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“Then tell me what the right one is,” Lucy suggested.

Owen hesitated. Then he shook his head.

“No—not yet. Perhaps not ever—though, if it gives you any satisfaction, I admit that my motive was not entirely disinterested. And now, I really must go in search of that drink!”

He strolled off, but after he had gone a few yards he turned and came back.

“Lucy, for your own sake, just because you have had one unhappy experience, don’t persuade yourself that everyone is tarred with the same brush. It isn’t true, and it will only make you unhappier to believe that it is.”

Then, without waiting for her to reply, he retraced his steps in the direction of the house.

* * *

A few days later Mrs. Mayberry came to the study to speak to Lucy. She was smiling and she had a letter in her hand.

“It’s from my brother Stanley—the Mr. Keane for whom you worked. Some time ago he asked us to spend some time with him in Monaco—he has a villa there and the plan was that we should visit him in June. It isn’t, I understand, one of the really large villas, so I wrote to him asking if there would be room for you as well as Owen, Bertha and myself. And this morning I had his reply. There is!”

“Oh!” Lucy was too surprised for the moment to say anything else. “But why should I be included in your holiday arrangements, Mrs. Mayberry? I mean, I’ve only been with you such a very short time—”

In fact, she was not at all sure that she liked the idea of being on holiday with Owen making up one of the party. Since their conversation in the garden he had made no further attempt to discuss the reason for his insistence and her resentment, but since he had said he had no intention of telling her the truth, at least not yet, that did not surprise her. But it did disturb her. In his own opinion he had had a good excuse for his inconsiderate behaviour. Then why not tell her? His reticence puzzled Lucy, and for some reason that she could not understand, it made her feel supremely self-conscious in his presence. Fortunately her work and his kept them from seeing too much of one another, but on holiday—that could well be a different matter.

Mrs. Mayberry looked slightly surprised, probably because Lucy had not shown the delight she had expected at the prospect of such a delightful experience.

“Well, dear, it won’t be entirely a holiday as far as you and I are concerned,” she explained. “I shall want to continue working at my book, you see. I never like to make a long break when once I have started and it is going reasonably well.”

“I see,” Lucy said, brightening up.

“So I do hope you will feel you can come, Lucy, because I must have a secretary, if not you, then someone else—though I would very much prefer, of course, that it should be you.”

It was kindly said, but it reminded Lucy gently that she was, after all, Mrs. Mayberry’s employee and could really not refuse to go any more than Bertha could.

“In that case, yes, I’d like to come,” she said. “It was only that—”

“I know, my dear. You are both independent and honest, and you did not like the idea of accepting something to which you did not feel you were entitled. Well, I respect your attitude, but really, that is not the situation at all.”

Lucy felt rather uncomfortable at accepting praise which she did not feel she deserved, but there was really nothing she could say—unless she explained her real reason, and that, of course, was out of the question.

“Well then, let’s get down to definite arrangements,” Mrs. Mayberry went on briskly. “I expect you would like to ask your parents if they are quite agreeable to you coming with us?”

“I would,” Lucy answered. “Not because I think that they will object, but I think they’d like it if I did.”

“Of course they would! Well then, telephone to them today. And then—a passport. Have you got one?”

“Oh, yes,” Lucy said quickly, and paused. “I mean —no, I haven't.”

Not unnaturally, Mrs. Mayberry looked puzzled, and Lucy was forced to explain.

“I—I did have one. But not in my name,” she stumbled.

“But, my dear—!”

Lucy took a deep breath.

“I—was going to be married. And the passport was made out in my—in the name I should have had, and the Rector was to keep it until—until afterwards. But —but I didn't get married,” she explained baldly.

“I see,” Mrs. Mayberry accepted the explanation calmly and without comment. “Then I expect, in that case, that the Rector has dealt with the matter. Perhaps you could take it up with your father when you ring up?”

“Yes, I’ll do that,” Lucy promised, grateful that no unwelcome sympathy had been shown.

However, just as she was leaving the study, Mrs. Mayberry paused.

“Lucy, you weren’t going to Monaco, were you?”

For a moment Lucy could not think what she meant.

“Going to—?” she said in a puzzled way. “Oh, I see-. No. We—we were going to Spain.”

And wondered that she could speak of that dream honeymoon so calmly—so much as if it had all happened long, long ago, and had never been the concern of Lucy Darvill at all.

* * *

After that, arrangements for the holiday went through smoothly and quickly. In the mood in which Lucy liked him best, Owen consulted her on the subject of making it as easy a trip as possible for Mrs. Mayberry.

“As you know, though walking is painful and she can’t do too much of it, the worst possible thing is for her to sit in one position too long. So, as far as I can see, the best thing is to make the journey in as easy stages as possible with pauses between each stage. From here to the airport—”

“About a hundred and thirty miles—between three and four hours’ driving. We must stop at least twice,” Lucy pondered.

“Yes.” Owen spread a map out on the desk. “I thought perhaps Salisbury for one.”

“That’s a busy town,” Lucy said doubtfully. “It might not be possible to stop right in front of the hotel. What about Wilton or Winterslow? We stopped at both of those when we went to Devon last year. Either would be quite easy for Mrs. Mayberry, and neither is far from Salisbury. And for the next stop—” she frowned. “There doesn’t seem to be anything at about the right distance. We bypass Basingstoke— Hook? I don’t remember anything about it though I think it’s only a small place. Couldn’t you find out if there is an hotel there and phone to find out just how. convenient it would be?”

“Good girl!” Owen sounded so genuinely grateful that Lucy was not annoyed. “Then, when we get to the airport, she can move about for a bit—I’ll arrange for a chair for getting her along corridors and so on. But there’s nothing to be done once we get on the plane, and that means something over two hours. Too long. Oh, hell! Y’know, I don’t think she ought to attempt it.”

“But she does so want to,” Lucy sighed. “Look, Mr. Vaughan, if we go via Paris it will take longer in total, but isn’t there a long stop there? Or better still, couldn’t you say that you have business in Paris and need to stop the night? That would mean Mrs. Mayberry could have a proper night’s rest without feeling that she was being a nuisance—and she does so hate to feel that.”

“She does, indeed,” Owen concurred. “Yes, that’s the ticket! Of course, there will have to be a genuine appointment, otherwise Aunt Louise will rumble it as easy as winking! Well, I can arrange that. Then on to Nice the next day. I’m arranging to hire a car there —I don't like using a car with a right-hand drive on the Continent—and that can pick us up at Nice airport. Yes, that’s about as good as we can manage, I think. What an admirable accomplice you make, Lucy!”

For a second his hand dropped lightly on her shoulder, but even as he turned to go he asked a question.

“How does it come about that you’re so
au courant
with air routes and schedules?”

“I looked them up,” Lucy replied briefly, not thinking it necessary to add that actually, before deciding to go to Spain, she and Dick had considered honeymooning in the South of France and she had obtained the information then.

However, Owen appeared quite satisfied, for with no more than a nod he left the room, whistling cheerfully.

DESPITE all their care and forethought, Mrs. Mayberry was tired to the point of exhaustion when they touched down at Nice airport. As a result, when they had passed through customs, Owen insisted on a wait in the lounge before making the final stage of the journey by road.

After having provided a brandy for Mrs. Mayberry and sirop for Lucy and Bertha, Owen left them to go in search of the car. When he returned, Mrs. Mayberry insisted that she felt considerably better and quite equal to continuing.

Lucy did not feel entirely convinced that this was so, but realised that the sooner Mrs. Mayberry reached her destination and was able to relax, the better it would be for her. Bertha, too, was anxious to reach Villa des Fleurs so that she could make her mistress “a cup of decent English tea—better than all these foreign drinks”.

But though Lucy made no protest, her anxiety prevented her from appreciating her surroundings. As a result she had only a blurred impression of the exotic glitter of Nice, the winding road which led to Monaco, bounded on one side by the incredibly blue sea and on the other by steeply rising mountains. It was, in fact, a considerable relief when she realised that they had turned off the main road and were surely coming shortly to their journey’s end.

At last they came to open double gates through which the car turned, and Lucy had the first glimpse of the villa which was to be her home for the next four weeks.

Perhaps, by some standards, it was not so very big or magnificent, but to Lucy it looked like something out of a fairy tale. Dazzlingly white where it was not smothered in the wine purple of bougainvillea, the Villa des Fleurs lived up to its name. It was set in the most perfect garden Lucy had ever seen. Flower beds, breathtakingly vivid, dominated the scene. And as if that were not enough, flowering shrubs grew with a luxuriance that they can never attain in a colder climate. The eye rested almost gratefully on the deep green of trees which provided not only shade but an impressive background for the brilliance of the flowers. Lucy thought she caught the glimpse of blue water among the trees, but by this time the car had stopped and the door was opened for her to get out.

The villa was a long, low building, roofed in green tiles and having green shutters at the windows. Along its full length was a terrace protected from the heat of the sun by a green and white striped awning. As Lucy got out she saw that Mr. Keane—a very different Mr. Keane from the precise professional man for whom she had worked in London—had been waiting to welcome them and now he came to the car.

Naturally, the first concern was to help Mrs. Mayberry from the car and indoors, but now, in her pleasure at seeing her brother—and perhaps in relief that the journey was over—she seemed to gain both strength and mobility in an amazing way, and refused all but the minimum amount of assistance. Owen, however, had evidently no intention of allowing her to overtax herself further. After allowing the brother and sister a few minutes to greet one another, he coaxed his aunt into her chair and wheeled her indoors with Bertha trotting beside him. Mr. Keane turned to Lucy, who had been standing rather shyly in the background.

“Fm extremely glad to see you, my dear,” he said pleasantly. “And I hope you will thoroughly enjoy yourself here.”

“I’m sure I shall,” Lucy said, grateful not only for his kindly welcome but because there was no hint, either in his manner or in the way he looked at her, that he was in the least bit curious as to how she had weathered the blow he knew she had received. She had been just a little bit afraid that, in all kindness, he might ask questions, but clearly that was not going to be so. “I think it was very, very kind of you to be willing for me to come."

Stanley Keane smiled. He had always liked this girl who had worked so well for him, believing her to be a particularly nice-natured person—sensitive, too. That was why, as soon as it had been suggested that she should come here, he had made up his mind that she should quickly be assured that the past was, as far as he was concerned, a permanently closed book; That he had been right in thinking that she was the last person who would want to snivel over her broken love story had been made perfectly clear by the gratitude she could not hide. Well, she was right,, of course, and he sincerely hoped that one of these days she would find that the reward for her courage was that she had forgotten the young man who had treated her so scurvily and had fallen genuinely in love with a worthwhile man. But that wasn’t the sort of thing you said to the person concerned. You just waited and hoped on their account.

“I was delighted when my sister wrote to me suggesting it,” he told her. “And though I know you and she intend working, I'm sure there will be plenty of time for you to get about and see something of the place. I must admit that I’m too old now to enjoy racketing about and I spend most of my time in the garden here.”

“I don’t wonder,” Lucy said warmly. “It’s so very beautiful."

“Yes, it is,” Mr. Keane agreed, and laughed softly. “You know, it was left to me by an old friend and client some years ago. When I heard about it, I admit I wasn’t particularly pleased. I had no use for a villa on the Cote d’Azur, and it simply meant that I was faced with the bother of selling it. However, I decided to look at the place in order to get some sort of idea of the value of it—and that was my downfall! I fell in love with it and now nothing in the world would persuade me to sell it. One of these days I shall retire here,” he added with considerable satisfaction. “And now, I expect you would like to see your room, but if you could spare me a moment or two first, I’d be obliged if you’d tell me what you think of my sister’s condition.”

He motioned her to a chair and Lucy sat down, her forehead puckered.

“It’s rather difficult for me to say. You see, I haven’t been with her for very long so that I can’t really make useful comparisons. And then she’s so very brave—but I think, judging by the way she has kept down to work, that it can’t be as bad as it sometimes is. And then, a few weeks back, she and Mr. Vaughan entertained some people for the weekend, and that didn’t seem to tire her too much. Of course, she rested quite a lot—”