ‘I thought fate was giving me a final prod!’ There was no opportunity once lunch was over for Michael to show Diana the gardens, for the Comte decided to cut short the visit—remembering an appointment he had somewhat surprisingly overlooked—and they drove back to Paris in rather a strange sort of silence.

But before they left the Duchesse issued an invitation to Diana to come and see her whenever she pleased, but she said nothing at all to Celeste that could be interpreted as a desire to see her again soon. The Comte’s brow grew blacker than ever.

Michael put Diana into the car, and whispered to her as he did so:

‘I’ll get in touch with you soon. We’ve got to meet before you go south.
Au revoir,
Diana!’

Philippe drove them up to the great front door of his Paris house, and then went off to keep his appointment. Diana was completing her dressing that night when Hortense informed her that Monsieur le Comte wished to see her in the library immediately.

She tapped nervously on the library door, and the Comte opened it himself. He was wearing full evening dress, and looking darkly handsome. His eyes were quite inscrutable as he gazed at her.

‘Come in, Miss Craven,’ he said. He placed her very formally in a chair, and she sat there with her hands locked in the lap of a shadowy black dress that threw into prominence the pearly beauty of her skin, while he wandered about the room. He touched a book here, a heavy silver cigarette box there, an ornament of jade that stood on his desk. And then he came back to her.

‘So you have been in love? With that secretary of my godmother’s?’

‘Yes, I ... Yes,’ she answered truthfully.

‘Tell me about it,’ he commanded, and sat down beside her on the elegant Empire couch. ‘Tell me all about yourself. ... Everything!’ he insisted. ‘Leave nothing out!’

Diana complied with the order, although at first she found it difficult to marshal her wits sufficiently to do so. But her memories—and it was astonishing how very recent they seemed after her unexpected meeting with Michael Vaughan—had been given a thorough shaking up that day, and once she got started on the strange pattern her life had followed for the past three years, the difficulty was to prevent herself being carried away altogether.

From the moment her father married again, a young and vastly attractive widow, Diana reported, she had tried to convince herself that it was the best thing for him. He had been lonely for years, and it was natural that he should desire the close companionship of a woman who could also be a wife to him.

But Elaine had been gay as a butterfly, and a natural spendthrift. She had mistakenly believed Sir Richard’s coffers to be bottomless, and in order to satisfy her whims, he had started to speculate unwisely. Disaster followed swiftly. And it was at that time that Elaine was insisting on a house in Town with costly built-in furniture instead of the small service flat, a new car, and a private tutor for Jeremy: the child of her first marriage.

Sir Richard’s constant fruitless efforts to stave off the inevitable financial crash had exhausted him mentally and physically. He was in no condition to fight when illness overtook him, and his death was as inevitable as the ruin that stared him in the face. He left a wife and a daughter and a small stepson with no visible means of support once all his debts were settled.

Elaine took it so badly that Diana was horrified by the naked animosity she displayed. She ranted and raved, stormed and wept ... and Diana felt that she herself was held partly responsible. She had never had a job, never kept herself ... and Elaine accused her of having been brought up the soft way. But within a matter of weeks she was not merely keeping herself, but her stepmother and Jeremy too. She had a tiny personal income which she supplemented by teaching languages to the two children of an old friend of her father, and in the evenings she gave piano lessons. She was an accomplished pianist, and had there been time and the money, she might have attempted to make music her career ... But there was not time, and not nearly enough money for Elaine.